Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

This Is No Trap - The Force Awakens Comic-Con Panel

Star Wars VII is coming this December and it may be one of the most anticipated films in recent memory. Many fans are wondering if JJ Abrams magic will infuse the films with life again. I remain fairly hopeful as I try and consume every bit of non-spoiler information I can get my hands on. JJ and crew were at San Diego Comic-Con a few days ago talking about the new film and there were more than a few surprises to learn. Watch the entire presentation above and then check out the Force Awakens behind the scenes clip they release right afterward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTNJ51ghzdY

It was amazing seeing the new principle cast along with the dark side additions.... Read All

Hearthstone Expansion "Argent Tournament" Drops July 22nd

https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lxqQAIaxr_FTq_ersqHeu3-yE_k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3853488/hearthstonenotice.0.jpg

Blizzard sent a package to a few popular video game websites (not us, booo) teasing a new Hearthstone expansion coming July 22nd called "Agent Tournament." In the image linked above from Polygon the scroll reads:

"Well met, hero!

Champions are gathering from around the world to witness the next exciting thing Hearthstone has in store. News travels far and wide in search of brave new faces ready to answer the call to arms — are you one of them?

Muster for battle and mark July 22 on your calendar. The next bit of news won't come by carrier pigeon — thankfully, we have much better ways of communication now.

Victory awaits!"

So what are you most excited for? A full new... Read All

Like the Yoyos in Terraria? You can buy them.

OneDrop Yoyos, a high-end yoyo company out of Eugene, Oregon, is making a yoyo called The Terrarian, and it will match the look of the in-game yoyo by the same name. The Terrarian is the most badass of all the yoyos in the game, dropping from the final boss, and you can have it on your desk soon, or learn to do tricks with it. :)

https://instagram.com/p/447yvnnmb0/?taken-by=onedropyoyos

If that wasn't cool enough, check out the catalog: http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/

So many of the yoyos in game are OneDrop yoyos. Greg asked me in-game the other day what the little icon on most of the yoyos' tooltips was, and I had no idea, but I do now. It's the OneDrop logo!

For... Read All

The Great Summoner Competition

This week's Brawl is super fun! Every time you cast a spell, you get a random minion that costs what you paid. (and it is what you paid for the spell, not it's normal casting cost). So, just make a deck of ALL spells! I'm 4-0 as a priest doing it. So far I've played against 3 druids and a paladin. Druid seems fairly favored with all the creature boosts it gets. I think mage would be great with all the damage spells to clear the board while putting out free creatures.

You should try it out... just load up on all the spells you can =] I'm not running a single creature in my deck. I've noticed some people are...and I just wouldn't, unless you were using a creature that... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 07/08/2015 at 09:32pm

This one is great! I've put together a Mage deck, and I agree, don't bother with creatures, unless you don't have enough spells. I think I ended up with 24 spells and 6 creatures in my deck (and all the creatures are spell oriented of course). Twas a super fun time. So far I've only played one brawl (against a warlock), and I will be coming back often.

jdodson Admin wrote on 07/09/2015 at 03:14am

I did what you suggest in that I built a Priest deck with all spell cards and was pitted against a Mage doing the same thing. In the end I whomped them and it was due to the better randomness of my creatures spawning and got the free pack. I really like what they are doing with Tavern Brawl and at least get the first win for the deck.

I put in some Sludge Belchers, I can't make a deck without those they are a deck staple.

JaBo Post Author wrote on 07/10/2015 at 04:22pm

So, I've been trying with other classes, because really the only reward is XP for the class and a win towards any quest or for the 3 wins for 10 g. So, I have druid/mage/priest at lvl 60 so figured I'd try rogue or paladin... well argg, they are so not as good as priest or mage or druid! I didn't even try warlock, shaman, or hunter. They don't have expensive spells.

Priest is the best, mind control their best minion and then get a deathwing. But ya, my win rate went from like 90+% to like <50% trying paladin which is definitely not a bad looking option. But Priest/mage/druid are where it's at on this one.

