I'm not dead, i'm just lazy. I will get back to writing up blogs once the house move goes ahead, right now i'm to stressed for words.

 

Bring on the new house, or bring on the weaponry. The people will know which to choose.

Ok, NTL man came, saw, and fixed. Easy. Well, easy once i'd shouted at the customer service people for changing the time and insisted they get the engineer to me immediately. After a few choice words, they did so ;)

 

And from one probem solved, another is born. My scooter (which i use to get to work every morning) is playing up again. It just won't start in bad weather. This has been a very occasional thing (often enough to be put down to a "fault" rather than just bad luck) since the repairs were done on it following its theft in late 2004. The garage i use keep taking it in, as they have done for the past year and more, and giving it back with assurances they've done everythign they can to make sure it's in working order. But sure enough, the problem resurfaces, and i'm left stranded up shite creek without even a proverbial paddle. It has to stop!

 

So my investigations proceed thusly:

Contacted Citizen's Advice, they say to pursue the insurance company i'm with first off, to see if there's anything they can do. After that, it's basically down to the garage, and eventually maybe a claim against them.

Tried to contact the insurance company, they say they can't find the case quickly since it's over a year old (fair enough i guess) so i need to wait on them. Should chase them today. The sound they are making goes along the lines of "you didn't choose a garage that is on our books, so poo to you" and therefore i am not hopeful they will be any help.

So it looks like i will have to tell the garage that they can either provide me with a new scooter at their cost, or i will take them to small claims court and claim that and more, taking into account the fact that this scooter going wrong lost me my job last year. Scarey prospect, but what else am i to do?

 

Answers on a postcard...

Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis

---

You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.

 

 

Oh my...

Ok... The time has come for me to smell the PSU, the CPU, the GPU, the SATA, IDE, and right on down to the BIOS. If you know what most of those stand for, you're right here with me.

 

Yes, i am going to build my own PC! And what a PC it shall be. The Components i have settled on are as follows:

 

MoBo: Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe - £134.97

Case: Coolermaster Cavalier 3 Silver Chrome Finish - £47.93

PSU: 600W Enermax Noisetaker SLi EG701AX-VE(W)-SFMA (20+4) SLi PCI-E READY aPFC Quiet - £91.05

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ "Venice" - £196.67

RAM: 1Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2 - £73.90

HDD: 74Gb Western Digital Raptor Enterprise - £114.95

DVD-ROM: Sony Silver 16x DVD-ROM + 48x CD-ROM IDE - £13.97

GPU: XFX nVidia Geforce 7800 GT - £244.39

 

TOTAL: £917.83

 

ORDERED!

 

Bring it the hell on...

On February 2nd, 2006, my life changed.

 

Ok, so it may not mean alot to the public at large, but being accepted into the beta testing for DDO is a massive deal for me. I get to test the greatest addition to MMORPGs to date. D&D, welcome to the Massively Multiplayer world!

 

Let's start with first impressions.

My machine isn't quite up to advised spec, but it handles the game quite nicely. Seemingly the programmers have taken a bit more care making sure that underspec machines will react in the right way.

Longer loading times? Yes.

Delays in highly populated or graphically intense areas? Yes.

Lag-teleporting? No.

One of my pet hates about WoW was the lag teleporting (which was essential in the game's environment) and i am glad to say it's completely absent in DDO. The way the game handles combat and various other aspects leaves no need for the server to anticipate your moves as much as in conventional MMORPGs. And TBH, IMHO and FYI, you won't care if your machine is a little under par to begin with.

 

Looks.

The game is gorgeous. My graphics settings are hung low due to my reduced spec, and i can still see the game's beauty in all its glory. I can't wait to get a monster to run this properly. The character customisation is detailed, but not finnicky. It won't take you all day, and you'll get an individual look. There are tons of possibilities, whether you want to look like a swarthy unshaven pirate or a rich clean mummy's boy, a downtrodden tomboy or a beautiful maiden, you'l find something to suit your tastes. Brilliant. The scenery is lovely, buildings are believable and everywhere you look there is something magical to behold.

 

Combat.

