2017-05-01 08:19:09

Greetings to all on Mayday, and a happy Beltane to any Pagans celibrating this morning.

This is a monthly topic, and as people probably know by now, it's hear for well monthly chatting!

Talk about anything your up to, or down with, or along side or in any spacial direction with.
How life is treating or mistreating you, your academic or  careers, anything your playing/watching/listening to/thinking at the moment (I know the last is not a popular activity at the moment but there are still  strange people who engage in it these days).

Heck, just feel to pop in and say hi, --- or low, or large or anything else that comes to mind!

Well things for me recently have been hechtic. My parents visited over the weekend and helped clean out several bits of my flat, including taking two of my old desktops and my lady's old one off to our nice local computer firm be wiped and such. I'm actually a little sorry to see them go, though being as the hd of one completely exploded in 2008, and the hd of the other (the xp one I had up until the start of this year had occasional nasty noises and sometimes needed a light wrap on the casing to get int into gear I definitely! needed a new one.
Of course everything I had in terms of documents, favourites, music, games etc  been well and truly preserved, me being a bit of a fiend for making backups, there is still a bit of sentimentality towards the actual box itself.

In fairness though things  here are rather clearer, which is a good thing, since with two people and two dogs (one dog currently after my wife lost her dog at Christmas, but probably two dogs again soon enough), space is a trifle limited.
One reason I'm slightly pissed off at my none functioning desk mike, as I said in the other topic  since right now space is valuable.

We do plan to move probably in the next year or so. My flat has one fairly large living room and bedroom, with a small kitchen, tiny toilet and tiny bathroom  linked by a brief hall. It was quite okay for me on my own, or indeed for me and my dog, for double that amount less so.

Actually a friend of mine observed it's a testament to how much my wife and I love each other that we've managed to live together in such a comparatively small space with literally no arguments or disagreements at all.

We don't need  a mansion by any means, indeed if we  could bolt one extra room onto the side of this flat it would be fine, but sadly they haven't developed the technology for mud style dwelling expansion in the real world big_smile.


Annoyingly I have the second viva for my hd next Monday  which I am not! looking forward to at all, so I have lots of work to do this week, or at least a deal of revising.
On the plus side my review for the third October daye novel, an artificial night is up on fantasybookreview.co.uk, and I'm starting my next review, for Dianna Wynne Jones A sudden wild magic, her only adult novel (this lead yesterday to a rather hilarious interlude looking up the origins of the phrase rumpy pumpy!).
#

I am also giving Cyber assault a try.
I recall when I
played previously I didn't care for the game, but that might change now, especially because I believe combat is far less spammy.
The game also needs a db page, indeed I've got a few more things to add especially around blindfold games.

Last night my wife and I watched Indiana Jones and the raiders of the lost arc, which was wonderfully fun. It actually struck me watching it now just how well put together it is, with so many plot elements introduced earlier on and then used later, eg, indi's fear of snakes, Marian's ability to hold her licker etc. Actually it reminded me of Tom Ward who was a fan of the films wanted to write Tomb hunter as a game based on them. sometimes I really find I miss Tom, I'd love to tell him that I'm now married given how many discussions about relationships we used to have, I think he'd also be amused that I'm now using windows 10 big_smile.


We'll probably be doing the next to indi films this week, though we also have to finish The Jungle book, ---- the original by Kipling, which I also plan to review.

And methinks that is enough rambles for a Monday morning! big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-01 15:10:35

Hi all,
@Dark wow, that does sound like a small space, and I commend you boht for being able to live there. I also miss Tom Ward too.
Well for me, things have been quite happy but one thing I'm really missing, are all my costuming friends. Dark will probably get where I'm coming from here, as he met me at an event called Feel The Force Day a couple of ears back and that's the people I'm really missing. I don't get to see them for 12 months at a time. I still haven't gotten the chance yet to see any local costuming friends, but I'm hoping that will change soon. I've now heard that the person who does stuff locally now, also speaks in character with accents and stuff so I am really looking forward to meeting up with them again sometime soon.
I'm playing a lot of video games, last night me and Sightless played Killer Instinct and I actually managed to beat him a few times, including the very first match we played, which rarely happens to me. Mostly, he's on top of me with his Fullgoar character eleporting all around the screen!
I am also still enjoying Rock Band 4, while the price does add up as you purchase songs throughout the years it's still fun. I'm wondering actually how much I've racked up. In the ps3 days I had pages worth, literally, of nothing but Rock Band dlc for quite some time. With the xbox having more accessiility now I'm able to grab dlc for more of my favourite games like Killer Instinct and such, which isa wesome. I am also probably going to grab INjustice 2, a fighting game, which is coming on the 18th of this month.

