Calax

Should be flying home from my grandparents house today, but with this big storm I may be stuck in New York a bit longer.

quiet night at the grandparents. Now it's waiting for my cousin and we're going into NYC for something to do.

It depends on how you want to go about the world. City of heroes had a significantly different formula from WoW and only failed because the publisher just decided to kill it. Star Trek Online has a different side to it, as does Champions, and both of those are going along quite well. The Problem with MMO's is that they're trying to be to much like wow, and not embracing their differences. If you look at it Rift is really just WoW 2.0 with the old talent system. It's got all the new tech and systems that have been pioneered by other games (public quests, multiple specs, changing roles, even housing) and put them to use. But like was said earlier, the reason that WoW refuses to die is that the player base doesn't want to lose the time they've sunk into their characters to start fresh on another game where they might not have the money they did, or the abilities that they did. And to create an open world pvp environment built around imbalanced play is just asking for population issues and whining from your players. Or for your game to be niche like EvE and Age of Wushu.

I think one of the hard things about this is that most people expect that any space RPG to be like Mass Effect where you have a ship and go through FTL speeds in order to get to the next planet but really the ship is just your "Camp" in any other RPG. One thing that'd be fun is if you were the point for an armada or fleet and ended up having the ship you went on change as you came to control more power. This probably harkens back to my whole issue of the "NPC usually isn't that powerful within the setting" but it'd be nice if you're the Lord-Commander-King-Monkey of all the human/allied/rebellion forces, and you were in control of a ship that showed that authority. Instead of being on a ship that's 1/3rd the size of a standard captial vessel. At the same time, if you're king/prince/special make the PC feel special. Don't have the PC sitting there fighting their own way out of a small army of weak mooks, have them be evacuated by force by their protectors. It always bugs me when youdo all this stuff to unite the disparate elements of a cause to win.... and are left being on the periphery of your own war (Yes this includes Dragon Age where you're basically ignored in favor of the king or queen leading all the forces against the blight).

Been at the grandparents for a few days, got soaked yesterday in the city to watch blue man group, although their show is very obviously outgrown the theatre they were in. Now I am just relaxing for the day.

>.> Warhammer 40k IP using an inquisitor character in order to explore different worlds with different tech levels. Because what other sort of game could you go from "guys hitting each other with axes" to "guys beating the heck out of each other with axes THAT ARE CHAINSAWS!" to "Giant robots" and "horror esque underlevels" and "Governmental consperacies that lead to warfare"? And let the writers run all over tearing apart tropes and archtypes like crazy.

Derping around at work... and realized I can actually check in for my flight while on the clock tomorrow... not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but it's certainly a thing.

... You realize that some of us have been around for wayyyy longer than that. As in I won a fanfic competition to get my name IN New Vegas a year and a half before it came out. And that was my third (fourth?) year on the forum. We've watched a few people flat out grow up here. Try something like Forza or Gran Turismo. Those two are the most polished and have the best controls compared to what I've seen of Grid.

I have yet to find something in this sale that really tickles me. As it is I'm just reinstalling games for an hour before deciding I'm really not gonna be playing this because it's to X (boring, repetative, uninvolving, whatever). Hopefully something good pops up on todays list given that it is christmas.

I'm going to try to get some sleep now... work starts at 515 for me tomorrow morning, and ends at 12ish. And I realized today I have no idea what or where I'm going to have dinner tomorrow. That's an odd feeling (I've been relying on delivery foods... but most delivery places are shut tomorrow).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I

Well, both my cars died battery wise, got one started but the other I'm just leaving until I get back from NY (Leave on friday, come back on the next thursday). The batt should hold out in theory... but theories are trecherous things. Oh, and I nearly lost my Goverment/TSA issued ID that allows me to work at the airport. Managed to find it at my last pick up when I got back into town (it was lying in the snow)

11 hours of work, come home to a purring kitty and the knowledge I've probably passed all my courses.

Finals are finally done. But my vacation doesn't really start until the 27th when I fly to visit my grandparents.

It's OK. Everyone I talk to on the phone gets that. ~~ Today was a good day. A little ducking and diving, but held true to my word, and helped some good men. Now I'm off to the pub. Which is pretty much all I ask for, really. Wait, I'm defined as a "Good Man" now? Or is that in the future? I confirmed that I'm helping a friend move her stuff to her parents house for at least a bit while she finishes her official breakup with her Ex. And now I'm trying to accept that I really need to work out (6'1 and 260 isn't good) but can't quite get any (and I do mean ANY) form of motivation going at the moment. Oh Well finals are Tue/Weds/Fri so shank me.

