Hurlshort

Its success is just another nail in the coffin of single player RPG games. Not that they will cease to exist, but we could have done without Biowares SW MMO and played KOTOR 3 or something of that sort. What is it then? From the GW website: "Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one's guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-vs-guild warfare or the international tournament. Engaging in combat is always the player's choice, however; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world." There are many differences between standard MMO's and GW, but the one that makes a difference for me is the fact that you will never run across another person while exploring the world. Almost every relationship I've ever developed in an MMO has stemmed from the fact I was fighting in the wilderness, then stumbled across another person doing the same, and we banded together to reach our goal. Sitting in a city yelling for a group doesn't appeal to me at all. As for the SW MMO, the alternative could just as likely be that we wouldn't get KotOR III at all because the PC market is too small. I'm not sure why we feel the need to blame one genre for the demise of another. The genre is weak all on its own.

But there is a volcano in the background! Deathdealer is right though, it is pretty nitpicky. It's a very functional cover, I've seen much worse.

As long as they do that to every MMO I'll be singing them praises. That stupid genre will be the ruin of the PC. How does that work? It's one of the few genre's that is more successful on the PC than on consoles. And Guild Wars is not an MMO.

xkcd is fantastic stuff, I have a few up in my classroom and usually only the really geeky kids laugh at them.

I thought they were looking to crack down on people who are using these possible reforms to con people out of their money. Like with the housing market stuff, how there are a bunch of different cons where people say they will help you refinance and then they end up taking you for a boatload of cash.

I'm not sure there are any developers out there that actually look at WoW's numbers as a goal. Only in their lofty dreams. And all of SOE's titles cut off in that chart after 2007, presumably when Sony stopped sharing numbers. The only real negative thing I see here is WAR and AoC taking huge hits after the initial rush. That seems to be a trend for the market, after the first month you get a huge drop. Now if developer's anticipate and don't blow all that initial capital, they should be able to stabilize and keep going. I imagine it's a tough thing to work on a spreadsheet.

Forgot I saw another movie today... The Perfect Getaway - This thriller isn't all that greatly written, but I really enjoyed all four of the main actors, so it was a decent watch. Milla Jovavich is just fun to watch all the time for me, and the two male leads were great. Probably about a B in my book, nothing special but very watchable.

GI Joe - I went in with moderate expectations, and I found it to be a fantastic experience. I think it may be the best summer popcorn flick of the season, much better than Transformers 2. (Maybe even with Star Trek, although they are very different movies.) First off, I don't care about the comics. I went in expecting a movie based on a toy line and I'm glad I did. The story is silly and the characters only vaguely resemble the cartoons I watched as a kid. The acting is decent, it's a fun cast to watch, kind of reminded me of Starship Troopers in a lot of ways. What really blew me away was the action scenes and the breathtaking bases. The CGI is just top-notch. So I definitely would say it is worth watching on the big screen if you are into popcorn flicks. Destro and Zartan are probably the best characters in the movie for me, and Marlon Wayans as Ripcord was a pleasant surprise, he was funny but believable as an action star.

Lord of the Rings Online and Eve have pretty awesome curves, steady growth for years. This site has been around for awhile though, and it is not an official source. It is just a guy who combs the internet and looks at revenue charts to come up with reasonable guesses at subscriptions. He includes an accuracy rating system to qualify which numbers are official and which are estimates.

Things have been going my way of late, it seems. Yesterday I was replacing the garbage disposal in my kitchen. The new disposal was a bit smaller, and I realized the pipe from the sink was now too short. I was about to head off to the hardware store when a plumber drove up! He had been working on another project on our property early in the week and had forgotten a tool. I let him know what I was looking for, and he happily obliged me with a free piece of piping. Fantastic. Today I decided I wanted to go see a couple movies. My summer vacation ends next week, so I thought I'd make a day of it today. I went to see GI Joe, and halfway through I really had to pee. I was blocked in, and didn't relish the thought of squeezing by people in the middle of the show. Then the emergency alarm went off! It was a false alarm, but during the ensuing break I was able to pee. After the show, they gave everyone free passes for the inconvenience, which I happily used to purchase my ticket for the next movie I wanted to see, The Perfect Getaway. In between the two shows, I went to buy a book, and I got 40% off for some special promotion. Good times!

Sometimes I think I miss the humor in Monty Python sketches because I am not well-versed enough on the workings of England. But usually I enjoy it.

You could make a wikispaces page and invite us all to help develop strategies. Googledocs would work also.

Finished Fallout, now I'm on to Fallout 2. The only bad thing I did was let the desert raiders live. I'm also confused why I didn't get an end screen for the Boneyard/Adytown after liberating them from the regulators.

what the, don't you live in the city, and didn't Al Gore personally dig down cables for the information super highway internets. I moved out to the country a few months ago. Peaceful, but the internet options stink. I will try something different next year, I'm locked into a contract for now.

Well, I don't think Bioware has gotten worse over the years, in fact I devoured ME very quickly, as I have with most Bioware games. I see Dragon Age being different than their recent titles though. KotOR, JE, and ME all have a very similar scope, they are telling a single story about your character. Sure, there are side quests, but the central story is always at the forefront. It seems like DA will be more varied in terms of the story aspect. It's hard to explain, I guess, it's like BG I and II, they just seemed to have a different narrative style, and that seems to be Bioware's goal with DA.

Actually, considering I have to cover 1350 miles every time I do something, I guess it's rather quick.

I thought I heard there was possibly a DS version in the works? Syndicate on the PC was epic back in the day.

King of Squid's list is more an indication of his young age. That isn't negative in any way, as he will have more years to experience future games than some of us dinosaurs, but he also hasn't had the chance (or sadly old technology will limit him) from experiencing some of the richer games of yesteryear. So don't feel bad about your list, just know that there are a lot of gaming experiences out there left to be had.

Ugh

I point to the educational standards of public education and he points to a Mel Gibson movie. Well played sir.

The Outlaw Josey Wales - One of the best westerns I've ever seen. I'm surprised this one doesn't get more recognition, it was just fantastic.

I'm usually asleep long before the boat sequence, so it doesn't bother me. I agree with Aristes that the long ending matches the book pretty well, in that the both drag a bit. Still brilliant stuff.

It isn't in my top 10, but I really enjoyed Republic Commando. I don't really get the soulless grunt comment, I thought given that they are clones, they had a decent amount of personality. I read one of the Republic Commando books and I thought it matched up to the game pretty well. I'd blame George Lucas more than the developer, it's not like the clones are all that well developed in the movies either. I thought it was one of the better squad based shooters I've ever played, and your squad mates are effective, which means they created some decent AI. I guess it would go on my top 5 list of SW games. 1. KotOR 2. Tie Fighter 3. KotOR II 4. Republic Commando 5. Yoda Stories (or Dark Forces, they are so similar)

Transformers 2 - About an hour longer than necessary.

Are you joking here? The "dem injun's got whats they deserved" line of thinking went obsolete quite awhile ago. Indian reservations have been making huge strides in the US, and they are using old fashioned capitalism to do it. As a teacher, I can tell you exactly what is taught in our schools today about Native Americans. They are the good guys, and the explorers, missionaries, and colonists are the bad guys who brought disease, war, and religion at the cost of American Indian culture. Seriously, that is how the textbooks are written right now, that is how the state education standards read, and that is how young folks are learning. So I'm not sure where your myth is persisting.