Gorth

Once upon a time when Electronic Arts made/published awesome games, there was this little gem called "Seven Cities of Gold". I always wondered why the Americas has been so underused as a setting. Looks more like a CRPG than an exploration game though. Still 25 days to go and follow it a bit closer.

A bit of "online p&p" with some friends. Leaving the laptop at home (in Australia) and not having a smart phone is a liberating experience when travelling. Just the odd internet access every now and then and what you can do with that limited time and Firefox.

NASA is almost as bad as Google street view, sticking their nose everywhere

$5 Steam sale. Latest data mining shows people didn't replay it as much as Dragon Age 1. Conclusion, combat was probably too hard and needs streamlining, so it doesn't detract from the story telling. If the next game has save imports, I'm gonna have to replay them both. >_ I still prefer DA2, the only thing DAO has going for it is that it looks old-school if I squint really hard. DA2 is at least trying, even if it fails (miserably, ymmv). Hey, I was joking. I've never played DA2, so I wouldn't know it's replayability value. Just poking fun at the trend I'm having a hard time too motivating myself for continuing The Witcher 2 with all it's hacky slashy combat. Feels no better than the combat in the DA2 demo.

Discussion turning into something irrelevant (and getting way too long too)... Let's get back to Dragon Age 2 bashing or something similar innovative. New thread

Start of old thread End of old thread $5 Steam sale. Latest data mining shows people didn't replay it as much as Dragon Age 1. Conclusion, combat was probably too hard and needs streamlining, so it doesn't detract from the story telling.

Moved to gaming section, just in case somebody who plays/played with the toolset in the past knows anything.

But did you get a good suit? Nope. Not for lack of trying either... man those hawkers are persistent. I wonder if there isn't a market for a repellent spray I must really have stood out like a sore spot, since they seemed to ignore all those that looked "local". Going in a beeline for me, offereing everything from Rolex copies to tailor made suits at absolute bargain prices (I don't think anybody ever mentioned a price). Anyway, shopping wasn't my purpose, much to the frustration of the local hawkers. It may have been a British territory once, but apart from road signs and public buildings/transportation, Chinese is the dominant language, both verbally and written. In many places outside the cbd, it was a challenge finding English translations or even people who understood English. In four days, I think I counted maybe a grand total of a score "european" looking tourists, the rest I assumed was from mainland China. The differences between Singapore and Hong Kong were staggering, like elemental order versus elemental chaos.

Had a lot of fun in Hong Kong. Didn't get a lot of sleep, but then who cares. Got to visit the Po Lin monastery at Ngong Ping, did the walk up to the big Buddha statue (I think it was 288 steps or so). In 37 degrees and 80% humidity, you feel a bit hot when getting to the top Got to see sleepy fishing villages, Hong Kong Island and Kow Loons night life. Felt more dead than alive when leaving again. Did brief stop in Helsinki airport before arriving in Copenhagen. Grey, cloudy and a constant drizzle. Only improvement during the morning was that the drizzle ceased and you could see the surround area. I wonder if the Finns live amongst those pine trees?... Ended up in Denmark. Got some sleep. Enjoying holidays. So much to do and so few days off.

The thing about flying long haul is, you have little better to do than watch a bunch of stuff on the entertainment system that you would normally not watch. Wrath of the Titans - Jeebus, that was bad. Somebody must have taken lessons from Uwe Boll. Avatar - Meh, I guess I wouldn't have walked out of a cinema, but I regret not picking another movie from the selection. John Carter - Surprisingly fun movie. Yes, Dejah Thoris wears way too much clothes, but a decent movie none the less. Loved the sequence where he ends up in the nursery, powdered and bottle fed. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Not normally something I would have looked twice at, but surprisingly entertaining. Thumbs up.

Started on Old World Blues... that sure was a lot of dialogue in the beginning Enjoying it so far, but then I haven't gotten very far. Not sure where to go first, so I went for X8 (the "kennels"). So far, I've met lobotomites and cyberdogs. Nothing that would make my guy break a sweat.

Probably a mix of reducing the word count, maybe split of the text in smaller chunks (less "wall of texts") and maybe more show instead of tell? The latter may be more demanding on assets and budgets though, when needing to illustrate points.

By 'grow up' you mean regulated. ...could also meaning the internet community as a whole growing up enough as to not needing regulation. You tell me which is the most likely outcome.

Haven't played it, but since Activision killed the studio right after release, it's probably actually good. Makes sense... in a bizarre way

Erhh, the internet was created by the military to ensure world domination in case of a nuclear war (or at least ensure your military was resilient enough to retaliate before the end), not to facilitate free speech. Edit to add: ...and I believe you can't hand out "freedom" like it was some kind of candy and expect people to appreciate, much less respect the responsibility that comes with something not earned.

I doubt you could even if you wanted to, mate, you simply don't know how to My objection is really to the notion that what happens on the net should somehow be exempt from the same laws and code of conduct that would apply if you were having a meeting/conversation in cafe, on a street corner or the local town square, trying to rally people for some cause. Some people seem to revel in the idea of "unrestricted" freedom (read; lack of accountability).

You sort of have that already. Despite assurances of the opposite, there are things you can't say in public. There are things you can't print on paper and there are things you can't say on TV. Why should the internet be any different?

Those two things seems to bring out the worst in people. Funny how many people insist that "Freedom" is the freedom to take whatever they want, do whatever they want and insult whoever they want without being held accountable. "Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility." Sigmund Freud Some day, the internet will grow up. Might take a few decades yet.

Saw two games that might interest me some day. Anybody tried Prototype 2? Is it any good? Looking for a shooter that isn't too hard and a story that would make me bother actually finishing it (the two "Watchmen: The end is Nigh" games got it right for my taste). Might wait until it gets down a bit in price. The other one was Legends of Pegasus. Starving for a decent 4x game. Looks interesting, but unfortunately the blurb just states "mixes real-time and turn-based strategy". If it's just another RTS, I think I'll pass.

"* It's no longer possible to use mines to cheat in battle circle; all Mandalorians you have to fight got a feat so mines don't affect them." Damn I guess I do have to try to get this thing running on my current PC now. Too much hassle setting up my old P4 machine.

Every time this subject comes up (discussions about sexual orientation in the US), I keep thinking of this particular Scandinavia and The World comic. Maybe I'm just an ignorant because I couldn't care less about peoples sexuality, as long as they are not "in your face" about it. Goes for all orientations.

Canadian, definitely Canadian!

I still lament the death of the Icewind Gate Project. Would have loved seeing BG2 (or BG for that matter) run on the IWD2 engine

Going to Hong Kong next week. If anybody knows of something that you can not go to heaven without having done in Hong Kong, I'm all ears.

No? He outright said that they broke a lot of the D&D rules stuff to make the mechanics and narrative they had in mind work. Disclaimer: Entirely possible that my memory is fuzzy and I remember it wrong. I do seem to remember an old interview where MCA discussed them breaking a lot of conventions (i.e. traditions, not rules) by deliberately designing a game where the protagonist would never have a sword, no armour, dieing wasn't the end of the game etc.