The Bridge

I like raiding, but I'm a casual player. Not in the sense that I can only play a few hours a week, but in the sense that I hate having playtime planned out in advance

I can sit down for a 12-hour marathon no problem, but only if I'm actually in the mood

kazzamalla

Yeah that is what I am hoping. I also probably should transfer to a pacific time zone server, so I can raid at the usual guild raiding times but not be just walking in the door from work.

Brant

as soon as it becomes an obligation I resent it

What's the cooldown on character transfers, anyway? Is it still a month or did they reduce it to 3 or 4 days like I remember reading a while back?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Brant 3 days

Brant

I moved my 80 DK to the server my buddy and I had lv30s on so I could bankroll them, but now I'm thinking I should go somewhere that I have friends to play cata with.

kazzamalla

5:28 PM

You can also race change, faction change, name change. Basically everything but class.

Brant

man, I wish you could do cross-server, fixed-group dungeons

or just throw the whole damn playerbase into a big melting pot and get rid of the realm concept entirely, like guild wars did

mind you, GW was pretty heavily instanced, even compared to modern wow

kazzamalla

Not to mention the player base was considerably smaller.

Brant

well, GW didn't need a concept of realms at all. Every zone was instanced. Even common areas like towns just spawned a new instance to plunk visitors into once the existing ones got crowded.

The only division was by region (NA/EU/KR), and even then there was a common International region that you could switch to if you didn't mind dealing with a bit more lag

tzenes

WoW couldn't handle it

even back in the early days when WoW was in beta, their servers couldn't handle the load

they created world shards for technical reasons, not game play

Brant

Yeah, it's an old problem

tzenes

5:34 PM

thats also why they use a monetary penalty for transfers

their code base is such a pile of steaming shit they can't even handle that very well

Brant

Heh, name any MMO whose code base isn't a steaming pile of shit.

tzenes

Eve

I hate that game to death, but at least the makers understood the basics of distributed computing

Brant

So yeah, fully-instanced wow wouldn't work, but I wish I could at least do dungeons or raids with my friends on other realms.

tzenes

they can't even handle that

its a little known fact, but even the instance servers are sharded

Brant

Within the same battlegroup, then

tzenes

5:36 PM

thats how they pulled off cross realm bgs

Mana

Oh hey Tzenes.

tzenes

hi @mana

LessPop_MoreFizz

@tzenes Actually, that's kind of no longer true.

BG/LFD matchmaking is now region-wide

tzenes

Is it?

LessPop_MoreFizz

battlegroups are purely for arena matchmaking and rankings now.

Yep. Changed about 3 weeks ago.

tzenes

5:37 PM

perhaps they finally realized how to connect to a remote fucking database

Brant

At least the EVE cluster is in a single datacenter.

WoW is all over the place

tzenes

its not a matter of DCs

afterall you could just split by DC

the code base doesn't run on multiple servers properly

Brant

@tzenes which is what battlegroups were, initially

tzenes

I'm pretty sure BGs aren't by DC

then again, its been a while

I used to remember BGs having multiple timezones

Brant

realm time used to be based on which datacenter it was located in, it was displayed on the realm select window too

Chacha102

5:40 PM

HELLO!!!

Mana

You'll be glad to know that I'm moving up in the SC2 world guys

I hit rank 100 in Bronze League this week

That's good, right?

Brant

now I have no idea how they do it

tzenes

@Mana GRATZ

what have you been playing?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@tzenes BG's are pretty much by datacenter. Realm time is actually totally independent of datacenter and basically exists purely to encourage people to play with others in a similar timezone.

Mana

@tzenes Terran

My Destiny Cloud Fist build isn't working :(

tzenes

5:41 PM

@LessPop_MoreFizz When I said timezones I didn't mean realm time, I was talking about traceroutes

Mana

or rather it does for very small values of success

tzenes

@Mana don't do that, do 3 rax

Mana

oh okay

tzenes

3 Rax is easy to learn and execute

111 is a complicated build

LessPop_MoreFizz

wowpedia.org/US_realm_list_by_datacenter

tzenes

5:42 PM

1Reactor, 2 Techlab, make sure you max out on SCV and then you pump marine marauder

@Less so they must have changed the servers

Brant

they've done a lot of rejiggering over the years

I was on Kel'Thuzad at launch, and later on when they opened the first batch of new datacenters they moved the whole realm over

(it was AWESOME.)

tzenes

Make sure you get concussive shell, stim and combat shield

move out when you "feel" like you have enough

figuring out when that is will take some time

and don't stim till you're at they're front door

if you want, you can send me a replay and I'll try to help you more

Mana

No, it's fine, don't worry, I'll just work on being faster with that build

kazzamalla

@tzenes Since I don't think here is really appropriate, is there any site specifically targeted at users sharing replays and getting (hopefully) constructive criticism?

