I have been playing the game since March last year (2011), just a few weeks after it came out. It is my first MMORPG to play and I actually quite enjoy it most of the time. My personal problem with the game is the lack of Rogue developers and willingness for Trion developers to listen at all it seems. Then there is the lack of PVP. But that all of this is a different story for an entirely different topic and also not a “QQ.”

I do wonder how many active subscribers Trion currently has though now for Rift.

I have played on a total of 4 shards, the longest being Faemist from March 2011 till November 2011. I then transferred to Freeholme (with Guild) because Faemist started to die in September/October. Then in December Freeholme died as well as the guild I was in, because of SWTOR which not a lot of people seem to like. I have it and I never play it, do not have the time to but also do not enjoy it too much as I did Rift.

I ended up transferring to Deepstrike this month, January, to a more active shard. I would have had to have transferred anyways because Freeholme is shutting down now, as in the list below. The 4th shard that I have played on only for a week and a day is Wolfsbane, the most active PVE shard (and overall shard).

Here is the list of shards shutting down, and that are turning into Trial Shards and where they are being recommended (not forced) to transfer to:

PVP Shards

• Sunrest (PVP-RP) is being suggested to transfer to Deepstrike.
• Freeholme is being suggested to transfer to Deepstrike.
• Dayblind is being suggested to transfer to Deepstrike.
• Faemist is being suggested to transfer to Briarcliff.

PVE Shards

• Belmont is being suggested to transfer to Millrush.
• Galena is being suggested to transfer to Millrush.
• Galena is being suggested to transfer to Millrush.
• Atrophinius is being suggested to transfer to Greenscale.
• Crucia is being suggested to transfer to Greenscale.
• Alsbeth is being suggested to transfer to Shatterbone.

PVE-RP Shards

• Estrael is being suggested to transfer to Faeblight.
• Shadefallen is being suggested to transfer to Faeblight.

A total of 12 shards are shutting down of the 35 that Rift has including the 8 Europe shards. These shards are being converted on January 18th, 2012. I personally think that Trion should have never had a total of 32 shards to begin with. I could definitely see they needed it when the game came out, as I remember watching a few people stream the game on streaming sites and they would be waiting in queue to join their shard.

Another sign that could show the game dying slowly is that they just put up a new deal this week:

For a limited time, get an extra month of RIFT game time when you upgrade to a multi-month subscription plan.

They really seem to be begging for subscribers to come back that they will even give you an extra month.

I preordered the Onza the minute it was made available for preorder back in January 2011. I had been waiting to play with it for over a year since it was announced. It was finally shipped to me just over 2 months ago. I loved it at first, but will not even bother to love it anymore. Read on as to why.

I was actually told to contact Min-Liang Tan on Twitter via email, the CEO of Razer, week ago about my issues with the Onza. I was actually going to email a lot of what I said below in an email to them, but decided not to. Why? Because I do not feel as if these issues have been fixed, not only does my brother’s controller and girlfriends have the same issues but people online around forums and other comments elsewhere have reported the same issues as mine or similar. Plus I would be without the controller for who knows how long aside from using the main Xbox 360 controller.

Now that that has been said, I will get to the main reasons why I am disappointed with the Razer Onza, Razer and just overall think the product is terrible to purchase.

• 1st issue (big issue/main problem): The left joystick will always stop you from running in games. To be more specific, games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, where when the left joystick is clicked, this allows you to run. It is always a damn problem, usually a hit or miss each time you use it, for me, it has frequent use. I have tried disconnecting and reconnecting the controller to regain control of the left joystick but that does not work. The only time it starts to work right for a short while it when I have shut down the Xbox 360 and turned it back on.
• 2nd issue (big issue/main problem): The right joystick (very rarely the left joystick) will sometimes physically get stuck in a position. The position it nearly always gets stuck in is towards the right and slightly downwards, think of it getting stuck around the 0 degree angle towards 320 degree. It actually gets stuck, it does not move back into position if I let go over the joystick.
  
  This does not happen on a constant basis but I can almost always get it to happen and it will normally happen about 6 times (guessing) over a course of around a 5 hour gaming session.




• What happens in-game with this above, 2nd, issue?
  I use the controller for all games, but its main purpose is for each Call of Duty title online/multiplayer, right now it is Black Ops. When the right joystick gets stuck, it causes me to spin in the game until I physically remove the joystick from being stuck at that position.
• 3rd issue (minor problem): The X button feels like it has begun to act like it has worn out when it is touched/pressed. It feels different when “touched/pressed” versus the other Y, B, A buttons that feel perfectly when pressed/touched. I hope this makes sense.
  
  It has not rendered the X button inoperable though, it still works just fine and the response time just does not feel the same anymore over the last 31 days of usage when pressed.
• 4th issue (minor problem): After the first week of using the controller, the sticker on the back containing the serial number among other information has started to peel off. I have tried to stop this process from happening but with no luck. I definitely try to avoid touching that area but I do have big hands and I cannot just constantly think about making sure I am not touching it and have to play the game. How I use the controller is how I hold the controller too, so I cannot just easily change how I hold it, it should never start to peal off within the first week anyways.

I would personally suggest to avoid purchasing the Onza controller. I also do not see them fixing the above issues anytime soon, and even if they did, I am sure people like myself and others who have had these problems are screwed anyways.

So with that said, what issues have you had with your Onza controller? Do you still use it? Please comment!

This map pack is exclusive to Xbox Live for the first match and will be out on March 30th, 2010. After the exclusive month is up, you will be able to grab them on PS3 or PC. This map pack on Xbox Live is 1200 MSP.

Now I am not saying to donate, or to not donate to specific places. This is your decision and yours alone.

