Gorth

I was curious about Windows 8, but checking Microsofts website, it looks like only the upgrade version is for sale at the moment. By upgrade, they mean literally that you have to create a mess on your PC by first installing an old windows and then pile Windows 8 on top of it. If it had just been a product key upgrade, I might have been tempted to upgrade my old Windows XP key.

Good guys finish last...

I think I'm getting closer to the end of my first playthrough of DA2. I finished Mark of the Assassin. Was kind of fun and a nice break from Kirkwall (which really is getting on my nerves now). Nice touch that you can chose between sneaking and brute force your way through the end part of the DLC. Dear Bioware... next time, swap Tallis and Sebastian. The former was way more interesting as a character (even if I was inches from just killing her at the end). Yeah, Kirkwall, Templars, Mages and Anders' constant whinging is taking a bit of fun out of the game, but the inter party banter is somewhere between good and brilliant. Makes wandering around less of a chore. Only a few side quests left to do in the third section of the game, so might as well return to the main plot. Edit to add: Managed to get started on XCOM yesterday. Still going through the tutorial levels. Lost a rookie during the first escort mission (damn teleporting aliens)

"I wrote a couple hundred games for the C-64 and the Amiga"... if this guy is such a prolific developer, what the heck does he need funding for???

Who or what is 'notch'. Google was only semi helpful suggesting a few people besides the literal meaning of the word.

Moved to the general gaming section. If anybody around here still plays the game, they are more likely to find it here Not sure about the specific problem, but it took me a while to work out which bonuses stack and which don't (some add up, some just give you the best of the pick). As for heavy armour, it makes sense on "fighter" types who hopefully have allocated their attribute points in things like strength and constitution rather than dexterity.

Among other things yes. Hence the PS:T example. If I remember correctly, you could also finish Fallout without a "boss fight" (you still had to face the Master, but you didn't have to fight him). I'm not a game designer, but I'm sure that there must be *some* way to conclude logical segments of the game rather than ye olde mass brawl between good and bad guys.

I'm not following entirely. The concept of Boss Battles that you need to dodge and move to the side and stuff like that or....? Just reflecting on the point that "boss battles" are a gimmick dating back to the early arcade machines where you end a wave of opponents with a "boss" battle. It's as kliche and formulaic as QTE's and minigames. Like something that climbs up on a pedestal and in a booming voice, that shatters glass, pronounces: "I AM A GAME, STOP BEING SO IMMERSED AND SNAP OUT OF IT!". It would be nice to see at least a bit of deviation of game Standard Template Construct #1147 and do something other than encounter with above average opponents as part of the "chapter closure" process.

Where is the option of getting rid of the concept entirely? It may have been fun on the arcade machines of old, where you had to insert another coin, but you would think they could come up with something else since the days of Defender and Galaxians. At least you didn't have to fight TNO in PS:T, but could solve the "encounter" in alternative ways.

Did you not read that Gorth hasn't had any of the games and still gets the spam emails? Look, I don't want to get into a fifty page spam war over this, but your personal experiences are useful in informing your views, but really don't reflect on a larger reality as a whole. I have different accounts for different things. I have a shared email account with my wife that gets household related things but also gets spam. I have a personal email account that is virtually spam free. I get spam emails regarding World of Warcraft and Diablo 3 on both accounts, even though the shared account has never had a Blizzard game associated with it at all. Moreover, TN, I've already said that I don't blame Blizzard for the spam emails and the hackers. On the other hand, since these guys seem pretty dogged and determined to spam me regarding Blizzard games, it's still part of a larger discussion as far as I'm concerned. So, you have all Blizzard games and have never had a spam email regarding them. Good for you. Blaming someone else for spam emails when he hasn't shared any information about them with others? Not good. After all, how did Gorth share information about accounts he's never had? At any rate, I've had Blizzard account for two games for many years and, while I get spam emails regarding them, I have never had my accounts hacked in all that time. I must not be sharing particularly vital information. Just because you don't have a Blizzard account doesn't mean that spammers can't spam your e-mail. I'm assuming that like all other spam this too is sent en masse to whatever e-mails they can find hoping to hit something. It's like buckshot. I've been sent spam from fake Amazon, fake eBay, fake Origin, fake XBoxLive and I have never used nor signed up for these services (I don't even own an XBox). I've had several non-existent accounts threatened with closure over 'misuse'. It means you've likely shared your e-mail on something unsavory or public. Simple as that. I've changed e-mails since, stopped using it anywhere public, and now I'm barely ever getting spam. Ultimately, your own responsibility. Also, thanks for explaining to me about personal experiences not always conforming to everyone else. A whole new world has opened up to me. Oh get off your high horse. If you had bothered reading what he was referring to, you would have known that it was exactly the point instead of getting all huffy about it. Thanks for implying that I share my work email with unsavory elements, I'm sure our corporate clients will love that classification. Guess what, sometimes people get access to your email due to circumstances beyond your control.

