Philip

Hey, I posted about this game the other day; I sound a little flaky regarding GuildWars 2; I've played the game thoroughly over the weekend and I believe this post supersedes the others due to what I've learned over the weekend. GuildWars2 has been improved a lot since the early beta. Dare I say it, the game is enjoyable and it seems quite well built. I'm undecided if the game is as revolutionary as the developers would like us to believe. If someone enjoys mmorpg's then they'll probably enjoy this game. At the very least, GuildWars 2 is worth checking out; I saved some money with a fairly good deal on the pre-purchase. A while back I originally played the game with the hopes that it'd be as difficult as the first game. In some ways, the skills of GuildWars 1 make that game seem more complex than it is--at its core, it's basically rock, paper and scissors, over and over. With GuildWars 2, you can do more with movement and positioning, so this certainly adds more depth to the game. In both GuildWars 1 and GuildWars 2, you have to use the counter skill to what your enemy is using. GuildWars 1 is basically a 2d game that looks 3d; GuildWars 2 is a fully fledged 3d game. If you're ignorant in regards to how the healing in GuildWars 2 works, it's not just about having a "self heal" skill. There are team heal skills plus a dedicated self heal. The elementalist has some fun skills, such as the healing shower. To explain how this skill works, you need to understand that "healing shower" won't just show up on your skill bar. The elementalist can be attuned to either fire, earth, water, or air; by pressing f1 to f4 (the equivalent of weapon swapping) you can select what attunement you want. Your first five skills are completely different according to your attunement--I associate water with snares, fire with damage, air with run buffs, etc. Also, the other five skills that do not change, are in some cases dynamic as well. Their description might be something like "cast an elemental based on your attunement" e.g if you are attuned to fire, you will create a fiery monster by using that skill, but if you are attuned to earth, you might summon a stone monster. The healing shower literally makes it pour with rain that heals you and your team, thus, it can be found amongst the water spells. To use this skill, you will press f2 (this can be remapped) and then you will press 4 (this can also be remapped obviously) to cast the healing shower. Once this is done, you may want to snare an opponent using some of the water spells, and then do more damage using some of the fire spells. There is a recharge on how frequently you can swap between fire, water, earth and air. This is to prevent someone with high micro from simply casting a load of fast cast spells under each attunement. The majority of skills/spells can be used while you are moving, unlike GuildWars 1 where you had to be standing still to cast. This makes the combat more interesting, but some of the more powerful spells require you to be standing still. It's interesting that they haven't just made it all one thing and not the other. Due to the nature of the combat system and how you have to react to what is happening in battle, you can have great synergy with your team, and you can utilise someone's creativity to win. The game requires you to have a little bit of micro, but it's honestly nothing like starcraft where you literally have to have a horde of pygmy marmosets on your keyboard typing for you. You have to be comfortable and you have to think to yourself "is your team taking damage?", "yes?", "cast this spell", and you have to be able to navigate through your skills quite proficiently. This does not mean you have to be an asian progamer--just be comfortable. Some of the classes (such as the necro) do seem more one dimensional than others. An example of a completely one dimensional class would be something that takes no skill to play, thus, it would be difficult to tell a good player from a bad one--there wouldn't be much to learn. None of the professions are COMPLETELY one dimensional, but the necro is easier than the ele. Having said this, I've still not played the game that much, so take some things I say with a pinch of salt. The elementalist seems to take a bit of skill to play, interestingly, it is the opposite of the GuildWars 1 elementalist. The graphics are amazing for a mmorpg and the artwork in general is just fabulous. Some people may not appreciate that, but I really love the artists they've used for their games, and the style they've used. It sort of mixes traditional types of painting with digital. The game runs smoothly, and it's not one of those games you're going to feel "I love this game but it's so buggy." GuildWars 2 has some bugs, sure--they are to be expected. I've played many disappointing games due to their game breaking bug(s); credit where credit is due, developers should be applauded for taking their time on this. Initially I thought the PVP could have been a lot better, and I thought that someone, somewhere, deserved a slap for it, but really, it's not bad. It requires a certain amount of logic, a lot of awareness, and you can be a bit creative. If you're solely focussed on PVE and play a bit of PVP casually, the game looks to be quite good. Much like the first, it's easy to play with friends--navigating around the map is easy... What makes the PVE slightly different to other games is that you don't need to be clicking NPC's all the time to pick up quests. If you walk in a zone where there are quests available, it will automatically show up on your map and basically tell you what to do. The difficulty is not in finding the quest, but completing it. There's only so much you can do with this genre. The combat system is what makes the GuildWars games fun, and in some ways, this game doesn't disappoint. GuildWars 1 had interrupts which were really fun, but they were easily exploited, extremely ping related, and generally half-arsed. With games like WoW and Aion, you're forever walking/flying to some place--it gives me a headache to tell you the truth. You still have to do a bit of walking in GuildWars 2 but it's not as bad as WoW. By pressing M, you bring up a map much like you would in GuildWars 1, this aids transportation around the map. The game really is growing on me. My only advice when looking at it would be to go in with an empty mind. Don't adopt a very bandwaggony point of view that it's crap, and don't assume you fully understand or that you can fully appreciate the game until you have played it a fair bit. I made that mistake and sometimes it's worth giving something a try until you can form a proper judgement.

