Bjorn

I'm the poster child of poor self control when it comes to Souls games. I bought 2 copies of DS2, got PS3 version on release day and pre-ordered the PC version so I could pre-load it.

It's a nice way to spend an afternoon hanging out with a friend outside drinking beer while you do something.

I had never heard that story before, didn't realize it was one that's been floating around.

Because it's an evil place to invade. If you catch someone on a bridge, and you have a Greatbow, many lulz will be had...by the invader. It's certainly a challenging place to invade, but the chances for a host to panic and put themselves in a terrible position is fairly high. It's also much, much, much harder for the host to run away from you, forcing them to fight if you catch them in a room.

I'm not sure if I ever got the Old Knight's Shield to drop on this playthrough, I'll have to check it out. The 8 weight probably cuts it out for this character though, maybe one of my more traditional warriors would like it. Man, looking at its stats, 68 Stability on a medium shield is really good. I wonder why more people don't use it, particularly for NG when it can drop so early? I probably looked at it early on, saw the weight, and just stuck with the Drangleic shield. I'm really trying not to use the Avelyn in PvP for now. I used the crap out of it on my first two characters, and want to try and find ways to punish people at range without depending on it now. I love the Dragonrider Bow so much, my favorite bow in the game. It's draw speed just makes using it a lot more challenging in duels (though it does hit like a truck). Best use is to hold the shot and let someone try to roll into you, pegging them as they finish the roll, which staggers them. I may go over to a short bow for awhile, or try out all the bows to see which has the fastest draw (I think the Hunter Bow does, but not sure). On being in water, slinging lightning at people standing in water is brutal. Full damage greater lightning spears just melt people. You don't get the chance to do it very often, but when it happens, it's glorious. It's also interesting trying to use Pyromancy against the LGK. Since it's raining in his arena, fire does pitiful damage (I foolishly went in once with only fire infused weapons).

Actually, I haven't particularly cared about anything Nintendo has done in about 20 years. My kid owned a Gamecube and I liked Mario Kart Double Dash. I think that was the last Nintendo game I played? The last Nintendo hardware I owned for myself was a SNES. What I think is that you're wrong and making a lot of bad assumptions and bold claims with little to back it up. Sorry if that's blunt, but you tend to be blunt, so why not. Off the top of my head, people I personally know who regularly use multi-screens include: Graphic designers Video and Photo editors Journalists Gamers Stock brokers People who deal with databases all day (which is mostly what I do) Online business owners (the other thing I do all day) Those multiple screens come in a variety of categories. People may have two monitors, a laptop and a desktop, a tablet/phone and a PC of some sort, or any number of combinations. But all of them have found that having multiple screens available simultaneously for discrete tasks is better for their productivity, business or hobby. A second screen may not always be a great fit for any particular game, but there are plenty of examples of good ideas. The 3DS is full of them, and second screen tech is still in its infancy for console gaming.

It’s Judgment Day for Killer Robots at the United Nations There is a coalition of NGOs called the “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots”. I feel that the Thumbs need to join this umbrella organization. Other things I learned from that article are that South Korea and Israel are already experimenting with systems that could easily be made completely autonomous. It sounds like human control is an optional part of these systems.

I basically did that once and am never doing it again. Gutted a 109 year old farm house completely (all electrical, plumbing, walls, windows, doors, ceilings, flooring, just left the frame and roof). It was a great experience, and I love our house, but I basically worked two 50 hour a week jobs for almost a year. Worked all day at my real job, then easily put in 50+ hours every week redoing the house. It might have actually been less work to just build a new house than to fix all the problems we discovered in this one. Our original plan did not involve gutting it as badly as we did. My main golfing buddy moved to Houston last year, and I'm not really motivated enough to go out by myself. I need to sucker someone else into picking up the game, or find a new golfing buddy.

As far as the cost of gaming goes compared to other hobbies, I go through spats of being a golfer. Even going to the cheap course is likely to cost me $20 for a couple of hours of golfing, and if I want to go to a nicer course on the weekend, I'm looking at $40-$80 for a few hours. Plus the cost of balls, tees, the occasional new club, a beer or two. I have friends who easily spend $5K+ a year on golfing. I also do some carpentry occasionally, and I've spent far more on my tools than I have on all my gaming hardware in the last 6 or 7 years. But I get the joy of having some really nice things in my house that I know I built. My wife's two big hobbies are gardening and sewing. The amount she spends on plants and sewing material per year blows my gaming budget out of the water. Her yearly spring plant purchase alone is probably equal to my entire gaming budget. Gaming is probably our cheapest hobby, honestly. Not counting reading, we buy a lot of books used.

