This is what happens when you try to game on Windows Vista when you have an NVidia card. My system has the latest drivers installed as of this post’s date.
What a headache… my next card is going to be an ATi, I don’t care if they fix this issue before I buy another card. I’m fed up with it. >.<
My DxDiag.txt for those who are interested.
EDIT: A little more info. What happens is the game freezes up, the screen goes all black and the system remains in this state for a minute or two. Sometimes the game will completely crash, other times it will resume. Either way it’s a huge pain in the arse.
~Steph
The most recent free update to EQ2 added the dark elf city of Neriak to the game. In addition to the city they’ve added a not-so-new race, the evil faye. This just means that a player can now start a faye character and make them evil from the get go, and they also have the benefit of starting in the Neriak area.
All of this means that I had to resub for a month to see the new sights… of course!
Yes, I am going to play jumping jacks out on a limb and say that a MMO bubble is in the works. Also, I’m going to blame it on World of Warcraft. Er… sort of. Well, perhaps not really..
The situation that we see in the MMO genre is one of every development studio attempting to copy WoW. They do this by copying WoW’s style of game play, and they succeed by lesser or greater amounts. Depending on the individual game, of course.
So you have all of these games trying desperately to be World of Warcraft, yet of course those who are playing WoW will continue to do so. After all, why are they going to leave WoW when those other games offer game play so similar to what they already receive? With their accomplished characters, on game servers with friends that they have known for quite some time…
MMORPG.com is saying that Age of Conan is now in Open Beta, yet the beta process claims that adventurers must be selected from the pool. Hmm, this does not sound like an “open beta” to me, but none the less, such is how it’s being worded.
This is what I said on my beta application form. You know what? I meant every word of it:
Even if I did not live in the states this would still turn my stomach. What a bunch of disgusting, pandering, money worshiping toads.
I am truly not sure who should be more insulted: the people in the states, or the people in the UK as these snakes try to slither around them for their money.
I’m morbidly curious to see what insults Sony has for UK nationals (and their great BBC) after the PS3 inevitably flops there, too.
Large quote & link to source after the jump:
Zhyling is my character in 9Dragons, a free MMORPG. The game uses realistic martial arts set in mythological ancient China; in other words, all of the traditional beliefs of Chi are real in the game’s setting. This provides the casters and healers that are typical to MMOs.
9D is quite the grind fest, but what can you expect from a free MMO? There are some nice martial arts moves to watch until they become repetitive, and it also has plenty of typical MMO quests and tasks. Not too shabby for a freebie.
Screen shots follow…
This is the best review that I’ve read about Vanguard, and sadly I’m not the one who wrote it. 
Click here to read it. Now that’s an honest review.
The Lord of The Rings Online, or “LoTRO”, is being produced by Turbine Inc. This is the same company behind Dungeons & Dragons Online (aka “DDO”).
It’s no secret that DDO is not especially popular. It breaks a great many fundamental rules of Dungeons & Dragons and in many people’s opinion it is not a good representation of D&D. I will be straight out about this and say that I am one of the people who have that opinion.
Turbine themselves gave a significant blow to their reputation with an expansion for Asheron’s Call 2. They released the expansion whilst knowing full will that they were going to pull the plug on the entire game, yet they gave no indication that this was going to be the case. As far as I know no refunds were offered. This was very under handed behavior.
Why do I bring all of this up in my post about LoTRO? It’s because I want everyone to know what my bias is. There are a lot of people who either rant or rave about something but their point of view is never fully disclosed. I believe that it’s important to lay all of the cards out on the table.
With all of that said it may be surprising, then, that I don’t have a solely negative point of view of LoTRO. Thus it’s also important to point out that I am not a huge fan of Tolkein’s writing, but I loved the movies and the animated version of The Hobbit.
So… I spent a few days playing the Open Beta of Vanguard. It’s supposed to be released sometime at the end of January.
There are very many comments on the ‘net that describe this game. This post by “Manveru” sums it up nicely.
The graphics in Vanguard were generally ho-hum. They were nothing special and nothing particularly awful. While some areas did look very nice, such as under the tree at the high elf starting location, there was simply nothing impressive to the game’s visuals. Nothing about the graphics of Vanguard made me think, “this is a new game”.
In fact, the dark elf newbie area was a so boring to look at that I lost all interest in logging in to that character.
For the curious, I had the game set at the highest quality graphics option. The lighting options (Bloom, HDR, and Tone Mapping I think it was called) were disabled, and average FPS was between 12 and 20, depending on my character’s location.
Character customization was severely limited. There’s a slider bar that you use to select from a limited number of faces and hair styles. You can then use identical sliders to increase or shrink the size of the eyes, nose, mouth, and so on, but the end result is merely a question of how absurd you want it to look.
For example, there were characters running around in the game that looked as though their heads had been smashed between two flat surfaces, but aside from that oddity their faces were still the same as everyone else’s.
The body customizations allowed you to make the character fat, tall, muscular, and so on. These were better than the facial options and allowed some variance in your character versus that of someone else’s.
It has been over a year since I last had anything to do with the original EQ. Even today I have no interest in that game. As I sit here typing this I find myself wishing that I had not logged into it tonight.
Not simply because I don’t like the game itself, but because I now sit here slightly depressed. It’s odd because I can’t quite put my finger on the reason, but it was a genuinely depressing experience. Perhaps I would have slept better had I not messed with it.
If you know me - and to be honest only the few of you who I know will read this - then you know that I can be very curious. I was sitting at the computer tonight trying to think of something entertaining when it occurred to me that I haven’t looked at the original EQ in over a year.
After asking myself several times if I even wanted to bother with it I finally allowed my curiosity to get the best of me.
-
About Moi
Steph is a college student at Pittsburg State University, majoring in psychology. Read my about page for more information.
Recent Photos
