HDO

HTPC Build

Keiya — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:29:01 +0000

The build listed in the chart below is what we ended up running with for the HTPC that we built at the end of December. At long last, the dream has been realized. The ASRock motherboard that we had originally ordered off of Newegg arrived DOA, so it was RMA’d back and replaced with a Gigabyte mATX board acquired during an emergency run to Fry’s electronics.

The case we picked is nice looking, well built, and quiet, even with the dinky 70mm fans. Size wise, it's about the size of a large DVR or VCR and fits on our console/TV crap cart perfectly. There really isn’t a whole lot of clearance between the desk drawer and the floor so height was a concern.

Component	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-2120	$119.99
Motherboard	ASRock Z68 PRO3-M Micro ATX LGA1155 (Arrived DOA) GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3	$109.99 $124.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600	$29.99
Graphics	PNY GeForce GT 430 1GB	$55.98
Storage	Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM	$157.27
PSU	Antec 380W ATX12V / EPS12V	$44.99
Case	Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC Case	$159.98
Optical	Samsung SH-222AB DVD/CD Writer	$22.98

I have tried most of the popular media portion solutions and honestly, all of them were either a pain in the ass to setup or didn’t really suit our needs. XBMC came close; I actually had spent a considerable amount of time configuring to play Blu-Ray Disks and ISOs (which it does not do “out of the box”), launch external applications and play Netflix.

However, loading everything using their respective normal programs ala normal computer usage works far better in our situation even though it is difficult to read small text on the TV from the couch. None of the media portals supported subtitles all that well, particularly if a video has multiple video or audio tracks. I don’t think anything other than the standard video players will allow you to easily swap subs and audio tracks (correct me if I am wrong).

We are using an Apple Magic Trackpad and one of those small Apple bluetooth keyboard to control the system. Both devices are nice looking and do not take up a lot of space, which is nice since both devices permanently live on the coffee table (certain things never get put away). Getting the trackpad to work in Windows 7 was interesting, I’ll make a separate post about that just in case anyone was having trouble getting it to work. I also have a Synergy server running off of my computer, which effectively allows me to use the TV as a third screen.

I was surprised but, that small-ass video card lets us play WoW at a relatively high video setting (my interface however, is not designed to be viewed or played from the couch, so I will need to work something out).. Most of those arcadeish steam games look and work fantastically with an Xbox controller. I need to find my ROM stash; I have about 10 to 15 gigs worth burried on an older HDD.

BlizzCon 2011 Photos (Better Late Than Never)

Keiya — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:36:28 +0000

And I post this two months or so later. Oh well. Long story short, BlizzCon, our self anniversary gift to each other was fun. So fun that we both started up WoW again after a 4 month absence, then kind of stopped playing again when Skyrim came out a month later. I kind of haven't logged in for patch 4.3 yet and I swear that I will one day if I can make it past the pile of games yet to be played. Speaking of which, it's probably already too late to buy it but the Humble Indie Bundle #4 is a fantastic deal.

I think I like the idea of playing WoW on a more casual basis. Should I decide to log on consistently, it would be nice to raid again at some point, though I am not sure that I am interested in another fixed weekly raiding schedule. I'll give Looking For Raid a try at some point. By the way, the cross-server Real ID friends dungeon running thing is a great feature. Being able to instance with my friends is again is pretty sweet, huzzah.

So the con: We ended up watching quite a few of the StarCraft 2 matches more than any other particular activity at the convention. Being able to attend the GSL finals was a real treat by the way ( both the main hall ad the RTS stages were packed). I really really wanted to stay until the end but since I was falling asleep in my chair, we ditched out at around midnight.

Here are a couple of photos. I suck at taking pictures by the way :/.

Proposed HTPC Build (AKA Merry Christmas to us!)

Keiya — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 19:17:39 +0000

Bah, long time no post. In short: Skyrim + whatever else I was doing was so fun and engrossing that I had negleted to do anything else including signing onto WoW and posting here. I also have BlizzCon photos from 2 months ago that I keep meaning to blog about or at least post. Anyway, let's just say that Santa was good to me this week so our self Christmas gifts year will be an HTPC a bit over my original budget ($400 to $500 originally). Using the PS3 and various software to stream videos to the TV isn't turning out to be all that great of a solution.

