Sunday, July 30, 2017

Quick Update

It's 2 AM here now and I'm very tired, but I'll make this quick...

Been gone for quite some time now, but I'll be back to doing posts tomorrow. There should be two to be made. Yes, two... not one post.

One will be on Need For Speed: World Offline and the other will be known when it's done. That one should be some hours after the NFSWO post.

And that's all for now. Haven't been around lately, and part of that is due to playing Terraria back again. But now it's cleared up and done. So see you in the next post, then...

 -Panzer Fist-

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Future Plans

Heyo, it's been ten days already.

Hell, I was supposed to update it sooner, but got some important things that I had to do.

No, this isn't just some random excuse I've thought up on the go... been missing for actually six days, not ten. took 4 of the days to just relax and play some games.

What about the other six? It's used for setting up my newly-arrived laptop. That's right, finally got an upgrade.

Not many of you will know this, but the old one that I was using was bought 3 years ago, and also posted about it... but over at the other blog of mine. Here's a little bit from that ol' post.

And whaddya mean "old laptop"? I thought that was you're only one!

I got a new one. [Hellz yea! 1/2 achievement completed!]

Pretty tough to get it though. Had to wait till the last day of the sale, 'cause SOMEONE apparently said that "in the last day, they'll probably sell them off at extremely low prices because they want to get rid of all of it"
Here's the link to the whole post: T932's Dead Frontier Blog - Teh Screencapz

The old laptop I was using was the Hewlett Packard Pavilion "TouchSmart" 14-inch 'Sleekbook'. [that's a mouthful]

Pretty decent, does the job with minimal hassle.
As from it's name, the laptop has a touchscreen... which for me is a downside. That's because I have plenty of siblings that would disturb just by doing the obvious.

But, after a certain Windows update, the screen no longer has that ability. Most people would complain and try to find solutions to fix it, but I take it as a blessing.

Once it reaches September, the ol' laptop will be 4 years old. Now it's retired, cleaned up both on the inside, outside and stored back in it's bag. It will now be used for schoolwork.

And then, the new one arrives to carry on the torch... the Lenovo 'Legion' Y520 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop.

Pretty powerful, and functions well.

But, this didn't go without some minor setbacks. Nope, it's not about the laptop... it's about the timing when I went to look for a new laptop to buy...

Let's just say, the moment I've bought this one... another laptop of a different brand decides to have a sale! And it has better specs and is cheaper, too...

But what the hell. What's done is done... it's like what happened 3 years ago with the old laptop happening again... history loves repeating itself, huh...

Hey, at least I've got 3-years warranty for only 1 cent extra [or a penny for you other folks] and also a bag to go with it.

So I didn't get the most expensive one with all the good stuff, 'cause I wanted to save my cash. No point in blowing away more than 1.5K on this kind of stuff.

And then, the six-days of transfer... A lot of files to transfer over to the new laptop from the old, things to download and other software setups... but it's all done... kinda. Still got plenty more to do, though. Very slow transfer rate when you used a 7-year old portable hard disk to do the file transfer... that and the capacity limit is only 25 GB...

The first ever recording I took from this computer was in fact the Need For Speed: World Offline race video. Had a second one made and uploaded, but that will be in another post instead...

Used a different set of video recording tools, and it worked out better than the old stuff I've used before. But the video editing software is still the same old one I've used back then. And now, it's onto the main reason, the one the title refers to... the future plans.

Well, since this is a new and improved laptop... it will probably handle tons of other games that the old one couldn't. This means more stuff that I can record and post. World Of Tanks will have improved graphics, and it looks beautiful! Still used the SD version instead of the HD one, though.

I could also record Fallout 4, but sadly had already wiped the game clean recently in my old laptop... as in "done nearly all that can be done".

Metal Saga will be redone. Yes, that means I will restart the series from the ground up again. In the old ones, there were quite a number of stutters and hiccups 'cause the old laptop couldn't handle the emulator of the PCSX2. But now, with this new beast... hopefully it'll go well.