I think Borderlands 2 is one of those games where the enjoyment correlates to the quality of the people you can find to game with I had a look at War of the Roses, Chivalry Medieval Warfare and Viking Battle for Asgard, but they all seem to be multiplayer/coop (no single player campaigns) which means they are of little interest to me

...and Annah (and her gorgeous tail ) allows you to change to thief class once learned I usually get some fighter levels first and persuade Porphyron (or whatever he is called, the pacifist follower of Erit-Agge) to help gain proficiency in weapons, like daggers which also benefits me as a mage.

A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners... Apparantly there was a civil war before the civil war

You didn't buy that instawin shield in the store at the Promenade? Reflects beholder rays back to sender. Equip somebody like Viconia with beefed up magic resistance (if you have it) and that shield and watch those beholders go down without you breaking a sweat. The magic resistance is just because I don't remember if those elder ones casts spells besides rays. It's been a while.

Things that removes protection (magical and physical) and lowers resistance and saving throws are your friends Sometimes it's worth reading the log window to see what protections a mage (or a dragon) raises.

I'll have to check my collection old publications. I have the original Rogue Trader (where you also rolled for what units could get and what equipment your randomly generated units got). I bought some second hand rule books later, which were anthologies (or whatever that word is in English) of White Dwarf articles. Never got around to read them and don't remember if it was Eldar or Orks (me always having played Imperial Guard in 40k) Yeah, in Epic 40K, I can sing loud and bawdy songs about things blowing up in my face. Mad Boyz levelling entire suburbs with the ground, Weirdboyz blowing kiloton sized craters in my army... good times

It was part of the fun in Jagged Alliance 2. Companions that couldn't stand each other, but sometimes would have around if you had a third party in your team they liked more than they hated the other one etc. Of course, with two score companions with personalities, you could always find a replacement.

Agreed. My elite chaos marine strike team misses on every shot. The Ork Waaaagh! bearing down upon me hits with every single shot, one-shotting my Great Unclean One with a lascannon to add insult to injury... My worst single handful of dice roll was with my Epic Ork army, firing a Pulsa Rokkit battery. Five 1's and a 2. Landed smack in the middle of my own deployment zone in the first turn Edit to add for the uninitiated: You decide on the number of dice you want to roll for the rocket salvos flight distance.

No worries. The computer and console is for most things game related, games, developers, publishers, distributors etc. This section is usually for bickering about politics, religion, why cats are cooler pets than dogs, generally anything not related to games

You are too late... Please say there are evil deer with human hands who will break our legs and lick us for the vital sugar in our bodies. I'm seeing herds of feral unicorns... stalking their prey through the dark and dense forests... corralling their prey into a dead end and then impaling them with their horns in a glorious bloodbath of frenzied butchery, so they can feast on the bodies of their prey afterwards, crunching bones, sucking out marrow, tearing at muscle and sinew with their fangs... Maybe I just got too much imagination Unicorns already suggested

Actually, I think this thread belongs in the general gaming section Anyway, not sure what the exact trigger is, but short of playing around with Shadowkeeper (or similar that lets you play around with global variables), I'm not sure there is a way to prevent Edwin(a) from being fed up with you doing nothing about his "condition". It's been too long since I had a look at what under the hood though, so I hope somebody else can help you out with exactly what switch to flick so to speak.

How about divine intervention? You get struck by a lightning bolt every time you veer too far away from your current active quest

Real men don't save their games, they just put their PC's in hibernate mode between gaming sessions I've never played a game in 'ironman' mode *), but I do have a habit of not saving mid-combat in games like the old x-coms and ja2. If things turn sour or a gamble doesn't pay off, it sucks to be me and I replay the encounter from the beginning. I would like such things to be *my* choice though, because I agree that a developers fun may be a players nightmare. Now where is the switch that disables Mini Games and QTE's? Edit: *) Except old roguelikes that deleted your one and only save after loading it, but it wasn't known as 'ironman', it was just the way it was.

For me it depends on the quality of your journal. I seriously hated flipping back and forth through the pages in BG1, trying to find a paragraph somewhere which would remind of a particular task. BG2 did a better job of it because you could "filter" out things that were information for flavour and get a summary of tasks you had accepted (voluntarily or not) and access the information in a non tedious manner. Good riddance to the GPS markers though.

Fair point. Maybe people should have warning stickers on their monitor not to click email links I.e. if Blizzard really wanted you to change your info, I would assumed they simply told you to go to your account page rather than provide a clickable link. If they actually do send links (and play into the hands of scammers by getting people used to it), they (Blizzard) deserve public spanking. Edit to add quote because some people are fast posters and snatched my place in the queue...