LadyCrimson

Social call finished, early prep for making dinner later finished...now I could play a game for a few hours, but I can't decide which one to play. ...maybe Grim Dawn.

@Volourn - the difference, in my mind at least, is that the human race is nowhere near any danger of extinction. Well, we might do something like invent the Matrix and have a problem one day, hardehar, or an asteroid might fall on us, but you know what I mean. I've never minded the hunting of animals per se - I simply don't like the aspect of humanity that can't control itself to the point where what is coveted is no longer available to anyone, at all, forever more. Course, I have trouble eating just one piece of beef jerky at a time so it's not like I don't understand "I want" and self-control issues.

I definitely agree with this. I like games where characters have a combat-stance and once a brief time has passed after combat is over, they go back to a relaxed/non-weapon stance...or something. It definitely has always felt a bit weird when a game has you walking up to people to have a convo while still pointing a sword/gun/laser/bow/whatever in their face.

Only evil and/or not-human characters are allowed to be topless, y'know. And tribal women in National Geographic.

I've turned into one of those people who takes lots of short vids and pics but then never gets around to "taking" them out of the camera/s.

Heh, congrats. I think I stayed subbed to WoW for almost two years after I stopped playing. It really had me in the "maybe I'll go back to it one day" grip a while.

@Keyrock - yeah, Grim Dawn seems to be one of those games where compressed screenshots don't really show what the game looks like. Gets easily pixelated even with low lvls of compression. :/

I keep telling hubby we should get rid of one of the couches and put treadmills in front of the TV but he's not going for it. Maybe if we had a bigger living room. But yeah ... sometimes I'll even slow-jog in place while I'm reading a book. I try to do that type of thing more and more, too. Not that I always succeed. It's much easier to whinge about how I need to do better than to actually do better.

... but it's also true that sometimes, one should/may need to visit or live in a place before making their full judgements/decisions about a place as a whole. If one wants to experience/learn more of the world 1st hand, at least. Not to mention, sometimes if one did want to try to change things, you can't always do it while standing outside. Anyway ... I have no advice for Walsh myself, since I haven't been there. I would have liked to see some more places, when I was a lot younger, but at this point it's not likely in the cards until I'm much older. Isn't that the way it works sometimes...

@obyknven - do you think maybe we could focus a little less on political/bashing articles/vids in a thread where the OP (Walsh) just wanted some basic thoughts re: maybe living somewhere for a few years? This isn't really the thread for such debate, I think.

Re: Offline mode After Steam decided to update itself (fairly big, hadn't gone online in a while) today, I ran into that "can't connect" offline-mode issue for the first time. Where it gives you that message then doesn't load. So I went back into online mode and unchecked the "Enable Steam Community In-Game" setting and tried again - worked fine that way. I think the only reason I had it checked was there was a FNV mod that wanted it once. So current version of Steam launcher now gives me this lame issue, but at least it still works with that setting off (I did not need that setting off, personally, before).

I think it depends a bit on how much you're zoomed in/out, and whether you're in a dark area or a lighter area and what colors an area is using. I feel like it kinda varied a bit as I went through the starter quest, and I felt like AF might make it look a bit worse.

Downloading now. Took me a minute to figure out how/where to download the darn thing. All these service sites all connecting together these days... Also realized Borderlands 2 had put out the level-cap increase patch/DLC, which seems included with the Season Pass I bought, and the new character Psycho class, which is not included. I'm not sure I'm interested in spending $10 just for Psycho-man...don't tend to like BL-melee. Anyone try him yet? I guess I hadn't gone online w/Steam in a few months or more...it went all crazy updating all kinds of things on me. Haha. And starting to get more into Neverwinter Online too, even tho I still don't have the panther. Definitely seems to shine more once you're lvl 20+. And I still have the next alpha build of Planet Explorers late this month or maybe early June if they fall a bit behind. Too many games I have to find time for, all of a sudden!! Halp!

Ohhhh....cool. How's it playing for you so far? I've been waiting for that one for so long...

... at least I don't have any lawn-cat statues. Yet.

I'm trying to level up more so I can see if I think I'd even play the game more than another week or two, but I obviously have a discipline weakness for kittah related things ... which is why I had 9 cats once. Apparently it still applies when they're made out of pixels ...

