Tale

Anyone here a fan of Spellforce? Or even a hater? $9.99 for the whole set and am looking for opinions.

Valve appears to have a policy against allowing stores other than Steam within the games themselves. Or something like that. That's why Crysis 2 got taken off. And probably why Dragon Age 2 was removed.

Juggling lots of stuff. Halo Anniversary is 29.99 at Target, so I picked it up. Remembered I had a GamersGate account from purchasing Precursors, so I picked up Mysteries of Westgate. And TF2 has a new update, so I've been tooling around in that.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows Absolutely loved it. I'm debating on the comparison to the first. Came with a trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Calling it: Virtually baseless speculation

Walsingham, you son of a... This calls for a duel.

TF2 update! Including Pyro stuff I would kill for. I will take your total hours as a challenge to my TF2 hours now.

This is depressing...

Where did you read they're having to reinstitute GeoIP? The court deal only seemed to relate to the 360 release.

I've decided that anyone that eats Pastrami cold is a criminal that should be jailed.

Sneaky daggers is overpowered. I one-shot a dragon. Poison can get ridiculous too.

I am, as before, your right hand. Your sword. Though, Kain was a jerk.

I think I'd like to play a game that punished me for being good. Mainly because I have this fantasy in my head of playing a guy who does get pounded into the ground, day in, day out, and just gets back up to face the difficulties. Who at the end of it all has lost everything that was dear to him personally, but keeps on doing it because he knows it is right. And then, at the end, dies alone and to be forgotten, but the world lives on better than ever. Something bittersweet. Not enough of it out there, I think. I won't say games are devoid of it, but they may force it a bit too much. And pop it up only at the end.

The truly unknowable is equivalent to the non-existant. If it interacts, it can be known. If it does not interact, it is irrelevant.

I don't think he likes TB in general.

We have some X fans, right? Albion Prelude, which appears to be an expansion to Terran Conflict, is out now. I never finished Terran Conflict.

The chance of N.A.M.B.L.A. in the game, 0%. But who doesn't love Marlon Brando?

It's actually a Telltale developed sequel and fairly modern. I think it's Telltale's best.

When it comes to babies, always assume they're jerks.

I think it's was a missed opportunity for outreach. Happy Solstice I like. Various secular displays relevant to winter could have gone up. Mocking Christians doesn't really do anything except gratify yourself. That said, the people who typically get that spot could just have easily been similarly pushy. Putting up signs claiming you're going to hell and to remember that Christmas should be about Jesus. However, I also favor being the better man, so even if they tended to be so, responding in kind wouldn't have been my preference.

My favorite adventure game is on sale again! It's the new daily at $8.74. Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack

And that's where I disagree with Avellone.

None of the bundles did. Valve offered Portal free on at least one occasion. You might have gotten it then.

That's fair. I can understand that. I think my main issue is primarily that with so many side quests in RPGs nowadays, I often find myself completely losing touch with the plot. I'll spend 3/4th or more dealing with completely tangential issues while the supposedly big issue just sits around for no reason. Side quests woven into the main plot could give a sense that you are dealing with it, you're just dealing with it more broadly. And can give a sense that the big problem isn't just sitting still, it's doing all the stuff the sidequest is doing. Let me get some specifics here. The game that first brought this idea to me was Mass Effect 2. There's only a handful of missions that have anything to do with Collectors. But most side missions are barely motivating personal crap. I had a hard time justifying involvement with people's daddy issues outside of being a completionist. I found myself thinking, "now, if this had at least some relevance to fighting Reapers, I could get behind it." Tali and Legion could be played off that way. Jacob and Miranda? No. I think tying side quests into the main quest's plot could do a few other things. It makes the bad guy look like he's more involved, instead of isolated. He can now be running a war against the local thieve's guild and paying raiding parties to attack local towns as a distraction from what he's doing. It gives an opportunity to explore the consequences of major events. The town he destroyed in the opening of the game has to resort to banditry to survive since their crops were destroyed. And it gives greater resolution. It gives people an idea of how the side quest problems all seemed to magically pop up at the same time, and why the player character is the only one who can deal with them. And when the player defeats the big bad, they can take some comfort that the other side problems aren't going to pop up right away again. Even something as simple as thinking that the only reason the Fiends were able to operate is because everyone is distracted works for me. The big problem caused the smaller problem. Or that the Draugr of Skyrim are waking because their dragon masters are back. It certainly feels better to me than thinking Skyrim is constantly on the verge of zombie apocalypse.

I wish more sidequests wove into the greater plot arc. Instead of having to deal with my party member's parental issues that are in no way relevant to beating the bad guy, I'd rather deal with the thugs he hired to steal stuff for his side operations. Am I on-topic? I hope so.