Well we either need to somehow transport all of Cratertown to Scaleport, or we need to have Ryla become the new ruler of Scaleport (If she is agreeable to it) and our band of misfits needs to transport the Legate to Cratertown.

Misfits indeed. But Jett would be up for Ryla becoming the ruler of Scaleport (again, if she wants it), unless someone else has a better ruler in mind.

Jett can also easily create up to 8 Phantom Steeds, so it's not like we'll have issues heading back to Cratertown. At least we won't be walking. And if he gets a lucky dice roll, they'll fly in style.

Although if Jett knew Linked Portal or Planar Portal, he could create a Teleportation Circle inside of Scaleport somewhere and then the whole party could easily get back to Scaleport at nearly a moment's notice if something went horribly wrong. Or it could be used to port all of Cratertown to Scaleport once the crew gets there.

Clearly my HD isn't showing over 20GB of data added to it, as the DATA-DOWNLOAD folder is only showing 852mb. So what is this tracking? How does my ISP account for that number? Did I just use 20GB of bandwidth in 15 minutes?

That's the accurate number (the 852MB). And yes, Newsbin does do what they mentioned (and why you have that little program running alongside Newsbin (or some other method as I haven't fired up the program for a while now) - as it's handling the compressed headers and turning them into something the program can use for you).

And yes, pulling headers can take a serious amount of time the first time you look at anything - their retention rate is absolutely insane.

Long, long time Newsbin user here.

You should be able to purchase from any computer with internet access.  You can have your copy of Steam on as many computers as you want as long as you are only signed into one of them at a time.

You don't even need a computer - AFAIK, both the Android and iDevice versions allow you to buy programs through it (to then obviously download later on your PC/Mac).

[PS3:]

Welcome to another release list, now with 100% less fake game releases!

PS3:
Guacamelee!

PSV:
Guacamelee!

360:
Motocross Madness (XBLA)

WiiU:

3DS:
Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger (eShop)

PC:
Age of Empires II HD Edition
Age of Wushu
ShootMania Storm

What are you buying this week?

I was thinking Adara could preside.  The people of Scaleport might balk at the notion of an outsider running the trial, but I think once we explain how little interest kadnod's wife has had in the events of the campaign, they'll agree she would be the epitome of an impartial jurist.

-Autistic Angel

Aww man, this made my day.  I can't get the smile off my face! 

FWIW, she says she'll play Adara as judge as long as she can tell me what to write and doesn't actually have to talk into the Internet.  If you guys actually want to play it that way, that works on this end!

Fine by me. Also very cool.

Although Jett would still rather risk this guy for a potential and greater advantage further down the line, verses a short term gain, it looks like this is how things are going to roll.

So here's the part I don't get.

The $60 Founder Packs get to start 3 days early.
The $200 Founder Packs get to start 5 days early. (or something like that for both)

If there's no wipe as we start Open Beta...those bonuses are kinda useless.

And yeah, it sure sounds like it's opening up at the end of the month.

EDIT: I answered my own question - Founders get access to Open Beta before everyone else. Looks like I was right with my April launch after all.

"So what will it be?  Ransom me for untold riches?  Or have you given further thought to one of my more ambitious suggestions?

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I know what I want - peace and quiet after this. No more invasions, no more armies, no more fighting on a daily basis just to survive."

"You are a wise djinni, sir!" responds the Legate.  "I would listen to him!  Though, I am at a lost on why he just doesn't wish himself peace or a harem or a castle made of gold..."

The Legate looks to each of you, then begins to laugh.  "Oh, I jest, I jest!  I know well that noble Jett is not that sort of elemental!"  He begins to tear up a bit at his joke.  "But yes, peace, a noble ambition!  But shall it be the Pax Imperial, the peace of good neighbors, or perhaps something more risky?"

Jett looks over the rest of his party, not sure what to decide. Each has their risks, as well as their benefits. But he's already said his piece.

[PS3:]

Introducing for your smelling pleasure, Google Nose. Take a good whiff of what the New Releases list smells like via it.

PS3:
Defiance
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge

PSV:

360:
Defiance
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
BattleBlock Theater (XBLA)

WiiU:
Toki Tori 2

3DS:
Super Black Bass 3D

PC:
Cities in Motion 2
Defiance
Evoland
Half-Life 3

What are you buying this week?

Psst: April Fools!

"So what will it be?  Ransom me for untold riches?  Or have you given further thought to one of my more ambitious suggestions?

