Humanoid

So I'm late to the party as usual, and have only really just started playing the game over the past day. That might seem an odd thing to say given I'd likely already logged double digit hours into the game prior to that, issues finding continuous blocks of time in which to play the game have meant those hours would be more correctly classified as "messing about" rather than *playing*. I'd spent time wandering around the city, doing sidequests, testing out the utility of various skills and spells, starting the game over at least a half-dozen times (thank god the tutorial dungeon is optional). I had not wandered out of town at all during this time. Now with 23 hours allegedly logged, I've managed to complete a non-sidequest for the first time, and even then it's nothing major, so the game is definitely one that easily chews up the hours. I'll define a proper quest for these purposes as one that awards four digit XP. Even then though, it seems experience gain is heavily, heavily skewed towards killing things. There's token XP for exploration and sidequests, but it takes several awards of that kind of XP to even match that given by killing *one* monster, let alone one encounter's worth. Slightly disappointed by that, but no verdict as to the actual effect of that design decision until I see how it works out in the medium term (only level 5 at this point). Speaking of levels, I'm also slightly disappointed that the game has the old-school empty levels problem, where it lacks any interesting decisions to be made for that particular level. When raising a skill by one requires more than one level's worth of skill points, and there are no other rewards for gaining that level, you have the situation where you literally do nothing on that level-up. I guess you can say it's channeling Baldur's Gate, or indeed 2E rules generally, when it's doing that, but that's an old-school design I'd be happy to get rid of. As to the minimal storyline I've experienced so far, it's nothing new to say it's nothing to write home about. Any pretense of roleplaying my characters straight pretty much went out the window immediately - the decisions are very binary (and worded fairly extremely at that) so your characters end up being more caricatures with no real nuance. You tend to have, say, the choice between a super sunny optimist type answer, or a completely disinterested cynical one, with nothing in between. The investigation aspect was a little obtuse, stuck a while until I realised that That was a little silly. That, and lockpicking is so ineffectual as to be of very questionable value. You'd think taking a thief, with a point in lockpicking, would be good enough in the early game to get past the locks should you pursue that kind of investigation. I mean that's an uncommon party build in itself already. But nope, have to save up two levels more worth of skillups, and the purchase of crazily expensive (relative to other items) single use lockpicks to even get into most relevant areas. And I say most because even doing that wasn't enough to get into a key place. I also clicked through pretty much all the text during because it all seemed like contextless gibberish. Anyway, some random plus and minus points that don't fit anywhere else: + Combat movement isn't quite as fiddly as I had feared. My concern was potentially having to optimise movement distances by moving the cursor just so you'd go to the point right before the action points required counter went up. Fortunately it's a bit more forgiving than that - you can make 0-point moves if you moved "short" with the previous move. - That said, the backstab arc is pretty fiddly, it's a pretty small window and you have to rely on the target's 3D model to judge positioning with no absolute marker of what's directly forward and behind. I'd like the arc widened a bit, and maybe the selection circle made thicker for some of its circumference to mark the correct area. + Obstruction detection is pretty reasonable, both in terms of abilities showing you when they're obstructed (instead of having you shoot into pillars due to poor feedback), and in terms of it feeling 'right' as to when the obstructions are applied. Moreso than XCOM at least with it's "that's a load of bull" line-of-sight issues. - Melee positioning all-too-frequently hindered by all sorts of ground effects - mainly fire and poison - early on. Generally okay when done intentionally, such as via spell or barrel, but problematic when it's reactive like creatures that spew out poison when hit. Not even hit and run works so good there. P.S. Haven't mentioned the crafting at all because I haven't really done any of it. Inventory management is hell for me at the best of times, and while D:OS is short of Bethesda-style lootables insanity, it's still more than I want to deal with at this point. Still, won't complain too much about it, because it's something I'd expected from the day the game came to my attention.

