And actually LIKED Invisible War (reminded me of a good System Shock 2 which generally sucked).
Good sir,
I must request of you that you immediately tear up your Geek/Gamer identification card(s), turn in your gaming mouse or mice, shut off all entertainment devices within your household, and wait near the front door. Our specialists will be arriving shortly to take you away for evaluation and re-education.
What exactly seems to be the problem? Maybe give this FAQ a whirl, it might have the answer. Otherwise you'll have to post some specifics, either here (where it'll probably get lost in the shuffle) or over on the TTLG forums, or their IRC.
Because they bought their innocent 17-year-old a game full of occult references and blood or drug references and racism... but no one told them it had breasts!
Heh, reading this really struck a chord with me tonight. I went and saw The Omen in theatres with some friends (summary: It sucked. BADLY. Don't even bother renting it).
Now this is a movie rife with references to the occult (the little boy is literally the SPAWN OF SATAN), and littered with BRUTAL death scenes. We're talkin one guy getting impaled by a 7 foot metal rod and then being pelted with shards of stained glass. Another guy is literally decapitated (spurting blood and all) and then you watch his body tumble down a flight of stairs. Wanna know what the movie is rated up here in Alberta (Canada)? 14a. That means a 14 year old can walk in, buy a ticket, and watch the movie. Kids under 14 only need an adult to accompany them. Fourteen! Gruesome murders at 14?! There's not a lick of swearing (I don't even remember hearing somuch as a "damn", which is odd given the context) or flash of nudity (five seconds of Julia Stiles nekkid ass would have made the film tolerable. Oh well), because oh dear me those things are just too mature for a fourteen year old. But excessively violent death? Sure, go ahead kid.
WTF?!
Anyways, just had to chip that in after being slapped in the face with it tonight. I'm kinda split on the whole thing myself. More power to the ESRB if its going to stop stupid laws and all that kinda thing... but at the same time, honestly, these "rating" systems we've got right now are pretty fucked up. It makes me think... Is supporting something stupid so it can prevent more stupid... well, stupid?
Nah, according to them all that means is they've got a $3.7 million share when they should have an $X million share (where X is a very large number someone with a calculator pulled out their ass) because of all the "lost sales due to piracy".
Y'can't win with these fuckers. I wouldn't be suprised if they started charging people for air one day, just because it was "used as a transmission medium for their protected works".
I agree with grandparent. Fire the marketing team, or at least give them a smack. Just because Nokia makes good hardware that happens to be popular (I bought a Samsung!:P), does not excuse them from the fact that the "N-Gage" name makes gamers of all stripes recoil in horror.
This is like Ford trying to sell a "Mustang Pinto Edition". It MAY be a good car (note: I'm far from a ford fan:P), but associating it with one of the most infamous and least popular names in automotive history would be suicide.
Personally what I love about Thief is that you can play it however you like. Its similar to Dues Ex or System Shock in that respect, only it doesn't rely on any real RPG elements to achieve it. You're just presented with a problem and its up to you to figure things out. This can result in a HUGE variety of playstyles... everything from the sexiness of a perfect "Lytha style" or "Ghost style" run where you don't touch any guards, make any noises, or leave any evidence of you ever being there (besides the fact that anything valuable and not bolted to the floor is missing); to the insanity of a no-stealth dagger run where you charge in the front door (if possible) and go flying over guards' heads, looting and killing like you were a pirate in a cloak.
Man that was a fun series. T1 was great, T2 was amazing (be SURE to check out T2X, a fan made 'expansion' that's suprisingly good!), and I know this is blasphemy, but I even enjoyed T3 even with its taint of Consolitis.
The screenshot I saw said it was a 1.5 second cast with a 2 (or was it 3?) minute cooldown. The character was in the mid single digits, and the ability claimed to heal 50 health over 15 seconds. Seems like a pretty powerful ability, especially for classes that can't normally heal. Personally i'm thinking a Draeni warrior is gonna be scary in PVP... then again, the idea of a Blood Elf rogue scares me too.:P
I'm pretty sure they're only sniffing International packages (hence HM Customs being involved), because those are pulled to the side for customs to deal with anyways. Or at least thats what happened when I worked for UPS. You're right on one thing though, there is NO way this would apply to domestic packages. They move WAY too fast, and there is just WAY too much content to sift through. Even a "small" center like where I worked at would do several thousand packages a night (usually two 36 foot trailers full, sometimes three). And major hubs tend to be automated, with no room for people much less dogs. They're going after big international shipments, and honestly i'd be suprised if they found much.
PS: You're insane to ship anything softer than a cast-iron safe through UPS. Seriously.
