User:GW-Blackdog

About me
I'm tired of seeing a link to edit, so a bit about me:

I've been playing since original beta.

In real life, I'm a programmer (since I was 11), system administrator, and DBA professionally for 20 years, so that dates me a bit. Fine. I was born in 1967. I'm oldish.

I prefer PvE, only because I don't enjoy the general atmosphere in PvP (read that as too many obnoxious players). I have fought in the HoH (lots of times.. and I don't know the metagame now, but back then, it required beating 4~6 other teams of humans to get in), but I just don't do PvP anymore much. And I don't care for the whole (frequently undeserved) elite attitude.

I tend to solo. Mostly because finding a group always takes half as long as it does to do the mission.

Yes, I've been in several guilds and I'm not a guild jumper. But it always seems to be a lot of doing the same stuff over and over again to get people caught up, which isn't so much fun. No offense, but every single non-elite mission can be done easily enough with heroes and hench (and where it applies, they could be done with just hench before there were heroes- IMO THK is *boring* now), and the ONLY mission I have not gotten bonus/masters on with H/H is that stupid forever trees mission in Factions (The Eternal Grove: mission easy- masters not so much), so if you're stuck, well, maybe you need to work on your game. Really, how else are you going to learn? Have someone else do it for you? Meh, you're missing the point.

That isn't to say I won't help, but it gets old fast when you're repeating the same stuff again and again. I think I got burned out on repeating missions back in beta days when all there was was Ascalon, Kryta, and PvP, and everyone was new. These days I keep my own guild and help friends when they ask (unless I'm doing something).

I still pug at random. Keeps the monkeys sharp ;-)

Guild wars is a game. It's supposed to be fun. If it's not, don't play it. Take a break, do something else. Always remember they make decaf that tastes just as good.

Maybe read a book. There are tons of things to read. "Another Fine Myth" by Robert Asprin is a nice light read, maybe Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. There's always The Mallorean by David Eddings. Whoops, can't forget "The Dark Elf Trilogy" by R.A. Salvatore (the first 3 were so amazingly good). Maybe the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud? Pick it up, and you can't set it down. You'll be in chapter 3 before you realize you're still at the bookstore.

Let me guess, you've read those? How about you take a peek at "Washington's Dirigible" by John Barnes? Kind of obscured. Fun, unless you are someone who nit-picks sci-fi. If you've read that too, please fill me in on books of similar interest on my talk page. I've read Anthony, Card, Hawke, Stephenson, Stroud, King, Rice, Barker (I enjoyed horror more when I was younger) lots of the classics and tons of odds and ends, but a good book is always a good thing.

About my characters
I actively play all 10 characters on 2 accounts (which makes for slow going). For these "real" 10 chars, the following is true:


 * Level 20
 * has finished prophacies, factions, nightfall and EotN
 * knows all their primary class skills
 * know all PvE skills (at least R5 for EotN skills, and next to max for SS/LB).
 * has at least 1 set of Elite armor
 * has at least 2 full shrines in HoM
 * has all heroes at level 20
 * has every mappable location mapped

Each account account view shows all armors in my HoM. Balthazar has nothing for me to unlock (PvE) and hasn't for a *long* time.

I also have about 17 mules which I don't care about and won't mention beyond they're all level 20... and 3 guys in pre-searing which I suppose I may get back to working on LDoA with (levels 18, 15, and lol nub (8) currently).

My most uber characters are monks (GWAMM), but it's more a case of them being the first to be uber than anything, and EotN seems to have forced us to pick one. Honestly, I find it hard to think of my monks as stronger than the elems, sins or necros. Profitability aside I prefer mesmers, but the monkeys were there first. I doubt very much I'll bother to get anymore GWAMMs on either account.

Things I like
I wholeheartedly recommend the DX-1 by ergodex as an input device, the things are great (but a bit pricey, and the ergodex itself is not vista ready.. but there are options from another company if you're a vista person). I don't use extended macros beyond /sit, /bow and "turn off the heads up display", but having a keyboard with the keys I want where I want them is awesome. Really, it's a board you stick keys on and assign to act as regular keys. Every button I really want right under my fingers in a comfortable position... it's just fantastic.

I also think very highly of the drobo/droboshare for mass storage needs. The damn thing just works. It's not as fast as other mass storage solutions, but it's elegant and simple. Check out the demo on their website. It really does do what they say it does. The speed issues are just with rebuilding large arrays, for instance when a disc fails (better slow but there than fast but gone), and bringing up a directory list on an idle share is slowish. The later they could certainly fix by adding more memory (hint hint guys), and is much less of a problem if you don't need it to be on a droboshare accessible from multiple computers on a network.

And finally, let me mention I really like Zektor and give them 3 thumbs up. These guys make video switches, such as to control multiple inputs into a receiver to flip the A/V between your DVD, blueray, Xbox, or whatever. These switches swap both audio and video. BUT, where they excel is you can use their switches for sound. I have a Zektor HDS4.1 connected to the 5.1 surround on my computer and it lets me switch the sound on different computers. Lots of companies make KVMs to switch Keyboard, Video, and Mouse between computers, but sound is mostly neglected. Some KVMs might let you switch stereo (only 2 channel), or do more but with only 2 computers, but they're expensive and generally don't do what you really want. So buy a regular KVM and tack on a component from Zektor and you have the best of both worlds. The warranty is excellent, the support is great, and the units have a very high quality feel to them. Being a bit of an audiophile, this is the one component missing in the computer industry for multiple computers and limited I/O devices- and these guys do a fantastic job filling the gap.

Things I don't like
Blizzard. And I will never give them another dime after the DMCA crap they pulled.

Things I won't do
Add links or make any efforts at formatting this page. I know HTML and wiki well enough, but I don't care. If you need a link to find something, you weren't interested anyway.