World of Warcraft: Mount Collection Guide - Raids (35)

DROPS - 23
ACHIEVEMENTS - 12


Vanilla/Classic - Lvl 60 - (4)

Ahn'Qiraj (4)

The resonating crystal mounts can drop from most of the trash in the 40 man AQ raid instance, located in the south of Silithus. Unfortunately they can only be used inside the instance but do count to your total:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21218 - DROP - 14%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21323 - DROP - 14%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21324 - DROP - 14%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=21321 - DROP - 1.2%

The http://www.wowhead.com/item=21176 is no longer obtainable and was originally obtained by ringing the Scarab Gong within 10 hours of the first person to ring it on your server.
 It is also the only legendary mount within the game.

The Burning Crusade - Lvl 70 - (2)

Karazhan (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=30480 - DROP - Attumen the Huntsman - 0.85%

Tempest Keep (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=32458 - DROP - Kael'Thas - 2%

Wrath of the Lich King - Lvl 80 - (12)

Eye of Eternity (2)

These mounts were originally assigned to either 10 or 25, however they can now drop from both difficulties:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=43952 - DROP - Malygos - 3%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=43953 - DROP - Malygos - 4%

Icecrown Citadel (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50818 - DROP - The Lich King Heroic - 1%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=51954 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4602
http://www.wowhead.com/item=51955 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4603

Obsidian Sanctum (2)

To enable these mounts to drop, you must leave all 3 mini boss drakes alive before attacking Sartharion. They do not drop if this pre-requisite is not met. 

http://www.wowhead.com/item=43986 - DROP - Sartharion 10 Man - 100%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=43954 - DROP - Sartharion 25 Man - 100%

Onyxia's Lair (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=49636 - DROP - Onyxia - 1.4%

Ulduar (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=45693 - DROP - Yogg-Saron via http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=3164 - 1.1%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=45802 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2957
http://www.wowhead.com/item=45801 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2958

Vault of Archavon (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=44083 - DROP - All Bosses - 0.8%

Cataclysm - Lvl 85 - (10)

General (2)

Requires contributions from Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight and Throne of the Four Winds:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62901 - ACHIEVEMENT -  http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4853

Requires 8/10 or 20/25 guild group to gain the achievement, requires exalted with guild to purchase (does not require participation in achievement):
http://www.wowhead.com/item=63125 - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4988

Dragon Soul (4)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=78919 - DROP - Ultraxion - 1%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=77067 - DROP - Deathwing - 4%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=77069 - DROP - Deathwing Heroic - 2%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=77068 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6169

Firelands (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=71665 - DROP - Alysrazor - 2%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=69224 - DROP - Ragnaros - 1.3%

http://www.wowhead.com/item=69230 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5828

Throne of the Four Winds (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=63041 - DROP - Al'Akir- 1.5%

Mists of Pandaria - Lvl 90 - (7)

General (2)
Requires contributions from Mogu'shan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=87773 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6932

Requires 8/10 or 20/25 guild group to gain the achievement, requires exalted with guild to purchase (does not require participation in achievement):
http://www.wowhead.com/item=85666 - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=6682

Mogu'shan Vaults (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=87777 - DROP - Elegon- 1.3%

Throne of Thunder (3)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=93666 - DROP - Horridon- 1.6%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=95059 - DROP - Ji-Kun- 1.9%
http://www.wowhead.com/item=93662 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=8124

Siege of Orgrimmar (1)

http://www.wowhead.com/item=104208 - ACHIEVEMENT - http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=8454

World of Warcraft: Mount Collection Guide

I will slowly be adding to this guide over time, each section is broken down not into the traditional Drop/Achievement/etc method, but by zone.

For instance, under the raiding section, there are mounts listed under Icecrown that are obtained by drops and other mounts listed that are obtained via achievements. I hope this makes it easier for you to decide what you can do within each zone to get the most contribution to other mounts you might not have heard of!

Raids

SimCity: Top or Flop?

Launch

The dust has (almost) settled after a somewhat troubled SimCity launch. Those who have purchased are just about able to play without interruption now, 8 days after the official release.

