August 2015 – n00bgamer

August 20, 2015

Giant Robot Battle Challenge: Megabot Mk. II vs Suidobashi’s Kuratas

It looks like we’re finally going to see some real life mecha (aka Giant Robots). We’ve been waiting for this ever since we found Suidobashi Heavy Industries ‘s Kuratas. To give a bit of a backstory, I first went nuts when I first found out that they were selling this mech in Japan for a whooping $1.4M USD (video). Don’t believe me? Head over to their website for the quotation. You can even get it in Hello Kitty Pink. You read that right. A giant robot in Hello Kitty Pink.

And then a Kickstarter campaign happened. A company called Megabots Inc. went in search of funding in order to build an all american robot. they had big plans for it but, the kickstarter, like so many others did not reach its goal. Luckily the CEO of Autodesk stepped in to sponsor the project to make sure the project happened. And with the newfound corporate support, a miracle happened. America has finally unleashed its beast. And not just so, they even issued a challenge to Suideobashi Industries for a Robot Throwdown.

Now to challenge a country who’s culture is built around samurai and giant robots, can only be suicide. I’d really pitty the poor pilot sitting in that hunk of metal while the Kuratas runs circles around it. There was this particularly cringe worthy moment in Suidobashi’s accepting that challenge when they called out for melee combat.

So its on folks. We’re about to see a full scale 10-15 foot behemoths go at it in all its glory of whirring actuators and hydraulic fluids going all over the place. Hopefully they’ve given some pretty serious thought about pilot safety.

Money’s on the Japanese. They seem to be way ahead of technology and to win this one, it’ll all boil down to the robot’s ability to neutralize the enemy’s mobility as well as keep the piloting of such battle bots more intuitive. Seems that the Kuratas already has that last part figured out while the Megabot Mk II still needs a more intuitive HUD and interface for movement.

This time, Megabots Inc is asking America to throw its support into this great event. Even those from abroad are now starting to pledge into the new kickstarter Megabots Inc created because of its newly found allies in the rebuilding of their Mk II. Check out their latest kickstarter video below and gasp in all our nerdy glory to the who’s who in this next video. (Cue in patriotic music…)

This n00b reporter will be following this story as it develops so check back on this blog post for more updates!

Or for added fun, check out their webpages to throw in your support!

Megabots Inc – As usual they’re asking for your support on Kickstarter, but i think they’ll make it this time.

Suidobashi Heavy Industries – You can customize a Kuratas on their buy now widget.

I will not be surprised if a Korean telenovela comes out with all this as its theme.

August 7, 2015

World of Warcraft: Legion – a new expansion to a decade old MMO

So the game’s been over a decade old and I still can’t stop myself from following up on the latest Blizzard news. I was fiddling around on youtube for teasers and low and behold, I came across the Gamescom 2015 unveiling of World of Warcraft’s latest expansion; Legion. Here we’ll be experiencing the formation of the Burning Legion through the new Draenor timeline. Of course Gul’dan is still the biggest demonic culprit here so, let’s check out some of those details at the Gamescom 2015 unveiling.

And for an old game, with lore that gets confusing as the Wheel of Time series, this new expansion seems to be either revisiting the Burning Crusade albeit following the timeline of Warlords of Draenor. But I digress, any negative commentaries i might have about lore or gameplay will be moot as despite it seeming like older content revisits being the sixth expansion to the game, there are a lot of things to motivate this n00b to reactivate his account and take that Pandaren warrior back into the fray.

Places to explore

I wonder if they'd feature landscaping like this on HGTV — I wonder if they’d feature landscaping like this on HGTV

Here we’ll be exploring the lost dwelling places of the ancients. The new map called The Broken Isles are supposedly over 4000 years old set into their lore, with this location being the start of where the Druids were formed, where Sargeras was imprisoned, and a place where only the great Tauren can roam. We’ll be digging more into this but for an old game, it’s looking pretty still compared to the next gen MMO’s.

Grind up to level 110

So we’re getting another 10 levels to increase before we see any significant raid content. And there’s a few premonitions of reputation grinding that’ll be going on yet again in this expansion. But speaking of which, there will be yet another free character boost to level 100 upon release of the expansion (similar to the level 90 boost when WoD came out).

