LadyCrimson

That's the explanation I've heard espoused many times, myself. I've never researched it but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Tolkien influenced a lot of things....

Lots of good stuff here. And yeah, some game soundtracks are awesome for listening to with ... other games. I mostly mean vocals as in the way most popular radio/itunes singles use them. They don't provoke the right state of mind for me I guess. I save those for when I'm not sitting at a desk. Choir vocals or chants or rhythmic vocalizations that aren't in English, heh, or aren't actual words, can be great. I bought/still like that Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo album Chant from years ago. One I often use as an example of what I mean for that+modernish Celtic is Capercaillie's song Bonaparte (it's on YT). I do love Karen's tonal range, whatever she's singing.

^^ Haven't checked the 49er's this year. Thanks for reminding me. Not that into football, but I do like to know where local teams stand in a season, now and then. Thank goodness for FF addon Classic Theme Restorer. Those transparent tabs and unmovable icons etc. were driving me insane. Seems to have fixed some other minor browser/site issues I kept having as well. Goody.

@Woldan - yeah, sounds pretty similar. I still have ups and downs occasionally but unlike when I was a lot younger it's manageable and usually doesn't linger. I think in my case at least, time just tends to mellow things out on its own. Could even be chemicals have shifted around as I age. Dunno. Although, the worst thing for me is still to be mentally idle for too long (staring at the wall, so to speak). Drives me nuts. Speaking of being mentally idle, it's time for me to build more virtual castles now.

I may not like SPN Season 10 as much so far, but Misha Collins and his father are still adorable. It almost puts me in a Xmasy mood. Almost.

There was that mock video about "If Doom was made today" ... I can imagine a similar humor video made about "If The Birds was made today." The suspense/effects don't hold up well today, and it may make one giggle occasionally now, but I still like The Birds. The point of having no explanation is something I like in stories at times. As Stephen King once blathered about re: short stories vs. long novels ... "sometimes things can still happen in a story just because they do." (paraphrasing)

Outside of the ears and height (whether taller or shorter than humans), in games I tend to see racial differences more via stats/bonuses/minuses etc. I mean, it'd be cool if elves were depicted outside the "thin, pointy-ear" trope - I've read some interesting interpretations in written fiction -but I'm fine with more humanistic elves too. And with the small figures (this isn't 1st person Skyrim), I probably won't notice much that often anyway, except when I'm zoomed in occasionally. You can always put in your own portrait/s and let your imagination run.

Hm. A little too much circular pop psychology and not enough on-topic. Feel free to discuss how other game releases may help/hinder PoE sales in a fresh thread if you wish, but I think this one is finished for now.

Side effects are why I refused MAOI anti-depressants, both as a kid and as an adult. At one time they were the common, and they still work most effectively with "atypical" and its variants. But meh...those side effects. No thanks. I've learned to live with/cope in other ways, and it's all good now. Dislike drugs in general, even OTC stuff, too. Only when I utterly have to is my motto. Obviously not a doc, but as long as you (and your family/friends, as we're not often the best judges of ourselves) don't think you're a danger to yourself, taking meds is a personalized decision, not a must-have, imo. But bipolar can be very bad for some. Friend of a friend had it for years and once a year or so she'd do something outrageous during an up or down period...like landing in jail or doing stuff that would break most marriages type of outrageous (her hubby was a patient/understanding saint...). It took years, but they finally found a drug combo that worked for her and she's been pretty stable since. Happy ending.

I always figured the main reason why story in games has rarely been my main point of interest in games is the constant story-interruptus. Even if the basic elements of a good tale are there, they generally can't maintain a good narrative flow, since it's constantly being interrupted/delayed etc. by ... me. It'd be like trying to get through film/book when every 3 minutes I'm being distracted by something shiny on the floor or being interrupted by someone asking if I want fries with that and if I do, please go fetch the potatoes needed. Pretty tough to stay within/keep involved in a narrative, for me, then. Sure, the choices one has to make in a game create a sense of emotional connection/empathy, sometimes strong, and I enjoy games that do that, but that's not the same thing as narrative story telling. That's momentary relatable-character empathy. The two are not equal.

I noticed Frontiers is now Early Access on Steam. Has anyone tried this? I've been looking at it for a while now, waiting and waiting...if they manage to make the open world interesting, it sounds up my alley re: more focus on exploration/other rather than combat or stat/skill focus rpg.

