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I was never a big online Starcraft 1 player, i mostly played against the computer and that was about it. With Starcraft 2 i’m starting to enjoy playing online as the Terrans (most people seem to pick then Zerg or Protoss). I learned quickly that the strat i used agains the computer (Siege Tanks, and Marine’s blocking my entrance and then building a massive army of Thor’s) just won’t work in multi player.
When i tried that strategy in 1 on 1 league play i ended up losing 4 out of my 5 matches. So i modified my strategy based on what i saw other people do against me, and by trial and error.
First off all i make is SCV until i’ve reach the 11/11 limit at the start of the game, with my 10th SCV i create a supply depot, while the other 9 (and the one being built) harvest mineral. After the supply depot has been created, i create a Barracks near the entrance of my base, followed by a bunker right at the the entrance path.
While that is going on i’ve created 6 more SCV and a another supply depot by my base. The 6 SCV will get Vespene Gas from the Refinery (3 each). I also upgrade my Command Center to a Orbital Command Center. Since most of SC2 maps you pretty much know where your enemy is going to be i use Scanner Sweep where there base should be.
Unguarded mineral gathers
This is where my strat changes based on what they are done. If i see at there base they have nothing protecting there mineral gathers, i upgrade my barracks to have Tech lab so that i can create 2 Reapers. Reapers can jump over ledges and on most maps that mean you can go around the side of there base with out them seeing you and attack there mineral gathers. 2 Reapers can take out 8-10 of there mineral gathers in about 15 seconds. Which is the typical respond time before they can kill my reapers. Depending on who you are playing they might quit at this point and bitch about your rushing them. But that there own fault for not protecting there gathers.
While your doing this attacking. You want to get 1 factory up with a tech lab, and one spaceport (no upgrade to it yet). From the factory you want to research siege mode, and build to siege tank and put them on either side of your entrance in siege mode. Since you’ve taken out a bunch of there mineral gather they should not be able to come out with anything to strong. Protect your own Mineral Gathers as well. I normally would put a bunker with 4 marines, and a couple Missile Turrets. Also keep making Reapers some players will never set up protection around there mineral gather so you can keep bring 2 more reapers in to there base to attack them after there army has moved away again. At this point you should be able to build an army of what ever you want and be able to take them out because they are struggling form your constant mineral attack.
If they start to protect there mineral gathers time to move to another strat.
Their building heavy air
If there going heavy air, you also need to go heavy air. I build 2 starports, with a reactor. And i start pumping out Viking. They can fly and attack air units only, or they can become land units and attack land only. With the reactors you can pump out 4 of these at a time. Building a second Command Center with 10 SCV going for mineral and 6 going Vespene Gas will help. If your fighting a race that can Cloak build a couple Ravens to detect them.
Preemptive strive. If you can you want to attack first, before they do. Why? If there building the more powerful flying units they are expensive and take a lot of time to build, but once they get a couple of there highest units out, your’ll need a ton of Viking to counter that. The way i normally attack them is to draw them away from what i want to attack with a few cheep unit, and then bring my hord of Viking on to the target i want to take out. In this case it there ability to making flying unit, take out there starports. If you lored them away you should be able to take out there defensive (which tend to be light) and take out there starport before they can get back to attack.
If you have a larger force then them, take them out, and finish off there building. If they have a bigger force than you, take out there starports then take out there air unit until you die.. They will almost always counter attack you after they’ve taken your last guy out. Since you have 2 space ports with a reactor you can pump out 4 Viking at once. You should have a pretty huge army. Probably about 20 by the time they kill your last attacker at there base and they come to you. You should be able to take out what left, and then go finish them off.
more in part 2 tomorrow.
Dual Boxing EQ2 Extends. If you want to play 2 characters at the same time for free in EQ2, all you need is a computer powerful enough to run to instance of the game and 2 e-mail address.
- Create 2 account, use different e-mail address
- Launch Eq2 Extends once for each loging
- Play in Window mode, and your done.
If you do this, i recommend you start the charters at the same time in the same place. Group them up. Make a macro of the /follow command, and your characters should level up at the same rate.
