LadyCrimson

I swear, the last couple years it's been like this (every month): ComcastTV: "You didn't pay enough last month, you owe us more money this month." Me: "Fine." **tosses them a bunch of money** ComcastTV: "You were short last month, you owe us more money/you're late." Me: "--cusswords--" **tosses them more money** Finally: Us: "Cable box broke, we never use it anyway, finally time to cancel." ComcastTV: "Are you sure, we'll miss you." Us: "Yes." ComcastTV: (week later by mail) "You paid us too much money, we owe you $273, check's in the mail." :disguise:

Hubby will spray noxious chemicals into car engines with his face crammed in there, or other projects, and smoke cancer-sticks, but balk re bug bombs in the attic space because it might get to the dishes in the cabinets on the other side of the house. We don't even have air-heating duct vents, mind. He can be so weird sometimes.

I check this thread now and then .... thanks for all the cat ones this round (and some of the non-cat ones too). I lol'd.

Went back this morning and watched the other two episodes of Watership Down on Netflix. Overall I think it became worse. Best of the 3rd and 4th: Woundwort, the bridge, and Keehar sequence. Worst: inspirational "speech" by Hazel in the vein of ID4's president speech+turning the start of warren fight into, I dunno, almost LotR battles flavor? Also ... Fiver in the car. Argh. Guess they thought he didn't have enough to do originally.

Belated Happy Holidays to everyone, and to cover myself, Happy New Year as well. ...can't believe it'll be 2019, almost 2020 (I can picture the 20/20 news series jokes...). Remember when that was a futuristic date in sci-fi movies? Ha.Ha.

Watched 2 episodes of the new Watership Down ... Netflix auto-started the 3rd episode but I paused it after 7 minutes and not sure I'll return to it. I also couldn't quite get past the horrible CGI face and hindquarters animations of the rabbits. I mean it looks ok/fine when they're sitting still, but they're rabbits and they don't sit still for long. The novel is one of my all time favorite reads (I re-read it periodically to this day). That 70's animated film, I didn't love it at first but it grew on me and now I like it quite a lot. This series changes so many details - particularly in the timing/placement of certain events - that along with the poor CGI rabbits and feeling like the personality and culture lore of them is almost lost (Bigwig and Keehar in the film was most excellent), the book-nerd in me finally rebelled and I couldn't take it. If one hasn't read the book and can overlook the CGI, I suppose it's passable. Maybe if I try watching it again 10 years from now I'll have a better reaction. I do give it points for trying to make a longer adaptation tho. It's not like it's a total quickie/no-love-apparent attempt.

I noticed that, and it made me realize that I hadn't seen it yet. So no wonder I had no clue what that next movie trailer was about. Tried to watch Bird Box (Netflix, Sandra Bullock). Tried being the operative word. I didn't get past the 30-40 minute mark and that with some ffwding. For taking itself so seriously, it was too ludicrous (The Happening came to my mind a couple times) and while I generally like Sandra all right, I thought she wasn't good in this role at all. But YMMV. And no, haven't read the book/novel/whatever.

