How was the first 9 minutes of Star Trek into Darkness? I keep asking but nobody answers.  

At the time, it did not really do much for me. While I enjoyed the last star trek movie, for some reason the charm of the characters seemed to have worn off on me somewhat. I saw the serial killer from American Horror Story (spock), the slightly odd-looking captain, and the guy that does a good voice impression of Bones. I did not get very pumped about seeing on it on the big screen based on what I saw even though some of the effects were not too bad.

I saw it over the weekend (true IMAX screen, 48FPS) and me and the wife both thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought the cinematography was jaw-dropping amazing at times. The crispness and clarity of many of the outdoor shots in 48FPS were very notable (to us) . Loved just about everything about it. I thought it did drag on a little to much in spots, but overall felt the pacing was good as well as the casting and acting (although I did feel that a few of the dwarves had too narrow a face/head). Can not wait for the next installment. We plan on seeing it again, just not sure when atm. 

Personally, I'd like to see what the Presidential Fitness Challenge would devolve to.

Year one of his presidency:  Vegetables are classed as "weaponized fauna".  Fried foods replaces vegetables and fruits in the food pyramid.  Food groups 1 through 4 reclassified with examples:

Meat (i.e. Bacon)
Dairy (i.e. Ice Cream)
Grains (i.e. pizza dough)
Vegetables and fruits (replaced by Fried Foods)

Year two of his presidency:  EVERYONE GET IN, WE'RE GOING TO OLD COUNTRY BUFFET!

Year three of his presidency:  Defibrillators given to every citizen under new "Get that heart REstarted!" plan.

Year four of his presidency:  the funeral

Don't forget the Chocolate Death Panels.

By "people like you all" I simply mean people that are actually going to vote for Obama.  I'm blown away by it.  I have quiet a few Democrat clients, all who have told me they will not bee voting for him again. 

I'm voting for him for the first time because I believe he is the lesser of two retards.

Same, plus he may end up being the only one that can keep the retards in congress in check should republicans win house and senate.

My norn warrior in his set of exotic berzerker armor (well just the helm, the rest I put the skin of heavy norn tier 2 cultural armor on).

I did buy some blu-rays during the initial introduction of blu-ray players (have ps3), but based on how those were hit or miss I stopped buying them. Meaning, some blu-ray's picture and sound quality were no better (or not noticeably better) than a standard DVD. So now, I will only buy blu-ray version of something if I know (based on reviews) if it is a high quality transfer  (like Band of Brothers, Blade Runner, etc).

BEHOLD! Our absolutely EPIC review of Guild Wars 2!

http://gamingtrend.com/game_reviews/guild-wars-2/

I'd love any feedback you guys have. 

In the Of Swords, Spells, Vistas, and Oveflows section.
You should probably consider using "professions" instead of "classes".  Also in the 2nd paragraph "Warrior classes can switch between two weapon sets" is a bit confusing. Warriors as well as thief (and I assume all others professions) can switch between two weapon sets. Also in that paragraph, you only get 5 new skills if it is a 2-handed weapon, might should add that for 1-handed weapons/items, it is 3 skills for main hand, 2 for off-hand. One aspect of GW2 I really love and was not mentioned (that I saw anyway) is how the line between melee and ranged classes it not really there in this game as it is in others. i.e. Melee-oriented classes, like warrior, thief, etc can use ranged weapons very effectively unlike just about any MMO out there.

Engineers get less weapons but they have some turret stuff that makes up for it I think.  Elementalists cannot switch weapons in combat and have a small list of available weapons/combos, BUT they can switch between 4 element attunements during combat giving them effectively access to 20 weapon skills + 5 more regular skills.

Ah, cool. I just got my elementalist to 2nd level, so was not yet aware that he does not get a weapon swap. I knew the warrior and thief did and pretty sure the ranger and mesmer do. I assumed the guardian did (but not sure).

BEHOLD! Our absolutely EPIC review of Guild Wars 2!

http://gamingtrend.com/game_reviews/guild-wars-2/

I'd love any feedback you guys have. 

In the Of Swords, Spells, Vistas, and Oveflows section.
You should probably consider using "professions" instead of "classes".  Also in the 2nd paragraph "Warrior classes can switch between two weapon sets" is a bit confusing. Warriors as well as thief (and I assume all others professions) can switch between two weapon sets. Also in that paragraph, you only get 5 new skills if it is a 2-handed weapon, might should add that for 1-handed weapons/items, it is 3 skills for main hand, 2 for off-hand. One aspect of GW2 I really love and was not mentioned (that I saw anyway) is how the line between melee and ranged classes it not really there in this game as it is in others. i.e. Melee-oriented classes, like warrior, thief, etc can use ranged weapons very effectively unlike just about any MMO out there.