To start with you might be dubious about the combat system. It really is real time, and if you're not willing to be a little dextrous the monsters will give you a hard time. However, after a couple of minutes you'll find it's refreshing to move away from just the "auto-attack on, stand until mush" MMORPG standard, and move into a game which allows blocking and tumbling as well as the ability to really use position to your advantage. Players are solid, which means monsters have to go around. As a fighter, you can stand in front of the poor mage and take the beating, or hide behind that mound of muscley barbarian. Traditional "taunt" skills are replaced with intimidation for getting attention, diplomacy to lose it, and bluff to cause a monster to look the other way while you stick it in the gullet. It's very D&D, to put it as simply as possible.

 

Moving around.

Stealth is great - use the shadows to be MORE hidden, you actualy have to be thinking where the light is coming from, and how you're going to remain undiscovered. Everyone can stealth to a certain degree, and there are little eyes which appear next to you to tell you how well hidden you are - the more eyes, the more chance you're gonna get caught a-sneaking. Athletics and Acrobatics actually matter. Or at least they will later; how far or high you can jump may make the difference between reaching that lovely piece of treasure - or indeed that quest objective - or not. Running actually works too. Fleeing in terror. If you can run round enough corners, the monsters/bad guys will wonder where you've gone, seemingly. It's refreshing to be able to run off, regroup, and come back. I'm sure that will become more difficult once i meet faster enemies!

 

Grouping.

I've frankly never seen a game make it so easy to group. I've not even USED the tools they provide yet. I simply went to the start of the dungeon i wanted to do next, and before i could click the "LFG" button, someone invited me to join them on a run through it. Fantastic. And the group interface is simple, just the way it should be. As everything is instanced, you will never have to worry about sharing mobs in DDO. And of course, since the reward is given once the quest is complete, you're free to work together as little or as much as you want. I recommend you err on the "much" side! I'm sure tactics will come into the game alot more than they did in my level 1/rank 1 run through the early few quests, and there is plenty of room for them. Every class has it's role to play, adn yet you don't HAVE to take certain classes. Again, it's very refreshing at this stage.

 

Interface.

The interface isn't something i've played with alot, but it has all the basics anyone could wish for. Detachable hotbars - seemingly you can have as many as you want; i only needed 2 - main and utility type abilities - to begin with. The chat windows is small to begin with, needs a bit of resizing, and at 768x1024 the screen is a little restrictive. This could easily change with a little modification, and everythign is moveable. Pretty good, no problems, and plenty customisable.

 

Im sure i'll add to this, but i want to air what i've written so far. On with the show!

***Your Birthdate: March 3***

You are more than a big ball of energy - you are a big ball of hyper.
You are always on the go, but you don't have a type a personality.
Instead of channeling your energy into work, you instead go for fun and adventure.
Witty and verbal, you can have an interesting conversation with anyone.

Your strength: Your larger than life imagination

Your weakness: You tend to be pretty scattered

Your power color: Lime

Your power symbol: Lightening bolt

Your power month: March

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatdoesyourbirthdatemeanquiz/

 

So it would seem... Indeed.

You must have heard of the games. There are tons of them:

C&C Tiberian Sun

C&C Red Alert

C&C Renegade

C&C Generals

There are probably names i have forgotten in some dark corner. But suffice to say there are a few.

 

The Command & Conquer i'd like to refer to is a little older however. The original and best. Known by some as C&C Tiberian Dawn, known by most as simply Command & Conquer. I'd like to discuss the things i love the most about it.

 

The music.

First and foremost, the soundrack (composed by Frank Klepacki, gaming music God) was the most infectious and inspiring of any of the series. It's simply marvellous. You find yourself absorbed in the scenarios, it really helps to add a wargamey feeling to the whole experience. I'll add my favourite track from the game to this blog once i get home, if i remember!

 

The introductions to the missions.

This game had live action recordings for it's mission introductions - a bold move, as most games these days err on the side of CGI. This game was made richer for having big identities built out of the mission-givers, and a nice story that unfolded at a good pace. You really feel like you're making progress, whatever side you're playing for. There was also EVA. EVA is the computer interface. It had a female voice, and just screamed future technology. You felt safe knowing that the information you were being given by this super-intelligent computer program was totally sound, and she (i couldn't help referring to the EVA as she) really made you feel like a field commander.

 

The story.

