MasterDex

Where abouts is it? Anything worth anything in there? Also, why are you getting rid of your character? Why not keep them going in case you want to come back later down the road?

Yeah, I'm of the same opinion. As I see it, Premium is less of a service and more of a expansion pack...errrr...pack. I'll be getting it myself since I know I'll still be playing it after all the DLC is out. I have to give credit to EA on this however. A 1-time fee that's reasonable enough to get people to buy into the game for another year, that's smart. I guarantee that there'll be those who would have stopped playing within the next couple of months that will still come back to play it simply because they decided to buy Premium. As long as this doesn't become a recurring fee for the next Battlefield - or to be honest, a recurring fee without value support (I could see myself paying a recurring fee if the game was supported as well as the best subscription games) - I'm ok with it.

Lee Strobel makes a good point in his book, The Case for Christ, that if the books of the Bible had been false then they would not have gained the following or popularity they did immediately following their writing. Nobody would have adopted or believed a book which claimed of thousands of people witnessing events in recent recent history of which there were no actual witnesses. The fact that people latched onto the book while those witnesses were still alive (which is evidenced by the early and fast growth of the christian church) is strong evidence that the book was not as simple as a made up story by a few guys but at least had some sort of historical basis. That sounds like the reasoning of someone born in the 19th-21th century. It boils down to "If it was all a lie, the papers would have dropped it like a rock" - the same way they would now if a rumour turned out to be false. That isn't accounting for the old beliefs in magic and superstition however or a plethora of other factors. If we are to believe the magic in the Bible happened because some other stuff in the bible happened, then we have to be open to other magical folklore - like ghosts, dragons, knowledge granting fish, etc. Of course, it all boils down to faith, but having faith and truly believing something happened are two different things entirely. Using the popularity of the bible to argue for the validity of its content is a rather weak argument in my opinion. A more reasonable argument for the quick increase in the bible's popularity - and the popularity of any religion - is that it offers something different from the status quo. For those alive when Jesus became a hot topic, that was Judaism, a stricter faith.Add to that a more ready belief in magic and the supernatural, a geographically-restricted populace that never experienced the true multitude of other world religions and a charismatic leader who was 'of the people' rather than 'of The Church' and I reckon you have a great recipe for fanatical popularity - even in this modern day, I'd argue. And then Rome took over. I don't think I need to explain why Rome had an effect on the popularity of Christianity and the bible, do I?

As long as it doesn't digress to the point that it throws wave upon wave of enemies at you, I 'll be happy. I get what Strangelove is saying though, with a game like that, it'll be a real immersion killer if you're walking down the street finding guns and ammo strewn about, and then started walking around town, not a bother on ya, filled to the teeth with guns and ammo. I think The Last of Us differs a bit in that respect because I know for certain that if I was one of the last of us, I'd be stockpiling weapons and ammo like a motherfucker.

Good read. This is the problem I have with a lot of women that indentify themselves as feminists - and the white knights that stand by their side - all they really are is misandrists in disguise; only interested in shouting about the horrible injustices of today's culture and how men are constantly putting them down with horrible misogynistic literature like ASOIAF. To them, a woman acting more like the "misogynistic" stereotype is a weak-willed sympathizer of men. Westeros is a world that reflects our own around the same period. Rape was common, even encouraged, among soldiers and women had very few rights, if any at all. Yet the fact remains that, just like in Westeros, there were those few who broke the shackles of inequality and rose above the station that their world threw them into. People like Laurie Penny remind me that there's no opposite word to feminist/feminism - of course, if you were to ask Laurie Penny, I'm sure she'd say it was misogynist/misogyny.

Just confirmed, I am indeed MasterDex.

Up and running! Will have my old account back up on Wednesday. For android, I downloaded Evanova, does the job for me. Myself and Senor Bloodaxe were talking about getting a PXOD corp started. Any interested parties? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Dean has first dibs on being Corp Leader if he wishes. Excel_Excel should be joining us in Eve tomorrow. Also, if anyone wants to join us, we can send out some 21-day buddy invites so let us know here.

Huh? It would still be tense and exciting. It would also be that tense when reading. What you are saying makes no sense. I agree with the first bit of your comment but c'mon, that does make some sense. It's still an exciting scene regardless of if you've read the books or not but knowing the outcome does take away the suspense.

I'd be up for it, though I'll likely be wiped out of contention very early on. Are the in-game names not the same as your steam ID? I thought they were.

So the results are in for the Irish referendum - 60% for the Yes side and 40% for the No side. Federal Republic of Greater Germany Europe, here we come!

I'll take your word for it. It's a shame we don't get to know the details of the settlement regardless. That being said, at least now there's nothing standing in the way for Respawn to start marketing their new game more. I'm calling it now - E3 trailer with a not so kind reference to Activision.

We likely will at some stage. Someone is going to let slip something or do some real digging. Even if we don't, it's fairly clear which side the settlement favoured. If it was a mere pittance, I can't imagine Activision being too bothered about confidentiality. Then again, I haven't a clue. Maybe W&Z just saw 8 digits and took it.

