Ed Hardy 50% storewide sale !

Hive — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:03:04 +0800

Hey all,

Saw on facebook that Ed hardy gonna have 50% STOREWIDE sale this friday 5/11/11 till sunday 7/11/10 !!

I'm gonna get me that hoodie I alwiz wanted. At last la !

GUIDE TO BFBC2 - HOW NOT TO BE A NOOB !

Hive — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:40:10 +0800

MAKE THE GAME RUN SMOOTH.
If you can. 'cause while you're busy marvelling at the splendour of your 16xAA masterpiece, some mother hubbard is going to explode your beautifully-rendered brain matter all over the nearest wall. Stuttery lag gets you killed. Tone it down.

TURN YOUR SENSITIVITY UP.
Not the express-your-feelings-through-poetry kind. The turn-around-and-unleash-hell kind. Even just 10-20% or so up from the default setting. It might feel weird at first, but you'll get used to it, and in a close firefight it'll let you turn a faster circle than the other guy who didn't turn his up. Also, from personal experience, it occasionally allows you to leap over a man's head, turn around and stab him in the spine before he can do the 180, thus ensuring he can never turn around again for the rest of his short and horribly-painful life.

EMBIGGEN YOUR FOV.
Yeah, that's right, embiggen. FOV (Field Of View) is basically the game's measurement of how tunnel-visioned you are. You know how funny it is when you run almost straight at a sniper and he can't see you at all because he's scoped-in, and then you use your repair tool to bore holes into his temples? Using the default FOV makes everyone a bit like that. By default, go to My Documents\BFBC2 and find settings.ini, then right down the bottom, "Fov=55". That 55 is the angle of vision you have. Changing that number to somewhere between 65-75 seems to be the sweet spot for most people.

USE YOUR Q KEY / SELECT BUTTON.
This is your "Communicate" button, which is your context-sensitive everything button. Over an enemy, it puts those little orange icons above their heads so your whole team can see them. Over an objective, tells your squad to attack/defend it. Over a vehicle with empty seats, calls for a pickup. Over a medic when you're hurt, calls for help. Over an assault when low on ammo, calls for bullets (the good kind). Absolutely and utterly invaluable. Use it constantly. Even when you're not playing the game. Use it on your dad. He'll shake your hand.

USE YOUR MINIMAP.
The minimap tells you everything, when combined with everyone using their Communicate buttons. Where the nearest medic is (that cross icon). Where the ammo crates are (that bullet icon). Where the enemy are (all those orange things). If your whole team is staring up the road towards the enemy base and you see orange arrows on the minimap pointing behind you, you're being flanked and some brave soul probably just died trying to stop it and called out their position with his dying breath. Don't let him die in vain: bring the thunder.

TALK TO EACHOTHER.
The spotting system isn't flawless. Sometimes you see an enemy but can't light them up for the team to see. For these situations, microphones are awesome. And for consoles, pretty much your only option. That said, the in-game voice chat is iffy at best, so if you play with regulars, get a ventrilo server or something and you're set. The ability to yell "they're heading to B!" can save the game. Short of that, if I'm not currently busy taking a bullet in the lung defending the point in question, I like to take two seconds to type out "enemy at B" or "behind A" and get the cavalry rushing in. Not that I couldn't take them all myself. Bare-handed. I just want people to come witness it.

LISTEN.
The sound in this game is bad *. Especially if you've got it set to "War Tapes" mode under sound options and have the volume cranked. You can also get a lot of information about what's going on around you by paying attention to sounds, particularly the voices. Most of the things your own team says will just be audio cues for information already available on your minimap -- someone needs a medic, infantry spotted, etc. But, listen to the enemy voices. Kill a lone enemy, but hear "we got a man down over here!" from somewhere nearby? You know there's at least one more around. Building you suspect an enemy might be in? Throw a grenade. If you hear "granada!", either the building is full of Russians, or someone inside is singing that Allan Sherman song. In either case you should storm inside and brutally murder absolutely everyone you find.

