Nirach's Blogs

Wow.

It's... Quite shocking.

Watch it.

Not a month goes by that someone, somewhere, asks about the chance of an FFVII remake.

It's infuriating, because no one seems to understand remakes, nor see them for what they are.

Unimaginative shit. A company remaking their old games says to their board, their share holders, us the gamers, that they have lost all new ideas. Whatever follows will be an insult to their former prowess, and ultimately lead to their downfall as a company.

Focusing on the Final Fantasy VII fandom for a moment, perhaps the entire blog, what is causing such desperation for a remake?

Did the fanbases collective wangs (<controversy>Yes, I include the female fans with that. Because there are none.</controversy!> get such a pants tenting hard on at the "This is what FFVII would look like on the PS3" footage that they can't make it go away, no matter how many times they watch Advent Children?

I'd like to say that I didn't get caught up, right at the start, in the hopes that they might be rebuilding the original with a new engine. I grew ever more sceptical as time went on, though, and within a week of seeing the footage I realised that I wouldn't want a remake, even if I have to look at Clouds blocky arms for another 99 hours.

Recently the head of the FFVII project (Yoshinori Kitase) answered more questions as to the chance of a remake. He said a few things that truly unsettled me;

"The animation was a lot more simple and there was no voice acting involved at all."

No, Mr. Kitase, there were not. Size limitations, most likely, being the cause. However, it made for a far better game. Did no one else feel disappointed when the characters grew voices in Advent Children? Did no one else feel that the voice actors were doing what they thought the fans wanted, rather than how the character felt like they should sound?

I'd like to sit here and think that all the FFVII fans liked the game for the well written story, the far too entertaining side quests, and the ultimately mind bending quests to score the ultimate weapons for each character, and of course, all their best limit breaks. I'd like to think that, but I can't. I know there are a huge group of fans that exist purely because of Aerith (Aeris, if you're a picky git, and don't believe in the Japanese version) and what went on around her character. I'd like to think that people didn't spend hours pocket mining over Tifa's enormous boobs, or Yuffies inexplicable flexibility and obsession with Materia (Which, let's be honest, are a piece of string away from being a multi-coloured, glowing, sex toy).

I know the "fans" want to see all these characters in particular remade in glorious high definition, so they can roam around the forest looking for fights pretending to be Cloud.

An example of exactly WHY I don't want to see FFVII remade (Easily one of my favourite JRPGs) can be explained with an existing game.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary.

Remember when Crystal Dynamics said "We're going to re make the first game and do it properly"?

Does anyone remember what the first Tomb Raider was like? The first Lara Croft?

I'll take that as a no. The first Lara Croft, although square edged, was an entirely different creature to the Crystal Dynamics' Lara Croft. To the point where the similarities only really lay with the name of the game, the character names, and the fact that - and lets' face it - her boobs were the size of small cars. In the process of upgrading the graphics engine, re-engineering the puzzles to suit the new engine (and arguably the now rounded Lara chest), they lost what made Lara Croft an actual character, rather than a pair of marketing breasts.

The Monkey Island remake, too, was odd. Yes, it retained a lot of the games original humour, but the script and scenery went through changes, presumably to try and make light of the fact that it was a remake.

You know what they did?

Destroyed the character.

Folks, we like these old games because they're well defined characters. They're the things that should not be changed, could not be changed, and still be what we love them for. Why are we, collectively, clamouring for companies to bend these games over the table and forcibly remove what we loved about them, only to feed us the dripping husks of what used to be good?

Remakes?

Just stop.

You're either "hardcore" or "casual" these days, and frankly, it makes not even a lick of sense.

"Hardcore" is something that is, mostly, associated with porn. Or a Multiplayer setting on CoD4 servers. Now, looking at the word itself, it has multiple definitions - Not all of which relate to explicit media.

For example:

"We have a group of hard-core customers that have stood by us"
"A hard-core group of right-wing senators had hoped to sway their colleagues"

In those contexts it makes sense. It also makes sense to say "$Spot is a hard-core Blizzard fan." He might argue with it, but he's too into Starcraft not to be considered a hardcore Blizzard fan. However, it doesn't make sense to say "$Spot is a hard-core gamer." Not only because we tend to make him work on code, with games dangling from a pole strapped to his shoulders. Yes, it is amusing to see, but no, I'm not uploading a picture. Rather, because the phrase itself makes no damned sense.

However, 'casual' works far better than 'softcore' in the context of gaming.

How did we come to the stage that 'hardcore' was an accepted term for a gamer?

How does one become a 'hardcore' gamer? Yes, you could argue that "They've stuck by games", but that's not exactly anything new for someone within the context of gamers. Gamers tend to stick by games, unless every single game ever released suddenly repels them and makes them physically ill (See the Fox network - I expect most of the male hosts have games consoles, but are not above spewing bile).

There is a distinction, oh yes, but is it really 'hardcore' and 'casual'? No, I don't believe so. If anything, 'heavy' and 'casual'.

"He's a heavy gamer" - To me, that sounds like the fictional 'he' spends a lot of time gaming. Rather than the image of a frothing a the mouth lunatic that "He's a hardcore gamer" conjures.

"He's a casual gamer" - There's nothing wrong with this. It makes sense. It suggests that the person being talked about does, indeed, play games, but doesn't spend as much time playing for whatever reason.

What's even more irritating than that, though, is the application of these terms to particular consoles. If you cut through the fanboy bullshit, you often arrive at the conclusion that popular opinion classes the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as 'hardcore' consoles, while the Wii is branded 'casual'.

Why? The only common reason I can come up with is that the Wii has a large collection of "family friendly" games, as oppose to the latest blood gushing fantasy war simulator that appears on the Ps3 and Xbox 360 with a significant regularity. However, what so many "new" gamers forget - Gamers that didn't exist in the 8-bit era - is that Nintendo were there, at the forefront of gaming. Games have gone through a progression, and Nintendo were there - With others of course - From the start, and they didn't exclusively use mindless romps through the intestines of your enemy to sell their products.

Don't get me wrong, I love the latest blood spurting game, but I've not forgotten my roots, who started me on this hobby of gaming, and I've certainly not lost respect (Although, I must confess, I have lost interest in most of the games available on the Nintendo systems) for what they did for us - The gamers. To brand them as 'casual' (Which, for the most part, seems to be branching into some kind of gaming snobbery - Utterly ridiculous snobbery at that) because the games don't suit your bloodlust is insulting to the company that did so much for your hobby, whether you were there for it or not.

I'm going to sound like a bitter old man when I say this, but what happened to 'free' Betas?

It's becoming more and more common, now, that Beta access is a "bonus" for preordering on Steam (Battlefield Bad Company 2), a "bonus" for buying a game (Halo 3 MP beta with Crackdown, Ubisofts Ghost Recon: Future Soldier with Splinter Cell conviction (Granted, that is only for 'consideration' rather than guaranteed access)).

Granted, the example list is small at the moment, and thankfully betas are tending to remain 'free' on PC. However, it is an undeniable trend that's beginning to set in.

Not so long ago, getting access to a Beta test was a case of applying, giving the people running the test your system spec, and generally being lucky enough to be selected, although Betas tended to be pretty open when I was running around in that area, and there was a pretty strong chance you'd get in if you met the requirements the developer published.

Quite what changed, though, I'll never know. I guess someone realised that they could drive sales with the addition of a beta key for another game, or adding a beta key to the pre-order pack.

I don't begrudge the companies trying to make money, far from it, but it is incredibly cheap to force the people who would happily have genuinely tested (In my time, I very rarely saw people actually testing the game and submitting bug reports, instead they just arsed around treating it as if it were release code, and bitching in the chat/on the forums when something didn't work) to buy something just to test. Beta testers don't do it for no reason, afterall. Some of us wanted to get used to a testing environment so we had some claim to experience for applying to QA roles, some of us were desperate to see the game sooner. I fell into the former, and did my damnedest to get into every beta I could. Quite successfully most of the time, as it was no hard task to do. The keys were freely available, and it was merely a case of "right place right time".

Had I still been doing that now, I'd be pretty pissed that I was having to pay to do volunteer work. I probably wouldn't have bothered. I won't say that would lose them merely my interest, but there are likely a good number of good beta testers that aren't willing to pay to use their time to help a product release at even a fraction of its potential.

