Archive for the 'Online Diary' Category

Kara Update

Published at December 10, 2007 in Kara, Online Diary, PC and World of Warcraft. 0 Comments

Another Kara update. I actually got to go in, saw the first boss go down and had a few attempts at Maiden this time!

We were scheduled to raid it last Sunday but our MT and one DPS class had gone in with a PuG and were saved to another groups ID so we had to call it.. last night, despite missing our off tank we managed to find a replacement and get everyone inside Kara within an hour of the start time. First attempt at the trash clear leading to Attumen, an unlucky aggro on a patrol led to a wipe, then again on the last set of mobs and when we ran back and zoned in.. trash had respawned.

Half of us zoned out and headed for Stoneard for a repair, the other half stayed for summons.

Once we got back in there, we cleared the Attumen trash on the first attempt, then dropped Attumen without any deaths, neither healer went /oom, no-one pulled aggro from the tanks.. for our troubles, 2 epic healing bracers dropped. One for the Shammy MH, one for the Pally offhealer! Very pleased with the performance, had a lot of fun, and progressed the healers kit a little which is great..

From there we decided we would try Maiden next as for some reason people thought Moroes might be too much trouble. After losing our way at first (and clearing out a lot of spider trash mobs) we return to the entrance hall and go up the stairs for Maiden.

Trash pulls were easy and caused us little problems. Maiden was a little different :-)

First attempt, someone got too close while the kill strat was being explained, starting the event before we were ready.. everyone wipes, rezz’s and runs back. Second attempt, as the kill strats are being finalised in chat, someone else gets too close and starts the event. Some people try to run out of the room to reset the encounter but not everyone sees the call for reset go up in chat. Third times a charm, strats laid out, positions taken, we start the encounter.. everything was going well at first but then repentance knocks out ranged, I Ice Block out of it and nuke, pull aggro and wipe hard. Meanwhile, both healers are silenced, the pally didn’t get chance to BoS anyone to break the stun effect, offtank goes down to the Holy Ground thing, main tank goes down soon after.

We tried it twice more after that but couldn’t get the rhythm of going up a step so Holy Ground broke Repentance, then back down again, so called it right as the spawns came back.

All in all, great run, I had a lot of fun plus saw Kara for the first time, and pleased with our Attumen kill. Wont be long till we get Maiden dropped with any luck..

Online Diary: EVE Online - Piracy & Capitalism Awaits

Published at November 28, 2007 in EVE, General Gaming, Online Diary and PC. 0 Comments

eveonline I took my first steps into the world of EVE online recently.. Taking advantage of the 14 day free trial, I downloaded the client (less than one hour to grab from the official site), installed and set running.The first thing I noticed was the lack of a hefty set of patches. I had assumed upon installation it would be the same deal as other MMO’s in regards to updates but was pleasantly surprised at being able to jump right into the world without delay. The intro movie held me up longer than the install did which is saying something in today’s world of PC gaming.

The little reading I did on the official site whilst downloading the client, indicated it would be a very, very bad idea to skip the tutorials and now I’ve had a little hands-on time I’m inclined to agree heavily. The tutorial missions lead you by the hand through the various aspects of the UI. Navigation, targeting, combat, trading, mining are all explained to a degree and you can check the tutorials at any point if you forgot something.

Once basic tutorial missions are over you are introduced to a new Agent, who supplies you with new Missions to complete for pay/rewards. I noticed after taking my first quest that extra reward is offered as incentive if you complete the mission before a certain time. For my first mission I had an hour and a half to complete it for an extra 20 thousand ISK (EVE’s currency), that was almost as much as the initial reward.. Its safe to say, it is in your best financial interests to complete missions by the given time. The other thing the game shows you at this point is that missions from Agents only last so long in your Journal (quest log). Taking the same missions as an example, if memory serves me rightly, I had 3 days to complete the mission before it expires. If you allow a mission to expire you lose standing (reputation) with the Agent who supplied it. If you complete in time it increases your standing and in turn leads to bigger, more rewarding missions .

At this point I was docked in a space station and took the chance to look over the trading and market settings on my UI. It seems very well implemented with a completely player driven economy. People mine asteroid belts and refine ore to be sold. Other people then take that refined ore and craft ships or ammo or weapons I assume, which are then also sold on the market. Blueprints for crafting these items can be acquired via some way I’m not too sure about just yet..

Before heading back out on my missions I was prompted to perform some training to initiate a skill-up. I chose to up my Frigate Pilot skill enabling me, hopefully to obtain a Merlin craft which seems a well rounded Frigate class ship. This is done a lot differently to other games. Skill-ups work in real time. For example, the next level of my pilot skill was estimated at taking just over 2 days to fully train. I set it going and the training continues whilst I’m offline. This is interesting as it means even when I don’t play, my character can be improving. The other interesting thing is, while you can pick your race/background at character creation, and to a degree this has an effect on your starting attributes, your free to train any skill available to you. The only deciding factor is time. With enough time you could theoretically train every skill in the game. Basically this means that although I started life as a combat pilot, there is nothing to stop me piling some points in mining and trading and then shifting focus from PvP to trading and mining.

