Rodin

Wow. I finally got a chance to read through the entire thread... I didn't think anything could top the Remixanator for pure April Fool's funny, but the responses in the thread are pure win! Also, for something that was put together in three days, I'm really impressed. It really was possible to net some startlingly groove-worthy tunes out of the Remixanator.

I'm really digging the Ice Cap Zone/Piano Solo/Orchestral Elements combo. Has a nice epic feel to it. Also the Schala/Jazz/Female Vocals is pretty rocking. Any other cool combos?

Depends how you look at it. Is someone that spends $50 on a Gunbound costume neccessarily stupider than someone who spends $50 of World of Warcraft monthly fees grinding instances to get a Tier 6 armor set? Both are, when you get right down to it, "shinies". Meaningless bits of data that look cool. Anyway, I wasn't really trying to separate out between casual and hardcore. I'm in full agreement that there's no such thing. I was really trying to address the difference between games that have an inherent "buy stuff!" portion and games that do not, and how while the psychological trick is the same, how it is used is significantly different. World of Warcraft is one of the worst offenders, and you don't get much more "hardcore" than the guys that lock themselves in a basement with the expansion and grind to max level in under a week.

I would say the difference is not in the techniques used, but in the end result. Peggle is just as addictive as World of Warcraft - I've sunk dozens of hours into Peggle and still get a thrill when I beat a challenge or get a full clear. However, my total investment into Peggle is about $60. $20 for Peggle, $20 for Peggle Nights a couple years later, and a further $20-$30 for Peggle DS. The cost sunk into World of Warcraft though....ooogh. One provides entertainment and keeps me playing by using the psychological tricks, and gets me to buy the sequel. The other uses the tricks to keep you playing and extracts money from you constantly while you're playing. There is a fee associated with playing WoW or any other MMO, and many of these supposedly "free" online games use those same tricks to get you to buy shiny armor or a pretty hat. That was the concept behind shareware games, and it's how many so-called casual games make up their revenue streams. An iconic example of this is Gunbound, which ran for years and made a bundle of cash despite being totally free. The number of people I saw with $50-$100 worth of costume jewelry (that didn't even affect the gameplay of the zone I was in) always amazed me. I can only assume the "avatar bonuses ON" zone was even worse in this regard.

I've generally found that you can avoid a large percentage of the youngsters simply by picking which games you play online carefully. Turn-based strategy games in particular tend to weed out most of the really immature folks, because they don't have the patience for it. Additonally, a lot of older people play that sort of game because it fits the demographic a lot better, and as such a lot more respect is shown. Of course, you still get the nutjobs just like in any game, but the ones that are actually persistent enough to stick with a turn-based game while being immature get known around the community pretty quickly, and can be safely ignored. The massed 12-year-olds in online FPS games is why I no longer even bother. The ratio of douche:normal is just too high.

A recent one for me. Playing Dragon Age, I'm on the final boss of the Dwarven deep roads. I've been getting my ass handed to me all day long, and I finally, FINALLY manage to win the battle through a large amount of luck and extreme effort. As the cutscene begins after defeating the boss...BOOM. BSOD. Reason #148345 why nobody should use Vista, ever.

And 6 years later, it's still friggin' hilarious, even if you've already read it 10 times. I loved that RPG cliche list - first time I've seen that one.

I was kinda dissapointed in the tinfoil hat, since it was either mistakenly or intentionally leaked a couple weeks ago. If you moused over one of the dried rations in the rewards page, it brought up the tinfoil hat.

When I first checked the thread out I thought it was real, since I hadn't noticed the Recapitated on the front page. Once I figured out what everyone was talking about and actually went and checked it out, I laughed my ass off.

I second Shonen Bushido and Euphoria as two of the best AMVs ever made.

Anyone else on the quality of the movie? Going to see it tomorrow possibly.

In the same vein as the dark Mario pics, here's a Futurama one.

Heh, it's all a matter of opinion I suppose. I have in fact seen all those others previously, and the one I posted is still my favorite. I stand by my opinion.* *Opinion held by this poster is his own and in no way reflects the opinions of you, your mother, your mother's cat, or any other conceivable being. Do not take opinion with with any other drugs. Your results may vary.

About the best piece of Warcraft fanart ever.

BM with Bestial Wrath/TBW eats locks for breakfast.

That's why I'm a BM hunter right now - the hunter nerf barely touched me. Pre-PVP change DPS: 120. Post-PVP change DPS: 190 Current DPS: 230. At least, that's my base DPS shown on the character sheet, since I don't have any stat mods running. Even using just those numbers though, when I pop all my cooldowns my DPS + my pet's exceeds 600. Oh, and 37 DPS shells ftw.

Given that hunters can take mobs 6 levels higher than them anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. Blizz really needs to get their ass in gear and get the servers up though...too eager to try out my new build, but it's taking them for friggin' ever to update.

If Chromaggus has 11000 people on it...why is it listed as "recommended"? I joined the server a couple weeks back, and judging from what I've seen so far, the server population is nowhere near that number.

Why bother with 0.5 gear? PVP gear and stuff you can get from instances is much better than it, for the most part. And obviously, if you're able to raid, 0.5 is absolute garbage when it comes to tanking gear. In my experience, .5 is better than anything that drops in instances other than DM blues for the non-raider. And even then, once you get the full set the set bonus makes it better even than that. .5 was made for people who despise raiding, like me. I've got the time to be a hardcore raider, but I've stepped foot in MC exactly once. After 6 hours in there, I swore off 40-mans forever. PvP gear does rock though, but it takes a LONG grind to get anything better than .5 gear - I'd say it takes less time to get .5 than it does to get any really good PvP gear (Rank 10 and up).

I tend to act as honorable as I can in world PvP. In other words, I don't go after someone who is low on health from fighting a mob, I make sure they WANT to PvP before attacking, don't corpse camp, etc. That said, I play on a PvP server and don't expect any mercy, although corpse-camping someone just for the sake of camping them has always struck me as being a jackass move. People should earn a corpse-camping. Also, if you steal my minerals/fish/herbs/quest mob, it's ON. My favorite was encountering a level 30 ally fishing Deviate fish in the barrens. I walked up to him, did /boggle /no /shoo at him, and then beat him to death with my fishing pole 3 times before he got the hint and left.

The funniest thing about this for me was that I was actually eating a Hot Pocket while playing WoW and watching South Park.

After the expansion comes out, it won't be World of Warcraft anymore - it'll be World of Blizzard. Let me take you through it. Warcraft - this should be obvious. 90% of the game. Diablo - learning skills from books, randomized items. Diablo II - the talent trees are ripped directly from D2's skill trees. Starcraft - Silithids = Zerg. They even have creep for crying out loud. Draenai = Protoss - just look at that screenshot for proof. Every one of Blizzard's games is now incorporated into one big honkin' MMO. I think we haven't heard about any new games from them because there ARE none. The next Battleground will be Starcraft 2, you just watch.

Awesome - the new Alliance race is RUSSIAN.

Winterspring can also be a damn good place for a herbalist, depending on your server's herb prices. On mine (Kalecgos), Icecap actually outsells mountain silversage and dreamfoil. I still haven't figured out why.

Remember the hunter review? Hmm? After the hunter review, hunters were GODLY. We took a major nerf in the next patch and have been taking minor nerfs ever since, deservedly. My pet became a fire-and-forget caster killer - Bestial Wrath + Bloodseeker bat was sheer ownage.