I made level 14 the other day. I’ve played everyday since I got the game. There is something about the way it echoes back to the old days of EverQuest that really makes me like it. I only dabbled with the original EQ back in day. But I’ve heard enough stories to know I missed out on lots of fun.

Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying Vanguard so much. And that I have no complaints, other than the 20 gig install size. Sure I could complain if I spent lots of time looking for things to complain about. I’m just having to much fun playing my ranger. Which really is a change of pace for me. Stealthing around mobs and being able to take out a mob with a ranged weapon.

I’m also like the fact that the game is a little riskier than current mmorpg’s. I like that it takes forever to go from point a to point b. I like that when I die I leave a body with my gear on it. I guess I got sick of how some of these games dumbed this things down so much that it made these activities trivial. Granted it’s not as bad as EQ in the beginning. You can recall to your bind spot once an hour (in game time) and you can bind items so that they stay on you when you respawn.

I just wish I could play this one at work like I used to do with Dark Age of Camelot. The significant system specs insure that won’t happen anytime in the future. Oh well.

I picked up a retail copy of Vanguard Saga of Heroes while checking out the new Wal-Mart in my area. I’m very happy that with the additional gig of ram and the new video card that the game is actually playable now. And I’m not kidding about being playable. In the beta with only 1 gig of ram the game was horrid. I maybe got 10-20 FPS in open areas and 1-10 in huge populated areas. Now I get an average of 25-64 FPS at a resolution of 1280×1024 with settings on balanced.

I’m playing a ranger, which is a first for me. It’s a nice change of pace to have a little stealth mixed in with a little ranged combat to go with my usual melee type class I go for. It’s started to dawn on me how old school the game is with it’s death penalty. Which you here in every review of the game. They also didn’t hide the fact the game was the way it is. It’s just not something I’m used to.

I died a few times not noticing the exp I lost each time I died. Then it slowly came to my realization that I was also leaving behind items on my corpse. There is an option to bind certain equipment so it stays with you when you die. But it’s makes whatever I do a more thought out process when I start to engage in combat. Something I don’t worry about in some of the other games in the mmorpg genre. Overall I am enjoying the game. Which does surprise me.

Late notice because I forget to post it until now.

Dear Customer,

This is a reminder that this maintenance is occurring today.

As we continually aim to provide a better experience for our customers, we will be performing a scheduled server maintenance on Saturday, March 10, 2007, from approximately 2:00pm Eastern until 9:00pm Eastern.

This scheduled maintenance is to reinstall the server’s RAID card, rebuild the server’s operating system, then restore your site from a backup that will be taken earlier in the day.

While the maintenance window allows for work all between 2:00pm and 9:00pm, we will being working close to 2:00pm and expect sites to be operational again within 2-3 hours.

Date: Saturday, March 10, 2007
Time: 2:00pm until 9:00pm Eastern
Server: pas-com.net (also known as pascomwebhosting.com)
Estimated Outage Time: 2-3 hours
Services effected: All

We appreciate your understanding during this maintenance, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact.

Thank you for your continued support.

PAS-COM, Inc.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

I ordered my new video card for my computer. It’s a Sapphire Radeon X1950 XT and with the ram I bought last week this will be the last upgrade I do to this PC. About the only thing I can upgrade now is the hard drive. Which I do have my eye on this 500 gig hard drive.

Because this video card I ordered is a huge bastard I had to get a new power supply just to be able to run it. The card is huge. It’s almost two pci cards long. And it takes up two slots in the case. It is my last hurrah to get this year old pc of mine into shape to be able to play Supreme Commander, Vanguard, Gothic 3, and all the other PC games coming out that need the extra horse power.

I really need to build a new computer again. Which I’m doing for a buddy of mine. Just picking the parts for him made me mad. He’s getting an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz system. All of which costs under thousand bucks. Just about the same amount I spent on my PC last year. How computers age. That’s just the way it is.

As long as this new card lets me play Supreme Commander at more than 10-15 frames per second I’ll be happy. I’m really doing all of this for this game. I could give a shit about Vanguard really or anything else. But the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation I’m willing to blow the dough on just to play it. Of course not that I have the cash on hand to buy the actual game. But that will be a purchase I make next check I guess.

Edit/Update

It turns out that the power supply I ordered is shit. The thing has way to many negative reviews about it dying. I don’t want to have to get it replaced in 1-6 months as many reviews say. So I’m going with this one, which I have in my second older PC and have had no problems at all.