2017-05-02 08:43:13

@Aaron, enjoy the injustice silliness. I still miss the days of the Snes and then the gba when I was buying mainstream games regularly, but I can see the point of fighting games, albeit I wouldn't buy a hole console just to play them (especially one I needed to subscribe to). I'm sorry I missed your friend the predator at feel the force, that sounded cool, actually if we're in the country or the vicinity this year my lady andmight see about going this year since she would also very much appreciate the costumes I think.


Actually the situation in my flat isn't too bad in terms of personal annoyance, since if we are not doing something together and get tired of listening on headphones one of can be in the living room and the other in the bedroom. This is problem we have at my parents when we're both basically living in my bedroom while we're there.

What is more of an issue is storage space, not for basic things like clothes (though that can actually be a problem), but also because we're both collectors. I have a book shelf stuffed full of fantasy creatures (particularly dragons), items I got while travelling around the world which range from a reworking statue of liberty I got in new York to an ornamental chess set showing Alexander the Great which I bought in griece, a couple of Mrs. Dark's angels (she collects angels rather as I do dragons), even a beautiful plaster work phoenix and a gorgeous pottery mermaid which were both Christmas presents from her. Indeed last Christmas I got two amazing dragons, one of them even hatching out of an egg which are sitting in the hearth right now. There is even a foot high Dalek in my loo big_smile.

Add to this the fact that Mrs. Dark still has a collection of most of her Angels in storage in Germany and you have the recipe for needing quite a bit of shelf space big_smile.

Well cyber assault is, ---- hmmmm, interesting. I'm not sure of the game so far I admit, but then again I seem to have miner problems getting into things so we'll see. It does have lots of quests which is good, however this is why muds need a bit more trying than most games before making db pages for them, since right now I've not seen too much in cyber assault that is different from other games.

I'm also reading the attack of the clones novelization. I don't know, I did read it before but it was abridged, but I'm finding the writing style a bit to bold and obvious. When your telling the reader that "this character is adventurerous" and telling them how funny certain scenes are it just doesn't work well, and really I cannot see Schmee Skywalker engaging in a food fight big_smile.

I do recall loving the rvenge of the sith novelization, though again I believe that was an abridged copy so we'll see. I've not read anything  by R A Salvatore before and perhaps Starwars isn't where he showed his work too well, certainly Alan Dean foster's original books are far better than his novelizations, even though he novelized both Starwars and the alien films.

So, not too much to report today, actually I'll confess I'm getting a wee bit worried about my viva next week the fat eof my phd pretty much rests on it and I really! want to get the thing finished and over and done with so I can move on and do something else with my life.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-02 17:22:41 (edited by st.mc 2017-05-02 17:24:15)

I'm here Just to say hi.
hi!
smile

:)

2017-05-03 14:37:36

Dark,
I am interested in your reworking
statue of liberty.
How is it changed and how can I get one?
I went to a Red Grooms art exhibition back when I could see and was delighted to see his version of the statue of liberty.
It was a twenty year old girl dressed in a mini skirt and holding a Bloomingdales store shopping bag instead of the bill of rights, and calling a cab with a raised right hand instead of holding a torch.

2017-05-03 17:36:31

@Stm Hi to you to! big_smile.

@Phil I'm afraid that was a case of wrong word (I really should stop writing these so early in the morning). I was reading my iron council review and so thinking about remaking, ---- which is a really horrible and vial concept which occurs in that universe and I meant to write "replica" rather than "reworking" silly me.

It's actually the plane old usual statue that we bought in a tourist shop off Time square. A bit predictable I know, but it struck me as a good remembrance of New York specifically and America in general.

Well today has been a little quiet. I can say I'm not really impressed with attack of the clones novelization, I'm getting a wee bit irritated with Salvatore constantly telling me that people are cute or strong or that things are funny when I'm just not finding them that way, heck while obviously Padme wanted children, perhaps it might have actually been nice to show her interacting with some real children rather than just looking at two little girl's who's main characteristic is cute "we know, Salvatore tells us their cute" and saying! how much she wants children, ---- by that logic she probably wants dolls more than real kids big_smile.

Sorry but this sort of lazy writing something that I just don't appreciate, it's treating readers like idiots not to mention doing bugger all for style.

while it is possible to mention a characters' emotions or what they're feeling successfully (many of my favourite writers do), you've got to be a good author to pull it off, indeed ironically matthew Stova does it quite successfully in revenge of the Sith which is what Mrs. Dark is reading at the moment.

Of course, am not drawing any conclusions on Salvatore generally from this, since I have known authors (alan dean foster is one, Greg bear is another), who's own work is amazingly good, and yet who really lose it when they write novelizations.

Then there are some authors, ---- James Blische in his original series startrek novelizations who completely alter their style to circumstances in a hilarious way, so your not just reading a novelization of the events and characters, your also reading a novelization of  style and spirit of the tv series, ---- one reason why I really like Blisch's own novelizations of original series isnce planely he! loved it for all it's it's affected campiness.

Sadly Salvatore doesn't come close to that with Attack of the clones.

