Apartment living

It's probably one of the big-milestones of a person's life, moving out of the family home and moving into a dwelling that one can call their own (hopefully somewhere between graduating high school/college point and marriage). To free one's-self from vision and chores, to go out and swim into the bright light and beyond.

However this vision tends to lend itself useful, up to the point where you move out. Then you find out the dishes and laundry don't wash themselves like they use to, the garbage needs to be taken out, and all the stuff you took for granted you have to work for now. This is a major 'grow-up' part, where you have to take care of yourself 90% of the time and worry about everything else.

So, anyway, back to reality.

Being in a town with both a community college (kirkwood) and a university (University of Iowa), approximately 1/3 to 1/2 the city's population is of students, most of which come from out of town. So there are plenty of spots to choose from; however considering the largest company of the bunch is facing multiple class action lawsuits for taking all of a student's security deposit for a scratch in a door or a loose knob. Then you wonder why they change their name every other year, to try and mask their bad name.

Last Friday I made the move to...move. After doing some work during the summer break to find a spot I landed at one local apartment complex that offered good rooms at a fairly decent price (tad higher than I would like, however the place is taken care of and the people next door (as of yet) are not loud. While the initial goal was for a 1-room apartment, those were non-existent so plan B was a two-room. I looked at one other place before the one i chose, dialing the number and getting a short-tempered response "there's no open spots. I'm busy".

The place I landed in was very professional, clean, and courteous. From the time I went for a short tour to when i paid the deposit was 3 days. Yeah, it was that good.

The advantage I had over most people is that my parent's house was maybe a 7-10 minute drive away. So we packed the car maybe 3 times, taking stuff over then re-packing it while my mother unpacked boxes and put stuff in a place where it would seem fit. And we made it spill free, all the way up to the last trip and to the entryway of the apartment. The last load consisted of my desk chair and some glasses/silverware in a box. My dad put the box on the chair and wheeled it from the car to the apartment. Which really worked well, up to the entryway bump which sent the box to the floor with the crash that meant there were casualties. Don't blame my father, he is a guy after all and it DID make good sense for the chair idea. So anyway, we shifted through the box and three old glasses feel victim to gravity. However the other three on top survived, so not all was lost.

Still waiting on room mate to show up. It was nice he wasn't there to move around on Friday, and it makes for a quiet apartment for the time being. Hope he has more stuff to spruce up the kitchen/living room area.

I had to shop again for actual food. The initial stock that I started off with was a box of donut balls, spaghetti, pop-tarts and chicken soup (in cans). Not exactly the stuff that you want every meal. My second trip consisted of getting bread, bananas and some cereal. I had grabbed the the bread in anticipation of finding some ham/turkey slices. But alas, the meat gods had stricken me and hid their delicious food. So I had a loaf of bread with absolutely nothing to put on it. I mean, yeah I could just eat the bread itself but...ick. I would've soaked two slices in mt. dew and eat that, but let's face it, soggy green colored bread is not priority one at the moment.

Trip #3 was slightly more successful, this time acquiring ham/turkey, peanut butter, orange juice, waffles and hot pockets. MEAT! MEALS! SUCCESS!

Another kinda slightly amusing trip was going to the local cable provider to get a converter box. While cleaning apartments a while back I caught glimpse of a 13-inch clear case CRT TV by a dumpster. I didn't know if it worked or not, but it looked cool so I took it, and it actually worked, unlike most things found in or by dumpsters. With everything going digital I would need the converter to get the channels.

As my father and I expected there was a fairly small line with students wanting to get cable to their new homes. Considering the amount of foot traffic there were only two representatives helping customers so there was a bit of a wait. As usual the mood of most the people there were short fused: lots of waiting, stuff to sign and buy. Just needing the converter box the rep was good at getting the stuff and letting us walk out the door in under five minutes. Meanwhile the guy beside me who was helped at about the same time was going off that $40/month was the lowest price package. "I know. The company sucks!" He said in a 'harsh words but not trying to be harsh' tone of voice. I do not envy the rep's jobs. I hope they get good pay for doing that.

Other than driving a little farther to work and getting use to a new and bigger bed, life is more or less good. And if need be, the parent's house is a quick drive away. Picking myself up, I'd say.