I figured the items made via professions wouldn't sell for that much, considering anyone who levels them can make them. Maybe at first but if it's anything like WoW, that won't last too long. I haven't been terribly impressed with the Auction House listings I've seen. I just realized that the $200 Founder's Pack panther companion is the actual one that I wanted ... the "cat" for the 1million astral diamonds is a tiny non-combat pet with passive bonuses. Which is cute too, but it's not the big black panther. Also gives you 3 more chr. slots. This is why I don't like/usually avoid pay-for-cool-stuff MMO's in general. I'm an obsessive type (yes, sometimes even when I'm not really 100% "into" something) so I'll end up wanting something, start thinking about spending too much money, then have to slap myself repeatedly in the face to try to prevent myself from actually doing it. My cheeks are getting pretty red this noontime.

I've thought it might be latency, but it happens at 3am + the rest of the game actions don't feel "behind". The Cleric hesitates a half second before she goes into that weird postured slide of hers. The shield/sword fighter drove me crazy because you end up either blocking constantly but not being able to attack effectively, or just being like the 2H fighter (eg no point in using block at all) Btw, is there any point/advantage in raising a profession if you can't wear the results?

I liked the Kobold one enough to give the creator a 50 diamond tip, first time I did that. Light fun. I should look at the Foundry tools ... maybe if you design a fun quest or three you'd make a little currency over time.

Anyone else have trouble with the dodging mechanic? I get the double-tap idea and/or the shift key, but it doesn't work reliably. Half the time you double press or press shift+movement key, there's this long hesitation before you slide out of the way ... or if you're blocking, there's this long hesitation between taking your finger off the block key and being able to swing a sword again. And by long, I mean a second or two, which in combat is really long. It's highly annoying and equals one using a lot more potions as you're knocked down over and over and over instead of dodging out of the red circles. Which is why I don't think I'd do well with the rogue class, who has to be nimble? The cleric is definitely the best for me so far. Tho if they fixed the dodging I might like one of the fighters ok.

Unless triggering stuff from a website shortens the time required for them to perform tasks, I don't see how it saves me any time. I've reached a point where most of the time it's too long anyway, so I just login, put up the new task, log out, come back an hour or six later. ... My higher lvl is the Cleric (19 now). I tried the 2H weapon fighter and the shield/sword fighter. Probably DEL again to try the mage. If I felt like spending $200, I noticed you can be a "Founder" and get 2 million diamonds, a super panther, spider mount, and other such things in one big package. If you're really into the game, seems like that'd be a better deal then $30 for some zen to trade, occasionally. Not that I'm that into the game. It does feel more and more like a "dungeon crawl" game (for solo play I mean) and while that's always fun in small doses, I tend to prefer the more open, wandering rpg's. It's been nice to alternate between NWO and Path of Exile tho...keeps me from getting too bored of either, too fast.

Anything under 600 pages is a short book and paperbacks of 1000+ pages aren't that heavy. Hardcovers are a pain tho...too big for comfy lying in bed reading and too heavy to cart around. Hardbacks are for getting authors to sign them. I don't think I'd be interested in having authors sign a Kindle.

Ah, I get it. Didn't realize players traded zen for astral diamonds. $30 still seems steep for a companion pet tho, as mentioned. Reached lvl 16 ... that one quest for killing three Orc leaders finally did me in (died). Those tiny little spaces to fight in and a cranky dodge system. Thankfully they didn't make me do the whole dungeon bit over, just had to run back and kill the last leader who smote me down. So I could choose the newbie quest companion and chose the cleric, because I have no use for a dog. Haha! ...anyway, this is the first game where I find myself watching Netflix on one screen while standing around waiting for professions to finish their short tasks over and over...while also waiting for the hour to go by to invoke the gods and get free rough diamonds. Ah well...it's free. Maybe in a year I'll have a lvl 30 chr.

Chinese take out, The Voice, some lovin', then midnight gaming. It's a rough life, but someone's gotta do it. ...altho my bad knees have been particularly terrible lately. My fault, been slacking on the leg/knee strengthening stuff too much. Squats are a no-no. I should build stadium benches in the backyard to walk up and down on.