So, my contract ended 2 months ago, and I'm still paying the £40 a month because I'm unsure what to do.
I'd quite like a new fancy phone, but I can't see anything overly appealing. After spending hours looking at new phones and what they can do i'm none the wiser, and quite confused.
Until now every phone i've had has been a clear upgrade, but I can't see one now. Maybe it's because the "upgrades" are mostly touchscreen and I can't see why that's worth it.
I've been looking at the HTC Hero, the iPhone and the Pre Palm. Unless I was just looking at the wrong picture, I was instantly put off the Pre Palm due to the keys it had, I've had a look at Blackberrys before, and those small qwerty keyboards seem horrible, maybe i've just got fat thumbs but I could never use them.
While I don't use the camera loads on my phone I do listen to music with it. I'm under the impression you're best using iTunes for music on an iPhone, which I'd never do. But I also like the option of using the camera, so going from a nice 5 megapixel camera to a 3, or to one without a flash just seems like a downgrade.
It seems internet is a major selling point, but I don't know if it's just because of the network i'm on, or if the N95 isn't great at it, but I've always been disappointed with the internet. Either things don't load fast enough, or they don't load at all. I've got a YouTube application on there, and it'll lose connection half the time when trying to load videos, and half the time it does load videos the sound and picture are out, sometimes by 2 or 3 seconds.
Addons seem to also be a major selling point, which is why the HTC and iPhone make a shortlist, since Nokia's Ovi service is reportedly rubbish, and I have no idea what you'd get on a Samsung or any of the "what's that called again?" instantly unrecognisable makes.
After being disappointed by the camera and music options from HTC and iPhone I did have a quick look at Nokia and Samsung, and couldn't see any vast improvements. While a better camera would be nice, the one on the Nokia is good enough for me, and to be honest the camera on the N73 I had was quite good as well, but the N95 one lets me get bigger pictures at the same quality, which is great for when I'm going to crop the edges. True I can get more space on the phone, but unless I decide to put my entire music collection on the thing, 8gig is enough, although putting my entire music collection on the thing is appealing.
So it does appear to me that my options of phone I have to choose to keep the same music and camera quality I already have (slight improvement) or have access to some cool gadgets. And while I do like cool gadgets I can't seem many of them being cool enough for the cash.
If I stick with my current phone, I can probably get a contract for around £10 / £15 a month to bail on when something ground breaking comes along, or get some sort of £30 a month contract, put that sim in my phone then sell the new phone and get an instant £200 / £300. All of which sounds alot better than keeping the shiny £300 and wishing I still had my Nokia to take photos.
I'm probably just being thick, but how can the camera on a phone be such a low priority? Two years after getting my phone it's still practically the best you can get. You might argue that I should have a seperate camera, or a seperate MP3 player, or a seperate laptop for internet...
While it does seem to me that the HTC Hero is the best choice for me if I do go that route, I can't decide if the additional benefits out weigh the losing of the camera in flash situations, and the fact I'd be tied to an 18 month contract for probably around £30 / £35...
Monday, 12 October 2009
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Holiday
So, it's been a month since I last posted (1 day off a month exactly) and I went on Holiday for 2 weeks.
The flight there was ok, the Seat wasn't as bad as say a Bus or a Train, so I had some room. I tried to watch a film but the picture cut out half way through, so i've got to watch the film some other time already knowing the first half... Kept myself busy but was a bit bored.
Orlando was great, not sure what else to say really! Went to lots of theme parks, and despite people's comments of "There is too much to do in 1 trip" we pretty much did it all. Went to all 4 Disney parks, both the Universal ones, Sea World, Busch Gardens and Wet and Wild. Went on a large amount of rollercoasters, got wet on alot of Rapids and Log flumes, and saw a whole host of 3D shows, even ones called 4D but I didn't find they moved through time apart from the normal linear way.
If I had to make some highlights of stuff, rides specifically I'd do it like this (in no particular order)
The flight there was ok, the Seat wasn't as bad as say a Bus or a Train, so I had some room. I tried to watch a film but the picture cut out half way through, so i've got to watch the film some other time already knowing the first half... Kept myself busy but was a bit bored.
Orlando was great, not sure what else to say really! Went to lots of theme parks, and despite people's comments of "There is too much to do in 1 trip" we pretty much did it all. Went to all 4 Disney parks, both the Universal ones, Sea World, Busch Gardens and Wet and Wild. Went on a large amount of rollercoasters, got wet on alot of Rapids and Log flumes, and saw a whole host of 3D shows, even ones called 4D but I didn't find they moved through time apart from the normal linear way.
If I had to make some highlights of stuff, rides specifically I'd do it like this (in no particular order)
- Haunted House at Disney Magic Kingdom, done really well and thought it was great.
- Kracken at Sea World, brilliant rollercoaster.
- Bilge Rat Barges at Islands of Adventure, Best Rapids i've ever been on.
- Spiderman at Islands of Adventure, 3D Ride, which was great.
- Fireworks at Disney Epcot, best fireworks I saw all holiday.
- Fantasmic (or something like that...) at Disney Hollywood Studios, brilliant show
- Tower of Terror at Disney Hollywood Studios, looks good, and it's better than it looks.
- The Mummy Ride at Universal Studios, great.
And that's just off the top of my head.
I found a Dickies shop and spent around £100 in there, and also bought a whole host of Tshirts from places, nothing with say Mickey Mouse on it, but stuff like the Punisher. So I now have a load more clothes to wear which is always good.
I had a great time and would go again, although I'd rather go somewhere else since I'd like to go somewhere new rather than the same places i've already been :p
Catherine has decided she'll go on Holiday with her best friend next year, so I have the option of saving the same amount I have been for this holiday, for another one in 2 years, and if I do save at the same rate I'd have around £7000, but no doubt some of that will go on long weekends away, and more importantly a new shiny really good PC.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Customer Service
So, i've never really gone on holiday since I was a kid, never been overly bothered, or had lots of cash (mostly since Cash goes on stuff and drinking). But on friday i'm off to Orlando, and there's something I couldn't help but notice something that kept repeating.
First off, my girlfriend is a Vegatarian, so wanted to make sure the meal she'd get wasn't meat. The travel agents said we needed to talk to the airline direct (can do it online, doesn't have to be phone) to sort that out. Next cos i'm like 6 foot 5, wanted to see about getting a good seat, possibly with more leg room, possibly an aisle seat or something; need to talk to the airline direct... Wanted to see about booking a lounge, and you guessed it, the travel agency couldn't sort that out either.
I've found over the years, that it's cheaper to be on Contract, not just cos I want a nice phone rather than a cheap one, but not living with my girlfriend can mean alot of text messages, it's also nice to have the option of using my phone whenever I want, instead of worrying if i've got any cash on it. Especially when you consider these numbers where you can reverse charges or whatever and you're talking like £4 for the initial connection...
Anyway, with being on contract I find the best thing to do is cancel the contract when it's up, and move to another company. For example my last phone was a Nokia N73 (or something like that...) with Vodafone, the Nokia N95 8gig came out, and I wanted to get one and thankfully my Vodafone contract was up. Vodafone said I'd need to pay over £200 to get the N95 on a new contract, 3 on the other hand gave me the phone for free for a £33 a month contract. Why stay with the current company of offers to entice new customers are better? And that's for every company, I moved to Vodafone cos their new offer was better than renewing at whatever company I was with before.
Anyway, when I tried to cancel my contract with Vodafone I was told I needed to phone a number, and they even said I needed to send in written notification, signed. Today I went into the 3 shop to ask how my phone would be in America, they've given me a number to phone...
The point obviously it seems is that these places are shops, once they've sold me their phones or holidays they couldn't care less. Sure there might be a call centre somewhere that could care, but I hate talking on the phone, especially when I might get someone with an accent I don't understand.
When I've bought some clothes, further customer service probably doesn't need to be given, unless I need to take it back or something, and that's fine. But it's especially annoying with say a phone where i've signed up to an 18 month contract and 5 minutes later my only help with any problems is a machine on the phone where i've got to guess which button to press in many cases where the last option isn't a "Talk to someone" one.
How hard would it be to have some people available who know what's going on?
First off, my girlfriend is a Vegatarian, so wanted to make sure the meal she'd get wasn't meat. The travel agents said we needed to talk to the airline direct (can do it online, doesn't have to be phone) to sort that out. Next cos i'm like 6 foot 5, wanted to see about getting a good seat, possibly with more leg room, possibly an aisle seat or something; need to talk to the airline direct... Wanted to see about booking a lounge, and you guessed it, the travel agency couldn't sort that out either.
I've found over the years, that it's cheaper to be on Contract, not just cos I want a nice phone rather than a cheap one, but not living with my girlfriend can mean alot of text messages, it's also nice to have the option of using my phone whenever I want, instead of worrying if i've got any cash on it. Especially when you consider these numbers where you can reverse charges or whatever and you're talking like £4 for the initial connection...
Anyway, with being on contract I find the best thing to do is cancel the contract when it's up, and move to another company. For example my last phone was a Nokia N73 (or something like that...) with Vodafone, the Nokia N95 8gig came out, and I wanted to get one and thankfully my Vodafone contract was up. Vodafone said I'd need to pay over £200 to get the N95 on a new contract, 3 on the other hand gave me the phone for free for a £33 a month contract. Why stay with the current company of offers to entice new customers are better? And that's for every company, I moved to Vodafone cos their new offer was better than renewing at whatever company I was with before.
Anyway, when I tried to cancel my contract with Vodafone I was told I needed to phone a number, and they even said I needed to send in written notification, signed. Today I went into the 3 shop to ask how my phone would be in America, they've given me a number to phone...
The point obviously it seems is that these places are shops, once they've sold me their phones or holidays they couldn't care less. Sure there might be a call centre somewhere that could care, but I hate talking on the phone, especially when I might get someone with an accent I don't understand.
When I've bought some clothes, further customer service probably doesn't need to be given, unless I need to take it back or something, and that's fine. But it's especially annoying with say a phone where i've signed up to an 18 month contract and 5 minutes later my only help with any problems is a machine on the phone where i've got to guess which button to press in many cases where the last option isn't a "Talk to someone" one.
How hard would it be to have some people available who know what's going on?
Monday, 24 August 2009
MMO and Levels
I was going to post about this in an earlier post, but I decided to put it seperatly. Looking at how leveling and end game are so different. But I don't know why?
The standard RPG format is that you start off weak, and build up abilities. You can compare this to say a Racing game where you upgrade your vehicle as you advance through the game, or a FPS where you might get better weapons.
Maybe it's just because I mostly play RPGs, but I feel this is the genre that is hit most by this. Consider some RPGs you might have played, possibly the central character is some farm boy with no skills, and by the end of the game he's a power house. This seems like a large leap from say a book you might read, where the central character might take years or even decades to get his skills and abilities that high. In a film you tend not to have those years, but there still might be the impression of a long time.
In a game the entire game might seem to take a week? Maybe a month? And by the end of it, as well as doing a thousand times more damage, you can also survive a thousand times more damage.
The game is balanced around what your level is, or might be, and what abilities you might have. Sometimes a random villager will give you a run for your money at level 1 and level 30 depending on when you meet them. Elite guards could have 10 health, or a million, depending on how far through your quest you are.
Alot of this hasn't sat well with me. If I was the bad guy or whatever I'd just keep the guards with a million health and get rid of the rest, I'd own any level 1 guy trying to level up.
This annoyance is further brought forward by games where you're *not* a useless nobody at the beginning. Take for example KOTOR2 where you were a Jedi General in the War however many years ago, why do I lack the skills and feats to kill anything other than low level rubbish? It's even worse in KOTOR where you can end the game with no where near all the Force Powers you wanted, and wondering how that makes sense in the game.
An RPG is about the story, possibly you can ignore the entire levelling thing, and it might make sense to get more powerful. But with an MMO there is no story as such, fair enough The Old Republic they'rebanging on about might have alot of story and infact an arch for your character to work through, but the point is if there is *any* end game, it's just that end game. You'll want to be top level to do it, you might even need to be top level. If the leveling process takes you 2 months, you either need to level again, or you'll end up spending more than 2 months at top level, at that stage the leveling process is just to get you used to the game.
I think about world of warcraft. Would it be such a bad thing if you could start at max level? (or assume there is no level system, you start with everything) true you might get confused by the large amount of abilities you have, but is there any need to go through the leveling process apart from to learn what abilities are good? Imagine if every zone, instance and quest in the entire game was for top level people, wouldn't that have been a more enjoyable game? I think most people who enjoy leveling enjoy it because they get the lore out of the game and get to explore, why can't you do that at max level, assuming everything is tailored to you being max level?
There should be a learning curve to a game, but I haven't played an FPS (although I haven't played many anyway) where after doing your mission you feel the need to kill everything to squeeze the last bit of XP or whatever out of the level to give you a better chance in the next.
Thats when extra characters come into the mix, I've done zones in WoW often enough that alot of leveling is just a boring grind, I don't need to read the quest text, or learn anything the NPCs tell me because i've been there before, gone is the exploring as well. And i'm someone who likes reading the story in quest text and exploring, but the fact there is a leveling system means I have to repeat everything just to get to the end game.
If I were to make an MMO I wouldn't bother at all with a level system, or if I did the levels would be so close together that a good skilled low level player could kill a top level player who wasn't that skilled.
Think of any MMO you might have played, and think how much of the world they've devoted to leveling, zones and instances you visit once and move on. If there were maybe 10 levels to a character, each unlocking some new skills, and not more powerful ones, just different ones that allow for more complex rotations, or even different playstyles. Possibly any talent trees would be already filled in for you, in WoW terms you could get asked if you want your paladin to heal, tank or dps, and the talent tree would be filled in. Obviously you could change it if you wanted to.
While I might be remembering incorrectly, at level 60 in WoW your choices involved Strat/Scholo/DM/BRS. Forgetting the idea you needed 39 friends to do MC. There were basically 4 instances, with some PVP choices, but people still played them over and over.
I also know alot of MMOs fail due to a lack of end game. When you're charging £10 a month or whatever for people to just play the game, they'll stop playing if after leveling there is nothing to do, or very little to do. And they'll go do something else and forget about it, even if you do add more content, people probably won't bother coming back.
With The Old Republic I am quite worried at the fact that end game and leveling will be entirely different, and alot of the content will be with leveling.
Leveling in an MMO is like a single player RPG, after paying a subscription to get to the end game, there better be something that makes it worth while.
The standard RPG format is that you start off weak, and build up abilities. You can compare this to say a Racing game where you upgrade your vehicle as you advance through the game, or a FPS where you might get better weapons.
Maybe it's just because I mostly play RPGs, but I feel this is the genre that is hit most by this. Consider some RPGs you might have played, possibly the central character is some farm boy with no skills, and by the end of the game he's a power house. This seems like a large leap from say a book you might read, where the central character might take years or even decades to get his skills and abilities that high. In a film you tend not to have those years, but there still might be the impression of a long time.
