Dota 2 will have LAN mode

Some exciting news for change in the PC gaming field! In an interview with joinDOTA.com, Valve's Erik Johnson confirmed that Dota 2 will indeed have a LAN mode.

This comes to me as a kind of surprise, really. I was fully waiting Dota 2 to be a freemium game with matchmaking and such, ala League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. Instead, Valve has showed that they really listen to their fans and implement changes that get requested. This is big news in some cases, like Offline Tournaments and net cafes. I can only applaud to Valve on this issue, excellent work on their part.

There's also other interesting tidbits in the interview, like that the next international they will be helding, will have bigger than last time's $1.6 Million USD prize pool. Alas, but still no answer about the pricing model and in-game store.

Are you guys excited of this game? Got the beta key already?

Mass Effect 3 gone gold

Alright, looks like it is official! Casey Hudson, the Executive Producer of Mass Effect, just tweeted that ME3 has gone gold.

For those of you who don't know, when a game goes gold, it means that the developers have finished the game and they have started copying the master disc. This disc used to gold-plated, hence the name.

So, we shouldn't wait for long for the edition of the ME series! Are you guys excited? I am, I really enjoyed the previous ones. I gotta find my save somewhere...

11 random facts about me

Oh dear. I just got tagged by Dani, so looks I am going to have to do this :S

The rules are:

• Put the rules of this Tag on your blog
• Everyone tagged should tell 11 things about themselves, answer the 11 questions asked by the person that tagged you, tag 11 other people and ask them 11 different questions.
• Let the people whom you tagged know you've done so.
• Don't tag anyone who's bee tagged before.
• Really do tag 11 others, and don't go all 'If you want to, take this tag'.

So, 11 random things:

1. One of my guilty pleasures is 80's synthpop
2. I am a web developer by profession
3. I can't draw AT ALL
4. My last name means knee in italian (although I am not italian)
5. I've got one tattoo, and not planning on getting another
6. I am 190cm
7. I used to play football
8. Jesus, four more... I can speak little bit Mandarin Chinese
9. I pretty much dislike 99% of metal, which my friends find odd
10. I am pretty anal about schedules :P
11. I organize lanparties

Phew! Alright, her questions:

If you could have one day with someone, (dead or alive) who would it be?

Hard one, I am going to have to say Bill Gates. Interested in his financial decisions and charity.

What's the strangest talent you have?

Umm... I can move my nostrils!
Who would you like to be tied to for 24 hours?

Nobody, that doesn't sound pleasant at all :S
Big or Small?

I am going to have to say.... big.
Weirdest place you've had sex?

I don't really have these, gotta admit! Probably in some hotel in a city I have no clue about.
Porn?

Yeah, why not?
Would you like to go to space?

Oh absolutely!
Ferrari or Lambo?

Lambo, much more stylish
What are you wearing right now?

Jogging pants and sweater, just came from running
What would you rather have in a partner . . . Youth & Vitality or Age & experience?

Youth and Vitality ;)
Describe yourself in 3 words

Quiet, Determined. Extraordinary :P

My 11 people:

• Dave Natan 
• Dreadnaught
• InfinitePlans
• Kristjan
• SUCEN
• Anthony
• neatfit
• Cranky and Difficult
• Atley
• Taker
• McBama

And 11 questions:

1. Would you rather have one million dollars now, or thousand dollars each two weeks for the rest of your life?
2. Which country would you like to live in?
3. Have you ever tried drugs?
4. What is your guilty pleasure?
5. If there was one city you could visit for free, for two weeks, which would it be?
6. Coca-Cola or Pepsi?
7. Do you consider yourself wealthy?
8. What kind of phone do you have?
9. Name of the things you regret doing/not doing
10. Tea or Coffee?
11. What's your IQ?

Apple worth more than Microsoft and Google combined?

So today I read on Apple Insider that Apple stock has raised to all-time high, thus making the company's market capitalization $456 billion. That is a lot of billions! For comparison, that is more than Sweden's GDP.

Currently, Microsoft's market capitalization is around $256 billion and Google's $199 billion. That makes Apple worth more than the two companies combined!

What goes up, must come down. I believe that Apple's rise will soon decline. Maybe not in a year, maybe not in two years, but soon. Soon.

FoV in PC Games

Couldn't have said it any better. TotalBiscuit uploaded a new video today, about Field of View in PC games.

The problem with FoV is that most modern PC games only allow up to 60, which is certainly not enough! Maybe for consoles, but definitely not for PC. Most developers dismiss user-configurable as being technically challenging, but many utilities exist where the scripters have enabled different FoV in PC games that do not support it. I think the real reason is just the laziness of developers and lack of respect of PC as a gaming platform...

