LadyCrimson

XVid works/looks fine most of the time, but with long videos (15+ minutes) the amount of compression I tend to need to keep the file size smaller so I don't have to upload 500+MB doesn't work well with YouTube I guess. Or something, I'm no codec expert. If I ever get into doing a lot of vids for a game again, I might try the other.

No gaming tonight ... ordering take-out from a nearby Chinese place we haven't tried - it would be nice to finally find one we like (this city is like a black hole for Chinese food ... the best is merely "tolerable"). Then going to watch either Flight or Skyfall. Haven't decided.

VirtualDub is great for simple gaming videos. Still use it myself. Do you happen to know if the x264vfw compression result in a smaller file size respective to quality than Xvid? Does YouTube like it better? I've always used the xVid-mpeg4 codec for game/YT stuff because I'm used to it and it doesn't have any listed limitations...never bothered to figure out what settings would give similar results with the other codecs available in my VDub list.

Post limit. New thread perhaps?

There is no such thing as an adequate shield in BL2. ...seriously, so many things can take off your shield in one hit, no matter how much shield you have, to a point I often think the game is "cheating" in that regard, heh. I tend to place a bit more emphasis on high health instead...not that I won't take high-shield on top of that, when I can get it, of course.

Agreed. ...there's a place for Diablo like item workings (which I have nothing against, personally), but games like PE isn't that place. I don't want a game - or combat - that's "loot/gear based" in that sense. I went through BG1 a couple times with nothing but rather plain bows and non-magical arrows, for example ... that type of gear-play ability should remain.

It's that time again - post limit.

Seems weird that you have such trouble with GPU's. Not that I'm an expert in such things. Maybe they're just allergic to your rig. When I buy a new GPU I toss the old ones towards hubby, if he wants it, since he doesn't care at all about graphic bells and whistles. So typically they're still going/seeing use 3-4 years later. There's only been one card I bought in all these years that failed within a year.

I get the feeling the picture was less a specific "casual gamers = physically young kids" as it is a conceptualized, snark reference of mentality maturity. Either way, it is a bit annoying. He could have at least used different pictures each time. The video lists these as the main points: (text in parenthesis is my own) 1 - You can't fail (can't kill quest npc's and other such stuff) 2 - No consequences for faction membership 3 - You make little impact on the world 4 - Quest and Journal System (chase EZ quest marker, with journal so sparse on details you're essentially forced to use the markers, among other things) 5 - NPC conversations are heavily reduced 6 - Massively oversimplified puzzles 7 - The value of items has been reduced (not just straight cash value but relative value and high lvl stuff too common/easy to get)

I'll have to watch this later, but thank you for using a format where that's possible. I did skip to a few points to see about the quality complaints, and while I don't care about being able to read all the text myself, I think I'd still agree. I don't think "720" is needed (that doesn't always mean much on YouTube, outside of a number), but use less compression or something - if it's too compressed to begin with, YT's further processing makes it even worse...if file size is an issue, chop it up into 30-40 min segments instead.

Dunno about the game, but I'd watch Alien and Aliens on that thing. It would be ... glorious. I remember when we first got a 50" TV, how awesomely big it seemed, and how great watching stuff on it was. Now it's old hat and feels too small. I want my own IMAX theater.

I think I'd prefer some action/suspense game on a screen that size. System Shock 2 perhaps. That game made me tense enough as it was, on a tiny 19" screen. At 200+ inches, playing in the dead of night with the crickets chirping around me, I'd probably wet my pants.

I think a lot of of the Aliens game was outsourced to a couple other studios or something. I don't know how much tho ... that's sort of conjecture at this point. I think they outsource a lot of the BL2 DLC's too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. At any rate, it's too bad the game is being panned so much. It would've been nice to have a decent continuation of the movie story. (I saw the ending of the game, story-wise it's quite terrible, imo).

Not playing it, but I got around to skimming through more of the Aliens:CM let's plays. Looks like Michael Biehn has a few bigger scenes, which is nice. But the overall story/writing doesn't seem very good from what I saw/heard, which is bad. And it's not enough to make me buy the game. But at least I got to "see" him act as Hicks again. That was kinda cool. And yeah, I'm a Biehn fan. Since Terminator. He has limited range and lately he's kind of a dufus (that horror film with his wife...), but the nostalgia of my past infatuation is strong.

I bought BL1 for myself originally, then after hubby watched me a while, he wanted to try it. Since then sometimes I think I live, eat, sleep Borderlands for weeks at a time ... even when I'm personally a bit tired of it. Melee, to me anyway, feels a bit clunky, at least on the keyboard/mouse. It's just running up and spamming the melee keys and hoping you're facing the right direction as enemies move and the camera/mouse feels like it spins you around with every punch. Slightly better on controller where attack keys aren't part of one of your movement tools. You get used to it and it's certainly doable, but the gunplay is definitely more refined.

While the first Ice Age was passable animated fare, the only real reason to watch the Ice Age movies is Scrat. Then again, at this point, one can always go to YouTube and just watch Scrat's clips, from the movies and the stand alone ones by Blue Sky Studios.

Hubby and I typically went Hunter/Siren because those were our favorites (we did try all the possible 2-player combos at least twice, for short periods, but just loved the Hunter/Siren too much). So I forgot about Roland's team ammo regen. That makes Roland far more useful in group play ... but I wouldn't want to be the one playing him. I just found him utterly flat and boring to play. As to Brick's screaming ... gah. It's amusing for the first hour, but then I just want to sew his mouth shut.

