The Jump to 64-Bits

In addition to my recent computer hardware upgrade, I also upgraded the OS jumping from Windows XP to Windows 7 RC and from 32 to 64 bits.

I’ve been a Windows XP user for a long time now, and I had no inclination to go to Vista.  The only compromise I’d made was adding some programs like Launchy to incorporate similar Vista-like UI improvements into my XP experience.  When the Windows 7 RC came out with so many rave reviews, I decided to try it out on my secondary desktop.  I have been very happy with it, and had no trouble with finding drivers for all of my existing hardware or running any of my software.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to pre-test going to 64-bits, so that was the big test on the new machine.  Fortunately, I’ve had nearly no problems.  Of course, my video card was brand new so that was an easy update from Nvidia’s site.  My printers, an old HP LaserJet 5p that I’ve had for over 10 years and an Epson Stylus Photo 820, both loaded drivers with minimal hassle.  The Epson pulled drivers from Windows update, but the LaserJet required me to grab the Universal PCL 5 drivers from the HP site.  My monitor, keyboard, mouse, game pad, DVD-ROM, and DVD-RW all loaded with no problems.  The only issue was with my Epson Precision 1650 scanner, which I was able to get working in 32-bit Windows 7 but didn’t have support for 64-bit.

I was pretty worried, based on past horror stories of moving to 64-bit Windows, both Vista and previous.  Overall though the jump to 64-bit has been painless and is definitely worth the performance gains of getting access to 6GB of RAM.  The only downside to upgrading to Windows 7 so early is that I’ll need to reinstall once the retail version is released, but I have until (I think) June next year to do it so I’m looking at it as an enforced spring cleaning for my operating systems.

Launch Waves, Faction Balance, and Sever Queues! Oh, my!

Petter from Don’t Fear the Mutant is trying to review Aion, only problem is he can’t get in to play because of server’s being locked for population balance and queues.

I’ve been trying to get on and create a character myself, which I was finally able to do, but I didn’t play much because of rubber banding and other issues caused by the heavy server load.

So, how much of this should be chalked up to “Its just an MMO launch,” and how much should be considered a failure of planning on NCSoft’s part.

NCSoft has to have a general expectation on player levels based on beta testing and pre-order numbers.  They also have to be aware that there’s going to be an initial wave of players that always swamps MMOs at launch.  To make the best impression, surely they want to make sure there are enough servers to handle the load.  However, if they over invest in servers now, what happens in 30 days once that initial wave of players goes back to their old games or moves onto something else.  I’m sure NCSoft doesn’t want to deal with the same issues Mythic had both from a technical and PR perspective.

Beyond the queues and performance is the problem of population balance both by faction and by server.  This is a PvP game, so balance between the two sides is extremely important.  It is also important that the overall server population level is high enough that there are enough people to participate in PvP at all levels.

So what’s NCSoft to do?  They can either setup queues and use server and faction locks to manage the launch and deal with the resulting frustration of players, or they can ramp up capacity and then make adjustments again later depending on what happens at the 30-60-90 day marks.  Mythic tried scaling up Warhammer, but they had a hard time shrinking to adjust to population drops after the launch wave passed.  If I were running NCSoft, I wouldn’t like either option.  Like with the Kobayashi Maru there’s really no way to win.

I think the better idea would’ve been to avoid the whole issue by changing the game architecture to be something more like Guild Wars, Champions Online, and Eve Online.  A single world for all players with instancing of some type.   That eliminates any issues with population balancing (except having one side being too popular) and makes the hardware scaling transparent to players.  With this being a port of an existing MMO from east to west, I imagine that changing the server architecture wasn’t an option but I wonder what impact this will have on the game long-term.  Games can recover from poor launches, but its difficult at best to do, and NCSoft hasn’t shown itself to be very patient with it’s titles in the last year.

Update: Chris at Game by Night has some of the same questions.

Computer Upgrade

I have been wanting to upgrade my gaming PC for quite a while now.  I used to build a new machine every 3-4 years.  Each time I would try to by the latest and greatest parts and I usually managed to skip a CPU generation each time.  My current PC has been near it’s end of life for quite a while now:

  • Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz
  • 4gb of RAM
  • Windows XP 32-bit
  • ATI Radeon x1950 Pro AGP

I had upgraded the memory and video card  over that last two years in an effort to delay the big upgrade.  The biggest problem was the motherboard predated PCI-E so I couldn’t upgrade to any of the current drop of high-end video cards.  And a motherboard upgrade meant that the CPU and memory both had to be upgraded.  Which all adds up to money.

