It's Been A Long Time --- Getting From There To Here ...

Earlier today I watched the new renamed show on G4 Tech TV, "Attack of the Show", renamed from the "Screensavers". Interesting segments about a remade broken NES controller redone to a two-man operated blown-up [in size] NES controller that took teamwork to operate. Kevin Rose & Kevin Pereirra took all 4 lives to make it through World 1-1 on the NES game Super Mario Bros. and got 2000 pts. jumping high on the pole near the end of the world. Pretty darn interesting. Anybody creative and houses $400 in their wallet need to crack out and buy the parts off eBay.

I suggest you guys go to www.g4tv.com/aots/ and check out the Show Notes for the show on March 28th of the infamous year 2005. If you're already going there, there's no need for me to spoil the link to the Satanic-messages-in-songs website, now, shall I? *wink* I also just remembered I watched the last episode of Cowboy Bebop yesterday ... Spike shoots through Julia ... Spike runs into the skyscraper ... kills Vicious ... runs outside ... pulls out his finger and says "bang" ... collapses and dies ... sad, cliched, yet nice ending.

Congrats.

-- "Grim Reaper"

WTF, Mate?!? Pt. 2

WTF? I haven't updated for 3 days? That's mainly my fault, alone, but look at you guys! You can't last without me for 3 days? What is wrong with you guys? Ah, it's still not really your fault ... and rather mine ... but on the bright side, over those 3 days, I stayed out at Tweak't 'til 7:30 on one day, didn't go the next, and then from 3:00 - midnight I stayed at Tweak't playing Call of Duty, Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, and Unreal Tournament 2004 was pretty freakin' exciting. I was about play Diablo 2, but when I logged obn my two mules carrying great-uber items expired ... and then when I went home and tryed to log on it didn't really work because there's an error message stating it's missing the file 'ijl32.dll' or some bull**** like that.

Oh, no, I'm not worked up. But, shortly after arriving home last night, I brought back Call of Duty from EB Games, and, since they were out of the United Offensive expansion, I ran next door to Circuit City and bought the COD:UO expansion. Both same price. Lil' over $60. I'M NOT MADE OF MONEY, PEOPLE! Sorry this is real short, but I'm actually hella depressed over the fact that I'm being forced back into karate about an hour's drive there and then school starts again tomorrow. If anybody had any clues on how I can get out of it without screwing my life up, post in the comments.

As for me? I'm gonna continue playing CoD:UO online/multiplayer [look for Ca1amity or Slayer] and really start thinking about my school depression.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Time Is So Freakin' Valuable ...

I'm actually famished and tired for once. The only thing that's keeping me awake, ala most nights, is the fact that I'm too jacked up on caffiene. And the fact that I'm too cheap to run out and buy SWAT 4, Doom 3, and Call of Duty: United Offensive, I'm downloading the demos right now. Care to know how far I am along? Don't care? Well, I'll tell you anyways.

Call of Duty: United Offensive - coduo_sp_demo.exe - 39% / 15 min. remaining

SWAT 4 - swat4_spdemo_en.exe - 33% / 16 min. remaining

Doom 3 - D3Demo.zip - 8% / 1 hour, 22 min. remaining

Now that I shared, I'm off to play my other demos and continue with my non-existant life. Oh, and, by the way, my two mules that were carrying all of my neat stuff on Diablo 2: LOD expired and I never bought the graphics update expansion for EQ [Dragons of Norrath]. Now somebody tell me what DOESN'T suck about that???

-- "Grim Reaper"

Tweak't My Tweak't, Please!

Today is another late entry, but, for me, I have the best excuse yet: went out to Tweak't Computer Gaming Center for about 3 1/2 hours today, which is roughly 3:00 - 6:30 PM my time, by the way, and I [and so-said friend] played Call of Duty: United Offensive LAN multiplayer and it was f**king hilarious. There was also this one guy who thought he could take on the whole room by himself ... and so we all fought him on an open battlefield ... and he won ...

