Wintress

The 4th Closed Beta Weekend ended while i was in class this morning and i totally forgot to do screenshots last night I uploaded 2 of my favorite videos so you guys can see what the gameplay/UI looks like. Also the ranger video is a nice way to get a visual look at skill chains. I hope they do another beta weekend and if they do i can't wait!!!

Haha like i said, im trying to get you guys to come play with me so i figure i'd give as much info as you guys wanted. About being a wow-killer... i've been playing wow for 5 years and have done nearly every aspect of the game. This has taken everything fun wow has so far and just made it better. The only complaint i have so far is semi-limited camera viewing while running... and only while running lol... As for talent points, this is what i have gotten from research. Instead of talent points they are using something called stigmas... which is kinda like having 4 glyph slots... except each of these glyphs is a brand new ability So in theory the only thing that will be separating classes from each other is specified abilities. Like i remember two of the early ranger abilities are a sleep arrow on a longer cooldown and a powerful arrow that explodes on contact to do aoe damage to all around them. You get 1 stigma slot at lvl 20,30,40,50 to equal the 4 slots. I'll prolly finish my review tonight, it's only about a quarter done atm . Just SOOOOOOO many cool things that i want to describe to you guys haha

Review isn't finished, i'll come back and finish it later but its up for questions for people who want to ask about what i have typed so far. TL;DR at end! Introduction Pretty recently ones of my friends turned me on to a new MMOG(They have it listed as an MMOG, but their is plenty of storyline built in during questing and such for the RPG fans) coming out named Aion. After some researching and youtube surfing i decided the game looked pretty interesting so i went and spent 5 dollars on a pre-order so i could get a beta code. Overall i LOVED the game so i thought i would write an in-depth review to maybe recruit some people to this game when it releases Sept 22. All of this information was gathered in a 10 hour session of this game leveling the Scout-Assasin Class (Rogue) to lvl 13. So im basing all of my information on this time played. Performance Review One thing that i really liked about this game is how much varability they give you in graphics levels. At max setting my computer runs 70-90 fps in normal areas (Pretty populated at the time due to lots of low levels in beta) where i did 40-60 at max settings in WoW. But if i cranked everything down as low as possible i was running at 300-320 FPS (only able to hit about 120-150 with lowest in WoW. Visuals Review One word... Beautiful. Everything from spell animations to character design to landscapes. Slight-Anime feel but i actually like that aspect of the game. As i said in performance... fully cranked lookes beautiful. Lowest settings obviously don't look as nice but it doesn't drop the graphics so low that it defers you from gameplay. Questing Review Very similar to WoW. Basic Gathering/Killing quests that move you along the way. Some of the larger quests have short cutscenes similar to the entry cutscene to WoW when you first create a character. Another awesome aspect of questing is that they split the quests into two categories Campaign and Basic. Campaign quests seem to be your main questline. These quests took me from each little mini-quest zone to the next and was my main supply of quest gear through these levels. The side quests were just their along the way for extra experience needed to carry you towards the next Campaign quest. The game also has a built in Questhelper which is totally awesome and i wish i had this when i first started playing WoW. This Questhelper works a lot like wikipedia. You open your questlog to your quests and the important creatures/items/locations/players will be highlighted in blue. You click on one of these blue links(usually 1-2 per quest) and it pops open a little sub-window with a description of the thing you selected, and the option to locate the object on your map. And as long as it isn't a "go search this area for someones lost watch" quest... it will usually tell you directly where to go. Combat Review Don't even know where to start here, but its basically the best combat system i have come across yet. Again, it bares many similarities to WoW where you walk up and start using your abilities and such, but they added a bunch of aspects that bring it from good to great. Basic Combat First i'll start with what i feel makes this game the next generation and possibly a WoW-Killer. This game in a way has an anti-idiot system while not taking away from the high-level gameplay of the more advanced players. First is the auto-direction/approach system. The game has an auto-direction system so that if you are not targeting your target when you attempt to use your ability, it will auto-face your target before doing so. This makes it really easy for say a Ranger (WoW Hunter without a pet) to turn and run when a mob gets close, and than just click your ranged ability and your char will turn around and shoot again(but your camera doesn't follow). Auto Approach on the other hand is nearly exactly what is says... i target a mob and cast my basic slash attack. The character will than face the mob and run towards it until i get in range to slash. Pretty basic... but i turned this off because it bugged me but many more casual players will enjoy this. Many might be thinking... these aspects make this game ezmode and set a very low skillcap. But most of these "anti-idiot" functions have a short .2-.5 delay that make mouse-turning and QWES moving superior in aspects of the game like high-end pvp where my true interest lies So basically... these aspects can make bad players better without holding back the masters of the game. And when bad players get better they usually have more fun + it means less absolutely terrible players for groups due to the incresed difficulty to be absolutely terrible lol. Advanced Combat/Skill Chains This is what has made me love this game. Beyond the fact that fighting just looks cooler, it is actually more advanced yet simple at the same time. Transportation/Movement Review Random Tidbit Review Overall Review TL;DR Performance - Easier to run than WoW for those with older computers. Only issue may be video card. TL;DR Visuals - Beautiful to Decent based on settings. TL;DR Questing - Nearly identical to WoW with built in Questhelper. Super EZmode. TL;DR Basic Combat - Auto-targetting/Auto-Approaching to make bad players better in combat without restricting skilled players. Video Links - Make sure to watch in HQ!!! Many people may know/heard of a Night Elf Warrior named Swifty that has made lots of videos and has pretty decent E-Fame in WoW. Well this is his video-commentary review of Aion, it is from a Sorceror(mage) Point of view and is my favorite youtube video describing the similarities of WoW and Aion. Swifty WoW Review: This video shows a ranger describing some skill chains. This is a really good video of showing how skill chains work and what the actual gameplay of Aion Looks like. Ranger Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruQV2LrNmsc I'm also opening myself up to any questions anyone might about the game or its similarities to WoW. Ask away so i can convince as many of you as i can to transfer to this sick game .

