Salamander8
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Posts posted by Salamander8
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I use Steam a lot. Probably too much to be honest, but without them many good independent games would have slipped past me. Steam and I have a love/hate relationship. Steam can be positively maddening at times; when it tries to update 3 or 4 games at once and completely freezes, when I tell it to not check the TF2 cache 4 times in an hour, etc, but overall I'm glad I use it when I see the dwindling stock of PC games at the local stores.
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It's hard to say as I'm years behind on my consoles, but PC-wise I'd vote for Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition as it deserves the best of the year just on my raw play time alone.
As for 2011, I'm mostly looking forward to Star Wars: The Old Republic and maybe Guild Wars 2 if they can pull off all they said they want to. SW:TOR is going to have Bioware's hand in it so we should avoid the tedious:"Get me 5 rat tails" quests, and Guild Wars 2 looks to break to unholy trinity of needing tank-healer-dps for all your MMO encounters. If Portal 2 comes out, that will be very high on my list as well as the first one was great. Diablo III looks to be slated for 2012 now, but I loved Diablo II.
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I was hitting mostly H-cup and DM bodies, but my free time has been chewed to bits and with me finally going back to school next year on top of working full-time, I will not be getting much done on BBB I fear.
Many have done some BBB work, some more than others, and I have not been able to get as much done as I had planned. If someone wants to take up some more BBB work please remember to confirm that the author gives permission in their original file and/or ask them if it's ok. We don't need anymore conflicts over a mod being changed or re-posted over things like that. If a mod does not say it's free to use, always ask first. Even if it is free for alterations, it never hurts to ask.
I may be able to get some stuff done over time, but I got most of my BBB work that I did get done complete while I was laid-off. I was working mostly on Speedbuster stuff, the DM wardrobe by 2Pac4eva7, and Apachii's goddess store, but time has not been kind. Here's to keeping BBB alive! :thumbsup:
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Vomitory :happy:
Vomitory has rapidly become one of my favorite bands, I had to get their debut album via E-Bay from Russia to complete my collection.
Paganwannbe, I can't speak for everyone of course, but my view is: as long as you don't bash my music, I won't bash yours. Despite my extreme metal background I like/tolerate lots of things. I often play the local alternative radio station 102.1 partly for the only morning radio show I've ever heard that doesn't make me ill to listen too (Kramp & Adler) and also for the fact they play a generally more interesting group of music than the mainstream stations here. I've found that it's a pretty diverse group of people here on the forums, so lovers of all kinds of music will peruse this section.
I was pleasantly surprised to see other extreme metal-heads like Iliad and Evandar here as we are quite a niche market. I was seen as really out there in high school (I graduated in 1988) when I listened to Slayer, Celtic Frost, Possessed, Kreator, and Death. I've been listening to the harsher and heavier forms of metal since before the term 'death metal' was even in general use! I can still scare co-workers away from any QC lab I work in just by hooking up my Ipod and letting some of my collection of death/black/thrash metal play. ;)
Back to the links!
Belphegor time:
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That's a shame. I enjoyed his method of humor delivery and he will be missed.
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This song's lyrics were one I listed in the old metal thread in the debates section:
Socialized Hate
[Music: Atrophy]
[Lyrics: Chris Lykins]
[solo: Chris]
Throughout our troubled history
man's exploited fellow man.
Displaying xenophobic fear that's hard to understand
Centuries ago in Europe things were different than today
Foreigners were treated with respect not disdain
But dreams of power soon crushed this fine ideal
They set across the ocean in search of land to steal
They subjugated natives and stripped them of their rights
Sold them into slavery to demonstrate their might.
Socialized hate
Formed by modern state
[Chorus:]
Can't you see, it's a lie
Don't you know, that they've died
Trapped, by your hate
Stereotyped, convenient
Forced to be subservient
Taught by your state
All you pseudo-Christians had yet to have your fun
You called them all subhuman
justifying what you'd done
You sold them into slavery, every last one that you could
I guess that's only natural when you say its in their blood
Soon the racist theory spread to every colony
The crimes that you committed were for everyone to see
Depleted all their hunting grounds and chopped down hallowed woods
Set your plantations on the land
where they once stood
[Chorus:]
Socialized hate
Formed by modern state
[solo: Rick]
The hatred that you planted is still with us today
No longer simply slavery manifests in different ways
Keeps people in dead end jobs, reduces education
Maintain our racial stereotypes, encourages segregation
You propagate injustice saying they've done it to themselves
You lock them in your ghettos,
Deny them any wealth
The dogma you've created makes sure you never see
That underneath a different color
they're just like you and me
Socialized hate
Formed by modern state
[close]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDb_wxYI0rY
A classic metal band that only made 2 albums, but they're solid thrash metal.
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GW2 looks pretty good, so a couple of my friends and I are looking at giving it a go. I'd like to see if they can pull off all the things they have been talking about as it would be a breath of fresh air in the MMO world if they do.
I tried the original GW but never got anywhere with it.
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I should have had this link in the first post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-0iMaPLgQc&feature=fvst
I've tried a few teams so far, but mostly 'evil' and bashy teams. My ogre team, the Blackcrag Crushers is really doing well, even with the fact that ogre teams are actually filled up with snotlings (for those not used to Warhammer, snotlings are diminutive goblins, so we are talking tiny little guys), and snotlings are easily beat-up, but they are so small they're hard to pin down at least, and you can throw them like the ball. The little blighters are better at handling the ball than the ogres due to their agility, but when an ogre does score a touchdown, he eats the ball!
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With it being veteran's day here in the US, and Remembrance day to our Canadian neighbors, I felt this song was rather appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK9TDt3Ouo4
I normally hate slower music, with certain exceptions, but the Dropkick Murphys did a great job on this song and the subject matter never ceases to affect me.
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My first goblin team game I just finished was versus a Norse team and it was pretty crazy. On my team we have trolls, a chainsaw looney, a ball-and-chain wielding fanatic, a bombardier, and a goblin on a pogo-stick. On the other side you have berzerkers and at least one werewolf (although I never saw him shapeshift). I won 2-0 thanks to actually killing one of his players and injuring enough to blast a hole through his line before my secret weapons got sent off the pitch. I got my second score via an interception that turned into a brawl at the end zone!
This brings back some fond memories, football is a lot more fun this way! :thumbsup:
Chainsaw screenshot!
http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab268/Salamander8888/chainsawlooney.jpg
Just got a touchdown with my pogostick goblin and his victory dance has him riding it like those old play horses from long ago. It's pretty funny.
http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab268/Salamander8888/pogotouchdown.jpg
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I just finished the Guns of August. I see why Barbara Tuchman won the Pulitzer for this book, it's excellent and also extremely informative about that fist month of the war.
Now to start my next one, Mussolini and his generals:The armed forces and fascist foreign policy, 1922-1940 by John Gooch.
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I've managed to play through the starting 'clean cup' tournament in the campaign game and win it, but most of my games were low scoring since the undead are not exactly masters of the passing game it takes longer to score and the game is only 16 turns long per team. My ghouls have gotten the most touchdowns as they are fast and a couple of TDs were scored by my wights, but mummies have trouble just picking the ball off the ground, much less trying to catch or throw!
It's a lot like the board game as I remember it although it's the later version after GW went off on their simplification binge, so there's some significant differences. There's still 3 ways to play; the passing game, the running game, and the physical game. I of course prefer the physical game as this is where you win by beating the other team so you can score without them interfering. Certain races excel at one or another, and some are more flexible, but maybe lacking in certain areas. The wood elves are the champions of the passing game, whereas the skaven prefer the running game, and the dwarves prefer a good physical brawl.
You get star player points as you do things like score touchdowns, injure opposing players, and etc., and you can get various skills that let you play the game better in one way or another. I'm mostly going for things that let me hurt my opponents more readily, but both of my ghouls have sure hands and catch now since they are the ones most likely to be able to manipulate the ball.
