Native Jovian

So, I got a SSD last week and finally got it installed and a new 64-bit version of Windows 7 (upgraded from 32-bit Windows XP) put on it. TF2 is going to be blazing fast, I'm looking forward to it. But first I have to download all friggen 10 gigs of it. Blargh.

First thing I thought of was FFVIII's . I mean, come on guys: it's used during an actual ballroom dance scene, and it's got "waltz" right in the title.

-window -noborder is the best thing ever. Every game should be able to do that.

It hasn't. Otherwise single-player only games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim wouldn't have sold as ridiculously holy shit well as they did.

I'd be up for trying out the team thing. No idea how well it'd work out, since I've never really played "competitively" before, but I'm a pretty good huntsman sniper.

I had no real problems with cash, just had to do a few missions to get what I needed. I got my house in Whiterun, plus all the upgrades for it, plus a bunch more cash that I've since blown on smithing materials. I'm up to Elven (exquisite), which was expensive because I had to buy all the moonstone I needed. I've gotten a bit farther in the main quest (just did the embassy mission with Delphine) and I can't decide whether I want to go for the Stormcloaks or the Legion. I was leaning toward the Stormcloaks, but some of the stuff that's come up has given me pause. Long story short: does joining the Legion mean you have to play nice with the Thalmor? Because if I can join them and still kick the shit out of uppity elves, them I'm all for it, but if I can't then I'll go Stormcloak.

With lightsabers and force powers. It's going to be awesome.

So I haven't been able to play Skyrim much until the last few days. Great fun, but I was struggling a lot with the program until I tweaked some .ini settings. Widened the field of view and turned off mouse acceleration. Fixed things right up. (I also had to update my graphics card driver to get rid of a weird particle effect bug.) Right now I'm level 7, still tooling around Whiterun trying to gather enough funds to buy the house there so I have someplace to dump the crap I want to keep but don't want to carry around.

Compared to what? Isn't WoW's standard 5-man groups? Losing one DPS slot doesn't seem like that big a deal. I think Powerlord's comment was more about the fact that 4-man groups means that fewer of his friends can play together at once rather than being about game balance. I plan to go Jedi Guardian, personally. Lightsaber AND heavy armor? Awesome.

Lyrai, I'd love the Garlic Flank Stake if you've still got it. I spent the entire Halloween event trying to assemble a full Sniper set and all I ended up with was the Silver Bullets... I've also got a Dr. Gogglestache (medic hat), Soviet Stitch-Up (heavyarms... er, heavy arms), Under Cover (spy hat), Legend of Bugfoot (engie feet), and Haunted Tail of the Crypt (pyro tail), if anyone is interested in any of those. I'd really like a Haunted Holy Hunter (sniper hat) for the Haunted Tail from the Crypt, but I'll take pretty much anything for the rest. Steam name is NativeJovian if anyone wants to hit me up for trading.

And there was only one major death in A Game Of Thrones.

Skyrim is looking better than Oblivion in pretty much every way. They're using an upgraded engine, which means not only better graphics but also less buggy overall. They're tweaking the borked level-scaling enemies system to work more like it did in Fallout 3 (ie, not-broken). They're getting rid of classes and letting you develop skills naturally instead of enforcing the major/minor divide. (Not sure how they're implementing levelups, but my guess would be a standard XP system a la Fallout 3.) Plus, there's dragons 'n' shit.

I'll be around pretty much all evening tonight; hit me up on Steam chat if you need me. Tomorrow's probably no-go, though.

+1 on the "27 Halloween-only items is too many" sentiment. I nearly killed myself grinding for the masks last year. This year I haven't really bothered, though I've ended up with three or four gifts so far anyway.

Except that their food is better. By, like, a lot. YMMV obviously, but giving someone shit for attacking a fast food joint they don't like and then turning around and attacking a fast food joint you don't like is retarded. I'm more of a BK guy myself, anyway. (Except for Checkers/Rallys fries. Delicious, glorious seasoned fries.)

I know; I'm asking us to MAKE one.

Can we get some kind of official ruling that killing people on Loot Island and/or while fighting the boss is not cool on the event server? It's really irritating when people keep fucking with you while you're trying to actually do the Halloween event stuff. If you don't want to do the event stuff, then you can go play regular Viaduct somewhere else.

D'oh. I knew that, but I always forget about it. Oh well.

Can someone doublecheck to see if I have a reserve slot on the server? I thought I got added a while ago, but the past couple days I've had to wait to get on to the server, and I don't think all those names belong to regulars...

I find it hilarious when people say things like this. Apparently the fact that it's similar to something that millions of people play and enjoy is a bad thing. Reminds me of "Fallout 3 is just Oblivion with guns!".

Are we going to set up one of the servers as the Halloween event server?

Okay, see, that's pretty awesome.

Well, this is the sort of thing I mean. Is there actually an in-game mechanic for, say, claiming territory? Can you build your own space stations and such, or take over ones that exist? In other words: in what way can you interact with the world rather than the players?

So I've been playing in 1-2 hour chunks for the past few days. Still working on the tutorial missions (finished the basics and exploration, working on industry at the moment). I can already see where the attraction of the game comes from -- there's simply so much to do, and so many ways to do it, I know I'd enjoy tweaking my skills and my ride to accomplish whatever it is I decide to do at the time. But then, I've always been a sucker for unit customization... The question is, other than advancement for its own sake, what exactly is there to do in the game? There doesn't seem to be any storyline or anything to that effect, and the game is obviously ridiculously open-ended. From what I recall of this thread, it's been said that you really need to join a corp to get the most out of the game, but what exactly does joining a corp let you do other than "help you advance even faster"?

I have no idea if I'm reading that right, but... did that guy drop eleven 30-day subscription extensions when he got blown up by someone?