I dont know what you are useing to switch HDMI sources but I bought a Psyclone HDMI selector 2 years ago when I got my HD TV. It switches between cable, Xbox, and PS3 just fine.
I dont know how it works in your area, but when my parents were putting me through private school they still had to pay taxes that funded the local public school.
I cant say I agree with everything you said (mostly because I have never looked at any real research into psi/esp stuff). However, this was a very interesting read and has given me a few things to think about.
I completely agree. I saw it last year and I only knew about it because I was listening to the radio one day and all the sudden I heard the Halo 3 theme song. Talk about your WTF moments.
The best part of the show was near the end and the person hosting it what song he should play last. No where else in the world will you hear a few hundred people chant "One Winged Angel".
What MMO is this? Or are you not allowed to say due to an NDA (aka SW:TOR)? I'v played a ton of MMOs and the only one that feels like it has several endings and beginnings is Final Fantasy 11. Each expansion (and the original 3 cities missions) has a distinct ending to that expansion's story. Also, several quest chains are long enough to be more then one-shot quest.
I'll agree with what you said about the Epic quest. Granted I am only level 30 right now and only half way through book 2, however book 1 and the prologue were very cool and actually makes me want to go read the books.
That said I think LotRO falls somewhere between WoW and Final Fantasy XI in the story telling realm. It is better then WoW because alot of the story feels like it is directed at you instead of you being a passive observer like in WoW. Also, the occasional cutscenes at the end of a chapter helps alot.
However, Final Fantasy XI is still the pinnacle of story telling in a MMO for me. Each story cutscene had you as the hero, your party members were just along for the ride. Not only that, there were in-game cutscenes for a ton of the minor quest. Some of the minor quest actually approach the coolness of the main storyline (the A Timely Visit quest as well as the Artifact Armor lines).
I'm looking forward to seeing how Bioware does the story telling in TOR.
Ok, I'll likely get flamed for this but I'm gona say it anyways. I actually liked FFX-2. Granted there was alot of cheeseyness to go around (mainly stemming from the fact that the main characters were all female and Brother was just a perv). Also, it has been a few years sence I played it.
I thought the storyline was not too bad. I liked how they explored a world without Sin constantly trying to destroy them at every moment. I also liked how they were able to tie the ending of FFX-2 with the post credits ending of FFX.
The battle system was fun as well. It was fast pace and a nice change from the slow strategy of FFX.
FFX-2 was not without it's flaws but for S-E's first stab at a direct squeal to a FF game I thought it was good.
I was personally satisfied with how Chuck came back. Yes, some things did seem weird but it still had the good old Chuck charm. I also laughed my ass off Sunday night when they were showing the preview for the season and I noticed a Bat'leth on the wall in the training room.
No I dont think you can. Café is a French word that English speaking people use. I'm just glad English does not have an entire separate alphabet to wright words in that are non-English (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana )
To get rid of the trinity, you need mobs and encounters that don't respect the trinity.
You might want to take a look at the Faction Champions fight in Trial of the Crusader raid instance. Those mobs do not have an aggro table, they attack who they want when they want. On the Heroic mode the melee mobs will more often go after players with less armor. Granted, it is still no where near as coordinated as a real PvP arena match is but it is one of the few fights in WoW that is consistently a challenge just because the mobs do not respect the trinity.
I also really enjoy watching the kill cam. If there is one good thing about the way servers are handled in MW2 is that every game has kill cam on. In the latter days of MW1 it got hard to find a server with the kill cam on (one that had decent ping and played the game type I wanted to anyways).
I dont drink coffee (cant stand the taste unless I put 1/2 cup of sugar in it) however I do drink at least 2-3 cans of Mountain Dew a day and often I'm drinking them up to a hour before I go to bed (at which time I switch to drinking about 1/2 liter of water).
I'v tried to quit caffiene but the big proublem I run into is finding something else to drink instead. Gatorade is ok but I find I am more thirsty after drinking it. Water would be ideal but then my taste buds die from boredom. Regular juice is too acidic to drink more then a glass once in a while. Pop, on the other hand, has good flavor, it quenches my thirst, and it does not make my mouth burn after drinking alot of it (like juice does).
About the headaches; I get them more or less every day since high school (10 years or so now) and I got plenty dirty and lots of scrapes and cuts when I was a kid. I'll often wake up with a pounding headache and be unable to function till I take some Ibuprofen. I dont know what causes them. Went to a doctor a few years back and they did a MRI or something and found nothing. In fact, besides the headaches and a 3 day cold when the weather changes I don't really get sick at all.
The idea to me now, of sitting down to watch TV for more than a half hour, sitting through all those ads, actually making my leisure time fit someones else schedule; this idea is by now a completely foreign notion. I cannot imagine doing it anymore, and I don't.
