As the name implies, it’s a Chinese-themed MMORPG. Don’t worry, the language used is English. However if you roam around the starting city, you can find an NPC called “Unknown Scholar”. He is a vendor that sells cooking recipes, and his recipes are in Chinese.

If I understand it right, Jade Dynasty is known under different names for different markets, and it originated from China. Hence, when it made its way to the USA, they translated it.

Since I’ve never played it in its original Chinese form, I can’t tell you if anything has changed in terms of gameplay. However, one thing is for sure - it’s positively addictive. I get the same sense of “I need to complete 1 more quest” every single time I need to go to bed.

Graphics wise, they are clean and crisp. Demands on the PC isn’t very heavy. I can easily slide everything to max at 1280×720 and still get 30 FPS on it.

Levelling inside is pretty fast, and the thing that really got me chuckling is that, if you enter into the “meditative state” while in town, you actually earn xps! In fact, each time you earn xps, the amount is roughly the same as killing 2 mobs of your level. The time interval between xp gains is about the same as you going out into the wild and grinding mobs for xps. Levelling in this game is also different from most others - you pick ONE skill to upgrade or learn, and you pick a 2nd skill from a “Tome”. That’s all. Health and other attributes seem to be automatically adjusted and compensated for.

The second interesting thing is that there is a “bot” built right into your game client. You can actually put heals and spells into the relevant hotkey slots, and start the bot going among a group of mobs. You will automatically kill mobs and pick up loot. When your health runs low, the botting client will heal you with the potions you put into the heal slot (or with a heal spell you specified to be cast at a fixed interval).

It’s so sophisticated that you can tell the bot client to attack only specific mobs or to adjust intervals between spell casting, plus radius you want to detect and attack mobs in.

Yes I’ve used this function in the official game client to quickly kill quest mobs and get my quests done quicker.

This game is definitely noob-friendly. They have a list of NPCs you can call up at any time for you to click on, and you will automatically run there. Also, in the quest log, their names are hotlinked and once you click on the names you will run to them.

However, being noob-friendly doesn’t mean it’s not deep. It’s very deep. Even now at level 25 or so, I’m still figuring things out. For example, I still am not too sure about the difference between an “Esper” and a Skill. To me, they work the same. You cast it, it drains your mana. There are other stuff, too much to mention, that you will have to figure out how to do as you level up. Yes there’s in-game help but honestly, I haven’t actually read through it yet.

So as you can see, right now I’m kinda hooked on this MMO. I really wish I can split time between this and ArmA 2.

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I must say, ArmA 2 is the best simulator yet from the company. I include a short video clip below to whet your appetite:

For one thing, you will notice that the placement of windows is different from ArmA and OFP. Fonts have been increased in size in some places, and the menu items “dumbed down”. If you’re a veteran OFP or ArmA player, you can still access the old menus the same way - keys 1 - 0 open the menus and the actions you can take within them are still in the same order. Hence, for example, to order your men to “fall back into formation” you can hit 1 -1 and issue the same command as you did before. Or, to fire at will, you hit 3 -5. They are all there. You don’t have to use just what you see on the menu in front of you.

I opened up the editor and had a go at it. It’s essentially the same editor as it was back in OFP through to ArmA. However, now there’s a new option called “modules”, which presented an interesting menu of adding ambient effects like animals and sounds. Should be interesting.

The biggest improvement, in my opinion, is larger portraits of your men on your squad bar. With larger portraits and hence, larger icons representing what they are (Grenadier, Machinegunner etc), it’s easier to locate and order your AT guy to take out the tank. In the past I sometimes just gave up and ordered the whole squad to take out the tank.

Right now I’m still having a blast in ArmA 2. You should too!

One of these is Call Of Duty 4. Previously on my old rig, the P4 3.0Ghz Hyperthreading (single core), I get respectable framerates (about 20+ FPS) with “medium” settings. Resolution was at 1024×768, and certain graphic details were turned off (notably Anti-aliasing). When I got my new (current) rig, with the integrated ATI HD3200, performance was better. A few more graphic details were turned on, some were set to medium. Framerates were about the same, ie 20 odd.