In a game the entire game might seem to take a week? Maybe a month? And by the end of it, as well as doing a thousand times more damage, you can also survive a thousand times more damage.
The game is balanced around what your level is, or might be, and what abilities you might have. Sometimes a random villager will give you a run for your money at level 1 and level 30 depending on when you meet them. Elite guards could have 10 health, or a million, depending on how far through your quest you are.
Alot of this hasn't sat well with me. If I was the bad guy or whatever I'd just keep the guards with a million health and get rid of the rest, I'd own any level 1 guy trying to level up.
This annoyance is further brought forward by games where you're *not* a useless nobody at the beginning. Take for example KOTOR2 where you were a Jedi General in the War however many years ago, why do I lack the skills and feats to kill anything other than low level rubbish? It's even worse in KOTOR where you can end the game with no where near all the Force Powers you wanted, and wondering how that makes sense in the game.
An RPG is about the story, possibly you can ignore the entire levelling thing, and it might make sense to get more powerful. But with an MMO there is no story as such, fair enough The Old Republic they'rebanging on about might have alot of story and infact an arch for your character to work through, but the point is if there is *any* end game, it's just that end game. You'll want to be top level to do it, you might even need to be top level. If the leveling process takes you 2 months, you either need to level again, or you'll end up spending more than 2 months at top level, at that stage the leveling process is just to get you used to the game.
I think about world of warcraft. Would it be such a bad thing if you could start at max level? (or assume there is no level system, you start with everything) true you might get confused by the large amount of abilities you have, but is there any need to go through the leveling process apart from to learn what abilities are good? Imagine if every zone, instance and quest in the entire game was for top level people, wouldn't that have been a more enjoyable game? I think most people who enjoy leveling enjoy it because they get the lore out of the game and get to explore, why can't you do that at max level, assuming everything is tailored to you being max level?
There should be a learning curve to a game, but I haven't played an FPS (although I haven't played many anyway) where after doing your mission you feel the need to kill everything to squeeze the last bit of XP or whatever out of the level to give you a better chance in the next.
Thats when extra characters come into the mix, I've done zones in WoW often enough that alot of leveling is just a boring grind, I don't need to read the quest text, or learn anything the NPCs tell me because i've been there before, gone is the exploring as well. And i'm someone who likes reading the story in quest text and exploring, but the fact there is a leveling system means I have to repeat everything just to get to the end game.
If I were to make an MMO I wouldn't bother at all with a level system, or if I did the levels would be so close together that a good skilled low level player could kill a top level player who wasn't that skilled.
Think of any MMO you might have played, and think how much of the world they've devoted to leveling, zones and instances you visit once and move on. If there were maybe 10 levels to a character, each unlocking some new skills, and not more powerful ones, just different ones that allow for more complex rotations, or even different playstyles. Possibly any talent trees would be already filled in for you, in WoW terms you could get asked if you want your paladin to heal, tank or dps, and the talent tree would be filled in. Obviously you could change it if you wanted to.
While I might be remembering incorrectly, at level 60 in WoW your choices involved Strat/Scholo/DM/BRS. Forgetting the idea you needed 39 friends to do MC. There were basically 4 instances, with some PVP choices, but people still played them over and over.
I also know alot of MMOs fail due to a lack of end game. When you're charging £10 a month or whatever for people to just play the game, they'll stop playing if after leveling there is nothing to do, or very little to do. And they'll go do something else and forget about it, even if you do add more content, people probably won't bother coming back.
With The Old Republic I am quite worried at the fact that end game and leveling will be entirely different, and alot of the content will be with leveling.
Leveling in an MMO is like a single player RPG, after paying a subscription to get to the end game, there better be something that makes it worth while.
Sunday, 23 August 2009
The Old Republic, better than the new republic
So I ended up playing KOTOR2 on my Laptop, and I haven't logged into WoW for at least a month and a half, maybe as long as 3 months. I do miss WoW, but that's because it kept me occupied, true L4D and TF2 are great, but after playing one for 6/7 hours none stop I think the next day "Hmmm... lets play something else?" this is especially true of L4D where I find i've exhausted the single player options (no way can I do Expert on single player) and don't want to play with random people. TF2 is fine with random people, but I can't play it every night.
Fair enough, I might just need to get some new games, but KOTOR2 needs playing so I played it. Played it all the way to the end infact, but haven't killed the last boss yet. I've tried about 5 times, and failed horribly each time. Phase two screws me every time, I read a guide that suggests Force Wave but they always resist it, I've read you should run away, I might try that yet. I do think the game is beatable with the set up i've got, even if i've annoyed myself in a couple of ways, mainly the skills, and the bloody named crystal, which I forgot to update at all during the game, and even took out of my lightsabre for being poor.
So, i'm playing through the game again. This time I started with a wopping 16 Int, and boosted my Con from 14 to 16 on the first two upgrades. True my Strength is 10 and my Dexterity is 12, but it's not overly important.
Last time I played through as a Good Woman, this time i'm going for Evil Woman. Of the "No Armour" force powers i've always been more impressed with the light side ones. This is because they're buffs, bosses seemily resist most powers you throw at them (to stop them being a walkover I suspect) and on normal people i'm happy to use other powers. So this time i'm planning on using Armour. I can upgrade my armour to resist alot of Energy damage, and I can try and get as close to 100% resist on it with other items and stuff. I'm loving the idea of entering the final fight (maybe even recording it) and simply laughing at Lightsabre "damage" doing nothing. And for all these upgrades to armour you need it to be armour, not "robes" and not "Light Armour" either, since they sometimes allow force powers.
The High Int is because I want the good upgrades, and I want to be able to do stuff. With a charater build in mind you can seperate Force Powers and Feats into 3 catagories.
1) There are a number that are vastly important for the build. Like Flurry
2) There are a number that are quite nice, but you can probably live without them.
3) Some of them will be useless.
Unfortunatly letting the game "Auto Level" a character it picks alot of the useless stuff, especially in feats. Fair enough, you could say no feat is "useless" but someone can happily end up with Flurry, Power Attack and Crit Strike. While they're no doubt rubbish, you'll probably pick which you want to use, and spam that, i'm unsure at what point you'll be in a fight an think "I always Flurry, I love Flurry, but i'm glad I have Power Attack for this 1 time".
As such, in my mind as long as you actually level (IE, don't get stuck in the game) then the actual number of Feats and Force Powers you get means nothing. If class A gives you 15 Feats by level 30 and class B gives you 30, if you only have 10 feats in catagory 1 (must have) and catagory 2 has maybe another 10, chances are you'll take class A based on that, simply for other reasons.
Unique powers are given to each class, unfortunately I have no idea what they are, I gather a Weapon Master gets some sort of damage reduction, but searching on the Internet gave me some idea, but not alot. If Damage reduction is your thing (I'm hoping the Sith equivilent gets it as well) then no matter how many times you level a Watchman, you'll still be missing out on this extra reduction.
Skills, while the same is try for Skills as it is for Feats and Force Powers, it's a bigger gap. For making things, breaking into things, disarming things, etc, you'll usually want a higher score. True with 2 skills leveled you can still complete the game, you'll miss out on alot, especially alot of gear. Without Computer Skills and Repair you'll be lagging behind alot, and without Security you'll be missing out on alot of free stuff. Maybe it's just the way I am, but switching to another character everytime there is a door annoys me, I want to be able to do it. Especially when i'm stuck taking other people, or can't take the people with the skills I need.
Upgrading items is similar, I think you can use someone elses skills to make stuff, but switching characters, getting them to make stuff, then going back to the ship you put it in stuff you're allies are using is annoying. Even more annoying if you want to try and upgrade everyones armour and you're either running back and forth because you forgot one of your allies can't use armour and that upgrade you made doesn't fit in Robes. Or get everyone naked and try and sort it out at the desk, then get them all back equipped... Nightmare.
A much easier option is to just do everything yourself on the Work desk in your Ship, you can upgrade everything everyone is wearing from there as well. But to do that you need the skills on your character.
Anyway, thats why I started with 16 Int, no doubt I'll not increase that, and look to increase other stats (with using Armour, I'm unsure if increasing Dex is a good idea. Maybe I should increase Strength). I've gone with the Con because I want more life, but more importantly, I don't want to miss out on Implants. If I get an implant that increases another stat by 3, then it's exactly the same as having less 3 con and 3 more in that stat, apart from the health.
Anyway, one thing that I realised when looking at this, was how starting decisions can screw an entire game against you, and chances are you'll never know you're screwing yourself for a while. When I last played it was around level 10 before I found out the number of componants you get from dismantling things is based on your Repair, shortly after dismantling all my none needed gear, I was short of Componants to build anything for a while. I took the feat to get Repair as a class skill, then levelled nothing but that until it was max. This ment instead of having 4 skills on max level, they were all over the place... Which is always annoying when you're 2 points short of getting a level 5 upgrade instead of a level 4 one...
The end game is different to the rest of the game. Even if you consider that the end game is 2 fights. Maybe it's just from playing WoW alot, but are most RPGs like this? You work your way through the game and some combination of attacks, items, bonuses whatever work really well. Then you hit the last boss, and he does something different, or something doesn't work, and you find something along the lines of "Wow, lowering my defense for power attack means they kill me instantly" which leads to "I wish I could level 6 times more to get Flurry". While that example goes against my "Useful Feats" argument, since you'd auto have both, I hope you see my point. The game doesn't allow you to change feats, powers and skills just before the final fight. You've screwed yourself at some point by taking the wrong thing, but the important part is, that you didn't know it was the wrong thing until right at the end, because until then it was the right thing.
One of the first times I played KOTOR I took alot of the force powers that do damage. Whether we're talking Choke, Lightning, or whatever, and would happily jump into a room and force power to death everything. I find myself at the fight at the end and the boss just goes "Saved" to everything taking practically no damage. Damn, I didn't realise I had to read every force power and try and pick out the ones that are good when resisted, I thought any of them might be cool... Fair enough with say Choke, I wouldn't expect a final boss fight to be me throwing a choke and sabring them to death while helpless... but I had hoped the power would actually work...
Makes me wonder alot about SWTOR, obviously the end game is going to be different to the rest of it. But how much is going to be 10 people crowded around a Sith all of them smacking him with Lightsabres for 10 minutes until he dies? I doubt they'd do that... but what else will they do? Keep groups small? But its an MMO... Give each player someone else to fight? Sounds good...
I do worry though, will there be a point while leveling that you can screw yourself for the end game... I hope not.
Just as a side note, I've played the "New Order" games, I think they're called that... set after the films, where you use the mouse to actually move the lightsabre. When I was talking to a mate he mentioned that he'd played KOTOR, and it took about 10 minutes to figure out he wasn't talking about KOTOR, although he still says "Jedi Knights of the Old Republic" even though it's not the old republic...
Fair enough, I might just need to get some new games, but KOTOR2 needs playing so I played it. Played it all the way to the end infact, but haven't killed the last boss yet. I've tried about 5 times, and failed horribly each time. Phase two screws me every time, I read a guide that suggests Force Wave but they always resist it, I've read you should run away, I might try that yet. I do think the game is beatable with the set up i've got, even if i've annoyed myself in a couple of ways, mainly the skills, and the bloody named crystal, which I forgot to update at all during the game, and even took out of my lightsabre for being poor.
So, i'm playing through the game again. This time I started with a wopping 16 Int, and boosted my Con from 14 to 16 on the first two upgrades. True my Strength is 10 and my Dexterity is 12, but it's not overly important.
Last time I played through as a Good Woman, this time i'm going for Evil Woman. Of the "No Armour" force powers i've always been more impressed with the light side ones. This is because they're buffs, bosses seemily resist most powers you throw at them (to stop them being a walkover I suspect) and on normal people i'm happy to use other powers. So this time i'm planning on using Armour. I can upgrade my armour to resist alot of Energy damage, and I can try and get as close to 100% resist on it with other items and stuff. I'm loving the idea of entering the final fight (maybe even recording it) and simply laughing at Lightsabre "damage" doing nothing. And for all these upgrades to armour you need it to be armour, not "robes" and not "Light Armour" either, since they sometimes allow force powers.
The High Int is because I want the good upgrades, and I want to be able to do stuff. With a charater build in mind you can seperate Force Powers and Feats into 3 catagories.
1) There are a number that are vastly important for the build. Like Flurry
2) There are a number that are quite nice, but you can probably live without them.
3) Some of them will be useless.
Unfortunatly letting the game "Auto Level" a character it picks alot of the useless stuff, especially in feats. Fair enough, you could say no feat is "useless" but someone can happily end up with Flurry, Power Attack and Crit Strike. While they're no doubt rubbish, you'll probably pick which you want to use, and spam that, i'm unsure at what point you'll be in a fight an think "I always Flurry, I love Flurry, but i'm glad I have Power Attack for this 1 time".
As such, in my mind as long as you actually level (IE, don't get stuck in the game) then the actual number of Feats and Force Powers you get means nothing. If class A gives you 15 Feats by level 30 and class B gives you 30, if you only have 10 feats in catagory 1 (must have) and catagory 2 has maybe another 10, chances are you'll take class A based on that, simply for other reasons.
Unique powers are given to each class, unfortunately I have no idea what they are, I gather a Weapon Master gets some sort of damage reduction, but searching on the Internet gave me some idea, but not alot. If Damage reduction is your thing (I'm hoping the Sith equivilent gets it as well) then no matter how many times you level a Watchman, you'll still be missing out on this extra reduction.
Skills, while the same is try for Skills as it is for Feats and Force Powers, it's a bigger gap. For making things, breaking into things, disarming things, etc, you'll usually want a higher score. True with 2 skills leveled you can still complete the game, you'll miss out on alot, especially alot of gear. Without Computer Skills and Repair you'll be lagging behind alot, and without Security you'll be missing out on alot of free stuff. Maybe it's just the way I am, but switching to another character everytime there is a door annoys me, I want to be able to do it. Especially when i'm stuck taking other people, or can't take the people with the skills I need.
Upgrading items is similar, I think you can use someone elses skills to make stuff, but switching characters, getting them to make stuff, then going back to the ship you put it in stuff you're allies are using is annoying. Even more annoying if you want to try and upgrade everyones armour and you're either running back and forth because you forgot one of your allies can't use armour and that upgrade you made doesn't fit in Robes. Or get everyone naked and try and sort it out at the desk, then get them all back equipped... Nightmare.
A much easier option is to just do everything yourself on the Work desk in your Ship, you can upgrade everything everyone is wearing from there as well. But to do that you need the skills on your character.
Anyway, thats why I started with 16 Int, no doubt I'll not increase that, and look to increase other stats (with using Armour, I'm unsure if increasing Dex is a good idea. Maybe I should increase Strength). I've gone with the Con because I want more life, but more importantly, I don't want to miss out on Implants. If I get an implant that increases another stat by 3, then it's exactly the same as having less 3 con and 3 more in that stat, apart from the health.