I don't think it's so much about mature/immature or anything being far below us. I think it's about a focus towards gameplay that the average adult would find more engaging. For instance, for all the great things that have been said about Rachet and Clank, I have no interest in those games. I've played them but there's no challenge there for me so I don't have any great interest in playing it more than in passing.On the otherhand, Baldur's Gate isn't something that a young person can easily slog through as it asks the player to think more about their actions and so on and as an adult, that's far more appealing to me than Ratchet and Clank. Finally, well-designed difficulty curves and challenges have everything to do with maturity (in the adult/child sense). You're not going to want make a game for young players with the difficulty of Demon's Souls and you're not going to want to create a game aimed at older players that doesn't challenge them. You most certainly have to consider the maturity of your intended audience when designing your difficulty curve, gameplay elements and so on.

Temptation is a bitch. Overcome it!

As a big CDPR and Cyberpunk fan, I can't wait! Hopefully, they can handle it. With The Witcher, there was a lot of decision made for them already. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with the added development freedom that this game will allow. What does this even mean? Mature gameplay? I mean, I get mature writing, but gameplay? It doesn't hold your hand too much? It's challenging without being frustratingly so? It requires critical thinking and hard decisions? Requires more than just button presses to succeed? I don't know, When I hear mature gameplay, it's along the above lines that I start thinking. I'd call it the difference between Mass Effect's gameplay and The Witcher's gameplay - or, probably more appropriate a comparison, between Baldur's Gate/Dragon Age and Dragon Age II.

For me, it was more like this:

Ye all probably know this one but I don't think I posted anything here yet so here it goes. An English couple adopt a little German boy. After two years the child doesn’t speak and the parents are worried about him. After three years he hasn't spoken once and by his fourth birthday, he still hasn't uttered a word. The English couple figure he's never going to speak but he's a lovely child so on his fourth birthday they throw him a party and make him a chocolate cake with orange icing. The parents are in the kitchen when the little German boy comes in and says, “Mother, Father, I do not like the orange icing on the chocolate cake. "My god," his mother says, "you can speak?" To which the German boy replies, "Of course.". "How come you've never spoken before? “his father asks. “Well,” the boy says, "up till now, everything has been satisfactory."

Pffft! Fuck David Blaine! Who needs him when we've still got this guy:

Your playing for a while now though, right? Chances are anything I might want some help with would be far too below your level to bother with. Hell I'd say even if I renew my old account, you're well ahead as well, lol. Still, that being said, I might pester you for some advice now and again. I've got EveMon and EveHQ updated, anything other apps worth getting? All I have to do now is wait for all these updates to install. Freaking Steam version only downloaded Incarna so I've been sitting through the updates from the launcher for the past couple of hours.

I don't think I ever got too invested in any MMO. I did play WoW for quite some time but as far as I recall, my main character only ever reached lvl. 69, and that was after dropping it for months at a time before picking a sub back up. I played Eve Online for quite a while too but only today came back after about a 2 year absence. I've played quite a few others over the years to varying degrees but those two were the ones I played the most. At this point, I would say that perhaps I'm like Ethan and I'm somewhat immune to the Skinner Box effect but I don't think that's the case. I believe my "problem games", if you want to call them that, are FPS games and pre-XIII Final Fantasy*. They're the ones that keep me awake at night and keep me in during the day. I've probably spent more time playing just Battlefield games than many people who would be considered to have an MMO addiction have played their game of choice. However, because I could say I've spent X hours in BF2, X hours in 2142, X hours in BC2, X hours in BF3, even though X has never been below 150 hours and has often been much higher - For example, my total 2142 playtime currently stands at 422:37:37 - I believe that from a general gamer's perspective, I wouldn't be considered so much of an addict....or maybe I would be and I'm just in denial. I think most psychiatrists, were they to know just how much time I actually spent playing games, would consider me highly and dangerously addicted. I've thought a bit about that too but frankly, I couldn't give a damn. I still enjoy the finer things in life but gaming for me has always been one of the most important aspects of my life. I know that sounds pathetic - How can games be so important, they're just games! - yet I've dedicated my life to them, decided to dedicate my life to them a very long time ago and see myself holding that conviction until the end, not, as some would have it, because I'm addicted but because I'm highly passionate about them - like many men and women are about their great loves in life, whatever they may be. I think I went off on a bit of a tangent there, sorry about that. Anyway...uhhhhh....yeah, those are my thoughts on the topic. Sorry for the length, sometimes I swear I'm as bad at Kojima at this editing business. *Example: I played FFXII for 73 hours straight, only pausing to use the facilities and get food (which I ate while I played).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's some magic involved. If I remember correctly, it was said that the wildfire made before the return of the dragons was weaker.

I just picked up the 30 month sub to Eve on steam - €6.80 until later today. It's a shame I wasn't allowed to apply the month to my old account but it might be nice starting all over again after so long. If I get hooked again, I can always double-box, it's not as if that would be totally economically ridiculous right now! But hey! I've stopped buying weed so some money has freed up and I need a new addiction anyway! Anyone do the same with this deal? Or will I be alone in the void?