Yeah, like I said...I'm likely to buy it when it comes out, at whatever full price they'll be asking. I just wasn't quite willing to give money up front. I am wishing them all the luck, since I certainly would like a good DK-like game. One big hope/concern is that their level design will not feel as restricted/linear as DK2's did. I didn't like DK2's (SP campaign) level design much at all.

While all characters can use all weapons effectively enough, there are weapon proficiencies that increase with use of a particular weapon type. As the proficiency goes up, you gain (initially small) bonuses while using that weapon type, like reload speed, fire rate etc. If you like SMG's and want to be all you can be with them, you have to use SMG's frequently. So generally speaking, sticking with a few weapon types works best in the long run. In the very very long run (once max level) you can actually max them all out, or close to it, without too much trouble I think, but in the course of going through the game best to stick to 2 or 3 as much as possible. Doesn't hurt you much to use something else when situations call for it...eg don't have to totally metagame the proficiencies, but it does make a big difference as time goes on. Mordecai - sniping was good/fun, fast pistols (Deadly/Gun Crazy/Hair Trigger/Relentless) even better. Use his bird skill to heal you (Out For Blood). Siren - her skill is for getting through short areas unseen/escaping and for regen health mid-battle. Elemental/SMG focus. Roland/Commando - rather boring, imo. Turret is ok but nowhere near as fun/useful as BL2's turret. I tried, but I could never get into him. AR and Shotguns, imo, have never been BL's strong suit. He's all-purpose+healing. Brick - his melee is more than capable, even against most bosses, if you can stand his stupid melee screaming noise. He's awesome with a Launcher, but you need a launcher-ammo regen mod to make it viable as a main way to go. ....if you find the difficulty too hard, do all the side quests. You'll overlevel fairly quickly and thus it becomes easy. If you don't want to over-level, you end up having to skip some side quests. Note that the difference between trying to beat an enemy close to your level and one that is more than 2-3 levels above you can be rather ginormous, if not actually impossible at times.

That aspect is largely player playstyle driven - people do it because yes, it's easy to do. But most of DK/DD was also playable/beatable not using that strategy at all. There were some DD levels that were very defensive in design, but even those could be beaten without doing the wall-in/train to lvl10 tactic. Try it sometime. It's much more interesting, not to mention fast-paced/crazy chaotic. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably buy it when/if it's finished, unless reviews (pro and user) lambast it. But it was TrueNeutral's post about the people behind the current KS that had me thinking. I don't feel as strongly about it as TN does, but I did recall some mod remake/redesign attempts back when. I was not a part of them like TN was, but I also remember they'd disappear a lot and stuff. When I looked it up, it was the same folks. It doesn't inspire confidence for giving money up front. I also think it does remind me more of DK2, with more combat orientation, which isn't necessarily what I'm personally looking for. Still, the graphics so far shown are nice, and if they come through with some good modding tools/level editor like I believe they stated they would, that could go a long way ... eg, I could then turn the game or levels into something more of my taste. But we'll see.

I know that if I had the cash to spend on a TV like that, it'd be a must buy, along with a massive sound system, theater seats, and theater style popcorn popper machine. Also, about 10 super-desktop PC's and a dedicated cat bungalow.

Dusk till Dawn - the original one - is one of those films where I watched and thought "I shouldn't be liking this movie" but you can't help but like it anyway. It's great fun. The Walking Dead episode last night was ok....I'm starting to dislike a bit the lack of focus. By that I mean, 30 second scene in the prison, then 30 second scene in that other town, back and forth, back and forth. Last season they were too focused (the farm, the endless search for the kid)...this time they went the other direction. Heh. Still like this season a lot more than the 2nd, however.

But the Superbowl or World Series parties you could have! It would be dah awesome!

I think we discussed this Kickstarter thread a bit in the Kickstarter thread, a while back. After a bit of research (including the demo) I'm less convinced it'll be as awesome as it sounds, but it could be good. It is not DK3, however, and last I knew, Peter M. had nothing to do with development. Which some might consider a good thing these days. I'm with Gfted here. --they could have made it so you couldn't drop so many minions at a time or some other solution. The stun mechanic was irritating and didn't even solve the issue because all you had to do was drop them a bit farther away, instead. --researching in every level in DK1 made the time crunch aspect more interesting, imo --Walls were not impenetrable in DK2 until a later patch, where in MP/skirmish where you could choose it via a checkbox. They were originally diggable in single-player, which was annoying because it took no time at all for them to do so. --They could have made it take a lot longer to train to level 8 or 10 in a training room, instead of creating an irritating combat-room mechanic that was inefficient, took up nearly all your attention, especially if you were using skeletons and/or vampires (hard to multi-task around your dungeon), was dependent on semi-glitchy imps dragging people back to their lair etc. ....that all said, what I enjoyed about DK2 was the pet dungeons. It was fun to mess around there, because rooms didn't have to be square anymore. Amusing designs could be made. But I definitely prefer/enjoyed DK1/Deeper Dungeons. I replayed that one about 10000x more. I think I only got thru DK2 campaign twice.

Well, it seems a tad small, but otherwise a fine investment.. I say go for it. My husband would love something like that during the summer. Sitting outside on warm evenings, watching a movie. Altho, the neighbors might get kind of annoyed.