I've also been  flexible survival today since a mention in the muds topic made me think I should checkout the game a little further, now I am able to take the explicit content as the rather ridiculous shock value silliness as it is, ---- though as the warning says and the new  warning I'm writing for the description also says this one is very! very! very! very! extreme indeed, so I wouldn't urge just anyone to go off and try it before your absolutely sure you know what your getting into.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-03 18:56:10

Dark,
Though I was sadly disappointed in your replica Statue of Liberty it did get me to google it and found:
Betty Boop Miss America Statue of Liberty
Giftware Figurine Trinket Box:
Amazon:Home & Kitchen
Marketplace offers
New
from $19.88
Hand painted and accented with Swarovski crystals on her crown and base
Stands 4.5 inches high
From Connoisseur

2017-05-03 23:04:43

Hi.
@Dark, did Thomas Ward really die? Somebody said that a few weeks ago but I didn't believe them, but I went to the usagames sight and it says the domain is for sell. If this is true that's terrible, he was so young! He said something about being middle-aged once so I figured he was in his forties at least. He was always posting neat stuff on here.
Those statues sound really awesome, especially the dragons.

Well May has been pretty good for me so far. I've been playing x-wheel a lot it's a classic! I put the computer player all the way up to expert today and I only managed to beat it once lol! I've also been playing awesome homer. Jim Kitchen was one heck of a developer. He must have really loved the Simpsons! I do too, it would have been cool to talk to him about Simpsons episodes. I need to try homer on a harley next. I wonder where he got the Homer and Marge sounds? I figure he must have recorded them off episodes then edited them together. Well whatever he did, he did an excellent job of it.
I just started reading the collapsing empire by John Scalzi. It just came out, and bookshare got it very quickly this time. I've noticed they don't really get sci-fi and fantasy books regularly. Anyway it's good so far, it's about a huge inter-stellar empire, who's planets are all connected by some sort of gateway called the flow that spaceships run through to get from place to place. For some reason the flow is moving and not letting ships in, which is splitting the empire. This is the first John Scalzi book I've read and I'm liking it so far. I wanted to start the old man's war series but I figured I'd save it for later.
Well that's enough rambling for now lol!

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-05-04 00:21:21

Well, this is the first time in a while i have posted on one of these topics so here we go. I'm playing the unofficial Squaresoft mud, which throws asspects of final fantasy 5, 6 and 7 and Chrono Trigger in to one game, and has plot from all games from what i can gather. Learning the cintax and commands took a while to get used to, but i'm managing alright. I like the combat system a lot, as it is slowed down, and actually turn based, although still real-time. The player base is friendly, and the first boss of the game killed me, and someone res erected me right away, which was nice. Like Alter, you lose experience, but you don't have to find your corpse or anything like that, unless i'm missing something. Speaking of Alter, my arqmeister character was purged, which i'm ok with, as it was my only character in that game for the past several years, and truthfuly, it was rather imbalanced. Can anyone advise me on the order of classes i should pick for creation of a new character, as i would like to jump in to that game again. I like necro a lot, but i was pretty squishy using a necro as my main. I like the mage spells as well. Perhaps warrior should be my first class? Not sure. Other than that, not much else going on, accept i'm re-reading the Hobbit and Rings again. I'm also almost done with the Children of Huren as well, which was a great read, despite a lack of description on some of the battles in the plot. It had a more historical tone, which is fine, as i'm now comfortable with the Silmilrilian, which took me a long time to sit with for long periods.

2017-05-04 17:39:06

@Phil, I'm afraid the Betty Boop statue would be less meaningful to me. While they did used to show a lot of old American cartoons over here, so I am more than familiar with characters like Tweety pie, tom and Gerry, porky pig, the whacky races cartoons (which have recieved something of a revival recently), pop eye etc, I don't think I ever saw Betty Boop.

Part of this might be the  age since I know she's from the thirties, --- outside disney short films I don't think I've ever seen a Micky Mouse cartoon either, part might be that they were in black and white and generally I avoided black and white programs because they were harder for me to watch.

I do know her catch phrase was boop boop beee do, since I recall seeing her in the film "who framed roger rabbit", and futurama did a parody once that was quite fun.

@Guitarman, yes, Tom ward died last february from a Brain hemmerage, Here is the news item that was posted at the time

Sad news indeed, particularly since it turns out he's only five years older than I am and would've been thirty nine this year, as I said he's someone I miss, particularly when i run into  that remind me of him, I'm especially sorry I couldn't tell him I am now married.
Don't think I've read any John Scalzi myself.

@Arqmeister, how are the quests in the squaresoft mud? I've been tempted by it, especially those areas based on secret of Mana, but I do recall a mention that the quests are dam obscure and the mud has a "don't discuss quests or we will kill you!" type of approach.
As to Alteraeon, well that's probably another topic in itself.
I've got a druid mage and am really enjoying it whenever I come back to the game.
I'm not exactly a combat monster when it comes to standing up to attacks, but I'm finding the technique of hiding behind an earth wall and lambasting my enemies with spells whilst my walking trees and various animals maul my enemies is rather effective, I also love the herb gathering and brewing, not to mention being able to carve runes on all my equipment and make my own weapons.

