Monthly Archive for June, 2007

World of Warcraft Databases Recommendations

Playing World of Warcraft is a huge time investment. Without guides and help, it will take up additional time that you can use for other things. I’m a WoWer myself, so I understand the difficulties for us to do quests and run through instances and up our profession skills.

Here is some of the World of Warcraft Databases that I recommend for any new and existing players. Maybe those veteran players already knew all these. but just let me share this with everyone.

  1. Thottbot - One of the best World of Warcraft Database on the web, with addons available for players to contribute to the database.
  2. Allakhazam - Comprehensive MMORPG database website, I often use this to check out the Auction House (AH) pricing for items.
  3. Wowhead - Considered as the newest kid on the block, but information available is sufficient and with a clean and simple interface to browse with.

You are welcome to share any website or link that can help any new or existing WoW players.

DotA Allstars 6.45 released.

I have not been on the DotA scene for sometime, and it is time that I take a good look at it again.

Once again, a new version of DotA Allstars has been released by its developer, it’s version 6.45 now. I will be updating the gameplay commands and new heroes list soon, so do come back often.

Let me bring you the new change log here, in GameBlog.

6.45 Changelog: (from www.dota-allstars.com)
================
* Recoded Avatar on Black King Bar to fix various engine bugs (control loss, model glitches, etc)
* Fixed Lightning Storm tooltip
* Increased Barrier cooldown
* Improved cast range on Lightning Grapple
* Surge no longer purges target
* Increased Laser mana cost from 95/110/120/145 to 95/120/145/170
* Rebalanced Refraction
* Reduced the slow effect on Dirge’s Plague
* Remade Pit Lord’s ultimate
* Fixed Death Timer showing up after game is over
* Nightstalker’s Crippling Fear now has a minor effect during the day
* Added an extra bounce to Scepter upgraded Chain Frost
* Lowered Meld mana cost
* Increased Templar’s base attack range by 10
* Increased Refraction cooldown a little
* Fixed minor display glitch with -di
* Reduced Primal Split manacost from 150/225/320 to 125/175/225 and increased duration from 15 seconds to 15/20/25
* Improved Acid Spray AOE and Cast Range by 75
* Increased Drow’s Silence AOE from 250 to 275
* Added new icon for Storm (148340)
* Improved Dragon Knight’s Agility base and growth
* Lowered Overgrowth mana cost from 200/250/300 to 150/175/200
* Fixed Overgrowth to work on units in fog
* Changed Vengeful Spirit’s Terror hotkey to E
* Improved Nightstalker cast animation time
* Fixed the canceling of Clarity Potion bug on Death Pulse
* Scroll of Town Portal can now target the World Tree/Throne
* Improved Sniper’s Agility growth a bit
* Changed level 3 Chemical Rage Base Attack Cooldown from 1.25 to 1.20
* Improved Frost Armor
* Issues with droppable BKB resolved, it can now be dropped
* Reduced mana cost on Death Pact slightly
* Rebalanced Voodoo Restoration
* Fixed -unstuck bug at the end of the game
* Fixed some bugs with the display names of the courier killer
* Improved Vladmir’s Offering recipe tooltip
* Fixed various Flying Courier tooltip errors
* Increased Vulture model size a bit
* Fixed Shadow Priest appearing in allstr and allagi
* Vastly increased Eyes in the Forest cast range
* Fixed the heal on Dirge’s Zombies from canceling Clarity Potion
* Fixed various terrain glitches
* Changed Shadow Word damage type to Magical from Pure but adjusted the damage so it remains the same (unless you have extra magic resistance). The overall dps hasn’t changed much, only its mechanics with different bonus resistances.
* Added code to prevent Couriers with invulnerability shield from entering enemy fountain areas to steal items
* Rewrote Smoke Screen to fix various minor visual glitches
* The time hero left at is now shown in -ma (146489)
* Fixed Ring of Basilius tooltip when you change its operating mode
* Fixed Stygian Desolator buff icon
* Changed Raise Revenant icon
* Added Victory Animations for units at the end of the game (150018)
* Clarified Gravekeeper’s Cloak tooltip
* Rewrote Battle Hunger to fix an engine buff conflict with Gush and Hunger at same time
* Fixed various minor leaks
* Prioritized 2xror over roh in if you have all 3 in your inventory when creating Hood of Defiance so it doesn’t use up your RoH
* Improved Living Armor a bit
* Fixed various other tooltip errors
* Clarified Eclipse tooltip
* Changed the Rock Golems that spawn in pairs (the ones that aren’t in the ancient spawn points) to non-ancient type
* Fixed Sange and Yasha Maim buff icon
* Added new icons for Aftershock, Plague Wards, Overload and Grapple (thanks snork,Faust-,^SnakeZer0,1Raven and eva00r)
* Removed the dispell effect from Overload (too many undesired effects from both sides to be passively occuring)
* Bloodstone now gives you bonus health and mana regeneration for each charge it has on it
* Added new command -hideheronames to disable the new hero name display in chat functionaly. This is useful when you are trying to squelch someone and bnet won’t let you.

You can download the new 6.45 map from www.getdota.com, or you can download it from FileFront.

AMD (ATi) Catalyst 7.6 Driver released.

