I have bought a couple of keyboards specifically for gaming but never a mouse. My main requirement for the mouse was to have very good movement tracking (acceleration, dpi etc) and a dynamic DPI setting and I settled on the Saitek mouse after looking through many other models of mouse highly recommended by gamers.

This mouse has 7 buttons:

• Left, right and middle
• Forwards and backwards
• An extra thumb button
• And a mode selector button

There are 3 modes on the mouse, which means you can profile up any button on the mouse to do something other than its default action. The other nice thing is that you can specify the desired DPI that you wish in each mode.

I have a profile that represents High, Medium and Low DPI and I use that extra thumb button as an additional shift state to allow me to boost the mouse senstivity should I need. The nice thing is that I can run around with high sensitivity then look down a scope and hold the thumb button to increase my accuracy.

The wire is nice and long but it does feel a little light and slightly cheap (it wasn’t cheap). This might be because I am more used to a wireless with batteries in it.

Grab my profile here and here’s a preview:

Before I comment on the game, I just want to state how far and how good Steam has come along in the several years it has been about. When I first used it, it so flaky that I had to scrap it and go back to CS1.5 and running Valve games from the start menu instead of through Steam (you know what I mean)

But now it is really stable now I cannot believe it. Another gripe I used to have with it was that all games in the store were listed in dollars, and you could only use credit cards to pay for new games (at the time I didn’t have a credit card).

I was also against buying “the virtual box”; I loved to purchase the game box in store. Feel the box and take pride in the artwork. It is a very different matter nowadays, it is a real pain in the arse to keep track of all those disks. In fact, I find myself favouring services like Steam and Stardock over the physical game since I don’t have to worry about installing the thing or keeping it up to date, that is all done for me.

Anyway, they game.

BEST GAME EVER!

It is so simple, 4 people, kill zombies, achievements, great laugh. Best played drunk I think.

It certainly has all the aspects of what I was hoping to acheive in my guild wars build manager, however the most useful features I am looking for are not there.

Such as searching folders recursively for a specific build, or automatic organisation of the skills, or backup mechanisms for saving the templates.

Still, a very good app worth mentioning.

I found some source code long ago from GWFreaks however it was so old, messy and written in VB.NET that I really struggled to understand it. The last resort was a PHP based version of the template parser and a small snippet I found on a Code Guru forum. With this information I begun playing around and eventually began to build a greater understanding of what was involved.

Using the wiki guide on the Skill Template Format and the Equipment Template Format I finally built a set of objects to help encode and decode the templates.

You will find the details and the project files on the Template Parser project page

 
From left to right: Born of Adversity, Not Me , Not Me, Me!, Not Me, Not Me, Not Me

I can’t really remember all the names, it was a couple of weeks back >.< I’m sure my guildmates will remind me shortly :P

 It is fantastic, I did have my doubts after recent let downs in games I bought and played.

It has lost nothing from the old game, and has everything that Battlefield 2 should have had. It has objectives, it has vehicles and aircraft. Better feedback and reporting about “missions” and objectives. Cool toys etc.

 It is still only a multi player game, there isnt really a single player mode. The only thing that comes close is playing against bots in the “Play Computer” mode.

I did have a little issue with the graphics, it picked up my TFT and graphic settings quite nicely but there still seems to be a bit of “lag” I should say. Wonder whether I need to turn on VSync to sort it out.

On first look, the interface was really busy, all sorts of icons moving across it. It displays “missions”, these are the map objectives and you can also see who is working on what missions. More missions get added as the enemy builds up defenses and deploy “stuff”. So during a battle it can really evolve.

 Moving around can be a little clunky. Going prone and rolling around, you cannot access your guns so just like in earlier versions of battlefield 2, you easily get killed just because you were going prone or attempting to do something in a vehicle. Flying is also difficult I find, as there is no native joystick support. But with a little fiddling with configurations and console commands, you can setup a joystick. If I can ever work out how to get into the console ¬_¬

The toys and deployable defenses are very cool. As a Field Ops you can choose the type of artillary you want to use and then use a targetting tool for accurate attacks or the old style smoke marker. Covert Ops get a third eye camera, that you can attach to stuff and allow you to watch incoming enemies… then get it to explode as well ^^ Engineers can deploy sentry guns… I think this would end up being very useful for defending entrances and gaps in the lines.