Glad  your enjoying Tolkien I'm obviously a major fan, but then again I read the silmarillion (in braille no less), when I was ten so am probably not the best person to judge it. for a very fun, and slightly ereverant take on a lot of aspects of the story see Jef Lasla's posts on tor.com  which actually give a bit more of rpg and battle context to a lot of the events and are rather hilarious! (despite the fact I disagree with him about the films).

I have finished the updates to the flexible survival entry, but I don't know if I'm going to go on and play the games more full time, while they no longer make me feel uncomfortable, especially since they're so overthetop they're quite ridiculous, I do find myself growing a little over tired of the onrunning theme and the fact even sane npcs in the world basically seem to do nothing else but bonk each other.
That being said  mechanics are really  especially when I've looked into the mud and found a few unique things, like a jobs system based  rp skills, and full scale item crafting.

Again this is probably matter for another topic.

I will confess I'm feel a little at odds at the moment since I have my viva next week which I am definitely not! looking forward to, especially given the fact that after passing the last very gruelling one with flying colours the examiners went back and changed their dam minds! I wish they would stop pratting around and just give me the dam doctorate I've earned! big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-07 13:45:30

Hi Everyone,

So far, it's a fantastic month for me, since it is my birthday month.
I've also unofficially made it the month that I go insane and buy lots of books from Audible, since I usually have some birthday money. This time around, I bought Watership Down, some Eudora Welty who is one of my favorite authors, Steppenwolf, Dandelion Wine, and a new one called "The Trees." And I still have money to spend!

Gamewise, I am alternating between Clok and Cosmic Rage. I love both games, but Clok annoys me because so often, you just have to guess at commands to figure things out. It's fun for its realism though, so I stay with it.

I am looking forward to getting the National Geographic TV app. I've wanted to watch their series on Mars, and I love wildlife documentaries.
I may get the Boomerang app too, since I get nostalgic for my old cartoon favorites from time to time.

We FINALLY got a grocery pickup service around here, so I can do my grocery shopping online, and then have someone drive me over to get the order. I am trying so many new foods, just because I can browse at my convenience, and compare prices. This is something I have wished for and waited for, a very long time, so I am thrilled.

That's all for me.
Dark, good luck with your P.H.D.

2017-05-07 18:54:43

@arqmeister,
You won't find any one size fits all solution where AA is concerned; many people have different styles of playing and do different things on a regular basis with their chars.  Some people are good at one task while others double a ton, and still others attempt to solo the whole thing.  When selecting classes though here are three pieces of general advice I hope will help not only you but others as well, some of which is obvious but which I'm afraid to say is also overlooked because of how obvious it is.
1.  Classes contribute toward what you get.  Warriors obtain more HP, thieves slightly less, followed by druids, clerics, necros and mages.  Turn that around and you get the mana side of things with mages starting at the top and warriors obtaining no mana that I know of just for leveling as the other classes do; yes, thieves will obtain rare, occasionall mana, unless that's a bug I've encountered.  This also applies to regeneration; mages will regenerate mana faster than all the other classes, for instance, meaning that if you wanted to create a druid or necro that regens mana faster you would use mage as your second class.  This of course also means that you'll acquire less HP overall that way in the beginning, which makes constitution something you'll want to place pracs into early on, particularly where necros and mages are concerned.
2.  Pay attention to what you're doing with your pracs and your stats.  Once upon a time, charisma was not all that important; today it really is, particularly if you're a cleric.  some chars require some stats more than others; unless you're going for something psycho obscure like necro thief don't assume you're going to need a ton of inteligence and dexterity at the same time on any char.  It might be tempting to get every spell or skill you see pop up on your learn list, but particularly in the beginning I'd say there's a lot you can live without.  Using the check command is worth doing, but here again I suggest you don't go crazy learning it just because it appears and use it simply as a general guideline rather than a fullproof solution.  How you train really depends once again on what you're doing with your character... I'd tell a druid to train wis, int and con to start off with unless cleric is the second class, in which case charisma would probably take priority over constitution.
3.  Are you gonna solo or group?  If you're gonna group, are you hitting?  Blasting?  Tanking?  Healing?  This is all worth taking into consideration ahead of time given the massive level of equipment there is available for almost every situation you can think of.  As a healer, you might think you want a ton of equipment that'll increase your overall cleric level, but nothing could be further from the truth, since as a healer what you're going to need is a ton of manaregen, and most of that equipment usually doesn't have castlevel of any kind tied to it.  The heal spell does not increase with castlevel, ever, but instead heals a set amount of points every time you use it, which is why a ton of people will choose cleric as a second class to necromancer, thinking they can heal their minions, which I personally find a waste of mana.  I chose mage as my second, aware that my mana would regen faster, that I would get displacement earlier which would contribute toward my armor class, and that I could heal my skeletal minions through familiars; the ebony scale is worth looking into as its healing power is passive and always in use, allowing everything under your control to benefit from hP regeneration over time.  Melee fighting is altogether different and so is the equipment you'll want for it.  Are you trying to kill things quickly or are you defending someone else who is?  Hitters require a nice balance of hitroll and damroll, the first of which allows you to more quickly and easily penetrate armor, while the latter is a measure of the overall damage you'll do with every physical hit.  If you're tanking, you'll want high armor class and HP while perhaps attempting to find some equipment with saves against other damages such as fire, ice, zap, acid, poison, etc.  IN some cases, none of this will matter because the mob just, hits so hard.  I've heard it can be done, but I find warriors an unbalanced, impractical class for soloing.  Adding necro as a second class can provide a bit of a cushion through your minions, but the overall efficacy and integrity of your minions is questionable given that necro minions require necro cast level to be the best they can be.  Adding mage as a second level causes your HP to suffer, not to mention making it hard to learn things like displacement which could provide useful protection potential, but which requires far too much inteligence you don't have early on.  Adding cleric as a second gives you access to healing and other protective spells more quickly, but the problem is that the higher up the ladder of spells you climb the higher your charisma has to be.  Adding druid as a second class once again gives you access to companions with varying levels of exercisable control , and mercifully they do not require cast level save when you're summoning them, but where you'll get the wisdom and inteligence and mana to summon them from is a mystery to me still, given that you'll need at least 20 mana for every call you send out for animals, plus sunlight trapped in suncatchers to obtain liveoaks as well as the acorns required to even have a liveoak anyway, not to mention that certain animals can only be called in certain areas, meaning that if you've managed to call your gigantic moose to tank for you but go down into a cave and that moose dies you won't be calling another until you leave the cave.  Adding thief as your second class is perhaps the best bet, but here again I've run into issues, mainly that finding equipment balanced in damage ability and protection is a toughy.