SQUAD = EXPERIENCE.
Even if you're the least team-focused person in the world, consider this: you get bonus points for everything you do in the game that involves your squad. Everything. Resupplying your squad while standing near a point your squad is defending while assisting a kill on an enemy is worth a ridiculous number of points (20 per-tick per-person for a squad resupply, 20 per-tick for squad defend order, 20 for squad kill assist), as opposed to the 50 you get for running off on your own and killing one guy. Your squad mates are walking, talking experience-point vending machines. Hang out together.

IF YOU'RE THE LAST SQUAD MEMBER ALIVE, STAY ALIVE.
As a squad member, you are a mobile spawn point for 3 other people. The trip to the defenders' base is a long and treacherous affair riddled with sniper fire and stationary weapon emplacements, and the less time you have to spend charging through that hell, the more time you get to spend turning the defenders into works of modern art. It takes 10 seconds for reinforcements to spawn right to your side. Hide for those 10 seconds. Find somewhere behind cover and don't move, don't shoot unless you're directly threatened, don't run out and try and plant the charge on that MCOM Station because you think the coast is clear.

PICK UP OTHER KITS.
You've just survived a fight, but you're low on ammo and health and your team are off doing whatever it is they do while you're busy being awesome. If there's a dead assault or medic nearby, pick up their stuff and drop their ammo/medkit. Then pick your own stuff back up and wait 3 seconds. You're now fully loaded, fully healed, and you'll also get points for resupplying anyone who wanders back this way in the near future, too. For extra man-points, kill an enemy medic and use his own defibrilators to revive a friendly he just killed, or stab an engineer repairing a tank and then use his own rocket launcher to blow the thing up. Then walk away from the resulting explosion in slow-motion.

USE YOUR KNIFE.
Melee combat. One of the manliest courses of action possible in BC2. As a general rule, if you get the jump on a single enemy soldier at close range, you want to knife him. A press of the middle mouse button (or Y, or Triangle) from a range of up to about 10ft will cause you to spring forward and plant the knife in some vital organ or another, instantly killing him and doing so without necessarily alerting all his friends. This goes doubly for getting the jump on a scoped sniper, or someone manning an emplacement, since they're generally immobile and oh-so-easy to stab. It's pretty buggy, however, and you'll sometimes stab a guy multiple times before it registers, during which time he might try to stab you back. These circle-fights are one of those times where improved sensitivity comes in very handy.

KILL MEDICS FIRST. - Just like in TF2
There's nothing worse than going to all the effort of running in and tearing open three men like a human can-opener, only to watch in deathcam as their medic runs up and revives them all. If you get the opportunity, try and kill medics first to stop them effectively negating the impact of any killing you've just done, especially if you're on defense. You can usually spot them by their big, tripod-fitted machinegun, and more readily visible, their hat. White hat for American medics, red beret for Russian. Snipers, I'm looking at you.

HELP DEFEND THE OBJECTIVES.
If you're on defense, and the charge gets armed, get there and disarm it. Unless you're involved in a direct fire fight, just do it. Don't be blind about it though -- keep your eyes open, because somebody planted that charge and is almost certainly perched to shoot anyone trying to touch it. If you're nearby and it only just got armed, do a lap of the building. If you get there and there's already 2 or 3 people disarming it, don't get on the crate: just cover them from a small distance away. 2-3 people is generally enough meat to survive being blown away by bullets before it disarms, but you'll just be adding to the cleanup job if someone drops one well-placed explosive on you all.

HELP ATTACK THE OBJECTIVES.
A good percentage of the enemy team is going to be rushing for that little flashing box the second the charge gets armed, leaving the safety of their cover and probably not looking in your direction. If ever there was a time to grow big manly balls and run headlong into the enemy lines, this is it. The defenders have no alternative but to run up and get touchy-feely with the station: it's the perfect ambush. Find a spot with line-of-sight to the box and blow away everyone who comes near. Explosives work best. Smoke grenades and motion sensors work wonders if you want to stay close. And to disarm it, they pretty much have to stand still for a few seconds, in a place you know they're going to be -- snipers, what more could you ask for?

