Calax

Nothing, slept most of the day because I couldn't sleep last night because i forgot to take my drugs until 4/5 am (when the drug isn't in my system I instantly am manic) Then watched the Daily show, House and Xplay (and was frustrated at Xplay's game of the year, Fable II). Then watched Bleach 198 and looked at the boards. In recent news, at work I got a call from a guy who had a TERRIBLE Mexican Accent about halo 3, he asked if we had any in stock, and then he asked "How many Peso's would halo 3 be?" I was a little shocked to say the least, and finially just said "we don't take pesos, It's still 59.99 USD." by this point everyone in the store was staring at me as if I'd gone insane. Finially the guy on the phone hung up and I was inundated with questions about "what the HELL was that?" Reminds me of a call I took about Age of Conan where a kid and his mother both tried to convince me that I should replace their game because it wasn't working, or let them pick out another game of the same value. While we could do the first, it has to be within 30 days of the purchase and the kid was about 15 days beyond that. And the second option they tried to give me is completely against company policy and the return policy that's on the bottom of every receipt that gamestop hands out. So the kid finally said "well I'm never going back to gamestop and I'm going to get all my friends not to either" Big whoop, Gamestop makes money hand over fist on the used games it's not like 3 customers is going to hurt us. Why do people call gamestop and ask questions like "I can't get my ps3 to turn on! can you help me?" which usually leads to us doing a ghetto tech support over the phone before finally throwing up our hands and giving out the 1-800 number. People seem to think that because we sell games we can do tech support. While we can do some limited things we generally don't know that much about how to repair a system. We've also fielded calls from kids who want to be sponsored to play games by microsoft or gamestop, Kids who want to know the secret to lvl 82 of whatever, Parent's who think there is an anti violence option in every game (one in particular last week was eragon) and generally questions that have nothing to do with us buying selling and trading games. We actually had a customer who an old store manager went out, Hooked up her ps3 for her, and the next week she came back with it complaining that the thing had eaten her sons game. So the keyholder on duty plugged it in, and hit the eject button, nothing happens, he checks the online dashboard, and it says there's no game in there, finally he has the woman check the games case and it turns out the game was already ejected and her kids were just idiots. Now this would be fine if it were a normal customer. But this lady was so pissed at us she threatened to throw the damn system through our front door. What also bugs me is when you offer to get sombody the game informer card (years subscription to game informer magazine and you get 10% off all used games and 10% extra on all trade ins) when they have close to 400 dollars on their purchase and it would save them a bundle, and the kid thats with them says to mommy or daddy, "we don't want that" just out of hand. Sure it's 14 bucks but your already saving 10 on the purchase your bloody fool and you aren't even paying for the blasted stuff your getting. Freaking entitled children of rich people. I have known parents to buy their kids whatever the kid wants, the comes back and complains to us that it's too hard or too mature for her 10 year old, and she wants her money back when she bought a new game. Ok on Used items you get a seven days satisfaction guarantee, you buy it try it, don't like it, in seven days you can get your money back no questions asked, but when you INSISTED on buying a new for your kid, you pretty much gave up the right to return the thing without either giving up a large portion of the games price (for a brand new game we give 30 bucks) or it being busted. Don't complain to me that you spend sooo much money here over the years and you deserve to be allowed to return an item you used as new, you were told the freaking return policy when we sold you the game. That is a pretty poor excuse for wanting somthing, saying that you spend X amount of dollars at the store so the store should owe you somthing. Sure you spend 500 over a year at our particular gamestop, but people sometimes pull that off in one day (I think our largest transaction on black friday was 1100 dollars). The store, and any retailer really doesn't owe its customers a dime. We do owe it to you to serve you in a good mood and without bias, but we don't owe you anything beyond that, much less owe you enough to break company policy because you were stupid and bought your kid Gears of War 2 when the kid is six years old and he freaked out because of the level of gore shown. ... /angry tirade against customers

Wasn't Yoda the one telling Anakin that death is part of the cycle of life and to deny it would be.... a path to the darkside? or something to that effect. you know in this scene: been looking to use an image from that for a while :D No. He told Anakin (NOT EXACT words, watch the movie for those). "Death... is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the force. Mourn them do not, miss them do not. Fear, leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed that is." Anakin: What must I do? Yoda: Train yourself to let go, of everything you fear to lose. Yoda told anakin not to fear the deaths of anyone, that that would lead him down a dark path (it did, whoop de doo). Basically attachment leads to jealousy (Thats the actual line I think.) He didn't say don't prolong your life. :D Except that to prolong your life is to show that you either A) fear death or B) are so full of yourself you think that it would be best to use your resources on yourself to increase your lifespan so that you can hold authority longer. If someone like yoda knew how to prolong his natural born lifespan then he would probably give the secrets to other people rather than just keep it to himself. Thats really the crux of it, Yoda doesn't seem to have given these "secrets" to the other jedi. If he did then we'd probably have seen in the various stories and guides that jedi lived a heck of alot longer than the standard. To not do so would show that he's selfish and fears others gaining his powers.