Component	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-2120	$119.99
Motherboard	ASRock Z68 PRO3-M Micro ATX LGA1155	$109.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600	$29.99
Graphics	PNY GeForce GT 430 1GB	$55.98
Storage	Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM	$157.27
PSU	Antec 380W ATX12V / EPS12V	$44.99
Case	Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC Case	$159.98
Optical	Samsung SH-222AB DVD/CD Writer	$22.98
Total:		$701.17

I really wish harddrives would go down in price. Paying that much for a 1TB drive when they were going for less than half that price a couple of months ago kind of sucks.

October Errata

Keiya — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:18:02 +0000

Hello internet! We just finished moving and settling in to the new place, which would be half of the reason why there have been no posts made. Being lazy and not having much to play would be the other half of why no posts have been made; But that's another story I guess. BlizzCon is this weekend! As in tomorrow! I will try to post pictures and what not within a reasonable amount of time, but the gallery module on this site is kind of perma broken so we'll see. We are hoping to catch at least one of the big BlizzCon meetup events. I know that WoWInsider has one tonight; There was supposed to be a huge barcaft event after the con, but that was cancelled QQ. I am greatly looking forward to seeing the Foo Fighters live on Saturday. Was kind of sad that yet again, I neglected to buy tickets when they were touring in my neck of the woods.

So, several things that I have been meaning to post about:

The Battlefield 3 open beta was kind of lame initially, then significantly less lame when the Caspian Border map was released. I swear that at least half of BF is spent running from one interesting point to another. It was fun, but probably not my cup of tea. Actually, I may buy it if A. Is cheap enough and B. If the developers fix all of the dumb interface quirks.
Orcs Must Die is really fun. I downloaded the demo then purchased the full game earlier this week. It's not that cheap of a game at $15, so I was reluctant to buy it in lieu of the upcoming November game releases (and having just spent a shit ton of money on real life items). It's a tower defense and third person hack n' slash hybrid. Both the tower defense and action elements are fairly average in terms of gameplay, but it's a great combination. It's fun, it's polished and can get challenging as the game progresses.
The Deus Ex: Human Revolution DLC (Missing Link) is pretty fun, though again, fairly expensive for what it is at $15.
I've started playing Team Fortress 2 again on-and-off to quench a bad itch that I've had for an online shooter. It's still fun even with the hats and what not, though I can only play it for about an hour or two before getting bored. Either my tastes are changing or my attention span is shrinking...
My keyboard is starting to go. It will occasionally freeze up or stick on one key and I will have to reach behind my case to unplug and replug the USB cable to resolve the issue. I don't know if it's some sort of software conflict or if it is the keyboard itself. I think I am going to settle on a nice mechanical keyboard for my next hardware purchase.
We just finished watching Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica at the recommendation of several fellow anime fans with similar tastes. I detest magical girl shows so I had my doubts, but this series was actually very very good. It's one of the better shows that I have seen in quite a while.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Keiya — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 05:02:20 +0000

The original Deus Ex is legendary, it represents a turning point in gaming, offering a depth of gameplay, a scope of vision and a story telling method not seen in a medium of this type until that point in time. It is widely considered to be one of the best games ever made by myself and many other players. To say that Deus Ex Human Revolution has a lot to live up to is an understatement; I mean, how do you live up to the greatest game of all time? TL;DR: This game is a lot of fun (I'd say in my top three for this year: Portal 2, Witcher 2 and Human Revolution). It is single handedly responsible for me going to bed past 2am for an entire week, thus doubling my caffeine intake.

Deus Ex's "flavor" has always been that of variety and Human Revolution is no exception. The gameplay is fantastic and pretty much, exactly what I had wanted from this title. I really love games that offer a flexible range of experiences, particularly if there is a strong stealthing (straight up shooters are a dime a dozen, but stealth, not so much). I liked the first/third person hybrid gameplay. Though initially awkward to use, it worked out well in my opinion. Holding the right mouse button while behind cover will switch to a 3rd person view of Adam. Tapping and holding the space bar allows you to respectively roll to a new cover spot and round corners. You also have the option of blind firing. It is a good solution to common cover problems and works a hell of a lot better than repeatedly leaning to peek around corners in first person view.

