Mario Wii screenshots! Mario Galaxy!

Update: 15 Nov, 2009 - Removed post as all links and pictures were broken.

Post originally had screen shots of Mario Galaxy and a link to the E3 media site.

The move is on!

I'll be moving Tuesday (hopefully) so I will be in and out the rest of the week. Already have cable and a PC up and running at the house we just bought so I shouldn't see a huge lapse in gaming/net usage. However, I have work to do on the house... blasted gutters and rotten subfloor...

Anyways I'll be around hopefully for some EVE Online, Guild Wars, and Battlefield 2. Can't go too long without gaming... must feed addic...

Its 5:40 PM... do you know where your BoB invasion fleet is?

May 3 2006, EVE Online - V2-VC2 (Home system of Huzzah Federation)

It seems that Band of Brothers (BoB), EVE Online's version of an uber guild, has parked a nice little invasion fleet outside our home station in V2-VC2. They seem to be currently setting up a small control tower (player owned structure) that is equivalent to a floating Death Star. It can't be used to attack us directly, but if you get to close to it you can kiss that shiny ship of yours goodbye.

If you haven't sensed it yet... we are in trouble if we don't move fast. We are forming up right now as I post this and it's going to be a hell of day... week.... month depending on how long BoB plans to stick around. If you don't know anything about EVE then you may not understand any of this. It's WAR. It's gritty, overwhelming, and unpredictable chaos. This is the CHANGE that I expect in an MMORPG.

This fight (if it turns into a fight instead of a lot of nothing) will determine our future in EVE Online. We are one of the few, if not the only one, that seem to be willing to fight BoB. BoB unfortunately have a huge hand up on everyone they deem willing to fight because of their broad access to Tech II ships and weapons... along with a massive infrastructure geared directly towards massive WAR support.

If we win... we are sending a message that BoB will not soon forget. Sadly though... this is a small offensive on their part, but is still bigger than anything any other EVE alliance could muster.

To WAR.

Rogues aren't gods yet; Blizzard attempts to fix.

Blizzard is gearing up to fix "rogue issues" in World of Warcraft patch 1.10.1.

I don't really think Blizzard gets it. They did "get it" in beta that invisibility sucked ass and therefore it was removed from the mage class. But in effect they added it right back to the rogue class.

Rogues are the best PvE farming class and probably still considered the best PvP class. Granted I don't play WoW anymore (thank god!), but it doesn't take a genius to look at whats happening. Rogues are one of the most overplayed classes and therefore receives much of the developers attention. More people to bitch about bugs on message boards makes Blizzard's pants bunch up.

So Rogues aren't gods yet and Blizzard is determined to fix that :) Good day.


Update: 15 Nov, 2009 - Edited spelling, applied label.

Haven't posted in a few...

Still playing EVE Online and getting my ass kicked in PvP (but so far I've learned A LOT!). Still playing Guild Wars. Played a match of Call of Duty 2 CTF with a few friends from [MW]HQ. Also playing Battlefield 2 a bit and plan on doing another BF2 video.

I've also joined the staff at Grimwell Online(now defunct) to write articles. Grimwell has given me a chance I don't plan to disappoint him. So look for some good articles over there with a bit more thought and effort put into them.

Other than that it's all roses and ice cream around here. Will post a larger update about myself soon hopefully. Some big changes in my life :)

Update: 15 Nov, 2009 - Edited spelling, applied labels, and removed broken link.

Charleston AFB Air Expo 2006

Attended Charleston AFB Air Expo 2006.

Update: 9 April 2009 - Removed link to pictures that are no longer uploaded.

WAR!!! EVE Online at its best!

Band of Brothers post on EVE Online forums.

For those of you that may not understand the significance of that post I will attempt to explain. Player alliances in EVE relate to each other via a "standings" system. -10 (hostile) all the way to +10 (friendly). 0 is neutral. In 0.0 (low security & player owned) space alliances have "not blue shoot it" policies. That means anyone without a positive standing will be shot down if they cross into any Band of Brothers (BoB) space and BoB just set everyone to 0. Follow this link(defunct link) to view the current alliance owned space regions (BoB is on the bottom left in blue). I'm part of the Huzzah Federation (middle bottom in pink). Band of Brothers is one of the largest and most war hardened alliances in game and by far the "big boy of the southern EVE systems" where my corporation and alliance claim home.

After standings there is war declarations. Any alliance or corporation can declare war on another corporation or alliance at which point they become hostile towards each other. The difference between standings and war "decks" (as they are known) is that you can attack players involved in a war in any security space. So there is no safe space during a war. Standings are just a reference point, but does not allow you to attack in safe space (0.5 and above).

While BoB's action is not really an official "war" declaration it effectively is step one towards an official declaration... actually a lot of declarations from anyone that lives near them! We will shoot them down and they will shoot us down if we cross paths... we just won't go out of our way right now to attack them and of course safe space is still safe for the moment.

What this means for my corporation and alliance?

Two things. First we have set Band of Brothers to a -10 standing which means we will shoot to kill them now. We don't play the neutral game... we want our members to know that BoB has turned hostile on everyone.

