Calax

uh CoH:OF? it unbalanced the game (like usual) The campaigns are ok, but it's no longer about tactics it's just swamping your opponent with armor. One of the German missions makes it possible to have a Tiger and two other Supertanks on the field AT THE SAME TIME! I also read that the campaign is better than in COH vanilla. So, why not giving it a try then? And who cares about balance? Fun is what is important. Balance...Pff. it's campaigns actually. COH:OF has a brit and a german campaign attached to it. I was able to fight my way through the german campaign but the british one I just didn't have the heart to finish.

uh CoH:OF? it unbalanced the game (like usual) The campaigns are ok, but it's no longer about tactics it's just swamping your opponent with armor. One of the German missions makes it possible to have a Tiger and two other Supertanks on the field AT THE SAME TIME!

I haven't played the beta, but I get the feeling that with the space marines at least they were going for smaller troupe sizes in order to get the "real marine" feel (a single squad can take on a large force of standard infantry and win easily)

Played some FEAR, and thought of something

The plot starts out with the player character learning of a uprising by a Telepathic Commander (Paxton Fettel) of a battalion of clone soldiers (called Replicas, they're the main enemy that you fight). You play the FEAR point man, it's his first day on the job (FEAR standing for First Encounter Assault and Recon, the Army's supernatural divison), and his goal is to kill Fettel. The plot starts unraveling when Fettel attacks Armacham Technology Corporation (ATC), most of the plot is conveyed via laptops and phone messages that you find and listen to. It started with a water analysis for contamination, there are also hints early on of a project origin and icarus. Basically the plot is this. 10 Years prior to the events of the game, a scientist at ATC decided to try to breed powerful psychics. His daughter (named Alma) was the most powerful anyone had ever seen but it seemed like she could only draw upon nightmares. She was six at the time of her last moments being somewhat free and awake. Harlan Wade (the scientist) basically put her into a coma. Once her body was fertile and up to dealing with pregnancy and birth, he knocked her up using his own genetic code. She was 16 at the time of her first birth, dispite being given enough drugs to knock out a rhino, she was still able to sense what was happening and cried for her child after she gave birth. They ignored her and put her back into her coma and after the first child showed no signs of being psychic, tried again. The second child was a psychic right off the bat, problem was that while Alma was in a coma, her mind found a way to project herself telepathically and manipulate the world. When her second son (who turns out to be Fettel) was six she was able to talk to him and he went nuts. It's not detailed exactly what happened just that because of the communication something disastrous happened that caused the whole program (Project Origin) to be shut down. They took Alma, and tossed her into a cryogenic containment cell and buried the entire facility. Fettel they kept and eventually tried to use him in the Replica project. Anyway, Alma's psychic powers were so great that the people around where she was buried felt haunted and moved away. Initially it's explained in game as a water contamination, but later it's revealed that its Alma. Anyway I think the timeline got a little screwy, but enough time passes that both Alma's children grew up while she stayed frozen at age 16. Eventually the CEO of Armacham decides to clean out the site that Project Origin was buried in, and this lead to Alma being able to manipulate the physical world and talk to Fettel again. He rebels and FEAR is called in to take care of him. Alma was biologically dead but still able to psychically communicate and manipulate the world (don't ask me how, according to the game she died while in the cryo cell). Fettel during the course of the game is doing his best to find and free Alma from her cell, he is able to find all the old members of the Project Origin team and interrogates them. If he doesn't get what he wants he eats their brains to get the info. Anyway the FEAR guy chases Fettel, and eventually Fettel finds Alma's prison, but is unable to get very far within the facility because of extreme security precautions. Harlan Wade is also down there, but his motives are unclear. The Point Man through out the game has witnessed various psychic phenomena, seeing ghosts, and hearing Fettels thoughts, that sort of thing. Anyway the Point Man catches up with Fettel and kills him, starting the final act. Harlan Wade, after nearly being killed by Fettels troopers at ATC headquarters, has an attack of his conscience and heads into the facility. The Point Man is just a minute too slow, and watches as Wade opens Alma's Cell and gets murdered (blood sprays the window the Point Man watches through). The point man is forced to blow up the facility in order to keep the situation from getting any worse. He also contends with ghosts that Alma sets on him to slow him down and kill him. The last fight in the game is the Point Man using his pistol on Alma as she slowly floats towards him (It's not as boring as it sounds, trust me. It's freaky). Then after she disappears (I think, it's been a while since I finished it) the Point Man makese it out into the street just in time to get caught in the blast from the reactor in the facility self destructing. He's rescued by a helicopter and two supporting characters and the final scene in the game is them all staring out of the helicopter at the mushroom cloud (non-nuclear), and being extremely happy they're alive. Then theres a loud CLUMP and everyone says "what was that" before you see Alma climbing into the passenger compartment of the helicopter, and then they cut to credits. Alma has two forms in Fear1, her psychic form which looks like her when she was six (because that was the last time she was conscious), and then a nude, wet, slimy mature version (all the naughty bits are covered by her hair which hasn't been cut since she was 6). You only see the second version at the very end of the game. The biggest twist in the plot however is that it's revealed, I think after the Alma fight, that the Point Man is Alma's first born son. Which explains how he's able to slow down time (actually its just his reactions getting faster rather than slowing time). One of the first "visions" he's given is actually him being born into Harlan Wades hands and Wade saying "You shall be a God amongst men." The first expansion pack dealt with the main characters of FEAR trying to survive the Helicopter that Alma crashed and get to an Extraction Point to get the hell out of the city. However Sierra decided to say **** You to the developers by killing every character from FEAR off. The guy from Delta is killed by Alma, as is the forensic psychologist. Alma also both protects you and tries to kill you (from what I could tell it was her mothering instinct vs her "kill em all" desires.) Also Sierra rezed Fettel to be the antagonist again, and finially in the ultimate "**** you" move, Sierra Killed the point man at the end of Extraction Point. I have NO clue what the hell was going on in Perseus Mandate. ... Ok I'm playing through FEAR1, and I got to thinking, If Alma is Fettle and the Point Man's mother, then Alice Wade is your aunt, but Alice seems to be either as young as you or perhaps younger. So did Harlan Wade have a kid WAYYYYY after he consigned his first daughter to a life of endless sleep?