Betas should, really, be free. Otherwise, interest in them is going to dwindle in the people who test purely to test, rather than to play the game. The valuable feedback offered by those testers will not be filled by the vapid morons that tend to try and get into beta tests, and the point will eventually disappear. Not only will we lose the easiest way to build up some QA experience, but the games we play will suffer, because they won't have had such a wide range of testing. Different players, after all, think in different ways. ~swordhorder, for example, can (Or so it seems) get stuck on just about any wall in just about any game. The number of times he and I have had to restart because of his glue covered character, well.

Of course, it is an arguable point that the players bitching on forums are reporting bugs in a way, but they are not reporting nearly enough detail (In my experience) to make it a repeatable bug, which as any dev will tell you, is a complete pain to track down.

I realise that a lot of betas are still free to apply for, but the fact that EA is quite obviously trialling the "buy a beta" system with BFBC, Ubisoft are doing the same with Ghost Recon, well. Big companies don't try these things for no good reason, and this concerns me.

As time goes by I'm seeing a lot of people complain about games dumbing down their content.

A prime, recent, example of such an accusation would be the lack of an inventory in Mass Effect 2. Another would be the lack of an inventory system in Bioshock.

Admittedly, not the biggest fan of Bioshock here, but Mass Effect 2 is an entirely different matter.

I think, with this game, we asked for it. The first game brought no end of complaints about the fussy micromanagement of armour suits, weapons, and addons for the armour and weapons. People moaned that they were forever changing parts out for the best combination and the best stats.

Then Mass Effect 2 comes along and pretty much threw all that away. You have a very limited number of weapons, and a very limited number of potential armour pieces. Weapons are not upgraded indvidually, but rather as a class of weapon. Pistols, Shotguns, Assault Rifles, Submachine Guns, Heavy Weapons and of course, Sniper Rifles. Each one has a couple of upgrade chains that're possible, damage, ammo capacity and so on. Armour is much the same, there are numerous upgrades, and numerous paths you can choose to take.

However, that is where the management ends. You upgrade it, it upgrades everything. Everyone has the same weapons, and that's it. There's nothing more - Yet, there's no reason for us to complain. We asked for it, we got what we asked for, and it was done exceptionally well. It removed the slightly more time consuming, slightly more irritating, aspect of Mass Effect.

Some of you say that this is to a games detriment, that we as the player, don't get to decide when and how to use something. But is that really that important?

What would you do with an inventory of upgrades and parts? Change them out and around until you have the best combination for your characters?

Inventories are still an important part of my gaming experience, depending on setting. Take Dragon Age for example. That, for me, would be utterly ruined by the lack of an inventory system. You're a small group of people, in theory, constantly on the move with no massive ship to just stash stuff in. You don't have, theoretically, unlimited space. You have to pick and choose what you're going to carry, and what your squad is going to wear, and of course, what you're going to sell to the local trader. Your space is finite because of your setting.

Arguably the same could be said for Mass Effect 2, and the Normandy. Yes, you'd run out of space eventually, but is it so hard to believe that your ships crew, those NPCs that make such mindless diaglogue and tend to sit around doing a fat lot of sod all, would clean up after you? Your scene is set as the commander of a ship, the commander of a crew. I hardly see Shepard 'pitting in' with the crew to clean and maintain the ship - He/She's too busy saving the galaxy.

Of course, in Dragon Age you're saving the world, but you're walking around with a theoretical backpack, and pockets. You don't have a crew of NPCs, you don't have a ship, you have to look after your own shit, and your parties shit - Because it's on your back.

I don't think the gaming industry is "dumbing down" - For the most part, I think it's streamlining. Removing, where possible, the mindless tasks that could easily and reasonably be automated.

Of course, there are examples to the contrary - Bioshock for one - But I believe these to be, simply, bad examples of streamlining. There is no plausability to the scenario, and its lacking of an inventory, and that is a failing. Dumbing down, no, but failure to streamline effectively? Yes. Removing a chore to allow focus on the gameplay is great, of course it is, but not at the expense of immersion. We asked for this, remember.

So. Started a project in Maya.

Modeling a Camaro.

Progress, by gum, there is some!

I'm sort of back from my time away.

I see none of you burned the place down, which is good.

There is also progress on my hardware vault, so that should be fun!

I trust you all had good weekends/starts to the week?

I'm probably not gonna be on a whole lot for the next couple of days.

I'm off socialising, how terrible of me

Don't do anything I wouldn't!

I was impressed.

Very impressed.

Cameron has, in my book, mostly made god awful films that need forgetting. I'm not what you could even begin to call a fan of his work.

Needless to say, I went to see Avatar with the same low expectations - But I had nothing better to do, and I'm so glad.

It was a fantastic film (Especially in 3D), and I look forward to seeing it again. I was as surprised as anyone, but by the half-way point of the film I actually gave a shit about the characters - Which is typically unheard of for me. Last time that happened was with Hero.

So, since last night, I've been playing with ZBrush and Maya, together.

Good God in whichever celestial body you like.

It's fantastic.

Exporting basic shapes from Maya, sculpting detail and texturing in ZBrush, then reimporting to Maya for a render?

One of the most irritating, long winded processes in the world. But holy shit is the effect wonderful.

Digital-Tutors is a wonderful site, I've been looking through their free stuff (I don't have $400 to spend on a subscription - But if I did.. Ho boy would I), and frankly, they are the best tutorials I've ever used. The directory is clean, it covers a HUGE range of topics for a lot of digital art tools, the presentation is fantastic, the tutorials are all broken down into several sections, and you can easily replay each section. The sound quality is great, and hell yes I would recommend them.

Their full library has to be worth the $400 a year, because frankly, there is so much to learn from them.

Anyway, just a bit of an update on what I've been burning my time up with.

It's funny, really, how it happens.

It's never a subtle change that no one notices. A former PC developer goes from one extreme, to the other.

Crytek, for example. Annoyed that their scenery viewer Crysis didn't sell well, but was pirated to the high heavens have turned to consoles to try and regain their sales. They released a trailer of their engine 'optimised for consoles' and all of a sudden it looked like absolute crap, even though they did finally sort the engine out and make the game slightly interesting with Warhead.

Infinity Ward - A PC developer since, well, forever. Sure, they've done console games, but they've been ports of PC games, rather than the other way around.

Until now, of course.

Not only content with not working dedicated servers into the PC version of their latest work, Modern Warfare 2, they've now decided to gun down the player limit for multiplayer games.

Rather than those hilarious games of CoD4, on Shipment, wondering whether it'll be three seconds before you're killed, or five - Simply because of the number of people emptying their guns in every direction, friend or foe.

No, that was too much to expect - They've gone for the same player limit as the console version of the game - 18. 9vs9. They claim it was a balancing decision, making it easier to balance perks and so on, yet anyone who's spent more than eight seconds playing CoD4 knows that to be utter shit. Sure, some games did seem more one sided than others in CoD4, but that was a rare occurance - The players were switched around so often it made next to no viable impact on the game.

Modern Warfare 2 - A console port for the PC, through and through. A crap game, selling merely on controversy (What with the terrorist scene, and the rather illexplained idea of 'skipping' the scene) and the success of the previous title. Of course, six months after the launch, I expect they'll be crying about piracy, and how badly it's affected their sales - Completely ignoring the fact that they waved the massive middle finger at the PC crowd first.

Fuck you, Infinity Ward. Once again you've been relegated to my "Do not buy from these toss monkeys again" list.

I may not be an EVE whore, but.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q

I laughed my ass off.

There is some swearing.

I'm going to be suffering the probability of offline-fever for the next few days, I'm moving into Uni halls. could be a bit hectic >.>

So! Behave while I'm gone, and don't do anything I wouldn't.

$mook, ѻdxd and I just got back from Bloodstock '09.

Was an absolutely fantastic weekend, we all ache and burn in varying degrees.

Saw some absolutely awesome bands that were totally unexpectedly awesome.

I've uploaded a few snaps I took with my i(diot)phone.

Three Cellos' of Apocalyptica rocking out awesomely.


More Apocalyprica rocking! the drummer did a couple of these crazy Stand-and-pose then drop and carry on drumming as he was sitting back down - I caught him just about to land


Wolf - A band I'd never heard of - Turned out to be absolutely awesome. Really knew how to play to a crowd. Especially this guy. He was playing guitar while drinking beer, chucking beers into the crowd, and running around like a lunatic, while playing damn well.


