Bartimaeus

The problem with these kinds of plots, is that they're never player-driven, but rather obviously-stupid-protagonist-driven. Like I said before, I wouldn't have done all the horrible things to begin with, because it's obvious from the very basic tone of the game that this isn't, y'know, your normal military action shooter. Because if you make it freaking clear to the player that hey, let's look at this from a real world perspective and realize it's horrible, so please don't do it...you know what? The player has a tendency not to do those horrible things and instead try to work around them as best as they can...alternatively, they might think harder about their options and maybe realize, yeah, this is absolutely horrible, but it still has to be done - but at least I realize that it's horrible and that there might well be consequences. The game allowed for NONE of that. There's never any choice in the game - it's, "protagonist tells you to do horrible thing after horrible thing that are obviously horrible things that you're gonna be yelled at later for, so you do it because you have literally no other choice to progress the game, and then the game gets mad at you". It's predictable, it's boring, it's preachy, and it's, quite honestly, a little pathetic. This is so painfully obvious pretty soon into the game. A good game it does not make, however. There were so many other ways to do what the game was trying to do, but it took one of the worst options to try to do so - a completely one dimensional, railroaded, linear third person corridor shooter. You know what they could've done for that white phosphorous scene? Make a save right before the "decision" to use it, and let the player *decide* what they want to try and do - use it, or don't. The game is supposed to be more realistic than most other military shooters, right? So have the militants completely overwhelm the player each and every time they try to fight the camp head on...or let the player try and sneak through, but allow for there to be no actual passage to get through so the player always gets caught and butchered. Something along those lines so that the player organically *wants* to try and use the white phosphorous - preferably without really thinking about it beyond "I'm frustrated and this seems like an easy way out" - and isn't just railroaded into using it. At THAT point, the game is justified in showing, "holy crap, look at what you just did!". An important part of making that work, though, is making sure the game doesn't look like it's obviously rigged in the game's favor for the other options, but rather, just simply too hard for the player to pull off realistically. That can be tough, but at least I'd understand if they failed on that part.

That's because I didn't much see any. You know what was really annoying about that whole white phosphorous thing, too? I didn't want to do it from the get go. It's not like doing the whole shooting bit was exactly hard, so why would I start shooting white phosphorous at what were clearly not combatants on the radar? You could literally see that they looked like normal citizens or refugees or whatever right on the radar thing where you were aiming the white phosphorous! But you're not given a choice - I didn't do anything at first, but the game won't progress if you don't start shooting the stupid thing. And, like I said, it didn't help I didn't like the basic gameplay. I also loathed the characters and the overdone voice acting - the main character was especially ridiculous. Everything he said felt so forceful and over the top...like he was shouting to a huge audience. And the things he said were just...stupid sounding. And that's never minding the obligatory fairly stereotypical black guy. All three of those guys drove me insane. So, er, what the heck did you like about it? lol

Narrative? Compelling? Uh...yeah, sure. We killed hundreds of militants to get to where we are right now, but, hey, there are like maybe three dozen more dudes ahead, and there's this neat white phosphorous cannon sitting over here...how could we resist? Also, we're not actually going to take a look to see if they're actually really militants, even though they currently haven't even spotted us yet! "Oh my gosh, we are such horrible people! The indiscriminate killing of the other hundred dudes before this clearly did not show that maybe there's something wrong with war and possibly us if you pay any heed at all to our normal societal values!" In my books, this kind of narrative would be laughable, not compelling. It's the kind of narrative almost any action game could show if it really wanted to, but it doesn't because it'd be ridiculous, not to mention tedious and preachy...all three of which the game very neatly exemplify. The fact that the basic gameplay was pretty boring didn't help much either. That seems to be true of every corridor third person shooter I've ever played, though, so maybe I'm a little biased.

I have a G400. It's essentially a clone of the MX518 with a different paint. *shrug* Not sure if they sell it anymore - probably replaced by a newer, slightly crappier model, knowing Logitech's recent trends with their mouse sensors.

*smug* Hey man, I told you. I think I said it on more than one occasion, in fact, in this particular topic...er...particular series of topics, I guess. Haha. It's just not very good, in any particular way! Story is some of the most heavy-handed, railroaded garbage I've had to sit through in years, and the actual gameplay is...yeah, not very good. It's more of a political statement than a decent game, IMO. Should've been a movie instead. Even then, I probably wouldn't like it, but at least I'd understand it.