Pretty much every cool feature XboxOne was announced with has been gutted thanks to the market and bad decisions by Microsoft. The Internet didn't make them go with a Kinect-less sku, buyers choosing a competitor did. Microsoft failed to communicate the original advantages of their design, and instead communicated something that sounded like corporate's wet dream for control (I'll admit there were some cool possibilities to the always on One). It's not the Internet's fault that Microsoft PR did a shitty job, and couldn't even communicate clearly what the features of the platform were for the first few days after announcement, giving conflicting and contradictory answers. And consumers did have legitimate concerns about the death of rentals and the inability to give, lend or trade games with friends. As for the Kinect, my current living room setup literally cannot support one (using a projector and there is no room above or below screen to mount a Kinect), which rendered the One a non-possibility for me. As long as it was mandatory, I couldn't even consider buying one. I'd still go with a PS4 first, but in a couple of years when prices are down I'll consider one.

The first time, I tried fighting that legitimately about 10 times, even respeccing once, until I decided I didn't ever want to be good enough to win it and cheesed it the same way you described. That's one of my favorite fights in the game. It's so deliciously tense. And the first time you walk into the room? One of the best shit-your-pants moments in the game. So I might reverse my stance on Adaptability and decide that having it at the softcap is totally worth it, for PvP at least (probably not if all you do is PvE). The number of attacks I was able to roll and dodge through was crazy. Way more than when I've dueled with very low adaptability. Plus being able to toss out knives for some extra damage at mid-range was crazy useful. And getting heals off when facing certain builds. I usually don't heal during a duel, but against certain builds it's almost necessary. Anytime someone casts Dark Fog, poisons me or pulls out an Avelyn, I'm going to heal. Most of my time spent playing last night was finishing getting Awestones for the Company of Champions, then dueling on the Iron Keep Bridge with DragonBros. I probably fought 40ish fights, and won 24 of them (according to my Dragon Scale count). A lot of those losses came late when I was screwing around with trying to learn to parry using the regular scimitar. Parrying someone in PvP is probably one of the most satisfying things in the game! Also realized that I now love running into Hex users, they are crunchy, delicious and easy to kill. All you need to do is infuse the Transgressor Shield with Dark (Pre-order shield, also available for purchase late in the game). This gives it 100 percent dark blocking, allowing you to eat all the Hexes they can throw at you at no loss. At my Soul Memory, hexers have so much invested into Faith, Intel and Attunement that they really don't have enough left over to absorb much damage. I've taken to rapidly switching out my shield based on what my opponent shows me as they buff or with the equipment. This is my favorite build I've had so far, a bit of a variation on my original build that I used on the PS3. Name: Muhammad Ali - aka Float like a butterfly sting like a bee RH: Caestus, Poison Black Scorpion Stinger, Dragonrider Bow (for now, might change to a different bow) LH: Shield or parrying weapon, depending on enemy, rest of slots empty because of Vanquisher's Seal Rings: Vanquisher's Seal, Second Dragon Ring, Ring of Blades +1. Fourth slot changes, been trying Stone Ring, Ring of Giants and Rat Covenant Ring. Haven't decided which I like more. Armor: Gyrm Pants, Havel's Gauntlets, Butterfly Chest piece, Butterfly Hat Mostly I'm just punching people to death, but the Stinger and Bow are there as counters to particular builds. Using one Caestus for poise damage, so I can buff it if desired, and because you can only have one item equipped and still be able to switch to an empty hand (and I want both the bow and Stinger). Heavy armor is the biggest nightmare for this build. I don't have enough poise break to stagger them out of an attack, so need something with a bit longer range to proc poison on them. The other thing I really struggle with is the basic Greatsword. Something about it's reach and angle just wreck me every time. The Butterfly pieces are including both for looks and function. If I need to poison someone, having the pieces on keeps their poison proc from decreasing even if I have to stop attacking, so long as I can stay close to them. The Vanquisher's Seal is probably my favorite "weapon" in the game, and I feel it's the most balanced of the top tier weapons. It does awesome damage for low stamina cost, doesn't have to be upgraded and has infinite durability. But it's balanced by being unbuffable, has short range, requires high stat investment, takes a ring slot, and takes 2 or 4 active weapon slots. Contrasted with things like Santier's Spear or the Avelyn which take minimal stat investment, do stunning damage and each have great range for their class.

Also people totally don't sit there playing their games consoles with laptops, phones and/or tablets open next to them. Cause that totally doesn't happen. Finding interesting ways to use second screens would be a waste of time since only programmers use them.

Right, I actually read your earlier post about Rev and in my head interpreted that as REV(5), not revelations. I've never played Revelations. My comment might seem less out of the blue now.

I loved V as a co-op game to play with my daughter. But I only played it solo to see some of the areas in full screen (since we were playing split). Can't say what the experience is like alone.

This is out of the DF documentary stuff that's now going public, but apparently Steven Spielburg once called up Tim Schafer to get a hint on how to get through Day of the Tentacle. Which is the best hint line ever.

Holy crap, what a great interview. It's so rare to hear a politician and his wife, even a retired one, speak so frankly about such intimate topics. It makes me hope my wife and I grow into being such cool old people who can help younger couples.

Yep, that's him. He can turn a +5 normal weapon into a Magic Weapon. So it just takes 9 regular shards and a green shard to have the magic weapon of your choice.