EA are discontinuing support for The Sims 2. Normally something like this would be a bad thing, but it's actually just a discontinuation of support for legacy versions, in its place all digital copy owners on Origin are being provided for free the new "Ultimate Collection", which, as the name suggests, is the complete release of every Sims 2 expansion and stuff pack. Considering I only have the digital release of The Sims 2 because they gave that away for free some years ago (around the time Origin launched?), that's a pretty good deal. For those who have only the disc edition, I'm told EA support will register a digital copy for you manually if you provide them with a photo of your CD-key or something along those lines. Skipping the snark this time, good move by them.

Well the G.Skill Ares series for one is likely to be the exact same thing as the Ripjaws, except with a different heatspreader, so that'd work out just fine. The Sniper series is also lower profile than the Ripjaws, although it's a dumb shape regardless: memory shaped like a gun? Really? At least you could probably file off the 'sights' easily. Looking down the price-sorted list, there's the Patriot kit here for a little more. (That said, I do run Snipers myself, but that's only because they were the only DDR3U/1.25V set I could find, and then only 1600MHz)

Even if you go for a hybrid class, which is plenty viable, you're more or less still compelled to specialise them, instead of halving your skill points pursuing multiple weapon skills. The concept of a backup weapon never really comes into it, especially with a hunter which has the Harpoon skill to specifically overcome any potential issue with enemies at range. But yeah, just don't expect much in the way of heavy lifting done by your melee team there, the defender is a very niche class, and while it can be gamebreaking in some situations, it's somewhat tricky to exploit its strengths. Doubly so when paired with a relatively defensive melee partner on top of that: dual-wielding on at least one character is strongly recommended so as to be able to eat up block charges (and dual-wielding does more damage anyway).

With a single fan installed on each, the Scythe isn't just a value proposition, it beats the D15. With its second fan installed, the D15 wins by about 1 degree. Read SPCR's conclusion, which is to say, what they think despite their recommended award. Noctua makes nice products, but it's mostly marketing that has them being perceived as superior to some of their direct competitors when in reality they perform at the same level but with a large price premium. They're the Apple/Monster Cable/Bose/etc of heatsinks. P.S. While you're going all out on RAM, may as well play it safe by buying something with low profile heatspreaders. Heatspreaders are really only there for show and make bugger-all difference to cooling performance, so you might as well maximise compatibility, both for now and for the future should you need to reuse the sticks elsewhere.

Yeah, it takes 25 points to GM a skill, and without DLC, you typically end up in the low-30s levelwise. At 3 points per level, you will end up just shy of 100 skill points overall, and therefore are only able to GM three skills (and get to Master in one). With DLC you should be able to get the four GM skills comfortably, but I never did get around to doing the DLC.

Yeah, despite the naming scheme, the 290 series is a generation ahead and so is a worthwhile bump in performance. I specced a 290 above as it's a good value proposition, the X version somewhat less so (and it competes with the 780 at its price point)

Nah, no real reason to wait. Quick sample build below, if you want to spend more you can go to a i7, get 16GB RAM, get a 1TB SSD, a good sound card, etc. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ NCIX US) CPU Cooler: Scythe SCMG-4000 79.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($41.71 @ NCIX US) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($98.99 @ Amazon) Memory: Kingston Fury Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($74.99 @ Amazon) Storage: Seagate 600 Series 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($219.99 @ TigerDirect) Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ NCIX US) Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($349.99 @ Newegg) Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Micro Center) Power Supply: SeaSonic 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($139.99 @ Newegg) Optical Drive: LG UH12NS30 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($39.99 @ Newegg) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC) Total: $1505.60 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Yeah, main question here is whether your budget is a maximum amount but would rather spend less, or whether you want to extract the maximum performance for the budget.

Got my CE boxed copy in the mail today, two weeks to Australia isn't bad so no complaints there. No T-shirts yet though, so much for saving on postage. On the other hand, I'd requested my boxed copy come with a non-Steam DVD, but have been sent a Steam copy (which is also a Duo copy, which means I think I've got one more copy than I'm technically entitled to). Slightly confused now. I mean I've got a GOG copy as well so the DRM-free disc isn't critical, but it'd have been nice, since a Steam DVD is by definition worthless for archival purposes. P.S. The cloth map is one of those ones with no actual game utility whatsoever, and honestly, kind of sucks in general. Ah well.

