Gromnir

cnn tells us that a thousand people die in floods in bangladesh and we hardly pause as we switch channel to espn to check scores o' football games. gotta have a pet with cancer euthanized and we weep more than a few tears o' sadness and loss. *shrug* oddly enough, in spite o' the fact that we got multiple dogs and cats, we ain't never purchased a pet. our deceased sister bought us a cat... she bought us the cat before she died. we ain't that crazy. when she passed away, we adopted her multiple pets. a friend of ours, a veterinarian as it just so happens, had a stroke and were no longer able to take care of her border collie. so, we added a border collie to our household. our cc&rs says that we can own two pets. we wish we only had two pets. hell, for reason amentep mentions, we would personal choose to have no pets at all. nevertheless, we somehow goes from a guy who had a cat forced on him by a well-intentioned sibling, to being the kook on the street with a small zoo. is embarrassing. am s'posing the neighbors would complain, but they all seem to know how we acquired our menagerie and so we get a kinda functional exemption from rules. were never our intention to have pets. when each one o' them dies, am gonna weep. lotta weeping. HA! Good Fun!

the most annoying aspect o' the new togruta is that there is 'bout 1000 ahsoka variations running 'round. a'hsoka. ahsóka. ashooka. how many ways can you spell ahsoka? we will concede that one o' our harbinger characters did require an alt code for the name spelling, but that ain't 'cause we took a name that were unavailable 'cause o' usage. oddly enough, many product names appear to be verboten. our bright yellow trooper's nom de guerre was intended to be Tonka, but that were deemed inappropriate by ea. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

companies frequent do give out hard numbers. quarterly reports is filled with hard numbers. obsidian is not public traded, so... HA! Good Fun!

you mean other than neutral? dunno. neutral "freaked out" 'cause indie game coverage were the "one thing" he did trust from game journalists. *shrug* am always reminded o' the movie quiz show. the movie, which were well directed and exceptional acted, attempts to tell us that our innocence, America's innocence, were lost when we, as a nation, discovered that a popular tv game show were rigged to achieve better ratings. ... HA! Good Fun!

am still not certain why personal relationships o' game journalists and developers/producers would result in surprise or consternation, but regardless, am glad you are now only speaking for yourself while before you were explaining the reasons why people were or were not surprised and angered. HA! Good Fun!

sorry, but you make the scenario more silly and not less. is not that the furor were 'bout games, but the hullabaloo were all 'bout indie games? okie dokie. HA! Good Fun!

a number o' the swtor storylines have a similar flaw: they collapse after the chapter 1 conclusions. for the better part o' the game, you are chasing down X or puzzling through Y... and then chapter 1 concludes. now there is a new threat and we are informed that we must deal with a new problem that threatens the galaxy and us personal? quote self is gauche, but... in any event. we also liked forex, or however it were spelled. am thinking the writers overdid the imp lady medic's by-the-book schtick-- her bun were wound too tight. HA! Good Fun!

Heh, SCORPIO is probably one of my favourite companions of the entire bunch in the game. What's not to like about a psychotic killer robot dedicating her existence to breaking her controlling software and kill you??? So over the top its hard not to smile. It's like a mechanical Thana Vesh Problem with companions in general is the limited number of "barks" they have when summoned. engaging enemies etc. Eventually even your favourites becomes a bit tiresome to listen to when the class story is over. Apart from the never ending hassle with timezones, I should now have well geared level 60 healers and tanks on both Harbinger and Shadowlands and working on getting the few remamining ones moved from Begeren to Jedi Covenement. So if anyone is interested in running a few group activities, just give me a shout. Would probably only work weekends though. Also got two handfuls of leveling toons on all 3 servers as I don't expect the 12x xp to last forever, so they get a bit of priority at the moment. All of the IA's companions are bat**** insane. Even the most normal of the bunch casually kills her father because he saved her life (and broke Imperial law in the process of doing so). The rest... uh, a psychotic terrorist, a rakghoul, a killer robot and a Killik joiner, riiiiiiigh guys, I'm totally trusting any of you with my life. you hit on the root o' the problem. kaliyo is a rabid dog who makes very clear that she has betrayed just about everybody she has ever worked with in the past. old yeller had to be put down 'cause he were diseased and dangerous. kaliyo don't have old yeller's redeeming qualities. shodan were a fun antagonist in system shock, but we sure don't want here in our party, and we sure as well wouldn't give her access to any kinda imperial-wide computer network. am having fewer trust issues with vector, but the joiner as a more friendly borg don't work for us. also, as we noted already, raina is broken. is likely that raina were our least favorite ia companion, which is saying something. raina is a zealot. the fact that she is a zealous believer in the organization that has been victimizing her makes matters worse. our willingness to play fast and loose with imperial orders made raina a liability in addition to being a horrible character with zero growth. trade her for cipher agent 3? didn't like the ia companions... and other than the minister of intelligence, we weren't a particular great fan o' ia story. even so, ia were better than trooper. HA! Good Fun!

