Funcom, the developer of The Secret World announced bad returns on the back of poor sales of the MMO. They’re taking on measures like “temporary layoffs†in order to reduce operating expenses. In my mind, couldn’t have happened to a nicer crowd.
It seems that the MMO hunt won’t just end. I just got word of Shadowrun Online. It’s based on a successful pen-and-paper RPG of the same name. From their Kickstarter pitch, it seems that the SRO will be a turn-based, fully 3D browser/tablet game.
I still have doubts about browser-based MMOs, but if they’re pitching it at tablet gamers as well, that kind of makes sense, and I can see myself playing on my iPad. In fact, that would be so Shadowrun. I’ve pledged some money just to see what it looks like.
I’ve made no secret that I’m a bit of a diehard LOTRO player. I’m not a hardcore raider, or anything like that, but I certainly enjoy the game because it visually realizes Middle Earth in a way that really appeals to me. Places like Weathertop, the Trollshaws, the place where Durin’s Bane met his end — all these and more make the game addictive and appealing to me. After all, that’s why I’m building a new gaming rig.
But time marches on, and there are other massive multiplayer games that might spark my interest.
I’m a huge fan of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s spawned a successful HBO TV series, and despite long waits between new installments and ever-lengthening word counts, it still is a fantastically realised world, with relatable, human (if somewhat inhumane) characters.
Unfortunately, the game is browser-based, which is probably not a good thing. I also have reservations about how one would bring a setting steeped in politics and innuendo to a market that is obsessed with DPS and heals. I’ll watch that space, but won’t hold my breath.
In this final part of the series, I’m going to finish choosing the parts for my new gaming rig. So far, we’ve got CPU, RAM and motherboard. These are very important parts of any computer, but we’re still missing some crucial pieces.
This is the meat of a gaming rig, isn’t it? At the end of the day, your FPS (or “fips“) and gaming experience are largely dictated by your video card. And the field is huge. If I thought CPU model numbers arbitrary and RAM specs transparent as a battleship bulkhead, then this is the moment I’ve been dreading.
Back in the day, life was easy. ATI was only just finding their feet, so I was able to boil the choice down to Nvidia GeForce2 (easy on the wallet) or the GeForce3 (easy on the eyes). The current state of play is much more confusing. It’s still a toss-up between these two brands, but they sell so many models.
With a sigh, I start up the searches again. Once again, it’s Tom to the rescue with “Best Graphics Cards For The Money: June 2012“. Conveniently, this article is organized by price and tests each card against a number of benchmarking programs and games.
So, having decided to build my own computer for the first time in almost a decade, I need to figure out what parts I’m going to buy, and how much I’m going to spend on them. In this first part, I’ll choose the three components that I think about when building any machine: the CPU, the memory, and the motherboard.
Let’s start at the heart of any computer. There are only two CPUs manufacturers in the PC market, and they’re probably much of a muchness. I’m going with Intel mainly because they’ve recently released a new line of processors (codenamed Ivybridge).
So far, Intel have only put out a limited range of Ivybridge chips, but I’m sure there will be something that suits my needs.
A nice feature of these Ivybridge chips is that the built-in HD Graphics 4000 module (apparently it’s called “discrete” despite being part of the chip) is quite beefy and supports DirectX 11, which is something my iMac can’t handle. Should I need to stretch my budget, I can take advantage of this by delaying the purchase of the video card.