Raithe

Frustrations with the dog. Well, Okay, to be more fair, frustrations with my sister's attitude to the dog. It's her dog. She's the one who went out and insisted on getting an alsatian. And she carefully manipulated the truth to get it past dad. Along with the whole "i'll train it, I'll be walking it, and I'll be moving in with my boyfriend in x months time so you won't have to put up with it for long." Of course, now she's broken up with the bf, so she isn't moving out. The alsatian isn't that greatly trained for anyone else, and pretty much only pays attention to her. She's walking him less and less, and he's only just past his first birthday. The back garden has been turned into a mudpit along one large diagonal swathe. The carpets are getting wrecked no matter how many times I hoover and steam clean them. The washing machine is getting overloaded with mud from the towels used to dry off the dogs. The kitchen cupboards are just dirty from him running past them as he comes in from the garden.. And my sister keeps being totally oblivious about it and doesn't seem to recognise the fact that she should be cleaning some of this up. Even after mom's blown up at her and basically cried in frustration over it. For someone in her 30's... my sister seems to have a knack for acting like a totally clueless, spoiled 15 year old.

Hm, the sound was a bit low. The start up music was really low, but once you began the actual gameplay it did go up a little. Is it me, or does something about the general character animation this time around look a bit more off then usual? Shephards forearms and hands looked really odd during the introduction walk around....] Also, the demo was glitchy and kept doing little pauses when i played it.. which was.. a wee bit annoying. Gameplay wise, feels a lot like ME2, not really that much of a change to it. It would have been nice to have been able to play around with some of the actual non-combat elements, but..eh, it looks like that is not to be. Played through once, and then uninstalled. Nothing we haven't seen in a dozen gameplay videos over the last half a year...

I just installed Origin.. and found that it's recognised that I own TOR, and offered to let me download that as well, even with it already installed on my system. And it uses exactly the same login and password as both Bioware Social and my SW TOR account... so I'm guessing they're all merged together. So it's kind of nice to see that even though I picked up the physical copy of the game, I've also got access to the digital download if I need it at some future point..

Or dig out a copy of that Gibbed Save Game Editor for ME2 that lets you create a totally new save as you want?

Was meant to be doing research, but my internet keeps dying for large chunks of time. Tried calling up my isp to query them on it, and they won't even tell you the status of the exchange in your area unless you go through all sorts of security about who you are and what your account is... Now I'm crossing my fingers that things stay working longer then 5 minutes at a time..

David Weber's eArc of "War Maid's Choice" - a continuation of his Bahzell series. Cheerfully fun fantasy fair. A fairly accurate review - http://www.otherwheregazette.com/2012/02/10/war-maids-choice-a-geeky-good-time/

If you kept Wrex alive, things are more more "friendly" when you go to Tuchanka in ME2. Wrex has a whole plan about trying to organize the clans, and has kind of become a "kublai khan" type figure in his methods. Not quite as brutal as Genghis, and much more focused on trying to keep a certain civilized element of cooperation going.

Wait, actually looks like the French did vote in quite a similar manner to the English..

I don't think the French Revolution really gave the King any votes.. or were muchly concerned about not killing the majority of the aristocracy. They were rather het up at the time. I believe the vote thing relates to Charles I of England, and how he ended up tried for High Treason and executed after the second civil war and Cromwell's Republic was established. On the really random historical note, Louis XVI (said French King) was behind sending monies and armaments to America during the war of independence - purely as a method to annoy the English. However it's generally recognised that the success of the American revolution was one of the key elements that helped inspire the French Revolution... Kind of hoisted on his own petard there.

They normally require you to log into the Cerberus Network to activate them within the game...

I picked up all the DLC together during the steam sale back in October/November time.. started up a fresh playthrough of the whole game. For various reasons I ended up taking a break from it just when I'd started Dead Money.. at the moment I can't seem to find the enthusiasm to get back to it...

Managed about 3 or 4 hours of sleep last night, and feeling like I'm just being incredibly slow with what work I'm pushing along today. Throw in the dog being a wee bit over-enthusiastic and a muddy garden.. just adds to the fun. Drinking much tea to keep me going.

