Bartimaeus

Haha, fair enough. It really depends on the game in question for me...for singleplayer first person shooters, I tend to have the personality I described earlier, but for RPGs like NWN or BG/PST, it varies a bit more...though I never play anything really straight up evil because I'm a weak and squeamish person. Also, I just realized you said "Red Army Base" earlier, not the Frontline which is what I assumed you meant...though I'm having difficulty remembering exactly what the Red Army Base is, because I'm pretty sure everything after Frontline is actually Nazi, not Communist. The Red Army Base would be...what, the level you're in before you go onto the railcar ride that you fall off into the Frontline level? Don't think that's what you meant, since that's not really a real level.

Isn't that...roleplaying as yourself, not as the protagonist? Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything, but... Personally, I prefer to roleplay as someone who recognizes it's better to kill all the people killing each other so everyone else can live in peace...as opposed to myself, whose sum of all fears is death (whether it be for myself or others) to such a degree that I don't even like killing insects most of the time.

In most dark areas (e.g. the first bandit base you come across with Bourbon in 2033), you can pretty much stand right in front of enemies without them detecting you as long as there's no light directly shining on you. This mechanic extends throughout the entire game (except for NV guys, which there aren't many of and this only slightly increases their visibility range in the dark, so meh), and I consider it to be a bit of a joke/broken because as long as you're at least a little bit patient, enemies are completely blind to you the vast majority of the time. This just isn't how eyesight works...so yeah, broken and easy by my estimation. Red Army Base? *spoilers* You start out falling off a railcart in a dark tunnel where nobody can see you...ya' go through the tunnels and down the stairs (either waiting for the guys on the railcart to similarly go down the stairs or not waiting: it doesn't really matter as long as you're all not trying to do it at the same time ) past the two guards talking to each other in complete darkness (as soon as you get past the little fire they're standing at, which doesn't extend far enough for them to see you going down the stairs anyways), you wait for the two commies to execute the "deserter" who then go upstairs, then you jump onto the metal scaffoldings past those two commies where nobody can possibly see you because you're underneath everyone, then depending on the path you take, you either go down to the bottom of the chasm and then up through the basement of the Nazi side via the ladder (what I recommend) or you stay on the metal scaffoldings until you get back onto the lower platforms (what I don't recommend, since there are a bunch of patrolling Nazis along with a mounted gun watching the area which makes it pretty difficult to stealth through this area if you're not killing anybody). Then, once you're on the Nazi side and in tunnel, you go right through without anybody seeing you because, once again, it's too dark for anybody to see you (except for the NV guys getting too close to you as well as the patrolling gun car, where you just go into one of little cubby holes on the sides of the tunnel and wait for them to pass). Then, you just cruise right on through to the end of the level to the scripted ambush because either it's too dark or enemies have their backs turned. The only non-obvious piece to this, it seemed to me, was spotting that the scaffolding by those two commies executing the "deserter" exists to begin with, since you don't have much of a reason to look over the side of that platform they're standing on when performing the execution before they go upstairs...but hey, as far as things go, having to carefully examine all possible options is a small price to pay for a pacifism route in an FPS...and this is, IMO, really the only thing you have to be on the lookout for in what's considered to be the "hardest"/most torturous level in the game. Now personally, I prefer having to kill everybody in complete stealth. Having to kill groups of 3-4 dudes who are all standing or sitting right next to each other either without them noticing each other getting picked off OR (if they're literally all sitting right next to each other like you can find a few guys doing in the bandit Black Station when you're trying to rescue Bourbon) killing them all fast enough that they don't raise the alarm (they have a few second delay after they notice someone dying before they actually start screaming, during which you can kill all of them if you're quick, careful, and accurate). For me, the hardest section of the game is actually after you rescue the dumb child in the overrun station and you're leaving to the outside again: killing the Nazi patrol of like 6 or 7 guys that's coming down to try and assault the station (their words, not mine) is seriously so hard without them raising the alarm...but it can be done. Besides that, I don't generally have too much trouble with the game outside of a few specific groups of enemies through the game.

