Powerkeeper

A simple rundown. The game is currently free to play with microtransactions available for packs of cards and entry to the arena. The pack price varies depending on how many you buy at once and arena entries are $1.99 US per entry. This is not set to change anytime soon. You can just as easily earn gold to buy packs or enter arena as well. Packs cost 100 gold and arena entries 150. You can earn gold via daily quests and winning games in play or arena mode. Dailies reward 40 or 60 gold depending on the objective. There is even a single daily that rewards 100 gold. The quests range from winning 2 or 5 games with a choice of two classes to playing a certain number of minions with either above or below 5 mana cost. There are others that you can encounter as well. Every 3 games won also earns you 10 gold with a daily max of 100 from wins. Starting out, I would recommend getting a feel for each class by playing practice mode against the lower difficulty opponents. This will help you level to 10 with each class and unlock the basic cards. There are various one time rewards of gold/packs for doing things like levelling all classes to 10 or playing a game in play mode. A quick search on google will provide some basic decklists for any class. These will serve you just fine to get the hang of playing against the expert AI or human opponents. I would check out Hearthpwn.com for a deckbuilder/deck lists. TrumpSC(HS streamer) has some really good basic decks on there as well. As you collect cards, you can disenchant extras or cards that aren't very useful. You can then craft the cards you would like, but this is a very inefficient way of obtaining cards because you only get half the value in dust that you spend the craft the same rarity. As for how I play, I've been playing a while so I have a decent sized collection from opening packs. I usually play arena and win enough of my matches to come out at least even. If you win 3-5 games before losing 3, you will typically a minimum of 50 gold and since you are guaranteed a pack you get back the difference of the entry fee versus buying a single pack. Don't worry about being a noob, we were all there once. Get used to how the game plays, play against the computer until you are winning consistenly. From there, move onto casual since there is no penalty for losing. If you're really interested in learning, watch some of the twitch streamers. I highly recommend TrumpSC, he plays pretty much daily and is a very good player. Watch how he plays, listen to his explanations of why he does what he does. I know, long winded reply but I hope something in there was helpful. GLHF

Removed

So this was something brought up during the afterparty. There was an unofficial LTT Minecraft server but it has since been taken down. I don't have a personal machine to dedicate but I'd be willing to rent a server depending on interest. So just putting this up to see who might be interested in a Minecraft server to play on, since most hosts base pricing on concurrent users. I am looking at renting some space using some of the bitcoin I mine and could cover around 12-20 people by myself. Any more than that and we'd have to take bitcoin donations for a larger/dedicated box. Please let me know if you would play if I got a server. Edit: Well, nevermind. Apparently the existing server is in the shop and will be coming back.

I was just coming to post this but you beat me to it. Just finished voting now waiting on my code. Picked Civ V after watching Slick play it so much. Looks like a lot of fun.

I am sad to admit I wasted good money on it when it launched but my worst game was Age of Conan. I'm amazed that people still play it.

Sorry to hear that your boss is causing you grief, but unfortunately you're kind of in a "deal with it or leave" situation. Nothing you've described is really grounds for any kind of retaliatory action on the company's part. I know you said you need money for a computer and I feel for you, but you may have to decide if the job is worth putting up with his crap. As said above, he may have other issues in his life that you don't know about. Granted, he shouldn't be taking his problems out on you but the world is full of unfairness. Remember, just because someone has a bad day/week/etc and vents their frustration inappropriately doesn't make them a bad person. Whether that's the case or not, don't let his negativity drag you down. Sometimes you have to take the high road in life even if it's occasionally a lonely journey. Hope everything works out for you however you decide to handle it. Just as a personal aside though, I honestly feel the term "bully" and "bullying" are being entirely overused. When I was growing up that was a term used to describe the socially awkward kid who developed before everyone else. Nowadays it seems to encompass any kind of negative behavior by anyone of any age.

Sorry, I stopped reading/caring when I saw the letters "EA". Optimized or not, they aren't getting a cent of my money. Full disclosure: My system is sporting dual 7950s so I have nothing against AMD, I just refuse to buy anything with the taint of EA on it.

With the creation of the Starter Edition of WoW, guest passes are effectively unnecessary. The same "Up to level 20" limit is in effect on the Starter edition. Thanks for sharing though. Reference: http://www.wowwiki.com/Guest_Pass_Key

I really enjoy watching SSoH. He has a nice large backlog of videos to enjoy and plays most genres. I particularly enjoyed his GTA playthroughs, since he will often do things that lead to hilarious consequences. He is not the most thorough player when it comes to sidequests but he is careful to not talk over cutscenes and he always plays with subtitles on. On the rare occasions where something requires a long redo of a misson, he will cut that part from the recording. The times that he leaves the mistakes in just add to the humor in my opinion. I'm sure he's not everyone's cup of tea but I hope I pointed you in the right direction.

Great case and great giveaway. I would love to build a new system in that beast, but good luck to all on winning.

A new phone would be great since my current phone is on it's last legs. I'm too stubborn to buy one while it still works. Good luck to everyone. My tweet about the giveaway. https://twitter.com/powerkeeper/status/340298551185793024

Twitter handle is http://twitter.com/powerkeeper I would love to have a new cpu, but good luck to everyone.

Oh come on, don't taint Slick's awesomeness with those foul letters.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but after the debacle that was the launch and the ensuing lies/PR crapstorm that came after, what exactly did you expect? The 2.0 patch they released just recently barely fixed a few minor bugs but introduced several major ones. Sadly, EA could really care less as they made their money on pre-order and initial sales before everyone wised up. Even returns/chargebacks haven't phased them in any way. It still amounts to a snake oil salesman emptying his wagon and hightailing it out of town before the townsfolk figure out he was full of it. I whole-heartedly agree with Linus in regards to pre-orders. Companies have begun to promise the moon in exchange for pre-paying for their game, then making up excuses when they fail to deliver. No company illustrates this point more clearly than EA. They are a group of money grubbing corporate suits who's only goal is to squeeze every cent out of their customers while systematically killing any franchise/IP they can get their hands on. It's the business equivalent of a bunch of vultures. Eat all you can and befoul the rest. Don't get me wrong, I understand that a company must make money. If they don't, then they die. However, if you purchased a SSD from a reputable manufacturer but found that it was half the advertised size, would you just shrug and say "They have to make money"? No, you'd be ticked off and rightfully so. So why would that excuse fly for a piece of software that only gives you half of the experience you were promised. That's not them making money, that's them cheaping out to ship a product they know isn't finished just so they can cash in. Bottom line here, stop rewarding bad companies with your money. Stop pre-ordering, stop buying DLC (most of which should be part of the core game anyway), and stop rewarding bad behavior. What incentive do developers/publishers have to earn your money when they already have it? Last thing I'll say, stop buying anything from EA. They are a disease that must be eradicated and the only solution is to starve them out.

Replaying Bioshock Infinite again...blasted achievements. Playing a little Assassin's Creed 3 now and then. Still haven't even cracked open Farcry 3 or Borderlands 2 yet