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Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~

5-Spartiates
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Posts posted by Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~

  1. As much as it pains me to say this, I agree with most of Gunthar's statements. While it is still possible to "live off of the grid", doing so has become much more difficult in today's society. To me, the pros outweigh the cons, and I do take every precaution that I can think of to protect my personal information.

     

    When it comes to Steam in particular, I think it is THE greatest thing to happen to PC gaming since the day it went online, and I rarely purchase games elsewhere. Sure, technically I am only "renting" my games, but as the game market has changed, so has my attitude towards games and the way that I purchase them. I used to be enamored of boxed copies; I loved having something tangible that I could hold in my hands, and I felt a bit more secure by having a physical copy that I would always have available and could always reinstall years down the line, long after the game publisher had gone out of business.

     

    These days, new retail games no longer offer that type of security. Having a physical copy no longer ensures that you can reinstall the game in 10 years, because even with a disc, many games still require online activation/authentication, and who knows if the servers that do these things will be online 10 years from now? In fact, I trust that it is more likely that Steam will outlast the any of the publishers currently in business, because it is likely that they will continue to adapt to the changes in the market. I think the only thing that would kill off Steam would be the death of the entire PC gaming market. If anything, Steam and other online retailers play a huge part in the continued existence and health of the PC games market.

     

    On a strictly personal note, the idea of "renting" my games no longer bothers me as it once did. The fact is, with the large number of games that I own, I struggle (happily, I might add) to find the time to play all of them, particularly since I always finish games that have a story that comes to some sort of conclusion. It is very rare for me to go back and replay a game that I have already finished, even if I really enjoyed it, because that means that I will have less time to have new experiences that are waiting for me in my games queue. So while the idea of replaying old favorites is appealing--and I DO replay old games on rare occasions--I am no longer bothered by the idea that I may not be able to reinstall and replay some of my game 10 years down the road. In fact, I'm looking forward to whatever technology we will have in 10 years that will have me looking back and laughing at the "obsolete" technology that we used to play with--the very machines we are playing with today.

     

    Online distribution is the future of gaming; I have no doubts about this. To shy away from it is to eventually shy away from gaming entirely.

  2. It's only a matter of time before some of our members and guests start using their webcams to play with LEGOs together.

     

    TeamSpeak 3 - Welcome to Legion of Sparta

     

    * Welcome Channel

    * AFK

    - JHunter

    - Zeno

    * LEGOs, Rainbows & Bubblegum

    - EMT

    - KalXen

    - Hajimoto

    - El Noobiachi

     

    18789500_78494b9945.jpg

  3. At some point earlier today, Steam dumped a lot of games into the "Specials" category. Among the highlights:

     

    * The Rainbow Six games (Vegas 2 is $6.69).

    * The Silent Hunter games (Silent Hunter 4 is $13.39)

    * World in Conflict ($13.39, you might like it if you enjoy CoH, and there is a demo available).

     

    Worth looking into. Personally, I would recommend WiC if you enjoy RTS games; the game focuses on a "what-if?" scenario where the USSR invades the USA in the mid/late 1980's. The narrative for the SP campaign is excellent, and MP is very different from CoH because each player on a team focuses on controlling one aspect of their side's forces (air, armor, infantry, artillery, etc.) instead of each player having an entire army of their own to manage. And if you don't purchase it now, I'm sure it will be on sale again soon during Steam's Summer Sale.

     

    ** EDIT ** I should correct myself and say you might enjoy WiC if you enjoy RTS games, but not necessarily CoH. WiC has no base-building mechanics; the game focuses entirely on tactical combat.

  4. 1100 for 2 ssd????

    Thats a lil expensive.

     

    It is indeed, however, these SSDs have some of the best performance benchmarks. There were cheaper options, but in my research, these had better performance reviews, which is the reason why I chose to upgrade.

     

    I'm really NOT looking forward to installing everything again, but doing so won't take nearly as long as previous rebuilds. Most of my games are through Steam now, and I've used Steam's back-up function to archive every single game to an internal 2TB drive. Re-installing from these archives is MUCH faster than installing from CDs/DVDs, and they should install even faster now that they are being written to SSDs. And of course, I'll only be re-installing less than half of my game library: the games I play regularly and games I have yet to play but that I plan on playing very soon.

     

    Also, I'll be installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive, so that should be interesting, installing from one flash medium to another. I'll have to use a stopwatch to measure the period from the time I press 'go' at the install prompt until I get to my first desktop.

  5. UPS just delivered the following to my front porch (I'd like to say that they did so out of kindness, but I had to pay for everything):

     

    * 2x Intel 250GB SSDs

    * A few random parts to upgrade one of my workstations

     

    I've finally decided to use my "power rig" exclusively for gaming. The other random parts I mentioned above will be used to upgrade a workstation that I will be using for all tasks EXCEPT gaming. As for my main machine, I am going to RAID the two SSDs to show as one 500GB drive, and I'll keep one of the 2TB platter drives installed for recording Fraps footage. The only downside to all of this is the fact that, with only 500GB of space--part of which will be taken up by the OS--I will no longer be able to have ALL of my games installed (my 2TB 'Games' HDD shows 946GB used). I'll just have to go without the games that I've "finished" (which is about half of my library).

