Calax

this is a slightly different scenario than someone smoking every day, all day, for years on end. very, very difficult to quit. i've been both ways and i'd say that i'm currently the part-timer as you describe, and yes, it is easier to quit from this perspective. in general, it does not bother me to not smoke at all. once i get to the bar, however, it's undeniable. 3 hours to go, in fact. to the long-term smoker quitting involves what appears to be a mild cold, but for several months. taks On smoking, Never did it because my dad would pitch a HUGE fit about it (he was a smoker, then got cancer of the lung and had to have a third of his left lung removed) As to what happened today? not much, made defense cap in WoW and did some rock band with friends (i'm getting really good at drums)

there are some... interesting hidden L1 views during the second act (stuff like looking down naomi's blouse) and they give you a psyche bonus!

The biggest problem with this is that if Kotor3 references TOR in any way shape or form, people will get angry because their actions on the world have not changed it. And if you were to put Knights of the Old Republic together fresh you could do what you want to in terms of timeline, BUT when you make a sequel you have to make sure there is a connection to the previous games otherwise you have a very high chance that it will backfire. See: Command And Conquer: Generals.

I assume you mean a DS male exile, but there are more options then that, because you can still has a DS male Exile and have Bastilla LS. But the fact comes down to is both Bioware and Obsidian left the characters completely open to what happens at the end. The only thing we know for sure is Revan left known space and did not return (we don't even know that much of the exile). IMO you will be disappointed if you expect Revan to be significant in the TOR lore. No, I'm saying that the sith holocron that Exile finds only works (I think, it's been a while) when Revan is selected as DS male. and besides revan would be easy to venerate. He's been on both sides of the tracks (a Jedi and a Sith) prior to Kotor 1 and he's also got body armor that makes him androgynous. So theoretically you could get a way without defining him. I however think they will define him at least a little so that they can get work out of him. He is after all their character so they can do what they want with him.

I read somewhere when the game was still being developed that Redwood Shores (developer) wanted the player to feel as if they were actually there. Nothing's really handed to you in Dead Space (story wise). It's an investigative game, you gotta be willing to look around a little if you want to find out whats going on. If you keep playing, even without finding/reading logs, you'll still get the story. If the curiosity isn't there I could see why you'd want to stop. Well that's just it. I was I believe about half way through the game and had no real compelling reason to continue other than "OMG I can cut these creatures limbs off!" If you make it an investigative story at least move the story faster than a glacier.

Yes, it is true the storyline in MMOs leave most people wanting, but the same can be said of many SPRPGs (anyone really happy with KoTOR2's ending?). Anyway, if Bioware is to be believed then TOR will contain the aspects that a SPRPG player wants from a MMORPG. They claim that TOR has more content then every game they have ever made put together. Also it will allow your story to truly unfold as you go with your choices actually meaning something, unlike in other MMOs. It will, in essence, make a complete SW adventure that will allow you to choose LS or DS and become whatever you want to be. If they pull this off then every player will be dramatically different, rather than the basic cookie cutter style characters you get from other MMOs. I love the SPRPGs and play the MMOs too. Now I play MMOs because the SPRPG get boring after you beat it a few times and with about 30-45 hours of play time to beat KoTOR2 compared to WoW (I dont know the time to get to 80, but 70 was generally considered 240 hours as fairly fast) does not allow very much play time. As pointed out MMOs make money through subscriptions, so there is a vested interest in making them as big as possible and continuing to expand them (thus WoW has BC and LK). SPRPG make money one time and there only needs be enough content to sell the game to someone (30+ hours). Now I agree there are different markets for SPRPG and MMOs, but they do seriously overlap. Personally I let me subscriptions expire on the MMOs when I get a new SPRPG, (no idea how average that is, but I bet a good percentage of player do the same, but even if it is 10% then for WoW that is 1.1 million subscriptions). Personally I think that if there was to be a KoTOR3 is would have to release before TOR or after TOR is all but dead. But, if TOR is as good as they hope I think WoW will be gone first and they are going on their 5th year with 11 million current subscribers, so don't hold your breath. Yes however I have some points to make: 1. They say that TOR will have more content then all their games: IMO, this is a lame attempt at saying, "Eventually." If they follow MMO mechanics, and implement what an MMO HAS TO HAVE, then upon release of this game, they won't have more content then all their games, over the years though, of course, because they can add things over time. 2. Leveling from 70 to 80 taking 240 hours IMO is just stupid. It does not make me feel like I am achieving anything, it makes me feel like I'm grinding longer than other people. This just shows that most MMOs make it take a long long time to level up rather than be innovative and genius in thinking of other things to actually make the game fun. Its like they hang a piece of meat (level 80) in front of a hunger dog (level 70's). The hungry dog really wants that piece of meat, but he has to get to it, and in WoW's case, it takes a LONG TIME. Cin was saying that it took 240 hours to get from 0 to 70, that's one heck of a ride, From 70-80 is significantly shorter Blizzards phasing system is a remedy to this. You'll see Kotor three after wargamers see Warcraft 4.