Thanks. I run a dedicated sound card too, thumbs up for optical :D. Everyone seems to like HDMI these days, but optical can be used over long distances and it's not that expensive any more either. I've no idea what the problem could be. I had some issues of my own with mine, a buzzing noise. I found that if I painted the back of the card so it didn't touch the case, the noise was removed or virtually removed. You could perhaps disable enhancements in the driver options? But I'm just stabbing in the dark really, I have no idea.

Hey, I recently bought some new gadgets, an a4 wide wacom tablet and a new IPS monitor. Unfortunately the monitor I received was faulty; I was told that the monitor fail rate was 2%, it's funny how I'm always in that 2%--grrr. Not all is doom and gloom though, the monitor had some dust behind the panel but it worked fine other than that. The colours were fantastic. The monitor I bought was the asus proart 24", but I found some other interesting monitors. They're of no use to me due to the aspect ratio, but if you're looking for a bargain check out the korean imports. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-YAMAKASI-CATLEAP-Q270-SE-27-LED-2560X1440-Computer-Monitor-Tempered-glass-/110836482125 http://www.overclock.net/t/1215866/reviewed-400-2560x1440-ips-no-ag-90hz-achieva-shimian-qh270-and-catleap-q270 A word of warning though, some of these are faulty and getting them replaced might be a timely process. They use the same panel as the apple 27 inch screen. It is basically a gamble and it'd be unfair not to mention it but they do honestly look quite good value for money. It's at least worth considering if you're looking for a new monitor.

Thanks for the replies. Sorry for making this thread and not visiting; some problems popped up. I should be visiting soon, though I don't really have any intentions of playing d3; I assume you talk about other stuff?

Hi, What games are you all playing at the moment? Do you still go on ts/mumble/vent (what is the ip?) sMNC is a fun game on steam :).

Beta testers aren't allowed to comment on the beta because of the NDA, so I'll just say that judging the game play from the latest "youtube videos ;)", I'm no longer excited. The cash shop has introduced paying to have an advantage, and the game play just isn't as revolutionary as we were lead to believe. Don't get me wrong, the game is probably reasonable but it's not quite what I had hoped it would be. Having said all this, I'll probably buy the standard edition; I was hoping to buy the CE at one point but the price point is extortionate.

People seem to believe that racism only relates to colour. I think it's fathomable that the thought process in judging someone because they are from a different country, is no different to judging someone because their skin tone is different. Right? Apparently not. It's fine to boo him--he's white.

I've been listening to some Joe Satriani recently; instrumentals are nice.

I'm no longer excited for this game.

Thanks for looking. I was rather pained by some of the posts that people had written in regards to this mouse. I don't think I'll buy it just yet, it's a lot of money for what it is. I can't stand hard to press buttons either.

