Back In Tyria!

Well, I'm back to playing Guild Wars. Unlike other MMOs I've played, Guild Wars is a game I'm always eager to get back into when I haven't been gaming for a while. There's something about the artwork, music, and gameplay that's so unique and refreshing, that it never feels like "work" or a "chore" when playing it.

When it comes to the current crop of MMORPGs out there, I honestly believe GW has the best artwork and graphics going. It's neither "toony" nor "realistic", but "artistic". Even after five years online, I'm still sucked in by its beauty. From the deserts, jungles, urban sprawls, mountain ranges, blasted landscapes, deep undergound mines, and more, it really is concept art come to form.

Jeremy Soule is one kick-ass game composer. It's amazing how much work that guy has produced over the years. I first noticed this guy's music back from Total Annihiliation in the 90s, and I have been a follower ever since. In GW you're not only exposed to the standard, "stylized" western themes, but asian and middle-eastern themes as well. It's just so fucking good, that it's worthy to be purchased and listened to outside of the game (via his DirectSong site, BTW).

One thing I like about ArenaNet is the way they approach gameplay. They like thinking outside the convential norms of MMORPG gameplay. Skills? Not your standard MMORPG skill tree heircharchy for GW, that's for sure! There's even a whole meta following just on skill usage! Pets? OK, I consider the heroes in GW as pets, and ArenaNet put a new style to playing them. Grinding? When I play GW, I never consider the game a grind. It plays so well and fun, I really don't burn out as soon as other MMOs I've played.

OK, alright, you may be saying that I'm just gushing about this game. Well, shit, I am. After five years, it's still a great game! This is coming from a player who's never had a set of Obsidian Armor, LOL!

Now that Guild Wars 2 is coming soon, how do I feel about the sequel? I don't know. I love the continued use of concept art come to "life", not so sure about the shared universe (I kinda liked the instanced environements), and I still don't know what the gameplay is like (I'll have to find out more from the YouTube vids I see out there). But I place my trust with ArenaNet in coming up with a worthy sequel, and I look forward to entering and playing in the next era of Tyria.

Keep it casual!

Just Playing Around...

I'm just goofing around with the sidebar, rearranging and trying out the gadgets. Nothing of import. Move along, move along...

Holy Smokes!

So, it's my "on week" with my "Casual Peek" YouTube videos, and I was editing some of my vids late last night. I was going in and out of the computer room, watching some TV (some cool show on the History Channel on snipers) while monitoring the processing of one of my vids. When I returned to the computer room during a commercial break, I noticed my PC was turned off. "Well, that's odd," I thought. I pressed the power button on the PC, and a quick series of loud "snap, crackle, and pops" started emanating from the back of the PC, followed by that "electronic burning" smell, and a small waft of smoke.

Now, I don't mean to brag, but I know my way around a PC (I have built most all of my PCs, and haven't owned a store retail PC since 1989), and I knew exactly what had happened. My poor power supply had "gone belly up", "kicked the bucket", "deep sixed", "bought the farm", "flatlined", "given up the ghost", "bit the dust", "was 86ed", "checked out", "went kaput", or just simply died. Even though it was just the power supply, there was still an initial fear that went through me, considering the power supply is connected to many components and may possibly have "shorted" or "fried" components such as the motherboard, memory, CPU, video card, CD/DVD, or (most importantly to me!) the hard drives.

When I built my PC, I was actually building a second PC at the same time (to rip a Contact quote, "Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?") to be the "family" computer. It wasn't as powerful as mine, but it still had the same computer case (with the same power supply). So in my fear of wondering what else I may have lost, I began a power supply "transplant operation", using the second PC as the donor. It didn't take long to perform the operation, only the time between two commercial breaks, LOL!

So it was time to push the power button. Would I hear the familiar sounds of the fans start to spin? Would I get a sequence of beeps indicating a fried board, CPU, video, or memory? Would I receive a message indicating no bootable partition? Would I get any response at all?

Well, everything turned out fine. The components were OK, no corrupted OS, even the video that was processing was fine (it must have completed before the power loss). The only casualty is the now powerless family PC. It had donated its component to a worthy cause! Now I'll just have to find a replacement power supply before I start to hear it from the munchkins, LOL!

Keep it casual!