Even the 20 pages + credits manual that came with WotLK expansion has alot of lore for its size.
The story so far covering the Burning Crusade expansion and patches.
A prologue telling the Lich King's origins.
Death Knight lore and class information.
I cant find my vanilla WoW manual atm (in a box somewhere) but I remembering that thing being easy 50+ pages with history from at least WC3 and race/class history.
1) If I lose internet one day and I want to play a random game I have it is alot easier to install it with an actual disk (however some DRM is making this moot).
2) If I move and have to go back to 1.5Mb internet connection then it will be faster to install from a disk then patch online instead of downloading the whole game.
3) For some games the manual is extremely valuable (NWN, KOTOR, even WoW for the lore) and it is easier for me to thumb through a hard copy instead of a PDF.
4) This may make me appear old fashion but I still like a physical version of the product.
I frankly dont give a rat's ass if Win 7 really is Vista 2.0. I'v been thinking about upgrading to XP for the past 6 months mainly so I could use 4gigs+ of ram. I heard the news about Win 7 and forced myself to wait it out. To be honest, I do think it runs smoother then my XP ever did (however that could be a side effect of having a clean system once again).
The UI changes from XP to 7 are nice. I like the new task bar and how it organizes things better then XP did (the pop-up preview when you have several windows from the same program open is great). I am still getting used to the start menu and so far I liked the XP style better. I also have not noticed a change in game performance, granted I'v only played WoW and Aion so far.
Over all, I needed the upgrade, I wanted to go to 64-bit, and vista drivers have been out long enough to have their major bugs worked out. So far, I think Win 7 is a good successor to XP as the OS of choice (at least for gamers).
Slashdot Mirror
In Call of Duty: World at War you can reload the M1 mid-clip.
I dont know what you are useing to switch HDMI sources but I bought a Psyclone HDMI selector 2 years ago when I got my HD TV. It switches between cable, Xbox, and PS3 just fine.
http://www.psyclonegamer.com/products/index.asp?brandtype=competition&id=1060
I dont know how it works in your area, but when my parents were putting me through private school they still had to pay taxes that funded the local public school.
Wow. Mod Up!
I cant say I agree with everything you said (mostly because I have never looked at any real research into psi/esp stuff). However, this was a very interesting read and has given me a few things to think about.
A) why would I want to see the ugly son of a bitch playing the other character.
B) people either stink or are covered in too much perfume/cologne or dont smell at all. So, it is either unpleasant or does not exist.
C) I dont like touching people in the first place. I also find it strange when people touch me.
D) I'm blind to body language anyways.
E) Eye contact might be necessary in America but in other cultures it is considered rude (Japan for one).
I connect more with people I meet on-line then anyone I have know in meat space including my family.
I'm sorry I am not the extroverted social butterfly with 100 meat space friends like you are.
Mod up. I also recomend the re-made Ronfaure song from FF11 found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj9RAgyTt_s
You can download the MP3 version here: ftp://ftp.ffxionline.com/incoming/fanworks/morio%20-%20Ronfaure%20(vocals).zip
I completely agree. I saw it last year and I only knew about it because I was listening to the radio one day and all the sudden I heard the Halo 3 theme song. Talk about your WTF moments.
The best part of the show was near the end and the person hosting it what song he should play last. No where else in the world will you hear a few hundred people chant "One Winged Angel".
No, that would not kill them. The RIAA are more akin to cockroaches then dinosaurs.
What MMO is this? Or are you not allowed to say due to an NDA (aka SW:TOR)? I'v played a ton of MMOs and the only one that feels like it has several endings and beginnings is Final Fantasy 11. Each expansion (and the original 3 cities missions) has a distinct ending to that expansion's story. Also, several quest chains are long enough to be more then one-shot quest.
I'll agree with what you said about the Epic quest. Granted I am only level 30 right now and only half way through book 2, however book 1 and the prologue were very cool and actually makes me want to go read the books.
That said I think LotRO falls somewhere between WoW and Final Fantasy XI in the story telling realm. It is better then WoW because alot of the story feels like it is directed at you instead of you being a passive observer like in WoW. Also, the occasional cutscenes at the end of a chapter helps alot.
However, Final Fantasy XI is still the pinnacle of story telling in a MMO for me. Each story cutscene had you as the hero, your party members were just along for the ride. Not only that, there were in-game cutscenes for a ton of the minor quest. Some of the minor quest actually approach the coolness of the main storyline (the A Timely Visit quest as well as the Artifact Armor lines).
I'm looking forward to seeing how Bioware does the story telling in TOR.
Ok, I'll likely get flamed for this but I'm gona say it anyways. I actually liked FFX-2. Granted there was alot of cheeseyness to go around (mainly stemming from the fact that the main characters were all female and Brother was just a perv). Also, it has been a few years sence I played it.
