Another computer upgrade?

In the house, most of our "gaming consoles" are in the same place. Both PC's are next to each other, behind us is the TV with the PS3 and Wii connected. It is a very simple layout, with no fancy contraptions besides the HD PVR leading from the PS3 to my tower. This setup actually lasted for quite a while; until recently that is. You see, Chelsea (my SO) recently discovered the magic and challenge of creating perfect towns in Animal Crossing: City Folk. I, have recently started Disgaea 4. Between Item Worlds, MOAR Story, fruit picking, and tree chopping, it is easy to see that sharing the television has become more and more difficult.

Getting a 2nd television was out of the question. So what else can you do in 2012? Play console games on your computer monitor!

The first step is deciding which monitor to get. Since I watch a lot of MLG and "pro gaming", those programs often advertise the monitors of which they are sponsored. After asking a few of my real and internet "pro gaming" buddies, I settled on the ASUS VH236 LCD Monitor. Ebay had a few good deals on used ASUS monitors (probably won by gamers or cast aside because of bigger purchases) and I decided to go that route. Yugioh (and the other random items I have sold) essentially paid for this monitor.

Of course, I didn't really think about the size of the screen whatsoever.... My original eMachines (BestBuy Quality) monitor was 17 inches. Chelsea's Touchsmart is 20 inches. I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by this:

Which then became this:

You can barely make out the dinky eMachines monitor on the far right. I'm not sure how I forgot to check the size of the monitor before I bought it. The 23" screen is a pretty noticeable improvement over my 17". In comparison to the 20" Touchsmart, you can really see the 1080p/16:9 difference. that isn't to say the the Touchsmart has a bad screen, because it definitely does not. The Asus monitor just has a more accurately native resolution (if such a thing is possible).

In any case, for a used monitor, this thing  runs very well. I doubt I will notice a difference in latency with games like Disgaea 4, but I can say that the refresh rate(?) has really improved the "blur" that occurs during fast movement.  The PS3 is plugged in via HDMI, the desktop is in DVI, and switching between the two is only a matter of pressing a button on the monitor. For recording video, I will still need to play on the television because of the Hauppauge HD PVR's component av requirements. Obviously, the PS3 can switch on the XMB, so long as I am not already playing a game (PS3 limitations).

I'm pretty sure that, in the last time I posted about upgrading my PC, I said I would upgrade the cooling fan, processor and RAM. While it is true that my system is running in the "red zone" according to Speccy and GameBooster, I have managed to play this way for a while. Priority for the next systems upgrade should go towards the HP Touchsmart. While an excellent desktop pc, which plays most online games very well, it struggles on the majority of boxed, highly intensive retail games (such as FFXIV and Tera). The system isn't really old, it just isn't meeting our expectations as games become bigger and better. With luck, I can get a premade gaming rig, which often tends to cost less than building your own (unless you get some Black Friday deals). HOPEFULLY the next time I talk about computer upgrades, it won't be for myself.

FML part II the F'iest

Believe it or not, I am still playing League of Legends. Why? Is it really that fun? Well, take a look at these and maybe you can decide if League seems like fun:

I have 2 account in League of Legends right now. My level 30 account "Ealdnarche" is in the 550 win range. I don't play ranked games, so these are all classic normal matches. Eald has lots of fun champs, skins, runes, rune pages, and even reserve IP for impulse purchases. Though I have no immediate plans for ranked play, I enjoy being able to play against 800-1500win players in normal matches. Most people take those matches seriously, so your only losses are due to misplays and connection issues. Then we have "Basaimah." Basaimah is currently level 23, which is subpar for the amount of time I have been grinding matches. For those who do not know, League of legends has "runes" that you buy outside of matches. You equip up to 30 runes on 1 page before a match; during the match you will have the increased stats that you have equipped. However, LoL has 3 tiers of runes. They are based on level, and the highest tier is only available at level 20, and provides too much advantage to make lower tier runes viable. This means that most knowledgeable players will NOT buy runes until level 20. The extremely knowledgeable players may even save ALL of their IP to go toward level 20 runes. It cost me 15,000+ IP to pay for 2 pages worth of runes. I accumulated around 19,000 IP from the grind to level 2...And what a grind it was. Even with ~4000 bonus IP, I only bought 3 champions: Annie (for stale AP mid weeks), Janna (for stale support weeks), and Evelyn (as a personal challenge for myself). That entire grind to 20(and beyond!) was with free week champs; after using the same champs for nearly 1000 games, FUN Champs, I am restricted to the lamest abd ugliest champions Riot wants to offer during free week. Then you have mirror matches, which is just as bad. In fact, I won't even play free week champions (like Irelia) knowing that the chance to play in a mirror is too high. So you are basically playing champs you may not necessarily like, with no form of runes to support certain champions. You may think this limits the game to a test of skill. However, when you are among the skill-less, you may not have the ability to carry the worst players in the game. This is where those above pictures become relevant. You can definitely play super-carries in every game: AP Tristana, Olaf, etc, but you also have to take into account your opponents. You could very well be the team that has no competency compared to a team with average players. Your super carry then has to fight every fed champion on the other team. Super carries win because their items far succeed anything else the other team can afford. If you don't roam 24/7 or push your lane to the inhibitor, then your allies will feed the other team items to match you.

Even against bots, I would lose matches all the way up to level 10! Bots are only tough because they can push towers and do skills when most players wouldn't (such as Soraka Bot and starfall). But it is sooooooo easy to not die to bots. It's even easy to not die to low level human players. One can almost say that an afk player is better than one that feeds, but that is wholly dependent on the enemy team. Basaimah is fun to play now, but my goodness was it hair-pulling for 80% of my playtime. I am also a player that tends to lock in last. I usually fill whatever gap in roles I see: support, ad carry, mid, top, jungle, etc. Yes I know that roles are not always important in low level gameplay; but I like to believe that every role can "carry" in its own way. Champs like Sona and Lulu can turn the worst AD carry into a sub-par one. Maoki and Sejuani can force your team to fight when you know it will be advantageous. Of course, this only works if your team actually follows your directions. Be it language barriers or IQ barriers, some people just don't want to win....There is no other way to explain it.

There is one thing to not know how to play a MoBA; it's another thing to be unfamiliar with PVP PC games; it's ANOTHER thing to just play to lose. I'd rather hear that the player is botting the game with a computer program. It got bad enough that you really hope that no human is behind the monitor..as the decisions they make cannot possibly have been "good" in anyone's mind.

As I am typing this, Basaimah is almost level 24, and will probably level up tonight. Much of the victory issues have subsided, and super carrying is still (perhaps even more) possible. Of course, I'm not smart or talented enough to first pick champs in solo queue; I still try to fill missing roles. The whole point of leveling up Basaimah was to learn new champions without fear of losing. "Learning" a few like Karthus and Xerath went terribly. I've had my fair share of games where I fed or just could not contribute. Heck, I even played Urgot once and didn't know how to use his Lock-on. That's pretty bad. But hey, getting carried is pretty fun too. It's not like I fail so badly that the game is unplayable.

Basaimah is up to 8000+IP, and can buy any champ in the game. Diana and Zyra both look promising. I will try my best to not buy anything...