Raspberry Pi to start shipping on February 20th

The long-awaited first model of Raspberry Pi Foundation's Linux computer called "Raspberry Pi Model A" will start shipping, on schedule, on 20th of February 2012.

What is this little machine? Raspberry Pi is a small (about credit card sized) ARM computer. Model A is the first model ever manufactured, and the technical specs for is:

• 128MB RAM
• 700Mhz ARM CPU
• Videocore 4 GPU
• 1x USB Port
• 1x HDMI Port
• 1x Audio Jack
• 1x RCA Video
• 1x SD Card Slot

The later model, Model B, will feature 256MB RAM and an Ethernet port.

The price of Model A will be USD 35$. This is incredible price in my opinion! The specs might not sound that good, but the PC is quite powerful. With the GPU, it can play 1080p Video via the HDMI port. Also it is two times more powerful than iPhone 4S, so expect to see some pretty looking games on it. XBMC has been already ported to it, so it can act as a full featured Media Center PC.

I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on this machine! What would you tinker with this kind of PC?

OnLive: It actually works!

Hey guys!

First of all, sorry for being late on the posts, been really busy lately. Had a business trip and was away for 6 days. But, now I am back and starting the daily posts again!

Alright, so something I tried last week was OnLive. Those who don't know, OnLive is a web service, where the games are streamed on remote machines by OnLive and you can play those almost lag-free. So all the computing and graphics is done at OnLive HQ. That means that your computer does not have to be powerful to play latest games, so a netbook is okay, and they even have a iPad app.

The biggest concern what I had with it was the lag. I heard that the nearest HQ to me would be in UK (I am in Finland), so I was bit worried of the lag. But surprisingly, the lag was not a issue! Sure, there is a slight input lag, but otherwise, I played it for several hours and got no serious lag.

There are couple of things I like about the service. One of them is that you can "demo" almost all of the games. What this means is that you can play 30 minutes of the game (the real deal!). In 30 minutes you get a pretty good view of the game in my opinion. Also what I like is the Arena. There, you can jump in on anybody playing a game on the service and almost instantly can start streaming. Awesome!

The resolution of all games is 720p, which is not that good honestly. Also the stream is a bit compressed, so you get some artifacts.

In the end, I would recommend this service to anybody not that serious to gaming. You can play some fun games here and there and you don't need the latest machine for that. But don't play competitively on this service, oh no.

Anybody got experience on this service?

First Impression: Tribes Ascend

So, about a month ago I got a beta key for Tribes Ascend. I played the game for like and 30 minutes and decided it was too hard for me. Hah. How wrong I was. I tried it again last weekend and played it constantly!

What Is Tribes Ascend I hear you ask? It's an upcoming FPS game in Tribes franchise. The franchise is known for high speed and several not-so-ordinary game mechanics, such as "skiing" (where you slide across the battlefield. The game is currently in closed beta, but I heard it's quite easy to get access to it nowadays, you just have to go like their Facebook page.

My first impression of the game is: it is a fun game, with excellent mechanics. But it can be REALLY hard sometimes and might be bit hard to get into. But once you get a kill with Spinfusor, that feeling is pure awesomeness! I highly suggest all FPS fans to try it out. I have to admit that I have not played Tribes games earlier, even though they are classics. But I managed to enjoy this game even ignoring that fact!

Nintendo to launch WiiU before year end

Reuters is writing that Nintendo is going to launch Wii successor in key markets for year end. This is exciting news, I for one cannot wait for it! I feel like Nintendo is finally listening to it's hardcore supporters and gives them exactly what they want. I got to admit though, that I am a gadget freak, so out of the ordinary controllers are exactly something I get hyped over.

So, what do you guys think about WiiU? Is it enough to beat Microsoft and Sony? Do you believe that the controller and hardware is enough?

Zynga accused of ripping off a canadian iOS game

This image has received quite the raging today on the internet. In it, Zynga is accused of ripping off "Tiny Tower" in their new game "Dream Heights" from a small canadian developer team called Nimblebit.

Look guys, this is a bit harsh way of saying it, but tough shit. This is exactly what Zynga does. This is not new to them! They copy what their competitors have done and (try to) make it success.

Like Farmville, the game that Zynga is famous for, is it an original game? Of course not. Hell, even their CEO told their employees to just copy the games. And let's face it guys, you didn't really invent tower building games (SimTower anyone?)

Sorry guys, it sucks that it happens, but that's all. Don't make a big deal out of it.

Rocksteady's next game to be TMNT?

Heard an awesome rumor today! Rocksteady Studios (the guys behind Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City) are rumored to be developing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game! That is absolutely an astounding rumor!

