Bartimaeus

Literally [one of] the best thing I've ever seen in my life. Thank you, Prosper.

I felt like Spec Ops gameplay was *extremely* boring. Not only that, but the game was also really preachy, too. I felt like they really didn't have to (and really shouldn't have) talk(ed) about the stupid crap the game was forcing you into doing every single time something happened. I felt like the events should've spoken for themselves enough. Also agreeing on Mass Effect >=2's gameplay - yuck. Horribly repetitive, especially on the hardest difficulty. Pop out to shoot until your shields break, hide until they heal, pop back out until your shields break, hide until they heal...pray to God that nobody tries to actually, y'know, flank you, because you'll be complete toast if they do...ugh.

What exactly is the definition of "blant"? I tried Googling it, but all I got were crappy urban dictionary entries that seemed to have nothing to do with the subject at hand, as well as one entry that basically equated to "bland".

You can skip the iffy Steam "reinstall" process, (which I *have* had problems with, though it worked well recently when I moved my Steam folder recently), by copying the relevant appmanifest_xxx.acf from your original SteamApps folder to the next and then restarting Steam. For Enemy Unknown, it'd be appmanifest_200510.acf.

Similar to mkreku, I don't keep even a single game on my C:\ drive, and have never had problems like that, (and my Steam is installed to my C:\ drive). Steam is neat in that it checks every time you start Steam up what games you have installed in your SteamApps directories, (if it's across multiple drives/locations), via the appmanifest_xxx.acf files in said directories...which is also useful for faking games being installed for collecting trading cards by having Steam launch the "game" and in reality only opening a notepad instance or such, (or for just accruing play time for whatever reason). Not sure why you're having problems with it.

I have no idea what "TL2" is, but my generic answer would be, "I very much doubt it" for both questions. As long as he originally played on his account and continues to play on his account, regardless of any other circumstances, his saves should be still used for any future playing. As for redownloading the game, I would say "no" no matter what. I can't think of any reason for having to redownload a game already installed. Steam is pretty good with that sort of thing.

I've played through it in both English and Russian, and I actually liked some of the English more than the Russian. The Dark Ones, particularly, I thought sounded better than with the deep Russian voices. Loved Metro 2033 - such a shame I really didn't like the sequel...

I could only find two, for games I actually enjoy(ed) play(ing)...and they were expansions: Total War: Rome: Alexander, and Total War: Medieval II: Kingdoms. Only checked about 40 out of my 166+282 library.

Finally beat Hitman: Blood Money - Silent Assassin on every mission. Last mission was ridiculous for trying to get the rating, as you can't have any bodies be discovered, (or indeed, take down anyone besides your primary targets except with your two shots of sedatives), but the game places a dead body as part of the story, (enemy assassin disguising as somebody else), right in front of a guard that basically eventually and almost always comes across it. You can't really move it, either, because, again, the guard will see you and/or the body. Between that and making sure you're not captured on any cameras in the bloody White House...it was relatively hard. Tried playing Path of Exile a bit, but after hitting about level 40, I'm already completely burnt out...thanks, Diablo, you soul-sucker of a game - can't play these types of games for any length of time anymore. Also trying Spec Ops: The Line...eh. Not a huge fan of third person shooters, especially ones that have wacky mouse controls...and ones that pointlessly try to preach verbally in ADDITION to the actual game, (why the game has to keep going on and on about the horrible stuff the game has railroaded you into doing, I don't know - I feel like the acts should speak for themselves). Played through Banjo-Kazooie recently, too. I used to really prefer Banjo-Kazooie over Banjo-Tooie, but this time it seemed almost...boring. Maybe Banjo-Tooie's relatively high world complexity will actually be a boon instead of a curse this next time I play it. (edit) Agiel, what exactly is the picture supposed to represent? I'm not familiar with this kind of graph...

