We have all been waiting for this game for years now. Many have been playing fallout and fallout new vegas, but there's a few of us that were not enthralled by those games. The latter group has bee eagerly awaiting Skyrim which was recently announced.

Yea you have seen concept art and saw the preview video, but what it comes down to is in game footage. Even if its just a few non moving pictures, you can't help but get excited for this game. Well at least of you were a fan of any elder scrolls game. Anyway head over to IGN and they have some screen shots fresh off the press for your viewing pleasure. So get over there now peep the shots and wait in abasement as the game will finally be released soon.

         Usually when I see an article on improving a persons competitive merit aka "ways to get better at a multiplayer video game", the common way to analyse is to directly show in a specific game the procedure for winning. So I thought what if I stepped away from a specific game and just demonstrate ways to improve gameplay that can be applied to multiple games spanning multiple genres. Now this may seem like it is basic, but it is all relative and many people seem to overlook the broader scope of self improvement. I got the idea from my own climb for knowledge/improvement during the Halo 3 era of pro gaming, and the time after the final Halo 3 tournament at MLG. During this time I was in between whether I wanted to be competitive or not and if so what game title would I like to compete in. I have always been the more thought and planning oriented style player. Watching VOD, WRITING out strategies, thinking, going over my own gameplay, practising strategies, these are all things players do occasionally but almost NEVER consistently. Even many professional MLG players do not CONSISTENTLY apply the thought side to their gaming, they just get on and play with their team. Never really going over anything in too much detail, not applying strategies during every practice game, trying too hard to rely on only chemistry and the hope that it will build up.

          From this mindset I have I realised that almost all players are missing variables that would allow them to consistently have results when playing. Look at football do you see many major upsets in what happens when it comes to teams winning and loosing, I would say not. The best teams do the best in the length of the season, and end up in play-offs, then the best two teams for a season come and play in the super bowl. Whoever wins does not matter, because everyone knows they were the best teams that season(at least if you are able to set aside personal preference), but generally they are the best teams. Upon realising this you can look at other sports.... Ohh its the same, the best two teams fight at the end of the season. In chess how often will you see a grandmaster loose to a rookie that has been playing for less time in tournament settings? What is it that these people and teams have that make brackets, seasons, and matches consistent on who is winning and who is not? I would like to delve into this idea, if I am wrong, I am wrong, but I would like to present this idea that virtual competition can be just as consistent as any other form of competition.

        I am a list sort of person as it helps me break down ideas and present them on a more structured level. So in the following I will go over this idea of applying overall general concepts to provide a situation where you will be consistently winning.

