Half Life 2 - Singleplayer

After setting some skills to train and hauling a load of veldspar back to station in EVE Online I decided to boot up the single player campaign in Half Life 2. I originally never bothered with it simply because I bought the game for Counterstrike Source and other Steam apps.

I am glad I waited until now because I have a kick ass computer to run it on. The game is simply amazing. The puzzles are unique and are definite exercises on the brain. There is usually just enough information presented to figure out each one without making them too easy or frustratingly hard.

The story line is great even for those unfamiliar with the events of the original Half Life. The real joy so far has been the interaction with pretty much anything in the surrounding areas.

Having played a bit of Half Life 2 Deathmatch and Lost Coast I am aware of many of the weapons I will get to play with later. The standard crowbar is king and the grav gun is its slave. I can't wait to get the grav gun in game and can't wait to see some of the puzzles it is used in.

Now if I am really feeling in the Single Player mood I may just crack away at the Call of Duty 2 SP experience.

OId School : Space Invaders

HINT: Look at the belly.

Also the superbowl sucked... Seahawks should of beaten the Steelers! Not to mention the commercials were a borefest.

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Applied labels.

EVE Online, not playing is better than playing

Right now in EVE Online I have nothing important to do other than log in and set my skills to train. Running NPC missions has gotten stale. Exploring new space has gotten boring. Chatting in game has been nice, but I really have no clue what most people are talking about.

I have the ship I am going to be taking into battle. I have a bank account with 4.5 million ISK in it. The only thing lacking right now are the skills to do what I want and a corporation to join to put my skills to use.

EVE Online for all its awards and praise is a pretty shallow game if you aren't into the PvP, trading, or political game. Sadly the game does little to direct you in a feasible direction. Most corporations have steep application requirements. On top of this if you don't follow some sort of EVE players guide your first character is a toss away.

Luckily I have followed a good guide and my first character should last. I also hopefully have a corporation lined up once I am out of the free trial period. All that is left is getting the skills to outfit my ship to perform the basic PvP function of "tackling". Tackling is equivalent to being the "crowd control" class in other MMORPGs.

A "tacklers" job is to do nothing but keep a target from escaping from or moving freely around the battlefield. It is an important role I am ready to fufill, but waiting is killing me. I am playing EVE Online for the rush of war and the potential of politics.

So right now not playing EVE is a hell of a lot more fun than actually playing it.

0.3 and beyond!

I came to a realization today in EVE Online that I created my character wrong. I followed this Arsclan guide. While this is a great guide it omits one very important step in the character building process

After the first three selections in building your skills you are prompted with Advanced Command, Starship Captain, and another one I forgot the name of. The guide stops with Command being your last choice which is the third choice. It does not mention what to pick at the 4th selection. Applying my common sense I chose Advanced Command as my 4th selection because the guide says to pick command last. I needed to take Starship Captain!

Well that has now set me back about 5 days worth of skill training just to get my Racial Frigate up to level 4 and Starship Command up to level 3. I instead have a leadership skill at level 3 which I will not be using anytime soon.

While this is not terrible or end of the world type stuff... it is still a setback of time I could spend training my learning skills higher. I could just get my learning skills higher, but I want a better ship sooner than later. Within a couple days I should have a much larger and better ship.

0.3

I also ventured into 0.3 (low security) space today for the first time. I ran a quick drop off mission for a few thousand ISK and the six jumps were uneventful. While in 0.3 I decided to do some mining to see what sort of possibly better ore I could find.

During my quick mining stop I was attacked by a pirate. It was taking me down, but I was able to do a good bit of damage to it. Unfortunately if I had stuck around I would of lost. It was a much larger ship than mine, but I held my own. Luckily I had just filled my cargo hold full of ore and was able to warp away in time. I didn't make much more than a single mission would of netted me, but it was fun and a learning experience.

Now I really need to get frisky and venture out into some 0.0 space!

Why should I help open the AQ gates in World of Warcraft?

I found this thread over at Gamergod.com (now defunct, removed link) that asks "Why should casual gamers help hardcore raiders open the gates of AQ?"

From the post;

"As a casual gamer, I and many friends wonder.. Why should I help? Why bust my cute butt helping to just open more raids? There was a good article about this in the New York Times of all places, the fact is and im hoping the developers see it, is that to most casual gamers, which do make up the majority of most every mmo focusing on only raid content isnt going to make the fanbase happy."

Darniaq provides some insight into a reason why casual players might;

"In a way, it's an example of how everyone's just a cog in the great machinery of Life, or in this case, a player society. If everyone does their little bit, they all can benefit. If some people rely on others to get it done, due to complacency or laziness, well, we see that in real life too so there's no surprise there.

This unlocks access to more raiding, but it's also part of the Lore for the expansion, which comes equipped with something for everyone. Sometimes I feel people can get so focused on an incremental event they forget the larger story it's a part of. Not that this would make me partake of this uber grindfest of course. It's just academically interesting to see what sorts of people are a part of it and what sorts are not."

But I find Darniaq's reason pretty weak. I can read lore on a webpage instead of wasting my valuable in game time grinding foolishly on a quest that will never help me outside of a few reputation points and I can play the expansion whether I help with this quest or not.

So I repeat what the article says... why help the hardcore catasses with a quest that only benefits them in the end? This should hopefully be a stick in the side of Blizzard to finally step up and recognize that the gap between hardcore and casual is nearing the point of no return.

The Burning Crusade expansion may start to close this gap, but it is going to consist of finite content. Will Blizzard catch up before the casual MAJORITY is level 70 or will Blizzard just let the gap keep on growing with new catass dungeon after catass dungeon?

Update: 29 Nov, 2009 - Edited post, corrected spelling, removed broken links, and applied label.