Moody Gamer

Well, it seems we have been discovered! Not sure if it was the first time or not but a recent report has been written about gamers in the middle east, more specifically in the Gulf area by rockpapershotgun. A website that has been around since the eighties!

I couldn’t have written about gamers (well the general gamers, not the “literate”) better than this. Since most who call themselves gamers around the region play one or a combination of the following: Counter Strike, WoW, C&C Generals and Dota. While the console gamers play Pro Evolution Soccer (especially modded ones which I came across personally). Regarding PES, it is widely known around the gulf as “Konami”. So don’t look puzzled when someone asks you “hey, wanna play Konami?”.

The report also mentions about the censorship here in the region which is true and many times are properly applied yet I fail to see why ban CoD4 and on the other hand watch ten year olds playing GTA4. With my own eyes I saw a mother buy a “P”ed GTA4 game for her son which was in that age range. Imagine how many bought it that i did not see. I played CoD4 and I don’t see it different than the many war books that you can easily find in the libraries.

In regards to the “P” word, the government tries to fight it, on PC only! It is so easy to find bootleg PS3 or Xbox360 games displayed at many shops at 10 times cheaper than the original’s price.

All in all, I recommend anyone who wants to have a current view of gaming in the Middle East to read the report at rockpapershotgun. Oh and laugh out loud at the “Really, All your games are original? Why?”.

A company named Stardock, who are behind a game called Sins of a Solar Empire, have made a list that contains what they consider “The Gamer’s Bill of Rights”. Which I have listed here:

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund. (Barely any store store around here in Oman does that, though you can exchange with something else)
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state. (This one is much needed since half baked games are the norm these days with lots and sometimes no patches. Must be enforced)
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release. (Yep, no patching something that SHOULD have been working from the start)
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game. (Yep, though such programs are being forced on us and I hope they stop it)
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer. (Another true statement, lots of games minimum requirements are really not minimum since they will run the game in a sort of crippled mode)
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent. (No Starforce or root kits please)
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time. (Logical and makes sense)
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers. (Yeah, as in potential pirates I guess)
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play. (Half-Life 2 and Bioshock anyone!)
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play. (Hence will stop many from using Cracks and Mini-Images. It really is annoying to swap CDs/DVDs when someone plays different games)

The list is quite comprehensive and includes a lot of stuff many gamers lack in terms of such rights.

Am sure many are very familiar with this Warcraft 3 mod map. Choose your hero, start at the opposite side of your enemy’s base, help your creeps by killing the others and cooperate with your friends to beat the other team by destroying their base. Simple idea, nice balance between the heroes and fun for quick games.

So why would I hate such a mod? Why are there even a lot of people who also hate it? Below I list some very strong reasons why I hate this very mod:

• It is the same map layout over and over again. Where is the diversity?
• Yeah lots of heroes, but controlling one character from a top view isn’t really strategic.
• New people get hooked to it so much that any other complete (read not a mod) game isn’t cool.
• A huge number of players play it yet never heard of Warcraft 3!!!
• Matches almost always take a very long time to complete, easily above 30 minutes and I estimate 1 hour on average for a single match.
• For crying out loud, you are just controlling a Warcraft 3 hero unit!
• Level up above the others and you are invincible!
• It is fun for a week or three months (I am even going too far with that) but years are too much, even WoW players don’t get that hooked.
• The PC has no other game except DotA?

Around here, the biggest contributors to DotA’s success are the LAN gaming centers. Why should they go and buy “expensive” 8800 GTs or 4850s to play modern and cool multiplayer games when DotA requires PCs which you can buy on wholesale or cheap (50$ PC anyone) that have year 2000 or up to 2003 specs. There are players who play DotA, who tell their friends how cool this “game” is and that it is available in your average Internet Cafe too! Get the picture?

It is indeed a great mod, but taking it too far like that is really sad, honestly.

Sorry for the slow updates. Been busy with exams, then work and there might be a big announcement regarding this blog coming soon. Stay tuned.

Anyway, since the poll has ended, the results are really not surprising. Most people who visit the site are PC gamers simply I guess is due to the nature of topics posts which are PC games dominant. Though, there are still some console gamers who visit often. As for handhelds, well, no votes there.

I am working on getting people to write about consoles and handhelds more to add more variety and flavor to the blog. Keep checking back for increased activity in that area. As for the PC gamers, new topics will be coming in as usual.

As for the next poll, well, there won’t be one for a while. hate to put up useless polls

As much as I am busy during these few days, I stepped upon this article. It talks about gaming and it’s relation to violence which the article shows that there is no evidence or link that connects both. I am one of those who is totally against the claim of games leading to violence and this new study just proves it.

You can read the article at science daily.

Let me know what you think.

Well, I think it has been now two months since I quit WoW. I thought about sharing my story with this game. It was bought very late after it’s release, around August 2006. Reason I picked the game because I was intrigued to continue on the lore of Warcraft and check out this so called MMO genre. All I knew was that you can create a character and do quests together with other people who are on your side and kill people from the other side.

So I started with a warlock class simply because I saw one controlling the infernals in the intro movie. So I started leveling and slowly I was sucked by this black hole of fun (and addiction). I managed to reach level 60 and get my dreadsteed mount (one of the greatest moments in the game for me) just at around the same time as the release of the Burning Crusade Expansion. Do note it took me about 4-5 months to reach level 60. Reasons were I was trying to complete each quest in each zone I go through and that I fought with my weapons (in which is noobish considering my caster class).

