I've had my PC for about 6 years and take excellent care of it - daily virus scans, weekly defragmentation, monthly basic maintenance, the whole 10 yards.

Recently my computer has started behaving oddly and I am certain it is a hardware failure of some sort but cannot place my finger on it and I'm finally stumped so I'm coming here for help. About the 9th of September my computer froze to the point where it forced a hard restart (having to manually power the computer down and back on) but upon restart the computer fired up but would not boot; the monitor behaved as if the computer was not running and the 'beep' my computer makes when it launches the operating system didn't sound. It was just after a severe storm so I figured that the brownout conditions in the area were preventing the computer from getting enough power and the next day the computer started up fine. On the 15th the computer did the same thing (freezing, hard restart, not booting) so I tested the power supply, the readings came back within the right tolerances but the computer still would not boot up, thinking their may have been a short in a connection to the power supply I reseated every power connection using different connecting cables and the computer once more began working fine. On the 9th of this month my computer once again froze forcing a hard restart but this time the computer came back on normally then blue screened with an error message (I couldn't record the error number because it flashed by too quickly) and automatically restarted to launch a system diagnoses which came back determining everything was fine but when I tried to launch the OS it blue screened once more, I tried running a system restore point and the computer froze, blue screened, and now will not boot up again.

What could be wrong with the computer? Is it a power supply issue, a CPU issue? Is something wrong with the operating system?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

This has been burning in my mind since they started using MC prices in Beta and now that the NDA is no longer in effect I want to talk about it. I don't think this fits into the Beta discussions because the Beta forums are only populated by people that play the beta - this question deserves feedback by both beta testers and people waiting to play. I admit, I have $80 worth of MC from my founder's purchase and I used some of it to buy things mostly just to see how the feature is implemented, I found that $1 USD is equivalent to 250 MC which I suppose isn't bad. In comparison I used to play Champions online whose real life currency points are about 200 for $1 USD.

A little bit of number crunching shows that the cost of 'mechs is between about $5 (the cheapest is the Commando at $4.50) USD and about $15 (The Atlas comes in at $18) USD.

So the questions I want to ask:
What should a regular (non unique) 'mech cost to buy in game using real currency?
Should different classes of 'mech have different prices?
Should the MC price be based on the in game C-Bill price?
How much would you be willing to pay for a chassis to avoid the grind or quitting the game?
How would you price the games 'mechs?

I think that a non unique 'mech minimum cost should run close to what it runs now but the high end needs some tweaking; $18 is close to a third of the cost of most console games, and close to half the cost of some PC games so I see it as a little extreme. I don't think that different 'mech classes should be priced differently or that the Cbill cost should matter when factoring in the MC cost of a 'mech and will have more on this later. As for what I'd be willing to pay for a chassis... well I bought founders didn't I? I consider about $40 of that going to double C-Bill rewards, $5 toward my founder 'mech, and the other $15 going into early game access and the premium time: I'd prefer to pay between $5 and $12 for a non Unique chassis.

As to how I would price the game's 'mechs I would set the price in MC for every standard chassis at 2,500, the equivalent of $10 USD. I would do this if I were on the PGI team because one of the main points the developers of this game keep driving home is that no class is more powerful overall than another and keeping the prices uniform would enforce that concept while making one class cost less and another cost four times as much gives players a different idea. Another reason I'd set the cost at 2,500 is that players would know right off exactly how much they are paying - $10 USD. $10 is lunch for two people at a drive through, its two gallons of gasoline, it's a movie ticket - in short its a nice round figure and its cheap - most people think nothing of dropping 10 bucks for something they want especially when it provides instant gratification and is essentially a long term entertainment investment.


I wanna know - how would the rest of the community handle this?

Citizens of the League and Lone Wolves alike are invited to apply for membership in Gun Special Squadrons. GSS is unique among mercenary companies as it is devoted to serving Thomas Marik and thus the Free Worlds League as mercenary retainers. In gameplay terms this means that once Commmunity Warfare is enabled Gun Special Squadrons will pursue the goals of House Marik as if we were House soldiers but at the same time will pursue mercenary goals, meaning we will fight to help House Marik control and maintain Faction worlds while simultaneously fighting for control of Border worlds.

In community terms GSS is founded to provide a team where casual and competitive players can get together to game. A team where there is no pressure to make matches or to advance in rank and where each member can put in what their time allows with no harsh requirements or restrictions. All positions are open, there are no skill requirements, role players are welcomed, and team leadership is electable.

If your interested please drop me a PM or check out our recruitment thread in my signature.

And to all, have a great time playing MWO.