melkathi

*does the maths* So 3 hours writing 3.5 hours gaming? Do it th other way round and you have a deal. An no editing!

You don't have time for that. Nanowrimo, remember?

So you are the Bright Spot of the 17th of July? Could do business cards with that slogan

They've actually improved a lot of that. Speeders now work in airports and when you leave a planet the orbital shuttle can take you directly to your ship. Also, a lot of the things you call loadscreens are just fade to black while transitioning, no actual loading occurs. Like the hangar elevator, or trip from orbital station to the planet. There's no loading there and they take a second or two. I agree they're unnecessary, but not quite as bad as you make them out to be. The basic thing with the F2P is that they want a lot of people trying the game. I'm sure they're counting on some people converting to subscribers, others are going to pay for luxury stuff, and others will pay for more pvp etc. But lots of players in the game means a more fulfilling experience for the subscribers as well, which may mean they'll stabilize on that front instead of losing more players, which is probably the primary goal. Good to hear about the space port / orbital station improvement. I enjoyed the Champions Online Free to Play conversion. I felt they did a good job with that. SWTOR I do not know if I'll try again. The devs just did not inspire confidence in me. First was the slicing issue that completly ruined the economy. They were too hesitant to act and thus had to throw money sinks of such proportions at the players, which made prices ridiculous for anyone who had not been rolling in cash due to first month slicing. Then was the open world PvP and Illum debacle. all we got from that was basically "We are looking into it" Yes, we don't want knee jerk reactions, but the SWTOR devs were too hesitant for my taste and I believe the game economy and pvp suffered from it. But other things they decisively changed. They put their foot down. The smuggler's / agent's giggle was removed to combat noise fatigue. They left all other sound effects in unchanged for every other class, including the chuckle that other classes have, but the giggle, that went the way of the dodo, replaced with a sound that is only noticeable if you stop playing and glue your ear to the speaker... Of course a few weeks later the rakghoul event was added, spamming fleet stations with the quest announcement pretty much once per minute. Speeding from the cantina to the galactic trade network I heard that announcement 4 times. I couldn't actually do any trading, as people would infect me, forcing the window to close, but obviously, neither the continuous chatter of the quest npc, nor the players abusing the event to stop the players trading from doing their trading are a problem. No, it's the giggle that causes noise fatigue. As you can tell, there are choices the devs made really rubbed me the wrong way. The game has some really good bits. That first rakghoul flashpoint is great for example. So is Cademimu. I even enjoy Black Talon, even though the light/dark side choices are a bit "meh" in the way they award light and dark side points (a general problem with the game: "I kill u!" -> dark side. "You think I plan to kill you? No, you will not be so lucky. I am arresting you. You will be moved to an Imperial Secret Police detention facility where you will be questioned. Trust me, you will tell us everything..." -> Light side points... the same problem people see with Dishonoured, I guess).

I just wanted to state that the fact that no poster has yet linked a George Michael video declaring that they've got to have faith speaks volumes for the community's maturity. Of course the reason for that may very well be that they would also be declaring that they guess it would be nice if they could touch the OP's body... Neither has there been any pondering by people about what would happen should they lose their faith in the OP, even though it would be right for us to say that they have lost their faith in science and progress, their belief in the holy church and their sense of direction. Of course one could go further and state that the reason why one needs faith is Insomnia, that the Faithless can't get no sleep. But as people may actually want to have a serious discussion, I shall leave this thread in peace and speak of Faith No More. *wavies*

You people go on talk about Disney, Lucas and the EU. I'll be sitting here bemourning that Disney did not buy the license for the Dune universe before Brian Herbert decided to ruin his dad's legacy by writing prequels that make Episode 1 look like a masterpiece.

You need to pay for the Consular class story??? Or for chapter 3 of the Smuggler story? You need to pay to land on Illum? Or do you get charged for the load screen extravaganza, the most ridiculous time sink they added? Want to get off planet? Run to shuttle, click on shuttle door -> load screen -> enter orbital station (with nothing to do in) run through orbital station to the elevator to the hangar -> load screen -> enter hangar and run to ship's air lock -> load screen -> run through the ship while being harassed by the banter of a protocol droid, reach the ****pit, select your destination on the map... guess what: loadscreen. Reach the other planet, run to airlock -> loadscreen -> run through hangar to the elevator -> loadscreen -> appear in space port (yippie! no orbital station - one less load screen) -> remember that speeders can't be used inside space ports and that these place are large... What did they do? Look at what people found most annoying about ME 1 and decide "Hey! Let's take the basic concept of the hated ME elevator rides, remove the party banter that may have made it tolerable and instead let's charge people a subscription fee for it!" But let's be honest here, what you are describing is the likeliest reason the F2P conversion will fail. If F2P only attracts people who want to run once through their stories of choice and get the bioware game experience for free, then the company is not getting any money out of it. They need players who want that something more that they are willing to pay for. That includes "multiplayer sillyness". Disregarding the travesty of Illum and general wreck that was open world PvP, SWTOR PvP was not all bad. Yes it had balancing issues and Hutball could be seriously one sided spawn point camping. But both Civil War and Voidstar could be very fun.

