Twilight Dirac

You are attempting to argue this from some objective standpoint, and that doesn't work. The quantity of PC exclusives is absolutely meaningless to someone if they aren't interested in them. You say it 'dwarfs' any exclusives on the PS4/Xbox One but you really aren't understanding what I'm meaning here... I'm saying that this is subjective, and this kind of attempt at objectivity is exactly where unnecessary arguments start.   Video game platforms are about GAMES. If someone has games that they value more on the PS4/Xbox One than none of what you said even matters.   It's perfectly okay if you don't have any interest in any exclusives on the PS4/Xbox One, and the PC does essentially 'replace' the need for them for you... Nothing wrong with that, but can we please stop pretending like that opinion is the only valid one?

An odd response seeing how I wasn't even giving an opinion, unless you count the post before that mentioning the likes of Master of Magic.  But really, the breakdown is actually pretty straightforward:

First you have your Nintendo games.  You buy Nintendo consoles to play these games and for no other reason.  They are pretty much an isolated segment of the market.

Then you have your big budgets AAA games.  These are your Grand Theft Autos and Assassin Creeds.  These are released for every platform except Nintendo consoles, so it doesn't even matter which one you have.  If its not Nintendo, its going to run these games.

Third you have your console exclusives.  Well your non-Nintendo exclusives anyhow, as Nintendo is nothing but a pile of exclusives.  These are your Uncharteds and your Crackdowns.  They tend to be pretty generic run of the mill games that non the less command strong brand loyalty.  They basically exist to convince you to pick an Xbox over a Playstation and vice versa.  You can probably do without them and not really miss much in the way of gaming experience and they tend to be pretty generic and safe in their design, though I suppose that is just an opinion.

Finally there is everything else.  The indie games, grand strategy games, mobas, or whatever else that doesn't make it to console for any number of reasons.  This is a market of staggering size, and I can assure you that it is just as much about quality as it is quantity.  Some of the best games every made are found here, long time classics that you simply cannot obtain on the consoles.  Games that would surprise you if you ever gave them a chance. And they are all available to PC gamers in addition to the AAA titles.  They are easily worth sacrificing the likes of Uncharted for.

Granted, there are both financial and technical barriers to PC gaming that are not present when using an Xbox or Playstation, but if you have the cash and the technical knowledge you basically pick of the vast majority of what both systems have to offer plus an additional market of games filled with treasures that easily matches or exceeds the AAA market in size.  It also tends to encompass and lot more risk taking, which means you can find truly unique games that tend not to make it on the other systems.

But the PC can't 'replace' the PS4 or Xbox One, either, because there are games on them that the PC doesn't have.

A PC will run most titles on either of the other two systems, save a few games held hostage as exclusives for marketing reasons.  But the PC library of games that don't show up on consoles for either technical reasons, or because the are independently developed, or for backwards compatibility reasons absolutely dwarfs those few titles held exclusive to either the Xbox or Playstation.  Generally speaking, a PC plus the Nintendo consoles are going to give you access to the vast majority of the market, and there will only be a handful of games you cannot access.

The PC tends to offer rich, unique games that often never make it to consoles or if they do, they are often either long delayed, butchered, or both. RTS, MMORPGs, and MOBAs are the games usually cited for being absent from consoles, but I find most grand strategy games never make it to console, as well as a great many turn based strategy games, a good number of RPGs and a great many odd games that would defy classification such as Kerbal Space Program. Console games often just feel too generic, and Nintendo, which probably makes some of the more unique games, seems to despise 3rd party developers to the point that Nintendo consoles do only one thing; play Nintendo games. There are just too many gems out there you give up by sticking with console: Civilization V, Master of Magic, Kerbal Space Program, Divinity: Original Sin, Heroes of the Storm, Master of Orion 2, Ultima 4-7, Baldur's Gate 2, etc. You simply can't get the same experience on console.

Console is usually best when friends are over. There good for gathering everyone around to tv and playing a quick fun game. Nintendo usually knows how to do this best. But if friends are online or you are only, then PC is the way to go.

