LadyCrimson

Point taken, but I'm still not convinced that using real names is going to discourage the career trolls that much, if they aren't also convinced that Blizzard will somehow use that to better police/punish trollish behavior. Do the Blizzard forums have the 'ignore user' feature yet? That feature is one of the better ones for the posters themselves to at least not have to 'see' troll posts, if one is that consistently upset by certain users...and if you don't avail yourself of that ability, that's your choice. It may also encourage 'career trolls' to increase their activity in some kind of rebellious defiance. I dunno...I do understand wanting to foster a more friendly community, I'm just not convinced this is the way to do it. As always, time will decide.

User friendly toolsets that allow people to mod do tend to extend longevity (in terms of playability) to the game, for some people. Whether that constitutes 'flash in the pan' is debatable, imo, since I'd guess most consumers aren't into the actual mod-making themselves, anyway. I'm not sure it increases actual sales much, either, for the same reason, hence not often worthwhile (from a business perspective) for them to put in the time to include toolsets. But that's just a guess, I don't really know for sure.

Like I said, haven't been to their forums in ages...so maybe it's different now. But in the past the serious troll problems seemed to have more to do with lack of 'policing' the forums than anything else. A lot of stuff was just allowed to go on and on w/no one stepping in to curtail it. Has that improved? If not, how are real names going to help with that if the modding of the forums isn't more stringent?

When they made item/skill hack editors, of course. But seriously, there are quite a few popular single-player D2 mods that I'm aware of, that not only change items but skins and rules/skills etc (examples), and of course the ones that didn't alter the main game but did insert things like that super-diablo event (I can't remember what he was called now) into the SP game. I never tried any of the altering mods but I did use the one that put MP-only features into SP.

I vote for Norbert Nipplebottom!

Percy something & the Lightning Thief. I'm not a huge fan of the Potter movies, but Percy was definitely no Potter. It did have some cute moments and a lot of fun "oh look it's..." famous actor cameos/bits, but not very interesting overall.

Oh, no, Candyland is real. Never question Candyland. But I can't say where in Candyland I reside. Queen Frostine still has a grudge against me for when I chewed on her taffy throne.

Hey! You in the corner up there! Little help here please! Lazy, good for nothing NPC... Sledge may have been angry, but I was angrier. Bye bye Sledge.

I haven't been on any Blizzard forum in years....but wow, this is a bad move. I mean, rationally, for majority of people their real name isn't going to bring stalkers to your front door (assuming it's ONLY your name that's revealed, not email and other stuff) but psychologically many are uncomfortable about it...and not just the spammers/trolls. I have yet to knowingly put my real name 'out there' for Google to hunt down, and I refuse to do so for Blizzard.

Excited, I am excited! Defintely going to be a great 2011 for my love of action-rpg's....tho I'm still not quite convinced D3 will be 2011. It's Blizzard after all. That 3rd act boss definitely seemed made more for the summoner spellcasters...at least when you're unfamiliar/first try to kill him.

Bought a soundbar speaker for the TV. It's not like having a 10 speaker surround system but it's actually not too bad. Still needs a subwoofer for real bass tho. I sure miss the huge Radioshack tower speakers we used to use years ago that made the couch/floor literally rumble even at low volume. All this new fangled sound stuff, while it's definitely 'cleaner' sounding & you can get plenty of bass, most of it still, to me, doesn't have the same kind of bass impact that those old systems had. I don't know if that makes sense...but there it is.

Still Titan Quest. I also finally got around to downloading the newest Fraps to run on Win7 (my purchase/membership from 4 years ago still allowed me to download it free, that was a happy surprise) so I'm having idle fun w/that on the i7 pc. It's nice to be able to record stuff w/out the game lagging into a slide show. Yeah, we have an oldish 14 or 15 inch laptop. I could run them on that, but I don't like laptop keyboards... As to music...at least most older RPG music wasn't like NES type music. I do not miss things like Sonic Hedgehog's "drowning" music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TOkKttTkpo ...altho it was a good way to stress out the player.

Whenever I get a new PC and then play an older game, the high FPS numbers always crack me up.

I don't consider myself a graphic 'ho, but I'm discovering that really old games, the very pixelated 320 type resolution graphics are finally beginning to impede my enjoyment for most of those. I think part of it is having the 23" widescreen monitor tho, where it's either this super super super tiny window or stretched out to truly horrendous proportions. Should've kept one of the old small CRT's for such. heh

Well, the King's quest series is basically the Patriarch of the adventure game genre, and really the earliest blockbuster IP in the industry. It was the Super Mario of PC gaming, really. Then it's such a shame I somehow managed to not play any of them. The rest sounds interesting. Thanks. Kings Quest 4-6 is on GoG.com as a package deal for ten bucks, I think. ie, you could play them on Vista/Win7. I have the original on a CD version somewhere, bought many years ago, but I didn't get far into it before I ran into a bug or something. Maybe I should try that gog package myself sometimes.

