Blizzcon is Coming

It's that time of year again, when all the Blizzard obsessed people like me are glued to their computer monitors for two days straight watching all the news from the best video game developer ever.

Ok... some are lucky enough to actually be there and watch it live.

Anyhow, as most gaming writers do before a big show (even though I'm not a gaming writer), they make their predictions, and here are mine:

1. World of Warcraft - Cataclysm

About a month ago, Blizzard copyrighted the name "Cataclysm." Now, I know, they are working on a new MMO, but from things they've said, I think they're still too early in development to show that one off. They're not really working on anything else, and they keep hiring more people for the WoW team, so it can't really be anything else but a new expansion. Now, the cataclysm in Warcraft Lore is when the continent was split apart into four pieces and one of them sank into the ocean. Most people believe this new expansion will take us underwater to that fourth continent.

Just to not follow the crowd, I'm going to say it's not that. For one, I think something where we go underwater would have "maelstrom" in the name since that is what now takes the place of the lost continent on the surface. I'm going to guess (again, just to be random and outrageous) that the title actually refers to a new cataclysm that hits Azeroth. This cataclysm causes the lost continent to resurface, giving players a new continent to go questing on.

2. New Diablo III Class - The Crusader or Ranger

We know they're going to show off a new class, the only question is what it will be. They seem to be following the normal Diablo II classes, with little twists. They've got the barbarian, the witch doctor replaces the necromancer, and the wizard replaces the sorceress. Now they just need a knight type and a rogue type.

I think the knight type will be more of an Avenger (D&D 4E reference) where he is a holy warrior, but in a bit of a darker sense. He uses forbidden rituals to carry out his god's will to destroy the evil of Sanctuary.

I think for the bow type they'll go pretty close to the amazon, she had lots of options. They'll do a ranger with three skills trees being Bow, Dual Wield, and Beast Mastery. Yeah, I pretty much ripped both of those from D&D, but I think they're pretty close to what Blizzard has in store.

3. Starcraft II - Battle.net 2.0 and Beta Announcement

I think they're finally announce the date for the beta test and get that under way. They're apparently done with the game, just waiting on a few things with the new battle.net. I think they'll show off a couple of the following things.

-A unified profile that links all your games. When someone views it online, they can see your achievements and records for each game individually.

- Advanced matchmaking, with different levels of play (Beginner, Standard, Pro-Gaming). Beginner has bigger maps so rushing is not so much an option and the spead is slower. Standard will probably look a lot like Warcraft III battle.net, and Pro-Gaming will be for those at the top of the ladder.

- Cheat protection. All of your games are linked to one account, so unless you buy two copies of the same game, you can't really have two battle.net accounts. This means once someone is banned, they can't just create a new E-mail and get a new bnet account, they'll have to buy another copy of the game for a workaround. That may go a long way to deter hacks and such.

- I'm sure they'll show off the new replay capabilities. Observers, the different data overlays, etc.

- Clan support with advanced options like WoW has (different ranks, persmissions, display abilities, etc). Clans will also be able to host their own tournaments and stuff.

Well, those are my predictions for Blizzcon 2009, check it out the 21st and 22nd, then check back here and see how wrong I was. It is fun to guess though...

Emulation

We recently rearranged the furniture in our living room, and my computer ended up pretty close to the television...


I looked at that and thought... wow, this could be pretty sweet for Netflix on demand and Hulu, so I looked around the house and found one of these:


So we've been enjoying Hulu and Netflix for a while (well, at least until I put Win7 on here, the Netflix player doesn't support it yet). Then I was sitting around thinking (which we all know is a dangerous thing for me to do), and I thought, "Hey, I've got one of these lying around."


A couple of downloads later, and this is what I saw:


So now not only can I play all of my favorite PC games...


Now I can also play Nintendo:


Super Nintendo:


Nintendo 64:


and Playstation:



Now all I need are two of each of these...



...and we'll really be good to go. Though I was surprised you can actually set up your keyboard and mouse to play the N64 shooters in the same style you would play a PC shooter. Perfect Dark got a little easier with that control scheme. The controller I have is also pretty ghetto (The d-pad is not very accurate, a lot of running into pits and aiming in the wrong direction), so it would be nice to have that Playstation controller to play Nintendo and Super Nintendo with.

Windows 7

I've had Windows 7 since the beta, and I gotta say, I love it. They've now given out the release candidate, and it's running great. The first thing that surprised me was that for Windows, it sure installs quickly. A half hour and I was up and running, and that includes formatting the hard drive and all. In fact, in includes a little more than previous versions of windows. Windows 7 found the drivers for all of my hardware automatically and installed them as part of windows, so when it brought me to the desktop for the first time, I already had internet access, video drivers, and sound, among other things.

It looks a little better than Vista, has awesome UI improvements, and runs so much faster. It's not the resource hog that Vista was. Take a look at this screen shot, which is of my only gadget, the one I use to keep track of system resources.


This is while I have just a couple of Internet browser windows open and Windows Media Player. The same numbers in Vista were around 35/55. What Vista was doing while my computer was idle... I may never know. Hopefully I'll be getting 2 more GB RAM soon (RAM is so dirt cheap nowadays) that will bring that second percent below 20. I would also note that while playing World of Warcraft, these numbers are 26/45, still lower than Vista when my computer was idle... almost laughable.