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Annoy-o-Tron Addresses The Media - My Most Hated Minion

Blizzard has been creating a slew of Hearthstone ads and the latest two featuring Annoy-o-Tron I particularly liked. Annoy-o-Tron, in my opinion, is one of the most effective ways to lock down the early game as it costs two to bring out and has divine shield plus taunt. When it comes out and I hear the familiar "HELLO, HELLO" I cringe.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/12181-annoy-o-tron

This ad is particularly cringe worthy too, but that's the point entirely. When you start Hearthstone you get 100 dust and can craft, right away, two Annoy-o-Trons. I decided to craft the Ironbeak Owl instead which I use in damn near each of my decks and for two it can break near anything... Read All

Celebrate The 4th of July With Mad Explosions And Carnage

Broforce is everyones favorite freedom acquisition simulator featuring mook murder and now with a whole new set of updates that would make Jean Claude Van Damme quit his Timecop job. This new update features the Brocketeer, Broheart, new Melee attacks & FLEXING!

So if you were looking for something patriotic to do on the 4th, why not flex on over to Broforce? 5 out 5 world despots don't want you to do it, so that's always a good reason to check it out.

Minecraft: Story Mode Is Coming? Do We Need This?

Telltale Games is dipping into the Minecraft franchise to launch Story Mode. The trailer features the voice talent of Patton Oswalt, Cory Feldman & Billy West. I should start out by saying I thought Minecraft was neat, but I am not a very big fan. That said, this trailer failed to excite me but I wondered if it worked for Minecraft fans. Maybe Story Mode is what the Minecraft fans crave?

Let me know in the comments.

Travis Admin wrote on 07/04/2015 at 06:01pm

Since they announced this a few months back, I've been wondering why this is a good idea. Having watched the trailer, I'm still not sure.

I mean it's Telltale so it will probably have good gameplay, but I have no real drive to pick this up. I never thought Minecraft needed anything story-related attached to it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/04/2015 at 10:08pm

Right, that seems to be my reaction too.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 07/04/2015 at 10:50pm

Did Lego need story games, or a movie for that matter?

Story mode for Minecraft will do extremely well, because Minecraft does extremely well. Whether it needs it or not (which it doesn't).

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/04/2015 at 11:10pm

Hahaha yeah, I agree. Money will be made. Oh yes, it will be made.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/a7jJnwEeiU0/hqdefault.jpg

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 07/04/2015 at 11:37pm

I recently bought Jurassic Park: The Game during the Steam Summer sale. It's a Telltale game and from what I've heard, they all have similar game play, which I think is disappointing. In Jurassic Park, I had to press a button (I used my controller) to perform an action at a certain time. Not hitting the right buttons at the right time often caused my characters to be eaten by dinosaurs. I wasn't really fond of JP's game play. So, I'm imagining a similar experience with this game.

As for Minecraft (the real game) there's an expected 1.9 release coming eventually. That update is called "The Combat Update" as it adds shields and I think makes use of both hands. Check the wiki for more info.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/06/2015 at 02:08pm

Yayyyyy... *cough* http://www.gamespot.com/articles/whole-new-version-of-minecraft-for-windows-10-anno/1100-6428641/

Travis Admin wrote on 07/06/2015 at 05:37pm

If this is just a marriage of the different versions, letting you use mouse/keyboard, touch, or controller, then I'm fine with that and it makes sense. I'll probably even buy it. If they ignore the standard version of Minecraft to work on this one, then I'm not going to be happy.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 07/29/2015 at 05:40am

The new snapshot for 1.9 should be out today (Wednesday).

I read something else about the Windows 10 version of Minecraft, which for now is disappointing. Basically, W10 is getting the Pocket Edition of the game, which is a very bare version of the game. I have it on my tablet. Many, many things are missing, including music. I'm hoping this new version of the game will help the development of the PE, since they seem to be essentially the same thing.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 07/29/2015 at 10:34am

Oh! Existing Minecraft owners can get the Windows 10 beta version for free: https://mojang.com/2015/07/get-minecraft-windows-10-edition-beta-for-free/

Travis Admin wrote on 07/29/2015 at 03:48pm

Yeah you get it for free, I claimed mine, but the fact that it's just a port of the pocket edition is annoying. At least they're giving it to people who already bought the full version.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/27/2015 at 11:36pm

Confirmed for Wii U release. "Minecraft: Story Mode is also coming to a long list of other platforms, including Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PC, Mac, Android, and iOS."