It used to be that wasn’t a problem, I was single and had a well paying job, so I had quite a bit of disposable income.  Now five years later, I’m married (and my wife is not a gamer) and I have a 10 month old son, so money for upgrading a computer is not high on the priority list.  So over the last year I’d been putting a bit aside each money with the goal of building a new machine.

I hadn’t planned on building a new machine for another two months or so, but two things put me over the edge.  First, Crazy Kinux built a new machine and I started feeling like the last gamer on the planet still using a Pentium 4.  Second, I started playing the Champions Online beta and I had to turn down so many settings to get it to play smoothly that I realized I was finally too far behind the curve.

So I took gave myself a budget of $1400 and started shopping online.  After checking my back issues of PC Gamer and Maximum PC and reading some reviews online I here’s the parts list I settled on:

  • Intel i7 920
  • Asus P6T
  • 6gb RAM DDR3
  • Cooler Master Storm Sniper case
  • Silent Pro M 700W Power Supply
  • Cooler Master Hyper N520
  • EVGA GeForce GTX275
  • Seagate 3.5″ Barracuda 1.5TB SATA drive

I decided to use the on-board sound and networking, and I already have a good monitor (Dell 1907FP), keyboard and mouse.  All in all, not an extreme high-end machine, but not a budget box either.

Fry's Shopping

I intended to buy the case locally and order everything else online.  So I headed to the Fry’s here in Indianapolis to pick up the case and see how they compared on the other parts.  Turned out that Fry’s prices were as good as most of the online prices (without even accounting for shipping), so I ended up buying everything that day.  The final total was $50 bucks under my budget, and that’s not counting rebates.

I also cheated a bit by paying the service department to install the CPU and fan on the motherboard for me.  I hate working with thermal paste and after seeing the directions involved on installing the fan, I decided that was the best $10 I’ve ever spent.

Here’s a few shots of all the beautiful boxes (click to enlarge).

Case and Motherboard

CPU, PSU, Fan and Drive

GPU

Motherboard with CPU

After I unboxed the case and started to install the mounting screws, I ran into my first problem.  There was no IO shield in the parts bag from the motherboard.  I made a quick call to Fry’s and was told I would probably have to return the motherboard, which meant removing the CPI and fan.  I was not happy about the situation as I drove back to Fry’s, but when I got there customer service allowed me to take an IO shield from another box already setup for a return.  So at least I had a quick resolution and a happier drive home.

IO Shield
Lot of trouble for such a small part.

Fortunately the rest of the build went pretty smoothly.  The Cooler Master case was a joy to build in, completely tool-less for everything except mounting the mother board and some really nice, large fans.  It also has a nice set of USB and audio jacks on top along with a power button and a fan control.  It also has a set of blue LED’s in each of the fans and there’s a button on the fan control to turn them on and off.

img2009-08-29-16.47.12
Geek's version of Black Beauty
img2009-08-29-16.48.32
Completely tool-free for all drive and card installation.
Three 120 MM fans in the case.
Three 120 MM fans in the case.
Not a professional wiring job, but good enough.
Not a professional wiring job, but good enough.
The Final Product
The Final Product
It's Alive
It's Alive!

Account Security

I was just reading Colin Brennan’s account on Massively about getting hacked.  Of course it was a WoW account.  Account hacking has become so common that Blizzard started offering authenticators.  I’ve played a lot of different games online for quite a few years now, and I’ve never had an issue with having my account broken into.  Have I just been lucky?  It also seems to me that 99% of the hacking stories I’ve heard in the last year or two have been for World of Warcraft.  So I wonder, is it really primarily WoW that has this problem?  Maybe the reporting rate is so low that we only hear about the WoW hacks because it has so many more subscribers than other games.  Could it be the pervasiveness of add-ons in the game?  Maybe it’s just the fact that WoW being so large makes it more of a target than any other game, I mean why focus on a niche game when you have so many more targets in Warcraft?

Regardless, I’m feeling a need to change all of my account passwords and do a couple of virus scans.

Pickup Groups in SW:TOR?

