The Fall-backs of PC Gaming

So I have been having quite big problems recently when it comes to gaming.
Recently I have found that quite a few games I have wanted to play have been quite hard on my computer and some I haven't even been able to play.

For example, I remember installing my pre-ordered Deus-Ex: Human Revolution after months and months of excitable waiting. I got into the menu and was just in awe by all of it, I then clicked play and it went through the opening cut-scene. It was perfect and I was surprised my computer could run it so smoothly... then it happened.
It went into the game and my game suddenly dropped to 0.5FPS! I didn't even know that was possible!
I get bad FPS with a lot of games, I get around 15 FPS on most games and have gotten used to that horror, but this was just bad. I think the highest FPS I have had was a stable 60 when playing the original Deus-Ex, but I get  around 10 on games like Terraria.
What the bloody fuck.

Now I will admit here, I am on a pretty crappy computer. A laptop infact. But this is just bad, bad, bad.
I remember when I got it, I ran games really well, only getting lag every now and then on TF2. But now it is degraded to crap.

And it's not just to do with games, I have a 64GB hard-drive that can barely hold anything on, I even had to uninstall Portal the other day to make room to put my Falling in Reverse album on iTunes.
And don't even get me started on Windows Vista.

Then I get to the games I can't even fucking start up. I remember so many games in the past I have excitably bought to find out my computer can't run it, even though my PC specs were higher than the recommended specs. Games like Magicka and Amnesia which haven't exactly got high-end graphics.

And then you get the computer just having a random tech-fart. Like what's been happening to me for a while now. I currently can't play one of my favourite games (League of Legends) due to the client fucking breaking down just after champion select. And this only happened recently, it worked fine till a few weeks ago!

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a rant about PC gaming... well it is, but it kind of isn't. I am a PC gamer to the core, I tried playing console games but in the end I have found PC the ideal. I still do play console games from time to time, but I prefer PC games when it comes right down to it.

My problem is that I have to shell out quite a bit of money in order to be able to play the games I like well. Now don't get me wrong, I have been trying this for a while now. But I am probably £500 off actually getting a new PC and there is no way that's going to happen soon. I have tried for a while to get a job, for months. But every one I have applied to has turned me down after weeks of waiting. Hell, I can't even sponge any money from the 2 bloody people that read this blog, because I need to be 18 to use ad-sense and PayPal!

Guh... all I'm saying is it's gonna' be a long time before I can play my favourite games at a good standard... or even at all.

P.S. First world problems! WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! :P

Drunk Gaming

Once again I have accidentally left this blog to rot but after getting wankered at a party last night I felt the need to express this topic.

Drunk gaming. It is the ideal of playing games while intoxicated (Unless you count playing Audiosurf while high).
It can be one of the funniest things you ever do...
Oh not for you, for the people you play it with.

Let's take a little anecdote here. I went to a friends house a few months ago and she lives just round the corner from an off-licence, my other friend just happens to have.... "ID" so we had no problem getting booze. We got smashed and after staggering home I realised I had left my laptop on, I mashed the mouse button until Mumble opened and realised that my good friends Astindan and PenguinGeneral were on at the time.
Now like any drunk call, you have to make an entrance. I held down my V-key and screamed "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" into my microphone. I can distinctly remember at this point Penguin saying his signature "Oh god..." line. I asked what they were playing, quite loudly and hopped onto the minecraft server that they were on. Now here's when things started to go fuzzy (Quite inconvenient that it happened at this point eh?)

When I asked Astindan and Penguin to recap. They told me of how I thought my chimney in minecraft was my door (I was in a house that had a vertical entrance/exit) and they convinced me to jump to a fiery demise. And also of how I refused to leave Penguin's house, lying down in his bed and when he destroyed it, dug a hole and covered it over.
Come to think of it. I've had much better drinking stories. But as this is a gaming-centred blog, I won't discuss that.

I guess the point I'm getting to is that when people talk about "The Ideal" of gaming. They rage for hours about how which console is superior, what controllers to use and how "HUR DUR MY GAME BETTER THAN YOUR GAME DUR!". But in the end, it doesn't matter what game you play. Or what console. Or even with who. If everyone played video games while absolutely shit-faced, then it makes any game 10 times better. (Using the ratio of 1 beer : 1 time as good).

P.S. The majority of this blog post was written two weeks ago, but I wanted to get it out because I don't like leaving articles to wallow for too long. And if I didn't post it, I probably never would.

Skarner, The Crystal Failure

League of Legends is one of my favourite games on the net at the moment.

It's fun, it's free and it packs in a whole bunch of updates frequently. Why waste £10 a month on a game like WoW, in hope of getting a new raid at the end of the season. (And of course, after months of playing one raid, of all the development time they have, only one raid is released).

