Monte Carlo

But... but... how else are they going to squeeze a trilogy out of a very slim bedtime story?

I didn't drink enough beer last year, gonna remedy that. Am also determined to up my pizza consumption.

Elysium I don't think it was as political as everyone else seemed to, but some explanation as to why all the hyper-bastards got away with shooting off to space would have been helpful. anyhow, modified Kalashnikovs, brain implants, robot cops, camouflaged anti-grav gunships and comedy Seth Efrikkan (man) commando psychos are thoroughly entertaining. Decent pop-corn sci-fi. 7/10

If you're telling me that the AK wasn't based on the StG/ MP44 then you can go back to your crack-house, pointless troll. Please share your firearms bona fides, beyond perhaps two years of being beaten senseless in the Russian army whilst skull-phucked on anti-freeze.

AK47 is easy to use, cheap and reliable. Requires minimal maintenance. Smaller round means your terrorist / conscript / irregular can carry more ammo. I've only fired the 47 and 74 a couple of times. The SLR (FN-FAL for the rest of you) I am intimately familiar with. Needs more field-cleaning, *much* bigger round, longer range, only semi-auto. Mind you, bigger calibre 'battle rifles' are back in fashion now, I think armies of the future will settle on a 7mm round or thereabouts. The answer - to be a better marksman using small unit infantry tactics, the AK47 is easier to teach and use than the SLR. OTOH a trained squad with 7.62 rifles supported by a squad MG are a fearsome opponent. Apples and oranges, asymmetric warfare, advances in armour technologies and so on have changed the game. As Wrath of Dagon says, the '47 is a blatant, more easily-produced copy of the StG '44 so blame the Nazis.

It's *very* old-skool with little hand-holding, lots of loot / upgrades and mad-crazy skill trees like Titan Quest. Setting is sort of Grimdark Mad Max meets Warhammer. Got to level six fairly quickly, very easy so far but only did the initial quest. If you like crunchy ARPGs you'll like this, am looking forward to multiplayer.

I am currently downloading the early access edition of Grim Dawn. Was on sale on Steam. I want to support the developers, I really dig what they want to do and it looks like it'll be fun. Will post some thoughts later.

Wut? Is IWD like Diablo?

It needs an eco-system of some description, one which is ideally dynamic and re-stocks after you've cleared a level. This is possibly too ambitious for P:E, but the nearer they get to that ideal the better. I would pay for a DLC dungeon of this type.

Tax. The single most evil word in the English language.

For me the interesting thing will be how utility works across classes. Will I have to have a wizard or a rogue?

You often find weird and wonderful tomes in charity shops. I once bought the memoirs of a barber who fought in the Spanish civil war.

Hope you feel better soon and enjoy the holidays.

^ Seriously, I can hear Gary Gygax spinning in his grave.

The re-playability point is excellent. Don't worry, if there's mod support in P:E there will be several emo BS romance NPCs up on the web in no time.

Wals, what *is* your new job? I'm sorry the fluffer position on that adult movie set didn't work out.

I have to admit, if I'm not going with the industrial nature of PG Tips.. I will favour Lady Grey over Earl Grey... Although, as an American, I scarcely feel I can speak with much authority on the subject, I have always operated under the assumption that, regardless of the masculine or feminine variant, "Grey" was code for "somebody dumped a crock of awful potpourri into this tea." Yep, that's what Earl Grey tastes like. Bloody horrible.

If you liked 'Fatherland' (which I love) you might enjoy SS-GB by Len Deighton, or Dominion by CJ Sansom. Both are set in Nazi-occupied Britain, although the ever-classy Deighton has the edge as far as I'm concerned.

