I love GW, and have waaaaaay too many hours in the 3 thus far. However, part of what I like is that the level cap is basically non-existent (albeit not in the first game, Prophecies, where you hit the cap about half-way to 2/3rds into the game). In the latest, Nightfall, you can basically hit "max" in 15 hours, and after you leave the "training island" you're in the thick of things. Which is great - no worrying about having to "level up", you find new skills as you hit new areas, and so you gain flexibility even though your power stays the same.
I'm unsure who wanted "no level cap" - PVP is designed around everyone having equal power, while PVE is set as "you versus the environment", with the monsters getting more powerful (and thus requiring more intelligence, both in strategy and use-of-skills) as the game progresses. I love this model - I don't have to "grind" unless I really want to (Factions was pretty bad about that, relatively speaking, and though there are some artificial constraints in NF they're nothing horrible. And in Prophecies the only grinding you did was for money to buy cool new stuff). I'm also concerned about how this affects things. The number of skill points you currently get is by level (Level + 1 attribute points for each level - this means at 17th level you have 100 attribute points, and at 20 you have 200 (there's a quest to get you from 170->200)). So a level 24 character would have about 300 attribute points, and a level 100.... well, that's getting silly.
Anyhow, what I want to say - I'm one of the many people perfectly happy with the way it is. But, given their few missteps so far (aka "Factions"), I'm fairly confident it'll be fun. And if not, I'll still have Tyria, Elona, and (um, the other one) to keep me busy.:)
Get Rayman's Raving Rabbids. Based solely on the videos shown for it, I got a copy for my PC (no Wiis here...). Many of the minigames are silly, some are stupid, (and most are fun) but the on-rails shooter segments are frickin awesome. Yes, it's on rails. However, the experience is a hoot.
Guild Wars is great and all, but why are people still calling it an MMOG? It's no more an MMOG than Counterstrike.
Because it's an easy label to describe the general game play. I describe it as an MMO without the d*cks, since once you leave town it's just you, your party, and the environment. Start describing "instances" and "competitive role-playing" and people's eyes glaze. Another good one is: "Diablo 2 with graphical chat rooms", but that requires knowledge of D2.
James Tiptree, Jr. I forget what her name was, but she had an entire career where nobody knew she was a woman (gasp) SciFi writer. I seem to remember somehow a fan staked out her P.O. Box, and that's how it all came to light.
"Reportedly, the Receda Cube itself was buried in Wakerley Great Wood, near Stamford, Northamptonshire."
That being said: how'd he determine it was there? What clues? I'd love to know, since I'm still going through my first pack (some of those are damnably difficult), and I know some guys wrote a book just so they could get into a author-only database with a clue.
ObFrantics: "They're not meteorologists, they're meaty urologists! They get sick of always having their hands smell like pee, so they figure 'hey, I'll put on some weight, get on the news, and hit on the chick who does sports!'"
I didn't think this was accurate, until last week. I was trying to see if there were any books out in 2006 that I might be interested in, that I hadn't read. So I went to Amazon - there were about 300 SciFi books published last year. I figured no big deal.
They included vanity presses. Amazon had 2400 SciFi books, all "published" last year. How do I even begin to determine what might be interesting to me? Word of mouth had gotten me a few dozen. But there was a sea of them. And randomly flipping through 40+ pages of listings, there was a good/reason/ these were vanity-published. So, in a sense, they're right - labels can filter. For music, at least, I can listen to a track by a band, and if I do that all day long I could probably keep current with what's being sold, and catch something I'd like, buried in the stuff I don't. But it's a royal pain to do so. Again, a label/can/ act as a filter. Sony? No. Cuneiform? Yes. Cuneiform is a small label, specializing in a particular type of music. If you like a certain album on their label, odds are you will like many other albums on that label. Sony will publish pretty much any genre, and give you a rootkit as a bonus.
One major diff - Guild Wars is a pay-once-and-play, not a pay-per-month. My interest just died, too. This is Diablo N, not Everquest or even Eve Online.
