Steady's Gaming Blog

Here is some video from APB. I am driving the Combat Engineer car. Ashton, my partner in law enforcement (or as I like to call him, Starsky) is hanging out the window. Notice it took about 30 seconds for the right color of the car to kick in. It turns pink and then looks right. We were on a mission where we had to pick up a stolen car. Also as you can tell, driving takes a bit of practice, but is very fun. Each car in the game has a different feel to it, very realistic.

Ok, first they were going to use my real name in the World of Warcraft forums. Then Labron goes to Miami. However, this is not the injustice of the day. There is a new item on the market place on Everquest II. A Guild rename potion. Yes folks, for the low price of $55.00, a Jeanie with pop out of a bottle and rename your guild.

I am sorry this is just too much. I am not against real world money stores in any games. I understand that it is a fact of life for gamers anymore. Every game has them, but to charge $55.00 to change a guild name is just too much. Lord of the Rings only charges $12.95 to change a kinship name, and I thought that was too high. I have a few guilds that I would like to rename, but really not for $55.00, they will still just have to be named “Lords of the Underpants”. I have to make a stand, and draw a line in the sand somewhere.

I know what you are saying; you do not have to buy it if you do not want. You are right, I won’t.

I really am enjoying All Points Bulletin. Don’t believe all the bad reviews. The game is fun. One of the problems I do have however, is the lack of documentation. So I thought I would try to figure out how some of it works. These are just my personal findings on this subject, if you have more information, please share it. Because I am not sure if I have it right.

Threat level has 15 levels. I think it measures how good a player you are. If you die a lot, and fail missions it goes down. If you are the next Godfather or Magnum P. I., it goes up. I also think the only bearing it has on the game is matchmaking, but I am not sure. It also is not an actual number, but a symbol.

The blue vertical bar next to your name with the five stars next to it measures prestige; I am not sure what the criminals call it. This can change during each gaming session. I am not sure exactly what makes prestige go up. I can tell you on the enforcer side, running over a pedestrian makes it go down. I think stealing a car, or kicking someone out of their car, also makes it go down. I am guessing killing bad guys makes it go up. I also think making an arrest instead of killing a criminal will get you more prestige.

The next two are rank, and rating, they work together a bit. Your rating is the number next to the letter “r” in your character info. This number is the closest thing you are going to what actual level you are in the game. I do not believe it goes down, and I have no clue how high it goes. The highest I have seen is in the two hundreds.

Rank is the most confusing of all. Let’s say you are an enforcer and your rank with the Praetorians is 13. You have run missions for this organization, like returning stolen cars, money, that type of thing. Each successful mission gets you a point total, which adds to your rank. I know that rank and rating work together to get you better weapons and gear.
The higher both of them are the better gear you get.

So that is as much as I know. Again a lot of this is theory, so if you know more, please post.

My Gaming Community the Combat Engineers is looking for more active gamers. So here is what what we are all about, and what we are looking for.

1. Mature, must be over the age of 18..

2. Respect. We do not do DRAMA, (let me repeat, we do not do DRAMA), fight over gear, taunt or harass. Profanity is not allowed. Any type of racial, religious, gender, sexual orientation, or political slurs are not allowed. Stealing from us will get you booted out of the group for sure.

3. Helpful. If you cannot be kind, and helpful to other players, this is not the place for you.

4. We are not in a hurry, if you are looking for farming or power leveling; you are most likely in the wrong place. I am not saying it does not take place in this group, I am just saying it is not the norm.

5. Have fun. We like to have fun. If we fail an instance, or a task force, it is not the end of the world. We will make every effort to complete a task, mission, instance or raid, but we are not going to do it at the expense of not having fun.

6. Able to function on a team. Each event or team will have a clear leader. All we ask is that you follow the direction of the team leader. If you have a suggestion, speaks up, just do it in the right way. The leader may or may not use you suggestion. If you have a better way to do something, sign up to be the leader for the next run.
7. Register for the forums. If you are a leader, list events and other thing there.

Where will you find us.

www.combatengineers.net is our main webpage

http://www.xfire.com/communities/moonb on xfire.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Combat-Engineers-Gaming-Community/248825615272 on Facebook

http://twitter.com/Steadycombateng to follow us on Twitter.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/combatengineers on Steam

Feel free to join any and all of these groups. I encourage all of our current active members to join these groups if they can.

What are we playing; more like what are we not playing.

City of Heroes- We have established SGs on the Freedom, Liberty, Justice, and Virtue Server. Freedom is the most popular. Liberty is dead, Justice and Virtue are very small.

City of Villains- Established VG on Freedom. It is dead, needs active members, willing to run teams and recruit.

Aion- Have a legion on the Kaisinel Server, Elyos. Have a some Asmodians on the Meslamtada Server. Needs leadership and active members.

World of Warcraft, we have a pretty active group, Alliance, Elune server. Running instances and leveling right now. Some day we would like to start running some 10 mans. Gear hounds, thief’s, immature people, need not apply.

Champions Online – semi established SG. Lacks leadership, nice for active players that would like to run an established SG.

