Time Passes Slowly …
December 2nd, 2008
I am now about a solid week with the new machine, which I am considering dubbing François.
LOTRO looks great, obviously, though it lags out worse than the older computers. I’m assuming it is because I have yet to perform the gauntlet of stutter-troubleshooting exercises. It looks beautiful and gets good frame-rates, though. I actually sighed out loud like a comely wench when I first went traipsing about the Shire. OK, that’s pushing it, but there was a lot of IRL Wizard’s Fire involved, so my memory is a little hazy.
I no longer have to put up with the indoor lag of Fallout 3 - Rejoice! The outdoor areas were fine on the Nvidia 8600 G, but the indoor areas were sometimes a nightmare to get through. But no longer. The sad news about Fallout 3 is that I lost my saved games and have had to start over from the beginning. Oh well!
This time I’m going with an evil guy and focusing on Stealth and Science. I want to try out a character who is not focused on combat to see what challenges arise. But after annihilating the entire Springvale School gang with my 10mm pistol shortly upon leaving Vault 101, I can see the challenges may be few on the Normal setting. I think a bump up on the difficulty level is in order.
In case it wasn’t inferred from the lack of rants about gaming on linux, I decided to go with Vista 64-bit over a linux distribution (though I was eyeing Fluxbuntu). It just makes sense for me right now, which I find rather sad in way. The ability to just get up and running with apps like Creative Suite and Steam without compatability layers or virtual machines made up my mind. Well, that and the joy of MSDN academic licensing. You can trust I am too skinflint enough to even pay $99 for an OS, and I would rather spend five months making Steam and Fallout 3 work together in CrossOver than that. But I got an easy way out so I took it.
I also decided to install good ‘ol DOSBox. I loaded up a high school favorite and spent a little time reminscing about being a nerd. I can see myself having a lot of non-game related fun with DOSBox as well. But I am a weirdo that would be amped about using WordPerfect 4.2 to type fart jokes.
Lots of links in this one
November 17th, 2008
I haven’t been gaming much lately. This is a bad time of year with regard to the amount of free time I have.
I have been carrying on with Fallout 3 and have managed to raise my character’s Small Arms to 100 and Agility to nine. Though I’ve realized this may have been a mistake and definitely won’t be taking the Gun Nut perk. I don’t plan on modding past the 100 limit, though, so I will just have to look at the Small Guns Bobblehead as a collectible and focus on items with non-gun enhancements.
In other news I am suffering from a great deal of … I’m not sure what you would call it. Confliction? Ennui? Whatever it is, I have it. It has a lot to do with my inability to play MMORPGs lately, for whatever reason. Which is a shame because I have a month of time with DDO going to waste. Alas!
I have had it in my mind to make a clean break with all MMO-related games for a couple months and focus solely on older games. Not that I have the time for this either, but I can’t shake the thought out of my pot-diseased brain that I should go on a binge the likes of which haven’t been seen since the days of EGA graphics. It’s the same part of me that thinks I should switch 100% to linux and run dosbox out of WINE so I can play the same game I was playing in 1989 rather than continue to dual-boot with Vista and play Left 4 Dead (which is coming out tomorrow). You know, the tweaker part of my brain.
I am also not feeling the spending of a grip of cash on the numerous titles and expansions coming out this time of year, as I think many of us understand. I can see even my munificent subscription to LOTRO ending (I sub even if I don’t plan on playing partly to hold the $10/month rate but also to show support for the game) in the face of financial reality. It could even prevent me from using most subscription-based services, whether MMO or not.
I wonder if there will be a boom of F2P games when the realities of the financial crisis finally hit home. Probably not, as $15 a month is still a solid deal if it is your primary entertainment.
I have personally considered joining an Ultima Online freeshard. I am a more recent comer to the MMO world, one of the WoW wave so I have never played Ultima Online or even Everquest. I thought it would be interesting to give this title a whirl 10 years after it’s release.
But that is all assuming I don’t simply go away to Left 4 Dead land for good, ending with my brains eaten.
Fallout 3 Diaries
November 11th, 2008
In my frantic search for anything and everything Fallout 3, I just came across a page on the official site featuring the character diaries of Nate Purkeypile, an artist for the game. His write-ups are fun to read, but by the last one, “Porkchops the Fish Lady,” I was laughing my ass off.
Maybe I’ll start writing up my experiences from the point of view of the character in the game. That would make for an interesting style of walkthrough, lol.