Secondly our neighbors, the FIX alliance, are no longer protected by BoB. BoB previously bailed them out of a very bad war that almost cost FIX their entire area of space. With BoB on one side of FIX and us on the other it may just be time to finish FIX off. I can't confirm that's what we're doing, but its wishful thinking on my part

This also means we are gearing for war... mining ops, ship building, and combat training. Fun fun!

What this means for EVE Online?

It puts an end to the relative lull in action lately. Diplomacy was truly taking over instead of violent conflict. People weren't fighting anymore! When a player alliance so large and so influential over such a large section of EVE decides to pretty much declare open war on everyone it shows the power that players can have in an MMORPG.

Also recently there has been a shake up in the northern territories of EVE with some other large alliances. Its possible that all of EVE will be at war soon enough and if that isn't enough to get you interested in playing... then I don't know what will!

Update: 15 Nov, 2009 - Edited spelling, applied label, and removed broken link.

I made the report

Raph Koster has his monthly report up for March and I've made the grade.

The question remains: is this an insult or a compliment?

"And the main event, the wild and wooly world of the Internet, which washes up weird and wonderful weblinks which winkled out wacky wordage from Google, which I wish started with a W.

game website nobody knows about. Given the traffic, not this one anymore. As I recall, Heartless was upset I was stealing his traffic. Try that one."

Either way, I'll take it!

How to "farm" faction in Guild Wars

Guild Wars a while back introduced the ability to unlock all skills, weapon upgrades, and runes via PvP by earning faction. As you earn faction you can trade it in for the aforementioned items. Usually it costs anywhere from 1000-3000 faction per item. Here is a great breakdown of how much can be earned in the various arenas of PvP.

I like Guild Wars PvP, but I won't say I love it. Not right now anyways. Without a good team playing against equally matched oponents... Guild Wars PvP is a hot/cold experience. One second you and your random team are red hot... the next you are pushing up daisys.

After much death, much winning, and a bit of searching I have found out a way to basically always win in Random Arenas. Random Arenas are 4 vs 4 matches that put you into random teams against each other. That means you have to get used to the fact your team isn't always going to be good or act as a "team".

What I discovered was the teams that were winning; were winning because of healing and healing alone. Looking into it further I found this article over at the Guild Hall about Guild Wars healing monks.

Basically all you are doing is playing the role of "heal bitch". If you are half way decent at the game and have the available skills you can pretty much guarantee wins for your team because you can keep em cranking out damage. Now you don't always win... some teams just are better and can coordinate well enough to take down a full blown monk.

For the most part though with my monk I've just been winning and winning. It takes usually 4-5 matches before a loss is handed to my team. Sometimes earlier if the team winds up heavily stacked as monks... those matches can last forever!

So I will push on with winning in Random Arenas... I have skills to unlock :) I've gone from 500 faction gain in a night of casual random arenas to almost 2,000 in a single hour :) Bling.

Now Playing: Guild Wars

It's called boredom. Not boredom with Guild Wars, but boredom with other games I'm playing. Battlefield 2 is great, but it seems every month I have fewer friends to play with. EVE Online is great and I love it! However, I don't have the time to get anything out of it currently. I am paying for my account, but that’s just to ensure I am training skills.

So I reinstalled Guild Wars a couple of days ago. I spent about two hours starting up my new Monk/Mesmer, named "Column I". I seem to be shifting towards using the name Column as my avatar names more and more in MMORPGs. I already have a level 17 Warrior/Necromancer named "Heartless Foe" in Guild Wars.

With "Column I" I've been focusing on completing every quest available in the tutorial area of pre-searing Ascalon. This is something I never did with my original characters so it is a treat to discover some of the missed items.

So far I haven't noticed any dramatic changes. The same clunky movement is in game and is still my biggest gripe. I am just a stickler for fluid and graceful movement which is something I don't see Guild Wars ever having. It's just very jerky and flat out warpy sometimes. This doesn't ruin the game experience, but when you pick the game up after a few months off it takes a bit to get used to again.

The biggest changes revolve around the graphics, but this is nothing Arena Net did. It is my new computer. I can run the game at MAX settings at a widescreen resolution. The game is much better looking and the extra screen space changes the UI a lot. I can put loads of things off to the side and still have a 17" screen area in the center clear of everything except my hotkeys and group window. This adds a lot to games and I can't ever imagine gaming without a widescreen monitor ever again!

I also got about 45 minutes to fire up the Guild Wars : Factions preview that was occurring this weekend. I started with a pre-made level 20 PvP character nicknamed a "Shadow blade". The shadow blade is a Warrior/Assassin combo with the Assassin being one of the new classes available in the upcoming GW:Factions expansion.

Sadly though, I didn't make it far into the Factions content. I did the first few quests that teach you about the various arena battle types; annihilation, priest annihilation, obelisks, etc. Then I got stuck on the "Defeat 5 enemy teams" part before having to log.

Hopefully I will get more time to experience the Factions event before it closes down. I suspect I will buy factions because of the territorial PvP concept and the fact there is no monthly fee. I like Guild Wars enough to play it for a week straight every few months, but not enough to be in a competitive guild for GW.

Update: 15 Nov, 2009 - Edited spelling, applied label, and removed broken images.