Now, I was reading up on the rules and how the standings will work as my family was discussing it the other day. I didn’t know how it really played out, but the main aspect that drew my attention right away was the “3-point system” they use in the standings. Yes, the idea was thrown around in NHL meetings before and it was quickly dismissed, but in today’s game, I see almost every day a team playing to get to overtime, NOT to win in regulation. Getting into overtime guarantees the team at least 50% of the points, with a 5 minute overtime and shootout to decide who gets the extra point. Most games will not end in overtime and will almost always go into a shootout, which turns the team game into a couple of skilled players against a goalie… And suddenly, 3 points are awarded per game instead of 2 like before the shootout.

I love the shootout for the exciting element it brings to the end of a game. I hated seeing games played hard for 65 minutes and no one wins. I mean who really enjoys watching 90 minutes of soccer that ends with a final score of 0-0? The shootout guarantees that someone will skate off as the winner.

The shootout is making the standings a complete nightmare. Because they are awarding a team the same points as if they won the game outright, teams that can’t complete a game, but have a couple players that have insane moves are in the playoff running, when they really should be fighting to finish a game. The system right now is severely flawed and needs to change. The best need to be rewarded for finishing the game in regulation instead of being neck and neck with a team that can do well in a shootout.

For those that do not know, the 3-point system works like this: If a team wins in regulation, they are awarded 3 points and the loser will end up with nothing. If the game goes into overtime/shootout, the winner will receive 2 points and the loser will get 1 point. This ensures that every game played in the NHL is worth the same amount of points, so the true winners will stand out from those that can’t finish a game. This will drive teams fighting for a playoff spot to do everything they can to win a game in regulation instead of having a second chance in the shootout. It’s annoying to see teams tied with a couple minutes to go play pure defensively to ensure they get half the points.

In this manner, we’ll still have the exciting shootout, we’ll have teams fighting harder to win in regulation, and we’ll have the teams that deserve to be playing in the post season there. The NFL, NBA and MLB do not reward teams for losing a game any more regardless of how long it takes for a game to end, but having a team in the NHL get 0 points for making it into overtime would not be the best route for the NHL either. The 3-point system will do the NHL great to adopt. It will make every game and every minute count, and the playoff run that much more deserving.

From the SWG forums posted by a good friend of mine…

This is a screenshot taken when he was updating his subscription using SOE’s Station Launcher. It will try to entice you to pick the Station Access plan to have access to multiple games.

Clone Wars is listed, yet no information has been released anywhere. The cat is out of the bag, just announce it already!

Edit:

This is just a continuation of numerous rumor posts that were made about this game back in September. Hopefully official word won’t be far behind, but knowing SOE, they’ll wait for a big announcement place… such as SOE Fan Faire later this year.

-MC

The game that is number 1 on my radar (and yes I know FF XIII is coming soon…) is Heavy Rain developed by Quantic Dream. You may have never heard the name, but I’d be shocked if you didn’t hear of Heavy Rain before. Heavy Rain is a Psychological Thriller game unlike any other. The tag line that is thrown out everywhere is “how far you’re willing to go to save someone you love“.

The story from what was revealed so far revolves around 4 main characters. Each character is tied to each other in different ways, but the main focus is on the “Origami Killer” that takes peoples lives and leaves little origami shapes behind as his (or her?) calling card. You will take control of each character as they progress through the story and how you interact with the world around you will shape the story differently. I read that when a group of people had a small demo to play, not one of the testers had the same sequence of events. You’ll be “controlling” each character to progress through the story in hopes of solving the puzzle and saving more lives from being taken…

The reason I put controlling in parentheses is because this game is unlike any game I have seen before. The gameplay is almost like a movie. In the game world, you will see objects around you. Some of the objects will have specific controller trigger buttons over them. Pushing the select trigger will cause your character to interact with the item, such as picking up a weapon, hitting people, escaping, etc. Many sequences will call for quick time events, in that you must react to the given sequence fast to avoid a situation, such as getting stabbed or hit by a truck.

I love playing games that have a storyline that is affected by your interactions in the world. The games that I’ve played that follow a structure  are BioWare’s KOTOR series and Dragon Age. It is my impression that Heavy Rain will 1000x more mailable to your reactions than any other game we’ve seen so far.