Let me explain the worst situation. The guy who owned the place joined in the all-out CoD battle, too, and, while him and bad guy were in the bunker, I started firing away with my last 11 shots from my BAR and, as the guy who challenged us jumped out of the bunker, I killed my teammate as the letters flashed red at the bottom of the screen, "YOU KILLED YOUR TEAMMATE, TWEKT_THEPANTHER". While I was in shock, Panther yelled from across the room, "Dude, this f**ktard on my team just killed me, godd**n it." The friend beside me started laughing, as I hit him and told him to shut up.

And then I lost to him in C&C: Generals.

Which really sucked.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Life Is Like a Corpse-Filled Pit ...

Yeah. I've been playing D&D: Heroes through the night and through this morning with my friend. I'm so jacked up on Coke (no, not the drug, but the soda) that I couldn't get to sleep last night and decided to watch G4 Tech TV most of the night. Sheesh. Also, in regards to last night's post, I started talkin about JTHM and Jhonen Vasquez. Only thing that came to mind at the moment 'cause a couple of days before yesterday, The Screensavers (block of show[s] on G4) had him on there, talking about his JTHM and IZ work.

On second thought, I'm also working on a novel-ish ... er ... novel ... that incorporates the best from the likes of Halo, Metal Gear Solid, and Splinter Cell to produce a spine-tingling action-thriller novel. It's labeled, currently, as "T.E.R.R.O.R". Care to find out what that means? Then send a check or money order of $29.95 to ... eh, I'm joking. But you just might see it sold in a local book retailer if I ever finish it and ever get a publisher. Look out for the author: it may surprise you to see that the writer might actually be the "Grim Reaper". *wink*

Well, I'm off to Spire II of Kaeden's Castle. Talk to you guys later ... I hope ... tell mother that if I'm not back posting by tomorrow that D&D has killed me.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and I ...

Yah. I've continued to play D&D: Heroes with my friend and am in the evil Wizard Kaeden's castle. So ... tired ... I just finished watching the new episode of Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] block of programming and was actually very dissatisfied. I already understand that the show is only about 11 minutes, but then, once you're actually sitting down and watching the show for awhile, by the time you're in the groove, BAM! The show's over and the rapid credit-clucking background music begins playing. I additionally understand that the team who makes it only has a week-at-a-time, which concludes the short 11 minutes-per-week ratio, but, after awhile, I beg you guys who are reading this to wait four weeks and produce at least an hours long special. RC fans would rejoice. No joke.

I also sat down and researched a lil' bit into Jhonen Vasquez, formerly known as the creater of the Invader Zim series. But he also has a [surprisingly] remaining darker [yet not Gothic] style that was brought out before IZ, shortened to the name of a comic book series entitled: "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac". Interesting. Although the story and graphics are aimed at a [much] mature audience than his kiddie-ish Invader Zim cartoon series. I actually like this mucho. I'm sorry that I can't write much. I'm tired and played D&D on the XBOX for about 14 freakin' hours straight.

Although it's almost the next day, I've decided to count this post as March 20th, as it's supposed to. Expect another blog-post tomrrow night-ish. Everybody have fun. And get a lot fo rest, for god's sake.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Jabberwocky ...

Yah, this update is kinda weird-ish due to time delay as the one posted yesterday night ["WTF, Mate?!?!?"]. Sorry about this, just been kinda uppity-down every now and then trying to find a grand 'ol time to write something worthwhile for you to read. And this doesn't seem to be one of them. -_-;;;

Ah, and, a warning ahead-of-time, starting March ... *looks at calendar* ... 28th-or-so, I'm not gonna be able to update here until around ... 3:00 - 5:00-ish through the week, but maybe the 9:00-in-the-morning-thing on the weekends. Comprende? Good. I've really only been playing D&D: Heroes with friends and such, and it's been a blast ... just got my first ill-timed, degrateful "Game Over" message a few hours ago. Loathe ... message ... must ... kill ... message ...

On a lighter note, though, I'm considering buying a humongous treasure trove full of Metal Gear Solid Kubrick action figures produced by an action figure company called Medicom. 'Thinking of getting the entire MGS2 set [$??.??] and the limited-edition, Japan-convention-exclusive, MGS3: Big Boss in Fire Camo [$20.00]. Look at for links and pictures soon, my friends, for once it arrives, it shall blow your minds!!!!!!!