Has anyone heard of this mouse? Zowie AM GS 2300 DPI Optical Gaming Mouse. It looks like the old WMO and it looks promising.

The keyboard you've bought looks decent. I still have a filco. The lack of a numpad initially annoyed me so ended up buying a crappy 10key pad from ebay--it was dirt cheap--I'm happier than ever. When your keyboard becomes filthy, bath(+e for American English) the key caps in lime scale remover; alcohol doesn't seem to clean keyboards properly!

Yeah but the problem is I only need the video during install, once it's set up, I don't need it any more. Unfortunately some motherboards won't allow the system to boot up if there isn't a graphics card (assuming you aren't using a chip with integrated graphics). I will wait and see what I really need the machine for. If guild wars 2 is fun, I won't need to host any game servers. As far as other things go, I can probably use a raspberry pi.

129.99gbp (exactly 200 dollars) in England. These game companies all need one long neck, so I can reach up into the sky and choke them all at once.

Thanks, I'll look into that. At the moment I've hit a huge obstacle . Some of the motherboards won't boot up without a graphics card in, and that Xeon seems exactly like what I want. Meh... There's very little information on it which is so annoying. I'm considering getting an atom, but that basically means I'll have the power of a small slug, and will be using it as a NAS. I guess I can forget hosting a large game server? To be honest I'm not sure how powerful these atoms are though, in comparison to something like a core 2 duo e6750 (my other server has this). Apparently this motherboard supports the CPU http://www.missingremote.com/review/intel-core-i3-2100t-and-bh67cf-mini-itx-motherboard I'm not sure if it will boot up with the graphics out.

I'm still researching. It looks like I've found the CPU I want, this Xeon http://ark.intel.com/products/53401/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1220L-(3M-Cache-2_20-GHz) It's comparable to the 2100t, but there's no on-board graphics which is awesome as far as power saving goes. I assume I can just put in a graphics card, set the PC up and then take the graphics card out? Or will post fail? For the motherboard, I'm considering this http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8H67I_DELUXE/ Or this http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-blkdh57jg-intel-h57-s-1156-ddr3-sata-ii-3gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-20-(x16)-graphics-on-board-mini-i Does anyone know of a fanless PSU, fanless CPU cooler, and a small case that would be suitable for me? I don't need space for a disc drive, because I plan to install windows and then unplug the drive. If I cannot go fanless, it's not the end of the world--it would be nice though.

Yeah, it really is a lot though. I think it might be fun to build my own. This looks quite a low wattage setup http://uk.insight.com/productinfo/motherboards/ITOA08YDE?cm_mmc=Feed-_-GoogleMerchant-_-GoogleProducts-_-Product&utm_source=base&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=base&src=FRO1 The processor http://ark.intel.com/products/58917/Intel-Atom-Processor-N2800-(1M-Cache-1_86-GHz) doesn't draw many watts, and on idle it's probably going to be like 3watts. Though I assume the motherboard will probably draw a fair bit, and the power supply won't be totally efficient, so I'm guessing around 10-15watts from the wall (assuming I can put the GPU into power save). I'd like to run linux but with a system like that, I could probably run windows. Linux doesn't have the best support for some of the latest on-board GPU's. I'm also considering making a carbon fibre case, it could look really flashy when it's done :). It'd be sweet if SSD's weren't so pricey. A 3watt computer with a row of SSD's would be a fabulous NAS system.

The trimslice is now on the top of my list. I'm thinking of a way I could run a load of HDD's that would switch on/off remotely. I'm unsure how to do it. A mini ITX with a 20w draw isn't the end of the world, though I'd love something even less than that.