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/minecraft-story-mode-confirmed-for-wii-u/1100-6430076/

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/28/2015 at 04:43am

Interesting. I'll be keeping a lookout for how the reviews land for this one.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/23/2015 at 09:36pm

I just bought this for Vinny. We both love Minecraft, but I think he'd enjoy this game more than me. I have watched the few episodes Paul Soares, Jr. posted of him playing this game. This summer I bought the Jurassic Park TellTale game and it didn't really turn out to be something I really wanted. What I mean is that the game play seemed very limited, basically you watch and and move at times, but also you have to press a certain key (or combination of keys) at the right time. Failure to perform those keystrokes often meant death in the game. However, from what I've seen of this game, it has that, but it also seems to have more dialog choices. I'm really not sure if I'll get this game for myself, it is kind of tempting though.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this now that the game has been released?

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The Maingear Shift Could Make Greg Jealous

Marques Brownlee is one of the YouTube personalities I subscribe to because he creates superb tech review videos. He usually reviews smartphones, watches and laptops but did something a bit different in that he reviewed a PC I hadn't heard of called the Maingear Shift.

"Featuring MAINGEAR VRTX (Vertical Exhaust) Cooling Technology, the SHIFT was the first system to employ a vertical, heat stack design to dissipate heat out the top of the chassis, not the back, harnessing the natural behavior of hot air to rise, and drawing in cool air from the bottom. This promotes cooler running temperatures under load, less work for the system fans which leads to quieter operation,... Read All

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 07/02/2015 at 06:34am

Looks pretty cool! I'm obviously not in the market since I bought mine within the last 2 years. While I do have a sweet GTX 690, GTAV made me think that maybe a Titan or two would be sweeter. For now, I'm sticking with my beast.

I've noticed that much of the top panel of my PC seems to be a bit of an air vent. That makes sense.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 07/02/2015 at 06:46am

On second look, that Corsair and those two GTX GPUs look sweet!

hardeyez wrote on 07/02/2015 at 10:52pm

There are also cheap rosewill cases that vent up... I have three in my house now (one for me and for each of the kids).
http://www.rosewill.com/products/1533/productDetail.htm

hardeyez wrote on 07/02/2015 at 10:55pm

argh, accidentally posted before I was done :) That rosewill case vents up, however the pci cards still lay horizontal in the case with the connectors in the back... But in the winter it's nice to set my feet on the top for extra warmth :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/04/2015 at 04:25pm

That Rosewill case isn't bad. With that, The Maingear Shift isn't like anything i've seen you can buy.

Oh hey, hardeyez, about how much did you spend putting those PCs together and what were the specs? Looking at replacing mine in the next couple and curious what people have put together and how well it turned out.

hardeyez wrote on 07/12/2015 at 07:24am

I built the "budget gaming pc build" that was here http://www.build-gaming-computers.com/gaming-desktop-computer.html I built one for myself but put more RAM in it, and a couple months later built ones for my kids using the updated version (basically much better graphics card for cheaper). They update those builds regularly and have worked well for me... and you can easily tweak to taste but I like having some of the research worked out for me... Just one heads up, I used that gigabyte mobo and had to tweak setting to get it to play nice with linux... Worked flawlessly with windows. So I was surprised that linux ended up being more work (usually it's the other way around, linux recognizes everything). I can't quite remember the issue, but it was just tweaking some bios settings, so I can always dump them out here to see what it was :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 07/12/2015 at 08:34pm

That's a nice build. I think when I get a new PC that i'll build it myself. It's a ton cheaper and anymore, i'd rather something a bit faster for my buck.

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Tales Of A Steam Machine Volume 1 - Failure Is An Option

The dream is to get a Steam Machine in the living room so I can play my Steam library on the couch. I can plug in my laptop but it requires more setup than i'd like, i'd prefer to just turn something on, pick up a controller and play.