UPDATE: Played a bit more of this, upgraded to a Merlin and now have it decked out with missile launchers and turrets. NPC pirates are real easy to kill in this thing now and I’ve completed the starting set of encounters available so i guess its time to move down into lower security space, perhaps some PvP. Ideally I’d prefer to group PvP with a friend of mine also trialling the game so I may wait till we can both get on together and form a fleet.

All in all, I quite like EVE. Mining is quite relaxing, the space scenery is worth checking out, combat isn’t all I hoped for.. I had visions of manually piloting the space ship in some elaborate, space dog fight, but in reality you only have to target a ship, set the orbit value to a range you can fire guns from and basically set and forget. Its more strategic then hands-on and most of the time is spent targeting the next pirate up and managing ammo/reloads/locking next target down. Its not easy by any means, multiple opponents require a lot of targeting and orbiting so you cant just sit back and watch it. Still… I had hoped for something a bit more from the combat. I’ll reserve judgement till I can get some PvP under my belt.

I think I’ll probably grab a months subs to this game and the odd game card now and then depending on the price..

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Online Diary: Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

Published at November 22, 2007 in Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Online Diary and XBox360. 0 Comments

cod4 I’ve been playing a lot of COD4 this week and it really is an outstanding game.

Offline, I’m about halfway through the campaign on Hardened. I had heard the campaign was a little short so decided to up the difficulty to give me a challenge and stretch the game out a little. I almost went with Veteran but online reports lead me to believe sections can get very frustrating and hard at Veteran level.. I’ll save that setting for my replay for Achievements.

Online, I’m having a blast.. really has that “just one more game” aspect to it, keeping me up till 2/3am trying to rank up again and unlock some of the goodies you can only get access to by climbing up the ranks.

The guns are well balanced in that, the starter assault rifle is just as effective as the assault rifle you unlock at level 55, giving new players and experienced ones somewhat of a level playing field in that respect. Maps have dynamic respawn points, moving you around the map as areas are overrun with enemy players.. really helps stop base rapers. All the guns have extra features such as new camo’s, silencers, increased range scopes.. all unlocked as you rank up through online play.

All the above come into play in the ‘create-a-class’ feature unlocked at level 4. This option allows you to pick a weapon, attachment (grenade launcher, silencer, scope), camo, and a selection of ‘perks’ to fill 3 available slots.

These perks are the meat of the custom class creation. Your character has 3 available slots for perks which are passive abilities that boost your combat in various different ways. For example, if you equip a grenade launcher to your gun, the first perk slot will be taken up with grenade ammo. You could instead choose to take an RPG, claymores, C4, or extra ’special’ grenades (flashbang/smoke/stun grenades).

Perks 2 and 3 are a little different. Perk 1 is usually ammo of some type as you can see, Perks 2 and 3 contain combat boosts such as, increased bullet damage and/or penetration (allowing certain guns to shoot through walls if thin enough), a sprint boost allowing you to run for longer, steady aim for when you have to fire from the hip, last stand allowing you to pull a pistol out in your dying breath and even the score with whoever took you out before you ‘bleed out’. I wont list them all but you get the general idea.. using combinations of these perks, weapons and attachments its possible to alter your playstyle greatly to suit your needs. For example, I have a silenced MP5, extra stun grenades, UAV Jammer, Extreme Conditioning as my primary loadout.

The thinking behind this is, with a silencer you do not show up on the map when you fire as you do with non-silenced weapons, the UAV Jammer stops the radar picking me up when the enemy team calls it in, Extreme Conditioning is the ’sprint for longer’ distances perk which allows me to quickly move around the map. The stun grenades are for immobilising the enemy quickly in a pinch.

Using this loadout I can get around the map fast, flushing out snipers and campers to great effect. UAV Jammer makes me invisible to all, giving me the drop on people who expect to see a red dot on the minimap when an enemy approaches The silenced gun means that when I do find some snipers holed up, its possible (as long as no-one see’s me enter the room) to sneak up on them, shoot the first guy without showing up on the minimap (which seems to fool people to think there buddy was sniped from somewhere else) then I’m free to either gun down whoever is left, drop a nade and back out firing, or my fave lately, take out the trusty knife and shank that sniper :)

When I started using this technique I managed to come up behind 4 people on Vacant and shank the lot of them, one after the other before someone realised and threw a grenade at my feet….

The other reason behind this loadout is the knife. Sometimes its more reliable to sprint up on an enemy and slice em’ up so the Extreme Conditioning perk really lets you get up close and personal fast.. most people still back away firing from the hip (reduced accuracy) when you surprise them so I’m all too happy to hit sprint and slam a knife into my opponent :) Fast and satisfying!

Watch this space for more COD4: Online diary entries…

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