alanschu

I hit custom install. I still could not install it 'wherever I liked.' You really think I don't know to hit the custom install button? I wonder if it's a Vista issue? Or some weird rare bug with the installer? I have "heard" that Vista really prefers stuff to be installed in Program Files, but I wouldn't think that that outright prohibits installs from happening outside of there. Otherwise you'd have already mentioned it!

I named mine Jorian, my WoW character name, my first time through haha. I did enjoy naming it after someone else on the QA team at one point though hehehehe.

What's your party make up at the moment? I find the game pretty challenging. That fight was a doozy for sure. That open world plot was the last one I did though, so by that time I had some pretty effective strategies down.

Yup. Spawned from an old email address that had an 8 character limit. 'alanschu' It just stuck. I got tired of coming up with "cool" nicknames just to have them already be in use. It has good balance too.

Well, for those that may be interested, I'm (finally!!!) getting started on my After Action Report for War in the Pacific, Admiral's Edition. I ended up moving it offsite though, because I'd really like to supplement it with more pictures, strategies, and perhaps links/embeddings of videos and whatnot. The website is amateurish to be sure (mostly because it doesn't need to be much more, I'm also playing around with it for personal reasons), but it gets the job done. Any feedback given is appreciated, but lets be honest now, I likely won't care Here's the link to the website: http://www.squirrelsofdoom.com/Allan/index.html Shameless plug: The website was generously donated to me by Matt and Roz of http://www.squirrelsofdoom.com I told them I'd get in a cheap plug as thanks. Please don't murder me mods!!! I'll continue to post updates here with links to the new reports as they come up. I hope to have the first day(s) of the war done either tonight or tomorrow. Cheers!

Yeah I found the Mage origin story to be pretty average. It also didn't help that I also played through it an awful lot haha. When you say "chosen mission" I imagine you are referring to your first open world plot (i.e. you get to choose where you go next)?

You got used to seeing it in pictures, which makes sense. When I first started work in a kitchen, getting burned really hurt. After a while, I got desensitized to it. However, lets assume that you're now generally indifferent to seeing someone with their head blown off with a shotgun. Do you think that this would mean you'd be relatively indifferent were you to walk down the street in front of your house and see a body with their head blown off with a shotgun? I'll concede that witnessing the results of violence that are from reality could desensitize in this way, and it's possible that you'd be more okay with seeing the body of a person with their head blown off in real life than I would. Which makes sense. You actually have some sort of expectation on what to expect from it, since you've seen real life bodies with their heads exploded. However, I'd probably wager that I've blown off more heads in video games than you have, or a lot of other people. Heck, before you went to Rotten Tomatoes, I wouldn't be surprised if you had exercised your fair share of violence on video game characters, yet you were still disturbed by the real life imagery.

When people see stuff that is violent in media, I definitely agree that there is desensitization when given that type of media (I have seen every Saw film though, and I still cringe). I'm less inclined to believe that it will desensitize people in different, particularly more real life portrayals, forms. Someone made an interesting comment when a group of us watched Zombieland. There is a part at the beginning of the movie where the main character mentions a rule of his to always wear your seatbelt. While explaining this rule, it shows someone scrambling to avoid zombies, jumping into a car, speeding a way, hitting a barrier, and flying through the windshield. Someone made a comment that she was surprised people could laugh at that, because stuff like that happens every day and people die as a result. She was shocked at how desensitized we could be to something like that. Heck, the theater LAUGHED at it. She was absolutely stunned. Anecdotally, I know I'm not a fan of real life violence. I choose to not watch real life footage of people getting hit by cars and whatnot, and avoid sites like Rotten Tomatoes, because that stuff disturbs me and I do not want to see it. I certainly wouldn't laugh at someone flying through a windshield of their car.

Those lessons are from a specific instructional purpose however. They use it to teach you the instrumentation in an environment where, if you **** up, you aren't going to die. Important things to observe would be, when the airplane goes out of control when the pilot is flying in a flight simulator, what are his physiological reactions? I am just guessing, but I have this feeling that their physical and psychological reactions would differ quite a bit compared to being in an actual airplane that goes out of control. I certainly wouldn't suggest that an airplane pilot has become desensitized to crashing his airplane because he's done it a lot in the flight simulator. As a separate note, I always enjoy Henry Jenkins' perspective of the situation. Of course, I enjoy it because I agree with it. It can be found here.