So yeah, Metal Saga Adventures gets a reboot.

I have yet to try many other games while recording, so that's something I have to get around doing.

Probably now, I can get some content over to the other blog, as there's quite a number of zombie-themed games too that I can play.

And also, all recordings will be done on a bigger window screen as it's a 15.6" laptop... from the previous 14" of 1366 x 768 to the new 15.6" 1920 x 1080. 'TIS GONNA BE GUUD.

And getting back to Metal Saga, it will be a long time before things can be ready over there. Tons of testing to do in PCSX2 to make sure it runs smoothly. Already got a few other games for the emulator that are also classics that I've played before in the past just for nostalgia, such as Timesplitters: Future Perfect and Runabout 3: Neo Age.

So I guess that's all for this post for now. Got more shit to do with this laptop, still not done with transfers and installations...

-Panzer Fist-




Monday, July 10, 2017

Some Small Changes

Just a quick lil' update here,

I've tweaked the blog quite a bit for the past few hours. Little things like resizing the blog and blog header photo at this blog and resized the background picture for the other blog as the tiling was fugly.

Oh, and I've also updated the music player for this blog, too. There were a lot of missing music as some of the videos were removed from YouTube... and I've also adjusted some Google+ and Blogger profile settings.

Now, the Blogger profile is retired and changed over to my Google+ profile instead. That way, all posts made here should be automatically shared to Google+, same goes for YouTube when uploading a new video.

Noticed that the videos stopped getting shared over to Google+, so I assumed it must've been a slight problem... or that I've changed the settings last time and forgotten about it.

So yeah, that's basically it. Nothing major that will affect the whole place. So with that I'll be taking my leave now...

-Panzer Fist-

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Something New to the Table

New? More like "dead for 2 years plus" is what it is nowadays...

Well... throughout the few days I've been gone, I wanted to use them for gathering World Of Tanks materials like record some replays and get some screenshots... but then, I've discovered this ol' thing.

Need For Speed: World. IS. BACK.

Ahh... good ol' Need For Speed: World. Why didya have to shut 'em down, EA?

Maan, what a long time it has been since I've last played it. Started playing December 13th, 2013 and been playing it non-stop until I've heard the news that the game's gonna shut down. Didn't have the heart to play it on the day it's gone for good... it's just too sad.

But nevertheless, here it is again! Albeit in offline form. Yep, an offline version that managed to get created by players of the game... but as you'd expect from an 'Offline Version', it's only you in the game. The only opponents you can face are bot racers and cops. Here's the link to the Need For Speed: World Offline below anyways for people who are interested.

Need For Speed: World Offline Website

But there's talk that people are starting an online version back. So it'll be worth the wait.

Finally, I get to play the ol' racing MMO again... and the best part is: EVERYTHING'S UNLOCKED!

Yep, this means that you can use every vehicle that the original creators placed in the game so far. And of course, I'm going for that rare Ford Police Interceptor sedan.

Real-Life version. In-game version differs quite a bit.

Never got a chance to use one of these in-game when servers were still up as it is [as I mentioned before] rare. To get one of these, you'd have to win them from a "Car Prize Pack".

But the catch is that it's chance to get the card to drop one of these cars is so small, you'd either have to be really lucky to get it in your few tries you've done so far or have loads of money to spare to mass-purchase those Car Prize Packs till you get 'em.

And when I said 'money', I meant 'real-world money'... not in-game cash you've earned. So that can turn into a gamble real quick.

I've tried my hand at a few of those said Car Prize Packs, but my luck was not high enough to get it. I did, however came close as I've earned a Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR, the only other police vehicle in the game with working lights, SIRENS AND AN ACTUAL POLICE LIGHT BAR.

It didn't originally look like this, but I've customized it quite a bit.

Throughout the whole lifespan of Need For Speed: World, there only exists two vehicles with workable lights, sirens and lightbars... and these are the only two ones here. Before the only police vehicles you can get were somewhat edited current vehicles with a bull-bar at the front, a police-themed body skin and workable police lights.

