LadyCrimson

Antarctica: A Year on Ice (2013) Documentary re: the "common workers" who keep things running/in shape year round for the scientist/other visitors, or something to that effect. The interview/ppl bits weren't terribly interesting to me (typical "why do we do this" human-interest stuff) but the cinematography was insane. Superlative. Gorgeous. Hypnotic. I could use almost every frame of every outdoor sequence as a desktop wallpaper.

There's a lot of things I could nitpick about Pillars mages, but I'm not sure having too few spells is one of them. Is there a reason you feel this way? I actually thought there were too many of them, in the sense that the "cast per rest" tier separation seemed to include too many that were similar. As if they wanted to make sure you had something available even if you used all per rests of a single tier. Although, granted, many of those were the defensive spells, like all the shielding and mirror type ones.

I don't mind the semi-randomness of it, but I do think the true uniques shouldn't have been allowed to drop in the end-game, no-return area. Mostly for the totally non-objective reason that I think it's no fun. *winkwink* Having a lot of them with the potential to drop in the Paths somewhere makes some sense, giving a reason to do that otherwise optional area. Good to know the Boots of Speed don't just drop in end game - although from the sound of it, it seems like that's one of the most common places for it.

I felt this way about the Boots of Speed, when they popped very close to the endgame bossfight.

Occasionally dropping an hour into Path of Exile, still. Enough to get rid of the gaming urge but isn't a committed venture. My Scion-mage is lvl68 and I've been rather dismayed at the imbalance of her ease of going through Merciless difficulty (with almost no defenses) compared to the melee Shadow I tried before. I recall when Freezing Pulse was the totally OP'd magic spell - they fixed it so that's no longer the case, it's now a good spell but not the only spell you'll ever need/want. Which is a good thing. But the issue with Diablo-like games so often seems to be that mob density is so high and fast that, while melee is always viable (and sometimes kicks butt, too), it still just has a hard time being equal to any ranged attacks that can, say, chain and kill things off-screen you can't even see. Arc and Ice Nova need some balancing imo. Or the gem Spell Echo does. I like powerful mages in these types of games, don't get me wrong, but yeah...

Haha...duct tape. Classic. Elder parent stuff this week. Tired. Hubby turns 49 soon. I was watching him from the kitchen window the other day and realized, when he's out in the sun, the back of his head looks more "grey" vs. light brown. It's not all grey yet and in dim house light you don't notice it like that, but the sunlight brings it all out. Based on his temples, I think eventually he'll have white (vs mousey grey) hair. I think it's quite handsome, but I'm biased.

I think Steven Segal stole John Travolta's hairpiece.

^ Maya and Axton 4ever. === The one good thing about peeking at the Path of Exile beta is knowing what the passive tree changes are going to be. Passives moving a step to the left, passives disappearing or slightly changed or being moved far far away, etc. First time having that advantage for me - usually I'd go to play after having not played for 8-12 months and all my chrs. had their passives refunded and I'd be all "wha/who/where, I have no idea where to put them, now."

I always feel like "decent/good AI" is an oxymoron. ...not that I have anything against developers trying.

There's a npc "frightened villager" or something like that in the Twin Elms (Act 3) Inn you have to talk to.

Touchscreen latop is kind of handy occasionally. Like when you forget to plug in the wireless mouse and are too lazy to get up and retrieve it. Another nice day. After another Voice episode will be going for a hike up in the local hills.

I just couldn't take the naked glowing neon-blue guy seriously. I've read the comic (I read it after I saw the movie, however) and it obviously works much better in that format. In the film it was just goofy most of the time. I did like the movie overall, better than many I suppose.

I get the idea that having a KS one means "completionists" who weren't backers see themselves blocked out of being able to get all achievements, but I haven't heard what getting all of them actually does, if anything. If Steam is giving cards away or something and you can only get one if all Pillar achievements are done, including the KS one, that might seem unfair, but I'm not sure Obsidian has anything to do with that process? If there's nothing like that going on ... then I'm pretty much in the "so?" camp. Don't see that it's something to make a big issue over.

Rorschach basically made The Watchman movie, for me. That guy was great.

Hm. Doesn't seem quite right vs my memory, but the way my memory is these days ... could be it. I'll look into it.

I liked Eder/Aloth and wouldn't have minded more fully voiced for them. But that's just personal vocal sound preference. The rest were ok/neutral for me. Player-character voices, I can really only take the "stoic" one. If I ever get around to making a full 6-party hired adventurer team, it's going to be All Stoic, All The Time. But in terms of the game as a whole - the amount of VO Pillars had was about right for me - my nitpick comes largely from when VO was "missing" - like in a (single) conversation with a companion and they'd be voiced for several bits then suddenly there was none for a couple bits, then the voice would come back. That's always jarring. So either better planning re: writing the lines and the VO recording session/s or less VO I guess. I'd hate missing out on NPC/companions being voiced (at least, if I was used to them being voiced before, eg if chrs. were brought back in expansions), but if it's always going to feel inconsistent, then I'd probably rather have none.

Went back to Path of Exile ... just an hour or so a day. Mostly to item-grind to get chrs and inventories ready for Act4. I'll probably want 300000 orbs of whatever and such due to changes...

Watching VoD episodes of The Voice (the blind auditions). Hubby is cracking me up because every time they intro a new singer he points at the screen and says "Grandma just died" or "Lived in their car" or "dad has cancer" or "had to postpone their dream for (something)"... eg, bet on which sob story. I still remember when the 1st season didn't do that sort of thing much. Oh well. I only watch it for the judges anyway. P.S. - I really hate that cable/networks have largely prohibited FF on VoD watching. Makes me want a Tivo. Not quite enough to buy one yet, tho...

Just one of those songs that makes you dance in your room like an idiot. I actually watched (well, skimmed....) a fair bit of the 24 hour version. What is it about dancing people that just makes you smile?

This is exactly how I felt about Daryl on The Walking Dead, until he apparently decided that growing out his hair into a Shaggy-doo and never washing it again was a good thing. Perhaps it keeps the zombies away.

Best/easiest/fastest (non-summoner) caster build (using Scion) I've managed so far (I don't look up/follow any "awesome build guides"). Yet I'm still afraid to go to the last difficulty/don't think I have the motivation for it so I just keep on slowly leveling in Cruel, when I log on for a few. Based on how my lvl-60 Shadow fared, I'm sure that difficulty would chew up my Scion-mage into tiny little pieces too - where you die often enough to make leveling up further problematic. I love the Scion tho...more than the specialized classes.

Hm, that's interesting. Don't think that would bother me, but I can see why it could feel be a little annoying after one is already used to being able to do it a certain way. Good question/point. It was an option before, iirc (unlimited Stash access). Maybe it's still there?

Haven't tried the beta ... so can you be more specific? I've often disliked it when stashes have little "ordering" buttons, for example, because I tend to accidentally hit them. Is your dislike related to that or something else entirely? Edit: the overall patch notes sound great to me, tho.

There was a post elsewhere that I saw a while back, and someone there replied that based on pics posted to one of his 'net thingies, it appeared he was indeed on vacation. If he was, we all need/deserve time off and I hope he had a fun time. As to his posting habits ... no idea.