I guess I feel like, when I'm playing a strategy game, especially a strategy game like this, that when I don't have a goal, or when I'm not doing anything, I'm screwing up. I spend the first ten years of my campaign in an almost OCD-like fit, first destroying Venice's and its vassals' navies, then occupying all of its territory to take all of their non-Italian land, (most of which is Orthodox and Greek to begin with, with the exception of Dalmatia). At that point, while I have a rather weak army, especially after beating Venice down whose army is difficult to beat, I have either the first or second most powerful navy in the world, and nearly all of my territory is only accessible via the Ottoman Empire, and who's gonna screw with them to get to me? So, ironically, even with them as my rival, the Ottomans are actually a sort of great shield to me while I'm weak, as nobody can really touch me via the Mediterranean due to my naval strength, and the Ottomans themselves are too busy with other stuff to bother with their Greek problem - that, or their ruler has died and they only have a regency council and can't deliberately make war to begin with. The next part depends on what exactly's going on, but usually I rest for at least two years while building my army up to the new force limit thanks to the Venetian territory gains. Depending on how long this takes, I might annex my vassal, Athens, while I'm waiting. Between this, I'm making claims on the Ottoman territory that I can, as well as making friends with Eastern Europe, particularly the other Orthodox nations nearby, (Serbia and Wallachia in particular). If the Ottoman Empire fails to go to war with any major nation, (or even the one territory nations in Anatolia), I will take some extra time to build up gold reserves and then to train an army far beyond my normal force limit so that I can deal with both the Ottoman and Crimean armies, (whom the Ottomans *always* ally with, at least that I've ever seen). The extra gold reserve is because even without normal casualties, I'll be running a deficit after my army is completely trained. If they *do* go to war with a major nation, I will usually say screw it and form a temporary alliance with whatever opposing major player there is in the war, and try to occupy as much territory I can before they reach a peace...at which point the Ottomans are exhausted with war and can't much deal with me. From that war, I take back all of Greece and the Balkans with the stupid exception of the Ottoman's capital, which is right in front of Constantinople, (hey, another thing I forgot to complain about - not being able to annex capitals unless you're completely annexing the entire nation - stupid as heck, particularly if the territory is one of your freaking cores). At this point, I vassalize Wallachia, as I'd rather not go to war with them right after the previous, but I'd also like to have a shield of sorts. I vassalize Serbia...if I can. If they make me their rival, I have a...short war with them. Otherwise, they're just a normal ally. Then what? Make Trebizond a top ally if I haven't already for future vassalization and annexation...um...maybe take back Genoan Crimea because it's Greek and Orthodox and would be easy to integrate? Annex Cyprus because the Mamluks are too scared of my navy to back up their guarantee of the Knights, and Cyprus is, again, Greek and Orthodox as well as one of my core territories for historical reasons? At this point, I'm making a *huge* amount of money because navies are relatively cheap - even large ones - and I only have a moderate army for my nation size, (around 20k, 30k at max), that's backed up with the force of my other Orthodox allies as well as my extremely strong economy that would let me make a much larger army pretty much instantly if I needed to, even if it were in the form of mercenaries. I'm usually in first or second place in the scores at this point. After all that, I...am at a loss as to what to do. I spent a huge amount of effort into making sure the two previous big wars went right and now...I don't have much anything left to do. I've either made war with or allies out of all my neighbors. Should I try...expanding into Italy? After everything I'd done previously, the game just feels really weak and like it has ground to a standstill. I'm supposed to just sit around for a few decades to continue my previous wars or annex the allies I've made, or..? I see everyone continuing to make war with each other, and their naval forces moving all over the map, and I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, waiting for an arbitrary amount of time to pass to continue my affairs. I restarted my game about five times, and each time, I got to this point where I started feeling really uncomfortable with how things were going, even though everything had gone to plan. RE: Integration: Like I said, I like the mechanics. I just think...they're too extreme. I can't cope with multiple rebellions of ten thousand men strong armies when my army is only twenty thousand strong. Why are rebellions for larger countries so much bigger than they are for smaller ones? I got a rebellion in Dalmatia once, before I took back the Ottoman territories, and it was like 4, 5 thousand strong. I get one after getting my territory back, and it's at least twice as large! This would make sense...if rebellions were more of an entire national thing - you know, get one in a particular area and it covers that entire area and makes it so there can't be more for a while after you put it down - but it's per freaking territory, so let's keep it tied to individual territory strength, as multiple rebellions can make your entire country fold when it makes absolutely no sense for it to.