Which is why the MMO doesn't even have to involve the previous two KOTOR games. I'm sure you'll hear lots of talk of the events WE KNOW ABOUT though. Such as Revan beating Malak and what not. The Mandalorian Wars and stuff. Except that Bioware has stated that they want to make the game a sequel to the Kotor games (if only in spirit). My guess is that the Jedi will be venerate Revan and try to follow in his image, while the Sith will either be taught his actions in the unknown regions and thus hate him or they will venerate what he was before his "incident" with bastila.

Except that you yourself have said that Revan's journey into the unknown was what kept the Sith from attacking for those 300 years. Based on what Bio has said I'm guessing that Revan is going to play a HUGE role in the MMO. Yes, I have. BUT, what I stated in the quote that you... quoted... was an assumption. Which means its 50/50 chance it could be correct IF thats how it played out. I have also stated that Revan may NOT have fought the True Sith empire because maybe it was so strong at the time of K2 he simply had to wait for them to attack the Republic (even with Exile's help). Admittedly it would seem impossible for Revan to have an affect on the Sith Empire given that He wanders in there as a paragon of the light side. The best I could see him pulling off would be Sparticus all over again (slave revolt that nearly toppled the roman empire) and this leaves the empire with significant rebuilding to do given their workforce was wiped out and they lost alot of assets putting the revolt down. Again this is just a possible scenario. You believe because (canonically) he is light side, that he is not strong enough to face the empire? Is this correct? I'm not sure what you are saying . I'm saying that for him to rise in power within the Sith empire he'd have to give himself over to the dark side or be REALLY GOOD at hiding his affiliation. I mean the entire Sith Society is based around using the dark side and the fact that in order to rise in the ranks you have to kill your predecessor. I don't think that Revan would be able to stay as a lightsider and have a significant impact on the Sith without either becoming a slave (and eventually leading a slave revolt) or somehow starting a grassroots resistance which wouldn't be very interesting in a game of any type... wait nix that last, it'd be interesting in a strategy game but not in a RPG.

WoWwiki is generally up to date and has the lore from Warcraft's 1 and 2. (I didn't know the swamp of sorrows actually played a role in Warcraft 1 until I read that site)

You didn't loose a single BB in pearl? wow. You might try to form a couple of battle groups around the Battleships and send them to harry landing areas and such while your carriers try to tie up the Japanese carriers.

The thing about Steam being DRM is that it's not designed to find problems. It also makes it easier to keep track of your games and pick which ones you have on your system at any one time.

The biggest thing that I think Blizz needs to work in is making the Alliance leaders actually feel like they do anything. Varian was created by Blizz (at least his character, not the fact he existed) primarily to give the Alliance a leader to rally behind. While the Horde got Thrall, Sylvanas, and Cairne, all with TREMENDOUS amounts of back story, the Alliance's primary personalities either were ineffectual (Tyrande, I have yet to see her interact with anything except for NE's starting), Removed from the story (either by death in the RTS's or by being held in the Emerald Dream for Mal'Furion. Kael is another matter entirely), or just had no personality or prior history (The gnomeish king and the King of Ironforge. And until a while ago Bolvar Fordragon). So blizz turned around and made Varian, who's story was told in the WoW Comic. He was amnesiac but had good muscle memory so he was made into a gladiator, he eventually was able to free himself and get back across the ocean to the Eastern Kingdoms to retake the throne. Biggest problem is that from everything I've seen, he isn't friendly. Thrall at least seems like he cares, in the WoW comic and particularly in the Undercity assault, Varian seems to not care about anything except his personal vendetta. If I were a blizz story maker I'd give Tyrande back her personality and have her take a much larger role in the affairs of the Alliance. As for the King of Ironforge, Give the players an event where he finds his (amazingly) still alive brother Muradin, and is able to bring Muradin's memory back so that Muradin can lead the Alliance Expedition. I admit I don't know how things are on the horde side, but the Alliance leaders are pretty aweful in terms of characterization and actually doing anything. Probably the character most people rallied behind as the leader of the Alliance, doesn't really want to have anything to do with the alliance and is only grudgingly letting the alliance use her town, I speak of course of Jaina Proudmoore. She seems to do alot (although she has a Final Fantasy Knockoff in her tower with her which IMHO is a point against her) and she has the backround of Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne. It's just that from what the player is told, she isn't willing to take part in open warfare with the horde, nor is she willing to support any hostile action with the horde. Thus she can't really lead the Alliance dispite being the only character with a backstory that's more than a paragraph long, and doesn't have a history that makes them look like in idiot (really Gnome King guy, you had to practically nuke your capital because of some lvl 30 elites? :sigh:)

I agree with some of his points, namely when the developers just decided in the game to make you kill every soldier in the area just to keep moving. But the ones about not really explaining things (particularly what you were carrying) I'm annoyed at because he seems to have not watched the cut scenes or taken the game anywhere beyond the first level as the first level is the only one where the message you were carrying was unexplained and the police chase seemed to be for no good reason. After that the cops just chase faith because she is a suspect in a criminal investigation, and most levels she's not even carrying a message. Personally I liked the game, And if EA had some better combat in the thing it might actually be a pretty good contender, but as it is with combat that is harder to play than Contra without codes and a few pants on head retarded puzzle, I think overall it's a pretty average game for most people.

