This is an insanely important topic to everyone here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-rules.html

This means that your ISP can now begin charging websites and web services extra for bandwidth usage - and this means that, if you use a paid-for-service, it will become expensive, and if you use a free service, it will likely get a fee attached. Hell, this website may get slower or we'll be expected to pay more for our meager bandwidth usage.

If this goes into effect, this means F2P MMOs could become a thing of the past, and could have greater implications on multiplayer games. It may have little or no effect for larger, profitable services, but this is Comcast and other ISPs simply squeezing the market for more money.

Personally, I'm looking into options. I would love to see ISPs that come out against this new rule, because I would rather pay them than pay for a sleazy, greedy company. And this will likely have ramifications for those who live outside of the US too. This will kill a lot of start-ups and innovation, depending on how it's implemented. The internet should be an equalizing force in our society - instead, we are subjecting it to oligarchical principles.

I have a few quirks about my new build and wanted to get a more general consensus.

First and foremost, the CPU temperature on 3rd party monitoring programs spikes oddly. On Open Monitor, all the temps are fine except for "Temperature #6," which will spike from 33 C to 88 or 120 C, and then drop back down (far too rapidly to be accurate). I'm guessing I have a busted heat sensor for one gauge, but has anyone else seen something similar? Just want to make sure I'm not killing my new baby. Additionally, on Speefan, CPU overall temp is locked at 128 C but core temps are much lower. However, the MSI monitoring software shows it around 30 or 40 C and never much more, and it goes up and down as I'd expect it to.

Secondly, I can see my slave drive in BIOS, but it isn't showing up in Windows or Disk Management. Anyone have a fix for that? Again, I am using the MSI BIOS so I'm stuck with their stuff for managing it.

Hey guys,

So far I have literally not killed anyone and only been killed once by a crazy axe guy when I had no weapon (that was fun!). But frankly, I do not like the solitary playstyle, and much prefer a squad.

Anyway, I'm pretty well geared now, M4 with ACOG and 100 rounds of ammo, doing okay with water and food for the moment too. My character is parked at a barracks north of Kamenka (there's a new military complex there). Would love to meet up with some people.

gwink13 should be my steam ID. I may not be around much in the next couple of days for new years shenanigens.

If, like me, you're waiting to find a good HOTAS setup, keep waiting - Saitek just announced the X-55, which is their new joystick. It will probably include the thrust portion, though that's unconfirmed. Definitely wait and see.

They released a teaser video - mostly hype.

X 55	Small | Large

http://www.365daysofclones.com/cloned-photos/

So, these were the ideas we came up with while playing. There will be two barbarian specs and two wizard specs, but only one WD because my other friend is kind of a jerk (kidding).
Barbarian
Barbarian: Full Fury Tank Build

The idea of this build is to use the passive of 25% damage with full fury to maintain that (notice, there are no fury spenders) damage buff and to avoid damage as much as possible. Taunt, ignore pain, a huge area stun and both the armor buff shout and the damage reduction debuff on enemies for keeping damage low and survival relatively high. We also think this build would excel with a healing monk.

Barbarian: Insane Earthquake Build

This build is for creating a high damage earthquake build. With everything active, every 2 minutes you can pull off a 195% damage increase to your earthquake, which does 2000% weapon damage over 8 seconds - with the damage buffs from yourself alone, it is equivalent to nearly 6000% damage. With buffs from others (Wizard's Slow Time, Fetish Dance and Hex from Witch Doctor, and the Monk's healing affect of increasing damage, or the Demons Hunter's Marked for Death) you would be at 8000% weapon damage. The drawback, of course, is that after that small window passes, you are semi-toothless until they come back up.

Wizard
Wizard: Exploding Bubble
This is a pretty offensively minded spec. Familiar could easily be replaced by teleport or diamond skin if I am lacking survivability, but the idea is to again stack damage buffs to make very powerful meteors. Flash of Insight is the central idea - proc that from electrocute and then drop Slow Time on a large group, then drop Meteor on top of them. Archon is both offensive and defensive - it has 3 attacks that each do 1000% weapon damage, so they would stack well with what's there, but also it would fare well as an "oh shi-" button.

Wizard: No Signature Spell
Same idea as above, except without a signature spell. This is only possible if your arcane power generation is equal or greater to 20 a second. You can then cast Ray of Frost (or Disintegrate) and essentially never lose Arcane Power. You might have to spend some time running around to generate, but critical mass would hopefully be happening often and allow you to drop into archon frequently (or at least, with more frequency). This build is actually more defensively minded as well - some abilities could easily be dropped in favor of others (such as teleport).

Monk
Monk Utility Spec
This would be the monk spec I would want to play with my buddy's earthquake or fury barb. Pull everything in, stun, taunt with ignore pain, monk heals for the damage buff, crippling wave or cleave to slow everything, drop slow time and a meteor on the group, and boom, lots of dead stuff. Also a nice 35% damage decrease for the enemy, as well as a damage buff for everyone - that can be swapped with other useful mantras.

Witch Doctor
Witch Doctor Petless
An idea I came up with after my friend lamented that he wanted to play a WD but didn't care for the pets. There are other ways to go but this looks fun - you turn enemies into chickens, throw toads and bears at them, and have a pretty heavy damage aoe every so often that has its cooldown reduced every time something dies nearby. I think this build looks really fun and might be trying it someday - after my wizard archons everything to death.

What are your spec ideas?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120509123900.htm

Cheap energy, though of the hydrogen variety.

So I decided, as I've been playing my commando, that I'm probably going to play it a lot more (everyone needs ranged dps these days), and I also though that pushing myself to pvp a lot before hitting 50 would be good (DAT BATTLEMASTER GEAR). The best way to do this, in my mind, is to twink my character.

Oh, the fun I am having.

My 41 has all purple armorings and mods in her gear, a level 39 purple barrel (if any armstechs want some money, get me a 41 purple barrel), and 5 augmented pieces. For reference, I'm using the outcast helmet and chest because I happen to like it.

In PVP I have 14477 HP, and I have had many demo round hits north of 4.5k (with expertise adrenals going). 4.7k is my highest.

Best thing for burst that I have found is sticky-grav round-demo round. All three hit at nearly the same moment, and if they all crit it can be 9k - 10k damage. I'll post some screens later, but yeah, it's been a lot of fun.