Serious month of gaming ahead

May is going to be a serious month of hermiting.

I only fond out today that Max Payne 3 was coming out in two weeks. I feel guilty. I was a massive fan of the originals.

Easily in my top 5 played games

I remember going into Game in Blanch with my Da on a Sunday (as we typically did while my mother shopped) and we would walk around looking at the PC games. We weren't as savvy as we are now, so we never read on line reviews and stuff. But we found some cracker and little known gems.

Deus Ex, Soldier of Fortune and Shogun total war to name a few. But I remember buying Max Payne just because of the box. A guy in a leather jacket holding a Beretta . I was sold.

To this day I still name it in my top 5 games I have ever played. The action was breathtaking alongside the quality story and narrative in the dark setting of a New York Winter. Max Payne 2 lived up to expectations raising the bar. So I'm hopeful MP3 can do the same.

Twelve years waiting

This comes out three days after another major release. One I have been waiting twelve year for. Diablo 3. Diablo 2 was really one of the first on line games I played. A simple concept that was easy to pickup and play but was built for endurance and longevity. Could you keep grinding for better gear? It is really little wonder World of Warcraft was a perfect fit for me.

I signed up for the WoW annual pass the hour it launched and part of the deal was a free copy of Diablo 3. It is already downloaded and ready to launch.

Max Payne 3 , Diablo 3, continuing to level alts in WoW and continuing to increase my ability in League of Legends is making May a pretty big gaming month.

Blogging ....... effort required

Keep stumbling over old blogs and stuff I made so long ago when I had grand ideas that people, gave a shit about what I say.

More then ever , people need to know what I have to say !

Watch this space!

Funniest customer e-mail I've seen in a long time

Here is a cracking e-mail I had the joy of reading in work, here it is , in its full, unedited original state

hi dear    i emailed xbox about my problem ive gotten , ever since new second xbox got rid of first black xbox , ive had problems with red lights . now i went true two with that problem . one i caught with guarentee an other i lost out on , so after getting new 1 back after guareentee went on that 1 , it got trown inn bin like others , now i bought a new black xbox , no red lights problem , but wrecked new call of duty i bought for 55 euro , im on social welfare and thats alot money for a game on my salary cos of recession in ireland with ring marks on disc. plus im paying yearly rate for crap online , that when inn games host ending , ive being inn lots games where like zombies host ending games at round 25 , now thats ballocks , im so pissed off with how bad xbox gone , im a real big fan xbox , im wanting my yearly rate i payed for xbox back , cause im not getting the servies im paying for , ive an 8 year old son , that wont be getting an  xbox off santa again , cause how bad xbox is gone , so whats xbox intend do about my matter , slan michael

Magical

Haven't lost it

So I've had about 2 hours played time on Call of Duty Black Ops. I was very skeptical of this tittle due to it being Treyarch, and simply not liking Call of Duty 3 and World at War, their two previous attempts in the series.

However I'm enjoying Black Ops, it is well paced and I really like how killstreak rewards don't simply dominate this game. So far, Impressed.

And I've had a couple of decent scores aswell so far

Not too shabby ;)

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

Well the last two days I've been playing with this bunch of fun stuff.

My job rates me on customer surveys and when you score a top box ( over 80% satisfaction) you get "perk points". These points can then be traded in for various different vouchers. So I decided last week to just look check my points randomly and saw I had loads.

So I churned them all in for Amazon vouchers and got

• Xbox 360S 250GB
• Call of Duty Black Ops
• Batman Arkyum Asylum
• Chatpad and headset
• HDMI splitter

All for the lovely price of, da dum, nothing, completely no cost to me, marvellous.

In anticipation for its glorious arrival, I grabbed myself Fifa11, Halo Reach and Mass Effect 2 and a cool controller charger.

I sold my original Xbox about 18 months ago and to be fair didn't really miss it, and when I started playing this machine, I realized I definitely missed it. The online community is annoying no doubt but the quick pickup and play and casual gaming is a nice distraction from the hardcore life of WoW.

So far I've been playing mostly Black Ops and Fifa 11, and I'm really, really enjoying it!

New Airsoft Loadout

Well it wasn't going to be long before the blog saw some Airsoft action ;) I'm not going into the details of what Airsoft is, there is plenty of resources out there, but lets just say I was coining the phrase "Winning" and "Epic" before Charlie Sheen had his first breakdown.

I decided a few months back that I was going to trim my overall kit and collection substantially, and that I was going to add one or two more pieces for pure performance based gaming.

