It seems like MS is confused about who their customers are. Putting their business partners before their customers may not work out well for them.
Edit: Hell I don't even know if I'm supposed to be a customer. I don't need help watching and organizing my TV efforts. I want a console to play next gen games.
Great movie...even for people not passionate about Star Trek.
Spoiler for Hiden:
I had a hunch about the reveal, and was very happy when it was confirmed.
The casting is just perfect. All of the characters do a great job in their roles.
Regarding the ending...
Spoiler for Hiden:
I loved the role switch with Kirk and Spock. So good. Kirk's re-stating of the mission of the Enterprise in the end, with the 5 year jounrey added, gave me chills. Major nostalgic flashback to watching tv with my dad at dinner time catching another episode of Star Trek.
Did anyone else notice what looked to be the space shuttle enterprise in the collection of models behind the admiral? I thought that was a nice touch.
Their decision to release another console with modest, last gen tech looks like a major blunder, especially when the Wii U isn't even considered a next gen console by 3rd party developers. I'm confused why they even bothered to release a new console if they weren't serious about devoting the tech/resources/money and marketing to compete with the next generation. Hardware is a huge $ sink. I just can't believe that they would be happy with a niche Nintendo fan base only market share in North America. If that's the case, they really should focus on making great multiplatform games instead.
Quote from: wonderpug on May 05, 2013, 04:54:52 PM
Quote from: MonkeyFinger on May 05, 2013, 01:45:40 PM
Not sure what you mean. All of the spells have their letters at the top of the page and they "light up" if you can cast them. You're not seeing them?
Huh. I looked all over but I didn't see the letters at the tops of the pages. I'll have to check again on my next playthrough (currently trying on with the 'no spellbook' choice at the beginning.)
I think that's some type of display bug. I had the same experience when I first started the game playing in landscape on my mini. Exiting and restarting in portrait, or whatever the vertical position is called fixed it. I could then turn the sceen landscape and I could see the spell names and letters fine.
I almost never bail on a show after just 1 episode, I even stuck with Terra Nova through its entire run. I was already wanting to jump ship after the first 30 minutes of the Defiance pilot. Nothing was clicking for me, none of the characters, the pacing, the effects, or the story. I tried hard to make it through the entire pilot, but I just couldn't do it. I'm a sucker for ok to good sci fi, but this seems pretty terrible. If it gets better later in season 1, I'll try and go back and watch again.
I have 2 level 50s now courtesy of the double xp weekends, but I'm not really interested in doing the Makeb expansion yet. I just wanted to experience the main storyline for those characters as a preferred status player.
I don't know about the game going away anytime soon, it depends on how much $ they are making from subs+the Cartel Store. It would be interesting to see what those #s looked like after switching to the ftp model.
Sorry dude resign/lost his job but he had to know this wouldn't end well.
Saying that what MO posted is appearing on other sites and I wouldn't be surprised if MS is seeding these stories due to the negative press
Yeah, that's my thought as well. If the new rumor is true, that doesn't mean the others weren't. Microsoft may have changed things and are now trying to control the rumor flow to make it look like the original rumors were wrong all along. Of course, this is all speculation.
It would make sense though. That's SOP in the business world, leaking rumors can be free marketing.
Quote from: kronovan on April 08, 2013, 06:48:57 PM
I'm on and off with it and consequently now only sub with the $20, 3 month cards. Some years I've only done XBL mplay for a few months, so even the deals on 1 year cards usually aren't worth if for me. I swore to never sub to the service using a credit card years ago for the very same obnoxious and annoying exit interview someone already mentioned. With time cards the subscription just expires - no questions asked.
Most of my 360 mplay is done at a biweekly LAN meet where we syslink. More and more games aren't supporting that though (here's looking at you Kold-tick & your Asstovision) and if that trend continues I might just leave my online mplay exclusively to the PC.
Using monthly cards is a good idea. I wish I had done that instead of using a credit card.
When I was canceling the auto renew on my gold membership the xbox live sales rep pulled up my info and said, "I can see you still use it though, you were watching netflix last night, and you played minecraft and watched amazon prime on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. Your family still enjoys the gold membership."
Why do I have to speak to a freaking sales rep to cancel when most companies in the 21st century allow me to do that online? Also, do they have any idea how creepy it is to have a sales rep recite back exactly what my family was doing each time the xbox was on? That had the exact opposite effect I think they were going for. Yes, cancel this shit now. I have a PS3, 2 iPads, and 3 PCs, my family is covered for video streaming, I don't need to pay another sub fee on top of my isp and netflix fees. I feel like a sucker for paying for xbox live gold for as long as I have. I contributed to why MS feels this is still a viable business practice.
In the last 2 console generations I've purchased both the xbox and 360 on day 1 of their respective launches. Unless the 720 is something magical, I'll be passing on this one. It seems like such a stupid idea to require a constant online connection to start and play games & apps, with timed lockouts (3 minutes?) for dropped connections. If that's true, they have lost their minds.
The mid-season finale for season 3 was better than the season finale. RIP Season 3. Bring on the adventures of Evil Carl & the Woodbury Retirement Crew.
Quote from: Roguetad on April 04, 2013, 04:11:46 PM
They're both perfectly realized characters, exactly how I imagined them from the books.
You can't have been reading very thoroughly then. Particularly Peter Dinklage is very different physically from Tyrion Lannister as described in the books. The book version is ugly, misshaped, and cramps up whenever he has to do anything physical (like walk down a set of stairs). Dinklage on the other hand is a rather attractive, normal man, only different because of his height. He owns the role from an acting point of view though.
Yes But I'm not getting hung up on the superficial differences. Their characters are about as true as they can be in the adaptation to TV. Tyrion wouldn't even have a nose after the battle of the blackwater, and as you said, his already ugly visage became even worse with the mauling he received. I can live with that difference. It's the personalities that are captured so well.
It's remarkable to me how true the show writers try and stay to the books. They have made some changes, but they seem to be for the sake of pacing and entertainment, which is good. I think we will be in for a wild ride this season if even half of the events from book 3 are covered. I can't wait to see them portrayed on the show.
Edited to add: Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lanister) and Charles Dance (Tywin Lanister) are awesome in their roles. The scene in the Office of the Hand during the Season 3 premiere was really good. Every scene those actors are in is better because of their performances and presence on screen. They're both perfectly realized characters, exactly how I imagined them from the books.
Man...that's tough to read. They had a great run, especially in the 80s and 90s.
It will probably be a lot more profitable for them to sell and consult on the license than to maintain a development studio...similar to how Marvel does things. They can just sit back and have people come to them, without having to carry the development costs or risks.
Edited: Boo! They canceled the existing projects? 1313 was looking and sounding good!
I was lifeguarding at a large public pool during one of the summer brood swarms in the late '80s in Virginia. These were the black cicadas with the red markings. It was nasty for 2 weeks trying to vacuum and skim a large public pool. We were constantly getting hit by them up in the lifeguard chairs. Someone told our staff a horror story about a cicada flying into someone at another pool and injecting eggs into their shoulder. I'm not sure if that was just an urban myth gone wild, but it scared the shit out of us. We wore shirts and towels for those 2 weeks while up in the chairs.
The annual cicadas in Norther Virginia are the big green/white ones. The 13-17 year broods usually have different markings, like black and red, or black and orange, and tend to be smaller.
The AH was a bad idea, especially for a loot based game with poorly implemented loot drops. If the loot drops weren't so bad I never would have used the AH. It no fun getting loot that is 5-10 levels below your character for most of normal and nightmare.
I think most good show writers will tailor their writing once they've had a chance to get a feel for the strengths of their actors, even if it changes their vision for the story or characters. Which seems to happen a lot when shows start hitting their stride in season 2 or later. For some reason, TWD writers never seemed to hit their stride with the actress and their vision for Andrea. I agree, what they wrote for her was really unbelievable and unlikable, especially when you add everything up.
Season 1: Andrea is suicidal and battles to find the will to live in the ZA world. Several characters try and bond with her and encourage her to live. Season 2: Andrea fills the role of moral advocate for the group, but they made her annoying and nagging. She bonds and sleeps with dark Shane. She's unable to see what Shane has become (or what he's becoming). She develops good marksmanship skills. She links up with Michonne at the very end. Season 3: Starts well as a survivor with Michonne, but she promptly dumps Michonne for the Gov. She sleeps with the gov, and is unable (or unwilling) to see who he really is, despite her savior (Michonne) laying out her suspicions. She chooses the Gov over her friend. Andrea learns about the dark side of the Gov but still stays with him. She could have ended everything, saved the people of Woodbury and herself by killing the Gov, but she can't.
I agree, all of that is on the writers, and resulted in a really unlikable character.
It seems like the writers always have a dark, ends-justify-the-means character to push and challenge Rick. Merle, Shane, Merle again, and now Carl. I hope the writers have enough finesse to not turn Carl into little Shane. It's subtle, but he should be his own guy, not a mini Shane. I think Carl's personality hardening does reflect Shane's influence on him though, which I'm betting we will see surface in heated conversations with his dad next season. Regarding Carl's actions in the episode,
Spoiler for Hiden:
they did make the scene ambiguous enough that I really couldn't fault Carl too much. The boy took way too long to drop his weapon, and was very sketchy the entire time...perhaps due to being scared, but it cost him his life. I don't want to see an evil Carl, but a balance between Shane and Rick would be cool.
Andrea spoilers from the finale:
Spoiler for Hiden:
I'm purely speculating, but I think that Andrea was written off the show (departing from the comic storyline) because of the performance of the actress. She just wasn't very good in that role. Maybe she was miscast, or the writers couldn't figure out how to write for her, or maybe she's not a great actor. Either way, it wasn't working. You don't have to be a professional critic to see that something just wasn't clicking with her and the show, despite lots of scenes and opportunities. I'm not sure why.
Her scene with Milton was really tense, and mostly done well. The question by Milton that let her (and the writers) explain her confusing actions over the course of the season was contrived. Her answers were consistent with the Andrea they created for the show: naive and dumb. It's a shame, and a missed opportunity to create a badass female lead character. I really think they dropped the ball with her character. She should have gone out in a blaze of glory. The whole point of her internal struggle during season 1 was finding the strength and will to live on in the new world. For her to go out this season the same way she was trying to in season 1, with a self-inflicted gunshot, just seemed lame to me. They could have done better with her story.
I just started up again during the first of the double xp weekends and was able to finish my Bounty Hunter (powertech) storyline and hit 50. I'm playing preferred status with a few unlocks that I bought. I liked the bounty hunter class story experience. It was better than the GW2 story that I completed for my 80 Charr engineer a few weeks ago. GW2 has TOR beat in every other gameplay category that matters though. That said, I'm going to play my level 26 assassin this weekend to take advantage of the xp boost, and to get further in the story. The female VO for Sith Inquisitors is really good, with some very funny evil villian dialogue.
I wish there was less grindy mmo aspects in swtor, and more of the class story or group stories. Grouping with friends in swtor can be really fun, especially watching your characters compete for dialogue screentime. But all of the mmo sidequests are a downer, and just weren't needed.
I found a bunch of things hilarious in this episode: - The helo pilots were flying like stunt pilots or combat vets. I think they would be a little rusty (if they could even find experienced pilots). - The "I'm not telling you right now" plot device cracked me up...especially since everyone just accepted it. - The sonic gun was funny. - Her brother was the group's holy grail for the first half of the season,
Spoiler for Hiden:
and then they kill him off in the first episode back. Nice lol.
- They are really trying hard to portray Tom Neville as a sociopath. How many bad guy crazies does the show need? 3 or 4? - Monroe must have an unlimited supply of hair product to keep his hair looking so styled. Why does it always seem like he's about to cry? And don't mention Miles, or he will get watery eyes of longing, followed by Angry Eyes!
I rewatch the entire series and the movie every year. I own dvd AND blu ray editions of both as well. I think it's safe to say I adore Firefly. Rarely does a show come along with a cast that shares that insane amount of chemistry. When it's also so well produced, acted and written, you get magic.
It's tragic that audiences didn't respond in overwhelming numbers during its run.
Agreed. It's also tragic that the network completely botched the airing of the episodes too. How can you expect a show to succeed when the episodes are aired out of order, and then with big breaks between them?
I really like how Mal isn't your cookie cutter Han Solo-esque character, he's actually a badass who will kill people on the spot if they threaten his crew or his mission. He can go from being very compassionate to a stone cold killer in a moment, if needed.
Quote from: Roguetad on March 11, 2013, 07:52:51 PM
At first I thought Rick was going to be outmaneuvered and outplayed by the Gov. Rick's speech post-meeting back at the prison was awesome, and made me think that Rick saw 100% through the Gov's deception. But then his one on one with Hershel was dissapointing, because he admits to being in full contemplation of the Michonne swap proposal.
I was hoping that I was reading the conversation with Hershel from a few episodes ago wrong, that Rick wasn't considering a Michonne swap. But I'm starting to learn to trust my gut instinct with this show...at least this season. The writers wanted us to walk away from that scene believing that Rick was really in turmoil about the Michonne deal. This Sunday's episode showed the actual mental struggle. Unfortunately Merle interpreted the discussion with Rick as an implied request to do the dirty work that Rick wouldn't be able to do himself.
As much as I didn't like him as a character, Merle was interesting, and could have added value to thier group. I loved the question from Rick, "You don't even kow why you do the things you do, do you?" And Merl admitting to Rick that he didn't, that he was a mystery to himself. I think Michonne was dialed in from the audience's perspective on Merl. She even said something similar about starting over, adding value.
I'm looking forward to the big payoff this Sunday.
I'm looking forward to this. I really enjoyed Dragon's Dogma. It's one of the few rpgs that I played through non-stop. Being able to switch classes was awesome for me, keeping me from starting multiple alts.
I don't think I could go back to Morrowind for the reasons you mentioned. There were mods on the PC version that made the journal and map close to functional (by today's standards), but that doesn't help you on the Xbox. I'd recommend sticking to the main story in MW if you just want to get the story. Oh...and those Cliff Racers need to die.
