Fiftycalsniper

So remember-a fast blueside 3rd respec run this Wednesday night, 2/24/10, 7 pm Central (and I *will* remember the difference between Eastern and Central time this time!).

I was thinking of doing a Dr. Q soon-did a run this past weekend with a pretty solid group, and we managed it in 3h36m. We didn't stealth everything, but we didn't kill everything, either.

I propose we spread a Dr. Q across 2 Wednesday nights....so pick a toon you don't mind not playing on for a week, and come on into the party. :^)

We'll need 8 to get it going, so only say you'll be there if you'll really BE there, okay? Chime in when you're ready, and remember...it's 122 freakin' merits! :^)

Miki, I'd love to do that....but I can't for 2 reasons:

1. I die at the drop of a hat. Master of X runs are a complete exercise in futility with me on the team.

2. I've done the Kahn tf. Honestly, I thought it kind of sucked. Everything leading up to the end fight was cool, but the end fight just blew.

So I'm sorry that I can't help you out....but I'm hoping you'll still think it's worthwhile to come along on the respec. :^)

Okay, I'm a complete effing idiot-I put down 7 pm Central, then somehow managed to interpolate that in my brain into 'oh, I need to start this up at 6 pm my time.' Only problem is, I'm IN the Central timezone!

Anyhoo, we couldn't quite get the lgtf together-not enough people-so we ran a 5 man 3rd hero respec.

After that, I got on a team that did an ITF in 27 minutes and a lgtf in 32 minutes. I was completely useless on the team, since I was on a blaster with zero defense and no superspeed. But I got the merits and the xp, hitting lvl48! :^)

Sad thing was, I can see how people that do this are going to end up borking the system. I can't imagine that the Devs aren't taking note of those kinds of times and runs in their datamining. I see changes looming on the horizon. :^(

Anyway, tl;dr, next Wednesday, 2/24/10, really and truly AT 7 pm Central time, I'm going to hold another 3rd respec. It's fast, it's easy, and you can get xp and/or merits and/or a respec. It'll serve a lot of people's purposes. Come on out and smack some Rikti down with me! :^)

Hope you guys had fun-I squeezed in a little time with my buddy Mikey before I had to log off to do massive amounts of inconsequential paperwork. There was my VDay, in a nutshell. Good times!

Shameless bump to my own thread...going to do a LGTF this Wednesday, 2/17/10, at 7 pm Central time.

NOT going to speed it completely, but we'll stealth where we can to keep it to a reasonable time.

Hope to see y'all there! :^)

True, I was thinking of the badge requirements, and I didn't realize Shadowhunter and Mother Mayhem weren't on the list. I knew Bobcat was, but you get to fight her twice-once timed, once not.

Another point to make here, though-separate from my original-is the flashback thing. Might save someone a little time (sort of) on the Tina McIntyre or Maria Jenkins arcs. Just log off and play someone else (or do something in RL) while those missions time down, come back in and continue. From what I understand, it doesn't hurt the merit reward.

Just a (new) thought. :^)

So then the opinions seem to jive with my play style. I went with dm/da, mainly attempting to maximize my to-hit debuff. I've played several dm characters, and I like that, after a few hits, the critters can't really get at me very well.

So then, with my playstyle, I'll be better off going for more to-hit debuff in my attacks, and going for faster attacks overall. That'll get me more of the mitigation effect that I want, while leaving me able to hide/placate/bu/AS after my initial AS.

Admittedly, I solo a lot-especially on this particular character. So this might not be a viable tactic on an 8-man team, with crap flying everywhere and constantly popping you out of Hide anyway. But it'll work for my playstyle.

Thanks for the confirmation info, people! :^)

Okay-so if you end up on a timed, defeat all mission with a Praetorian villain in it...a friend was asking me today if you could go kill the villain, then leave the mission and let it time out (or autocomplete it). Would you still get the kill credit towards the Portal Jockey accolade badge? I've never tried, so I'm curious.

Okay-I *think* I already know the answer to this, but I thought I'd ask, just in case:

Is there any reason to take either Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear for a stalker? Won't both pull you out of Hide? I see them as inherently skippable. Thoughts?

Forgive me if this was already addressed-but if I want to get early access to DP/DS, then I preorder. Okay. Check.

But if I want to get the 'special goodies' with GR, I need to order the Going Rogue: Complete Collection in July?

So then would I need to buy this twice to get the whole shebang? I'm confuzzled. Or could I pre-order the 'Complete Collection' one to get everything?

Some people were complaining about a raid-rehash there. I was kinda like, 'geez, would you guys go to someone's house party and tell them they sucked?' YES, it was a raid rehash...but it was also effort to bring players together to do something fast and fun. Is that bad? I think not. So SHOOOOSH! :^)

I had fun, myself.

So I'm canceling the run for 2/10/10, due to 2 reasons:

1. We don't talk about fight club! ;^)

2. It sounds like there's an event on live planned on Triumph tonight at 7 pm Eastern, in the Midnighter's Club. Hell, I'm going to THAT, and I encourage a bunch of you guys to do so, too. :^)

We'll resume our weekly tf's next week...although having run Faathim recently, I'm thinking we might switch to a LGTF and do the invasion afterwards, too. Thoughts?

Eh, who knows. Forgive the pun-NCSoft is being very Cryptic.

But I hope we get SOMETHING going up.

