Raithe

Figured out how to shoot 10 of the guards in Hitman Sniper Challenge in such a way that their bodies are hidden...

Kotaku - Warren Spector explains how Epic Mickey is like Deus Ex...

I think it's perfectly possible to believe in there being more to life than meets the eye without believing in religions run by religious leaders for religious leaders. Which is a seperate issue from what I was talking about (or at least meaning to talk about). I mean, my mother is serious in her faith, but keeps it totally personal. She doesn't attend churches these days for various reasons, but she used to be just as happy going to a CofE church, as a Baptist, as a.. well, she recognised they all had different aspects but didn't feel tied to one as a central aspect of her personal faith. What I had meant to discuss is those people who go to worship and claim that the act of going and sitting their arse down in a pew and singing the songs is faith. The ones who don't actually seem to have a belief of their own, just as part of the mass of people together. The ones who are "I go to church, ergo I have faith and belief and am inherently a better person" regardless of if they actually believe in whatever brand they follow. Personally, I'm agnostic. I don't have the hardline athiesm, but I've never felt that sincere faith for any particular brand of religion / philosophy. That and I've studied too much on literature, history, politics and warfare over the centuries to have much security in large organised religions of any sort..

I've met a few folk who go to church regularly, and who say they're believers.. but you get the feeling they don't so much have a sense of personal faith in god, so much as a "this is what I was raised in, this is what the social group does, it's what you do, I go to church, therefore I'm a believer". It's that fine line of whether they believe in god, or if they believe in the faith (if that makes sense) that is just the social dynamic of it all.

On the movie related news... MSN - Michael Clarke Duncan dies

For those Wheel of Time fans out there, this might be something of interest.. Tor Blog : Revelations from the "A Memory of Light" Preview at Dragoncon

Wrapped up the Bounty Hunter storyline yesterday. Hm, I have to admit it was quite nice to get that option to turn around and punch out Darth Tormen's lights after all his annoying talks. Although just killing the Grand Chancellor after he cleared my record was hella tempting. Then you get the "nice , cinematic" group view of player and all his companions gathering to pose in the ship, watching the Imps and Republic fleets shoot at each other...

Eh, I have to say that I'm not overly stressed on wading into repeat end-game content. I mean sure, every now and then I'll run through some of the dailies to stock up on credits I can use to plow crew missions and craft stuff for my other characters.. and to add some character perks to new characters.. But I'm more interested in finishing the storylines and then exploring what the other classes show storyline wise. I just try to balance it out so I don't get burnt out. It's why I did Sith Inquisitor first, then focused mostly on my Smuggler, bounced to the Bounty Hunter... once I wrap this up I'll go back to my Jedi Knight to do chapter 3... then I've got my Sith Warrior to finish off Chapter 2 and then 3.. I've got my Consular at level 10 waiting on fleet, and a Trooper and Imperial Agent shiny at level 1 that I haven't actually played any of yet... So yes, my plan is basically use my "finished" toons occasionally to stock up on cash I can funnel to low level toons, and to use all to gather materials and send them to those with crafting, and do crafting of goods that can be sent back out to my other toons and thus.. create a nice supporting web-work whilst exploring the storylines in a mostly alternating style...

The Republic side feels like the ending to A New Hope. Not the "Huzzah", but the grand music, and being awarded flashey medal for being a "Big Damn Hero". So far I've done Corellia to completion once as Republic and once as Imperial.. I'm hoping that's satisfied my minor levels of ocd enough that I can now happily skip everything bar the class-story missions in future..

Hm, I pretty much loathe Corellia for the grindy-ness and godawful maps.. but no QT? There's a QT station around each monorail station as well as the one in the starport cantina..

I think there are things that turn up that do make you want to reach across the internet and stab someone in the face... but there's also a lot of pithy comments that crop up on Imp side Corellian Run that provide some general amusement. So I guess it balances out rather then overloads on one or the other... I haven't really noticed it being worse or better then Republic side...

Having a bit of trouble focusing on getting work started in a coherent manner. Keep procrastinating or getting distracting with reading assorted things. Also, got to nibble on some baklava. Sweet, but tasty...