Rusty Hearts - A Review

So along with other fans of the newly released 'Rusty Hearts' MMORPG I sat in my chair at work, watching and reading the fourms, reading the reactions and rage that was building up for the release. I had hoped that the game would be available when I got home from work, and damned me lucky if at 2:30'ish central the server was finally open to the closed beta testers. (At one point before the server opened offically, the developers tested the server one time for 4-5 minutes. People got really excited, creating their toons and trying out the tutorial. At this point the server shut down again and those who got in were rolled.) Personally I would've either waited on releasing the client to avoid people's continued attempts at logging in or just not be able to access the login screen all together. This created un-needed hype and literaly thousands of post of "I can't get in" even though most of the population knew the servers were not open as of yet.

OK...so i'll skip the rest of the forums and get to the review.
(Bit of spoilers here so watch out)

What is Rusty Hearts?

Rusty Hearts is the new MMORPG on the block, being published by Perfect World Entertianment (PWE, which I learned about Rusty Hearts from being a rather big deal in Battle of the Immortals, which is managed by the same company). While it is like battle of the immortals and every other MMO that i've played thus far, Rusty Hearts does not fancy itself on being a cute Hello Kitty Island Adventure game. It is a hack-n-slash game that gives you rewards on perfecting combos and doing as much damage as possible whilst avoid taking damage yourself. RH also has a leveling system, meaning expirence points will build and mold your character from weakling to a beast on wheels. Leveling up also opens your equipment for upgrades, getting bigger and better stuff as you progress.

Assuming you applied for/found a good chap with a spare beta key, you'd by now have download the client and have an account at the RH website http://rustyhearts.perfectworld.com/ (also through there you will need to register your key). When you meet both criteria, you are ready to play.

After the login screen, you were presented with a rather impressive character select screen. You can see the three selectable heros walking down a path of nowhere, piano softly playing in the background; if you look hard enough you can see the outline of the 4th hero, Natasha. As of yet she is not available to be played yet. (You can even click on Natasha and get a character selection. But that's as far as it goes.) So you get to choose between Tude, Franz and Angela. Seeing as most guys wanted Franz for his cool looks, I went with Tude. Tude has a gauntlet glove or claws that he uses to attack his foes. And he looks like a pirate. 'Nuff said.

So players are given the option to go through a tutorial level to familiarize yourself with the game a bit and provides a bit of a prelude to the start of the game. Unfortunetly the game was not 100% stable when me and Crash played it, so the game crash'd to desktop at the beginning of my tutorial, which means it was no longer available to me. Crash made it though with no problems on her side.

Logging back in and being able to control my toon for the first time, I was supried to see that I could not move my toon at all. Hitting keys that worked for movement in other games (the a/s/d/w keys, which work in about all the other games) did not budge my Tude. Using the mouse to find the options, I found that the arrow keys were used to move toons by default. This may be useful for new players, but I refused to learn new tricks. Thankfully, RH comes with a customized keyboard mapping, which you can set keys to different functions. Now using the a/s/d/w keys, I was able to run and jump around the screen with ease. Crash had some difficulty finding settings to suit her, but with time was able to get them straightened around.

The game has two different map layouts. The first is in town, where you'll be interacting with computer controlled toons (npc's for short) and where other human players hang out. In the town you'll pick up quest from different npcs and can buy weapons/armor/food/etc. Combat is disabled so you won't be able to punch or kick anything (think Guild wars. Actually RH is identical to Guild Wars in open towns and instanced dungeons.)

Alright...the meat of RH is not in the towns, but in the various instances where combat take place. Here you can go solo or get into a group of 4. Taking Crash into my party, we set off to battle the first area of the instance (the starter instance, the 'sewers' consisted of 4 areas to enter, each one consisting of different content and difficulty.) At this point RH plays like an arcade game; in order to progress to the next section of battlefield, all mobs must be cleared off the current section. Only when it displays 'area clear' can you progress. Scoring is based on hitting mobs, building combos (hitting one or more mobs in sucession), and the times you or your team has been hit. Assuming you did well (high style points vs. times hit), you get a letter grade, F being 'you suck' to 'SSS' 'you did awesome'. The first go we did we got a B, only because we weren't use to the new controls. Later we attempted the same level again and got the SSS rank.

One crazy thing that presented itself was the ability to grab a foe and pick them off the ground. This created a function for combos, and I found myself smiling time after time, picking up a zombie by the neck and punching it repeatly in the face, afterwards throwing it across the screen.

At the end of each level you are presented with your time, score and other details of how you did. Afterwords you get to choose a card with a random reward, ranging from coins or equipment.

How it played?

Pros:

The graphics and artwork are amazing. The soundtrack is also well played (I enjoy listening to the repeative tunes, some may not.) The developers took alot of time to make this a masterpiece, and it makes a good game awesome when you can put it all together in sync. While a good system will perform well older systems will also suffice when playing.