I have been using eBay for well over a decade.  One thing I can tell you for certain is that the feedback system is an absolute joke.  Sellers with 100% positive feedback can and will ship slowly, pull bait and switch techniques, list items that they don't have, never ship, or ship fraudulent, pirated and counterfeit items.  Feedback manipulation is just that easy, and the eBay community as a whole has almost come to expect positive feedback as a right because of gross feedback score inflation.  It can make shopping on eBay really frustrating.  If it wasn't really easy and cheap to get all manner of exotic items on eBay, I would have long stopped dealing with them because of the rampant fraud that permeates the whole site.  As is, any purchase you make is a calculated risk because eBay is so saturated with scam artist.

If first prints were promised but not delivered this is a bait a switch scam, and at the very least the seller deserves negative feedback.  Now if you can live with the fact that you didn't get first prints, leave it at that.  However, if having the first prints was the main reason for making this purchase, you should dispute the purchase and demand a refund through Paypal (the Paypal refund is really the only form of purchase protection you have on eBay as feedback ratings are worthless).  However, make sure you collect evidence of your claims before disputing the purchase.  Save a copy of the auction page and those photos you mention in your edit to your hard drive.  Also take pictures of the prints you were mailed so you can provide eBay dispute resolution with side by side comparison.  Get anything and everything you can to prove your case before making your dispute.  But do act quickly, you only have a limited time, I think 60 days from the time of purchase, to file a dispute before you are no longer eligible for a Paypal refund.  This is one of the reasons I think many fraudulent sellers drag their feet when shipping the item.

Good luck.

Towards the end of last year I purchased an RPG on Steam called Divinity: Original Sin.  This is a top down RPG featuring turn based tactical combat similar to Fallout 1 & 2 or X-Com, but in your traditional high-fantasy setting.  It probably has the best combat system of any RPG I have ever played, mixing turn based tactical combat with large range of rider buff and debuff conditions and a complex elemental magic system that effects not only the PCs and enemies but the terrain itself.  A complex character creation system meshes perfectly with the combat system.  The rest of the game is less remarkable, but I do like the way it handles traps and other obstacles.  Anybody who is a fan of either RPGs or turn-based tactical combat really ought check it out, there simply isn't anything else like it on the market.

The best part is, this is an internet co-op RPG, so you can play it with a bunch of friends.  It only supports two players by default, but there is a mod available that allows you to play with three other friends.  I haven't tried co-op myself because the game is so obscure that none of my other friends have it, but I think co-op play would be a blast.  Its probably the closest you can get to pen and paper D&D without actually playing pen and paper D&D.

This 4 year drought in California is just the start.

I really wouldn't worry about the California drought, it is not a precursor to some kind of global drought, but rather another indication that California is run by a bunch of imbeciles.  Remember the California energy crisis under governor Davis a decade ago, which was supposed to be a precursor to a global energy crisis but was in fact simply the consequence of California not bothering to build powerplants?  Well this is just that problem again, but now with water.  Just like when they refused to raise electricity prices in the midst of the previous crisis, California won't hike water prices now so its politically connected agricultural industry is more than happy to squander massive quantities of water while its citizens are ordered to ration their water usage.  Then there is the whole Oakdale Irrigation District scandal where they were going to lower water levels in the New Melones Reservoir to assist steelhead trout migration in the middle of the drought, demonstrating a complete lack of priorities.  I hate to sound cruel, but I have long run out of sympathy for California and its management of just about everything.  

Problems in California are nothing more then an indication that the Californian government is incompetent, something I have known for a long, long time.  Just don't elect any California's politicians to Federal environmental management posts and the rest of us can steer clear of these kinds of problems.

We talked about this alot in my Earth Science class. Desalination plants would be the most effective thing, but what would happen to the salt that was removed from the water? Now I'm not sure if there is another answer to this, but our science teacher told us that it would be put back in the ocean, rising the salt levels so much to the point where our oceans would end up like The Dead Sea, which is like a catch 22.

Your science teacher told you that?  Doesn't he realize that was the salt just removed from the sea water to begin with, so that the net salt intake would be zero.  Actual ocean water salt comes from the erosion of soil in riverbeds as water makes it way from inland back out to sea after being deposited by rain, which has accumulated over the course of hundreds of millions of years.  There is no risk of desalination plants raising the salt levels of the ocean to that of the dead sea.  This isn't doing much for my confidence in the public education system.

I have actually run multiplayer games of Civilization V over the internet with a few friends to completion, so it is playable multiplayer poor optimization or not.  It's a lot of fun to play multiplayer while running voice chat.