I have been a huge fan of TMNT for a long time, I have fond of memories of watching the Saturday morning cartoons long, long time ago. Rocksteady has been doing an amazing job with the Batham franchise, the Arkham games have been entertaining and high quality. We'll see what they are gonna come up with the TMNT franchise. More details about the upcoming game in the blog post.

API for solving CAPTCHA with automated humans

Read a strange thing today. Troy Hunt writes in his blog about a website called Antigate. The website's idea is that it provides a service for solving CAPTCHA (for those who don't know what that is, it's that distorted image you have to "solve" when you have to f.ex. register for a website). So the API works like:

• Send a CAPTCHA image and API Key
• Receive a ID for that CAPTCHA
• After 10 seconds, send the ID back
• Receive a response for the CAPTCHA or receive "Not ready"
• Try again in 5 seconds & repeat if necessary

One of the most well-known types of CAPTCHA, ReCAPTCHA.

To me, this is pretty mind-boggling. So there are people working in some third world countries whose job is just to solve CAPTCHA all day? Jesus, talk about hell on earth. Even one CAPTCHA causes me pain!

The price, you ask?  1 USD for 1000 Answers. Seriously. That is pretty insane. And as stated in the blog post, it took around 30 seconds to receive the answer. 

We are living in an interesting world.

Adventures in Refund land: Koss Porta Pro

So, it happened. My Koss Porta Pro-headphones broke. It was a mini-disaster for me, since I use them daily. So I contacted my seller for a refund of the item. Filled a simple form and submitted. It only took like less than 4 hours to get an email response from my seller, informing me that they have removed my claim for refund! They said I don't need it, and they will be sending right away replacement parts. Also, they attached a link to www.myportapro.com where they instructed (with video!) how to change the replacement parts.

And lo and behold, today the replacement parts arrived. They included pretty much all new headphones and cable! Only the metal frame was left from the old model.

Replacement parts for Koss Porta Pro

This, I feel, is excellent customer service. I have always heard that Koss has excellent support for products, but I would have never guessed it would be like this. Awesome job Koss!

Do you have any exceptional refund stories? Share them in the comments!

Why I'm a pirate: Thoughts on piracy & the music industry

So I read today a great post on ploum.net, titled "Why I'm a pirate!". In the blog post, the author is explaining why he pirates CD's and other media. I found the opinions good and concise.

I feel that the music industry as we now know it is slowly dying. The practices that the big music corporations use are ancient and they don't work anymore. The future is in digital media. I can't even remember anymore when I bought my last CD! As a younger music listener I used to buy the CD's of the bands that I liked and wanted to support them. I do not want to support the corporations behind the music, only the bands that actually come up with the music. That's why nowadays I try to use digital services to support my favorite bands, like Flattr and PayPal donation.

Currently, I am using Spotify as my daily source of music. And you know, I happily pay the 10€ monthly price for the convenience! This is absolutely fantastic service and I wish other medias would turn to this system too, like movies and e-books. Come up with such services and you have a customer right here.

Got any opinion on this subject? Share it in the comments!

Elevator: Source - a HL2 mod

So today I stumbled into a bit weird of a mod for Half-Life 2 called Elevator: Source by PixelTail Games. It is marketed as a single or co-op "elevator experience". What this means, is that the whole mod is based on an elevator, which takes you to 28 unique floors. And oh man, it is quite a journey!

Below is a video of a group playing it for 45 minutes. I know it sounds long, but I have short attention span and for some reason I just had to watch the whole thing!

You can download the mod on the project's website or ModDB. Please note that you will HL2: Episode Two and Garry's Mod 10 and up.

Red Eclipse - Free Multiplatform FPS

Today I learned about a new free (open source!) FPS called Red Eclipse. It's based on Cube 2-engine and features a dozen weapons, over 30 maps and it looks pretty damn awesome (getting some Halo-vibes from this)!

Red Eclipse 1.2

They have just released a new version 1.2, named "Cosmic Edition". Weirdly though, I can't find any changelog for the releases.

Having played it for a while, I must admit that it is good fun! Not that many players currently though, but all the servers with players have been really cool! I certainly recommend that everyone tries this game, being free and multiplatform (PC/Mac/Linux). And since it's based on Cube 2, it has pretty low system requirements and should be running on all kinds of hardware.

Anybody else have thoughts about this game?

3 games made in Blender, for Linux

http://www.techdrivein.com/2012/01/3-nice-blender-made-games-for-linux.html

These are awesome! I haven't heard about these yet. Linux sure can use as many games as possible.

I have tried some Blender, and the fact that some people have made a full game with it? Jesus, hats off to them.

Numpad, WHY?

http://imgur.com/gallery/SOxfi

This is something that has really confused me! Well, at least the 5 is always the same :P