League of Legends releases frequent balance changes, weekly community "Summoner Spotlights" on Riot Games' Youtube channel, new skins every 2-10 days and Riot (bless there hearts) is finally releasing a new map soon, that features a whole new game style! And I couldn't be more excited!

Except... there's one more thing they release. Every fortnight, a new champion is released into the game. Now of course, this isn't a bad thing. New champions are very good! They keep Summoners on their toes, to learn the new mechanics of said champions, can sometimes change the style of game you play and provides a fresh sight to the same old map you see day-in day-out.

But... one bone to pick I have with new champions, is the same bone to pick I have with League of Legends itself. And the majority of the DotA/MOBA-style-games out there to be fairly honest. It's the players.

Oh yes. The bloody players.

Wowcrendor shows in his video the sheer stupidity, bad attitude and fucking shit-headedness of most players in League of Legends. 

(Disclaimer: Before someone suggests I play HoN, Heroes of Newearth has possibly a worse community than LoL. And I think that HoN should be a sponge that soaks up all the players mentioned above. That way it could actually do something for the DotA player base. No offence to those of you that play HoN that are actually good at the game).

Now I want to draw attention to the one that picks Skarner. This happens every two weeks, in the weekly champion cycle after a new champion is released in my experience. Every single twat that logs in then sees a new champion, and this isn't directed at Skarner, this happens with EVERY new champion. 

They say "OOOOOH NEW CHAMPION! SHINY!". Now what makes Skarner unique is that he is a scorpion. A crystal scorpion. Which increases the shine level of the champion by +9000 (You try and think of a random number). These dicks think "OOOOOH! SCORPION COOL! I COOL!". They will then either flock to the store to buy it either with spammed IP or purchased RP, or use the free cycle and join any game possible with  Skarner. They have only had the champion for less than a minute, not researching what he does or is, not having adequate runes/masteries, and not looking into how to build him well.

Now on the other side of the Atlantic (Yes I play on US servers, as do most of my friends) I decide I fancy a game of League. I hop onto it and choose one of my built champions that I have experienced and sure enough, I run into the Summoner playing Skarner in a random picked team. Now I don't usually play random teams because I can't stand playing with people I don't know, that are usually idiotic pricks. 

I see this guy's name is GolumPWNZ1337 (Says it all really) and he picks Skarner. I prepare for the worst.

Of course the game goes terrible and this guy goes all the way through acting like he is the dog's fucking bollocks and the rest of us are a piece of shite. Without acknowledging that he has a lower Kill/Assists and higher deaths than I do.

Now my suggestion isn't that people shouldn't play new champions. New champions are great! And if I played LoL more, I could probably afford to buy new champions when they come out. But if you do want to play a new champion, then please for the love of god just look at a bloody build guide so you at least know how to play the guy properly.

I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.

Suing

Oh suing. We hardly knew ye'!
This post is mainly being invoked by a certain "B" suing a certain "N" for a certain trademark of "S". But we'll get to that later.

Suing! The act of finding small fault in something, and taking it to court for a large sum of cash! Yes, my friends. The great art of suing has returned to the world! Not that it ever left really... All over the world, particularly in a land called America (Disclaimer: I shall leave all jokes about America aside in this blog post because they have a culture of suing), this noble act is practised by the dozen every day.
Of course if you are reading this, you don't care about real problems, like single mothers, damages, life-threatening conditions and all that junk. You want to know the juicy stuff about game developers and publishers suing other game developers and publishers for X amount for reason 1-a trillion.

This mainly came to my attention when W. Axl Rose sued Activision for misuse of the Guns n' Roses anthem "Welcome to the Jungle" on the game Guitar Hero III. Now, of course Axl Rose is a very controversial person indeed. I have my opinions of him but in this case I shall keep them to myself as despite his various negatives, he remains to this day a very talented singer, pianist, musician and performer. The main focus on this lawsuit was the use of Slash (or a Slash-like character) in the game. Of course most people will know of the feud between the two, but I shall leave that aside. This ludicrous reason led Axl to sue Activision for $20million! Now I am not one to really call myself an expert. I am a teenager from England and in my area lawyers and policemen alike are hated with a passion. God I love London. But all personal issues aside, what the FUCK? I have no idea what the American legal system is like, but how can he sue this company for a bloody image of a former band mate, who I might add co-wrote the song? Believe me, it pains me to defend a company like Activision but I see no legal ramifications in suing someone for an image nonetheless! It's like delving into every video on the net of Guns n' Roses playing live with the original line up and replacing the images of his former band mates! Come to think of it.... If that were possible, I would hijack my good friends at Gamesbyte and doctor good ol' Indy's segments to make him sound more like Wulff ;)
...I see I've gone completely off track now so I will move onto what brought up this wonderful topic.