One of the issues I found with the global cooldown was with chained powers. In ME1, if you had a Vanguard, you could use Lift to cause someone to fly up into the air, and then blam, hit them with the Throw ability. In ME2, you really needed to have two people in the squad with matching abilities to be able to combine effects like that. Otherwise, by the time the global cooldown let you have Throw ready.. your Lift had already ended.. It basically had that element of pushing your need to micro-manage your squad to be able to combine different abilities like that.. which has both elements of good and bad. In ME1, it was carefully manage your abilities rather then spam everything. In ME2, it was more about managing your squad together. Of course, the one that always irritated me was the Charge ability. Enemy Vanguards could use Charge to blip around the battlefield (key example, Vasir in Lair of the Shadow Broker), while the player could only use it to attack an enemy.

Since I pretty much only use headphones rather then speakers, I had to get some decent ones when mine broke over christmas. Picked up a Razer Carcharias Gaming Headset, and dang, that's comfortable to be wearing for hours at a time. Full over-ear coverage, and the sound quality is good. Haven't gotten around to using the microphone for anything yet.. but the rest is all good.

Hm, I wouldn't say anything in those videos were spoilerish as such, and they've pretty much shown that whole introduction and first mission off before now. Although I would say Shepherds wrists/hands looked really small compared to his arms and body in the cinematics.. So nothing really fresh shown off about the game mechancis. And of course, since it's the introductory mission, it's keeping it fairly simple to show the player the basics. I'll play the demo to see how it all feels, and I'm keeping my pre-order on track because I do want to wrap up the trilogy just to see what they do with it, and I'm curious about which choices will turn out to have effects - whether small or large.

Well I haven't encountered any serious story-killing moments that have turned me off yet. Of course, apart from the SI and getting the Smuggler into Act 2, I've only dabbled with the prologue of the Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter. I'm just trying to pace myself out rather then spend extended periods playing in rapid order. I can still see myself cheerfully playing TOR for another half a year working through the class stories at a steady pace.

A recent q & a session on the upcoming 1.2 patch - http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19932-swtor-hosts-community-q-a-session-plus-announces# Including such comments as:

There's that mixture of things about the Wehrmacht that tends to be easily confused. At the time, one of the praiseworthy aspects about it as a group was that it promoted by ability, rather then by class and family connections. One of the few armies of the day that really did that. A son of a baker could become an officer if he had the skills and ability. On the other hand, they had a lot of political bias and the unconditional "following orders" that has a rather bad schtick from the historical viewpoint.. Either way, with all of the political connotations, it was a rather stupid thing for the Sniper Scouts to do..

Happy birthday Nepenthe. Enjoy the time.. and don't get too depressed quite yet..

Had an extensive catchup of gameplay tonight. Pushed my Smuggler through to the end of Act 1. Although was annoyed that I was given a Codex entry that revealed the upcoming plot twist and "surprise" reveal.. before you do the mission that shares it. Kind of spoiled any possible drama/tension about it.. ah well. C'est la vie. I have to admit, Underworld Trading built up one massive stack of Companion gifts in my cargo hold.. I worked my way through them and had Corso and Bowdaar were up high levels.. but didn't want to talk to me. Until Act 1 finished..and then suddenly each one had about 10 conversations one after the other. So there's that automatic pause that waits for specific acts to be dealt with before they carry on with companions..

Hm, one thing you might want to consider Hurl, does she enjoy the dancing itself, but not the idea of performing? If so, then carrying on the dance class, but not worrying about going to performances might be a thing. Dance can be good on its own, just for the general sense of kinesthesia it can bring to your own body and as long as it isn't hard core ballet.. it'll be some physical good in its own right. I guess it's that balance of finding out if its just a severe case of shyness and stage fright or a genuine dislike of performance.. On to other things, I had a fun night. Somehow I kept up ending in positions that made an arm go numb/dead. So I'd keep waking up to find I was having serious pins and needles as feelings were returning to my arm...