SHORT, CONTROLLED BURSTS.
Just like in Aliens. That movie was awesome. If you haven't watched it, get your The Notebook-watching rosepetal-scented eyeballs the hell off my sentence, princess, and go iron your squad mate's shirt or something. Anyway. Bullets spread apart further from where you're pointing the longer you hold down the trigger. Assuming your sights are actually over the enemy, this is a bad thing. To counteract it, and actually kill people, fire a few rounds, release the trigger, then fire again. Repeat. That quarter-second breather you give your weapon between bursts will significantly increase your enemies' desire to fall down and suck dirt. Oh, and unless you're using a shotgun, or have one of the accuracy upgrades, always use your iron sights to aim before you fire. Even at close range; trust me.

IF YOU HEAR BEEPING, THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.
Beep. Beep beep. If you've never played Recon, or played Recon but never actually thrown your motion sensor before (which is entirely possible from what I've seen), this sound might be unfamiliar to you. It's the sound of a magical device those men in the swamp-thing costumes throw out which lets them know exactly where you are, what you're doing and which way you're facing, for a reasonable length of time. It beeps when there's enemy movement nearby. If you use your minimap (see how this all ties together?), a friendly motion sensor will show a white pulsing circle, and will show up any enemies within it as orange arrows. If you hear the beep but don't see the circle, that beeping is you, because it means an enemy has thrown a motion sensor at your feet and his entire team are coming to murder you and everything you've ever loved. Find a new hiding spot, and get ready for a fight.

Guide on VEHICLE SPECIALIZATION - By Azarimy

This guide seeks to clarify what each specialization actually does and how to maximize the use of it. So first of all, here are the general rules:

i. Vehicles Specs that modifies the weapon only benefits if the specs owner is in a gunner's seat. Meaning if you're on the MG seat, your Hardened Warhead spec won't make the tank's cannon deal more damage.

ii. Same Vehicle Specs don't stack. Two guys with Armor wont double the effect. It's redundant.

iii. Only non-weapon specs can be shared with the entire vehicle and its passengers (Armor and Sensors).

Rules aside, here are the individual Vehicle Specs:

A. Vehicle Sensors

Pings the proximity of the vehicle (about 5m radius) and will light up any moving enemies, hostile vehicles, land mines and C4s. You don't really need this if you have hawk-like awareness, but your teammates can benefit a lot from this. It's best used with UAVs, transport choppers (Blackhawk and Hind) because it will still ping the enemy even if you're hovering 30m above them. Also works with ATVs and Hummvees for quick pings while driving around the enemy base. Does not benefit stationary weapon emplacements.

B. Improved Armor

Adds 25% to vehicle's health. Good when you're rushing into a hot zone. Especially useful in slow flying vehicles like Blackhawk and Hinds. If you're in a light tank, one of the side gunners should have this as it will benefit the entire tank.

C. Hardened Warhead

Increases damage by 25%. Also adds splash damage, although it's not clear by how much. Will effectively cancel out Improved Armor spec used by an enemy vehicle. Especially good for heavy tank's cannon if you expect to go up against lots of enemy vehicles. Won't be of any use if you're the pilot of a Blackhawk or Hind. Benefits anti-vehicle stationary weapons like TOWs and AA guns.

D. Quick Reload

Reduces reload time by 25%. This can make a difference for slow firing vehicles like heavy tank's cannon and UAV's hellfire or cluster firing weapons like attack chopper's weapons, light tank's 30mm and patrol boat's grenade launchers. Especially useful with stationary weapon emplacements such as TOWs and AA guns. Practically useless for fast firing weapons like Blackhawk's miniguns or heavy MGs.

E. High-Power Optics

Enables you to zoom in with the main weapon. You can effectively "snipe" enemies with the tank cannons or even the attack choppers. Especially useful with the UAV if you're playing hide and seek with a tank. Does not benefit stationary emplacements.