The main difference is that you pull the Sling out of the box, plug it in, install a piece of software (presumably...), and you're done. Yours looks pretty good (although I suspect the Sling will probably be more "shiny"), and I think I may buy one... but the original software that shipped with it was pretty 'basic', and that's what most people judge a product on. How does it work out of the box? Not too good? Oh, darn.
Not to criticize your work - since it looks like y'all have really improved the interface. But it's like what CmdrTaco missed about the iPod - UI is king.
In my 3-year-old house, there's only a couple places I can change: 1 downstairs fan, 1 upstairs fan. Outside lights are on dimmer/timers, so they won't work there. Other upstairs fans use halogen, as does my torchiere downstairs. My chandelier uses a bunch of tiny bulbs - I'd love to upgrade those (can I?).
And for the two fans that we could use CFLs on, my wife says they look ugly and won't consider it.
One year, the company I worked for ended our Christmas meeting with the fact that each of us would get a Poinsettia. Mind you, this was the week of Christmas, and (true or not) the rumor immediately spread that the place we were at was actually going to throw them away after our party, which is why we got them. So our Fortune 500 publishing company (and "howdy" from 38, you know who you are) didn't give out any sort of Christmas "cheer" that year. So I made the best of it... I took the poinsettia, cared for it, fed it, etc, and it GREW, in the corner of my office. And whenever someone mentioned it, I'd tell them it was my "Christmas bonus".
The next year, all the peons not on the "bonus plan" got a $50 Amex Gift Card. And I got rid of the poinsettia.
Agreed on the Doc Savage reference. Buckaroo is an updated version of the old pulps - and the novelization of the movie (written by the script writer) is written like a pulp, complete with references to other adventures. FWIW, Evan, someone took the old movie and replaced the "songs" with the original (instrumental) John Philips Sousa tunes, and it makes the movie MUCH more watchable. Still not great, but it holds up a whole lot better this way than I would've imagined.
Here's hoping that Raimi does wind up doing Doc (he recently got the rights to do movies based off of Street & Smith characters).
Like platformers? Go buy Psychonauts. Hate platformers but love adventure games? Go buy Psychonauts. Love those old Lucasarts games like Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, etc? Go buy Psychonauts. Have a PC? Go buy Psychonauts. Have a console? Go buy Psychonauts. Something for the girlfriend to help you play? Go buy Psychonauts. Want to support digital distribution? Go buy it through steam. Wanna help indies? Go buy it period.
Yes, I'm raving about it - it's worth doing so. Yes, okay, technically it's a platformer - but written by Tim Schaefer, a damn funny writer. It's equal parts platformer, hysterical humor, and adventure gaming. It's not just fun to play, it's funny at the same time. The sense of joy, and the sense of humor, is astonishing.
Ye gods, this sounds like a plug. Here - go play the demo. Then go spend the $20 or $30 or whatever it costs. I WANT MORE! www.gamershell.com/download_8864.shtml www.fileplanet.com/152193/150000/fileinfo/Psychona uts-Demo
the game that every store I've seen is demoing on their Wii. You've actually seen playable demos at stores? Which? I've been to a gamestop, a Best Buy, and Walmart - and none of them have actual demos. It's "here's what it looks like", along with a video. Neither is useful.
They're only looking for 360 players And given the apathy towards it by the Shadowrun FANS (as well as FPS people who see Counterstrike-with-elves), I don't think they'll find that many. Maybe 200.
Once it flops the next version they can tell the RIAA to kindly piss off because their ideas don't work.
Doubtful, if they're willing to pay the labels for each Zune sold. (Then again, that part is probably to force Apple to pay when their label contracts come up, which effectively INCREASES the leader's cost, when normally it drops.)
Personally, I think the disconnect is due to the cell-phone culture. I've seen couples walking down the street, each on the phone to someone different. We're all together, yet totally separated. And balding talk-show hosts are no different in this regard.
Slashdot Mirror
I love GW, and have waaaaaay too many hours in the 3 thus far. However, part of what I like is that the level cap is basically non-existent (albeit not in the first game, Prophecies, where you hit the cap about half-way to 2/3rds into the game). In the latest, Nightfall, you can basically hit "max" in 15 hours, and after you leave the "training island" you're in the thick of things. Which is great - no worrying about having to "level up", you find new skills as you hit new areas, and so you gain flexibility even though your power stays the same.
