Keyrock

It depends on the game and the game world and characters and just my mood sometimes. If the game is really generic and I don't find any compelling characters or causes, I'll usually play "standard good guy" and be done with it. If the game has interesting enough factions and characters and gives me the freedom to explore different avenues then I'll often get latched on to a certain faction or cause and play accordingly. If it's a compelling enough game I'll come back to it and play through again and again taking different approaches and "alignments". I'm not sure what I'm going to do in Project Eternity, but I've sort of made up my mind that in Torment: Tides of Numenera I want to play as pacifist a character as possible, even if avoiding violence ultimately leads to far greater amounts of suffering and violence through my inaction. Basically in the scenario of "A runaway trolley car is heading down a hill toward a group of 5 people. You can push an innocent bystander in front of the trolley car which will kill the bystander but save the 5 people at the bottom of the hill (don't ask me how his body will bring the trolley car to a stop), or you can do nothing and the 5 people at the bottom of the hill will die." I would let the 5 people at the bottom of the hill die.

Now that's something I would get excited about.

To me GTA peaked with San Andreas. If I had never played any of the games before and played them all right now for the first time, and removed graphics from the equation, GTA III would likely be the weakest entry. The main character had zero personality, on account of him never saying anything. The main antagonist is mostly faceless and honestly has a lot more character progression in her cameo appearance in San Andreas. The city is mostly dull and repetitive. However, at the time it was released the game was just so groundbreaking, offering a level of freedom to do crazy **** that had not been seen before. It pioneered its own genre. Vice City tapped into a cool 80s vibe, plus it featured a much better cast of characters and a far more interesting setting. While Tommy was an unlikable prick, he delivered enough quality wisecracks to be entertaining to play. The setting of Vice City was so superior to Liberty City that it made "more of the same" feel fresh. San Andreas tapped into street gang culture and had, in my opinion, the strongest setting and cast of characters in the series to date. Los Santos was dull and boring (oddly enough this is the city they're bringing back for V), but San Fierro was great, and while the outskirts of Las Venturas were dull, the strip was just plain awesome. Plus the area of the game was just so big, and you switched the central setting often enough to keep from getting really bored with the area you were mostly in. The game featured, in my opinion, both the best protagonist and antagonist in the series. While CJ winds up doing some terrible ****, he was the most truly likable protagonist the series has ever had. And Tenpenny, to me, was EASILY the strongest antagonist in the series history. He was fantastic at pushing the protagonist's buttons. IV really brought nothing new to the table. While the Liberty City in IV is better than the Liberty City in III, it's still a rehash. Niko is a completely unlikable a-hole without Tommy's quality wisecracks to keep things entertaining. Dmitri is a pretty weak antagonist. Roman is annoying as ****, as is Playboy, Dwayne is even worse. There are a few interesting characters, like Brucie and Jacob, but I could never really get into the game like previous entries.

I used to program save systems for video games, then I took a bullet to the... /hides

It's going to take me eons to max out Leadership. I'm about halfway to lev 16 right now. I can also get back to leveling Tailoring now that the 2XAD event is over. During the event all my slots (6 on my main, 2 on the laborer alt) were dedicated to pure AD gathering, now that it's over I'm dedicating 1 or 2 of my slots on my main to Tailoring (currently lev 8 ). The nice thing about the event being over is that Zen prices should come down on the exchange, I hope. During the last couple days of the event prices shot up, I'm guessing due to the surplus of AD that everyone got from the 2XAD event and their unwillingness to wait to buy at a lower price. Naturally a surplus of spending AD coupled with demand for Zen, likely to buy that spiffy new mount, drove up the prices. Now that the event is over I expect the prices to normalize. I'm willing to sit on the listings I made a few days a go for a good while, I'm not in a hurry. Also, I'll be shopping around the AH for a good price of preservation wards. I have enough rank 6 dark to fuse a rank 7, but I'll likely need at least 3 or 4 preservation wards to do the fusion since the chance of successful fusion is only 30%. My laborer alt will get a preservation ward later today once I get that 7th celestial coin and trade it in for a coffer of augmentation (or alternatively a coalescent ward, but that's highly doubtful) so I can trade that to my main and cross my fingers that that 1 preservation ward (no way I'm wasting a coalescent on fusing regular enchantments on the off chance I get one) gets the job done. Lastly, I'm glad those stupid looking star masks from the event don't bind on purchase, but on equip. I've got 1 stashed on each of my characters to sell at a later date. I've got a bunch of the fireworks too, but I doubt I would be able to fetch much of a price for them.

