LadyCrimson

I'd be ok with that, especially if you had to find the master teachers ... eg, they're not just hanging around in town picking their noses waiting for you have the cash to click on them. They don't have to be super hard to find, but some kind of effort required. And yeah...I feel for the developers too. Can't please everyone all the time and all of that. I still hope that they will at least stick to whatever things they may strongly want for their game and not be tooooo influenced by all the armchair posting. I have tons of my own preferences, like anyone else, but frankly I want to have a game by Obsidian, not a game "by the masses," if that makes sense.

I hit Reply on the last game mail exchange we had to send you a dye pack, which seemed to just use your @ name, no chr. name. Did you get it? I'm still not confident about this mail system. Haha. ...I wish it was double-diamonds all the time. I'm just raking it in. Now, if people would stop asking for quite so much for AD to Zen exchange ... just a little bit lower, that's all I want ... I could get that tiger mount and still have a decent amount of diamonds left over.

The only problem with the Dread is I can't stand his main weapon. That delay is far too long (the assault gun is fine tho). I love the way the Recon "feels" but yeah, so fragile. We'll see. I'd like a cycle but not sure I want to spend money on the game...I spent enough on that other one already. Tho at least this one is cheaper for the Founder's. I'll play it more today, try to get a better idea. Plus since it's the weekend I can get hubs to try it, perhaps.

I miss them, but I understand the reasoning why they're not legal anymore, around here. One of the big droughts and a lot of fires, IIRC, was one of the many clinchers. First it was the big ones, then pretty much everything. Most people might be likely to use them as safely as possible, but like you said, there's always the yahoos, drunkards, etc. that do stupid things. I'd rather my house/block didn't catch on fire because of them. Although I do think not even allowing those hand sparklers was a bit of an overkill. But whatever.

Since I used to dance and still like to watch some dance, I think that's my favorite post of yours, ever.

I had a cop do the pat down while I'm standing with hands on the hood of his car, thing, once ... in my driveway. But that was because I was stupid. Probably mentioned it before, but ... I saw him on the way home behind me. He didn't have his lights on but he was following, following. I hadn't re-registered my car on-time so I figured he was looking at my tags. I kept driving home (less than half a mile, btw) - he still didn't have his lights on. I was literally like 10 feet from my driveway, already practically in the act of turning the wheel to pull in, when he did put his lights on, and like an idiot I finished pulling into my driveway then got out of my car and faced his car, smiling, waiting, ready for a tag-fixit-ticket. It's habit, y'know? Pull in driveway, get out of car. The (young) cop freaked on me, pulled his gun, screaming why did I pull into this driveway, why'd I get out of the car, dragged me to his car, etc. Few other incidents in my life too. But I always just try to keep in mind that I would never have the balls to approach some random car like they have to, wondering if there's a gun pointed at me through the door or something. It'd make me tense too, especially if I was a rookie or near it.

I did do the tutorial ... in the dreadnaught suit. Taught me the thumper, made a pair of flying boots, I think (I found it confusing to know which pair of boots in the list was the better boots....), among other things. 24k xp on that suit, with no real clue how to advance the abilities beyond figuring I have to click those "1500xp, 2000xp, etc" bars to somehow spend or make stuff, so I left it alone for now. I switched to the Recon suit after the tutorial, so it has .. um ... 700xp on it. And yeah, the Engineer makes me think of BL2's commando, only pumped up, but meh...I kinda like being more active than tossing out/keeping track of turrets.

I find this a difficult question because I still believe there is no such thing as perfect balance of economy. You can't balance for every type of player, I mean. It all depends on what a player is willing to spend their cash on. Some people spend freely. Some scrimp and save, thinking there will be something awesome later that they'll want to buy. Some try to tred a middle ground. Thus in the same game, some players will always feel poor, some players will always feel "rich," and some players will be rich at the end while thinking "I should have spent more earlier, because there's nothing I wanted to buy after all." But to answer the question ... I want to have enough money where I don't feel like I have to constantly scrimp and save just to buy a few pots or scrolls or simple crafting ingredients while in town, but I don't want to end up at the end of the game with 4 billion quatloos even after buying all kinds of expensive stuff, either.

You lost me on that one. ...but I've often wanted a super powered ice cream maker. None of that wait for an hour or four. Ice cream done in 5 minutes. That's the ticket.

Left field/random blathering: I don't think I ever had an issue of having too much money in BG1, and never did buy any of the more expensive store items. Altho, this is likely due to me spending all my funds buying stacks and stacks and stacks of bullets (mages) and arrows (everyone else), and enchanted arrows and bullets to cheesily decimate everything in my path from range. ...which was fun at the time, but I hope today's game/P.E. has a little more ranged/melee balance than that. I don't think one has to have super expensive things in the store for "money sinks" and indeed I'd rather those be items that are found through adventuring/defeating enemies/looting chests. I shouldn't be able to find Excalibur or Merlin's wand (haha) in a store, darnit. There just needs to be enough of a variety of store items (from useful to perhaps even more decorative/fun) to inspire many to splurge to buy them, because those items either give combat, after-combat-recovery, or some aesthetic personal-fun value. I find it pretty boring when stores only have inventory that looks something like: --copper sword --copper sword +1 --copper sword +3 --wood bow, steel bow --potion of healing --potion of defense --steel shield ...boring. It worked once, but these days...boring. I only ever need one or two of those types of things on a periodic basis. Need more interesting things. They don't have to be powerful, one-of-a-kind or uber-fantasy things but something more interesting. Purchasable item enchants, or some crafting materials so one doesn't have to rely quite as much on finding them, or a cool looking cloak to wear over your armor just "because". Whether one ends up thinking they're worth buying/using will be subjective of course - some only want to buy things that are "really useful" or even "uber" while others may have other reasons for purchases - which is why some people end up with a huge pile of extra cash at the end game and some are always broke even in a well designed game - but the point is, if what's in the stores is really largely a repeat of what you'll find in the wilderness, why would people bother spending in the store, outside of stocking up on a zillion arrows or pots or food or something. And I don't think a loaf of bread should be 5 gold.