So effectively, they were just re-edited cars with lights.

I did earned some from the Car Prize Packs I've bought before, like these two below.

Japanese Police Themed Car.

EU [sorry, don't know what country] Police Themed Car.

Didn't want them going to waste, so I've edited them to "undercover/unmarked police" cars.

Customized Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R.
Customized Renault Sport Megane R.S.

They fit and look better this way, as they didn't have police lightbars and I thought that just takes away everything. Plus, they also didn't have sirens.

Hell, I even customized a car to resemble as much as it can to the in-game's police car! It's the Dodge Charger SRT8 Super Bee Police Undercover Edition that appears at Heat Level 3 in Pursuits.

Customized Dodge Charger SRT8 Super Bee.
Taken this out in the streets...
Original 'Police Cruiser' Edition. Appears at Heat Level 1.

Now this one isn't a 'Cop Edition' vehicle but instead a 'Team Escape Edition' one. They are optimized to do better in Pursuits or Team Escapes and even have a special irremovable skill called the 'Heavy Mass' which increases the vehicle's weight more to easily deal with cops or traffic. They obviously don't have workable police lights.

My favorite and most used vehicle in the game was the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. It is a police vehicle in the game with workable police lights and bull bars for both front and back or the car. It is unique as it special variant is a 'Drag Race Edition' vehicle. These vehicles have a special irremovable skill called the 'Aero Drag' which improves the vehicle's performance in drag races.

The iconic legend.

I would have preferred if they have one with the 'Heavy Mass' skill, but the ol' Ford Crown Vic in the game is already a quite heavy and big vehicle.

It also has "Cosmic Nitrous", which means the vehicle has very strong nitro power originally without skill upgrades, making it really handy when improved further and thus giving the vehicle a huge boost like a rocket instead of just the regular small speed pickups. Not a lot of vehicles in the game have this secret ability and it is really useful if used and upgraded right.

And wheew... I went off-topic about the glory days when Need For Speed: World was still alive and kicking. It's a good thing I have all these old screenshots from back in day, too. I did make several videos when the game was still alive, but they were uploaded in Facebook to share with friends.

Those were the days...

Anyways. Back on topic: The game's sorta back... and I'm enjoying my time with it. Even got around to recording several races and pursuits, but it's all singleplayer as it's offline. Here's a video of the first ever race in the game... after two years being gone. Enjoy.


Forgive my bad and atrocious driving, as I said: FIRST EVER RACE, especially after two years where you forgotten all the maps and whatnot. Don't remember bots driving this dumb, though.

Expect more from this game, but not too much as it's once again: OFFLINE. The only things to do on the road are Singleplayer Sprint [point A to B race], Circuit [race with laps] and Pursuit [cop chase]. Not sure about the other modes but these were the only ones I've tried in this version. So there won't be a lot to do and there's a limited amount of things I can discover before everything's done.

Other than that, you can just buy up every car and customize to you heart's content. Not a problem for me, though...

And so, that will be all for today. It's a really fascinating discovery, and I'm glad I've got the chance to relive these moments again. And it's also 4:45 AM here, so I'm gonna call a day and be off for now.

Stay tuned for the next post!

-Panzer Fist-


Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Finally Back...

Well, that took quite a long time.

Two weeks... me and my big fucking mouth. Thought there wouldn't be any more work issues buuut...

Well, glad to say it's all over now. Finally, I can get back to doing what I'm supposed to do.

To be honest, the work finished yesterday... but I used that day to play a new feature in World Of Tanks. I'll be getting more into that in the next post, though.

Right now it's just an update to tell y'all that it's business as usual once more. Got my Metal Saga Adventures posts to do, and then some World Of Tanks related stuff from the newest update that game has received.

Nothing for today, though. I wanna gather some World Of Tanks footage and also to take a little rest from all that shit that's been happening last few weeks... so this is all for today. See you all soon...

-Panzer Fist-
The Alien