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Well all positions should be up for election, including President. I’m curious to see who will step up to the call. I know talk of me and Nickname running for President popped up at some point, but I’m only here for this semester. Plus I don’t want to have to deal with all the drama that position has to deal with sometimes. We’ll see how it goes at the meeting.
Consoles should be fine. We’ve got enough level-headed leaders in that department that know what needs to be done and generally agree on how things should be done.
It’s the rest of the club I’m concerned with.
MasterP said:
The Wii can do everything the PC can too but no one makes a big stink about it. I can go toss a word processor on it, plug a keyboard up, and type away if I wanted, or stream video, or play music, or host an FTP or webserver from it. You could load a 1TB hard drive up with movies and music and the Wii would play from it without any issues. Hell with a 3rd party add-on you could hook the Gamecube up to a computer and use it as a media center or use a custom gamedisc and stream video to it over a network. That whole concept is nothing new and isn’t an exclusive to one brand or another. The PS3 can’t do anything *useful* that the others can’t. And by useful I mean how the hell is remotely accessing a game console helpful? Compared to the PC I can’t imagine why you’d pick it to remote into at all.My point was, if the PS3 is so great a system and is the wave of the future, why isn’t it blowing us away after 2 years? If you take away MGS4 it’s barely been above par when compared to XBOX360 and PC. I’ve heard the same “it’s futureproof”, “we’ve got tons of SUPER AWESOME exclusives coming SOON”, and “it’s so much better than everything else” for almost 4 years now. The excuse around launch date was that “programming for the cell processor is hard and no one know hows yet but just wait it’ll be great in a year”. Well, we’re there. It’s about that time where you put up or shut up because right now both of your competitors have outsole you 2:1, the Wii almost 3:1. Hell the Wii sold more last November and December than the PS3 sold for the entirety of 2008. I don’t know how much longer the fanboys are willing to wait, but anyone who is waiting for a super exclusive to make the purchase *immediately* worthwhile isn’t going to wait forever. I almost bought one on release week but had a nagging feeling that there was too much hype for it to be worth getting, so far I can’t say I’m disappointed with my decision.
Also, a 50GB game really doesn’t mean anything. All that says is that it’s either got a insane amount of cinematics or really poor encoding on the video and audio. From what I hear, there’s about as many cutscenes as there are action scenes and when you take a 1GB game with nothing but action and compare it to a 50GB game with some action and tons of boring cinematics I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty which one real gamers are going to want. Back in the golden age of PC gaming there was a game called Klingon Academy, a fairly fast paced space-based (obviously) flight sim that came on a whopping 6 CDs. Most games at the time barely used 200MB but this *edited* thing took up 100% of 6 CDs. The catch is that if you removed the cinematics it was about 300MB big. The cinematics weren’t a deal breaker because you could hit that nifty ESC key and go back to venting people into space but it’s a concept I haven’t seen since in PC gaming. Most gamers really don’t care who loves who or wants to kill who, they just want to sit down and shoot the *edited* out of something and putting delays between the shooting doesn’t warrant medals or acolades. If a PC game pulled a stunt like that, I certainly wouldn’t be bragging about it.
Mitch, for once I <3 you. My counter argument would’ve simply referenced another thread. Namely this one.
I have no intention on running. I ran the show on the console side for long enough and especially with the opposition I had, I got tired of it. However, I still try to do my part in pushing for what I think needs to be done. I’m busy with graduate work and a master’s thesis. And with the recent history of the club, I’m debating whether I still need to invest my time here. Depends on how the meeting goes, I suppose.
You can rip CD’s onto a 360 hard drive and actually play the music while playing a game, or even replace the soundtrack with your own music in some games.
You can link your Xbox with the PC for entertainment purposes, meaning you can watch videos, listen to music, browse through pictures that are on your PC with the help of either the latest WMP or Zune’s software.
And with the recent partnership with Netflix, you can instantly stream movies from Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” selection onto your 360.
As far as the system itself, the system generally runs fairly quiet, unless it starts to overheat. Just make sure the system is well ventilated.
The controllers, I feel, are ideal for FPS’s due to the off-axis analog sticks. They’re very durable and you shouldn’t have to worry about buttons or sticks failing until you’ve had them for more than a year of heavy use.