It seems Bethesda (Or specifically Bethesda's lawyers) have decided to sue Notch for a pending trademark of the name "Scrolls" for an upcoming video games of Notch's, because of the word's use in Bethesda's famous "The Elder Scrolls" series. Now, I'm no expert in the subject. I should probably find an American to talk about this. Shit I did it again... Yes. Congratulations Bethesda's lawyers! Join Axl Rose and Tim Langdell in the esteemed "Hall of Lawsuits that make no fucking sense"! Es mierda de torro!
So take this instance for example. I am an indie developer called Scotch. I have made a successful sphere-based farming simulator called DigMake that has sold over 3million copies and is still in beta. I decide that not all my creative talents have been used in DigMake and wish to expand my horizons. I decide to make a Strategy game with elements of a book-game called Find Freddie and a popular corrigated card game called Ju-Bi-Moh! (I'm running out of ideas, shut up) I name the game "The" because its a snappy name that everyone would know. But noooo! A company that makes excellent games' lawyers decide to send me a 15 page statement telling me to change the name of the game, because they have a 3 word trademark for a game series, that is nothing like the game I am planning, and "The" is a word used in it.

It might just be me, but I find it ridiculous that Bethesda's lawyers are doing this and like most of the gaming community, will support Notch through this. I also hope that Bethesda call their lawyers out on this ludicrous lawsuit and hope to see Scrolls (Or whatever it shall be called) in the future. But that's just my opinion on the matter of course.

I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.

The Diablo III "Real Money" Auction House

Now, this is a controversial subject to say the least... That's why I can't wait to discuss it!

This "Real Money" Auction House in Diablo III has been hyped to all hell recently, since it was announced by Blizzard during the Diablo III press conference.
To summarise, Blizzard announced that like their popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, Diablo III will have an Auction House system featured in it.
But unlike WoW, Diablo III will have not one, but TWO auction houses. One will be solidly built around an in-game gold economy, whilst the other will be able to sell the same things, plus gold for real money.
That is correct, Blizzard are going to implement and support a way of selling gold and items in Diablo III, thus legalising what is currently illegal in WoW and many other MMOs.

Of course, all over the net, people are up in arms about this. Angrily saying things like "Blizzard are cash-grabbing nonces", "This is just going to support chinese gold farmers" and ":OOOOOO MMMMMMOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEHHHHHZZZZZZ!?!??!?111?".
Usually, I will have a very strong opinion on one side of an arguement. But with this, I am uncertain about what my opinion is on this matter.

Of course I'm going to start with the negatives. I'm British, my whole world is based around negatives. There are places, particularly in China, where people are employed (or sometimes forced) to play video games for extensive periods of time, farming gold and items, and selling them for real-life currency. Earning themselves the name "Gold Farmers". This auction house system is going to provide an easier way for these people to sell their items and gold for money, effectively some people could say (and some people already have) that Blizzard are supporting these offices, and even sweatshops or prisons that will be used to farm and sell the in-game gold.
This could cause a huge upset to the economy. You will either have gold-farmers that post their auctions for extremely low prices, which will not only stop legitimate players from selling their hard-earned items; but will also make players on the other side buy them even more because of the low prices. Kind of like how supermarkets undercut eachother's prices in real life.
Or you could find the overzealous farmer, that tries to play the auction house like most players, and will post his items for the normal price (or just a bit lower) to make a bit more money than posting it lower.
However, Blizzard have indeed implemented ways of stopping both. There are numerous fees that are not only legally required, but required to stop outrageously low price drops in the game's economy. Their are, to my knowledge, three fees in place.

1. A sum of money must be placed on each auction as a deposit. Like in WoW with a sum of gold, and I'm assuming the same will be in the Diablo III gold auction house.
2. A transaction fee is a legal requirement, so when one sells, Blizzard must legally charge one a sum of money on the transaction.
3. Blizzard's (Greedy Grubby Cash-Grabbing) fee. Of course, Blizzard has to make money from this, 3% of the money made from each sale goes towards Activision Blizzard.

 This means that players and gold farmers alike, must be careful when handling the real-money auction house, so as not to lose money by aggresively posting and cancelling. Because if an auction fails or is cancelled, the deposit is lost forever. And if someone posts for an obsurdley low price, they will make minimal money from it, or even make a loss!

Now in any case, no matter what Blizzard do there is going to be gold-farming in Diablo III. That is just a fact. If there is a real-money auction house, there will be a way of gold-farming in game. If there isn't, they'll set up gold sites, do it anyway and make more money from it.
Out of anything infact... the real-money auction house is oddly, not preventing gold-farming, but reducing the profit that these people that we find oh so annoying make from farming for long hours each day.