Babysteps, baby. We all have to start somewhere. agreed. even so, is difficult for us to take this all serious. we got a where-have-you-been-for-the-past-three-decades pov that makes us see the present fury and angst as comical, but we do recognize that there isn't a good excuse for the sorry state o' game journalism. if gamersgate fixes game journalism, then it ain't all bad. even so, the feigned and genuine surprise at realization that game journalists ain't real journalists is... funny. HA! Good Fun!

gaming journalism is an oxymoron... and we ain't lost a moment o' sleep over that fact. we mention this once every six months or so, just for the hell of it. find out that game journalists, glorified bloggers, is lacking professional ethics should surprise and offend anybody? am suspecting that the gamersgate folks is also the same people who don't yet realize that pro wrestling is scripted. oh, we did think it were amusing that mr. blonde were surprised by the excess venom o' folks who would send dead animals and syringes to a journalist covering games. am guessing he has never actual spoken with a big-time sports reporter, or national movie critic. however, we thinks billy idol's love child were correct that games is indeed less serious than other categories o' journalistic coverage. we wouldn't mind if gaming journalism grew up and became legit, but it is games we are talking 'bout and not war coverage or Presidential election coverage. is games for chrissake. while mr. blonde were clear missing the point, he actual made a valid one.... by accident. HA! Good Fun!

the universe laughs. a strong el nino is being predicted for the winter o' 2015-16. so, following years o' drought and forest fires we sudden get torrential rains. way to go, ray. HA! Good Fun!

ack. we only saw this moments ago. wrong joe buck. we thought given the context o' movies we we would not need clarification. joe buck from midnight cowboy fame. HA! Good Fun!

flashpoint spends entire movie rushing to invalidate everything that happened during the course of the movie. bad. time travel is bad. time travel sucks. is a proven fact that time travel to the past is powered by the deaths of millions of puppies. why do you hate puppies? unless done tongue firmly in cheek, backwards time travel is a bit of busted plot nonsense... that kills puppies. save the puppies. HA! Good Fun!

I just don't thrive in big cities. I thought I could adapt and adjust to it and gave it a full year. But in the end, I just hate it. Moving to an area that is way more "open" and less claustrophobic for a country bumpkin like me when Gromnir finally retires, which we have threatened to do for a couple years, we will likely move to some remote part o' idaho. as much as am wanting access to city restaurants and entertainment options, am still most comfortable living miles from anything. likely gotta get rid o' the bmw and buy a ford pickup old enough that we could actual maintain and fix... something with a carburetor. a two-hour drive distant from a smallish city would be nice... far enough that at night we cannot see city lights in the distance. spend a week or two in chicago or new york each year to get our city fix. 'course, as long as we got a real job, is tough for us to be remote enough for our liking. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that some o' the reasoning for not adding new operations is that the current operations is busted. bioware admitted that they has disadvantaged melee (as 'posed to ranged) in no small way. this were, inexplicably, an accident-- nobody at bio noticed the trend o' favoring ranged dps. so, bio has recognized the problem and will be doing some considerable overhauling. between all the new story content AND overhauling the operations, inordinate developer effort is being required. in any event, our 1-month experiment ended with us having a second server with all classes in the 50-60 range. some minor effort will be required to get those characters from 52/53 to 60 by october, but we will now will have harbinger as a genuine backup. have heard that legacy datacrons is being considered for the expansion, which would be welcome. am not looking forward to doing a datacron run on 6 characters. am also wondering how much effort we should expend on maxing crafting (am already maxed on resource gathering) as companions are also being altered in major, but as yet unannounced, ways. in any event, it had been a long time since we had done any o' the pre-50 stuff and re-exploring virtual all the story material were less painful than we believed it would be. one thing that did surprise us were how much we disliked most o' the imperial agent companions. kaliyo were a rabid dog needing the old yeller treatment. vector never ceased to be creepy... and we wished to shiv him every time he said "mambrosia." raina were a broken toy that couldn't be fixed. am knowing that some folks liked the imperial agent story a great deal, but Gromnir were kinda ambivalent... and we hated the companions. am mild curious about the new expansion. HA! Good Fun!