• For Individuals

1. Determination: To me this is what drives you to play. The urge to get better and improve, and without it you will find yourself giving up easily. You have to want to win to eventually be able to win. Some players loose this determination and find themselves playing bad or not up to par. Sometimes it will be good for you to think about why you play competitively and reaffirm your determination. Make sure you have this or you will often be frustrated by losses, and loose from this same lack in determination. Remember that for competitive people it is no longer the game that is fun, it is the winning and struggle of top level matches that brings enjoyment.
2. Commitment: This next term is impossible to have without determination, but is also its own strong part of improvement as a whole. When competing you have to be able to practise, and do so consistently. You cannot expect to win in any competition if you only practise once. This is where commitment comes into play. You must take it upon yourself to be committed, sit down and say,"This is what, when, how, and why I need to practise." Look at someone like Johnathan Fatal1ty Wendel in the PC gaming scene, he would practise eight hours a day everyday before a tournament, but he had the commitment to do so.
3. Time Management: This is what helps you get the most out of practise. It is the way you set up schedules for practise. Structured practise is the best. Lets say one person practises at least twenty hours a week. It could be five on monday, a few hours spread through the week, friday/sat he gets another five each,and whatever is left on sunday. The key here is that this is not the same each week, and just happens to be his regiment that given week. He then plays a player who has a set schedule every week. His schedule is three hours each day mon-fri, five on sat, and a break on sunday. Assuming each player was at the same skill when starting each of their selected regiments, who do you think will win a match after a few weeks? Exactly, the player who had more structured practise. You can break this down even further by allotting time to practice specifically on problem areas for you, or even splitting up individual practice and your team practise.
4. Focus, Have Confidence, and Be Humble: Take each game as it comes. Make sure you are playing at your best EVER time you practise/compete. Never say, "ohh this person is just a average player, so I can just wing it." The key to remember is that there almost always is someone out there that IS better than you. If not at the moment than there will be SOON. If you can keep away from your ego and focus on winning, then there will be a consistency. Also note that trash talk is not always an ego oriented thing. It can also be a slight way to get an edge. The key is to never allow yourself to think that the trash talk is whole truth. It is great to have confidence, it will help you win in close games. Always have it in the back of your mind that you can win, but never overlook and get cocky because you just "know you will win".
5. Look For Your Mistakes: How can you improve without knowing what you do wrong? Be alert to the performance of a particular strategy. If you find yourself loosing, ask why, watch the vod, look at what the other player did better. Always think what can I do to be more efficient, faster, stable, knowledgeable, unpredictable. If something is not working most of the time then you should not be doing it "most of the time", but if a strategy only works sometimes, then you should not throw away the strategy. Rather only apply it when the best strategy is not working. Say that normally flanking does not work on a map in a specific situation, but you are finding that heading strait in is not working against this opponent. The flank may work even though its in an easily defensible spot, but because he is focusing on turtling his front it may be a better course of action. In a regular game this play would be a mistake, but in this specific game you noticed that it was an optimal choice and worked out great.
6. Try Something New: Be on the lookout for new strategies, even if they seem bad. Test the strategies, if it is bad in one situation it may not be bad in another. Say you are playing an RTS or FPS on a small map, and you apply a quick rushing strategy. If this strategy fails, then there is more than likely to be a strong quick counter attack that you may not be prepared for. Ohhh but wait, you can apply this same strategy on a larger map and find it working more toward your favour because of the length of time it takes for your opponent to move in on your base/spawn to counter in the event your rush fails. You could look at this as obtaining new tools for the workshop. If a shop has many tools it can deal with more problems and fix more things. In the same note an old tool looses its use and clutters the workshop. If you had a tool and it got old so you got a new one, then throw away the old one. If you keep what you don't need it will soon get in the way.
7. Unpredictability: Being unpredictable is such a great skill. If you can be a player that breaks away from the norm once and a while it will work out. People do not know what do do in situations where you do something against the tried and true tactics for situations. For example in Halo I used to apply a strategy of being aggressive in situations where I found a low possibility of survival. Most players when in enemy lines with no support will generally try to get away as soon as possible. What I would do is make it seem like I was running away and as soon as the opponent gave chase I would be in their face killing them. How do you react to someone seemingly doing the normal and then just jumping on your head killing you? Unpredictability is situational, and cannot be done all the time or it becomes predictable. Its a solution to a problem that is not always utilised, but is an option in your arsenal none the less.

