One of the forums I read on a regular basis had a post mentioning that Skype is offering free computer-to-landline/mobile calls for the rest of the year! I've not used Skype up to this point but this was all it took to get the application downloaded and installed on my computer.
I made a call to my home just to see what the quality was like. I DID notice a difference. Was a little more tinny than I had expected. And then there was the slight lag. Barely noticable but it was there. I'll be using it for the rest of the year, at least until they stop offering it.
Then maybe we'll stay on if the price is right. We currently pay $5/month for 100 minutes of canadian LD service. 10¢/ minute after that. Not a horrible deal but they are getting close to $100 a month from us for Landline/Internet service. I wouldn't mind saving a few bucks a month.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Browsing the web and.....
... found all kinds of goodies!
(Disclaimer: if it's not already apparent, I'm a gamer. I spend my spare time playing games. Ummm... that is all.)
Hellgate: London looks very interesting. The mystical/religious underpinings that seem to permeate the game piques my interest. I'm not sure how deeply the are going to get into the good/evil thing as that really doesn't interest me. I've always liked the 'hands off' approach that most modern media take when thinking about the battle between the angels and the demons. Angels pretty much stay to the sidelines while the demons are allowed to wreak as much havoc as they possibly can. Why? Because they can! Think Constantine (moreso the comic than the movie though the movie did a semi-decent job as well) and how they illustrate the mythical battle between Heaven and Hell.
Battlefield 2142 (video available at link) is a title that I'm a little conflicted about. BF2 was great and I spent a great deal of time playing with some friends. Then they started putting out the "booster packs". The first one was a flop. I purchased it out of some insane need to be able to keep up with my friends and play on the new maps with them. I've put in a total of 2 hours on those maps in total of about 200 hours playing. So needless to say, I was a bit jaded when the next pack came out, Euro Force, and didn't pick it up. In fact my BF2 interest started to wane partly because of the need to keep 'boosting'. Which gets me to the next topic.....
Is it really such a good idea to pound out another BF game within the first year of ... errm.. the first one? Are you diluting your possible player base or just assuming that fans will dish out another $60 CDN for another game? Consider the investment a BF2 player has already made: $60 for the game, about $30 CDN for both of the booster packs and another to be released in June. So if a player keeps up with all the booster packs, he/she has paid $150 CDN to play a game that may be made obselete with the introduction of BF 2142 how is that player supposed to feel?
I only purchased the Special Ops pack and I already feel cheated. And I don't even play the game anymore. Something to think about, no?
Also Eve-Online had some extended downtime today. They were only supposed to be down for a half dozen hours but it seems they've extended it quite signifigantly. I wonder what the problem is? They've usually been pretty good about estimating their downtime.
In other Eve news, the CCP guys (creators of Eve) have announced a partnership with some company (I'll get a link later when the Eve forums are back online) to offer in-game voice chat. This, however, will be a 'premium service'. Read that: you will pay extra for it. I'm not sure I understand but I'll take a swing at trying to comprehend.
As it stands, if I really needed to use voice chat I could set up my own Ventrilo or TeamSpeak server on one of my machines here for a limited amount of users. I've also got a couple of friends who run servers and love it when I stop by and use their servers. But now CCP want to include some sort of remotely hosted voice comms accessible directly in the client for anyone that wants to pay the premium price.
Now the only thing that makes me wonder is if someone has voice comms as part of their service, can you 'hail' them while passing in space? Would the client be made more stable in the audio side of things? As it stands, I don't play with audio enabled because of cracking and popping that makes playing unbearable. When I disable the sound it also seems to improve performance. So does that mean that in game voice comms wouldn't work, or be effective, for players like me? There's a pretty large segment of the server population that play the same way for the same reasons. If the audio problems were fixed and and they added some neat features to the voice comms, I might consider it. I suppose, like most things, we'll wait and see.
(Disclaimer: if it's not already apparent, I'm a gamer. I spend my spare time playing games. Ummm... that is all.)
Hellgate: London looks very interesting. The mystical/religious underpinings that seem to permeate the game piques my interest. I'm not sure how deeply the are going to get into the good/evil thing as that really doesn't interest me. I've always liked the 'hands off' approach that most modern media take when thinking about the battle between the angels and the demons. Angels pretty much stay to the sidelines while the demons are allowed to wreak as much havoc as they possibly can. Why? Because they can! Think Constantine (moreso the comic than the movie though the movie did a semi-decent job as well) and how they illustrate the mythical battle between Heaven and Hell.
Battlefield 2142 (video available at link) is a title that I'm a little conflicted about. BF2 was great and I spent a great deal of time playing with some friends. Then they started putting out the "booster packs". The first one was a flop. I purchased it out of some insane need to be able to keep up with my friends and play on the new maps with them. I've put in a total of 2 hours on those maps in total of about 200 hours playing. So needless to say, I was a bit jaded when the next pack came out, Euro Force, and didn't pick it up. In fact my BF2 interest started to wane partly because of the need to keep 'boosting'. Which gets me to the next topic.....
Is it really such a good idea to pound out another BF game within the first year of ... errm.. the first one? Are you diluting your possible player base or just assuming that fans will dish out another $60 CDN for another game? Consider the investment a BF2 player has already made: $60 for the game, about $30 CDN for both of the booster packs and another to be released in June. So if a player keeps up with all the booster packs, he/she has paid $150 CDN to play a game that may be made obselete with the introduction of BF 2142 how is that player supposed to feel?
