Hate to break it to you, Mr. Baker, but Space to Space surveillance isn’t new. America’s Photo intel satellites have been doing that for more than 40 years. The Space shuttle was doing it every chance it got. And guess what, our allies and enemies have been doing it with their resources when ever, and where ever they could as well. Nothing unknown here as you can find information about it in many places and I’d expect someone of your stature to be well aware of it.
I have two colleagues that are deeply involved in the DoD aspect of this overall Data Center consolidation effort, both of whom laughed when I mentioned this article. I’ve been involved myself in a more limited fashion during specific periods of time and so I was more or less expecting that kind of reaction from them to be honest. I can’t speak for the rest of the federal effort, but the DoD aspect of it is a mess and will rmain so for the foreseeable future.
Not only are hundreds of millions of tax dollars being wasted, but hundreds of millions more will be wasted as the various issues get worked out. Many of which involve petty “kingdom” squabbles between Echelons, and even between the branches and DISA. Making matters worse, many of the echelons figured out what was going on early in the process and decided to either not reply to data calls at all, or decided to “postpone” releasing a complete detailed list of their datacenters and systems. As hard as this might be to believe, the DoD doesn’t actually know how many data centers it has or what systems are actually in those data centers. And the government as a whole can’t even come to a firm conclusion what a data center is. How many months did that arguement sway back and forth. Anyway, I digress.
The DoD relies on manual reporting of systems and networks to at least two reporting portals. The service branches have no independent way of verifying ground truth against what is reported outside of physical inspections. Nor do the services have a means of verifying that all commands are actually reporting. Whereas a service might discover discrepancies during an inspection, but the inspections are tied to records in the two reporting portals so no reporting, no inspection. And inspections, if they occur at all, often have years seperating them at a given command. Financial reporting systems the service brances use contain little more than data points of information and are not tied to geography or topologies. All this despite years of these issues having been pointed out by numerous entities.
Long story short, the DoD has little idea how many data centers they really have; how best to consolidate them; or whether consolidation is even a viable option in many instances. Yet the administration has mandated it the end result will be yet another federal IT effort that will be horribly expensive and which over-states the eventual costs savings.
Seriously? How is creation of restore disks — an activity WINDOWS itself helps you do for free — copyright infringement? I hate the fact that OEMs have gotten away from deliverying physical restore media with new hardware, and instead are utilizing space on my hard drive for that purpose. For two reason. First, it’s cheap and don’t mistake for a moment that the OEMs are doing it for any other reason than as a means of cost reduction and increased profitibility on their part. But secondly what happens if that hard drive fails. You betcha! You lose your means of restore. Unless of course you make your own restore media, which Windows itself recommends. Microsoft’s action is simply another example of how out of touch they are with reality.
Last week I was focused on the recent Slicing nerf, wanting to determine how bad the possible impact was on me. While I think Bioware definitely toned Slicing down, over all I found I wasn’t as affected as perhaps others were. My credit balance continues to grow between Slicing and daily questing, but I’ve definitely noticed something seems to have adversely occurred in the economy. Admittedly it’s only anecdotal, but many of the various mission types I was able to sell on the Auction House have all but stopped. Now more and more I’m finding I’m actually vendoring most of the missions after trying to sell each a few times. Even with hefty price reductions I don’t sell nearly as many as I had up to this point. And I’m seeing many folks on my server discussing the fact they’re likewise having problems selling some of the mission consumables they had been selling profitably previously.
Although not dramatic, I think the Slicing nerf has caused many players to player more conservatively where there credits are concerned. But underlying that is that most crafted goods that rely on mission consumables simply aren’t worth purchasing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen off handed comments about the fact that there is nothing craftable and purchasable at level 50 that is worth buying. But I can definitely relate from my own experience that even at the lower levels I haven’t purchased a single crafted item and don’t even see the need to do so. There isn’t anything I need that I can’t either get through missions and instances, or via the world emblem venders. Case in point, I was considering leveling Cybertech on an alt but found that virtually everything craftable through the profession is also available off the world emblem venders. Does it make sense to me to spend credits leveling a profession that I know I’ll likely never recoup the costs for, and through which I’ll likely never make a sustainable income? With the exception of Bio-Analysis, the other crafting professions suffer the same issue as Cybertech. Continue reading
If there is one thing I absolutely want Bioware to fix, it is the lack of a Looking For Group (LFG) system in SWTOR. I’ve been trying to run the Foundry for two days now, standing around in the fleet spamming chat and not able to do anything else while I’m doing it. On the occasion when I’ve been able to find groups we never actually got to go because those groups were all lacking healers.
It’s very frustrating, and frankly shameful that SWTOR shipped without a a real system to help players find groups for content they want to run. That includes the heroic missions on planets that I mostly skip now because those are also a terrible pain to find groups for. If there is one thing that will absolutely kill my enthusiasm for this game it’s this issue. I do not find it fun having to stand around spamming a chat channel and I doubt many others do either.
