Even right now! I’m camping Jailer of Faith.  SO MUCH FUN.

Anywhoo, mostly srs bzns time.

Japan was hit by a huge earthquake recently, and as a result of the aftermath they took a severe hit to their power infrastructure. To conserve power Squeenix shut off FFXI and FFXIV for two weeks, and Metal Gear Online did the same.  So for that time I decided to get off my ass and write, or at least lay down the last of the groundwork for it.  I got pretty far!

Well, sortof.

I got everything outlined, even stuff that will happen after the Big Story (still unnamed!), fleshed out a lot of characters and whatnot.  Also found out that it’s nearly impossible to write on the weekdays thanks to work.  So, weekend warrioring it is. I still fully intend to post everything of the Big Story here, just going to be a while. It’s four books, and the first one alone is 40-50 chapters of varying lengths that mostly just puts down the foundation for the other three.  It’s still very intimidating to look at all this and realize how much story this is; it’s a lot of story and I have some stuff that I need to keep in mind.  Like for example I had severe asthma when I was a kid, to the point that PA class was nearly impossible without a pump.  As a result of this, I have a *much* lung capacity larger capacity and I tend to… not put commas where they normally should be.

I was taught to put commas where you should normally take a breath and I need to take less breaths when talking than normally thanks to the inhaled steroid treatment.  Makes sense now? :p

So the story will happen, i’ve got a bit written.  More to write starting next week (saving weekdays for editing I think) since this weekend is a write-off due to FFXI and FFXIV being back up.

But before I get to that I promised some hot computer action.

Shortly before the downtime my computer starting to act worryingly.  After returning from work I found my computer off, which is odd because I leave it on to log MSN stuff.  My phone can occasionally miss a few messages.  Boot up, no ram.

Insert scream here.

Cas lent me eight gigs of ram from her old system and this is what ended up frying.  Needless to say I felt like total shit.  I swapped them around, nothing.  I slapped in my old ram and it finally booted, went into bios and screamed again; voltages were about 10% higher than normal.  I concluded quickly that my motherboard was finally hitting the dust.

Wow good thing i’m not writing today I sound like crap.  River of bricks! (Brocks?)

Anywhoo, good news is that I was already planning a good future-proofing upgrade. Long story short here I put in the HSF wrong and the sound card in a semi-reserved slot… and didn’t put all the risers in.  I got demerits on my geek license now, and I deserve them. Luckily the good people at MemoryExpress (local comp shop) tested, remounted, and retested everything for me and now it works!

Fuckedaround is dead, long live Lazarus.

• CPU: AMD 1090T 6-core
• Mobo: Crossfire IV Forumla
• Ram: 8 gigs of G.SKILL ripjaws
• New 120gig SSD HDD for Win7/FFXI/FFXIV
• Scythe Mugen cooler

Lots of old parts too: PSU, sound card, two HDD, monitors etc all the same as before.  Now for the scary part.

I can’t get it at 100% load.  At all.

As of right now I got three FFXI clients running, Firefox 4, and Foobar2000 and it’s running at a paltry 26C with 18% load.  With FFXIV it only gets to 33C and 35-40% load.

FFXI I was able to bump to it’s limit pretty much, three clients at 1440×900 with double background resolution steady at 30fps unless i’m in port jeuno.

FFXIV is nice at 30-60fps at drawing quality 8 (80%), no AA, background quality 5 (highest), and all the pretty effects except occlusion (which is broken).

I have no games right now which pushes this beast, and with nothing pushing system temps higher than 50c, this system will last me a very long time unless I get stupid with it.

Anywhoo, we’re approaching the end of 2010 now (WTF) and I started to think back on what games I played this year and whatnot.  I started to tweet but figured I might as well blog about it since I can have quite a good bit to say about it. So that being said…

Mass Effect 2

This game surprised me, even though I played through Mass Effect 1 and thought it was damm good and well worth its praise. I almost overlooked this series since when I got it, the 8800 series had a serious bug that would completely lock my system up but anyway.

I can’t really say anything new about this game, except what I liked about it. Garrus.

No seriously, it’s the characters. A large amount of the characters in the story are pretty well fleshed out, even the ones that come back from ME1 and as a result, the game is damm entertaining.  Yes, I wanted to beat up the bad guys and whatnot but I was mostly doing missions just to see who would say what, or what loyalty mission I just unlocked.  Except Jacob and Miranda’s.  Man I wish Myrna Shepard wasn’t such a nice person sometimes.

Anywhoo.