Sabaton - My favourite act of the weekend. Annoyingly they only had a short set, but they were absolutely brilliant - and couldn't seem to stop grinning like madmen when the crowd went nuts for 'em.



There they are rocking out!

They also did a signing that $mook and I went to - $mook got 'em to sign the Singles they had on offer, as did most people. I figured I'd make my i(diot)Phone worth something to me and they signed that for me - they also told me they're hitting Wolves in their UK dates later this year - $mook, *swordhorder and I will be going. Whether they know, or like, it or not.

I'll upload some of the better pictures when I stop aching and feeling like I ought to be asleep >.>

Just been messing about with the Fall Update preview, the menu's been rearranged in some places, and there's the avatar store.. Sadly no awesome stuff in there yet, but hey.

Update doesn't seem to have changed all that much, some things feel a bit quicker, but that's about it really.

Well, it doesn't suck.

What a surprising turn of events!

So, made the switch to Windows 7 RC1 on my main box.

So far so good, as everywhere else is reporting, really.

My biggest annoyance so far is the lack of multi-monitor support for the taskbar, and the lack of a decent third party option as yet (Ultramon and Display Fusion don't work properly yet). Ahwell.

Saw the new Star Trek on Sunday, too. I thought it was rather good, which was unexpected, but hey. The actors and actresses definitely got into their roles well, especially Spock. I guess that comes with being coached by the Spock, though. Totally worth it.

My twine should get here today, so I can start dying it. As should my net, so. Should have something to do today

It is the 21st century, right?

I'm not mistaken in thinking that, am I?

Currently trying, emphasis on trying, to move my broadband and phoneline from one address to another. This is a simple task for a large company with the infrastructure to do it. Or so you'd think.

I arranged the move of the lines etc on the 11th of April. Shortly after I moved. I arranged that the move would take over the old phone number at the new address.

I was told that'd be fine, and I'd be back online by the 21st.

The 21st came. It came, and it went. With a phone line that had the wrong number and the wrong name. Two very unimportant little details until you realise that BT do not tie broadband accounts to phoneline account numbers, rather the telephone number itself. Quite why, I have no idea. Every phoneline has a different account number, even if they go to the same property and are owned by the same person. It doesn't pay to think about that for too long, otherwise your brain comes out your ears in a rather unpleasant goop.

After three departments I am told that because they failed to take the old number over, they also failed to move the broadband, and decided (without contacting me) they would cancel the broadband contract - Incurring the rather hefty cancellation fees (To the tune of ~£400) - Without so much as trying to contact me.

An hour of shouting and two phone calls to Ofcom later, I no longer have to pay the cancellation charges, but I do have to start a new contract (Yippedy-do-dah), and wait (potentially) until May to get back online.

BT said that my complaint into this customer disservice would take 12 weeks to complete and likely be inconclusive.

I phoned Ofcom again. Their BT section, which is in the BT building, and spoke to the same person as before. After updating her, my complaint will be investigated and I will be contacted by Friday. So.. 12 weeks to two days, because Ofcom stuck their oar in on my behalf.

I love watchdogs.

So. In short;

BT suck, and I may not see you on a regular basis for another two weeks. If I'm not back in two weeks, check the British news.

Edit: I will be up and running again by Friday, if Be do their job. Which they seem to be doing so far, which is a refreshing change.

I've been sans internet for nearly a week.

Should be back online properly sometime later this week.

Moving sucks.

I think I have found a convertor I was looking for a long while back, and it never showed up.

Huzzah for absent minded news browsing, and ending up on Tuaw, and then looking for the Apple 20" displays, since the news story said they didn't exist on the store anymore.

Now, let's hope that it does what it says on the tin..

Update: Excellent! It plays ball!

Killzone 2!!

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.

"Fully Compliant to IEEE 802.3 (10BASE-T), 802.3u (100BASE-TX)"

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch?

The wall.

3. What is the last thing you watched on tv?

The Simpsons

4. Without looking, guess what time it is:

130

5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?

12:47

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

Violent Femmes
Someone opening their mailbox.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

Yesterday - Bought some beer, celery and ice cream.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?

NR Chat and a time lapse video.

9. What are you wearing?

MOD pattern trousers, Hearsewear T-shirt, Beanie.

10. Did you dream last night?

If I did, I don't remember.

11. When did you last laugh?

When I read "How to get out of shopping"

12. What are on the walls of the room you are in?

Beige paint.

13. Seen anything weird lately?

XM8 - It performed better than any other gun in the same test, but is still not approved for military use?

14. What do you think of this quiz?

It's something to do, that shifts the blog around.

15. What is the last film you saw?

Cruel Intentions

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?

A 2009 model Ford Mustang, and the materials (and tools) to make a replica of the Death Race Mustang.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know.

I don't wear clothes in bed.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

I'd make the Middle Easts weather patterns mirror those of the United Kingdom.

19. Do you like to dance?

No.

20. George Bush...

Was a funny, funny man. Shame he cocked everything up.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her

Evelyn. I'd assume I was married, so whatever the family name was.

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

Barry. See above.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?

Define abroad. I'd like to be an American citizen, living in the US. Would that be considered abroad?

24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?

"Here's the infinite keg, and a tankard. Over there is the internet, electricity, and all the video games and consoles ever made. If you'll excuse me, I have to go smoke one with JC. Oh, and there's a credit card with no limits, no need to have it paid off, and there's your computer. Ta ta."

It's time for a new project.

I felt like a blog.

I've not done a blog for a few days.. or weeks.

I blame Lich King for this. Damned game.

I also blame ɤswordhorder and Game: Saints Row 2.

And ɤDavidus and the gym.

Not to mention chat, or my team.

Speaking of my team.

Haly is getting older, tomorrow in my world, but it could well already be happening in your world. I think you should go and remind her :B

I take that back. You will go and remind her. Take a shield, incase she tries to hit you with a hammer for doing so.

I'm kidding. She won't do that.

Probably won't do that.

..It's her brithday, I wasn't just trying to remind her that she's getting older >.>

I was cruising, yes cruising, the BBC news site earlier, and came across this story.

tl;dr: RAF guides blinded man in for safe landing. RAF is Awesome. With a capital A.

ӝmook and I moved house over the weekend just gone, and are going insane with the lack of internet.

It's only been two days and it already feels like I've gone months without the net

Hopefully we'll be back online before long. If it isn't, though, I'm going to be skinning some BT engineers

So.

I've started another one. I'm going black and white this time. Pair of humbuckers, DiMarzio's again, (D Activator-X in the neck and an X2N in the bridge) Still working on how I'm going to wire them, the last one was a lot softer, I fancy something with a bit more 'bang' (Hence the X2N (One of the guys in Stone Sour uses an X2N), with the option for some more subtle sounds, D Activator-X (Well, by comparison)). Colour wise, I'm thinking (As the pickups are either going to be white or black) a gradiant of the matching colour out from the pickups out to the other colour. Hopefully the order will have been made correctly and I'll get the white, I really do not want to try and find white tuning machine heads, and I really don't want to get some powder coated. It'd also be a hell of a lot easier to paint the neck black and not have it look shit, thanks do the dark fret board. I'm also told that lighter woods make shit fretboards in terms of changing frets and so on.

Anyway, for a bit of flare I'm using clear acrylic for the pickup frames (Think Gibson Les Paul) and pick guard, lit from the top down (Or, looking at it on a stand, from left to right) with ultra bright white LED's. If I get the chance, I want to do something with the LED's so they react to the output, but I'll have to investigate that. I'm also contemplating laying something in the neck so the pearl inlays can be replaced with some opaque acrylic and lit from behind with either white or UV. I hear it's absolutely nightmarish to do without some insanely good cable-fu. Sounds fun.

The strings will be using a Les Paul styled mount system, because going through the body can suck my ass. Real PITA to fit them that way, and looks really weak.

I bet most of you are wondering whether I'm talking about a real guitar or a Guitar Hero mod :B

I bought a Gigabyte MA790FX DQ6, (Quad CrossfireX) and a Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition.

Been down for the count this evening, since I was out for about three hours working and on the phone for another two. Stupid phone.

Also stuck some more drives in, a pair of 500gb's. Thinking I might use the 250 for pratting about with Penguin.

