Age of Conan:Is still beautiful

Latest Patch:
The latest patch seems to have fixed the previous problems of crashes i mentioned and added a performance boost so the game is running better than ever for me. Ive been getting back into the game and have enjoyed it.

Bugs:
However i encountered my first real “bugs” in the game and it was a bit of a downer. The funny thing is that i had read the chat in the zone where the quests where over the past 2 weeks and people had been saying that its bugged and asking “is enter the pyramid bugged?” and i found for myself that yes in fact they were. So i had to skip them which was a bit disapointing as the reward and XP would have been great.

Level 40 and a mount:
I recently hit level 40 a goal i was trying to hit in the game for the mount but then realised like most other players that i dont have enough gold for it. In game the mount is 3g which seems little but you dont get a lot of money in game and vendoring items is the main source of income at the moment. But that leads another problem the bags you get are ridicously small. The fact that items drop every 3-4 mobs you kill means that you will more often than not leave items you cant pick up of course this leads to the problem of having less gold. Having no mount is quite frustating as the zones in the game are huge and getting from to another is a real pain and becomes a “Suicide run” as you kill yourself to travel across the zone and i do mean that by the way.

Watching players ride around on their mounts (pre-order people got a rhino or mammoth) both of which look really cool is frustrating. I know that to gather that amount of gold is going to take a long time. Someone said in the chat channel that they didnt get their mount till level 50+! Long way to go still with only having 80 Silver at the moment.

Scenery:
The different zones in the game are amazing and the graphics have me running round like a photgrapher taking screenshots all the time heck im even using them for my desktop background. Make no mistake the graphics and sound in this game are top-notch with some of most spectacular scenery ive ever seen in a game. Im going to post some of the amazing screenshots ive collected so you can see for yourself.

So far so good:
So far im still enjoying the game and having a great time exploring around.  The game still feels like an RPG with a chat system but thats to be expected when your a bit of an anti-social outcast  who likes to level and quest by themselves.  Having done all that in WoW questing and finding things out for yourself is still great fun.

Age of Conan-Stabilty Problems

Just when i was getting into the game and liking it and heck even leveling fast now im getting constant problems with the game. Stabilty must be the number one priority in any game or program but since the last patch in AoC (16th june) ive noticed more crashes than before with the game.

Ive tried running the game on Windowx XP SP3 and Vista 32 SP1 (default OS) but two problems remain;

  • “Grey Map Bug”
  • “Out Memory Error”
  • Game crashes on loading new zone, hangs on “updating Content”

Ive been checking the forums for a fix and tried a few suggestions out and ill link them later. From reading the forums alot of people have the same problems with the game and thats not to mention the bugs which to the most part i havnt really noticed or have been effected by too much well apart from the “Hide” Ability of the “Assassin” which is about as random as rolling a dice.

Coldplays – Viva La Vida, New Album is out

coldplayalbumcov.jpgIve been a huge coldplay fan since i heard there first single way back in 2000 called “Yellow”. I was struck how such a song with simple lyrics and acoustic guitar intro and video of chris martin walking along a beech could sound so great and fresh at the same time.

Around that time there was only Oasis and few other bands doing the rounds as the whole Dance Music scene took off. But Coldplay were a breath of fresh air and remain to be so.

Their last album X&Y was great with some fantastic songs on it, an album that reminds of going to work in the morning on my bike back in 2006. Played it non stop for about 2 weeks.

Their new album came out yesterday but was leaked on the net about 2 weeks ago i believe. After grabbing it from I-Tunes ive yet to listen to it in full. So expect a mini-review of each track soon.

In the mean time you can read RTE’s review of it at;
http://www.rte.ie/arts/2008/0611/coldplay.html

 

I-Tunes Album Review:

1) Vida la vida:
A Great Triumphant anthem that builds up nicely to sort of heavenly euphoric chorus. The violins make it sound sweet and uplifting.
4/5

2)Life In Technicolor:
Is an instrumental track that starts out slow then has a kinda indian drums and guitar riff building up into something quite uplifing.
4/5

3) Cemeteries of London:
Starts out kinda slow and feels sad then builds up into that familar Coldplay sound with the Acoustic guitar in the background and electric echoing out solos.
4/5

4) Lost!:
Using church organs to start out with a drum loop makes it feel “disorientating”, feels like a “Album Filler Track”.
3/5

5) 42
Minor piano chords give away the area this song is heading in with sad lyrics about about death for the first 1min 30 of the track, it then takes a U Turn with an electric guitar kicking in playing over drums and then ends up back in familar Coldplay territory and back again to the start. Strange song.
3/5

6)Lovers In Japan / Reign of Love
An up-tempo start and feel good factor kicking in, builds up nicely into a feel good song.
4/5

7)Yes
Has an Arabian sound to it but doesnt seem special
3/5

8)Chinese Sleep Chant
Distorted guitar riff loops over drums while chris martin whispers over the track. This song is a bit of a “Grower” a couple of listens
3/5

9) violet hill
There 2nd single from the album is fairly soild and typical coldplay but annoying guitar chord change seems to un-balance the song a bit.
4/5

10) Strawberry Swing
Another guitar riff almost silent in the background plays over the song as chris sings softly for the first two mins where the acoustic guitar comes to forefront and the song feels like a sort of day dream love song.
3/5

11) Death and All His Friends:
Sad slow intro start with a mellow piano playing and mute electric guitar echoing in the background. Then the piano kicks in strongly and then the song really starts to build up into a chorus of chris martin singing hits. I expected a “Fix you” like chorus here but it was cut short.
4/5

12)The Escapist
Instrumental nothing really to say.

13) Lost?
Not sure the difference between this verison of the song and the other at the moment

14) Lovers in japan(Acoustic)
Acoustic and still great.

