Raithe

Well, I started playing friday afternoon, a bit after 4pm. It's now hm, 0330 tuesday morning and it's just done a crash out on me, so I'm thinking of calling it done for the beta weekend rather then get back to it. After fairly intensively (in a probably unhealthy manner) playing the game over the last 4 days with minimal breaks - well, apart from about 6 hours saturday for a birthday party - I managed to get a Trooper up to 28th level. Started on Ord Mantell, then onto Coruscant where I picked up my ship, and that was the prologue done. Went on to Taris, Nar Shadaa, and was just getting into exploring Tattooine and the mix of world & class quests. I had no idea how much longer it would take to finish off Act 1 of my class-story. Did know I was going to be headed Alderaan way after Tattooine. Technically there were a few other worlds I could have looked at, but then I'd end up way over-levelled when I went to the worlds with my class-stories. And you need to advance the class-story to get the different companions and possibly a few other things. I can say I'm looking forward to when the game is released and I can take my time exploring, and poking around with some of the other classes to see what they're like - both in gameplay and story-wise. Ah well. Urf. And now the family knows the beta test is over manana, so my break from various carer duties will be over.. It was fun to be able to geek out intensively for a few days with no real worries.

Okay, I decided to focus on one class (the one I'm least likely to play early on) and see how it all opened up, and the spaceships and companions, and what a class-story-line looked like. So far, I've ran a Trooper up to 26th level, I've picked up two companions (one a growly male trooper type, and the other a female field medic type) and gone around a couple of worlds. Apparently different classes will shift how many companions you get at any stage. There were Jedi knights running around who've picked up two companiosn by the time they were 16th. But as a trooper, I didn't get my 2nd until I'd finished the class-storyline at Taris (and I was around 24th then). I have to say, the ex-imperial who defected to the republic because all the Imps broke their own laws and fostered corruption actually comes across as quite interesting. And it's kind of funny that she's got a hot british accent and they keep making reference to how that's the Imperial accent. Once you get your ship, the whole universe opens up. Technically you can go to any of the planets.. but all the planets do have level ranges, so there's limits to what you can actually do at them. There seem to be a couple of planets for each level range, and they seem split on what class-stories are run. Starting world introduces that class-story, then you head off to Coruscant. You end the prologue by getting your ship. Then it's Act 1 and the universe is at your feet - but the trooper storyline will focus you on two planets (Taris & Nar Shadaa). If you go to other worlds, you get access to the various world storylines and assorted sub-quests, but you'll be missing out on the class-related story. So swings and roundabouts to exactly what you prefer. It really does feel like Kotor writ large. The same style of maps..just..way, way bigger. Taris is frikken huge. You can wander wherever you want.. but you might not be able to deal with what you find.

There also seem to be a few dialogues and choices where its not a light or dark side.. You can actually pick options that throw in a light side choice in with a bunch of neutral ones. (or dark side with a bunch of neutral). I actually ended up playing till about 4am last night not realising they've apparently extended the test by a day? Not sure if it's the way I've been playing it, but my Trooper hit 23rd, has a ship and just picked up his second Havoc Squad member. I will say the starship combat is actually kind of fun. But, that's possibly because I have fond memories of the old Afterburner arcade game...

Well I've managed to hit level 17 as a Trooper. Still haven't actually finished the first act or picked up a ship yet.. Hm, the dark/light side choices of the Trooper tend to involve things like the question on whether stolen medicine should be returned to the troopers who it was meant for, or provided to the sick refugees who originally stole it.. Or political chicanery in the Senate, how close you are willing to break the spirit of the republics laws to reveal that a senator is trying to form a group to ally with the Sith and expel the jedi from the Republic. If you still the information to reveal it, you're not trusting the Republics laws or the will of the people... So you get a few dark side points if you go through with it. Then there's the Esseles flashpoint, where you can do a quick and easy solution to a problem, that has the side-effect of killing some people (but it stops the Empire) or you can attempt a longer, winding route that might not work (which is of course the light side).

Why do you think I've been using the US servers? Sword of Ajunta Pell to be a wee bit more exact.

I have to say, the conversations are certainly smooth. Especially when you're in a group, even the heavy story ones slide nicely into everyone getting a chance and the way it flows along.

Hm, I just checked for patches before my "time slot" tomorrow.. and found I can hit play. .. Since the majority of the european servers are non-english.. I've ended up just starting up a Trooper on one of the US east coast servers...

Heh, and bastard sons of bastards. I saw the Fallout NV dlc on sale this week at half price, so I picked them up. Then today.. I see they've reduced them even more. They're now 75% off.

Hm , mom had her visit to the hospital this morning, the general checkup on her hand after the surgery. A few bits on the phsyio, and now she doesn't have to wear the splint alll the time. Distracted the dogs with a couple of ham bones, and now trying to sort out what I should be doing this afternoon. Don't know why but I'm just feeling all worn down for some reason, need to gather my mojo back up into something effective.