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others?  I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

For my warrior it is brutal, both using speargun (ranged) or spear (melee). I would say my DPS is 50% lower or more based on how long it takes to kill something my level (and yes my weapons are appropriate level).

I get that some people like it. Maybe it is for those chosen few. But history shows, without a doubt, from Everquest 1 onward, underwater content becomes a barren wasteland very quickly and remains that way for the life of the game. So the vast majority of players obviously prefer to be on dry land. It seems such a waste of resources to develop content that is tossed aside so quickly and completely by the vast majority of players.

Well, I don't care what EQ1 did, but this is very well implemented, and anecdotally shown here, many people seem to like it. In game I always see a ton of people in underwater areas as well, so I think its just you, and not a vast majority of players.

Uh, it is implemented the same way it has in just about every other MMO to date.
Slower movement speed
Muffled sounds (with some bubble and "swish" sounds thrown in)
Reduced draw distance
Color palette tinted (blue mainly)
Combat issue (difficulties attacking due to z axis, AE usage, etc)

So far, based on my experience, I almost always see veteran and/or event mobs in the water up and stay up for hours at a time with noone wanting to hang around to kill them (prime example: that one out from fort trinity. It was up for hours upon hours this past weekend. Plenty of people around doing land-based events/bosses yet no one seemed to want to go kill it).

Whats funny is in every MMO that implements underwater content, there are folks saying the same things you are, yet within a very short time, the underwater content is devoid of players. I suspect time will prove me right yet again.

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others?  I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

For my warrior it is brutal, both using speargun (ranged) or spear (melee). I would say my DPS is 50% lower or more based on how long it takes to kill something my level (and yes my weapons are appropriate level).

I get that some people like it. Maybe it is for those chosen few. But history shows, without a doubt, from Everquest 1 onward, underwater content becomes a barren wasteland very quickly and remains that way for the life of the game. So the vast majority of players obviously prefer to be on dry land. It seems such a waste of resources to develop content that is tossed aside so quickly and completely by the vast majority of players.

I still can't understand why game developers think they have to have underwater content in games like this. I guess they take it as a challenge "Oh yeah? Well we will finally implement underwater content that is actually enjoyable!" but, it always falls flat on its face. GW2 is even worse than most in that mobs are tougher and your DPS is lower. Yeah, fun fun! (however I do think the exp from underwater mobs is higher, but not 100% sure). Its like they refuse to look at it objectively.

 If I was at a MMO developers design meeting and said something like "Hey, I got an idea. Lets develop an area where moving around is clunky and awkward, especially for melee classes. Also, lets slow the players down a lot, lower their DPS, lower their survive-ability, and muffle the game sounds. Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun right guys!!??". You would think they would be like "Uh, that does not sound very fun at all, why waste time designing an area like that?". Then just say, "It's underwater guys!" and they would be like "Oh f*** yeah! Got to have underwater content!!!"

When I saw the thread title I immediately thought of this pic.

Is Sookie really that annoying / superfluous?

No, that would be the writing staff for this season.

Can't log in this morning. This message is on the support page
"We’re experiencing heavy volume right now and our login servers are under high load. We’re monitoring the situation and working to improve the situation."

I just keep trying to log in. Anyone gotten in eventually doing this?

['Carrie' remake: Moretz revives a classic image and Moore has mommy issues -- EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK]

EW has first pix of Moretz and Moore on set...

'Carrie' remake: Moretz revives a classic image and Moore has mommy issues -- EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/08/23/carrie-exclusive-first-look/

That picture of Carrie looks horrible to me. What is with the blow-up doll lips? Yeesh. Jullian Moore's picture does look pretty good though. I will be staying far far away from this one.

As I recall, King's only complaint about the Carrie film (he talks about it in his cool Danse Macabre non-fiction book about the horror genre in general) was that the blonde guy who takes Carrie to the prom (played by "The Greatest American Hero"'s William Katt) comes across as a manipulated doofus in the movie; whereas in King's book he seems to truly like Carrie, and is ultimately proud to take her to the prom. In the novel, that gives some meaning to his fate; in the movie, he's just this blonde doofus knocked unconscious by a falling bucket.

That's odd. I always felt that, at least toward the end, the movie did get across that point that the blonde guy ended up kinda liking her some. Maybe it was not as pronounced as King wanted it to be though. ~shrug~

Blackjack's digression

lol, I have a very similar experience around the same age. The girl in this case was April. She was fugly and dirt poor so wore really cheap/worn out clothes and had a general "dirty" aura. Everyone shunned her. Well, one day in PE class, we were made to square dance. We lined up, boys on one side, girls on the other, and the teacher made us pair off with the person across from you. Lo and behold, April was who I was paired with. I actually feigned a stomach ache before we even started. Since there were even numbers, she had to dance around without anyone while I acted sick, sitting on the bleachers. Years later I saw her out somewhere and it turned out that she actually grew into a nice looking young lady.