Some Pikmin 3 co-op missions. Never played a Pikmin game before in my life, but it's pretty entertaining, like an RTS almost (but fun, I despise RTSes) ....but unfortunately only 7 missions are available. The others are - wait for it - paid DLC. Nintendo's brave new world, I guess. But I guess the game itself was "free" via the Mario Kart promo.

I get the point of increased shipping costs being a pretty big deal, but it's also an exaggeration to suggest sending one CD mailer envelope is the same cost as sending a bulky parcel containing a large CE box, hefty artbook, T-shirts, cards, etcetera, unless the US Postal Service works in stranger ways than I could have imagined. (Quick guess as to cost of 5000-7000 DVD mailers at say, $10-15 each (I imagine very conservative considering a good number of them would be domestic mail only), I'd say south of $100,000. Not small but not end-of-the-world stuff either)

Well they could have just adjusted starting equipment to your skill selection, fairly straightforward given the way the skills are labelled. Instead I made the initial mistake of starting my Fighter with two-handed weapon skill but having to choose between a 1H sword+shield combo or ....a two-handed shovel.

I will accept nothing less than the development team visiting every one of those 2355 homes in person and signing the box in front of the backer. Plus, company funded around-the-world holiday for all the devs, what's not to like?

Yeah, but Shadowrun had the templates *plus* the option to start with a completely custom build with no class label.

As long as the replacement reward is a physical trinket I'd be placated. Personally, I want an Obsidian hat.

Surprised Sony didn't insist on an exclusivity period, but good on 'em. (Looking at Twitter though, see no mention of release date)

Not that I recall. But there are no weapon specialisations, just 1H or 2H, so it's easy enough to switch out once you reach town. But yeah, while I'd like a flat out blank slate class with no background, like that offered in Shadowrun, it's not offered here. Part of it may be because they have a pre-written character history for each class to explain their becoming a Source Hunter. I don't know whether that has a gameplay effect down the line, however.

To clarify a bit on class selection, all the options presented are just presets/templates which pick the starting stats, perks and starting active abilities for you. (The latter is a bit confusing, you have to click the little box besides the abilties to swap them out) You can turn any class into any other class by customising them. A small caveat though is that starting equipment is not customisable, so actually the right thing to do would be to choose the class that starts with the equipment you want, then customise it to give it the stats you want. e.g. If you want to play a two-handed fighter, don't choose the Fighter class (which will start with a sword and shield), but choose the Knight class instead, then customise it to swap out the paladin-ish abilties for more fightery stuff.

I would observe that Dark Souls is unmatched as a game in terms of it's anger-generating potential.

I think the advice provided in the link is incorrect, in that while it's not technically supported, there are actually no such things as 32-bit keys and 64-bit keys. Microsoft don't *want* people doing it because they're not the support point for OEM software, the system builder is, and so there's no way of ensuring the system builder would continue to support the system if the end user upgrade to 64-bit. You must acquire 64-bit installation media, yes, but Microsoft freely provide the ISOs for all versions - available here. Activation may be a bit janky, but any activation problems can be solved be either installing without a key and using a regedit "hack" to fix it or just using phone activation.

Eh, running at 1.1GHz will have little to do with how slow the repair process goes. Honestly now, it seems you've already spent more time on the machine than what the machine is worth, time being money and all that. I wouldn't be going any further, and I wouldn't put a PCB full of volatile and/or toxic substances in an oven that I still plan to use for food. $60 gamble or $120 for a new board and CPU (a Pentium of Athlon X4), I'd go the latter every time, especially since you're already on a DDR3 platform.

Two player co-op probably doesn't quite add up to be a real co-op night event. But apparently the game does support more players in custom content and possibly future official content, I think.

I remember back when the P55 boards were first released, issues with a crappy socket/retention system led to some poor contact between the pins and the pads on the CPU, which potentially led to it "burning out" on the pins that handled power delivery. While this is probably unrelated, it's possible that shifting the system exacerbated the poor contact issue. EDIT: Reference - http://www.anandtech.com/show/2859

Don't really have much else ....maybe the BIOS battery needs replacing? Because short of that it's probably just flat out hardware failure and it's probably not worth finding parts to fix up a 5-year old system.