Okay, so some of you might have noticed that I've been away for eight days.

It was only supposed to be seven, but hey. Go Spanish public transport (HAhahahahah)! Having spent nearly 36 hours traveling, now, I'm a little tired.

Anyway. Benicassim is a technological blackspot. Seriously. It's amazing they even have ATM's, the lack of anything else computer like is insane. There was internet in the Oxfam tent at the festival, but I was usually blotto by the time I got to those, so that'd have been useless.

Anyway. I have a little backlog of email (~2000) and most importantly, a fair few messages and things to reply to on here, so sorry if it's a bit slow (If you even noticed :B).

Anyway. I have a sun burn, a cigarette burn, a t-shirt tan and a bunch of dirty clothes.

So.

I was talking to my uncle today, he built his new rig. Absently looking over the drives he was cleaning up to stick in the new box, I noticed on the Seagates and Maxtors that were rated for 3gb/s and 1.5gb/s there was a jumper. If the jumper was on, then it was restricted to 1.5gb/s, without the jumper it worked at its full 3gb/s capacity.

If you're a performance whore and use 3gb/s rated drives, you might want to check for that.

The jumper was light grey, half height, near the SATA/Power interface on the back of the drive.

Of course, it's mostly academic, since drives bottleneck at pulling the data off the disk, but hey. Why introduce another potential bottleneck if your board/sata controller can do 3gb/s?

Weeeee.

I should have two of these badboys turning up in a week or so's time. I happy pantsed everywhere.

I also found out that EK are making some water blocks, hopefully for release in the next two weeks.

I happy pantsed twice.

Yay new graphics cards

Louis Ramey.

Go check him out.

Right now.

NOW!

Thanks ɤswordhorder

Some of you may know I have a tendancy to be a little off the rails when it comes to computers. I'll do anything to anything.

Has anyone seen a CrossfireX C2D motherboard that is DDR2?

Most of you who know what I'm asking are probably thinking "Yeah, you already have one you muppet"

However. I want four cards. I cannot find a C2D board that does that. My only choice seems to be an Asus M3A32-MVP Delux. Which is an AM2+ board. Which is Phenom. Phenoms are awful. I would really rather not go there, and I'm sure at least some of you understand my hesitance with that. Even the 9850 isn't particularly competetive.

http://seorant.ath.cx/police/ladybird.html

Read.

Read it now.

So. My beastly new case should be here in the next week or so :B

I am excited, sadly excited >.>

Got some more stuff for the W/C, too. Felt that needed a change, so I'm going with an XSPC res (The aluminium ones, that have the 'passive cooling' fins on them). Mainly for poops and giggles.

Also, somewhere in the mayhem, is going to be some of the Feser One coolant, the black stuff (Glows blue in UV light, but since I won't have any UV light in there..) to contrast with the red of the case. Should be fun.

Edit:

THE CASE ARRIVES TOMORROW. HAPPY GLEE FACE.

I'm playing it right now, and I can feel my muscles relaxing, everything is.

This is one of the best games I've ever played - It's relaxing.

Okay.

It's half three. There is nothing going on.

I've read all the news sites. All the regular forums.

I'm still waiting on my ATi case.

It's funny, you know, the less that goes on, the longer things seem to take.

Okay. So, it may well have been talked about for a few days by some of you, but the rest of you.

Have you seen this ACTA proposal? the full title being;

Proposed US ACTA multi-lateral intellectual property trade agreement

Basically, the entire point of this.. Thing is to kill piracy. Specifically sites like The Pirate Bay, where they don't do anything but provide the means to download copyrighted material, and search for it. Much like Google does with websites, but much more specific to piracy.

However, while most of the bill is pretty.. Normal for the government, there is one line that caught my attention, and caused alarm. Bear in mind, please, that this is under discussion by some first world countries so far the known ones being the US, Japan, Switzerland, and the European Commission (IE: The EU, give or take a few things).

"as well as measures restricting the use of online privacy tools."

That statement is so vague that it could well be taken as any attempt to use privacy enabling tools would be illegal. As in. Good by privacy in the world of computers.

While I agree with the need to can piracy, invasion of privacy is just downright ridiculous. There is no need for it.

Full proposed bill can be found; here.

Opinions?

So, I was in town doing some other less important stuff, and decided that I wanted CoD4 (I blame ɤLume for that).

So far, I much prefer it to the Ps3 version I played.

I think it's something to do with having a proper mouse, rather than analogue sticks..

Anyway, come back in about a month, I might have had enough by then.

Might.

So..

I got bored over the weekend, and decided that a new case would be the best way to resolve it. I got on the email train to my favored supplier, and placed an order.

Okay, so piracy is a big thing. You can’t deny it, and if you do, you probably need to get your head checked. Of course, the figures from developers and publishers are going to be rounded up, of course they are, exaggeration to prove a point. It is their product after all.

Over the years, piracy has become far more common. It’s become a hell of a lot easier. Knowing where to look provides people with a scary amount of information, places to find things illegally, the works. I can, within an hour or two, find the latest Holywood block buster and have it downloaded, of course, it will be sucky quality, but in a few weeks I can find a DVD rip of the same movie, and I still won’t have paid for it.

There are going to forever be companies working to try and be one step ahead of the pirates. They’re forever going to fail, too. Due to the platform on which games are released, they simply cannot keep up. I remember a program that would tell you what version of which ever given companies protection system is on the disc you asked it to scan. It was updated frequently, and was hosted using Rapidshare for the most part. For a pirate, it was an excellent program, it did all the leg work for you, all you had to do then was circumvent the security, and you’re done.

What does this mean for us, the legitimate consumer? Well, for a start, these security companies are going to get even more invasive with their systems, see the PC release of Mass Effect for the current wave of internet hate, and they’re going to take a harder line with potentially stolen keys. As a legitimate consumer, the chances of this being a problem for you are, well, next to nil. There are, of course, going to be teething problems with any system like this, because there is simply no way to replicate x million people trying to authenticate at once in a testing environment, see the Half Life 2/Steam problems at launch.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of users saying “Well, if the game wasn’t crap, then it’d be okay”, or the ever popular, “If it wasn’t so expensive”. The former argument may well be true, but the latter. It’s the weakest argument I’ve ever heard. Cost is, though, an important factor. Buying directly from the developer is not always an option. However, take Introversion Software as an example. They’re indy, and Chris Morris has said numerous times, that they will remain indy. You can buy their games directly from them, no middle-men. They’re cheap, for the fun you get out of them, an example would be Defcon: Everybody Dies. I bought the boxed edition on launch, and was given a digital copy of the key, and a download link for the digital copy, as distribution of the boxed copy was taking longer than expected. I paid £15 for the game, and going by the number of hours I played it for, that boils down to me paying them something horribly low like 0.5 pence an hour. That’s pretty low, and they would need somewhere in the region of 1,000 people to buy the game before they even came close to minimum wage in this country, the country they work in. However, they’re indy, and very different to the companies who are not indy.

Let’s take Bioware, for example. They are selling a downloadable special edition of Jade Empire for $40, that means I might get some .jpg files and maybe some .mp3 files, but it’s not going to be much. Amazon are selling the boxed special edition for $15, which means I might get some bits of paper and plastic for my troubles, rather than the .jpg and .mp3 files. However, it’s half price (Assuming there are shipping charges in the region of $5), and I don’t have to worry about how to reinstall it if a hard drive dies. I just pop the disc in. So, when bought from the right place, the price should be a damned non-issue, and should not be a motivating factor behind piracy.

Regardless, there simply is no way to stop piracy. It simply cannot be done. The pirates, and I mean the determined pirates, will forever share things illegally. However, casual piracy is where the biggest problems lie. I have a friend, who given the opportunity, would rather get for free what would normally be a paid for item. However, he quickly gives up if he can’t find it fast enough. When people like this make it into the private torrent trackers, though, all hell breaks loose, until the tracker is shut down.

Of course, when you talk piracy, you have to talk about the RIAA, the MPAA, and whatever other people there are doing the same job. Their bulldog tactics earn them a bad name, sure, but they don’t have a choice. If someone thinks it’s okay to steal, they’re not going to stop because some group is telling them to, just like any crime, and it certainly wouldn’t have any effect if they were effectively Government endorsed cyber police. Criminals don’t stop being criminals because they’re asked to stop, they just don’t.

