Battlefield Heroes to close

Sad news; Battlefield Heroes is set to shut it's doors this July.

This is unfortunate news alongside EA's other announcements about shuttering the rest of their Pay 2 Win ... err... Free 2 Play titles.

Personally I felt that Heroes was one of the better games of the Battlefield line up right behind Battlefield 2 and the original Battlefield 1942.  Heroes was easy to get into and offered an amazing amount of game play for free.  Unfortunately that is likely what has done it in over the long run.

At it's peak Heroes had reported player numbers of 10 million (geez, remember when we thought 250,000 was A LOT when talking about online games), but I suspect many of those millions were non-paying entities.  Eventually more and more "pay 2 win" aspects crept into the game.  Before long and about the time I stopped playing players had to pay up or go home.

In my opinion I don't think free 2 play has much to do with this closure at all.  EA is well known for closing down old games and shutting off the servers.  Heroes will just be another on the pile of games long abandoned by EA.  The real question for us to be asking is what, if anything, EA will change in the future to mitigate their constant disappointments with maintaining games with online components.  As a regular player of free 2 play titles and other online games these moves certainly don't give me any confidence in EA's ability to provide any decent long term investment.

EA is basically death for most of what it touches.

Obligatory Feb post

It is the last day of February 2015.

Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns

Via the Twitters: Guild Wars 2 expansion, Heart of Thorns, announced.

To which I say:

Acceptable to be unacceptable?

As a Packers fan I just don't know what to say.  First, it is acceptable to lose in the NFC Championship game.

However, the way in which the Packers just lost the NFC Championship game is unacceptable.  It is unacceptable to lose when you have a 12 point lead with less than 5 minutes remaining.  It is unacceptable to botch special teams plays.  It is unacceptable to play an entire half of football in the National Football League like you are trying not to lose.  Go out; win the game.  Don't turtle in and mutter "how the fuck did that just happen" when the other team plays to win and does in fact win.

I have never been physically ill after a game.  I can't eat dinner right now.  I can't even determine if this is real.  Someone pinch me.

Thank you Green Bay and Seattle for an amazing game.

Merry Christmas 2014

Yadda, yadda.

Yep

GPU upgrade time: XFX Double Dissipation R9-290X-EDFD Radeon R9 290X

It was 2009 when I last upgraded my computers GPU (aka video card) to an EVGA GTX 260.  That little baby has served me for over five years and is still ticking away without problem.  However, it was becoming extremely noticeable in games like Guild Wars 2 and Bioshock Infinite that I was playing on outdated hardware.  Even though I had more ram and a SSD speeding things up the message was all but clear as my machine continued to come to a crawl during intensive graphical encounters.

So I waited all Black Friday and no great deals surfaced (at least ones I could get to before they sold out).  I checked all weekend.  I checked all of Cyber Monday.  Nothing.  Then the day after, Giving Tuesday as it is apparently called, an R9 290X surfaced for $299 after rebate via NewEgg.  Not as great as the $249 R9 290X deals I missed on Black Friday, but good enough for me to pull the trigger.

Proud new owner of this:

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens Official Teaser Trailer #1

Hell to the yeah.

Black Friday Gaming Deals

Its that fateful day of the year where our wallets scream in terror: Black Friday.

The fall Steam sale is already in full swing.  Check it out here.  General Steam sale reminders:
1. Don't buy a game unless its on the daily sale.
2. On the last day of the sale buy any game you wanted that was not on the daily deal.
3. Buy early as sometimes the number of copies of a game on daily sale are limited!
4. You can use http://isthereanydeal.com/ to see if a game is on sale cheaper somewhere else with a copy that will activate on Steam.

Another great place for Black Friday game deals is Amazon, albeit not as organized as one would like.  The first place to start is on the limited-time (aka lightning) deals page here.  You can set the category at the right hand side to PC & Video Games or Toys & Games (for board games).  Note: these things sell out fast, sometimes within a matter of seconds.  Keep an eye on the sales coming up in the future so you know when to be there to try and snag a copy.  If you see "Join Waitlist" that means it was gobbled up, but if a clicker does not check out with the sales price the copy will go back in the pool.

For board/card gaming it is best to keep an eagle eye on Board Game Geek's Hot Deals forum.  Users post deals all day long to this forum.  On Black Friday it can move quick so keep an eye posted.  Keep in mind for board gaming, shipping costs will often kill any great deals.  Look for sites that have free shipping on orders of a certain size like Cool Stuff Inc that has free shipping for orders over $100.

For anyone venturing into the real world; may you go bravely and return safely.  Also don't punch any kids...


...unless its for the last one on the shelf.

Be Thankful

Have a great day everyone and be thankful.