It means 'nothing'
Gaming
So Incredibly Busy
Mar 9th
Since submitting Oui’s application for permanent residency things have become increasingly busy in my little world and it’s moments like these in which I truly appreciate the wonderful life I’ve had for the last few years. That’s all in the past now because our departure is approaching quickly and so many things need to be done before I go.
We’re very anxious about the application, despite submitting it with every document imagineable (including those regarding my mums cancer). The uncertainty of it all is surprisingly stressful, especially now that I’ve gotten news that my mum potentially has mere weeks to live.
We’ve been on the phone to the embassy, something I’m sure they’re quite sick of by now, and at first we were worried that they would drag our application out like usual despite assurances to the contrary, but there was a flurry of activity yesterday giving me hope that everything could be resolved within a week or two.
In gaming news, our connection is playing up again so we chose this moment to cancel our WoW subscriptions (don’t worry, it’s only temporary) which should expire before the month is done. I could have called the ISP and tried to get it fixed, but we were going to leave so it’s not worth the time.
I cancelled my subscription to LotRO at the same time and I have to confess that I’ve been having a great time playing, of all things, a tank! I’ve tried every class in the game by now, most not surviving very long because I find them too dull/difficult, and honestly never considered to play the tank class until now because I’ve traditionally shied away from tanking.
Assassin’s Creed 2 is fantastic and while I loathe the DRM, I’m living with it to be able to enjoy such an incredible and immersive experience. I’ve never been to Italy but after playing this I feel I virtually have, such is the level of detail. Looking back at the original it’s amazing the leap they made to this one however, do Italians really swear that much?
Part of the Problem
Mar 2nd
So I was thinking that since someone in my family is definitely going to buy Final Fantasy XIII that I can just borrow it from them to play when I’m there and buy Assassin’s Creed II now, since I won’t have a PC to play it on for a while.
I realise how ironic it is that I would cave in and buy it (which I’ve already done btw), but I just can’t help myself. I really want to play it and at least this way I will have perspective when complaining about the DRM rather than complaining for the sake of it.
Yet More Assassin’s Creed 2
Feb 23rd
I’ve been reading a lot about how Ubisoft’s new DRM which will first be rolled out in Assassin’s Creed 2 is designed to combat piracy but I think people have it wrong.
Everyone knows that such a massive change would piss of their customers and be completely ineffective, even Ubisoft (they’ve acknowledged that it will be cracked). Piracy is a nice big easy scapegoat for them to use so as to avoid having to address the real reason they’re doing this, which is to stop second-hand sales and rentals. The new DRM stops second-hand sales and rentals completely.
More Assassin’s Creed 2
Feb 22nd
Generally when a PC release is delayed after a console release we’re given something extra to compensate. For Assassin’s Creed 2 we have to wait longer for DRM that noone wants which forces us to constantly be online or the game will be interrupted (and sent back to the last checkpoint). We get the two pieces of DLC (which are parts that were left out of the original game) but they make us pay extra for them.
Their DRM will save games to their servers and this is apparently a feature we want (which Steam already has). For the record, I didn’t care about this when it was Steam. They say we won’t need a disk in the drive to play the game but even if I was planning to purchase a physical copy I could live with putting the disk in the drive if it meant going without this idiotic DRM. I was going to buy it on Steam anyway, which also has this idiot DRM on top of Steams.
I’m trying to see a positive here, I really am. How is any of this good? Is there any paying customer that any of this would benefit? I only care because I want to play Assassin’s Creed 2!
Ubisoft DRM
Feb 19th
If you hadn’t heard, Ubisoft will be releasing Assassin’s Creed 2 with restrictive DRM that will require you to be online at all times to play the game. If you go offline for whatever reason the game will pause and try to reconnect, at which time it will then send you back to your last checkpoint.
The game is also being rebranded to accomodate the restrictive DRM.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, why does a single player game that has no online function require a constant internet connection? Stop asking sensible questions that are too hard to answer silly!
Apparently the Steam version will include the same restrictive DRM despite the layer of DRM already part of the platform, so as you might expect this has brewed quite the shitstorm (titstorm?).
Anyway, the game will work perfectly, so long as all of the following criteria are met for 100% of any play-session:
- Your internet connection remains up
- There are no outages between you and the Ubisoft servers
- The Ubisoft servers are up
- Ubisoft as a company still exists (they say they’ll patch it if they close down but I’d rather not need to count on their assurances)
See? You drama queens are taking it too far!
Future updates to the DRM will download all of your personal files so that Ubisoft staff can laugh at embarrasing photos of you.
It’s Here!
Jan 28th
I awoke to find Mass Effect 2 is ready to go this morning (and then spent the next 45 minutes decrypting). My first impressions after seeing the introduction:
- The game not only looks a lot better, but also runs considerably better on PC than it’s predecessor ever did too.
- If you don’t already have an EA Online account creating a new one will confuse you because there is an email verification process they don’t mention which you will need to do before having access to the Cerberus Network (it will tell you your email is wrong if you try to log in after creating an account). I didn’t receive the email and had to visit ea.com to get another one.
- Downloading additional content on PC is done manually via the web. They should have done it the same way they did with Dragon Age, from within the game.
- The process of importing your save from the original game requires you to manually tell it where the save file is via the configuration tool. You would think they would know where the original save games were and that it would be automatic, but oh well.
- They’ve gone and changed all the controls from what they were in the original game which is extremely confusing having recently played it.
- I’m not sure how I feel about the whole thermal clip change yet. I can see it will become problematic since it indirectly makes ammunition a finite resource, whereas the original had unlimited ammunition.
I have a WoW raid tonight so it’s going to be a big night!
Temptation
Jan 26th
Now that Mass Effect 2 is out in the US the internet is being bombarded with reviews and other things that will more than likely spoil the game for me so I’m going into Mass Effect 2 blackout mode. The other part of me wants to read the reviews and be vindicated in my purchase, but I just know reviewers can’t help themselves.
Just three more days and I’ll be playing but in the meantime I’m powering on through the original game. This time I’m doing all the sidequests that I can find so it’s taking me slightly longer than my first play through. I really like that the side quests add a lot to the world rather than nothing as I’d read.
Anyway, 3 days!
Something You Probably Don’t Know
Jan 22nd
I’ve always wanted the ability to track information about my character in WoW and the Armory has mostly served this purpose in a limited fashion. The reason is because despite the significant strides Blizzard go to to expose data it is still housed in its own little silo. The fact that the Armory is there is great, but what if information about your character could come to you instead of you needing to go to it?
If there is one thing that I usually want to know it is events on my calendar and little did I know that it is indeed possible to pull your calendar data out of the armory into calendar software such as Outlook or Google Calendar. This was such a huge revelation to me that I absolutely had to write about it here.
After logging into the armory and loading up the desired character, visit the calendar and you will see the following:
Clicking on it will display the screen where you can select the types of events you want to appear on the calendar feed and it is also possible to add the events of your other characters (a maximum of 5).
After selecting the options you desire and copying the feed address to your clipboard, you can then follow the instructions on the Calendar Feed FAQ for how to add to either Outlook or Google Calendar.
The beauty of it is that because it’s a feed it will be automatically updated, so once added it will always be as up-to-date as the armory calendar (which I assume is very up-to-date since it is possible to accept or decline invitations through it).
Unfortunately this probably won’t work for anyone thinking of setting this up on their office PC if they already can’t access the armory, but I’d be happy to hear if it does.
Is there convenient, time-saving thing you know about that you’d like to share? Let me know!
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