With the party system, equipment and hp/mp potions will be rolled to a random member of the team. While it was random, I found myself on the reciving end of the mp potions and stuff Crash needed and Crash was picking up things I needed. Don't worry, you can trade stuff afterwards.

Maybe it's just me, but I like movies. They come in at the right time and usually present some useful fact or information that will help you out.

Keyboard mapping: yay. I was able to set the keyboard layout to exactly where I wanted it.

Cons:

Default keyboard mapping: True, RH was made for use either by keyboard or game controller (assuming using the controller would make executing some combos easier to pull off), but the default keyboard settings were less than usable by either me or Crash. It took a few minutes to get things operational. Even then I may adjust an attack key or two. Wish there was also a way to map attacks to a mouse button.

During some of the cut scenes the dialog boxes automatically move quickly with the scene, which means you could miss some of what the characters are saying. Most people will skip it anyway, but there are some humor mixed into the story as well.

Stamina System: Being F2P has its usual limits in RH, that in being it's Stamina System. Each toon is equiped with 1,000 staminia, and a little is consumed when entering an instance. When it runs out, you can still enter but will not get exp or bonuses. Which I find this early on not yet troublesome (we got down to about 410 Stamina). Stamina returns to full after each real day passes, so you can adventure in again and do stuff. Im guessing sometime in the future the cash shop will have an item to either extend or replace lost stamina.

Your looks: You can choose the name for your hero, but that's about as much as you get to do your character for. So yes, you will see about a dozen of the same looking Tude's, Franz's and Angela's all running about. There are certian costume pieces you can pick up in the game later on to give them a different look. Tude has an afro. WIN. That should be in the Pro section.


Bottom line...Should you play it

If you are willing to put up with the fact that your toon will look like a hundred others for awhile and can change the key mapping to your liking, you will enjoy Rusty Hearts. If you are a fan of MMORPGs/hack and slash, you will like Rusty Hearts. Not to say it will be a hit to everyone, but considering it's free its worth checking out at the least.

So it's been awhile...

Considering on the dashboard, last published on Mar 1, 2007. A good 4 year hiatus, if you ask me. For all I know, this may be my last post for another 4 years. Hopefully get back up to speed on blogging (if that's what they call it still.)

The blog lives on...

Just not here atm :P

http://www.realityport.com/forum/showthread.php?t=760

Don't fret, the stories will continue, just at a slower timeframe than I would like (RL and other jobs are keeping me on my toes 24/7!)

Cheers!

sir odd

Chapter 10 – The Civil War

“Alright men, this is the day of search and rescue. Find Dr. Baltar, and move out.”
Thunder was standing in front of the briefing room with all the military personnel present and accounted for. As he spoke the screens of intel scrolled by of the mission plan. Maps, rosters, what to expect…30 minutes, in and out. Simple.
“…Expect no to minimal resistance, as recon groups spot a small group of creatures…however stone and rock barriers prevented from any further information. Team Alpha and Gamma, you are to take postions at the north-eastern gate…” Thunder switched slides again, this time a map with the locations of the teams and arrows of their movement. “…Team bravo and echo take the south-western gate, with Teams Sierra and Tango patrolling the paramenter. Team Delta…” He looked at me at the delta section. “…will be here coordinating the search and rescue teams to make sure our little operation go as smoothly as possible. I softly hit the tabletop with my fist, though I’d rather made it so the whole room would hear. Total BS, everyone else was going to have fun while we did all the work. Besides, we were the best snipers on the planet, just a chance to prove it on the field would make thunder think twice about his descion.