Woke up extremly late today and was very angry at myself about it, played a little left for dead. Then looked at my own profile on the boards. I've had over 5k views of my profile (which surprised me)... theres nothing there so I have no idea why people look.

I think that he did abuse his power (to deny it was stupid on his part) and he deserved his punishment. I was actually unaware he was in custody given that he's appointed a senator, and used his power as governor otherwise, and he showed up on every talk show under the sun (even if it was an ambush softball interview with Geraldo).

There are dangers associated with both tracks. Letting businesses fail like the powers-that-be did with Lehman Bros. back in October risks spreading panic that undermines the rest of the industry (particularly in the financial industry, which to a large degree is built on trust). But, on the other hand, one contributing factor to the long recession that Japan endured in the '90s while the rest of the world was booming was that their government reacted to a financial crisis by keeping their big businesses alive long past the time when they were dynamic generators of economic growth. Government is good at providing regulations to make sure that certain standards are met (like, say, FDIC does with depository institutions), and the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program, a.k.a. the bailout) could use some more oversight that follows the money to the individual companies to ensure compliance with the law and Treasury's rules. But government is not at all good at advising companies on how to make money and run their businesses. Like I had mentioned, most groups that went with the "support the corporations" view ended up putting strings on each dollar bill. Things like heavy oversight and analysis were mentioned, and another group suggested that you'd only get 10% of the total bailout early on and see what they did with it. If they still failed because of bad business practices then they didn't get any money, but if they showed they were able to show progress with the little amount of money then the rest of their bailout was released to them.