I total disagree. I bet they will avoid Revan like the plague. The best we get is a mere mention that Revan fell to the DS and was redeemed from it and killed Malak, but likely not even that. The reason for it is that KoTOR1 can end with Revan as LS or DS. and in KoTOR2 there is a part that tells you the Bastilla and Revan lead the Sith (holocrom in the old sith academy, normally is broken but not always). Therefore to put him in TOR assumes too much. the "cannon" ending that most people work off of is that revan was a lightside male. Obsidian decided that they wanted to let the player choose how revan grew in K1 (lightside/darkside and gender being the two biggest points). The sith holocron you found I believe only works when you have Revan DS male. Anyway, Bioware will probably have revan be revered because in pop culture he's got a following larger than any other Jedi or Sith from that time period.

Resistance 2, Dead Space got shelved because of lack of interest. I think this is because the creators of Dead space didn't put enough emphasis on the story, or they didn't tell it correctly. Most of the story is optional, with you learning exactly what happened on the ship by viewing logs and listening to audio recordings of the previous crew. If you don't pay attention to this it seems like the story is simply "investigate anomaly, disaster strikes, survive" with a few other things thrown in that don't really get explained without the extra stuff. I think it should be a rule that the story in the game should be told through the narrative of the gameplay. Plot shouldn't be relegated to a backup position where major plot points could be missed. Instead if you're going to have a little collection minigame have the collectibles fill in the background of the universe rather than the main plot.

trying to enroll in classes, but because I am not a continuing student, everything thats even remotely interesting to me is either waitlist or closed. And I need a full load so I can have insurance.

the very basic ones were for the origional star wars book. NJO was a storyline put together at a conference of the writers and the editors. I can only guess anything under a similar banner (like "legacy of the force") is running under the same idea as NJO.

I don't know if the editors at Lucasbooks (or whoever) would allow somthing like that to get through anymore, back in the days pre NJO the writers were given a simple set of guidelines to run by, Every major character must survive the story (this probably ended up taking the Solo kids in after their creation) and not be significantly changed (ie Luke couldn't end a storyline as a Dark Jedi). And actually that was about it. Now it seems the editors have a sort of meta arc that they want to follow and try to hammer down most of the MAJOR plot points in that arc in each book.

And by "lived with" - you are saying that he often had things charged up his loading ramp? If he did I could at least bum a job from him , nah I think just a roomie from college.

I skimmed the last page but are taks and Guard Dog saying that the Nuremberg trials should have had all the defendants remanded to German Custody, and had German's decide the sentence of their leaders?

Met my cousin who apparently knows a guy who animated the ants in Fallout 3, and he also "lived with" the guy at atari that made the deal with EA to publish there.

Well generally in newer games the bosses had more of a personality than a basic backstory (told by another character rather than through exposition or learning by the main character no less) and four lines they like to repeat.