Dungeons and Dragons Online – Old dead Guild on the Sarlona server. Needs active members, leadership.

Everquest II, on the Bazaar server, have a few active players. Do not have a guild yet, like to find more to start a guild.

Global Agenda- One man agency. Looking for leadership, and active members.

Star Trek Online- Yet another dead, one man fleet. Needs active members, and leadership.

Lord of the Rings- Two man kinship, is at the maxed out level. Needs active members and leadership.

Warhammer Online- No guilds, but we play Destruction on Badlands, and Order on Iron Rock. Looking for more to start a guild

All Points Bulletin – Have a group, just started playing, get in on the ground floor.

Games that we sometimes play and have teamed in are Team Fortress 2, Planetside, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield Heroes.

So if you are interested in joining the Combat Engineers, contact me at steady@combatengineers.net.

The first thing I liked was that I could make a character just like me. A very old, slow, slightly overweight (ok fat) guy. I roll up an Enforcer, one of the good guys. So I run the tutorial, pretty easy. I zone into the social district. I make sure all my weapons are ready to go, and then I zone into an action zone.

This is where the fun really begins. There are two types of missions. The first is a “Call to Back-up” type mission. Another enforcer is running a mission, and needs help, so you help him out. The second type of mission was from a contact. In my case, it was pretty simple. I needed to pick up three cars that had been stolen, and drive them to the police holding lot. When I accepted the mission, a call goes out on the criminal side for someone to stop me from performing this task. In my case a mini skirt wearing criminal named Valentine Raine answered the call. So for the next five minutes or so, we played a nice game of cat and mouse. I managed to get one car back to the lot, but not before we killed each other a few times. She was waiting for me at the second car. She had picked out a nice spot on top of a building. I saw her, but she got me. So I snuck up behind her the next time, and got here. Jumped into the second car and drove off. I did not make it to the holding lot, my driving skills are bad, and I crashed the car. I failed the mission, but had fun.

I have read a lot of reviews about this game, and seen a lot of bad reviews. I don’t get it. I do not have a high end computer, and seems to run the game just fine. The load times are a bit long, but nothing that bad. Some people are complaining about the matchmaking system, I had no trouble with this. I managed to kill several players with my starter weapon. I would say my kill to death ratio was about even. I certainly did not feel like I was unable to complete my mission. Use some skill, people just want to run and gun. Stop and think, and you will have success. Also they are complaining about the payment plan being confusing. Can they read English, it is pretty simple. The social zone is free. When you purchase the game you get 50 hours of action zone play. After that you can buy unlimited play for $9.99 a month, or purchase 20 hours for $7.00. Personally, I think that is a pretty good payment model.

The only complaint I have is that the knowledge base is not working yet. Also I have no clue how I advance in the game. I found the driving a bit difficult, but that most likely has more to do with my old hand-eye coordination, then it does with the game.

Disclaimer, I have only played this game for about three hours. I had a blast; I really do not see any reason why I would not keep playing. It was very entertaining. I think a lot of the bad reviews are wrong. If an old, slow, slightly overweight (ok fat) guy like me enjoys the game, I am sure anyone can.

I am still here, just a lot of real life stuff going on this month. Look for more regular updates during the month of July. Remember only 51 days until City of Heroes, Going Rogue goes live………

As you can tell from my games played this week, Civilization IV has dominated my playing time. This game is additive. I mean it is 2 o’clock in the morning; you need to go to bed additive. So I have a few quick pointers.

1. Save the forest, don’t cut down all the trees around your town in the beginning, you need them to keep your town healthy. Work the clear ones first, that will usually be enough to keep the city productive in the early part of the games. Chopping down everything for food, and production, does not work very well.

2. Pick a leader with a cultural bonus. Saves you from having to build a monument to get that small city that is not the capital to expand quickly. It is a serious pain when you cannot get a city in that perfect spot to expand, before that nosey neighbor does. It will cause problems for most of the game if you cannot expand your city to its full 21 square fat cross before the other player does.

3. Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. If you are going to declare war on someone, bring the house. It takes a lot more then you think to defeat a well build city. Send in a spy to get all the information you can before attacking.

4. Any tips or pointers about Civilization IV always talk about city specialization. You know a commerce, great person farm, military and production city. I am not so sure about this, especially on the lower difficulty levels. I prefer balanced cities that do a little of each. I found that balance works best; at least it does for me.

I would not mind playing a PBEM of this game, anyone want to play, drop me a line. Civilization V will be out next month, I cannot wait.

Do you have a helpful tip that might help? Post it!

Happy April fools day! I really enjoy April Fools, lets face it, the world needs to laugh a bit more then it does. We need a break from healthcare reform, terrorism and who Jesse James is sleeping this week (dude are you stupid, lets see Sandra Bullock, or something in the freak show from the carnival down the street, Helllllllooooooo). To make it even better, all these gaming sites will now even send you their April Fools jokes on Twitter. Good deal.