The latest release of Catalyst Software and driver for ATi product features bug fixes and performance improvement. This driver supports both Windows Vista and Windows XP. This Catalyst software contains the Radeon Driver, WDM Driver and Catalyst Control Center.

Performance Improvements

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Dark Messiah Might and Magic performance improves on the ATI Radeon™ HD2900 XT Crossfire configurations. Improvements of 16% or more can be seen with HDR enabled.

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

Installing the display driver under the Windows Vista operating system no longer results in the display resolutions of 1680×1050, 1800×1440, 1920×1080 and 1920×1200 not being available when using an analog CRT display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27464

IL2 Sturmovik->Forgotten Battles: Setting the in-game hardware options to custom and landscape detail to perfect no longer results in the water textures appearing corrupt when playing the game under the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-26687

Quake 4: Playing the game with CrossFire enabled no longer result in corruption being noticed after a short time of game play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28172

The Overdrive™ clocks no longer fails to revert back to the default settings and the Apply and Discard buttons no longer become enabled when changing the clock settings for both the primary and secondary display devices. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27619

Playing a DVD using either WinDVD or PowerDVD no longer results in corruption being noticed if the players is rotated to any position other than landscape. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27463

Connecting a secondary display device and enabling extended desktop mode no longer results in changes being made to the secondary display device being reflected on the primary display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27460

Setting UMA to 512MB and enabling AERO no longer results in screen corruption being noticed when booting up Windows Vista on systems containing an ATI Radeon X1200/1250 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28173

Enabling DXVA no longer results in a slow response time being noticed when playing a DVD on a system running Windows Vista and containing an ATI Radeon Xpress 1200/1250 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28175

An error message is no longer reported when attempting to enable CrossFire on a system containing the Intel Gen2 chipset. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28177

Playing an HD DVD and attempting to do a random seek or change to a different chapter of the movie no longer results in corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28179

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

Armed Assault: A handle count leak is no longer noticed during game play in Task Manager. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27467

The system no longer become unresponsive and require a reboot while randomly moving Video Player window from primary to extended desktop under certain hardware configurations where the second adapter is an ATI Radeon X1200/1250/1270 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27092.

Connecting a secondary display device followed by enabling extended desktop mode no longer results in a VPU Recover occurring when playing a DVD on the secondary display device using WinDVD. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28184

The PAL-M and NTSC-J are no longer missing from TV-format list found in the ATI Catalyst Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28185

Download Catalyst for the following OS.

Grando Espada

Grando Espada Logo

Grando Espada, an award winning massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) in the 2006 Korea Game Awards, has set up servers in South East Asia countries for extensive beta testing for the game. The Philipines, Singapore and Malaysia are few of the participating countries.

For the fans, you can visit the IAH GE official website. You can download the beta client and register for the open beta at this site.

You can read more about Grando Espada.

Features of Grando Espada 

  • Multi-Character Control (MMC) - You can create a variety of combinations of characters to enhance your gaming experience for questing.
  • Family System - You do not create individual character, but a family. You can add on more characters to the family as the game progress.
  • Heroes - There are five types of heroes to choose from; Fighter, Musketeer, Wizard, Scout, Elementalist.
  • Stance System - Allows you to use your characters’ skills to suit to different situations and battles.
  • Trading - Allow you to open a personal shop to sell stuffs that might not be useful to you.
  • Xtreme Artificial Intelligence (XFI) - Advanced AI engine that allows 3 characters to attack and move seamlessly
  • Graphics - This game won the Best Graphics Technological Award in the 2006 Korea Game Award for its nice scenery and graphics.
  • PvP - Arena style dueling and PvP. Factions can hold Colony War in designated map area if they are at war.

Hardware Requirement

Due to its nice graphics, I guess there is a need for better graphics card, more memory and better CPU if you want a smooth gameplay.

Recommended Specification from GE.

  • CPU : At least a Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz
  • RAM : At least a 1GB RAM
  • Graphics : GeForce 4 series / Radeon 9000
  • OS/Software : Windows XP / DirectX 9

GameBlog recommends the following specification:

  • CPU : At least a Pentium IV 3.0 Ghz, or AMD Athlon64 3200+ (Dual core CPU is highly recommended)
  • RAM : 2GB (MMORPG usually requires this amount of RAM for smooth gameplay)
  • Graphics: GeForce 6 Series / Radeon x1000 series

Master Chief unveiled?

Wondering how the famous Halo’s Master Chief looks like? It has been years since the first Halo on Xbox, but no one has seen his face. Youtube’s fan might have seen this video, so I will like to share this with those who have not seen it yet.

Latest Game Patches

Since I have not updated some game patches for a period of time, I will compile this list of patches.

Need For Speed Carbon v1.4 patch
This patch fixes crashes issues when the version 1.3 runs on Windows Vista.

Command and Conquer 3 : Tiberium Wars v1.05 patch
This patch makes major changes to the units balance, exploits and bug fixes.

Company of Heroes 1.61 to 1.70 patch
This patch enable DX10 (DirectX 10) support for the game, experience the details if you have GeForce 8000 series or Radeon X2000 series.

Battlefield 2 v1.41 patch
This patch fixes a server-crash bug.

Currently these are the 4, more updates to come. Stay tune.