Personally I think that the Concubine was the only boss who sparked an interest in me (not only because she happened to have an interesting final boss fight, or at least one that wasn't just about killing). The warrior would have been a contender if something akin to his redemption had been made better told (Maybe with him actually showing how he looked originally or without the ambiguity between the characters after his defeat), or had the boss fight itself be more than just dodge, mash button four times in a row. The hunter wasn't really memorable, probably because he didn't speak or didn't even have any real gimmick to him. And the physician or whatever only stuck out because of the limited time bits. All in all the writers at Ubi could have put ALOT more time and effort into making the bosses have more character, instead they just come off as bland as paste.

more grumbling, but not about customers I work at a tiny gamestop (I think my bedroom is about half the size of the entire store... maybe a third but anyway) but we are the highest volume gamestop in the entire Sacramento Metropolitan area because we are the only one within a reasonable drive of 2 suburbs and a part of the urban sprawl of Sac. Now as you probably have guessed we have seasonal hires who come in between September and October and work until mid January. and with the store the size of ours we probably only really need 2 of the temps. Now heres the kicker, our manager was practically forced to hire 4 of them, and because he didn't want to have to go back and fix every third transaction he barred them from the registers (no biggie). But here's where me and most of the crew get frustrated. Within a week of being hired one had to quit because his primary job also ramped up it's hours (hes a data puncher for the prison system or somthing like that), ok we understand. He's also probably the only one who had a CLUE about what he was selling. So we hired a replacement who was actually pretty good (and will probably end up permanent if we have the room the only one of the 5 total temps we had in the store). Then today I learn that a second one is getting fired for a no show, and he checked out (against company policy) a brand new ps3 game, and came back to the management with a sod story about his cat jumping into the entertainment system or... something. Anyway, the BRAND NEW item comes back with a HUGE circular scratch in it. So he tries to weasel out of purchasing the thing but the boss put his foot down (thank god) and forced the kid to buy it, then he no show's twice. The other two remaining temps are... mediocre at best, One (a girl) is a friend of the manager and is a really good salesmen, or would be if she played anything newer than the original Call of Duty. And she also forced herself onto a register and forced us to train her (sometimes we leave her dangling about what to do, just to see her squirm) on the sucker. She also doesn't really get along well with two of the permanent employees and is talking of getting a third job, also she got angry at me for contradicting her about a game and it's quality in front of a customer (mirrors edge, she told the customer it was terrible, I corrected her saying it's pretty good but short). The last guy is very good at staying away from the register but his style of customer service usually is acting as message boy between the customer and the counter (where me and the other permanent employees are running registers and otherwise helping customers as best we can). Since we've hired him we're guessing that he's been the cause of some really bizarre filing screwups, we found Gears 2 in between call of duty 3 and 4 (we run on a alphabetical system) for example, and the only other thing we've seen him really do is straighten the shelves. Which admittedly they do need alot of straightening during the holidays but not that much. Anyway me and some of the crew were running over the total tally and decided that we could have either made it with just ourselves and no temps, or we could have hired two Competent people who knew what they were talking about and been able to BREEZE through the season.

I donno, I think we'll probably see somthing along the lines of the SMG's being used to charge opponents by keeping their heads down with stupid amounts of inaccurate lead, and once you get closer you simply beat the crap out of em with your kung fu.

I had a problem on my new system recently that sounds similar (I can't really tell without a screenie) but everything was ultimatly moving wayyy too fast. The problem turned out to be that my Core 2 duo was operating both cpu's on the game. What you need to do to make this go away is shut off one of the cpu's (you should do it with most games over a certain age. In task manager right click on Kotor 2 process, then set affinity and make sure only one cpu is active on it (you have to do this every so often when you boot it up.)

:sigh: new bleach movie just came out (from the looks of it it's captain battletastic!) :waits for the fansub: I also need to catch back up on Gundam 00

If you want to move out to Cali I think Lockheed might have positions. I'd have to ask my brother (he's a network tech on stuff people don't talk about)