I'd change that to : "It is hard to keep people engaged in eyeball visual things that are not action packed" Media tech and easy access has made a lot of people (dare I say the "masses") bored of the visually mundane. It's not like the old days where ppl could only see films in a theater or on tiny, crap TV's. Scrumptious color-saturated vistas or fast CGI action, either way, our visual ent. world is getting to the point where what's on screen is visually more enthralling than what's in real-life, if you're talking about visuals and visual attention span alone. It's like what digital tech and manipulation has done to photography, imo. I mean, there's more to it than that, of course, but it's a big part of things. I'm sure studio heads have all kinds of psych and sales texts to prove visuals must be ever better and more exciting and plots be ever more simplified with fast cut editing to keep attention, and point to them when approving AAA scripts. Books/novels however are different because they require the visuals to come from within your own mind. So I think, as long as people still have the imagination for that process, that novels, including sci-fi, will exist for a long time yet. Sci-fi was never a hugely popular mass-market thing (Asimov and others wrote a lot about the early days of sci-fi publishing), although it did have a surge of popularity for a while, since .... the late 60's maybe? The thing with fantasy/sci-fi at the moment is it feels like whether the novel would make a good film is becoming some kind of criteria in the publishing cycle, which may also influence writers in what they choose to write. Not saying that's actually true/widespread, but sometimes it sure feels that way. Anyhoo...I'm sure at some point someone will write some indie sci-fi novel/series that will become a hit and then turned into a movie and you'll have another cycle of sci-fi popularity.... Edit: oops I kept talking movies when the topic was re: games ... brainfart! well, the same largely still applies, games vs. books or film vs. books.

Two embed per post limit... (cont). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMP3PwCUH9k Anything else, that's not an overly popular, constant meme-used tune I've probably heard already? Your personal favorites? Anything out of the box I might like/should try?

I know there's the general music thread, but I'm interested in suggestions of what people think are some great non-vocal music pieces for background-listening to while gaming. Non-vocal = electronic, orchaestra, Celtic/reels, single instrument, etc. I tend towards the lightly toe-tapping to bomastic build-up, but mellow/somber is good at times too. Nothing overly dubstep (some of that flavor is fine, just nothing extreme/total, please). Well known examples of what I tend to like: (cont. in 2nd post)

Saw a few episodes of a short UK series called Black Mirror. It's sci-fi with a little bit Twilight Zone feeling maybe, only very modernized and more dark-thoughtful, if that makes sense. Has some nice cinematography/look to it. But it is one very strange show. The type where there's nothing wrong with it that makes you turn it off, yet you can't decide if you actually like it or not.

There's two more "floors" right below the two you can see, plus another level of forge/armory rooms deeper below, a food storage/cooking level above, a crop/farm level a little above that, and a small storage/bedroom as the top level, all connected by the one long ramp tunnel. This big area came about whilst mining the giant ore node there. It's not even close to "finished", but then I got kinda bored of clear-cutting forests and digging out rock to support building it and started a new game. I'll go back to this build later. Maybe. ...I like the starting more than the finishing.

Oh sure, use tech logic to negate my perceived benefit of digital games. Altho yeah, I think the BL1 disc doesn't spin that much, but once in a while. I've had some from the 2000's tho that spun on loading screens and certain other stuff (maybe audio loops? I dunno) semi-frequently, tho, and it was always annoying. Whether it was actually doing anything much I don't know, it just was loud. CD tray quiet, then spinup for 5-8 seconds, then quiet a while, then suddenly spinup. Blargh. The was the one in the US that got me to finally start using Steam again (I hated the super-early versions of Steam) since it required Steam to run/start. Didn't see the point in a disc then, for myself.

Totally unrelated (my specialty), but that's how I feel about pet stuff. $49 for what's essentially a piece of thick polyester fake-sheepie blanket. $17 for a tiny bag of dry cat food (that's at least a bit higher quality than CatChow/Friskies). $15-$20 for medium sized bags clumping cat litter I buy. Pshaw. Oooooo, that sounds delish! We have a couple rib places here, one beef ribs, one pork ribs, but they're always sold out of them when I actually want dinner, and we rarely "do" lunch. Sigh. I shall just have to make do with my jerky instead. Just finished cutting it all up into smaller pieces...(3 flavors).

Making the rounds on Twitter:

"So much ennui...dese blinds, dey is like cell bars..." "Wut?" One of the neighbor's poor pathetic kittens a couple summers ago. Has grown into a desperate for attention annoying little sprat. eg, it's not my cat.

Surfing the internet while re-watching Guardians of the Galaxy, in a probably futile effort to not fall asleep. All dark and rainy. Hey this cheap laptop has a webcam/camera built in. I wonder if I can aim it at the cat. ... er.. talking to myself again.

Most women don't know how to cook either. Especially these days. 35 years ago, maybe the stereotype was a bit more true (in the US anyway). Now ... My sister-in-law is a serious cook tho...I mean she's no gourmet but man can she put out a table. I don't know how she finds the time. Time is the biggest reason I don't like cooking anymore.

I haven't seen many zombie apoc. rpg's. More like action/sandboxes. Maybe not entirely on-topic, but I feel as if a small part of the issue is that these days it seems like "everything" is an rpg. That is, people are calling all kinds of games rpg's that I would never. The term is becoming so all-encompassing as to be almost meaningless....

I have no idea what gems/auctions are, but I'm not seeing any big Steam sale yet.

Since I mostly get games from Steam or Gog now, it's all digital for me. I wouldn't say I prefer it, but I don't really mind anymore. And I must admit, I like not having to have a CD/DVD spinning madly away in the drive. I still miss the paper manuals (when they were more than a leaflet, I mean) for some types of games. Printing out a pdf just doesn't feel the same.