So this week Eq2 Extends came out, so i went ahead and gave it a try.
Starting up. It takes some time. You first download a 5-10 MB client, then you log in to the game for the first time, and it starts downloading everything you need for the log in screen (the download thing says 100, but it seem like every 3 MB it download it add 2 more MB to download). After about 10-20 minutes you get to the character creation screen. Not everything needed is downloaded, so some race don’t show up, other have there chest or other parts missing.
After i selected my race, class i selected Halas as my starting city since that is the only city i have not played in. Freeport and Qeynos are no longer starting city options (good move SOE). And now i log in to the game… Scratch that i spend another hour downloading.
After another hour and 1/2 downloading (the game constantly find new thing to download, so you honestly will have no idea when you’ll log in. I started the download process with 120MB to download, i was in the game playing with 70MB of stuff still downloading.
A thought when off it my head… I have a powerful enough computer, why not dual box. So after i went back on my first account and created a barbarian Berserker for DPS, and a Erudian Cleric for heals, and started to level them
To view all pictures from day 7 click here.
Woot another day in Paris. Today is one of those weird contiki days were the morning and the evening is free, but in the middle of the day we are going as a group to the Palace of Versailles. Since we only have a few hours in the morning before we have to go back and meet the group we decided to go down to the Arc of Triumph.
For those who have never been to the Arc of Triumph, it is on a roundabout were 8 major rounds connect. We headed back to the hotel to get picked up to go as a group to the Palace of Versailles. While the Palace was amazing we went in the middle of the day in the middle of a heat wave. It was damn hot, and they shove as many people as they can in the Palace so your always rubbing up against another sweating body. I totally did not enjoy my self in there as i was hot sweaty and bumping in to everyone every step. I would recommend going early in the day (if there are less people)
After the Palace of Versailles we returned to Paris for an hour long evening boat tour of the city. Because the river is now lower than the city of Paris you don’t get the same views as the river in London, but there was some interesting sights still.
We ended the night as a group on the top of a hill over looking the red light district. It the highest hill in Paris and it is were Sacre-Coeur is (Sacred Heart). This area is great for night life. We were there until 12-1am and it was very lively and fun.
View all pictures from day 6
First full day in Paris, first stop for the Contiki tour was in front of the Effie Tower to take a group shot.
After the group shot we headed to the Effie Tower, and then we were set free on the unsuspecting people of Paris to do what ever we wished, muhahah.
My friend and i decided not to go up the Effie Tower because the lines were way way way to long. We got on the subway and headed to Nortre Dame. Nortre Dame is free to enter but like most big Christian churches your knees and shoulders need to be covered. In front of the church there is a flock of birds that are so used to humans feeding them they will land on your hand shoulder, and other body parts to peck at what ever you are eating. All the pictures i got of them were blurry.
 Notre Dame Paris The inside of the Chruch also looks pretty amazing, you are not allowed to take picture with flash. My camera can make dark rooms brighter by keeping the lens open longer, but you need to stay very still (which i suck at, so a lot of these pictures came out burly).
After walking around Notre Dame we walked over to the Louver. Now one thing you need to watch out for in Paris is the beggers, there are different types all trying to get your money some how. First there are the arab women who will ask you if you speak english and then show you a note with a sad story asking for money. The sad story is fake, and the French know it, which is why they ask you if you speak english. Then you have the people giving you stuff for free… NOTHING IS FREE, is someone give you a ring, flower, bracelet or something for free, they will always before they leave ask you for money and not leave you alone until you give them money. So if someone does this to do in Paris (also a little bit in Italy) say no and walk away.
The Louver Museum is so so so so large and there is so much to see you need days to really see it all. Also almost everything is in french so getting an English audio guide would be important if you want to know the history of the thing your seeing.
After we walked at least 10 miles in the louver and headed back to the hotel for dinner. Now i ordered a steak for dinner. I barley can read french and didn’t see that i order, steak tartare which is pretty much raw beef. So how does raw beef taste? Ok at first, as time goes on it feel more and more slimy and i couldn’t make my self eat more than 1/2 of it. BUT i can now say i’ve eaten raw beef…..