It looks like FFXIII is going to be an all female storyline while Versus is going to be all male. (Notice that in XIII all the main characters are female while in Versus it's all Men with the antagonists being female) It also looks like the tech has jumped back up to where it was in Midgar and FFVIII rather than in X and XII

well if he wants to impact the Sith empire he either has to get some position of power within the empire that would rely upon him using the dark side, or he has to somehow forment a rebellion within the Empire but that would probably not come to a head within his lifetime. Why does he "have to?" He could do what you are saying, and infiltrate their ranks by falling to the Dark Side, or he could do something else. Impacting an empire from within is not the only option. if he is to have the impact that would cause the Sith to take an extra 300 years to attack the republic he'd have to either form an army of disgruntled slaves or become powerful enough that he has his own army to forment discontent. while the disgruntled slaves would probably allow him to remain Lightsided the Nobility line would probably end up with him stuck in a terrible spiral leading to his darkside tendancies coming back to haunt him. Hmm.... He doesn't have to lead a slave rebellion in order to impact the Sith empire... Refer to my earlier theory.... Nor does he have to willingly fall to the DS again and get in some position of power (because the Sith probably wouldn't just hand over a position of power to Revan because they probably wouldn't know him too well.) In general the way a sith organization works is that in order to move up in the ranks (at least at the rank where Revan would need to be to have a large enough impact) you kill the person above you. Generally wanton slaughter and the keeping of pleasure slaves is not conducive to rising in the sith ranks. Also I would expect a Lord to be able to sense the alignment of another Lord. Which is why he probably wouldn't want to fall to the DS again. Does it make sense? Revan leads against the Mandalorians, then turns and attacks the Republic... Then his mind is re-wired and he helps the Republic, even AFTER remembering who he was before this "Jedi re-wiring thing". If he fell to the DS purposely and attacked the Republic to save it, why doesn't the Canon Revan go DS and finish his onslaught of hte Republic? Something else must have been at work in my opinion. He must've realized he made an error somewhere along his judgment when he fell to the DS the first time. So I highly doubt that if he goes to fight the True Sith, he will fall to the Dark Side. This is because the aforementioned events. He fell to the Dark Side the first time, and ended up nearly destroying the Jedi and the Republic. He left decimation in his wake. He must have realized that one cannot simply fall to the Dark Side and then hope to do good, the Dark Side rules your destiny. Your lust and craving for power is all that matters. And yet without either support from another unknown kingdom, or the Republic, Revan wouldn't have the influence or power base necessary to do significant damage to a society designed around power and war. It'd be like taking a German General and plopping him down in Siberia during world war two and expecting him to have ANY effect on the Russian War Effort.

Dead Space. I picked this, Ratchet & Clank Future, and Resistance 2 in a buy two get one free deal at work. While I'm not the type to jump at this style (M Night Shamalans good stuff? yeah I freak out) but to me this isn't so much scary as "Holy CRAP, I can't believe I survived that!" Unlike Yahtzee I don't prefer the Ripper, my baby is the plasma cutter (but I've been pumping more upgrades into my suit as I can). I haven't tried the other two but I'm gonna push to finish Dead Space and try to pick up a Call of Duty:World at War. Or somthing else good used once I finish dead space (I intend to do it within a week so I can return it within the limit) I'm on chapter 4

well if he wants to impact the Sith empire he either has to get some position of power within the empire that would rely upon him using the dark side, or he has to somehow forment a rebellion within the Empire but that would probably not come to a head within his lifetime. Why does he "have to?" He could do what you are saying, and infiltrate their ranks by falling to the Dark Side, or he could do something else. Impacting an empire from within is not the only option. if he is to have the impact that would cause the Sith to take an extra 300 years to attack the republic he'd have to either form an army of disgruntled slaves or become powerful enough that he has his own army to forment discontent. while the disgruntled slaves would probably allow him to remain Lightsided the Nobility line would probably end up with him stuck in a terrible spiral leading to his darkside tendancies coming back to haunt him. Hmm.... He doesn't have to lead a slave rebellion in order to impact the Sith empire... Refer to my earlier theory.... Nor does he have to willingly fall to the DS again and get in some position of power (because the Sith probably wouldn't just hand over a position of power to Revan because they probably wouldn't know him too well.) In general the way a sith organization works is that in order to move up in the ranks (at least at the rank where Revan would need to be to have a large enough impact) you kill the person above you. Generally wanton slaughter and the keeping of pleasure slaves is not conducive to rising in the sith ranks. Also I would expect a Lord to be able to sense the alignment of another Lord.