Aristes

bump, you little doofus. Anyhow, I made beef stew with fresh carrots, potatoes, and broccoli. I also sliced up a jalepeno and a red pepper and put it in. I browned the beef a little and then I put in the rest of the stuff. Added water (since it is a stew) and some garlic, some coarse black pepper, and specialty salt I picked up while we were in our southwestern desert tour. I normally use kosher salt, but I decided to try some of this stuff. Trust me, I should have stayed with the Kosher stuff. Anyhow, I stew it all up for a couple of hours and then serve. I'll probably put in a good amount of butter the last 10-20 minutes or so. It should be ready pretty soon here. Smells great already.

You should do that. Instead of "what you did today" it could be "What did you drink today?" haha

There are no permanent enemies in global politics. Just wait until you need his help to defeat the Duke of Wellington. Anyhow, since it has multiplayer, you must be able to play different nations, but I noticed that it only cited the French. I hope we can play the various battles from various perspectives. It says you can take your existing OOB from battle to battle, as Wrath says. I read through a lot of the info, both in your post and the links, but I didn't catch sight of anything talking about army experience. In a campaign, it's not reasonable to expect the soldiers will not become more adept at what they do. This has been true throughout history where the soldiers who manage to survive a battle or two improve on their skills. This looks pretty awesome. Since it's multiplayer, we could have a huge ass battle amongst the forum members here. It would be a great way to settle disputes. Dueling? HA! I'll route your army instead, jackass!

I don't know. Speed runs are their own beast, you know. Some very successful games have been open to weird manipulation like that. In terms of critical acclaim, FO and Fallout 2 were susceptible to that kind of speed run, and so was Oblivion. The problem I can see with Alpha Protocol is that it's not supposed to be that open ended. You might be able to do things in a different order, but my understanding is that you'll still have to do them. You can't just skip the vast majority of the game even if you know the minimum steps on the crit path.

I think it's funny how this thread will go on furiously for a bit and then die off and then come back again. This game has probably taken over as my most anticipated purchase this year. I'm looking forward to Alpha Protocol, but modern spy is not typically my thing, so to speak. Still, these two are probably the big ones for the rest of the year. Other than that, I'm dithering about a number of games, but I refuse to buy a new one until I have time and that ain't now. Come on, Alpha Protocol! Get to crackin'! You too, alan, you yutz.

Good job, big C. As for myself, study study study keep those puzzles movin' RAWHIDE! *Whipshaaaa*

Tig said something that finally removed my ambivalence. "VD is an outspoken and harsh indie dev that has a very specific vision of what an RPG should be, and is trying very hard to make it." Wait. That's not really it. It was: "VD is an outspoken and harsh indie dev..." Nope. Not quite. It's: "VD is... harsh..." ...But he's not just harsh. He's the champion of being a complete **** about game design. It's not that he's demonstrated personally narrow tastes over the years. It's that he's dismissive and obnoxious about other folks' efforts. I'm tired of hearing about Molyneux. Seriously. I am. Molyneux said that his game would do great things? Really? And that's a crime? He said we'd develop an emotional attachment to a dog in his game? And we should hate him for that? 'Cause that's what a lot of the folks praising VD seem to be doing, hating Molyneux. I remember going to some sort of display/conference/thing some years ago where the Big M-man showcased... it had to have been Fable, looking at the timeframe. So, I go to this thing and he's talking about his game. I played a little bit of Fable at the time. It hadn't been released yet, so it was a preview of the game. I thought it looked okayish. I don't remember playing the little demo and thinking, "wow, this guy is terrible. He's actually telling me that his game is awesome whereas I think it's merely mediocre." I eventually bought the game and played it. Once again, it came up as okayish. Never once did I think to myself, "how dare that weird guy with the strange looking name claim that his game would be good?!" I tell you what I might have said if it had been VD. "Wow, this guy dishes out a lot of crap about other folks' games but his ain't all that." So, I'm not picking up AoD after all. I don't see why I should spend my cash to subsidize someone's petty grievances against some dude who created a couple games I really enjoyed and couple of games that were mediocre and a boatload of games I never even played. "But wait!" you might say. "Isn't that cutting off your nose to spite your face? It might be a great game!" My answer is, my nose will be just fine. There are countless great games that come out every year that I never play. AoD, great, terrible, or in the middle, won't even be a blip on my radar. If I had VD's narrow tastes, then I would probably buy it no matter what. In the old days, when there weren't a lot of games out on the market and I played them quite a few hours a week, I was stuck. Now? *shrug* Games are like busses. I catch the next one. I doubt my stance on this issue concerns VD much. I know his stance on my stance doesn't concern me at all. Frankly, if I bother reading this thread in the future, it will be because I'm generally interested in the debate rather than the issue. You guys still have a free flame Aristes card, but I wouldn't bother if I were you. Won't matter much anyhow. I simply won't support VDs efforts in any way.

The hero was recruited in an old folks home. haha

Oh my goodness. That was hysterical. Only half the world? What are we worried about? lol

I exist to serve.