Mad Max INNNNN SPPAAAACCCEEEEE

With SR4 they somewhat moved away from "porn" territory, which, supposedly was something THQ more pushed them to do than what the devs wanted to do themselves, and more into just straight goofball wackiness territory. Except they kept the sexual jokes and "The Penetrator" in the game. That's kinda why I'm boggled at it, the game. They have gimps and hookers and references left and right... hell even the DLC is "ENTER THE DOMINATRIX" and yet in game it feels like they try to say "SEX SEX SEX... aww we don't deal wit dat" I mean the entire backstory of Kinzie is that she got fired for being a dominatrix.... and yet her "super form" is basically her in a body suit and a hoodie. Hm, no, Kinzi got fired from the FBI because Matt framed her for all sorts of **** because she kept trying to catch him. That's why she hates his guts. The Enter the Dominatrix DLC is generally a lot of self-referential humour. The conversations between the gang as they talk about how the original "Enter the Dominatrix DLC" was reaaally supposed to go and why it didn't happen. It gets very meta, and very silly. But it did make me chuckle quite a few times. The way they phrase it in SRIV's audio logs is that Matt just sent photos of her having "kinky fun" to her bosses.

With SR4 they somewhat moved away from "porn" territory, which, supposedly was something THQ more pushed them to do than what the devs wanted to do themselves, and more into just straight goofball wackiness territory. Except they kept the sexual jokes and "The Penetrator" in the game. That's kinda why I'm boggled at it, the game. They have gimps and hookers and references left and right... hell even the DLC is "ENTER THE DOMINATRIX" and yet in game it feels like they try to say "SEX SEX SEX... aww we don't deal wit dat" I mean the entire backstory of Kinzie is that she got fired for being a dominatrix.... and yet her "super form" is basically her in a body suit and a hoodie.

I didn't play Enter the Dominatrix... I was just expecting (in a cyber world shaped by our "heroes") something like a nuclear power plant in the shape of a woman with cooling dome breasts. Or something else juvinile like that (Or a stripper pole with an active stripper on the ship or something).

Played through Saints Row IV. Fun game, as over the top as ever, but it feels like it's missing something to push it into "crosses the line twice" territory. Also some Revelations, which my disk is apparently smuged to heck or my PS3 is starting to give up the ghost, as it keeps refusing to load unless I'm at the right time of day. Dragon Age Origins, doing a DLC before Landsmeet, will probably finish after finals. Re-installed/re-trying Rift. I always liked it better than WoW, just never had the community in the game. I only installed it last night but it feels better than WoW does anymore, probably because the graphics are at a higher level than those found in WoW. And I'm not sure how much longer WoW can survive, It seems like Warlords of Draenor may be pushing to hard for some players and the devs need to just break everything from the ground up and rebuild the game with updated systems to include what they learned over their 9ish years of gaming relevancy. Is it odd that one of the things I love the most about Rift over WoW is the sound design? Hearing the "Thwip" of an arrow as it leaves your bow just sounds better than the WoW sound effect (twang). If you can hear the wow sound over the various rumbles and booms of other spells going off and the boss screaming.

You're reading way to much into this, and the guy is a kickstarter supporter. Obsidian will talk to us if they want to know from anyone what they should try next, but first they have to make P:E a success. For a moment I thought you'd written Tim Schaffer, who I was all ready to lambast for his performance with Jack Black in that one game who's name escapes me right now (which was basically Tenacious D, minus the bald one, the game). That said, I think with Chris Avallone writing they could put together almost any game and have the entire thing be a giant deconstruction of whatever genre they're romping around in. I mean, he'd give us a game like bioshock infinite, but have the entire thing take everything about the city and just yank it apart. Or if he did a Zombie Apocolypse, he'd tear apart so many games where all you need is a shotgun and a chainsaw to survive. It would be fun to see somebody try to tear down Song of Ice and Fire, but I doubt anyone will give it a go given that the book series is basically a giant deconstruction of fantasy tropes in general. I do think that Obs would do well in a Low Fantasy setting where magic is this mystical unknown quantity and most conflicts are handled with steel (Like Black Company, or Song of Ice and Fire before it went bonkers).

Had an early morning for the office today. 5 am... and I'm usually one of the night guys. At least I didn't wake up to my cat purring/stuffing his nose in my ear. It's a little disturbing to feel that. Although he has been more talkative (in between absolutely destroying my carpet and sleeping while hating me for even thinking of cuddling)

Thor Dark World last night. Was good although it seemed like they were a little to much in step with comic books in how they swapped continuity around. It just feels like one star is going to say "Give me umpteen million bucks or your entire franchise is toast!" and everything will collapse. Liked it overall, and did think that they needed to make Loki less the snarker, and give him back his more sinister side a bit. Also Enders Game (Needed to be two movies) and Hunger Games 2: Return to Hunger Games. Second hunger games needed it's pacing adjusted to suit being on the screen better. The whole "new evil dude in the district" bit felt overplayed for how little it was in the actual movie, and could have just been mixed with another issue that they were facing rather than it's own scene.

Been relaxing during my dead week. I'm supposed to be studying but honestly, just about passing out is what I've been able to pull off. Also: The Heck? Where's my kickstarter/ PE badges? Did I just not get this acct connected to that one? *much grumbling* Edit: Digging through updates, finally figured it out. Muuuch better.

Wheeee.... my mind is buckling