I was never much into " looking good" or " having a real looknig loadout". As much as the game is fun and a great social experience, when I'm out in the field I'm playing to win, to try be the best, and improve myself all the time as a player. To do that I need tools, tools that work and give me the edge. A golfer doesn't buy clubs based on looks, he buys them based of performance, and Airsoft for me is no different.

The M4 conundrum

It was easily decided I wanted a M4. Basic model, to be then upgraded externally to have a more Magpul feel about it. I knew I wanted it to be Olive Drab. For once, I went into a purchase knowing exactly what I wanted and what my budget was, but things soon went topsy turvey.

I quickly realised there was more brands out there then I had planned for. I had originally planned out the build around a G&G M4, but different brands started creeping out of the woodwork, the ICS M4 for example was a right tease.

But the more hard hitting turn of events was the stock availability in Ireland, and the pricing. To be honest, Ireland has WAY too many retailers and I think we all know that, what alot of people won't say allowed, is that for most stores, the selection of brand is absolutely dog shit, and the pricing is pretty poor.

We are now at the point where there is no saving from buying Irish or buying abroad, including tax and charges. I was finding it hard to buy Irish when there was so much range online for pretty much the same price. But I'd let my thoughts run away with me, and I at nearly double the original budget.

Of course after consulting Tony, who runs http://www.eirsoft.ie/ things got a little bit clearer. In the end I went with Big T and his G&G Plastica. I spent two years telling everyone how these were the dogs bollox, so I figured I should atleast get one myself :)

I then grabbed a Magpul MOE Handguard, CRT Stock and MIAD grip from EhobbyAsia. Believe it or not the actual external parts cost more then the gun itself. All in all I spent roughly €300 on the kit as a whole. And wow am I not dissapointed. Crisp trigger response on semi auto along with range and accuracy were the main things for me. Weight, looks and rate of fire mean little to me. So I'm thrilled with the purchase and can't wet to run it through a skirmish.

The Webbing

About 18 months ago I got bitten by the buzz every Airsofter gets. " I'm going to build a loadout thats really awesome and expensive to realise that its pointless and a big waste of moeny". That is exactly what happend with my Vietnam kit. I got bitten by the realism bug, I wanted a realistic themed loadout, and in hindsight, it was a load of hoop. I was putting myself at a disadvantage. There are no Vietnam themed games gonig on at all, or atleast in sties I'd even consider visiting, so it was me looknig all 60's against Call of Duty World of Scars.

I dumped the kit and sold it all off. But after a few months I realised that the webbing was sensational. It was so comfy, light and manouvreable. The mag pouches weren't the quickest for a reload, but it was just so comfy. So when I decided to built this new loadout part one was acquiring the webbing, but in a slightly more modern version.

http://www.flecktarn.co.uk/ proved to be priceless. For minimal cost and fast shipping I picked myself up

• OD Webbing Harness
• OD Alice Belt
• 2 Alice clip mag pouches (6 mag capacity)
• Water canteen and pouch

One of the Tigers was awesome enough to through me an Irish army issue buttpack that is ltierally a perfect fit. It has two big pouches hooked together so one straight away is a designated dump pouch for dispensed mags with the other being for general storage.

The above came to roughly about €60, so the total for my kit was at €360 with webbing and rifle.

I have a number of sets of Tigerstripe and OD camo so this was not an issue and I'd be reusing these patterns with my new kit.

The last item was a backpack. It needed to be light and durable, but with plenty of space. There was only one thing on mny mind, a Vietnam Era M56 Rucksack. Durable, plenty of pockets, steel chasis, light and easily removed during combat. Unfortunately these were a nightmare to source and I ended up paying about €70 for one, €55 of that being shipping from the US. It was a big save compared to an Irish Army surplus store wanted €130....a lols.

So with the final total of €430 , I have what seems to be a high performance, lightweight kit. The real test will come over the coming weeks when I bet everything in and make last minute adjustments during skirmish games here in Dublin. All this in preperation for Sennybridge in April ( more on that in a latter post).

It is without doubt probably one of the most fun elements of the sport. Building new kits, the research and decisions, the physical building and then the testing and tinkering, all of which I love.

I'll throw up some pictures of the whole thing later on ;)

Two days in, hmmm , not bad

Not bad at all......

This little investment so far looks promising. Only 48 hours in and it looks close to nearly 4k profit.