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I know what I want - peace and quiet after this. No more invasions, no more armies, no more fighting on a daily basis just to survive."

trailer

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/398250/metal-gear-solid-5-the-first-trailer/

I'll be honest. *yawn* Didn't interest me in the slightest.

It's engine was built on Unreal 3, so there's apparently quite a few tweaks that can be made to it to enhance the graphics.

Exactly. It's pretty much the only MMO that has /commands to do things like DRASTICALLY increase the draw distance (you can't see mobs any farther in the distance, but you can see all the terrain without any 'fog' blocking the view), among other things.

So, anyone have any ideas on how to beat a skeletal dragon?

Also, see you all tonight.

[PS3:]

Another huge week for gaming it seems coming up. Let's take a look.

PS3:
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel
BioShock Infinite
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14
Terraria (PSN)

PSV:

360:
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel
BioShock Infinite
Final Fantasy XI: Seekers of Adoulin
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14
Terraria (XBLA)

WiiU:

3DS:
HarmoKnight

PC:
BioShock Infinite
Final Fantasy XI: Seekers of Adoulin

Sunday (4/24) Releases:
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity (3DS)

What are you buying this week?

By the way, you are pretty much the person that makes me almost want to put in money for one of the Founder's packs.  I used to love making adventures in the first Neverwinter Nights (I had made ones that would randomly generate encounters in spots so that they were different each time you played them) and sounds like this would be right up my alley.

If the only reason you want to do that is for the 'get into the Foundry right away' bit, don't. You'll gain access to it at level 15 (creation access - you can start running them as soon as you get into town). At least that's how STO works. And I doubt it'll be any different for NW.

Also congrats, Tilt! That is just -awesome- to get spotlighted like that. Then again, these are the types of adventures that Cryptic wants to show everything. Something as good as what a developer can make.

The problem with the Foundry is that you have idiots playing and reviewing the thing.

Unless it's something extremely simple (see: Bar Fight), and doesn't require any intelligence to play (again, see Bar Fight) as you never leave the start room, you're going to have such idiots reviewing your work and mucking up your score. Especially right now as it's in beta and all.

People just want to get all uber and amazing and max level and then complain on the boards about how bad the game is and how they 'beat' it in 10 hours or whatever just because they ran Bar Fight over and over and over again.

tl:dr - people are stupid.

TiLT - I loved the quest. Turned out to be a lot of fun and it has a lot of little things to help draw you into the story and such. Well done!

Now go make the sequel.

[Neverwinter beta]

Between the Neverwinter beta, Saints Row 3 (thank you Steam sale), and Kingdoms of Amalur (also thank you Steam sale), I'll be busy.

This. Is. Awesome.

Also yes, the NES game was just epic back in its day.

Huh. It's the sequel to MM6 and it is turn based (seriously guys, could you have put up any less in-game footage in your trailer though?). From the front page:

Through a turn-based gameplay system, defeat creatures and bosses to accomplish unique quests and make your way through dangerous dungeons, cities and labyrinths full of traps.  Dive into vintage Might & Magic and play old school, new rules!

I...did not expect this. At all. I guess Legend of Grimrock's success (and maybe all the Kickstarters based on sequels to old and awesome titles) got people to start thinking about other old-school classics.

I guess Richard Garriott is right about how old-school classics were really that compared to most of what we play today.

With video games, books and the internet along with anything else I happen to want to participate in I don't really have time to watch TV even if I wasn't restricted to shit Japanese TV. I don't know how you guys do it.

Exactly. I just absolutely do not watch TV. Ever.

Hell - the only time the TV gets fired up is on the way to me playing the 360 or something.

Shut up and take my money!

So how was the Foundry system to use in comparison to similar tools in past games Tilt?

From videos released by the devs, it looks really simple to use. And really powerful as well, too. Six months old now, but I doubt they've changed too much:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pn7iU4EwTc

BTW, Tilt, will you be allowed to give the name of your mission for this weekend's 'final' (maybe) beta test?

Amagon

So many NES games I've just never heard of, much listened to the soundtrack to.

That is the 8-bit equivalent of a tyrannosaurus in a helicopter. That is a Rocky training montage in a burning oil tanker while electric guitars wail in the background. That track is two robots flying across the Pacific, firing missiles and laser beams at each other in a battle for the future of humanity.

An epic set of sentences.

Jett watches as the party (apparently) leaps down to engage the thing in melee. He's going to stay right where he is, just slightly (a lot) out of melee range of the giant iron golem whatever it is thing.

Ah, the joys of being a ranged class.

*shakes fist at Damn Sunday Releases*

Also, I just grabbed Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning at an uber Steam sale, so I'll be playing that all week.

[PS3:]

PS3:
Hyperdimension: Neptunia Victory
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

PSV:
Dead or Alive 5 Plus

360:
Gears of War: Judgement
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (XBLA)

Wii:
The Croods: Prehistoric Party!

WiiU:
Lego City Undercover
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Need for Speed: Most Wanted U
The Croods: Prehistoric Party!
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Zen Pinball 2

DS:
The Croods: Prehistoric Party!

3DS:
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
The Croods: Prehistoric Party!

PC:
Alien Spidy
Resident Evil 6
Retro/Grade
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Trials Evolution: Gold Edition

Damn Sunday Seleases:
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity (3DS)

What are you buying this week?

*looks at giant poster of MM6: The Mandate of Heaven on nearby wall*

I have little hope of this being remotely good or worth playing for those who played the older games in the series. Call me...well, whatever, but it's what I believe.

Interesting...

I may have to give Grimrock another run sometime soon.

[Removing this line allows indefinite offline play.]

So, do you know why Simcity 5 auto-punts you after about 20 minutes once you disconnect from the 'net? It's not because the game is looking for something. Or because it needs to do 'some kind of magical processing' on EA's side.

It's because the game is PROGRAMMED to do so. At 20 minutes.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=525129

So if the game detects you are offline it starts a 20 minute countdown, if you are not online before then it will force you to quit.

Removing this line allows indefinite offline play.

..............

[and now things have gone to the next level as a hack has been discovered that lets anyone invade any of the online cities and lay waste to them...permanently.]

...and even more signs of that nothing was tested at all:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/SimCity-Hack-Lets-Users-Destroy-Anyone-Online-City-Thanks-Always-DRM-53685.html

Since the top brass at EA were dumb enough to go through with the hated and repined always-on DRM, there were consequences to be had. SimCity has been a disaster in the media circles since launch all because of the DRM, and now things have gone to the next level as a hack has been discovered that lets anyone invade any of the online cities and lay waste to them...permanently.

And it continues:

As a quick recap: Modders found out that you can play SimCity in offline mode as a single-player game. In addition to playing the game offline, the modders have also opened up additional things like larger cities, expanded highways and better population management. In other words, they fixed the broken game that EA shoved down your throats.

However, with all this good news also comes some bad news. Modders have also discovered that it's possible to mess with files client-side to affect server-side activity. I think you all know where this is going.

Basically, as the video shows below, you can enter into another person's online town and wreak havoc, however the modder notes that he turned off synching to the server so as not to actually cause permanent harm to his friend's city.

/headdesk

ADDITIONAL: Apparently according to the Youtube video linked, as of the video's upload, you CAN NOT CAUSE ANY ACTUAL DAMAGE TO ANY CITIES. This can NOT be saved to EA's servers. But no doubt it's a matter of time before it happens (assuming said holes aren't patched out).

MSE did fail a recent industry benchmark, but their reasoning for failing it was fairly sound.  Still, they failed where lots of others passed.

That being said, their reasoning holds true of the world as it stands today: No software will is capable of blocking everything.  If it's new, innovative, or targeted... most software will miss.

Pretty much the truth right there.

I've been running MSE like others have suggested on both of my PCs (Win7 laptop and Win8 gaming rig) and haven't had a problem. It's quiet, unobtrusive, and keeps itself away from everything when I'm trying to actually use my PC (like gaming).

It's not unlike the 60 freeway here in Phoenix - stupid people get on the road and wander until they cut across four lanes of highway to their random destination.  

LOL

I also read (and can't find a link now to show) that the absolute 'best' street design for SimCity is one very long road that happens to snake through your entire city. Absolutely no side streets. The pathfinding is that broken that this is the only way to solve it. Basically remove choice of where to go from the Sims themselves.

Also, based on what I'm reading here and on other sites, I'm kinda agreeing with msduncan here. This 'game' is so broken compared to every single one of its predecessors.

Random: http://kotaku.com/5990673/simcity-creators-say-theyre-fixing-the-games-road-traffic-weirdness

He also confirms that, yes, Sims in the game don't have persistent homes and jobs. They're simulated to an extent, but he says that that simplifying them—freeing them from keeping the same jobs and living in the same homes—enabled better performance with bigger city populations.