I only purchased the Special Ops pack and I already feel cheated. And I don't even play the game anymore. Something to think about, no?
Also Eve-Online had some extended downtime today. They were only supposed to be down for a half dozen hours but it seems they've extended it quite signifigantly. I wonder what the problem is? They've usually been pretty good about estimating their downtime.
In other Eve news, the CCP guys (creators of Eve) have announced a partnership with some company (I'll get a link later when the Eve forums are back online) to offer in-game voice chat. This, however, will be a 'premium service'. Read that: you will pay extra for it. I'm not sure I understand but I'll take a swing at trying to comprehend.
As it stands, if I really needed to use voice chat I could set up my own Ventrilo or TeamSpeak server on one of my machines here for a limited amount of users. I've also got a couple of friends who run servers and love it when I stop by and use their servers. But now CCP want to include some sort of remotely hosted voice comms accessible directly in the client for anyone that wants to pay the premium price.
Now the only thing that makes me wonder is if someone has voice comms as part of their service, can you 'hail' them while passing in space? Would the client be made more stable in the audio side of things? As it stands, I don't play with audio enabled because of cracking and popping that makes playing unbearable. When I disable the sound it also seems to improve performance. So does that mean that in game voice comms wouldn't work, or be effective, for players like me? There's a pretty large segment of the server population that play the same way for the same reasons. If the audio problems were fixed and and they added some neat features to the voice comms, I might consider it. I suppose, like most things, we'll wait and see.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
As is the norm....
... it's been several months since my last entry.
I've been thinking about it lately and I'm starting to wonder if publishing under my real name doesn't create in me an internal editor that doesn't allow me to take any 'risks' in relation to writing things that may put me at occupational or relational risk.
I'm a pretty private person when dealing with people in general, even people that I consider friends. So if I keep the same checks and reservations in place when writing here for fear of having someone Google me and discover writings that are 'dangerous' to my employability (among other things) why would I write what I want to write as opposed to what I think 'they' want to see?
And that's the crux of it, is it not? What is the point of having something like this if you can't even write with reckless abandon about things that you actually care about and while disclosing opinions that you hold dear?
I was thinking of starting another blog, anonymously, to begin writing the things that I'm truly feeling, thinking, wondering. It dawns on me that there would be a certain amount of freedom in that and I would be allowed a measure of artistic license, if you will.
Then, quite literally and out loud, I said 'Fuck it'. Perhaps I should go ahead with my bold plan of self-expression right here, as myself? How liberating would that be? And with that simple exclamation, I've decided to hold here and give her a go, adding daily to get a feel for this 'self-expression' thing.
Writing has always been enjoyable for me. I remember writing a story about a Contract Killer when I was in grade 10. It was very well done, for a 16 year old writer, and I received some accolades for it. May have been a bit mature with a few scenes of violence that, I thought, were well done while not being over the top. Remeber, this was well before Columbine (wiki link) so I didn't have to worry about being dragged into the counsellor's office for a psychological examination.
It was even put up for the annual school writing contest but was beat out by some extraneous piece of fluff about how the world can be a better place if we all just try to get along. Or some such shite. I'm not bitter at all.
When sitting in front of this keyboard and trying to decide what to put here I'm sometimes overwhelmed with ideas. I've had personal pages before and actually done a few more personal pieces relating to things that have happened in my life.
I'm not sure if I'm ready for that yet.
Zaal OUT.
I've been thinking about it lately and I'm starting to wonder if publishing under my real name doesn't create in me an internal editor that doesn't allow me to take any 'risks' in relation to writing things that may put me at occupational or relational risk.
I'm a pretty private person when dealing with people in general, even people that I consider friends. So if I keep the same checks and reservations in place when writing here for fear of having someone Google me and discover writings that are 'dangerous' to my employability (among other things) why would I write what I want to write as opposed to what I think 'they' want to see?
And that's the crux of it, is it not? What is the point of having something like this if you can't even write with reckless abandon about things that you actually care about and while disclosing opinions that you hold dear?
I was thinking of starting another blog, anonymously, to begin writing the things that I'm truly feeling, thinking, wondering. It dawns on me that there would be a certain amount of freedom in that and I would be allowed a measure of artistic license, if you will.
Then, quite literally and out loud, I said 'Fuck it'. Perhaps I should go ahead with my bold plan of self-expression right here, as myself? How liberating would that be? And with that simple exclamation, I've decided to hold here and give her a go, adding daily to get a feel for this 'self-expression' thing.
Writing has always been enjoyable for me. I remember writing a story about a Contract Killer when I was in grade 10. It was very well done, for a 16 year old writer, and I received some accolades for it. May have been a bit mature with a few scenes of violence that, I thought, were well done while not being over the top. Remeber, this was well before Columbine (wiki link) so I didn't have to worry about being dragged into the counsellor's office for a psychological examination.
It was even put up for the annual school writing contest but was beat out by some extraneous piece of fluff about how the world can be a better place if we all just try to get along. Or some such shite. I'm not bitter at all.
When sitting in front of this keyboard and trying to decide what to put here I'm sometimes overwhelmed with ideas. I've had personal pages before and actually done a few more personal pieces relating to things that have happened in my life.
I'm not sure if I'm ready for that yet.
Zaal OUT.
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