Merry Christmas, indeed. I'm sick every Christmas, without fail, since moving back to Minnesota...*sigh*

If you're having difficulty with the default game, I don't recommend trying to do it with Sword Coast Stratagems. Man, that last level was hard as all heck with only having just reached epic levels by the time I got there, (I started going through Watcher's Keep in the beginning of Chapter 2 at like level 9...before joining either the Shadow Thieves or Bodhi, or really doing anything at all. Painfully difficult. Was epic leveled by the time I finished...and I still hadn't joined either. Completely broke the game. ). If I recall correctly, that fight in particular, (with the variety of creatures, including the Hive Mother), was the most difficult for me, too...although the super lich with the Robe of Vecna (SCS) and his buffed up, spellcasting (SCS) demi-lich buddies were also pretty hard. Hated that level, haha. I recall also trying to spam Abi-Dalzim's, and it not really having any effect...but in non-SCS, one could hope.

I think if a person screws up and is unable to get them as an ally, they should still be in the game in a way that's potentially equally as satisfying as having them as a party member - so much so, that if you're metagaming, there's a legitimate dilemma whether one should try and get them or not, I think. How would you do this? I have no idea. A problem for better minds than me.

Yes...but don't make it Obsidian's job to sort out the best talent. Instead, make it the community's, who decide who is worthy of Obsidian's notice, who can then (presumably) quickly pick out the few of a handful or two (at best) that they could use. Unfortunately, this would require making an actual system of some sort on Obsidian's end...which is probably already beyond P:E's budget. Therefore...probably no from me.

When I saw this one, I thought, "Wow, with a little touch-up, this could looks like it could be straight out of a Narnia movie or something!". Then I saw the ones after it, and thought, "...or maybe it's just a Prosper monster".

I don't get your reaction.

Of course not. What I was doing was already legally dubious...not to mention morally. Today, if I were presented with the option of instantly doing what I've been doing over the past few years, I probably wouldn't do any of it at all. Monetizing would've been super crossing the line for me...even then, and especially now. When I finally decided to quit, it was actually kind of a relief.

I actually just reposted the message I did earlier - I left the tab open for a little after originally posting, looked back and saw that I still hadn't had it posted...but in reality had just hit back when I had posted it. Then I deleted the message, then edited it to reply to yours.

Well, Gmail automatically set up the "Social" tab for their inbox, so it already wasn't particularly invasive for me. If it was though I could set up labels and whatnot to filter it easily. I suppose I could do that...I disabled the tabs/categories as soon as they introduced them...

I get emails when people comment on my videos. I'd rather not have my email spammed...the inbox worked perfectly fine. I'm also stubborn and largely refuse to compromise with YouTube, particularly since I've given up on them.

I'm a "content creator", (I use quotes because...not really - all I do is post other people's music - close to 700 songs worth of it at the moment - whoops), and I've been trying to think up of a fitting "I quit" message for the past few months... Haven't quite gotten around to it, though...apathy is a strong (de)motivator. Honestly, the biggest thing that annoys me as a second-rate, small-time uploader...is that I can't even see new comments on my uploads anymore. It used to be a daily ritual for me, checking my inbox and looking at all the new comments people have left on my videos. Alas...YouTube's internal user inbox largely no longer exists.

Also, US residents who were registered rejoice, because your chances of getting a prototype increased by having all registered international applicants deemed inelligible. I wonder how many people that cut from the pool. If I recall the original number correctly, about half. I remember the number of eligible participants being in the mid to high 900,000s. Now it's in the high 400,000s.

Yeah, guess that's what I'm planning on doing. Might have to buy a new video card soon, (my 4 year old 5770 is going bad, ), so I guess it will probably be helping fund it...

Bought a 4930k new for $200. Don't have much to do with it, though, to be honest...amazing CPU, but I don't really need the performance, (evidence of that fact being that I'm still running along just fine on an old Phenom II x4...), nor do I really want to build another PC...

The weird controls you are having is most likely because the negative mouse acceleration the game has. Just another case of devs not having a clue about the differences of controllers and KB&M. These days I almost burst in tears of joy if I run across a game that doesn't have any kind of mouse acceleration crap, or heaven forbid, an actual on/off button for it in options! There are registry edits that disable it system-wide, I believe.

That's called Dolby Surround, you either turn off in-game 3D sound or buy a proper sound system... But there's no such option in-game. How do I turn it off? There's no baldur.ini like there used to be. Isn't there in the user documents folder?