Anyway, one thing that I realised when looking at this, was how starting decisions can screw an entire game against you, and chances are you'll never know you're screwing yourself for a while. When I last played it was around level 10 before I found out the number of componants you get from dismantling things is based on your Repair, shortly after dismantling all my none needed gear, I was short of Componants to build anything for a while. I took the feat to get Repair as a class skill, then levelled nothing but that until it was max. This ment instead of having 4 skills on max level, they were all over the place... Which is always annoying when you're 2 points short of getting a level 5 upgrade instead of a level 4 one...
The end game is different to the rest of the game. Even if you consider that the end game is 2 fights. Maybe it's just from playing WoW alot, but are most RPGs like this? You work your way through the game and some combination of attacks, items, bonuses whatever work really well. Then you hit the last boss, and he does something different, or something doesn't work, and you find something along the lines of "Wow, lowering my defense for power attack means they kill me instantly" which leads to "I wish I could level 6 times more to get Flurry". While that example goes against my "Useful Feats" argument, since you'd auto have both, I hope you see my point. The game doesn't allow you to change feats, powers and skills just before the final fight. You've screwed yourself at some point by taking the wrong thing, but the important part is, that you didn't know it was the wrong thing until right at the end, because until then it was the right thing.
One of the first times I played KOTOR I took alot of the force powers that do damage. Whether we're talking Choke, Lightning, or whatever, and would happily jump into a room and force power to death everything. I find myself at the fight at the end and the boss just goes "Saved" to everything taking practically no damage. Damn, I didn't realise I had to read every force power and try and pick out the ones that are good when resisted, I thought any of them might be cool... Fair enough with say Choke, I wouldn't expect a final boss fight to be me throwing a choke and sabring them to death while helpless... but I had hoped the power would actually work...
Makes me wonder alot about SWTOR, obviously the end game is going to be different to the rest of it. But how much is going to be 10 people crowded around a Sith all of them smacking him with Lightsabres for 10 minutes until he dies? I doubt they'd do that... but what else will they do? Keep groups small? But its an MMO... Give each player someone else to fight? Sounds good...
I do worry though, will there be a point while leveling that you can screw yourself for the end game... I hope not.
Just as a side note, I've played the "New Order" games, I think they're called that... set after the films, where you use the mouse to actually move the lightsabre. When I was talking to a mate he mentioned that he'd played KOTOR, and it took about 10 minutes to figure out he wasn't talking about KOTOR, although he still says "Jedi Knights of the Old Republic" even though it's not the old republic...
Engineer Update - Speculation
Since no one's currently reading this, it might be a bit pointless posting some ideas on what could be in the Engineer update. The further question is why bother posting anything? No doubt at some point I'll be so impressed with my blog that I'll happily share it with others, probably someone will post something on a forum and I'll be happy to reply "Heres a link to my thoughts on my Blog" and it'll go from there.
Chances are though, that anyone reading this will be looking through back posts because they like my blog so much they like the idea of reading older posts. Anyone reading this who doesn't play TF2 won't care, and anyone who does play TF2 will no doubt not read this until the Engineer update is out. As such I don't feel the need (or the desire) to spend hours thinking of solid ideas and balancing them, but will just post random thoughts. Hey it's my blog, all I seem to post are random thoughts so tough.
I've not been playing TF2 from the start, infact i've only been playing the game long enough to have had 1 update happen (Spy and Sniper), not including small patches that change things slightly, I mean updated weapons and such. And as such I'll probably look at those first.
Spy
Not really played Spy an awful lot, not that I really suck, but I am bad.
Anyway, his upgraded weapon allows a Spy to play as Sniper, instead of throwing random bullets. The Cloak and Dagger allows a spy to slowly work towards any target unseen, and the Dead Ringer allows you to let them think you're dead just before you kill them.
All these things strike me as being options to change your play style. Yes you still Cloak and Disguise, but the cloak you have changes how well and fast you can advance, and how useful it is in combat. And the gun gives you the option of shooting someone for a headshot when a Backstab might be tricky.
I have just realised that I shouldn't go through every class, nor am I going to delete whats above.
Anyway, it seems to me alot of the updates want to change the class, give it another option of playing. A sniper plays very differently depending on if he's using a Bow or a Rifle. A pyro plays differently depending on any of his unlockables. Scout as well. I'm not sure about Heavy and Medic though, they seem to play exactly the same...
So lets guess that the Engineer is gonna stay as someone who builds things, but something about their playstyle will change.
The most obvious thing to say is that they'll get different sentries. While similar to a Heavy their shotgun isn't used very often, so that might change, as might the pistol.
Scatter Bomb
So first idea, replace the Shotgun/Pistol for a Scatter Bomb. Throw the bomb, and it bounces similar to a Demoman's primary weapon, then when it goes off it throws a number of bombs around, then they explode.
The reasons for this are two fold, first when you're advancing it helps against other Engineers. And when you're defending it stops people jumping back and forth around corners to take out your sentry.
Possibly have it use Metal, maybe a fixed rate, or maybe depending on how much metal you have. Or simply a 1 shot. Hell, maybe an idea is that it costs 100 metal to make, and you can stock pile them or something, maybe even for other people to pick up?
Beacon
Maybe i'm just having Demoman like ideas, which is strange since I think i've played a Demoman for like 4 minutes.
Put the Beacon somewhere, and my thoughts are a few what the beacon might do.
I like the idea of trying to get an engineer a bit more offensive.
Power Armour gives you "armour" which is effectivily more health, maybe it stops push backs, maybe it lets you use a bigger gun.
This is quite a poor idea though, simply because it just seems to make you a heavy, but it shouldn't just make you a heavy if you want that play a heavy.
Sentries
So, I'm sure everyone who's thought about this topic at all will have loads of ideas for how to have an alternate sentry, thankfully I haven't read any of them, so it's all my ideas!
Sniper Sentry - This sentry has no maximum distance, or if it does it's a long way. The sniper sentry gets automatic headshots on anyone it shoots at. This will obviously need a much longer aim time than the current sentry, and possibly is dependant on the distance of the person, but it shouldn't kill automatically at blank range. Maybe even give it a minimum range. The idea with this is that you can hold long distance choke holds, but not short range ones. A minimum range makes it even easier for a spy to take it out, and with the aim time it might never be able to shoot a Scout maybe?
Flame Sentry - Simple enough, it sets people on Fire. Why is that better than a normal sentry in anyway? Maybe the flame deflects bullets and/or rockets? Maybe the fire can't be healed? Maybe it even sets Ubers on fire?
Decoy Sentry - Looks like a sentry, maybe you can pick the level, maybe you can pretend to hit it to increase the level. It moves and beeps and looks just like a sentry! But it doesn't actually fire anything. Obviously this might be a poor replacement for an actual sentry, maybe it replaces a dispenser? Or the Teleporter? Whatever might make it more appealing for people to actually use and balanced. The key point however is that when it is destroyed it explodes, and I mean it really explodes. As such it might only have a handful of health. It should also explode the very instant a Spy puts a sapper on it.
Grenade Sentry - While you might think this is a suggestion for a sentry that fires grenades, it's not. It's an actual grenade, maybe it costs 200 metal, or maybe it costs like 60 so you can do it a few times. You throw the grenade and as it flys through the air it fires on the enemy. Maybe it fires a bit at them all, maybe it focuses on the closest target. I'd like to also think when it hits the ground it carries on firing from there. Maybe it's not got an awful lot of bullets in there...
Drop and Go Sentry - The Sentry is cheaper, and builds faster. Hitting it won't make it build any faster, and you can't upgrade the thing, but you can replenish ammo. Maybe it doesn't do the damage of a level 1 turrent, it probably wont, might even do like 25% of the damage. The important thing is that you can drop several of them. I'd love no limit, but that seems open to abuse, either it'll do so little damage its a waste of time, or you'll stay at the final point in control or something and build 200 of them.
Anyway, that's my ideas! While i've no doubt none of it will be remotely like the unlockables an Engineer gets, I'm happy to have posted!
Chances are though, that anyone reading this will be looking through back posts because they like my blog so much they like the idea of reading older posts. Anyone reading this who doesn't play TF2 won't care, and anyone who does play TF2 will no doubt not read this until the Engineer update is out. As such I don't feel the need (or the desire) to spend hours thinking of solid ideas and balancing them, but will just post random thoughts. Hey it's my blog, all I seem to post are random thoughts so tough.
I've not been playing TF2 from the start, infact i've only been playing the game long enough to have had 1 update happen (Spy and Sniper), not including small patches that change things slightly, I mean updated weapons and such. And as such I'll probably look at those first.
Spy
Not really played Spy an awful lot, not that I really suck, but I am bad.
Anyway, his upgraded weapon allows a Spy to play as Sniper, instead of throwing random bullets. The Cloak and Dagger allows a spy to slowly work towards any target unseen, and the Dead Ringer allows you to let them think you're dead just before you kill them.
All these things strike me as being options to change your play style. Yes you still Cloak and Disguise, but the cloak you have changes how well and fast you can advance, and how useful it is in combat. And the gun gives you the option of shooting someone for a headshot when a Backstab might be tricky.
I have just realised that I shouldn't go through every class, nor am I going to delete whats above.
Anyway, it seems to me alot of the updates want to change the class, give it another option of playing. A sniper plays very differently depending on if he's using a Bow or a Rifle. A pyro plays differently depending on any of his unlockables. Scout as well. I'm not sure about Heavy and Medic though, they seem to play exactly the same...
So lets guess that the Engineer is gonna stay as someone who builds things, but something about their playstyle will change.
The most obvious thing to say is that they'll get different sentries. While similar to a Heavy their shotgun isn't used very often, so that might change, as might the pistol.
Scatter Bomb
So first idea, replace the Shotgun/Pistol for a Scatter Bomb. Throw the bomb, and it bounces similar to a Demoman's primary weapon, then when it goes off it throws a number of bombs around, then they explode.
The reasons for this are two fold, first when you're advancing it helps against other Engineers. And when you're defending it stops people jumping back and forth around corners to take out your sentry.
Possibly have it use Metal, maybe a fixed rate, or maybe depending on how much metal you have. Or simply a 1 shot. Hell, maybe an idea is that it costs 100 metal to make, and you can stock pile them or something, maybe even for other people to pick up?
Beacon
Maybe i'm just having Demoman like ideas, which is strange since I think i've played a Demoman for like 4 minutes.
Put the Beacon somewhere, and my thoughts are a few what the beacon might do.
- When an enemy team member approaches it announces (text and/or voice) something along the lines of "Scout Approaching!"
- It has a "field" of a certain size that stops Spys Cloaking or Disguising near it.
- It an enemy team member gets too close, it explodes.
- Prevents a capture on a point, either until its destroyed, or a timer or something.
I like the idea of trying to get an engineer a bit more offensive.
Power Armour gives you "armour" which is effectivily more health, maybe it stops push backs, maybe it lets you use a bigger gun.
This is quite a poor idea though, simply because it just seems to make you a heavy, but it shouldn't just make you a heavy if you want that play a heavy.
Sentries
So, I'm sure everyone who's thought about this topic at all will have loads of ideas for how to have an alternate sentry, thankfully I haven't read any of them, so it's all my ideas!
Sniper Sentry - This sentry has no maximum distance, or if it does it's a long way. The sniper sentry gets automatic headshots on anyone it shoots at. This will obviously need a much longer aim time than the current sentry, and possibly is dependant on the distance of the person, but it shouldn't kill automatically at blank range. Maybe even give it a minimum range. The idea with this is that you can hold long distance choke holds, but not short range ones. A minimum range makes it even easier for a spy to take it out, and with the aim time it might never be able to shoot a Scout maybe?
Flame Sentry - Simple enough, it sets people on Fire. Why is that better than a normal sentry in anyway? Maybe the flame deflects bullets and/or rockets? Maybe the fire can't be healed? Maybe it even sets Ubers on fire?
Decoy Sentry - Looks like a sentry, maybe you can pick the level, maybe you can pretend to hit it to increase the level. It moves and beeps and looks just like a sentry! But it doesn't actually fire anything. Obviously this might be a poor replacement for an actual sentry, maybe it replaces a dispenser? Or the Teleporter? Whatever might make it more appealing for people to actually use and balanced. The key point however is that when it is destroyed it explodes, and I mean it really explodes. As such it might only have a handful of health. It should also explode the very instant a Spy puts a sapper on it.
Grenade Sentry - While you might think this is a suggestion for a sentry that fires grenades, it's not. It's an actual grenade, maybe it costs 200 metal, or maybe it costs like 60 so you can do it a few times. You throw the grenade and as it flys through the air it fires on the enemy. Maybe it fires a bit at them all, maybe it focuses on the closest target. I'd like to also think when it hits the ground it carries on firing from there. Maybe it's not got an awful lot of bullets in there...
Drop and Go Sentry - The Sentry is cheaper, and builds faster. Hitting it won't make it build any faster, and you can't upgrade the thing, but you can replenish ammo. Maybe it doesn't do the damage of a level 1 turrent, it probably wont, might even do like 25% of the damage. The important thing is that you can drop several of them. I'd love no limit, but that seems open to abuse, either it'll do so little damage its a waste of time, or you'll stay at the final point in control or something and build 200 of them.
Anyway, that's my ideas! While i've no doubt none of it will be remotely like the unlockables an Engineer gets, I'm happy to have posted!
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Sniper Upgrades
Wow, nearly the end of August and i've only done 1 other post this month, and that was at the start. Well, I keep doing other stuff like watching TV programs, or actually playing games.
So, I'll post here since it's midnight and I can't be bothered doing much else.
A week or two ago I went on TF2, where i've got most of the unlockable upgrades, infact all of them apart from the alternate healing gun for the Medic. So I went on, and I put back a load of weapons to what they originally where, not all of them, but alot of them.
For the scout specifically that i've posted about, I put all 3 items back to the original, although I do keep switching to the FaN and back simply because I can't choose. Double jumping and using a Pistol is winning it for me, so I'll mourn the loss of a stun, but nevermind!
Sniper has always been one of my favorite classes, I think on played it's 3rd, but it was second just after Pyro for a long time, and has been bumped down to 3 because of me playing pretty much nothing apart from the Engineer. There isn't a situation I don't think "Playing an Engineer would be good here" and end up switching, even when I have trouble killing as a Heavy, I can kill people with an Engineers shotgun and rack up the points.
Sniper Rifle / Bow
This choice still fills me with confusion, i've come across alot of people who'll happily be vocal on the fact that one of them is a "noob" weapon. The confusion comes two fold, first is the fact that it seems to be around 50/50 over which is the actual "noob" weapon, I hear just as many people suggest that the Bow is for Pros as I hear say the Rifle is for Pros.
The second comes from the fact I can sometimes have trouble with what people are classing as a "noob" weapon. Fair enough when you're in a situation where 1 weapon is far inferior to another, the inferior weapon might be something a "noob" picks because they don't know better, or because it has some flashing lights on or whatever... Where as, people will happily complain that the Pyro is a "noob" class because any idiot can play it, especially if this "noob" has just killed 5 people, and even more especially if the person complaining is a spy. If a Pyro is that good, why not play a pyro yourself?
