Twig

I made another video. X: My friend is really good at picking fitting music for my videos. X:

I'm only double-posting because this is the last thing I want to link and the forums won't allow more than two media links per post. SORRY. Also I like pretty much every track from Donkey Kong Country. I guess I lied I love video game music outside the context of video games.

I can't stand most video game music outside the context of video games. But I like listening to this album because Yoko Shimomura is one of my favorite video game music composers and these are some damn good arrangements. It probably also doesn't hurt that Legend of Mana's soundtrack is one of my favorites of all time. Also I like this one a lot. Wind Waker music is pretty good.

Because British English is nothing compared to the all-powerful American English. DUH.

I can't speak to the STALKER/Metro 2033 book equivalents (although according to this thread, they're good - hurray!), but The Witcher short story collection I read indicated that the developers of the game did a good job of capturing the atmosphere and tone of the books. Especially the second game. Oh man. The book I read was called The Last Wish. As far as I know, it's the only English-translated Witcher fiction. ): EDIT: Oh, no, I guess they're translating the actual book series, now! Haven been for... four years, apparently. Sweet. I should maybe purchase Roadside Picnic. Sounds right up my alley.

Non-minion junglers are: Dark Seer, Axe, Ursa, Lifestealer. More, somewhere. I'd have to look at the list of all heroes. U: Minion non-junglers are: Broodmother... uh, that's all I can think of. Although a good BM will still send her spiders into the jungle once she has enough, just to make a bit extra gold. Also, Necrolyte is the best jungler. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drph3kcGnqg

I actually do have fun in LoL, now, because when I play it with my friends these days - now that Dota 2 is our go-to game - we run around in troll-mode. Well, I say troll-mode, but that's only because it has the (sometimes fortunate) side effect of infuriating the poor soul who gets stuck as our fourth/fifth. Really we just do it because it's nice to have a lighthearted game in the genre we don't take seriously. I run revive/ghost exclusively. Always random lock-in immediately. Now that is fun. When we play Dota, we (or at least, I), like to actually try. This is something League never did for me (for various reasons, many of which a fan of the game would surely get all in a tizzy about). Sure, I liked playing it well enough, but that was in large part just because I liked playing with my friends. Dota ignites something I didn't know I actually had: competitive spirit. I have always hated losing and loved winning, but there's something about this game that makes me not only want to win, but to improve... a lot. If I thought I had the skills necessary, I would honestly consider one day entering a real tournament. This is out of the ordinary for me! Fortunately, I'm more than capable of realizing that I'm nowhere near that level.

Sounds about right!

That's an awesome idea. Shame there's no way to make something dark while disallowing monster spawning. Red torches would be great for giving an underwater shipwreck resort a spooky, gloomy feel, but exploring would be annoying when there's a zombie around every corner.

DS is one of the better side-lane solo lanes, too. (DS is all-around rad.)

Naix is so much better in lane than in jungle. Dark Seer is easy to jungle with. You don't need smoke, either. Ion shell kills stuff fast enough. Stout shield, one set of tangos, three branches, farm until you're low on health. Run back to the fountain to heal, and you'll never need to go back again until the teamfight phase begins, and even then, only really for mana.

Haha, working out. I keep saying I should but then I stop. ):

Yeah that is probably true, although I very rarely do well with anything other than the base archer class. ):

There's also Elona, which is ridiculous because it does everything. I've yet to actually play it, though I keep meaning to. http://www.rockpaper...like-elonaplus/ I'm having trouble finding a download link! I know it exists, and I'm pretty sure it's got an English translation, despite the game being Japanese. But I'm not 100%. U:

Hack, Slash, Loot is hard because it's so entirely random, though. I've never felt like I died because it was my fault. I'm always as careful as I can possibly be - literally, I think, because the game isn't a very deep one - and yet inevitably I hit a wall that is missing my attacks ten times in a row while the enemy hits me every time, despite me having over a 60% chance of hitting. Sure, all roguelikes have randomness, but I feel like HSL suffers from it much more than others! Maybe that's just me, though.

See, you say that, but I started with LoL, and while I had fun* with it, Dota 2 is just infinitely more fun* to me. Not least because it feels so much more rewarding when I do well. I would contest many - well, actually... all - of your statements, but it really just comes down to opinion, and since that's the case, I'm glad Dota 2 became the go-to game in the genre. Yay for the superior game winning! U; *Although, as I described earlier in the thread, "fun" is a characteristic that I rarely prescribe to the genre**. Engaging is perhaps a better word. **I feel like Tom Chick. "GAMES AREN'T FUN." (I am a fan of Tom Chick's writing.)