The launch was plagued with server connection problems, effectively meaning that due to the 'always online' nature of the game, nobody was able to play it! In the rare case that someone was able to get onto a server and create a city, it appeared that once the connection to the server was dropped for longer than 10 minutes, their progress was lost.

EA continued to add servers to their armoury until they finally reached almost double the amount that SimCity originally launched with. A seemingly grave miscalculation was made regarding the sheer number of users that would attempt to login. Either that or they'd written inefficient server side code which was bottlenecking their systems.

The sales of the game was pulled briefly from Amazon's stores stating that EA was struggling to cope with the number of users attempting to play. EA have attempted an apology by stating everyone would registered before March 18th would receive a 'free game' from their portfolio. What this means we don't quite know just yet (personally I'd love Crysis 3).


Gameplay

I'll try not to be too harsh on EA/Maxis here. In essence, the game isn't bad. It does very much feel like you are playing your standard city sim. A few things they seemed to either miss out or execute badly were the following:

Individual Zoning - You no longer control your zoning by creating three separate sub-zones, instead your sims decide, based on surroundings, which areas are suitable for higher development and/or wealth. You can have high density but low wealth areas with large apartments, for instance.

Water Pipes/Power Lines - There are none! So long as you are connected up to a road, your city with be provided with your utilities. I would have liked to see perhaps an option to turn this on/off for a new city, to at least enable you to decide whether you wanted to be an all out anal city planner.

City Size - They should have named this SimVillage, as that's honestly what it feels like at times. It's nowhere near to the scale of SimCity4, for instance. Allegedly they wanted 'every PC' to be able to play it. I call them out on that though. Word on the street is that EA will charge you more for a DLC so you can build 'larger cities'. I can hardly say I didn't expect it from them.

Unit pathing - Cars with always take the shortest route, period. They really will. You can create a long winding highway, yet they will still be adamant on taking the dirt road to work. An incredibly irritating situation as you have to make sure your city can cope with it! My advice would be to work towards public transport as soon as you can!!

Offline play! - You flat out can't play this game offline, forget creating cities on those long flights over the Atlantic, it's not going to happen. The game must be connected to EA's servers at all times, if it detects a drop in connection for over 10 minutes, it will close down and you will lose your progress. The fact that you can carry on playing for 10 minutes without interruption almost proves that the game can quite suitably function in offline mode. Rumours are that it can actually be played as an offline game, EA just won't allow it.

So, what have they added, you might ask?

Online play! - You are able to create your cities within regions (which can hold up to 16 or so 'city' grids within them). What this means is that friends can create cities next to yours, allowing for sharing of resources, public services, utilities. This can be handy if you are just creating a new city and need power or fire truck support on the cheap.

Depth of play - I won't go into the details too much, but there seems to be a large amount more depth to the game with regards to building types and progress paths. You can advance various cities within a region to work towards 'Great Works' goals, for instance a large solar array to provide power to the cities in the region.


Conclusion

I'm not 100% happy with the game as it stands, perhaps that will change in futures patches. That is of course assuming EA bother to actually patch it! (Can you sense the sour taste that's been left in my mouth?) I would really like to forgive them for it, but I'm not sure what it would take for me to do that. It's not just me they would have to appease either, the majority of the gaming community was in outrage.

Taking that aside, the game itself isn't so bad, make the cities larger, give me offline play (perhaps allow syncing to servers and claiming city grids when connected, for instance, to allow for them to retain their 'multiplayer' aspect they keep harping on about) and I'd be happy with it.

Pushing the anger from the server issues slightly aside and thinking with a clear head, I'll give it a 7.5/10, not quite a Top, not quite a Flop. I'm not sure whether they will keep it updated or pull through with their promises but only time will tell. I will say one thing though, I'm glad I only paid £25 for my version.

7.5/10

Edit: Since writing the article another news report has come to light, showing the use of SimCity offline. To say I'm disappointed in EA/Maxis is an understatement.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/14/modder-runs-simcity-offline-maxis-remains-silent/

Great Discounts With CDKeyNexus

Hi guys, I've been in touch with the guys over at CDKeyNexus.com and have agreed a coupon discount code for all readers.