***Runs off to check email for closed beta invite.***

***Cries when there's nothing there, still.***

So I dropped by Best Buy to buy a cheapo replacement. Ended up getting a Galaxy GeForce GT220. Not the snazziest or best, but a RAM increase from my old 8600GT. The RAM is DDR2 instead of DDR3, but it has solved my problem and seems to give me the same FPS rates in game as the old card (running a pretty solid 30 fps overall, which I consider to be acceptable on this rig).

So, problem solved! :^) Oh, and the card was $89 retail. I know I could've gotten it cheaper, but I just wanted the problem fixed right NAO! :^)

Not sure-pulled it out of my case last night and left the rig powered down. Lots of dust in the case overall, dust in the fan area. The way it mounted in the case, the fan was pointed downwards (and it was near the bottom of the rig). Difficult to tell if it was still running the fan or not.

On a related note, any good way of getting all the dust out of the case? Seems like the compressed air cans will just blow it all over eff and gone inside my rig.

Thanks!

Hey, people,
I think my graphics card ate itself last night. It's about two years old, and I recently put it into a higher than I should have heat environment. I know, I'm an imbecile. Anyway, I started having all sorts of glitchy graphics issues-frozen screen, lines running horizontally/vertically on a forced reboot, etc. I CAN get it going in safe mode, so I don't think the comp itself is screwed.

So my questions are these:
1. The card was an NVidia GeForce 8600GT (256 MB, I think), plugged into a PCIExpress slot. How likely might it be that the SLOT is fried, but the card is fine? I'm hoping pretty unlikely, 'cuz that'd mean a lot more work and a new MoBo install. Any way to test the slot out, other than putting in a new card (that I probably can't return afterwards, if it doesn't fix my problem)?

2. If I'm looking for a quick fix instead of upgrading dramatically (new computer build coming up soon, don't want to break the bank fixing the old one), what kind of card should I get for a similar performance? Quickly looking on BestBuy.com (I'm talking run out and buy one and put it in myself, not waiting on someone to deliver one), I can get an NVidia 9500GT 1GB or an 8400GS 512 MB. Any thoughts or comments on either of these?

Thanks for any help anyone can lend me!

So I showed up about 5 minutes late (sorry, people!), but we got a successful Justin Augustine tf going, and completed it well under 2 hours.

Thanks again to all the people that showed up-honestly, I didn't have that much fun on it. Not due to the people that were there-I just didn't realize that tf is so silly. Go kill 50 Rularuu...AGAIN. Travel halfway around the Shadow Shard and back....AGAIN. Silly. :^P

Next Wednesday-let's try a Faathim the Kind tf. I left my spines/dark right outside his nest. Now, to make it a decent speed run, I'll have to park my silly butt at Faathim and click him each time to advance the missions. I'm willing to do that, though, because I'd like the merits and I'd like to let people do this tf without taking 6+ hours to do it. I imagine I can still get in on a couple of the missions here and there, as time allows.

So, speed Faathim run next Wednesday, 7 pm Central. Hope to see a lot of y'all there! :^)

Playing on Triumph over the weekend, Mod08 had to come in and...uh...politely pimp-slap some people around. :^)

We took advantage of the time to poke him a bit about more GR info. He said that he couldn't guarantee anything, but that there was a sizable chance that something new would drop this week. It's Wednesday, but the server maintenance is usually on Thursday now, so perhaps tomorrow?

I tried to emphasize to him, repeatedly, that we're absolutely DYING for information. Real info, not screen shots. I know he's not a Dev, but I saw an opportunity to ask someone inside NCSoft, so I tried. We'll see if anything comes of it this week. I hope so!

They have earthquakes in Pixxxiville? I'm shocked and appalled.

It's going to be Justin Augustine. The Faathim one looks too long to reasonably do as a speed run on a Wednesday night (but we can see how this one goes, and think about it for the future).

Not sure who I'm bringing, actually. Might have to dust off a 50 to play to make the level ranges decent. That's not really a bad thing, so long as the tf goes well. :^) Might be time to bring back in Shone Uff, my 50 MA/ELA scrap. He's fun.

So we punched through Numina pretty quickly-1h4m. I was happy, and Mikey got the TF Commander accolade unexpectedly on his mind/ff controller, Mitochondria Eve.

I have a big plan for next Wednesday. I'd like to do one of the Shadow Shard tf's. Now, I know that several of them are VERY long, even when you are trying to speed them. I'm prepared to do my homework and get it figured out over the weekend. I'll go for the shortest one, and the one where I can still get xp on one of my characters. :^)

If you know you'll go on this, please park the character you think you'll bring in the WW to build up the teleport power charges. I think that might help with people getting around. That, plus Ouros portals, mission tp, base tp, etc. Everything will help.

I'll get back to everyone by Monday with what I'd like to do, exactly. But we'll definitely be going for a SPEED Shadow Shard tf run. I'd like to shoot for no more than 3 hours, max. Holla back if y'all are interested! :^)

We are a go for Numina tonight at 7 pm Central time. I know me and Mikey will be there, and we'll let the rest fall out as they may. We usually get a pretty good core group together, so it should be fun.

I think I'll bring my 45 fire/psi blaster tonight, just for a changeup. See y'all then! :^)

In case anyone hasn't mentioned it yet, though-doesn't the resistance logo look a bit like a fluorescent Xmas tree?