Hurlshort

Ok, prediction time. I went 6-8 in the previous round, although my expected games played was way off. East: Buffalo over NYR in 7. I think the Rangers will extend the series to 7 with pure grit, but they can't roll 4 lines like Buffalo and that will wear them down. New Jersey over Ottawa in 6. I was shocked that Ottawa beat the Pens, but they are facing a lot more experience in the Devils. Ottawa doesn't do well against strong defensive teams. West: San Jose over Detroit in 5. Detroit doesn't have the depth to keep up with San Jose. The Sharks had 3rd and 4th liners playing over 12 minutes a game in the last series. Detroit really only has one line that's dangerous, so it just needs to be shut down. They don't need to solve Hasek, they just need to pepper him. Detroit also isn't disciplined enough and will likely take more penalties than San Jose. Anaheim over Vancouver in 6. I like Loungo, but it was pretty disturbing how many times this theam got shut out against Dallas. Anaheim has a more potent offense and won't need too many goals to beat the 'Nucks.

I'm picking up LotR Online today, but I've been playing the open beta for a couple weeks already and I get to carry my characters over. So far I'm getting the sam feeling I did wth WoW initially, which is great. Lots of folks who bash WoW can't seem to remember that before they reached the higher levels, the low level experience was simply fantastic. LotR captures that pretty well.

I was pretty amazed at the voice quality of the Xfire chat. It seemed much better than Teamspeak, although it could be that Blank has a better mike.

WoW, McLelan (or whatever) was suspended for 5 games. Too bad he's just a backup and it won't really affect the series. Still, interesting punishments, I'd say it's a good call to fine everyone.

Really? Wow...it was pretty dark as is. Maybe he had a point.

Have you tried Xfire? It's way less intrusive than both of those. I'm pretty sure it runs better with games, ar at least it's supposed to.

Yeah, my Xfire profile is in my sig, so feel free to add me. Just be sure to tell me it's from Obsidian. I don't need anymore "luv u long time" girls.

Can we possibly create an easier way of meeting up than over the forum? Like maybe we all get xfire profiles, or meet in a chat room or something?

They are 5th, so the Detroit/Calgary series has a lot to do with it. If Detroit and Vancouver win, they play Detroit. If Calgary and Vancouver win, they play Vancouver. If Detroit and Dallas win, they play Anaheim. If Calgary and Dallas win, they play Dallas. That is the only one that gets them home ice advantage.

Turco was pretty bad last year. He's definitely turned it around this year, but unfortunately he's up against a similiarly dominating goalie. Woohoo! Sharks won much easier than I thought they would against Nashville. What really amazed me was how dirty the Predators were playing. They had three game misconducts, and a series of bad penalties. I know Forsberg is chippy, but he made a ton of bad decisions out there. This was a talented team, too, so it's a shame that they couldn't try and rely on that talent. You can't win games from the penatly box. I kinda feel bad for the city of Nashville, but then again, they don't even sell out during the regular season.

The original Halo on the Xbox really was the first game to give an excellent FPS experience, co-op and multiplayer included, to console gamers. PC gamers have had solid FPS games for years, but Halo was the first to make it very attractive on a console. I played a few console FPSers, such as Goldeneye, and many were good, but I always felt they could be better on a PC. Halo was the first game that didn't make me think that.

I'm amazed how critical some folks are over a movie made by a guy who is self-taught and doing this strictly as a hobby. This movie is bloody amazing considering those circumstances. It also took him 2 months to do, which is a feat in itself. I'm really surprised he hasn't been offered a job somewhere. He talked about not being trained the right way and how his work is probably rubbish to real graphic artists, but the guy has a sense of discipline and direction that you can't teach. If I was a developer, I'd hire this guy in a second and give him a couple artists to direct.

If so, the UI is, dare I say, exactly the same as WoW. Even down to the little yellow exclamation point over questgivers heads (last pic, bottom left). Yes it's LotR Online, and yes it is extremely similiar to WoW. The only real difference is the fact you get little vignettes each time you complete a quest from the main storyline. For anyone who played Asheron's Call 2, you might recall Turbine's short movies from the vault completions. It's fairly similiar. The UI is more customizable. I can post a screenshot sometime with a bit more detail. It's still standard MMO stuff, nothing revolutionary. The title system is pretty awesome. I made it to level 10 without dying and recieved the title "The Undefeated".

Harold the Herald (I know, I'm a genius). Quoth the Raven I'm not a big fan of elves, with their high tootin' ears and all. At the Prancin' Pony. All Dwarf strongholds look the same.

Ah, I knew she was from somewhere, I even paused it to look closer! Awesome catch.

The intro to Privateer was my favorite for a long time. "Who are you that flies so well?!?"

Done, and it is still persisting. It's not happening on other forums.

I have a new problem. It will no longer automatically log me in when I go to the forums. I have to keep manually logging myself in. Any clues?

I'll make a Cleric of Tempus, more than likely. That way I can yell at all our opponents and get us into deep trouble, but still have enough healing ability to be kept around.

WoW, Rangers are rolling over Atlanta 5-0 right now. I picked the Rangers to win the series, but I didn't think they'd sweep. The Rangers are getting hot.

How do you like it compared to Vanguard? That's a difficult question to answer, as I really loved what Vanguard was trying to do. LotR is a much simpler game. I'm not saying it doesn't have depth, but it's just an easier game overall. It shares a lot in common with WoW in terms of catering to the casual player and making it possible to accomplish something in 30 minutes. That said, the production values of the quests surpass WoW tenfold. Also, for thos who complain about cartoony graphics, this game looks much better. Vanguard is a much more difficult game in many ways. Crafting is a matter of mathematics, luck, and skill. Crafting in LotR is simply "gather and complete recipe." This means pretty much everyone in LotR will max out their crafting if they are the least bit interested, whereas only the true crafters will reach the heights in Vanguard. Vanguard has housing, flying mounts, sailing, and a gigantic gameworld. LotR promises housing will be down the line, and eventually the world might be huge, but it's not there yet. The problem is Vanguard is a master of none of these things. It's very buggy all around, and it doesn't run well on many computers. They have implemented everything but very little is perfect. LotR has implement much less, but it's very refined and easy to play. I know LotR is the better product NOW, but 6 months from now, it might be played out. It will really depend on how good Turbine will be at releasing new content. They were awesome with Asheron's Call, so I'm hoping for success. It's looking like this will sell well too, whereas Vanguard is currently on life support. That's important for development, as they need a good cash influx to keep thing going after retail.

I like that Saturday 4-10 PM PST slot, but I can definitely go ealrier to accomodate the the CST and EST folks. Are we going to use a specific mod, or are we doing the campaign? I'd rather go with some mod.

Yes Sand. It seems to be in very bad taste, but maybe Eddo was not aware of the shooting. edit: Nevermind, read the second page and realized that Eddo's responses scare me a bit.

Actually, there is a monster mode, and you just might be able to kill hobbittsessss.

If you have any interest in MMO's, I recommend trying out the Lord of the Ring Online open beta. It's pretty awesome, and the questlines feel much more like a single player RPG than a generic MMO quest.