Mr. GOH!

The MMO's I've played and watched involved timing but not thinking. I want thinking and planning and adapting strategy beyond hitting skill buttons at different times. Positioning. Effective resource allocation on the fly. Flexible roles. I don't want to just stand there doing damage and hitting a skill trigger every few seconds. These are the sorts of things I want; I'm not saying I can design an MMO. It's just that MMO gameplay has always been very, very, very, very boring. It's a style of gameplay that I might find fun were I controlling a party of people in combat. Since you only control one dude in an MMO, though, it gets boring. But I have not played tons of MMO's for very long at all. The longest one I played was anarchy online, but only for a few weeks. I've seen a lot of WoW being played by roommates and I've dipped my toes in a few other ones. None were very fun. And if they want my subscription money, the fun had better start right away or fuck them for wasting my goddamn time. Edit: For typos and grammar.

My ideal MMO would focus on multiplayer problem solving rather than boring combat.

Johnny, your post has done more to scare me away from MMOs than anything else, and I was considering getting TOR. But if a game is designed for a shitload of solo play and yet requires a monthly subscription, FUCK THAT NOISE. I can chat with my friends without paying for the privilege. And that time suck just sounds like it ain't feasible.

Cool cool. I would also like to suggest that anyone who receives a gift they already own or have already enjoyed through other means is morally obligated not to redeem the gift but pass it on *freely* (i.e., not as part of a trade).

Wait, so it's also when the embargo on talking lifts? Edit: An embargo and a deadline, I suppose. Well, my lips are sealed until the 24th.

Oh, shoot, I just straight-up sent off my gift and didn't hold onto to it. I hope that's okay. Is the 24th a deadline this year, or is it when the embargo on talking about gifts drops?

What I find really promising about that graphic is that folks from both sides of the aisle are on both sides of the issue. It shows that the issues might actually matter and get a real debate instead of partisan politicking. Or it could just mean pro-SOPA interests have bought off both democrats and republicans. At least it still won't be tied up with partisan politics. Hopefully.

The Gold standard would just be a different kind of failure. The Fed has made ruinous decisions, I agree. But just because it's made bad decisions doesn't mean that it's impossible for money supply regulation to be effective. It's just that they've been using the only tools they have because the other fiscal solutions to our economic crisis must come from Congress, which is ineffective and deadlocked these days. I agree with a lot of what Ron Paul says vis a vis government intervention in personal moral issues (though Paul's view isn't that government shouldn't intervene but more that the *federal* government shouldn't intervene, and that's an important distinction), but I disagree that private markets will solve social or macroeconomic problems any better than the government. And when the government pursues a solution, it's directly accountable for its decision making, while private entities are indirectly and in many cases only tenuously accountable for their effects on society, *especially* effects on third parties (like pollution). I see Ron Paul's stand, and libertarian politics in the US, to be akin to suggesting that an airliner pilot cease controlling the plane during heavy turbulence in the hopes that the problem will take care of itself and maybe even the plane will land itself. What's more likely is that the plane will end up in pieces across flyover country. Edit: Ron Paul may not be captured by corporate interests the same as the other candidates, but his deregulation plans are extremely corporate friendly. Now, he could balance this by recognizing more types of private lawsuits by citizens against big businesses abusing rights, but I seriously doubt he would do so. US jurisprudence has developed in such a way that straight up regulation is the best way to deal with lots of consumer protection issues. Then again, his states' rights philosophy may be represented by the view that states should handle regulation, thus shifting costs to states, making for a crazy regulatory patchwork that would increase costs for nationwide companies. It may also leave certain states' citizenry open to more exploitation than others due to some states not having enough resources to make or enforce regulations.

Fair warning: I probably won't make my purchase until the 23rd due to travel and also that's my payday. So don't fret if you don't get one by the 20th! Well, maybe fret a little, but if you're my santa-ee, you'll get it on the 23rd. I'll try to make the wait worth it.

Rick Perry was a straight-up Dem until the 90's. He worked for Gore's presidential campaign in TX in 88.

Actually, I've encountered non-atheists of other religions (mostly Jewish here in NY) who get a bit offended if you wish them a merry christmas. So a good rule of thumb is to switch to "happy holidays" when addressing someone in a yarmulke.

