Gorth

I've been playing with the IKEA kitchen planner. Since I need to buy a new kitchen, that seemed the easiest way to not screw up too badly. It's actually pretty neat and warns you against the most glaring errors before you commit yourself to them Yeah, Germans are funny like that, like turtles, they pack up their entire household when they move, that sometimes include everything not welded, cast or superglued to the apartment.

High level play sucks. Plain and simple. Peasants armed with +3 swords... please stop??? Apart from the game mechanics being a disaster, it was a nice expansion. Story wasn't up to usual standards, but if i remember correctly, it was supposed to be a fully fledged sequel (3.0) and not an expansion (2.5). Somebody with better memory feel free to correct me and cure me of my delusions Other than that, what Enoch said.

This (on both accounts). Got bored with the latest Tomb Raider 30 minutes into the game, haven't touched it since. TR:Anniversary still takes the prize as worst TR game ever though X-Com 3 Apocalypse is for me a game that captured the idea of the original X-Coms and did most things right. The new one is for me how its done wrong (hated the game, never finished it). Master of Orion 2 is for me another example of improving an original, Moo3 an example of how it's done wrong. So I can't really say that a new version of an old game is inherently better or worse, it simply depends on the game. When you have more than one reimagining, it starts getting really muddled (as per the fallout discussion, is 2 better than 1? is 3 better than 2? is FO:NV better than 3? Better than 2?) PS: Fun trivia, I've completed the original Tomb Raider twice since. Gog ftw!

I started pruning this thread and realised I probably have to start deleting a lot and editing just as many posts... Lets see if it's possible to keep a thread alive. Which means, time to knock off the personal stuff and insults, open and implied alike.

Last game I played (over the Christmas holidays) was actually not a computer game, but a "card game". Munchkin (with the need for steed expansion) by Steve Jackson games. It was hilarious

I guess I'm gone from underwhelmed to throwing the towel in the ring... If the adding of 5 additional levels in RotHC was bad, multiply it by a factor 3. Before 3.0 it felt like you had two games, a good game going from levels 1-50 and then a never seemless appearing addition of "end game" levels and grinding at 55. Another 5 levels didn't help making the game feel more "consistent". If they couldn't find a way to make the old extra levels feel tighter integrated to the game in 2 years, I doubt the new 5 levels are going to fare any better. Quite telling I haven't played a single HM FP yet, as there is simply no incentive. It was bad enough I skipped those 4 fps when they were tacticals and easy as they were simply boring and uninteresting story wise. Adding more mechanics is not going to help when you don't get any rewards you can use for anything. Which sort of brings me to the next point, whoever genius decided to invalidate all old gear and try to get people to hang around and grind a few more years may have shot himself in the foot, in my case, not going to happen. It doesn't help that most of the grind rewards are basic and elite coms and guess what?... you have nothing to spend them on (other as companion gear). Fleet vendor gear is now worse than ever and I did the math, the blue 178 gear you get when doing Rishi is *better* (less endurance more mititaion) than the elite com 192 gear you can buy (at least as a tank). Which means, the only way to progress is to complete (buggy) operations and hope for lucky loot rolls, rinse and repeat. That, or buy stuff for cool, hard credits from crafters. Completed Yavin 4 with a handful toons and got their companions in shiny new 186 garbage gear, at least those who had old blue 148 mods. Banged my head a bit against the desk on Yavin 4 with the ridiculous resource nodes, picking up half a million credits every time through slicing. So much for trying to stop inflation. Only skill Bioware seems to hate is archeology, because most spawn points are the worthless colour crystals. They can't spell either. The material is called Ruusan and the resource nodes are spelled Russan (crystals). Seriously? As bad as the oriconian tank implant which I reported the wrongly spelled name 2 years ago. Not a priority apparently Companion gear at rating 192?... nice. Except the big blades for your melee aim tank companions are botched. Named differently, yet identical (wrong for both tank and dps) stats and waaay too little stat budget compared to the rest of the companion gear. Very likely to never get fixed. So, gone back to playing low level toons, enjoying low level stuff, even playing the odd warzone. Having loved the game for a long time, it seems like it's going on the backburner now. Didn't help that my usual friend circle got so pissed off at the gear changes that they all 3 left the game for good, taking part of the fun out of the game.

