Category Archives: Rambling

Podcast Update!

It’s been a while since I last talked about which gaming podcasts I listen to and since the list has changed a bit I figured a quick update was due.

Rebel FM – Still one of my favorites. The show’s format is largely the same as the last time I mentioned it with Anthony Gallegos and Arthur Gies typically being joined by Tyler Barber and Matt Chandronait. They discuss what they’ve been playing, sometimes getting into a topical discussion, and then read and answer letters from listeners. Unfortunately they haven’t been doing very many relationship letters or anything else all too controversial recently, but it is still an enjoyable listen. Sadly they killed off their Rebel FM Game Club episodes quite a while ago.

The Comedy Button – After my last posting The Gamespy Debriefings changed quite a bit, first with the introduction of “The Brians”, Brian Miggels and Brian Altano, two comedy writers who drastically changed the focus of the show to be much less on-topic and much more humorous, then by the introduction of the hilarious Scott Bromley which pushed those elements into overdrive. Over time The Debriefings really became the Brian Altano and Scott Bromley show, with Anthony mostly serving as a kind of moderator, while Ryan Scott was mostly there as fodder for Brian and Scott’s jokes. When Scott Bromley got laid off from IGN The Comedy Button was born. The Comedy Button is largely the same show only with the addition of Destructiod’s Max Scoville and the now absolute absence of any pretense of needing to censor themselves or even approach sensible topics. This show always has me laughing like a maniac when I listen to it though be warned: it’s crude and usually over-the-top humor will definitely rub some people the wrong way.

Game Scoop! / Knockin’ Boots – I got into Game Scoop! after Anthony Gallegos (and the rest of Gamespy) and Arthur Gies both got picked up by IGN and started appearing on some of their podcasts but soon found the IGN regulars to have a lot of appeal of their own. Daemon Hatfield is a great host with a very likable personality and Greg Miller is (usually) fucking hilarious. Daemon and Greg’s friendship comes up often and is pretty genuinely endearing and itself a big source of laughs. The other IGN regulars fit into the formula well too. The podcast stays pretty on-topic covering mostly gaming news across all of the major platforms.

Knockin’ Boots is a spin off show which takes the same cast and has them answering relationship letters. It’s a little rougher around the edges thanks to the fact that the crew often drinks while recording it and they (especially Greg) can get a little out of control. I’ve also noticed that they tend to focus a lot more on silly sex and teen dating questions that have been answered over and over again rather than ever focusing on more serious relationship topics. If that’s what they want to do, fine, but it seems like the well might be running a little dry…

Gamers With Jobs Conference Call – As I mentioned last time, these guys remind me a bit of Idle Thumbs. Since Idle Thumbs is no longer around I started listening to the GWJ podcast regularly once again. The regulars seem to come from different perspectives than most of the gaming podcasters I’ve run across, being older gamers and often focusing on more obscure, PC based games and indie titles. They often get into lengthy discussions about topics related to gaming as well. While it is often pretty funny, it does a great job of staying on topic and being interesting and informative most of the time.

The Indoor Kids – This is a relatively new podcast that I feel needs some love as it has quickly become one of my favorites. It is hosted by comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon and every episode features at least one guest. The guests are always pretty unique people, mostly other comedians and comedy writers including some pretty big names such as Tom Lennon from The State and Reno 911! fame. This podcast is always hilarious and has an amazing habit of immediately running off the rails into lengthy and sometimes deep discussions about the more emotional side of gaming, such as sentimental childhood memories, gaming as escapism, etc. Highly recommended!

Counterfeit Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver Drivers

After playing around with Nintendo 64 emulators with the intention of taking screenshots for some N64 games that I plan to review one of these days, I determined that it was finally time to break down and get a new gamepad for my PC. None of my other pads had anything akin to analog sticks – I mostly bought them with playing much older games in mind. I’m a big fan of the Xbox 360 controller and since I already have a couple I figured it would be easiest (and probably most economical) to go the route of buying the Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver which simply let you use your Xbox 360 controllers with your PC. Looking around I quickly discovered that these receivers were in shorter supply than they used to be, some places even charging quite a bit for them. Still, I ended up finding some eStores on Amazon that had them for fairly cheap and nabbed one.

When it finally arrived I immediately recognized it as a fake – not just some other brand, but a genuine, stereotypical Chinese counterfeit. The packaging didn’t quite look up to par – while at first glance it was reasonably similar to official looking packaging, the plastic blister pack wasn’t nearly as stylized as most Xbox 360 related packs, and perhaps even more telling, it wasn’t an immense fucking chore to get into. Also despite some okay use of Xbox 360 and Xbox Live logos and branding style there wasn’t a single sign of a Microsoft logo anywhere on the packaging – not a good sign as Microsoft LOVES to crap their corporate logo all over everything they make. The unit itself looked identical to the real thing save for the Microsoft logo on the front being replaced by an Xbox 360 logo and the little holographic seal sticker on the back saying “XBHD” instead of Microsoft. Other stickers on the unit and packaging looked a little off as well. Upon closer inspection it is even more suspicious – the connect button isn’t flush and is even a little offset, the rubber “foot” ring on the bottom isn’t seated perfectly and looks a little odd, and the piece of the housing where the cord goes in wasn’t seated properly. None of these were major issues, but an obvious departure from the high quality standards that you usually see in Microsoft hardware.

