Back into Age of Conan, frustrated w/ SWG

So I'm getting back into Age of Conan, a little at a time. Slith's Assassin's Hideout, Hyboria Revisited, relistening to the Hyborian Herald, the guild forum for "Company of Shadows", etc. I've been through (most of the way) as a Tempest of Set and Barbarian, and a little way as a Dark Templar, all on the Wiccanna server. I've got to say that, while I've heard good things re:ToS's, the Barb is still my class. I just could not reliably run w/o dying as a ToS. As a barbarian, it's bring it on.

First things first, pre-order/whatever pack claims FTW. Each toon I create will get the same items available to it, unlike SWG wear you can usually claim a reward once / account. In this case, I'm grabbing (to start w/) some jewelry w/ minor xp buffs and nice weapons, along w/ a double xp potion that lasts for 12 hours. Yeah, 12 hours.....of game time, not clock time. So even though I've popped one on both my ToS and my Barb, I've got 8 hours left on the ToS, and 10 on the Barb, b/c I've only been in game for that long. W/ double xp potions, Tortage should take one about 2-3 hours, supposedly. For me it looks like, 3-5 hours is more likely, depending upon class.

One other thing to note, so far I've been running AoC in DX10 all the time. It's ridiculous how good it looks and how good the performance is, especially compared w/ 7 year old SWG which gets 1/4 of the performance on max settings, 1/2 on low, and still lags like crap in 10 person pvp in Bestine.

Along that SWG front, I've finally completed my Dire Fate jewelry set, thanks J'ack and RSE/folks on Shadowfire, for my last EK run. Probably the best EK run I've ever been a part of. Or up there (top 3). On Radiant, I'm tired of running star map every day just to get filler, tired of reading folks on the forums cry because they believe they've been handicapped at a pvp event (despite the fact that they won easily), and tired of not knowing wtf happened to my house which had enough maintenance, but has disappeared from Naboo.

Well, that's enough for now. Still to come for me: figuring out if I can help Slith get his podcast in a place that I can download it to my Zune, figuring out if I can get a AoC Blackberry Messenger group going, and getting my Barbarian out of Tortage and into Khitai. Feel free to check my twitter for a BBMessenger image for the AoC group if that's your thing (http://twitter.com/redheadedtim)

New pc impressions

Haven't been into SWG in awhile. Sadly my new system gets roughly the same performance as the old one. Way to go SOE! AoC has shown noticeable improvement, a quick test of Vanguard shows better but not good performance. Did have an issue where my CPU utilization was pegged at 80% by Deferred Procedure Calls. Disabling sleep mode seems to have resolved that but it's kind of unconfirmed, wait and see on whether o rnot that is what did it.

Free Realms. Apparently, Station Pass gets you membership automatically. Haven't leveled any of my 4 professions beyond level 1 yet, we'll see if I do.

Somehow, I've managed to take up 200gb already. I guess between AoC, SWG, EQ2, Vanguard, Runes of Magic, LotRO (gonna give it a brief try but not sub), that's a fair amount of space. I also went on a podcast downloading rampage (although that only amounts to 12gb).

Alright, it's too late to add anything of real substance. Have a good week.

Man, how about that thing called Life?

Currently watching "Good Eats" doing tenderloins. Mmmmmmmm. Work has been crazy since Jan and we have a big upgrade this weekend that I get to work the first 9 hours of Saturday for (yes, the first ones). Supposed to go smoothly but that's still a lot of time and a particularly bad time of day for those of us who are human to stay awake.

Got a new pc, just need a new video card now. Still, I think I'll like this quad core, 6gb of ram, and hard drive that is 2x bigger than all my other storage for pc's combined (you could even add the ps3 in there!). Got Windows 7 Ultimate RC on it, no real judgement yet besides the fact that the way Start->Programs works now is lamer than heck. I installed AoC from scratch and it's not an option, although just Start followed by typing Age works. That and stupid restrictions like needing to run Station Launcher as Admin. Coulda sworn I turned off UAC, but maybe that was in Vista pre-upgrade. Need to figure that out. Also need to figure out how to get the old Control Panel back (assuming you can in Win7).

And now "Good Eats" is on to part 2 of their tenderloin hour. Mmmmmm. Hope this one includes either grilling or baking of said steaks.