Artifact Weapons

The new Warcraft skimboard! Only to be used in Southshore... — The new Warcraft skimboard! Only to be used in Southshore…

Now you’ll be able to use such weapons as Ashbringer or Doomhammer. Much epic questing is also involved to be able to pull this off. But think of the transmogs, combining these pieces to older drops from the Black Temple would be awesome. (I can already see my wife shaking her head as I fight the urge to reactivate the account right now!)

New Heroic Class – Demon Hunters

So this is how it feels to be Illidan... — So this is how it feels to be Illidan…

No they’re not similar to the hunters of Diablo 3. These guys are more of an agility based class (judging from how Illidan was decked out), but they do boast three specific specializations which should give us a clue as to how this class will work. Namely; Spectral Sight, Metamorphosis, and Unrivaled Mobility.

Don’t take my every word for it though, head over to the official preview site of World of Warcraft: Legion.

See you in-game toonheads!

August 2, 2015

Upgrade to Windows 10 and do a Clean Installation

So its been just about 4 days since the release of Windows 10 and we’re already seeing about 14 Million active users on the news. If you’re finding this blog post, you’re probably looking for ways to do a clean install or upgrade to Windows 10 on your machine. Before we get to those steps here’s a few important points we need to get out of the way;

The upgrade to Windows 10 is not an amnesty program for those with pirated versions of Windows 7 or 8.1. If you use a non-genuine version and you do the upgrade, you’ll still see the same non-genuine notification on your system.
The process is a bit counter intuitive. It requires you to first upgrade (non-clean installation) your current version of windows to windows 10. This is to properly overwrite your product key on your BIOS (first time i heard of it but its now a feature on motherboards to avoid piracy), then re-do a download prior to a clean installation onto a usb media device so on and so forth.
If you bought a computer with windows 8, you probably can’t see the product key. Those are now apparently embedded into the BIOS to avoid being compromised. You can view it on programs like Nirsoft.
Just make sure you copy your product key in case you need to revert back to Windows 8 (don’t touch that rescue drive either, that’s still a legit installer for windows).

Once you are backed up, let’s get into upgrading and installing windows 10 step by step;

Make sure you have the “get windows 10” app running and make sure you’ve reserved a copy of your windows 10.
Create a Microsoft Live account using your email (like the one you use for the Xbox). If you have an xbox account, just use that one.
Once that’s done and it says you’re lined up for the upgrade, head to this link at the Microsoft main site and download the “Media Creation Tool”. Also make sure you have the appropriate version if its x32 or x64.
Run the media creation software tool and select “Upgrade this PC now”. Then follow the prompts to get a non-clean version of windows 10 on your existing drive. Don’t forget to make sure to activate the copy of windows 10 to make sure its activated and your product key is set on the Microsoft servers under your identity.
Now that you have a non-clean version of Windows 10 running, and you have your new Windows 10 product <a href="http://n00bgamer software for tracking projects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Windows-10-Media-Creation-Tool.jpg”>key set into your BIOS (you can view it using Nirsoft), you’ll have to go back and re-download the media creation tool (yes i know this is tedious but each download is unique). Also make sure you copy down the EXACT VERSION that Windows 10 installed as you’ll need to select that version on the re-download of the installer to a USB drive.
Run the re-downloaded Media Creation tool and this time select “Create Installation Media for another PC” and then make sure to point it to a USB drive that’s got more than 3Gb of available space.
Once the download is finished and installed on a bootable USB drive you just created, reboot the computer and this time use the BIOS option to boot from the USB drive you created.
Follow the setup prompts and just skip the option to enter a product key. (Your hardware and BIOS is already saved and activated on microsoft’s servers, you just need to re-activate it and you’ll be ok). If it doesn’t activate on the new installation just force the activation to run by using the cmd command slmgr.vbs /ato.

Enjoy Windows 10 guys!

Also send us some screenshots of your brand new Blue Screens of Death!

8/3/2015 Update: The downloadable upgrade now gives you the option to “keep nothing” option which is almost similar to a clean install. The above listed process still applies for those that want to delete partitions to reconfigure their drive.

8/7/2015 Update: All systems working perfectly. No conflicts detected and these new Xbox games features on pc rock.