It kinda pisses me off in two ways. First it pisses me off because it’s my own damn fault for not reading the reviews for that pos power supply. Secondly it pisses me off that Newegg can charge me right away, yet I have to wait 2-3 business days before I get a credit.

Well I’ve learned my lesson. Next time I’ll research the product out before I go and buy it. I’m just lucky I was able to catch it before Newegg shipped it out.

Since I got my Xbox 360 I’ve been letting my PC gather dust. The last four games I’ve bought have been for the 360. I picked up Rainbow Six Vegas, Dead Rising, Viva Pinata, and Crackdown. The last PC game I picked up was Star Trek Legacy.

Recently there has been a few PC games that just performed poorly on my PC. Gothic 3 and Vanguard are two I can name off of the top of my head. Both of which sounds like that unless you had two gigs of ram of more you would have trouble. So last week I ordered two gigs of ram from Newegg.com. The 2 sticks of Crucial Ballistix DDR 500 (PC 4000) Ram arrived on the 20th (the same day I picked up Crackdown). I have yet to put the ram in to my PC.

I really hope going from 1 gig to 2 gigs will give me that extra punch to play some of these PC games. Specifically I want to be able to play Supreme Commander without having to worry about turning down the graphics and still getting 10-15 FPS. I realize I may need to upgrade my ATI 1600 XT at some point to really get a performance increase. I think my next purchase will be the ATI 1950 Pro before I just go and build a new PC for myself.

Sometime later today I’m going to force myself to stop playing Crackdown and I’m going to install my ram. Then all I have to do is install Gothic 3 and see if I do get a performance boost. Which may lead me to buy Vanguard. And then theres always Supreme Commander.

Crackdown is a game for the Xbox 360 that just came out. I played the demo off of Xbox Live for quite a long time. The game has the type of free form do what you want gameplay that I enjoy. The story is very thin. Your are a genetically engineered super cop who is tasked with putting an end to the three gangs of Pacific City. You are free just to tear around the city as you see fit.

There is a light rpg like system of five skills that raise in level as you go about your business of fighting the gangs in the city. Driving, Explosives, They are: Firearms, Strength, and Agility. All of the skills except Agility go up as you actually do each type of activity. Agility goes up when you find agility orbs that are scattered around the rooftop and hard to reach high up areas. Once your raise Strength and Agility a few times you start to feel like a superhero jumping around and picking up cars and tossing them at bad guys.

The graphics are worth mentioning because of the almost comic book look of the characters. It’s a blend of cell shading and realistic style graphics of other games. Below are some screens just to give you an idea of what it looks like:

Just lots of fun. It has co-op join any time just like Gears of Wars and is a perfect game to play with a friend. It is worth mentioning that Crackdown comes with an invite for the Halo 3 beta test later this year. Which I’m sure more than a few people picked it up just for the Halo 3 beta. Either way I think it is a must have for the Xbox 360.

Fuck NBC! I do the equivalent of having something taped off of the tv by a buddy and have it given to me to watch and I get this shit in my inbox? I don’t see the difference. I don’t have cable. So if I have my friend tape it off of tv will we get hit with this shit when we are trading vcr tapes? For the record I really liked My Name is Earl. I bought the first season on dvd. I won’t be buying the second now. Also I’ve learned my lesson on using external trackers on Demonoid.

Re: Unauthorized Use of NBC Universal Properties Notice ID: 14-10266913
2 Feb 2007 05:26:41 GMT

Dear Sir or Madam:

Please be advised that NBC Universal and/or its subsidiary and affiliated companies (collectively, NBC Universal) are the owners of exclusive rights protected under copyright law and other intellectual property rights in many motion pictures and television programs, including the title(s) listed below (the NBC Universal Properties). NBC Universal diligently enforces its rights in its motion pictures.

Title: My Name is Earl (TV)
Infringement Source: BitTorrent
Initial Infringement Timestamp: 19 Jan 2007 19:42:50 GMT Recent Infringment Timestamp: 19 Jan 2007 19:42:50 GMT Infringer Username:
Infringing Filename: my.name.is.earl.02.10.11.hr-yestv.avi
Infringing Filesize: 734334976
Infringers IP Address: 66.190.57.0
Infringers DNS Name: 66-190-57-0.dhcp.mdsn.wi.charter.com
Infringing URL: http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce

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