That sounds like Space Slug We did ok there alliance wise. Ok meaning: you had two different PvP instances going at the same time most evenings

I would, but I am too busy right now. Once I am done with my stupid report...

Playing Age of Wonders while taking notes is a lot of fun. Taking notes actually makes any game more fun I find. You can turn any game into a role playing game with ease: Day 18: The town of Hillsberry joins the cause just as Shorty McLeod's main army spies the city of Beslath on the horizon. Bunto, the goblin general seems determined to make his stand there. Day 19: Without siege weapons to breach the strong stone walls, the assault on Beslath has to be wait... for now. And doing quite well in Guild Wars 2. Did some World vs World (something I am not good at) and got some nice loot, loads of karma and xp. Even came out with more cash than I went in. And that is while we were being zerged by another server. It's fun being the underdog... as long as you still are in a position to actually do something.

They point isn't that what you write is even remotely publishable. The aim is to get a whole story down on paper so you can turn it into something worthwhile afterwards. Take me for example I have a number of "fantastic" and "amazing" ideas. Some of them may even be seen as good ideas by people other than my mother and myself But I am on page 1 with each one of them. That wont get me far. Nanowrimo would force me to get to page 200 and actually have something to work with besides a "good idea".

They should have let you

I think I'd feed the zombies the brains of a rational person before I try the explaining thing.

Same here. Shorty McLeod, my asura warrior just hit 60 in the candycorn maze.

Some GW2. Wondering if I should level up for the next event... Started replaying Age of Wonders (1) and am having a blast. and still playing a bit of Giana Sisters: Twisted Dream

So November update comming on the 15th. Following that update, a one time world event "The Lost Shores" will change the face of Tyria forever (event will last a weekend, probably the 17th and 18th?). It will open up a new area - a small to medium sized island with an end-game dungeon. As the Lost Shores event will be around the Sea of Sorrows, there is a worry that the event is meant only for highish level characters.

IGN interview with Roberts: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/02/star-citizen-the-ign-interview I don't like where the talk about death penalties may be going. If I wanted to get ganked EVE style I'd play EVE He talks about Demon's Souls and how death there was not arbitrary, but Demon's Souls is not a MMO.

If it's the slow zombies I'll try to find Usain Bolt. If he is a zombie I'll stand in front of him (at a minimum safe distance) and do a Nelson. "Ha Ha!"

Oooh Torchlight 2

Yes, it's words. It starts on November 1 and you have until the end of the month to finish a 50k word novel. It is meant to make you get things onto paper (or into word) and stop fretting about perfection. It is a global thing, though it started in the US. Personally I don't see myself doing it. I have to write a 10k report that has to be quality, so I'll be lagging behind on writing time.

So how many words have you done, Tale?

I know someone in real life who I was very much reminded of by Ziggy in season 2. While I am one of those people who like season 2 quite a lot, that character really got on my nerves. Season 5 McNulty annoys me... a lot. He, his actions, it all just rubs me the wrong way. I still think its a good season and a good ending to the show, but it is the one season I did not watch a second time - I know he'll annoy me again You know, one of those instances when you fully recognize somethign as really good and of quality, but on a personal level it just is off. What I can't decide is which my favourid season is: 1, 3 or 4.

A Morrigan quote comes to mind. It is of comparative nature and has something to do with a dog joining the party.

I always thought Dragon Age 2 was rated as a terrible game and that people were pretty accurate with that. The attempt at exploring a different story telling approach by looking at a location through time is what is not given enough credit perhaps, but otherwise it is Bioware's worst game. Kotor I feel is their best game. The story worked well. The humour was neither overdone nor did it break immersion. Companions and romances did no turn the ship into a soap opera. ME may have been a good game on consoles, but the PC port was not as good as it could have been. I personally have objections with the writing and story and feel those are highly overrated. I felt ME improvd gameplay wise over the next titles in the series but deteriorated even more in writing. DA was a good game as long as you did not think about the story. Looking at the story just a bit more could easily break the spell. The DLC, other than Stone Prisoner was terrible. But I deffinitly got my money's woth and long hours of enjoyment out of the game. I made the mistake of reading the novels ...

I was a bit hesitant about the show at first. And I must confess it took me a few episodes until I could remember who is who. In the end though I watched all 5 seasons and (mostly) loved it. Though at the end I wanted to punch McNulty. Let us know what you think.