I'm up, he sees me, I'm down!

I'm still having loads of fun in Fallout 3. I went ahead and registered and set up a Games for Windows LIVE account. In doing so I had to start over with a new character. I can still play the other character, but I have to log out of GFW LIVE. It really didn't bother me to do so, because there were several things I wanted to change from the first time. Number one thing was getting more strength in my SPECIAL. Getting over loaded so quickly was very annoying. I also have a better idea of how the Skills and Perks work. Just like with most MMO's going through a newbie area is always easier the second time. Well it is the same way with Fallout 3. I knew quickly where I needed to go to get my bottle caps (which is the currency for the game). This second time around I tagged speech for skill and have put more points into it. This opened up a few extra avenues starting out and gave me more options with some of the quest.

I had found a video on youtube showing where to find a hidden cache with a sniper rifle. Being able to scope in and rain down death from afar rocks. It makes you fill more covert. Plus if something goes wrong you've got that extra distance handle your enemy. One draw back that I ran into was when picking up the sniper rifle it was already very low on durability and needed to be repared very quickly. The first time it took me a long time to find more enemies with sniper rifles to get it repaired. Last night I had headed North West of Megaton and found a group of raiders that were encamped on an old over pass. This is where I discovered there was a sniper among them. I was easily able work through them with a sniper rifle. Once I had taken out the sniper I was able to repair my newly looted rifle and hopefully give me a better run this time.

Being that I invested a little more points in Strength this time and have spent more points in Melee weapons skills. I seem to do a lot better with close quarters combat. I've been using a combat knife and bat to save ammo.

For the most part the over all story line has stayed the same. But I'm getting information differently this time. I plan on playing through and working on all the side quest that I can. I've already read enough to know that once you do the final quest then the game is over.

The one thing I've loved about playing is that I don't feel like I have to rush through content to have fun or get cool abilities. In most MMO's it feels like you have to rush to get to a certain level before you can really have fun with a class. That definitely doesn't seem to be the case with Fallout 3. I've been enjoying going out and searching old buildings for supplies and running in to the random encounters. It was sheer excitement when I ran across my first Talon Mercs trying to fullfill their bounty.

I had posted previously that I was thinking of getting a console. As of now that can wait. Being that I've finally opened up to a whole different side of PC gaming, and not just limiting myself to MMO's. I think I can wait on the Xbox. There are plenty of first person shooters that I want to try on PC. Geez I can't believe I waited this long to try something that wasn't an MMO.

Shifting Directions in Gaming

I canceled my WoW account this Saturday. I have been a little bored for sometime with playing. Nothing against WoW, but I think I'm bored with MMO's in general. I haven't stopped playing games though. This weekend I went out and bought Fallout 3. A co-worker has been going on about it for about the past two weeks. I had already been browsing the internet and reading about different games. When I came across the link to the Brotherhood of Steel Faction on the Fallout 3's web sight I was hooked. Basically they are post apocalyptic Knights Templars. I've alwasy loved the lore about paladins and knights. That is why I've always been drawn to fantasy genre, but when it was tied to furturistic sci/fi I became extremely interested. This actually opened up my mind to a sci/fi genre and a way I hadn't ever really thought about before.

So yeah, I'm hooked on Fallout 3. This is a great game, and I never knew I could enjoy a RPG this much. Really and truly these kinds of game fit my play style a lot better, I just didn't realize till I tried it. From what I've read these game has several endings, and you can play it differently each time. For right now this game is going to hold my attention for a log time.

So for now I'll be giving the MMO's a break, and expanding my PC gaming to different types. Eventually I want to try a first person shooter game. Crysis is one title that I've been reading a lot about and F.E.A.R.

Keeping An Eye Out for Ninjas!

In my mind when something unexpected happens it's NINJAS! Or those little rogue squirrels that roam the neighborhood. That is just what happened. Ninjas!

I get home from a long day of work today. As I come into the door I grab my freehand cob pipe and load it with some Early Darkness that I laid out this morning to dry out some. I set the pipe down to go and change into some shorts and t-shirt. At my closet I discover water dripping all over my closes. I look up and see the ceiling dripping. I immediately knew the suspect was a drain pan for the ac unit. I sets right above that location. I mumble a few explicative words cursing those little ninjas that ruined my evening and immediately head into the attic. My suspicions were proven to be correct. It was full to the brim and slowly dripping water out. No doubt caused by these willey rogues hiding in the attic playing havoc on my free time.

So once I snap back to reality and realize that his is real world stuff and it going to take real world mentality to fix this shit. I try to get back into my installer mode, from my days of working in the field long ago. I it is different mind set. Something I would always tell my self when everything seemed it could not get any worse. "Well this is what separates the men from the boys" something my coach in highschool would always yell out and it has stuck with me my whole life. Now I am by no means a handy man, I don't have the tools for this kind of stuff. But hey, I've mastered getting a second OS running on my PC. (In my best fat bastard voice) I can do thas!!!! So four hours later I have the repairs made and will check tomorrow to see if my handy worth is good. I started out trying to mess with it and see if I could flush out the gunk build up, but as with anything else I figured I could cut everything out and rerun a new drain line a lot faster. We will see.

Ok let's see. Nothing for me to talk about with WoW. Most of my guild has been AFK for some time. Summer time everyone is really busy doing real life things. I can't say that I've spent too much time playing lately either. Most of the last week has been messing with Ubuntu.

I am downloading the free trial for Final Fantasy XI. I've been wanting to try this game for some time. To be honest I think it was some the reviews that I have read that talked about it being a huge grind. I figured what the heck it is a free trial it won't matter. If I don't like it no harm done.

Another thing I've been itching to get for some time is a console. I'm mostly leaning towards the Xbox 360, but the PS3 has a good selection of games. From what I've been told it has very good backwards compatibility with previous generation Playstation games. There are several that I work with that play the Xbox and FPS games, and they always seem to have a good time. In some way I think I might be missing out by not giving them a try. Plus I may find that I really like it.

Ok so a little update on my progress with the Lapband. I've lost 91 pounds so far. BIG difference in the way I feel. No more hearburn and the sleep apnea has gone away. I have 77 pounds to go, but I'm in no rush. I already feel a 91 times better than I did before.

And now I've noticed that my download canceled for FFXI.....damn Ninjas are back!

I guess I'll go and enjoy that pipe.

RTFM

When I got home last night I tried to install a different version of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS in hopes I would have better chance of keeping WoW from crashing. Well that was a disaster as I started installing the drivers from ATI and missed a step. Once I rebooted I stayed in low graphics mode and couldn't do anything to fix it. It doesn't help that I didn't realize at the time the difference between the open-source and proprietary drivers. Hey I'm learning. I upgraded to 8.10 hoping that it would pull down the correct drivers that I needed. That didn't work. I went to a white screen every time.

So Saturday morning, I put 9.04 the Jaunty Jackalope back on. For now I installed the proprietary drivers from Ubuntu. I haven't installed WoW back on it yet, I'm actually going to wait I think. I'm planning on getting an external hard drive for us to back up all our pics, music, and all the other stuffs. Once I do that I plan on wiping everything out again. I have a 500 Gb and 98 Gb hard drives in my PC. I'm thinking of going with something like this:

• 98Gb with Windows XP loaded with WoW only
• 500Gb partitioned: 400Gb for Ubuntu 9.04 and 100Gb for testing other versions or distros.

The prices on a 500Gb hard drives have dropped tremendously since I bought mine. I maybe picking up another one of those as well.

I still haven't decided whether I'll load the latest drivers from ATI yet. I'm a little hesitant with my last go around. I really want to because I want to make it work like I've read that others have done.