An hour later the units left for the mission out of PA. Meanwhile we were doing our own task in the war room that was in the landing area of PA, had a few tents with people running in and out with reports and documents and whatnot. I turned on a few moniters that were hooked up to each of the team leader's rifles, so we could see for ourselves what was going down. Me and the rest of the team just sort of sat back while the outgoing teams checked and re-checked their equiptment and supplies.
"This is team Alpha, prepared for mission..." One by one the teams got ready. When they were we gave the green light and it was go time. I punched a few buttons on my watch just to see how long this would take. "30 minutes...simple" I kept muttering to myself.
So every five minutes when I wasn't throwing a waded up paper ball to the other three I checked in with the teams. They seemed rather joyed that I wasn't out there with them, which made the entire situation seem worse and worse. After about twenty minutes the radio crackled to life, and not on my side...
"This is team Alpha, we have reached the site of interest...taking a look around..." I pushed up my chair to get a better view of the moniters. Man, that place is a wreck. The outer walls of the facility were severly damaged with large holes on all sides, the gound around the place was dark and overtuned, and the security systems were offline. Whoever...or whatever...did quite the number on this place. Begain to doubt there was anything left of our fellow rescuie left. Even Sean and Hans stopped what they were doing to look up.
Looked around for about another 15 minutes or so, was about to call them back since I figured there was nothing left to salvage. Suddenly the Beta Team's camera hit the floor as a red laser shot out of the building and hit the captain. "Man down, man down, need backup!" As orders begain to race through the radios. Thunder came through the tent entrence. "What in the @%# blazes is going on?!" He stared at the montiners himself and slowly began to have his mouth open, as if even he was in shock. As I watched guns fired, ammo casings hitting the ground, orders, calls for backup and help, then soon after Team Gamma's radio went silent. Damnit! I couldn't take anymore of this, not today.
"All teams, fall back to green zone! Repeat, all teams fall back!" I ordered. Not only was I not present on the field but those lives who were lost were on my head now. This wasn't a game. Now it's for real.
As we briefed over what happened I took one last look at Team Gammas camera. What I saw made me grab Thunder away from his duties. While he seemed as angry and peeved as I was, I just pointed to the screen, and even he looked surpised. What came out from the walls weren't creatures, but the robots that we sent five years ahead of us to build the colony. Why were they shooting...?

Chapter 9 - The discovery

Life on this planet was getting to be...almost normal, which is hard to say that when we arrived on this barren land a few weeks ago. Buildings were bursting with new life, gardens were in full bloom, and our days consisted of doing the usual routine of working our butts off and keeping security in check.

However, it didn't have the fine silver lining...good supplies were coming short, backup items became full-time, and reserves for extra metals were drying up fast. Pretty soon Thunder ordered us to go with a group of experienced miners that were doing some prospecting of the land areas to the north and doing test that showed there might be some minerals in the ground. Great, nothing like babysitting other people while they have all the fun...

BOOM!
Dirt and debris shoot thirty feet in the air as a charge detonates the place where it was. The guy I was with, Gary, took out his mining tool and flipped up the lid. "Come on, turn green..." He whispered. A small yellow light was flashing on the top of the tool. Kept flashing for a few seconds more, then turned red. "Dam, nothing." he growled. I looked on.
"Now what?" I had already been out of a half hour or so beforehand waiting for this guy to get ready. It was about 88 degrees out, so the sun wasn't helping the temp go lower any faster. Sucks when there’s a sun shining every minute of every day.
"We go 100 footsteps to thz north, and try again." So we did, about half way through we spotted a young (but still ugly) snablenot creature just grazing on some grass. "Can I see one of those charges?" I asked, hoping he would give me one. Gary gave a puzzled look. "What for?" I looked at the snable, then he looked at the snable. Then we both looked at the snable again. He grinned. "Are ye thinking what ye is thinkin!" I grabbed one from his bag, then going against the wind I took a charge and planted it right beneath the beastie. What it couldn't smell, it couldn't find, love that. I half tip-toed half ran back to where Gary was, then as soon as it was set we detonated the charge. Needless to say, we never had this kind of entertainment back at home. As soon as the charge went the snable let out a sort of loud whistle before being put inside out and a mist of green goo fell around the ground. I high fived Gary for the cool trick and sat for a few seconds staring at the mess. We had completely forgotten that the charge also was searching for minerals, so we both jumped up when the ore finder lit up and vibrated a bit, as if it was happy itself. Quickly opening it up the green light was on and we had found a nice size one too. So I stood watching out for anything out of the ordinary while Gary went to work constructing a mini drill tower to extract the ore from the ground. Quite loud it was, as gary picked up the stones that were coming out of the tower, until there was a louder *THUNK* as the drill bit snapped in half and the machine came to a halt. "Now what" I told him. The last thing I needed was to report back with a broken drill bit, which were hard to replace at the time. Would have my head for dinner for this, I dreaded.
"Come look at this, and see for yeself" Gary said. As I stepped toward where the drill bit was a large metal container with lights and computer monitors displaying characters that I couldn't begin to figure out what they were saying. There were also wires sort of hanging out of it, as if it was damaged in someway. "What is it?"
"I dunno...but I'm going to call it in." I radioed to base that we had found some metal, as well as a large 'metal sphere' that would be an interesting find.
Later on that day the scientist who studied it said it was a sort of beacon that was used in the colonization process, but nothing like we used...where we alone?