So if I were to organize a multiplayer game of Civ V, would you all want to join in?

I would recommend RMXP if you were interesting in making 2D RPGs because I have used in personally and it is an amazing program that can be obtained through steam.  However, it seems more like you want to make an action side scroller, and I am not certain what would be ideal for that.

I absolutely love Civ V but people rarely express an interest in playing it multiplayer.  I would be up for joining everybody in a multiplayer game of it.

Sure, the 2005 Film and Rise of The Silver Surfer weren't good, but at least they could be seen as campy fun comic book movies and at least it potrayed the fantastic four as a family.

I suppose you could have some fun with Rise of The Silver Surfer, but its really hard to extract any fun out of the 2005 movie when they spend so much dog gone time sulking over the plight of The Thing.   

Do not write polite letters expressing a grievance or complaint unless you are prepared for a rather nasty fight.  

I wrote a letter of complaint to a college club complaining about the conduct of one of their officers after a club project he and I was involved with met with disaster.  They informed me that they regretted my bad experience and that they would investigate, and I should leave everything to them.  I did, and the next time they contacted me was to inform me that I was to have my membership revoked and I was to be barred from all future club events and activities for my acts of "disrespect" towards their officer, with no prior warning that they had any problems with my conduct and no second chances.  Circumstances prevented me from effectively fighting this nonsense, but in the future I will be prepared for the worst should I have the desire to commit the crime of speaking my mind again.

How does Adam Sandler even have a successful career at this point? The guy is clearly an atrocious producer and screenwriter. 

The Adam Sandler movie is where comedy goes to die.  His financial success is a mystery that defies explanation. 

Fair enough. It's like Fox asked themselves "Hmm, how can we make a Fantastic Four movie that disappoints on every conceivable level ? "

Seeing how they already managed this feat twice before, they were already experts at this point.

the 2005 version was pretty decent actually.

But nothing actually happens in that movie.  The Thing wallows in his own self pity, the Humans Torch acts like an a**hole, and Dr. Doom doesn't seem to have a clear reason to attack the Fantastic Four other than the movie badly needed another action scene.  And from what I can remember there are zero heroics, both the rescue at the bridge and the fight with Doom are just the Fantastic Four cleaning up their own mess.  I kind of prefer my superhero movies to have actually heroes in them.

I warn you right now: Never see the current reboot of The Fantastic Four. EVER.

Or any of the Fantastic Four movies for that matter.  They all suck. 

- Firefly

- Star Trek

- South Park up to about 5 years ago

- Avatar The Last Airbender

- Legend of Korra

Moonraker (1979)   Worst entry when Roger Moore was Bond. And this made Roger Moore look like an underrated 007. Even if it did feature the space scenes, it could've been better by removing almost all the humor in it and making Jaws how he was like in The Spy Who Loved Me and not used for comic relief. And that hovercraft gondola scene, seriously? But eh, nevertheless it looked like a masterpiece to my least favorite movies.

I actually enjoyed this movie better than Goldfinger.  Yes, it is absolutely absurd (but really no more so than Die Another Day) but over the top absurd is still better than grounded and dull in my opinion.

I am going to have to repeat what everyone else here has already said a vote for Last Airbender.  Shyamalan absolutely butchers what is perhaps the single greatest work of animation ever made.  How can you take something so vibrant and energetic and make it so dull and depressing?  Why would you ever do this?

Then there is this movie called Nightfall.  It is "based" on the Isaac Asimov short story of the same name.  In the book, an astrophysicist, journalist and psychologist team up to try to the end of civilization, caused oddly enough by a short night on a planet that rarely sees night.  The movie is just a bunch of caveman moping around for 2 hours.  Asimov fans should avoid it like the plague.

Honorable mention goes to Dumb and Dumber.  Its not the worst movie out there, but its still pretty made and I had to sit through it every bloody summer when I was in Boy Scouts.  I despise this movie with a passion. 

Family Guy is another show that seriously needs to go...though sometimes I wonder if Seth is trying to see if he CAN get canceled again. <.< Bob's Burgers is another show, that quite frankly, never should've been aired to begin with.

All of Seth's works became stale quite some time ago.  Family Guy was a lot of fun when it first came out but now he is just going through the motions.