With the new card, it auto-detected everything at High and whatever that was off, was turned on. Anti-aliasing was set to 4x. However, resolution was still at 1024×768. I manually turned the resolution up to 1280×1024, the maximum that my monitor can run on.

With FRAPS running to measure framerates, I started COD4. To my jaw-dropping amazement, COD4 clocked an average of 45 FPS! Even with FRAPS capturing video, it never went under 30 FPS, but hovering around mid to high 30’s.

Ok, yes I know I am pretty bad at COD4 after all these time. In fact I think I should re-play it again, because this Nikolai mission made me realise I forgot alot of the story (and hence, enemy placements and locations) to justify another run-through.

The next entry, I’ll probably bring you a video of the new Stalker game. I had a pretty rough time running it on the integrated HD3200 chip - many parts of the game were stuttering and jerky, and I estimate framerates to be about 5 to 10 in some places.

I’m just constantly amazed by how much I can push the graphic details up to, and still maintain great framerates. One game in particular, Assassin’s Creed, never cease to amaze me in this part. In my previous entry, I put everything to max except the resolution. Now, I pushed the resolution up to the max my monitor could handle - 1280×1024.

As you can see in the video below, there is virtually no impact on the framerates to the naked eye. However, FRAPS did measure an average of 3 frames less than at 1024×768.

As you can see from the video clip, it’s still smooth on the whole. During recording of this video, there is naturally a drop of framerates. Without recording on, it’s smoother. Compare this clip to my previous ones:

1. Old PC - P4 3.0Ghz Hyperthreading
2. Old PC - same rig as above, with some tweaking

For an investment of just about S$100, I think my current rig can last me a couple of years more!

Since the IT Show 2009 is on right now (for people in Singapore), you might want to run out and grab an even better card than what I have - the ATI Radeon 4870. I hope they are selling it at a great discount over there. In any case, I won’t be going to the IT Show. I have nothing to buy, and I don’t want to tempt myself on non-essential stuff I might see there, and buy them on impulse

About 6 months or so, circumstances forced me to upgrade my PC. Budegtary constraints meant I had to get a “value” or “budget” system. I got one with an integrated graphics chip, the ATI HD3200, which is probably one of the better boards at the time.

6 months later, ie now, I have saved up enough to finally upgrade the graphics card. I still had budgetary constraints, and I looked around for the best I could buy for about S$100 (US$66). After poring through pricelists online via The Hardwarezone, I finally narrowed my choice down to the ATI Radeon 3850 and the ATI Radeon 4650 line. I wanted to consider a nvidia 9600GT, being a nvidia user for a long time. However, prices for a nvidia 9600 was not within my budget.

After a little more deliberation, and of course looking at reviews, I finally decided on the ATI Radeon 4650, being the best card I could afford at this time. Reviews looked good on this card - supposedly able to do 30FPS or more on games I play, even at 1280×1024.

Once I got home with the card, and a quick installation later, I ran up various games to give it a test. I ran Armed Assault, and increased resolution to 1280×1024, pumping graphic details up to “high” settings. While I didn’t run FRAPS to measure the framerates, I could “feel” that it’s a whole lot smoother. Even the character animations of the soldiers felt smoother.

Next I ran Assassin’s Creed, the Framerate Killer on my previous PC. On average I could only do about 7 to 12 FPS on my previous PC, and slightly better about 10 to 15 on my current one with the embedded ATI HD3200. I’ll let the video clip below speak for itself.

Framerates now average about 30 FPS, spiking to 42 and bottoming out around 19 or so. Pretty dang good for a card that costs S$109 eh? This time around, I put Assassin’s Creed into max graphic settings, keeping only the resolution at 1024×768. Everything else was maxed out.

Yes I am pretty pleased, and amazed, at how a cheap card can change the gaming experience. Yes I would like the highest end card if I can afford it of course. However, since I couldn’t, the ATI Radeon 4650 is the next best thing I can get.

