LadyCrimson

Never heard of any of those Playfish games either... I feel like I'm seeing a minor resurgence of enjoyable single-player games, both bigger and low budget, also. Or at least, even if the game has MP emphasis, that the SP is still fun/worthwhile enough I'll buy it. Especially during economic downturns where paying for a lot of online accounts might not be top priority for people. WoW's crazy kind of online success could be a fluke, never to be duplicated. I think things will eventually settle into some kind of balance between online-only and single-player options.

Aye, I still remember when $20 seemed like a lot of moolah. Are other countries having these kind of price hikes, too? Or other US States? I haven't seen any (pc, reg. non-collectors edition) game on the shelf for more than 59.99 around here even when just released (I know console tend to be 5-10 more or something). Maybe every once in a great while, but it's rare. Do I live in some kind of game-price bubble area? Kinda agree w/the Hollywood thing. The emphasis on graphics and realistic engines is, perhaps, akin to the emphasis in movies on budget-busting CGI and action/explosions. And then the big movie houses are so befuddled if a small, cheap indie movie rakes it in.

That made me laugh. We're not rich but we're still in a similar position where if I wanted to go all out for gaming, I could, so I definitely know what you mean. I don't see $50-$60 for a game being that excessive these days, especially since it's been that way a long time - as opposed to, say, my grocery store bill. I find that article an interesting viewpoint, even if it's overly gloomy. Entertainment industries have their fluctuations and restructurings, just the way things go as economies * consumer interests fluctuate and alter. The movie/TV industries have similar financial issues + fickle fans...things will shake out. Who knows...a "collapse" of the current way of things, while initially disruptive, could lead to something better down the line. I might not like change very much, but sometimes things just aren't working very well (from either consumer or business PoV) and one has to change directions. Or get new hobbies. Edit: I still haven't bought a console, so I still buy PC games, and likely always will as long as they're available. Consoles may be the wave of the future but they still haven't gotten to the point where I want one...they may someday, just not quite there yet...

If I don't talk to Baby-kitty at least once a day he starts shredding magazines out of frustration that he can't read. ...spent yesterday/this morning tweaking Win7. Borderlands AA still doesn't seem to work... ...giggling at how almost everything on my computer now falls into that x86 folder. ...if I put my hamsters on the bookshelf, they always go straight for the WoW paper CD container and start chewing. Everyone's a critic.

Except for using all my RAM and having DX11 for future gaming (I guess), I'm not impressed with Win7(64bit) over XP in other way. Perhaps as people have more time to figure out all the little tweaks I'll like it more. It's not that it sucks (it seems ok performance wise, altho not faster in anything I personally use) but every Windows version comes with so much unnecessary UI "ease of use"+visual crap that I find utterly useless and less easy (and more clicking!). :/ Turned a lot of it off but...ah well. I did, however, manage to get the XP-style Quick Launch back, which goes a long way to making Win7 interface much more bearable for me. I cannot stand the new Win7 taskbar. I don't care if you can Shift-click on a "pinned" shortcut to open multiple instances rapidly...still can't stand it, I say. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-q...le-disable.html

NVM, I finally found a page with some nice detailed/illustrated how-to instructions...hopefully it'll work for me.

So now that it's been out for a bit...has anyone had any trouble with Win7 in terms of pc's with Win7 seeing non-Win7 PC's over a LAN? Y'know, for sharing files and such. I've heard from some that it's a big pain in the arse to set that up and get it working.

Trying to decide if installing XP-SP3 is worth the "trouble" just so I can play Dawn of Discovery or Dragon Age....eh nothing ventured nothing gained..

The end boss stuff was pretty lame. Altho I would have had a difficult time bringing him down if I hadn't had a never-ending ammo revolver. bang bang bang *hide* bang bang bang for what felt like forever. lol I leveled up to 41 in 2nd playthrough and then found myself being a little bored... Haven't tried going back to Total War:Rome yet, I'll check out some mods, thanks. Complex is good, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I just want simple. Hmm wonder if Lords of the Realm2 will run on XP...that was always a hoot.

I'm finally trying out Rome:Total War, after hearing so much about it. ....strategy complexity seems nice & the battles are kinda cool, but the world map interface...I do not like at all. Well, maybe I'll get used to it & think it's the best ever. Sometimes a game that initially makes me go "hrmmm" I end up obsessing over for weeks...