• For Teams

1.  Chemistry: This is the bond that allows teamwork to flow. This flow is built upon trust and enjoyment in the interaction you have with your team. If you do not enjoy your team mates then your chemistry will be bad, thus bringing in sub optimal game play as a result. You can have all stars on a team, but if they are unwilling to trust in each other and support each other when the time is needed then the team will fail as a whole.
2. Communication: When I speak of communication, I do not just mean in game. In game communication is very important, but outside communication is an aspect often overlooked. Most problems are well solved by communication, so always deliberate with team-mates about any issue they have. Communication in game or outside helps build up the trust you will need in game between team mates. In game it can be as simple as telling your team enemy positions, to explaining on the fly strategies such as "I am moving right you move left and john will surprise from behind." It can also be subtle things like complementing on your team mates when they make good plays or help you out. "Thanks for the help", "Nice play", "we have this" are all little things to boost confidence in game and are achieved by communicating. Remember communication is an individual attribute that effects the team, and help your team mates feel comfortable communicating to the team in all ways possible. No one should feel ashamed to express anything that pertains to the team, with the team.
3. Have A Game Plan: Great teams have thought out everything. Practise schedules, strategies, best ways to practise, how they communicate, what is appropriate in and out of game, anything that effects the team should be gone over with as a team. If you feel someone is under performing on the team and should be dropped, go over that with EVEYONE on the team. All aspects of the team are pertinent to the team. Anything that can improve the team should be talked about. Plan, plan, plan its is the best thing you can do and will make it so that all members know what to expect. You would like to minimise surprises as much as possible.
4. Open Minds : Having an open mind is an easy way to prevent conflict on a team. If ideas are being thrown around by team members and you don't agree do not simply assume you are right. Listen to the reasons why your other team members feel the way they do, and if you still feel opposed then you should present your reasons why they are wrong. Go over this with banter between not only yourself and the other team mate, but also all team mates as well. Allow all opinions to be heard, as this will help build chemistry and strengthen trust. Remember to obtain all of the items that make up a great team, then sometimes sacrifices must be made by either the individual or the team. Do not allow an over active ego cloud your teams path to greatness.
5. Members Problems Are The Teams Problems: There is no way to have a team where one member is not able to put in the same effort as the other members because of a conflict in that individuals life. It is up to the other members to bring him back into scope. Talk with him and allow him to understand that it not only affects him but the rest of the team as well. Don't look at it only like one person has life problems we need to get rid of him. You should try to help and support him, player dropping is the last resort. Try to keep the team talking with each other so that other things like internal conflict does not happen. Otherwise, this team will be under performing consistently. 
6. Play Together: If all members of a team are able to practise together they should. If this is an online game and members are online, then they should be with you talking and playing as a team. This goes for watching game plays also. If a player feels he would like to go over game play but the rest of the team doesn't, then maybe you should refer to number three. He feels there was a problem in a game and would like to discuss, do not just blindly allow the situation to pass. Give discussion about it, if his request seems reasonable after further explanation then yes go over the vod with him as a team.

          It seems to me that these simple items come together to form a check-list of  ways to become the great competitive game player that you want to be. If you feel like this is a joke and would never work, then take what I have written and apply it. If you result in not improving in any way then please tell me so here in the comments. I sincerely believe that with this general information that you can apply it to any competitive situation. Just break your gameplay down and think more, it will help in the long run.

• 
  LOGISYS Computer Area 51 CS51WBK Black Computer Case With Side Panel Window
• 
  ASUS CD/DVD Burner Black E-IDE/PATA Model DRW-22B2S/BLK/B/AS (Bulk)
• 
  Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
• 
  Acer G215HAbd-1 21.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor
• 
  ASRock M3A770DE ATX AMD Motherboard
• 
  HIS Radeon HD 4670 H467QR1GH Video Card
• 
  Rosewill Black Wired Keyboard
• 
  Logitech B100 Black Wired Optical Mouse
• 
  Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
• 
  G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
• 
  AMD Athlon II X4 640 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
• 
  Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
• Total Around $640

        The parts above are all subject to your own taste, and compatibility. If you want a larger hard drive order a larger hard drive. The items I selected for my list were to keep the cost down and stay around medium gaming performance. If you were looking for hardcore gaming equipment you would not be needing a tutorial, am I right? This is a general tutorial for the building process of a computer and does not go into detail on the specific equipment, that is what the instruction manuals that come with the components are for. This is here so as to guide you in the correct process and order. So you don't fudge anything up.

        Lets say you purchased everything as I supplied here on this list. I will explain my choices and also help along the way of putting everything together. First off, you are going to need some tools. Don't worry everything you need should be easy to get without spending extra money. You will need two philips head screwdrivers(one small and one average size), a flathead screwdriver, tweezers, small plastic zipties, a table, and some patience. Make sure you have your table clear and all items and equipment are on top, or at least all of the smaller items. Don't wear any wolly, or static producing clothing.


