And now, something completely different - 3-way blog (RS, Tech, School)
Entry posted by Makoto_the_Phoenix
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I'm trying to get in the habit of blogging once every three days or so, but a lot of stuff can happen in 72 hours. So, depending on my time, and depending on how much actually went on that week, I'll probably do a quick recap of the past week's events every Sunday.
Wall of text ahead -ye be warned.
RuneScape - The Decision to Remove Extreme Potions from PvP
This was an old issue, but ironically it's still got a lot of steam on the RSOF. The potion update, as many of you remember, was intended to give extensive boosts and bonuses to combatants, provided that they could make these potions (since they're untradable). On update day, it seemed too good to be true - a high level update that could possibly stick around for a lot longer! I was actually happy for the new incentive to train Herblore, and I looked forward to getting 92 for Extreme Magic potions (so I could do my insane RS goal of maxing out without trimming my HP cape).
I think it was less than two days before the potions were removed from all PvP. Kind of silly, really - and I debated enthusiastically and adamantly against the decision. It didn't seem right that the players that had the high Herblore potion could now no longer use them where they would be of most use. Admittedly a lot of the skillers that I've known and met do tons more PvE more than PvP, so you'd think that this decision wouldn't have affected them as much. That's really not the case - had this update stuck, I'd have probably gotten into the [PvP] fray myself, and had some fun while doing it.
It took Jagex around 48-72 hours to revert the changes, and over two weeks to come up with more player feedback about what to do with the potions. I'm not being mean towards Jagex or anything, but what kind of feedback could've been collected in 2 or 3 days that couldn't have been in 14-17 days? The disconnect there kind of seemed very, very odd to me.
Then the announcement came last Tuesday that they would not be placed into PvP, due to the nature of the combat system and how it unbalanced combat in favor of those with the potions. I can respect that Jagex wants to strike balance in their combat system, but I haven't been in a PvP fight which would be considered to be 'fair' - pures, hybrids, PJers, all manners of things - put me, as a moderately high level (let's say 97 before Pest Control) at a gross disadvantage against someone with 99 Strength.
Ironically, I can live with the decision. It's one that I can see now in hindsight that was the right decision. I was ranting and fuming and all manners of other things at their decision to remove them at first, but it's probably for the best - the potions highlighted key flaws within the combat system, and I hope these flaws are addressed very, very soon.
What I can't live with are the people who are hellbent on complaining/demanding the potions back into PvP situations. It's probably better for us to move on than it is to sit here and whine about how we would have preferred things. The place to start would be to suggest potions that can be used in PvP that don't unbalance the triangle the same way these potions did.
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Windows 7 and Ubuntu Karmic - A Weekend with Both
I finally got around to redoing my tower and laptop this weekend; the tower has always been a Windows/Linux dual-boot system (due to academic requirements), and the laptop has always been a pure Linux system. So, this past Friday, I had made the decision to perform the backups necessary and prepare my machines for the wipe and reinstall.
Would you believe me if I told you I had forgotten I had 125GB worth of data I wanted to move back and forth on a 100Mb line? I did. And the back-up part took about twelve hours.
First, I had installed Windows 7 on my machine, to avoid any messes with GRUB and Ubuntu Karmic later on. It had taken about an hour for the install (not just figuring out how it would work), and it had done partitioning in a way that I didn't want it to - 3 primary partitions, one of which was infuriating - a 100MB boot partition. C'mon now...
Second, I must say again that I am impressed with what I've got with this 64-bit system so far. It seems to be solid and responsive, and I like it. My only hope is that it runs the programs I have to run.
Ubuntu Karmic wasn't a nightmare, but it was frustrating not being able to set up the partitions the way I wanted to. I got around that limitation (extended partitioning), and things have been going smoothly since. It didn't take long for it to install (about 45 minutes), and when it came back up, things worked fine.
Just a word of caution for those that are Linux enthusiasts - get an NVIDIA card. Your life will be so much more pleasant. Take it from me, a guy that didn't get an NVIDIA card. But will when he gets the cash for it.
Overall I'm pleased with Karmic as well, but the one thing is that Java sound won't wrap around PulseAudio anymore, which is to say "padsp firefox" no longer works. I'll figure a workaround for that later, but it hasn't been as gruesome as it was in the past - if I close Firefox/Prism/Google Chrome entirely, then I get my sound card back.
I'll report more on these two things as I go along.
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Five-Day Weekend
A freak snowstorm hit Denver on Wednesday, and it turned from a nice, pleasant day to a white-out. I was contemplating actually going in for classes on Wednesday, but I had received an email prior from one of my professors saying that the 7PM class was cancelled, and the latest one from another saying the campus was closed at 1PM. My campus happened to be closed for both Wednesday and Thursday, and that put me behind in not only the amount of time spent on the job (I lost $20 from that storm), but in the amount of homework/classwork we'll need to do.
Anyway, on this weekend, I actually knew I had more time than normal - typically I do more work than play on any given Wednesday - but here I was, digging out a RS Membership card I had bought two weeks back, and I was playing RS again. I'm glad I could sit down and unwind with a few games - I hadn't done this for ages.
Now the weekend's over, and I have to go back in tomorrow. It sure was relaxing while it lasted. I didn't get much done, as far as classwork is concerned, but I'm not worried about it - my LISP project isn't due until Saturday, and I'm sure that my math professor will give us an extension for the Mathematica work we have to finish.
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