I love that it takes 4 normal people and doesn’t add anything supernatural. There will be a ton of plot twists that will keep you thinking. This seems like it’s a game that I could sit and watch and enjoy just as much as playing. The game is scheduled to be released on Spring 2010 with no official release date known. This will more than likely be my first new game purchase for the PS3 system and I certainly hope this game is everything I hope it is and more.

Read more about it here and be sure to watch the videos:

http://ps3.ign.com/objects/811/811232.html

We did some shopping and decided to get the PS3 after the movie so it wouldn’t sit in the cold for hours. We enjoyed a great dinner at Rojo and saw “Up in the Air” at Emagine. It was a good movie but pretty depressing, especially with the state of the economy here in MI.

After the movie, we went straight to Best Buy near the theater. Of course they were sold out. The only Best Buys in the area that had PS3’s in stock were Ohio (which isn’t in the area at all…) and Ann Arbor. We decided to drive to Ann Arbor to get it instead of wait a couple weeks for new shipments. We didn’t have our GPS on us, so we used my phone to get some general directions and luckily we found it.

On our way home, we weren’t sure exactly where we were going, but we had a general idea of what we had to take to get back. I accidentally got off the expressway early, so I had to get back onto it. That added 5 minutes to our drive, but the rest was easy.

When we got home, Dana’s parents were watching TV and we stayed in the living room talking with them as I was holding my new PS3. We were talking to them about the fact we’re going to put off getting a TV for now because we couldn’t afford the one we wanted yet and we didn’t have a lot of room.

I went down into our room to put my PS3 on my desk to get ready to play it on my 23″ monitor I bought recently. When I opened the door, I saw a huge box sitting near our bed. It was basically the same TV Dana and I had wanted to get all along. I was totally stunned when I saw it there.

Dana’s parents got it for us as a late wedding gift. It was totally unexpected. They were silently laughing at us when we were telling them that we were going to find a way to use the PS3 on my monitor. The funny thing about this was that they just got home from a different Best Buy 5 minutes before we walked in the door. Had I not have taken the wrong exit earlier, we would’ve been home at the same time. That little delay allowed them to complete their full surprise, and us getting the PS3 was perfect timing

Obviously the Dana’s dad and I set it up while the girls watched. We set it on top of my computer desk which has become a massive entertainment desk now (complete with 2 computers, 23″ monitor and now a PS3 and 40″ TV). I had bought an HDMI cable for $30 from Best Buy because I didn’t want to wait, but i instead borrowed one from my bro-in-law to test it out. We watched Wall*E on Blu-ray.

I spent the next day “testing” it out by playing NHL ‘10 and confirmed that it kicked ass.

Today, I was looking up an HDMI cable to buy and I saw that I could get a MONSTER cable for 90 bucks, or spend 3.07 for the same thing from another retailer… I really can’t believe that people buy those… Research saves a ton of money guys!

That’s my story. This Christmas week has been a very busy one but probably one of the best weeks in a LOOONG time

-MC

Monday – Dana was selected to go backstage before the Goo Goo Dolls Concert on New Years Eve. She won this once before, but was too in shock to say anything to them (and she was scared she was almost taller than the, ). This time she’ll get to meet them again and at the biggest show of the year, and hopefully explain how they’ve played such a huge roll in our lives. We also got paid for a website we built TOGETHER and it was a very generous.  I was finally able to buy a monitor for my computer I’ve been dying to get. We also bough a calibration tool for our monitors.

Tuesday – I got a message from a company I was dying to hear from about a job. They offered me a job with excellent benefits and experience. Getting this job after months of looking for post-graduation work is a blessing. I’m so excited!

Wednesday – Nothing really happened today other than still being all smiles about the job

Thursday – I just won tickets to see the Red Wings in a suite for tomorrows game from Facebook! Totally didn’t expect that!

Now all I have to do is get my monitor and calibration tool in 100% condition and win a Newegg and Best Buy competition and I’ll consider my week complete!

I constantly ignored a message on Photoshop saying that the calibration of my monitor is defective. The reason I ignored it was because it is a 19″ LCD monitor I got from Dell about 4 years ago when I bought my computer. I have since had a replacement (and upgraded) computer sent to be because Dell’s products tend to fail. Ever since, I’ve not been able to change a lot of the setting on my monitor. I couldn’t adjust the contrast, gamma, nor the color settings. I’ve been using my ATI Catalyst program to adjust the properties as needed.

Well, Dana has been diving head first into photography and really trying to develop her talent. She spent hours post processing a lot of her images. She made an awesome collection of pictures of our niece as well as some brilliant shots from our past travels. She’s been post processing on my computer using my monitor… Here’s where I messed up.