Europa Universalis 4...or rather, not Europa Universalis 4. I like the underlying mechanics - I really do. It's unlikely I'll be able to ever go back and play a Total War game ever again because of it, in fact - I like the mechanics of Paradox's grand strategy that much more. But...Europa Universalis 4 is just too frustrating to keep playing. The whole technology tree progress tree seems completely screwed - anyone that isn't a Western civilization is screwed over with a moderate (20%) to major (40%/50%) malus for no real reason besides, "durr, not a Western civilization". In addition, rulers having such a huge effect on the technology tree - making progress possibly *three* times faster if you have a great ruler vs a worthless one - is ridiculous, too, especially when you consider the fact that the rulers are just randomly generated numbers that seem to not be reliant on anything to do with what's actually going on, and there's no way to improve them. Again, I like the idea...the execution is just too harsh and arbitrary. Why is it, when I have a complete victory over an enemy, (destroying all of their military as well as occupying all of their territory), I cannot set the terms of the peace agreement? The game makes it unrealistic to annex more than 3-4 territories at once that are not territories you previously owned, (whether historically, in the case of the Roman Empire, or because they were lost in a recent war), but...why do I not have the ability to at least *try* if I so desire, when I have completely destroyed them? Why is it that I cannot decide how long the "truce" between the two nations will last? I don't want a 20 year truce. I want to spend like three to five years integrating the territory I annexed, and then get right back at it. Why would I leave my mortal enemies to build up their military and economy again just so I can fight the same stupid war all over again? It makes no sense. The penalties for not integrated or not being able to integrate a territory are...insane. Making a territory a core province takes like an entire stinking year, and then it takes a few years to possibly *never* to convert a territory to your religion, and then some more time to convert them to your culture if you need to. This is crazy...because in between all of this, you have reduced income from the provinces, and like a 5-20% chance, (depending on innate modifiers of the territory), of there being a huge freaking rebellion each month for every single one of these unintegrated provinces. These rebellions are like one third to one half of my full army - it is literally impossible, especially with the hugely slow manpower regeneration, (how many reserves soldiers you have on hand to either reinforce your active army or is ready to reinforce your active army), to be able to deal with them. What am I doing wrong? Am I supposed to be integrating one province at a time every 20 years or so? I get so bored, playing what were the final fragments of the Roman Empire, after having taken back my core provinces from the Ottoman Empire in a flurry of detail and activity. I don't know what to do besides literally wait twenty years after my first war with them ended to be able to try and take back Anatolia. I am more than ready way before then, but the game gives you so many penalties for trying that it's untenable. This is a day by day process sort of game - it kills me to just set the game at maximum speed and just wait twenty in game years for me to be able to do anything again. I wish the game was in like, weeks or something, instead of individual days...What am I supposed to be doing in between wars? Because, as far as I can see, there is nothing at all to do. Overall, I like the basic game mechanics. A little more fairness - for both the AIs and the player - and a little more freedom would not be out of place, though. All the micro countries seem to exist solely for the sake of getting swallowed up by bigger ones, unless they're vassals...in which case, it's just a matter of meeting the arbitrary requirements for the vassals to be annexed by their lord nation before they're swallowed up peacefully.

Yeah, it is a bit unrealistic. I mean, I took over like 6-7 of their provinces with only like 5k men because they couldn't really make anymore. The frustrating thing for me, about that, is they wouldn't even give me my core provinces - it wasn't even an option, somehow, even though I was occupying all of their area. Some areas were just completely excluded from being an option for annexation, including the area directly in front of Constantinople, (Epir..idus?). I don't really understand why. I would've been pretty ok with all of the mainland Europe territories, and maybe the area directly behind Constantinople in Anatolia, which they were pretty much willing to give except for that problem.

I don't understand Europa Universalis. I was able to do a complete take over of the Ottoman Empire with the help of what was essentially a crusade, (not actually a crusade, but the English and the Mamluks and all their vassals as well as myself attacked them all at once and destroyed them - neither of them took any actual territory, however, and by the time they were mostly brought to their knees and they made peace with the other two, I had taken most of Thrace and Greece, as well as a little of Anatolia, and decided to mop up the rest of their territories because neither of us could make any more soldiers due to war exhaustion...so why not?). I am not able to take all of their territory/do a complete annexation - says I don't have enough peace points. I completely ruined your nation - give me your territory and phase out of existence like the rest of them. No way to take just some of a nation's territory without taking *all* of it...and even then, it'll only give you roughly half after completely destroying a larger nation in the stupid "peace talks" because there's no way to just force a resolution - if an enemy nation refuses to cooperate in the peace talks even after having been completely annihilated, you can't do anything about it. That's stupid.

It's their way of telling you that you should play Crusader Kings 2 first and then import a save where the ERE controls all of Europe. Uh, how different is Crusader Kings 2 from this? Still getting used to this - don't quite want to jump into a completely different game already...

Europa Universalis 4. This is...interesting, I guess. War mechanics seem really wonky compared to what I'm normally used to, but I'm getting used to it. Boy, couldn't they have the earliest date like a hundred years earlier? The Roman Empire starts out completely hamstrung, surrounded by the Ottoman Empire except for Constantinople proper and Sparta in Greece. Stupid history getting in the way of my fun.

Alternatively, i.Disk for seeing what's taking up space. Additionally, run Disk Cleanup to remove old Windows Update backups and other useless files, set a cap on how much room system restores can take up, (or, in my case, as I have extensive backups, disable system restore entirely).