“Quite a departure from the real packaging but good at a glance.”

At first I was pissed about being duped by Amazon (who listed it as being a Microsoft product and having pictures of the genuine article) but the more I researched the more I discovered how common place these knockoff receivers actually are – they’ve been floating around for years now, presumably ever since Microsoft stopped supplying the real thing as readily. Most people have reported success with them. In fact, some people even preferred them to the genuine ones as apparently they don’t have the fuse issues the real ones have. If I complained and returned it by the time I paid return shipping and whatever “restocking” fee the eStore might have I’d probably be paying double what I paid and, I figured, if it works, I certainly didn’t pay much for it even if it is a fake. Still, I was highly skeptical – I figured though, if it were a true counterfeit and would work okay with the official Microsoft drivers I wouldn’t be putting myself in any danger by using it and, from what I read, despite some occasional difficulty in getting Windows 7 to recognize the device the official drivers worked fine with it. Still running Windows XP 32bit, I guessed I’d probably be fine.

I wasn’t about to try the software on the disk that came with it figuring that it would be some poorly written knockoff driver that would destabilize my machine, or worse yet be infected with malware (although upon further inspection the disk appeared to include the genuine Microsoft driver, albeit an older version.) I immediately grabbed the Microsoft package and went from there. Hours later, I finally got the fucking thing working. At first I couldn’t get Windows to recognize the device as being compatible with the driver, even after trying to force it to use it. Later I abandoned that version and went for the same one that was on the included disk, and although that one was recognized the driver installation would fail every time. I’ll save the gory details and get to the point – since my solution ended up being an amalgamation of various other tips rather than based on any one thing I read online, here is how I got my knockoff receiver working with Windows XP SP3:

Don’t plug it in yet – if you’ve already done so, go to your Device Manager, uninstall it, and unplug it. It depends on how far you got it, but it’ll likely show up as an “Unknown Device” with a black and yellow exclamation mark on it. It could also show up as a “USB Device” or possibly even as an “Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows”. Just look for the exclamation mark.

Download and install the latest official Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless package: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/d/xbox-360-wireless-controller-for-windows
Download and extract this updated version of the device driver to someplace temporary: here
Plug the receiver in. Windows will detect it and attempt to install a driver for it. If yours behaves as mine did it will NOT automatically match up with the official package you installed in step 1. Otherwise, you got lucky and you’re done!
Choose the second option: “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)”. Click Next.
Choose the second option: “Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install.” Click Next.
If it shows you a list of hardware categories click Next first. Click “Have Disk…” and find the “xusb21.inf” file that you extracted from the archive in step 2.
If for some reason it comes up asking for additional files, choose them from the same location where you found “xusb21.inf” in the last step, in the “x86” (or “x64” if you’re running 64bit Windows XP) folder below it.
If for some reason it asks for “WdfCoInstaller01005.dll” when “WdfCoInstaller01007.dll” is what you’ve got in “\x86” you can insert the included driver CD and find it there. It was in “\PC Driver\x86” on my disk. It did this to me though it was a result of my earlier attempts to get the original driver working.
It should copy the files and then be done. If you receive a “Fatal error during installation” error my solution didn’t work for you. Otherwise, click Finish and try syncing up your controller!

I hope that helps somebody out there. If the thought of dealing with shady Chinese hardware and old driver packages scares you I’d recommend trying to track down a wired Microsoft Xbox 360 controller (a Play and Charge kit for the wireless controller will NOT work) from a used game store and simply using that if you can find it for cheap, though they sell at Gamestop for about 3 times what I got my knockoff receiver for. *shrug*

Some sources:
The thread where I originally found the updated driver
A blog article troubleshooting similar problems under Windows 7 64bit

Update 9/2016:

Manace comments “It works on Windows 10 x64. You should first start a cmd.exe as administrator and type: “bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING on” (without the quotes). Then reboot and you see in the down right corner “TESTMODE”. This means you can install unsigned drivers.

Now got to your device manager, select the unknown device, choose update driver, select the folder where you extracted the driver package and voila!”

You can also install unsigned drivers this way.

Dragon Hunting

Seriously, who doesn’t want to ride around on the back of a dragon? They’re also waaaay cooler than your standard wyverns and gryphons even as the young drakes we get stuck with as mounts. While most of the cooler dragon mounts in the game come as rare drops and/or rewards associated with running heroic instances and raids, there are a few that are relatively easy to obtain on your own if you’re more of a solo player as I tend to be.

“Killing Vyragosa 50 fucking times is an unofficial but all too important part of acquiring a TLPD.”

First off we have a couple of proto-drakes. I really dig the way proto-drakes look – very vicious and rugged and their clumsy, primitive walking and flying animations are quite cool as well. You tend to see a lot less people on proto-drakes than normal drakes – I don’t know if this is rarity, a mattered of popularity, or that the rarer normal drakes and other flying mounts are a bit more difficult to acquire and therefore have an elitist appeal to them, but I like that about them as well.

To start us out what should, in theory, be the easiest of them is the “Time-lost Proto Drake”. A yellow and brown proto-drake with a cyan mouth. To get this mount all you have to do is track down and kill the level 80 rare spawn version of the same creature that flies around The Storm Peaks. The mount has a 100% chance to drop. Easy money? Not so much. The Time-lost Proto Drake is infamously difficult to track down due to its incredibly low spawn rates. Thankfully lot of research has been conducted relating to the TLPD’s flight paths, spawn rates, and the like but even armed with this information expect to spend weeks or even months camping out in the frigid mountains of The Storm Peaks for your chance to own this mount.

“Time lost indeed.”

My own personal quest to acquire this mount took me well over a month, although relatively little of that time was dedicated to 24 hour camping until towards the end. The Time-lost Proto Drake is essentially a rare spawn of a rare spawn – it’s more common variation being the rare blue dragon Vyragosa which I personally killed dozens of times before ever seeing even a hint of the TLPD’s existence. Because of all of the competition on my particular server (your mileage may vary) I found that sticking to one of the 4 confirmed spawn points was the best way to guarantee your chance to see and get first dibs on the creature. You’ll want to use an add-on such as “NPCScan” as well as do some reading at Ponderance’s TLPD Resource site.

The other proto-drake worth mentioning here is the Green Proto-Drake. The Green Proto-Drake has an attractive green and purple coloration with a fiery orange mouth – it’s quite striking, really. Additionally it is much easier to acquire than the TLPD though it can still be a bit painful. Make your way to the Sholazar Basin and visit the Oracles to kick off a fairly painless 8 day reputation grind to get to Revered and then purchase a Mysterious Egg from the Oracles Quartermaster for a few gold. The egg will hatch in your inventory after 3 days (recently lowered from a much more annoying 7 day timer) which will then produce a number of random prizes. Many of these prizes are companions, including the cool and potentially valuable Proto-Drake Whelp, and one, the rarest one of all, of course, is our mount.

“An… eggquisite… purchase.”

You’ll need a little luck to get the Green Proto-drake without purchasing more than a few eggs though if your luck isn’t so great you might end up with a veritable zoo worth of companions before ever getting the mount, but at least it doesn’t take much gold or work even if it does sometimes require a bit of patience. I believe my Green Proto-drake reins dropped after around 5 eggs though I’ve heard stories of it taking people months. My opinion? Worth it!

Finally we have an actual dragon as opposed to a proto-dragon, and an attractive one at that. The Red Drake mount can be acquired for a hefty sum of 1600gp by those who reach Exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord faction. Reaching Exalted reputation will require almost a month’s worth of running a few daily quests though if you don’t mind running dungeons you can also purchase a tabard once you reach Friendly that will give you Wyrmrest reputation gains in level 80 Northrend dungeons, speeding the process along fairly dramatically. Maybe it’s just me but I consider red dragons to be fairly iconic *flashbacks of the old Basic Dungeons & Dragons box set* and despite being relatively easy to obtain this is probably one of the better looking of the available drake mount colorations in my opinion – I prefer this one to the more commonly seen Bronze Drake mount. Normal drakes are also impressively large with massive wingspans compared to proto-drakes and other flying mounts. Everyone should definitely have at least one in their collections.

“I need a Wyrm Rest after grinding for this thing. *rimshot*”

Even though this is the “Northrend Edition” more or less I should give an honorable mention to Outland’s Nether Drake mounts. These bad boys can be obtained by reaching Exalted with Netherwing faction. This takes just over two weeks of running a fairly intense course of dailies and other quests but, time aside, should be a breeze at 80 or 85. You do require epic flight to complete this grind, however, making it fairly costly and unappealing for casual players who might not want to make the investment. I’ve never actually completed this reputation climb myself though it is a near future goal of mine.

Other honorable mentions:

The Bronze Drake is a 100% drop from beating a relatively easy boss in a heroic level 80 instance within a certain time frame. Although it was originally fairly challenging, these days not so much, particularly after Cataclysm. I’d think a group of 85s could farm this mount out very easily. The awesome looking Violet Proto-drake only requires you to complete every holiday achievement, most of which are soloable and quite easy to boot. “Only” however, doesn’t really take into account that we’re talking about taking an entire year to acquire. Still, if you’re patient enough…

That’s it for now. I may make another post in the future regarding the awesome new Elemental variety of drake mounts added to Cataclysm, of which some do indeed fall into the category of being relatively easy to obtain.