Haha yeah i'll be sure to come to you first And yes i did have the same reaction, and so did the 3 people who were around when i unpacked it lol. The tower is a BEAST and is almost taller than my new monitor... including the stand!

Haha thanks It was a gift from my girlfriend (9.99$ special at spencers). And the boobs are perfect for supporting your wrists, i love the sqishy gel implants lol. And yeah you do!!! Im being sneakeh in your honor <3

So here are the Pics!!! Here is the new Dell Here is the Mac i used to play on Here is the difference lol And Here is my new UI now that my comp won't lag due to addons Yeah

So.... Nearly 3 months after i said it was supposed to happen, I finally bought my PC. I ended up going with the Studio XPS that Ecthelion sent me and it has been AWESOME so far. Started right up coming out of the box and has been giving me 60 FPS in Dalaran with the settings cranked. I'm basically in love Since i went with Ecth's PC he won the contest and was rewarded his 500 Gold Also a special thanks to Shaddy for the recommendation to get a Samsung. I ended up picking up a Samsung T240 24' LCD monitor from newegg and its beautiful. No dead pixels or anything (PHEW!!!!). But those damn bastards at Newegg dropped the price 30$ the day after i bought mine . I'll post pics later, im babysitting my brother for a while than i head on a short family vacation. Hope everyone is doing good and IMISSU!!!

Happy birthday!!! zomg chrisnyne!!! /swoon

Good point again stangy, with technology flying as fast as it is upgrades will most likely be readily available a year after anything goes down. I'm also going to look into the monthly payments option because i dont have any credit yet so it might be a good way to start building.