I admit I’m a PVP fanatic. Not really in a one-on-one sense, though I do enjoy that when an opportunity presents. But I do greatly enjoy group PVP, so I’m a big fan of open-world and instanced PVP in small to large group settings. My fondest memory of PVP in any MMO I’ve played remains from my old Star Wars Galaxies days, where I spent countless hours either attacking enemy bases, or defending our own from attack. Those large pitched battles gave life to STAR WARS so naturally PVP was one of the key areas of SWTOR I was most anticipating. I was a bit saddened when I learned open-world PVP would likely be a minority activity, if for no other reason than the sharding that segments and distributes players. Instead, real-world PVP will be small scale 1-on-1 or other random small scale engagements against outposts on a single shard. Sadly it appears Capital city raids are completely out of the picture as players can’t visit the opposite factions capital city.
Instead Bioware opted to focus PVP in instanced battlefields, and opted for a single, combined queue system in which all characters from level 10 to level 50 participate in. On the one hand I suspect one of the design considerations was to minimize PVP queue times by mixing everyone together. Especially in that the battlegrounds are not cross server and therefore very real population issues could arise otherwise. But on the other hand a single combined queue system creates imbalances in PVP that are in no way addressed by the stats bolstering that occurs on lower level characters. Even with stats bolstering lower level characters remain at a disadvantage against higher level characters because they lack the offensive/defensive capabilities, and damage output those higher level characters have. As an example, I watched six lower level characters try to stop a single level 50 who was trying to cap the ball in Huttball last night. Despite CC and six players attacking that level 50 was still able to cross the goal line without other assistance. And to add insult, was able to escape without being killed.
Say what you want about those six players, but that example is as apt an example as any other of the current state of PVP in my observation. During the first few days after release it wasn’t often you would see many level 50’s in matches, but after nearly two weeks level 50′s are commonplace. And level 50 characters, more often than not, determine the outcome of matches. I love the fact that I’m able to PVP at will, with short queue times but hate the fact I often feel so impotent against anyone more than a handful of levels higher than me. It’s a tough issue to crack and one I’m not sure there is an easy answer for, but clearly stats bolstering isn’t enough to make a combined queue system fair to all participants. Especially in a combat system where virtually everyone has CC. For now, simply know that your value as a low level player will be greatest in acting in concert with others against a single target. And that your ability to afflict your will on any level 50 – especially by yourself — is likely to be minimal.
I am absolutely loving the Sith Inquisitor story. I had thought Chapter one was entertaining and engrossing (and so totally unexpected!), but chapter two is turning out to be better yet. I also finally completed the portion of Chapter two today that I was most looking forward to. Well, actually, the only part that I knew was going to happen as I’ve intentionally ignored internet research to find out more than I already know. I’m talking about the acquisition of Ashara Zavros, my latest companion. Ashara, once a Jedi Padawan is now my apprentice!
In so far as Ashara goes, she’s a melee DPS companion, similar to any melee DPS companion. Except of course that she’s swinging Lighsabers instead of a vibro sword. But what I find most interesting about her is her story. Whomever wrote Chapter two did a fantastic job with the breadcrumb quests that unfolded her story. Through a series of easy quests you learn that Ashara is restless, headstrong and more aggressive than a Jedi should be. In short Ashara is prime to be tempted by the Dark Side. And tempt her I did! After killing her Master and another companion Jedi, of course. Continue reading
Between PVP botting and crew skill mission running — particularly Slicing and Treasure Hunting, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we started seeing this in SWTOR. It’s past time to make sure you start thinking about using an authenticator for your account too.
I do have to admit I was baffled by Bioware’s logic on Tuesday, but after a few days I’ve come to find that I wasn’t one of the players that was evidently “gaming” Slicing and therefore the Slicing nerf actually had little effect on me in the larger scheme of things. I wasn’t chasing Bountiful and Rich Slicing missions only, but rather was taking any Abundant or lower level 6 missions that were available. And so I’ve come to find that I apparently wasn’t getting super rich as others were. Continue reading
The SWTOR servers were scheduled to come back online at 11 am EST but are still offline. Memories of Blizzard’s WoW patching comes to mind as I wait for the finishing touches of SWTOR patch 1.0.1 to be completed. But while I was waiting I took the time to actually read the patch notes (yes I know, I’m slacking!) and three things immediately struck me.
I listen to quite a few SWTOR podcasts (more on this in a future blog post) and almost every single one of them has mentioned how much money players can make through slicing. I’ve noticed it myself as I have it on all three of the characters I play most on. My son and a friend had been struggling to make credits through other crew skills until I told them to switch to slicing, and voila, they too became wealthy. So I guess I’ve been waiting for the nerf hammer to come calling. But not having been able to log in to see how much the slicing rewards have been reduced, I can’t yet judge how badly the nerf hammer hurt.