There's a lot of races, although you can't do mixed races as of yet, but they do have: Undead, Khemri (Egyptian-themed undead), Necromantic, Chaos, Nurgle, Amazon, Dark Elf, High Elf, Wood Elf, Elf, Human, Norse, Dwarf, Goblin, Skaven, Orc, Lizardmen, Halfling, Ogre, and Vampires. I may try goblins next as they have players with chainsaws and bombs. ;)
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woo hoo attack of the awesome 80's hair cut flock of seagulls I ran and just to torment you
Actually, when I was in high school this song was popular and I listened to it quite a bit. It was on MTV a lot back when they actually played videos (shocking I know). :whistling:
Time for: Malevolent Creation-Eve of the Apocalypse
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There was a DoS version but it was poorly done, I still have it on CD-ROM here somewhere. The original game was actually played with miniatures on a foam, and later on, cardboard playing field. We all made our teams and then went and got the miniatures and most of them were even painted! For a long time Patrick had the only cheerleader, a dark elf he painted so he always won the damn cheer reroll. My fans had horrible chant, decent loyalty but max hooliganism, which let's face it, is the most important factor anyway. :tongue:
The DoS game I had a couple of years after college on my 486-25. :whistling:
Here's an example although this one is nicer than my old board (the pitch as it's called).
http://www.drunkdwarves.com/images/lamenters_pitch/001.JPG
Also here's a shot of my undead cheerleaders from a replay of my first game vs. the wood elf team (them being called the "green glades" is no surprise).
http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab268/Salamander8888/undeadcheerleaderssmall.jpg
I've been up against the same wood elf team for both of my campaign games so far. Beat them 2-0 and 2-1. The little blighters have the best passing game of any race in the game, but they don't take hits well. They got that touchdown because the only 2 players I had in line to attempt an interception were a zombie and a mummy... So basically a free long pass. You can play the game in one of three ways; running, passing, or physical. And by physical I mean beat the crap out of the other team so you can score at your leisure. I prefer the physical method myself. The undead are a bit odd in game, as the physical strategy is the best for them, but they aren't the toughest per se, but are hard to keep down as they can just re-assemble. Mummies hit really hard, but are hopeless at handling the ball. Ghouls are great runners, but zombies and skeletons are slow and not overly skilled, and wights are better at hurting people than handling the ball, although they are better than everyone else but the ghouls.
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I still have Pigskin Footbrawl along with Mutant League Football and Hockey for my Genesis which is currently boxed but playable ;)
We had a blast with an older version of BB in college. My team was "The Nasty Slashas" and was a mix of goblins and skaven and trolls. One friend just had to use a chainsaw-wielding loony every game and we had one game where everyone was ignoring the ball and chasing the severed head of a player around to get the re-roll for it!
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This new version just got released a few days ago and I had to grab it. We had a league for this game in an older incarnation with the miniatures and the foam playing field (and the dungeonbowl variant too!) back in college (I'm talking 88-91 here :P ), and had a blast. Most of us actually even painted our teams, unlike our Warhammer armies, which many of us were guilty of fielding in 'primer' camouflage.
This version game uses the newer rules, but has a lot of variety of teams. The 2 commentators get a bit repetitive but are overall pretty funny. I'm trying a campaign with a custom team of the undead called the Tombstone Terrors and this sight of a Wight's touchdown dance made my day:
http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab268/Salamander8888/Wighttouchdownsmall.jpg
My first match was against a wood elf team. They dodge like mad, but when one of my mummies did connect, it was rare they got back up. They definitely out-did my team in the cheerleader category however. Mine do look amusing as a skeleton dressed in sneakers and a mini-skirt with a blond wig though.
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Yeah, part of the problem with WoW's popularity is the immense amount of scams out there. When I used to play, there was a period with constant in-game mail spam for awhile. Other bad ones both in and out of the game are always popping up. I'd do a system scan and be careful that your computer's security isn't compromised. I don;t want to overly alarm you, but you may have to do a clean OS install if it's bad. Better that than what happened to an old WoW guildmate that refused after getting a key-logger and then getting it again when he wouldn't re-do his OS.