Quote from: tcweidner on March 20, 2013, 12:55:42 AM
Quote
As far as the Governors super tracking powers, its simple. Once he lost his eye, the body compensated for the loss by giving him a new super power! Soon he will don his tights and cape and become GPSman!
Yeah I have to admit, at night in a world without power , how do you track someone that well?. And then in a warehouse after shooting a gun several times, how do you hear any movement after that?, your ears would be ringing so bad, you wouldnt even be able to hear a damn thing. I know I now its a zombiefest, but sometimes I can only turn off the intellect soo much.
Based on the lore established during Season 2, a single gunshot can vector in thousands of walkers as if they were following a homing beacon. What the governor did in the warehouse was beyond stupid. Breaking glass, firing off rounds. It's really hard to believe he survived that. And absolutely, if you've ever fired handguns inside a building, it's f'ng loud.
Spoiler for Hiden:
I still think the governor may have suffered a bite.
Andrea's actions are hard to explain too. Why didn't she steal the truck? Or if she couldn't do that, why not disable it in some way? Also, when you make it to the brink of safety, you don't stand on the edge of danger and start breathing a sigh of relief. You run like mad (or sneak) until you're behind friendly lines.
Quote from: Arclight on March 19, 2013, 04:09:05 PM
Could it be? Am I foolish to think such a thing? No, it just can't be! Argh, I can't fight it any longer. This could be the one MMORPG that binds us altogether once again.
I will hope against all hope, that this one, will gather our interests for more than a month or two.
I recommend not hoping, and going into this with the lowest expecations you can. I've seen you go into a couple of mmos with hope, and it didn't end well. Aim your sights low brother, and go from there, like the rest of us.
Ugh...I just read that SimCity has sold over 1.1 million copies in the first 2 weeks. I wonder how many of the 1.1 million were charged back? Either way, they made a lot of money.
Where did the Governor get that amazing Andrea GPS tracker?
No kidding. I'm good about suspending disbelief, but this episode was asking a lot. Andrea trained a zombie mob at the Gov lol. That's old school mmorpg pathfinding and aggro.
Spoiler for Hiden:
And he survived!
It seems like Andrea may have to pay for her indecisiveness and unwillingness to see the truth. If I actually cared about her character I might be a little concerned. The writers have built her up during season 3 to be one of the top 3 central characters, along with Rick and the Gov. Get her back into the background where she can bitch about the morality of decisions while occasionally headshotting zombies.
Edited to add: Regarding the Gov after the walker fight...
Spoiler for Hiden:
it seemed like he may have been bitten? He looked to be covering up an injury.
Quote from: Ironrod on March 16, 2013, 02:16:50 AM
Quote from: Moliere on March 15, 2013, 08:26:07 PM
Quote from: Ironrod on March 15, 2013, 06:37:10 PM
Quote from: Moliere on March 15, 2013, 06:04:30 PM
Quote from: Roguetad on March 15, 2013, 03:28:07 PM
This was posted on QT3 and had me laughing the entire video. We're just a bunch of snow coffee drinking, bird eating, nomads who live in broken houses and tents. We also like to sit around drinking snow coffee with our dead friends in body bags.
Is it Tuesday yet? I could sure use some yummy bird for dinner.
Top YouTube quote: "To be fair, this is a pretty accurate representation of Detroit."
I saw somewhere else that, according to somebody who could understand the underlying narration, the translation is...shall we say, a little fanciful. The original narration is about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Yeah, you're getting it third-hand through me, but a dose of skepticism is in order. The English translation is propaganda.
Are you saying I can't trust the Internet? At least it is a funny hoax.
I don't know how he could narrate that without cracking up, especially the part about drinking snow coffee sitting on the blue body bags of their friends...good friends through adversity.
Quote from: EngineNo9 on March 15, 2013, 09:43:06 PM
Yeah, based off the trailer I'm holding out hope that this is basically Saints Row 3 + Crackdown. Those are both games I love, and doing Crackdown style super powers in the over-the-top world of Saints Row could just put it over the top of over-the-top.
I thought the same exact thing. SR3 + Crackdown based on what I saw in the trailer.
This was posted on QT3 and had me laughing the entire video. We're just a bunch of snow coffee drinking, bird eating, nomads who live in broken houses and tents. We also like to sit around drinking snow coffee with our dead friends in body bags.
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Particularly Peter Dinklage is very different physically from Tyrion Lannister as described in the books. The book version is ugly, misshaped, and cramps up whenever he has to do anything physical (like walk down a set of stairs). Dinklage on the other hand is a rather attractive, normal man, only different because of his height. He owns the role from an acting point of view though. 
But I'm not getting hung up on the superficial differences. Their characters are about as true as they can be in the adaptation to TV. Tyrion wouldn't even have a nose after the battle of the blackwater, and as you said, his already ugly visage became even worse with the mauling he received. I can live with that difference. It's the personalities that are captured so well. 