That's Blizzard's crappy optimization for ya, that's exactly why I'm more partial to just stick to exclusives on consoles. It shows how well the console can do with people who actually know what to do with given hardware instead of just releasing bad ports Actually D3 seems to be quite a good port to console, imo. The massive corpse explosion spam+minions (and it is massive when I do it) is the only thing that causes the stutter and one can live with that I suppose - slightly annoying but it doesn't make it unplayable or unusable. I notice a lot of Necro's on YouTube not using minions at all so maybe that helps. Reminds me of the D2 bnet days when everyone complained about Firewall sorcies or skeleton Necros etc killing frame rates back then, too. Other than that the performance on the Pro has been quite good. I don't know what the frame rate is, I'd guess 30+ (I'm playing on the 4k TV). That said, I don't know how corpse explosion spam does on a non-Pro. Or a lower end PC or laptop (middling/high end pc's are fine I'm sure). And I'll agree Blizzard (well, a lot of companies these days) tends to overdo enemy numbers or effects/not seem to realize (or doesn't care) certain ones are just performance killers. I think arpg's often had problems like that in the past (on PC's) tho, sometimes there's just too much going on screen vs. other genres - PC's have caught up but consoles hardware hasn't. (edit - I recall bringing old RTS games to knees on PC too when I overdid "units" and battles, lol) I was surprised Path of Exile was going to console now ... they used to say they didn't think they could get performance to par or something (some of their effects also caused fps loss in the past). Guess they changed their minds. 2nd edit: D3 fps on Pro may be a bit higher, I have no way of knowing, but I'd doubt it's any higher than 40ish. Which is the problem. On PC's that can do 60/120 fps brief 15-20fps drops wouldn't be bad at all, is all. The same thing was true in FFXV - and that game also had constant frame pacing issues on top. Which they didn't entirely fix for the PC port. >.>

Clicking to move Xan over and over to hear him say "Our quest is vain" 50x, laughing like a loon the whole time. ...I don't really have "best gaming moments." It's mostly those sudden, inexplicable and wholly random times where I can't stop laughing for some reason that I remember most in terms of years later. Not that I haven't had satisfying moments of beating a boss or finding an item or liking a chr. arc or whatnot. But none of those compares to a good bout of hysterical laughter.

1 Necromancer (stun bone spikes primary with all legendary gear and Cubed powers) 7 skeleton minions (super fast attacking) 16+ skeleton mages (unique ring effect to double them, also mega speed) Corpse explosion spam everywhere A zillion monsters filling the entire screen screen doing their own effects things ....it sort of brings the PS4-Pro to its knees. I'm surprised it does as well as it does. But it stutters/lags here and there during the busiest moments. With the relative easy of difficulty in D3 now, all classes are OP'd in their own ways, but the Necro is something special in that regard, even for a minion class. imo. It's hilarious really. Edit: also, bone spikes can attack through walls a lot of the time (if there's no ceiling to them like in many dungeons). Meaning you can kill stuff without opening doors or them being able to fight back. How silly.

Best thing in that cpt marvel trailer is Sam and cat. the Avengers trailer makes me feel like I never saw the last one (no clue what's up in trailer in other words) but I'm pretty sure I did....

5 million quatloos on mid summer, aka June-Aug.

That was not the reason for it, Bethesda fallouts did not use shooting mechanics like "you point, you hit" it was more if your stats say you will miss, you will miss even if you are 1inch away from the enemy. NewVegas added actual aiming and using sights, so they are capable of doing it properly even when using ****ty engine I don't think that was true outside of vats. I seem to recall skills affecting damage but not whether you could hit your target or not. Or perhaps that was just in New Vegas. In any case, the aiming mechanics for third person shouldn't be the same as for first person. Allowing for the two should impact the design significantly. I played Fallout:NV without using VATS just fine (I don't like VATS at all), the shooting mechanics were ok without it. I mean, it wasn't true fps shooter smooth, but it worked fine/wasn't a problem. But yeah that's not the same thing as 3rd person combat visual design/mechanics. I remember when people wanted Borderlands in 3rd person. You could force it using some dev commands or something (I don't remember exactly) but while it sorta worked, it looked and felt awkward (aiming was off by a mile) and was obviously "unfinished"/not meant to be played that way. The indie survival alpha game 7 Days to Die also had a crude 3rd person that they tried to test but it was barely functional and they've never tried to improve it so hardly anyone uses it. It would definitely impact time/work to make both 1st and 3rd feel and behave "right". Could they do both? Yes, if they felt it was worth their time and the way they've set up gameplay would work with both. No idea if they will, however. As to viewing your character - I only care about that if they make fashion a big deal in the game. Why bother with collectable funny wizard hats or recoloring clothing (as example) if I can't see it. Especially if it's not even MP where at least you're dressing up for other players. Might've been ok in the paper-doll only days but not so much now, for me. That said, an idle/non-combat vanity-camera would be fine.