Actually, from what I recall of my time living in California, California has a lot of fairly conservative towns and cities...and then a few super liberal cities like LA. A state doesn't hold a referendum that ends up being in favor of banning gay marriage (even if said ban is struck down by the courts disregarding the will/tyranny of the majority) by being super liberal. Jokes based on perceptions aren't funny if you point out the perception is wrong. You killed that joke in its prime. You monster. Sorry: you're not the first one I've come across to make comments about California's "apparent" "overwhelming" liberalism, so when it comes up, I can't help but similarly comment...

Actually, from what I recall of my time living in California, California has a lot of fairly conservative towns and cities...and then a few super liberal cities like LA. A state doesn't hold a referendum that ends up being in favor of banning gay marriage (even if said ban is struck down by the courts disregarding the will/tyranny of the majority) by being super liberal.

But...not killing humans is so easy with the broken stealth system. It's so much bigger of a pain to try and kill everyone while maintaining stealth.

I wouldn't say that's completely true...there's a barrier of entry on all things, regardless of media. Some people simply won't bother with non-HD movies anymore, for example: they might actually love the movie in question if they watched it regardless of quality, but until it's at least 720p, they won't bother.

I'm more concerned about personally paying for the games and then trying to enjoy them myself more than I am with imagining other people that I don't know doing so, really...but I guess we all have different ways to personally measure a game's success, I suppose...

*shrug* Some things, I don't mind talking about...my love of Disney movies, my love of history (particularly the Greeks and the Romans), a few of my mental oddities...and there are other things I won't ever talk about no matter what*. It varies from person to person. *Particularly because this is a public forum, where certain things being associated with my alias could be not good for me. I'm a somewhat paranoid person.

So...not literally unearthly, I guess. (e): Hm...unless you considered cities to not be "of the earth": i.e. to be against nature. ...But that would still be metaphorically unearthly at best. Bah.

I think his point (I'm guessing and projecting a little here, since the top sentence seems a little distorted) may have been it sounded like you were belittling at least a small amount those who don't share details of their own personal lives and instead participate in these discussions in other ways...versus those who do do so (e.g. Bruce). I don't really agree with the sentiment that you should be revealing facets of your own life to be a "real" person here, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion. (e): I butchered (and now fixed) a sentence

I am pretty sure fundamentalist conservative Christians still want to try to censor and condemn...they just want to do it how they like to do it, just as those on the other side of the political spectrum like to do.

It's actually not that kind of thing that bothers me so much...I have that problem to some extent, but I can usually persevere except for something truly egregious...but it's usually more to do with the movie being watched itself. There are things that I can accept in a movie or a show alone that I simply cannot when watching while being with another(s). I generally like Disney movies, so I'll use that as an example: musicals. I usually like them by myself (depends on the exact movie and song in question, of course, but let's presume ones I normally like), but they seem so incredibly awful and cringeworthy if I'm watching with somebody else that I just cannot bear doing so. It's so stupid, particularly when I'm watching with somebody else who enjoys that sort of thing, but I still can't get over it. It's the same way with some other stuff, too (including things that are not exclusive to Disney movies, ). I think that may be legitimate anti-social behavior, but what can you do?

I have the opposite problem: I have infinitely more trouble watching movies/shows with others than I do alone...particularly if it's the first time watching the film or show. It can be so bad that something I normally like (or would have normally liked, if it's my first viewing), I can end up despising while watching with somebody else. Must be my anti-social behavior flaring up.

What's that (literally ) unearthly glow at the bottom?

What do I need to do to get back out on top, guys?

That's no joke.