This Naan flatbread I found in CostCo is the bees knees. Heat in oven for 5-10 min, a little butter on top...delish. Like a cross between a biscuit and pancake perhaps.

At least they were on a planet. Well, kind of. Not bad, not bad at all.

All these DA:O threads are actually making me want to buy the game/DLC just so I can see for myself.

Hamsters in roller balls are endlessly entertaining. Especially when they bump into your wussy cat and make the cat run away.

My initial thought was "blue? what blue?" ... Then, ohhhh, the bit 'o' funky shaded blue in the title bars. Heh. I guess I always thought of this theme as black and greyish army green, or something. I've been to lots of forums that don't allow theme changes...usually the pro ones. Forums made by gme fans or other social sites are where I usually see the "pick from 20 themes" option. I'd imagine "company" forums more often wish to keep it to themselves in case they want a theme to reflect their company or to remain consistent/make sure everyone sees it, etc. Theme doesn't bother me but olive green isn't my favorite color.

I don't think it's that bad. It's too derivative at this time in media culture, but it's not terrible. There's a little more subtle cheese than I was expecting too. Luv the guy from Firefly/Serenity and the other acting works well enough. But well, y'know...I saw the first one. It's not like this is so different/exciting it inspires me to watch the remake. I thought that one at least was pretty clear. He's bored and seemingly seething with some kind of teenage parental/authority resentment and more importantly, he has the hots for the girl.

Since your original post mentioned the "redundancy error" if it isn't a damaged disk, my very wild guess: maybe something's wrong with a registry entry for the game, for whatever reason, and it's impeding the install. Not all registry entries delete from system when you uninstall the game. Which entry it would be and how to figure that out, I'm afraid I don't have a clue. My other "wild guess" would be there's a damaged sector on your actual HD and for some reason the game keeps trying to install it in that sector and failing. Or that your CD-DVD drive has just become picky (you could try w/another drive, if you have one). And my one possible "wild solution", taken from this thread, would be to copy the contents of the one CD onto hard drive and when install wants that disc, point to that directory folder instead of the CD drive. P.S. - IIRC, just because one cleans the surface of the CD, doesn't mean there can't still be damaged data on the CD. Dirt/scratches are a main cause, but sometimes discs just degrade below the layer that's safe to 'resurface' clean & become unreadable by the little laser beam...they're not infallible.

Heh, that Pele sniper popped out of the Weapons Stash at the start of my 2nd playthru. But since I found it so early, it's only listed at 400dmg (& it's a "Solid Volcano"). Wah. The monsters are definitely tougher...at least w/1st playthru weapons & shields...

Luv the dmg numbers on the sniper, can't wait to see some like that.

New pets: Winter White dwarf hamsters! (not in white phase, obviously) They're so cuuuuute! Was only going to get one but these two looked like buddies, plus 2 are more entertaining to watch together. They can both fit in the exercise wheel and pretty much haven't stopped running in it since I got home. At least it's a quiet plastic wheel, lol.

You're so mean. When I had 9 cats and when pet food shopping, people would ask/say stuff like that to me too. One even asked me if I ran a pet shelter or something. heh The Costco near us was closed for complete re-building, for months...finally reopened. I need to check it out. I can always use godzilla size bottles of Motrin & mustard etc.

No Shakespeare required...but If he toned it down just a little, it'd be better. It was especially out of place in Pelham because everyone else was generally so mellow. I think Travolta's on auto-pilot when he's playing a villain.

From what I can see, you don't run into 5 attributes super often. Not rare or anything, but not on everything. On snipers it's often just the 150% critical chance that gets pushed down to the bottom....seems like there was something else I noticed but can't remember now offhand. I'm finally in the very last bit before the endgame boss, so hopefully later tonight I'll get to see some new cool weapons in playthru2.

I'm not seeing anything too weird about the helmets, in those pics, anyway. I've seen far far worse.

I knew I should've bought a monitor with higher than 1920x1080. Some day someone here will catch up to you, Bok. Nice screenies, I like Rosbjerg's 2nd knight-looking graphic action. The 3rd one implies a very sharp sword. lol