Another appeal is that the game is GOOD sci-fi in my opinion; it treats physics with respect (mass effect drives is the rule-bender du jour tho), and it gets details right like no sound in space. If you bother to read the codex mostly everything’s explained, and you also find out that the game is practically built on Shout Outs.

It’s also absolutely gorgeous, and the devs know it.  In the Firewalker DLC, the damm tank even mentions it at one point!  The beauty of the game got kicked up a few notches with the Lair of the Shadow broker DLC as well; it actually managed to impress me despite the graphics engine starting to show its age. (why are they all crying out oil instead of tears mommy?)

If you never played it or want to see someone else play it, Shamus Young writer of Twenty Sided is starting a Let’s Play with a group of people in his 4th season of the series, Spoiler Warning. It’s funny and worth a watch if you ever knew the fun of snarking a game with a bunch of friends on the couch.  As of this writing the 4th season should go up Soon(tm) due to some changes he’s making.  I can’t wait.

Space Invaders: Infinity Gene

This is damm near the king of shooters.  Coming from a massive Treasure fan, this is a lot.

It doesn’t lie: the game does evolve quite nicely from ye olde space invaders to a full out 3D shooter that’s reminiscent of the RayCrisis series.  And I can’t get enough of it.

The graphics are simple but very elegant and gorgeous (Ultimate UFO blew my mind) and the challenge is high.  Not to mention the soundtrack is awesome.  Just wish it was released in the Canadian iTunes store already… >.>

I have, and finished, the iPhone and PS3 versions, and got all DLCs for both.  Yes, I’m hopeless.

Soldner X2: Final Prototype

This one surprised me even more than Mass Effect 2, as I actually really didn’t like the first game.  I have no idea why I bought the second on a whim but I don’t regret it at all.

Voice acting is moderate, graphics and animation are okay but it’s damm fun with a respectable difficulty curve.

It’s also got a very strong selling point; it actually has a good and balanced auto-leveling system. The game will get harder the better you play and they mean it.  At low ranks it’s a pretty standard shooter but at high ranks it’s a freaking bullet hell.

The DLC adds some pretty to the game too, and interesting challenges.  Well worth a look.

Final Fantasy XIV

Hoo boy.

My original plan was to start and wait until initial patching was done to start.

Uh yeah.

That didn’t happen. :x

The game is pretty damm buggy, no doubt about that.  The lag, the crashes, the… well a lot.  But I’m having a blast.  The leve system to level up is quite nice.  It’s straight-up daily quests like in WoW but it doesn’t try to be cute about it. You get so many per 36 hours, then it resets to new ones.  It’s an easy way to make gil, free skill for crafting, and easy skill for classes.

Plot and such is promising, it’s showing that it’s the “CoP/WotG team” that’s doing this.  I just wish we could get a do-over for the inital city; Rathe is much better suited to Limsa Lominsa but we all started in Gridania since we all thought that the plot would be like FFXI.  It’s oddly solo so far, which is a nice change but I miss the epicness of fighting with a group of friends (Alexander anyone?).

It’s damm pretty.  There’s no doubt about that, hell I still have holy shit moments looking around.

I think this will keep me going for a bit.

FFXI… well that’s a whole other post.

Apart from all that, the smaller games I had fun with that I remember are Flotilla, a fun little Homeworld type space RTS, Eufloria which is PLANTS GO TO WAR IN SPACE ESOTERICALLY. Guns of Icarus, tower defense on an airship, played in 1st/3rd person. There’s prolly more.

Stuff I sortof regret is Bioshock 2, it just never clicked.  I finished it for the sake of finishing it.  Fallout 3, which after five tries I gave up.  Borderlands, but that’s mostly because I got the PS3 version.  We’ll see how PC fares.  I had some fun with it at least.

Long story short (this will be funny in a sec) i’m getting off my ass and writing the whole Myrna story thing.

Except that i’m still looking for titles.  Eh heh…

In any case got organization going here and hell, I might just start to post that other stuff i’ve been writing.

All for my humiliation and your amusement.

Bwahahaha

I DARE YOU ALL

- What curse word do you use the most?

Tossup between ‘barnaque and fuck

- Do you own an iPod?

iPhone.

- Who on your MySpace “Top 8″ do you talk to the most?

Silly meme, I use facebook to stalk!

- What time is your alarm clock set for?

4:30, 4:40 and 5:00

- What color is your room?

Off-white or something bland.

- Flip flops or sneakers?

Flip-flops at size 17? Oo;;

- Would you rather take the picture or be in the picture?

Either.