As expected, Human Revolution provides a multitude of options for different gameplay styles. Players with a more subtle touch won't be forced to kill people if they do not want to. Similarly, if you aren't into hacking and sneaking, brute force works as well. Just about every single point in the game offers an alternative route for all play styles; All of which feel rewarding in their own way. I never really felt like the game was punishing me if I chose one method of advancement over another, and that's important. There's also fair room for more creative solutions. So if you want to cheese an area by spending an hour stacking crates or methodically collecting turrets, nothing is really stopping you.

The shooter aspect of Human Revolution feels fairly average and the mouse controls were reported as being laggy for some folks (the patch corrected that issue for me). Also, I didn't really like the take down animations. They were somewhat repetitive and awkward in the sense that, the game switches camera views every single time certain abilities were performed. It kind of broke fluidity. Otherwise, the normal flow of the game has a good rhythm.

There are a wide variety of augmentations available supporting the many styles of gameplay as mentioned above. As you play through the game you acquire experience for doing certain activities (killing, hacking, tranquilizing, etc etc). When you acquire enough experience, you level up and are rewarded with one Praxis Point to be used towards the redemption of various augmentations. Praxis Points may also be purchased for 5k credits from LIMB clinics. The Praxis Points really aren't that widely available, so you have to pick and choose carefully between upgrades as you progress through the story.

This point is kind of a nitpick but: Many of the augmentations felt a bit oddly placed to me. It is really easy to minmax out certain skills relatively early on in the game, trivializing certain challenges. Also, the energy bar upgrades were fairly useless seeing as how you can only naturally regenerate one bar. Since the candy bars were relatively rare I was reluctant to use them. Overall, the extra energy bars were only used at very few points in the game.

The hacking minigame, for once, was actually pretty fun. Though to be honest, it got a little old by the end of the game seeing as how I obsessively hacked just about every single door and every single computer in the game. The fact that the game does not pause when you hack adds a bit of urgency. You have to be quick or thorough enough to make sure that all of the guards along that pathing route have been accounted for (vending machine fort worked pretty well lol). Otherwise, you will be caught and shot at.

On top of that, it’s a game of risk versus reward. Without going into a long-ass explanation as to how the hacking actually works (just watch a YouTube video or something), most of the hacking screens have optional datacores that will yield extra credits, sensitive information or hacking goodies (stop worms and nuke viruses). Attempting to grab the datacores greatly increases the risk of you getting caught and also takes a bit more time.

Human Revolution has two main weak points: One, the boss fights and two, the cut scenes. Both elements to say the least feel like relics from the past. It’s also worth noting that the load times, though GREATLY improved after a patch are still plentiful and fairly annoying (especially for quick save abusers). But combined, these issues interrupt the game’s rhythm.

I will just outright say it: The cutscenes are god awful and distracting. What was the point of doing that and what was the point of pre-rendering them? The clips are short, about 30 to 60 seconds on average and usually occur towards the beginning or the end of a main quest sequence. In otherwords, you get a crap ass movie at every single pivotal point in the game. To top it off, not only does the game steal control away from you during these critical moments, but it completely abandons the game engine in favor of cheesy looking poorly rendered video

There are good boss fights and then there are bad boss fights. As I see it, boss encounters should feel like a natural climax to a storyline or a chapter; It should be meaningful to the game’s storyline or at the very least, original in terms of gameplay. The problem with many many boss fights is that they feel artificial and detached from the main narrative. They feel like an arbitrary and somewhat irrelevant end level challenge for the sake of having an end level challenge and not because they really belong there. That is my real issue with boss fights.

The boss fights were an interesting choice for Human Revolution, especially for someone who chose to play most of the game as a 100% stealth run (most lol). And especially since, if I recall correctly, the first Deus Ex offered non-lethal options or ways of avoiding boss encounters (I could be wrong, it has been over 10 years since my last playthrough). On one hand, they offered a change in pacing. On the other, I didn’t really like being forced into lethal action, though that my have been the point. It would have been awesome if the encounters offered a stealth objective or something more creative than running and gunning. It was particularly awkward seeing as how I had skilled most of my points into stealth and hacking.

I really liked Human Revolution’s graphics from a design standpoint. It is a stylized game, as in, not meant to be photorealistic like Crysis. The limited color palette keenly depicts a cold and narrow world. Frequent use of gold and black contrasts and accents important parts of the game (along with read and white serving as highlights). The colors also tie the game together as a central theme: Gold represents the golden age of cybernetic research whereas black represents its dystopic side. Revolutionary advances in biotechnology stifled by socioeconomic strife.

