LadyCrimson

I can't vote because I don't have enough information on class skills etc. to know whether any stated "class" is going to fit into my personal likes/playstyle. If, in the end, Monk's have a rule/skill set that sounds appealing, I'm going to play the Monk. But it's entirely possible I won't like the sound of P.E. Monk gameplay, thus I won't want to try them first. Some games I love Monks. Some games I've disliked Monks. *shrugs* Other than that, in the past I'd go with mages, but as of late I find them generally too familiar, so I'd probably go for a Ranger and leave the Wizardry to the companions.

But those germs aren't as fresh. And it's the fresh ones that are the most tasty. Er...what did I just say.

"The Victim" - I watched this mostly because of Michael Biehn, who acts and directs, along with some blondie who is apparently his current wife. Wasn't expecting great things from it - it's kind of 'grindhouse-y' I suppose, and that's about what I got out of it. Rather slow and not as gory as you might expect from such a film. I wasn't very impressed with Mr. Biehn's wife's acting abilities, either. Still, it's always a hoot to see my old crush Kyle Reese frolicking around and over-emoting in some weird movie. I have the impression that neither Biehn or his wife are trying to pass their film off as anything but a low-budget, shot-in-12-days lark, and for that, one could say it wasn't ... too ... terrible.

Going to shower and venture forth to do some required holiday prep shopping. Still kinda sick, so I'll try not to breathe on anyone, but sometimes things must be done. At least I don't have to hand germ encrusted cash or paper checks to the poor shopkeepers these days.

As an aside, I'm not sure if it's been stated how much the Soul stuff will affect warriors in P.E. I think they have said it could be used to perform super-human abilities. If they're going to have a basis that even warriors will utilize it for casting defensive or strength and speed enhancing type spells or whatnot, then that alters things as well. But it still turns things away from being a pure fighter, imo, in terms of defining class.

Hence why I said shield bashing or whatnot. Defensive moves such as counters/blocks are fine, if they make some sense for gear equipped. But I'd disagree that only fighting/not fighting = not having the class at all. They could, for example, get a much larger bonus to AC/damage mitigation from the same armor then others, to represent their high stamina/pain tolerance in terms of survival/tank. I like taking a warrior and beating the game doing nothing but hacking with the sword and not using the given abilities, focusing largely on defense vs. offense. It's a challenge. Personal likes. To be clear, I'm talking about fighters who can/are wearing the heavy, full armor get ups, with maybe the giant shields. If we're talking fighters who generally don't wear major/full armor (for speed), more like the stereotypical Romans/Greeks or something, it changes the concept in my head a bit already....so it kinda depends on the gear, for me. Perhaps penalties to some abilities for wearing certain types of gear.

Botanicula was a really cute/fun game, glad I gave it a chance. Those types of games aren't great on replay value, imo, but they can be tons of fun the first time or two. Edit: someday I'm going to have to get The Last Express from GoG and finally get to play it (originally, way back when, it always crashed on me at this certain early point in the game, so I never got very far....

Where's the "don't care" option? Either way is fine with me. If there's no sense of "gore" I won't care that's it's not there, but if I get gibs flying everywhere, that's fine too...and can sometimes be amusing. Visually however, sometimes lots of tiny isometric corpses with all the same "blood stain" underneath/on them starts to look a bit ridiculous rather than realistically violent/gore"), because it all looks too much the same.

Call me old-fashioned, but to me a fighter who has "abilities" is already not a pure fighter, regardless of what name you give the class. Well, maybe a few abilities like shield-bashing and spinning to hit a few foes at once (for less dmg) or whatnot. But so many games these days have "warriors/fighters" who seem to have these rather magical abilities, like slamming their hammer on the ground to cause an "earthquake" to stun enemies in a huge circle, or to light the ground on fire. Or jumping 20 feet in the air to cause extra dmg. when they land. I mean, I have nothing against such abilities as options, but that's not "pure melee" warrior ... that's melee+magic.

DS1 - having all their backpacks open at once was just an on-the-fly option, so to speak. And the bigger packs are the mules, which were also optional. The potions not stacking made it so you practically had to have huge backpacks, lol. I remember using a mod that increased everyone's backpack to mule size. Fun. Anyway, that's an aRPG, where I expect/want huge inventories because loot is primary and altering/shifting gear tends to occur very frequently. I consider P.E. to be a different type of model and should be more limited, and there I definitely prefer having a detailed individual character screen. It shouldn't (imo) be a game where you're concerned about your gear/wanting to stare at your backpack every couple minutes, all the time. That said, I kind of like tetris systems...it fits the organizational OCD in me. I never use the "auto-arrange" options in games, just like I don't toss things in suitcases willy-nilly. Things must be placed "just so."