Since Valve announced SteamOS and Steam Machines i've been looking at what to get. I don't mind spending about as much as a console costs but I don't want to buy something terrible and that starts with not buying stuff that hasn't been reviewed. I've heard great things about the work Intel has been doing with it's Atom CPUs and it recently released a pretty beefy system on a board that is pretty impressive. A few manufacturers have... Read All The dream is to get a Steam Machine in the living room so I can play my Steam library on the couch. I can plug in my laptop but it requires more setup than i'd like, i'd prefer to just turn something on, pick up a controller and play.

Since Valve announced SteamOS and Steam Machines i've been looking at what to get. I don't mind spending about as much as a console costs but I don't want to buy something terrible and that starts with not buying stuff that hasn't been reviewed. I've heard great things about the work Intel has been doing with it's Atom CPUs and it recently released a pretty beefy system on a board that is pretty impressive. A few manufacturers have shipped PC's with a very low form factor and the other day I pulled the trigger and bought one to use as a Steam Machine.

http://www.quantumsuppliers.com/shop/products/quantumbyteminipc/

It's a mini PC running Windows 8.1 and has an Intel Atom (Quad-core) processor Z3735F, 2GB of DDR3L RAM, and 32GB of flash disk. It also supports bluetooth, wifi and has a full SD card slot to increase storage beyond the 32GB. It also sports a very competent integrated Intel card. The thought with buying the Quantum Byte is that it's a low cost, low power option where I can install nearly any Indie game and stream beefier games from my PC.

That said, my first experience in a DIY Steam Machine was horrible but it gave me hope that Steam in the Living Room is going to be great. Just maybe not using Windows.

First off the Quantum Byte is a fantastic little PC when it isn't bugging out on me. I am returning it because it couldn't keep connected to wireless which I believe is a problem with the unit I bought. The reviews on Amazon for the device are nearly all great but occasionally someone gets a bad run and I think I got one. That said, when the wifi is working the unit is responsive and installed Steam games and streamed Steam games run fantastically.

Beyond the infuriating wifi issues, I also had some huge problems getting Windows 8.1 to work the way I wanted. This is what I wanted to do.

Have the machine auto login.

Start up steam in big picture mode.

Run everything from the Windows guest account.

The first problem came with setting Windows 8.1 to auto authenticate. Somehow I flipped some bit wrong and lost administrator access. Totally screwed as I couldn't change or install anything. That said, I wiped it and was able to set up auto login correctly. Having Steam start in big picture mode isn't hard but the time from me pressing the power button to big picture mode popping it took almost two full minutes. Not a huge deal but not impressive.

Running things in the guest account is a good idea if you want to keep thing secure but is a pain in the ass when each Steam Windows game port needs to install it's own version of Direct X and .Net. I also found out that most games require you to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to the computer. If you don't some games don't start, bug out or randomly crash. I also had issues with some games starting in over 1080p mode and having my TV freak out requiring me to have to physically reboot the Quantum Byte.

After everything was working I had to return the Quantum Byte due to wireless issues I stated earlier, that said when everything was running well(which wasn't much) it wasn't a bad experience. That said, Windows in the living room doesn't "just work" and is a pain in the ass. I totally understand why Valve is building it's own controlled SteamOS system as using Windows would be a bucket of pain. Sure, you have a ton of ported games but the experience isn't great and there are so many things you have to do to get it to "just work."

In the end I might replace my Quantum Byte with a newer one but after going through so much already I am not sure. I do want to have something in the living room that can play PC games but so far it's a DIY adventure and i'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Monkey See Monkey Do... Strike Monkey, Add Computer

http://www.news.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/mercury_images/generated_levels_square_set_3.png

ENVISIONED BY A COMPUTER: More than 300 new playable game areas were created with the Georgia Tech automatic-level generator. An artificially intelligent system watched gameplay video of Super Mario Brothers from streaming video (e.g. YouTube, Twitch) to learn how to design game levels, a first-of-its-kind approach.

http://www.news.gatech.edu/2015/06/24/georgia-tech-researchers-train-computer-create-games-watching-youtube

This is a very interesting read! Bring on Skynet! (To make video games for us)