So maybe the Rifle is the "noob" weapon in respect that its worse and only idiots will pick it, and the Bow is the "noob" weapon because it's easy to do well with. Or visa versa, or even more likely, people just like to complain.
Similar to how in Arena I can hear (read) at any given point something along the lines of "You're playing badly" whether its because i'm not moving from our spawn point, or i've made a bad tactical choice, been outplayed, or i'm simply clueless. These comments usually come from people who died before me, which gives me pause.
My girlfriend phoned me while I was playing once, just before the game started (Nucleus) so I switched to Heavy and talked to her while I just stood there with my gun spinning ready to fire. Some guy complains at me that I'm not being helpful because i'm not moving, which is all well and good, but I was killing 4/5 people a game. Especially in Nucleus people are always running by your starting point, and you'll always get spys and scouts thinking it's funny to kill an AFK player with a Taunt. And I think it's funny when you shoot them in the face while they're half way through their taunt realising their mistake...
While I run off on a tangent, it's mostly because I feel I need to point out that I have no idea in the Rifle/Bow choice which one i'm "supposed" to take, although I feel it's probably the bow.
Anyway when I first got the Bow I couldn't hit anything, the arching took alot of time to get used to, but I think i've got it. Although maybe I haven't got it because I find aiming with the sniper rifle alot easier, I can also stalk targets alot easier with it since I don't have to mess about unholding an arrow. I also find it much easier to kill people without the sniper scope when they're running at me than I can with the Bow, since people often dodge the bow more I suppose.
Either weapon I think is very much about person preference, and mine is definetly with the Sniper Rifle, but I'd suggest to anyone to try both.
Machine Gun / Shield / Jarate
The main annoying thing about these upgrades is that they'd be far better if they replaced the melee weapon than the Machine Gun.
Lets face it, the Shield which stops a backstab is only useful against a Spy, and the Jarate is mostly useful to stopping a Spy from going into stealth, so what we're talking about is replacements to kill spys or stop spys killing you.
If i've used a Jarate on a Spy, or he's just broke my shield, the only way to kil him is to melee him, which can be quite tricky, a good spy player probably has more melee practice than a good sniper, if you only had your machine gun...
Anyway, I often find myself using the Shield, because I'm looking down a scope and can't turn around every 2 seconds to check for a spy, so the shield helps alot. Often I try and leg it from a spy because I don't have my machine gun. Although it helps alot that I also headshot team mates just incase they're spys.
So overall I quite like the Sniper update, added stuff that's very nice choices, not automatic upgrades, I would say more, but I can't think of more to say!
So, I'll post here since it's midnight and I can't be bothered doing much else.
A week or two ago I went on TF2, where i've got most of the unlockable upgrades, infact all of them apart from the alternate healing gun for the Medic. So I went on, and I put back a load of weapons to what they originally where, not all of them, but alot of them.
For the scout specifically that i've posted about, I put all 3 items back to the original, although I do keep switching to the FaN and back simply because I can't choose. Double jumping and using a Pistol is winning it for me, so I'll mourn the loss of a stun, but nevermind!
Sniper has always been one of my favorite classes, I think on played it's 3rd, but it was second just after Pyro for a long time, and has been bumped down to 3 because of me playing pretty much nothing apart from the Engineer. There isn't a situation I don't think "Playing an Engineer would be good here" and end up switching, even when I have trouble killing as a Heavy, I can kill people with an Engineers shotgun and rack up the points.
Sniper Rifle / Bow
This choice still fills me with confusion, i've come across alot of people who'll happily be vocal on the fact that one of them is a "noob" weapon. The confusion comes two fold, first is the fact that it seems to be around 50/50 over which is the actual "noob" weapon, I hear just as many people suggest that the Bow is for Pros as I hear say the Rifle is for Pros.
The second comes from the fact I can sometimes have trouble with what people are classing as a "noob" weapon. Fair enough when you're in a situation where 1 weapon is far inferior to another, the inferior weapon might be something a "noob" picks because they don't know better, or because it has some flashing lights on or whatever... Where as, people will happily complain that the Pyro is a "noob" class because any idiot can play it, especially if this "noob" has just killed 5 people, and even more especially if the person complaining is a spy. If a Pyro is that good, why not play a pyro yourself?
So maybe the Rifle is the "noob" weapon in respect that its worse and only idiots will pick it, and the Bow is the "noob" weapon because it's easy to do well with. Or visa versa, or even more likely, people just like to complain.
Similar to how in Arena I can hear (read) at any given point something along the lines of "You're playing badly" whether its because i'm not moving from our spawn point, or i've made a bad tactical choice, been outplayed, or i'm simply clueless. These comments usually come from people who died before me, which gives me pause.
My girlfriend phoned me while I was playing once, just before the game started (Nucleus) so I switched to Heavy and talked to her while I just stood there with my gun spinning ready to fire. Some guy complains at me that I'm not being helpful because i'm not moving, which is all well and good, but I was killing 4/5 people a game. Especially in Nucleus people are always running by your starting point, and you'll always get spys and scouts thinking it's funny to kill an AFK player with a Taunt. And I think it's funny when you shoot them in the face while they're half way through their taunt realising their mistake...
While I run off on a tangent, it's mostly because I feel I need to point out that I have no idea in the Rifle/Bow choice which one i'm "supposed" to take, although I feel it's probably the bow.
Anyway when I first got the Bow I couldn't hit anything, the arching took alot of time to get used to, but I think i've got it. Although maybe I haven't got it because I find aiming with the sniper rifle alot easier, I can also stalk targets alot easier with it since I don't have to mess about unholding an arrow. I also find it much easier to kill people without the sniper scope when they're running at me than I can with the Bow, since people often dodge the bow more I suppose.
Either weapon I think is very much about person preference, and mine is definetly with the Sniper Rifle, but I'd suggest to anyone to try both.
Machine Gun / Shield / Jarate
The main annoying thing about these upgrades is that they'd be far better if they replaced the melee weapon than the Machine Gun.
Lets face it, the Shield which stops a backstab is only useful against a Spy, and the Jarate is mostly useful to stopping a Spy from going into stealth, so what we're talking about is replacements to kill spys or stop spys killing you.
If i've used a Jarate on a Spy, or he's just broke my shield, the only way to kil him is to melee him, which can be quite tricky, a good spy player probably has more melee practice than a good sniper, if you only had your machine gun...
Anyway, I often find myself using the Shield, because I'm looking down a scope and can't turn around every 2 seconds to check for a spy, so the shield helps alot. Often I try and leg it from a spy because I don't have my machine gun. Although it helps alot that I also headshot team mates just incase they're spys.
So overall I quite like the Sniper update, added stuff that's very nice choices, not automatic upgrades, I would say more, but I can't think of more to say!
Monday, 3 August 2009
LAN <> Console gaming.
So next weekend my mate's wife is away for the weekend. What better infact than to get us round, play some games and have a drink?
Well, for a start I love LANs, it's the main reason I have a Laptop instead of a Desktop. They're a good laugh and I love them.
But, this won't be a LAN, people won't be bring PCs, what we'll end up doing is playing on an XBox, and what better to play than Halo 3?
Well, after playing CoD4 I kinda started to like First Person Shooters, i'd gone off them somewhat after Goldeneye (not because of Goldeneye) when I started to move into PC gaming instead of Console Gaming. Playing Doom and Quake and I got bored easily, the basis of the game being to get the best gun and run around with your finger on the trigger. I tried a few different FPS games on the PC, but wasn't impressed with many of them. CoD4 on the other hand seemed to involve skill and tactics behind learning how to strafe, and I really liked it.
I bought TF2 and L4D (on the same day infact) and have never looked back at these older games.
Then I started going to my friends house, and we'd occasionally play on the Xbox, and it seemed all the stuff was just like the old games I remember. On top of this, I'd been playing with a mouse so often, that I became extremely annoyed with the joypad, it's a bugger to aim with after you've used the precise mouse.
I've never played Halo3, but I'll not like the aiming (since it's not on the PC) and no doubt it'll be picking up a machine gun and firing lots. No doubt it'll be like playing a Heavy on TF2, who runs like a scout, doesn't have a medic, and doesn't need to worry about spys, and no doubt it'll be as appealing as a version of TF2 where everyone is playing that.
I think i'll take my laptop anywhere, after a couple of hours I could play TF2 or whatever, assuming of course I can connect to his network. Console heavy people tend not to be overly helpful with connecting to their network...
Well, for a start I love LANs, it's the main reason I have a Laptop instead of a Desktop. They're a good laugh and I love them.
But, this won't be a LAN, people won't be bring PCs, what we'll end up doing is playing on an XBox, and what better to play than Halo 3?
Well, after playing CoD4 I kinda started to like First Person Shooters, i'd gone off them somewhat after Goldeneye (not because of Goldeneye) when I started to move into PC gaming instead of Console Gaming. Playing Doom and Quake and I got bored easily, the basis of the game being to get the best gun and run around with your finger on the trigger. I tried a few different FPS games on the PC, but wasn't impressed with many of them. CoD4 on the other hand seemed to involve skill and tactics behind learning how to strafe, and I really liked it.
I bought TF2 and L4D (on the same day infact) and have never looked back at these older games.
Then I started going to my friends house, and we'd occasionally play on the Xbox, and it seemed all the stuff was just like the old games I remember. On top of this, I'd been playing with a mouse so often, that I became extremely annoyed with the joypad, it's a bugger to aim with after you've used the precise mouse.
I've never played Halo3, but I'll not like the aiming (since it's not on the PC) and no doubt it'll be picking up a machine gun and firing lots. No doubt it'll be like playing a Heavy on TF2, who runs like a scout, doesn't have a medic, and doesn't need to worry about spys, and no doubt it'll be as appealing as a version of TF2 where everyone is playing that.
I think i'll take my laptop anywhere, after a couple of hours I could play TF2 or whatever, assuming of course I can connect to his network. Console heavy people tend not to be overly helpful with connecting to their network...
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
MMO = Group play!
Decided to play Kotor2 on my laptop instead of my netbook (since it doesn't work) and also decided to take another look at the SWTOR forums. I'm really looking forward to SWTOR and i'm always interested in new information about the game.
I stumbled onto a forum post about Solo vs Group play, and about rewards for Casual vs Hardcore.
One thing that's always annoyed me about World of Warcraft, was the point to get all the good stuff you had to raid, you can't get any of it solo. If a PC game comes out without a single player mode, there will be people that complain, but it's just accepted in WoW. Hell, I play Team Fortress 2 a fair bit, but I don't have to organise a group of 25 people together to start at 7:30pm, I can just jump in, even considering Pick Up Groups in WoW, it's alot easier to play Team Fortress 2.
But why should you be forced to Raid to get the best rewards, and maybe "rewards" is gear, titles, achievements, whatever. In the forum post I was reading it was taken as a given, no one seemed to argue it, which annoyed me. At what point does doing something as a group mean you should be awared more than doing it solo?
You can go with a couple of arguements, which don't make sense to me, like "An MMO is about playing in a group, if you don't want to play in a group go play a single player game", you mean, a single player game that doesn't cost me £9 a month? Which I can play whenever I want instead of the preset times made by the guild? While I never got to top level, I played Tabula Rasa for a while, and I loved the fact I could Solo instances, or I could get people to come for a laugh and group play, it was great, what was wrong with that?
"It's harder to organise a group of people than it is to just do something yourself" so, if I played with 10 friends on a game (and I'd imagine 10 is a high number for real friends) I can't do 25 man raids, unless I get other people involved, once other people are involved raids might very well happen when i'm busy doing something else. So I then either have to accept I can't raid Ulduar or whatever each week, or join another guild, leaving my 10 friends behind... Yes it's harder to organise something with a group than to play solo, so what? A reward system shouldn't be based on how easy it is to get people together for something.
One of the main problems I think (not played many other MMO games) is that WoW is raid based. There isn't a Solo option, which means that people see what you can do like dailies, which are easy, then they seem to assume that any solo content would be easy. Why would it be impossible to tune encounters so they work for solo players? Then tune it so it scales somewhat with the number of people? Even if you have preset: 1, 5, 10, 15, 20.
Which opens up the further problem. In WoW currently you can do content 10 man or 25 man, and you get better rewards in 25 man. Why is this? When there are 3 healers and 2 tanks, it can be a push and errors made can screw you, if there are 8 healers and 3 tanks, there is a greater margin of error, and with a better reward why not?
I'd be interested to hear an arguement on why 25 man raiding should give better rewards than 10 man, unless that arguement is "Because the 25 man content is tuned to be harder" at which point you could just tune them so they're just as difficult and offer the same rewards surely? The main reason you wouldn't do that is to stop people doing the content twice a week, which is hardly a huge thing I think... but currently you're just rewarding people for being in a bigger guild.
I'm hoping SWTOR has a good end game, i'm still unsure how they're pushing story and the story will be better than WoW end game, which has been good since Burning Crusade I think. Fair enough leveling might be alot more story driven, but anyone who's spent alot of time on an MMO will be mostly looking at the end game. Either way, I'm hoping there are lots of options for Solo End Game, which won't leave me behind gear wise, why should I have worse gear because I would quite fancy playing Wednesday instead of Thursday this week?
I stumbled onto a forum post about Solo vs Group play, and about rewards for Casual vs Hardcore.
One thing that's always annoyed me about World of Warcraft, was the point to get all the good stuff you had to raid, you can't get any of it solo. If a PC game comes out without a single player mode, there will be people that complain, but it's just accepted in WoW. Hell, I play Team Fortress 2 a fair bit, but I don't have to organise a group of 25 people together to start at 7:30pm, I can just jump in, even considering Pick Up Groups in WoW, it's alot easier to play Team Fortress 2.
But why should you be forced to Raid to get the best rewards, and maybe "rewards" is gear, titles, achievements, whatever. In the forum post I was reading it was taken as a given, no one seemed to argue it, which annoyed me. At what point does doing something as a group mean you should be awared more than doing it solo?
You can go with a couple of arguements, which don't make sense to me, like "An MMO is about playing in a group, if you don't want to play in a group go play a single player game", you mean, a single player game that doesn't cost me £9 a month? Which I can play whenever I want instead of the preset times made by the guild? While I never got to top level, I played Tabula Rasa for a while, and I loved the fact I could Solo instances, or I could get people to come for a laugh and group play, it was great, what was wrong with that?
"It's harder to organise a group of people than it is to just do something yourself" so, if I played with 10 friends on a game (and I'd imagine 10 is a high number for real friends) I can't do 25 man raids, unless I get other people involved, once other people are involved raids might very well happen when i'm busy doing something else. So I then either have to accept I can't raid Ulduar or whatever each week, or join another guild, leaving my 10 friends behind... Yes it's harder to organise something with a group than to play solo, so what? A reward system shouldn't be based on how easy it is to get people together for something.
One of the main problems I think (not played many other MMO games) is that WoW is raid based. There isn't a Solo option, which means that people see what you can do like dailies, which are easy, then they seem to assume that any solo content would be easy. Why would it be impossible to tune encounters so they work for solo players? Then tune it so it scales somewhat with the number of people? Even if you have preset: 1, 5, 10, 15, 20.