Who were these people? Are you sure you didn't imagine their existance? Actually there were several previews that said it looked like it would be a good game (Xplay is the one I get off the top of my head, but I think there was a Gameinformer preview as well). There have actually been several games where I've looked at them and said "looks boring and repetative, probably will get bad reviews". Of course then there are also those games that are just terrible and have NO publicity behind them (Legendary for example)

Well, it depends on what level of government you're talking about. Generally, apart from municipal bond issues (which are having a tough time along with every other credit market), the Feds are the only ones allowed to deficit spend. So, federal level spending (and tax-cutting) wouldn't necessarily result in firing cops and firemen. At the state and local level, though, roughly-balanced budgets are usually mandatory, so any new spending or reductions in revenue have to come from somewhere. (One of the better arguments for a large federal-level fiscal stimulus is that it will offset the spending cuts and tax increases that lower-level governments are now being forced into by declining tax revenues.) The argument for tax breaks as opposed to direct employment provisions is that the private sector is generally more efficient than government is at deciding where to put people to work. In the long run, I agree with this outlook, but there are reasons why it probably isn't the best approach to take in this circumstance. Specifically, a tax break doesn't directly help people who have lost their jobs (you need income before you have to pay taxes). Instead, it depends on entrepreneurs and businesses taking the benefits they get from the tax break and investing it in expanding their operations. And, in the current business environment, no amount of tax breaks are going to get businesses to start meaningful expansions anytime soon. Direct employment (e.g., on infrastructure projects and the like), on the other hand, provides more guaranteed immediate help to people who are out of work, which provides a reasonably reliable boost to consumer spending that trickles through the rest of the economy. But in the long run, government programs to do this tend to outlive their usefulness (For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority was started as part of the New Deal's rural electrification programs, and it is still in existence today for no reason other than that local politicians have been skillful in defending it), and their decisions on what projects to focus on are often woefully inefficient and driven by politics rather than return-on-investment. Also, building low-income housing is a terrible idea right now. Housing prices collapsed because the market is saturated with oversupply. Eh, it was just ideas being thrown around by students after having 30 minutes to talk about it. I still don't understand the whole "You failed to perform so we're not going to give you money" train of thought, well I shouldn't say that, I don't understand that you wouldn't offer ANY help to an industry, Mainly because if something like the big three automakers goes under, you're economy goes into a deeper tailspin because all related jobs are cut. From the Auto plant workers to the sales reps and dealerships all of them get cut. Do they need to reform? Yes, but you can't just cut them off because you'd be doing more damage to the economy in the short term (I'm thinking like 5-10 years here) than you would fix in the long term. A group said that if we were to let a corporation fail, a smaller business would grow and take it's spot. The problem with that reasoning is that that smaller business would probably take several years (particularly in the transportation industry) to fill in where the previous corporation went under. I think one student guessed it might take as long as 40 years to recover completely from such a catastrophic upheaval within our economy. So the fastest fix right now would be to put in oversight and make sure the companies bailed out were changing their business practices so that they didn't fail again. Socialist? Yes, but some socialism is good IMHO, mainly because of things like socialized medicine (Uninsured I was paying 300$'s a month for drugs that would keep me from becoming suicidal... 300$ a MONTH to save my life) and to a degree social services and projects could lead to more jobs being created and higher incomes for our governments.