Badfinger: open up your autoexec.cfg file somewhere in the Dota 2 folder and add "join_chat IdleThumbs" to it. I think that's the command. There're generally a couple people sitting in there. Other than that, keep posting here, I guess. U: Oh, there's a Lords Management Consortium Steam group somewhere, I believe! LeChimp: For the most part the recommended items aren't bad. The best way of learning is just to play a bunch and figure out what works where. If nothing else, you can always ask whomever you're playing with. In my experience, as long as you ask BEFORE fucking up, people don't hold it against you too much!

That all just sounds like cleverly disguised quests (as does WildStar after I investigated a bit more). It's true that something cleverly disguised can make an old trick seem interesting for a while, but I'm worried that I'll just get bored yet again. That's not really a slight on this game in particular, so much as MMOs in general, but there you have it. That is certainly your opinion! Suffice it to say, I very strongly disagree. I think the conflict makes things much more interesting than a bunch of dudes running around killing a bunch of respawning nonplayer dudes. There's an ever-present danger, the conflict breeds hostility between players (which then translates to more and more hostility as time goes on), a certain player-run justice system sometimes develops as the White Knights run around protecting the little dudes... I mean, what's the goddamn point of an MMO if there's no player interaction? It's true, cooperation is one form of interaction, but how many players actually explore as a group in the game world? Very few. Most are just solo players who occasionally become frustrated by the existence of other players. The dynamic, public group quests that don't require actually partying up to help each other out are a good start, but then they just turn into a bunch of dudes occasionally bumping into each other, never saying a word, and then splitting off again. I honestly don't see any difference between the two at this point in time. WildStar can (and probably will) easily do what GW2 is doing, with time. WildStar is still far from release, AFAIK, which gives them all the more reason to look at GW2, see what they're doing right, and borrow. I agree that classes not fitting into specific roles does make them more interesting, but at that point... why bother having classes at all? It just seems like such a weird thing that has become standard for no reason. FWIW, I hate classes in tabletop roleplaying and single-player RPG video games, too. I like how they add a certain bit of flavor, like "I AM A BIG HULKING MASS OF DESTRUCTION", but I don't for a second believe that kind of thing can't be achieved outside the restrictions of a class system. I honestly don't know why I'm even talking about this. I love love love the potential of MMOs, but I detest each and every one that comes out these days. Salem still sounds like it could be what I'm looking for, so I'm patiently anticipating more information on that. Also I just finally listened to the episode, and while I was kind of intermittently distracted by other things, I don't recall any MMO or GW2 discussion! WHAT DID I MISS! aka if this is completely offtopic maybe we should move to another thread or something i dunno

How does GW2 try to appeal to explorers? I didn't play it enough to find out. That is, I played it for all of five minutes as the most conspicuous thief imaginable before I quit because they wanted me to kill an owl a bear and something else. I believe that was the first quest. If I were to actually play it once it comes out (is it already out?), I'd spend most of my time in the WvWvW (what is this awful name) area because I have no more patience for questing. Yuck. Dungeons and stuff are fine... That said, I hate the separation of the PvP and PvE areas. It's great for people who only like PvE, but it sucks for everyone else. It is lame. But AGAIN, I don't know enough about it. Aren't I wonderful! WildStar is the first MMO I've ever heard of that rewards players for exploring. And I mean genuinely rewards them, so that it's a clear goal for people. I dunno much more about it than that. I'll just quote this completely unhelpful bit from the Wiki article: RPS has seemed somewhat optimistic about it in the past. I hate class systems, because they're too restrictive. Seems like this is similar. Um, I guess this is sort of kind of relevant. I went quite rambly here.

Every time I avoid mentioning the gameplay, people ask about the gameplay. I guess no one trusts me well enough for that. ):

A rougelike. Now that's a genre worth playing.

Dungeons of Dredmor. Shiren the Wanderer. Uhhh. There're a ton that have actual art, but that's all I can remember off the top of my head. The first one's on Steam, the second one's on various consoles and handhelds. Shiren's actually a good one to start with, too. It's not too difficult. My first roguelike was Rogue but I had no idea what the fuck. Then Nethack, but I had no idea what the fuck. Finally, Powder was the first roguelike I actually figured out. And then I moved on to Dwarf Fortress so I guess something went wrong (or right?).

That assumes they ever release the first bookcast!

I love Burnout Paradise and I wish they would make another like it. Well, that assumes that anyone ever really has fun. It is intense and insane and exhilarating and grotesquely engrossing and, you know, all that kinda stuff... Though I almost always enjoy my time with the game to some degree (even when losing), I very rarely actually have fun, hah. But, as always, YMMV.

I suffer from the same. It's awful! "NO!! I SWEAR!!!" I scream, as they roll their eyes and walk away.