Some people don’t like limited color palettes (another “brown game), but in this case its fitting and represents good use of the intentional color palette limitation. After all, it’s not as if the dystopian near future is going to be painted with happy rainbow colors. From a technical standpoint, Human Revolution has several problems. First of all, as detailed as the game is, some of the texturing and shadowing do not look very good at higher definition. The overall city scenes, interiors and overall designs look quite nice, but some of the details, not so much.

Also, many of the character models look sub-par (screenshot comparison). For example: Compare anyone from the main cast (Adam, Sarif, etc) with less important characters. Some kind of don’t look too good to a distracting degree. The facial engines or lack thereof are notably rudimentary. Most of the soldiers, civilians and other non-main characters are grossly reused. It wouldn’t have hurt to include a bit more variety. Overall, nitpicks and what not aside, I was happy with Human Revolution’s art direction and style. It’s an overall very slick looking and well designed game.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the choice system. The Witcher 2 had spoiled me so I set my bar rather high. Along the sliding scale of choice systems, Human Revolution feels like it lays somewhere between The Witcher 2 and Mass Effect. It’s not bad or anything, but I really wanted the ending of the game to feel like the culmination of all of the choices that I had made throughout the game. I did not feel that was achieved. But that said, I was comparing game stories with several folks and was very very surprised at exactly how different each person’s game experiences were. May mission outcomes and game reactions are a direct result of your choices and actions.

(First mission spoiler). I didn’t realize that the hostages in the factory could be saved because I was never presented with that objective. So lo-and-behond, post action everyone in Sarif was pissed at me and I did not understand why. I mean, sure I didn’t save the secretary, but she had a gun pointed to her head. I did the best that I could given the urgent situation! You all are dicks! I did not realize that if you dick around headquarters for long enough, the hostages would be executed. I had been so damned focused on rummaging through emails and stealing shit that I had kind of blown off David Sarif’s irate message. My bad. Actually, to best honest, I had assumed that the hostages were scripted deaths. I made a point of saving everyone the second time around.

Deus Ex: HR - Taggart's Location in Panchaea

Keiya — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:25:42 +0000

I've been obsessively playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I am kind of sad that I am almost finished with the game seeing has how there's not much else that I want to play until November rolls around. This video/post isn't really a spoiler, but it does take place towards the latter part of the game. I had more trouble finding this guy and for some reason, could not find much help online. From the LIMB clinic do the following:

Go down the hall, up the stairs on the left and through the door on the right. You should now be located on the rightmost side of a fairly large area.
The door that you want to reach is on exact the opposite side of the walkway along the same wall. You can either stealth/fight your way through (the area in the video had been pre-cleared) or hop on the scaffolding to the right and climb onto the ledge (much easier but may require the jump upgrade).
Go through the door and down the stairs (the door will be partially obscured by a series of fallen black beams).
The next hallway is protected by two security cameras. If you wish to disable them, there is a level 5 security hub located in the first door to the right (beware, mobs inside).
Go down the hall, drop down off of the main walkway to the left. Go through the vent.

If you go straight down the vent, you will reach a ladder that will drop you straight down into Taggart's room (easiest way). Alternatively, if you turn right you will be lead to an area with both a level 5 locked door as well as a weakened wall. Both will lead you directly into his room. Here's the map location if it's easier.

Bastion (XBLA)

Keiya — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:05:50 +0000

I was itching for a cheap new game a couple of weeks ago and turned to Steam to satisfy my need. Bastion was at the top of one of the store lists, but unfortunately wasn't out yet for the PC so I bought it off of XBLA instead. I don't know how the PC version compares, but I assume that it is of the same/better quality as the console version since it has received fairly high marks all around. Bastion is a fantastic isometric action-RPG. At heart it is a fairly basic game both as both the gameplay as well as the story or more-or-less standard fair for an action RPG. Just about everything about it though works out very well. It's polished, the mechanics are tightly controlled and it's fun. The graphics and sound are both a treat.

In short, the world was destroyed during an event known as "The Calamity". It is up to you, The Kid to rebuild it. Action RPGs are a dime a dozen; So what separates Bastion from the rest? For one, the excellent narration. The entire story is live narrated by a gruff old wise-man known as Rucks. By live narrated I mean, everything down to minute actions are beautifully narrated. It adds a lot of depth and flavor to each section of the game.