President with a mandate from the People (significantly better than 51%) goes a long way towards getting Congress to go along with the prez. is old joke that the job o' Congressman is to get re-elected. folks in Congress is sensitive to their constituency. but yeah, a terrible President is never all that terrible as the President can't do much. even w/i the executive, the President needs work with career bureaucrats, and those folks is knowing that the bad prez is a 4-year hiccup. the bad prez can make all kinda appointments, but frequent enough the multitude o' essential mid-level career bureaucrats simple go ahead with business as usual-- wait out the storm until a new administration takes power. a fringe candidate, in particular, needs a mandate from the People. compromise and moderation is the essential qualities o' the typical President 'cause he needs work with his own party and the opposing party. fringe candidate is an outsider with his/her own party, so possibility o' getting anything done is diminished even further. "The argument is about how you best choose a person which maximizes some sort of index of political sympathy taken over all voters (which I would say is the point with democracy)." and your argument shows the misunderstanding 'bout the role o' the President that hurl is much more clear 'bout. HA! Good Fun!

... see, you say stuff such as this and we lose all hope. the sith ain't Real. their motivations is whatever the current author imagines. the emperor is a cartoony comic book villain only 'cause the writers make him that way. you prefer him that way as 'posed to remote? fine. nevertheless, nihulus ain't any less real than vader and the force exists only in your imagination. you have a notion o' what sith Is, so you is resistant to the notion that a better way to do sith or jedi exists. we can pull funny quotes from you over the course o' the past few pages to illustrate this point (we has done so a few times already), but it would be a waste and am thinking you don't get the actual problem. until you can give up on the notion o' what sith or force is, you won't be able to consider better sith or force. HA! Good Fun!

Bernie Sanders running as an independent - yes please! It's the best thing which could happen to the US, with regards to raising the issue of reform. Bring forth the popcorn. the system is peculiar. if you thinks a scheme that favors a moderate President is a good thing, then am s'posing the current approach is a win. *shrug* nevertheless, ross perot didn't bring about change, so am doubting that trump will. HA! Good Fun! Currently, candidates are instead forced to lie through their teeth to appeal to 51% or more of voters, of get people to vote at all, people who definitely do not have you as their ideal candidate. good for a morning laugh. am hopeful that you do not honest believe that your proposed changes would lead to greater honesty. and what you mistaken think o' as gamist is actual kinda the fundamental cornerstone o' democratic politics: compromise. is a great deal o' misunderstanding 'bout the role o' the US President. have talked our self hoarse on more than one occasion trying to explain checks n' balances and how the US system discourages extreme changes, even when such changes appear necessary. the President don't make laws, and even in regards to foreign policy, he/she is bounded by more than a few practical limitations. obama were running on a platform o' change, and he largely failed to bring 'bout the lion's share o' those promised changes. got a President elected with a Congress controlled by same party and nevertheless, change were largely illusory. failure to bring 'bout change were not 'cause obama were a liar, but 'cause he didn't have the juice to bring about such change. (we highly recommend educating your self 'bout the actual powers o' the US President and the practical limitations o' Presidential power.) the President don't have near as much power as folks seem to believe. he Needs a mandate from the People to get Congress to make changes... he Needs significantly better than 51% if he/she wants to accomplish anything other than maintenance o' the status quo. is nothing wrong with the occasional trump or perot. if the People feel that their elected officials is not representing their ideals, they will turn to alternatives. is votes for such a candidate wasted? depends on what you mean. a large enough number o' folks voting for a fringe candidate forces the parties to change, and that is how democracy is s'posed to work. yeah, is unfortunate for republicans that their fringe candidates is visible businessmen or entertainers whereas democrat fringe candidates is comical conspiracy theorists, but so what? Reagan, btw, were considered a fringe candidate for the Presidency. am suspecting that trump silliness is... not. trump is no doubt aware that he cannot possibly win Presidency as a traditional candidate who offers compromise and moderation. the only way he gets enough votes is if he can gain momentum as did Reagan and build 'pon the current dissatisfaction Americans feel for their political representatives. trump's bluster is likely as calculated and disingenuous as any other candidate. HA! Good Fun!

there is some bass ackwards reasoning at play. have a super-powerful emperor with incomprehensible or ridiculous motivations is Not necessary even IF you feel a larger-than-life, force o' nature (or whatever) villain is required to make a satisfactory obstacle for an epic sci-fi protagonist. IF you need a villain to embody the kinda insurmountable obstacle that only a super-powered hero can hope to face (*snort*) then you still ain't identified why an emperor kinda antagonist is necessary. does the epic obstacle need scope to match the hero? sure, but that not require the silliness we typical see from star wars. am a vocal critic o' tolkien. get us going on tolkien's tedious prose and we could be here all day. even so, tolkien understood that if you got an Adversary with scope to beggar the imagination, you gotta keep remote and faceless. sauron's motivations don't matter in lotr. one o' the ways in which star wars often fails is that the writers gives human or humanoid aliens incomprehensible motivations and use The Force as an explanation for the ridiculous behavior. wanna rule the galaxy? why? 'cause that is what Evul does. it "makes sense" only if we accept that the dark side has placed the bad guys beyond the realm o' human emotion and motivation, which is a cheap dodge. HA! Good Fun!