Man, Blizzard really mangled this one. They've previously stated that the Draeni in their original, un-mutated forms, looked nearly identical to humans. This was an emergency lore bashing to handle the fact that the famous "half orc, half human" assassin Garona was infact too old to be an orc/human mixbreed (having been born long before the dark portal ever opened). So then they changed her to "half orc, half draeni" with the subtext that "uncorrupted" Draeni looked startingly Human except for having green skin. NOW we're being told that the Draeni are somehow related to the Eredar? The ancient galaxy spanning evil pawns of Sargeras? Huh?
Honestly I think I liked that Eredar/Whisp junk that was floating around on the forums, better. Oh well.
Unreal bots tend to have better than expected accuracy to compensate for their lack of 'creativity'. They just don't have the same kind of thinking power as a human player, so they have better aim and faster reactions to try and make up the difference. It does kind of suck on wide open maps where every enemy is a deadly sniper, but the very simple solution is to turn the difficulty down a notch.
Infact, Unreal has long supported a feature request i've seen mentioned in other posts on this topic - difficulty adaptation. You can turn on an option where the game will automatically crank up the difficulty if you're kicking asses, and (eventually) turn things down a bit if you're being stomped on. Eventually most people find a difficulty they're comfortable with and then lock it to that.
Oh and if the bots never missed (like, ever) then you're on Godlike. Take the rating literally - it is not intended for mere mortals.:)
Huuuuge agreement with parent here. I used to drink 2-4 cans of coke a day at work and, while it tasted great and was convenient, it was completely unjustifiable in terms of cost... both to my wallet and my body. Best thing I ever did was switch to drinking mostly water. Oh I know, I was one of those "it don't got no taaste" people too. But I really wasn't craving any kind of beverage, I just needed something to nibble on for flavour. Fresh fruit works great, but you can try anything from mints to cereals (avoiding the Count-Chocula stuff, of course). Then just sip on some water throughout the day. You'll get used to it pretty quickly. Its an amazingly easy habit to keep once you train yourself to head for the water cooler instead of the vending machines.
Just acknowledge that colas and coffees are treats, not meals (and designer waters are plain stupid). Your body will thank you for it.
Waterwings are those little inflatable plastic arm bands little kids sometimes wear to help them float while swimming. I'm guessing you live somewhere in Europe (UK? I peeked at your posting history), so you might know them as something else, perhaps "floaties" or "swimmies". I dunno exactly what they're called in other parts of the world, but you should be able to Google Image for Waterwings if you need a visual reference.
Try rubbing alcohol. You can buy some pricier cleaning agents from the same companies that make the pastes too (like ArctiClean), but honestly any high % alcohol and a soft cloth should work just as well. If you're cleaning off a shit-ton of paste though, you might want to start with a razor blade to scrape off the excess. Then clean with the alcohol, let it dry a minute or two, clean your blade, then slap on some new stuff and shave it smooth. Wrestle the heatsink back on, close it up, and you're good to go.
Like the post just north of yours mentioned, they're male nipples. Since skin is skin, female nipples are to be hidden, and male nipples are to be seen, they just used the same texture for both sexes. Hence the lack of, well, lack of nipples.
Um, i'm not sure the Oblivion "nudity" qualifies as an easter egg. Its just the way they built the character models. They made baseline nude bodies with interchangable bits of clothing - usually various armors or robes - with the default being a character's underwear. All someone did with the mod is make the default = no bra, thus exposing the female characters "breasts". And I use breasts in quotations because they hardly qualify considering the skin texture used is unisex. Which is why people say the nipples look weird... they're male!
Anyways, I think theres a big difference between discovering a hidden mini-game, and discovering you can remove an object from a game for 'cheap porn'. Namely, premeditation. The ESRB is telling the whole industry that manslaughter = murder, and we're all going to suffer for it.:(
Its pretty interesting, and I think it gives a good idea of how Blizzard sees mages now. Unfortunatly, what Blizz thinks a mage is and what everyone else thinks a mage is have rarely been similar. Part of me is curious to test the new talents out... the other part of me is glad I quit WoW.
I play WoW from time to time and thus maintain my account there (so my character doesn't get dumped)
You don't have to "maintain" your account, Blizzard will never delete your characters (at least under current policy), so you can go back at any time. I quit WoW for five months and all of my characters were just as i'd left them. I recently quit again and expect that if I ever want to go back to the horrible world of daily raids on MC/BWL/TAQ and eventually Naxx/Draenor, I could. But I don't plan on it. The items arms race (epix!) is precicely why I quit Diablo 2, and its the same reason why a lot of people are dumping WoW.:P
I doubt it. I don't think it's actually illegal for me (as a Canadian) to view their online content... Its just something they want to avoid, because paying for bandwidth to show people meaningless commercials from another country isn't in their best financial interests.