Like I mentioned before, there is alot more feedback on what is going on, and there is clear indication of how much XP you have earnt and what bonuses you have/will achieve.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg… im sure I will discover more treats and secrets over the next couple of days ^^

 But I was a little dissapointed when I played it. Yeah the graphics were nice but the 3D bit was a bit misleading. Its the old 3rd person view, but if you press the spacebar you can look around… I was expecting that the camera was fully 3D and I could move it around one way… move my units then move it somewhere else etc.

“Best RTS experience”… its still lacking, it just seems to be a commander and conquer with some more advanced unit commands and a greater range of units. Homeworld 2 is better than this imho. Even the simplest thing ruins it, like I was playing the training missions (bugger all help they were as well) and I built a huge army of quick units, some tanks and Anti aircraft and like many RTS when i moved them they all get strewn out. All the quick units sped ahead and stopped… then got bombed as there was no AA to help them. Homeworld 2 for example… as soon as you group a set of units, you can choose the formation in which you want them to be and then they will always move at the speed of the slowest unit in that group.

So to me, so far it just seems like another generic RTS with nicer graphics and suffers from what alot of other games have atm with is no innovation… just continuing the RTS genre. Why doesn’t someone remake the old classics, like Dungeon Keeper… that was fantastic.

I do however look forward to Enemy Territory; Quake Wars…and Assassins Creed.

Its nice to be back, GW differs from WoW, its more plot based, there is a storyline and you get to watch cutscenes… its more like a Co-operative RPG… but it works. I can take out 8 henchmen (NPCs) with me and struggle, or I can get together with a group of people and not struggle so much :P

 I decided that instead of playing the Warrior all the time I am going to see if I can focus on healing so I am playing my Monk at the moment and to say I am not struggling is an understatement. But, once I can get into the midset that such a class requires… I think I can take those skills into other games in the future. My basis for this is that everyone always needs a healers, and healers in WoW were practically treated like royalty.

 So Ive also picked up the new campaign and expansion since I started playing it again and there are so many parallels between GW and WoW.
GW has something called Hard Mode… this is the same as going into an instance in WoW in Heroic Mode.
They have some new classes called the Paragon, that to me seem alot like Paladins in WoW
err ok that was many but I cant think of any more. There is the odd thing I miss, like being able to link items into the chat.

What I do like is that they have the ability in GW to save a template of your set of skills and attributes… thats nice, you can quickly switch between builds.

But I am so far behind the pack now that i am doing my old routine of trying to do everything myself, so i dont encumber everyone else and slow them down.
Ill get there I guess… so much I have forgetton.

Its sad, as the game and its people were all special and they will be missed but like X and ET before… it must come to an end. In fact I had got a bit fed up with it over 6 months ago, the expansion was the only thing that kept me playing. But a mix of friends and good guild members leaving and all the bickering that came out of it… just got fed up.

 Bit miffed… as I bought the guild website and put alot of time into where it might now become defunct.

Left with a bit of a hole… bored, its back to BF2… just waiting for Quake Wars to come out… might revive some of the ET glory days ^^

 It surprised me somewhat that I could spend more than 6 months on a game… when single players are lucky if they last a week with me before i complete thier content or get fed up of them (*cough* STALKER *cough*)

Just over a year! i spent playing world of warcraft… and then i realise that I should have had XFire running as it doesn’t show on my profile… ¬_¬ bugger

 Life is generally good, thats all im gonna tell ya ;)

This server is most famous for its tendency to be laggy for no apparent reason… even when its not reporting lag… it must be a feature!

Today was a prime example, hours after weekly maintenance was finished got home and logged on. Within seconds I was exposed to complaints about the server… bombarded by online-offline messages… that, was the first hint. Shortly after getting on, I joined up to a group to go into an instance (Black Morass to be exact, you know, end of the Karazhan attunement chain etc, whole load of fun for a Warrior but not for the poor sod playing the Mage).

So after struggling through what seemed like treacle… i managed to grab a lift down to Gadget. Going afk for 5 mins it takes to get there to relieve myself and stock up on water before the run, i come back to find myself still flapping stationary in mid air over Bloodhoof Village… I cry for help in vain; “Someone get me a ladder!” but sadly my fellow guild mates are suffering a similar fate. Stuck to the floor, unable to open mail, banks  or bags.

After various restarts, and stuttering attempt, it finally takes the group 2 hours, just to get into the instance. After that it went quite smoothly, well, we did two attempts but didn’t manage to complete it. (The Shaman respecced to resto and was under geared, and the Warlock had a power cut, and the Rogue had lag… apart from that we wiped on the 2nd (hardest) boss each time)

 Ah well… give it a few days and it will be back to normal… just in time for the next weekly maintenance!