Working As Intended

That’s right. My site Vanguard Rangers, once an affiliate of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, has expanded its horizons. Now being hosted by the UberGuilds Network (yes, the folks that host the Fire of Heaven message boards), the can only grow. It’ll cover a handful of games that have Ranger (or Ranger-like) classes. Currently I’ve added Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures to the roster, with more coming soon depending on how large their existing communities are. I’d love to have a section for EverQuest (yes, the first one that got many of us addicted), but there is an already existing Ranger community that is doing quite well (that I actually visit on a near daily basis). No need to step on toes, not yet at least.

The transfer was fairly simple compared to some horror stories I’ve heard of (Traldan’s VGTact going from phpBB to vBulletin rings a bell). I’ve spent about the last two days cleaning out the database and reconstructing the site. It wasn’t the hardest task in the world, but it took a lot of focus and time. What do you know, two things I lack the most!

So there you have it, a small update from me. Now I need to get back to work on two other websites I’m helping design! *sigh*

Recently I was promoted to officer in my guild (Halcyon Affinity). And like my Uncle Ben use to tell me, “With a great guild tag, comes great responsibility”. So I’m going to be in charge of quite a few things, including front page updates. While I wouldn’t call it truly news-worthy, I put up a post about how we invaded Mount Stiirhad (a tier 3 raid area). If you’re going to check out the update, make sure you check out the pictures we have of inside Stiirhad. While the quality of the pictures are not that great, the area itself looks really, really amazing. So yeah, here is the update. Enjoy!

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, the game I’ve been playing primarily since beta phase 2 (early 2006). The game has struggled on my computer for over a year now, and it is finally getting to me. Many people know me for my high-tolerance, but it is reaching an end. I don’t have the (or any) income to buy a new system so my current one must keep trucking. It is by no means a crappy system, but in the year 2007 it sure isn’t the best. It has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0ghz), 2GB ram, 120gb 7.2k RPM Seagate hard-drive, and my lovely ATI Radeon x800 XL. It was a beast about two years ago, but unfortunately technology has no sympathy for time.

When I’m farming Rahz Inkur with a 6 man group, I’m happy when I break 10 FPS in combat. Double digits, amen! When I’m at the lowest of settings, I shouldn’t be worried about being able to hit the next ability in a chain every 2 seconds because of a horrible frame rate. I’m also enjoying the Flavor of the Month in Vanguard (also known as playing the most overpowered class), which as you may have heard is the Cleric. My guild mates and I decided to roll up a ton of Clerics, each choosing a different affinity (which is like picking a domain in D&D). We’re currently around level 30, and I’m sure glad that other people in the group can heal, because I know I can’t handle it every time. I picked Preservation, which is themed as defensive (at level 40 they even have Divine Arbitration, er, called Balance in VG, which may be the sole reason why I picked Preservation). Everyone in the group can heal, but I’m known for being on the ball when playing MMOs (yes yes, “the” reliable player, gee-wiz). So when we’re in a tough bind, or as tough as a bind as a group of Clerics can get in, I’m one of the primary healers. I’ll be frank; healing with all the performance issues is not a fun job. I love the class, and I love the melee damage they put out (though by no means should they be doing that much, see my post at Silky Venom on my most recent solo accomplishment), but its hell on earth! I can be in the Khal bank, looking down by the banker and be at 12 FPS. 12 flippin’ frames per second, looking down, lowest settings, in a small room, with maybe 2-3 other people (if that depending on the time of day).

On Thursday my guild decided to break in to Stiirhad with about 21 people. Is that place even finished? No, but we thought we could see how far we could go through it for fun’s sake. My machine only crashed once, and that was when I was taking a screenshot (got a few kill shots on good ole Faelor, huzzah). A few people who had high-end machines were crashing left and right, plus lock-ups and horrible FPS (as you can imagine with 21 people on screen). A lot of the players went back to the default UI and had less lag, but it wasn’t a ton of help. We figured that the offensive target’s debuff window (with debuffs and weaknesses) causes a lot of lag trying to update throughout combat. It just brings destruction to any machine, it is ridiculous.

I could continue ranting, but sadly I discuss this exact subject everyday in Ventrilo for countless hours.

Since I hit level 50 in Vanguard and farmed a good chunk of level 50+ rare/heroic/legendary gear, I’ve been enjoying a thing called Life. I’ve been able to talk to old friends, play Magic: the Gathering (how I missed ye), and even “chill” and go out with buddies. Am I still playing Vanguard? Yep! Just taking a breather since I fly through 1-50 and farmed some gear.

I also think I am going to try to pick up the guitar. I played the bass many years ago, so I may just fiddle around on that to get warmed up. In all honesty I just wanna play something. No matter what I do on the computer, I have music going. It doesn’t matter if I am checking e-mail or talking to people on Ventrilo. I need music to be on, I enjoy it too much. And because I do not have the luxery of a MP3 player in my car, I get to cycle through about ~30 CDs in my car.

Blah, time for sleep…