After seeing more of the game-play footage, I’m wondering if there will be pickup groups in TOR.  Assuming that you can find players at the same point in a story quest, is it really a good idea to group with strangers knowing that they are going to be making from of the dialogue choices?  This seems like a new way to grief people.  You group up with a light-side Jedi and try to steer all of the conversations toward the dark-side end of the scale.

Arkham Asylum – Partial Review

Thank you Mr. UPS Man! on Twitpic On Wednesday, the UPS guy dropped off my copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum.

I’ve been able to put about five or six hours into the game so far, which means I’ve seen most of the basic gameplay including a boss battle or two.  I was pretty happy with the demo and I was hoping the game would be as fun.  I have been surprised and thrilled to find that the full game is better.  This is the best Batman game that I’ve every played.  It does an amazing job of delivering the experience of being Batman, like Spiderman 2 and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction did for their respective characters.

Tycho at Penny Arcade sums up my feelings well:

We wrapped up Batman yesterday, and it was unrelenting in its quality. I hope you already know that for yourself – that you have maneuvered its perils and triumphs firsthand, and are aware that developer Rocksteady has delivered a cornerstone experience that defines what the medium was about in the year of our Lord two-thousand and nine.

I especially like the description of this game as having unrelenting quality.  The opening cut scene, the voice work, the animations, the mid-game cut scenes, the mechanics, the boss fights, everything I’ve seen and played so for in this game has been excellent.

If you’re a Batman fan, this is a must buy.

Back Again

Hey there!  I’ve been on an unplanned hiatus for the last two months.  A combination of super busy work days, taking care of my (now 9 month old) son, and severe case of gaming apathy have all conspired to limit my gaming activities.  I’ve continued to maintaining my Eve training schedule (and done a little mining) and played some Xbox and single player stuff, but I’ve not been playing MMOs.  I’ve had tried a few times to get back into LoTRO, War, CoH, and WoW but nothing has really stuck.

But the blogacation (sorry) is now over.  Couple of things I’m excited about my first trip to GenCon on Saturday and joining Shawn Shuster and other Massively readers in the latest Choose My Adventure in LoTRO.

More to come…

End-Game for Star Wars: The Old Republic?

Bioware has a history of producing great single-player RPG’s with excellent stories.  For their MMO, they’ve said many times that they are focusing on story.  Sounds good to me, I’m really curious about the details.  There are lots of problems involved with having an impactful story in a multi-player environment.  I’m sure instancing and/or phasing will play some roll, but will they be able balance that against having players play together?  Or will we end up with a massively singe-player online RPG?

One problem occurred to me last night that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere (either by Bioware or other bloggers).  How will they handle end-game content?  All single player games have an ending.  All stories must having endings.  So what happens when you’re Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Commando, or Jedi/Sith completes their epic story arc?  Having a raiding end-game seems like a big let-down after experiencing however many levels of an epic single-player story arc.  Maybe Bioware is counting on players to re-roll and play though the other class epic arcs to give them time to add expansions.  They could stick to the standard raiding, or maybe open the end-game up to a PvP focus between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic.  The choices Bioware make for their end-game should be a good indicator of if and how much their game move the genre forward.

Yay! No More Spacebucks

Ars has an interesting article about some coming updates to Xbox Live.  Most of the items I’m pretty lukewarm about: games on demand (basically downloads of full-sized games like what you’d get through Steam) and easier ways to find/buy content (more UI changes).  The big news that I’m exciting about is that they are going to start listing prices in actual dollars (or whatever your local currency is) and allowing purchases using credit cards.  You’ll still be able to use points and buy point cards, but it won’t be forced on you.  Using the marketplace always felt like being at a fair or carnival where everything required even numbers of tickets that you could only by in odd numbered batches.

I really never thought Microsoft would drop using points for their marketplace, and was one of the few features I envied PS3 owners.

Places I’ve Been

I have been compelled by Kirith Kodachi to post a map of my travels within EVE.  Unfortunately I’ve only explored a small fraction of the EVE universe. Full Map I was in EVE University briefly where I spent a short amount of time up on Korsiki. EVE University But most/all of my time is spent in the Sinq Laison region with some occasional trips through Essence and Every Shore. Home Like Kirith points out, once you have a base of operations setup you don’t normally stray far.  I don’t mind traveling, but I like to keep my assets organized and limited to a few stations.  This makes moving a pretty large undertaking.

I have a jumpclone and a shuttle setup for some day when I want to do a little sight-seeing maybe I’ll have to plan for that soon.