 

 

 

Big Brother – First Housemate out

bigbro_steph.jpgLast night Big Brother’s Stephaine was voted off the show in what was a kinda dull eviction and sort of surprise.

I can only guess that again the female vote of jealousy struck, something thats been happening quite a lot on Big Brother. Where all females every seem to vote out all the good looking female housemates in some kinda jealous rage.

Not to say that Stephaine didnt have this coming her sulking bitching and moaning over the wedding task was childish and stupid and probably cost her spot in the house.

WoW Fatigue and Age of Conan-First Impressions

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Thought i would try it out for the 30days to see if its a “WoW beater”. All ive heard about are Bugs,Bugs and more bugs. But ive been impressed with the graphics and videos ive seen and the sales alone of the game have been very good. I havnt read anything about the game except one article on an mmorpg site.

WoW Fatigue:
First i must explain that im totaly frustrated with WoW atm. The recent announcement i read on wowinsider.com about Season 4 and Season for Honour being put back possably to August was kinda the last straw. Well this is weird i had read that yesterday and now Blizzard have said June 24th is the start.

Its probably to late for me care anymore now, when you only play WoW for PvP your days are numbered really. Id had tried to get my frustrations known on the wowinsider.com site but of course i was kinda muted by the response. One of the repiles exclaimed “Wow is a PVE game” i quickly thanked that person for pointing that fact out.

One of the things about WoW and i guess any MMORPG (ive only played WoW so far so i cant speak for the other games in the genre) is the constant repetition. You do the same thing over and over and over again so many times that at the start you find it frustating but it you find it so much that it just wears you down and you forget that your the same thing again and again. Now this may not be a bad thing but after a while its time to stop. PVP is like that i normally try to do the daily quests on a few alts and log off quickly, thats about all i can take of WoW at the moment. Ive tried Arenas but i dont think there for me. Needless to say the chance to try out a new MMORPG in a new land with next-gen graphics was a tempting offer and thats where AoC comes in.

Age of Conan:

Character Creation:
Is great fun and very detailed, theres a tonne of options and settings you can use to create your own character and class. I spend quite a while picking mine and going through all the options.

Graphics & Sound:
First thing that strikes you is the graphics and sound they are amazing. The “water” effects are incredible, the water looks so real that you can almost reach out and touch it. “White-Sands Isle” is incredable a beautiful beech like island with tigers and panthers roaming round. “Tortage” is incredably detailed and must have taken a lot of time to create. Down by the docks the ships are quite amazing looking. Wandering around you will be awe-struck by the detail.

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High-Res Screenshot:

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Gameplay:
The game play is fairly straight-forward as your guided easily to the town of “Tortage” where you quests begin. The quest log and map are a little “cluttered” and confusing (compared to wow) but after a few mins you get used to it. You are guided along on your quests slowly and once you figure out how to read the map a handy orange arrow points you in your direction.

Combat:
Is straightforward with the keys 1,2,3 being your attacks you gain new abilities after each level which do more damage and you can find items of mobs you kill.

Bugs:
Yes there are bugs but they are minor ones and dont ruin the game play. A funny one i noticed was that in cut-scences the female characters boobs in the game “Twitch”.

Overall:
So far i like it,because its different and its unknown territory. However i must say ive only played it for one day and dont know too much about it but its quite good fun exploring and learning things. Is it a WoW beater? that remains to be seen a good competitor at least i think. Ive noticed a lot of WoW players fed up with Wow playing it. Of course whether we all come running back after a month or when WOTLK hits is another story.

Big Brother 9 has Started

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Its started over here in the Uk and Ireland on channel 4 and it marks the start of summer on TV and so far its been quite good i must admit. The Fake wedding was a good idea and the house mates seem to be an interesting bunch of people. There is of course a good mix of people from an Albino to a blind person.

Of the girls Rachel is my favorite (shes got a few fans in the house too) shes beautiful,cute,smart and a genuine person. Shes my ideal woman.

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It seems channel4 have gone this for 2 “charlies” from last years BB. Both Alexandria and Sylvia are very irritating, arrogant and very very full of themselves. Alexendria seems to mope about with a scoul on her face about moan about anything. Her outburst at Mikey (the blind person) was out of order but thats what makes good TV and so far its quite good. How they can top the fake wedding i dont know will be interesting to see.

You can catch up with episodes on channel4’s excellent 4oD service.

BB9 Official Site

I-Tunes Sucks, admit it!

itunes-button-logo-300×300.jpgI hate I-Tunes and i hate buying music from itunes not becausei could get ir for free if i looked hard enough i want my music that i pay for in the Mp3 format and without DRM protection which music you buy from I-Tunes has. Usually the music you buy is in the (.m4p) format, a protected Mp4 file. Which means you cant use it on anything other than I-Tunes and your I-pod.

MP4-Protected I-Tunes Music Format:
This sucks make no mistake about it, i have an I-pod and its great but i hate I-Tunes and i hate music that you buy thats got DRM (Digital Rights Management). However there is a few ways around this if your determined to get the music you bought on your other Mp3 player which doesnt support M4P. I recently went about finding out how i could do this as i wanted to use the music i bought from itunes in my own music library software which only plays Mp3 files. This method is quite messy and very frustating to do but it does the job.

Basically it involves “Burning” a Audio Cd in I-Tunes to a virtual CD-Burner which then converts the Audio tracks to Mp3 sounds complicted and it is slightly. The software is called “NoteBurner” and its quite good at what it does.

M4A – Unprotected I-tunes Music Format:
If the music you bought has this format then you can use some software to convert the music to mp3 quite easilily, check out “m4a-to-mp3-converter” from maniactools.com