Hey everyone,
tl;dr version (questions)at bottom....For some strange reason, I felt compelled to get back in to SupCom again, after a break of more than 2 years. I went and played Age Of Conan from release until the end of last year, and I have also been playing Eve Online for about 18 months. Conan got boring after a while, you could level to 80 very quickly, and once you had done all the raids and got the epic items, there was pretty much nothing left to do as there was very little in terms of returnable end game content.
Eve Online is a fantastic game, incredibly deep and complex....but it sucks the life out of you, it is so involving and immersive that it becomes like a second life. Fleet battles are really fun, and challenging - which is good, but they are rare compared to the amount of time you spend building up your character, fitting your ships, and earning your living.
What's more, I have come to the belief that playing MMO's makes you stupid. The mindless tedium of grinding levels, skills, quests and missions to earn money, items, and experience etc, really does shut down an important part of your brain. I remember there was a post somewhere on here where a SupCom player did intelligence tests on himself regularly, and he found that over time, with playing SupCom more, his IQ test scores were improving, because it required him to use certain parts of his mind, like memory, logic, critical thinking, focus, and that sort of thing.
Well, I tend to agree. When I was playing SupCom, I had an alt that I only played on the 1v1 ranked ladder, and I found that over time, my mind became pretty clear and sharp, but since stopping and playing for 2.5 years of MMO's, I feel that I have lost so much...my memory has gone to shat, I've become lazy, I find it difficult to sit and think seriously over problems...I look at IQ tests and think "I really couldn't be frakked to do this....". I've found it difficult to choose certain technical words when talking to people or writing...seriously, my mind has become dull and numb, and I really think it was due to spending lots of hours per week in an MMO.
I also used to play Chinese Chess (Xiang Qi). Awesome board game. Well, I recently got an iPhone, and found a Chinese Chess app, and have been happily getting back into that, because it was easily available and work gets a bit boring at times. What its done, though, has made me realise the importance of keeping your mind active with memory and problem solving challenges, and this has made me think about SupCom again.
So I'm getting back into it. SC:FA...not SC2. From what I have read so far, SC2 is not as good as SC:FA.
But geez...I got a lot of work ahead of me, reinstalling everything. In fact its daunting...because first time playing, one had no idea of the size of the job, installing custom maps, mods, AI's, updating etc. Now though, I know whats in store for me, and jeebus, I am finding it hard to know where to start get going again, even with the install.
So let me get this right...and can someone help me where I am going wrong...
I've installed SupCom vanilla, up to version 3280 and GPGNet up to version 1.5.225.1
Thats all right?
But with FA, I can install in a separate folder...but do I need a different GPGNet client?
If I install FA, will it write a new GPGNet over the old one and stuff things up?
So, I have to make 2 FA installs, one for 3599 online multi, and another for the community patch 3603 which is offline only?
Can I play LAN games with connected PC's with 3603?
I'd like the option to play both SupCom vailla and SC:FA, both online and offline...
cheers,
Astroman
ps: and DeadMG...18K posts...wow, just wow.
pps: 2 of the maps in the FA Tourney Map pack are Eve Online ships...Sleipnir and Loki