That reminds me of another show that has just gone on to long.  As much as a loved the series, South Park has just plain run out of ideas.  It used to be clever satire mixed with vulgarity and gross-out humor.  Now it is just vulgarity and gross-out humor, with nothing deeper to hold the series up. 

Is the Simpsons still on the air, because if it is, it needs to be canceled.

I really like this particular MOBA.  It is much faster paced than League of Legends and you tend to have fewer bad games.  There are also some very interesting characters such as Abathar and the Lost Vikings.  I wonder if we have enough people here to form a 5 person team.

Just started playing it last night. It's a lot of fun, and Li Li reminds me a LOT of Twilight Sparkle

What about Brightwing with her constant teleporting and obvious magical abilities?

I just perfected my first spaceplane

It works amazingly well

The payload made it to Minmus and back

It does wonders for saving money in career mode, as its cheap and fully recoverable.

I have also been playing Kerbal space program.  I have been sinking far too much time into that game.

Sorry, but I have a policy of not responding to bad grammar.

Really?  One now removed grammar mistake over the course of many paragraphs and you are going to go all grammar Nazi on me?

How can that be the case? You said 5e is simplified compared to 3.5, so how can they be compared in that way?

Simple, 3.5e is more complicated than 5e which is more complicated (yet far easier to actually play) than 2e.  Choose the level of complexity as you see fit.

For 2nd vs 3.5, I don't think 2nd is unplayable and I see no reason for people to abandon all they have invested in that just to buy a whole new set of books. At the end of the day, the game experience isn't different enough to warrant that. On a point by point comparison, Pathfinder is probably better.

This is quite understandable, it can be quite expensive to switch to a newer edition.  I lost all my 2nd edition books thanks to moral panic over Columbine and had just entered college when 3e came it, so it was an equal investment for me regardless of which edition I choose, so there was nothing holding me back from picking up 3rd edition.  However, if you are interested in Pathfinder, all the rules are available free over the internet through the Pathfinder OGC, so you can pick up the system without paying a dime.

D&D died for me when it got bought by the company that made Magic. It made me bitter that a fantastic role playing game got beat by a stupid card game.

To be fair, it appears the TSR was doomed anyway for reasons of their own making.   WOTC has done an excellent job with the dnd IP they have picked up, putting time and effort into it to ensure its long term success.  Considering the way many companies out there, such as EA, flip IP, what happened with dnd was really better than anything that could have been expected.  

As a different point, I hate the White Wolf games. I played a tabletop Vampire game for a semester. My god it was boring.

Agreed.  I could never get into the whole vampire thing. 

I hear a lot of people complain about making broken characters in 3rd. People go on and on about these kinds of minutia, with not much talk about the game's setting. And why not talk about 4th edition? I have more respect for 4 than 5. 4 is just a table top war game, which is its own set of games. But why would you keep 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5 ? It seems to me that they all just do the same thing, so why not keep the one you like best. Give me an example of a broken 2nd ed build, not using magic items.

Its been around 15 years since I have played 2nd edition, but off the top of my head a telepathy based psionicist can cause all sorts of problems because non-psionic opponents were virtually defenseless in psionic combat, and I vaguely remember an undead hunter kit/class thing being a problem.  A lot of the non-standard races such as pixies were also kind of ridiculous if you used them.

More to the point though, have you ever actually played any of these editions, or are you just reading about all the weird stuff people come up with on some internet forums, because it sounds like you are reacting to a bunch of topics you have read on a dnd character optimization forum and not to how the actual game plays.  I browse several dnd based forums and in my decade and a half of playing 3e, 3.5e and pathfinder I have never actually encountered the more over the top stuff people come up with on these forms.  Even the most power gaming among us usually just get somewhat higher ACs, spell DCs and have a better spell selection; nobody goes around using metamagic rods to stack three metamagic feats on a single spell (which requires a high level caster in any case) or anything of that sort.  There is a huge difference between the way the game is described in these kinds of theorycrafting threads and the way it is actually played.

Case in point would be the feats you keep on calling broken.  Ever play Fallout, either the old isometric ones of the new FPS based ones?  Do you like the perks feature in those games, because that is exactly what feats are in dnd.  Just extra little touches to help round out your character and further separate him from other characters of the same class.  They do things like grant a free attack if you kill an opponent in melee (cleave) or allow you to fire into melee safely (precise shot).  Useful but hardly broken.

