ePwnage

AOC has switched from a 2 day a week patch schedule to a 1 day a week time frame. They also introduced a new patch test server. This should help since their QA staff are a bunch of morons!

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=621935&postcount=17

June 30th, 2008 | Tags: Age of Conan, MMO | Category: Games, Media | Leave a comment

Another Monday and Thursday went by and there have been some massive updates to the game.

1. You can now cast while riding your horse, if you are a caster. Problem/BUG they introduced with this? Casters can cast while running.. LOL
2. They nerfed DT’s. The last saving grace of the class was a small glimmer of hope if you had ALOT of time to farm unholy dmg adding items. Now if you added +400 unholy to a weapon it would do so, on your armor the same rules apply. Now you get nothing.
3. DT’s can’t dps, can’t AOE, can’t tank, and can’t block.

My DT has been frozen since last Friday. I started a caster/healer POM. It’s pretty awesome killing 15 mobs at 1 time and getting mega xp. Then never running out of mana and healing.

June 26th, 2008 | Tags: Age of Conan, MMO | Category: Games | Leave a comment

So I am now a level 54 DT. My overall impression of AOC is this, great game, huge potential, unfinished product. I am basically paying to play a beta game. Levels 1 - 50 were pretty good in terms of questing and leveling. Now that I hit level 50, the grind begins….. Repeatable quests to kill 25 of x mobs over and over and over and over. Sounds fun right? Well not too much, I hear it picks up again from 60-72 but overall it’s a grind to 80 from here on.

They just brought out a patch to put in place…. get ready, this is something that should have been there from day 1….

Your skills including Str, Sta, Dex, Int, Wis now actually modify your base skills. Hilarious huh? Loot items give bonuses but they didn’t do anything till today (6/16) lol 3 weeks after the games release.

So yes, I am playing a beta game, but loving it still… Out of 10, it’s a 6. In 1 years time, in line with the xbox 360 release, the game will be ready for primetime.

-Latez

June 16th, 2008 | Tags: Age of Conan, MMO | Category: Games, Media | Leave a comment

Simply the best MMO I have played. I played Everquest 1, Everquest 2, DAOC, WOW, Hellgate London, etc etc. AOC finally caters to the “older” and more mature crowd by adding in nudity, blood, and impressive violence.

Key Features:

• Mounted Combat
• Fatalities (Like mortal combat, awesome!)
• Player Owned Cities
• Siege PVP (Catapults, Towers, etc)
• Single Player and Multiplayer Functions
• Combat System. Not your old boring button mashing. You control how you cast/fight.

I am a level 40 Dark Templar and the game has been quite impressive. While my class is clearly underpowered in PVP, the pve aspect of the game is still enjoyable. Once they fix many scaling options and feats (like talents in wow) I should be a formidable opponent in pvp. The first 20 levels of the game are extremely fast, maybe took 10 hours to complete. The world was vast and detailed, npc’s had amazing voice overs and storylines.

Post level 20, you find yourself not really trained for the world. Sure, you can do the basics, fight, run, climb, search, but tradeskilling is still a mystery. At 20+ you need to travel and do tradeskill quests for resource gathering. I hate this aspect of the game; it’s quite confusing on what to do and where to go. Traveling the in game is horrible, the maps are bad and don’t actually tell you how to get somewhere. Additionally, AOC is still based on old “zoning” technology where each area you have to load.

Level 30 is where you can really start to make your character your own. Finding new quests and areas to fight in is constantly a challenge, but well worth the time and attention. You should now know how to play your class is various situation, and how the game mechanics work. You should start playing around with shield placements and stances as well. At 35-40 you will be doing your first group instance in Sanctum. This is an awesome instance and the combat system really shines here. You start to use your skills wisely and decide what to use in different situations, stuns, slows, knockdowns, pulling, etc.

I just started level 40..so more to come

June 3rd, 2008 | Tags: Age of Conan, MMO | Category: Games, Media | Leave a comment

Kaiser Permanente Health Care
13652 Cantara St
Panorama City, CA 91402
Phone: (818) 375-1737

This a picture of the new hospital in Panorama City. It’s been open since March 08′. While the quality of care is excellent, the building itself has many faults.

1. The rooms for extended stay have local television only, plus some random local tv stations.
   • This made me extremely angry as a family member has been bed-ridden for over a week. It’s just not acceptable to expect people to watch the channel 9 news all day. If someone is sick, trying to recover, you should want to make their day enjoyable (as much as you can).
2. While the floors are large, they have many blind spots.
   • Talk about the architects use of the classic “Square”, this guy/girl really goes to town on the floors. Nearly every room, turn, and hallway is a sharp 90 degree turn. I’ve already heard nurses complain about it.
3. Three Elevators for the building. If your not happy about waiting for an elevator, good luck! Not only do the elevators run slowly, but they make an incredible “BEEP!” on each floor. So much so, that you can hear it between floors just waiting in the lobby. And when I say BEEP, think 1980’s buzzer BEEP; not the digital beep we know and love.
4. Food. I think this might tie in with #1, but really you need to make the patient’s stay AND their families stay enjoyable! The cafeteria is the worst i have seen in a long time. The food is old and prepackaged, much like if you went to prison (not that I would know). They do open the grill on weekdays near lunch time, which is actually very good. But if you get sick… god-forbid.. on a weekend, you’ll be running to IN-N-OUT, Carl’s, Macdonald’s, etc. They can’t hire someone to flip some burgers on the weekend? You got to be kidding me.
5. One last note, most might not think about. Lighting and Sinks. They installed these sinks that motion detect your hands when you place an object in front of them. Good idea right? NOPE!, they did it all wrong, the sensor is too high, so when the water comes out it sprays all over the place. They didn’t install enough water heaters either! Showers are luke-warm at best. Also in the bathroom there is only 1 light. Why is this a problem? How about when you close the certain and want to see some shampoo go into your hand before you place it on your head…

Bad build, but great care. By the way, a 1 night stay at this hospital costs $11,000 a day. I’ll post the bill shortly. American health care, at 11k a day, you can see why it’s broken.

May 12th, 2008 | Tags: Kaiser, Life, News | Category: My Life | Leave a comment

So far my experience in Vista has been positive. Like all gamers who are now using Vista, I am consumed by the “PC performance” AKA “Vista Experience” points. When I tested my experience at 2GB of ram, I had a memory score of 5.4. I added 2GB more (IDENTICAL) memory to the machine for a total of 4GB, now my score is 5.3.

Current System Build:

• Asus P5W DH Deluxe
• 4GB Corsair 800 MHz Memory
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
• Raid 0 Seagate HD x2
• Seagate HD for backup
• Nvidia 7600GT (Riva Tuner, unlocked 16 pipelines)
• Vista Ultimate SP1

No idea why, but it’s very annoying…

May 9th, 2008 | Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Windows | Category: Software, Tech | Leave a comment

Great Game - 5/5 Stars

Couple of notes:

1. Turn up your brightness in the game by hitting the Start button and Display options.
2. Linksys routers need to have UPnP disabled on the router to allow NAT open settings
3. Tap button A to dodge a punch or knife thrust!

That’s it. Buy the game, it’s well worth the 70 bucks.

May 4th, 2008 | Tags: Xbox 360, Xbox360 Live | Category: Games, Media | Leave a comment