View all pictures from Day 5 here
Day 5 of my Contiki trip. Today was a travel day, from London to Paris. It takes a little over an hour to drive from London to Dover. Before you get on the ferry you all have to get off the bus and the french will stamp your passports. You then drive to the next check point were they will take 5 random bags off the bus and put them through an xray machine. Finally your given a line number and you pull up to it to wait for the big boat.
The boats are pretty big, there are 3 or 4 decks for car, trucks and buses. Desk 6 is a huge mall area, with money exchange, and a small cafe. The 7th floor is like a mall food court, and the 8th desk is mostly seating with a few out door locations for those who want to go outside, for lunch i had a sausage roll, and a chicken pastry.
France and England are a lot closer than they look on the map. You can see France from England (at least when we were there). Its about a 2-3 hour drive from Calais to Paris. Once we got to Paris we dropped our stuff off to the hotel, and did a quick driving tour of Paris. Traffic in the city of Paris is pretty bad, we got to one round about which was just a cluster fuck of cars, an police officer had to show up and start direct traffic because no one was able to move (we were stuff here for 1/2 an hour).
Out side of the bad traffic and the slightly rude people (not as bad as people have describe people in Paris to me). The City is amazing, so amazing words can’t describe it.
 The Lovue 
The first place we got off on the bus tour was a place across the river from the Louvre
 Ogrebear in Paris The first place we got off on the bus tour was a place across the river from the Louvre. The Next stop we got some pictures at was Les Invalids which as a great view of the Eiffel Tower, and the main build of Les Invalids which has Napoleons Tomb
Since it was getting dark… and you can’t stop near the Effie tower, we drove past it before heading to the hotel for the night.
To view all pictures from day 4 click here.
Today was a free day from the contiki group to do what ever we wanted. My friend and i decided to get to Hampton Court, which is out side of London. To get there we had to take a train from Waterloo station to Hampton Court. In my mind my idea of a train station is something like we have in California. A single train line except at the major station, where there like 3 – 4 lines. I get to Waterloo and there like 30 platforms, a huge board that list all the departures. There had to be at least 20 different train lines, and trains come and going every minute. London, i am envious of your public transportation system and want it.
Hampton court was amazing, the place is split in to about 6 1-2 hour long tours that you can follow along with your audio guide. The 6 major tours are, the Tudor Kitchens, this tour you walk though the kitchen area of the castle. Henry VIII’s State Apartments, this is where Henry the 8th would meet his guest. The Queen’s State Apartments, the area where the queen lived. The King’s Apartments, where the king lived. The Georgian Rooms, i’m not sure what this was, but some of these rooms looked amazing. The Wolsey Rooms, Wolsey was the original owner of this place, and until the king order his execution i believe.
In the castle they have actors who are dressed out and go about there day through out the castle like they would of back in the day. That was pretty cool as well.
Since this was our last day in London (and England) we left before we could see the entire Hampton Court, and headed back on the train to waterloo station, so that we could get on a ferry from Winchester Pier to Greenwich. We wanted to stand on the Prime Meridian.
We got on one of the last ferry’s to Greenwich at 5pm and took the 30-40 minute boat ride down to Greenwich. If you are ever in London, you should take one of the boat ride, you’ll see a lot of London. And it is well wroth it.
Once we got to Greenwich we headed up to the Royal observatory which is where the Prime Meridian line is. One thing we were not prepared for was the hill. Since most maps are not tropological you normally don’t see hill. We should of figured that an observatory would be on a hill, but didn’t. So we climbed up the hill and went to the Royal observatory museum which we were surprised was still open and took some cool shots of the city.
 Ogrebear on the Prime Meridian There was one last thing i wanted to see in London, we got on the Docklands Light Railway to Canary Wharf and got on the Jubilee line to London Bridge station, then got on Northern to King’s Cross. Did i mention i love London tub system? It just epic. Why King’s Cross, to see Platfrom 9 and 3/4 (Which is between platform 8 and 9, not 9 and 10 like i thought). But w00t i’m going to hogworts!!!