Chapter 8 - The Choice

Still peering around the edges of the doorway I knew I had no choice but to get Rick back. It was only one man but we needed everybody we could get...last thing I needed was to have that thought hang on my head for a long time. Taking my survival blade I sliced off a thin sheet of metal from the blastdoor of the complex. Using it as a sort of shield, I ran half ducked behind the metal to Rick. Sure enough, as soon as I reached him I was under attack from two flanks to my right. Thankfully between Hans, Chris and me firing when I wasn't tending to Rick, we took out one while the other fled. With that done, we went back to the building to regroup. While we did I saw the other team dragging their man down so they could heal him. I let it go since I figured it would be best not to get their attention while we were still busy.
"Red leader, the base is under attack!" The radio squawked. Great, just lovely. Our base was under attack by their force and we still didn't know where the heck the other base was. "Ideas?!" I yelled, shaking off the bad thought and resuming my command stance.
"We split up and cover ground. When we find the base, we radio it in to the others."
"I hate to split up and possibly be picked off, but I see no other option. Hans, your with me, you two go north. Should you find it, don't be a hero and take it on yourself."
As we split up the clouds above us opened up and it started to pour down rain. Normally I would have cursed at the luck of things but it actually felt a bit good. Plus it might provide some good cover if we need it. Meanwhile I was hearing the firefight from the radio from the base. Man, what I wouldn't do to switch with them...I would go back to help but we needed to get their case first.
To get out of the rain we entered another apartment complex and entered the lobby area. As soon as we were walking to the lounge area a shot literally burned my nose hairs, thus we fell back. Hans took out the radar and turned it on. "Please be blue" I whispered under my breath. Indeed, a dot with a bright blue color showed up at the top of the screen. A break finally: we found the base! Now the only trouble was to get passed the five people in front of it...
We called for backup, and then Chris and Rick came back to our position. We knocked over a long table then hid behind under a hail of gunfire. I sat until the fire stopped for a second then pulling the D-1 over my head I let lose a few rounds and got back under. The others did the same. "Man, there's no end to these guys!" Hans said after reloading. I wasn't doing great on ammo myself, as I looked in my vest pocket and found only 2 mags left.
Then it hit me: duh! How could I forget? Every lounge has an access tunnel behind the bar. (It was something I learned in tactics training). I told the others to sit tight and not shoot. Then I crawled out of the lounge and into the basement area where the tunnel system was. I could still hear the fighting in the lounge, but then the radio came to life once more. "Sir, they have retreated from the base! What are our orders?" Retreated? Why? Then I heard the sound of glass shattering and bullets flying through the air. My little contraption was doing it's job as a distraction. As I lifted the grill on the tunnel behind the bar I looked over my shoulder and found the case lying between some beverage mugs. As soon as I grabbed it a sharp beep alerted the others to my presence and that the case was no longer secure. I quickly ducked back into the tunnel, then heard Hans and the others firing on the now confused opponents, who had completely forgotten about them and were running back to see where the case went. Their mistake! I chuckled in a sort of victory as I emerged from the basement. But then the radio came back, with some not pleasant news: "Were pinned down from both sides! We need backup!" Dam, either go back and help and risk losing the case or leave them to fend for themselves and win. I ordered the people at the base to help them out while I made my way to the base myself. Only problem, I was by myself for the next 10 blocks of open space. I ran as fast as my little legs in stiff armor could muster, just stopping to see around building corners for opposition.
As soon as I arrived back at base I saw what I feared: with the base unguarded an opponent stayed behind and was running out of the entrance with MY case. Taking one of my extra mags I took out a few bullets from the chamber and put them in a empty tube that was on the street. Wadding some napkins I picked up from the lounge as a sort of fuel I added a bit of heat from my lighter. Then I ran behind the building to the other side. As soon as the flames hit the bullets they fired off as though I was there. The enemy thought he was under fire from that direction so he hid behind a concrete wall, which was right in front of the building. Too easy. Hit him with my Mann 10 times and he was out cold. Grabbing the case from his hands I ran back into my base and put both cases on table. Then opening each case I activated the beacon inside them to signal the end of the game. Exhausted, mentally and physically, I put my head on the table. As I rested a ship flew overhead and landed on the ground outside the base. Thunder with a few other personnel stepped out of the ship and made their way to the other players. Thunder came to me first.
"Well son, I don't know what to think. You made it back to base with both cases and won the game, but your entire squad ended up dead in battle. Everyone but you that is. Should you had made a better choice, you might've kept alive a bit more. Needs work." Then he left. NEEDS WORK?! I did it, I won the game for the team! And all I got was 'needs work'? I hit my head on the table again. Dang, there is no winning.