Hell, sometimes it just takes someone to try saying "okay, lets group up and focus this way to get ahead" and occasionally do the "if you go solo into a group of four of them, you'll be dead in seconds, wait for a few of us to work together". That can actually start the ball rolling on coordination. Even if it's just a simple thing like someone saying "okay, lets all zerg left from the start" in Voidstar, it can help channel everyone else on the team.

I have to say I don't get the hate on Imperial side random teams. So far in my experience, it's been about equal to the Republic. Half the time it'll be a team that knows how to try to coordinate, and half the time it'll be with a group of people who have no clue about coordination. I think what crops up is when you end up in one evening of one extreme or the other, rather then bouncing between the two... Sure there are a few annoying prats who are all "check everyone has pvp gear of x level or we should kick them from the team" and then bitch and whine about things without actually trying to organise what everyone is doing... But I've met a fair few Imperial toons who know what they're doing and actually communicate and try some level of organisation. If you do have a tactical team in Huttball who talk to each other, one thing a stealth guy can do is run for the end and set themselves up to be ready for passing. Of course, that doesn't work when the rest of the team runs around like a headless chicken just trying to kill folks instead of playing the game... Spider - one thing I've done to make ease of healing (well, my BH has some minimal healing, but not focused) was to remap a key to autotarget my closest ally/team mate. Which can be quite useful in the middle of a mob of folks when you want to quickly snap off a heal but can't easily target them.

Huttball can be a blast at times. Especially with jedi knights / sith warriors / bounty hunters. While there are tactical elements that can be useful for stealthy-types.. that really becomes a crapshoot on whether you've got a team that actually works together and understands passing.. But if you've got a high dps, you can totally nail the ball holder and slice up people attacking your ball holder and earn stacks of commendations...

I've actually got my Bounty Hunter to 50 now, mostly focused on the arsenal route, but with a few bits of bodyguard to quicken my healer stuff and some pyro for the added boom. Now I just have to slide into Corellia and finish off that class story... Hm, see, I found Athiss to be a weird mixture. It has some great atmosphere for a flashpoint, but the last half feels really dull. Especially that grindy series of fights against the force users you have to plow through to get to the boss. I see Hammer Station used as a quick way to farm light/dark side points. Over levelled people running it solo in 20 minutes just to farm the points. Had a short burst of PvP play the other night, and went from some really good teams that knew how to coordinate, to dealing with some really frustrating ones. I mean, they'd take nodes then wander off without anyone guarding them. Or not bother to call out incomings if someone was actually there to defend.. Things like "Okay, are you good guarding this spot solo while I go and try to draw some of the enemy team away by attacking over there?" , the guy replies "Sure". I head away, glance back..and find he's following me and the node was left totally unguarded and a stealthy uncloaking to take it.. And having to yell at the Sniper in Huttball to stop setting up on the edge of the pit. After the freaking third time a Jedi used him to force leap up and then score it gets a wee bit frustrating. I think made more so by the good teams I was in during the first few matches.

So how long before someone gets hold of the Leviathan dlc and lets us know what it adds to the game..?

Got all the achievement/challenges in Hitman Sniper Challenge done and out the way... Got my Bounty Hunter on TOR to 49th and cleared Voss (although technically still have the bonus Voss I could do). Plan to see if my ocd will let me skip the Corellian planet quest arc and just focus on the class story to wrap it up....

Looks like they've given in and decided to make the fans happy..

Had a short bout of Hitman Sniper Challenge. Although it seems to have a quirk of the mouse bouncing between being really slow to move and then suddenly becoming uber-sensitive and jerking rapidly, then bouncing back to slow crawl.. which is really off-putting when trying to make delicate headshots...

I know healing is important.. but it is kind of annoying to run through a match of Voidstar and be the only guy who planted bombs, have stacks of "objective points" for doing so, having our team win the game because I got them planted and got us through the doors.. and then have all the mvp votes go to the healer who never actually healed me...

They originally had the melee maneuvers for free with no energy use required. But during game testing they found it basically made every tester slide into stealth route and auto-melee kill/ko the enemy. So to encourage the development of discovering creative routes they jury-rigged the energy use for melee. Or something along those lines...

Spent a brief foray into Space Marines, then went and helped out some guildies in TOR for a short piece of the evening..

The upcoming Star Wars show from Seth Green... (and the return of Seth MacFarlane as the voice of the Emperor...) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yRNXFhboBI