I think they screwed up royally when they balanced the classes so that paladins out tank warriors. This is especially true after paladins get consecrate at level 20. Talk about the idiotproof way of tanking. I hit consecrate, take a bit of my sandwich, take a drink, sit back, click on consecrate again, turn on the tv, flip through the stations, click consecrate again. ...And, yeah, when I did any higher level tanking, the warrior had some good advantages in single target tanking, but who cares? Paladins could, and as far as I know still can, out-tank warriors for everything the vast majority of players will ever see. My sister ran a Deathknight. great damage output, tons of abilities to screw with the other player, and wears plate. I don't even play WoW anymore unless someone else wants to play because I despise the game. Don't get me wrong, I have had lots of fun with Wow and have great memories. It's been a wonderful game, but I'm just sick and tired of it. The only thing that sounds intriguing about this new alleged expansion is the playable worgen idea and I don't believe it's true anyhow.

I think he might be talking about flamestrike or whatever it's called. Mage spell, but it all sort of swims together after a while. Anyhow, like Calax said, I was talking about Realms. I have folks on Gilneas and Velen. I think I've deleted the rest. Not sure.

I'm sure you're right, but I also think the PvP crowd probably makes the most noise. The PvP crowd is also probably the most 'hardcore.' I used to do a lot of battlegrounds and even did a season of arena, but I prefer PvE. Hell, I prefer doing stuff at mid levels. You know they've made it so you can get your mount at level 20 and your fast mount at level 40 and the gold reqs are waaaaay lower now. I seriously don't want another class I have to start at level 55 (and who will be level 58 by the time I get out of the starting area) because I like playing those early levels and getting to know my class skills and talents in a more progressive way.

A real honest to goodness Call of Cthulu game. I want a cRPG with a real mystery and meat on the bones. I want the player to be forced to avoid the majority of combat.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, crazy. In fact, it could be cool. I guess I'm like the rest of the folks here in that I don't think it can happen. However, it's only as crazy as convincing the license holders that it will make money. Do that, and you've got it. Sure it sounds crazy crazy crazy, but it's a crazy world in which we live.

I don't understand the question. I think the biggest reason to balance on the PvE side is folks complain about one class being better than another and not being able to find instance/raid groups for a particular class. They would balance PvP because every class should be viable at PvP.

They can't even balance the classes they do have. I hate it, really. They're always dicking around with stuff for PvP which screws with the PvE game. I wonder if the PvP folks feel the same way, although the biggest changes seem to be to suit the PvP crowd.

I need to get Europa Universalis III. I never did get the game. Is it the colonies one? I remember Europa Universalis II with great fondness. Staying alive and flourishing as the Byzantine Empire was quite festive! And it 2, if not 3, you reach critical mass and then just outlast wars. I mean, if you're crazy micromanaging a game, you can get to be so big that you can't be beat. Enemy armies will literally wipe obliterate themselves on your map. Much harder if you play with limited save, tho. Still, it can be done. It's just a matter of getting past the historical crap that the game throws at you and then settling on a good system. With a smaller empire, you're better off with reform protestants. With a huge empire, you just want increased production, since you really don't care about other folks anyhow. If they trade, good. If they don't... *shrug* drop the in bucket if you own western Europe.

Yeah, you have to get a character to level 55 and then create a new character with the Deathknight class.

If you get the game, let me know. If you sign onto Gilneas as Alliance or Velen as Alliance or Horde, let me know. I'll trade you some gold and whatnot to get you started. However, you can't trade items or gold in the trial version, just so you're forwarned.

Yeah, could be a false rumor. Someone posted it one facebook and so I figured I'd throw it out here.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadnew...aked&bhcp=1 Playable Worgen?

I haven't been able to play for days, but I've been playing Fallout 2. I can hardly wait until I can get back to it.

I was actually stationed there. I usually make a balsamic vinegar/honey marinade with sliced fresh bell peppers and onions. I marinade the wife's with out onions since she hates them. Anyhow, I've also taken to coconut marinades also. It's tempting to drink the milk, but I'll take just a sip and use the rest in the marinade. 24 or so hours, then you make rice, bbq both the bulgogi and the veggies, and serve. I've gotten all creative in the past and made a meat medley with chicken, pork, and beef. I tend to use tri-tip beef most of the time, but I'll also use some cut of rib meat also. Since you cut it thin, it's easy to try different things. Chicken is harder to deal with unless you get nice big breasts. The tenders tend to be a little small already and if you cut them thing you have a string. Pork is pork. I also make country style pork ribs with jamaican jerk sauce, fresh jalepenos, and assorted veggies. If you take your time BBQing, you've got tasty grub. Don't worry about par-boiling. Just make sure you cook them nice and long away from wherever the coals are. you know, put the coals to one side and the ribs to the othe and keep moving them around. Takes a few hours, but it's tasty! MMM I'm hungry now. Hey, we've got some good cooks in this joint, Gina. Sluggie and Walsh share recipies from time to time. Good stuff!

Ahh, I see.