Keyrock

This guy has very little idea of what he's talking about. These things you can get by paying money to get lockboxes or buy items outright: Mounts: Provide basically zero advantage to you in the game. They let you travel a bit faster, that's it. Considering each area isn't particularly huge this is something that gives you a little bit of convenience but does absolutely nothing for you combat wise. Companions: They help, a little bit. They don't make a huge difference. You'll most likely be dismissing them for Epic Dungeon boss fights anyway since more characters means more adds. Companions are mostly useful in solo play, but solo play is a piece of cake anyway. Weapons and armor: Whatever weapons and armor you can buy through the Zen store or get from lockboxes are garbage. All the best weapons are gotten from Epic Dungeons. Now you can buy Zen and convert the Zen to Astral Diamonds to buy the weapons and armor that way, but frankly it won't take that long to get them yourself or earn the astral diamonds from questing and profession tasks. It will take you a bit longer to get this gear, but not THAT long. Experience boost items: Worthless. You level so fast in this game that it's laughable that anyone would really need experience boosts. "You'll never be able to catch up to the people that consistently spend money": While that may "technically" be most likely true, in practice you can get so ridiculously close that the difference is negligible. The reason being that as you raise stats really high you get diminishing returns. Once you pump your stats up to a certain level, increasing them at that point makes a minuscule difference. Case in point, I have all at least Rank 7 enchantments in my gear. It took me a while to get those, but not ridiculously so. Someone who dished out a bunch of money might have all rank 8s or rank 9s but the difference to the character would not be that significant. Real life experience: I have a level 60 (max) Great Weapon Fighter. I have spent $25 on this game, and that was to buy a mount (which I don't even use any more because the pig I got for free is cooler) and some fashion stuff. None of that aided me in becoming more powerful in any way shape or form, I bought it because I felt I should pay something to the developer publisher considering all the hours of playing time I had gotten out of the game. Had I not spent a single dime, my character would be every bit as powerful right now. I have all the top level gear for my character and a full set (actually 2 full sets) with max bonuses, and a bunch of powerful enchantments in my gear. I can run any Epic Dungeon with a decent group and easily hold up my end of the bargain (I'm consistently best or second best in DPS). Had I spent $200 dedicated solely to making my character more powerful, my character would be marginally more powerful right now, as in I might have a 39% critical chance instead of 36% critical chance and 13.5% life steal instead of 12% life steal. Whoop-de-doo. Bottom line: You can absolutely progress to maximum level get top level gear and have a completely viable, powerful end game character without ever spending a single penny, and it won't take you forever.

Golden State could still end up with as high as a 4 seed. That little slump I think took them out of the running for one of the top 3 seeds, but anything else is open (Blazers will cool off, but not enough for Golden State to make up 7 games, Spurs are the Spurs, and Thunder will slip a bit without Westbrook but not 7 games worth).

I don't mind watching Indiana play. Memphis can be pretty brutal. Chicago may be the most painful team to watch right now for two reasons: 1) The don't have anyone that can effectively create their own shot right now 2) Knowing what the team could have been had fate not dealt its cruel fate

I'm right there with you. I've only played AC2, but my feelings on that game were "I wish there were a lot less (preferably none at all) stabbing and a more running on rooftops and climbing. The secret tombs in that game, where you're essentially just trying to climb up to some ridiculously inaccessible looking area, or flipping switches then trying to get somewhere before a gate drops, or whatever, are essentially what I loved about Tomb Raider but with a male protagonist.

I don't think you have to worry too much about Memphis making it to the finals.

Been playing The Last Remnant and jumping across the frozen lake in Neverwinter, now I think I'll switch back to Drakensang 2 and finish it off. I'm not sure how close I am to the end, but my characters seem pretty dang powerful so I have a hunch I can't be that far from the end.

Most likely Aumaua Priest for my first character. Possibly Chanter or Barbarian (also Aumaua unless there is a race restriction on certain classes). After that, who knows?

Of course not. Speculation is fun.

Yeah, that thought came up. This is a bit different than D-Rose's case in that it was more preventative surgery than anything else. Russ had been playing well and without pain, but they saw some inflammation and did further scans which revealed an "area of concern" which they were unable to find in previous scans. So this is not a new injury, it's still from the initial injury. How they couldn't detect it before yet they can detect it now is beyond me, but, whatever, I'm not a doctor. You are right, though, Russ's game is similar to D-Rose in how explosive and... violent, for lack of a better word, it is. All we can do is hope for the best, I guess. As an aside, the Thunder won today behind a fairly monstrous game from Durant: 34 points 12 rebounds 6 assists 50% shooting.

Russell Westbrook just had surgery on his knee and is out for an estimated 2 months. This one caught everyone by surprise since he'd been playing well and just came off a triple double. That sucks, but it could be a blessing in disguise for the Thunder if Russ comes back with enough time left in the regular season to get back to his best playing form in time for the playoffs. This will give Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb even more playing time in the meantime and accelerate their development by necessity. On the down side, this may cost the Thunder the 1 or 2 seed, though I doubt they would fall lower than #3. Most important is Russ not having any setbacks and coming back before the regular season ends.

Work. Inventory. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a piece of cake getting up there with a GWF In fact, were it not for an invisible wall, I'd jump over that rock outcropping entirely

I'll try to see if I can get to that ledge. This is exciting. Trying to reach places that are seemingly unreachable is one of my all time favorite video game activities.

It's official, Romo is out, The Neckbeard is in.

I've been told about it too, but I've been strong in staying away. Same with Borderlands (very different type of game but seemingly same level of addictiveness), I've stayed strong and stayed away. I don't want to get hooked on video game heroin.

I jumped all the way across the lake

Damn, that's some seriously over the top awesomeness. A viking babe with an uzi riding a dinosaur? Yes, please. Edit: This brings up the question: Why aren't there more movies with viking babes with uzis riding on dinosaurs?

"This area is bigger than all of Dragon Age 2" So, not very big. This looks to be the same area they showed some months ago, though it may well be a new video and the area may have been altered/iterated upon/polished.

So in Dragon's Dogma grinding the same enemy again and again and again is fun. I'll take your word for it.

So you're not talking about grinding the same enemy again and again and again?

It's quite likely we'll see at least one of those, hopefully in round 2 so we get a full 7 game series.

While I've never played Dragon's Dogma, so I can't speak from experience, the idea of grinding the same boss(?) over and over and over again sounds boring as hell. Granted people do this all the time in loot em ups when farming for rare items and trying to complete a set, but I could never stomach doing that.

To me "mature" means no sugar coating and no censorship. It doesn't mean blood simply for the sake of blood, or swearing simply for the sake of swearing, or boobs simply for the sake of boobs. But it does mean not cutting out or hiding or censoring blood, swearing, or sexual content out if it fits the content of the story. For example, if the story calls for you to find the victim of a grisly rape & murder then you find a naked, bloody body. The story doesn't sugar coat what happened, nor does it beat around the bush. You are presented with the full grisly scene (whether graphically or via text or voice over).

The store page is back up. Looks like GabeN managed to fight off the zombie horde.

They freed the zombies and the zombies killed the server.