Yeah, they're O.K. Definitely not the rage most regular people seemed to have made them to be, I don't think, but certainly watchable and enjoyable to some degree. (e): I also read the books...or rather, I read the first two. I thought the first one was O.K., the second one somewhat better, and then I hit a wall in the opening pages of the third one. Even though I hadn't been hating the series up until that point (something I could read for fun), I just couldn't continue for some reason. Haven't returned since, and I don't really plan to.

They looked decent in high resolution, too (although, personally, I think the mod 1pp's revamp of them looked best): the biggest problem is that you have so much room at the bottom with so few buttons (F1-F12, so only twelve): going through your spellbook when you're epic-leveled was supremely annoying because of it. Did they ever change that in in the BG2:EE (because I'm pretty sure, from what I recall of what I played of it, they didn't for the BG1:EE)? (edit): Oh, also, less weapon sets (and quickspells) for certain classes and mutli/dual-classes because they don't have any room in the 12 button set. That was annoying, too.

*still has no idea how the game ended, so cannot comment, * (e): Although I am slightly disappointed that, according to you, she did somehow make it back to safety...I would've preferred that the game ended with everybody dying.

This is probably more along the lines of what you'd pay right now over about a month's purchasing time (for everything: this ignores any potential "super" deals, and instead presumes the normal variance of prices) using a combination of stores, including newegg, amazon, and tigerdirect, but a few reputable others as well: Chassis: $60-70 MB: $140-160 (VI when I bought it; VII it'd be closer to $190-200 right now) PSU: $80-90 (for my specific model: you could get a roughly equivalent one for probably in closer to the 60-70 range, possibly as low as 50 if you're lucky) CPU: $300-330 ($330 is the "standard" price, but retailers are often putting a "sale" on it and bringing it down to $300) RAM: $85-90 (RAM has gotten a bit cheaper very recently: when I bought mine for $75, it was basically a ridiculous mega-super deal, where the cheapest you could normally get the equivalent of my RAM would've been more to the tune of $110-120, whereas now it doesn't seem nearly so crazy) SSD: $95-105 (like RAM, it also has gotten cheaper very recently: $105-115 would've been closer to normal when I bought it) The difference isn't nearly as extreme. However, am I correct in assuming that there is still a sizable tax to add on to the AUS prices I listed earlier? If so, the gulf probably widens, but if not, that's not nearly as bad. These prices are still bad enough that I wouldn't bother making this PC (i7 and MB, at the very least, would be switched out for something else, and I would definitely be choosing a different PSU model than the specific one I chose, since there are other roughly equivalent models for cheaper), but regardless...

A few years ago, 909 EUR would be significantly more in USD (about $1136 at its highest)...so at least there's that, I suppose.

PC Case Gear Chassis: $110 -> 81 USD MB: $305 -> 225 USD using the VII instead of VI since they don't have VI in stock anymore PSU: $100 -> 74 USD CPU: $480 -> 354 USD using the i7-4790k instead of the 4770k (upon release, they were almost exactly the same price anyways, and the 4790k is essentially the 4770k's replacement) RAM: $160 -> 118 USD SSD: $165 - > 122 USD So I paid $435 (after taxes, by the way) for my system...I would've paid $974 at these prices (and I'm presuming this is before taxes). At these prices, I probably don't bother ever making a PC. Though, to be fair, a few of my parts (the CPU and PSU, in particular) I got at...very unusual prices. But that's still over double the total price...

Chassis: Corsair 300R (non-windowed, because I hate windows: $45) MB: Asus Maximus VI Hero ($120) PSU: Silverstone ST50F-ESG ($20) CPU: Intel i7-4770k ($90) RAM: 2x8GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 (just find the cheapest set of two you can find, since the specific part doesn't really matter: $75 is what I got mine for) GPU: N/A (I received mine for free from mute688 ) SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB ($85) You weren't kidding about MSY: I have no idea how to use this website. Trying PC Case Gear.

What online stores do you Europeans and Australians use that generally have the best prices? Curious as to how much more expensive my PC would've been if I hadn't purchased my parts in the U.S...