Taking Monte Carlo's post into perspective, I'll quickly answer these sans spoiler tags for this stuff. If people prefer otherwise just let me know! 1) I have heard it's possible to tank with both, from a threat management perspective. I always went sword'n'board though, because I preferred the damage mitigation. High damage, as well as the general warrior skills can keep threat, but the sword and shield skills have talents that can really help the tank soak damage. This is in addition to the shield of course. 2) Some of the min/maxers really prefer specialization with attributes. With my warriors, my main attributes were strength, constitution, and willpower (for additional stamina), as well as some dexterity (some really good shield talents required dexterity). Once I had the attributes for the talents I wanted though, I went 2:1 ratio of constitution:willpower. I don't think I put points into cunning though. Would be interesting and probably not a waste of a point though. Oner: Yes to both of your questions.

WTF DELAYED?!

Haha, I really enjoyed zombieland. Good for fun for sure IMO.

I really enjoyed that combo actually.

Just a reminder that these are my impressions. It's possible that other people found more powerful/different builds. deganawida: 1) Is DW as powerful in the actual game as it is in Journeys? In Journeys, the absolute best path to pick for the warrior is DW; SnB is good for defense only, and TH has one good attack that you can get. I'd hate to play another game where DW is the be-all and end-all of combat. 2) What type of advanced classes are there for warriors? Which do you think is most interesting or powerful? 3) Is it better to have a well-balanced character, or a specialized character? Cl_Flushentityhero: Alan, how did the rogue class hold up in combat for you?

I didn't see blair witch but most people who I know say it is similar in style. I enjoyed Paranormal activity. It wasn't really scary, but I did usually find myself waiting in anticipation for what was gonna happen next during "the parts." The character's don't really act believably, which is the biggest gripe I have with the film.

The thing I sooo love about not being in school is that a lot of those deadlines don't approach anymore. Oh, if anyone has any questions about the game if they are stuck, or want some advice/suggestions/perspective, I don't mind sharing. I'll quote the post with a spoiler tagged response.

I am definitely looking forward to discussing some aspects of the game and hope to have some good discussion about it. Sounds like Magical Volo got his hands on a copy already, so perhaps some others have as well, so I figured I'd start this. Of course, perhaps he's too busy playing the game to post right now hehe. A reminder to please use spoiler tags when getting into the details of a scene. Let the reader decide if they want to be spoiled. Use judgment for cues for what the spoiler will be about. Like "So I am doing the Dwarf Noble story as a male rogue, and " so people will know what area and whatnot. At least I'll try to adhere to something similar. (Note: The spoiler here is just an example, it doesn't spoil anything ) I'll get things started with just my open class since most won't have the game when I post this, but I just want to get the thread started. I'm excited and I've already played the silly thing My first playthrough was a male Human Noble - Rogue. Hopefully people enjoy the game!

My comments were less directed to the watermelon discussion, but the "either/or" discussion for Dragon Age, and whether or not the game player will know if it is good or not prior to purchasing it.

Really? I didn't know that!

I'm going to have to disagree. There's plenty of footage of the game, there's the previous history of games that play similar, in addition to reviews and word of mouth testimonials. It is not as if someone is just going in and picking a box at random off the shelf. And even if you were, you'd still be able to get SOME idea of the game just by reading the back of the box and looking at the pictures. Is this going to give anyone 100% certainty that a game is or is not going to "be good" (I'm assuming your talking from a micro-level, subjective personal point of view)? Of course not. But neither would a demo. Would a demo give more information? Sure, but the question there is: Is it worth it? You may be dealing with imperfect information (since you'll never know until you try it), but it's definitely not a complete absence of information.

Transplant: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1917993

Out of sight out of mind >.>

Hehe I LOL'd http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1917993

Marijuana is a prescription drug in Canada. A quick Google seems to indicate that it is in California as well.

The movie has no credits aside from the disclaimers at the end.