Oh, I just assumed you were gonna review it. One of my pet peeves in reviews is when reviewers dedicate a section of criticism to minutiae but miss larger critiques. XD I think there are some valid criticisms of the game, too, to be fair. It is not the Best Game Ever by any means. I think it was oversold on the graphics, and it feels like a moderately updated Oblivion engine to me. I also think the sparse setting freed up more graphical/CPU resources for other tasks and that if the game weren't in sparse wilderness the graphics would suffer. But my biggest graphic pet peeve is the vegetation/animation draw distance; static distant waterfalls ruin what would otherwise be majestic vistas. Same goes for when you see the repeating texture pattern on the ground when looking down onto plains or valleys from a great height. In fact, the texture patterns made me immediately think of New Vegas. Those are minor frustrations, however, when set against how much I enjoy this sort of open world RPG (though I still dislike Oblivion). One thing I would like is the ability to customize spells. I never did it in Morrowind or Oblivion because I never played magic users, but I'd like to try it out in Skyrim. I imagine industrious modders are hard at work on just such a thing, though.

I dunno, Dean. I had zero problems finding your quest goal on the Skyrim map, but the Oblivion map gave me a seizure immediately. I couldn't find the "you" marker, it's true. But I don't have that problem in my game at all. In fact, I haven't had any problems navigating whatsoever. I do think there should be a legend and that the icons should be consistent, however. And I also agree that the PC version should have m+k/b friendly menus. I use a gamepad, so the menus do not bother me. On the other hand, it seems like we're arguing about very minor quibbles so I'll stop and accept the PXOD will be marking dinging Skyrim for problems that I just do not have with the game.

I have zero problems with the UI or reading health bars and whatnot. Though I do play with a gamepad. It would be nice to get some sorting options, though, for inventory screens. And the map is easy to read. I dunno how Dean manages to not understand the markers on it. Can he not see shapes or something? I guess it'd be a mess to navigate using only the compass if you keep all your quests active, but I don't think different colored markers would help with that at all. HH: It feels like streamlining in the best way. This isn't Mass Effect 2 dumbing-down but making game systems make sense. The chief reason why it's good is because the Elder Scrolls has always had a terrible and obtuse character progression system. Yes, they took out custom spells, which upsets a certain fraction of players. On the other hand, spells are fun to use and actually make sense. I'm usually a avid hater of streamlining, but in this case it's a massive improvement.

I've played around 25 hours and I feel like I've really only explored a quarter of the map. I've also found four dwemer ruins (two on the same smallish mountain, a bunch of more involved dungeons and half a dozen forts that had some nice stuff. I dunno what you're complaining about, Dean. Sure, there were a shitload of forts and dungeons in oblivion, but they were all awful. I feel like there's just as much stuff in Skyrim, actually. More variety, though. Can't speak to the Db quest chain; I didn't play it in Oblivion and haven't found it yet in Skyrim.

I know I'm responding to older posts, but NPC's do react to your individual attributes. I get all sorts of mage hatred just walking around. I guess they can sense my high destruction magic skill. I also get random comments about being Argonian. I've heard comments both inside and outside of formal dialogue. In fact, the vast majority of comments about being a magic user are outside of dialogue. Those Nords sure do not like magic....

Leaving Kotaku for Gametrailers is like a hooker switching pimps: the only difference is what street corner the hooker sells her cheap ass on.

I dunno where Kotaku gets its numbers, but Ninty is expected to post a $1 billion + loss for the past two quarters on Thursday. That ain't profits. Sure, Ninty *says* they're gonna make a paltry $35 mil for the entire year or something. But the desperate often make ludicrous claims about future success.

Your mama's dumb.

Reviewers should take off points for whatever the fuck they want to. They should explain why, of course. But I don't want standardized review criteria; I want the critical world to be full of a myriad of conflicting opinions. That makes it more likely that I will be able to find a reviewers whose reviews serve *me* as a good guide due to shared preferences or a writing style I enjoy.

Man, those Gut Check articles really grind my gears. They are aggressively meaningless. I mean, little mini-reviews are fine, but making them suggestions to buy games was probably not the best idea. I mean, it just make Kotaku look like shills and hucksters. They are linkbait, though, which works in Gawker's favor. But should Kotaku really squander what editorial power and pull it has by giving tons of games its stamp of approval? The standard for a yes is really... amorphous, I suppose. Every half-decent game with an audience will pass it; only the very worst will get a 'No.' Edit: Here's their latest for the new Spyro game. You can find the others yourselves. I believe in you.