Powerlord's Journal

TF2 Update

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:24:45 GMT

For those of you who have been living under a rock, the TF2 WAR update has gone live. It adds one of the best CTF maps in the game (seriously, find a server on ctf_doublecross and give it a try), a 2CP map I haven't been able to try, and the new weapons/achievements for Demoman and Soldier.

Oh, and a massively increased drop rate. Oh, and the crafting system to use those random drops with.

P.S. red.ocrtf2.com is passworded for this weekend. Password is "ocrtf2"

Team Fortress 2 - War

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:34:04 GMT

So... it looks like a new TF2 update is around the corner.

To be specific, the War update. Also known as the Soldier vs. Demoman update.

With all the usual stuff... new weapon unlocks, new achievements.

That leaves poor Engineer as the only class left to update... that is, if they don't just throw him in as well.

Rise of the Pirate God... wait, Sam and Max 2010?

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:35:58 GMT

So, I couldn't sleep and ended up playing all the way through the last episode of Tales of Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God. The ending is... different.

However, at the very end, there's a rabbit skull and crossbones flag with the url SAMANDMAX2010.COM.

Apparently the page that lands on includes discounts on the first two seasons and a signup page to get email updates about Season 3 of Sam & Max.

Good thing I saved my "half-off" coupon for a Telltale season... I plan on using it as soon as preorders for Sam & Max Season 3 start.

Dollhouse

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:22:07 GMT

So, Dollhouse returns tonight, with Summer Glau as a guest star.

...except that FOX moved it's timeslot from 9pm to 8pm since the last episode aired. Meaning that, if you tune it at its old slot, you'll miss it.

Oh well, for me there's always Hulu.

Edit: It's a two-hour episode, which is why it's early.

A New Enemy... er... Laptop

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:57:38 GMT

So, I ordered this laptop online during a Black Friday sale... early, as walmart.com apparently put its Black Friday sales up based on UTC rather than a US Timezone. I actually ordered it at 8:39pm EST.

I got an email saying it shipped yesterday at 4:16pm EST.

Today, at 12:40pm, I received a package delivered from walmart.com.

That's right, it took less than 48 hours from the time I ordered it... shipping from Bentonville, Arkanasas to Mason, Michigan took less than 24 hours.

World of Warcraft: Free 7 days

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:27:52 GMT

So, all people who haven't been on World of Warcraft recently should have been sent an email that will allow them to renew their accounts for 7 days.

If you haven't, the Battle.Net account management thing should have a link to activate the free time below the Frozen account status for your WoW account.

Miles Vorkosigan in... Cryoburn

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:09:09 GMT

So, I just found out that Lois McMaster Bujold has finished a new Miles Vorkosigan book, titled Cryoburn.

This is her first Vorkosigan book in 7-8 years.

It's interesting in a sense, because she has also jumped 7-8 years forward in the chronology. I had heard rumors that her next book was going to cover the death of Miles' father... but it sounds like she may have skipped forward past that event; I guess we'll see when Baen actually publishes it.

P.S. I've also been playing Overlord a lot lately... and some Overlord: Minions (hey, it was like $9 new at Best Buy).

Steam Weekend Sale: The Overlord series

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:18:04 GMT

For those of you who don't know, the Overlord series is sorta like a twisted version of Pikmin.

So, while looking for other stuff on Steam today, I noticed that Overlord: Raising Hell is on Steam now.

Clicking through to it, I noticed that Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, and Overlord II comprised the Overlord Complete Pack, a bundle for $8.75.

I had been boycotting Overlord II on Steam, because Raising Hell never got a Steam release... until today, and the entire series was put on sale to boot!

(For reference, I bought the pack because Raising Hell + Overlord II together would be $10 even with the sale prices).

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:29:29 GMT

If The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya sounds familiar, it's because I've written about it before.

Well, it turns out that, when it was re-aired this year in Japan, they added another 14 episodes to it, doubling the length of the series.

So, I now have an additional 14 episodes to watch before The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie comes out, on what would have been my brother's 35th birthday.

Oh yeah, did I mention the series is going to have a movie? :D

TF2 Halloween

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:39:13 GMT

So, if any of you that play TF2 still haven't done the Halloween achievements and want to farm them, let me know.

4 out of 5 are fairly quick, it's just the last one that takes a while.

old.ocrtf2.com:27015 is running 24/7 Harvest Event (the map needed for 3 of the 5 achievements) until it ends or the server is shut off.

Team Fortress 2 introduces seasonal items

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:46:57 GMT

So, Team Fortress 2 had an unannounced update yesterday. Included in this update is a seasonal map (koth_harvest_event), seasonal achievements (only valid on koth_harvest_event), and seasonal items (new hats).

Why do I call these seasonal? They only work around Halloween each year. That's right, you now have hats that can only be worn for a few days each year clogging up space in your inventory.

Also included in this update is the normal koth_harvest_final map, a slightly better optimized version of the koth_harvest that we already had on our servers.

Speaking of which, all 3 servers now have koth_harvest_event in their mapcycle... twice on each server.

Here's a family portrait of the Mann family:

From left to right:
Barnabas Hale (maybe?), Blutarch Mann, Zepheniah Mann, Elizabeth, Redmond Mann, unknown person.

Elizabeth looks suspiciously like The Announcer portrait that someone made before...

The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:42:01 GMT

...comes out on Friday PDT for the PC. Those ~~suckers~~ people who buy the Wii versions will probably have to wait another month, seeing as how the last episode took a month to get to the Wii.

Oh, and why is the PDT there? Because one of the previous episodes (#2) came out in the last evening PDT, so it was actually Saturday in time zones east of it.

BTW: last episode had the return of Murray, the demonic skull... this time we get... Stan, Stan, STAN!

P.S. If you liked the Secret of Monkey Island Flash Film., make sure to watch the various "I Wonder What Happens?" clips on the Tales page for laughs... they're by the same people as the SoMI flash film, but they basically guess what's going to happen in each game based on the trailers and image galleries available for each game before its release.

Valve moon logic and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:01:05 GMT

So, by Valve's crazy moon logic, pre-loading the Left 4 Dead 2 demo actually only pre-loaded 36% of the demo, requiring you to download an additional 64% before you can play the game.

Prehaps someone needs to explain to them what "preloading" means.

I am displeased. Not only was the demo due out yesterday (see the updates to the Valve Time page on their developer wiki), but because I was at work and class for a combined total of 11 hours today (12 counting transit time), the demo's not going to finish downloading before I go to bed.

TF2 servers moving

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:43:32 GMT

So, OCReMix is moving its TF2 server... actually, changing it into a pair of TF2 servers.

They don't have symbolic names yet (whatever.ocrtf2.com), but they can be accessed through their IPs: 208.94.245.227:27050 and 208.94.245.228:27060

Note: They're still being set up.

Today's xkcd

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:48:25 GMT

I have one comment about today's xkcd: If you enjoyed the Star Wars Holiday Special, you're probably White and Nerdy.

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PC debacle

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:43:30 GMT

So, I've never played a Call of Duty game, despite some of my coworkers bugging me to. Of course, they wanted me to get the Xbox 360 version, just like they want me to get Left 4 Dead for the 360.

Sorry, I digress.

Recently, Activision not only announced that CoD:MW2 would have a price increase of $10, they also announced that the game would not support dedicated servers and you would have to use their matchmaking service.

This also has the effect of eliminating user-created content.

User-created content, particularly maps and mods, are a cornerstone of the PC FPS gaming community.

It's funny, because Valve (one of the major players for PC FPS games) recognizes this. Counter-strike and Team Fortress 2 both thrive on player created content, especially maps.

Oh, but there's more: Dedicated servers also allow you to kick and ban unwanted players. That's in addition to any other mods you might have, like the one we have over at ocrtf2.com that allows players to have reserved slots... and if a player with a reserved slot wants to join the server, it kicks someone who doesn't have one off.

Note that I didn't list Left 4 Dead above. While Left 4 Dead does support dedicated servers, the L4D matchmaking system makes them hard to connect to. Which kind of defeats the whole point. The only exception is if your lobby wants to play a custom campaign... you can (obviously) only connect to servers running said campaign.

Left 4 Dead also has a way of associating servers with a Steam group, but I have no clue how that works.

Oh, did I mention that there was an online petition with over 100,000 signatures on it to get dedicated servers added back to the CoD:MW2? Or that the developer figuratively said "F You!" in response to it?

100,000 at $60 a pop is a potential loss of $6 million USD. This isn't exactly small change.

A Night at the Emmys

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:06:09 GMT

Apparently I missed a lot at this year's Emmy's.

Not only did Dr. Horrible interrupt this year's proceedings:

but Dr. Horrible also won an award:

So did Kristen Chenoweth (for her role as Olive Snook in Pushing Daisies):

Native Client launches with Google Chrome

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:04:58 GMT

So, apparently the latest dev version of Google Chrome apparently comes with Google's Native Client technology. This technology is used to run code directly on your computer's processor rather than in a higher level computer language.

In other words, it's like ActiveX.

Very like ActiveX.

Google has nicknamed this NaCl... an appropriate nickname, seeing as a salt (assault) will be exactly what's it's used for when it goes mainstream.

Internet problems

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:04:31 GMT

Some of you may have heard me complaining about the Internet problems I've been having over the past few weeks.

For those of you who haven't heard, about 3 weeks ago, my ISP changed their routing. Since then, I now see a jump from 10-15ms to 60ms+ within my ISP's network. It jumps again after going out to XO's network (fact: prior to this, it was routed to AT&T's network).

About 30 minutes ago, most of my packets get routed as usual, but large swathes of the Internet are now inaccessible.

I can not only not reach the OCR TF2 server, I can't reach OCReMix's website. I also can't read FMyLife or NotAlwaysRight, to name a few other sites.

Politics = fun!

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:21:07 GMT

So, as of 2:00pm today, I am temporarily laid off.

I am not the only one.

Essentially, anyone who works for the State of Michigan and isn't part of the legislature or considered essential (see what I did there?) has been laid off... until the legislature finishes its 2010 budget.

(The State of Michigan's fiscal year is October 1 through September 30.)

Google's Evil Side: Sidewiki

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:53:37 GMT

So, Google is finally showing their evil side to the world with the release of "SideWiki"

Sidewiki is a browser plugin for Internet Explorer 6+ and Firefox 2+. It attaches a comment system to sites that can't be accessed outside of said plugin.

So, in other words, Google's now made it possible for spammers to essentially add spam to your site, but without it actually being on your site.

Oh, did I mention you can't opt out of it?

I wouldn't have a problem with this concept if you could opt-out (or even better, if you had to opt-in). Did I mention Microsoft has a product like this, but it does allow sites to opt-out?

Something's wrong if Microsoft's version of a product is less evil than yours.

Wii Price Cut, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, L4D DLC

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:10:15 GMT

Since all its competitors have been cutting prices, Nintendo has finally chosen to cut the (US) price on the Wii to $199, effective Sunday.

In addition, they finally gave a date for New Super Mario Bros... November 15th.

On the subject of dates, the Crash Course DLC for Left 4 Dead is now dated to Tuesday, September 29th. And, of course, the game's sequel is due 7 or so weeks after that.

The movie Memento

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:49:52 GMT

I heard about this movie a few years ago. I just finally got around to watching it.

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a movie that was a complete mindfuck from start to finish.

You know you play too much TF2 when...

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:40:41 GMT

...you get all 37 Spy achievements. Including the 1000 sapped buildings one.

Oh, I also have an even 200 TF2 Achievements.

Now, the latest updates have lots of easy achievements. They must, since I suck at Sniper but still manage to have 28 Sniper achievements.

I don't have that many Left 4 Dead achievements yet. I swear I'm missing ones I should have though, like Barf Bagged and Big Drag.

TF2, Hats, and the Idle Program

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:00:05 GMT

Just like I warned people back when it first came out, Valve has banned the use of the Idle program... and retroactively removed all items gained while using it.

Oh, and people (like) me who didn't use it just got a free hat (Cheater's Lament) that is usable by any class.

Turns out that cheaters don't win!

Also, the hat drop rate has (supposedly) increased.

Edit: I checked Blank's inventory, and he has a Level 100 Cheat Detector in it... apparently that's there to pop up the message when you first access your account after receiving the Cheater's Lament hat.