-- "Grim Reaper"

WTF, Mate?!?!?

Yes, this is probably what you're thinking at the time being. Updating my website at midnight instead of the usual 9:00 - 10:00 AM the same day-thing, right? Right. Sorry, but I was rather busy. I went out to the movie theater, saw [Ring] Two and Hostage with Bruce Willis, and I prefer the latter over the former. Anyways, I also went down to the Tweak't Computer Gaming Station down a few towns away from mine and walked in, casing the place. Pretty neat, and I plan on going on Tuesday with some friend(s).

Ah, yes: I also went to the arcade for a little bit, the magic shop nearby, and the Steinbeck Wax Museum. Don't know what that is? Rather shocked, maybe? Don't be. I haven't heard of it much myself until I went inside ... god, those figures scare me. *shiver* Anyways, I also stopped into my local Hollywood Video and rented Star Wars: Obi-Wan and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes, both for the XBOX. Only tried Heroes so far, though. 'Been addicted for about 5 hours straight, now. A game hasn't done that to me since the Halo series, the Paper Mario series, and when I got my first game [Super Mario 64] for my first console [Nntendo 64]. Ah, and maybe Half-Life {series} ...

Yes, that's my excuse. Do I really need one? Nah. 'But I can say it to make you guys feel better and not left-out-of-the-loop, right? (wink)

-- "Grim Reaper"

Thus I Doth Prevail ...

I did it. I finally did it. I made it over the barrier of Coagulation [in Halo 2]. And, I also made it over the small-barrier near the sand dunes near the rocket-launcher spawn point in Burial Mounds. I feel great. God, and the space beyond Coagulation is so wonderful. You can go out there, get a nice view of the canyon, snipe people, and, if you see a rocket soming towards you, just move down the cliff away from the ocket and it'll miss and either (a) hit the rim, or, (b) soar overhead. Either way you win.

Burial Mounds isn't as expanse, praetell, but I still found it interesting. Ah, but something caught my eye yesterday after I turned off my XBOX and turned on Channel 75, G4 Tech TV. I read an e-mail set onto one of the various shows that was talking about videogame violence, which read: "If violent games cause violent behavior, do sports games cause athletic behavior?" I wouldn't know, because I don't play many sports game as I do shooters. =P

Don't get me wrong, I fairly-like the sports genre, but prefer others over them. Which brings me to the topic of violent videogames, focused on Mature ratings, here. In MY opinion, in which this case I believe is the ... case ... very strongly, it's the parent's faults for anythng going on here. Videogames are entertainment. If your son / daughter runs out and buys an M-rated game, plays it, and decides to shoot up a mall GTA-style the next day, then you should've paid more attention to them or, if you were the one to buy the game for them, see if your child is mature enough to play with the themes that warranted the M-rating, be grisly violence, sexual themes, et cetera.

For example, I play Metal Gear Solid. Do I want to go on a tanker and shoot it up? No. I play Grand Theft Auto. Do I want to jack a car and run pedestrians over in real life? No. I play Halo. Does that make me want to go out and steal a spaceship from NASA? No! Why not? Because I'm stable-minded and was raised in a nice neighborhood. If I were raised in the slums with parents that abused me, of course I'd have low self-esteem and run out to my school and shoot up my school. I wouldn't be well-adjusted.

So, please: don't blame the games. THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, COURTESY OF THE GRIM REAPER.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Coagulation Taunts Me ...

A friend and I kept trying ... and trying ... yesterday night ... all through the night ... to get ourselves to the top of Coagulation. Yes, I'm talking abuot Halo 2, and, no, not whatever-else-you-thought-it-meant. Anyways, the friend and I kept sword-jumping across ... but hit the barrier. After we tried that a few times and it proved to be futile, we naturally figured, "Alright, how about we get AROUND the invisibile barrier?"

So, we set same team, but, unfortunately, I didn't remember how to turn friendly-fire off, so, not that we actually did it, but the plan was to get a tank and drive up the 100 degree mountain in the canyon, and, once up there, get the guy in the other tank to push me up until my treads were overlapping the barrier, get out of my tank, stand on top of it, and have my friend get out of his tank and get a Banshee. Then, he was supposed to come over, slam me with the craft, as I'd be pushed through the barrier. And it should've worked. If I only knew how to turn friendly-fire off.

