I am starting a sporadic 3 part series of posts that will entail me (Nick, the supreme intelligence in this world…no hyperbole here) giving some advice to you (You) on matters that you don’t need or even care about…that’s what bloging is after all isn’t it.

First I will tackle the issue with the HD-DVDs, Secondly the World of Warcraft Movie, and lastly I shed some light on the No. 1 problem in this nation, the sad state of today’s flaming.

Let us begin

Part 1

HD-DVDs died. So as a result my w3rd to you is to not buy a HD-DVD player. Well no f*ckin’ shit I hear you say, but hold on, I go further. I go so far as to suggest that the death of the HD-DVD format will destroy the X-Box 360. “That’s some bold words for such a handsome man”, you say...well I like to blog dangerously baby.

Think about it. Microsoft has three paths to go down. One, it switches to Blu-Ray, which will happen right after hell freezes over. Two, it develops its own HD format, and we see it in like 8 years, right after we all bought the PS4. Or three, the most likely one if you ask me (which you do), is that the 360 will continue to use DVD format and release a new version, 720 I guess, in the future. This, however, will cause the 360 to never truly be Next-Gen.

Now, continuing to use DVDs has a few serious disadvantages. Biggest one will be the fact that the PS2 used DVDs, and therefore the 360 will not feel like the next big step in consoles, but rather a Ford Laser of consoles. Sure it might have a Ferrari engine in it, but it looks like a Ford Laser, and it will be difficult for Microsoft to get past that fact. The option still remains to utilize the Xbox’s hard drive and then games can come compressed on the DVD, then after a process, lets call it ‘Installing’, you can unpack the game and play it off the hard drive…hmm that sounds familiar…oh yeah, its what my computer does!

In conclusion don’t buy the 360. It was half a step to Next-Gen and it won the market, along with the Wii. But the true next-gen power looks like it is now mainly in the PS3’s hands…I hope they don’t bugger it up.

Hay, quick blog to share with the WoW players out there.

The folks over at Computer and Videogames, had an interview with Jeff Kaplan, lead designer on WoW about the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Litch King. Link here.

Now apart from the mountains of crap we already know he lets out an awsome tidbit. Here is Wowinsider's summery on the mater.

"Current plans are pointing to the addition of an Archdruid hero class, possibly related to the opening of the Emerald Dream and the continuation of the story behind its corruption, including finding out what exactly Malfurion Stormrage has been up to since we saw him last."

As a druid player this will be orgasmic, as i love the lore associated with the class. too bad its like 2 years away Q_Q.

However it makes me think, we know that the Death-knight is a Tank-DPS hybrid, so what do you think the Archdruid will be...cos u kno...druids normally can do quite a bit. Better yet, what would you like the new class to be?

Link to wow insider's page here.

Some of you might have come across this yesterday, but I found it pretty funny and I
figure I’d share it with the ones who were oblivious to the fact.

As the folks over at Kotaku reported on Tuesday, EB Games (a gaming retail chain here in
Australia) has over $10 Million AUD worth of defective X-Box 360s. A staggering statistic
in its own right, since technically the company spent 10 Million tolitos on oversized paperweights. But the story gets better; apparently Microsoft refuses to take them back
or do anything about them.

Check out the story here:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/01/microsoft_refusing_to_take_back_10_million
_worth_of_defective_360s_from_eb_oz.html

As always this is mostly rumor, to which recently Microsoft has responded with a “no reply”,
but still after having an unsympathetic chuckle at the expense of EB, I couldn’t help but NOT be shocked.

I think it was about 1 day after the launch of the 360 when I started making fun of how the
bastardly 360s always break, and sadly, I still do. I know there are fanboys on both sides; I
myself am on the PS3 side, but we both have our delusions and I think it’s important to
look back critically at the companies that start screwing up. Sony coped a lot of flack over
the PS3… a LOT of flack…and deservedly so, it was horrendously expensive, full of promise
and shinyness but Sony failed to deliver on these promises and took the damn gloss off.
Not to mention the fact that good games for the PS3 are sparser than a T-Rex’s fossilized
dick. Anyways, the X-Box 360 was much better with the games side of things, and
delivered on online play and the such. However, the god damn thing never works.


I think its quite well known that Microsoft will sell you a lump of crap the shape of a
rectangular gaming machine more often than its competitors. However, I always assumed
this is due to the fact that they rushed to get it out before the PS3, and that it should have
been fixed by now. But it obviously hasn’t. I was also surprised that people overlooked this
fact when they went to buy one, but then I realized that most retailers (here in Aus anyway)
have a free exchange for a new machine within 14 days after purchase, so the dude who
forked out $600 for crap, can keep returning it until he finds one that works. But that is exactly what must have happened to EB. The shocking thing is that Microsoft appears to
give them the ‘fuck you fix them yourselves’ attitude. If I was EB I would be quite
understandably pissed…having said that…it is fucking Microsoft, I mean they eat babies
don’t you know…what do you expect.