For these reasons, I recommend the necro and druid classes as primary if you're interested in soloing, with mage or cleric as second to either or.  Necro druids are once again a rather obscure classing and one that from a practical place hardly makes any sense because both use minions of different kinds, and you only get control points to the number of the level for your primary class, meaning that if you choose necro as your primary and druid as your secondary, manage to get necro to 20 and druid to 15, you still only have 20 control points to use for both classes.  Choosing mage as a second to either or will allow you to regen mana faster, while cleric will give you access to various healing abilities and protection spells like armor, faith shield and sanctuary.  Druids have rechargeble spellstaffs that break on occasion when you recharge them, while necros harvest blood and other corpse components which may or may not last long enough to accomplish various other things.  Druids can control more minions to tank for them; I've seen as many as 3 liveoaks, while necros usually only have one powerful tank depending on the situation in question.  Necro minions are more powerful overall, but are susceptible to certain types of damage and spells, plus necros themselves are lacking in spell damage.  Druids have tons of powerful area effect spells, but those spells can become useless when presented with certain situations; you can't use wind spells under water, for instance.  Necros regen mana faster than druids, druids HP faster than necros.  Druids can use equipment without cast level on occasion such as for mana regen; this is not recommended for necros.  Necros don't generally have to wait on things like captured sunlight to produce powerful tanks.  Druids carve equipment necros and everyone else might use later.  Necros harvest things druids and everyone else can use later.
Mages are weak on HP which means you don't want to use them as primaries in anything less than a group, given you'll be using a ton of mana to protect yourself in addition to whatever you use to attack.  Clerics are not as weak but do lack stable damage ability, and because focusing on charisma has become a priority, gaining stores of mana isn't as easy as it once might have been.  Thieves are a class I just, can't get into; with less HP than warriors and many of their abilities using up tons of movement they just complicate things for me.
I hope all this helps at least a little.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-05-07 19:32:39 (edited by Dan Gero 2017-05-07 20:20:50)

Hi guys.
Not much is going on for me this month. I'm becoming increasingly aware that my junior exam is coming up, which I'm regretting a lot. I have to take English in braille, nothing else, which is the main reason for me regretting it, because I can read braille for about 5 minutes before my fingers get numb. At that point I can only read for about 30 seconds at a time before having to stop and clap my hands together about 4 or 5 times before I get the feeling in my fingers back. Another problem I have is that I take about 5 minutes to read a single page. I guess it mainly has to do with not practicing, I've always had a mild dislike for braille anyways which is why I don't practice. I've been a little concerned though, because I used to read at 60 words per minute and now I read in the low 20. I've been trying to get them to change my test to audio but they won't do it, so I can tell I'm in for hell this semester.
As for games, I've been playing crazy party a lot and a little bit of Shadow Rine. I've also been wanting to get into the Mortal Combat series lately, I heard Liam playing it on his channel and I thought it was pretty cool, I just have to find a way to get it for the PC because I don't have an Xbox or a PS4 or any other consoles.
I've also been trying to get open broadcast software to work, and I sort of have. I can start and stop a recording just fine, but I can't figure out how to save them. I'll just wait until I can get some answers from someone because I don't want to screw around with the controls, I might break something.
But yeah, that's pretty much it for me.
Quick update, I found out where my recordings are stored. I just wasn't paying enough attention and passed the show recordings option in the menu. Now I have to figure out how to make it capture my screen and not my face. In case anyone's wondering what I'm gonna be doing for my channel, I'm gonna be playing Shadow Rine, which does have graphics BTW, so anyone with vision can enjoy it too. Well, I'm out of here for now.