I know there are tons of sites for sharing replays, but they seem targeted more at "hey this was a cool game"

tzenes

Off the top of my head I can't think of any

you can try one of the bigger communities like TL

but chances are you'll just get trolled

kazzamalla

5:47 PM

yeah that is what i figured

LessPop_MoreFizz

►

Because the world needed more proof of the awesomeness of lego

tzenes

I'm more than willing to help, but I can't think of a place that's set up for that kind of instruction

if you really want top knotch help you could go to gosucoaching

kazzamalla

well I always appreciate your help, haha honestly sometimes I'm embarrassed to ask SC questions on this site because it still baffles me how I can read so much about SC, have always been able to execute in games extremely well, and still cannot break out of Bronze league >.<

Brant

I love reading about SC2 strategy and watching games, but I hate playing ladder because it's too stressful.

tzenes

@Brant you should find some friends to play with

Brant

5:51 PM

Every time I start up SC2 I end up staring at the "FIND MATCH" button and then think.... eh, maybe I'll play star battle instead

tzenes

even the pros have teams so they don't ladder all the time

Brant

I've been trying to get my friends into sc2, but so far, no luck.

I think I've played maybe 20 ladder games at all

LessPop_MoreFizz

Starcraft is like football to me. I don't enjoy playing it very much, but I love watching it and understanding the game.

Brant

Me: sc2ranks.com/us/623288/Adversity

don't ask why I'm in platinum 4v4, I have no idea either

tzenes

@Less speaking of watching did you see Jinro this morning?

LessPop_MoreFizz

5:55 PM

@tzenes I did not!

tzenes

it was a disappointing series

I expected more from the semi's

kazzamalla

6:10 PM

never really watched the pros in the past, @tzenes, I watched the first round of that semi-final, do you need a subscription to watch all of it though?

Tim Stone

@LessPop_MoreFizz There is nothing not awesome about that video.

Brant

@kazzamalla If it's GOMtv, then yes you do

kazzamalla

@Brant yeah the link I pulled up was GOMtv

good to know

tzenes

Gom charges about $2 a night

I usually consider that worth it

Brant

6:25 PM

Yeah, it's pretty reasonable... though I haven't subscribed because I've been too busy to follow GSL 3

sjohnston

8:06 PM

It's quiet. Too quiet....

Fabian

boo

Mana

breaks Fabian's neck

<_< >_>

walks off

C. Ross

more violence?

Fabian

everbody's friendly again today

Brant

Fabian

8:14 PM

Well, in video games violence works (most of the time)

C. Ross

Mana must be American, with his penchant for violence

Brant

Violence is like XML: If it doesn't work, you're not using enough.

5

Hmm, I think I might have that anecdote backwards.

Mana

@Cross Canadian, actually.

We're not violent IRL so we take out our violence online

C. Ross

I don't know, you have defeated us every time we try to invade

tzenes

8:29 PM

French and Indian war

C. Ross

American Revolution, War of 1812

tzenes

and that's relavent how?

you said every time, so I provided a counter example

Though if you want to talk about the War of 1812: "We cannot keep Canada if the Americans declare war against us again," Admiral Sir David Milne 1817

Mana

pretty chill place

we got penguins and stuff

'n polar bears

meese

all sorts of things

tzenes

penguins live in the south pole...

Mana

shhhhh it's okay @tzenes

Arda Xi

8:38 PM

I vote we just disregard the American continent in its entirety.

Mana

:(

Arda Xi

The majority of the people here whose location I know does not live on it.

C. Ross

@tzenes Did the US actually invade Canada in the French and Indian war?

actually the US didn't exist then, so it's invalid

French and Indian War

The French and Indian War is the common U.S. name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756 the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war. In Canada, it is usually just referred to as the Seven Years' War, although French speakers in Quebec often call it La guerre de la Conquête ("The War of Conquest"). In Europe, there is no specific name for the North American part of the war. The name refers to the two main enemies of the Brit...

tzenes

The colonies who would 20 years later become the US invaded the area we now know as Canada which at the time was controlled by the French

the result is that Canada was suceded to the British

Mana

ohh

tzenes

8:43 PM

its the reason we still have French-Canadians to this day

Mana

so that's what war you're talking about

tzenes

without that victory Napolean would never have sold the Louisianna territory to the US

@Mana Canadians call it the 7 years war

Mana

ja

tzenes

or

which one is better?

Mana

both of them freak me out but I find the top one more amusing

If you're going for actual design then the bottom is better

Arda Xi

8:58 PM

The latter looks like it belongs on OS X, the former like Linux

Brant

I like the latter one more.

Of course it all depends on the context and usage, blah blah

badp

9:21 PM

ASCII art Tux

:P

 (O.o)
/(   )\
  _ _

3

alternatively.

My art is truly amazing, I know.

Mana

...what the hell is that?

kazzamalla

@badp that is awesome, nice work.

Brant

9:40 PM

That kicks the crap out of @tzenes's version, sorry

Brant

10:27 PM

everygame.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/tetris-attack

Feeds

10:39 PM

0

Q: Is HDTV expected to lag when hooked to a computer's DVI?

Hello, gamers. Hope this is where I ask this type of question. If not, please direct me. I just hooked up my computer to a Sony Google TV via a DVI-to-HDMI cable and at the same time my monitor is still hooked up, so I'm on dual-display now. The video, the graphics, and the resolution all loo...