First day at work again. For the first time in many years, I actually spent Christmas with family which was nice. Not that getting drunk with friends doesn't have its charm, but it's a nice change of pace. Sort of in a strange pensive mood these days, probably related to not having anything to do for a few weeks other than relaxing. Of course, you can sit and reflect too much. I started on a trip down memory lane, thinking back on a long and eventful life... probably doing things that 99% of people only think of and a few maybe dream of doing. You realise you are getting older when even the most exciting memories drown in the tidal wave of memories and the story is simply too long, so you can't be bothered to actually sit and enjoy your memories, it's simply "tl;dr;"

...must resist obvious references... it's hard Edit to add: Still debating with myself whether to get the game or not. At the moment the nays have it. Maybe a few months into the new year.

Oh wow... And people thought the CIA was bad "The death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a padlocked sports bag, was probably an accident, police have said." "Last year, a coroner said it was likely Mr Williams, 31, from Anglesey, had been unlawfully killed in August 2010. But the Metropolitan Police said an evidence review had found "it was more probable" no other person was present when he died in his London flat." Sure, nothing to see here, move on!

The last sci-fi books I read (I don't consider Warhammer 40k books sci-fi) were written by a game designer. Oh man did it show... very interesting setting and excellent build up during the first and second book in the trilogy. Then the third book, lets just say Mass Effect 3 was an epic masterpiece in well crafted story endings by comparison

Hmm, It's probably time I gave the game a shot anyway. I've finished Kotor2 on Windows 7, so I know that works (at least, the steam version does). And that was with the restored content mod too. Since I also have a laptop with Windows 8.1 in addition to that now, I might just see if I can get it (steam version) installed and running there too. IIrc, the only issue I had in windows 7 was the weird speed of the controls thing, which disabling/enabling (dont remember which) vsync fixed for some reason.

I actually liked both of the new planetoids (comparing them to the old planets would be too flattering, size wise). It was fun seeing the golfer again on the beach of Rishi. Normally he is found on Oricon where he practises his drive against one of the ship wrecks. One of those little easter eggs i suppose. There was also something that looked like a female Hulk, big, green and muscular girl in a yellow swimsuit. Yes, the 17th and 18th century swashbuckling outfits were probably overdoing it a bit The resource nodes on Yavin 4 are insane. I've done the daily twice now and pick up between 150k and 300k credits through slicing in less than 60 minutes. Then I noticed that one of my new pet peeves is going to be addressed, CZ flash points will be back in groupfinder so it's possible to queue for them to complete CZ weekly. Soloing Oricon (including heroics) was easy at level 55. It's a formality at level 60, so together with CZ its a small source of elite commendations. Not that commendation gear is worth buying anyway btw. If the old com gear was bad, this is somebodys idea of pointing fingers at players while laughing. Edit: I guess I should end on a positive note, while i like the new places, one, they are new which is a quality all in itself. Two, they feel larger than Oricon and CZ and lack the insane mob density of those (and Makeb, which was awful at release). Landscape is beautiful. Another quick travel points/taxi on Rishi wouldn't hurt. Actually, adding a lot more stuff to do on Rishi wouldn't hurt as it's drop dead gorgeous to run around and explore.

More about the subject here

Start of old thread End of old thread Like the death scene in a bad stage play... it just goes on and on Edit: Last words in the previous discussion by ChilloutMan: --- Who's being censored, and by whom? Noone yet - but that guy wanted Rockstar to change their product because of his opinion/political agenda - it is censorship if it goes through and Bruce promoting censoring game content on moraly questionable actions

Just a thought experiment inspired by the "living in a world without the US" bit... that would mean North America being part of the UK the same way as Northern Ireland, QE2's face would be on the dollar bills and everyone playing bad to mediocre football (since nobodys around to call it "soccer" anymore).