F. Smoke

Launches smoke canisters around the vehicle. This hides your vehicle from the enemy and more importantly removes spotting for the vehicle and the friendly infantries inside or behind the smoke. The most important thing about smoke is it removes tracer darts entirely. Especially useful for chopper pilots in case they get traced. It only takes 1 shot from the weakest RPG to take down an unarmored chopper! Doesn't work on small vehicles like Humvees, ATVs, jetskis or patrolboats. With the UAV, it will shoot 3 canisters of smoke on where you aim which will burst when it hits something. This can help your team mates on the ground and yes, it can kill a wounded enemy!

G. Alternate Fire

Possibly the most popular spec. Gives you alternate fire ability on the main weapons. Each vehicle benefits differently with this, and not all secondary weapons gets to use this.

i. Heavy Tanks - coax MG, a quick firing machine gun which is exceptional against infantries.
ii. Light Tanks - TOW, a wire-guided rocket that is exceptional against other vehicles. Can be guided just like stationary TOWs.
iii. AA Tanks - coax MG.
iv. UAV - coax MG.
v. Attack Chopper pilot - Hellfire missile, very effective against vehicles, but can't be guided. However, it will track a traced vehicle to some degree. So keep an eye out for traced vehicles. If not, it will just dumbfire and falls to the ground. You can still kill by dumbfire, but probability of hit is very low.
vi. Attack Chopper gunner - tracer darts, useful for tracing enemy vehicles. Exceptionally useful if you have a pilot with alternate fire equipped.

New Album from Slash !

Hive — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:23:24 +0800

Mistress Carrie of the Worcester/Boston, Massachusetts radio station WAAF has posted the following message on her official blog:

"One of the benefits of being the Music Director of WAAF is hearing new music Way before anyone else!

"Today I got a chance to hear some of the new Slash [Velvet Revolver/ex-Guns N' Roses] album that will be released in March of 2010. We should have the new single (which is going to feature Ozzy [Osbourne] on lead vocals) in January!

"This song was Awesome! And the lyrics are going to piss off Axl and Black Sabbath!

"I heard Chris Cornell, Kid Rock, M. Shadows, and even Fergie lending their voices to Slash. They were all great! Also featured on the lineup… Lemmy, Iggy, Alice Cooper, Flea, Duff, Myles Kennedy and, you guessed, Dave Grohl!

"According to my 'source,' Slash wrote the 'blueprint' for the songs with someone specific in mind. Then he asked that person to get involved and help write and record the track!

"Every song has a bit of Slash and the other musicians in it… Very Cool!

"This album is going to be Huge!"

Slash has just released a two-track CD single in Japan containing the song "Sahara" (featuring singer Koshi Inaba of the Japanese hard rock duo B'Z) and a version of the GN'R classic "Paradise City" (featuring Cypress Hill and Fergie [a.k.a. Stacy Ann Ferguson] of the Black Eyed Peas).

Slash recently told MusicRadar.com that he got almost every special guest he wanted to appear on his upcoming solo album, except for one: White Stripes singer/guitarist and Dead Weather drummer Jack White. Slash revealed, "I wanted to get Jack White to sing on something, but he didn't want to sing. He said I'll play drums, I'll play guitar, but I don't wanna sing. He was one guy that I wanted to work with. Pretty much everyone else that I went after I managed to get."

"Slash" will see Roadrunner Records enter into a unique and innovative association with a UK media partner — the special-interest media group Future. In a brand new concept in record distribution the standard album release will be preceded by a "fan pack," in which the Roadrunner Records album will be bundled together with a highly collectable special issue of Future Publishing's Classic Rock magazine dedicated to Slash's career. This will be the first format of the album available anywhere in the world.

Slash tracked most of the CD with former Nine Inch Nails drummer Josh Freese and ex-Jane's Addiction bassist Chris Chaney.

"Sahara" (featuring singer Koshi Inaba of the Japanese hard rock duo B'Z):

Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Hive

Ed Hardy 50% storewide sale !

GUIDE TO BFBC2 - HOW NOT TO BE A NOOB !

New Album from Slash !