From what I understand, although the PS has free online play, Xbox Live is better. Either better experience, better support, or whatever else. I’m simply going off of hearsay testimony. You have multiple options with Xbox Live. You can get a free Silver account, which will give you access to online play to some games, post and view in Leaderboards, as well as have a full friend’s list and be able to send messages and chat with friends on-line. With the Gold account, you’ll have unlimited on-line play and access to more content. And the price for a gold account is constantly getting cheaper and cheaper it seems. Wal-mart recently had the 13-month Gold account cards for $30. Or you can easily get the start-up kit for $70, which includes the 1-year (or 13 months, can’t remember which), a headset, the messenger kit, and a copy of Project Gotham Racing 4.
As far as game selection goes, it seems the 360 has a much larger selection and a larger variety of games. If it comes down to a dead even tie before this point, then the exclusives or just scope of selection for each system should be the deciding factor. Personally, I have no interest in any of the PS3 exclusives or any of its extra bells and whistles, so that’s why getting a PS3 is simply out of the question for me. However, I cannot say the same for you.
Oi. Sometimes I wonder if I wasted my time here.
Anyways, you know, just general club fliers advertising that we exist would be a better idea. As far as meeting stuff goes, we need to have one fairly soon, whenever Bitey can make time and secure a location for it. Otherwise, more chaos will ensue since we’re already going down that route since 1 meeting got canceled. We need to hold another round of elections and we need to decide the game line-ups for the LAN and if we’re actually going to pursue any of the other ten ideas we’ve had. Mainly, I’m interested in the last two, as it will determine if indeed I truly have wasted my time here.
I’m all for having little mini-tournaments / freeplay tournaments as long as people can organize it themselves.. and barring that the rest of the equipment isn’t needed for one of the headline tournaments. It’d probably fit in well during whatever time slots the Wii and PS3 tournaments are going on and we’ve just got random free play over in the 360 section. I’d be all for making sure we free up a few boxes and TVs for that.
I think it was slightly staggered last time.. but we had I believe 7 tournaments. Not 9. And even then, we were cutting some tournaments short. I’d rather us stick to our current method of running 2 shooters, 2 fighters, 2 misc and not 3 games per console. You know more people would complain about not getting to play in such and such tournament. What we’ve got works well for us until we get more space, more staff, and more time. But I don’t think we’re going to get those anytime soon.
Not a bad lineup if we had more than one day to hold the LAN. The tournaments would be a nightmare to run.. or unsatisfying for all parties involved. I mean seriously.. 3 FPS tournaments for the Xbox 360. Nothing more than a pipedream. It might work if we run multiple tournaments at a time and people don’t mind making decisions and a few sacrifices. But that’s hard to come by with my experience in this club.
Hold on.. I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile now just so things can make a bit more sense. I agree some things in Gears 2 just seem completely off the wall and random but using a little logic and a little theory, one can guess what’s going on or what will happen.
I will be referencing some from the collectibles as they do provide a lot of supplemental story, as well as some events from Gears 1 and Gears 2.
First, I believe Gears 3 will be somewhat of a prequel for the most part. I believe the story will be about 60% of previous events (roughly the first 3 acts), namely the end of the Pendulum Wars and just before E-day. Why? Well, first off, there’s been heavy reference to the Pendulum Wars and Marcus’ rogue mission to save his father during this time. It was referenced when Marcus’ returned back home in Gears 1, and then again, during Dom’s quest to find his wife Maria. Dom expected to Marcus to understand his plight since he went through an almost similar event. However, due to all this intrigue around Adam Fenix, why do we only know so few vague details about this event? It was something big and huge since Marcus was imprisoned for it. Anyways… and another big piece of evidence, I believe is the interpretation of the ending. “This is Adam Fenix. Is anyone out there? Can you hear me? This is Adam Fenix. Can you hear me? What have you done?” If anything, to me, this sounds more like some sort of distress signal broadcast due to the quality and sense of age to the recording.. sounding similar to Niles’ recorded voice in the New Hope Facility. I believe in Gears 3, we’ll actually have the experience to play through this event and uncover a lot more information about this event and the emergence of the Locusts.
Other indicators that this may lead to previous events is the Carmine scheme. So far they’ve introduced the Carmine’s in alphabetical order (Anthony, Benjamin, and Clay. Plus still one other brother, which I suspect will be in a 4th installment, and his name begin with a D.) Also, I believe that their relative ages also play a clue. See collectible, Cog Tag CSID:838186-22A03-SF (Denizens, Intenstinal Fortitude, Collectible 2). It’s a letter to Clay Carmine. The Carmines are a military family, so Clay is either a retired veteran, or is serving currently at this time. However, since he is the oldest, or at least older, that I believe a flashback would be in need to introduce him as the new rookie. I believe he’ll end up dying once time flashes forward again, and Delta meets up with an old friend. And then Gears 4 ends up having a “Saving Private Carmine” side-mission.