The Challenge: Clear my plate in time for Shadowrun Returns (July 25th) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat Misery 2.0 Mod. The Nitty Gritty: Finish current Jade Empire playthrough - Easy because Jade Empire is fortunately/unfortunately so short. Finish Unepic - Moderate as it's a fairly lengthy game by all accounts. Do another run with another character in Grim Dawn alpha - Easy because it's only about a third of what will be the complete game. Do a couple more seasons in GRID 2 - Easy since it's a game I can easily leave and come back to any time without quests to worry about. Potential Road Bumps: Valve launching a Steam Sale and dumping some new games in my lap - Threat level: moderate Gamer ADD induces me to start something else I already own - Threat level: high Overall Difficulty: Moderately Difficult Challenge: Accepted

Looks like I know what I'm doing July 31st: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA6VjqnJLGE As if I needed another excuse to fire up Call of Pripyat again.

Normal difficulty, expert mode. Beyond expert mode I don't plan of fiddling with the settings until after I've had a good taste of the game (i.e. a playthrough).

Well, Britannia was never exactly the most outlandish, exotic, or unorthodox setting, it was pretty doggone standard. Add to that the fact that the Ultima series has had a lot of influence on a large number of RPGs. Shroud of the Avatar is an Ultima game in everything except name. So basically it's like saying "This Ultima game looks just like a bunch of games modeled after Ultima."

Wow, that's a massive improvement over what was shown during the Kickstarter.

Will do. This first one will likely be fairly short and tame, since I'm just getting my feet wet. In the future I may do other chapters in the series and get more deep (luckily I'll be able to mostly reuse a map in future chapters).

I started messing around in the foundry and creating a quest. This quest will take place on 2 maps. I have the layout of the first map mostly set, now I can start populating it with NPCs, then I can do scripts and encounters. The first map is an Orcish camp built around some ruins. This process will take a good while before I even have a rough draft since I don't want to go super generic.

Went for a nice long bike ride today. It's mid-nineties out there today and fairly humid, so I was sweating like a deadbeat dad at a child support hearing. A quick dip in the pool took care of the sweating problem once I got home. Now I'm all about being lazy and drinking some beers.

Man, I'd love to see the Sierra On-Line documentary succeed. That was my favorite video game company all throughout the 80s and early to mid 90s. I loved their games so much. I'll spread the word and see if this campaign can get a jolt of life. Hopefully once the holiday weeked is over and people come home from barbecuing and getting drunk, this will pick up.

Yep. It all comes down to games. All the horsepower in the world doesn't mean a thing without games and Big N still has the best 1st party games out there. Like Morgoth, a proper Wii U Metroid and/or F-Zero (sadly doubtful) could very well sway me to scoop up the system. I already own a 3DS and love the bejesus out of it.

I've hit the dreaded refine limit again today, probably will again tomorrow. These double AD events are great. Once I dye my boots and once I get purple slotted pants and shirt, I'll buy some black dye and dye the shirt and pants black. I think that will go good with the color scheme I have going on now. I basically have nearly enough to get the final nightmare dye pack now, but I'm waiting to get Zen at a good price. The key to the AD to Zen exchange is patience. If you can wait a few days then someone will come along that's desperate enough for AD and has no patience that you can get them at a low price. For selling horses, a staple of Keyrock Astral Exchange Enterprices, LLC*, it's finding the sweet spot buyout price that will entice someone with no patience to scoop it up while you still get good profit. Set your buyout price too high and no one will jump at it and while people will get into a bidding war over the regular buy price, you'll almost always wind up with significantly less profit. Set the buyout price too low and you're leaving money on the table. I've pretty much got that price dialed in to where my horses always sell within a day or two for the buyout price and I earn mucho dinero. *Keyrock Astral Exchange Enterprises, LLC. is a subsidiary of Keyrock Global Domination Corporation (KGDC on Nasdaq). All rights reserved.