At first, I didn’t want to get the expansion thinking that playing the main game is enough. Though in the end, I went ahead and bought it. Took me about two months to reach level 70 this time (faster but still slow). Then I went ahead and started the dreaded Karazhan attunement quests in which I did in two days. Though I was around another two months trying to get into this raid instance and just as soon as I started experiencing the instance, I got bored and thought to quit. I stayed off for about three months, then I decided to go back but without raiding and just for fun. Though gradually, I started getting back to the addiction. So I started raiding with a friend’s guild. Though the progress was very slow and we hardly went past Gruul. A decision was made by me and that was to leave my current realm, Bladefist, and go for a realm which is more ambitious. I went for Magtheridon, home of Nihilum. There, the standard of raiding is much much higher. I joined a guild who was at the end of Karazhan and Gruul and just starting The Eye and Serpentshrine Cavern.

After some time I moved to another guild (my last guild). In this guild, progress was much better and with a less stressful time schedule. Managed to kill Archimonde with them and reach Bloodboil in Black Temple. I even managed to create and level an alt warrior within THREE weeks to level 70 (Compare to my first character). At that point, I felt I had to stop for good. It was too much time investment. So I stopped at around March 2008! Yes, thats like almost a year and a half of WoW. Though the game was so much fun, the time I took playing it isn’t. I hardly managed to play other games. In addition, I got sick of the Carrot-on-Stick formula.

Now, I managed to experience new games, each different from the other, have more time for family, friends and writing a blog! WoW is a fun and great experience, though you should at some point think, am I getting something worthy for my time and money from this game? If no, then it is time to look for something else, something new and fresh.

You might have noticed a few days now without topics and that is because I have been busy with both my work and study. I got a project presentation coming so I need to work on that then a final exam right after it. That doesn’t mean I will stop posting topics until then. I am already compiling a list of ideas to talk about and that are of interest to many. I feel that there are already people interested in reading what I write and that makes me eager to write more. If you have noticed (or not), I am a bit behind on PC gaming. As in, I recently finished Crysis SP, Call of Duty 4 and still on World in Conflict even though they have been released months back. Now I blame WoW for that! (that is another topic coming soon). To put it short, I quit WoW and am back to normal (and healthy) gaming. So will be up to speed with new gaming topics and up to date news.

Stay tuned…

If you go and search on the 3G+ (Also know as HSDPA) technology, you will know why it isn’t suitable for online gaming. The problem is that 3G+ uses the mobile network to transmit and receive data and then the data goes into a data line (Broadband) which takes it to the internet. The problem lies with the mobile transceivers (node) and mainly two major problems that can easily be recognized with such technology when it comes to latency. First is the coverage area. With many mobile devices connecting to a node, the coverage area gets reduced and hence your connection to that node will get worse. Generally, this doesn’t happen a lot since the people connecting have to be on 3G to affect your 3G connection but if happens, it can seriously affect your connection. Secondly, the mobile protocols used for communication have a larger overhead. So in addition to your TCP/IP overhead, you got the mobile overhead which is quite large due to the complexity of mobile communication. So even though you can reach to high bandwidth rates with 3G+, your latency is affected due to at least one of the two mentioned issues plaguing this technology. Especially when you compare it to hardwired connections like ADSL.

Now regarding Nawras 3G+, it gets worse since they don’t have their own internet gateway but rather use Omantel’s backbone, which the latter alone suffers latency issues. Just try calling the hotline and tell them you have a problem with latency, they will just go and refresh your line!

From my personal experience, the Nawras 3G+ connection suffers huge amounts of lag spikes (You will notice that everything is frozen for 5 seconds or so) which is really bad for online play. Omantel ADSL, doesn’t suffer from such an issue even on the lower 512kbps connection (again, latency has nothing to do with bandwidth). So if you plan to game online, you have one option: Omantel. Besides, Omantel’s 1mbps connection is 19RO monthly fee with 2gb free + 1RO per GB vs 39RO monthly with 10GB free + 4RO per extra GB that you get with Nawras (Golden package, the other packages are worse). Only way you can go Nawras is when Omantel tells you that you are far from the ADSL exchange in your area (more than 5km) then you are stuck until Omantel adds a new ADSL exchange closer to you.

Yeah yeah I know it is old, I saw it more than a year or so. Though it is so awesome that it is worth to link in this blog for people to know about it. I am a huge fan of street fighter and 2D fighting in general (Mainly from Capcom and SNK) and when I saw this video, my jaws literally dropped to the floor (ok it didn’t). I played Street Fighter since I was 6th Grader, thats I think about 12 or more years back. Me and bros always played for the sake of not only winning, but winning with style. This video just does it at its best.

Now what is amazing about this fight is the last few seconds mainly where Ken gets to parry all of Chun Li’s super art hits. Do note that Chun Li’s super art is a very very fast hitting move and to parry it, you need to tap forward just as a hit lands. So this is a hard move to pull.

Oh and if anyone in Oman thinks he can beat me or my bros in any Street Fighter (Capcom and SNK 2D fighters in general too) game, you are welcome to challenge us. Don’t come bragging you know Street Fighter and at the same time can play ONLY Ryu/Ken/Akuma, that would be pure lameness.

Anyway, enjoy the video and tell us what you think.

P.S. For those who don’t know much about SF, the video is taken from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.

I don’t think there is a better site to check reviews and previews in the Middle East than www.megamers.com. This site is very active and up to date and having GTA4 review there is proof enough as of writing this post. The site also offers lots of competitions in the region with some impressive prizes. I suggest you go visit the site and see for yourself. Of course don’t forget to come back here for personal opinion and advice from time to time ;).