There are a good range of weapons and upgrades. You are permitted to equip a total of two weapons and one special attack. There's a weapon that will cater to just about every play style. As you level, you unlock slots that can be filled with various potions that will add passive modifiers to your abilities. I do wish that the enemies were a little more varied. As you progress through the game, higher difficulty usually equates to either more enemies or more AoE attacks. It works, but it's a little uncreative to say the least.

It's a fairly short game at around 8 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough. After you complete the game, a new game plus mode is unlocked, allowing you to retain all of your weapons from your original playthrough. Bastion isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it sticks to it's roots and presents a neatly package, extremely polished game. There's a demo of Bastion up on Steam by the way.

Diablo 3 and Real Money Trading

Keiya — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 06:24:01 +0000

Diablo 3 was discussed over the weekend and the Internet exploded in rageful concern when these three main changes were announced:

Diablo 3 will require an always-on internet connection ala Starcraft 2.
No modifications will be allowed
There will be a real-money trade auction house.

I am assuming that the need for an internet connection to play at all, (as well as the modification ban) stems from security issues associated with the including real-life currency in the game. Or perhaps, it could be thinly veiled DRM plus Blizzard pushing their real ID social networking bit. If I recall correctly, the Diablo franchise has never been all that big on modding, certainty not in comparison to their other franchise (Warcraft and StarCraft). It's worth noting that I have a reliable internet connection (knocks on wood) and had only ever intended to play Diablo 3 online (yay co-op). Thus, I could care less about needing a persistent internet connection since it does not affect my style of play. That said, what's wrong with having an offline only mode ala Diablo 2, as lon gas players are sufficiently warned that the offline-mode characters can never be ported over to bnet?

Blizzard has been fighting the good fight against gold selling/trading and I guess if you can’t beat it, you may as well legalize and tax it. This announcement wasn’t all that surprising. It’s not as if RMT did not exist in Diablo 2; It was fairly rampant and to be honest, had a low to non-existent impact on my gaming experience (from what I remember). They may as well offer a legit channel for real money transactions as a legal alternative to any number of shady 3rd party sites (that may result in a ban or being outright scammed). If you don’t like it, then ignore it.

But that said, I wonder how RMT will affect the game’s atmosphere and culture? Any drama with loot gets ugly fast; I imagine real money magnifying the drama by at least 100 fold. *shudder*. I can’t put my finger on it, but real money trading feels sleazy. There’s nothing explicitly wrong with it, but it feels taboo and dirty. Part of me feels as if it moves Diablo 3 one step away from being a game and one step closer to being an occupation. Despite what I have said, I kind of still don’t like it.

July Gaming in Review

Keiya — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:45:18 +0000

In summary, there was abso-fucking-lutely nothing interesting to play. Well, aside from Minecraft binging for half the month. I do still intend on finishing our castle, even though the Minecraft obsession has kind of dropped off a bit. Finding enough wool/dye and what not to complete my interior decorating plans for the rest of the keep as well as the throne room is kind of a pain. Oh and Dave built a fantastic mob grinder. In terms of indie games, both Terraria and Dungeons of Dredmore have been recommended to me ($10 and $4 respectively). I think I may give one or both of them a spin, though spending some time away from my computer to burn through my Netflix queue and catch up on some reading has been nice.

The summer slump happens every year; There will be nothing to play during the mid to late summer then, BAM. Fall hits and every single that that I have been looking forward to is released within a one to two week period come October and November. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is coming out at the end of August (cautiously interested/optimistic about it) and after that, Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim and Assassin's Creed: Revelations are all releasing within a week of each other. Bah. Which ones deserve a collector's edition buy? Which ones will I buy immediately? Which ones will have to wait until December or later?

Deus Ex should be interesting in any case. It has a lot to live up to in regards of what is expected of it gameplay wise. The first game was mindblowing, one of the first of its kind to not only blend so many gameplay elements, but to present a multi-path narrative in first person form. The Witcher series, in my opinion at least, has upped the decision based storyline gameplay bar quite a bit. I am hoping that Deus Ex follows that route over the BioWare Mass Effect/Dragon Age choice system. I want my decisions to have far reaching effects on the outcome of the story and even the style of gameplay. I really like stealth games by the way.