High winds bouncing a huge highway sign.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbtoeiP6Jwo

[Spoiler]

This is the order these two pics were displayed in a livejournal picture retriever i use..

Spoiler for Hiden:

Boss Appreciation Day?

Definitely not a fan of the combination of pc and console. I rarely went to console forum (because I have no interest in console games) so all it does for me is basically add 50% useless topics to a forum I frequented. Would rather put the MMO forum in the PC forum, but not sure if that would have the intended effect you guys are looking for.

Now that we have a specific GIF thread, perhaps we should rename this one "Bring out your images!" instead and forbid GIF images here?

 

Didn't they announce (before LOTRO came out) that a LOTR game was being worked on with permadeath?  It sounded intriguing at the time.  I would like to see it done well in a MMO.

EVE has sort of permadeath if you consider your ship as an avatar.

I know at one point Atriarch was planning on having permadeath, and, on top that, your character is persistent in the game world (24/7). But supposedly it would be very difficult to permakill someone that was not online at the time.  They offset the death penalty with offspring. As your matured (leveled) you could have offspring that grew (leveled) as you continued to. So when you died, your offspring would inherit your wealth (items and gold) and your stats (genetics and all that). So basically you would start over by taking over your offspring.

I Put A Spell On You - Lip Sync

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exXGfzivJ8

[Spoiler]

alright, only a half hour to go.  c'mon Tara, be a good girl and die.

Spoiler for Hiden:

You got your wish! 

Spoiler for Hiden:

Now we get to see if her acting skills are up to level of playing a retarded vampire. Somehow I think she will still manage to screw that up.

New gear outta AH
13k hp
5287 armor
5450.15 dps
67% damage reduction
49-89 varying resistances.

Skilled for damage reduction, Tough as Nails + Nerves of Steel

...
......
.......... still dying to elites near the end of Act I:Hell.

Why am I still going with this barbarian...

Not sure what level you are but at nightmare diablo i switched to a build similar to this

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WeYVPR!bed!aaZcZZ

I use a shield and focus on vitality+strength stuff and life on hit is also nice. Some elites are very very easy. Basically the strat is to get 5 stacks of frenzy going then pop your wrath of berzerker. The goal is to take out 1-2 of a pack before wrath expires.

Yeah this was one of the most boring seasons ever - particularly the second half.  Unfortunately Colton's comment was dead on; as soon as he was gone the show just tanked.  You could pretty much just see Kim winning from that moment on.  If Colton had stayed, the outcome very well could have been the same (given she was so strong in challenges AND held an immunity idol) but it would have been a much more interesting ride.

Christina frustrated me to no end, she was really the only one I was rooting for but she never stepped out to take any form of risk at all, and there were plenty of opportunities.  Not to mention how mean all those girls were to her, I would have jumped onto the boys side immediately just out of spite.  So aggravating.  And did you notice not once did anyone even mention taking Kim out, even though she was clearly the frontrunner from virtually every standpoint.  I know it's easy for us to say sitting at home, but some times it's just like watching a bunch of retarded monkeys.  If just one monkey shows any ounce of dominance or intelligence (see Boston Rob), the remainder fall in line.

I do hope they bring Colton back, the question for me would be if the filming for that was already done, so the cast wouldn't have seen him yet.  That would give him a bit more of a fighting chance.

I strongly disagree that after Colton left that you could "pretty much just see Kim winning from that moment on.". Most of her individual immunity wins were close calls. Had she lost even one down the stretch I am betting we would have seen a lot more action. Plus, there were several really close calls for the girl dominance early on after colton left. All it would have taken was 1-2 people to swing the tide on several occasions. And, just because they did not show anyone talking about taking Kim out does not mean there was not people talking about it.

For me, I would never watch a survivor with Colton on it. I might, maybe watch a season he was on after he was voted off.

[Spoiler]

As for the character, here's the current speculation in its roughest form: (moderately big book spoilers)

Spoiler for Hiden:

She's actually the Jeyne we know from the books, only she's "undercover" for one reason or another which is likely to be revealed soon. Robb might end up in the hay with her, and only afterwards realize she's a noble. His honor will force him to marry her, which leads us to the events we know from the books.

well i was more worried that she was a character made up out of thin air to replace the character in question...  seems like a silly way to introduce the character (if the speculation is true)

She could be.

Spoiler for Hiden:

In the book she is a minor nobility. I can seem them switching it up for TV so that the impact of their station difference is a lot more pronounced.