So are you ppl out there pissed/suppressed at all about this…is this showing us what Microsoft is truly like deep down?

Wow, I just noticed that my download speed at Uni goes at 8MB/sec !!!! and i have NO
download limit!!!


..... droooolll.......


i just downloaded COD4, Crysis , and The Witcher in 5 min.......


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Yeah!

I recently started a research scholarship, over the summer brake, for my university in Laser Physics…so naturally my first thought was, man I better get a laptop and get a MMO going otherwise ill die of boredom.

So I got a MacBook Pro. Now I got this because I need to use UNIX and switching between Windows and UNIX shits me, so lay off.

Looking around for MMO’s to play my natural choice was WoW. I mean, hell I already have an account, a lvl 70 and an alt im leveling. But then it dawned on me… my supervisor can come in anytime…and in wow you need to be on the ball and there is really nothing you can do whilst afk. Lucky for me I got an e-mail form EVE telling me “Hay, I just redesigned all my ships and stations and now they look all cool” and I was like, “Hmmmmm”. Now about a year ago me and my friend Kryton did the whole 14 day trial thing and thought the game was ... well “meh” at best. I mean it was good, but just…so…boring. All you who played it know what I mean, compared to WoW it is very very dry…action bits do happen but too far apart and traveling for 15 min to deliver one bloody thing just gets to you. But now, that is exactly what I was looking for….I can Level whilst offline, and the autopilot does everything for me. Woot!

So I got myself the new “EVE Premium Graphics Package” which is about 1.2Gb for those thinking of downloading, and unpacks to about 2.8 which is truly miraculous for an MMO, I mean seriously, my WoW folder is like 12gigs. This is the one you need to get to have any benefit from the improved graphics.

So for those of you contemplating testing EVE out the first thing you do is go get a 14 day trial account. It is free of the web and easy to find. Even for those thinking of playing for longer, you might as well get 2 weeks of free play.

Right now we get to the crux of the post.

EVE is hard…really really hard. I don’t just mean “oh he has a better ship then me so he is hard to kill” type of thing, I mean you sit there and go “what the hell is all this shit”. I sat there for a good 5 min trying to figure out how to buy something, only to find out that it was on the other end of my region…woot another 20 min spent flying. Seriously though, this has the steepest learning curve I have ever seen, for example there is a properly working stock market, where you can invest, along with individual micro and macro economies. A bloody stock market! Macro Economies! Alas I should have done an economics degree at uni rather than wasting my time with an astrophysics degree. I shit you not, I have an astro degree and it is totally useless in a space game…sigh.

So to stop your feeble nooby brains, which are only used to button mashing, from exploding I have compiled a nice guide for your first few hours of EVE online.


Character Creation

Now I don’t know all the differences and sh*t between them, and they tend not to matter since you can fly other races ships anyway, but all we are interested in is quick fun flying. So when you create you should make a Caldari. For the Bloodline pick Civire or Achura, they are pretty much the same. I still recommend Civire though. Then you can add 5 points somewhere; put 3 on memory (a must) and 2 to either willpower or perception. Then pick Merc, then for profession pick the military one with the role of a soldier.

This will create you basic super combat/flying class. Now, you will be nerfed at mining and trading and all that jazz, but they are the boring professions anyway and take tons of time to make money. Furthermore, you can always learn those skills later so it’s no great loss.
Another advantage is that you can fly a frigate class ship straight away which is awesome, and you can fly destroyers by learning only 1 more skill. So (assuming you can get the money) you can fly 3 different classes of ships within one or two days.


In Space

Now to get the most out of your “class” you need to do the Agent Missions…the tutorial will tell you all about them, but they pay really well if you do them quickly and they are very easy, mostly 'fetch this' types.

Now what you want to do is to continue doing the missions until you have about 300k ISK. This will allow you to buy most of the frigate types in game. This shouldn't take long, you can get +200k ISK within the first 3 hrs played.


Ships

There are really only 2 you should consider. The Bantam and the Merlin. Apart from looking cool these 2 ships fill a good role for a budding pilot. The Merlin is your all out combat ship for those that want to continue down the path of coolness, whilst the Bantam is a mining vessel with a large cargo bay. So if you want to switch to mining/trading, now is the time to do it. Now, these ships are the extremes, for more all round ships you can look at the Condor and the Kestrel.

Well that should keep you entertained for a few days, remember to join a good guild because they will help answer questions and generally help you out.

Well hope this helps people who were thinking of trying EVE out and hopefully gets you on the right track. I am hoping to stick with it, but we will see how the 14day trial goes.