Did the TC mean quick save (press one key to save while in-game) or manual save (go into a menu to save)? I can live without a quick save (almost never use that actually), but yeah, manual saving of some sort is important ... even on a console version. Console games these days do often have manual save systems, y'know, if it's not an enforced linear story chapt. movement (some jrpg's come to mind) or online game. Also, if not unlimited save slots, please don't limit me to 8 manual save slots like FFXV did (where Square's lazy butts kept it to 8 even on the PC version). At least 20, ok?

Heh, yeah, open bnet was lulz back then in terms of item hacking. "50 Zod runes for trade!" pfft. I played Closed bnet and didn't hack, hence the irritating way of multiple account muling. :D I did use an offline mod that incorporated the later closed bnet online features into offline-SP for a while tho. The super Diablo or whatever that was.

But of course you can't keep everything. I'm not talking about everything. D2 had a lot less Legendary's and all their stats and lvls were largely fixed so you didn't care about having more than one or two of the special Mage Hat or whatever. And people I knew definitely complained. That was the era of people making multiple battle net chrs just for mules, dropping things on the ground and going in and out of the game before the session expired/disappeared or something, can't recall exactly. And logging in to each mule chr. once every 3 months so they wouldn't be deleted. I know I had like 20 (more or less) mules on 3 battle.net accounts back then. ...modern times shouldn't be an issue. People who like small stashes can just keep their stash small/not get more tabs if they want.

Diablo3 has the same problem as Path of Exile - I want essentially endless stash, but D3 sticks you with (on console) 350 "slots" with no options to get yet more. How is one supposed to collect an INT, STR, and DEX legendary version of everything, since legendary stats aren't fixed anymore and items tend to be catered to your class? Huh? Huh? Solution: use the 4 allowable ps4 "local accounts" to create and max the stash on 4 save files, thus having 350x4 and using the PS4 share-screen co-op feature to share/store between. Makes it easy to level up mules on other accounts, too, dragging them along behind (game uses auto-follow AI) your power-lvling chr. At any rate ... item collection is the only reason to keep playing such games and these days one could at least make mega stashing an option. I'd pay, just like I paid for 100+ stash tabs in Path of Exile. Also, I tried to see if hubby would want to play D3 using this share-screen co-op mode (LAN gaming is so limited now vs. online coop) but the way you're limited to staying within what feels like 20 yards of each other or the game either refuses to let you move and/or teleports you close again is ... too weird.

Been living under a rock for a while (and likely will continue doing so) so I wasn't aware of the countdown/new Obs game announcement. The trailer is fantastic fun. Hopefully the gameplay will be too. edit - certainly looks like a game I'll be buying at or near release tho.

Yeah, this. I don't mind 1st person gameplay at all, but do not lock the FoV to some narrow cone. I can't stand that because it never feels right to me. Humans have peripheral vision and 1st person at the typical game fixed fov (when there's no slider) always makes me feel like something's wrong. I'd also love for a 1st person to be able to look down at their own legs/feet gosh darnit, do these chrs. have non-flexible necks? Yes yes it's not practical I suppose, but it's so weird.

I remember in my youth when some friends and I were up late partying and we all started (loudly) comparing scars. Clothes were half-shed to show them off. Alcohol might have been involved.

^ I have many small scars from cat scratches of many years past. Mostly gained while playing or while giving baths. Most of my cats were fairly calm with baths, just meowing loudly with the occasional squirm, but there's always those couple.... ...was a thunderstorm this week. Seems to have mostly cleared up but last night the wind was howling like a banshee. The yard is now covered in what appears to be every single remaining tree-leaf (and one neighbor's palm tree section that the wind broke off). There might be grass/cement under there somewhere.