Rollerderby was a good time, got a visit from MrB as well. My buddy's wife skates like a demon and her team was the only one we really enjoyed watching. Cousin's wedding went off without a hitch. And in a couple weeks it will once again be time for the Firemen's ball. Come on Summer and times where vacation is easier to come by. And maybe by the 4th of July, YaMB will have released their latest Christmas Extravaganza episode. There's a rumor the original lost eps9-22 are in the works for re-release but I'm guessing if they do come out, all references to Snapple will have been replaced with Pepsi Max, and there will be a new all digital cast member.

Anyways, I'll be trying to get to 30-35 in AoC after I get a new video card, and see if I can finally master a space profession in SWG only 4 years and 3+ months after I first bought the game. Maybe I'll finally have hardware to run it at above 10 fps in the cantina. They really need to get someone who knows how to optimize game engines already. Come on SOE, it's been 5 years and your game still doesn't perform as well as Age of Conan does on the same hardware. Chop Chop!

I'm back.

Been pretty busy, still pretty busy, but had the morning "off" for a upper-gi follow through, aka drink barium and pop rocks, and get xrays. Bout to head into work, but tonight is going to be 10 term missions on Mooftak and some Age of Conan. Woot. New link, I found: http://www.conankave.com/. Also looking forward to the next ep of YaMB. Any day now, I'm sure.

Random thoughts

The Vista commercial with the little girl and the picture is a good ad IMO.

Dollhouse....after 45 minutes, undecided. Eliza's doing an ok acting job. Not sure the storyline is anything I really care about, even with Joss. And for some reason, they can't settle on a certain volume level. Speech volume keeps varying, although I suppose it's the tv I'm watching on.

On the MacBook Pro, using the touchpad. Frustrated because Apple decided to make it ultra sensitive to where I place my hands and it keeps scrolling while I type.

Didn't make it through Episode 5 of the ESB radio drama as I was in more of a music mood while driving. In addition to being way to0 tired, despite 2 large Monster Energy drinks.

Last night's "The Office" is pretty good 10 minutes in. Yay Hulu. And then it got to one of those "uncomfortable" scenes that it is famous for. Ouchies.

Recent Realization of Play Styles

While explaining my enjoyment in SWG vs enjoyment in AoC to people, I just realized that when I play Age of Conan, I play it sandbox style. Project Uncle Crom if you will (google project uncle owen). When I play, it is without concern for leveling, even though I do want to someday see the dungeons they have put in for mid-level and up (and experience the group play). I mainly enjoy sneaking around the wilderness (have a distaste for the towns), mining/harvesting, and occasionally sneaking past higher level wildlife. And occasional PVP is an added bonus. Somehow I've mostly been attacked by other players who are near my level, so I stand a fighting chance.

Regarding Mooftak's house of fail, everything but the fruit has been dropped off. Realized Mooftak needs to do the housing collection so that I can really decorate. Not really in the mood to do that right now, so I guess I'll try to complete the collections this weekend if I have any time at all, and decorate early next week. Until then, the house is on the eastern end of Yamborra, on Dantooine in the Shadowfire galaxy. See SWGPodcast for a waypoint to the town. *UPDATE* Waypoint: 5805, -4457 Dantooine (Shadowfire)

Somewhat disappointed in the Shadowfire forums as far as social-ness goes. Trying to get daily "Good morning Shadowfire" threads going but they go cold pretty fast. I'll keep on trying. That's about it for my random thoughts at the moment. Have a good one y'all.

$760 of Fail

$760 is roughly how much it would cost if one subscribed to your average $14.95/month MMO in Jan of '04, couldn't get more than 3 fps, quit playing, forgot to unsubscribe, and had a debit card that happened to be good several years out.

So I ran home at lunch and logged into my original SWG account, from the Collector's Edition (Box of Tears) and checked out whether or not I would have rewards to claim during the 4 remaining free days. Turns out, I was eligible for the 51 month vet (and all prior), after of course getting prompted to convert my character from pre-cu type to an NGE profession. I was apparently a crafter back in the day, judging by the clothes and tools. Had my fruit, which I've never seen before. And ironically one of my 3 characters was on Valcyn, years before YaMB would podcast and I would know about them. I have 2 other characters on that account, at least 1 of which is eligible for CTS. Mooftak Jones is going to get an arse load of reward items for his house in Yamborra tonight.

*UPDATE* Waypoint: 5805, -4457 Dantooine (Shadowfire)