Image via Wikipedia

First off, yeah sorry I haven’t written in a while. I haven’t really gotten any new games lately, and I also haven’t been playing any of my older ones. Well, Fallout 3 still refuse to work, and I haven’t had time to actually go hunt for patches.

I’ve also been recently engrossed in watching Deep Space Nine. You know, the Star Trek series? Yeah we never had that aired over here in Singapore, and I finally managed to get all 7 seasons of it. I’ve been locked up in my room watching it from Season 1, episode 1 (btw, the way that Jadzia Dax died is so lame~!).

Anyway, I came across this pretty disturbing article here when scanning some news sites. In summary, a boy who was forbidden to play a videogame called “Halo 3″, got a gun and shot his parents, killing his mother and seriously wounding his father.

Now, I’m going to say that this doesn’t necessarily prove that videogames make us violent. I’m saying that the presence of a gun is the factor that facilitated this tragedy. After all, it’s the USA. Everyone has the right to bear arms for “protection”.

Here in Singapore, we’re always being ridiculed as a “police state” where the only people allowed to bear arms are the police and the army.

But, imagine if this kid were to be in Singapore. There is no way he’d find a gun “locked away” at home. If he wanted to kill his parents, he’d have to hunt for a knife from the kitchen. With a knife, his parents can actually run away (or subdue him) and get help. Nobody needed to die.

Oh yes, of course, us Chinese know Kung Fu, and we’d kick the shit out of the boy. Riiigghhhttt…

That’s one for us here in our police state, zero for freedom to bear arms.

Image via Wikipedia

I was just mucking around on the various gaming sites as usual, and came across this piece of saddening news - Tabula Rasa is shutting down come Feb 28, 2009. Now, I’ve always had a soft-spot for sci-fi MMORPGs. In fact, after I left Everquest 2 in 2006, the guild told me if I ever got onto Tabula Rasa, I was free to establish a guild there as a branch of the main guild.

Look at my history of MMORPGs - Anarchy Online and Entropia Universe. These 2 are sci-fi MMORPGs, although admittedly, I didn’t stay long in them. In fact, even City of Heroes can be considered a sci-fi MMORPG in a sense. I even dabbled in Face Of Mankind, another sci-fi MMORPG in beta at the time, and left it soon after due to the rampant PK-ing. Major problem - most players there aren’t from Singapore, and it would be hard to make friends and play together if they are always sleeping when I’m awake and playing.

In fact that’s a major problem with most MMORPGs that I play in.

Well Tabula Rasa was released in 2007, but I never got around to playing on it. Probably the burnout I felt after leaving 2006 was still there, and I never realy got the urge to get onto another MMORPG.

My first peeve with MMORPGs is that PvP ganking is prevalent. While I don’t mind PvP so much, I do mind that I get killed for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In some MMORPGs, high levels just camp newbie areas and kill them for fun and sport.

Why do I hate PvP so much? Because in MMORPGs, the results of PvP usually is based on your attributes. If you have a cookie-cutter optimum build character, you’d usually come out the winner in a PvP. Your level also plays a part - a level 60 will cream a level 1 anyday.

Now in other PvP oriented games like Battlefield and Counterstrike, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the skill of the player behind that character that counts in the results. If you can do a snap-shot to the head and get a kill, you’re skillful. You deserve that kill. In MMORPGs, your level determines the result.

Which suck, totally.

Especially if I’m the level 1 trying to kill rats to get some gold to buy equipment, and consistently get killed for the fun and laughter of a level 60. Some MMORPGs implement a “safe zone/level”, where if you are under level 10, for example, nobody can kill you. However, think about it - once you hit level 10 (or whatever level) and the safety net is removed, you get killed again by level 60s.

Secondly, I hate the grinding in MMORPGs. You just keep killing the same stuff over and over again to get XPs to reach the next level. And why do we need to gain levels? So that new areas are opened up, and we rush to level 60/90/200 just so we can join raids on the end-game monsters.