Just got back from my business course. Interesting day in there, the professor had us come up with the answer to four questions about the economic stimulus package that's been within the past week. The questions were: Do you give money to corporations? Do you give money to Small Businesses? Do you give tax breaks or put money into social services? Do you give relief to homeowners who's houses have been foreclosed? Generally the class was pretty divided over the first two issues, some wanted to throw Corp's to the sharks because "they had their chance", and proven that they were incapable of making money, and so they wanted to give it to small business owners who would be able to grow and take over where big business had failed. The class kept pecking at this saying that if you let the corporations collapse you'd end up causing the economy to tailspin because the smaller businesses didn't have the infrastructure in place to move up to that level very quickly. The general consensus among those who wanted to give corporations money was that there would have to be a business plan presented, and government oversight. For small businesses, it was a similar response, the class was divided about weather or not to give them money. The ones against it were generally saying that it'd be to much of a gamble to invest in a small business because they would probably have a higher failure rate than the corporations, and the small businesses didn't employ nearly the amount of people that Corporations did and thus would have smaller ripples when they went under. Arguments were presented that smaller business made up a large portion of the economy and they were being hit harder than the corporations in some areas, and thus would fail faster without government help. We didn't talk about his as much as the previous question. As to Tax Breaks vs. Social Services, I was amazed. My groups idea was that instead of tax breaks you'd start up social projects like repairing roads, and maybe solve at least part of the housing crisis by constructing low income housing. But most of the class seemed to think that Tax Breaks were the way to go because it'd get spending up. They were thinking VERY short term IMHO, the social projects would generate jobs and thus allow people to earn money, and it would end up causing an overall increase in the governments tax money because of the earnings, where as a tax break would actually diminish the amount of tax money coming in at local state and federal levels causing things like School, police and fire budgets to be slashed in order to stay out of the red on the annual budget. I almost laughed because when I presented our proposal (generate jobs via social projects/services) and not handing out tax breaks my proposal ended up being defended by our professor (the presenter was supposed to defend it) because the class kept sniping at the fact that generating jobs wouldn't give the economy the boost it needed to get back on more stable ground. They also didn't seem to understand that if you lowered taxes Cops and Firemen would be cut to meet the budget requirements. The professor had to explain that families generating income would end up having overall more money and give the government more money than a tax break would give to the family. Also another reason I proposed the idea to generate government jobs over tax breaks was because in our society, people would take the tax break and go buy something else that they couldn't afford rather than trying to fulfill their needs. Later tonight I go in for Geology, and Human Development.

Why is it I'm able to call "Good game/Bad Game" based solely on previews? I mean that I watch a preview which the people are glowing about how great it's going to be, but when watching the gameplay I think "You know how fast that looks like its going to get boring?" People were gushing about Iron Man before it came out, then it pops out and it's a boring repetitive game. I'm now looking at inFamous and thinking "sure it sounds good on paper but who in the world walks around with their hand in held out like that?" I saw a preview where they showed off a couple of things and all I could see was that the Demo guy was using the same 2 combos, and the climbing mechanic seems like it came from 4 years ago. I'm almost willing to put money on it as a "Bland cross between grand theft auto and the force unleashed".

Almost missed my first homework assignment but managed to make a deal with the professor. On the flip side I was told by my boss that because I'd gone to see family after Christmas (the week after) he wouldn't give me hours. So I'm left out of work and in school, I'm gonna stop by In-n-out and try to get a job there.

It's good to see tanking getting some love. Hope my server updates soon. Yeah, the Devs realized that the way tanking was was kinda jacked so they put together new agro rules and completly redrew the board for Agro and tanking. Now agro is primarily gained using high threat/high damage abilities (we don't approach Mage's or any other class in terms of dps, every class got an OBSCENE damage boost with 3.0) rather than just High Threat abilities. If you're on a private server you probably won't get the update unless you upgrade yourself to Wrath (because at any other level besides 80 things are HORRIBLY unbalanced). Also on my warrior I got a couple of fun pulling tools (instead of having to actually use my ranged weapon) I got heroic throw which I basically chuck my melee weapon at an opponent, and because it's talented it silences upon impact. I've also got a 30 yd taunt (that was in the most recent patch... 3.0. and a charge usable in combat to zip around and grab things.

I've gone from level 1 to 50 in eight days. I'm fine with my leveling rate. And no, I don't want to be a tank. If I wanted to play sword and board, I'd have picked up a warrior and done just that. JESUS you level fast. That said the biggest thing that prot trees have over other trees is the ability to solo elite mobs. 1) I have tanked pre-3.0. 2) Sitting in the middle of a mob, generating threat and doing 200 dps is still contributing more to a raid than standing around doing nothing. 3) Contributing to a guild has nothing to do with dps/healing/tanking. I have my BS up to 300, can I make something for my guildmates? No, they're all level 70. I have my mining up to 300, can I gather mats for them? Nope. Can I answer questions they might have? Nope. Can I help them with a difficult quest? Nope. At the end game, Blacksmithing probably has the least to contribute to a progressing guild. Mainly because all the epics crafted from it are easily trashed by what you get in Naxxaramas and other instances. I also love what they've done in 3.0 to tanking, I generate stupid amounts of threat per second, and do over 1000 dps in raids.