Getting ready to whoop up on the Forest Shadow in Jade Empire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIReSB3vEdQ

Whoa, it's not just a myth! I actually got a coalescent ward from a coffer of augmentation (along with a rank 4 azure, which is perfect since azure and dark are what I'm after). This will let me fuse a 3rd lesser lifedrinker enchantment. Then I'll need 3 more lifedrinker shards (I'll have one left over after this fusion) and 2 more coalescent wards and I'll be able to fuse a 4th lesser lifedrinker enchantment then fuse the 4 of them into a lifedrinker enchantment and slot that badboy into my axe. A lesser lifedrinker adds 4.4% extra damage and gives you the same amount as healing, I'm guessing a regular lifedrinker probably does around 7 or 8%. Add that to my current 9.5% lifesteal and that kind of thing really adds up when you're damaging 4 or 5 enemies at the same time with wide sweeping slashes. If I slot all my defense slots with rank 7 dark enchantments (that will take quite a bit of time and effort), I think I can get lifesteal close to 15%. Add to that the boost I get from the Acolyte of Kelemvor and the lifedrinker enchantment and, outside of massive damage boss special attacks, I'll be nearly invincible since I'll heal faster than enemies can damage me.

I think of them as gun holsters. Now I just need some guns. This is what the gauntlets look like once dyed:

Yeah, it worked, I got the email and the dye pack. Thanks LadyC. I went ahead and dyed the gauntlets. Pretty soon I'll have enough AD to convert to Zen to get that last dye pack and complete the outfit coloring process.

I'm using the nightmare dye packs on my main. I've already dyed my chest piece and helmet, just need to do the greaves and gauntlets. It's more or less the same color scheme as the default look of the armor, but a lot more vibrant and pronounced.

I've run into the dreaded daily refine limit myself. I suppose it's not a bad problem to have. The dye packs would make my main character's armor look horrifically gaudy, though it works on my laborer wizard's outfit nicely: I'll hold on to the rest of the dye packs and a month or two down the line, when people have used them all up, sell them for a nice premium on the AH.

The value consoles tend to provide later in their cycle is that development has matured and there's a good library of games that are now available for it. What you describe happens every console platform, and the consoles still get the big booms in terms of software sold, while the PC tends to keep on chugging along. Yes, you and I can go "hey, the console won't be as powerful in a few years." But I don't think most people care. Whether or not the perception is accurate/fair, consoles tend to push a lot more in sales for this reason and I would contend that it's mostly only the more tech savvy that will even recognize that their PC is more versatile, let alone have the desire to actually set it up in the living room as the multimedia entertainment box. I'm not debating your point, I was strictly speaking from a hardware point of view, as my post indicated. Also, while developers learn to push the console tech as far as it can go, others also learn to push the existing (superior) PC tech as far as it can go. Anyway, point is that I have nothing against consoles, but I recogniose that they're a stagnant target spec wise, while PC is a target that's always moving. The PC model is definitely mot always he superior model for game development, in fact, often it is not.

The quintessential Iron Maiden Mix (Originally I wanted to narrow this down to 10 songs, but 10 songs for Maiden is ridiculously inadequate, so I went with 20, which is still inadequate, but not nearly as much). Anyway, in no particular order: Phantom of the Opera Prowler Killers Remember Tomorrow Invaders 22 Acacia Avenue Run to the Hills Number of the Beast 2 Minutes to Midnight Flight of Icarus Die With Your Boots On Revelations The Trooper Powerslave The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner The Clairvoiant Alexander the Great Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Fear of the Dark Sign of the Cross Iron Maiden aficionados, let me know if I made any mistakes (obviously this is all opinion, but I want to know yours). If you feel I missed a song you need to replace one of the ones on my list. As a side note, Somewhere in Time has the most badass cover art: Nothing can top futuristic exoskeleton Eddie.

Started another game of Deux Ex: Human Revolution. While the game is far from ugly, it immediately struck me just how... ... primitive the graphics are compare to something like The Witcher 2. The rectangular, segmented, shape of the bodies in the game is jarring, to say the least. Not, Morrowind levels of segmented bodies, but jarring compared to the high-end levels of today. Ironically some of the textures are quite impressive, too bad they're stuck on such primitive models. Still, doesn't make the game any less enjoyable.