Discord: dangero#0750
Steam: dangero2000
TWITCH
YOUTUBE and YOUTUBE DISCORD SERVER

2017-05-08 12:35:08

shotgunshell
A tip from a medical transcriptionist, get a book that you like in audio and braille. Slow the audio book down to the slowest setting, then get a foot control for pausing and playing the book. This way you can play the audio book at the same speed as you read braille.

2017-05-08 15:12:34

At Nocturnus, thanks for the tips. Honestly, while the advice is helpful, i'm even more discouraged because your post speaks to a feeling that i have had for a long time about alter aeon, which is, the game takes a lot of grinding to get good, and i really think it does not bode well for solo players. I'm thinking of rooms with instakill mobs, mobs with ridiculous defense or health, obscure quests, monna regen being a pain in the ass, and having to worry about cast level, or, oh crap, i'm not strong enough to Cary around all this cool equipment i found. My point is, i'm so worryed about staying alive and my characters stats, i can't enjoy the fantasy asspects for very long, hence my on again, off again relationship with the game. Plus, i never felt that the game allowed you to get powerful, and enjoy it, and while i understand that it's so you can feel challenged no matter what level you are at, i just want to have the taste of victory, which manages to escape me every time i come back. Can i cast ball lightening and destroy a boss, or maybe web of fire can simply wipe out a room of mobs, just once, please.

2017-05-08 18:20:46

Well I had my viva today, which was not fun in the least, though actually was half as long as my last one and not quite as arsy, and it is sort of interesting to suddenly get questions like "well since you've talked about disability in terms of frustrated desire and freedom,so isn't a paedophile disabled?" thrown at you?
On the plus side they didn't fail the thesis out right or award me a second masters or ask me to rewrite the hole thing. On the down side they have asked me  read about another 20 more recently published articles, and add an extra section discussing them of another 10 k words.
I have a year to do it so it's not too bad, but I would like to be rid of the bloody thing!

@Mirage hope you enjoy dandelion wine is that the bradbery? I love ray bradberry's stuff, albeit I've enjoyed his short stories rather more than his novels on the hole.

@Nocturnus, thumbs up for an awesome Alteraeon class guide, actually if you wanted to expand that a wee bit you could likely make it into an article and post in the articles room.

@Arqmeister, I'm finding soloing in alter quite possible with my druid mage, indeed far more so than when I tried a cleric warrior, were it not possible to solo in the game, I likely wouldn't bother with it as grouping isn't an interest of mine.
I actually have! had bosses go down rather quickly, indeed last Christmas with the event with the demons of spite, greed, anger etc, I was quite surprised how easily the respective demons went down when I sent a few fists of earth their way.
I generally find that so long as I prepare, take care my minians, (including leaving time for them to rest), use salves and tinctures when I can, make sure to preserve my mana and use survey command to get an idea where is safe to rest  I am usually quite okay.

actually that is one I'll say is a major plus in alter. In so many other games combat is basically minimax, fire and forget. In alter it takes management, however not so much micro management it becomes insane. Eg, with equipment I basically can just go on what gives the most druid level or mana regen and forget everything else, while in combat remembering to put up mage shields or spells like still air can really help, quite aside from elemental damage when I think it counts.
Hmm, maybe I should get back to alter, especially with the new crafting, I keep trying other combat muds but always coming back.

Well with my viva done that is at least a relief, though where my gaming wims will take me I don't know. Recently Iv'e found myself at a miner gaming loose end, or rather I keep trying things but not getting into things deeply, which is probably a miner shame, maybe I just need to sit down and plug away, though unfortunately I'll be heading back to Nottingham for my dad's 70th birthday tomorrow and since I've not sorted a windows 10 laptop out yet my gaming options will be a wee bit limited methinks.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-08 20:12:04

To be clear, i'm not dismissing alter all together, i think i just need to find a class combo that works for me. Right now i have two characters i'm testing, a warrior thefe, and a mage necro. I might try mage druid though instead, we'll see what happens.