So last month i got promoted to MTS SW 2, w00t me!
I work on the Dev Tools team at work. I currently own the static analysis and automatic script that run it. Our code review software and the script that create metrics, for the metrics team. The file ownership tool, which i wrote my self in python with django. And i think i am going to dabble a little in build analysis in the future.
Any way that pretty much all i can tell you, or they’ll come and ta….
To view all pictures from day 3 click here.
Today was the first full day with the contiki tour (London & Paris plus Rome). One thing that take a little bit of time to get used to is how to sun work in London. In July the sky doesn’t turn completely black until 11:30 issue, and the sun start to raise again around 3. I was totally not ready for that.
Early in the morning we all got on the contiki bus and did a little driving tour of London. We drove past most of the big site in London, and stopped to get pictures at St Paul’s cathedral, and near Westminster abby.
Next stop for the contiki bus, Stonehedge! So Stonehedge is in the middle of no where near some goat/sheep farms. We had an hour to listen to the audio guide and walk around it, which is plenty of time. It pretty cool to see in person, but you’ll end up only spending about 45 minutes walking around it once and then leaving.
Next stop, Bath! Bath is a city on the west side of England that the Roman build a city with public bath (which is what the city is named after). Since it was lunch time the first thing we did when we got there was to eat lunch. Our tour manager (Tony) took a few of us to a pastry place. I had a bacon pasty, which turned out not to be bacon, but ham (what Americans call bacon, and what Europeans call bacon is different). But it was still pretty damn good.
After lunch we went in to the Roman Baths, which were amazing. Even though most of the complex that the baths were in was destroyed or built over, the system that was use to bring new warm water still worked. Since we only had about an hour and 1/2 to see the baths, and we didn’t manage are time that well we had to rush through the last 1/2 of the place.
It is/was Fan Faire time once again, (going on a month long vacation to Europe makes you forget these thing). And i’m not there since i used up all my vacation time. The only SOE game i’m interested in at this point is Everquest Next, since i was a hardcore EQ and EQ2 player.
Check out Eq2wire, and Keen and Graev’s sites as all the information i got came from them
From everything that has been said it sounds, EQNext will be a re-imagined EQ1, with it own history and future that will not be tied down to EQ1 or EQ2.
There will not be as many classes are there was in EQ2. There really was way to many classes in EQ2. I honestly thing there shouldn’t be duplicates classes in MMO’s. In Eq2 i was a Guardian and the main tank for raid back in KoS, other time Berserkers became the defacto tank because they could hold aggro better. I ended up retiring my tank (ogrebears) and making an Assassin for DPS (ratbear).
There planing to emphasize on the story, and planing on finding a better way to deliver it. I like this a lot, i loved the story from Eq1, and EQ2, but the problem is i hated having to read it. I, and probably the majority of the player base would just click as fast we we could to get though the story. The best games i’ve seen story wise have been Bioware’s games, and Grand Theft Auto Series. The problem is both of these are single player game, and there are thing you can get away with in single player game that you can’t get away with in an MMO. But i do wish they take bits and pieces of the way both games deliver the story.
They mentioned that the game will be able to be played on laptops to high end systems. I am hoping (but doubtful) that they will include macs. WoW includes mac because instead of using directx for Wow they used OpenGL (please use OpenGL SoE)… On top of that SoE need to make sure there low end graphics don’t look like shit. That was a problem in EQ2, the low end graphic just looked really bad.
It sound like SoE will not have corpse runs in the game, which i think is a good idea. I know, i know a lot of people will say that one of the best time they ever had in eq1 was a nake corpse run to get there body with the epic mod standing on there body and bla bla bla…. Ya ok i have a few memories of that and remembering how fun that was, but i also remember times were the entire raid wiped couldn’t get there bodies back and after an hour most people ended up rage quitting… I so don’t want that. Corpse runs are dead, get over it.
Finally when will it get come out? Honestly it sound like they are very very early on in the development cycle on this. So it not coming out this year, and i’m pretty sure it not coming out in 2011. It might come out in 2012, but i’m expecting 2013 release date for this.
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