Well before fathers post i had never even heard of Overclocking and so forth have no idea what it is or how to do it beyond that its like a limit breaker for your cpu(hidden FF reference ftw). I don't really "plan" on having a need for this, the only thing i can see me doing for the next few years is playing my MMO's and watching videos/web surfing. Im not very techish but i dont think I will need to OC to do this. KK i built it up, i think i may go with the warranty anyways because i'll probably kick myself if i dont. I guess your right though, if i'm going to build something than i might as well make sure its still going to be kicking ass in 2-3 years. It just means i'll have to wait a lot longer until i get it

Yes they load it with vista... Bumping up the memory to 4gb and upping the warranty from 1 year to 4 years and it turns out at 1273$. A little out of my price range but i guess i'll just have to suck it up and wait another paycheck or so =/ KP - Yeah im pretty excited about it. I'm pretty over trying to game on my macbook so this will be nice. Ecth- I remember you saying that it came with a base 3 year warranty, but it defaulted to 1 year. Is this only on certain CPU's or did i do something wrong?

Hmm, ok than. Which model should i look to be upgrading than? the lowest gaming model is just at the top of my budget so are these the specs i should be looking for or do i need to upgrade anything? XPS 625 - 899$ Processors AMD Athlon™ X2 5600+ Black Edition (2.9GHz/65W) - i remember kimball saying something about a quad-core and i think this is only a duo :/ CD ROM/DVD ROM Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability Memory 2GB3 Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs Hard Drives 500GB4 - 7200RPM, SATA 2 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache Video Card ATI Radeon HD4670 512MB3 Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio Hardware Support Services 1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty,5 InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis6 Everything up to the warranty can be upgraded, so just asking for an opinion from bang/father/ecth/(everyone else) on which things i should upgrade and which things are fine as is.

I may be a complete idiot... which i'm hoping im not... But just by navigating from dell.com i cant seem to find where to build my own tower. I've gone through some searches and customized a few different computers but i still haven't found a start from scratch and build option. Ecth help me out plz

Haha thanks Kimball. I've pretty much decided that i'm not going to build my own this time(but next time for sure =P) but i'll be sure to use your info in my decision making. I wasn't asking if you could save me money , Just more of asking if you know of any really nice sales on components or the such if you could point me in their direction.

My GF has a Dell Gaming Laptop and she LOVES it. She also told me that she fried her motherboard once and Dell practically Bowed at her feet to get it fixed and that kind of service is rare to find. I'm really thinking about starting with a dell for now considering the extra problems of "build it yourself" are just things i really need to avoid atm. I'm only on lunch break so ima go screw around a little and hopefully have a pre-built by tonight for you guys to check out. Ecth- Since your an employee i was wondering if you had any inside information on the best deals or anything else of the sort. Thanks guys

I'll go check it out and see if i can't put together a gaming PC from the other information that i've gotten from you guys and i'll post it so you can see how i did Hmm, Gateway vs Acer!!!! Gateway is the more familiar name to me but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I'll keep looking and post any other questions here

Shad: Yeah i'm not sure which is better for me at the moment. I'd love to learn the insides of a computer but i'm not sure if its worth the full 2 days that Ecths link says it will probably take. Booyah: A little too pricey for me, and yeah... i don't have the steadiest of hands either, and stuff like that is the exact reason why im not sure i want to put the risk on myself. Ecth: Thanks bud, if i do decide to build my comp this will help a lot Ilduce: Thanks for the find. This monitor fits perfectly in my quality/price range and i might order one this weekend Say i don't decide to build my own computer and don't have anyone else to buy the parts and build it for me... what's the next best option? Should i start researching prebuilt machines from NewEgg or should i look into buying one locally.... or maybe from phoenix cuz they probably have a lot more options than Tucson.

