Ginger

Imagine someone trying to talk and shit out of the same orifice.

Like it'd make a difference, hardly any parents pay attention to those things, I know we've gotten into the whole merits of arbitrary age determining whether you are mature enough to handle certain content debate many times before, but even I was shocked when a reasonably (lower-)middle* class friend was telling me the funny( ) story of how her 6 year old always shouts out "Look mummy I’m bashing the hookers head in" while playing GTA. He'll probably turn out fine but still... *to anyone that thinks it's classist to be more shocked as it was a middle class family check out the Shannon Mathews coverage (I advise against looking at the pictures) it's ok to be openly classist again.

I still think there is a lot of this sentiment around, especially when people find out you are quite serious about games, my negative experiences could be amplified by being a MMOer, which triggers reactions of lifeless loser and that I am an "immature dik" so warrant this reaction regardless of my gamer status.

Man sorry to hear everyone is having such a bad time. Nowak what part of the Uk u planning on coming to? (avoid the north by which i mean anything above London and west of reading.) I had a really unproductive day trying to figure out why an evolution of an algorithm I wrote lost 4 orders of accuracy and then went and got pissed at a whisky tasting where I had some really lovely Whiskys. Miffy I know it is probably not worth it but have u considered legal action or contacting your union about being fired, their reason for firing u seems quite dodgy (not sure what the labour laws are like in Canada but over here u'd have a case)

I think you'll have to wait at least another 10 years or so for that to be norm.

I think it is more that they are seen as a thriftless waste of time by those people, an immature hobby rather than a childish hobby much as I imagine they would see skateboarding. From my experience of meeting 50+ people who work in the city this is a widely held assertion.

The two games I've enjoyed the most in the past year (exluding portal) are TF2 and WoW, I want them combined. Imagine how awesome it would be to get TF2esque 5 man team together and go and run a FPS PvE instance, various different classes working together to get the job done, then throw in some arena style death matches and the real world pvp of Planetside as well as the standard PvE grind/progression. Basically the gameplay styles of WoW but with interaction being twitch based FPS. Tabula kind of does this but isn't proper twitch (and not all that good), I know Huxley is on the way but much of the enthusiasm people originally had for it seems to have dwindled (the impression I get is that it doesn't deliver all that it promises.) To me this seems like a really obvious genre for a publisher to attack, it'd take a lot of investment and some very clever designers (I like the idea of hiding being your tank to avoid damage rather than this agro business) but I think if u get it 75% right u could make a fortune. I wonder if one reason it hasn't come yet is that the technology isn't really there yet, the amount of data that needs to be sent back and forth is huge, but planetside was about 4years ago (I think) and that managed to do okishey, surely with the increase in speed of broadband this is now a feasible genre. Hopefully one has secretly been in development for a few year and will be in a year or two.

Never show such emotions on the forums, only show contempt and arrogance, the others are like are like a pack of savages, at the first sign of weakness they will go for the jugular. (that reminds me of the joke "how do u kill a circus?" Although on a serious note I remember when I met a bunch of thumbs Brighton for the first time in real life. It was long before thumbs while I was doing a job over my gap year and it was really cool to meet a load of chilled out geeky dudes, I hadn't really met any people like that before. It is easy to forget how lame most people in the world are.

I think you are accrediting the publisher with too much market power, they will predominately make games that make money, and although there is a slight incentive to be innovative and create the next big thing, as long as the consumer laps up the same old game hashed together with new team sheets, a new car, a slight graphical upgrade ect... there is not much incentive to innovate. Another problem is that too many of the people high up in games companies aren't gamers so can't tell what is good, this leads to a sort of follow the leader effect, where if one game has proven successful, WWII FPS or WoW, everyone tries to copy them and get a slice of the pie rather than baking a new pie. Man I want some pie.

I wonder if they're going to a watch one next, off the top of my head I can't really think of anyone good to play Carrot or Vimes, the other characters should be quite easy.

Idle Banter has been really quiet for ages, I feel there has been a real lack of opportunities for me to apply my ever so slightly cheeky, but always tasteful, sense of humour. We need more talk, not to be one to shout for action while being inactive here is a brief overview of the current life of ginger. I’m preparing to apply to do a PHD, not sure whether it is going to be in Numeric Maths, Statistics, or Bioinformatics or some hybrid of the above, there are a number of fields in each that I find fascinating. I still play wow loads, come and join me, there are a fair few thumbers already there, in fact I almost feel like I'm no longer a gamer and am now a wower, I rarely read any gaming sites (even skip over the gaming forum here most of the time) but read wowinsider every day There just isn't much in games at the moment that excites me, also a lack of funds prevent me from experimenting with games (furthermore I don't own any of the current consoles, in the last generation owned all three. This may amplify my sense of alienation [that being said I recently flat sat {or is it sitted} a place that owned a Wii60, and other than the amazing rez HD, little distracted me from sexually assaulting the cats I was looking after]) That is pretty much the life of the ginger at the mo. So you can see why I need you guys to talk, share and make me laugh with your wonderfully varied, brilliant senses of humour. I wonder how much of the slowdown in the banter stakes has to do with our regular forum filler getting a new job?

The ice bit made me want to get a load of old people, dump them on an ice and have a race.

My sister is a doctor at Torquay Hospital, she says she'll be able to sort out with some work experience if u want. In my experience of seeing people applying to medical school Work experience seems to make a huge difference. PM me if u want her number to sort it out. Are u doing a post-graduate application?

Sounds like something Tom Cruise made up

WTF, what's the point in going then? I'll go if u find a kid we can take with us, Toby won't lend us Oli, has anyone got a kid Yuf and I can borrow for a fun day out? How about baby T? When is the show? If it's more than 9 months away u can sabotage the contraceptive u use and make it so u get (“accidentally”) pregnant, giving us a solution to the no kid problem. After the show we can flush it down the toilet so that it doesn't ruin your life. Are u finally playing pokemon? I haven't played that for ages.

fuck her, she is fat and ugly, the only bad thing about her running away is that her ugly face is plastered everywhere. IMO as a missing child u should have to be 8 pretty before u get a national campaign.

I don't know what is wrong with me, but I did not.

dude if he needs facial hair I can shave off some pubes and post them to him, then he can stick them on his face.

If it's Java I could do it, but I demand full control over the artistic direction.

I'd rather be dead.

Don't be shy, let me feel your love

It was probably considered a forgery then

Cheers Nach, just to let u know I like both on the rare side of medium rare (so use those teeth a bit)

Where the fuck did this come back from, surely no one rings your bell anymore, as everyone has fallen back into wowdiction

Fun way to learn Japanese; well there is the obvious, beyond that classes could be fun (depending on the teacher and other students), or watching subtitled anime (depending on how good your basics are, u may pick up a fair bit)