My living room lamps could use some new shades.... ....but I do like the dying request quest type idea, as long as the quests don't end with some uber loot reward, because then I'd feel like I have to murder my companions to get it. Or at least ... not help them survive. But some story/lore quests might be cool.

Wait, there's more than one MMO? ...seem to be in a "building" mood game wise. Fired up Roller Coaster Tycoon for 30 minutes and amused myself with building a few bizarre coasters.

Anyone seen Lincoln yet? It's getting such glowing reviews, but the ads weren't impressive and it's sentimental Spielberg, so I'm not sure. Not that I don't like/respect some of Spielberg's films, but he can be a sort of hit and miss affair.

Why do fevers always "break" in the middle of the night? At least for me. You wake up, drenched in sweat. Ick. Still have a fever, but it's going down. Was watching some Law and Order:CI on USA network this morning. The other day it was Law and Order:SVU marathon. I think USA basically makes all its profit from Law and Order syndication. Well...it's better than network morning talk shows.

So does this mean you'll be skipping this one and waiting for the 880? I've been tempted once or twice, but I probably won't be buying another GPU until this 590 breaks, or I build a new rig. Whichever comes first. I'm glad tech seems to have slowed down a bit for a while. It's easier on the wallet.

That I can understand. From the sound of it, she has a complaint of some validity but not sure (and don't know) if anyone should actually be fired for it or something. Dunno the details, so can't really judge - such situations are never simple. Just don't like protective "cliques" in business. Here's hoping nothing unfair occurs to you, her, or anyone else involved.

Agree about manuals today. I used to like the thick paper manuals for RTS/builder games, where they'd give you all kinds of info on unit stats, requirements, and the like. Number crunching kinds of stuff that I could refer to. They don't do that much anymore.

I liked the swamps in Dungeon Siege 3 amd the original Dungeon Siege. More specifically, I like splashing around in knee-high water, with the accompanying sound effects. They don't have to be gloomy tho. Just ... swampy.

Agreed. I don't really get this "traitor" thing. Don't know the people involved, of course ... but if the guy's being an arse and wouldn't stop even if she asked him to, and then she is made to feel like a pariah so she felt she had to quit/could no longer work there because of it, that's not something to be proud of and protect.

I must say, standing out in a cool winter wind when you have a high fever is the awesome. ... er, at least, it feels good on the face. Heheh. Sleep, TV, sleep, wondering if I should buy a small turkey this year for hubs and myself, more TV. Big mug of hot milk chocolate. Now back to sleep.

Oh...sabatons. I don't think I've seen such with that kind of extremely long toe before. Usually they seem more like short claws, not foot long rod spikes.

I read the manuals (when there's one that consists of more than telling me what hotkeys do what...) ... but I don't mind tutorials. IF they're not too long. And if they're the intro of the game, it's nice if you can largely skip them on replays ... either with a "I don't need this, Skip, yes/no" choice or by making it so the player can just dash right to the "point" and ignore all those little side tutorial things. I can't think of a single game tutorial that actually gave me any sense of "learning" how to play that just playing the game doesn't do by itself, if you know what I mean...but some people like them, if they add a little to lore/story background. The set-up, as it were. Completely separate tutorials ... eh, I've seen those in some RTS games. I don't think they're any better and it would feel weird in a RPG. You can make in-game tutorials skippable in some fashion...seems good enough to me.

I think P.E. needs a light-armor shopkeeper NPC named Sophos The Wise, where every few days, the first time you enter his shop, he's wearing a different, awesome piece of gear. One time a hat, another time a mask, another time a shirt. And if you comment to him how much you admire his fashion sense, he'll offer to give them to you - for "very reasonable price" of course. Collect the whole set! Also, that pic of the armor with the very long "toes." What in the world are the long toes for? I mean, I can see kicking your enemies in the shins or something, but it would be hard to run/fight with those on, I'd think. And running the risk of impaling something too deeply and getting "stuck?"

Arrow's last episode is moving him towards the "less vengeful hero" mode a tiny bit. Also caught some random old episode of The Love Boat. I remember liking that show a fair bit back when (in my defense, I was 10 and had a crush on Gopher). Now it's just a laugh-fest of bad hair, bad clothes, bad jokes, bad everything. There's some great TV from the 70's/early 80's that holds up today ... but that isn't one of them.

I have a feeling that building stuff in Stronghold - laying out straight lines of walls and plonking down pre-built towers/gatehouses - is quite a bit simpler than being an architect. But even that simplicity was kinda failing me earlier. There are a lot of in-editor tricks for making "eye-candy" maps, where one can make some fairly elaborate terrain/castles for looks vs. play functionality, if one feels like taking a lot of extra time. That's not what I was trying today, however. I know I'm not capable of dealing with that right now. Heh.