Monte Carlo

Cool let me know what you thought. I read it many years ago when it first came out and was blown away by how horrible it was. I've never read Banks' sci-fi stuff, I always imagine him as a clever horror writer. But, of course, his horror isn't supernatural, it's very much rooted in the real world. Which makes it scarier IMO.

As a barbarian Jailer is doubly tough because it _seems_ to frustrate your ability to make Earthquake attacks. That attack has a jump animation and for some reason when you are trapped (and sometimes walled) it won't work.

I think that a Steam console might happen. Games 'consoles' will become small hubs that simply connect you to the cloud --- router / hard drive combos that simply hook you up with some bells and whistles. About the size of a tablet. Great for gaming on the go.

You could give it to me and then I will love you forever. That must be worth more than 1.8m imaginary gold pieces, right?

Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory. Freaky. Scary. Brilliant.

Most people are like this. I'm lucky, I suspect. I'm able to edit in tranches as I go. I suspect you aren't a big fan of tight plotting, which is why you lose focus as you write. It's perfectly normal --- we write the way we write but it's a craft and there are some rules. Warning bells are going off. There are two main schools of thought here... the Ray Bradbury (RIP) "let your characters fly" approach and the "plot and stick to it" approach. You appear to be doing neither. Try to make your mind up, even as a writing exercise, and stick with it for the first draft. The reader will know (actually, they won't as the book won't get published). Stop. Right. There. Writing as a hobby is fine, but wouldn't it be great if it was a hobby that paid for a car or a holiday? Get onto Amazon. Figure out WTF people are reading. Get that completely straight in your head. Write your synopsis and marketing blurb. This is a product. Now, of course I'm coming at this from a relatively hard-nosed commercial fiction perspective. Please feel free to completely ignore me if you want to write simply for fun or because you want to write a literary novel. Cheers MC

I can't help but think that D3 is carefully calibrated, like an MMO, to farm money via micro transactions. If the AH didn't exist it would be a better game.

First PC was a 333 Mhz HP with 256 MB RAM a bit like Gorgon's, think I bought it in 1996.

A ZX81. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81

Here in the UK there is a big debate going on about Tax Avoidance (legal tax avoidance, or as we call it here at the Schloss Monte, common-fricking-sense). A popular comedian called Jimmy Carr has been found to put his money in something called K2, so he pays less tax than the guy who cleans his windows. Behold! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18531008 Now, personally, I will agree to paying more tax once governments stop wasting it on small wars, the feckless, EU subsidies and overseas aid programs for countries with nukes. If you can afford nukes you can afford very basic welfare provision. Until then, making your tax affairs efficient seems perfectly reasonable to me. But yet... even the Ayn Rand fanboi in me gets leery of paying less tax than the guy who cleans my windows. My heart is flinty but not *that* flinty. Which is why I support a modified flat tax that would lift low-earners out of tax *completely* and encourage the rich the pay more (rather than avoid). The rich in the UK pay a shed-load of tax. For the record, I am a middle-earner. I am not rich. But one day I'd like to be and the politics of envy is always the ugliest. But by the same token I don't want to pay less than a poor guy. So for this call sign, a flat tax = win. What do you guys think?

I found ONE legendary (gloves) but have bought a legendary helmet, 2H axe and chest armour. My DPS is about 5.5K now but I'm sure that sucks for a level 58.

I'm now Level 58 on Act II Hell as a Barbarian. The only other 'proper' character is a level 15 DH on normal. I haven't got time to play the others, I like the monk but seeing as I never play Magic-Users think I might give the wizard-dude a try out for once.

And, btw, I've written a grand total of 700 words today. Having said that, I do tend to edit as I go so the other 7000 have been polished and burnished too.

No, I have a day job. I only started writing two years ago and I've had an agent for six months. I'm in my early 40's and if I play my cards right and all my financial ducks are lined up properly I reckon I can give writing full-time a go in about five years, as a second career. I'm learning that (a) female readers are *very* important and (b) so is America. Like I say, I want to be a commercial writer to that's where I think my writing is heading.

I have a bargain bucket movie called 'Valhalla Rising' which I might watch later. It looks really, really bad. Not Dolph Lundgren mit plastic dragon bad, but bad nonetheless.

I am at a grand total of 7000 words.... ta-daahhhhh!!! But I too have a weekend free for writing. Luckily I have made lots of notes for a change and the plotting is done. It's filling in the gaps. If I'm up to 20,000 words by Sunday I will be happy, that's 25% done. Still waiting on a US publisher at the moment about my other tome.

^ And this is why the barb is the weakest D3 class and most challenging. A tank should be able to tank, even if it requires an optimal skill / equipment build. I hope they address it, in MP I feel completely outclassed by (especially) Monks and Demon Hunters.

Steam console, anyone?

You're probably right, Entrerix one of us should start a thread in WWOT.

Euuccchhh. Couldn't the director simply have fellated Spielberg in private and saved us the movie?

A strong literary novel can be fairly short, The Road is a good example. For crime / thrillers the reader, not unreasonably, wants some bang for their buck. Don't get me started on sci-fi / fantasy, where a 100K word count is completely standard as a starter for ten. My first book went in at about 120K words, agent told me to carve it back to 90-odd, which I did. That was a near miss with several mainstream publishers. The next went in at about 85K and it's with two publishers who like it and are considering it. Don't get me wrong, it's not like there are hard and fast rules (typically a novella is less than 50K, there you go that is a rule) but if you submit 60K it needs to be very original and tighter than a swan's arse plotwise. Good luck. Will happily take a look at the first three chapters for you if you PM me. An agent will look at the first five hundred words if you're lucky.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/20/diablo-iii-completed-on-inferno-with-hardcore-character/ There ya go.

Dude, that's a big novella. Aim for 80,000, 75K at least. Edit: If you don't most agents will be handing you a bumper blister pack of WTF tablets.

My Barb is now level 57 and I'm still Act 2 Hell. I've spent a lot of gold on gear and am now getting the hand of it... max runed Earthquake, Stun and Vengeance seem to be my core abilties at the moment. At medium levels, with core equipment, the Barb sucks. You need, in my albeit limited experience, to really carefully equip and choose skills to go toe-to-toe with elite mobs. I still end up kiting some, dropping eathquakes, stunning and chipping away with max rend / vengeance attacks.

I'm trying to remember how long it took for the D2 XP to come out... I don't think it was *that* long. One of my problems with D3 as currently constituted is that I preferred the old character classes better. Assassin was better than the DH, for example. The Paladin was a solid solo melee / healer class. I want them back!