I sometimes get the itch to dust-off my 2 level 80 troll ladies (a disc-specced Priest(ess) and a rare tank-specced Death Knight, as almost all other ones I ran into were all about DPS and then complain they couldn't get raid spots :wallbash: ), but we had some really nasty drama, which I loathe, awhile back and some of my old friends refuse to play, and I can't deal with the drama anymore. I got as far as 10-man and 25-man Ulduar before slowing my play down and then did one of the later instances in Icecrown and let my account lapse.
Before I made the mistake of moving off of it to Bloodhoof, I found Shadow Council to be a really nice server. If I would ever play again, I'd pay to transfer my characters back there.
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Leave it to Impaled to be so over-the-top with cheesy violence like in this video. Each member of the band "chokes on it" in different ways. It's pretty goofy overall, but somewhat appropriate for Halloween as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJ0upyanKk
Naktis, I have only Mayhem CD: Wolf's Lair Abyss, but they're pretty decent overall. Lots of good metal shared here, but you guys are going to make me spend more money on CDs when I need to save cash for going back to school! :P
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Yeah, C is easier, but I know F. So feel free to use it. :thumbsup:
Last summer, we had a record high of 55C (That's 131F I think)
Now imagine that, while having no AC, and the only thing to cool you down is the basement, which was about 40 C.
The good part was, as it got to near 6pm, a massive storm came through.
The bad part though, the next day was unbearably humid.
You know the saying 'Every cloud has a silver lining'? That day had no clouds at all. :down:
Oh man...I wouldn't live through that. It's too hot for me above 80F lol
Yeah...it's getting so cold here too...week looks pretty chilly *brr*
You sound like me! I can't deal with the heat but the cold and I get along just fine. I can take sub-freezing far better than anything over 80F.
Driving through this wind the other 2 days was crazy on highway 45. I had to not only fight off the typical traffic issues on my roughly 1/2 hour commute, but had to fight to keep my car in my lane as the wind buffeted it across the highway! The fence gate got heavily damaged by the wind and the hinges are bent and the last screw in each one got pulled completely out of the wood. Living this close to Lake Michigan has it's ups and downs.
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It is similar to both of those, and of course MoO and SE4, but it is quite different in that the AI you fight against plays by very different rules than you do and you can 'anger' the AI too quickly and it will crush you like a bug if you do. It's hard for me to put into words, but the biggest original idea of the game is the way the AI behaves. Instead of playing like a reflection of the human players, it's more like a sleeping giant that if you rouse it's ire unprepared, will make your life short and brutal.
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I have started playing AI War: Fleet Command again now that the new micro-expansion is coming soon and the good folks at Arcen Games were asking those of us that like the game to spread the word, so I immediately thought of The Nexus!
It's an RTS, but it's a quite different RTS. It's actually cooperative for 1 to 8 human players against 2 asymmetrical AI players for control of the galaxy. Like turn-based 4x games, you start out small, but can quickly grow and the battles can involve hundreds, even thousands of ships. Here's an early screenshot of a new game with the newest beta patch as an example:
http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab268/Salamander8888/AIminifleet.jpg
The graphics are pretty simple, but they get the job done. The game's biggest allure is the massive number of different unit types; from the basic Fighter to the versatile Riot Control Starships; from the very dangerous Parasites, to the Massive Golems, the game has a staggering array of units. Some of them are AI only as the AI plays to different rules, but many can be unlocked via research or capturing AI labs and special production facilities. The game has a lot of depth and replayability as you can set the AI types and difficulty, pick different galaxy sizes and layouts, play solo or with up to 8 people, and have different 3rd-party factions be present or not. The game is not a short one as it can take hours to complete, and you can save at any time. Time actually plays against you as the AI becomes more dangerous the longer the game lasts, but pushing too quickly can backfire as the AI sends attack waves after your systems.
You can get in-depth info at one of these sites as I don't want to make this post 5 pages long. ;)
Their Website:
Their forums are here:
Arcen Games AI War wiki:
Community Wiki:
You can get a free demo at their Website or via Steam, and use either of these sources to actually buy the game as well. Buying the main game and the first big expansion (The Zenith Remnant) is quite reasonable, and the new micro-expansion is only $4, and that $4 all goes to the Child's Play charity! Pretty crazy for an independent game company. It truly is a labor of love and it shows. If you like starship-based combat and lots of variety of units, you will most likely enjoy this game.