Oh, I finally finished Final Fantasy XIII this weekend. I have been working on it on-and-off over the course of a month or two for "educational" purposes. It's still a mediocre game in all respects; Characters, plot, gameplay, etc. I'm not really sure why I even bothered to finish it other than to scratch it off of my "list". I pretty much went from The Witcher 2 straight to Final Fantasy XIII. The absolute best RPG that I have played in recent memory to the absolute worst. There's such a huge gap in quality...

Post Response: On Forced Multiplayer

Keiya — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 20:38:05 +0000

Found this quotation link via Destructoid and Edge earlier this week regarding forced multiplayer in single player games:

If you're doing it just to check a box or because every other publisher says you've got to have multiplayer, then just drop it, don't bother, it's a waste of time, a giant distraction and it'll make for a worse overall game.

We want the best game possible. If that's a singleplayer game that's 15 to 20 hours, then make that! Don't waste your time on features that don't make the game better.

YES. PLEASE. Dear lord, no more forced multiplayer. I mean, I "enjoy" good multiplayer games as much as most average gamers but, if it's half-assed it's just a waste of time and money that detracts from the game as a whole. So, instead of having a solid singleplayer game or a solid multiplayer game, you now have neither. That sucks.

Very few companies are able to balance a good single player game with a solid multiplayer experience without fucking one or both aspects up badly. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Uncharted 2 are the only games that I can think of in recent memory that do a decent job (as little of the multiplayer as I have played). The Call of Duty series has a pretty decent singe player experience but honestly, it's $60 for a 4 hour campaign. You are, more or less, paying for the multi-player game.

Minecraft: In-Progress Castle

Keiya — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 05:19:45 +0000

I had purchased Frozen Synapse off of Steam quite some time ago during the Summer Camp Sale. Sadly, I still haven't "had a chance" to play it for more than 5 minutes because I have been very busy. Very busy playing Minecraft that is. Alas, we are back on the Minecraft server and working on our next project after a 2 to 3 month period of inactivity. The castle by the way, is being built at the expense of nearly every single game that I regularly play. Though, to be honest, there's not a whole lot out now in terms of AAA titles that I am interested in playing anyway.

The castle is being built completely legit; No console spawning save for a couple of items that I felt were unjustly lost due to server glitches, lag and what not. Seeing as how no large flat areas exist within reasonable distance of the primary server spawn point, we have to demolish entire hillsides in order to make room for any large-scale building project (by we I mean my lovely play partner <3). A separate project, making use of the massive amount of dirt that was unearthed is in progress.

The structure itself is just about done, we just need to work on applying some decorative flair and finish the interior design. As far as functional things, we have two farming modules: 1 with an automated wheat farm system and another with an in-progress farm for sugar cane, flowers and whatever else. We really need a cobblestone generator as well as a tree farm for the sake of not having to strip down even more of the trees from the surrounding area. Also, a minecart station is probably needed at some point.

After months of not being able to find one, there just happens to be three mob spawners within a very close distance of the castle (kind of cheated and loaded the server map into MCEdit): A spider spawner, a skeleton spawner and a zombie spawner (which was accidentally destroyed by a rogue creeper). The skeleton and spider spawners have both been setup with item grinders. It's nice having a near infinite arrow supply. Oh and, spider farming isn't the most efficient way of obtaining wool by the way. Though I suppose it is if you just go AFK and leave Minecraft running in the background.

A visual tour of what we have so far is included in the full article. I'll upload a FRAPS video later.

Crysis 2 DX11 Patch (and FRAPS Audio Sync Issues)

Keiya — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:33:44 +0000

To be honest, I am not sure that I notice that much of a difference between DirectX 9 and DirectX 11. TotalHalibut though, posted a pretty good comparison video on his YouTube channel. Nonetheless, it is still a fantastic looking game. I am playing at 1080p with everything set to Extreme except for shadows and water, which are set to Ultra. My machine doesn't quite have the stones to run Crysis 2 at Ultra at 1080p with FRAPS recording full-screen without serious performance issues. That's just the way the world should be I suppose. Oh, sorry about the crapass frantic running about in the video.

For whatever reason, FRAPS has an audio sync issue on some machines, mine included unfortunately; I'm not sure if it is the FRAPS software itself or some compatibility/driver issue. According to the FRAPS support forums, folks with ASUS motherboards have resolved this issue by uninstalling the EPU-Engine and Turbo-V (mostly EPU-Engine). I have also heard that setting both your recording and playback audio sample rates to 44.1 kHz helps as well. Neither solutions nor anything that was suggested seemed to work for me including, changing the HDDs to which I record the videos and changing the video/recording resolutions/FPS.