There is no ideal solution to the problem, except for everyone to discourage piracy. Which is unlikely, as apparently, piracy has become morally okay.

You want someone to blame for all these new irritating DRM measures?

Blame the pirates, it’s their damned fault.

Okay, I just reactivated my Eve account. I don't feel to dirty, but I am still horribly confused. I also think I cocked up when I made the character, I want to go the route of combat pilot (Bounty hunter plzk) and think I made a bit of a boo-boo, from what I'm reading anyway..

Also, Why the chuff must the download be so big?

Okay, there's a poll up on my page for Xbox 360 multiplayer games, the four most common ones I see on my friends list. Tell me what you play, online, the most. Oh, and CoD4, because apparently some people play that too :B

Don't worry, Ps3 owners, I'll be putting one up for you too in a few days.

Tell me and I won't eat that cute little duckling that waddles around your garden.

Okay. This article really does, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head.

Bit-Tech

Read it, and tell me what you think.

Developers, don’t you love ‘em?

I got thinking the other day about them, and the strange lack of good content these days. There are, admittedly, a few good ones still out there. No, I’m not talking about Rockstar. In fact, Rockstar are just as guilty of repetitive content as the rest of the larger developers.

First off, I best explain what I’m rambling about. It’s got to the point where these companies are motivated solely by sales. I know, I know, there are going to be these motivations in every company. However, it’s killing originality. Releasing the same game year after year is getting horribly frequent, and it’s starting to kill my previously invulnerable love of gaming.

I’m looking back over the last few years, trying to think of a new game that I’ve played that hasn’t been a re-hash of something else, be that a movie or another game, even a book. I’m struggling here, so please, help me out with that one. And please, no current generation titles, because they’re the worst for this.

Of course, when you have companies like EA ruling the roost in terms of being one of the biggest companies around, if not the biggest. It’s going to be hard to get original content out of them, because of their apparent ability to crush the creative soul of a project. Something I hope Riccitello can change, given his public opinions of the current state of EAs development teams.

In contrast to EA, with a monstrous employee base, you have companies such as Introversion Software. They're small, but their games are by far the best I've played for years. davidus and viscupelo have both, in their time, told me that Uplink is a fantastic game. First time I heard that I thought "Yeah.. Right" and moved on. In fact, I thought that until the later parts of 2006, when I got my hands on Defcon: Everybody Dies. I played that game for hours, literally hours, a time with age and a few other people from dA, and of course, solo. I've never had so much fun with a game. It was fantastic. Then, early on in 2007, I grabbed a copy of Uplink. It, too, stole hours of my days and nights. I tried Darwinia, too, but it wasn't for me. It's not bad, but it's not my cup of tea.

So, a small developer with three games released, have managed to capture the idea of fun, and kept it alive for the three games they've released so far, which have all been drastically different in terms of play style. Then you have the large, face less, companies throwing out game after game, with different titles, different graphics engines, but the same basic plot, the same characters with different names, and scarily similar areas of play.

The most entertaining games I've played recently are Burnout: Paradise, and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. They're both retreads of other games. Burnout is guilty of trying to blend free-roaming city-scape with a kid-friendly rating. RS:v2 is guilty of being the same as RS:V, which is weakly (And I mean very weakly) explained away by the idea that it's in the same time frame as the first Vegas game. I'm pretty sure most of the story has been copy-pasted onto a new disc, with some more customisation features, some different T-Hunt maps, and some changes to the guns. Basic changes, might I add.

The most original game, in my opinion, of 2007 was Assassins Creed. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that it's going to be continued with its originality into AC2, and not because it's a sequel. I hope it will, but you never can tell with these games.

With the upcoming release of GTA IV (What is it now, eight days?), I'm sure at least one of you will tout this games originality, or superiority to everything else. Honestly, though, I know it's going to be the same as all the other GTA games in the series, slightly better looking, but all in all, it'll be the same. Don't tell me the story is great, because there is no story in GTA games. You always play a violent man involved with the 'wrong' people, drugs, and numerous other methods of breaking the law. Okay, so this time you're Eastern European rather than either a mute white guy, or a black guy, but that's hardly fantastic story, is it.

</rambling>

So.

Couple of things cropped up over the last few days (In my world anyway).

Ben Heck has been at it again, with another feat of madness. Readers of Engadget probably have seen this, but the rest of you with better things to do (Say, anything), probably won't yet.

Bloody hell, Ben. The guy is good, really good.

The other thing has actually happened a while ago. CoD4 players have probably noticed a N0M4D control set has appeared in an update, and probably thought very little of it.

However. This guy is the source of it. He is one of the most hardcore gamers I've EVER heard about. Read this for a little more info. I honestly haven't got anything else to say.

Except that he could probably kick all our asses.

Edit: I forgot the junk >.>

iPod touches are fun :B Sadly, mine did not come with a bee canon. Working on that, though. Also, I hate slow shipping. Where's my gosh-darn bending brake?!

I don't know how many of you have seen this, but it's really quite odd.

The guy who brought in such classics as The Shining and Cujo, has apparently bought himself some common sense.

He did an article about video game violence, now I know what you're thinking "Oh great, another person adding to the hate-pile", but damn it all if he hasn't come out with something that makes sense.

Here's the article in full.

"It was too easy for critics to claim — falsely, it turned out — that Cho Seung-Hui (the Virginia Tech killer) was a fan of Counter-Strike; I just wish to God that legislators were as eager to point out that this nutball had no problem obtaining a 9mm semiautomatic handgun."

Go Stephen King!

[213:38] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: TAKE OUT THE GODDAMNED TRASH TERRY. D:<
[2143] Terry says: TAKE IT OUT YOURSELF
[2149] Terry says: AND GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN
[214:39] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: ALL I EVER DO IS COOK COOK COOK
[215:23] Terry says: IF YOU STILL HAD A SEX DRIVE, MAYBE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TIME TO COOK
[216:41] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: YOU ALWAYS PASS OUT DRUNK BEFORE ANYTHING HAPPENS
[216:49] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: I'M TIRED OF FINDING YOU ON THE BATHROOM FLOOR
[216:50] Terry says: BECAUSE YOU INSIST ON FOREPLAY
[216:58] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: I HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING
[2172] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: GOD KNOWS YOU WON'T TAKE VIAGRA
[2176] Terry says: GET AJOB THEN
[217:24] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: FEEDING YOUR GIGANTOR ARSE IS A FULL TIME JOB
[217:32] Terry says: I DO TECH SUPPORT
[217:38] Terry says: IT'S HARD WORK
[217:44] Terry says: BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME
[217:57] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: YOU SIT ON YOUR ARSE AND GIVE SARCASTIC/CAUSTIC REMARKS TO MORONS ALL DAY
[218:14] Terry says: IT PAYS THE MORTAGE DOESN'T IT?!
[218:46] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: I HAVE TO SELL CAKES TO HELP WITH THAT BECAUSE YOU BLOW IT ALL ON STRONGBOW
[219:10] Terry says: THAT'S A LIE
[219:15] Terry says: I DON'T BLOW ANYTHING
[219:18] Terry says: MUCH LIKE YOU
[21:103] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: IT'S HARD TO BLOW WHAT I CAN'T FIND
[21:10:16] Terry says: TRY LOOKING
[21:10:21] Terry says: I'M NOT THAT FAT
[21:10:49] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: TRY WAXING SO I DON'T HAVE TO BUY A MAGNIFYING GLASS, WOOKIEBOY
[21:11:15] Terry says: I'M NOT THAT HAIRY, YOU SLANDEROUS WOMAN
[21:11:25] Terry says: I JUST HAVE A REALLY GOOD BEARD
[21:11:58] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: IT SCARES THE NEIGHBORS
[21:12:30] Terry says: THE NEIGHBOURS WERE IN VIETNAM
[21:12:44] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: YOU MADE THE OLD MAN CRY
[21:146] Terry says: IT'S NOT MY FAULT HE'S A PANSY THAT ABANONED HIS PLATOON
[21:14:57] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: THROWING PAPIER MACHE GRENADES AT HIM WAS JUST CRUEL
[21:154] Terry says: IT WAS FUNNY
[21:15:14] Terry says: IF YOU WERE THE SAME WOMAN I MARRIED YOU'D UNDERSTAND THAT
[21:15:33] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: FUNNY IS DUCT TAPE ON THE CAT'S PAWS.
[21:15:54] Terry says: SO ARE PAPIER MACHE GRENADES
[21:169] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: YOU DIDN'T PAINT THEM PROPERLY
[21:16:16] Terry says: OH GOD
[21:16:22] Terry says: WAS OLIVE DRAB NOT GOOD ENOUGH?
[21:16:46] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: YOU FORGOT THE REALISTIC DETAILS
[21:16:55] Terry says: HE'S BLIND
[21:17:29] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: HIS WIFE ISN'T. IT'S ONLY HILARIOUS IF THEY BOTH PISS THEMSELVES.
[21:17:35] Terry says: HE DID
[21:17:38] Terry says: SO DID SHE
[21:17:44] [SBFS]Sangue[CA] says: LIES
[21:17:50] Terry says: JUST BECAUSE HE WETS HIMSELF ALL THE TIME
[21:17:59] Terry says: DOESN'T DIMINISH THE WIN

You know.

