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I've run cars which cost less to buy. No buyer's remorse now, it's on its way.

It actually only cost £40 more than my last card, although at the time I bought the 560 the difference would have been something like £140.

I've saved money!

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

What's the Victoria expansion like? I've got Victoria II but never put much time into it.

Crusader Kings II is the only Paradox game I've been able to play for long periods of time.

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~ I am tired of ze same old faces! Ze same old things!

It's quite liberating getting rid of all the PC bits I've been hoarding over the years - When you build your own you are loath to throw anything out lest it be useful further down the track. I'm now actually in profit, once the GPU's price has been deducted. Result!

Only thing not sold yet is my old Creative USB sound card. They're as rare as rocking horse faeces these days so I expect it'll shift before too long, even though mine has no box, cables or driver CD.

New card's installed - It only took 5 minutes but resulted in a badly cut thumb. It's a couple of inches longer than the 560 and I wasn't paying attention when squeezing it past some cables...

First impressions - It's bloomin' quiet. The one negative I found in reviews for the XFX card was that it was apparently noisy. They must have fixed things for the current model because the card at 100% is significantly quieter than the old 560.

I benchmarked it on some of my more intensive games -

Bioshock Infinite on Ultra: 560 - 36.27fps 7950 - 58.55fps
Sleeping Dogs on Max: 560 - 42.6fps 7950 - 59.3fps
Tomb Raider on Ultimate (with the new hair effect thing): 560 - 7.2fps (yep, seven) 7950 - 47.2fps
Just Cause 2 on Max with Vsync off: 560 - 34.42fps 7950 - 102.5fps

Skyrim's just the same as before but I can now get a constant 60fps on Ultra with the 2k Texture Pack and a ton of other HD mods installed. I'll probably uninstall them though because I prefer Beth's HD pack.

All in all I'm dead happy. Keeping the 560 though, I've decided - My mobo's not got an integrated graphics card so if anything happens to the new card I'm PC-less.

I'm engaging in a self-teaching campaign as Sardinia-Piedmonte... I'm really liking it, the game is at least very engaging where Victoria 1 certainly was not.

Never played the first game. Picked up a load of Paradox games in a pack for a few quid a while ago but haven't really tried them - Europa Universalis III, Victoria 2, Hearts of Iron, Sendoku etc.

None of them grabbed me like Crusader Kings 2 did. I'm probably not intelligent enough.

Oh Minecraft, why am I playing you again? And why can't I find an NPC village? And why did I play you drunk, and decide it was time for a nether portal, and get ghasted into the lava with all my sparkly kit almost immediately? I lovehate you you Minecrafty bastard you

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Oh no, Golgot! DON'T BRING UP MINECRAFT!

I have successfully steered away from Minecraft for WEEKS now. WEEKS, I tell you! I can quit completely any time I want! I can! (I've been playing Guild Wars 2 instead.)

But ohhhh, that shiny minecraft.exe icon is so so... soooo... shiny. It's like the history eraser button.

No, I must NOT start yet another new world just to see if I can find an NPC village within the first half-hour for a change. I will NOT start NewWorld236-April25 just because Golgot reminded me that the game exists when I had pushed it to the back of my brain for the past few weeks.

Ohhh, negative rep, where art thou?

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Haha! I managed to stay away for ages, then made the mistake of checking out the 'final version'. Liking exp actually having uses now (even if it makes it all the more savage when you lose your hard-won kit!)

Mainly liking trying to automate the grindy stuff with redstone though

Here are some pix of my underwater spawn base, & ludicrous environs....



A simple mission to build some enchantment bookcases left me with this semi-automated wheat farm (2 stacks at the flick of a switch, just gotta replant) & a floating factory farm. (Which doubles as a bit of an exp-farm too I've realised, now there are so many of em)



And here's a viewport into one of my totally-over-engineered mob grinders. This one snags the odd slime & Enderpearl amongst the usual gunpowder & arrows



Have you actually got to THE END then? I'm still yet to actually kill an Enderman in a fair fight.

Some new art I did for my competitive MWO team, The Desert Rats!

Our new logo:



Forum Sig:



And rank badges:




Just wanted to share!


I also wrote and created an achievement system with over 50 achievements for the group to aim for. I then created all the medals and my project lead hung them on our website! The group LOVES the achievement system, with their reaction to it going far and beyond anything I had hoped for!

Here's a sample medal:



It was a ton of work, but really fun and rewarding, as well.


Our house color is purple, hence all the purple.

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Dang. Nice, man. I had no idea you were that handy with graphics.

What about doing some shield retextures for Skyrim?

Hey, it mightn't be as amazing as Cabbage Ownership but it'd get a download from me.

Golgot ... Wow, you've been busy. What are the little gray shirt-like icons above the heart icons at the bottom of the screen? Yikes, is there some new element they've instituted since I last played?

Oh no. I am doomed. Must not click. Must. Not. Click....

P.S. No, haven't gone to the end. I play Minecraft the way some people played Myst -- just to meander around, build things, and goof off. I almost always play on Peaceful. (Yes, I know. Shoot me now. Or, don't. I play on Peaceful.)

Also, what is the brownish huge tree-shaped creation in the far back of the first shot?

Great stuff Seds!

Hows about some Mofo achievements

WILL-POWER: Disagree about the meaning of a word with Yoda for at least a week
HOLDEN-OUT-FOR-A-HERO: Attend every independent screening in your area. In full cowboy regalia.

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Aus, the tree thing is a mushroom grow house, from a time when I thought I was going to starve and needed a dry/low-light area to grow some super shrooms. Kinda like how the lighting under the eaves worked out - de-mobbing the vicinity but providing low-light inside. Never use it tho

The grey shirts are just armour, nothing for you to worry about . So in peaceful you still have to find food, but can generally just explore & trade and such? I guess you could always accidentally punch a wolf?

Right, now I've realised my cow farm gives me about 10 basic xp levels every time I go on a breed-n-cull session (haven't quite been mean enough to automate the culling yet ), I've got a mighty enchanted bow and I'm off to the Nether to mine some glowstone. AND DEFINITELY NOT FALL IN THE LAVA.

Been playing Minecraft until all this enchanthing stuff came out. Also, the game began to lag as hell so it's not possible to play.

It's amazing what a resource hog MC is. My old rig could only just about play the betas on the most minimal settings.

You don't dig the enchanting then? I'm not normally into magic levelling stuff, but it seems to fit with the 'make things precious by making you work for each component' sensibilities pretty well.

Golg, GOG have announced a raft of new Mac-enabled titles.

Link

Torchlight is good fun. Cannon Fodder was too, back in the (MegaDrive) day but I've got Stronghold and it's pretty dated now.

Just finished the good looking but monotonous exercise in tedium that is Alan Wake, and am half way through L.A. Noire which I'm finding similarly dull; not to mention downright frustrating. Just can't pick up the physical cues when interrogating suspects, but bungle through and solve the cases regardless. Nonsense. Will be trading in both titles for (I'm hoping) something a lot better.

Currently playing Red Faction Guerrilla which is mildly distracting fun what with the destruction mechanics. Will move on to Deus EX: Human Revolution next. Waiting for the prices on Tomb Raider and XCOM: Enemy Unknown to come down. Also considering Halo 4 as it's the only one I haven't played.

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

Console or PC? XCOM's at the right age to start to appear heavily discounted in Steam sales and Tomb Raider is 25% off on the Squeenix store. Link

I don't normally have such info at my fingertips but I got an email this morning from Square announcing a big sale. Their site's not bad actually, with frequent heavy discounts.