Nope, no legacy xp. Just doing the flashpoints multiple times. My assassin tank is now on Yavin and have to chose between an ops or a solo mode. I picked the "I'll decide later" option. My powertech tank is not far behind, almost done with Rishi and level 59 (that one does have the legacy exp boost). Started on pubside too, just wanted my smuggler to finish Ilum first. Skipped Makeb. Both Ilum and Makeb are mindnumbingly boring when you've done them a few times The start on Rishi was fun. When facing the Rodian gunslinger, in true Han Solo style, one of your dialogue options is simply "Shoot First!". Made me laugh. Greedo Gorro never saw it coming

To the best of my knowledge, the US uses 110v 60hz. the rest of the world 220v 50hz. The power outlets in the walls have different shapes and forms in various countries though.

First off, I'm no Revan fan. Always hated him since he forced my scoundrel to change class to Jedi in Kotor1 (yes, I'm petty like that). Thoughts... the inclusion of anything lorewise from the first two games never made sense in the mmo. Especially not when the Imperial and Republic sides have mutually exclusive versions of what happens (defeat/kill him versus free him and bring him on your side). Lacking a Kotor3, Revan and the entire story arc should have died with Kotor2 never to be touched again in any shape and form, as it could only ever end in weird stuff mixed with mediocrity. No pre-written story line can compare to the one you experience playing your own characters.

Not sure exactly how, but I suppose a mix of rest xp, 3 hour xp boosts on cooldown, doing the flashpoints (soloed manaan and rakata leading up to it, the two Rishi ones with guildies in a group) and the side missions(everything except the one with the meat tree). Dinged in at 60 when getting the last reward telling me to go to Yavin. I'll double check when i get home, as it's possible I also had the legacy xp boosts from when I started that toon 2 years ago. Edit: The legacy xp adds 30% xp on top of everything else for most activities if maxed out.

I didn't get free shipping, but I saved the GST (VAT/Sales Tax) a few years ago when i bought my gfx card that. An Australian peculiarity, they don't bother with that particular tax at customs when buying stuff less than $1000. The card was around $998 or so (the two currences were around 1:1 at the time) I would love to upgrade the board/cpu/memory part of my pc now, but... where are the next generation of motherboards??? Seriously, those old intel chipset things with sata2 and usb2 is a joke.

I'll fly to Denmark and spend the week there with my family. That will probably be the first time in a decade that I spend Christmas with family. I don't really care about Christmas, over commercialised, over hyped celebration of market economy, but I look forward to seeing my family. Previous Christmasses usually consisted of getting together with friends, collegues, getting drunk, getting... things you sometimes do when meeting new people and everyone is a bit drunk... playing games (Chinese games of chance, card games, board games, *not* videogames).

I saw the damage nerf to a limited degree, doing some 55 HM FP's (the 2 CZ ones). Dps friends who normally dont have a problem managed to have the droid in the water enraging. Healing has also been notably nerfed (just a guess based on "feel" by around 30% at least). Oh, and mobs? Those mobs guarding the terminals towards the end of Meltdown killed my poor tank in their *opening* salvo Yeah, just jumping in doesn't work anymore, better get your defensive measures up first, then throw accuracy and damage debuffs on them as first order of the day, then burn them down. It is actually fun not just wading through them (that was my old powertech tank at level 55 and in optimised 180 and dread forged) gear I completed Rishi on my assassin tank and made my first level 60 with that one. Trying to decide if I should do Yavin next, level up my powertech tank next or also push a republic character through the process (got a guardian tank and a dps scoundrel as candidates there, as they are the only ones being close to finish makeb, i like to take those things "chronologically").

Actually, since Bioware started using their "metrics" to design games, you are sometimes left with a feeling that they try too hard. Not a single group, but trying to please all gamer groups (action game fans, social issues fans, roleplaying fans, multiplayer fans, single player fans etc.) that they have reached a point of being decent at most things but no longer master of anything? Never underestimate name recognition when measuring sales figures, it's not always the best laundry powder that sells the most.

The pictures were funny though.

Bruce... I think the issue was with your interpretation. I've bold faced the most common (in my little world) use of the word propaganda. I.e. usually to promote an idea (or "agenda"), not to destroy governments. But this is really a discussion for another thread Edit to add: From the same link, the origin of the word (supporting the idea that its about spreading a message): C18: from Italian, use of propāgandā in the New Latin title Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide Sacred Congregation for Propagating the Faith