Just completed the new Prince of Persia.... after watching/playing the ending I think that Ubi tried to hard to create an opening for Prince of Persia 2 to appear. Major spoilers and a grumbling below

Actually what happens is that Varian runs into the throne room of the Undercity and finds Thrall there, gets angry, and starts attacking because "the horde cannot be trusted" and because thrall was defending sylvanas. Then Jaina arrives (she had stayed behind a little because she wasn't willing to help Varian take out the horde) frostnovas everyone and spirits the alliance away to Stormwind to save all the leaders lives.

you got the cool guy to kill. The alliance technically make an assault at the same time through the sewers, they run after the Grand Apothocary and once Putress is dead they head for the throne room where they encounter thrall and whoever else is there.

not entirly the right place but still WTF!? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1098327/

Holy, ****ing spoiler. I mean, I'm bad about these thing, but geeze guys. ...

For QTE's God of war is probably the best done version I've ever seen. Mainly because it was a core mechanic of gamplay when going for an instakill. Prince of persia is also pretty good in that when the enemy is going for the kill (which you will be saved by Elika if you fail but they regain the last amount of health that a combo dropped off them) you are given a chance to hit a button to counter the deathblow (or other superblows that the bosses try fire off, I generally don't have the speed to get the superblows countered) I think that most developers decided to put them in so as to make the cutscenes interactive, but generally that backfires and the player is watching for the indicator rather than the well choreographed battle that they are supposed to be "running"

at least in god of war it's a central part of gameplay compared to some of the other more recent games that just randomly drop a quick time event in your lap randomly without any sense of why.

The comic was much better but still had millars tenuous grasp of reality.

go back and watch the debriefing. It's epic. Also Johnny (at least in act one) was a tribute character to the other Johnny's in the other three MGS games, generally Johnny was a prison guard who had serious problems with bowel movements.

I'm guessing that Bioware has a MUCH better grasp of story telling the Eidos. Eidos has been known more recently for releasing dross. Meanwhile Funcom has had limited success with Dreamfall and Longest journey. But telling a tale in MMO's is generally either hard or you have to set it up so that a player can completly bypass much of the story in favor of leveling. In the two MMO's I've played I've seen fairly decent storytelling for those who want to look for it, but usually it doesn't get in the way of the game itself.

Wasn't Yoda the one telling Anakin that death is part of the cycle of life and to deny it would be.... a path to the darkside? or something to that effect. you know in this scene: been looking to use an image from that for a while :D

Except that you yourself have said that Revan's journey into the unknown was what kept the Sith from attacking for those 300 years. Based on what Bio has said I'm guessing that Revan is going to play a HUGE role in the MMO. Yes, I have. BUT, what I stated in the quote that you... quoted... was an assumption. Which means its 50/50 chance it could be correct IF thats how it played out. I have also stated that Revan may NOT have fought the True Sith empire because maybe it was so strong at the time of K2 he simply had to wait for them to attack the Republic (even with Exile's help). Admittedly it would seem impossible for Revan to have an affect on the Sith Empire given that He wanders in there as a paragon of the light side. The best I could see him pulling off would be Sparticus all over again (slave revolt that nearly toppled the roman empire) and this leaves the empire with significant rebuilding to do given their workforce was wiped out and they lost alot of assets putting the revolt down. Again this is just a possible scenario.

What timeline is the Dark Forces series set in? I have never read them/heard of them. heres how the games in the dark forces line are named Dark Forces Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast Jedi Academy The first Dark Forces takes place during Episode IV, from there it's pretty much post Endor.

Zone of the Enders was Kojimas Mecha foray, 2 was better but 1 told a touching anti war story. In act 4 there were alot of things you could do for points because of memories, crawling through the vents to enter the main building was one, seeing a security camera was another, though the biggest was using the Mk II to electrify the floor to kill a Gekko. You can also find Liquids old hind from MGS1 and I think you can find somthing related to Sniper Wolf. Act 4 was really a nostalgia trip for the players of MGS1. well that and the boss in act V was fun! Also you can find Beyond the Bounds in Act IV if you zip around in the vents for long enough. It's the theme to ZOE2

SO could we do this as a sort of strategic planning committee? Where you give us the situation and we come up with plans and Ideas? Eh probably wouldn't work.

I think the Ultimates version of the characters are much more interesting that the standards. The regular ones were mostly kind of flat and very PG-13, whereas the Ultimates have human flaws and weaknesses that makes them alot more compelling to read about. True they did have more human flaws but I just couldn't get to like them because they were so self absorbed and ready to kill a friendship if they heard something remotely evil about someone.