Well, I guess if nobody can help us with the friendly-fire bit, we'll have to resort to the ther two plans I have: the first involves turning light vehicle to Spectre and heavy vehicle to random, and then taking the Spectre up the corner to the back-left of blue base. Push the Spectre 'til it's vertical, and then have the other guy fly over to the rock formation beside blue base in a Banshee, and then knock the Banshee off so there'll be room for the next bit. Now, have the guy in the Spectre rush over to the rock-guy and he'll go flying upwards, at an angle, and, voila: bypassed ... wait ... that requires friendly-fire off, too ...

Hey, maybe my second plan: I set light vehicle to Map Default and Heavy Vehicle to Scorpian Tank and then we'll be on opposite teams [or same] and he'll take the tank and drive it up too-steep-of-a-hill and it'll flip over. I position myself on top of his over-turned one and he presses "X" to flip his over, sending me flipping high into the air. Will it help me pass the barrier? Hell if I know.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Half-Life ... the other kind ...

Half-Life has to be the best & most-traditional-fun I've ever had on the PC. It's just brilliant. You are Gordon Freeman, trained in the likes of handling Anomalous Materials, and it's your job to work your way through the Black Mesa Testing Facility and reach the underground lab, to which you will test a new crystal in an analyzing ray ... and Freeman just so happens to have the honors ...

As he slowly and wearily pushes it in, sparks, rays, and explosions sound off everywhere. "Gordon, get out of there, quickly!" One of the scientists yell over the loudspeaker. As Freeman starts to move towards the door, everything goes black ... green light ... and then black again ... and then he appears in a desolate wasteland-ish swamp area on an odd planet, surrounded by mutant crocodiles ... another green flash ... he's back at the facility ...

Hastily making his way towards the blast-door that the scientist opened as he had blacked out, he starts to move around the facility ... talking to the scientists about what happened ... until you meet up with Barney, the security guard, again. That's when you have to battle your first headcrab-scientist. God, and you only have a Glock .45 Pistol. Sucks to be Freeman, eh?

I don't care whether you have a grudge against Valve. I don't care if you don't like shooters or not. There should be a United States law against NOT playing this game. Everyone needs to try it out. Afraid of the commitment? Go to FilePlanet or Google and type in "Half-Life: Uplink". Three level demo that takes place 48 hours after the containment of Black Mesa. You, Gordon Freeman, have to re-align the satellite dishes atop the scientist's testing compound so they can radio for back-up.

This game is everything [for it's time] and today. Two thumbs-up. 10 out of 10. 100%.

-- "Grim Reaper"

Microsoft Bob Strikes Again ...

I was minding my own business, looking for the 1.1.0.0 patch for my copy of Half-Life on Sierra's official Half-Life website, when I decided to look at the staff page, just for the fun of it. I scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the page and read the two-column listing of previous games / programs members of the Valve team had worked on in the past. I read down the column ... Microsoft Excel ... Microsoft Word ... and, at the bottom of the first column ... Microsoft Bob ...

Being late-at-night, I rubbed my eyes and scanned the column again: still Microsoft Bob. I dunno if I'm the only guy in the world who didn't know what a "Microsoft Bob" was, but I was determined to find out. So, I went to my godly resource of everything all-knowing ... known merely as Google ... and I Googled the words "Microsoft" and "Bob". I didn't need to click on any links, because merely looking at the site description told me what Bob was.

Microsoft Bob was the codename for a canned project Bill Gates had proposed for the Windows operating system [OS] that had later been ... well ... canned ... in favor of other, highly-anticipated programs. Bob was supposed to continue the series of Microsoft programs alive, but, unfortunately, failed in the process, thus Bob was kept locked up in the confines of Microsoft's CEO's office until late hours of the day ...

Just imagine for a minute how you Start Menu would look if Bob hadn't fallen through:

> Microsoft Excel
> Microsoft Word
> Microsoft Bob

*shiver* Freaky ... not that any of you care or anything ...

