Chris

I just bought it. I'm sort of worried. If I like it, it will be a pleasant surprise because I've hated pretty much every minute of every other MMO I've ever played, but being a Blizzard game it has the capacity to destroy my life. If I don't like it, well, there goes $50. I surely wouldn't have even considered purchasing this game if it weren't for the almost unbelievable positive press it's been getting. Penny Arcade and GameSpot both considered it the game of the year, which is saying something. Everyone seems to consider it the MMO for people who don't necessarily like MMOs. Plus it actually looks like it has really good art direction, unlike every other MMO I've seen. That's not surprising coming from Blizzard, I guess, but considering that I expected this game to be shit, it's looking like I'll be eating my words. Well, thoughts, anyway.

Well, I can't, because it's not there anymore... Isn't that what you were talking about? Old content they don't have anymore?

Right. Most movies that aren't CGI-heavy are still certainly going to be using more advanced technology than was used decades ago, but it's fairly transparent from a development and audience perspective. Fine, film stock improves, and there are better computer-assisted camera sytems, but that technology is taken care of at a level pretty much removed from the actual director and screenwriter and actors and so forth, by companies like Kodak. In games, the development team has to be constantly creating the technology itself; sure, we have middleware like the Criterion-developed-but-now-EA-owned Renderware, but teams still have to worry about squeezing as much as they can out of hardware and building better algorithms so that their game doesn't already look dated when it comes out. It's even worse with PC gaming, where developers have to also spend time and effort worrying about the thousands of different possible combinations of hardware players will be using. It's not a system that's really got creative effort at its center. There are designers who obviously do make creativity the centerpiece of their contribution to the game, but they still have to go through all that other shit first. I think when (if) that situation ever changes, we'll start seeing better games.

Possibly, but I don't think it really came across that way. Whenever they were talking about Dash in school, it seemed to be very much about him just being better than the other kids on track. He being allowed to use his talents in sports doesn't really have anything to do with helping people.

My mom works for Deutsche Bank

Screw Kara and Batjew, it's all about The Bench, in the pre-thebench.org days. That stuff was great.

It's a blast and fun

Well you definitely can choose your own server. There's a big huge list. And you can choose ones which aren't geographically close to you as well. Maybe when the retail European version comes out it will act like other games.

I really like this game

I didn't realize that different continents had different accounts. I figured it was entirely based on server. That's lame. I'm a dwarf hunter. Level 5 I think? I've only played for a few hours. I like that it doesn't take a million years to get to even low levels like it seemed to in the other (stupid) MMOs I've sampled.

Just in case anyone wants to hang out in The World of Warcraft, I'm on the Frostwolf server. My account name is, uh, chrisremo and my character's name is, er, idlethumb. :shifty:

It even rewards you for spending time offline (you gain more experience in the game when your character is "rested"), if I understand it correctly.

Yes

Our site has failed.

Ludicrous! It couldn't be done!

That's not true at all! Well I already tried to address it directly and it didn't seem to be making any difference so I just decided to fuck around (HARHAHRHAH GET IT) for a while.

Why do you think I got so frustrated with those damnable smilies?

Katamari Damacy!!! Ok, so the actual two-player mode isn't that great, but it's super-duper fun for playing through the single-player mode while handing it back and forth.

Maybe it's not utterly and completely true, but I think it's generally much moreso than in games.

I changed it such that there are now both of the old smilies, and the text versions. You may have to refresh or something, I don't know, but that's definitely how it is.

As far as I could tell, you only fixed one of the smilies, so I finished it. Also, I have a severe case of congenital scoliosis which is why I do not feature a Marek-esque giraffe-length neck.

You're welcome.

Actually, I would suspect Sony would be the most likely to support its current console for the longest time. Those guys are obsessive about maintaining long life cycles for their consoles.

Oh man. I never looked at your avatar for long enough to realize it was animated, so I thought I was just going crazy. First I'd think I'd see Jean Reno, then a few posts later I'd think it was someone else whose name I didn't know but who was somehow familiar (now I realize he's from HL2). Ridiculous.

Not at all; I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.