Anyways, characters to expect in Gears 3. Obviously, Tai should make an appearance for sure. He was only in what? 2 Acts in Gears 2? And obviously he knew Marcus from before. Possibly because they were on a squad together back in the Pendulum Wars. It makes sense. Dizzy will take his place upon going forward to the “present” time since Dizzy still alive, since no mention of his death was made in Gears 2. And of course, Clay should make his obvious appearance. And finally, I believe a Sgt. Jonathan Harper will appear as well. You may go.. who the hell is Sgt Jonathan Harper? Go look through the collectibles. It seems strange to me that they would put that many objects surrounding one person. First Act, there’s a medical file describing the symptoms of Rust Lung in a Sgt. John Harper. At the beginning of Act 2, there’s a journal entry for Sgt. Harper, stating he just set foot in the Hollow. In Act 4, Jonathan Harper is now a captive of the Locust and has started a journal while being imprisoned. And finally in Act 5, you collect his dog tags. That’s 4 out of 41 collectibles centered around 1 individual. He’s a 9 year veteran when his medical file was taken.. so I imagine he’s been around for awhile.
Gears 3 should focus on the emergence and creation of the Locusts. Yes, creation. Look at the New Hope facility. They were attempting to make some new sort of super soldier.. however, it got out of hand for obvious reasons. The main question is.. how are they creating these Locusts? My theory.. Imulsion. I believe these scientists first noted the mutagenic properties of Imulsion when the COG or whoever, started mining Imulsion. They probably noticed the Kryll, which had similar biological features to a native bat found in underground caverns. The caverns that had Imulsion naturally flowing in them caused the bats to mutate into the Kryll. The Kryll are fairly easy to handle since all that is needed is a UV light to kill them. But note, the Kryll were highly aggressive, swarmed like a single unit, and were highly volatile. A team of scientists decided to experiment by exposing human test subjects to Imulsion. They needed to do so in secrecy, hence the need of the New Hope Facility and its ridiculous security system. And as noted, the test subjects experienced a rapid growth in their nails, reduced growth in hair, labored breathing, swelling of joints, amongst other symptoms. These subjects ultimately became the Sires, highly aggressive creatures with swarming, hive-like tendencies. I believe that Adam Fenix was possibly a member of this team as well as one Myrrah, yes, the infamous Locust queen (she did look rather human, remember?).
Adam most likely tried to escape the Facility, but was instead captured and held in some Locust stronghold.. maybe even with some intentions to be experimented on. Now, I know I have met some opposition to this theory, but for me, this is the only thing that makes logical sense. In Gears 2, you discover that the Locusts are taking prisoners. And no one knows why. Most just conjecture that they’re sadists and just want to torture poor defenseless humans. However, I contest that the Locusts are capturing humans to make them into Locusts. We know Imulsion has mutagenic properties. And the Locust live in close proximity to the Imulsion. And they follow the direct orders of the Locust Queen. She seems to still be mostly rational and have direction, just as one would expect from a hive mind. She has been mutated as well, however, her mutation probably gave her some physical changes, but mostly, I believe she was able to produce some sort of pheromone that which these Locusts respond to. Since she cannot reproduce, the Locust hive is forced to capture and make new Locust drones and the like to continue to grow in number. Baird notes that they would have seen little Locusts if indeed could reproduce. (Check the Locust Invasion Drawing in the Hive chapter). Locusts start out as adults since the Locust generally capture humans that are at least in their mid-teens.
The mutation first starts with Rust Lung. Rust Lung is caused by overexposure to Imulsion. Since it essentially cripples the subject, it makes it easy for capture. The prisoners are then moved underground into tiny holding cells. This is to provide a controlled environment with reproducible results. Plus it’s for their own protection. If for some reason the mutation goes wrong and the subject becomes too much for the Queen to handle or has some other adverse effect, they can just dump the container and prisoner inside into the Imulsion and be done with it. This explains the pasty white skin (lack of exposure to sunlight), lack of hair (mutation effects + Rust Lung), labored breathing (Rust Lung), and their proficiency with modern weaponry and technology. All other forms of Locust, Tickers, Wretches, Brumaks, etc.. are probably various forums of wildlife naturally found on Sera, mutated for the Hive’s purposes. However, the mutations can continue even further, thus the side effects of the Lambent locusts, in which the Queen has no control over.
