Amentep

Movie loosely based on the King Piccolo story from the Manga series of the same name (not Dragonball Z), although upping the age of the characters to older teens/early 20s. Directed by James Wong (The X-Files, Space Above and Beyond, Final Destination, Black Christmas) and produced by Stephen Chow (although I believe he's not terribly involved in the production from what I've read). The trailers been out for a bit (to much discussion).

I guess they felt that the place wasn't likely to be prone to Elephant infestations! Still I was a terrible DM anyhow, so it was all well and good for me to stop. The only other time I dmed I bored everyone and they quit.

As long as the mini-game is ignorable I don't tend to care about it. I've never spent vast amount of time playing most mini-games (like gambling or card games) anyhow.

He has one of those hover-chairs like Professor X?

I'm not really sure - in the day and age of national television (even worldwide television) and the internet that its truely possible for English to break up into divergent languages. Could be wrong though. But it seems to me that regional dialectical English have slowly eroded as media presentations of the language became more widespread.

Yeah, well remember I was 13 (or younger) when I did it, but the entire dungeon was originally a mine, and a section of the caves had weakened enough that an elephant had, in fact, managed to fall through the upper hill that the caves were in (HP were substracted for this even!) while walking around up there. The problem was when I hadn't properly motivated WHY the Elephant had been walking over the hill in the first place! I'd just never thought that far ahead and the players called me on it.

See, this is where the Ultimates stuff looses me; I have yet to read a story by Millar that I liked.

I just use the somewhat overheadish default camera. But then I tend to just let the party do whatever and concentrate on watching the party leader...

Another couple that give me pause - rediculous for ridiculous and click or clik for clique.

Well for the most part, I've never understood the appeal of the Ultimate line, so while I know most fans hate what Loeb is doing with it, I'm neutral as I'm not reading it. I will say the only things I can think of that I really liked by Loeb were some time ago.

Rogue/Rouge bugs me to no end, but that's because I frequent comics forums where you'd expect fans of the character Rogue to actually KNOW HOW TO SPELL HER CODE-NAME!!!!

At 13 (or was I 11?), in one of the few DMing sessions I ever did, I had all the players quit on me when they met an elephant in a cavern. In my defense, when I put the elephant in the cavern it made sense to ME, I just could never get that across to the players.

They were - afaik - independently contracted to help develop the core concepts with the Transformers US incarnation (they did the same with ROM, Micronauts and GI Joe). Marvel only owns the original creations they made in creating/telling the stories, while everything else is owned controlled by the toy owners (and is why Bug and the Spaceknights can still kick around the MU) Frank Quitely is a pretty good artist, IMO. Although I can understand why people don't like his style. Loeb's always been a bit hit or miss for me.

Well certain niche games do seem to exist as is; heck at this point we could probably argue that anyone making games solely for the PC are making a niche market game. But even beyond that consoles get those Japanese Turn Based strategy games like Nippon-Ichi and a few other companies make and put out despite the fact that turn-based gameplay is radioactive for most US based game makers. But the games that get over here already have met success in another market so that mitigates the localization costs which is probably makes them viable when a US produced (for example) turn-based game might never find success in its prime market to be worth finding a place in other markets. or something.

Movies have a lot of markets to get revenue from; while both media offer world-wide distribution, movies have multiple markets - theater, home, premium cable, basic cable and broadcast markets to play with. I know games have a home market, and I guess online downloads could be seen as akin to basic cable, but I do wonder if low budget/low-to-mid return video games can find a niche in the market that would make them worth producing? Most low budget movies are either niche movies (like low budget horror) or they're prestige pictures (lots of drama) or their locally produced. But its cheaper to shoot a low budget film, I'd think, than to develop a game beyond the very simple. Although thinking about it, maybe those ad supported web games are the equivalent to low budget production. Be an interesting question to have answered.

Bought the gifts, wrapped them and they should all be sent by the end of this week. Otherwise I'm ready for the two week break...

Well when it started I basically saw it as an attempt to do the same type of serial superhero storytelling that modern superhero comics do. But then as someone who already read the things maybe I was more prone to seeing that analogy. Only after a shaky first season they seem to have wronged everything they did right instead of righting everything they did wrong.

Well I'm not sure if they are giving (or taking away) powers or if they're interfering with something that is giving them powers, but...yeah. It does seem kinda silly. And this from someone who regularly reads superhero comics, a genre in that media which epitomizes silly science.

Video gamers + Internet = must be upset about something. Its funny because its true. It does sometimes seem that people on the internet - not just video gamers but in any online community - react to things they don't like as if someone came into their house and slapped them in the face.

Ultimately it doesn't matter to me if they necrotise an old beloved title if the resultant game is fun; they can call it "Baldur's Gate 3: Even More Bald Gates" and if its a good game that's what will get me to buy it.

Because he's evil... again. Only problem I saw with the solar eclipse thingie was Adam. How did he survive through them across the years? I thought his encounter with Petrelli dad made clear that his regeneration was the only thing what could keep him alive. Well eclipses only last a few minutes so all he had to do was not get hurt during one. Except Krezack - I gave up on the series after season one. My brother watches it and tries to get me interested in it, but nothing he's told me about season 2 or 3 has made me think it'd be worth returning to.

for frak's sake, am i the only person on this thread who can actually read? he didn't say they would revisit BG or NWN, but "the likes of" BG and NWN. it's a hopelessly vague statement that most reasonable folk would read as an indication that they want to make games like BG and NWN in the future, but not necessarily direct successors to those games and not in the next year. personally, i think it's deeply unlikely that we'll see a BG3 (pointless as it would be) and i have strong doubts about even an NWN3: no developer in their right mind would want to add to the code as bequeathed by NWNs 1&2 and few would want to spend the time to start a new engine afresh. That's why I think - as I mentioned - that if they do another Baldur's Gate at this point that its most likely going to be set in and around Baldur's Gate as opposed to a continuation of the previous series. It'll be a new game from the ground up beyond that. I imagine that - as Neverwinter Nights is fairly recent its less likely that they'll do a NWN3 that isn't in the same format as the current one. So I'd guess that it'd be more likely that Atari would dust off an old name (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Decent to Undermountain, Pool of Radiance, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Eye of the Beholder, Warriors of the Eternal Sun or some such) for a new game just for brand recognition if they felt they needed something more than slapping "Dungeons and Dragons" on it. Dibs on Culham Lock Footbridge

Hahaha, well there is that. But I have liked a number of their classic games over the years, so I've always kinda had a soft-spot for them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081202/media_...dstone_midway_1 Thought this was kind of interesting. Although I've liked a number of Midway games, if Redstone and National Amusements isn't doing well, it does make me wonder about its stake in Viacom/Paramount/CBS. Also wonder what the new majority owner, Mark Thomas, has in mind for the company.