Keyrock

Its funny that you noticed that but I felt the same thing, its a bad design. And its not like you wait in anticipation for each page as the topic isn't important enough so it becomes almost laborious It's not bad design, it's shameless click farming. Supposedly clicks is some kind of electronic currency that can somehow be converted to dollars, or so I have been told.

Lucky for me I don't have that problem. I have my GWF for adventuring and my other character does nothing but stand in Protector Enclave invoking his deity and doing leadership jobs to make AD (he's still wearing level 7 and 8 gear ). Once I earn enough Zen to buy another character slot (I'm about halfway there), I'll make a hunter just to try the class out, but eventually that character will become just a worker to get me more AD. I do like the free weapon transmutes they introduce with events once in a while. I chanced my weapon again after the last event so now it looks like a MASSIVE mallet. It's pretty sweet looking.

Yeah, the new enchanting system is more convoluted than anything else. The one positive is that it allows you to upgrade enchantments that are already slotted, but they could have just tweaked the existing system to do that. Really it just seems like it's more complex for the same of being more complex, which is just plain stupid. Whatever, I'm already at 12.9k and decked out in rank 7s. Once you reach really high levels in a modifier you get diminishing returns for increasing it. For example, I have a 36.1% critical chance (not too shabby for a fighter). Were I to upgrade all my rank 7 azure enchantments to rank 8, I'm not sure it would even rise to be as high as 37%.

FF IV is FF IV in Japan, there was no FF IV outside of Japan originally. FF II and FF III were originally only released in Japan. FF IV was released outside of Japan as FF II to "avoid confusion". FF V was then also initially only released in Japan. FF VI became FF III outside of Japan, again to "avoid confusion". By the time FF VII was released this thing called the internet started becoming widespread and it became clear that some people outside of Japan were aware of the games that had not been released outside of Japan and that Square had actually created a heck of a lot more confusion by trying to avoid confusion and renumbering the games, thus FF VII was simply released as FF VII everywhere (like they should have done with the earlier games to begin with). Eventually the games not released outside of Japan were released everywhere and the original Japanese and correct numbering was used turning western FF II back into FF IV and western FF III back into FF VI, like it should have been in the first place. The correct numbering system has been used ever since, it's the numbering system I use and the one I assume everybody else is using. Phew, I hope that made some sense.

Ewoks. Yes I knew who you were referring to with the teddy bears from Star Wars. I was asking who fits the Ewoks in the analogy (since the Empire was us) Although in retrospect I didn't recognize that I had actually quoted "Mass Defect." Shame on me I slipped that one past you, did I?

Yep, it was the last one to finally make it state side. It was released for the DS sometime in the mid 00s.

It was pretty polarizing when it came out because it was pretty different from earlier FF titles. I personally have it as my 4th favorite entry in the series. VI > V > VII > VIII > IV > IX > X > III

What's this I spy on Steam? Final Fantasy VIII? Highly underrated game, one of the last great Final Fantasies, IMHO. If Uncle GabeN shoots me a discount in the near future, I'll likely bite.

I can be a teddy bear. I like hugs and I'm (unfortunately) growing soft around the middle. Hugs for everybody!

Since we're on the subject of incompetent military commanders I have to mention this fellow: Darius III (~380-330 BC) Not only did he underestimate and originally ignore Alexander the Great, to the point that he didn't even bother to show up to the Battle of Granicus, he was then soundly defeated again and again by Alexander while generally commanding far larger (2 or 3 to 1 in some cases) and more powerful forces. The cherry on top was him repeatedly deserting his armies and peoples and fleeing.