It will work with all purchases and give you 5% off their already fantastic prices for games!

It's quite simple, all you need to do is type this coupon discount code into their checkout:

Digital

They will email you the game serial key after you make your purchase to add to the relevant platform, Origin, Steam, Uplay and so on! Fear not if the purchase is not in your currency, especially if you use PayPal, it will convert it at a decent rate for you!

They've got some great prices on the new SimCity, Tomb Raider, Heart of the Swarm and Crysis 3 games and are always more than happy to answer any questions you have for them!

Far Cry 3 Driver Crash/Black Screen

Hi all, another quick fix post here.

Some people have been reporting some Far Cry 3 crashes lately.

A few fixes if you've been having this issue are listed below:

First off the basic ones - drop your GPU and CPU back to stock clocks, if you have overclocked them. Just to rule this out.

Secondly make sure you are using your latest GPU driver, sometimes the beta drivers can throw some screwy things into the mix.

Try running the game in DirectX 9.0 mode (you can find this setting in the game options), this can be a popular solution to some of the nVidia issues.

Some have found that creating a short cut to the far cry executable (find it in the far cry directory - wherever you have saved it to) and adding -offline into the 'target' section can help. For instance: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\FarCry 3\bin\farcry3.exe" -offline 

If you use a program like MSI Afterburner, set your power to something like 80 or 90%, not the full 100%, this in a way is almost downclocking your card, but it can help in newer models.

If any of these fixes solve your problem post up! If they don't, let me know as well, even more so if you find a solution so I can add it on the end!

Thanks

GTX 680 4GB SLI Benchmarks

I've had the opportunity of testing a pair of Palit Jetstream GTX 680 4GB cards in SLI and thought I should share some of the benchmarks and screenshots with you all.

The setup is as follows:

i7 3930K @ 4.2Ghz Cooled by Corsair H100 in Push/Pull
Gigabyte X79-UD5
2 x Crucial M4 256GB in RAID0
2x Palit Jetstream GTX 680 4GB
3x iiyama Prolite 24" E2473HDS screens giving a resolution of 5760*1080

These aren't perfect benchmarks, they were all run for varying amounts of time but in that time I tried to simulate what would be the highest and lowest FPS situations.



BF3 - Operation Guillotine (Max graphics)

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
2464	49412	36	62	49.866

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Flight Around Stormwind) [I am running max graphics with about 5 custom settings which advance them beyond what is controllable in the UI]

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
11028	124856	47	214	88.326

Dear Esther

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
7574	56207	110	204	134.752

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (With texture packs up to 2.8GB and ENB series, Vsynced at 60fps hence max)

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
8292	141952	50	59	58.414

Guild Wars 2

Frames	Time (ms)	Min	Max	Avg
3645	79888	32	64	45.626

There are certain games in which it would be silly to benchmark, for example DotA 2/LoL don't run well without Vsync, so with this setup they quite happily sit at 60fps, CS:GO will run anywhere between 140 and 290fps across all three screens. Tera will run at a fairly constant 60fps as well, maybe dropping to 55 occasionally.

DotA 2 Black Screen Fix

Just a quick note here really, if you're having issues with DotA 2 playing properly with your graphics card setup and just get a black screen when loading (and then sometimes following by a really jittery DotA background music), you should try this:

Right click on your DotA 2 in Steam, go to Properties and Set Launch Options, then enter the following:

-windowed -w 1920 -h 1080 -noborder -novid

Replace the 1920 and 1080 with your actual resolutions.

This will launch the game windowed and maximised without the Valve intro video.

UPDATE: Also try removing your DotA2 config files located in steam/steamapps/common/dota 2 beta/dota/cfg and then in the launch options described above, add +autoconfig


EDIT: If you are still experiencing issues after applying this fix, a good precautionary measure is to update to your latest video card drivers, but to also do a full uninstall of the old ones too, a good program to use to completely clear them is Driver Sweeper.

As in the comments - you have to replace the numbers with the correct resolution of your screen, mine won't always be the same.