2017-05-08 23:18:45

Best of wishes to ya on either combo, Arq; I have a ton of equipment I've collected over the years so feel free to message me, should our being online coincide... I give it away in hopes that others might find uses for it, some of it being so old you just can't get your hands on it anymore.  Oh, and weightlesses are a thing, champ; don't forget about them.  :d

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-05-09 00:01:15

@Arq, druid is my first class and mage my second.

Druid I like for the minians, the fact that equipment balancing is fairly easy, and the fact that there are so many fun things to do. I also like the way that druid actually is a class that is built for exploring slowly. One reason I don't enjoy grouping is I hate being dragged around with no time to review corpses or do other things.
With Druid I can take time to read room descriptions, look at slane enemies, gather herbs and brew, even do some leather crafting these days, and all of that time my recover and my mana regenerates, that is one reason I like druid so much for solo exploring and questing.

One thing I do wonder, is what difference ranged weapons will make to the game particularly for thieves and mages, since if you can slay something a room away while staying hidden, less than stellar physical abilities will matter slightly less, and thieves get all the  fun shadowy stuff to play with.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-10 00:05:15

@Dark,
I used to hate druids immensely, and in some senses I still do; mana consumption is exceedingly great for the most part if you don't know how to be careful with it.  That having been said, I love using a gigantic moose to both clobber things as well as protect myself from said things it is clobbering. The wall as kind of extra added protection is just like incidental icing on the cake!  It has other practical uses though; don't want someone disturbing your sleep too badly while you're regenning?  would you prefer to have two stags goring things to bits rather than a moose to tank?  Maybe you're a more sadistic fello and like the idea of your enemies being chewed to bits by rats and blooddrained by bats!  Either way, do a Trump and build a wall!
And carving?  Adding effects to your equipment is just the beginning!  Creating spellstaffs is where the real fun is.  had I known long ago I could use a gust of wind spellstaff to practically achieve the same thing I could with tempest while conserving a ton of mana in the process, I would have done it long ago.  Yes, for anyone who just missed that, any spell you load into a spellstaff not only allows you to cast the spell faster and without using and abusing your own mana, but also makes the spell, regardless of the spell's overall nature, an area effect spell.  Once again, gust of wind, fist of the earth, call lightning!  Want to cast these at multiple mobs without using your own mana?  Use!  A!  Spellstaff!  the downside, of course, is that the spell is generally weaker than it would be as cast by the original caster under most if not all circumstances, but seriously!  why tinker around with casting entangling roots at each target in turn when you can just, tap your staff on the ground and grab everyone at once!
then there's things like control weather!  Load that into a spellstaff and make it rain, then generate tempest force winds, and then cast call lightning at a target and watch what happens!  Boom!  Flood a square and cast riptide!  Don't even get me started on the newest change to suncatchers!  It almost makes necros feel useless, and I'm loving it!
I wish I had actually chosen druid mage; I started my druid long ago and unwisely chose cleric as my second...  SHAME SHAME!

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-05-13 01:41:36

@nocturnus, interesting, you make me want to try the game again, which in fairness I probably should. I've been jgoing around with other muds, but even playing a lot of combat heavy muds I can't deny Alteraeon has something different, especially in how you can manage combats and use different abilities (indeed that is my problem with cyber assault at the moment, combat is just plane boring).

I never found weather control spells that useful accept for bling factor, since the amount of time and mana it takes to get the storm conditions necessary for call lightning usually negate the point of using the dam thing, though putting the spell into a staff is a good idea, as I already use spells as supplements for things like gust of wind, fist of earth, tempest etc.
Btw, interesting since your dead right about staff spells being free area affect spells, I'd actually noticed that with gust of wind and fist of earth  but not really put the facts together.
I wonder if area affect poison ivy is possible? big_smile.

Well this week I've been in Nottingham at my parents since it's been my dad's 70th birthday. He had a great time and we had a very awesome Indian meal. actually considering that this time last  year with my dad getting a triple bypass there was a possibility he wouldn't be here at all, I think everyone was extra happy, particularly my mum and we really went to town on stuff for him.

Unfortunately, as I've not yet sorted out my windows 10 laptop, this meant I was off the forum for a few days, which is not good however I'm back at my flat now which also means I'm back on my desktop. Also, my victor stream is also back frmy humanware and in full working order, so methinks I will catch up on some doctor who bf audios next, I just finished dragonflight by anne mccafrey, which was my first mccaffrey novel for about 17 years.

While I loved the dragons, it was still very much her first novel, and also possibly not the best introduction to the world Pern and it's dragons, but hopefully I'll be getting a review written tomorrow so I can say all the things that need saying.
Gaming wise I don't know what to start on since there seem to be so many things kicking around right now. I have had good fun with crazy party, but I do need to try some things out.