The final acts of Gears 3 will most likely propel the story even further, more notably exposing the true history of the Locusts and the COG army. Gears 3 will have some other Locust general to kill.. saving the Queen for Gears 4.
Anyways, that’s just my theory on how this all works. I hope this provides some clarity to some story-line gaps or holes, or at least gets you thinking to fill the holes in for yourself.
For all those who have played Gears 2 and don’t understand, brush up on your story from Gears 1. You also realize a bunch of questions are asked in Gears 2. If you read through all the collectibles, you can easily see the potential clues for an idea of the story in Gears 3.
Honestly, I like it a lot better than before. And I believe it is more functional than before. Party chat is a godsend when you play games like Gears of War and you don’t want to hear the idiot bloodthirsty 12 year olds. Just pop everybody together in the same party.. and you can even communicate when you’re dead. I think they’ve organized everything in a good arrangement.. rather everything in the marketplace being shoved into one tab. That and it would bug me when I used to see an interesting ad on the old dashboard.. only to have it reload a different ad later. This way they can advertise everything all at once that’s relevant. And finally, being able to see who all is in a party is a nice advantage too. Because sometimes.. I may want to join my friend’s party, but he’s in there with 3 or so morons I can’t stand.
I’d want to add Left 4 Dead to the lineup. Just for a fun tournament. Assuming we can get enough copies.
Eh, it seems about the same speed for me. But hey, it’s a new release from Microsoft. Everything they produce requires some sort of SP. Private / party chat will take some getting used to, but it is nice to have 8 people in the same room rather than being limited to 1.
tF Audyo is my GT.
Whatever. 1 map spawn screwed me and I almost came back. 2nd map.. we just spawned way too close. You barely got in the 3 shot. If we were apart.. might’ve gone to a map 3 scenario.
CoD4? Lol. I’m so divided up between Gears 2, Fallout 3, Fable 2, Halo 3, and a couple PC games. I’ll try and make some time for the Call o’ Duties 4 since I don’t have the new one.
Rydell382 said:
@ Major, this past time, we had a gunbound tournament that I really enjoyed, maybe this is something we can do again next time?I would love to. I had more fun in that tournament than any other tournament. Bitey and I had an epic Grub-off battle.
Ashley Faulkner said:
It is the job of the secretary to record attendance. However, unless the secretary wants to sit at the door taking attendance (doing his or her job) and just let the treasurer take money (which is just his or her job)= two people sitting at the door. Ephriam, it makes no difference if the treasurer or secretary make the post so long as it is posted. If there is an error, would you know why it was made or how to fix it? The person sitting at the door taking attendance needs to post, because they are the one that knows if any people were not listed, because they either came in early or way late. The Treasurer has always posted the lan attendance, so lets not be finicky now.How about the person or persons sitting at the door will report the lan attendance. Preferably an executive.
And then you quote the Constitution. This is why we need something established. Hence the confusion and lack of consistency. Let’s leave this up for discussion at the next meeting. kk?
I have all the ones I took uploaded to a Flickr album. I can give the link.. or if you want me to upload the individual ones however else, I can do that too.
Honestly I think a general club flyer stating that we exist, have forums and website, and we have forums might boost our on-campus presence. That and maybe if we could just set up a table on a regular basis then maybe we’ll see things pick up.
I think this may become a problem down the line since this is an unspoken policy. Maybe if we just had it posted somewhere, not even in the Constitution to serve as a reminder for future LANs.
I agree. It’s an awesome game. I’ve played the demo as well (granted for 360) and it seems like it’d be a hit to play and have fun on. Plus it’s Valve, so I imagine we already have the know-how to set up another Valve server. The only problem I might see is policing these servers, but then again, I have no idea what’s possible with these servers or what can happen.
I just started over not that long ago. I will say though.. Fallout 3 is by far one of the best RPGs out. A perfect blend of the Fallout universe, humor, and style and Oblivion aspects. Makes it wondrous.
Just preordered this for 360 and supposedly I’ll have access to the demo tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.
I got through her first sets of quests pretty quick actually. Granted, I didn’t get the bonus on that crab one. Then again, I was just randomly wandering around at that point.