I remember it did become a little more entertaining towards the end, w/a rather ambiguous ending (ie not Hollywood-happy), but whether that means it 'got any better' would be highly debatable. The beginning, when they were in the apartment etc., was truly awful. I didn't think Godzilla (the more recent remake anyway) was very good either, tho.

While I don't think it's "bloody melty" until at least 32C or so, I am the sort who wears flip flops, shorts and tank tops (or nothing...) when it's 20-22C (70ish F) so I can sympathize not liking heat. I do like the upper 70's F when outside w/a light breeze/in the shade etc but can't stand it being that temp inside the house. I remember a few days ago, however, some news headlines talking about your heat wave, complete with photos of ppl 'cooling' off by sitting with feet in fountains and under sprinklers, and it was maybe 74F...which made me chuckle. Even I wouldn't find that so hot I'd need to cool off in that fashion. heh

I think the following are two of the more depressing 'pop' songs ever: -Cats in the Cradle-Harry Chapin -Blasphemous Rumors - Depeche Mode ...Music doesn't move me to tears unless I'm already in a very sad/depressed mood..however it can turn me from feeling fine to feeling moody if I listen to something sad for very long. ....being someone with mood disorders, I generally prefer songs that to me musically sound kinda sad but are actually uplifting or at least give me the 'chills'....like Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel or Ravel's Bolero.

Watched a sloppy-crazy yet entertaining to watch baseball game between the Red Sox & the SF Giants. Pedroia nearly breaking his foot wasn't good news tho. On the bright side, I like both teams so it almost doesn't matter who wins/loses. It's been a relatively quiet week...looking forward to a quiet weekend.

I found Alcatraz boring myself - not the history of the place but the tour/seeing it - but landmark/visiting wise, I'd still say go see it. The general 'go there & check it all out' places are going to be the usual well known areas/parks/attractions. I can't really think of anything super specific & easy to point out...I used to love the Exploratorium, w/all it's hands on sci/arts exhibits & such but I haven't actually been there in a long time so I can't say what it's like now. Ano Nuevo's seals/walking tours are always a feature, but it's not the best time to see them. Also...in case you aren't aware, if you don't like driving nutty ocean high cliffside roads, get off of Hi 1 around Half Moon Bay/92 to avoid Devil's Slide section. If you don't care about that, keep on going, it is a pretty section. I once would've said you must see the rock n roll laser shows at the Morrison Planetarium in GG Park, but I believe they shut those down from lack of interest (it's not cool enough anymore) a while back. ...such a shame. I think they're still shown in other areas here & there tho so maybe you've already seen one like it anyway.

"The Road." ...now there's a serious 'post-apocalypse' movie. Slowish, but appropriately so. Gloomy & desolate. No zombies or outlandish over-the-top horror beyond the horror, paranoia & desperation brought about by the situation itself. Viggo Mortensen and the child actor are both great. I am left to wonder, however, what the significance of the It's a minor thing, but why show it if it doesn't mean something? heh

That made me LOL... Assuming the action/combat is very fast paced with the typical hordes that tend to just charge right for you, complex or skads of spells/combos are often unused spells because they don't typically work well in those situations. I agree it'd be nice to have more interesting magic in the game, but well, we shall see. I'm happy with simple buffs/direct dmg/summon for action-rpg as long as the combos are engaging & fun to use against the given enemies.

The more posts of yours I read, the more I like you. ...I'm the same way. Myself, I don't really care about flashy or combat animations...although when they're there, I don't complain, since they are nice to look at. For me hack n slash is largely about treasure hunting. I like the hunt and thrill of having that awesome thingie finally drop.....all to become stronger so I can more effectively cover the floor with monster corpses. Or just to collect them. Course, it's also nice when there's a bit o' strategy involved at times, like being able to duck around corners and snipe at groups or draw them out one at a time or something, so it's not just about dashing in guns/fists blazing/quaffing potions. Probably why I liked starting Diablo1 Sorceror's so much. Had to do a lot of that initially cause he was so weak.

@Nathaniel Chapman -- I also like multiple options, so this sounds good to me!

I'll add Borderlands to that mix, which was even more Diablo-like than Kotor. 1st person hacknslash with guns, haha. It worked with 2-4 people quite well, although it WAS annoying at times not being able to see the other player except when they were right in front of you. They used dots on the mini-map to let you know where they were, but it isn't the same as actually being able to see them...you easily lost track. Edit: Also, Summoner was 3rd person (with a very wide view) with a campaign party+MP & it worked most of the time (there were some camera issues in some areas). That said, while other viewpoints can/do work, for this type of game I do definitely prefer the top-down type of view or at least a wide 3rd person view ala Kotor.