You definitely have to manage your casts and save them for big enemies. My one mage run in DS1, I tended to go through every area at least twice, once to explore, and then reset and take the shortest possible route to the boss to save on casts. At least until mid-game when you have way more spells. Late game there are also some incredibly powerful Intel boosted melee weapons that help. Also, in DS1, you actually get access to the Blacksmith who can magic enchant things immediately (he's a little hidden, but he's only a short run from the first real bonfire post tutorial), so you get access to magic enchanted weapons super fast, which helps.

I just wanted to compliment you on your SC2 avatar. There's not enough Star Control love in the world.

One advantage of ADP I didn't mention is that it also boosts the Poison BNS, though to a lesser degree than Dex. But it lets you hit the softcap for the Poison BNS without putting 40 points into Dex. So if you want to play with poison but don't need 40 DEX, you can split points between Dex/Adp, which may be better overall for your build. Also, I really hadn't read much about poison besides people bitching about Dark Fog. Messing around last night, there seem to be 3 tiers of Poison Scaling. Tier 1: Innate poison weapon infused with something else - Low Scaling Tier 2: Innate poison weapon OR regular weapon infused with poison - Medium Scaling Tier 3: Innate poison weapon infused with poison - High scaling (double Tier 2?) There are probably some weapons with variations on this, but it works as a baseline. The Rat Covenant Ring has a hidden bonus of +50 poison for weapons with poison. It shows up on the weapon stats when equipped, but isn't mentioned in the description of the ring. This bonus increases to 65 for innate poison weapons that have also been poison infused. Poison is on the slow side for regular enemies, but it is useful against many bosses and just fun to use in PvP (even though it's not necessarily better than just beating someone to a pulp).

Throwing bombs and knives are actually fast enough to be useful at that level. I don't know if the buff animation is that much faster, I never tried buffing inside of a fight, was just applying them before the fog door like normal.

The Covetous Demon fight is consistently hilarious to me though because you can Flexile Sentry is really intimidating the first time you enter the fog gate, before you realize it's a really simple battle. I'm messing around with another new character, and am finally understanding what poise does in DS2. It's a really lightweight build, and I was consistently getting staggered like hell in PvP. Poise simply determines whether or not you will get staggered out of an animation, it has no effect when you are not currently attempting an action, which is why small fast weapons can stunlock you if you don't get an attack off first. This ended up making the Ring of Giants really valuable for this build, as I'm only wearing 2 pieces of armor with poise. I also took my Adaptability up to its softcap (38), giving an Agility of 110. First time I've done that. It's definitely noticeable, I'm rolling through attacks completely, or just taking partial damage, more often now. Item usage feels lightning fast now compared to the typical sub-10 Adp that I've been running. At very low adaptability, I've typically not been able to heal safely against the Pursuer, but with 38, I had no problems getting a heal off. I'm still not convinced it is worth the points though. For this character, that's 32 points that AREN'T going into Health, Stamina, or Equip Load. If I respecced, I'd have 16.5 more equip load, 22 more Stamina and 304 more Health (assuming boosted by Second Dragon Ring). That's a ton of value traded for faster healing and occasionally being missed on a dodge. It and my offensive stats are all soft capped now though, so I think I'll keep it for a few more areas as I level up Vig, End and Vit.

I played through MGS1-3 plus the original Metal Gear prior to the release of 4. It was a ton of fun. I felt all of them held up in their own ways, particularly MGS3. I may join in when you're on Peace Walker (which I own and have never played) and MGS4, as I've been wanting to go back and replay it for awhile now.

Take the criticisms you read about Crossfit with a grain of salt. Much of the traditional workout industry hates and is terrified of movements like it. Yes, there are risks to doing CF. But the critics of it tend to take these risks, and magnify them way out of proportion to the number of people doing CF, while rarely or never talking about the really good parts. That said, CF does have risk associated with it and it has some problems that need to be addressed (just like any other gym, really). I think one of its biggest problems is that the quality and expertise can vary wildly from one gym to another. I think the one I went to is fantastic. Trainers would talk with you about your personal strengths and weaknesses, and have you do different exercises if there were areas you were more likely to injure self on. I don't know if that attitude is typical of the organization at large though. As for being crazy...eh, not really. You decide how hard to push yourself. The workouts are typically timed, it's do as many reps of a variety of exercises as possible in X minutes. Someone in professional athlete level shape might knock out 500 total reps in one workout, whereas I might only get 100. The theory being that everyone, regardless of fitness level, gets the same quality of workout because it scales to how fit you are. And most beginners can't do advanced exercises. Like I am no where near being able to do anything on Olympic rings. But just like scaling reps, there are scaling difficulties of similar exercises. Can't do rings? You can do dips on a fixed machine. Can't do dips? You can do banded dips. As much as I like it though, I dropped my membership last summer. The workouts are really tough and challenging. Some weeks I was in the mood for that, other weeks it was really intimidating to think about going in and I would flake out. CF memberships are on the expensive side for a gym, and if I wasn't going to go in at least twice a week, I really couldn't justify the cost.

To my knowledge, there's really no chocolate spread like Nutella on the market in the US. Nutella by itself is just okay to me, but as a companion to peanut butter it's just about perfection incarnate.