Hurlshort

Well, it looks like it is coming along decently. It isn't turn based, so that is a big bummer for me. The plan & go mode might be feasible. There are a few folks from the Silent Storm crew working on this, if I remember correctly, or they are using a modified engine from Silent Storm. This might mean it will be a decent tactical game. My other big concern is that they won't have any of the personality of the JA series. It's tough to gauge that with a video, but the portraits alone lack the charm of the previous games. It still isn't coming out until the end of the year or 2012, so we will see. edit: To answer the original disappointment question, my expectations are already pretty low, so it didn't make them worse or anything.

I get that identity theft is a problem, but I think that is a concern in a lot of places. I'd say I'm more at risk when I hand my credit card to a waitress than I am on Facebook. As for employers or the law using that information against me, this is another case of understanding that there is no such thing as anonymity on the internet. Don't post stupid pictures and don't say stupid things. Don't even friend stupid people. It isn't very hard to do. For example, I have students who try to friend me every year, and I just say no. Maybe it is naive. I also wonder how useful this information is BECAUSE it is so widely available. It's the whole needle in a haystack idea.

Considering I only use it to communicate with friends and family, that sounds unnecessary. The whole point in putting information like an email address or a birthdate is that it makes it easier to keep track of that information among your circle. I get reminders about upcoming birthdays, I can send out invitations to events, I can share pictures of the kids, etc. What I'm saying is the benefit outweighs the risk of my private information getting out. I also don't post stuff that is inappropriate and I don't really have any hush hush secrets. What exactly is the risk here, by the way? Like, what are you guys worried about exactly, in terms of that information getting out?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I plan on retiring in my fifties. Working until 67 sounds like madness.

I have a hard time believing the image recognition software is any good at picking out one of a billion people. Sure, when you have a list of 100 people, it can probably make a good guess who on your friends list is in a picture, but I just don't see it being effective for large scale security.

So is the complaint here that when I upload a photo, it will automatically recognize other facebook members in the photo and offer to tag them? Why would that upset me?

I've been playing Project Zomboid too! It crashes after about 5-10 minutes for me, but it is a very cool concept. You start out in a room with your wife who is bleeding, and first you have to try and stabilize her. Then you move out of the house for food and supplies. It has a Minecraft style crafting system. I was in the same situation as Ros, except I had been lucky enough to get a shotgun. I was waiting for them to break the door down but then the game crashed. I haven't seen another shotgun since.

I thought the story was immediately more engaging than anything I remember from DS1 and 2. The writing was better by far, and the characters you meet actually had a little personality. Rose tinted glasses, I suppose.

Slug, that whole situation sounds like it will have a comically tragic ending. Keep us posted.

Look, I love Obsidian and I will buy this, but did anyone else feel this game played and looked like something that came out 5 years ago? I was hoping they would take some of the stuff that great action games of late have done and incorporate it. I was thinking we might get a little God of War or Ninja Gaiden mixed in with an RPG to spice things up. I'm just worried about the reception, I don't know how it will win folks over.

The DS series was super boring when it came to story, characters, dialogue and all that. DS3 already is a vast improvement on that after playing the demo. My concern is that the gameplay and graphics of action games has come a long way since then, and DS3 seems stuck in time there. It looks outdated, and it plays like something that came out on the last generation of consoles.

Played a bit of the Dungeon Siege 3 demo. It isn't very stunning visually, but the story and dialogue so far is about a billion times better than the previous two in the franchise. It looks like a pretty standard action RPG other than that, albeit a dated one. I will pick it up because I love Obsidian and the story will probably be worth the price of admission, but I am troubled about what this will mean for Obsidian's future. I just don't see a solid seller here.

Hahaha. They've should just kept on churning out fancy CGI trailers made by Blur to keep fooling their unsuspecting future customers. It looks fine. It's an MMO, of course it isn't going to have cutting edge graphics, they want to reach a wide range of systems. The graphical styling is also a bit cartoony, although not quite the WoW level.

That is a terrible list. Also, let's not kid ourselves, Fallout Online by Interplay is never going to see the light of day.

The PS Move is also fairly superior to the Wii in terms on functionality. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be getting much of a games lineup.

It's pretty common knowledge that the US funded insurgent groups in Afghanistan to combat the Soviet Union, but it is a ridiculous stretch to say it goes further than that. These types of huge conspiracies suffer from the fact that there are too many people who would need to be involved for it to stay quiet. Just like the Stargate program!

Sure, but he's clever. Actually I think the book "The Ugly American" might fit the discussion better.

It depends on what type of community building they are doing. I'd say it is pretty helpful to go out and build houses and stuff. It may not make a gigantic difference to the country as a whole, but the family that gets to live in a house will be pretty danged happy.

Dang, this isn't a discussion of Graham Greene novels

The peer relationship versus parent upbringing number seems pretty hard to believe.

You realize the figure is a giant right? I'm not sure why anyone would realize that, he doesn't have a sign that says Giant. It does make more sense with that information though.

You do realize that socialist health care is bad, don't you? I could sit here and prove you wrong all day, but it's midnight, I worked all day, and I don't want to derail this topic. There are quite a few countries with socialist health care systems that do quite well, so maybe you could lay off the condescension a bit. Rather than just taking a broad brush and painting an entire idea bad, why don't you try and explain why a socialist health care system will not work in Peru? For example, I can explain why a socialist health care system would not do well in the US. As Krezack already mentioned, I doubt many of us know enough about Peru to make a very educated political decision.

It's been a long few days, and it will continue until I finish up the school year on Tuesday. Yesterday we had a reward day for the school at an amusement park, and I brought my daughter along. It was great fun and she got to ride on a bus for the first time. Today I had work and then a wedding rehearsal dinner. Tomorrow I've got Saturday School and then the wedding. I'm tired, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so that is good. I also was supposed to have grades in this morning, but I still have one class unfinished. I'll finish it at Saturday School and deal with the stern look from the grading administrator.

In school I spent a decent amount of time with Piaget's stages of child development. It has been a long time since I looked at it though, but when I have the time I'll see if I can find my old book on it.

Gah, Drowsy Emperor is Boo, how did I not pick up on that? I like the new name Boo.