Yeah this is what i've been thinking. I'm starting to wonder if its going to be worth all of the pains of trying to put things together. And i mean i'm not sure how far the benefits can go of building your own PC when you don't know exactly what your building or what its doing haha. I may be switching to a computer oriented major so i'll probably learn this stuff eventually but right now most likely isnt that time. I'm thinking of just having kimball order the list and assemble it for me(for a few extra bills that it). It would make it so i'd still get the cheapness of buying it in parts yet i could have a pro put it together. I sent Kimball a PM like 4 day ago on this subject but i guess i shouldn't be suprised that he hasnt read it yet....

Something i was thinking about... what would i do if say i put everything together and for some reason it doesn't work. I'd be missing out on the luxury of being able to send it back and be like fix it... cuz i wouldn't know if it was my error or theirs. Would it be expensive to drop it off at the local CPU shop or is their another option? But besides that it looks pretty good. Im hoping it will take wow and slap it with its 11 inch Epeen.

Something i was thinking about... what would i do if say i put everything together and for some reason it doesn't work. I'd be missing out on the luxury of being able to send it back and be like fix it... cuz i wouldn't know if it was my error or theirs. Would it be expensive to drop it off at the local CPU shop or is their another option? But besides that it looks pretty good. Im hoping it will take wow and slap it with its 11 inch Epeen.

Ok, I'll just buy my new operating system. I'll look into getting it through the school and it should be pretty cheap for me. As for the box. I think i'm going to go with the 900 and just try really really hard to make it pretty. If it doesnt work i'll just replace the see through piece with frosted glass and the case will still look really good. That comes to 950$ :/... i guess i'll have to wait out another paycheck to get everything because my monitor is going to bump me another 350. Also, can anyone recommend a keyboard/mouse for this setup? I'm really big on having a lot of available hotkeys on the mouse and maybe a keyboard with extra buttons i don't know for sure.

Well i hate to admit to bob being right but he probably is... I don't have much computer experience other than a high school class and what i have done myself, but i guess if it is as simple as father says it is than maybe i'll just have to give it a try. Bang- Awesome list and a very nice start for me, just a few questions... 1) Am i going to need to order connection parts or anything of the sort or should i be able to build the computer from parts to finish with only what is on Bangs list. 2) Does the operating system(windows,vista,ect...) Come already installed or am i going to have to look into installing all of that afterwords? 3) Yeah that would be awesome if you could email me the list Bang, and as for the case, it depends on how extra the super flashy case is email:qluce@email.arizona.edu

This is the monitor that im thinking of: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824236046 Does anyone have a problem with the brand "Asus" or think this is a bad deal in any way? And here is my short tower decision so far, not too much research but it's a start: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRevie...N82E16883227078 Thanks

So after about 2-3 years of playing wow on a macbook i think i'm finally fed up with 5 fps in raids and -5 fps in dalaran... Its time to upgrade to a desktop!!!... but i have no idea what im doing. I'm making this post to ask for advice on a few questions i have about the system as a whole and my goal is to order everything on March 1. Questions: About the Tower: 1) This is where i need the most help, the main thing being im not sure whether or not to look for a premade machine online(Newegg has a gaming computer category) or to look to have one custom built by a tech guy. 2) I dont need the computer to be able to to shoot lazer beams and make my coffee... i'm just looking for something that can run WoW, or any other online game i play, at maximum capacity(All graphics and distance mods at 100%) and do so for the next 3-5 years. 3)Looking to spend 600-1000$ on the tower Keyboard/Mouse: 1) Maybe just post a link to a keyboard or mouse you use and a little explanation of why you like it. 2) I like my mouse with a lot of buttons on it 3) Looking to spend 50-100% on keyboard/mouse Monitor: 1) Any advice as to which companies you guys think are quality and which to stay away from. 2) Any minimum requirements i should look for on any monitor im looking for. 3) Looking to spend 300-400$ on something 24+ Because i know this takes up your time to look around or type any responses i'm giving 500 Gold to whoever leads me to my purchase. I'll be sure to throw up a picture of the new machine on this thread when i get it and set it up.

Ravioli (OVERSTUFFED of course =P) Rolls x 2 One soda can of Pink Lemonade