Necrotron

Antzy. Antsy. One of those spellings. SOMETHINGY.

I intend to try to break all aspects of Freedom over my knee.

WHY IS IT NOT MIDNIGHT YET

Another data point: I am running 11.7, and have been running 11.6 for the life of the driver. I haven't crashed once. Here's a list of my specs, just in case we can find a pattern.

CPU: Core i7 920 4GHz (2.66GHz stock)
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 5850
Motherboard: ASUS P6X58D-E
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3-1600
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Sound card: Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty (Alchemy not installed)
Antivirus: Microsoft Security Essentials

Other pertinent running software: Logitech Setpoint 4.80 drivers for MX Revolution, Razer Deathadder drivers 3.03, Steam, Firefox 5 (hardware acceleration enabled)

My system is as standard and as trimmed down as I can make it, software-wise, so this probably is not what makes me unique. The only way I differ egregiously from the average bear is my watercooling system, which has rendered me immune from GPU driver fan speed bugs in the past, and overheating in general.

Welp, it doesn't. Still uses 1024x768, and I see no options screen on the login prompt or server selection. Not being in the beta, I can poke around no further.

I take it this is the US version of PC Gamer. Nertz. No way us brits are getting our hands on that. I'll have to use my imagination, I guess...

Trials can be fun in moderation, and moderation is exactly what I intend to take them in. I did two Lambs, one Beef, and one Key Lime Pie a couple of days ago, I did the weekly strike target yesterday, and I may do some more today if the mood takes me. Or, I may go play another game and charge up to people so I can smash grenades into their faces. While drunk. As long as it's fun, I'll play; I absolutely, resolutely refuse to grind.

With all of the rewards combined from the above trialling (inf-to-IXP, shards-to-threads, notice-to-threads, merits, salvage tables) I have managed to get myself a tier two Interface, a tier one Judgement, enough IXP to unlock both slots and still end up with more influence than I started with. That's perfect. The solo rewards path is most certainly broken as all hell, and I feel for people who dislike teaming.

I don't like how expensive the Ascension Armor is, but I accept that it's very much an Incarnate reward. On principle, tying costumes to end-game rewards of that magnitude is not something I am a fan of, but the costumes have been designed to be Incarnate-related from the start.

Now, having said all that, gating the auras and emotes behind Astral merits is absurd. In my "take it as it comes" pace, I cannot spare so many merits on things so trivial, and yet they are genuinely good costume pieces that I may want. I spend as much time inside the tailor as the next man, but I won't spend ten Astrals on any generic aura, costume piece or emote.

The thinking of the developers is clear as day to me. They had these new path auras and emotes, were in the middle of finishing Freedom, and wanted to bulk up I20.5 a bit, so they added them into the Astral and Empyrean vendors while they were there. I'd much rather put some Paragon Points towards the auras, but until Freedom launches, there is no effective way of selling them to us without putting them into a Super Booster. I feel their pain, as small Boosters (like the Party Pack) are derided, while Super Boosters carry the expectations of costume change emotes, auras and a special themed power.

I won't spend merits on the new path auras and emotes, but when Freedom launches, I have faith that Paragon will make them available there.

Zwi elaborated in the main thread that you'll still be able to buy slots. If you're a VIP, you start with 12 and can buy up to 36, just like subscribers do now.

I've examined the rules for Free, Premium and VIP in detail, and can state with confidence that subscribers lose nothing; not what they have, or what they can get. So that's something.

The launcher offers to take full ownership of any pertinent game directories, so that you do indeed fully own the files. If you were to install City of Heroes within C:\Program Files, then you would not own the City of Heroes directory. After taking ownership, no admin rights are required. The NCSoft Launcher asks for this privilege once, and fully explains what it is doing. After that, it never asks for admin rights again.

In contrast, the old launcher was written before UAC and limited user access existed.

Calling NCSoft shady is hearsay. If they are so shady, why do you give them your personal details and bank information?

This should give you some data on SSD caching. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/i...ching-review/2

The Z68 SSD caching option turns a regular hard drive into a ghetto hybrid, storing the most frequently accessed blocks. Unfortunately, it takes a couple of dry runs to really help, and you'll undo the work when you run something that the SSD hasn't cached. Considering how pricey the smaller SSDs are next to something like a 120GB Vertex 2, there is little incentive to go down this route, rather than getting a big SSD and managing what you install to it manually.

The 8800M GTS is a mobile GPU, and as a rule, mobile GPUs are weaker than their desktop siblings. Despite this, they still share the same name. It makes things much more confusing than they need be.

The 8800 series in general is indeed rated at medium Ultra Mode, but that's based upon the full fat desktop 8800 GTS 512MB. That chip has 112 shaders (streaming units, cores, whatever you like to call them) at its disposal. Later models had 128. Your 8800M GTS only has 64, and runs at a slower clock speed. It's damn near half the speed that people stab at when they talk about an 8800 in general terms.

But that is the problem with laptops. The biggest GeForce you get has around 96 shaders, any bigger than that and you start to veer into more expensive territory.

JOY! I can get on US test and get at steampunk items.

Techbot, put /LaunchGame=CohTest at the end of the shortcut to your NCSoft Launcher, then either direct it to your existing EU test directory or make a new one. Log into that, and blammo.

I had a good look at the beautification tonic (normal mapping). It takes years off of the game, makes it look 3 years younger. So now it looks like a game from 2007 rather than 2004. I'd need to look at it from every angle, but if it holds up, I'll be very pleased.

WE NEEEEEEEED IT

Seriously. Sold. You have my money. Throw it up on the store so we can all hand you our cash.

The Youtube trailer says "BUY NOW!", but it lies.

I have completed a successful Lambda with an Inv scrapper. I died, but so did everybody. The mobs that swarm around Marauder make short work of any powerset.