So, wait. Sims get up in the morning, go drive to the nearest not-full place of employment, work there some imaginary number of hours, and then go find the nearest not-full house and call it a night? And don't do basic pathfinding like 'if road is full, find another route'?

...I really don't know what to say.

Does Jett send forces from the Fort to assist elsewhere?  And if so, where?

Jett's thinking to just concentrate our reserves on the Barghests. Let Ryla's apprentices deal with #1 and Suhvob deal with #3. Once the reserves deal with #4 for good, we can reassign them into figuring out what's up with #3. No doubt we'll need to patch up 1 and 2 ourselves.

[Unlimited time to remain disconnected]

let loose the modders!

Other things I have modded out with a quick change: Unlimited time to remain disconnected (won't get booted at 20 minutes, can now be disconnected "forever"). Population count now shows REAL figure, not the "artificially inflated" figure. My large cities have a population of about 15k now, not 100k

Gee, even MORE lying shown on the part of the devs thanks to the modders.

Even more signs of extremely poor code design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdu1ho2Ic4
SimCity 100% Residential 200k City

There are no other adjacent cities, this is the only one in the region! I am guessing this is possible due to the parks and low taxes. The sims get happiness from the parks, and the low taxes. Despite not having jobs and nowhere to shop, it seems to encourage them to grow and expand regardless so long as basic services are met.

The final population count is just over 196,000, (just shy of the 200k mark), which can be seen the last time I pull up the population panel. About 170,000 of this is what Maxis calls "phantom population", or population that is not tracked in terms of job or needs.

So apparently the 'Artificial Intelligence/Stupidity' is perfectly happy with zero commercial and industrial zones because.....it has parks? The code is seriously that poorly designed?

You know, back in the days of Rollercoaster Tycoon, you could have hundreds if not thousands of little people all with their likes and dislikes, needs and, uhem, puke values, all being tracked in a park as they wandered around and did their thing. And you could track each and every single one of them individually if you wanted, and watch their values change in real time.

That came out in what, 1999? And it didn't need a '''server''' to offload the work to do it?

And it's 2013 now and we can't put in a basic pathfinding logarithms, among many other things?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/simcitys-sims-dont-seem-that-smart-after-all/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/12/simcity-server-not-necessary/

To be very brutally honest...the complete and total fuckup that is SimCity makes me not want to buy -any- game from -any- developer now at launch.

If EA/Maxis can outright lie as insanely much as they have, absolutely, utterly, and totally bringing down such a vast and well-known game that has been around for TWO DECADES, who else can and will do it just for their bottom line? Just praying that the stupid and uninformed go out and buy such a piece of complete shit based on name alone?

It makes me pissed off at my favorite hobby to be frank, that's what it does.

Sorry, sorry. I've been quiet in this thread as all of this mess has piled up, and I shouldn't be in here posting stuff like this either as it seems that a lot of you want to enjoy this game, and with good reason.

I don't remember the exact condition of my character, but he can't sit idle for another two hours with all these crises breaking out around the city.

His vote is to hope Ryla and her apprentices can handle whatever's happening at the Southgate, assume the people of Scaleport are sensible enough to stay inside and lock their doors against the prowling barghests, and go try to stop the iron statue at the Northgate.  It's the most definable, immediate threat to the city and its defenses.

-Autistic Angel

I agree, except I think it's time we use some of our reserve squads (like the aforementioned Gruhef, the Mistmen, etc) to clear out the Barghests. They're too random to be left out and about on their own, especially inside the city proper like they are now. But we, the players, definitely need to head towards #2 as it sounds like the most severe threat right now.

Here's to hoping that Ryla and Suhvob can take care of their own 'little' problems, at least for now. ...I hope.

[PS3:]

PS3:
God of War: Ascension
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
Darkstalkers Resurrection (PSN)

PSV:

360:
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
Darkstalkers Resurrection (XBLA)

WiiU:

3DS:

PC:
Allods Online: Lords of Destiny
Slam Bolt Scrappers
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm

Kratos, Sarah Kerrigan, Morrigan, and a sniper all walk into a bar. Who survives? Only you decide.

What are you buying this week?

There's nothing I could possibly say that makes this .gif any less confusing:

Don't forget - you need your full charactername@accountname in order to find someone in a Cryptic title. They use this awesome feature where everyone's name is exactly like that, so you can have 15 Rittchards (for example) standing next to each other.

Also apparently there's another thread over in the Console / PC Gaming section.