Bizarre Computer behavior, need opinions/advice please
in Hardware and software discussion
Posted · Edited by Salamander8
I'm at a loss with my rig right now. Normally I'm helping other people with their comp questions, but this situation is just beyond anything I've seen. It's been fine up until just a few weeks ago when it started acting very oddly. I think it's a MoBo issue, but I'm not 100% certain. It's so bad that I broke down and instead of building another one, I ordered a very nice machine from Digital Storm to replace this one. Admittedly, I need to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7, and this rig can't really handle it, but it's earlier than I wanted and it's a big financial drain. My specs:
Intel dual-core E8400 3.0 Gig CPU
Nvidia 470 GTX video card
1 TB SATA HDD
HP DVD combo drive
Windows XP Pro (was sp3, it's back down to sp2 after I did a repair install)
Gigabyte 32-bit MoBo (cannot recall model and the box is here somewhere but can't find it)
4 gigs of kingston RAM (32-bit windows acknowledges less, but I've had no problem in any of my XP rigs using this much RAM)
Thermaltake Armor case with honking big side fan for extra cooling
USB printer/scanner, trackball, and keyboard
Onboard sound and network
Creative labs 7.1 speakers but I almost always use my headset
I leave my machines running 24/7 barring storms but turn bits off to conserve life and power usage. This has never been a problem over the many years I've done this.
The issues have been:
First: I first noticed something was up when I came down to check on the comp after getting home from work, eating, errands, etc, a few weeks ago, and the comp was shutting down, even though no one had used it since I do my morning internet browsing before leaving for work. It stopped doing this as of 2 weeks ago,but did it several times for a period of about 2-3 weeks.
Second: I get a C++ error when I boot up Blood Bowl, but once I close the dialog box, the game runs fine. No other application (of the ones that work right now anyway) does this.
Third: It will not shut down. I actually let it try to shut down and left it doing so for 2+ hours before checking on it again and it was still displaying: Windows is shutting down...
Fourth: When i first noticed other problems, I did a deep system scan with my BitDefender anti-virus and my Super Spyware anti-spyware programs and they found nothing beyond a couple of basic cookies which I deleted and it fixed nothing. And now when I try to run the anti-virus it was still running after 8+ hours and was stuck scanning drive S, and I haven't had a drive S since I pulled my failing old drive.I currently only have out to drive H and that's with my external DVD combo burner that wasn't even hooked up when I ran the scan. I was able to stop the scan and it found nothing but that was another head-scratcher.
Fifth: Itunes will not start. It acts like it does, but it no longer works. The really odd part is that it remains in memory and task manager lists it but even there I can't shut it off. If I start it multiple times they all show up and can't be turned off and I have to use the case reset/power buttons to turn it off and restart to clear that.
Sixth: I was going to do some major back-up DVD burning today to prepare for the new machine, but Nero is acting like Itunes now. I went to try to install it via the internal DVD combo drive and it won't acknowledge that there is anything even in the drive and it hangs when I click on the drive manually. I tried my external drive and it did boot up the install program but it hangs trying to modify the install and I had to shut the machine down yet again to get clear that situation as well.
Seventh: I opened the case and cleaned it out and checked the connections but all looked fine if a bit dusty, barring the one dead case fan. I have been checking for heat and found it's been fine. Not hot, not cold, just normal. This case has a large number of fans and the video card has an extra fan I bought specifically for it to keep it cool.
Games and the internet work although with some excess start times, but nothing like my Itunes and Nero problems, and nothing odd shows up in the scans or in my perusal of the task manager. I cannot track this strange behavior down. If I can't at least get Nero to work for my back-up burning to DVDs, I will most likely either network this machine to the new one and hook up the old monitor to file transfers, or even better, I'll just rip the HDD out of this one and connect it to the new one and copy the files internally. I still wish I could figure out what the heck is going on.
Thanks for any advice anyone can share.
Addendum: 850 Watt power supply. Ram is DDR2, but I can't recall it's MHz offhand.