- What was the last movie you watched?

9. Ehhhhhh

- Do any of your friends have children?

I can count the ones that DON’T one one hand >.>;

- Has anyone ever called you lazy?

Yes, and they’re right. :p
Mostly.

- Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep faster?

Tylenol, just when I got headaches tho.

- What CD is currently in your CD player?

wat

- Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk?

Choocolate. Mmmm.

- Has anyone told you a secret this week?

Maybe.

- Have you ever given someone a hickey?

Yes. With disastrous results.

- Who was the last person to call you?

Sis via skype, from New Zealand.

- Do you think people talk about you behind your back?

Yes.

- Did you watch cartoons as a child?

TRANSFORMERS, ROLL OUT BADLY ANIMATED

- How many siblings do you have?

One. She counts as two.

- Are you shy around the opposite sex?

Yep.

- What movie do you know every line to?

Transformers (80s movie), The Hunt For Red October, Clerks to name a few.

- Do you own any band t-shirts?

A few; Tool, Ozzie, and other stuff I can’t remember offhand. @.@

- What is your favorite salad dressing?

Caesar. After that, Russian and French.

- Do you read for fun?

Yes, but I have a backlog of books and stuff.

- Do you cry a lot?

Not really.

- Who was the last person to text message you?

Rogers. OMG IT’S TIME TO PAY US OMG

- Do you have a desktop computer or a laptop?

Both. Desktop has a geforce 8800 series, that’s all I remember. And 2TB of HDD space.

Netbook is an eee 1050ha? I think.

- Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?

Tatoo yes, need to work out the art tho. And find someone good.

- What is the weather like?

I’M IN A WAREHOUSE I DONT SEE SUN UNTIL 16:00 D:

- Would you ever date someone covered in tattoos?

I did, she was cute but it didn’t work out.
…no I didn’t get to see how much coverage total she had. >.>;

- Is sex before marriage wrong?

Sex? Wazzat?

- When was the last time you slept on the floor?

Not telling. :3

- How many hours of sleep do you need to function?

Six or so, but I can’t really function unless I get up naturally at 9 or so anyway.

- Are you in love or lust?

Niether.

- Are your days full and fast-paced?

Too much.

- Do you pay attention to calories on the back of packages?

Nope, just sugar when I’m crashing.

- How old will you be turning on your next birthday?

29? I think.

- Are you picky about spelling and grammar?

Somewhat. As long as ts readable and it’s not a totally stupid mistake.

- Have you ever been to Six Flags?

Nope.

- Do you get along better with the same or opposite sex?

Opposite.

- Do you like cottage cheese?

Not anymore. Stupid lasagnas.

- Do you sleep on your side, tummy, or back?

Prone, so side/tummy.

- Have you ever bid for something on eBay?

Yes, was one of my old jobs actually.

- Do you enjoy giving hugs?

Yes.

- What song did you last sing out loud?

Son of Fate – Protomen

- What is your favorite TV show?

Babylon 5, DS9, Farscape, IRON CHEF, Bunch of others

- Which celebrity, dead or alive, would you want to have lunch with?

Kubrick. Facinating and haunted man.

- Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?

Hoo boy a while ago. Involved some cute girl tho.

- What one thing do you wish you had?

Well I got money now so… A time machine?

- Favorite lyrics?

Tossup between Sons of Fate by The Protomen and Personal Jesus by Johnny Cash/Depeche Mode/Marilyn Manson I DONT KNOW ANYMORE AAAAAAAAGH

…wow I’m boring

More eventually.

Really.

First off, the writing bug hit me. Hard. The new iPhone 3.0 OS lets me put voice notes, so I did the first concrete thing on a story I had in mind for a long time now, finally put something down. It’s essentially fanfiction in the sense that the Star Wars novels are fanfiction. It’s a decently long story so far, and i’m nervous about putting this up because well, i’ve been planning this for a while (waaay back in my original blag, remember that badly written stuff I put up?) and I fear failure. But it’s going up.

FFXI took a turn for the weird, i’m leveling NIN. I have no clue why I want to but I am. Help. We’re getting closer to starting CoP, i’m looking at bankroll for it with everyone’s finances right now. Chosebinouche will have to be moved back to Jeuno for this I think.

On real life side, i’m counting the days to September. My first real break in loan payments happens then. I’ll be able to breathe a lot better then.

Cutting this short, it’s late and I need to edit a few posts some more. More coming this week!

Quick cool thing of note though, Anrym got sky last night!

It’s all I got for now, really beat for some reason.  Gonna hack at this some more later.