Hero Protagonist

Diablo's defensive stats work very... interestingly. Armor reduces ALL Damage, not just physical damage, by the % displayed when you hover over your armor value. Resistances do the same thing, but are isolated to the specific damage type. Here is a good guide: http://armadagaming.com/showthread.php?459-Armor-Resistances-and-Effective-Health

In almost all cases, yes.

Welp... my hardcore monk just died. Hell Belial + brief moment of latency. The question now is whether I should brush myself off and try again, or stick to normal.

Forget the boots. Pickelhaube.

I bet everyone sounded much more intensely driven and diabolical, just like the real Germans!

Can we get James Hong to reprise his role as Shen on the Idle Thumbs podcast? Or is it An Idle Thumbs Podcast?

Hardcore mode is a lot more fun to me. I've played through normal difficulty and am at the end of Act II Nightmare now. I'm farming the act for gear/money before feeling brave and facing Belial. I have a couple tips for those interested: Stack Vitality - In hardcore mode, Vitality is your most important stat. It's saved me from suicide bombers, stacked puddles of desecration overlapped with arcane sentries, and any number of bad combinations. Hardcore mode is best experienced in multi-player, and at a nice slow pace. If you have friends, or like-minded thumbs, stick with them. If not, join a hardcore lobby and see how they're pacing themselves.

There is, but you have to bind it manually. It's not auto-magically bound. I did it just before starting my hardcore character. It's called "move" in the keybind menu.

I keep telling myself that I will be less idle, and more thumb one day. Figure this is a good start: CHIM#1603 EDIT: I have a level 45 Hardcore/Nightmare Monk, and a level 50 Normal/Nightmare Monk that could play with you kind folks. I don't really play my other characters anymore.

There will always be optimal builds, don't believe any game developer that says otherwise; they've been corrupted by the lord of hubris. The difficulties beyond normal exacerbate this.

It pleased me with a depth that might surprise me when I saw you went with IPB. Best forum software is best.

So, I don't know if any of you guys have progressed into the Nightmare+ difficulties, but has anyone else noticed that you're basically punished for playing melee on the higher difficulties? Been running Inferno on my monk, and following Act I it's like an exercise in futility. On my monk I am basically required to stack defensive stats, and run 5 defensive skills and basically just use my basic attacks to whittle away massive health pools. Meanwhile on my Wizard I can pretty much kite everything and claim victory, some of the faster creatures in act II can swarm me, but only if I screw up.

So, I haven't purchased ME3 because I don't like dealing with Origin games on PC... BUT now that I have a PS3! Has anyone played ME3 on PS3? Is it worth picking up?

I have wanted to play this game since the very first snippet that I saw, but I've never owned a PS3. So I avoided threads and reviews for weeks, before finally saying "fuck it" and buying a PS3 literally JUST to play Journey. Worth every penny.

Yeah, I really can't be bothered to fish through the embedded flash/html to extract the file, then convert it to a format fit for my MP3 player of choice. I suppose I could find a program that does that as well, but I'd rather it just, you know, appear on my mobile device and I press play. I mean, it's cool that they want these updates to be exclusive to those of us who pledged, but I would much rather the convenience.

Also, this.

If I could contribute enough money to make you all quit your day jobs and do nothing but make podcasts I would. Ideally it would be a live-streaming documentary of the History of San Francisco's Emergency Responses.

I don't back projects every day, but when I do, I back Idle Thumbs.

Ken Rolston and Mark Nelson moved on to Big Huge Games after Oblivion and Shivering Isles, respectively. Interestingly, a couple other Oblivion/Fallout 3 designers followed them shortly after Fallout 3. Michael Kirkbride did (possibly still does) some writing for Oblivion, but no longer works for the company full-time. I am not sure where he went. I think it's fair to say that he is the man responsible for a lot of the mystique (read: weird stuff) in The Elder Scrolls setting, but by no means all of it. Douglass Goodall left the industry following Morrowind, I believe. I actually forgot about Brian Chapin in my initial post; his role in Morrowind was sort of lost to the ages. I don't think he was technically a designer until one of the Morrowind expansions, though.

That would be rather difficult, since a lot of the Designers of Morrowind have moved on. Realistically speaking, none of the designers of that era are still with Bethesda. Todd Howard, Todd Vaughn, Bruce Nesmith, and Kurt Kuhlmann are still around but I believe that, with the exception of Mr. Howard, the latter 3 had little to do with Morrowind. A lot of the designers of Morrowind left after Morrowind, and most of the remaining designers left after Oblivion. You could certainly talk to some of the programmers and artists, and I'm sure Todd, Pete, and Ashley would have a lot of interesting things to say about the project... but it wouldn't be the same.

Unfortunately I can't jump in the next one, otherwise I'd offer to host to return the favor. Maybe I can help out for NP6.

When you left the alliance against the Thinking Machines nearly collapsed!

Oh, OTHER green. Basturbating Mare, I think? Anyway, the problem you would've had if you had attacked me was three-fold; a) You had a very, very narrow attack vector. My ships were much, much faster. c) I'd had my ships in position to repel an attack the entire time. It would've taken your ships a long time to cross your massive empire, it would be very unlikely for you to match my forces on any feasible time-scale. Conversely, I could get my ships from one end of my empire in less than 24 hours, if needed. If you had attacked me I would certainly not have been the clear victor, don't misunderstand. In that scenario Zaphod won, beyond any doubt I can conceive.

Also, you weren't REALLY playing me off Masturgator. =) He had attacked my worlds and I was already working to re-take them. I told you what you wanted to hear to instill confidence.

Actually, Murdoc, I don't think attacking me would've helped you that game. Certainly you left yourself too open to attack on my end, but attacking me would not have helped you. I think your biggest mistake was expanding too rapidly and aggressively. Your initial blitz netted you a lot of stars, but your forces were spread thin. When I did attack you you had roughly double me star count, but something like 150 more ships. The sheer size of your empire also prompted my attacks; I knew that you would pull away and become unstoppable if I waited too long. Knowing the locations of your fleets prompted me to send Capt. Gunga speed and range technologies with a very small set of instructions. All he needed to do was wreak a little havoc and I knew you could not recover. The goal wasn't to take and hold stars, but rather to destroy your economy and disrupt your tech and science.