I could be wrong, of course. And they could be discriminating against non-US citizens too. But I don't think either is likely.
Slashdot Mirror
Your right, it doesn't.
405nm falls into the category of Violet (380-420nm). Blue would be between 440 and 490nm.
I wonder if/when we'll ever start using ultraviolet lasers to access data? (Maybe someone already does...?)
I must request of you that you immediately tear up your Geek/Gamer identification card(s), turn in your gaming mouse or mice, shut off all entertainment devices within your household, and wait near the front door. Our specialists will be arriving shortly to take you away for evaluation and re-education.
Sincerely, Gamers everywhere
What exactly seems to be the problem? Maybe give this FAQ a whirl, it might have the answer. Otherwise you'll have to post some specifics, either here (where it'll probably get lost in the shuffle) or over on the TTLG forums, or their IRC.
Now this is a movie rife with references to the occult (the little boy is literally the SPAWN OF SATAN), and littered with BRUTAL death scenes. We're talkin one guy getting impaled by a 7 foot metal rod and then being pelted with shards of stained glass. Another guy is literally decapitated (spurting blood and all) and then you watch his body tumble down a flight of stairs. Wanna know what the movie is rated up here in Alberta (Canada)? 14a. That means a 14 year old can walk in, buy a ticket, and watch the movie. Kids under 14 only need an adult to accompany them. Fourteen! Gruesome murders at 14?! There's not a lick of swearing (I don't even remember hearing somuch as a "damn", which is odd given the context) or flash of nudity (five seconds of Julia Stiles nekkid ass would have made the film tolerable. Oh well), because oh dear me those things are just too mature for a fourteen year old. But excessively violent death? Sure, go ahead kid.
WTF?!
Anyways, just had to chip that in after being slapped in the face with it tonight. I'm kinda split on the whole thing myself. More power to the ESRB if its going to stop stupid laws and all that kinda thing... but at the same time, honestly, these "rating" systems we've got right now are pretty fucked up. It makes me think... Is supporting something stupid so it can prevent more stupid... well, stupid?
Nah, according to them all that means is they've got a $3.7 million share when they should have an $X million share (where X is a very large number someone with a calculator pulled out their ass) because of all the "lost sales due to piracy".
Y'can't win with these fuckers. I wouldn't be suprised if they started charging people for air one day, just because it was "used as a transmission medium for their protected works".
Its relatively safe to eat. Just don't breathe the dust.
I agree with grandparent. Fire the marketing team, or at least give them a smack. Just because Nokia makes good hardware that happens to be popular (I bought a Samsung! :P), does not excuse them from the fact that the "N-Gage" name makes gamers of all stripes recoil in horror.
:P), but associating it with one of the most infamous and least popular names in automotive history would be suicide.
This is like Ford trying to sell a "Mustang Pinto Edition". It MAY be a good car (note: I'm far from a ford fan
...made out of two graphics cards?
o_O
Personally what I love about Thief is that you can play it however you like. Its similar to Dues Ex or System Shock in that respect, only it doesn't rely on any real RPG elements to achieve it. You're just presented with a problem and its up to you to figure things out. This can result in a HUGE variety of playstyles... everything from the sexiness of a perfect "Lytha style" or "Ghost style" run where you don't touch any guards, make any noises, or leave any evidence of you ever being there (besides the fact that anything valuable and not bolted to the floor is missing); to the insanity of a no-stealth dagger run where you charge in the front door (if possible) and go flying over guards' heads, looting and killing like you were a pirate in a cloak.
Man that was a fun series. T1 was great, T2 was amazing (be SURE to check out T2X, a fan made 'expansion' that's suprisingly good!), and I know this is blasphemy, but I even enjoyed T3 even with its taint of Consolitis.
Don't you mean... *Monocle* ?
The screenshot I saw said it was a 1.5 second cast with a 2 (or was it 3?) minute cooldown. The character was in the mid single digits, and the ability claimed to heal 50 health over 15 seconds. Seems like a pretty powerful ability, especially for classes that can't normally heal. Personally i'm thinking a Draeni warrior is gonna be scary in PVP... then again, the idea of a Blood Elf rogue scares me too. :P
Yeah, the Barton 2500's are stalwart overclockers as well. Mine's been doing 2.2ghz (3200+) for two and a half years now, with nary a hitch.
I'm pretty sure they're only sniffing International packages (hence HM Customs being involved), because those are pulled to the side for customs to deal with anyways. Or at least thats what happened when I worked for UPS. You're right on one thing though, there is NO way this would apply to domestic packages. They move WAY too fast, and there is just WAY too much content to sift through. Even a "small" center like where I worked at would do several thousand packages a night (usually two 36 foot trailers full, sometimes three). And major hubs tend to be automated, with no room for people much less dogs. They're going after big international shipments, and honestly i'd be suprised if they found much.
