What's happening in your world?

[Valarya]

it is essentially a game about slaughtering demons and other vermin. a magical fantasy role playing game. The reason it is so popular is because it comes from a company well-known for its superior-quality games.

I would hardly call Blizzard (and thus Activision) a company with superior-quality games. In fact.. I'd say that the way they have changed gaming has ruined it.

And getting me started on that subject will have me ranting for the next 4 hours straight about the state of today's gaming ; I wouldn't want to bore you guys with my thoughts on creativity being squashed by the corporate giant and all current games being made for the carebear casual types.

ANYWAY.. I did play Diablo 3 for a bit to see what the hype was all about, which is why I haven't been here in a while. Got a Monk to level cap and was farming Inferno Act 3 on lock-down then decided to quit b/c it bored the crap out of me, haha.

Then I took a lovely week-long trip to the coast of Oregon to visit my mom and it was absolutely beautiful.

-------------
Farseer.. I'm really sorry to hear about your friend.

['thul]

activision 'thul cannot speak of, but for blizzard, we enjoy their games. Mind you, we're not the kind to solely follow one producer of games. Getting good stories out of games is indeed important, which is why we also liked the mass effect games... outside the games themselves there, the lead story maker writes well enough to publish multiple decent books in the same universe.

There are a few other game companies that are far worse story-wise... companies that care more about getting games out "on time" and to profit than actually giving them proper balance and storylines.
The worst thing for gaming would be if there became too few companies making them. No matter how creative a team is, some traits will be common between their products. only through new producers (or authors) will works be truly new.

These beings are only about 3/4ths of the way through nightmare so far (at level 50 out of 60) but they did find some elements of the story predictable (but not all)

[Farseer]

Then I took a lovely week-long trip to the coast of Oregon to visit my mom and it was absolutely beautiful.

That's wonderful - good for you!

Farseer.. I'm really sorry to hear about your friend.

Thank you.

['thul]

These beings are rather annoyed now. They woke up at 0500 and couldn't fall asleep again...

[fool-ish]

I've finally, finally ordered 'Wise Man's Fear' by Patrick Rothfuss! It should be with me by Monday. It's been a while since I bought a new book, so I'm suitably excited and even more excited that I'll be following Kvothe's adventures again!

[Narya]

These beings are rather annoyed now. They woke up at 0500 and couldn't fall asleep again...

This being wakes up at 0600 everyday and is annoyed, but has to get up and go to work anyway

Valarya - Oregon is lovely. I used to go up the coast (from California) every summer with my family, camping along the coast.

As for computer games, I'm still resisting mightily. I've winnowed my online chess, Scrabble, and crossword puzzles to a few minutes a day, and I have removed the link to the on-line Tetris and Jewelbox, which used to be my addictions for getting into an altered zone. (Actually, the 4-dimensional version of Tetris called FRAC-4D used to suck up hours of my time, but I'm currently in remission). And I haven't played a world-building game in years. I'd much rather get immersed in a book and build my own fantasy adventures with the characters when "off-line". I suppose it's just trading one attraction to my time for another.

['thul]

These beings are now taking care of a proper cleanup of their primary computer... Lots of old and/or obsolete programs to purge...

[Farseer]

My daughter, as ever, is struggling to get well again (always a problem in winter when she annually spends many stints in hospital with pneumonia etc). In an hour or so I am heading into town to take her to the doctor, and have just realised that, besides the mailman, it's been a whole month (as long as my daughter has been sick) since I've even seen another person outside of my family or been off the property. Any medication needed so far has been taken from things already on hand, or from the Flying Doctor Kit, and any other requirement eg food and other daily essentials has come out with the mailman.

After reading ASoIaF, I'm terrified that I'm going to want to categorise any of the women I see with 'apple-sized', 'empty purse-sized', 'melon-sized', 'plum-sized'...

[fool-ish]

My daughter, as ever, is struggling to get well again (always a problem in winter when she annually spends many stints in hospital with pneumonia etc). In an hour or so I am heading into town to take her to the doctor, and have just realised that, besides the mailman, it's been a whole month (as long as my daughter has been sick) since I've even seen another person outside of my family or been off the property. Any medication needed so far has been taken from things already on hand, or from the Flying Doctor Kit, and any other requirement eg food and other daily essentials has come out with the mailman.

After reading ASoIaF, I'm terrified that I'm going to want to categorise any of the women I see with 'apple-sized', 'empty purse-sized', 'melon-sized', 'plum-sized'...

Aww I hope your daughter feels much better very soon..it can't be pleasant

You'll have to avoid looking too closely at the women lest you begin to speak your thoughts aloud..."hmm, empty purse to my left, plums to the right"

[fool-ish]

Merely watching the Tour de France is making my legs ache...some lovely scenery though...the lycra-clad included