Gromnir

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!

*eye roll* am leveling so fast that gearing 2x is not a priority, particular as am taking efforts to hoard basic comms. if this were our main server, we would have all kinda extra gear to send between characters, but harbinger is our backup. as is, am delaying gearing upgrades to intervals o' 8 levels, with last pre-50 upgrade taking place at 41. so, am chronic undergeared and am not having any reasonable opportunity to double our gear. sure, once we hit level 60 we will work on multiple sets, but at the moment, it don't make much sense. HA! Good Fun!

our main problem with the revan stuff in swtor is that we played (and liked) kotor 2. from bioware's pov, perhaps obsidian deviated too much from the original kotor story. unfortunately for Gromnir, we liked the revan that kreia and the kotor 2 characters described and so when we got swtor revan, we were disappointed. more recent, we managed to get 2 characters from 0-50 on harbinger. took a week and a half, and we spent no more than 90 minutes a day playing as we has been too busy for more serious leveling efforts. unfortunately, our crafting/scavenging levels has serious languished as has raising o' affection for companions. we were gonna level a vanguard to 50 and then focus on gearing a couple characters, but with 12x story xp making leveling so quick, we may go ahead and get a smuggler and agent to 50 as well. the next expansion will give one free level 60, yes? perhaps we do smuggler and then insta-level the agent in october. as an aside, trying to get a dps flashpoint invite through groupfinder on harbinger is almost pointless. HA! Good Fun!

there is a couple instances o' companions getting free talents/abilities. kana also gets a free phrase, which is a substantial bonus considering how few phrases chanters acquire over the course o' the game. eder and kana is two npcs we do not roll-back to level 1. our assumption were that the free talents were their special quality akin to the druid companion's unique wild shape or the ranger's fox. such stuff did "make sense" seeing as how the companions had less than ideal attribute distributions and other than dialogues, the unique qualities were there to makes the obsidian created companions appealing compared to a player created companions. oh well. haven't played in a week or two, so we hadn't noticed eder's loss... will check kana later. HA! Good Fun!

esports is a silly term, but that is unimportant. hey, whilst channel surfing we has lingered on the iron chef more than once. what will they do with squid eyeballs and pumpkin? world series o' poker, with half the participants dressed like the unabomber, can be compelling, but we don't consider such to be sports. we went to a high school that were desperate to improve academics, and so there were a push by folks to makes band and debate teams eligible for varsity letters. so, esports? not sports. so what? if is entertaining, then so much the better. if some folks can find a way to make money doing what they like best, then great. is already any number o' competitive endeavours that can be entertaining and lucrative. jeopardy is already an esport, no? am not personal a fan o' jeopardy, but the quiz show thing has been around almost as long as TV. is a competitions and there is tactics and strategy involved. such stuff is nothing new, but we don't get the sad nerdling need to find some kinda acceptance from the jocks. esports is not sports. HA! Good Fun!

not specific related. tangential... perhaps. http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/13314040/colin-cowherd-no-longer-espn-air-comments-dominican-republic-players we always thought the guy were a bit o' a schnook, but is kinda unfortunate that an on-air personality who is hired to spark debate gets fired for this kinda thing. stretching the pc bit a bit far. HA! Good Fun!

based on what little we has gleaned from two days o' playing a bit at 12x story xp rate, we are gonna be spending a fair bit o' coin on leveling our crafting skills. more specific, is the resource gathering skills that is gonna languish. we got a 55 guardian, 50 bounty hunter, and 50 sorc on harbinger and a bunch o' lower level characters. gonna see how quick we can get the three aforementioned to 60 while also leveling a jugg, sage and commando... send legacy gear back and forth so we need actual only maintain gear for 3 characters. if am feeling particularly ambitious, we will add a scoundrel and operative. guardian and sage + jugg and sorc is a nice combo as we got tank, heals, melee dps and ranged dps all covered on both pub and imp side with those four. unfortunately, 'til we finish with our leveling (if we don't run outta steam in a week or so,) am gonna be outfitted in a motley o' legacy gear, so spending credits on fancy clothes will need wait. HA! Good Fun!

"Funny" story about that. So, in my current playthrough, Azurro comes by and offers to sell me an ostensibly unique morning star. I figure, "what the hell, completionism," and buy it. Shortly afterward, he comes by and tries to sell me the same morning star. Naturally, I growl and ignore this. On his next visit, he once again drops by to sell me the same morning star. At this point, I'm kinda regretting my failure to spec the whole party with WF: Knight, so that I could have them all parade around with the same unique weapon. ... I'm just going to console in Hiro's Cloak on my next playthrough, since clearly Azurro is bs. is silly for developers to fail at removing the previous chosen unique item(s) from azurro's possible inventory. that being said, given that the item selection in question is random, one may exploit if you so desire. go to most recent save previous to azzurro and try again 'til you get whatever particular item you wish. HA! Good Fun!

Catharine, huh? The handle sounds familiar. I think I may have run into you, or thought you were insane due to your GTN asking prices, or something... Yes, my Cathar merc girl. I actually did sell the contents of a hypercrate (although I split that duty between her and Malpractise, my healer) within the last couple of months. May have been the one before the current release. Got good credits overall for the content too the good thing about not having played for months is that we have something like 9000 cartel coins saved up from the subscriber + security key allowances. am s'posing we can purchase and sell a hypercrate? dunno. have never actual checked the prices o' such. in the past, when running a little low on funds, we actual has been tempted to sell our czerka crate o-matic. on the bad side, we were using our mail for purposes o' storing extra 1007 and all such stuff has long since disappeared, so am not certain how much we functional "lost." none o' it were real, so we can't manage to be all that concerned 'bout the loss, but we did allow our self a moment's regretful sigh as we realized that we had consigned millions o' credits worth o' crafting supplies and gear into the digital void simple 'cause we couldn't be bothered to log-in and do a little maintenance. HA! Good Fun!

It's my understanding that they still have the 12x Class Story XP bonus thing going for subscribers? At least until the expansion is released, too. You can avoid all sidequests thanks to that... avoiding trash mobs populating the instances is another thing, though. After leveling an Operative and a Shadow, I don't think I could go back to non-stealth classes. for the heck o' it, we took a couple hours and created a jug on harbinger. required a few hours to get off korriban. however, with the subscriber xp boost, we were level 15 when we left the planet... almost 16. the thing is, we typical level a character/toon by completing nothing save story and flashpoints. this approach keeps us geared okie dokie. sending mods bought with basic comms by our host o' other characters is tedious and is nothing save a chore. however, we may need simple accept that flashpoints will be unnecessary and resign self to the fact that we is gonna be playing with gear +5 levels behind the curve. the ultra-fast leveling is nifty and all, but am suspecting we will need consider a few gear issues if we wanna level a couple characters at this time. as for stealth, am embarrassed to admit we have level'd one o' every advanced class and am kinda ambivalent regarding stealth. we do indeed much enjoy dps scoundrel/operative gameplay, particular in pvp. even so, while we like being able to complete a few o' the heroics via a solo stealth character, for the most part, is not as if we save much time or effort by stealthing as 'posed to simple roll-stomping whatever mobs is in our path. however, there is moments when stealth at least feels invaluable. HA! Good Fun!

was feeling a bit more groovy than usual this morning. HA! Good Fun!