- "Grim Reaper"

Sands of EverQuest

Will I fall into the endless lands of EverQuest like quicksand?

Trial and error. All it is: trial and error. For all of you out there who is lost over what I am saying, (approx. 9 / 10 of you) I'm talking about EverQuest. I'll admit it, I wasn't a MMORPG fan. For all of you unknowledgeable, the term “MMORPG” stands for “Massively Multiplayer On-line Role-Playing Game”. Within the short-term story below, I will account the events among the arrival of the game that has whisked me away into the booming generation of MMORPG’s ... the mother of them all ... EverQuest ...

Basically, it all started with my addiction to plain old RPG’s. Then, I began playing multiplayer Total Annihilation over my GameSpy network. So, I was thinking, “My god. I’ve got to find a cross-breed: Multiplayer On-line RPG.” I thought ... and thought ... and researched, but didn’t find diddly-squat in return. And then, it hit me. Something I had absolutely NEVER tried or glanced at before ...

I was thinking about it, saw screenshots, saw 5-star reviews, but one thing held me back: the monthly fee. I’m young, so I don’t get much money (except allowance). Until ... that fateful day that I stepped into my local Walmart, into the Electronics section, and it was too good to be true: $29.23 for EverQuest: Evolution, which includes EverQuest classic, EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin, EverQuest: Ruins of Kunark, EverQuest: Planes of Power, EverQuest: Scars of Velious, and EverQuest: Legacy of Ykesha, a special offer for up to 40% off a new video card, an improved instruction manual that covers the original game w/ the expansions, and 3 maps: EverQuest Classic, Luclin, and Planes of Power.

And then I read the bottom of the box: 30 days free trial. My mouth drooped open, literally, awestruck. A game I want to try, sounds good enough. Comes together in a neat package, even greater. But with a free trial? Were my eyes deceiving me? Nope. I even asked the lady behind the counter. She said all things were thumbs-up. So, I whipped out my wallet, took out that $30, and proceeded to buy this game.

So, I drove home, opened up the box, and gasped, gazing at the true beauty of it. I inserted the first CD into my drive, opened up the instruction manual to the correct page, and began installing the game. 3 disc game. Not bad, for 6 games in one. So, I double-click on the game’s icon, and it begins loading up the included EverQuest Patcher. To patch everything up since the original release back in 1999, it took me about 10 min. to install all of the patched items for the game. Once completed, I finished opening the game, and, with anticipation, stared at the menu screen for EQ.

Could it really be this easy? No. Not really. Being on-line multiplayer and all, I had to create an account for EQ on-line at a website called “Station.com”. Alright. Easy enough. So, I trampled through the account creation screen, when a few steps ahead it asked for the CD Key. I panicked. I cursed at myself. Did I accidentally drop the CD Key card? Was it not packed in the box properly? I had lots of questions. Looking dismayed, I opened the CD case, the last place not looked at, and realized the CD Key was written on a label inside the 3-fold CD case. Hallelujah. Looks like Sony has some sly little devils over at their offices ...

Anyways, that’s not important. I entered my 11-letter/digit CD Key and buzzed on through the rest of my account registration, and activated my account with the 30-day free trial. I was set to go. I screamed out loud with joy, as I rejoiced while loading up the EQ program again. Once at the menu, I clicked on the “Login” button and entered my SN and password. For any of you unfortunate enough to stumble into me on one of the EQ servers, my SN is Space7777777 and my character name is Bolgast and I am a Level 20-something Shadow Knight. There. Now you know ...

... Although you probably could care less. I got off the subject ... again. So, where did I leave off? Oh, yes. I remember. I entered my SN and password into the “Login” page’s form, and waited for it to load. After a seemingly long time, I attempted to move the mouse cursor. No response. I pressed the “Return to Windows” key on my keyboard. I pressed “Alt-Tab”, hoping to exit back out to the Windows XP homepage screen. I pressed “Ctrl-Alt-Delete” hoping to bring up the Windows Task Manager. I pressed “Ctrl-Alt-Delete” TWICE, hoping to restart the computer. All of the above were to no avail.