So let's show you some of the things I like about Win7. A few things are pretty impossible to show without video, but hopefully this will tweak your interest enough to check out youtube or whatnot. First off is what my desktop looks like in Win7.


Nice little background there. Came with Windows. Anyhow, a few changes here are the fact that the task bar is a little thicker by default, and instead of bars for each window open, when you click on an application to launch it, you get a little symbol that's highlighted, like the Windows Explorer Icon and Mozilla Icon in the above screen shot. This makes it a lot easier to find the window you're looking for when you have a lot open, because most of these symbols are on the taskbar anyway (at least I like to put them there) so you're used to where they are located. Another thing that helps you find a window that's open within a given program is window previewing. Simply mouse over any of the symbols and preview panes pop up like so...


Then when you mouse over any of those preview panes, it makes all windows see-through except that one so you can get a better look at it when searching for your window.


Also notice that my background changed here. You can set as many background pictures as you want, then tell windows how often to cycle between them. The default is every half hour. I know, seems kind of like no big deal, but I find myself missing the variety while on my XP machine at work. Also notice there are X buttons in the corner of the preview windows so you can go through closing them without having to open them up. Anytime you want to look at the gadgets on your desktop or that pretty background picture, you can move your mouse to the corner of the screen, and all of your windows will turn see-through.


Then of course the Windows-Tab returns to act as an alternative to the normal alt-tab, like in Windows Vista.


And finally, here's a close up of some task bar sections.


Can you tell I'm a huge fan of Blizzard? Yeah, missing a couple of the older ones and Diablo II, but I don't play them currently.


And what are these icons? Why, the topic of my next blog post of course. Microsoft, if you're reading this, you'd better be happy about the free advertising I'm doing for you for the other two people that read this blog.

Everybody meet GREGORIO!

This memorial weekend we went on a grand trip of northern Utah. I'll leave it to Isabelle to cover all fun stuff that happened. I'm going to focus mostly on one picture, displayed below.




Now when most people see this I bet they're thinking, "Of course, you must have been in Park City." But if you're reading this blog, you know that PC stands for something much more important than Park City. That's right, Personal Computer. To commemorate this random thought of mine, I thought I would introduce you all to my personal computer, GREGORIO.

GREGORIO came about because of a problem my grandma had. Her computer went kaput. My step dad called to ask me what type she should buy to replace it, and I told her she could just buy mine. I sold it to her for a discount, and with that money and some extra I had from my birthday, I hatched a plan. That plan culminated in what is now known as GREGORIO. It wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Grandma for buying my old computer (BLUESTREAK) and mom for the birthday money. Here's to you! Luckily, Grandma and I had all the peripherals from our old computers, so we required just the box, and what a glorious box he is.

Here are his specs:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Dual Core Processor 2.9Ghz 1MB Cache
Memory: 2GB DDR2-800 RAM
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200 RPM
Video: GeForce 8600GT 512MB GDDR3
PSU: 650 Watt
Media: 20X DVD Reader/Burner

And here are the pictures:

He's got a see-through panel!

And he glows!

A view from the front - the fan on the bottom has this nice glow-through effect

The peripherals from before: Wireless mouse and keyboard, Phillips 3.1 speakers, 19" LCD Monitor

The Phillips Subwoofer

Now all I need is one of these and some more ram and maybe he'll go from a mid-range gaming rig to high range. I'll have to wait until my next birthday rolls around for that one though, can't justify the cost unless it's a gift. Anyhow, if any of y'all wanna game sometime, just let me know :)

April Fools

April fools has become a huge holiday on the internet, especially in tech industries. I just thought I would share some of my favorites with y'all, read em quick as they usually disappear after today.

Blizzard Entertainment

By far the most elaborate April fools jokes I've seen on the internet, they come with artwork, write-ups, screenshots, and even videos of newly announced features in the game. You start shaking your head and wondering what they're thinking until you realize it's April 1st. This years entries included a Pimp my Mount feature for World of Warcraft, a PVP danceoff mode for World of Warcraft, a new class for Diablo 3, the Archivist (think Librarian on a rampage), and a new unit for Starcraft 2, a massive robot made from... your whole base. Madness.

Google

Google always comes out with a new technology on April 1st and they're usually pretty good. This year they developed an AI called CADIE and used it's technology for Gmail autopilot.

Gamespy

Gamespy had an editorial about how the PC will never be a decent platform for RTS games, mocking the futile efforts of those who keep trying to make an RTS for a console. I may explore this topic in another post, because RTS on a console is something I never understood.

Fileplanet

Fileplanet, a free file distributor which I believe also powers Direct2drive, a site that lets you buy a game license online and download it that day, saving time and money. They have a new program for planting a tree for each gigabyte that is downloaded from their site.

Everything's amazing and no one is happy.

On the topic of technology, here's a fantastic clip from the Conan O'brien Show.

Gloria's Little Italy

So we were down on Center St. the other day and decided to try a new restaurant that was there, Gloria's Little Italy. It's right across the street from Los Hermanos, at the corner of Center and University (in Provo). After eating there, I would highly recommend it to everyone. The food was fantastic, and the prices were excellent. Pasta with sauce, a salad, and a drink for just $8.00! I had some pasta with an oil, garlic, and peppers sauce, and it was delicious. Haven't seen any ads for them yet, so I thought I would start some word of mouth. Next time your down there, stop by for some great Italian food!