BardicKnowledge

Overall, the best MAGFest yet! Pros: -Late night Skyward Sword with the Aversas on Wednesday -Minnesota room with OA and Deia was great -Addie and Brad improvising a birthday party for me (complete with AMAZING cake) at the Shizz party -Elegant night at the Shizz party in general -Earthbound Papas concert Cons: -Missing more concerts than I would have liked; you can't do everything! -There were a few people I didn't meet that I wish I had... -...and a few friends I wish I could have spent more one on one time with. To anyone who told me to stick around longer after MAG next year, I certainly hope to. Chilling at the Aversa's place with Shariq, Gario, Bahamut, and newt (in addition to Andy/Jill) is good stuff atm -- a nice slow burn to close out MAG. Edit: One story I forgot: As Addie, Deia, and myself were waiting for an elevator down, one opened completely packed. Standing in the front of the elevator was Jon St. John. He waggled his pointer finger at us; as the doors closed, we hear "Not this time..." Epic.

2011 was a great year for both me and Addie. I presented my first musicology paper at "Music and the Moving Image" -- a paper on how the music of Left 4 Dead is designed to communicate gameplay information to players. My resolutions for next year, in order of importance: Pass my Master's exams and receive my MA in Musicology. Write an full-length academic paper and publish it to the web, making it public to anyone that wants to see it. Sing for another OCR track. Start a blog and make an entry at least once every two weeks. Look into the possibility of creating an academic conference focusing on the study of video game music; if it's possible, start one!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Thanks, Beth! Added my info. I don't have my phone on me atm, so I won't pick up until 1/3 at the earliest (when I get home from this current New Year's vacation).

I read to "good gelato" and stopped, happy. Thanks for the writeup, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

Rexy, thanks a bunch for the chocobo shirt! It was fun to open it on Christmas -- just got to the Internet again afterwards, as I was driving between my inlaws and my parent's house. Getting Mass Effect and Poker Night on PC was really great also -- I was surprised at how much dialogue they bothered to record for the poker game. I hope you get a great present also! <3

Happy birthday, Shariq!

Playing with Tails is really, really fun. They even took the time to add in custom sprites for Tails in the Special Stage. Someone really cared about this port, and it shows. Very happy that I picked it up.

I'm really hoping that the Steam version gets updated with the remastered music. I love my achievements! Edit: Is there a way to copy over / replace only some files so you can have the music and still track achievements?

I wish I had the budget to afford this, but $60 + import fees on top of that is going to put this one out of range for me.

There are a few of us that play casually over Cockatrice -- join #vgmmtg in IRC and hit us up for games there. I know there are at least a couple that do the "real" Magic online, but don't know who all of them are...I'll let them get back to you.

My Secret Santa just got me two Steam games in addition to the package (which remains unopened). Looking forward to playing through Mass Effect on PC! The other game will be great for my netbook here in class -- Poker Night at the Inventory. Yes I surf the net etc during class -- I'm posting from there now. Thanks a ton!

I got my present in the mail today! In the mail packaging was a wrapped package that says "Don't open until Christmas"...so I'm going to try my hardest to wait. Pic to come when I open it!

I was super impressed with this: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/12/06/skyrim-played-with-kinect-includes-voice-activated-dragon-shouts/ I may get the voice stuff for shouts -- any shout on voice command with no menus sounds like a winning move to me.

Thanks for the update, Mirby. Sorry for getting everyone riled up over a mis-translation!

The end of an era. http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1214255p1.html

I wish my computer would run Dolphin at more than 19 fps while this game is going

Woot, my gift is sent off! It's early I know, but I'll forget if I wait until the week of my exams...

Regardless of how this turns up, I _really_ like the idea of putting the mission statement on the shirt. Find a way to do that if the university shirt gets replaced with something please.

I voted for both. If some combination of resources (time, money, what have you) dictate that only one is feasible, I would prefer to get the Overclocked University one largely because it adds more diversity to the "shirt lineup" than the instrument shirt does. I did read Jill's comment -- I would suggest that in an environment where shirts like the ones below are fairly commonplace, the OCR version would fit in just fine. Admittedly, I will be living in a college campus environment for the majority of my life, so perhaps I'm just more accustomed to it.

Too much of a hassle for me to take along another checked bag for dress clothes, unfortunately.

I'm up for receiving anything! I've enjoyed all of the gifts I've received in years previous, and am sure I'll enjoy what I receive this time also. I own a Wii, 360, and a nice gaming PC if my person plans on going a game-focused route. If you are stumped for an idea, here's my wishlist on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/BardicKnowledge/wishlist/ I like having a nice long list of Steam games, so anything I don't already have is just fine.

uh, they're not AI minions that you create, which is Tensei's point -- you get additional characters to control, a concept that LoL doesn't have (nope, Annie's ult doesn't really count, as you can't effectively be in two places at once using it) and will likely never have. There are a number of arguments to be made in LoL's favor -- more interesting jungle (that sees regular revision, as this patch is showing), a means of forcing early/mid game team fights (dragon), a more organized shopping system, casters that scale, etc. Hero concepts in LoL are almost always terrible. There are only a couple heroes that do unique things as part of their movesets (Orianna's ball is interesting in practice and fun to work, for example), and this is one area where Riot could really stand to improve.

Green and white buffs from Twisted Treeline in the main map? Yes please. I wonder if the best jungle path will _always_ be a wraith start now, for the increased movespeed... Edit: Also, 9 points in Utility for buff increase just got a lot better.

Looking forward to hearing this on our Thanksgiving road trip! Keep up the good work, sir!