So, I figured out that maybe the computer’s frozen state was a fluke, because of all of the stuff that I use it for. So, I re-booted Windows XP and re-loaded the EQ launcher, making it back to the “Login” screen. I logged in ... only to result in the same state. By this time, I was getting VERY fed up with this whole “MMORPG” craze-thing because of what I was dealing with in the current state of EQ.

And then one more idea hit me like a ton of bricks: I upgraded to a new graphics card from Circuit City for some big bucks a few months ago so I could play my favorite RPG ... possibly my favorite game ever ... Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. And before I loaded up EQ for the first time, a pop-up box (that I naturally ignored) had told me that there was an updated driver available for my graphics card. YES. I finally stumbled upon SOMETHING that may hold some FACTUAL proof of what I’m up against.

So, I went onto the Internet through my Internet Explorer (I have Broadband: I can go on-line with IE without having to be on-line using AOL / AIM. Thank god.) and downloaded the updated driver. WOOHOO! I screamed for joy. I finally got something. The question is: was that REALLY the problem to begin with? I mean: the graphics were fine. So, to make sure that the driver didn’t mess up the whole computer, (with all of the games on it, mind you) I booted up another one of my favorite RPG’s: Neverwinter Nights. NWN has been a faithful game since I got it long ago, so I booted it up, loaded one of my “saved game“ files, and sure enough ...

When you rotated the camera, it rotated as slowly as if you were playing off of an old Windows Pentium 1 computer. Alright. That was the last straw. This was all EQ’s fault. Since I got EQ, it put me into a world of hurt, making me update my drivers, thus RUINING most of my games [presumably]. I exited out of NWN as fast as I had come on to figure out, much to my dismay, that when I clicked on the “Start” button on the regular Windows XP desktop, it faded in S-L-O-W-L-Y. When I clicked off, it faded out S-L-O-W-L-Y. Okay. Now I’m REALLY angry. Not only has that driver now ruined NWN AND my Windows XP along with the computer, I was thinking, “Gee. I should go into the computer’s system and use a rollback performance in conclusion with XP to erase the driver update for my graphics card.” Translation: Press the “Undo” button on my driver update. Simple enough, right? Right?

What do you think? WRONG! I surf the computer until I make it to the driver page, I attempt to perform the rollback, but, with you reading this imagining the look on my face: the rollback for the driver was impossible for some reason or another, granted by an error message. Crud. So, looks like I’m going to have to live with the NWN / Windows XP slowness for now: I haven’t tried EQ to see if it works. Although, even it does, that doesn’t help me much because of the XP malfunction and all of my OTHER games that are now the slowest thing on the planet ...

So, I load up EQ. The Patcher ends. (of course finding nothing, since I had already downloaded all available patched files EARLIER in the day {Yes, it’s late, now}) I press the “Play” button. Suddenly, in the snap-of-the-fingers moment, I am kicked BACK out to the XP desktop, with a simple, yet frustrating, error message: “No 3D Devices Found.”

By this time I’m tired, hungry, thirsty, angry, and downright ticked at the NERVE this thing has. I mean, COME ON, I’ve already read EVERYTHING about the game in the instruction manual AND I’d prefer to have this game INSTALLED by either: (1) End of the year, or, (2) Before EQ2 comes out. I am so frustrated, I think that the best thing to do is re-install the entire EQ game. I mean, what’s the harm? My account isn’t going to be erased, because it is registered / saved on Station.com, so, isn’t it safe to assume that the EQ install was possibly ... BOTCHED ... in some shape, way, or form?

I thought so. I un-installed EQ off of my hard drive, whipped out the EQ CD case YET AGAIN, and proceeded to insert the correct CD’s to finish the install. Once again, I booted up the Patcher, thus meaning that the 100+ patched files HAVE to be downloaded ALL OVER AGAIN: it’s mandatory. I sighed, and sat through another 10 min. without EQ on my computer’s monitor. SO, approximately, the entire install (plus patched files) took about 20 minutes. Thus concluding that out of my whole day (nearly wasted by attempting to get EQ to work) it has taken about 40 SOLID MINUTES of INSTALLATION ... ALONE!