Now to get to the good stuff.
Take this imaginary man called Jeff. Jeff is 39, has a wife, kids, good job and plays Diablo III. Because of the job and family, Jeff will not have as much time to play Diablo III as the average player. So he will not be able to farm for long hours for the item he craves so much. With the real-money auction house, he can buy the item and have fun with it without all the hassle.
Now take this imaginary kid called Timothy. Timothy is 16, he's finished school, he has rich parents and as a result is very spoilt. He also plays Diablo III. Because of his rich parents, and spoilt personality. He believes anything he wants he can buy. Now this may be true, but this will come to an extent. He will be seen in whatever town he is in walking around in his shiny gear and might even brag of how easily he obtained it. Now Jeff approaches him because he and his friends plan on running an instance and need a Demon Hunter for the group (The class that Timothy plays). Timothy readily agrees to join their group but they find out quickly that he is not as skilled as his gear says he is. He is indeed, a whiney scrub in purples (WoW reference). The instantly kick him out of the group and find someone else. He undergoes the same fate with every other group he tries to get into.
Finally, there is one last imaginary character called David. David is 25, unemployed and plays Diablo III. Because of the current state of the economy in the real world, David finds it hard to find a job. So he spends long hours playing Diablo III. He aquires alot of stuff that wouldn't do him squat in real life, and he finds little use for in the game. So he posts it on the auction house. Eventually, he becomes well-inclined as to the inner workings of this in-game economy with real money. And manages to make himself money from it. Admitedly the money is small compared to what he could make from a job. But what money would he make otherwise?

The real money auction house could not only be a curse on the game, but a blessing as well. Yes it allows easier access for gold-farmers. Yes people with lots of money can easily buy items with minimal effort. But it can also provide a bit of funding towards true players of the game.
If you have a problem with the auction house, you have 2 options. Either buy the game and don't use it, or attempt to boycott the games release.

I am still unsure about what I think about the auction house but I know I am still going to play the game and seek any enjoyment I can from it.

Anyway, that was just my opinion on the matter. The auction house is a controversial concept, and I will continue to discuss it as I find out more about it. I will also be following Markco's new gold guide to see his opinions on the matter and any updates about the subject.

I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.

Imitation

Imitation is one of the things in games that sickens me.
Whether it be the people, some content or even the game itself; it is one of the most stupid and irritating things I can ever come to talk about.

1. The Game - To start off with let's discuss games that copy another. Or "Clones" as they are colloquially called. Games like Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing, RIFT, H.A.V.E. and that Godaweful FortressCraft are praised for pretty much reskinning (Sometimes only slightly) an already amazing game, and the majority of the time making it much worse! And what makes it worse is these blind, stupid people, that say the most stupid things like "Dur imitation is the greatest form of flattery!" IT BLOODY WELL ISN'T! It is taking something and copying it to exact whilst changing minor things, because the developer can't think of anything freaking original! It disgusts me when people call a downright plagiarised game; better or of equal quality to the original! In the end Sonic and Sega Racing is just a copy of Mario Kart featuring sega characters but added "shortcuts" and changing almost nothing! RIFT is just a darker version of World of Warcraft, they even say "We're not in Azeroth anymore". H.A.V.E. is a cutesified Korean Team Fortress 2. And that FortressCraft game, I found it funny when people said "FortressCraft is nothing like Minecraft! It innovated stuff like jetpacks, guns and creepers!" HA! Those aren't innovations! Those are just taking things from other games and putting them in Minecraft! There are Minecraft mods that have done that! At least when Notch "Cloned" Infiniminer he added stuff that made the game completely different! STOP COPYING STUFF AND GET SOME ORIGINALITY!
2. People - Now this is something you don't just see in games. Pathetic Wanna-be's that have no personality of there own copy someone else in hope of being as great as them. I will confess, I have my inspirations in gaming and life, but never, EVER would I copy them to exacts, all they do is inspire me to do as I do. This is particularly prominent in the Video Making "Community" in people like HybridPanda, a glorified idiot that thinks he knows what he is talking about and insults people that say other wise, in some cases the people that he copies!
3. Content - Well content I can mercifully let slide. But it all depends on the amount of content they copy. For example, if they copy aspects of it, or as Blizzard so delicately put it "Borrow" aspects from other games, they can improve the game for the better. Rather than make the game revolve around it and define the game. For examples when Notch took the block and mining system from Infiniminer, that wasn't taking the whole game. Infact, more of Minecraft is revolved around survival and building. But when you take an entire games coding to the exacts, reskin it to make it look "pretty" and add stuff that you think is "cool" and making money off it? That is just horrible and in my honest opinion is just an atrocity towards the maker's creation.

All in all this somes up my opinion on the matter. Imitation is not the biggest form of flattery, it is plagiarism, which to my knowledge is outlawed in some countries.

I am Zamros and this moan has made me feel better.