Keyrock

There is a difference between having a bit of fun with someone and doing it in a non-aggressive and good spirited way and trolling. Yes, the line between good spirited fun and trolling can definitely get blurry, which is part of the reason I am quite happy I am not a moderator on an internet forum any longer and have no desire to be one again (since I've had to make that distinction and take appropriate action in the past). As an example of good spirited fun, I have recently poked some fun at Bruce for his fascination with video game romances. I tried to make it very clear that I am just having a bit of fun and am not being serious. I hope Bruce sees it that way too. And believe me, I've typed out posts before that I regretted typing. The vast majority of the time I've stopped myself before clicking "post" when the realization "dude, you're being an idiot and an a-hole" comes over me, but sometimes that realization doesn't come soon enough. At that point, the best course of action is to apologize as soon as possible.

Nearly as important as Bruce Willis' John McClaine is Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber, one of the best movie villains ever. Hans is part of the reason why Die Hard is so much better than any of the sequels. That movie is so great.

My issue with Trolling is more the indifference that we see from people in addressing it. So whenever someone is Trolling the typical reaction is " he is Trolling him, ignore him". There isn't really an attempt to condemn it or to take the person on, so now we know what type of personality defines a Troll that's an important step in people not just ignoring it but dealing with it That's the thing, though, for any forum member other than moderators the proper response is ignoring the troll, outwardly, anyway. Reporting the troll to the moderators via report button is also proper, though no one will outwardly ever see that (other than the moderators). Trolls generally crave attention. Responding to them is giving them exactly what they want, especially if the response is a negative one.

Who are these mysterious people that think trolling is okay? Besides the trolls themselves, obviously.

Wait, they cut most of the battle school from Ender's Game? What the ****!? The battle school was almost the entire book.

It's a decent movie that completely misses the mark on what made Verhoeven's classic such an enjoyable experience. Much like with the Total Recall reboot, which also completely missed the mark, but unlike RoboCop, was not a decent movie, trying to remake Verhoeven's classics is folly. Defenders of the reboots will undoubtedly use the "don't compare them to the originals, treat them as separate entities" argument. There's not a director around today that can do what Verhoeven did, and remaking his movies immediately, and rightfully, warrants a comparison. If you don't want the movie to be compared to the original and stand on its own, make an original movie and not a reboot.

I always facepalm when studies like this come out that confirm what basically everybody already knew. Hey folks, we just spent a whole bunch of money and however long a period of time to bring you absolutely nothing you didn't already know. Give us some more money so that we can bring you more information of no value whatsoever. Science, get the sensation!

Same here. DA:O was one of the very last, if not THE last, Origin-free EA games, wasn't it?

Agreed on both fronts. Titan Quest is my favorite loot em up (loomup?) ever. It has a thoroughly great dual mastery advancement system that allows for building characters in a vast variety of different ways, and is probably the best loot em up I've ever payed in terms of allowing unusual yet viable character builds. I've sort of stopped calling those types of games "RPGs" or even "aRPGs". I'm not going to argue whether they are technically RPGs according to Hoyle or not, I just think that "loot em up" gives a much more clear, easily recognizable, picture of that type of game, whereas aRPG could be anything ranging from The Witcher to Diablo to Borderlands, and those are obviously very different types of games. As far as Two Worlds goes, that game is flat out awful, though I think its sequel is actually even worse overall.

I'm not buying anything any time soon. My backlog is ridiculous and several Kickstarter games will be dropping in my lap soon. I'll keep that suggestion in mind for a future date, with "future" being defined as no earlier than 4 or 5 months from now. Not to mention that I'm in Hardcore Save For Rig Upgrade Mode (aka Operation Haswell-E), as I plan to build a whole new rig in the second half of this year. I'm actually ahead of schedule on the putting aside money front, but that's only caused me to get "greedy" and start thinking about a more high-end rig than I originally was envisioning. Also, **** happens, so having more put away than I need is never a bad idea.

I'm through 13 of the 18 story missions in the Zombie New England area of The Secret World. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get through the rest of them, since I'd kind of like to see a new, and hopefully completely different, area.

That's the one game of theirs I haven't played yet. Is the combat system like Of Orcs and Men? We are stil talking about Cyanide games here, right? Then you are also missing Aarklash: Legacy and Impire I think Unless you are talking about Spider studios. You're right, I haven't played that game either. I forgot all about it.

Me neither. I haven't watched any all star game in probably a decade, if not more.

The Swedes must be loving live after winning the cross country relays and watching Norway choke yet again.

I've mostly been playing The Secret World all weekend. And by playing I mean putting up with the awful controls and enjoying the writing. Also snuck some Broken Sword 5 in.

Gah, the media coverage here is so irritating. We had one of the closest finishes in Olympic history, with gold being decided by 3 thousandths of a second in the men's 1500m speed skating, and 95% of the talk was the suits, the suits, the suits. Stop making ****ing excuses for the disappointing performances of the 'Murican speed skaters and give some credit to the guys and gals that are performing.

I have a low tolerance for anything CDP says, whether it be they influenced Mass Effect or they create romances in video games. More often than not it's not the developer proclaiming their game as <name of game> Killer, it's the author of the article creating a clickbait title. Standard practice for hack journalists.

As with Neverwinter Nights, I tend to give Oblivion somewhat of a pass because I think of those games with the expansions included. For NWN, the excellent HotU bails the otherwise ho-hum game out. In my opinion, Shivering Isles is the best thing Bethesda has ever developed, which is what bails Oblivion out for me. Also, like with any Bethesda game, you can just ignore the dreadful main campaign, **** around, and create your own wacky adventures, though there is no way around the atrocious level scaling.

Are we allowed to speak ill of a Chris Avellone game? That seems like blasphemy.

Lionheart was about 50% decent game. The second half was abysmal, though.

I thought Shadows of Undrentide was about on the same level as the NWN OC. Not bad, but thoroughly forgettable. The one thing it had going for it was that it was significantly shorter, which, in the case of an uninteresting campaign, is a plus.

Legends of Dawn is flat out awful. Yet I played that game for 26 hours and kind of liked it. It's one of those weird games I somehow enjoyed, all the while being fully aware of how piss poor it was. Dragon Age 2 was a game I forced myself through (something I regret since I'll never get those hours of my life back) because I desperately wanted to like it. While I didn't cream my pants over DA:O like a lot of people, I still thought it was a pretty good game, and a solid base was there for BioWare to make a truly fantastic follow up with. If they just kept a lot of the good work they did with DA:O and took a step forward, we'd have a glorious RPG on our hands. Instead they took several steps backwards. There was just enough good in DA2, along with the BioWare name, not yet stained by the Mass Effect 3 Kai Leng and 3 color explosion ending fiasco, to keep stringing me along, desperately hoping it would get better. And it did get (slightly) better after Act 1, only to get so much worse in Act 3.

Dragon Age 2 is probably not the worst RPG I have played, but it was the most bitter disappointment. That game was akin to BioWare walking up to me, kicking me in the family jewels, then spitting on me as I writhe on the ground.