Third, I hate the uber loot. Your character is considered weak (”gimped”) if you don’t have that cool Sword Of Blasting +10. People will camp the monster that drops this for DAYS just to kill it and get this sword - and even so, the monster may not ALWAYS drop it. It sucks more if you need to kill that same monster for a quest. These high levels will chase you away (or even kill you) if you want to kill that monster for a quest, because there may be a CHANCE it will drop that cool uber sword and only YOU can get it (since you killed it) and not them.

Yeah, after writing all these, I feel that I don’t want to go back into another MMORPG. I’ll stick to COD4 or FarCry or whatever.

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Image via Wikipedia

Recently I thought I will be stuck playing Fallout 3 till December. However, as fate would have it, Fallout 3 started crashing on me and I could not move anywhere outside of Megaton. If I loaded a savefile from prior to entering the town, I crash at random places in the Wasteland.

Thus this makes playing Fallout 3 a chore. When a game becomes a chore, I stop playing it. I’ll get back to it once a few patches come out to address the problems.

So I turned back to Far Cry 2, which I had installed a few days before Fallout 3. Unkowingly, Far Cry 2 is pretty addictive. I had the same “just 1 more mission” feeling when I am playing it, and don’t feel like stopping even if it’s 3am and I need to get up for work the next day.

One thing I don’t like about Far Cry 2 though - the “stealth” part of the game is almost non-existent. Check out the video below:

I went around behind the rocketeer, used a machete (or in local slang, a “parang”), and cut the guy down from behind. By all accounts, it was a silent take-down. Yet, a little further along in the video, you can see the alarm being raised.

This video is taken on my second character though. I restarted the game after I completed it the first round, and went on hardcore mode. In my previous game, I had the full complement of stealth gear - camo suit, MP5 with silencer, Dart sniper rifle (silenced) and a silenced pistol. Yet, when I go into a small town on a mission, and take a guy out, the alarm will always be raised.

Yes I even tried to take out a guy tucked away in a corner, usually a sniper up on a roof. Within a few minutes of the guy dying, someone will “know” that I’m nearby and everyone goes on alert.

This is even more apparent when you take a side-quest from a radio-tower, and the target is located inside a cease-fire zone. You walk around confidently, trail the target to a secluded spot, and then you kill him with the machete. Definitely a silent take-down. Yet, alarm will be raised and as soon as you exit that secluded corner, everyone is firing at you.

Overall though, Far Cry 2 is a fun game. Too bad about the stealth.

Yes it’s that good!

Secondly, due to the numerous crashes everybody is having, progress is slow. Hence I’m still just at level 5.

Third of all, right now I ran into a really serious bug - once I return to Megaton to sell or sleep etc, I can’t leave. Yes, I am a prisoner in town!! Hahaha not really but it’s the bugs rearing their heads again. The game would crash whenever I leave the town, or even if I do Fast Travel out, it crashes. A friend of mine told me to try every single map marker, one will work. I have like about 10 to 15! That could possibly mean I need to crash about 15 times before finding the one that works, if one works, that is.

In the meantime, I loaded an earlier savegame and Fast Travelled to Scrapyard. To my surprise, I saw a bunch of Brotherhood Outcasts on patrol. Curiosity got the better of me and I followed them on their patrol (boring part which isn’t shown in the video).

They came to a place called Wheaton Armoury (or something similar). There, they had a firefight with a band of raiders. One of them apparently got killed by the raiders and I ran over to strip him of his armour. So here I am, level 5 with a set of Brotherhood Armour!

I’ll let the video speak for itself

Watch FO3 - Brotherhood Armour in Animation and Game Videos |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The thing is, a group of Brotherhood Outcasts will ALWAYS appear in the morning at Scrapyard going on patrol. I have slept in Megaton during the night, waking up at 8am or so. Then I fast-travel to Scrapyard and viola! There they are! However the group composition can vary. Once or twice there were 2 humans and 1 robot on patrol. Most other times it’s 3 humans carrying various forms of powerful weapons.

It’s just too bad I couldn’t grab one of those. It would be very cool to shoot a laser rifle or a gatling gun at level 5!

If you look at the pic, I don’t really see how the Chinese words 明家快 translate into “The Brass Lantern”… Maybe people after the apocalypse have no clue what the Chinese words really meant… hmmm