:)
I'm unsure who wanted "no level cap" - PVP is designed around everyone having equal power, while PVE is set as "you versus the environment", with the monsters getting more powerful (and thus requiring more intelligence, both in strategy and use-of-skills) as the game progresses. I love this model - I don't have to "grind" unless I really want to (Factions was pretty bad about that, relatively speaking, and though there are some artificial constraints in NF they're nothing horrible. And in Prophecies the only grinding you did was for money to buy cool new stuff). I'm also concerned about how this affects things. The number of skill points you currently get is by level (Level + 1 attribute points for each level - this means at 17th level you have 100 attribute points, and at 20 you have 200 (there's a quest to get you from 170->200)). So a level 24 character would have about 300 attribute points, and a level 100.... well, that's getting silly.
Anyhow, what I want to say - I'm one of the many people perfectly happy with the way it is. But, given their few missteps so far (aka "Factions"), I'm fairly confident it'll be fun. And if not, I'll still have Tyria, Elona, and (um, the other one) to keep me busy.
I seem to remember something similar. They'd do a 3-D scan of you for $35, and give you some sort of file you could use in Quake 3, etc.
Get Rayman's Raving Rabbids. Based solely on the videos shown for it, I got a copy for my PC (no Wiis here...). Many of the minigames are silly, some are stupid, (and most are fun) but the on-rails shooter segments are frickin awesome. Yes, it's on rails. However, the experience is a hoot.
Guild Wars is great and all, but why are people still calling it an MMOG? It's no more an MMOG than Counterstrike.
Because it's an easy label to describe the general game play. I describe it as an MMO without the d*cks, since once you leave town it's just you, your party, and the environment. Start describing "instances" and "competitive role-playing" and people's eyes glaze. Another good one is: "Diablo 2 with graphical chat rooms", but that requires knowledge of D2.
And, of course, it's pitched at the casual MMOer.
James Tiptree, Jr. I forget what her name was, but she had an entire career where nobody knew she was a woman (gasp) SciFi writer. I seem to remember somehow a fan staked out her P.O. Box, and that's how it all came to light.
"Reportedly, the Receda Cube itself was buried in Wakerley Great Wood, near Stamford, Northamptonshire."
That being said: how'd he determine it was there? What clues? I'd love to know, since I'm still going through my first pack (some of those are damnably difficult), and I know some guys wrote a book just so they could get into a author-only database with a clue.
ObFrantics: "They're not meteorologists, they're meaty urologists! They get sick of always having their hands smell like pee, so they figure 'hey, I'll put on some weight, get on the news, and hit on the chick who does sports!'"
I didn't think this was accurate, until last week. I was trying to see if there were any books out in 2006 that I might be interested in, that I hadn't read. So I went to Amazon - there were about 300 SciFi books published last year. I figured no big deal.
/reason/ these were vanity-published. So, in a sense, they're right - labels can filter. For music, at least, I can listen to a track by a band, and if I do that all day long I could probably keep current with what's being sold, and catch something I'd like, buried in the stuff I don't. But it's a royal pain to do so. Again, a label /can/ act as a filter. Sony? No. Cuneiform? Yes. Cuneiform is a small label, specializing in a particular type of music. If you like a certain album on their label, odds are you will like many other albums on that label. Sony will publish pretty much any genre, and give you a rootkit as a bonus.
They included vanity presses. Amazon had 2400 SciFi books, all "published" last year. How do I even begin to determine what might be interesting to me? Word of mouth had gotten me a few dozen. But there was a sea of them. And randomly flipping through 40+ pages of listings, there was a good
One major diff - Guild Wars is a pay-once-and-play, not a pay-per-month. My interest just died, too. This is Diablo N, not Everquest or even Eve Online.
Bob, where can I get this for $50? I just checked google and buy.com, and the lowest price I can find is $80 ($95 from buy.com)
The main difference is that you pull the Sling out of the box, plug it in, install a piece of software (presumably...), and you're done. Yours looks pretty good (although I suspect the Sling will probably be more "shiny"), and I think I may buy one... but the original software that shipped with it was pretty 'basic', and that's what most people judge a product on. How does it work out of the box? Not too good? Oh, darn.