Because my monitor was not calibrated right, Dana was processing all her prints according to what my monitor was outputting, and for some reason I never thought about how it might be deceiving… She sent a few images she created to a professional printing company to see how they would turn out. After she got them back, she saw that none of the images looked the same as she saw them on the computer. That’s when it hit me that my monitor was totally screwing up her pictures.

I feel terrible that she’s spent so many hours on her pictures and most of them are not what she wanted…

I searched around on the internet trying to find a free calibration software, but everything I found didn’t really help me at all. Then I found out that Windows 7 has a calibration program built in. I tried that out and my monitors look a LOT better. I’m hoping they are calibrated right. I’m going to have to get a new monitor soon regardless, but for now this should work. I’m gong to print off some photos this weekend and see what happens.

Anyone have any ideas on some better ways to calibrate a monitor?

The Nightmare Before Christmas

That is all

This guide is intended to help you understand what buffs your Combat Entertainer should have. I am going to specifically list the buffs I feel are best for me currently, and this information may change over time as I play with different builds. Please note, that I have recently started playing with a new toon. My focus with this character is 100% Drama Entertainer build and I will be using every attack and debuff.

Profession Buffs

Entertainer does not offer combat profession buffs other than Void Dance and obviously the Ent Buff. I use Void Dance when I run up and encounter 3+ mobs at a time. The entertainer buff is extremely important and can be the best buff you can get. I HIGHLY recommend that if you’re serious about combat, get your Ent Buff from another player. This is the Entertainer Buff that I find to most useful for me.

• 1/1 Action Cost Reduction
• 1/1 Critical Chance
• 1/1 Glancing Blow
• 2/4 Second Chance (Reactive Heal)
• 1/5 Strength

Obviously we need ACR, and I feel that getting it from the Ent Buff is vital. I stack Critical Chance, so I need this to make the most out of my damage. GB is great to stack with my already innate amount and also with my debuffs. Second Chance is my new toy. 2/4 Second Chance gives me enough to see the reactive heal occur often. Healing for 800 every few seconds is a huge boost, especially when we do not have an innate heal! If you’re stacking Healing Potency, it will increase the Reactive Heal, though I do not advise stacking HP being the stim heals from Officer and GCW do not increase.

In addition to the Ent Buff, you need to get Medic Buffs as well as Officer tactical stims.

Grouped Buffs

The buffs all follow a grouped order, so certain buffs will stack, while others do not. In my build for Combat Ent, I find the following buffs to be the best combo:

• Lair Crystal (Betray Obi-Wan)
• Mustafarian Injector (Sickness of the Storm Lord) or Bio-Capacitance Discharge Bracer (Glowies)
• Shard of Retaliation (Obey Obi-Wan)
• Wild Force Shard (Offensive Burst)

This combo of grouped buffs will give you some great bonuses. Not that the Lair Crystal and Shard of Retaliation are impossible to get on your own. You need to do the quest and get the Lair Crystal, then buy the Shard of Retaliation. You can only pick one and the Lair Crystal is No Trade.

Food

There is nothing specific that will help Combat Entertainers, but something to consider using is Flameout or Accarragm

Heroic Jewelry

Unfortunately, we only have Heroism set right now, but that’s not to say it is not worth it. Get it if you can as the extra +150 to all stats adds up fast!

Obviously, from here you stack your Power Ups and any other additions you get from your group members. Being self sufficient is important.

If you have questions, post a comment below!

-MC

Why are vampires the cool thing right now? Is it so all the gothic and emo kids can come out and play? It’s alright children, the sunlight won’t hurt you.

I’ve had enough of vampire movies for my life time. I mean really, Twilight… If the books are good, then that’s great, good for Stephenie Meyer. She’s making a fortune off of her novels. It’s the biggest series of books since Harry Potter and kids are going psychotic over these movies! All I hear about is Twilight and New Moon and OMG Robert and Kristen are a couple! ENOUGH! Vampires, if anything, are supposed to scare you. They are products of the horror genre. The last thing I’m worried about is someone sparkling…

And if that wasn’t enough, we have the new movie The Vampire’s Assistant coming… This movie looks absolutely terrible.. It has John C. Riley in it, which should conclude my rant about this movie.

There seems to be another Vampire movie every few months, but the Twilight series especially annoys me to death. Anyone else as sick of this as I am?