Gorth

An old Nokia phone. Model unknown. Less than a decade old (probably).

Hmm... I don't even remember what was included in my "pre-order" (I was a late backer, going for the $75 option that was available). My receipt says Collectors Edition Intl. Might include a steam version?

Let me know if you struggle with traction on that. And yeah, in my experience simply because people act like 14 year olds, doesn't mean that they are. Thanks, but if they can't help, no big deal, it was just peanuts (less than a cup of mochachino). The damage was done when a bit of trust in the store software went out the window. I'll just let the people who get paid for dealing with it deal with it (I know from our own support department how much it sucks when you get a real jerk customer, I'll put effort into not being one) Yeah, maybe it's something in the internets groundwater? People often act like they are drunk on the internet, turning normally "mature" individuals into cranky 14 year olds when interacting online. Point in case: Usenet, muds, mmos, forums, etc. Completely unrelated, since I've now got a couple of (ship) droid companions too besides the starting companion, are compaion skills "fixed", as in only the same 3 regardless of who you pick as companion when going somewhere? If so, I might rethink my current selection to fit my tastes and to some degree ignore what benefits the initial companion may have contributed. On a slightly related note to companion skills, are they going to end up with something earth shattering or is it "nice to have" (and then sell it for credits) stuff when investing heavily in a skill? Yes, n00b questions, I know

Well, when you run into players called 'NeedMorePussy', you know you are amongst a crowd you don't really want to associate with I think I'm going to file a ticket with support, regarding the "double charge" (almost 800 cartel coins) for a single inventory expansion.

It's a trade-off. Yes, the MMO parts suck (not unique to SWTOR, I just don't like them). The lack of consequences in the world (rather obvious, since it would affect other players experience) and the real time combat (cool downs etc.) is not my thing. What it does have though, is a heck of a lot of money thrown at it and it shows, at least on the origin worlds. Large open levels, decent to good level of details in the landscape. Probably the only place where you'll find environments with that number of man-hours invested. I almost dropped my jaw first time I tried the speeder and noticed that everything was modeled, not just cardboard ground planes. As for the Cartel store, I think I got robbed. I wanted unlock a bit of inventory space and bought a few cartel coins. However, the first time (using the "apply to all characters for this account" option), it only deducted the coins from my account, it didn't actually give me more slots. Only when doing it the second time did it. Not only that, but one of my two characters had already spent 5000 ingame credits to expand it a bit, so sure, that one got an extra row and the next one would still be 20k credits. However my other character hadn't expanded it before purchasing it and now also has to pay 20k for the next set of slots. Seriously, WTF? Anyway, the stories are interesting enough so far to keep me interested (grind and everything included). That's what really matters

IIRC, you can set to ignore all invites from somewhere in options. I'll have to look that up, thanks

Gorth's second theorem says: c = (political correctness) + (- hypocrisy) Where c is a constant. You have a total mass of BS which needs an outlet. If you increase the political correctness, you end up with an equal quantity of hypocrisy They just seem to go hand in hand, one following the other. BS doesn't translate well, too much ****

Got back home to Queensland this weekend (after having been away for a while). Put in a lot of hours Sunday evening/night Both my smuggler (who is now a gunslinger) and inquisitor (who is now a sorcerer) got their ships. Tried my hand at one of the space combats. Rather simple (no substitute for a space sim), but a fun enough diversion. Oh, decided since I was going to complete those stories and not getting pestered by constant "buy me!" reminders, I got a two months non-recurring subscription. I just wish people would stop tapping my shoulder and invite me to their groups and guilds. I really don't want to play with other people

Dun dun dun dunnn duh dunnn... Best Star Wars games ever. Not all that effeminate lightsaber swishing stuff. So, I better hang on to my DVD trilogy with the original cinematic releases, including irrefutable proof that Han shot first. (downside was, you could only buy them bundled with the crappy ret-conned versions, but nobody forces me to watch those)

I fail to see the humour in this one. I've watched it 7 times now. Maybe if I watch it an 8th time I might get it

I actually thought the setting rather uninteresting (vampire overuse syndrome?) and the game was good despite it, not because of it. Sounds, music, visuals, voice acting, art direction, dialogue, just about everything else contributed to the dark and ominous "style". I don't think the game actually needed "vampire" clans to be interesting, anything slightly unusual/supernatural would have done. Just guessing, but I think, like Planescape: Torment, most people who played and enjoyed the game were clueless about the setting and the background before (and after) playing.

Hmm, went back and dusted off some of the old stuff. I think I meed to scour various online stores, heck maybe even Amazon may have some of this stuff. Need to complete my collection of 'Le Cycle de Cyann' (Bourgeon) and 'El Mercenario' (Vicente Segrelles). No, I can't really provide screenshots, as most of them violates the TOS I would love to find some of Arleston's stuff, 'The Shipwrecks of Ythaq', 'Les Maitres Cartographes' and all the "Troy" stuff he wrote, regardless of who drew the stories.