I thought the storyline was not too bad. I liked how they explored a world without Sin constantly trying to destroy them at every moment. I also liked how they were able to tie the ending of FFX-2 with the post credits ending of FFX.
The battle system was fun as well. It was fast pace and a nice change from the slow strategy of FFX.
FFX-2 was not without it's flaws but for S-E's first stab at a direct squeal to a FF game I thought it was good.
I was personally satisfied with how Chuck came back. Yes, some things did seem weird but it still had the good old Chuck charm. I also laughed my ass off Sunday night when they were showing the preview for the season and I noticed a Bat'leth on the wall in the training room.
MUD != MMORPG
No I dont think you can. Café is a French word that English speaking people use. I'm just glad English does not have an entire separate alphabet to wright words in that are non-English (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana )
To get rid of the trinity, you need mobs and encounters that don't respect the trinity.
You might want to take a look at the Faction Champions fight in Trial of the Crusader raid instance. Those mobs do not have an aggro table, they attack who they want when they want. On the Heroic mode the melee mobs will more often go after players with less armor. Granted, it is still no where near as coordinated as a real PvP arena match is but it is one of the few fights in WoW that is consistently a challenge just because the mobs do not respect the trinity.
I also really enjoy watching the kill cam. If there is one good thing about the way servers are handled in MW2 is that every game has kill cam on. In the latter days of MW1 it got hard to find a server with the kill cam on (one that had decent ping and played the game type I wanted to anyways).
Well, until we can get E-ink displays to reflect color instead of just gray scale then our only option is light emissions biased displays.
I dont drink coffee (cant stand the taste unless I put 1/2 cup of sugar in it) however I do drink at least 2-3 cans of Mountain Dew a day and often I'm drinking them up to a hour before I go to bed (at which time I switch to drinking about 1/2 liter of water).
I'v tried to quit caffiene but the big proublem I run into is finding something else to drink instead. Gatorade is ok but I find I am more thirsty after drinking it. Water would be ideal but then my taste buds die from boredom. Regular juice is too acidic to drink more then a glass once in a while. Pop, on the other hand, has good flavor, it quenches my thirst, and it does not make my mouth burn after drinking alot of it (like juice does).
About the headaches; I get them more or less every day since high school (10 years or so now) and I got plenty dirty and lots of scrapes and cuts when I was a kid. I'll often wake up with a pounding headache and be unable to function till I take some Ibuprofen. I dont know what causes them. Went to a doctor a few years back and they did a MRI or something and found nothing. In fact, besides the headaches and a 3 day cold when the weather changes I don't really get sick at all.
I agree. If you are running Win 7 Pro or better just install the game in the XP mode for good results.
Fear = control. Keep the population fearful of something and you can keep removing their "rights". Reference: passing of the Patriot Act.
The idea to me now, of sitting down to watch TV for more than a half hour, sitting through all those ads, actually making my leisure time fit someones else schedule; this idea is by now a completely foreign notion. I cannot imagine doing it anymore, and I don't.
DVR FTW
Even the 20 pages + credits manual that came with WotLK expansion has alot of lore for its size.
The story so far covering the Burning Crusade expansion and patches.
A prologue telling the Lich King's origins.
Death Knight lore and class information.
I cant find my vanilla WoW manual atm (in a box somewhere) but I remembering that thing being easy 50+ pages with history from at least WC3 and race/class history.
1) If I lose internet one day and I want to play a random game I have it is alot easier to install it with an actual disk (however some DRM is making this moot).
2) If I move and have to go back to 1.5Mb internet connection then it will be faster to install from a disk then patch online instead of downloading the whole game.
3) For some games the manual is extremely valuable (NWN, KOTOR, even WoW for the lore) and it is easier for me to thumb through a hard copy instead of a PDF.
4) This may make me appear old fashion but I still like a physical version of the product.
I frankly dont give a rat's ass if Win 7 really is Vista 2.0. I'v been thinking about upgrading to XP for the past 6 months mainly so I could use 4gigs+ of ram. I heard the news about Win 7 and forced myself to wait it out. To be honest, I do think it runs smoother then my XP ever did (however that could be a side effect of having a clean system once again).
The UI changes from XP to 7 are nice. I like the new task bar and how it organizes things better then XP did (the pop-up preview when you have several windows from the same program open is great). I am still getting used to the start menu and so far I liked the XP style better. I also have not noticed a change in game performance, granted I'v only played WoW and Aion so far.
Over all, I needed the upgrade, I wanted to go to 64-bit, and vista drivers have been out long enough to have their major bugs worked out. So far, I think Win 7 is a good successor to XP as the OS of choice (at least for gamers).