I decided to write this post because of all the donations going on with Haiti right now. It is a sad thing what happened to that country, there is no denying that. But should we all really be donating? Will all the donations even go to the right people? I’m not talking about a small or good percentage either, I want to hear (which we all know is bullshit) that 100% donation goes to them. While this may be the case with some of them, we all know it isn’t for them all.

I guess some people need to feel in themselves that they helped someone. But what about all the people in our own country (United States) that need help? Look at all of these celebrities donating, I will bet you a good vest majority of them are going to write this off on their taxes and get their money back. So let them donate, why should you be donating when you can use the money elsewhere? Again, this is your decision and I am not telling you not to donate. I am just saying think realistically here. Look at cell phone companies donating or giving you free calls to Haiti, let them donate. They have the money, why can’t they fork up the money instead?

Then their is our government, let them help them rather than letting our own people take money out their pockets when we are in a recession already as it is. Now since I started writing this post, there has been a lot more money donated to Haiti. I do not have an exact figure but I do know it is over $2 billion. I mean Obama donated $250 million, then you have tonight show hosts like Larry King able to raise $8 million if I recall. I do not know what last night’s celebrity event pulled off but I’m sure that was $10 million+?

So alright, the entire world included, there is over $2 billion donated to Haiti. Is this enough? When is it enough? When it is finished? What happens when it happens again to them or somewhere else? So many questions, so little is known. Haiti actually had a second earthquake already too. Stuff like this will continue to happen. I am never seen so much news and talk about 1 single disaster in my lifetime. Yes, there was Katrina. But wow, I never saw as much news or talk about Katrina as I do Haiti. We are in a more tech age where texting has helped Haiti so much but then again, not much has really changed though since then too.

I could go on and on about this as I already have discussed with my friends. As I said already and will say again, I have nothing against those that actually want to donate and help, I just feel as if others with much more money to give is more useful to them. Not just that we are in a recession but for many other reasons and personal reason to yourself or whomever it may be too. Then also the millions of other people that need help and never get as much help as Haiti has already received today. I am not just saying for those that live in the United States either but other countries that need help just as much as Haiti but probably have never received this kind of treatment before. I do not think anyone else.

First read the article, linked above, first. Then proceed reading my comments related to this story below.

I do not see DVDs having any problem in sells or store rentals this year. While yes, Blockbuster said they will be closing stores but that is more than likely have to due with competition (Redbox, Netflix, video on-demand, etc) and their prices being expensive. I know many people that still won’t try Netflix, don’t care for it, use Redbox instead and so forth.

Now for compact digital cameras, yea fucking right should you not buy these this year. They are not going anywhere soon. These are much easier to carrier yet alone cheaper to buy than SLR digital cameras. Do you honestly think you are going to see teens or adults wanting to carry around a big camera versus a small compact camera?

To say that external hard drives should not be bought this year and to purchase online backup services is the dumbest thing I have heard. I am not dissing online backup services. I personally do not trust them. Especially when they can disappear at any time without you ever know or announcing they are closing down then having everyone rush to backup their data. Then there is the current economy, most of these places range anywhere from $4.95 and on a month. So you are paying more than $60 a year on these services when you would should not and save more. External hard drives are so cheap today too, even internals, you can pick up 1TB for around $90 to $119. That’s cheap.

This won’t be the year that newspaper subscriptions die even more either, well, at least buy a huge margin that they start shutting down. Nor should you, if you do, stop subscribing. I personally do not subscribe but I will occasionally grab a newspaper and read it. I know people who still do too and I doubt they will be getting rid of it this year or next.

Now everything else I would suggest to not buy though this year, if you choose too. Which includes home telephone service, new college textbooks, cds and gas-guzzling cars. Buying used college textbooks should not even be new to 2010, I know many who have or at least, should have, been doing this for years already.

Well I could say much more on each matter, but I will leave it at that for now. Feel free to comment below and add to this discussion or your opinion.

GeoCities was started in 1994 then later bought out by Yahoo in 1999. Earlier this year in April, Yahoo announced they would no longer be accepting new registrations and gave users more than enough time to save their content. As well as let users visitors know their site would be closing or moving. If you are interested in reading more about GeoCities closing check out a nice post about it over at LATimes.com or ComputerWorld.com.

The game is Rush Rush Rally Racing and you will be able to buy it from sites like Amazon and eBay for $22 or less. It just amazes me that some old consoles would still even get a game made for it almost 10 years later. I still miss the old days of some of these consoles like Nintendo, Sega and my original GameBoy. It is just near impossible for me to go back to old consoles, I have tried and failed.

Source: Bitmob

Back to it being the “biggest surprise” summer movie of the 2009, it made a total of $270,237,753 in the U.S. alone. Not bad what so ever I would say! The biggest loser of the year was Land of the Lost with $49,438,370. That, I would totally agree with. Will Ferrell needs to start rethinking the roles or movies he makes. The biggest was Transformers 2, now that one is an easy one :) while I have yet to see it, will soon with Jordan in the meantime it made $399,416,040. The new Harry Potter movie made the biggest worldwide though with $895,958,075.

Somehow Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs made it as the biggest international hit with $613,790,529. I am quite surprised by this. While I saw the movie and it was alright, it was not as good as Ice Age 1 or 2 was.

Source: Yahoo.com

John Rambo’s officially readying for a fifth mission. Nu Image/Millennium Films has greenlit the franchise’s fifth installment, with Sylvester Stallone starring and directing, repeating his duties from 2008′s “Rambo.”

The upcoming project’s storyline revolves around Rambo fighting his way through human traffickers and drug lords to rescue a young girl abducted near the U.S.-Mexico border. Production will start in the spring.

Update: IMDB has the listing up as Rambo V: The Savage Hunt set to come out in 2011, click the link for more information as it comes out over time.

Source: Variety