I think I'll keep this up for the time being and just stop myself buying things for characters. I'm sitting at 20k total across my characters and I'm just not comfortable. I need to be at around 50k to be at ease.

The relief is that I have roughly about 60-70k worth of stock, but the hard part is shifting that stock :(

My WoW Characters

I guess the obvious step is to post about my WoW characters. I currently have four level eighty-five end game characters with hopefully a few more to come. Each gets used daily, be it for gold making, doing a daily or simply levelling.

Having a few characters gives me options. My Druid is my main, and for example, Balance Druids are very much not a requirement or a benefit to ten man raiding. Where alot of people might be stuck in a rut, pondering what to do, I can jump onto another character and work on his gear, and simply slot into another role.

It is tough, without doubt, to maintain a high level across so many different classes and play styles, but I'm hoping that over the course of the next few months that things pickup, and I can have a few characters geared from raiding.

 Here is my character breakdown

Kromula - My mage. Was my main alt in Wrath of the Lich King but has been a bit disregarded this expansion. Does all my Inscription work however along with Enchanting so gets logged every day. Prodominatly raids as fire.

Furyio - The first character I dinged 80 on Outland. I dropped playing him when I dinged my Druid to 80 as Balance was required for the guild. I have plans to revisit him in this expansion. Demo spec

Malstrok - My Holy Paladin. Is being geared at the moment for intent of being used alongside my Druid. A new experience for me getting to learn healing and looking forward to it.

GJ Tribute - A tribute character to my old WoW mate Graham Jack. He was an unreal rogue and although this one lingers around 66, plans to level him aswell but not as much a priority as my new projects.

Chocokrispy - My bank alt, shifts all my glyphs :)

Krakus - My 85 Deathknight. Frost spec at the moment. Was the first 80 character I ever had. Deathknights are pretty fun to level and are very efficent in raiding but I just can't find the love for him. I'm a caster at heart and thats probably the problem.

Kromus - My pride and joy, my Balance Druid, my main. He runs with Jewelcrafting and Alchemy and did really well for me in Wotlk which was really when I started playing endgame seriously. Unfortunately has not being that useful in Cataclysm due to class nerfs but I'm praying he picks up, because alot of time has been invested in him.

Kraytor - Here is my new project. My first character to 60 and 70 was a Priest on The Maelstrom. I was planning on transfering him over but then I thought " Hey, you havn't played your priest in two years, you wont have a clue". So I've decided to basically make a new one from scratch. With heirloom items levelling him will be quick enough, and I'll get back into the swing of how to play a priest.

Arlz - Another side project. Plan to level this one when all the dust settles on my other characters, or who knows, a certain someone might want to level it for herself someday ;)

Not bad so far

Less then 24 hours into Glyphs

Not really a bad return so far. I still have to get alot more Glyph patterns and sales are pretty slow, but I could see myself churning over a fair little bit of profit on this a week :)

Inscription, is there still money to be made?

When I said I was going to level inscription on my mage, everyone said I was crazy. They told me the gravy train had left the station months ago. Cataclysm changed the way Glyphs worked and many anticipated its downfall. And to a certain extent they are correct, the Inscription market has gone down. There was blowout sales with everyone trying to shift stock but it made me think to myself " If everyone is leaving, who is going to sell Glyphs?"

I got into the Glyph game very late on in Wotlk, but I made sure I was there come Cataclysm. But to my surprise the big seller has been Mysterious Fortune Cards , these bad boys have easily gained me about 70,000 gold since the start of Cataclysm.

I've decided to give the Glyph market a shot, and to do it regularly. My mage is struggling for money as are my other characters. I've invested in other longterm goals and have picked up alot of nice gear and mounts for characters but it is time to build back up again. And part of this will be dedicated to glyphs.

I'm getting herbs to mill at a relatively low cost. The plan is simply enough

• Craft no more then 2 glyphs max
• Craft only Glyphs that have a minimum sale value of 50g

Its simple and short in theory, so lets see how things progress from here.

 And the gold making begins

New blog

And here we have it, yet another attempt to do a blog.

There is plenty of motivation for me to do a blog, I think it is an interesting form of communication no doubt. But I also dabble in a number of different things that lend themselves well to having a blog.

World of Warcraft, Airsoft and just about everything PC and gaming related. I wouldn't say I have "fans", but I definitely have people who give a shit about what I say, going by the amount of e-mails and PM's on various forums I get, I seem to hit the nail on the head with various different things.

So maybe, just maybe, I'll upkeep this one a bit better then the last one ;)