Not to criticize your work - since it looks like y'all have really improved the interface. But it's like what CmdrTaco missed about the iPod - UI is king.
In my 3-year-old house, there's only a couple places I can change:
1 downstairs fan, 1 upstairs fan. Outside lights are on dimmer/timers, so they won't work there. Other upstairs fans use halogen, as does my torchiere downstairs. My chandelier uses a bunch of tiny bulbs - I'd love to upgrade those (can I?).
And for the two fans that we could use CFLs on, my wife says they look ugly and won't consider it.
The kiosks for the last generation consoles all had "reset" buttons. That way there's nothing the normal employees need to do.
One year, the company I worked for ended our Christmas meeting with the fact that each of us would get a Poinsettia. Mind you, this was the week of Christmas, and (true or not) the rumor immediately spread that the place we were at was actually going to throw them away after our party, which is why we got them. So our Fortune 500 publishing company (and "howdy" from 38, you know who you are) didn't give out any sort of Christmas "cheer" that year. So I made the best of it... I took the poinsettia, cared for it, fed it, etc, and it GREW, in the corner of my office. And whenever someone mentioned it, I'd tell them it was my "Christmas bonus".
The next year, all the peons not on the "bonus plan" got a $50 Amex Gift Card. And I got rid of the poinsettia.
Agreed on the Doc Savage reference. Buckaroo is an updated version of the old pulps - and the novelization of the movie (written by the script writer) is written like a pulp, complete with references to other adventures. FWIW, Evan, someone took the old movie and replaced the "songs" with the original (instrumental) John Philips Sousa tunes, and it makes the movie MUCH more watchable. Still not great, but it holds up a whole lot better this way than I would've imagined.
Here's hoping that Raimi does wind up doing Doc (he recently got the rights to do movies based off of Street & Smith characters).
Like I said - I don't care how people get copies, just GET COPIES. :)
So you're saying that the iPod is "exactly" what you want, but you're still not going to buy one? Sounds like insanity to me.
Like platformers? Go buy Psychonauts.
a uts-Demo
Hate platformers but love adventure games? Go buy Psychonauts.
Love those old Lucasarts games like Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, etc? Go buy Psychonauts.
Have a PC? Go buy Psychonauts. Have a console? Go buy Psychonauts.
Something for the girlfriend to help you play? Go buy Psychonauts.
Want to support digital distribution? Go buy it through steam.
Wanna help indies? Go buy it period.
Yes, I'm raving about it - it's worth doing so. Yes, okay, technically it's a platformer - but written by Tim Schaefer, a damn funny writer. It's equal parts platformer, hysterical humor, and adventure gaming. It's not just fun to play, it's funny at the same time. The sense of joy, and the sense of humor, is astonishing.
Ye gods, this sounds like a plug. Here - go play the demo. Then go spend the $20 or $30 or whatever it costs. I WANT MORE!
www.gamershell.com/download_8864.shtml
www.fileplanet.com/152193/150000/fileinfo/Psychon
Yeah.... if DirectX counts as a dependency.
the game that every store I've seen is demoing on their Wii.
You've actually seen playable demos at stores? Which? I've been to a gamestop, a Best Buy, and Walmart - and none of them have actual demos. It's "here's what it looks like", along with a video. Neither is useful.
They're only looking for 360 players
And given the apathy towards it by the Shadowrun FANS (as well as FPS people who see Counterstrike-with-elves), I don't think they'll find that many. Maybe 200.
Awesome, thanks. I saw the Bird Flu one, which I think was the first.
Once it flops the next version they can tell the RIAA to kindly piss off because their ideas don't work.
Doubtful, if they're willing to pay the labels for each Zune sold. (Then again, that part is probably to force Apple to pay when their label contracts come up, which effectively INCREASES the leader's cost, when normally it drops.)
Personally, I think the disconnect is due to the cell-phone culture. I've seen couples walking down the street, each on the phone to someone different. We're all together, yet totally separated. And balding talk-show hosts are no different in this regard.
How many episodes of that were there? I caught one online and loved it, but never saw signs of any more.