But this particular nerf speaks more to the fact that the other crew skills are lacking, in my opinion. I tend to stay away from crafting skills in most MMOs because virtually all craftable items at the lower levels are useless. Most items that crafters are counting on selling are alternatively obtained through questing or instances (Flash Points). And rely on the auction house to sell. An auction house who’s current incarnation in SWTOR is horrible I might add. Crafting can only really compete against gathering skills in a player run economy, but even the other gathering skills in SWTOR were at somewhat of a disadvantage in that they mostly rewarded the player with items that then have to be sold on the auction house. Slicing by comparison mostly rewarded the player with raw credits. And that’s why players have been able to grow fairly wealthy through slicing when they hadn’t been able to with other crew skills. At least at this point in the game. That might change as the game matures and the auction house stabilizes. Continue reading
Perhaps I’m naive. Perhaps I hoped I’d simply never see this again. But pvp botting is alive and well in SWTOR. I’ve yet to see any in the other battleground yet, but I’m starting to see them often in Hutt Ball. A couple of them I’m quite used to seeing, like SVCNGO on Tarro Blood. We all know that SWTOR has just been released and that there is a whole host of additions and improvements that Bioware will be making to the game as soon as they can. Let us hope that a reporting feature in PVP is one of them because BG botting became such a big deal in WoW at one point that there were several very large public riots on the forum about the issue.
BG Botting is both a means to level a character with zero effort, and for gold farming organizations, a steady means to earn gold. And we all know where that gold goes. It’s just one of the strategies that such organization take, but in this case it’s likely to be a fairly lucrative one because players have no means to boot AFK/Bots from matches. Even in WoW, with the means to actually report and boot the characters, the bots have clearly won the war. If only because after years of dealing with the issue the player base as a whole has become numb to the situation. You continue to see complaints about them in matches of course, but often little is done to actually remove the characters from a match. They’re considered just part of doing business.
But SWTOR is a new game. And I truly hope that Bioware learns from Blizzards mistakes on the issue. BG Botting is a cancer, and if not attacked and eradicated, will cause the same lethargy, criticism, and malaise that we see in WoW PVP today. Continue reading
Seriously? Its bad enough that people act like total loons around the holidays, but over a pair of shoes? a $180 pair of shoes at that! Color me un-stylish then because I hate to even pay $60 for shoes!
I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! Even though I’m sure most of us will sneak away to play something today, today is really about family and friends. And most importantly, about remembering the birth of a very special child today. Please have a wonderful day!
I finally got around to playing on my Sith Inquisitor yesterday after having played my Bounty Hunter to level 33, and playing a short stint on my Sith Warrior (level 20). I’d forgotten exactly how much fun the class is to play. I remember the first time I ran through Korriban during the beta it took me 7 hours to level from 1 to 10. I didn’t know where anything was, and didn’t have a sense of what quests to complete at the same time in order to minimize my running around. I pleasantly noted that it took less than half that time last night!
Obviously, leveling the Inquisitor gave me another opportunity to pit myself against Khem Val. Three weeks ago I faced Khem Val and barely beat him when I found my strategy of kiting and sniping wasn’t working. And had thought the next time I fought him I’d ignore the strategy and instead nuke him toe to toe. That strategy worked even better than I anticipated, and I had the cameras rolling to capture the moment. Okay, I had the camera rolling for more than 7 minutes because unlike the last video I posted on Khem Val I wanted to also capture the mob fights leading up to him. I mentioned three weeks ago that it was really easy
The closest mobs to the walkway ledge are easily kited to the ledge and blown off, but you’ll have to make a judgement call for yourself how much running back and forth you want to do as you move inward, away from the ledge. On previous attempts I kited all of the groups back to the ledge and blew them off, but on this attempt I didn’t do that. I kited the closest groups but not the furthest away. In any event you can see the entire clearing in this video and can judge for yourself how to best handle it on your attempt.
After the Khem Val fight there’s an additional elite mob to the left you have to fight that isn’t pictured in this video. The mob is a melee mob and does hit moderately hard, but is easily handled by Khem and your Inquisitor.
I’m resting my Bounty Hunter and decided to hop on my Sith Warrior to play a little last night. I still haven’t quite decided whether I want to play the Sith Inquisitor I played in beta, or the Sith Warrior next as an alt. So figured I’d give the Warrior a go to see how it feels. I’d seen a few Sith Juggernauts roaming around while I quested and they seemed to be doing quite well for themselves! In any event I hit level 17 earlier this morning and finally got my starship. It’s quite nice, and I made a video for those (like me) who hadn’t seen the inside before. Enjoy!
This is the second character I’ve obtained a ship on and found I also had to defeat an NPC before I could claim this ship too. So I’m guessing that’s the theme for all of the classes; that you are given a quest to obtain your ship, but find you need to defeat an NPC when you arrive at the hanger. In the case of the Sith Warrior you end up having to defeat a single Sith Warrior who is very angry at something you did earlier on Dromund Kaas! He’s a tank and spank, by the way, with no special abilities.
Personally I think the Fury Class Starship is the coolest ship in SWTOR. It’s evocative of the Empire ships we’re used to seeing from the original movies, and sequels. Very predatory looking in my opinion.