I'm looking to get another computer and have it running linux; normally I look for the fastest setup, but this time I'm simply looking a low wattage computer. I'm considering buying a raspberry pi. But its real world performance is poor, and I wont be able to do much with it. I've looked at a fit pc 3. http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc/fit-pc3-info/ and the trimslice. They're expensive. I've come to the conclusion that I might just buy a mini itx board and make a small PC this way. I've tried to find broken netbooks and the like, but some of the new atom processors really aren't too bad so perhaps buying new is the way to go. Ultimately I'd like to have lots of external storage, host a website, and some IRC bouncers. Perhaps some other stuff. The Intel Desktop Board D2700MUD looks quite cheap. Do any of you have any experience with such a thing?

I think I am making good progress so far :D. I've set up a VM with IE. Not as many people use IE now but I feel I should test it somewhat. The transitions aren't working at all--it's not the end of the world I guess. What languages do you code, JeT? Using the W3C validator, I'm getting 0 errors, 1 warning. The CSS validator is returning a lot of errors, but I was told to ignore them if you're using CSS3 (which I am). I've enabled/disabled javascript, I've also enabled/disabled the google font. The layout and site functions as it should in both cases. There's a few things I'm really not happy about, like the buttons at the top being misaligned by 3 pixels in relation to the squares below, but if I change the square width, the buttons will still be wrong. So I'd have to change quite a few things, and it's a hassle to do... I haven't tested out opera yet, I guess I should.

I am in love with irc. I used to be against talking in groups because I felt that it was hard to get a decent conversation going. I feel differently now. Talking to people on their own isn't always good--it's easy for friends views to rub off on you--your arguments don't get subjected to enough angles of attack. When learning something new, it's great to be surrounded by people who might have similar problems. Irssi looks beautiful :).

GuildWars has always been good in regards to pausing play. I'm not sure if GuildWars2 will be quite as friendly but it's looking that way. I have fond memories of DNR, but not so much the staying up until 6am. Waking up and walking sideways into a wall like some kind of crab, isn't the most delightful feeling. And yeah, some serious money can be had... I'm not sure if I want to do that, or just get filthy rich in game, and keep all the money. There's going to be a thousand people trying to exploit bugs to get rich and sell the gold. I'll see how it plans out and how much I enjoy the game after I've levelled a few characters. Beta signup is now possible.

I really like it. I've not played the game at all, so those dance animations are completely new to me, they're funny :P.

Those pictures are kind of redundant now. My design has changed a lot... There are buttons on the left and on mouse over, other text is introduced with a fade in. I quite like it, though I'm not sure what to do for the images and style of everything... I'm still thinking of a minimalist design, so perhaps that's what I'll stay with. Yesterday I spent six hours coding a complex menu system, I wasn't happy with it though so I deleted the code, lol. I realise that I am new to all this, so it's highly unlikely I'll create something good, but I'm still trying to avoid bad habits. Web developing looks harder than ever. I'm sure some would disagree with me, but a web developer has to support umpteen different browsers, slow connections (because of crappy wifi), phones, tablets, and different resolutions just for computer screens alone. It's crazy. I've not installed IE, and that's going to be the browser that has the most problems. I just cannot bring myself to do it. I'm quite happy with how things are going so far though. I officially hate javascript, and I've been trying to do everything with css.

Dear Walter, I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn't driven more than a mile down the road when the engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband's help. When I got home I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbours daughter. I am 32, my husband is 34, and the neighbours daughter is 22. We have been married for ten years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. He won't go to counselling and I'm afraid I can't get through to him anymore. If he leaves me for her I won't be able to look after our two young children and keep up my job, so I will become dependant upon the state, and that is something I am desperate not to do. I thought we had a good sex life, and although not as frequent as in our younger days, I didn't know he was unhappy. I keep the house clean and tidy , and prepare the meals as he likes them. He always has clean, ironed clothes, and we go out quite regularly to concerts or for a meal. I though our life was perfect. This other girl concerned is so much younger and more attractive than me, I feel I can't compete with her, and although I keep in shape, having had two children by him, my body is not what it once was. I never realised he felt this way about me though, and I now find myself looking in the mirror and not liking what I see. I am so depressed I may just take a few pills and end it all. I don't know what to do. Can you please help? Sincerely, Sheila ****************************** Dear Sheila: A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the injectors. I hope this helps, Walter