Still dabbling along with the zanyness of Saints Row. Have picked up the Fallout NV dlc collection from Steam, but I'm going to wait a bit before I jump back into the mojave. Also, got some TOR to beta play over the weekend, so I'll focus on that...

They still haven't actually confirmed that its related to Aliens in any way...

I wasn't that close with her, but it's hit my mom kind of hard. It's her side of the family, and that part of the family hasn't had the best time of late. Technically, she's my second cousin, her father (my actual proper cousin) went out with brain cancer the other year over christmas. He did the whole "Right, I've got 3 months to live. I can take chemo, and potentially stretch it out to 6 months while feeling pretty damn miserable for most of it and not being myself. Or I can spend the time I do have with my family, being myself, and make sure we all have good memories." So to have this suddenly happen out of the blue as well, isn't really settling well with my maternal family. Edit: And on the totally unrelated and unemotional sidenote, I've had my C drive defragging today..and it's still going strong..about 5 hours after it started. When did 1 gig take this long...

Actually the person who said that is about 1/5th cherokee, I think she's more just annoyed with the general stresses of thanksgiving and prefers to ignore it all... But snarky comments always happen with pretty much any form of national holiday.

For the quote of the day: "I appreciate all the people wishing me a happy thanksgiving, but I'm a native american. Please stop."

What's really.. the folks at the hospital apparently missed her going into a coma. First they missed the telltale rash of meningitis and were only keeping her in overnight so they could figure out what virus was having her feel sickm her mom went home for some things, came back and found her unresponsive in the hospital bed with blue lips. When she raised the alarm, the nurses realised she'd slipped into a coma, and by then it was too late and she was already brain dead. But yeah, she only turned 18 a few weeks back. Had her graduation ceremony last friday.

Woke up this morning with that odd mix of laying so comfortably I really didn't want to get up.. but with that annoying pokey headache just lurking on the edges which wouldn't actually let me settle back properly. Then we got the phone call from family about one of my cousins just died. Looks like meningitis. She went through her graduation ceremony the other week, then this week gets rushed into hospital, and suddenly slips into a coma and then brain death with no-one at the hospital realising just what it was she had. Apparently they just thought she had some generic virus right up until she hit the coma.

Hm, so I've just got the notice that I'm in the weekend on the Saturday 10am CST time slot.. dang it..which translates to about 4pm gmt... and I've got a friends birthday party in the evening..

Well since all the Fallout New Vegas dlc is out and on sale, I've decided to pick them up finally.. now I just need to be in the right mood to replay the game again...

Not directly science..but still, it's something DARPA are kicking around.. DARPA attempts to "game-ify" software verification techniques

Download limits, so 1990s, but that's what you get when you live in a 3rd world country. I'm going to try out Trooper because it's the most interesting class and NOT available for Empire (which sucks). My main at launch will most likely be Sith Sorc healer. I hope I get the full weekend to test, accepted invitation early Monday and had it installed during the evening. Download rates went up and down but were somewhere between 4-6MBit/s the whole time. Heh, I thoroughly enjoy my unlimited broadband.. so I'm blithely ignoring that issue, although I read a lot of comments about it from various people. Hm, I'm considering trying out the Trooper myself to start off the beta weekend, I think while it looks like it has a few interesting features, it's probably the class I'm not going to play in the near future when I get the game proper.

Heh, there's a fair amount of nerd-rage on the TOR forums over the realisation that it's a staggered beta test, so a chunk of people won't get into the game until sunday, thereby giving them about 14 hours to play the game. Apparently they're missing the fact that it's a stress test Beta, not a free demo, and not something they're entitled to. They volunteered to be beta testers, and they haven't spent money on getting the game... If it's going to kill a large chunk of your monthly download limit, then I can understand some annoyance factor - but that just means you have to weigh just how worth it is to you for the potential 14 hours of playing around..

Hm, and in the book line.. apparently Anne Mccaffrey has passed away, aged 85. She brought us the assorted Dragonriders of Pern.. but also the Ship Who Sang, and that helped pave a whole subgenre of sci-fi.

While their web server is absolutely hammered, I got the download at a nice, steady 3.30MB/s. And I'm making some headway at 793 kb/s...

Popped along some research for work related efforts.. juggled the attention seeking dogs. Hm, and the joys of my sister. Trying to find out if she was eating with the family.. Her: "What?! I've a had a bleepy day at work , okay." Me: "Right, so you're taking that out on the rest of the family?" Her: "I was planning on ignoring you all, but you wanted to talk to me, so deal with it." Oh the joys.

I managed a relatively fun time over the weekend and tonight on Saints Row the Third. Some lines and sets do push the humour buttons. Burt Reynolds for one.. And then for the surreal aspect, zombies. That kind of comes out of the blue.