When I first played Motorstorm, I praised it for its fantastic looks, and its insane replayability.

What I forgot to notice was the music. I enjoyed it, yes, but I didn't think about it beyond that.

However. Certain tracks in that game made me really, and I mean really, happy.

Lunatic Calm - Leave You Far Behind. I swear, that track is the best thing I've listened to in.. Well, a long, long time. It's even better on racing games, and don't ask me to explain this, but I feel that I drive a shitload better listening to music like it.

Any music that has that effect with you guys and gals?

Well, misleading titles aside.

I really want a new iPod. I want some pointless gimmicks (Touch screen, making it a light saber, shoots bee's etcetc). However. Which version does one buy?

Is there one that shoots bees?

I always thought they were nerdy toys for the overpaid, see Steve Wozniak, and never thought about them from then on.

However, some crazy nerds have gone and made one that I want. It's, apparently, called the Centaur. I'm not sure why, but hey. Who's to argue with insane nerds.

This looks like WAY too much fun.

Seriously. I'd take that to work.

First things first. Go read that, if you haven't already. Bonus points if you get a camera and his address to Dawn.

Now, for the crazy. What the fuck. That's the craziest use of automation I've ever seen.

Back to the cruel.

What the fuck is wrong with people? Seriously What the fuck?!

I was perusing the NR forums, as you do, and was reminded of the friend code system in use on the Wii, and apparently, the DS.

Now. It all seems to be set up to help privacy, which initially sounds like a good idea.

However. I started looking into the system, and if I'm reading this right, you get a different friend code for every game you play. So, if you play a lot of online games, and that is your sole motivation for playing games, you have to add people several times over, for each individual game?

What the fuck?! You need a different 12 digit code for EVERY game? I'm all for privacy, the world needs a fair bit more of it, but this takes the biscuit of stupid, and eats the whole thing all to itself. Admittedly, a lot of younger users have a Wii, and probably play online. Well, it is a dangerous world out there, especially for kids. But this is just taking it too far.

The friend system on the other consoles doesn't exactly make it easy for someone to add you, what with the whole friend REQUEST thing, meaning it has to be mutual. If someone is that desperate to add someone, they will find a way around the system, so making it even more frustrating to add people is just a great way of pissing grumpy old bastards (like me) off.

I'm sure it doesn't do much for a fair number of normal people, either.

In short. Nintendo have taken privacy protection too far, and created a profoundly stupid system.


I am so bored

Julian Beever.

If you're not familier with him; here, click this and be cool

If you are familier with his work.

DAMN, is he good or what?

I'm sure some of you have seen that.

I want it.

Someone get it me now.

PUNISH AND ENSLAVE!

Edit:

You know, I know the Japanese music scene gets a lot of stick, and well, a fair bit of it is undeserved. However. There is also a scary part that's well deserved of said stick. That is one of those things. Goddamn. Who paid for that?

Man, not a day goes by that I don't get a good laugh based on the antics of the rest of the world. This is one of the most entertaining things I've seen for a while, and by far, the most idiotic thing I've seen this year. Go team!

This however, was pretty cool. Apparently, and I'm quoting here "The original Pac-man arcade game, implemented inside a single Xilinx Spartan-3E chip on a Spartan-3E Starter Kit. None of the extra hardware on the board is used, the chip in the middle implements the complete arcade board of the original game!"

Aaand this level of nerdery deserves some kind of medal or something.

Sources in order of apperance: Hawk of Applegeeks, Hacked Gadgets, Hackaday.

You know.

The last few days. I swear someone has taken my brain out, turned it over, and hit it with a bug zapper, and put it back in badly. I am so confused, honestly, it really does make me wonder what the hell I've done different.

How've your last few days been?

So. I know at least some of you are Fallout fanatics. There has to be at leas a small handful.

Those of you that aren't, you've either never played the games, or are broken. See a shrink, or buy a copy of the games. The first two anyway. Tactics was terrible.

Anyway. If you're interested, the whole article can be found here

As you can see, Emil Pagliarulo is attached as the lead designer. If you're not familier with the name, you might be familier with his work. He did the Life of The Party level in Thief II, and did the miscellaneous quests in Bloodmoon, a Morrowind expansion. He also worked on Oblivion, specifically the Dark Brotherhood quests/missions (However you want to refer to them) and the Arena.

There's been so much speculation, already, about Fallout 3. I've not kept up to date with the latest rumour-mill works of art, because frankly, it's likely to ruin the game (Either by being right or being so off the mark that the game becomes the shitpile it shouldn't). I am interested by the 'thirty-thousand lines of dialogue' part. I'm wondering how rounded that figure is, and how many will be with the same characters, or how many versions of the same line come from unimportant NPC's. It's going to be interesting - Fortunately slated for a Fall 2008 release, so it's not far (At the rate my days are slipping by) off now.

There is no point to this other than my rambling about Fallout 3, incase you were wondering.

Man, I'v really done eff all today (Except paint the plexiglass on my PC. That took all of half an hour :/) except watch movies and browse the web, where I saw one of the must fun looking OS addons I've ever seen.

Some of you may know it - It's called Beryl and it's a.. I hate to say skin, more, complete modification. It looks fan-fucking-tastic. Here, though. See for yourself. I enjoyed the video for two reasons, one, it's a sweet looking OS interface. Two, it has Metal Gear Solid 2 music :B

It's available on a few of the distros that're any good (Knoppix, Open Suse, Ubuntu) and installed as default interface on Sabayon (Which is annoyingly a buy-it thing, although, only seven euros).

Yeah, that was all I had to say >.>

Oh, and, since some of you are not linux geeks, you should try Project Looking glass :B It's a Sun Microsystems project that's been going for a few years. I've not used it for at least a year and a half, though, due to a number of OS changes >.>

It's pretty, and kinda fun too. Can be a pain in the ass to get working, but hey. It's fun when you get it there :B

So, I've been pratting around with the stuff installed on my rig, and I've come to the conclusion that I really fucking hate these obnoxious programs that decide to add themselves to the startup HKEY's to make it easier for you, and then when you tell it to stop doing so via the program, it just leaves itself in the startup group, even though it tells you that it hasn't.

Chief offenders so far seem to be Skype, MSN, Steam, xFire, and Blackhawk (My soundcards GUI that doesn't need to be loaded for the damned thing to work). Oh, and ATi's CCC. Like hell does that need to load on startup :/

I'm really irritable today

So, some stuff I've had on order should be arriving soon. The 3870 full cover blocks should be here today or tomorrow, which is going to be fun. They're coming with some more Feser one (Muts nuts of W/C fluid), and are going to be bastards to install, but hey. Wouldn't have it any other way :B

Also, my Sennheiers R130's should be here, which is going to be interesting. They're for the 360, because I can't be arsed with surround sound anymore, but being on my head, the 360 headset needs to be mashed in there, which is going to make it interesting.