if you want to level faster, at 47 you ought to switch to protection spec and pick up tanking gear. Mainly because you can gather up a large number of enemies and kick the crap out of them (you kill 1 mob at the same rate as 7 ish mobs in prot spec). That said, you really don't know what it feels like to not be contributing anything, in the olden days before 3.0 Tanking consisted of generating threat while doing 200 damage per second. so if you were the off tank, you did NOTHING until you had a trash pull to deal with. With 3.0 and the changes it wrought on tanking in general, warrior tanks had their damage boosted to 1.2k per second at 80, I can also throw out 6k threat per second when in a rage flows like water environment (like Patchwerk in Naxxaramas)

Tanks are beastly now when solo. Particularly with Enraged Regeneration (30% heal that takes 15 seconds). I'm by no means a perfect player of L4D. On advanced I'm extremly good because I don't have to worry as much about being hit (on expert each normal zombie hits for 20, witches and tanks are one hit kills/incaps respectively, it gets pretty painful)

not just the cards, most of the scenes involving women at night (shani, the princess and the mage mainly) forced a reskin of those characters because they had their breasts hanging out in the international version.

... I have been known in WoW to have my character tanking in a dress becuse of the rage mechanic. WoW is interesting in that you can overgear instances pretty easily, and that can bring around alot of problems for Warriors in particular (who scale with Gear the most out of all the classes) because of the way our rage mechanic works. Basically we get hit and get rage, also if we do damage we get rage but not as much as getting smacked around. The problem arises when you try to tank things of a much lower gear level than you, because you don't take enough damage to get your rage to a comfortable level to allow you to pull of some of your abilities. Hence overgeared warriors usually take off various items of clothing to get their stats down low enough that they don't have rage problems. This only happens to warriors btw, everyone else is able to overgear an instance and not have to worry about mana/energy/rune usage.

I don't need to have people handing me movies and music, just adding the answers to "Who am I?"

My teacher said that one of the people who'd done this before simply asked 10 people in a shopping mall on camera who he was and he STILL got credit for it. He doesn't care who I ask, merely that I ask.

Seriously? they couldn't do the wanted quests with THAT!? I hope the warriors are speced right and have Titans Grip cause that sucker does MASSIVE DAMAGE! That said, with anything that's protection/tank speced you can pretty much take down elites like nobodies business (I was in t6 gear and able to do 3 man quests by myself until dragonblight. and even after that in blues and greens I could three man 5 man elite quests). Aristes, if you want to try expert give me or Der a poke. Like I mentioned earlier, we make a pretty good team assuming nobody runs infront of eachother.

... He/she's not from bleach, it's actually from Battle angel Alita aka Gun dream or more specifically Lost Order (the series the writer put together because he wasn't pleased about how it originally ended). His name is Sechs and he's an android replica with all the memories and abilities of the main character, except he's been using his own experiences to mold his own form of combat. He's killed all his "sisters" except for Elf and Zwolf who are protected by a kookie scientist who acts as one of the main villains for most of the original series. He started as a female android but in order to seperate himself from Alita he had his body swapped. The body he's first seen in has a rail gun on one arm, he gets a different better body later on in the series. As to bleach Ken-chan FTW!

I think I had 38% accuracy on one of them. Don't remember which one though. Had a mid 20% headshot percentage though. Only 5 friendly fire in Death Toll, but 17 Dead Air. Totally wasn't my fault though when Phoenixz kept running in front of me. I swear I incapped him more than the zombies did. I was getting pissed at him always saying "Come back! we need to stick together!" when I was like 4 feet ahead of the group and in 0 danger of zombies. Then he'd do the exact same thing I would and not follow through on his own advice.

Did some Expert Death Toll and Dead Air with Der and Shape and Phoenixz. Actually survived both times, had the least amount of friendly fire (2 accidentals on each map) and the highest accuracy (52 and 48%) probably because I was using the hunting rifle. Just got done with a little bit of FEAR (the origional) and the thing I notice the most about it, is that the engine SUCKS when rendering an outdoor environment. The buildings look like cardboard cutouts. and everything seems boxy.