So, I press the “Play” button, thinking that EQ should load up anytime soon. Yet again, I was dumped back onto the XP desktop with the same pesky error message: “No 3D Devices Found.”. By this time, I am so ticked I could throw my mouse AND keyboard through the screen. Trying to end my anger, I shut off the computer, and waltz off to my couch to watch a solid 2 hours of television.

After my 2 hours of peaceful meditation (sarcasm), I booted up my PC accordingly, when it hit me: Maybe the re-boot will FIX the slowness of my XP? Hopefully. I log in, click on the “Start” button ... it S-L-O-W-L-Y faded in, and, when I clicked off, it S-L-O-W-L-Y faded away again. This time, I had no choice but to log onto IE and search for the ... (*gasp*) Troubleshooting Guide for EQ. I luckily found an adequate one on EQ’s homepage. I load it up: first thing it says is that: “DirectX 9.0b, the patch available for download since 3/04, may interfere with the ability of EQ’s running ability. To run EQ with DirectX 9.0b ...” So, I’m happy. I cursed at myself for not realizing this, as I proceed to S-L-O-W-L-Y make it through the “Start” menu and onto the “Run” menu. I enter the keyword “dxdiag” to bring up none other than ... The DirectX Configuration Utility ...

I looked at the version number: sure enough, I had DirectX Version 9.0b. Duh. How worse could my luck get? Answer: none. So, the first thing I did (which the Troubleshooting Guide also suggested) was go into Windows XP's internal files and shut off all background applications ... ALL! The next thing I had to do was uninstall my current video driver. There's one key hint that they don't mention though ... vital, really ... YOU HAVE TO RE-INSTALL IT, SO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR REGISTRATION KEY, VIDEO DRIVER TYPE, ETC.

Then, after the long un-install / install process, I went to DirectX, deleted it, and downloaded DirectX 9.0 ... with the 9.0b patch. Next, I went to my video card manufacturer's website and I downloaded the most updated drivers: that didn't take long. By this time, I was slowly moving my cursor over to the "Start" button, expecting it to come up so very S-L-O-W-L-Y, yet ... it came up faster than before the slowness occurred. I shouted for joy and realized that somehow my video card had been hosed, because I knew that I had enough memory and that shortage of memory wasn't making it sluggish, but ...

Anyways ... next I deleted some files that would re-create upon launching of EverQuest: The "uifiles" folder, the "userdata" folder, eqclient.ini, eqmain.dll, eqgame.exe, eqgfx_dx8.dll, EQGraphicsDX9.dll, all files named after my character (not that I had any), and any other character files that started with UI___##.ini. Yay! Now that another measly task is finished, I proceeded onto ...

Loading NWN. Everything else on the Troubleshooting Guide didn't apply to me, and I wanted to see if my new installation of my graphics card had fixed NWN's destroyed graphics. Sure enough, the pan camera was operating great and so was the movement. Houston ... we have made a breakthrough. Shouting for joy / rejoice YET AGAIN, I closed out of NWN and proceeded to boot up EQ. The moment of truth had come. I pressed "Play" / "Yes" / Esc. x2 / "Login" / SN & P* ... and ... the moment we've ALL been waiting for ... (at least I had ...)

The server roster showed up. I shouted like a maniac, screaming at the computer, telling it I had beaten its own game fair-and-square, and that I was "King of EQ". Well, that was short-lived. With my only excuse to NOT play EQ out of the way, I happily chose the Newbie server with Tutorial mode, created a character, bought a few items, and, voila! I am addicted to EQ and play it HOURS UPON HOURS ON END.

Final verdict: If you like RPG's ... get this game. If you don't like RPG's ... get this game. If you like / don't like MMO's ... get this game. If you love MMORPG's ... MY GOD THIS GAME WILL KEEP YOU AWAKE HOURS ON END AND IT HASN'T CHANGED MY LIFE A BIT ... I SWEAR! (*twitches*) NOT A TAD BIT WRONG WITH ME ... ALL OF YOU ARE PARANOID FOOLS ... HEY ... MY SHADOW KNIGHT JUST LEVELED UP ... W00T!!!!!!!

- "Grim Reaper"