PS: You're insane to ship anything softer than a cast-iron safe through UPS. Seriously.
Man, Blizzard really mangled this one. They've previously stated that the Draeni in their original, un-mutated forms, looked nearly identical to humans. This was an emergency lore bashing to handle the fact that the famous "half orc, half human" assassin Garona was infact too old to be an orc/human mixbreed (having been born long before the dark portal ever opened). So then they changed her to "half orc, half draeni" with the subtext that "uncorrupted" Draeni looked startingly Human except for having green skin. NOW we're being told that the Draeni are somehow related to the Eredar? The ancient galaxy spanning evil pawns of Sargeras? Huh?
Honestly I think I liked that Eredar/Whisp junk that was floating around on the forums, better. Oh well.
Unreal bots tend to have better than expected accuracy to compensate for their lack of 'creativity'. They just don't have the same kind of thinking power as a human player, so they have better aim and faster reactions to try and make up the difference. It does kind of suck on wide open maps where every enemy is a deadly sniper, but the very simple solution is to turn the difficulty down a notch.
:)
Infact, Unreal has long supported a feature request i've seen mentioned in other posts on this topic - difficulty adaptation. You can turn on an option where the game will automatically crank up the difficulty if you're kicking asses, and (eventually) turn things down a bit if you're being stomped on. Eventually most people find a difficulty they're comfortable with and then lock it to that.
Oh and if the bots never missed (like, ever) then you're on Godlike. Take the rating literally - it is not intended for mere mortals.
Huuuuge agreement with parent here. I used to drink 2-4 cans of coke a day at work and, while it tasted great and was convenient, it was completely unjustifiable in terms of cost... both to my wallet and my body. Best thing I ever did was switch to drinking mostly water. Oh I know, I was one of those "it don't got no taaste" people too. But I really wasn't craving any kind of beverage, I just needed something to nibble on for flavour. Fresh fruit works great, but you can try anything from mints to cereals (avoiding the Count-Chocula stuff, of course). Then just sip on some water throughout the day. You'll get used to it pretty quickly. Its an amazingly easy habit to keep once you train yourself to head for the water cooler instead of the vending machines.
Just acknowledge that colas and coffees are treats, not meals (and designer waters are plain stupid). Your body will thank you for it.
Waterwings are those little inflatable plastic arm bands little kids sometimes wear to help them float while swimming. I'm guessing you live somewhere in Europe (UK? I peeked at your posting history), so you might know them as something else, perhaps "floaties" or "swimmies". I dunno exactly what they're called in other parts of the world, but you should be able to Google Image for Waterwings if you need a visual reference.
Try rubbing alcohol. You can buy some pricier cleaning agents from the same companies that make the pastes too (like ArctiClean), but honestly any high % alcohol and a soft cloth should work just as well. If you're cleaning off a shit-ton of paste though, you might want to start with a razor blade to scrape off the excess. Then clean with the alcohol, let it dry a minute or two, clean your blade, then slap on some new stuff and shave it smooth. Wrestle the heatsink back on, close it up, and you're good to go.
Like the post just north of yours mentioned, they're male nipples. Since skin is skin, female nipples are to be hidden, and male nipples are to be seen, they just used the same texture for both sexes. Hence the lack of, well, lack of nipples.
Um, i'm not sure the Oblivion "nudity" qualifies as an easter egg. Its just the way they built the character models. They made baseline nude bodies with interchangable bits of clothing - usually various armors or robes - with the default being a character's underwear. All someone did with the mod is make the default = no bra, thus exposing the female characters "breasts". And I use breasts in quotations because they hardly qualify considering the skin texture used is unisex. Which is why people say the nipples look weird... they're male!
:(
Anyways, I think theres a big difference between discovering a hidden mini-game, and discovering you can remove an object from a game for 'cheap porn'. Namely, premeditation. The ESRB is telling the whole industry that manslaughter = murder, and we're all going to suffer for it.
The aforementioned talent preview
Its pretty interesting, and I think it gives a good idea of how Blizzard sees mages now. Unfortunatly, what Blizz thinks a mage is and what everyone else thinks a mage is have rarely been similar. Part of me is curious to test the new talents out... the other part of me is glad I quit WoW.
I doubt it. I don't think it's actually illegal for me (as a Canadian) to view their online content... Its just something they want to avoid, because paying for bandwidth to show people meaningless commercials from another country isn't in their best financial interests.
I could be wrong, of course. And they could be discriminating against non-US citizens too. But I don't think either is likely.
I always thought the Ultra 64 was a pretty cool name for a console... but it seems history does indeed repeat itself.