Wow what a hater! Theophany's stuff is awesome, that one song is the ONLY one he went out to make on his own and I for one like it. If you want more classic Majora's Mask stuff, here: I guess I just don't like his style all that much, at least for this Zelda stuff. I liked Final Hours well enough, but the source material was slow and fairly low key to begin with - did not like Clocktown. Feels like there's not a lot of dynamics between each instrument, and they're all fighting for dominance between each other. It also reminds me a bit of the Twilight Princess "Twilight Symphony" orchestra release - where everything feels too stinking loud, too high key, and that there's too much going on compared to the source material. I like the relative crudeness and simplicity of the original tunes. I understand that others might want to do something different when making their own versions - especially when using real instruments instead of midi instruments - but similarly, it's very possible I might not like it just because of that! vs. the simplicity that was, (note the huge length differences, for starters...)

I was gonna like your post for this, but this honestly feels so overdone and reminds me very little of Majora's Mask and/or Zelda in general, that I'm not sure if it would be right...

Papers, Please! Day 21: "You are under arrest for attacking an Arstotzkan official." "The penalty is death." "Your family will be questioned about their involvement." "The border will remain open under a replacement inspector." "Glory to Arstotzka." Yeah, well, maybe if my "Tranquilizer" gun wasn't a freaking missile launcher that blew up both the guards and the TERRORIST I was aiming at that was murdering those very same guards, I would still be alive. Why the heck is it my duty to deal with armed terrorists when we have armed guards, anyways?

Have you just spoiled everything for me?? HAVE YOU??? GOD DAMN IT PEOPLE. I made a brief pause after finishing book 9. The 'pause' has been going on for quite some time now, years actually, but I intend to go back and FINISH THE WHOLE THING SOME DAY. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!!!! Can't tell if you're actually serious or not - if so, my apologies. Wasn't it kind of always a given, though? I mean, I recall it being touched upon multiple times throughout the earlier books. I mean, I guess it's not wholly unreasonable to expect it to never actually come to pass, particularly given the apparent one-notedness of the author's writing...but the books have been out for at least a few years now, and it seemed relevant to what was being discussed. Sorry about that.

Icewind Dale always was more combat-heavy than Baldur's Gate - maybe they won't immeasurably screw this up in my eyes with their ridiculous fanfiction additions. Best of luck to the project.

So...if I'm not mistaken, you'd need to get a Windows installation disk/drive, (or a Windows repair disk/drive), boot from it, go into Windows repair instead of Windows install, Windows image recovery, and it should hopefully detect it from the other drive. You should also exclude any disks for reformatting/restoration when it asks you to - at least, for any drives you don't want to be wiped. Windows unfortunately, while having other repair options built in, does not have the re-imaging tool accessible without the installation/repair disk. If your OS is a 64bit version, and you have the dual 32bit/64bit copy of the Windows installer, you will not able to use that copy of the Windows installer, because it defaults to the 32bit setup, which will not function when trying to restore to/from a 64bit version, and there's no way to switch to the 64bit version, as far as I'm aware. It's pretty stupid. If you're using a flash drive as your bootable Windows install/repair disk, you must take out the flash drive directly prior to actually initiating the restore process, (when it asks to confirm your options and that you want to reformat the selected drives - you can do it a little before that, too, if you're not sure), otherwise the restore will fail for no particular reason. Also stupid, I know. If you're restoring from a network drive, you will have to manually add your network drivers from a driver .inf file, which can be a bit of an...obscure process. This applies even if the generic Microsoft driver would normally work - the Windows installer will not load it. The entire Windows 7 re-imaging process is pretty arcane, from having spent a large amount of time playing with it.

What tool did you make the system image with? The entire OS + storage combination, just the storage drive/partition, or..?

Bit of a slow start, but that chorus...

Hah. I played through NWN1 when I was 8 or 9 - pretty much the first and only time, (though, as I've mentioned before, I tried again recently...but it was a flash in the pan type effort). I missed and didn't understand *so* much, haha. Actually, it kind of makes me want to give it a try again...

Having random people constantly adding me without any idea why, yeah, that would be great. I simply press "ignore" too... I check what groups or friends we have in common. If they're from here it should be someone. Otherwise I ignore them. I violated this rule recently and ended up getting messaged by a guy with a private profile telling me to add some other guy. I ask him who either of them are and then just get the same exact message copy-pasted back to me. That'll teach me to give people a chance. I don't mind giving new people a chance. Not so much people I already know and pointedly don't have added - three of which I've received in the past month or so.

"Worthy men," she said, her voice sweet and low, "I am told the Emperor of the Romans is a man of great learning and wisdom: yet, even such men have need of diversion from time to time." -Queen Eithne of Ireland, Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead