Keyrock

Agreed. Contrary to how my previous posts may have sounded, I like advanced metrics, I think they're very valuable. The fact that before Billy Beane OBP was considered a garbage stat, while I, and many others, now consider it MUCH more valuable than avg is just one of the examples. They are definitely a valuable tool and a much better way of doing things than before. I wanted to make the point that, even with advanced metrics, there are still some things that fall beyond the starts. You simply can't put a human purely into stats (suck on that RPG stat freaks). Edit: Holy ****ing **** Zobrist! That was one of the worst throws I've EVER seen. And I've seen some really bad throws. That was at least 15 feet off mark.

Gotcha. I only ask because, as I'm sure you'll agree, driving up pitch counts is a valuable batting tool. Edit: Papi lines out into an inning ending double play, but the damage has been done. Edit 2: Isn't there a balls taken stat or something like that? It's not exactly a driving up the pitch count stat, but definitely correlates. Edit 3: One thing I hate about watching the game on TBS is they don't show the amount of pitches thrown by the pitcher. ESPN and Fox have it in their graphic overlay.

I beg to differ, unless you mean it's taken into account in some other statistics. Driving up the pitch count can be extremely valuable, especially with a team that has a shaky bullpen. Anyway, Lackey had control issues early, but has seemed to settle into a groove after having given up 1 run. Sawx are up, but they need to stay disciplined and keep working long at-bats to get Price out of the game and have a chance to add to the lead. Edit: Just as I type that, David Ross uses the Monster to perfection for a lead off double. Edit 2: And Ellsbury drives in the run with a bloop double (his second bloop hit of the night). Cheesy hits? Yes. I'll take 'em, so will Jacoby. Edit 3: Victorino singles. 1st and 3rd. The Sawx have Price slightly rattled. Laser Show needs to take advantage. Edit 4: Pedroia with another RBI on the fielder's choice. Victorino with an aggressive, but clean slide to break up any chance for a double play. 4-1. Price is on the ropes with Papi at-bat.

And the Sawx get to Price early with aggressive baserunning and a massive jack by Papi. Price is a pro, though. He'll recover and get into a groove. Hopefully Lackey can go into Shutdown Mode and make those 2 runs the winning runs.

Price is just a beast all the time. That's why it's imperative for Pedroia, Victorino, and Co. to work some 8, 10, 12 pitch at-bats and get his ass out of the game. That's a thing the Sawx do well that doesn't show up in the box score. Even before the 4th inning from hell last night, they had Moore over 50 pitches entering the 4th. So even while he was blanking the Sawx in the first 3 innings, they were driving up the pitch count. Do they have an advanced metric for that? I ask out of curiosity, not facetiousness.

Game 2 or Sawx/Rays coming up. After the shellacking that Boston laid on Tampa yesterday, this becomes a really big game for the Rays. They can't afford to go down 2-0. Luckily for them, they have Price on the mound. Lackey is going to have to be at his best today. Just as importantly, the Sawx hitters will need to be patient and disciplined. Work the count, make him throw extra pitches. If they can get him out of the game in the 6th inning or so, that will give them an opportunity to beat up on the suspect Rays bullpen. Anyway, I got a cold brew ready. Game on!

There's no age too young to introduce children to the succubus. Ironically, in the Succubus form Shantae is arguably more clothed than in her regular form.

On second though, I may make my PC the Barbarian and use Cadegund as the Priest, since we know we're getting a Priest companion, but we may not get a Barbarian companion. I want to make use of as many companions as possible the first time around, so I can figure out which ones I like.

Priest (PC) Barbarian Ranger Chanter Druid Cipher Very much subject to change. Barbarian is the main tank Druid can support tank when necessary via shapechange. Priest and Ranger pelt enemies with arrows and gunfire. Chanter and priest for buffs/debuffs. Druids, I imagine will be good for AoE elemental damage (call lightning type stuff), while the Cipher will likely excel at debilitating and taking out single enemies quickly. Begin battle. Chanter and Priest lay down buffs. Ranger concentrates on taking out enemy casters with projectiles, Priest joins him/her as soon as buff is finished casting (preferably cast buff before battle begins). Cipher concentrates on the one most dangerous enemy. Druid AoEs smaller mobs before the Barbarian gets into melee range. Barbarian mops up smaller mobs. If necessary, Druid shapeshifts and helps Barbarian if there are too many of them. Chanter keeps laying down buffs and/or debuffs and fills whatever role is necessary for the situation.

I don't use multiclassing. I find it unnecessary, not to mention it increases the complexity of balancing. If a system is built to be robust enough from the start, presumably as Obsidian is doing, then multiclassing should be completely unnecessary as each class should have enough wiggle room to be built in many distinct ways, allowing you to build more hybrid/jack of all trades or specialist characters, all within a single class. tl;dr - Just say no to multiclassing.