Ooooh a pet subject of mine! Intellectual property rights. As you know, generally, they last for seventy years after the death of the creator (which was why they made 'The Great Gatsby' when they did, as F. Scott Fitzgerald's anniversary was that year). Let's forget, for a moment, that ebooks are overpriced (which they are, especially from legacy / Big Five publishers). The author, with a legacy publisher, gets about 25% on an ebook and perhaps 12-15% on a physical copy (which is why I turned one down recently). I get 70% direct from Kindle. More and more writers are going indie for this reason*. I digress... Nonetheless, with the likes of Agatha Christie, who would have been with a legacy publisher / imprint, they still have a residual interest. They nourished that IP, developed it, marketed it and squandered gazillions of dead trees. Furthermore, Agatha's lack of family notwithstanding, most of us have people we would like to leave some sort of legacy to. Including the profits from property we've created and established. That doesn't mean, however, that they need to be overpriced. Legacy publishers are bleeding profit due to digital distribution. They stick their fingers in their ears and go nyah-nyah-nyah when faced with the reality. They make the music industry's reaction to digital look prescient, and make the Retreat from Moscow look like an orderly tactical withdrawal. They will try to squeeze every last cent from every last IP in their back-catalogue, like a man in a lifeboat licking condensation from the rubber. Ha ha ha. * Google 'Scott Trurow and Joe Konrath' to see an indie author go hammer and tongs regarding the US author's guild if you are interested in this sort of thing. Trurow is fisked within an inch of his life by Joe, who is one of the most successful ebook authors around.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that the third Aliens movie was all about Sigourney Weaver's wish that they didn't make a movie "full of guns." Which was a bit rich after the second movie, but then again I'm not a libtard millionaire Hollywood actress.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/17/monster-of-a-christmas-meal-cthurkey-is-a-horrifying-hybrid-of-crab-turkey-and-octopus-4233799/ I win teh internets

Hey, sparky, some of us like playing that way. Or are we breaking your immershun?

Ha ha. I want something like this. http://www.wired.com/design/2013/12/case-mod-masterpiece/#slideid-371201

I want a firearm made from that metal where souls are ripped out of evil bastards and forged into a gun. Yes.

With names, generally try to avoid anything that sounds contemporary -- but I think most people avoid that anyway. Also, please don't use recognizable names from other settings (e.g. Westeros, Middle-Earth, Faerûn, the Young Kingdoms, Lankhmar, etc.). No Eddards, Tinúviels, Jarlaxles, Elrics, or Fafhrds -- or close derivatives -- please. Aedyrans, Readcerans, and Dyrwoodans used to speak a language called Eld Aedyran that is an analogue for Old English/Anglo-Saxon, Old Frisian, bits of Icelandic, and Scots (for Hylspeak, a more contemporary version). j, q, v, and z do not appear in their words and names, though the /v/ sound is found in medial and terminal f. E.g. "Wyflan" is pronounced "WEE-vlan". Male names: Aldwyn, Beacwof, Ethelmoer, Furly, Hafmacg, Unfric. Female names: Battixa, Bricanta, Esmy, Grimda, Iselmyr, Yngfrith. Vailian Republicans speak Vailian, which borrows from a mix of Italian, Occitan, Catalan, and French roots, but is Italian in overall flavor. "Romance-y", you could say. j, y, and x are extremely rare in their words and names. Male name: Cendo, Giandele, Liano, Randatu, Verzano. Female names: Ancelle, Laudira, Malita, Pallegina, Salgiatte. Glanfathans speak Glanfathan, which borrows elements of Cornish, Welsh, and a bit of Irish. q, u, x, y, and z are all unused in Glanfathan. w is both a consonant and a vowel ("uh" or "oo" if it has a circumflex). It has the Irish-style "si" ("shih" or "shee" when there's a circumflex over the i), the Welsh "ll" (hard to explain, like an aspirated l sound), and distinguishes between an unvoiced th (like "thought") and a voiced dh (like "the"). Male names: Arthwn, Brân, Enfws, Simoc, Thristwn. Female names: Bledha, Iswld, Onŵen, Sîdha, Tamra Those are the major definitions. Broadly speaking, the natives of Deadfire Archipelago use a language with some Inuit/Greenlandic roots. People in Rauatai (especially the nation of Rauatai itself) use a language with Maori roots. People from Ixamitl speak a language with Nahuatl roots. I have not done significant work on those, though. You are in fact a character in a Neal Stephenson novel and I claim my ten groats.