The answer to this is so obvious that I don't think I need to explain.

But it's not obvious.  It would be obvious if save vs. wands was triggered by wands, save vs. spells was triggered by spells, and save vs. death was triggered by something that causes death.  But all sorts of things that are not wands to force a save vs. wands, same with save vs. spells and save vs. death.  For instance, often a spell will force a save vs. death or a save vs. petrification.  And why would wands be a separate save from spells anyway, a wand is just an item that fires spells. 

So no more awesomely powerful wizards? I would rather start weak and become strong. It's more epic that way. I don't think characters should be Superman at 1st level.

The problem is not starting weak and becoming strong.  Everybody starts weak and becomes strong in every edition, including 5e.  The problem is the variation in relative power in between classes.  In 2e, a level 1 wizard is dead weight while the level 1 fighter does all the heavy lifting.  At level 20, the fighter is dead weight as the wizard is rewriting the rules of reality.  It is perhaps fitting narratively that a high level wizard completely outclasses as a fighter given the bending the laws or reality is going to beat stabbing something with a sword, but from a cooperative team based gameplay perspective it is counter productive.  All the player characters should be able to contribute in at least approximately equal fashion across all levels, otherwise you end up leaving some of the players out of the game.   Third edition addressed low levels to some extent by giving wizards the ability to wield crossbows and a couple of other additional weapons, introducing bonus spells (so a level 1 wizard could now cast a grand total of two level 1 spells) and adding cantrips.  Pathfinder went further by making cantrips at will, although neither address the high level dominance of casters.  5e addressed both ends of the spectrum, making the wizards useful at level 1 and the fighters useful at level 20.

By your logic, the best game every would have one big number on your sheet. You roll a d20, if you roll higher then you win. Wow, that's fast!

3.5e, pathfinder and 5e actually all have more "numbers" than 2e.  The classes all have a wider range of skills, abilities and statistics than in 2e.  The difference is in the way the statistics are used.  Everything the player needs know about his character save the descriptions of spells, feats and special abilities are on his character sheet.  When the player needs to make a skill check, ability check, or any other sort of statistical check, he need only consult the correct number on his sheet, roll a d20, and add that number, with the difficulty of said check being determined by the monster they are fighting or the campaign (known to the GM).  The player never needs to consult tables or sift through rule books.   So it is not like anything has been taken away, on the contrary much has been added, but it is organized so much more efficiently that the game actually runs faster despite these considerations.  Its like having all the contents of your room that which were originally dumped into one huge pile sorted into drawers and cabinets in a logical fashion.  Nothing has been removed from your room, you just know where to find it all now.

2nd ed is pretty much a copy of 1st. The rules are interchangeable. I don't think the newer editions are easier to play. Pathfinder is pretty complex. I actually like the more complex rules. I might say that Pathfinder has the best rules, from what little I have read of it, except for the (allegedly) broken feat system. But, again, it's not “better enough” to justify a reinvestment. 5th edition is not better. I don't understand this argument about making the rules easier to learn. The games aren't that difficult. Simplifying the rules takes away the tactical options. It is too simplistic. You might like Spoony's review on www.spoonyexperiment.com under his Counter Monkey videos.

Incidentally, 3e, 3.5e and Pathfinder a pretty much interchangeable.  Pathfinder is basically in third party distributed version of 3rd Edition Dnd, and came about because WOTC unwisely dropped support from 3.5e assuming everybody would adopt 4e to fill that gap in the market.  If you like Pathfinder, you would like 3.5e, it is pretty much the same system minus some additional polish that Paizo added.  And I will agree that either 3.5e or Pathfinder are ultimately the most complex and detailed versions out there, yet still easier to play then 2e due to much clearer and better consolidated underlying rule mechanics.

5th edition was created more for speed in play in mind than detail.  It sacrifices some of the detail found in 3.5e and Pathfinder make the game play faster.  Generally the trade offs are pretty favorable, you don't really lose that much in terms of details for the gains in play speed.  Pathfinder, 3.5e and 5e are all really good systems, and I still play games using all three because each has different merits.