Low power anything tends to be unexciting. Go for broke, I say. Unless you're like Tim the Toolman. Then it might not be such a good idea. The neighbors this year went for broke with the illegal fireworks. Saw big ones popping up from a few blocks away while standing in the backyard, lots of fizzy noises, lots of huge bangs that drove my cat under the couch for hours. Usually it's just some occasional noise pops...kinda nuts.

Store run, then maybe some gaming with the spouse, then probably bad TV whilst comforting the kitties who will be freaking out from all the noise poppers. Might walk to the corner of the street to watch the city fireworks, too. Can mostly see them from there, without having to go anywhere. Which is cool.

4th of July dye packs? Hehe...colorful. But yeah...my wiz might like that. I've yet to really like any of the dye "packs" because they feel too generic. I keep meaning to use one then see if you can re-color aspects with the single-dyes while keeping some of the pack coloring. They need more colors. Btw, I have a bunch of dyes and packs I got one time and still haven't used. Did you have an idea what you wanted on your main? Maybe I have it. There seems to be a limit to how many different selections I can see in the "pick what dye" drop down, too (6 or 7?), which is annoying, because then I can't select the one I want, hah.

I was thinking of the film rather than the book, when I said that ... I read the book 30 years ago, definitely don't remember much of anything from the novel, outside of the riddle sequence (that bit really sticks in your head).

What's weird about that cycle? I think it's cool. The starter beach area, where I've been trying to get crystals and thumper mining, since I have no clue what else to do, yet. If I go too far away from there, I tend to get smooshed...at least as the Recon.

Heh. I have zero interest in tie-ins. I haven't felt like the game feels like a manga or anything, but I barely know what manga is. Outside of the chrs, brighter colors, and more mech style, it graphically reminds me a wee bit of Borderlands, only slicker. Currently trying to get hubby to download and try it, since I think it's xbox-controller compatible. I like running around shooting stuff, but it'd be more fun with a partner. Hubs will hate the crafting/upgrading the suit stuff (I'm not sure I like that part, either) but that's what I'm for, I guess. Recon is definitely fragile. Might have to go Dreadnaught or Assault until I figure the game out more. If hubs doesn't like it at all tho, I might give this one a pass.

I don't even remember that female elf being in The Hobbit ... assuming she really was, I guess it wasn't memorable enough.

Those fireworks block parties we had as a kid, some of them pretty impressive, sitting in the driveways warming our hands over spent firework cones while waiting for the next round to be set up...good ol' days. Party poppers just aren't the same. At least they still have the big city shows, most years.

I needz me the cat-ears. Alas, I have no Red Beans to buy them, I can only try them on. Does it stay dark in-game all night, real-clock-time wise? That kinda sucks if you like to play at 1am, I'd hope the night/day cycles would be shorter... ...got through the tutorial stuff, which seems to give you a lot of XP for not doing much, plus tries to show how the crafting and upgrading of your suit works. I still find it confusing. I definitely like the look of the game, the guns etc. Tried the Dreadnaught first, who would be survivability-cool except that darn delay before her giant gun fires gets annoying. Switched to the Recon and I think I like that one better (sniper-like zooming/aiming/speed) but not many hitpoints there...plus leveling up each suit w/one chr. seems like it'd be a lot of work. Anyway, seems like fun...still not sure, but I need some sleep now.

Btw, I'm not protesting the female figure in Firefall. It's just extremely funny looking to me because of the bizarre proportional aspect. In-game (not so much in that screenshot) it's like a super-wide angle lens effect in photography. The tiny head with almost no neck, in particular, looks wrong, heh. Especially in the character creation menu (once in armor it's not quite so bizarre). Utterly and hysterically comical and when I hit the chr. creation menu I was LOL for long minutes. I mean, look at that tiny head, it's not much wider than her calf. Something just looks off, there.

So...Firefall beta. I made a chr (what is up with the female's ginormous rear end/thighs and tiny head, lol) and then reached the spot where you're supposed to select your wearable battlesuit or something (which is what dictates your current abilities I gather). I know you can change them out if you want, later, but I still couldn't decide which one might be best for me, so I quit to look them up. I like the Recon's fast rate of fire, tho. And I definitely like those flying boots etc. That is too much fun.

Bourbon root beer? As in, bourbon in root beer? I don't think root beer as a mixer would have ever occurred to me. I haven't had a margarita in a while. I should make some tomorrow. P.S. - downloading a game, which always makes me think about how no matter how fast your internet speed is, it's never fast enough.

Ooo, shiny key...thanks.

Illustrated Gallup poll?

I like crafting - most of the time. Sometimes a game doesn't do crafting in the way I enjoy. It happens. But I do like having crafting there, in some form or another, because I like "busy-work" and long term goals to work on independent of leveling or "winning" the game. Yes, even in single-player games. That said, I don't want crafting to feel mandatory, either. This is because humans are fickle creatures who often think the grass will be greener. It's often hard to truly know if you're going to really like a method of implementation until one has it in front of them to try. We can postulate based on past experience what we will/won't like and want, but occasionally that past experience may let us down, too, so to speak.