Free porn, cheap viagra and second hand AK-47's?

Heck if I know... I used to get the Danish translations where the word 'comic' never figured. The Danish term literally translated into "drawn series", i.e. probably very close to the bande dessinée in meaning, if not translation.

Not sure what Oby is rambling about... Another one here who grew up with "European" comic culture. Mostly Franco-Belgian stuff (translated) at the time. Haven't read that stuff for ages, since it's very hard to find in most places outside Europe. Mostly American imports, which holds little to no interest. Herge, Peyo, Franquin, Moebius/Giraud, Jodorowsky... too many to mention. Only notable late additions would be Van Hamme. My old albums are getting rather worn and threadbare by now

Merged Divinity Original Sin Kickstarter threads...

Pessimism is doomed Congratulations

Which brings me back to my favourite position on the subject, get rid of "marriage" as a legal status. It's a religious thing. Let churches handle it in ways that suits them. Get rid of state funding and tax breaks for churches too. If people wants them, they can pay their tithe.

Yeah democracy sucks when people vote all the wrong ways... I can see the conundrum though. At what level (state or federal) should the right of minorities be protected? Is it ok for a state to discriminate against a group of people if due process has been followed? What if it wasn't gay discrimination but say, some ethnic group or a particular disability? Hypothetical example, a law that bans all redheads from working for a state institution because of hair colour? Should the federal institutions overrule such a state law (because it is not explicitly covered in the constitution... I think)?

We'll probably have to disagree on that one... From where I'm sitting and having observed 30 years of gaming first hand, becoming more inclusive and trying to appeal to more people has been a decidedly negative factor. Increased reliance on safe formulas, risk aversion bordering on the paranoid, death of originality, attempts to cater for lowest common denominator, blandness, style over substance, out of control hype, joy killing tropes that have become so much a staple that people give you blank stares if you suggest making a game without them. So no, not everybody see the trying to cater to as many as possible as a positive thing

I wouldn't go so far as to call $1600 for "value for money" when the first monitor lasted less than a year (and I spent more than 3 months before involving a lawyer, registered mail and questions for the magistrates court to get Samsung to fork up with either a refund or a replacement) and the second lasted less than 2 years

I bought PS:T last of all the IE games because the cover art didn't really appeal to me. Unlike IWD and BG2 (which I bought based on playing BG1), I picked PST off the shelf and ultimately put it back. The cover didn't appeal to me. I went back and read reviews then went and bought the game because postive reviews and by that point I'd enjoyed IWD and BG2. But that cover art really didn't do anything positive for me. BG1 was the first one I tried. A colleague of mine back then (back in Denmark) had bought that humongous 5 cd game set and tried to sell me on the idea. Let me try it out for a few weeks after he had completed it. I don't think I made it out of Candlekeep at the time before boredom set in. Gave it back to him. When PS:T was released, I ran across it on a store shelf, staring at a face so ugly only a blind mother could love it and those orange/blue clashing colours... just bizarre enough to pique my interest. Took down the box, read the little text blurbs, bought it, played it, loved it. Bought IWD unseen when it came out, as well as the remaining IE games when they got released. Only went back and got BG1 for myself years later. Still my least favourite of the bunch

Yeah, I could try the capacitors. A ready made "capacitor kit" (one of each capacitor) for this particular monitor on ebay is $16 plus shipping. That's how endemic the failure rate of this supposedly "flagship" Samsung monitor is

****!... ****!... ****!... Bloody engineers at Samsung got the "bright" idea of pouring some kind of liquid plastic (not really, but the same consistency) over the connectors on the very PCB I wanted to heat up. No way I could detach the cable without break the connector beyond repair. Ah well, got the monitor assembled back to its previous state. Can see something on it, but the darn flicker is driving me insane >_ I'll never ever voluntarily or knowingly buy a piece of equipment with a Samsung logo on it. If I ever waver, I'll have to go back and read this post as a reminder. Time to save up for a replacement monitor.

Wait ... what? What for? As mention in the monitor thread in Skeeters Junkyard, it turned out that the culprit (the new, constant screen flicker) wasn't actually my gfx card, but my traitorous monitor failing me. Some googling around showed it was a common problem with that particular model (bad design and shoddy manufacturing quality), so it's mostly one of two things. Bad (i.e. cheap) capacitors or the soldering on the scaling logic chip becoming brittle and loosening up. My symptoms sounds like the latter. General cure is to heat up the PCB enough to melt the metal and get it to "re-attach" itself to all legs on the chip. Some use heat guns, most use an oven. Usually easier to do if you remove the PCB from the monitor