Agreed Risen 1 was better, definitely the first 80% of Risen 1 (the last 20% was dreadful). Still, Risen 2 has its charms. Voodoo is cool, but they just didn't make it useful enough and do nearly enough with it. That's why I hope they stay with the pirate motif for Risen 3. Voodoo has the potential for some really fun and interesting gameplay, much more so than your run of the mill fireball hurling magic. As an aside, I wish they had given Patty more barks. The first time she yells out "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I won't kick your ass" it's cool (girl power and all that). By the millionth time, it gets kind of grating. I suppose I'll be replacing her with the voodoo priestess soon enough anyway. On the flip side, it's nice that companions are actually useful, at least early on in the game.

Geography? Masochism?

More disturbing evidence:

It's the dimensions of the enclosure that interest me most. Or I should say, concern me most. I look at those numbers and then look over at my old Xbox 360 and they seem about the same. No mention of a motherboard brand, either. Is there some super secret way to mount a GPU parallel to the mobo. It better come with silent liquid nitrogen cooling, or something. If they release a Steam Machine for less than $599, I will have to clean up the aftermath of a purple twinkie sharknado. Well, it certainly wouldn't be able to be your standard ATX motherboard. I would imagine this would require a completely different form factor, possibly something "L" shaped.

I'd rather the As won this series, as the prospect of having to face Scherzer and Verlander in the ALCS isn't particularly appealing, not to mention having to pitch to Miggy.

Look behind you! A three-headed monkey! The woman is Patty, daughter of famed pirate Silverbeard, scourge of the seas, or some such nonsense. The guy might as well be named Guybrush Threepwood, as Piranha Bytes never names their protagonist (Ooh, the mystery!)

The Sawx are continuing to pile up the runs, forcing Joe Maddon to go deep into his bullpen, which could prove costly down the road. I love the fact that the Fenway Faithful are STILL breaking out the "Myers, Myers" chant. They've been letting him hear it all game long.

Sadly Hoyer's done for the year - torn ACL. Not sure if it's an upgrade or stopgap, but the Browns can pick up Freeman for nothing now. They should definitely scoop up Freeman. A bag of rocks soaked in oil and lit on fire would be an upgrade over Weeden. I think Freeman can still be a decent QB, he just needs a change of scenery in the worst way. Well Cleveland certainly qualifies in that regard .......

Sadly Hoyer's done for the year - torn ACL. Not sure if it's an upgrade or stopgap, but the Browns can pick up Freeman for nothing now. They should definitely scoop up Freeman. A bag of rocks soaked in oil and lit on fire would be an upgrade over Weeden. I think Freeman can still be a decent QB, he just needs a change of scenery in the worst way.

I didn't watch - what did Myers do (or not do)? It looks from the box score that Matt Moore simplyimploded in the 4th and Maddon left him in for the 5th as well. Kind of reminded me of AJ Burnett yesterday for Pittsburgh - that was just brutal. The box score doesn't show any errors (inexplicably) but the Rays defense made several colossal mistakes in the 4th inning. At that point in the game the Rays were up 2-0 on 2 solo HRs. Moore was cruising up to the 4th. Laser Show was on 1st when Papi hit a deep fly ball, Myers called for it, then, for whatever reason, stepped forward and the ball dropped behind him on the warning track for a double (I'm still not sure how that wasn't scored an error). The moment that happened, I knew right there that the Sawx were going to win that game. You can get away with mistakes like that in the regular season, but in the playoffs they will kill you. Next up Napoli popped out. Following that was another double that drove in 2. Moore got another out, then a grounder that should have ended the inning, but Moore was slow to cover first and the runner (Stephen Drew, I think) was safe, Johnny Gomes scored on the play. That broke Moore's back and the floodgates opened. There was another double in the inning that was misplayed that allowed an extra run to score. In all 10 batters came to the plate that inning and Moore barely made it out of the inning (he didn't survive the next). Sawx went up 5-2 and Lester went into I'm Got This, I'm Shutting Them Down Mode.

Just download the Risen 2 Mod Starter. You can find, download, and install mods right through the Mod Starter. It works much like the Nexus Mod Manager.

I imagine that right about now Guard Dog is hiring a hitman to off Wil Myers.

The lowest possible spec (i3, GTX660), without doing any research (laziness), I would imagine I could build myself for $750-ish. I imagine Valve could do it for somewhere in the ballpark of $400-$500 right now, likely significantly less some 4 or 5 months from now. I would never go for a build with a Titan in it. That card is a beast, but it's ABSURDLY overpriced. The top of the line components always are, but the Titan takes that to an extreme.

Dang, even the lowest model would be pretty beastly. A GTX660 can max most games at 1080p even when paired with a i3, and can run the most demanding games on medium-ish settings. Even the lowest spec should be able to hold its own against next-gen consoles, and by the time these come out for realsies, with manufacturing cost having fallen, and with Valve presumably being able to buy in bulk much cheaper than a regular consumer, they may be able to match the PS4 price on the lowest spec and not lose a dime on each machine. The top spec machine would wipe the floor with either the PS4 or the Xbone, but I can't see that costing less than $1200, even several months from now. A i5-GTX760 pairing would likely be the most effective performance to price pairing.