Hurlshort

I turned 33 today. It's pretty impossible to celebrate much right now, given the school year just started up. My wife bought me Deus Ex, so I'm hoping to squeeze a couple hours in for that this week. Still, kind of an odd age. My wife says she will wait until I'm 35 to trade me in for a younger model.

I think he's talking more about critical success. ME2 managed to implement some pretty big changes from the original without incurring a big backlash from critics or fans. The same cannot be said about the move from DA1 to DA2.

Rift is fantastic, I played it for quite a few months and logged a lot of hours. It is definitely a WoW-type MMO, but it does so extremely well. I thought I remember you not digging WoW though, so it might be for you. WAR Online was actually a decent game, but it relies heavily on having a good population and having a good network of friends. I played at release, but if the servers are really ghost towns now, I don't imagine it will be much fun. It did a couple cool things, but it seemed like it got stretched too thin. It's funny, Rift took all the decent things about WAR and fixed them.

It's pretty, but don't install the game itself.

It has to sell well too. Hopefully it will.

After a couple tweeks I got Age of Conan up and running. I forgot how much better the combat is than most MMO's. I was getting tired of Rift, so this will scratch a nice itch for awhile.

Let's meet in there sometime! I'll send you a message when I get to it (in a week or two after exams ) Sounds good. I'm pretty sure I can play on the EU servers.

My sales pitch for AoC was so effective that I decided to load it up myself. They've got a new hardcore PvP server ruleset that looks interesting, I'll have to give it a try.

Age of Conan's starter island (Tortuga?) is one of the best game experiences I've had. The story and setting are just fantastic. It's about 15 hours of gameplay, it covers the first 20 levels. I played through it with three different characters and enjoyed it each time. I thought the game fell apart after that, but it doesn't take away from that fantastic first island.

Go Jeep or go home Calax.

This thing is going to be populated with a bunch of rich people. It's basically a gated community out in the middle of the ocean.

Seriously, plus Peanut Butter and Chocolate Ice Cream makes certain days worth living.

Good luck with that, there is no open beta, and they've stated as much. All they've announced is they're holding beta weekends in september where high number of people will be INVITED to join. That's pretty much what I mean by an open beta. If you have registered for the beta, I'm assuming at some point you will get an invite to one of these stress tests. WoW did the same thing. We should remember that for every Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, there are games that have succeeded like Lord of the Rings Online and Rift.

Hey, that 2-5 years is great news Tarna. So much can happen in that time! Wishing you the best. I have to be honest, this is scaring the crap out of me. I'm supposed to go get my first physical some time this year now that I'm in my 30's. Your story has me torn between rushing to the doctor and hiding under my desk.

I really need to see how the open beta goes to be sure, but I think TOR will be fine. The key is if it is ready. If they rush it, that's a death sentence.

I seem to remember that about 1 in 20 will experience headache (detrimental to the experience) with our current 3D tech, as in dual colour + glasses. If that's true I think companies can live with 5% not being able to use their product. Really? That seems like a pretty large percentage to alienate. I know I'm biased, but in order to become the standard, I would think they would want that closer to 1%. What I mean by standard is like DVD's, HDTV's, and flat screens. These technologies are now the norm. I can't see glasses , 3D TV's, and 3D DVD's becoming anything but a popular niche.

Malcador, this was what I was responding too originally. I don't really believe capitalists should have complete control of everything. My point is more that politicians aren't better than businessmen. Neither should have complete power, but I trust the intention of a businessman more than that of a politician. edit: Trust probably isn't even the right word. I consider them more transparent and prefer that.

It is still in the capitalist's best interests to make sure society is moving forward. Take the roads for example, how many companies are tied to the building and maintaining of those roads? The auto industry is gigantic, do you really think they want the roads to disappear? My point is that a politician can only be trusted to do what is popular, ensuring that they will be re-elected. A capitalist will do what is best for the economy regardless of popularity. Obviously there needs to be a system of checks and balances in place.

I personally can't use 3d glasses without getting a headache, and I know a few others that feel the same way. I just don't see it becoming standardized with that issue.

I'd say WoW still has at least another 5 years of relevancy left. Heck, there is still a community for Ultima Online, so it's not like big MMO's just disappear.

If we are choosing between giving power to capitalists or politicians, I think I'll go with the capitalists most of the time.

But in WoW, the people suck. I really liked 'vanilla' WoW though, the later expansions just seemed to make things worse or less fun for me, for some reason. There are a few million people playing the game, so I'm sure there are a few people you might like. Of course you'd have to wade through a sea of losers to find them I have a couple groups of friends that play different MMO's and I usually stick with playing with them. Every once in awhile I'll meet someone new, but for the most part I avoid general chat and the like.

I remember after I finished my unpaid student teaching I was close to getting out of education completely. It really tests how much you want to work in a field when you have to do it for free for a ton of hours every week.

Netflix streaming is really only about the TV shows. We won our tourney and I got to take my picture with a very heavy trophy. Then I drove the RV home (about 5 hours) and now I'm inspecting my bruises and trying to rehydrate.

We won our third game of the tournament, and I had 4 goals, woohoo! Tomorrow morning is the championship game. We beat the team we are playing once, but I guess they picked up a new player and he looks pretty dang good. I'll probably be chasing him around tomorrow trying to shut him down.