Humanoid

If space is a factor then I wouldn't go for 500GB drives - far more sensible to get up to a 2TB drive (the largest available 2.5" drives currently) and an 120GB SSD or larger. (Or 2x2TB spindle drives for raw storage capacity I guess). Saves on noise and weight, and it ought to be more reliable as well. Heck I'd just run one large drive and leave the other bay empty rather than go two spindles. Hybrid drives are an option too I guess, but I personally dislike them - I like having full control over my storage instead of relying on software to guess at my usage. Check if your laptop support mSATA and you might be able to get two spindle drives *and* an SSD, though that'd be somewhat overkill.

Just install any media player like VLC or MPC-HC though, and you'll be fine. What happened is that Windows Media Centre got decoupled from the normal versions of Win8 because MS no longer felt like paying royalties to include DVD playback. Instead you have to purchase some DLC (yep, OS DLC) - specifically the Media Centre pack. But beyond that, they've made it so that you must have the Pro version of Win8 to even get the Media Centre pack - I assume this latter move is just regular dickishness. And another caveat, even if you have that pack, you still won't be able to play DVDs through the regular Windows Media Player. Honestly though, your requirements are pretty general, basically any current laptop (Haswell - usually marketed as 4th Generation Core iX, made tremendous strides in this regard) can handle that - with the latest Bay Trail update, even Atom-based netbooks can play games to a certain extent. So really, you have your pick sizewise, all the way from 8" tablets to 17" desktop replacements You'll probably note a lot of Dell and Lenovo models listed below. It's mostly because in my shortlist, they've come out on top in terms of premium models. Lenovo's Thinkpad line, while somewhat drifting lately from the old IBM Thinkpad philosophy, is still a mostly unique beast in the market, bringing business class devices through the whole stack (unlike say, Dell's Latitude or HP's Elitebook range, which exclusively aim for the big end of town). The "Thinkpad Edge" and non-Thinkpad models are significantly less impressive, however. Pleasingly, Dell have switched philosophy since going back private and have mostly abandoned the race to the bottom that they were previously engaged in - the new model Inspirons are no longer synonymous with scrap plastic. Heck, even Acer have finally realised that quality is a thing and no longer exclusively push cheap plastic tat. Listing by size: Bay Trail tablet - yes, this is probably a wee bit too small, but there's a new crop of ~8" tablets that run not Android or Windows RT, but full Windows 8 (albeit in 32-bit form until next year). Models include the Dell Venue 8 Pro, Lenovo Miix 2 and the Toshiba Encore. Bay Trail netbook - 10" convertibles with the same hardware above, but more versatile given a keyboard dock. After a few years in the wilderness, netbooks are finally back. The Asus T100 is the model making all the waves here, impressively integrating an IPS screen (unheard of in notebooks at this price point, or even double it) and it even throws in a free copy of MS Office Home and Student (many of these Bay Trail devices do). In the US they sell for under $400, a steal. The upcoming HP Omni 10 will be the chief competitor for this type of device. Subnotebook - generic term for smaller traditional notebooks, usually in the 11-13" range. Expect all to come with low-voltage CPUs which trade off power for battery life (almost all ultrabooks will use these, marked by a 'U' suffix to the model number. There's a pretty big budget range starting with the cheap and cheerful Dell Inspiron 11 3000 up to the business class Lenovo X240. Other notable models are the Dell XPS 13 and the Samsung ATIV Book series, plus some Asus Zenbook Infinity models (which have a stupidly confusing model naming scheme which I will not attempt to decipher). Convertible - at the upper end of the range, there's a trend towards the convertibles lately, essentially subnotebooks which come not with a keyboard dock, but with 360-degree hinges or similar, making them rather oversized tablets in that mode. Notable convertibles include the Dell XPS 11/12, the Lenovo Yoga range (Thinkpad Yoga or Ideapad Yoga 2 Pro) and the Sony Vaio Duo (*not* the Vaio Flip, which fits into this category but sucks). The HP Spectre X2 is a competitor that takes the old keyboard dock approach. Full size ultrabook - typically 14-15" models with integrated graphics: Intel's HD4400 is finally passable for low-settings gaming. I've just gone this path myself, picking up the impressive Thinkpad T440s. (Somewhat confusingly there's also the T440 and T440p, the cheaper model and the higher performance model respectively, both being bulkier than the 's' model) Dell's competing XPS 14 has yet to be released but appears promising. A common gotcha here is the screen quality. Disappointingly most vendors still try to foist shockingly antiquated 1366x768 TN panels with machines of this size, which I consider wholly unacceptable these days. Even 1600x900 is pretty poor these days. Traditional full-size laptops cover basically everything else. I have no real interest in this type of device, so pickings are pretty slim in terms of what I can recommend. At the low end, it's all a bit of a muchness. As per the same sized ultrabooks, vendors love shipping 15" entry level models with crappy panels, so watch for that. The high end gets a bit more interesting: the Dell XPS 15 does come with an interesting 3k screen, but Windows doesn't handle super high resolutions screens (equivalent to Apples buzzword 'retina' panels) all that well. Lenovo's T540p is a direct competitor to the Dell, complete with the same screen, but comes with a low-voltage CPU instead, which somewhat misses the point of the exercise.

Two? Not much to say other than the usual: if your space requirements/budget allows, go SSD.