I have to point out the best one of the day for me. World of Warcrafts, Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number, or EPEEN, for short. EPEEN is short for an internet slang term for ego, pride, or attitude in the virtual world. Basically it is short for the mine is bigger then yours argument. ROFL, this is just killing me. I hate the elitist that populate WOW, so Blizzard poking fun at them is just classic. They are making fun of Gearscore, and I hate Gearscore, so this is by far the funniest one of the day.

EPEEN System

City of Heroes has the city of Sidekicks which is fairly funny, but they will never be able to do better then they did a few years ago with the now legendary “freem” joke. Where they introduced a new system that when you punched a bad guy the word “Freem” would pop up on the screen, like in the old Batman shows of the 60’s. I remember reading the forums and people complaining about this new system for a few hours before figuring out it was an April Fools joke. Serves you right you forum trolls.

City of Sidekicks

So try to find something to chuckle about today, smile a little, I promise you it will not hurt.

I have been working on an Engineering officer build. These are my choices, the number by the skill is the level that I took.

Tier 1

Starfleet Training

Engineering Team Leader -9
This skill improves the Modification Training and Maintenance Training skill of your away team engineering officers. It also improves the Engineering Team ability.

Science Team Leader -5
This skill improves the Modification Training and Maintenance Training skill of your away team engineering officers. It also improves the Science Team ability.

Starship Command -9
This skill provides a slight improvement to hull strength, speed, and maneuverability when captaining any type of starship.

Tactical Team Leader -6
This skill improves the Modification Training and Maintenance Training skill of your away team engineering officers. It also improves the Tactical Team ability.

This section is really about the away team. I maxed out Engineering Team Leader, because that is my main skill. Put a bit more in Tactical then Science, so I will do a bit more damage then support. Maxed out Starship Command, because it improves hull strength, speed, and maneuverability for any ship I will captain.

Starship Energy Weapons

Starship Energy Weapons Training -9
This skill improves starship beam and cannon weapon damage, as well as abilities that modify these weapons. Examples include Beam Array: Fire at Will, Cannon: Rapid Fire

Starship Projectile Weapons

Starship Projectile Weapons Training -9
This skill improves starship torpedo weapon damage as well as abilities that modify weapons. Examples include Torpedo: High Yeild.

This section is pretty simple, maxing out my damage for my ships main two weapons.

Starship Engineering

Starship Engineering Training -9
This Skill improves starship performance abilities like Rotate Shield Frequency and Eject Warp Plasma.

Starship Warp Core Training -9
This skill improves the power levels of your starship systems and any starship power management abilities like Emergency power to engines.

These are the only two powers in Starship Engineering in Tier 1. I am an Engineering officer, so I maxed them out. These are the core skills for an Engineer.

Starship Operations

Starship Operations Training -4
This skill improves starship sensor, deflector and emitter abilities.
Examples include sensor scan, tachyon beam, and tractor beam.

I did not feel like this skill was something that I had to max out, but at the same time I did not want to leave it at zero, I thought level four was a nice compromise.

My feelings on Tier 1 were that it was really a good time to get your away team in order. Max out all your main officer skills, and power up your weapons and hull. A lot of general powers that will be used at any level of the game.

You will notice I did not take any powers from the Engineering Officer Section. The only two skills were Maintenance Training, and Modification Training. The skill Engineering Team Leader improved both of those skills, so I felt like it was a waste of points to improve them separately.

So this is my Tier 1 build, I am looking for feedback, so don’t be shy, let me know what you think.

Here is the build in STO Builder. I am still not sure what to do with the Bridge Officers yet.

Build in STO Builder

Yesterday I spent a lot of time playing Star Trek online. Star Trek is deeper then most MMO’s. You have to put points into your main officer, several bridge officers, and your ship. I choose as my main character, an engineer officer. Engineer officers are tanks, Tactical officers are damage, and Science officers are support. So I had earned a lot of points, but had not spent them. Currently you cannot respec your characters, so I wanted to make sure I was spending my points wisely. I was confused, if I spend points, what does it do for that power. So I when looking for information on the internet, using the good old Goggle search engine. I found a few useful sites that I wanted to share.

The first site I found was a very good site that really helped me understand how the game works.

The Engines Cannae’ Take It!

This blog is just awesome. Make sure to read the five articles, Character Basics, Ship Power Levels, Skills the Numbers, Starship Mechanics, Starship Weapon Overview, and Weapons Range. I spend a good deal of time reading these articles. They are just outstanding. The detail is amazing. BigBadB cleared up a lot of my confusion. If you are just starting out in Star Trek Online, this blog is a must read.

The second site I found was.

STO Intel

This site was more about information. I found the sections on ship equipment, away team gear, and starfleet ships very useful. Basically it helps you figure out what all that loot can do for you.

The third site is.

Star Trek Character Builder

This is a character builder. This works pretty well, I just have not figured out how to use the Bridge officers section. Not sure where or how to spend my bridge officers points, especially at lower levels.

So I just wanted to share these sites with anyone who was like me, and a bit confused about Star Trek online. I am working on a build, and will post it soon, I will be looking for some feedback.