Which opens up the further problem. In WoW currently you can do content 10 man or 25 man, and you get better rewards in 25 man. Why is this? When there are 3 healers and 2 tanks, it can be a push and errors made can screw you, if there are 8 healers and 3 tanks, there is a greater margin of error, and with a better reward why not?
I'd be interested to hear an arguement on why 25 man raiding should give better rewards than 10 man, unless that arguement is "Because the 25 man content is tuned to be harder" at which point you could just tune them so they're just as difficult and offer the same rewards surely? The main reason you wouldn't do that is to stop people doing the content twice a week, which is hardly a huge thing I think... but currently you're just rewarding people for being in a bigger guild.
I'm hoping SWTOR has a good end game, i'm still unsure how they're pushing story and the story will be better than WoW end game, which has been good since Burning Crusade I think. Fair enough leveling might be alot more story driven, but anyone who's spent alot of time on an MMO will be mostly looking at the end game. Either way, I'm hoping there are lots of options for Solo End Game, which won't leave me behind gear wise, why should I have worse gear because I would quite fancy playing Wednesday instead of Thursday this week?
Sunday, 26 July 2009
D&D I'm playing a Rogue!
I'll be leaving the house soon to go play D&D, i'm slightly annoyed it won't let me use "&" in a tag, so i've stuck with the DD tag.
I usually end up playing a rogue, this is because I like stealing stuff, and I like being a sneaky bastard. The party i'm in includes 2 rangers and a warlord, the warlord is the only one who can't stealth, which kinda sucks. I'm a human as well, so when we hit the first dungeon and it was an actual dungeon I was a bit disappointed. As the only human, i'm the only one who needs light which kinda sucks for a character I envisioned living on the streets, not running through a crypt.
I'm multiclassed as a Ranger, but I think i'll change that when I hit level 2 to a Warlock, get some ranged power behind me.
I'm loving 4th Edition, and it seems alot better than 3rd, especially since I get some cards to play with. And being a CCG player, I like cards to play with :p
My party doesn't tend to like it when I run away. Hell, if I can't backstab something, I run away, whats wrong with that?
I usually end up playing a rogue, this is because I like stealing stuff, and I like being a sneaky bastard. The party i'm in includes 2 rangers and a warlord, the warlord is the only one who can't stealth, which kinda sucks. I'm a human as well, so when we hit the first dungeon and it was an actual dungeon I was a bit disappointed. As the only human, i'm the only one who needs light which kinda sucks for a character I envisioned living on the streets, not running through a crypt.
I'm multiclassed as a Ranger, but I think i'll change that when I hit level 2 to a Warlock, get some ranged power behind me.
I'm loving 4th Edition, and it seems alot better than 3rd, especially since I get some cards to play with. And being a CCG player, I like cards to play with :p
My party doesn't tend to like it when I run away. Hell, if I can't backstab something, I run away, whats wrong with that?
Farmtown
So, Farmtown is a little flash game on Facebook. You believe it or not have a farm, and need to plant crops, and harvest them. If you get someone else to harvest them, you make more money, if you harvest someone elses crops, you get cash.
As far as games go, it's hardly brilliant, but it's a nice simple little thing and I'm having an ok time playing it, although there are certain things that annoy me.
The crops take a set amount of real life time to grow, in most cases this falls into 1 day, 2 days or 3 days. There is 1 crop that takes 2 hours, and another that takes 4 hours. You get experience by plowing, and by planting crops, this means it's in your best interests to plant and grow as much as possible as quickly as possible. To give an example, if you plant something that takes 1 day to grow, you'll get 1 xp for plowing that square, and 2 xp for growing something in that square, meaning that square has given you 3 xp for a days. If you were available every 2 hours for that 24 hour period, you'd plow 12 times, and plant 12 times, so you'd get 36 xp instead.
Last night before I went to bed, I planeted something that takes 4 hours. I slept for longer than 4 hours, and therefore the stuff was wasted. In half an hour i'm going out, and won't be back for another 6 hours or so, will the crops be wasted in that time? Probably... But there isn't something I can grow for 6 hours, it's either 4 hours or a day.
If I leave something for 1 day, it'll mean I can't get any more experience today... which I don't really want to miss out on.
The game could really do with a 6 hour, 8 hour, 10 hour and 12 hour option for growing, so it's easier to fit around my normal time. The game could also do with an option to set up someone perminantly as a "worker" on your farm, so they can harvest your crops whenever they come on, so in this case I could get say my girlfriend to come on in 4 hours and harvest my stuff so it's not wasted.
Anyway, it's a nice little game which can kill a bit of time each day, and as such I'd recommend giving it a go.
As far as games go, it's hardly brilliant, but it's a nice simple little thing and I'm having an ok time playing it, although there are certain things that annoy me.
The crops take a set amount of real life time to grow, in most cases this falls into 1 day, 2 days or 3 days. There is 1 crop that takes 2 hours, and another that takes 4 hours. You get experience by plowing, and by planting crops, this means it's in your best interests to plant and grow as much as possible as quickly as possible. To give an example, if you plant something that takes 1 day to grow, you'll get 1 xp for plowing that square, and 2 xp for growing something in that square, meaning that square has given you 3 xp for a days. If you were available every 2 hours for that 24 hour period, you'd plow 12 times, and plant 12 times, so you'd get 36 xp instead.
Last night before I went to bed, I planeted something that takes 4 hours. I slept for longer than 4 hours, and therefore the stuff was wasted. In half an hour i'm going out, and won't be back for another 6 hours or so, will the crops be wasted in that time? Probably... But there isn't something I can grow for 6 hours, it's either 4 hours or a day.
If I leave something for 1 day, it'll mean I can't get any more experience today... which I don't really want to miss out on.
The game could really do with a 6 hour, 8 hour, 10 hour and 12 hour option for growing, so it's easier to fit around my normal time. The game could also do with an option to set up someone perminantly as a "worker" on your farm, so they can harvest your crops whenever they come on, so in this case I could get say my girlfriend to come on in 4 hours and harvest my stuff so it's not wasted.
Anyway, it's a nice little game which can kill a bit of time each day, and as such I'd recommend giving it a go.
Knights of the Old Republic 2
I've quite disappointed. I've played through most of Knights of the Old Republic on my netbook (Samsung NC10), I think I might have posted regarding Malic at the end being too hard to kill with some of the bad choices I made through the game (alignment, gear, specs) so decided to give it up and throw on number 2 to work through.
But I dunno if it's the "NO CD" crack I downloaded (The netbook doesn't have a CD Drive, so it won't let me play my Legal Bought copy, I'm not trying to circumvent the law) or if it's just the fact the netbook can't play the game. But it loads fine, but when I try and load a game it throws up a critical error and breaks.
As such, I have lacking a playable version on my netbook, and am half tempted to play on my Laptop (I don't have a desktop), that is, the proper laptop I'm using at the moment, with a 17" display and more importantly a CD Drive. Although I need to replace this laptop with a desktop since this thing is just over 3 years old (so doesn't even have a dual core!) and I'm not forking out another £1600 for another laptop with a life of 3 years, especially considering the number of times this one has broke (fair enough, twice, both under warrenty).
If I want to play Kotor2 I'll either have to see if I can sort it on the netbook (which I prefer to play it on since I can take that anywhere, like playing on the train or at lunch) or just play it on the Laptop. The main trouble I have is that when i'm on the laptop why don't I play TF2 or L4D (or even WoW) instead? I'm mostly playing the Kotor series to remind me of the entire thing while i'm still psyched up about the new MMO Bioware are making for the series.
But I dunno if it's the "NO CD" crack I downloaded (The netbook doesn't have a CD Drive, so it won't let me play my Legal Bought copy, I'm not trying to circumvent the law) or if it's just the fact the netbook can't play the game. But it loads fine, but when I try and load a game it throws up a critical error and breaks.
As such, I have lacking a playable version on my netbook, and am half tempted to play on my Laptop (I don't have a desktop), that is, the proper laptop I'm using at the moment, with a 17" display and more importantly a CD Drive. Although I need to replace this laptop with a desktop since this thing is just over 3 years old (so doesn't even have a dual core!) and I'm not forking out another £1600 for another laptop with a life of 3 years, especially considering the number of times this one has broke (fair enough, twice, both under warrenty).
If I want to play Kotor2 I'll either have to see if I can sort it on the netbook (which I prefer to play it on since I can take that anywhere, like playing on the train or at lunch) or just play it on the Laptop. The main trouble I have is that when i'm on the laptop why don't I play TF2 or L4D (or even WoW) instead? I'm mostly playing the Kotor series to remind me of the entire thing while i'm still psyched up about the new MMO Bioware are making for the series.
Scout Review
While I had planned to post here more, I hardly ever get round to it for some reason. I'll keep trying to post as often as I can, but more often than not I'll be playing a computer game as soon as I hit the computer. My last post from work didn't post, and wasn't saved, so I won't be doing that any time soon again.
With the thought in mind that I play an awful lot of Team Fortress 2, and that I have most of the unlockable weapons (since I play on the PC) I thought I'd post some of my thoughts, in this case, how I find the classes, and what I think of their upgrades. This means I won't post about classes like the Demoman until i've played their upgrades a bit, so after their released. I also at this time don't have all the medic upgrades, so won't post about that.
Scout, currently the second on my "Most Played" which is still well behind the Engineer, but I love playing a scout even though I particularly suck at it.
The fast moving and double jumping is amazing, and it kinda feels like playing an entirely different game to the slow Heavy, or the tricky Spy.
FaN - Scatter Gun
The Force a Nature is great, the push back is really why I like this gun, while it fires twice quickly before needing reloading, it doesn't do as much damage as the normal scatter gun. The fact you need to reload the thing so quickly, is the main reason I'm starting to move towards the idea of not using it, and going back to the scatter.
The pushback is really useful in maps like Nucleus, but not great in other places I find, pushing someone back is hardly the most useful thing. True with the quick shots and extra bullets its possible to kill someone before they can fire back, but it's not very likely. With the normal scatter gun you could get the third shot in before the FaN would be reloaded, maybe even a fourth shot.
Bonk! - Pistol
I sometimes have great fun with the Bonk! drink, unfortunatly it's not as useful as the Pistol is. At medium to long range the Pistol is much better than the Scattergun, but when you've got Bonk! equiped that option is gone.
Since I mostly play Arena games, the idea of getting past a sentry gun isn't brilliant, and Bonk! lets me down more often than not in other situations, since people can simply follow you.
In area control, or payload it can be great to distract sentries for someone else to take out, for moving past heavies, or any other number of things. But in arena i'd go for the Pistol every time.
Sandman - Bat
The sandman is great, and infact the most fun i've had with the game was shortly after getting my first sandman (I think I have about 6 now...) even if you're not close to people, the fact you can say stun a heavy then a friendly solider can blow them up. If you're quite close to someone, stunning them can lead to a kill alot of the time which is brilliant.
The obvious bad thing about the Sandman is the lack of double jump. While the FaN helps slightly in that aspect, I especially missed the double jump since I got the FaN well before the Sandman, and was tripple jumping some things.
But the question is, is the stun a good enough reason to lose the double jump? I'm undecided at the moment, and have no idea how long it'll take me to decide. Stunning an uber is great fun, but so is running up to someone and killing them with your bat without needing to wait for a ball to swing first. You do half damage to stunned opponants, so running up to a sniper who can't see you you actually want the ball to *miss*.
Summary
The scout's selection are I think the best example of the alternate weapons showing that they are infact alternate. Alot of time I'd easily be able to pick which is best, but for the Scout it's very touch and go and I may very much end up going back to the original selection soon. But the alternates are so useful and helpful it's hard to make that decision.
With the thought in mind that I play an awful lot of Team Fortress 2, and that I have most of the unlockable weapons (since I play on the PC) I thought I'd post some of my thoughts, in this case, how I find the classes, and what I think of their upgrades. This means I won't post about classes like the Demoman until i've played their upgrades a bit, so after their released. I also at this time don't have all the medic upgrades, so won't post about that.
Scout, currently the second on my "Most Played" which is still well behind the Engineer, but I love playing a scout even though I particularly suck at it.
The fast moving and double jumping is amazing, and it kinda feels like playing an entirely different game to the slow Heavy, or the tricky Spy.
FaN - Scatter Gun
The Force a Nature is great, the push back is really why I like this gun, while it fires twice quickly before needing reloading, it doesn't do as much damage as the normal scatter gun. The fact you need to reload the thing so quickly, is the main reason I'm starting to move towards the idea of not using it, and going back to the scatter.
The pushback is really useful in maps like Nucleus, but not great in other places I find, pushing someone back is hardly the most useful thing. True with the quick shots and extra bullets its possible to kill someone before they can fire back, but it's not very likely. With the normal scatter gun you could get the third shot in before the FaN would be reloaded, maybe even a fourth shot.
Bonk! - Pistol
I sometimes have great fun with the Bonk! drink, unfortunatly it's not as useful as the Pistol is. At medium to long range the Pistol is much better than the Scattergun, but when you've got Bonk! equiped that option is gone.
Since I mostly play Arena games, the idea of getting past a sentry gun isn't brilliant, and Bonk! lets me down more often than not in other situations, since people can simply follow you.
In area control, or payload it can be great to distract sentries for someone else to take out, for moving past heavies, or any other number of things. But in arena i'd go for the Pistol every time.
Sandman - Bat
The sandman is great, and infact the most fun i've had with the game was shortly after getting my first sandman (I think I have about 6 now...) even if you're not close to people, the fact you can say stun a heavy then a friendly solider can blow them up. If you're quite close to someone, stunning them can lead to a kill alot of the time which is brilliant.
The obvious bad thing about the Sandman is the lack of double jump. While the FaN helps slightly in that aspect, I especially missed the double jump since I got the FaN well before the Sandman, and was tripple jumping some things.
But the question is, is the stun a good enough reason to lose the double jump? I'm undecided at the moment, and have no idea how long it'll take me to decide. Stunning an uber is great fun, but so is running up to someone and killing them with your bat without needing to wait for a ball to swing first. You do half damage to stunned opponants, so running up to a sniper who can't see you you actually want the ball to *miss*.
Summary
The scout's selection are I think the best example of the alternate weapons showing that they are infact alternate. Alot of time I'd easily be able to pick which is best, but for the Scout it's very touch and go and I may very much end up going back to the original selection soon. But the alternates are so useful and helpful it's hard to make that decision.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Managers and Work
Another post about work... It's seeming this blog is more an outlet for my work related frustration than anything else.
Today I was 30 minutes late, I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, slept another hour, and got a Taxi. This post is not about that.
After a meeting of over an hour with a "Supervisor" from downstairs in regards to a client specific report i've made, Suzanne the person in charge of me (She's a data analyist, I'm just a pleb) couldn't follow what was going on, so fun times there.
The director interested with this report called us into the office.