5/15 from that list, in order of level of anticipation/giddiness: 1) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (anticipation level orgasm/10) 2) Project Eternity (anticipation level 10/10) 3) Bravery Default: Flying Fairy (anticipation level 9/10) 4) Dark Souls 2 (anticipation level 7.5/10) 5) Dragon Age: Inquisition (anticipation level 4/10) Both Mass Defect 4 and Post-Apocalyptic Elder Scrolls 4 shouldn't be on that list. If either of those games comes out in 2014 I'll strip naked and run through traffic.* Missing from the list: Wasteland 2 (anticipation level 10/10) Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall (anticipation level 7.5/10) Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord (anticipation level 4/10) *tentative - no release date has been given* Also, Grim Dawn, but I already have the game and am playing it, hence I'm not anticipating it. * I will not actually strip naked and run through traffic, because frankly, nobody wants to see that. Nobody. Super Late Edit: Crap, I forgot about Divinity: Original Sin. I shall flog myself 14 times for my egregious omission.

Ambrose Burnside may have led the Union forces at the utter disaster the was Fredricksburgh, but he does have a redeeming quality: I mean, just check that glorious facial hair out!

If I, as the player, have any say in the matter, then damn skippy.

Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse. I just started so I can't comment on the story or puzzles yet, but I can say that the game looks downright gorgeous.

I believe the Persians wore false beards, recorded as such on tax records from the era. So they were strap-on beards, like what the Egyptians used, just far more glorious?

On the left, below "Fueling the Future", there are 3 lines of text. On the right there are 3 bullet points. Half-Life 3 confirmed! Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. I'm mostly surprised they weren't a part of the Linux foundation already. GabeN is obviously banking on Linux to help him make even more money than he's already making, so no surprise there. It would be pretty awesome if they wound up open sourcing some of Steam, but that's a pipe dream.

I always get jealous of the amazingly glorious beards the Akkadian/Assyrian/Sumerian/Babylonian types had. I mean, I'm sure they didn't actually look THAT glorious in real life, but in the carvings they look simply magnificent. As with any historical records from that far back, it's very hard to separate fact from propaganda (like Roman historical texts making Hannibal out to be larger than life so that Scipio Africanus would look that much better for defeating him) from just plain fiction. Still, as Raithe pointed out, it was written by people he beat the crap out of, so I'm sure they weren't going out of their way to do him any favors.

Gotta love Jim Sterling. His takedown of CoD: Ghosts, just before he left Destructoid, was a bit oveboard, but nevertheless quite entertaining. As usual, he goes overboard here, but is still quite correct in much of what he rants about.

By the time MacArthur actually landed, he was greeted by a force of over thirty thousand Filipines under arms and a complete marching band. Holy smokes, that reads like something out of a Joseph Heller novel.

So, indirectly, he's the father of microtransactions? Few fun facts about William Tecumseh Sherman: * He was called "Cump" by his friends and family. * He was called "Uncle Billy" by his troops. * After the Civil War, when Ulysses S. Grant became President, Sherman was appointed as General of the Army, one of only 8 men to ever reach that rank in the United States Army (the others are Grant, Sheridan, Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Arnold, and Bradley). It is the second highest rank possible to attain, with only General of the Armies, of which there have only ever been 2 (Washington, Pershing) above it. * The Sherman Tank was named after him.

8th straight win for the Thunder. Kevin Durant keeps developing as a player with his rebounding numbers on the rise this year. He's averaging almost 8 1/2 boards a game, which is a really high number for a small forward (that's a power forward rebounding number). It's pretty crazy that he's only 25 and hasn't even peaked yet. The more important thing to watch on this team is the development of guys like Jeremy Lamb and Reggie Jackson. They're desperately going to need those guys in the playoffs to score. They've never really replaced Harden's scoring and they sorely miss him, even if they don't miss his nonexistent defense. The Thunder will need to make a move at some point this year and get another scorer, even if Lamb and Jackson come into their own. Goran Dragic would probably be the perfect guy for them to get. /crosses fingers

I kind of miss the retarded backward flying dragons bug, though. That one was hilarious.

The game is over 2 years old, I would sure hope they have most of the bugs ironed out by now.

I'm counting on it.