        First off let us gather the Chassis, processor/artic silver, and the motherboard. I chose this chassis because it has overall good reviews, I also have a friend that personally used this one, and it is cost effective seeing as it comes with a power supply. Open the chassis side plate, and open the instructions to find the proper set-up for the motherboard screws. This is going to be an ATX motherboard size so apply the chassis hardware as specified for the ATX set-up. Once that is done you can open the motherboard packaging. Remember it is a good idea when handling computer equipment to either ground yourself using grounding bands to discharge static. I usually just use the chassis to discharge anything by just keeping part of my body touching it. Not the optimal solution but more cost effective than buying and carrying around a $30 static mat/band. Anyway, you will want the chassis on its side. Remove the motherboard and processor from their packaging. On the prcessor there will be a triangle and on the processor socket on the mother board there will be another triangle. You will first lift the lever on the motherboard socket and PLACE the processor gently into the socket and close the lever back down. Once that is done take a small cloth and dip it in alcohol to clean the top of the processor and remove any pre administered paste from the heatsink that came with the processor. then take the artic silver #5 and squirt a small amount onto the processor, about the size of the tip of your pinky finger. Do not rub the paste all over the processor, it is best to apply a small amount to the middle of the processor as it will spread when the heatsink is applied. Now take the heatsink and apply it to the processor according to the instructions that came with the motherboard. You may now plug the heatsink fan to the motherboard. Take the back/IO plate that came with the motherboard and apply that to the back of the chassis. Now that is done you can take the motherboard with the newly applied heatsink and insert it into the chassis making sure to have all screw holes aligned and not having any part of the chassis scraping the bottom of the motherboard. Make sure to fasten the board with the connectors toward the rear of the chassis inside the holes on the back/IO plate otherwise you will have to remove it and insert it again. Fasten the motherboard to the chassis utilising all screw holes possible. Make sure to have it secure but not so tight that you damage anything. Inside the chassis should be a group of small wires leading to the front of the machine, these are for the on/off, reset, usb, and various lights. You can find the instructions on how to plug these wires into your motherboard properly in the motherboard manual. You may want to use tweezers if you have large hands. As a final step here take the wires from any of the chassis fans and plug those into the various fan plug on the motherboard.

          Good thing for you is that the hard work is done. All that is left is plugging in and installing. You can start by fastening the hard drive to one of the lower racks, and the CD/DVD drive to one of the larger upper racks. From there you can take a SATA cable(small red and flat) and plug it from the hard drive to the motherboard. Then take an IDE cable(wide grey and flat) and plug that from the CD/DVD drive to the motherboard. Connect the appropriate power connectors from the power supply to the hard drive and DVD drive. Also plug the large multicoloured 24 pin motherboard power connector from the power supply to the motherboard beside the ram slots, along with the small 4 pin power cable that plugs in on the motherboard near the processor. You can take out the ram and insert them into the 1st and 2nd positions on the motherboard(this will be labelled in the instructions). Remove the graphics card from the package and insert it into the first PCI-Express slot on the motherboard(the long green slot in the middle of the board)make sure to remove the adjoining back plate on the chassis, then fasten it to the chassis with the screw that was removed. At this point everything should be hooked up corrctly, as long as you followed my instructions, while also referring to the more detailed instructions that was included with your hardware. To test this just plug it in to the wall socket, the keyboard/mouse, and monitor. Also make sure the power switch on the back of the chassis is ON,  and press the power button on the front of the chassis. You should be getting a BIOS screen, and a no operating system found screen. Since all of the went well then you can power down and unplug the computer. At this point it would be a good idea to make sure all the wires in the computer are secure, and pulled away from all fans. You can use the plastic zipties for this. Clean eveything up and set-up the computer wherever it is going to be in your house.

         This part is where the patience comes in, installing the operating system. I chose windows 7 why, because that is what you need to be gaming. Since you can no longer buy a new copy of windows XP, windows 7 is our new choice. Remove the disc from its packaging, turn on the computer, and immediately insert the disc into the DVD tray. Seeing as there is no operating system installed, the disc should be booting up. If not just refer to your motherboard instructions on how to change the boot order in your BIOS to CD/DVD first. Once the windows 7 installer pops up you will want to do a clean install onto the hard drive, and let it format the whole drive to NTFS. Now you can wait as it periodically asks you for information. Once installed you should be on your way to great fun. I mean installing your software and updating the drivers for your graphics card. If you have any questions about this, please leave them in the comments I will make sure to answer any problems you may have. Just remember refer, refer, refer. Use your resources, if you have a computer then have it on so you can google any problem you have. Use the instruction manuals that came with your hardware. When building a computer, it is mainly about matching slot to slot and socket to socket. Anything else you can call customer support, look on forums, or ask me. Tech people love to solve problems, so don't be afraid to ask.

