Misc. Friday Ramblings...

Suckage taken to a whole new level...

• "You are all going to die. I hate to remind you, but it is on your schedule." George Carlin Calendar 10-18-05


• It's Photoshop Phriday!
  You got your Sci-Fi mixed up with my Sci-Fi.


• Northwest Airlines to charge smokers more for insurance.
  I'm screwed with the fat tax kicks in.


• Woman surprised to find pork of such caliber at her local grocery store.
  Gives a new meaning to cooking blackened food.


• PSP Porn.
  For when you gotta go, on the go.


• Dregolas. Maybe Legolas has a loser cousin who shops at K-mart or something.


• When the game you love playing changes...
  

  Enhancement Diversification:
  
  This is a new system being implemented into City of Villains and City of Heroes (when City of Villains launches) to promote the use of more different types of Enhancements in powers. Using a system of diminishing returns, when slotting the same type of Enhancement into a power, you will begin to see less effect of that Enhancement when the bonus reaches a certain threshold. The effectiveness of Enhancements you are slotting in can now be seen in the Enhancement Slotting screen.
  
  What does this mean? Simply, if you are slotting Enhancements and your bonus to a single attribute reaches 70% through Enhancements, you will begin to see a drop in the amount each Enhancement should be giving you. If you exceed 100% bonus, then the drop will be more severe.

Now, as with most MMOs, there will be changes that will negatively affect currently gameplay. This is generally called a nerf. I think the following poster pretty much sums up my feelings towards the upcoming (and previous) changes.


Quote:
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this is a wounderful game (if not why are you playing)
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Good question. Actually, I’m not playing the game right now.

I’ve played CoH almost every evening for a year & a half but now I haven’t logged onto the game since Oct 9th. I just have no desire to play CoH at this point in time.

I’m still planning on playing CoV for the content once, so it’s nice that the subscriptions are connected but I feel very apathetic towards CoH and Cryptic right now.

I never liked lower power at levels where your enhancements go yellow (ie lvl 26, 31, 36, etc) so obviously I don’t like the nerfing of ED which will be even worse then going through those levels. I won’t like the mobs left with a fraction of health after a pre-I6 “normal” set of my blaster's attacks, I won’t like the lower defense on my tanks and I won’t like my Emp healing for less.

Also, the fact that I built my 1st hero in a ED-friendly manner and that he was not fun at all to play once he got into the 20’s obviously colors my thinking. I feel like by not knowing how to build a strong hero when I 1st got the game and by not knowing a good strategy for slotting, I’ve already played an ED-type game and I didn’t like it.

Even more than the impending nerf that is coming like a train down the tracks, though, I’m just tried of constantly re-learning and respecing all my heroes all the time. Maybe CoH will stabilize some day and maybe it won’t. But I don’t want to keep redesigning all of my heroes and changing them every time a new issue comes out. Maybe if I don’t like all this change all the time then I need to focus on single player games.

I don’t know all the answers, but I do know is that a game should be fun and it should be something you look forward to logging on & playing. Unfortunately CoH is neither of those to me at this point in time.

Because I did find it such a fun game to play for a long time I am, of course, sad by this turn of events and by my lack of desire to log on and play. All things come to an end eventually, though, so while being sad that I would like to play a different game than the developers want to publish (relatively stable rules, powerful heroes, etc), I should probably thank Cryptic for a fun ride and wish them all well in their future endeavors.


All I can say is thank God Quake 4, Resident Evil 4, and Soul Calibur 3 are all coming out soon.

Friday FIREPOWER!

Rhineland Arms R22 Target Rifle.

The R22 rimfire rifle represents the ultimate achievement in the design and manufacture of a modern semi-automatic 22LR carbine. By combining high strength aluminum, steel and plastic, Rhineland Arms has created a modern 22 with near perfect ergonomics, high accuracy capability and very reliable. The R22 uses a proven bolt, magazine and trigger system, for a reliable and modular rifle.

The receivers and trigger housings are machined from solid billet aluminum. The barrels are made from ordinance grade 4140 steel. The rifles have coatings of Military-Spec Hard Anodization on the aluminum and Black Oxide on the barrels. The hand guards and scope rail are of a one piece design for maximum strength and to facilitate a bipod while retaining the free float barrel. The barrels use a locking ring system, allowing for easy removal.