the system is peculiar. if you thinks a scheme that favors a moderate President is a good thing, then am s'posing the current approach is a win. *shrug* nevertheless, ross perot didn't bring about change, so am doubting that trump will. HA! Good Fun!

am very much suspecting that the answer is, "no." however, please note that there is an autosave previous to taking the final plunge. HA! Good Fun!

a number o' the swtor storylines have a similar flaw: they collapse after the chapter 1 conclusions. for the better part o' the game, you are chasing down X or puzzling through Y... and then chapter 1 concludes. now there is a new threat and we are informed that we must deal with a new problem that threatens the galaxy and us personal? trooper and smuggler is particular fails in this regard, but they ain't alone. as for the kotor2, am pretty sure we have done this all to death, no? feels like groundhog day. in any event, obsidian attempted to face some o' the larger questions presented by The Force in kotor2. the notion that such an exploration should result in auto-fail would, to us, identify a fundamental flaw o' the setting. that being said, we do not believe that star wars is doomed if one attempts to create villians and heroes that could survive beyond' #'s spongebob or bad comic books. sure, the typical way in which the Force is utilized by writers and directors is a bit immature (which ain't the same as bad) but adult reflection is possible. do more with star wars clear takes effort given you got a rather simplistic light v. dark Force... force. even so, obsidian made at least a half-hearted effort to do something different with star wars. where we believe obsidian failed (if they failed) were with execution rather than concept. nihilus, for example, were conceptual okie dokie. take dark side to an extreme and have it become the faceless and all-consuming darkness? the problem with the faceless evils o' enormity is that you cannot give'em a mask and make 'em talk like adults in a peanut's cartoon and still have a faceless evil. you wanna make a sauron kinda villain? fine. is a common approach in lit to have faceless evil. a mask and a speech impediment is not faceless. is nothing inherently ennobling 'bout doing different. w/o some measure o' success, different is wasted. obsidian took a different approach and they succeeded... and they failed. revan and kreia were aware as almost the entire catalog o' jedi and sith before and after were not. revan were s'posed playing chess while all the other sith and jedi were locked in their interminable, and ultimate unwinnable, tic-tac-toe battles. unfortunate for Gromnir, the post kotor2 revan were returned to the comic book lineup o' characters with all the perspicacity o' a demented child who, having already been jolted senseless after jamming a fork in an electrical outlet, will gleefully repeat the event just to see the sparks fly. how many comic book villains and heroes is caught fighting functional the same battles for decades? is understandable why such obtuse behaviors happens in serialized comic books and movies, but we nevertheless morn the lost possibilities suggested in kotor2. obsidian failed as much as they succeeded, but am saddened that their success were ignored by bioware. HA! Good Fun!

what an amusing misrepresentation. josh noted that there were implementation issues with the stronghold and when folks offered resource intensive "fixes," then josh observed that stronghold are, regardless o' quality, a feature that many folks active dislike. game development is a zero-sum endeavour; if you wanna add X or fix Y, then you must necessarily take resources from Z. so, for a polarizing feature such as strongholds that faced implementation issues during development, what other poe features or content would you sacrifice to improve the stronghold? as a paid-for stretch goal, not offering a stronghold were likely considered impractical. no doubt the perfect reasonable fanbase and game reviewers woulda' listened to obsidian's cost v. benefit analysis regarding the sacrifice o' the stronghold and given such arguments due consideration. *snort* heck, spend 20 minutes reading posts on this board should makes clear that folks is not gonna be reasonable. listen to continued complaints 'bout romances or per kill xp or how addition o' an optional feature that bob will never use (respec) nevertheless ruins his game. *shrug* would be interesting to hear what obsidian had wanted the stronghold to be, but am doubting that would improve the disposition o' the fans. the uninspired implementation o' the poe stronghold is the fault o' none save obsidian. nevertheless, the mischaracterization o' josh comments on the matter is unfortunate and unhelpful. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=76042 ... and it turns out that this is now INTERNATIONAL clown week. HA! Good Fun!

*eye roll* HA! Good Fun! Keep in mind I'm referring to Sion and Nihilus, I know for a fact that most Sith from the Sith Empire would react with disgust to such inhuman monstrosities and also I say they are a mockery of Siths because Avellone implied that was the intent when these characters were created, Sion and Nihilus are how he sees Force Users who are devoted to the force (Dark Side in this Case) stripped of humanity and individuality. Now that I think about it, I don't remember any likable Force User NPC from Kotor 2, they are well written, and memorable, but they all are kind of jerks, I guess Chris didn't see neither The Jedi nor the Sith in a positive light, nor the Force Itself. *groan* HA! Good Fun!