Bad Season Out In Time For X-MAS!

Just in time for x-mas and best of all it is 100% free. I suggest giving this a download if you are or are not a Tech N9ne fan. Whoo Kid comes through on this mixtape, which is Tech's first mixtape to date. The beats come out mixed and not seeming like beats Tech would usually be on, but absolutely destroys none the less. 13 Brand new tech N9ne tracks are featured here for free, add to that three free tracks Tech included from previous albums. Tech and Whoo Kid come through with maximum content with very little skits clogging the system. The filler that is present provides purpose and flavour rather than time taken. Overall I am feeling the mixtape as a whole. It does look like it will serve its purpose well. The purpose being to introduce east coast, and more mainstream listeners to Tech N9ne through new content with add old flavour. What is all boils down to is downloading and giving it a listen for yourself. Anyway you can pick up the album HERE, and I'll get back to listening to it myself for the third time! Merry Xmas.

     I have not been outside for two days, why you ask? Well because I didn't want too! Really I was locked up because it has been raining for some the whole time. Actually I have done a whole lot in that time, and I had a great idea since I had some time. I have been wanting to post on here for some time now, but have not done so. With this locked up time I felt I had to do so.
     The reasons why I haven't been here every week are many, but mostly due to google dropping ftp support. What that means is I use google to format my site then I send the files from google to my web host where my site is located. See I had no way to format everything the way I wanted and had not felt like re-doing the whole site so I went the lazy rout and did nothing. Now that I kicked myself in the ass I have found that what comes of this is a better blog for you and me. I still use google, but now they also host for me.
     Before I did all this, my laptop got a virus, lol. I know how did Tony get a virus, well I actually get them once in a while. I actually had trouble with this virus making the file association of .exe file go through the virus instead of windows. So I could not open any .exe file at all. Then my vista recovery would not work, so I was going to just re-install, and I said no. I thought now is a good time to use Ubuntu linux. Seeing as I don't play games on my laptop the switch is simple. I installed linux, but on a secondary partition so I could get all my files off. I couldn't leave it alone I had to go back and try to defeat the virus on my windows install, which I did by using some registry editing to make .exe file work properly. Then without haste I deleted my windows partition, and now I stand completely undefeated by viruses. It has been fun so far, everything in linux works the way I want. Only proble is sometimes its more work than it needs to be to get drivers or programs to install, but so far I have not crashed. KNOCK ON WOOD.
     Now that my computer and website are both working properly, and better than before I will move on to developing content. I do have a new cd in the works, ideas are running rampant, but nothing to solid at the moment. I have not recorded, but I have beats, and am going to producing beats so that I can officially have a recording that is 100% my intellectual property. I set up a clothing store on the site which I will be throwing all the cool ideas for t-shirts I have EVER had on there. I hope you guys like the stuff I will be putting up, right now its limited because I don't have any fully worked pictures to go up but will soon enough. As I get my money stacked back up I plan on getting a video capture card so that I can stream live gameplay over the internet. This will not be for a while because I still have to fix things on my car, which I will be posting pictures of my work. I also plan on signing up for some classes so I can plop more things to do on my lap, but don't worry I will post here still. This is just what I am planning on doing, not just what I have been up to.
     Working, learning, reading watching, and chasing girls is all I get to do at the moment. With the exclusion of a few skate sessions, and playing football.(WHEN IT ISN'T RAINING) I don't get to do much else its kinda boring here, but I am keeping my mind, eating, and exercise right. Feel free to send me a message on facebook, or myspace if you are wanting to talk.

P.S.
     Go to the writings section now and check out the new poem I wrote!

PEACE...