Diablo 3/PS4. At least in single-player, the game catering drops to your class (mostly gear with DEX drops with Monk, mostly gear with STR for Crusader) is sorta annoying/dull. I get it, ppl don't want to find useless stuff for the chr. they're playing on, but they could have made class-catering drops a little less extreme. The loot drop lvls scaling (in all Acts) with clvl is also a bit annoying at times, but again, I get why I suppose. Everything is catered to the Paragon levels now, and since you can switch the basic difficulties without having to even finish Normal first, lvl 1-70 is just training wheels I guess. The balance for 1-70 feels totally out of whack. Normal/Hard and even early Hell is comically easy as a result, since there are now seemingly ten other difficulties to consider. I found it amusing I could technically level up to 70 never leaving Act1. I lvl'd up 1 chr. to 42 - didn't take too long really - before being bored of that experiment and finally killing the Butcher. And of course the Seasons (ladders). Sorta MMO styled never-ending post-game to retain high level players, where a long-term audience no longer cares if it's too easy getting there. The best thing about the game (outside of item hording addiction which is just an arpg fixture) is the pets. It is so freaking cute the way they dash to pick up gold for you (their only purpose besides looks) that I'll often stand still waiting for them to do it even if I could reach the gold first. That all said, oddly, the way D3 is now, I'd rate it a little higher than first-PC-release version. It's at least more casual "fun" overall than originally, with all that post-game/Paragon/Seaonal to suck up 1000's of hours if you're of a mind (I'm not of that mind). It still doesn't feel like "Diablo" to me, tho. Not at all. Edit: and the best thing about console version is you can play offline

RD1 was one of the few that I was interested in once, but not enough to buy a console at the time. Now that I have a PS4/pro, I'm somewhat interested in RD2 but ... not enough to pay $70 for it ($80 not on sale - the one with extra storymode content, the one with extra online stuff is even more, base is $60). RD1, far as I can tell, is still available on PS4 but only as part of the PSNow thing - eg, it's not the "full game" install category, so I think streaming with the extra monthly/annual fee. A lot of the PS2/PS3 games are that way. Edit: Also, I'm still alternating between console-Diablo3 and PC Grim Dawn. After getting used to the horrible wheel GUI (I still hate it tho) the rest of D3 on console has been ... interesting. It feels very casual and Normal has become SUPER DUPER easy, to the point of comical. Legendaries dropping left and right, clvl-20ish items having +100 and more to stats on them, beating Act bosses in literally 15 seconds. But I need to try harder difficulties before I judge that. I recall PC-D3 ticking me off with difficulty spikes in a bad way, and I'm curious how much they tone it down. 2nd Edit: Also, I still don't like the overall design of D3 past Act2. It feels/felt boring. 3rd Edit: I haven't played D3 since maybe 6 months after original release. Even the PC has changed drastically I hear - I think console and PC are largely the same now, except for controller differences.

^ I'm the same way actually, it's just that in Grim Dawn after the first 25-30 clvl's imo the green+ items are the only things worth looking at. Even with that it's so much I spend 30-60 minutes after every session cleaning up a lot of "maybes" out of the shared stash and have multiple mule-only chrs. Tried Diablo3 on the PS4. Wow that radial menu system for looking at inventory and what your character is wearing - it blows. I mean maybe it's efficient in a way but I dislike it intensely. When I use the stick to try to navigate it always overshoots....the UI text is also a bit too small for sitting farther away even on the 43" TV. Borderlands series was fine re: their more simple UI even with all their billion guns and accessories and skiltlrees, D3 is a mess. Combat's fine I suppose once you get used to using console buttons/triggers vs. KB/mouse.

Still Grim Dawn, still loving playing a Necro/Arcanist, into Elite difficulty now. She uses this "laser ray" spell so I have something to do besides stand around staring at the summons fight. I'm so glad you can control what loot rarity is visible. I have it set to only show green and above so I don't have to stare at the 100000000 yellow items which don't even sell for much and get in my way visually. I have a Necro/Shaman going as well, she can add another pet (who can buff your other pets) on top so that's probably the best summoning combo, imo. Plus my pure Arcanist who is a total fast cast spell spamming fool. Good times.