So, I don't know how to prevent the delay from occurring in the first place, but it's pretty easy to fix. I think the audio track may be recording at a slightly slower rate than the video. As the video progresses, the audio becomes increasingly out of sync. In fact, the audio tracks on some FRAPS source files are longer than the video. All you need to do is compress it down (not clip, compress). There is a YouTube video that shows how to do the corrections in Sony Vegas, it's pretty easy to do the same thing in Adobe Premiere:

Right click on audio track on your Timeline sequence and select "Unlink"
Select the Rate Stretch Tool (hotkey: X)
Drag the audio track to compress it down.

It's a little tedious to align the audio with the video if the lengths are the same, but it works reasonably well. I tried setting a manual delay within each of the FRAPS video chunks in both YAAI and VirtualDub, but that didn't seem to work. I'm pretty sure that was my fault though.

Single-City Games

Keiya — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:42:42 +0000

I fell victim to the office plague this past week and ended up spending a beautiful weekend indoors; So, this post as well as half of my Netflix queue was the result. I kind of wanted to do a series of posts on both world building as well a case study of several of the games cited in this entry as well as several others: Return to Krondor, Baldur's Gate II and a couple of others are also single city games widely regarded as pretty decent. But I don't think I have the time or interest to play through some of those games again, since it has been so long. Anyway, I think that city settings have been a fairly popular tabletop RPG setting; Either as a part of a larger campaign or some sort of one off story. But how well do they translate into video game narratives and what is needed in order to craft a good city?

Video games RPGs, unlike their pen and paper brethren obviously do not have the luxury of an imaginative game master to make up new and interesting things throughout the course of the campaign. The game engine must fulfill that roll; Often with many limitations. One of which is the challenge of creating diversity within a smaller environment. Typically, most large game cities only have about 4 or 5 "zones", perhaps up to 10 if you include surrounding areas and stuff like that. Fewer areas should in theory mean that more effort needs to be placed into making each area feel unique.

Happy 8th Birthday Linode

Keiya — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:44:17 +0000

Sweet! I had missed this bit of news somehow.

Celebrating our success includes you, our customer. In honor of our birthday we are increasing disk space on all plans by +25%. This is available now to both new and existing Linodes.

I've been hosted on handful of services and so far, Linode is the only one that I have been almost 100% satisfied with in terms of both product delivered and support received. Though to be fair, I think my needs had outgrown a shared hosting environment when I had switched over. But still, no retarded billing issues, no outages other than one or two issues with the datacenter isn't too shabby. Keep up the excellent work! Also, I have more disk space on this account than I know what to do with at the moment. Suggestions?

Impression: World of Tanks

Keiya — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:25:09 +0000

Not really a review, but just a blurb on something that I have been playing on-and off lately. World of Tanks has been brought up in casual conversation every so often over the past couple of months or so, but I have always dismissed or forgotten about it. I finally had a chance to take a closer look at it while I was on vacation last month. So for those who don't already know what it is, World of Tanks is a fun free-to-play (freemium) PvP MMO about well, tanks.

You start with a small selection of WWII tanks (3 total: US, USSR and German). Choose one and fight in a team of 15 against another team of 15 tanks. If you die, you can exit the battle and start another match with another tank while the other match finishes. Each match yields a certain amount of experience and credits depending on how well you do. Experience points can be used to unlock different tank upgrades in which you use credits to buy. Each upgrade is specific to that particular tank. It's a bit grindy to say the least. The catch, at least from what I can tell is that the later upgrades take a fuckton of time to grind out, less-so if you purchase some of the premium content with real-life cash. But, it's something that I can easily pick up and set down with very little investment.

The UI and controls are fairly straightforward. There's not that much of a learning curve; I mean for the most part, you move around, shoot things and/or die. Dying seems to be something that you end up doing a lot early in the game. Graphically, it is fairly nice looking. I mean, it's not Crysis, but I was impressed with how polished and nice looking it was. For some reason, I was under the impression that WoT was some schlocky looking freebie game. I'm not sure if it's really my thing, but it's free and something that I can play with friends.

Oh, the starter tanks suck. The game is more fun once you get a tank that can actually aim and move more efficiently than a potato.