I would like to get my amazon echo dot working if I can, now I havepc with a browser and can use the web ap.
I don't believe music will be workable on it, but there are other things it can do, and I do feel rather guilty that my brother bought the thing for my wife and I and yet I've still not found a use for it, indeed as I  when I tried  a while ago I was not at all impressed with the thing generally, though if people are writing games for it at least there is something! vaguely fun it might be able to do.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-05-13 09:03:09

@Nocturnus, that's very useful advice. I haven't played in a while but that makes me want to go back and restart. I kind of messed my character up; I have a druid as a main, followed by a warrior, mage and then a cleric. I ended up learning a lot of spells that were either useless (like mage spells that require you to fight empty handed for them to have any use) or ones that I can't use because I can't manage to get the needed stats. I also had to keep training strength to carry around my inventory; a weightless container or storage locker would be so useful but it's expensive. I really need to learn more about the game though, I've never heard of spellstaffs and I could never manage to figure out how to do the salves and tinctures. The thing that I liked about warriors was being able to fight without losing manna since I couldn't really get by with just using manna, but besides for a few abilities most of what they offer is pretty much useless if you're soloing, which is what I almost always do. Cleric had some useful spells; heal and refreshing your movement points actually went along well with the warrior skills.
One other thing, how does converting to a particular god effect the game? I never did but recall became pretty unreliable eventually.

2017-05-13 09:47:31

The greatest downside you'll find to not converting is recalling; at higher levels it becomes harder and harder to recall without converting, which is not good in sticky situations where you're doing your absolute best to get out and you get a bunch of bla bla about gods not responding to your call.  Another problem is favor; since you follow no one, you gain no favor for anything from anyone.  If you're not a cleric this shouldn't be too much of an issue, but favor has, much like charisma, become a matter of importance.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-05-14 00:26:43

hello.
well, nothing is up with me either. now i'm slowly preparing to move back to romania because in june sixth that's what i will do, i will go back. though i will miss america, as an exchange student i have to do my duty and to go back.
i am pretty stressed to see this day coming, because i'm really not having the best life there.
well, it's nothing about my familly. it's about those people from my school, and also  a lot of stuff that is happening there which stresses the crap out of me.
it is also a big pain in the butt this year seeing that my graduation is coming in june 2018 which is a pretty giant one. so that's basically what is up with me.

2017-05-14 10:40:06

@vlad, good luck on the move, international travel is always a pest, though if your graduation is 2018 you probably don't need to as much right now accept for getting work done.

Thinking about alter I'd be interested to know what people would recommend class wise for my wife, who is a complete mudding, and indeed mostly gaming newbie. She fancies trying alteraeon, which I've shown her, but hasn't tried that sort of game before. She isn't as keen on the idea of Necromancy just because she's not a huge fan of the undead and such on principle.
I was of suggesting druid mage just because I personally like that combo, and I will say she liked the idea of druid's natural type of magic , but I havent' had as much experience as some people here.


Well we had an interesting night of itaround 12-30, I am woken by someone yelling outside and hammering on the downstairs window shouting for my neighbour. he didn't sound aggressive, but equally the lady down stairs didn't answer.

Being as round here crime is fairly minimal I opened my window and asked the fellow what the problem was, it turned out he  been visiting my down stairs neighbour but now was shut out trying to get a taxi.
While he was certainly not exactly the most sober of people, he seemed harmless enough, so I did indeed phone the taxi firm for him.

This was all fine, accept about fifteen or so minutes later a  police car pulls up out side.

Being slightly worried for my neighbour I rang the police enquiries number. Not 9 9 9 the emergency services (like 9 1 1 in the States), but the general number you ring if you just want to talk to your local police force about a less urgent matter.

They told me the police were actually already on site and they'd received a call about someone knocking on the windows and yelling! so had gone to investigate (we really don't get much crime around here).

I went down stairs to find my neighbour laughing uproariously, since it turned out that where I had phoned the fellow a taxi, another neighbour had phoned the police!

So the moral of the story is who needs taxis when you can instantly get a cop car by creating enough of a rumpus big_smile.

Btw, needless to say were this Nottingham where my parents live where there is a far more serious crime problem and anyone suffering loud, nocturnal endrumkenment is more likely to be actually needing! a cop car than a taxi, matters would've been much different.

Well  as my Victor stream is back I decided to have a break from books while I put together my dragonflight review and do some torchwood audios as I am a little behind.

One of them, Corpse day is probably the most twisted, evil and down right wrong! thing I've ever heard Torchwood do yet (lets say if you remember the weevils from the series you haven't seen them in this light before, plus it bought the character of  owin harper back which was good. actually considering  that Owin's story in the series ended with him not dead, but functionally immortal but unable to heal himself, and locked in a nuclear reactor gone critical, there possibly is potential to bring him back for the post series torchwood audios.
Actually I always wondered why the question of the Miracle in Miracle day, and what it had done to owin never came up.
it'd be easy enough to basically have the miracle make owin immortal, an immortality which repaired his body, then when it was reversed have him restored and back out of that reactor ready to work for Torchwood again.


I've also been playing a good bit of Crazy party, trying to earn some gems to get some unlockables, albeit I'm a little rusty at some minigames big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)