     

    In addition to faster boot and loading times, I'm hoping that I'll see some performance improvements in some games; Zeno has said that he's noticed better performance in Arma when it comes to loading textures.

     

    Since I'm new to SSDs, I'll have to read up on the utilities required for proper feeding and maintenance; I know that I'm not supposed to defrag the drives, but that instead I should use some sort of utility that more or less does the same thing to keep performance standards up-to-speed.

     

    Before I reinstall everything, I'm going to do a few benchmarks (boot and loading times) so that I can compare those results to post-upgrade performance measurements.

  6. Seeing as this has been postponed I will try and get my 8 man Co-op mission finished for this weekend. People should be able to host this themselves so it may prevent too much boredom.

     

    Thank goodness. With only 200 games installed on my system, I was worried about getting bored.

  7. It's a good thing that I was planning on building a new rig for myself at Christmas or at least by early next year; looks like I am going to need it. Those system requirements are the most demanding that I've seen as far as minimum specs are concerned.

  8. If any of you have been on the fence about Medal of Honor, I would recommend it. Not so much for the Multiplayer, which in my honest opinion is better than Black Ops, but mainly for the single player mode which has a compelling story some really cool cut scenes and some different levels where you have to operate ATVs and even act as a gunner for an AH-64 Apache. It is fun and different and during a couple moments pretty gut wrenching (maybe it was just me having served).

     

    I hope you get a chance to play this game.

     

    Thanks, I will look for it during the Steam Summer Sale. I never planned on playing its MP, hence the reason I never bought it. But for $15 or $20, if it has a good SP campaign, that is worth it to me.

  9. Fatal, you said there was some rubber banding, maybe we should use your server for filming.

     

    I doubt that it will make a difference. We used my server when we made the 'BattleBus Swing' video, and there was still rubber-banding with two of the three Hummers we used, as well as with the buses. I think the rubber-banding is caused by the wide array of pings we have; as long as we have both EU and NA players involved, it will happen.

     

    So, obviously, we need to get rid of the EU players.

  10. I stopped at Best Buy for some printer ink today and noticed that Brink was on the half-of-the-part-of-the-small-section-of-a-shelf that is their PC Games Section. It was hidden behind the Bad Company 2 copies, and I only noticed it because the retail box is a very bright blue color. Of course, I would have waited until I got home to purchase it from Steam, but I decided to look for reviews first, and am now glad that I did. I've read 5 full reviews of the game, and even with a patch forthcoming, it just doesn't sound very interesting. I was never really interested to begin with, so I'm going to pass on it.

  11. I am also of the 'wait-and-see' attitude. There's nothing about this game that jumps out at me and says 'BUY ME!', but if it gets great reviews and recommendation from friends, I will be willing to jump in. I'm finally letting older MP games fade out; CS:S and BC2 were great fun, but I think I've done all I can with those games, and I will only load them to play if invited by friends. TF2 I love still, but I usually only play for a weekend, then go up to a month without loading it up. Black Ops I have retired for good.

     

    In the meantime, I plan on getting into the new Section 8, and I hope I can get some co-op time in with TQ: Immortal Throne. Arma is always an option. But I think this leaves room in my gaming schedule for a new MP shooter, and Brink might fit the bill if it's good.

  12. I have to admit that I am a bit envious that you have this facility in your back yard.

     

    Still, I am also fortunate. The Miller Motorsports park is a 30-minute drive from my home, and I already have my tickets for the first big event of the year:

     

    http://www.millermotorsportspark.com/events/featured/big-m-weekend-sbk-usa.html

     

    And some video:

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3orw9n1LCo

  13. I think what really pisses ppl off overall and the reason why you get a 400 page thread at BIS forums dissing the game is bcoz CM stole a name - but destroyed what OFP should have been. Feel free to create an FPS but don't steal a name and rape the title.

     

    Agreed, and it's true for more than just shooters. There are certain IPs that have value because of the fond memories they evoke in people that played those games. When those licenses are up for grabs, I think some publishers grab them up to capitalize on what they see as a sure sale without bothering to keep what made an IP special to begin with.

     

    To me, aside from OFP, there is another perfect and recent example of this: X-COM. X-COM was originally a turn-based tactical combat game focused on repelling an alien invasion. It is now being turned into a first-person shooter that shares the same "kill the aliens" theme but nothing more. It is X-COM in name only.

     

    We won't know for certain for at least another year from now, but I'm willing to bet that Red River will be the last OFP title we'll see from Codemasters. That IP is now synonymous with "crap game" and whatever value that name once had is lost.

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