Incidentally, I have seen Spoony's review.  I used to be a close follower of the Spoony Experiment and watched most of his videos until he switched over to mostly recapping professional wrestling stuff, something I have no interest in and not even he can make interesting.  I can understand some of his objections, most related to things like art style, but not most of those related to game mechanics.  He was getting nostalgic for things such as not having max HP at first level and having 1 hp characters that died if they took any damage at all, and organic character creation.  As much as I like Spoony, those are absolutely terrible rules that were rightly confined to the dustbin.

I like how every action in 2nd ed is different. I like that attacking, thief skills, saving throws, turning undead, etc, had different rolls to make. For me, it makes everything feel different. Using the same roll for combat and for saving throws, or whatever, makes things feel too similar. Sort of like playing a video game where all you do is press A when the game tells you. For example, turning undead should “feel” different from making a melee attack.

But there is no actual benefit to running the game like this.  You actually have more flexible and customization with 3rd edition when running a unified mechanic along with easier and more transparent play.  In most cases the statistics of looking something up on a table and rolling can be replicated with a d20 plus modifier that fits on ones character sheet, accelerating play and giving the player a clearer idea of what he is doing without actually altering game mechanics.  A lot of the mechanics in 2nd edition are just needlessly obfuscated.  

And this isn't even getting into the weirder stuff, such as saving throws.  It is fairly intuitive what the fortitude, reflex and will saves represent in 3e and on wards.  But what the heck is a 2e save vs. wands?  Why would a certain spell result in a save vs. wands instead of a save vs. spell?  Why would a particular creature be vulnerable to save vs. wands?  When would I want to force a save vs. wands over a save vs. spell or a save vs. death?  It is this kind of obtuseness that makes me never want to go back to 2e.

I do agree that the Vancian magic system is dumb. My point is not that powerful cantrips are bad, but the fact that people change the rules means that the system is not as perfect as people like to claim. Personally, I don't like the idea that wizards can just throw damage causing spells at will during a fight. It makes it feel like a video game. That's also why I don't like characters that have breath weapons.

But most people don't change the rules, only some.  I know the idea of having unlimited cantrips (first introduced in Pathfinder actually, but nothing I would really consider an effective combat spell in that system, only the utility stuff was worth taking) can be weird when you are used to having first level wizards throw their one spell and then be borderline useless as they are forced to fight with darts or a quarterstaff, but this really improves the game.  The wizard player is allowed to contribute in a much more meaningful way at low levels, where the cantrips are the most helpful.  As a tradeoff, high level casting has been reduced in power.  It is an attempt to get rid of the linear warrior / quadratic wizard problem, and keep everybody more or less functional throughout the game.

Then why is Wizards reprinting 1st and 2nd edition books? I find that very ironic.

Because there are enough holdouts who do not want to play anything past 2e.  But I honestly think this is more along the line of a misplaced sense of nostalgia than anything else.  Between 3.5e, Pathfinder and 5e you have all your dnd bases covered, I see no reason to go back to this system for any kind of campaign I would run or play in.

Bottom line for me, I wouldn't play 5th with a 10' pole. If I wasn't invested in 2nd then I might pick Pathfinder. If I found the system to be broken then I guess I'd just have to be satisfied with a broken system. There is very little I dislike about classic D&D, and those things are minor fixes. I also love the old art style in classic D&D. I like the painted pictures rather than the computer drawn ones. I like the game's light-hearted tone and feel. To me, Pathfinder seems way to serious and “gritty” and tries to take itself too seriously. Maybe that doesn't make sense but it's hard to explain. Every picture in the book is some video game style fighter in spiked armor with an impractical sword. It's like people in that setting go to school to become professional adventurers. Everything is over the top right away at 1st level. In classic D&D, becoming an adventurer was rare. It was like being a pioneer, rough and real. The art style reflects that, with a lot of basic looking armor and weapons. To me, that's what becoming an adventurer would feel like. You have a basic sword and crappy leather armor and you don't know what you're doing. Then, after a long time adventuring, you get that epic looking equipment.

This is really more or an artistic complaint than a game mechanics complaint.  Other than the large halfling heads in the 5e books and the 3e iconic wizard's clothing, nothing in the books particularly bother me, and I buy dnd books for game mechanics first and art second.  And even if I did buy the books for the art, I would still play whatever system had the best rules, I could always buy the 2e books to appreciate the art even while playing 5e rules if I was so inclined.