During this meeting, this Supervisor had stated that visits done to customers over the phone rather than in person should count as Visits, the Director disagreed since we never actually physically visited them, I'm with him on this one, we could potentionally do whatever over the phone and claim it's a visit, and we do charge for visits.
Looking over some specific figures, on why we're doing this, and why not, the Supervisor said a few things starting with "What I think they're doing..." which I nearly laughed at. You're the supervisor, "they're" only doing what "they're" told, why arn't you telling them the right thing? Maybe you think it's the team leader who's at fault, but what the hell are you Supervising? Comments like "I'm with you, they're doing it wrong." just suggest to me you haven't got a clue what your team is up to, and you should Supervise it a bit.
Questions towards me often end up with answers like "Because you told me to" although the followup "No I didn't" often leaves me speechless.
I'm generally of the opinion that middle management is mostly a waste of space, clueless over whats going on under them, and not understanding of whats going on over them. If I even actually get to be middle management (I'm blogging at work, so probably never) I'll probably change my mind, but I'll hopefully not be saying "They're doing it wrong" and saying something like "They're not doing what I told them to" instead.
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The above post I tried to make the other day from work. I noticed it did save the info, so yay here it is!
Today I was 30 minutes late, I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, slept another hour, and got a Taxi. This post is not about that.
After a meeting of over an hour with a "Supervisor" from downstairs in regards to a client specific report i've made, Suzanne the person in charge of me (She's a data analyist, I'm just a pleb) couldn't follow what was going on, so fun times there.
The director interested with this report called us into the office.
During this meeting, this Supervisor had stated that visits done to customers over the phone rather than in person should count as Visits, the Director disagreed since we never actually physically visited them, I'm with him on this one, we could potentionally do whatever over the phone and claim it's a visit, and we do charge for visits.
Looking over some specific figures, on why we're doing this, and why not, the Supervisor said a few things starting with "What I think they're doing..." which I nearly laughed at. You're the supervisor, "they're" only doing what "they're" told, why arn't you telling them the right thing? Maybe you think it's the team leader who's at fault, but what the hell are you Supervising? Comments like "I'm with you, they're doing it wrong." just suggest to me you haven't got a clue what your team is up to, and you should Supervise it a bit.
Questions towards me often end up with answers like "Because you told me to" although the followup "No I didn't" often leaves me speechless.
I'm generally of the opinion that middle management is mostly a waste of space, clueless over whats going on under them, and not understanding of whats going on over them. If I even actually get to be middle management (I'm blogging at work, so probably never) I'll probably change my mind, but I'll hopefully not be saying "They're doing it wrong" and saying something like "They're not doing what I told them to" instead.
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The above post I tried to make the other day from work. I noticed it did save the info, so yay here it is!
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Catch Up
I did plan on posting more frequently to this blog, but the last couple of weeks have been hectic (by Hectic read i've been watching TV) but today i'm at work half an hour early, so I'm posting about a couple of things to catch up!
First off, sat for a week now in my new "team", and while the work is still extremely boring, it's not hard, and not as much trouble as I thought it would be, it still remains to be seen if it'll be "good" at any point though.
At the weekend I went to the Magic 2010 prerelease, where I played Black and White, and had a decent deck including 2 black removal spells, 2 serra angels and a white knight. Unfortunatly I just lost every game until the final round, where I won easily. All the loses were close, but usually to do with him having some 4/4 creatures, and me having little 2/1 and 2/2s a couple of games I lost due to them top decking the only card in their deck to win. I did get a bye (buy?) so went 2-2, but only played a total of 7 games, hardly worth £20 and the entire day.
Also, they were having the Huntik Regional Qualifiers at the shop at the same time, and with 15 people taking part, and the top 16 qualifying for the nationals, I put my name down and handed over my £5, got a promo card for taking part that I sold for £5. So Now i've qualified for the Nationals, and I might go, it seems like a simple enough game, I just need someone to teach me how to play, and to get some cards together.
Also played some "Dominion" which as a card game player, it appealed to me alot. I loved it, and couldn't get enough of playing game after game. I'm half tempted to buy it, even though we can play in the shop with whoever's copy that was, so I dunno who i'd play with with my copy...
On the Sunday went and played D&D, and my rogue performed well, doing more damage than anyone else. A slight misunderstanding of the rules on the GM's part ment I wasn't screwed as much as I should be when the Melee Ranger decided to run out of melee to let me deal with some dog thing by myself. The GM thought I had combat advantage, so I could Sneak Attack, but I didn't, so I did a good 15 damage instead of about 4.
We only cleared 3 rooms, since the group always plays slowly (smoke break, toilet break, another smoke break) but it was alright, and aparantly we've already got enough xp to be half way to level 2, so I'll need to ponder what level 2 power thing to take at some point.
So my continuing plan is to price up my WoW Cards to sell (while they're still worth something) while still pondering going to the Nationals. Learn to play Huntik, grab some cards, and think about going to the Nationals. Possibly make a Magic deck for fun, dig out Munchkin to play at the roleplay group since we're only roleplaying alternate weeks, the other weeks need filling.
I also need to get some more WoW Raiding and dailies done, but I can never be bothered.
First off, sat for a week now in my new "team", and while the work is still extremely boring, it's not hard, and not as much trouble as I thought it would be, it still remains to be seen if it'll be "good" at any point though.
At the weekend I went to the Magic 2010 prerelease, where I played Black and White, and had a decent deck including 2 black removal spells, 2 serra angels and a white knight. Unfortunatly I just lost every game until the final round, where I won easily. All the loses were close, but usually to do with him having some 4/4 creatures, and me having little 2/1 and 2/2s a couple of games I lost due to them top decking the only card in their deck to win. I did get a bye (buy?) so went 2-2, but only played a total of 7 games, hardly worth £20 and the entire day.
Also, they were having the Huntik Regional Qualifiers at the shop at the same time, and with 15 people taking part, and the top 16 qualifying for the nationals, I put my name down and handed over my £5, got a promo card for taking part that I sold for £5. So Now i've qualified for the Nationals, and I might go, it seems like a simple enough game, I just need someone to teach me how to play, and to get some cards together.
Also played some "Dominion" which as a card game player, it appealed to me alot. I loved it, and couldn't get enough of playing game after game. I'm half tempted to buy it, even though we can play in the shop with whoever's copy that was, so I dunno who i'd play with with my copy...
On the Sunday went and played D&D, and my rogue performed well, doing more damage than anyone else. A slight misunderstanding of the rules on the GM's part ment I wasn't screwed as much as I should be when the Melee Ranger decided to run out of melee to let me deal with some dog thing by myself. The GM thought I had combat advantage, so I could Sneak Attack, but I didn't, so I did a good 15 damage instead of about 4.
We only cleared 3 rooms, since the group always plays slowly (smoke break, toilet break, another smoke break) but it was alright, and aparantly we've already got enough xp to be half way to level 2, so I'll need to ponder what level 2 power thing to take at some point.
So my continuing plan is to price up my WoW Cards to sell (while they're still worth something) while still pondering going to the Nationals. Learn to play Huntik, grab some cards, and think about going to the Nationals. Possibly make a Magic deck for fun, dig out Munchkin to play at the roleplay group since we're only roleplaying alternate weeks, the other weeks need filling.
I also need to get some more WoW Raiding and dailies done, but I can never be bothered.
Friday, 3 July 2009
The Team i'm not yet in Sucks
I''ve mentioned this before, but the "change" in team for my position is already sucking, badly.
I like a bit of a challenge, and to do something a bit complex. So when someone gives me a list of accounts, and tells me to check them against 100 spreadsheets, i'm hardly over joyed. They only want to know which of the 100 spreadsheets these accounts are on (there is 1 each day, so when did these accounts appear and disappear?).
Quite quickly I send a spreadsheet, dates along the top, the accounts down the left. Each cell is either blank or has "Match" in there, you can now see what days each account was on the sheet.
I then get an email the next day (today). Could I give a total for each day, and how many didn't match. So, my new "boss" who aparantly is a fully qualified statisicion (I can't even spell it, and no, I won't check the spelling, why start now?) needs me to add up some columns of "Match"es. Yet again i'm passed the retarded job a 4 year old could manage, either because Suzanne is being lazy, stupid, or just wanting to impress on me she's incharge of me.
Yesterday there was also a meeting. In true fashion for the company, I was told to attend this meeting, without being told what it was about. After sitting there for an hour and a half, I was asked some questions, so time well spent there. After the first hour of the meeting, most of it was resolved (before I was involved, but I was still sat there). At which point, most people left, IT and me stayed, the idea being that Suzanne would come back in in half an hour, after IT was finished and it came to reporting. I however was based in the other building, and it would be a waste going back and forth.
The half an hour was up, Suzanne never came back, and she wasn't even needed, since it was all about some reports I do. I gave them the information they needed. Job Done.
And just now i've got an email from Suzanne, saying she was waiting to be called back in, when she wasn't (They said she should come back at 12), shes asking for the minutes of the meeting (someone was taking minutes? I didn't notice) and
"and agree on who is the best person to provide me with an update on what was decided regarding data and reporting requirements in my absence"
How is that supposed to be anyone but me?
How can a department I've not even moved to yet already be such a ball ache? I was planning at some point in doing an Access course, then looking for a new job, I think it might be time to crank that up a notch.
I like a bit of a challenge, and to do something a bit complex. So when someone gives me a list of accounts, and tells me to check them against 100 spreadsheets, i'm hardly over joyed. They only want to know which of the 100 spreadsheets these accounts are on (there is 1 each day, so when did these accounts appear and disappear?).
Quite quickly I send a spreadsheet, dates along the top, the accounts down the left. Each cell is either blank or has "Match" in there, you can now see what days each account was on the sheet.
I then get an email the next day (today). Could I give a total for each day, and how many didn't match. So, my new "boss" who aparantly is a fully qualified statisicion (I can't even spell it, and no, I won't check the spelling, why start now?) needs me to add up some columns of "Match"es. Yet again i'm passed the retarded job a 4 year old could manage, either because Suzanne is being lazy, stupid, or just wanting to impress on me she's incharge of me.
Yesterday there was also a meeting. In true fashion for the company, I was told to attend this meeting, without being told what it was about. After sitting there for an hour and a half, I was asked some questions, so time well spent there. After the first hour of the meeting, most of it was resolved (before I was involved, but I was still sat there). At which point, most people left, IT and me stayed, the idea being that Suzanne would come back in in half an hour, after IT was finished and it came to reporting. I however was based in the other building, and it would be a waste going back and forth.
The half an hour was up, Suzanne never came back, and she wasn't even needed, since it was all about some reports I do. I gave them the information they needed. Job Done.
And just now i've got an email from Suzanne, saying she was waiting to be called back in, when she wasn't (They said she should come back at 12), shes asking for the minutes of the meeting (someone was taking minutes? I didn't notice) and
"and agree on who is the best person to provide me with an update on what was decided regarding data and reporting requirements in my absence"
How is that supposed to be anyone but me?
How can a department I've not even moved to yet already be such a ball ache? I was planning at some point in doing an Access course, then looking for a new job, I think it might be time to crank that up a notch.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Phones, and Apple
What to explain first? Well, the purpose of the post might help...
My phone contract is running out next month, and what I usually end up doing is when my contract runs out, ditching the phone and getting another. I like new phones, I like having a phone that's better than my current one, a bigger screen, a bigger camera, more space for music.
My current phone is a Nokia N95 8gig. And i'm having trouble figuring out what I'd like a phone to do that this one doesn't. The most obvious answer that springs to my mind is the application things you can get on the iPhone (according to the ads!) some of that stuff looks extremely useful, although I can split a bill into 5 in my head, some of the other stuff just screams as being brilliantly useful.
Last I checked, an iPhone didn't have a great camera though, and I like having a good camera. There is also the slight issue that i'm put off by Apple. It's very little to do with them doing a bad job, and more to do with gaming. I've never owned an Apple computer, but I tend to laugh at people who do, because games get made for PC's, then ported to Macs, it doesn't tend to be the other way round.
Apple has tended to offer better media though, and well before iPods, if you were doing any serious graphical work, you'd want an Apple over a PC. When iPods came out, I was listening to music from my phone, and I was damned if you thought I was going to pay £100 or more to carry around another device.
The Nokia I have now is the 3rd in a row, I had an LG before that, and another Nokia before that, so i'm kind of comfortable with Nokia phones. But it seems to me that the latest offerings from Nokia are lagging behind other people. The iPhone seems to offer much better music and application options, and if they've sorted the camera out on later models, it might be better all round. But the next trouble I have, is that iPhones seem so "Trendy" which has always slightly put me off anything.
I'm also quite confused that the company that offers the best in graphical media brought out a phone with such a poor camera.
I do realise this post is very disjointed, but I'm confused over the issue really. I'm half tempted to get a contract on the most expensive phone I can find, then sell it, and stick to using the N95. 8gig is enough space for me, the Camera is nice, and the leap from 5 megapixils to 8 isn't huge, and I'm in no rush, and i'm not sold that Touch Screen is a good idea, I try and avoid getting natural oils all over my screen, and I like texting while watching something else.
If I want to change the music on it, I tend to carry around my entire music collection on a portable 320gig harddrive, and I have my netbook usually since it's so light.
My phone contract is running out next month, and what I usually end up doing is when my contract runs out, ditching the phone and getting another. I like new phones, I like having a phone that's better than my current one, a bigger screen, a bigger camera, more space for music.
My current phone is a Nokia N95 8gig. And i'm having trouble figuring out what I'd like a phone to do that this one doesn't. The most obvious answer that springs to my mind is the application things you can get on the iPhone (according to the ads!) some of that stuff looks extremely useful, although I can split a bill into 5 in my head, some of the other stuff just screams as being brilliantly useful.
Last I checked, an iPhone didn't have a great camera though, and I like having a good camera. There is also the slight issue that i'm put off by Apple. It's very little to do with them doing a bad job, and more to do with gaming. I've never owned an Apple computer, but I tend to laugh at people who do, because games get made for PC's, then ported to Macs, it doesn't tend to be the other way round.
Apple has tended to offer better media though, and well before iPods, if you were doing any serious graphical work, you'd want an Apple over a PC. When iPods came out, I was listening to music from my phone, and I was damned if you thought I was going to pay £100 or more to carry around another device.
The Nokia I have now is the 3rd in a row, I had an LG before that, and another Nokia before that, so i'm kind of comfortable with Nokia phones. But it seems to me that the latest offerings from Nokia are lagging behind other people. The iPhone seems to offer much better music and application options, and if they've sorted the camera out on later models, it might be better all round. But the next trouble I have, is that iPhones seem so "Trendy" which has always slightly put me off anything.
I'm also quite confused that the company that offers the best in graphical media brought out a phone with such a poor camera.
I do realise this post is very disjointed, but I'm confused over the issue really. I'm half tempted to get a contract on the most expensive phone I can find, then sell it, and stick to using the N95. 8gig is enough space for me, the Camera is nice, and the leap from 5 megapixils to 8 isn't huge, and I'm in no rush, and i'm not sold that Touch Screen is a good idea, I try and avoid getting natural oils all over my screen, and I like texting while watching something else.