The WiiM4 is on hiatus for now, due to a small combination of things. I can't get some parts I need/want, and I'm having real trouble focusing on it, and thus, can't do as good a job as I should, so it's being sidelined for a little while. It's still in the works, and should be finished by the end of next month, but right now, I can't work on it without getting frustrated at crappy soldering - So it's going to wait until I've calmed down a bit with the soldering iron :B

As some of you may have noticed, I've been playing Burnout a lot recently (I'm gonna have to take you down, jake, you damaged my Gamestop car!), I've got two of those last twelve smashes left, and 83 wins until I get my Elite license. I'm still peeved that I can't find those last two smashes! Eugh. Ahwell, its taken a back seat again, I'm stalking the Hitman world for now. Gotta get those five silent assassins on Pro. That achievement looks tastey. Just like 'Russian Hare' rating.. Which was actually the easiest mission I've ever done.. Possibly because it followed Flatline, which is an absolute bugger, but I finally got it :B

Ramble ramble ramble, I wonder how many of you I just bored to death :B

Never, ever, copy ~400gb of shit twice. Ever.

Very stupid thing to do, honestly.

That is all the advice I have. Now, I have to go to 'work' and find the last 12 smashes on Burnout Paradise.

This, and this alone, is the BEST demonstration of why I love airsoft. There could be no better demonstration than this, at all.

http://www.ta-events.co.uk/phoenixrising/

TA events are by far the best. They're organised by the best, they're played by the best, and they have the best sportsmanship known to man.

There is no immediate team difference, except the camo. Team killing is entirely a possability, because there is no 'yellow' or 'red' team.

These events are the pinicale of airsoft MilSim, and are by far the best damned thing I have ever played, and likely ever will play.

There's goddamn knife kills! KNIFE KILLS!

Those of you who've questioned my love of airsoft, there are two at least, this is the exact answer.

Okay, so today that wiring turned up, the stuff for the trigger.

After getting in, and taking my customary perusal of the forums, I set to work.

About half an hour later, I had the gun in pieces, and the appropriate bits attached, modified in a suitable manner.

And this, good viewers, is how lazy I am. Most people would see this picture and think "Yeah, I could take another one less stupid looking" but not me, oh no. Even if you don't understand the content, then you will at least get a giggle :D

It's another screenshot of le mac, with DarWiin remote and Photobooth open, and as you can see, the Wiimote is in the mechbox, and the battery has retained its temporary connections, but the more observant may notice the pair of red wires looping over the mechbox shell. Those are the two wires I needed for the trigger to work, which is also shown by DarWiin in that the B button is being pressed, and my finger is clearly on the trigger. So, now in between keeping my eyes on the forums, working, and eating, I can progress as fast as I feel the need to with this. The most work is going to be the other buttons, because of the modification to the grip, and the way I've got to do them. Fun times!

Anyway, here's that link to the awesomely timed picture.

Laugh time

Edit: Shortly after breaking away from Inverloch (Darn you, elsie!) I thought I'd do a dry run as far as I could, to make sure I wasn't cocking anything up. I took a picture, because I was raised on "Pictures or it didn't happen" give or take a few words.

pictar

All important tools, there. Beer, screw drivers, and cable.

Alright, so everything turned up as expected, and when returning from Springfields and the local electronics shop (Lovely shop that is) I got to it.

Bearing in mind that at the moment it's all being hardwired together to try and eliminate any problems that I really don't need to add to the already curious task.

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As you can see there, the battery is now in the magazine, albeit hardwired onto the board, which as you can also see, lacks the battery retention springs that should be on the underside.

You may also be wondering what the hell is with the switch that's got buttons 1+2 soldered to it. Well, I was testing the fitment in the mechbox, and couldn't get my fingers into the gap to push buttons 1+2, so I soldered this together, so I could push one button instead of two. Which made it a bit easier. I did try to take a picture of it in the mechbox, but thanks to a lack of another pair of arms, I couldn't hold it still enough, press the button AND take the picture at the same time. Ahwell, showing it at least working is probably acceptable for now :B

Also, the capacitor is no longer soldered directly to the board, as it used to be. I wasn't too concerned about the colour of the wire, because I don't intend to take it off again, so don't need to concern myself with pos/neg colouring. That said, white is positive, and black is negative :B

That is all for now! I must go and clean myself and get very, very drunk with a few friends. Because we rule. Or something.

So, the parts arrived as I said, and I've already assembled it for a dry run, of course pictures are taken.

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Numbers one and three are probably the most interesting, because I forgot to turn the reflex sight on for number two, and I'm tired.

As you can see, the theory is sound - The grip is massive (It even fits my monsterous hands nicely) so there's plenty of space for the buttons. As demonstrated by a previous journal, the Wiimote board fits nicely into the gearbox, which as you can see, still fits into the gun (As denoted by the trigger - Which is a really nice steel trigger, also very light to pull, so no worry of 'finger fatigue') The only thing that was missing in the order was the wiring looms for the normal airsoft switch - Doh!

However, as you can see from image one, I've stripped the contents of the mag out, and all going well, I should have the battery equipment fitted tomorrow. The battery cabling and special size caddy turned up, 2700mAh rechargables, 1.3v. A shade under the normal AA voltage, but since I won't be driving a motor off it, I'm not seeing it being a problem. Hopefully the soldering iron tip will turn up tomorrow (A 1mm Antex bit for a CS18) along with the lead free solder and flux, which should mean I can get on with stripping the IR and unchuck plugs tomorrow, assuming the magbattery goes well (I've been sizing up, and if I play my cards right I'll get no rattle, and have to do very little cutting into the main plug, which will be nice)

I will post more pictures (Assuming there's anything worth posting!) tomorrow, mostly going to be of the battery mag.

On the way home I also bought some white paint, for the Lian Li case frontage, and the magbattery. I've got some clear coat designed for motorcycle wheels on order, so that should withstand the mag catch with a few layers (I'm shooting for ten to fifteen layers of clearcoat on two layers of white. Sanding down the mag shell to bare aluminium if it's not anodised is obviously a part of the plan).

Consider yourselves updated!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some computer parts to attach. Namely some more RAM (Useless until I install a 64bit OS, but my drives were delayed, so I can't do that until next week) and a Lachesis mouse.

Alright then. Since I'm bored to tears at work, here's an update!

The stuff I ordered should be here tomorrow - The electronics for the power might even be here today (Depends how much Strikalite love me), so tomorrow when the soldering stuff turns up (I needed a new tip and some more solder) then I should be good to spend Saturday working on the basics, which means I should be able to get the trigger working, and the battery pack. That frees Sunday morning up for working on the arrangement for the battery mag, and the insulation of the mechbox, with some dry runs to make sure all the parts fit together nice-like :D

Edit:

So, everything's turned up (Bar the wiring, but no biggie, that'll be here next week) and damn, does it look sexy. It's also nicely weighted, not so heavy that it's unusable, but also heavy enough to feel good.

I'm really looking forward to dry running the parts together tonight - It's going to be sweet. Of course, there will be a picture involved :B

Edit 2:

So, I bought a Razer Lachesis and a Razer ExactMat (The two sided one), and a lot of reviews are talking about lack of comfort for larger handed gamers.

I don't have small hands (9-10 inches pinky finger to thumb tip) and four inches across the knuckles, give or take. Personally, I think the reviewers either have mammoth hands, or they're talking out their arse. This mouse, while unusual for me (Being designed for both lefties and righties) is easily one of the most comfortable mice I've ever used. As for control that they were mostly moaning about too, I don't know what they're talking about. Using a decent mousemat, on either side in my case, produces exemplary precision, when coupled with the 4k DPI this mouse is capable of.

In short: Other reviewers are arses, and the Lachesis is sweet-as. Probably not worth the money for someone who has a deathadder, but hey.

To the point titles ftw.

Since I'm waiting for parts, and just had to do something, I started pratting around with a spare Version 2 mechbox (These fit into Armalite style airsoft guns) I had lying around after a series of upgrades. Normally, these things consume the vast majority of the space in the gun, but well, I couldn't allow that, could I.

As per the picture, found here. the battery pegs have been removed, (highlighted) and the 'sync switch' (Also highlighted) is destined for the same fate.

Anyway. The mechbox has been shrunk some, by the removal of the front end (It continues the cylinder that you can see at the back). As you can see, that's afforded me some more playing room, without losing the rigidity of the structure. The trigger switch assembly is going to sit in that lower left corner, as the normal airsoft trigger assembly would, which should take some of the irritation out of trying to make a sturdy switch from a smaller switch from, say, a mouse. As you may have noticed, the length of the Wiimote isn't too far off the original length of the mechbox, so you amy be asking yourself why I didn't just leave it as is, and shift the wiimote further back. Sadly for me the stock tube normally secures through the back of the mechbox into a nut housed in the spring guide. I'm going going to have a spring guide, so I need some space for a nut. On top of this, the nunchuck wireless addon could well be quite the fatty. the way it looks to be constructed, I'm betting the connector is vertically attached to the board, so I've got to find somewhere to put that (Since it's only six wires, I thing there should be space where the gears would normally fit, but until I get one, I can't be sure).