A game of two halves. Those halves were the GDI (the Global Defence Initiative) and the Brotherhood of NOD (the bad guys of the story, led by Kane) and they both come across brilliantly. When you're playing for the GDI, you hate those rebellious scum NODies. When you're fighting for the Brotherhood of NOD you feel your loyalty to Kane growing with each mission. What a guy! The game runs across europe and surrounding areas, set in a world where Tiberium (a rich mineral which grows like a plant) is the financial monster. You want to win, you're gonna need a hell of a lot of it! It is, however, highly damaging to your average human, and therefore adds a little extra spice to the already well-mapped terrain of each mission. You can't help but be dragged into the warmongering.

 

This game simply blew my mind. It was the first time i got really into an RTS, and i never looked back.

 

Thank you C&C for bringing me war.

Last night i had an epiphony.

 

Let us suppose for a moment that Northern Rock come back and say: "No mortgage for joo." The end of the world?

 

No.

 

For in response to such a reply, i could always add the weight of dual-family support. With our respective parents acting as guarantors, how on Earth could they say no? Why, they would be fools! Fools i say!

 

So all in all i reckon we've got this buying a house thing cracked. And they said it would be hard. Pah! Now we just have to live a very long time and manage to pay off said mortgage.

 

To the bat cave, Robin!

Well, we're down to just one real hurdle to overcome in the fight to win our new home.

 

The mortgage.

 

On Sunday, myself and Sarah went to view our new home again, just to measure up and get a second opinion on its loveliness from our friends, Kev and Sarah. We weren't disappointed. It's as awesome as we remembered it, in some respects more so. Give it to me!

 

We got a pretty nice surprise in addition to our continued loving of the place. The vendor has informed us that although they havn't found a new place where they are moving to as yet, they can move out as soon as we want to move in. They have a place to stay while they are looking. So no chain! At all!

 

Now it all hangs on the mortgage with Northern Rock. Come on. Rock my world.

 

Pardon the pun.

Yesterday we put in a offer of £148k on the house we fell in love with the night before last. Our offer was accepted, and therefore we are on the first step to owning our lovely new home! There are of course a number of things that can go wrong. I feel that by listing them, i may in fact reduce the chances of them coming to pass. Total rubbish, but most hope is based on superstition, so here goes...

 

-The people may decide not to sell/fail to find a new place to move to. And then we would hate them.

-We may be refused a mortgage even after being pre-approved. And then we would hate Northern Rock.

-The house may in fact fall down before we can move in, for any number of reasons including natural disasters. And then we would hate one or another of the currently accepted deities in modern religion. And their little dog too.

 

Now that i have cleared the air, i feel ready to begin my hoping in earnest. Here i go. Look at me go.

 

We really had to stretch our budget to get that one, but i think it was the right thing to do. All the people who have given us advice have shared a common belief: Get the best you can afford at the time. This of course gives a greater potential profit upon resale, and as has been pointed out, mortgages only get easier to pay off. I laugh in the face of inflation!

 

In conclusion:

New house FTW.

Recently Wes posed the question: "What would be your top five personal indulgences if money was no object?"

 

Well, here goes...

 

1. Large house (not overtly huge) in Milton Keynes so could hang wit ma homies once more. With grounds. I've always wanted grounds. I would of course employ someone to look after the dawgs, which would be Irish wolfhounds to a man (dog?) so i wouldn't have to do any more than stroll/run/roll around my grounds with the aforementioned massive haminals.

2. Dawgs. Lots of dawgs. See 1.

3. An extension to the house mentioned in 1. which would be a large hall housing a score of rediculously fast PCs ready to roll at any time and supporting the latest and greatest multiplayer games. For educational purposes of course ;)

4. A free Veterinary Surgery for the local community, which would be run by my lovely girlfriend Sarah.

5. A plot of land near Milton Keynes large and interesting enough to house multiple Live Action Role Playing events each year (by which i mean would, with some construction work, serve as a convincing alternative to actually BEING in LotR) and a staff to run/maintain it. Mostly my friends, who would of course need some kind of stupidly easy job to do in order to accept the big piles of cash i would float their way. Wes could be the gardener, maybe? Hmm...

 

There are obviously loads of thigns i would have if money was no object. I don't think i'll need a cinema, since Wes will have one of those anyhow. The things above were some of the first i would dream about, however :)

 

That's it for this one, until next time!