If I want to change the music on it, I tend to carry around my entire music collection on a portable 320gig harddrive, and I have my netbook usually since it's so light.
Tanking, falling away from goals...
After my Paladins' first trip to Naxx, I spent around 400g on the Auction House, upgrading his much needed Tanking gear. Every quest reward where there was a choice I took a Healing item, so generally my healing gear is a bit better. While it's true a fair bit of my Tanking gear is still level 70 stuff, i've also got a few more epics from Naxx on my Healer.
Naxx on tuesday I had Tanking as my main role for rolling (although I was still healing) and picked up 3/4 items, pity it wasn't more, and I hated losing on items, but still 3/4 tanking items is a nice number from 1 run, especially since I remember on my hunter doing run after run without getting a single item.
But defense is becoming a problem. After the Auction House trip, my Defense lept from 490 to 530, still 10 from the Cap. Then I got a couple of epics from Naxx, and my defense is getting lower... I'd have a blue with 80 Defense on it, and then an epic drops, with 50 more Stamina, a bunch of Dodge, maybe some block rating, and only 66 Defense. While the item is vastly superior, I need defense.
A possible solution is gemming defense. But none of these tanking epics have sockets on them.
This means it'll be a while before i'm in a raid shouting "Let me tank this boss!" especially since i've seen around 7 peices of T7 drop for me, and not won a single peice, even when i'm rolling on healing gear first, at least then I could complain it's not for the spec I need it for the most.
Tonight it's Ulduar, and I won't be allowed to take my paladin, it'll be Tomas the Hunter all the way, which I don't mind much, since my Paladin would have a fair bit of competition for loot, and the chances are other people there have earned it more, although I will be extremely cheeky and ask, if there are few or no paladin healers, the worst that can happen is Ian says no.
I do need some heroics, but i'm not in a rush until 3.2 when I can get great badges, but I want to be great by 3.2 so I can tank the new stuff... But who knows how long that will be away? I might easly get there, I might have no chance, I should do heroics anyway for rep and more items.
Naxx on tuesday I had Tanking as my main role for rolling (although I was still healing) and picked up 3/4 items, pity it wasn't more, and I hated losing on items, but still 3/4 tanking items is a nice number from 1 run, especially since I remember on my hunter doing run after run without getting a single item.
But defense is becoming a problem. After the Auction House trip, my Defense lept from 490 to 530, still 10 from the Cap. Then I got a couple of epics from Naxx, and my defense is getting lower... I'd have a blue with 80 Defense on it, and then an epic drops, with 50 more Stamina, a bunch of Dodge, maybe some block rating, and only 66 Defense. While the item is vastly superior, I need defense.
A possible solution is gemming defense. But none of these tanking epics have sockets on them.
This means it'll be a while before i'm in a raid shouting "Let me tank this boss!" especially since i've seen around 7 peices of T7 drop for me, and not won a single peice, even when i'm rolling on healing gear first, at least then I could complain it's not for the spec I need it for the most.
Tonight it's Ulduar, and I won't be allowed to take my paladin, it'll be Tomas the Hunter all the way, which I don't mind much, since my Paladin would have a fair bit of competition for loot, and the chances are other people there have earned it more, although I will be extremely cheeky and ask, if there are few or no paladin healers, the worst that can happen is Ian says no.
I do need some heroics, but i'm not in a rush until 3.2 when I can get great badges, but I want to be great by 3.2 so I can tank the new stuff... But who knows how long that will be away? I might easly get there, I might have no chance, I should do heroics anyway for rep and more items.
To Music or not to Music?
So, tomorrow night my girlfriend and some of her friends are going to watch GU Medicine, i've never heard them.
Seeing my girlfriend at the weekend is a carefully weighed process, do I see her Friday night or Saturday night? And involves some of these:
1) If I sleep for 12+ hours on Friday night, I feel great the rest of the weekend, Trying this on Saturday doesn't have the same effect. I can't sleep with Catherine that long, because, well, I don't know why, I just wake up earlier.
2) If I go out on the same night as Catherine, then it avoids the "What do you want to do?" question, since we're out. We've been going out for nearly 5 years and still don't live together mostly due to money (we like spending it too much, rather than not having it).
3) If she's going out on Saturday, Win win for points 1 and 2, otherwise, what to do...
4) Where is she going out? To see a band i've never heard of rates low.
5) Is she wearing something specific? She looks great, if she's going out, I can be swayed to come out as well if she's wearing something really nice.
They're just some examples.
A weekend or two ago she was going out and I didn't want to come, but she was wearing something specific and it swayed me. We watched a band i'm not particularly bothered about, in a pub I hate (and this was only the second time i've been in it). After the band finished, we stayed in the pub until 4am or something.
I personally like Metal, some stuff that you might call Dance, and some Classic Rock. Indie music has always bored, annoyed, whatever me, and I really can't do with it, whether it's something like Oasis, or something more moden like Kaiser Chiefs. And it's Indie that this pub played.
I had a crap night, listening to crap music, in a pub where the prices were high for bad drinks.
So, this weekend, Friday night, Catherine is going to see a band in this same crap pub, do I want to go? Looking at the evidance, no. But, this time Tom is going, and he said if the music was bad we could go somewhere else, will he follow that up? He can be a let down in situations like that, due to changing his mind and wanting to stay with "The Girls", Catherine and her attractive stick thin single best friend, who Tom swears he's over and couldn't care less about.
But having a Sunday free would be nice, not sure what for though. And we could do with going to the Travel Agent on Saturday. And I'm unsure if another Saturday night watching crappy TV will be overly exciting, although it's nice to spend the time with Catherine. Unfortunatly, the question "What do you want to do?" leads to me responding "Play on the Computer?"...
Seeing my girlfriend at the weekend is a carefully weighed process, do I see her Friday night or Saturday night? And involves some of these:
1) If I sleep for 12+ hours on Friday night, I feel great the rest of the weekend, Trying this on Saturday doesn't have the same effect. I can't sleep with Catherine that long, because, well, I don't know why, I just wake up earlier.
2) If I go out on the same night as Catherine, then it avoids the "What do you want to do?" question, since we're out. We've been going out for nearly 5 years and still don't live together mostly due to money (we like spending it too much, rather than not having it).
3) If she's going out on Saturday, Win win for points 1 and 2, otherwise, what to do...
4) Where is she going out? To see a band i've never heard of rates low.
5) Is she wearing something specific? She looks great, if she's going out, I can be swayed to come out as well if she's wearing something really nice.
They're just some examples.
A weekend or two ago she was going out and I didn't want to come, but she was wearing something specific and it swayed me. We watched a band i'm not particularly bothered about, in a pub I hate (and this was only the second time i've been in it). After the band finished, we stayed in the pub until 4am or something.
I personally like Metal, some stuff that you might call Dance, and some Classic Rock. Indie music has always bored, annoyed, whatever me, and I really can't do with it, whether it's something like Oasis, or something more moden like Kaiser Chiefs. And it's Indie that this pub played.
I had a crap night, listening to crap music, in a pub where the prices were high for bad drinks.
So, this weekend, Friday night, Catherine is going to see a band in this same crap pub, do I want to go? Looking at the evidance, no. But, this time Tom is going, and he said if the music was bad we could go somewhere else, will he follow that up? He can be a let down in situations like that, due to changing his mind and wanting to stay with "The Girls", Catherine and her attractive stick thin single best friend, who Tom swears he's over and couldn't care less about.
But having a Sunday free would be nice, not sure what for though. And we could do with going to the Travel Agent on Saturday. And I'm unsure if another Saturday night watching crappy TV will be overly exciting, although it's nice to spend the time with Catherine. Unfortunatly, the question "What do you want to do?" leads to me responding "Play on the Computer?"...
Work, sleep and Magic related Issues.
9th post, and my second "sleeping" tag... probably not good.
Anyway, last night I went into the Local card shop, to play some Magic the Gathering. Now, playing card games has always been one of my favorite things to do, and after having 2 years of not playing any really, I *really* miss it.
One of the main reasons I stopped was the having to spend vast amounts of money to play and have a chance of winning. So the first question asked to me when I mentioned playing Magic involved why that game since it's one of the most money hungry ones. The answer, Sealed Deck and Draft.
So last night was a Draft, £10, get 3 boosters, take a card, pass, etc until all the card are gone, then make your deck with what you've got! Quite a good way to get some playing done, without borrowing a deck I have to figure out, or spending lots of cash.
I went 2-1, which shows I'm still ok, but 1 of the wins was a buy(bye?) so I only won 1 match, each match however is best of three, and the one I lossed I still won a game, so out of 5 matches, I won 3, not a bad record.
The main problem is that I now finish work at 4:15, which ment even with working late at work (10 minutes! I know, not alot) that I got there at 5pm, and because of the first round by, I didn't get my first game till around 9pm, so 4 hours of little to do. Also, By the time everything had finished at half 10, I'd played 5 games in total. With 5 games played, I didn't get home till 11:15, and I had something to eat then totally failed to get much sleep.
Today i've been horribly tired, I grabbed a book this morning (American Gods) just incase a 4 hour lull happens again I've got something to occupy my time. And get told i've got a meeting at 10am, not told what it's about, i'm told who it's with, but i've never heard of them. In the meeting (2 hours worth of sitting around) I'm mostly bored, and get asked some awkward questions which need diagrams to answer...
I'm wondering if the weekend's 2 hour sleep is catching up with me, thursday morning is quite nice for it to have lasted this long. Work on the other hand is a bit of a bitch, Suzanne is starting to replace Dan in the "So, you two have worked on this" in regards to a bunch of jobs i've done alone, and it got a bit awkward in the meeting when the question "Do we need Suzanne in here? Does she have anything to do with these stats?" arised, and I don't have a clue of the answer.
Since Friday, she's bombarded me with reports to do, i'm trying to decide how this fits with my change to working under her.
Anyway, last night I went into the Local card shop, to play some Magic the Gathering. Now, playing card games has always been one of my favorite things to do, and after having 2 years of not playing any really, I *really* miss it.
One of the main reasons I stopped was the having to spend vast amounts of money to play and have a chance of winning. So the first question asked to me when I mentioned playing Magic involved why that game since it's one of the most money hungry ones. The answer, Sealed Deck and Draft.
So last night was a Draft, £10, get 3 boosters, take a card, pass, etc until all the card are gone, then make your deck with what you've got! Quite a good way to get some playing done, without borrowing a deck I have to figure out, or spending lots of cash.
I went 2-1, which shows I'm still ok, but 1 of the wins was a buy(bye?) so I only won 1 match, each match however is best of three, and the one I lossed I still won a game, so out of 5 matches, I won 3, not a bad record.
The main problem is that I now finish work at 4:15, which ment even with working late at work (10 minutes! I know, not alot) that I got there at 5pm, and because of the first round by, I didn't get my first game till around 9pm, so 4 hours of little to do. Also, By the time everything had finished at half 10, I'd played 5 games in total. With 5 games played, I didn't get home till 11:15, and I had something to eat then totally failed to get much sleep.
Today i've been horribly tired, I grabbed a book this morning (American Gods) just incase a 4 hour lull happens again I've got something to occupy my time. And get told i've got a meeting at 10am, not told what it's about, i'm told who it's with, but i've never heard of them. In the meeting (2 hours worth of sitting around) I'm mostly bored, and get asked some awkward questions which need diagrams to answer...
I'm wondering if the weekend's 2 hour sleep is catching up with me, thursday morning is quite nice for it to have lasted this long. Work on the other hand is a bit of a bitch, Suzanne is starting to replace Dan in the "So, you two have worked on this" in regards to a bunch of jobs i've done alone, and it got a bit awkward in the meeting when the question "Do we need Suzanne in here? Does she have anything to do with these stats?" arised, and I don't have a clue of the answer.
Since Friday, she's bombarded me with reports to do, i'm trying to decide how this fits with my change to working under her.
- She's just been loaded with alot of work, I'm needed to help. Result: I'm her lacky
- She's always had this work, but now she doesn't have to do it, I can. Result: I'm her lacky
- I'm trying to think of a result where i'm not a lacky.
Anyway, dispite the huge "Month End Report" disrupting jobs she's giving me, I'll have to see how it pans out. It does seem like with the IT team, anything I get is boring cross referencing, and has no interest to me whats so ever.
That's another reason I want to get back into card games, I feel like it's been ages since I engaged much thought into anything. Maybe I'd just being big headed, but I like a challenge and i'm not getting anything challenging...
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Want to buy food, and some more sleep
So, i've just woken up on the sofa at my mates house. He went to bed at 5am and me 7 am, meaning I got 2 hours sleep max. Leather sofas are always fun when it's really hot....
I'm bloody hungry, I need some food in me, but i'm in the middle of no where and my mate is still asleep. I feel semi fine with 2 hours sleep, but get the impression it'll not be happy when I wake up at 7am tomorrow to get to work. It's kinda silly that to visit a mate in another part of the country that I go saturday, come back on sunday, then can't spend monday catching up on things like sleep, and cold showers every half hour (it's really hot).
Why am I writing this instead of doing something more constructive or fun? Well, like what? I don't feel like playing any of the games on here, that'd be too much effort. I tried logging into facebook chat and MSN, but there didn't seem to be anyone cool to talk to (no doubt they're all in bed). So now I have to spend god knows how long trying to entertain myself with a growling stomache (I had a big burger after the club last night, why am I starving?).
Do this post have a point? No
I'm bloody hungry, I need some food in me, but i'm in the middle of no where and my mate is still asleep. I feel semi fine with 2 hours sleep, but get the impression it'll not be happy when I wake up at 7am tomorrow to get to work. It's kinda silly that to visit a mate in another part of the country that I go saturday, come back on sunday, then can't spend monday catching up on things like sleep, and cold showers every half hour (it's really hot).
Why am I writing this instead of doing something more constructive or fun? Well, like what? I don't feel like playing any of the games on here, that'd be too much effort. I tried logging into facebook chat and MSN, but there didn't seem to be anyone cool to talk to (no doubt they're all in bed). So now I have to spend god knows how long trying to entertain myself with a growling stomache (I had a big burger after the club last night, why am I starving?).
Do this post have a point? No
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Blogging - First Day
So, hopefully that's a nice number of posts on the first day (or night as it were, or morning... its 1:24am).
I often find myself wanting to write about stuff, so you'll see this blog get filled with random stuff, regardless of whether I think anyone else would find it interesting.
Sometimes I just write what I want in Word, then close without saving. Like writing it down gets it out of my head. I wrote a 4 page document today about Magic the Gathering (which I haven't played in at least 6/7 years).
Anyone reading any of this, cheers for your time :)
I often find myself wanting to write about stuff, so you'll see this blog get filled with random stuff, regardless of whether I think anyone else would find it interesting.
Sometimes I just write what I want in Word, then close without saving. Like writing it down gets it out of my head. I wrote a 4 page document today about Magic the Gathering (which I haven't played in at least 6/7 years).
