Spatch

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Other than the Festive badge (for logging in), and the Lady/Lord of Winter (for defeating the Lord of Winter), are there any other new badges available in this event?

The sarcasm! IT BURNS!

I appreciate the feedback. Overall, I'm getting the impression the system itself is pretty good, except for the graphics card which is a pretty significant item. Unfortunately, the Dell site does not allow for any other options.

Since I'm in no rush to purchase this laptop, I'll keep looking for a similarly priced system with a better graphics card. After doing some additional research online, I'm getting the impression that an NVIDIA GeForce 260M would be a good graphics card for gaming. Thoughts?

Howdy folks. I'm posting on here to see if any of the resident teckies can opine on a laptop I'm eyeballing, which would act as a secondary computer for my home, as well as (obviously) a mobile computer.

I've perused the forums, and noticed quite a few folks recommend the use of newegg.com, and building one's own system. However, I have not the time or expertise to do this, and don't mind paying a little extra for a pre-built system. Apart from usual day to day use (e-mail, internet), the system will also be used for gaming. I currently play CoH, and Aion. Other games played within the past year include Tabula Rasa, and The MORPG We Don't Speak Of.

The system I'm looking at is Dell. I know lots of folks don't much care for Dell, but my current desktop is a Dell, and my previous desktop was a Dell. I've been very happy with their hardware and, when needed, telephone support, which is the reason I'm looking again at a Dell system.

Anyways, here's the specs of the system I'm looking at:

PROCESSOR Intel ® Core ™ i7 720QM 1.6GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows WIN 7® Home Premium Edition
OFFICE SOFTWARE Microsoft Works, English
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter, 15-Months
HARDWARE SERVICES 1 Year Limited Warranty with 1 Year Return To Depot Service
LCD AND CAMERA HD+ Widescreen 15.6 inch WLED LCD (1680x945) W/2.0 MP
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
HARD DRIVE 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
GRAPHICS CARD ATI Mobility RADEON® HD 4670 – 1GB
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1397 802.11b/g Half Mini-Card
SOUND OPTIONS Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi MB

Essentials
ONLINE DATA STORAGE 1Yr LoJack for Laptops Theft Protection

Accessories
MICE Logitech V220 Cordless Optical USB Mouse - Ruby Red
WIRELESS Linksys WRT160N Ultra RangePlus Wireless N Broadband Router
PROTECTION Kensington ComboSaver Combination Portable Laptop Lock - Red
PROTECTION Belkin Inc 12-Outlet Surge Protector
HOT DEALS Belkin Pitch Black Laptop Messenger Bag

ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card
Processor Studio XPS 16 Notebook
Adobe Reader Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9, Multiple Languages

Total price (before taxes) for the system and all accessories is $1,613 (Canadian dollars). The system itself, excluding the accessories, is about $1,450 CAD. I initially looked at Alienware, but came to the conclusion they were overpriced, which is why I turned to the Dell XPS system.

My primary questions are thus:

1. Should this system provide 2-3 years of reasonable performance before obsolescence kicks in?
2. Will this system run games smoothly at high settings? Put another way, could I be reasonably confident it will run CoH in the new Ultra Mode (realizing specs are yet to be confirmed)?

Any input from the resident experts is welcome.

Cheers!

Spatch

They are what they are, and I doubt they'll be improved/buffed anytime soon, as the devs don't want to provide vets with overly powerful advantages. I sympathize with you, however. I hardly summon my vet pet, since it is invariably killed in extremely short order.

One thing I can point out is that the 48-month vet pets are buffable. So, if you're on a team, ask the buffers to buff up your pet. Whenever I'm playing my support toons, I always make a point to buff any vet pets I see out.

Nice to see the last few posts here injecting a little common sense into the matter. I never understood the hate-on some folks have for the day job badges. The length of time it takes to get any single day job badge is one thing, but beyond that the objections I see over day job badges strike me as Complaining For The Sake Of Complaining.

IMO.

Heh. Didn't even notice it was gone. Never really paid much attention to it ... was always kind of "meh" to me.

Smack-talking a defunct super group. LOLz

Some things I've done over the years that don't involve leveling, but just things I would put my mind to from time to time, when simply grinding up a new toon wasn't of interest to me:

1. Build a base -- it was probably about 2 years after CoV was released when I really put my mind to base building. It's a huge mini-game unto itself. Back then, base prices were pretty steep, and it took me about a year to get a fully functioning base up and running, porters, work tables, storage, etc. But, with prices being much cheaper now, it's a much more of a casual-friendly part of the game.

2. Badge hunting -- check my signature. Getting to 680 badges on my badger toon has been an effort years in the making. There would be hours, days, weeks, etc. spent doing nothing but doing badge collecting.

2b. Badge hunting redux -- if general badge hunting isn't your thing, try a specific objective. For example, work towards obtaining the Ouroboros badges. Or, work towards obtaining the Field Crafter accolade.

3. AE -- create your own AE missions. 'Nuff said.

4. Roll a new toon -- an oldie, but a goodie. Pick an AT and/or powerset combination you've never played before. Try something you've never even remotely touched before. Sounds like you have lots of alts. So do I, and there's still plenty of power sets I know nothing about! I'd venture to say there's something out there you haven't tried yet.

5. As stated earlier, play those TFs you've never played before.

6. The market -- not sure if you're an active market user or not. But, if you're not, try delving deeper into the market, crafting, selling, buying, etc. It's not for everybody, but personally I enjoy the market mini-game.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the Halloween event as well. Just a couple more days.

Absolutely LOVE my vet rewards.

Of course, it goes without saying some love certain vet rewards more than others. Although, I have yet to see the Greek symbols rewards mentioned in anything other than in the context of being 'meh'. I think they're the one true turkey out of 5+ years of vet rewards.

And the most recent vet rewards, 60, 63, and 66 months are the triumvirate of awesomeness, at least for me. The 60 month reward speaks for itself. The 63 month reveal power is fully satisfying the OCD demon that dwells within me. And, as an active market participant, I'm really looking forward to the extra salvage and recipe slots for all my toons, both existing 50s, and brand spanking new level 1s.

Haven't had a single spam since the new measures went in. The sole exception to this is stale spam e-mails on toons not logged in since the last update. On regularly run characters, spam has become a thing of the past.

Good job, devs!

I'd like to see CoP reincarnated somehow. I never did get to experience the short-lived original version.

More importantly (to me anyways), I'd like to see the Power Liberator / Master Thief badge returned to the game. Obviously, it would no longer be related to IoPs, but the name is sufficiently generic that that badge could be re-introduced in any number of ways. Heck, I'm surprised they simply didn't change the villain side name to Power Liberator, and introduced the badge in I16 for your first time changing a power from default colour settings. The artwork wouldn't make much sense though ...