And yes, when it's all assembled, the entire inside of the mechbox is going to be insulated (Mmmm, latex) to prevent something going fut :B

So, further to some investigation, the B button (the all important trigger) is NOT momentary action. I've been pondering this now, and if RE: TUC hasn't got a system of control for semi auto being constant, separate, depressions of the B button, I'm going to try my damnedest to add one using the fire mode selector of the M4.

Speaking of the M4, I ordered some more parts today. I also sketched out a design for the Magpower, which is going to be a bastard to align, but so worth it. I toyed with the idea of rumble, too, but it'd be such a large motor (It'd have to be independantly powered) to make it worth while, I scrapped the idea eventually. Well, scrapped is a loose phrase. I may try something smaller in the stock tube, so it's still possible to feel a rumble.

I also had some more thoughts about the Nunchuck part. I'm tempted to fabricate a quick detach mechanism for it, and use a Nyko wireless Nunchuck arrangement, so for zombie grabbing onto character, it's not too hard to whip the 'nunchuck' off and do the dirty in terms of throwing the zombie off. The mechanism would put some difficulties on the Z button, but eh. Nothing is impossible!

Right then. Since I know very few of you are interested, I can slap the keyboard with my tongue from here on in.

As some of you may know, I love modding things. It extends to damn near everything I touch.

So, Capcom have released their latest cash cow.. Erm. Resident Evil game. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, for those that're not in the know (Or didn't care enough to check). I played the game for a measly ten minutes, and I thought "Well, it's okay. It's no House of the Dead." House of the Dead is an arcade game, if you didn't know. I was always drawn to that game because it combines zombie slaughtering and as close to 'real' hand guns as you could get without being arrested.

Which leads me to my own insane idea. Nintendo released the Zapper frame, which is nice and everything, but it still doesn't feel right, if you know what I mean. So, since I ordered (some months ago) an airsoft product by G&P, commonly known as the Zombie Killer M4 body (There's a type A and B, the only difference is the length of the stock securing peg). I was reminded of this by the guys I bought it from telling me it's turned up.
Now. I knew I was going to build a fake M4 for the purposes of looking cool, and the release of this Resi game, along with some Strongbow, fueled the idea of getting a Wiimote into an airsoft gun, specifically, the Zombie Killer. My first hurdle was the electronics of the thing, button wise. I knew the Wiimote used carbon pads, thanks to the handy 'security' screwdriver set. Thankfully, the pads they contact with on the PCB tin nicely, which made that bit a lot easier (See NR image link for demonstration).

That's the first hurdle, albeit small, over with. The next task is to buy a new tip for my soldering iron so I can remove the IR transmitter/receiver and reattach via a length of cable (Specifically long enough to go down a barrel) and mod the thing into the silencer of the target gun. the challenge after that is the nunchuck, since that's an integral part of making this mod work without spoiling, too much, the look of the gun. It's got to be wired down the foregrip, into a vertical foregrip that's been modded to accept the guts of a nunchuck, specifically the stick and Z button. I'm thinking a pressure switch for a tactical light should do the job for Z, so I can use my entire palm to depress the switch without fumbling over the stick, which will be positioned for manipulation by my thumb, on the same foregrip.

The rest of the buttons needed for the game are going to go on the side of the grip (Which is going to bare some resemblance to the grip on a PSG-1) for manipulation my the other thumb. Of course, this is going to make the whole thing a two hand operation, regardless of user preference, but it's got to be that way to keep the look of the gun gun like.

Incase anyone cares, infact, whether you care or not, I'm going to be doing a project log (Laugh, I mean some pictures) on my site, and using this blog as a method of write up, unless someone tells me to piss off and keep it on my site :B

tl;dr: Nirach is retarded.

I've not been following this lawsuit, because it's absolutely stupid. There's no part of it that makes ANY sense.

If you're not aware, here's a brief explaination. Take Two left some adult code in GTA: San Andreas. To see said code, you need the PC version, to find the mod that enables it for viewing, download said mod, install the mod, and then you can see it.

Admittedly we're not talking stupid to the same degree as Mass Effect being called pornography, but damn. It makes just as much sense.

Take Two have settled for 2.75 million dollars, and are now dividng that money amoung those who have been offended, as follows;

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas First Edition Disc - Replacement Disc
Detailed Store Receipt - Cash payment up to $35.00
General Credit Card Statement or Check - Cash payment up to $17.50
Disc/Purchase Details - Cash payment up to $10.00
No Disc/Purchase Details - Cash payment up to $5.00

That's where it strikes me as stupid.

You can have no disc, no purchase details and still get five bucks?

What the hell is with that?! You can get money without having any proof that you've actually played the game and downloaded the mod, and witnessed the content of the mod?

Let's just think about the whole thing for a second. You need to download a mod. Download. I don't know about you, but the most common GTA mod site for me is The GTA Place. Who, if you're downloading a mod from, give you adequate description of the content of the mod, and its purpose (Unless uploaded by a blind skunk with no means of typing).

If you're doing this then there is no WAY you deserve money. Yes Take Two buggered it up leaving the code in there. Yes it was a mistake. However, you, the end user, have to really TRY to see the content. It's not like taking a pee. You really have to put some effort in, and if you put that effort in, it's your own damn fault, surely?

I hate the blame culture.

So, yesterday I quit WoW.

After spending three hours being bitched at for playing a Blood Elf rather than a 'proper race' my tolerance went poof, and I decided to quit before I parted with any more money to hang around retards.

It was entertaining, while it lasted, until other people decided to make the experience suck because my in game pixels were slightly different to their in game pixels, because that makes all the fuck of a difference.

People suck, WoW GM's suck, and Blizzard can keep their MMO, I'm not interested anymore.

Why did no one tell me they were this awesome?

I'm seriously upset by this lack of information.

Edit: I just had the best license key for Word Professional.

Ended with WTF

So, it's been a few days since I started using my X3870's. And so far, no problems. UT3 really does look nice with buttloads of AA and AAA. World in Conflict looks nice, too. Strangley, so does BF2.

However. Living with them is an entirely different matter. The fan noise isn't intollerable, but if you leave your PC on overnight for, say, an important download, you're going to find it hard to sleep unless you have particularly bad hearing.

It's more a dull whine, something you'd expect to hear in a car. After investigation, it's just because the cards have crappy fans. In that respect, if you're not intending to water cool, you should probably find yourself something like the Powercolor varient, with a non-reference cooler.

If you're intending to stick water on 'em, then save some dosh and score the cheaper standard HSF assembly, because you won't notice the difference anyway :p

I was watching Infernal Affairs 2 again today.

In my opinion, the Infernal Affairs trilogy is the best trilogy ever.

It reminded me of the saying "It's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all" because of a scene with one of the characters at the end of the film.

I can't work out how that even begins to work.

How is it better to (I'm assuming here) love someone or something with every waking moment, being willing to do everything for them or it, and then through no fault of your own, them or it being torn away from you. How is it better to go through untold months of agony and rebuilding what may well be a shell of a life without them or it, than to have been happy without having this person or thing that broke you for whatever reason?

tl;dr: To hell with stupid 'feel better' sayings, they're all stupid.

So. A few friends and I were arsing about on Warhawk, talking about Ben 'yahtzee' Croshaw's use of the phrase 'fagballs'. We came to the conclusion that it would be an excellent clan name.

If anyone wants to join the F*gballs clan on Warhawk, tough. I guess it might make it to other games one day.

Oh, I forgot, it's on UT3 too.

I'm presently trying to come up with something that it could be an acronym for.

So far I've made it to 'Fuck, another goddamn' and become stumped. Any input?

Edit: How about 'Faithfully Average Gamers Being Absolutely Lame Losing Sides'?

Hated it before, hated it during, hating it after.

Who the shit thought being with family around a tree that smells vaguely of dog urine and bad car air fresheners exchanging gifts would be a good way to celebrate the birth of a potentially fictional guy with a really effing stupid name?

Whoever it was needs a kick in the teeth.

Bah-fucking-humbug.