Drowsy Emperor

Single player campaigns have a logical progression that hopefully does something worthwhile (like telling a good story) in a reasonable amount of time. Its somewhat like reading a book or watching a movie. Online gaming amounts to doing the same thing over and over for ages on end with none of the tight pacing of a single player campaign, no true progression through anything and no gratification because it all feels like an experiment in math and statistics. Thus, I lost interest in MW when no 5 tanked. ****ing MMO's they just had to ruin everything. Can't get an online game that isn't based around a bloated RPG model of some sort.

The mouse and numpad controls are mutually exclusive. The mouse is too fickle and imprecise, use the numpad almost entirely, don't rush and don't hold pitch down (8 I think, helicopter equivalent of forward) because you'll gain too much speed too quickly and crash. Tap the keys or hold them only for a split second. Use the tail rotors (I believe they're 1 and 3 on the numpad) for left/right navigation instead of banking left and right (4 and 6 I think) because that's too slow and the angle isn't sharp enough. Remember that the mouse orients the chopper so don't give any commands while you're fixing the camera angle with it. Hold down the altitude increase key most of the time ( I think its W) because choppers automatically lose altitude without it. Don't hold it down while you're turning though. The key thing to balance is altitude increase - W and pitch down - 8, then when you want to turn, release both and orient the tail rotor - then resume what you were doing. It must be sufficient for a decent speed yet not too much of either. I usually tap-hold-release each key repeatedly. Everything else is practice. Its a juggling act, but there's no hurry as long as you hold down W most of the time and are on a reasonable altitude..

You're paying for durability with a mechanical keyboard. If they're made like the old IBM boards without cutting corners (something that we'll just have to see) a single keyboard could last you a lifetime. Its a bit of a gamble, but now that I have such a keyboard I wouldn't use anything else. As for mice, Logitech MX510 is 20 something dollars and beyond that most mice are a waste of money. That's my opinion after using several very expensive mice over the last half of the decade. Mice peak in performance at that price point, everything else is just marketing and shiny plastic, levels of "DPI" and other crap that don't mean anything to anybody. Unless you find a particular design particularly comfortable in which case its probably worth the money.

Usually a prelude to failure. Replacing the clicking mechanism would definitely work if its under a warranty. Common in cheap mice and for some reason also in Steelseries "gamer" mice.

My current gaming setup: Steelseries 6GV2 mechanical keyboard (best for the money, under 100$), Logitech MX510 variant if you have at least medium sized hands and are right handed, Steelseries HD mouse pad of the size that you need. All of them nigh undestructable. Logitec MX510 comes with a 3 year guarantee. Mouse pad is the last you'll ever buy. Keyboard has letters prone to wearing off, but the cherry mx black keys respond without error after months of heavy abuse and the whole thing is built like a brick. Do not buy razer Black Widow keyboards or their mice, particularly the newer ones. The quality of their products is falling severely.

The real trick in BW games is when you unwittingly become gay. Don't blink or you might miss it. And then you'll be struck wondering why Jabba is looking at you like that.

Samuel Jackson is really the only option for Drizzt.

Oh I do want to play a decent RPG but I'm hungry for something that's not out of Bethesda's or Bioware's kitchen. Its just been one doughnut too many and I WANT CAVIAR!

If you're searching the tenets of any religion for complete structured logic you're doing it wrong. Any educated believer will tell you that there are countless contradictions in the scriptures. In fact their existence is perfectly logical - because of man's inability to sufficiently grasp the subject that he has an active inner need to explain. Imposing scientific methods on religion is thus erroneous to start with, since they deal with separate realities and the tools of one do not conform to the other. As someone who comes from political sciences, and has been exposed to much philosophical/sociological though I'm always struck by how inadequate and piecemeal it all seems. An endless barrage of classifications and typologies that have only vaguely anything to do with reality. Religion, by comparison offers a much more complete world view, and its easy to see why most of the people on the planet today are believers. Its not irrational, in fact it has a perfect rationality in itself, because it accepts that the ultimate knowledge lies beyond our grasp, something that most people regardless of era or level of education would agree upon. But at the same time it doesn't say anywhere that you should stop searching for it using whatever means are at your disposal.

How very strange then that most of the men science venerates so much today as its pioneers were fervent believers. The idea that the two are mutually exclusive is a naive atheist fantasy and stems from not understanding the role of religion. While religion used to explain physical reality (in ways appropriate to the times), which science subsequently took over the true core of religion as an exploration of man's inner being and a quest for meaning remains untouched. Science doesn't offer meaning or purpose it just gives quantifiable facts. And its good at it because that's what it was created for, a grand bookkeeping of reality.

The totality and meaning of religious belief both for the individual and for society as a whole goes far beyond something as simple as dogma. Besides, there's no conflicting evidence, because you either believe or you don't, its not a debating contest. For some people the existence of God is as self evident as the fingers on your hand. Isaac Newton was one of those people by the way.

The futility of trying to think about God through science. Science is just a tool. And its still a very blunt tool for everything that relates to the human condition. Having such faith in a tool that tends to reinvent itself and discard most of its previous knowledge every so often is really more akin to a religious belief than the rational discourse it masquerades as.

Well at least you get to choose the dialog... Oh, wait

Talislanta 4th edition, easily obtainable via Noble Knight. Best rules ever with a setting that puts most other epic fantasy to shame. And all in one book. Also, original pdfs made available free by the creator on the official website. Print and play.

Dark Heresy is a bit bloated for my tastes. Too many tables and unnecessary stuff, while the setting is rather limited. Of the lot I think Rogue Trader is the best. Fading Suns does everything Dark Heresy can do in a much better fleshed out and much larger universe. The rules aren't all they could be but there's a third edition coming in Q1 2012 and it will be GLORIOUS.

I didn't have a single bug, crash or anything of the sort until I switched to XP. Even then, only the single, most common XP bug gave me any problems.

I hate to point out that BGII was practically bug free upon release whereas I've had to use the console to fix a game breaking bug in both Bethesda games I've played. What usually happens is that the play-testers find bugs and point them out and get memos of the sort: "we're not looking for that, we're looking for xyz" or are just ignored and the game ships anyway. The management doesn't care about bugs but about meeting schedules and profits, so **** the customers who're they anyway. If you don't like it, don't buy the games from Bethesda, buy from Relic or Blizzard or Bioware instead. They all had their slip ups, but its quite obvious some developers take a more serious approach to quality assurance than others.

I imagine they'd use a few cinematics, scripted events and the like to spice up the usual MMOnotony. Anyway, that's all very nice and good but its still Star Wars and that got old about twenty years ago. Right now its at about the same stage of putrescence as DnD. Wonder how many generations it'll take for those two to finally kick the bucket, so that the piles of other great films and RPGs get some deserved recognition.

Don't worry, you still have your red stapler.

Until Raithe brings his sister over, nothing interesting is going to happen

If you're going to complete every quest on in an MMO area, good luck to you. They're little more than randomly generated xp bags and can generally be classified more as work than adventuring. At least that's how every MMO I ever played worked.

The notion that they're not in control just makes it all easier to swallow. I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Fire and Ice rules if you're familiar with Frazetta's art and accept it for what it is. Wizards is silly but fun.