Anyone reading any of this, cheers for your time :)
Work Shifted
I doubt anyone from Work will read this, and if they do they should only be able to guess it's me, so I guess I can rant about anything and get away with it.
I've been with the company I work for, for over 7 years, since I was 19 infact. 1 Year ago there was some reshuffling of departments, and I ended up in the IT department. While I infact do Data Analysis, alot of it could be IT related I suppose, considering my job is less "analysis" and more "make this report and I'll analise it, but i'll not tell you want i'm looking for".
Anyway, I got shifted into the IT Department, and I didn't like it. They took one look at alot of what I did, and told me I had to do all these extra things, mostly just making things a ball ache. Added on that was the great thing that since I was the "New Boy" in IT, despite working at the company longer than half the team, that the boring easy jobs could be palmed onto me. Infact the only time the IT Manager has told me i've done a brilliant job with something, was me putting up some screens in the room to split it up...
Around 2 years ago I went to the Managing Director at the time (who isn't there now) and suggested that so many people were asking for conflicting reports, that there should be a reporting team, all report requests go through the team, making sure all reports are standardised and show the same information. This could also cut down on IT work, since any new reports needed directly from IT would come specifically from this team, rather than anyone. The Managing Director thought it was a brilliant idea, but aparantly another Director was going to do something like that with someone else (the someone else left over 8 months ago now).
Now i'm being shifted again, this time from the IT team to work under the other Analyist in the company (who is more qualifed than me) and i'm wondering how boring and annoying this is going to be. They talk about being involved with things, but I still get the impression that i'm still gonna be just a random guy who makes reports without a clue whats going on.
I've fallen for the "This job sounds brilliant!" thing at work too many times, and while being in a proper Analyist team sounds brilliant, I'm going to remain skeptical until it happens.
I've been with the company I work for, for over 7 years, since I was 19 infact. 1 Year ago there was some reshuffling of departments, and I ended up in the IT department. While I infact do Data Analysis, alot of it could be IT related I suppose, considering my job is less "analysis" and more "make this report and I'll analise it, but i'll not tell you want i'm looking for".
Anyway, I got shifted into the IT Department, and I didn't like it. They took one look at alot of what I did, and told me I had to do all these extra things, mostly just making things a ball ache. Added on that was the great thing that since I was the "New Boy" in IT, despite working at the company longer than half the team, that the boring easy jobs could be palmed onto me. Infact the only time the IT Manager has told me i've done a brilliant job with something, was me putting up some screens in the room to split it up...
Around 2 years ago I went to the Managing Director at the time (who isn't there now) and suggested that so many people were asking for conflicting reports, that there should be a reporting team, all report requests go through the team, making sure all reports are standardised and show the same information. This could also cut down on IT work, since any new reports needed directly from IT would come specifically from this team, rather than anyone. The Managing Director thought it was a brilliant idea, but aparantly another Director was going to do something like that with someone else (the someone else left over 8 months ago now).
Now i'm being shifted again, this time from the IT team to work under the other Analyist in the company (who is more qualifed than me) and i'm wondering how boring and annoying this is going to be. They talk about being involved with things, but I still get the impression that i'm still gonna be just a random guy who makes reports without a clue whats going on.
I've fallen for the "This job sounds brilliant!" thing at work too many times, and while being in a proper Analyist team sounds brilliant, I'm going to remain skeptical until it happens.
In a Galaxy far far away.
I was never really that excited about World of Warcraft coming out. I never really played the Warcraft games, so didn't know the IP, but it sounded amazing from some friends, bought it and loved it.
Bioware are making an MMO Based on Knights of the Old Republic, and me being a huge fan of Knights of the Old Republic (both of them) really can't wait. Even if the game is a bad Warcraft clone I still think i'll love to play it, but I doubt it will with what Bioware are promising, even if they can only deliver 10% of what they promise, it should be great.
So I threw Knights of the Old Republic on my netbook (gogo netbook running older games!) and played that most of the way through. I forgot a couple of vital things.
1) I have low Dex, high Str (gogo lightsabers) and wear medium armour (since the best armour in the game is medium, not because I can't wear heavy). I picked up the Drain Life force power, and the other one after it. Neither works in armour.
2) Other force powers included Choke (level 3, is it Death?).
3) I wanted to play the game Evil, then switch to good at the end, since the entire Light/Dark side thing was useless in respect to the story since there is a very definate "So, what ending do you want?" point. I forgot that this would put me neutral instead of leaving me in the Dark Side.
So, it comes to fighting against Malak at the end. I can't use some of my force powers due to my armour, the main force power I do use, Malak just resists or is immune, which means I've got to rely 100% on my lightsaber skills to win. My Lightsaber misses half the time, and does low damage, he can kill me in 2 hits...
This isn't helped by the fact that my collection of truely brilliant gear has either "Lightside Only" or "Darkside Only" wrote on it, and being neutral means I can't use either.
Thankfully I did take the Disable Droid force power, making the fight 100 times easier than it would be if I hadn't, but I still can't kill Malak.
I promised myself I'd move onto number 2 after finishing the first game, but I get the feeling I might not finish the first without playing all the way through again...
Bioware are making an MMO Based on Knights of the Old Republic, and me being a huge fan of Knights of the Old Republic (both of them) really can't wait. Even if the game is a bad Warcraft clone I still think i'll love to play it, but I doubt it will with what Bioware are promising, even if they can only deliver 10% of what they promise, it should be great.
So I threw Knights of the Old Republic on my netbook (gogo netbook running older games!) and played that most of the way through. I forgot a couple of vital things.
1) I have low Dex, high Str (gogo lightsabers) and wear medium armour (since the best armour in the game is medium, not because I can't wear heavy). I picked up the Drain Life force power, and the other one after it. Neither works in armour.
2) Other force powers included Choke (level 3, is it Death?).
3) I wanted to play the game Evil, then switch to good at the end, since the entire Light/Dark side thing was useless in respect to the story since there is a very definate "So, what ending do you want?" point. I forgot that this would put me neutral instead of leaving me in the Dark Side.
So, it comes to fighting against Malak at the end. I can't use some of my force powers due to my armour, the main force power I do use, Malak just resists or is immune, which means I've got to rely 100% on my lightsaber skills to win. My Lightsaber misses half the time, and does low damage, he can kill me in 2 hits...
This isn't helped by the fact that my collection of truely brilliant gear has either "Lightside Only" or "Darkside Only" wrote on it, and being neutral means I can't use either.
Thankfully I did take the Disable Droid force power, making the fight 100 times easier than it would be if I hadn't, but I still can't kill Malak.
I promised myself I'd move onto number 2 after finishing the first game, but I get the feeling I might not finish the first without playing all the way through again...
Hunter Blog?
So, I set this up as a hunter blog, then realised I wanted to write alot of other stuff, about other games I play, about life in general sometimes. So I deleted all the posts to start again.
I've been away from World of Warcraft for a couple of months, mostly cos I was getting a bit bored with some stuff, and got pissed off about some other stuff. It wasn't really a decision to stop playing Warcraft, I just ended up playing Team Fortress 2 and Knights of the Old Republic instead, or watching some films and TV series (Battlestar Galactica).
But I reactivated my account, and fully intended to play my Paladin more than my Hunter, it was always alot more interesting. But the other night I went to Ulduar (and won 2 pieces of loot, including the Gun) and loved it. Paladin more interesting, Hunter more fun?
Anyway, no doubt when i've got some Hunter theorycrafting or ranting to do, it'll end up on here. And that can happen fairly often.
Basically, if you're interested in Hunter stuff, then follow the hunter label, that's what they're for. Although this being the first post with a hunter label, it won't show much yet... Watch this Space.
I've been away from World of Warcraft for a couple of months, mostly cos I was getting a bit bored with some stuff, and got pissed off about some other stuff. It wasn't really a decision to stop playing Warcraft, I just ended up playing Team Fortress 2 and Knights of the Old Republic instead, or watching some films and TV series (Battlestar Galactica).
But I reactivated my account, and fully intended to play my Paladin more than my Hunter, it was always alot more interesting. But the other night I went to Ulduar (and won 2 pieces of loot, including the Gun) and loved it. Paladin more interesting, Hunter more fun?
Anyway, no doubt when i've got some Hunter theorycrafting or ranting to do, it'll end up on here. And that can happen fairly often.
Basically, if you're interested in Hunter stuff, then follow the hunter label, that's what they're for. Although this being the first post with a hunter label, it won't show much yet... Watch this Space.
Holy/Protection? Not either, but both.
Lets face it, Dual specs was a great idea. Ever since I made my paladin, I wanted the option of switching from Holy to Protection and visa versa. I didn't do much Holy and was mostly Protection, although due to my slow leveling and it being my second character, I didn't see much Raid tanking, and mostly ended up tanking trash and healing on bosses.
Now with Dual specs I can switch from one to the other quite easily. The main trouble is loot. I've only been to 1 Naxx so far (not geared enough for Ulduar) where I picked up 5 healing Epix (although 2 arn't plate) and 2 tanking epix (including a helm with a meta socket... I have no other sockets in tanking gear) but I lost out on alot of tanking stuff cos I was rolling offspec... I'll have to see how it pans out.
I am tempted to just give Holy a secondary role, try and fit it out as best as I can, and stick with tanking. The trouble being, when you're still 20 Defense from the soft cap in mostly quest reward blues people don't want you tanking Naxx, so I need to do more heroics. I'd love to just be able to jump into raiding as Protection, but have to stick as raiding as Holy, not a big deal but I'd love to be able to be a main tank in 3.2
Now with Dual specs I can switch from one to the other quite easily. The main trouble is loot. I've only been to 1 Naxx so far (not geared enough for Ulduar) where I picked up 5 healing Epix (although 2 arn't plate) and 2 tanking epix (including a helm with a meta socket... I have no other sockets in tanking gear) but I lost out on alot of tanking stuff cos I was rolling offspec... I'll have to see how it pans out.
I am tempted to just give Holy a secondary role, try and fit it out as best as I can, and stick with tanking. The trouble being, when you're still 20 Defense from the soft cap in mostly quest reward blues people don't want you tanking Naxx, so I need to do more heroics. I'd love to just be able to jump into raiding as Protection, but have to stick as raiding as Holy, not a big deal but I'd love to be able to be a main tank in 3.2
Engineer Woes
So, i've been playing a fair bit of Team Fortress 2 lately, and usually end up as an engineer. Now, I usually play Arena, so the highest points for each class isn't great. The highest i've got is 34 on a Pyro on a practically empty payload server where I managed to move the cart all the way in 1 life and kill a few people. But second is the engineer, where i've managed 12 points.
While I'd like to play other classes, I just seem better with the Engineer, I can't think of many situations where I can't cause the most pain to the other team with a different class, but that's maybe cos I know what i'm doing with an engineer the most.
Unfortunately there are a few things that make playing an Engineer really difficult, I know I can do something about them (like not playing an engineer on a certain map) but it doesn't stop me getting a bit annoyed.
1) This map doesn't have easy to get ammo boxes. Like Watchtower, to be any use in early game I need to drop a sentry, which means I can't drop a Dispenser at all, nor can I upgrade the sentry. The major worry is that i'm not as useful on this map as on other maps, especially due to the layout of Watchtower making a good sentry location very tricky.
2) It's nice that you're shooting before the match starts, especially when you're a soilder and we don't have a medic. The game starts and I drop a sentry and go to pick up the box of ammo at the start, but you've already picked it up... This also goes for a bit later when I drop a sentry, pick up ammo, drop a Dispenser, then go to pick up more ammo, and some sniper or other has just picked it up, can people really be struggling for ammo in the first 15 seconds of a game?
3) The opposing team is spy heavy. Fair enough I can protect myself and my stuff from a spy once i'm up an running. While it's annoying having a Sap on my sentry and being backstabbed less than a second later, it can be slightly avoided by not standing next to the gun... kinda hard when i'm trying to upgrade it. The real annoyance though, is when my entire team had run off somewhere, and i'm trying to shotgun 2/3 spys all by myself. Why is it that hardly anyone likes the idea of protecting an Engineer for the first part of a match?
4) Someone else changing to Engineer just before we start. I don't mind switching to another class, but on some maps having two engineers can be a waste of time, there's not enough ammo about. And switching just before I can is annoying. This is also extended to when I accept that the map is good with more than one engineer, and the other guy follows me to my obscure location...
5) Being shot by my own sentry. Fair enough I should probably move more, but when it's a level 3 one i'm trying to repair cos someone is shooting at it, then it swings round and kills me... bah.
While I'd like to play other classes, I just seem better with the Engineer, I can't think of many situations where I can't cause the most pain to the other team with a different class, but that's maybe cos I know what i'm doing with an engineer the most.
Unfortunately there are a few things that make playing an Engineer really difficult, I know I can do something about them (like not playing an engineer on a certain map) but it doesn't stop me getting a bit annoyed.
1) This map doesn't have easy to get ammo boxes. Like Watchtower, to be any use in early game I need to drop a sentry, which means I can't drop a Dispenser at all, nor can I upgrade the sentry. The major worry is that i'm not as useful on this map as on other maps, especially due to the layout of Watchtower making a good sentry location very tricky.
2) It's nice that you're shooting before the match starts, especially when you're a soilder and we don't have a medic. The game starts and I drop a sentry and go to pick up the box of ammo at the start, but you've already picked it up... This also goes for a bit later when I drop a sentry, pick up ammo, drop a Dispenser, then go to pick up more ammo, and some sniper or other has just picked it up, can people really be struggling for ammo in the first 15 seconds of a game?
3) The opposing team is spy heavy. Fair enough I can protect myself and my stuff from a spy once i'm up an running. While it's annoying having a Sap on my sentry and being backstabbed less than a second later, it can be slightly avoided by not standing next to the gun... kinda hard when i'm trying to upgrade it. The real annoyance though, is when my entire team had run off somewhere, and i'm trying to shotgun 2/3 spys all by myself. Why is it that hardly anyone likes the idea of protecting an Engineer for the first part of a match?
4) Someone else changing to Engineer just before we start. I don't mind switching to another class, but on some maps having two engineers can be a waste of time, there's not enough ammo about. And switching just before I can is annoying. This is also extended to when I accept that the map is good with more than one engineer, and the other guy follows me to my obscure location...
5) Being shot by my own sentry. Fair enough I should probably move more, but when it's a level 3 one i'm trying to repair cos someone is shooting at it, then it swings round and kills me... bah.
Deleted all posts and starting again!
Ok, I didn't think anyone had noticed my blog that i've not updated in months (and not posted much in the first place!) but someone had added me as a follower, which was exciting.
But I've decided I want a blog that reflects everything I do, rather than just World of Warcraft. Although I still play Warcraft so some of the posts will be related to that.
I deleted all my old messages and am starting again.
But I've decided I want a blog that reflects everything I do, rather than just World of Warcraft. Although I still play Warcraft so some of the posts will be related to that.
I deleted all my old messages and am starting again.
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