Just bought a family pack of Win 7 (three copies), half to cover myself in future, plus Haswell i3 and board, a couple cases, coolers and PSUs. After the holidays I plan to do the following: 1) Rip out the i5-2400 and Asus H67 motherboard from my HTPC and stick it in a Bitfenix Prodigy M. This computer will have no particular purpose, but I wanted to pre-empt the inevitable failing of the first-gen, pre-recall motherboard, where all but two of its SATA ports will fail. Also because it doesn't have proper 23.976Hz video support. Besides the case it'll retain everything else including the system disk, PSU, stock cooler, etc, since it's probably just going to gather dust. 2) Install the Haswell machine in the HTPC, also replacing the Corsair CX400 PSU with a quieter Seasonic G360 in the process. Other parts: i3-4130, Asus H87M-E motherboard, Gelid Slim Hero CPU cooler, 256GB Sandisk Ultra Plus SSD, Win 7 HP. Win8 is not a viable choice for a HTPC due to needing not only the Pro version but also to buy the Media Centre on top. 3) Got a Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl case for a future NAS, one Seasonic G360 PSU reserved for this, a Silverstone AR01 cooler and also a 128GB Sandisk Ultra Plus SSD. Will probably learn FreeNAS on the fly. The guts of the machine are on hold until I determine whether Kaveri will bring any benefits (power consumption, possibly) for the purpose, and also for the 5TB HDDs release next year so I can start the migration without getting tangled up shuffling data around. Notes: Why the Sandisk Ultra Plus SSDs? Because they were dirt cheap, other than that they're thoroughly mediocre, but reliable performers. I'll be reusing some old RAM sitting on my shelf, four 2GB sticks of DDR3L, between the two new systems, though I think one stick is faulty - no matter, don't need dual channel memory for this type of system.

Just less visual clutter. If there was a control panel setting to hide all badges that'd be even better.

Opposite request: can I have all my badges removed?

Super-optimist hat again: hopefully TESO is such a massive runaway hit that it fully consumes Bethesda's attention the way WoW did for Blizzard, leaving them no time to do Fallout and leading to them outsourcing it.

dibs on one of those, if any are available I'd rather trade with you then buy from InXile, if you don't mind Sure, only need had one copy reserved beyond the one for myself anyway so the rest are spare.

If I were to put on my super-optimist hat, I'd hope that given the precedent of Bethesda having released Arena and Daggerfall as freeware, that these games get the same treatment.

So it's going to go under control of Bethesda, who have no current deal with GOG, presumably (as far as I can see, none of their titles are or have ever been available).

I'd assume it'd appear on the PE backer portal once it launches proper, yes. I think I'm getting five copies of W2 due to all the various intertwined rewards. Yeah....

Google's motto has always been "Do know evil". It's that old chestnut, Google is an advertising company first and foremost, and so we're not the customers, we're the product. The customers are the advertisers, so it's no surprise who wins out there. For what it's worth, I'm trying to convert over to DuckDuckGo for my search needs, but old habits die hard.

Only did character creation. Most of the ingame model faces look like zombies for some reason. And the scroll function through the menus is kinda broken. But otherwise I think the level of complexity in character stats feels about right - reasonable enough task to make a party that covers all the bases while still having some variety, and without getting tediously into numbers hell.

Fixed that for you.

I haven't done one of these beta things in, well, ever. But today have access to both Wasteland 2 and Shroud of the Avatar. Eh, I guess I can download first and decide whether to do either of them later.

To be fair, even EA is setting an example for Valve.

To be honest, all I can remember of the dragon fights in BG2 were of dragging a box around my party then right clicking on the dragon. Which is probably all I did.

I want stretch goals which progressively remove wilderness areas from the game as they are reached. Screw the wilderness. *runs and hides*

Only if there's a totally cool cycling cap addon. Serious answer: If it's just more stuff related to combat and dungeons (that whole series of mini-goals for the megadungeon was, from my selfish perspective, a damp squib), no interest. If it's more talking and other noncombat interactions, then sure, why not.

Actually, this doesn't matter. The pledge options are really well set-up and easy to understand. I even had twenty bucks pledged that I forgot about and I was able to order a tee-shirt. Just had a look, and yeah, looks good. But I have funds for two t-shirts when I don't remember specifically adding on cash for two t-shirts. But eh, two t-shirts it is. Would be useful to have some sizing information for them however, or at least what brand T-shirts they'll be printed on, lest I fall into the American Apparel trap. EDIT: Looks like I'm confused because the T-shirt was a $25 addon, but is now $20 in the portal. But that would mean I probably had a mousepad addon instead planned. But I don't remember that either....

It's been so long that I can't remember what combination of addons I had planned for myself to reach the pledge amount I ended up with.

Eh, I felt the smugglers' acts two and three were basically "we're out of story to tell, here's some generic filler to get you to level 50".

Nico has changed voice actress *every* game. EDIT: List of VAs in the sidebar here.

Krez changed his screenname to Humodour for whatever reason - user names are a fluid thing on this forum software - but hasn't been around for some months. Tess made a ninjapost in the Tarna thread as Keturah, but was a one-off visit. Lanie drops by for whirlwind visits now and then. Haven't seen the Rayt and Onkel in forever. HKD made a disappearing act as well, as did slowtrain, but there have been a couple sightings lately.

Monaco wasn't even nominated. It's my game of the year, easily. Not indie game of the year, but game of the year, period.