neverwinter nights, never.

i had to work all day - sucks. but, im going to my parents right now for dinner and to pick up my nwn game - if anyone is playing ass-late tonight, hit me up, otherwise i'll be down for whenever (tomorrow day/night?)

"Hello, Kettle? This is Pot. You're black"

Crap. So this is my week to learn my lesson and forget to pick my matchups for Football Pickem. NUTS! I thought I could make up some ground last week, but NOOOOO I had to go and F it up this week! Nuts. Now football isn't going to be interesting to watch again this week.

Crap, I'm a moron. I'm going to blame it on getting the house ready for this weekends open house. Yeah, thats it.

NWN today?

Anyone want to get together and try it out sometime this afternoon, around three or four? Someone else will have to set up the server, I can't have access the router I'm using.

So, here I am in San Francisco! I'm a little wiped out. I've got a bit of a sore throat, and I think I should have looked into mass transit options rather than pulling a large, unbalanced suitcase on teetering wheels for many, many blocks. Oh well....

Anyway, it was awesome to walk out of my job yesterday. It's amazing that I was there for two years. They paid all right, and I like my co-workers, but man, I am happy not to be watching "Reba" right now. Who knows, perhaps I will be pulled inexorably back. But for now: I am a free man!!!!!!

There are two cute cats here, each of whom vomited grass onto the carpet minutes after I moved in. So, our relationship is already pretty casual and I think it'll work out.

Hey Ryan: No pressure, man! If you've got someone else to give it to or something, that's cool with me. But if you're interested let's meet up when I come back down in November. Anyway, do you have my email address? I don't think anyone else cares about our iPod b.s.

I thought Kerry did pretty well in the debate. It's all about the spin now; Talking Points Memo talks about some right-wingers who snuck into television "undecided voter" segments to influence them. Politics has always been dirty, but it just seems to be getting dirtier....

To baby or not to baby..

Ry, you are correct. We are now due date plus four. She's been having steady and strong contractions, so we went to the hospital last night pretty sure that the "real deal" was happening, but when we got there, they said that the baby was.. hmm.. don't remember the exact term but she wasn't straight up and down in the birth canal.. SOOOOO... all that labor wasn't doing any good. We came home and are waiting for additional fireworks.

Will know more later today I think (hope).

Late,

~O.

Art, are you a dad yet? I remember that you said it was going to be the 27th, but that date came and went and I haven't heard anything since. What's up?

Jon, I was going to say no on the whole i-pod deal, but I can really use the money, so lets do this. I don't know when I'll see you again, but hopefully we can get in touch soon. I think we agreed on $70?

Student teaching is kicking my ass, but I love it! Defiantly chose the right occupation!

got my nwn! its at my folks house, so i'll pick it up tomorrow or most likely sat morning.

kerry pwned bush on teh debate, but half this country is extra-dumb, so who knows what good it will do. all u ass-hats better vote! jon, hurry up and get an absentee ballot.

Is a person who enjoys "Barely Legal" porn an "Almost Pedophile"? - Dave Attel (He's funny as hell - he hosts that show Insomniac)

By the way..


Regarding NWN modules, I'm still playing yet another of the "Hall of Fame" module in the Paladin series (VERY, VERY GOOD!). I had given up on it for a little while because of some tough puzzles, but I went back to it last night and not only got through the puzzle (WEEEEE!) but the next one immediately following it as well to finish this one prison/riddle section of the quest for some information/items.

I'm playing the second module in a series of three (third is still under development) and WOW is this a great series (I'm trying to remember the exact names, but they are something like "Twilight" "Night" and the third will be "Dawn", I think.)

Anyhow.. I'm getting geeked up for some RPG action with y'all. Yeehaw!

I envy you North Bay fellas..


Oh, to be able to attend any Oakland Raider home game I could! I've actually considered moving to the greater SanFran-Oakland area just for that purpose. I am Captain Oakland Raider Fanatic, sans the facepaint and skull-laden jersey.

Roger Wilco! Man, I haven't used that proggie for a long time (or played the game, for that mattter... anyone remember Radio Shock?)

But, I remember it being satisfactory, just a little bit less efficient.


Baby update (or not): No news. Baby is still content to hang out in Womb Town. If this keeps up, she'll be evicted on October 5th with an induced labor and/or cesarean (sp) procedure two days later.

=/

We going to try for some NWN goodness this Saturday night, then? WOOHOO!


BTW.. Aaron is hooked up with NWN, the ride. I found a copy of the new platinum set that has all three bits-n-pieces and popped it in the mail last night. Weeeee!


~O.

gaming voice chat mac vs. pc

Teamspeak doesn't have a mac version yet (they say one is coming soon) but I know Roger Wilco has a BETA version that people says works for pc - mac chatting:

http://rogerwilco.gamespy.com/products/downloads/rw_mac_dload.html

PC version here:

http://rogerwilco.gamespy.com/products/downloads/rwdload.html

I've used this back in the day - pretty much the same shit as teamspeak - prolly not as good, but might be our only option. Same kinda situation - you make a private room, we all join in, and then we fire up whatever game. I don't have a mic anderson yet, but will get one this weekend 4 sure.

I vote for saturDAY, because saturday nights I like to get drunk and not get any play from the ladies. :(

House Arrest

So, since we are cleanin' up and makin' pretty the ole' homestead for sale, I have been on more or less house arrest for the past 7 or so days. It has been both good for my mental state as well as my marriage. We have had people in and out of the house from more or less 7.30 in the morning to 6 at night, and since Leslie is gone most of the day with school and work, I am left home alone, making men that I am sure are honest men, stay honest. Not that there is much to steal since we have packed up most of our lives and are living barebones stylee. Which adds to my misery of being couped up in the house with none of my stuff around! The house looks like it is lived in, but not cluttered and since I am Mr. Gamin' Clutter, I have been feeling a bit out of sorts. Whatever, woe is me.

Hopefully the house will sell this weekend and this will all be behind us.

As a REALLY STRANGE sidenote, I found something interesting on my doorstep yesterday. FYI nothing from the house has been moved outside, everything is in the garage, so nothing could have fallen out on the doorstep, but regardless, I opened the door yesterday to talk to the painters and found a folded notecard on the doorstep that has written on it in sharpie "Brother Simon, human cleric".

There is NO reason in the world that this should be there, but nonetheless it made me happy to think about playing NWN and gettin' some gaming together with the old schoolers. It think it is a sign that we will play NWN soon.

For those not on the inside track, Brother Simon was Mike's character in the "10th Level or Bust" campaign that Jon ran years ago (Bust). It was awesome.

Ryan's dad bought him the Star Wars DVD's for his BDay, and I stole them from him before he had a chance to watch them. They rekindled my love for the SW, and the 2.5 hour documentary was really good. It actually made me hate Lucas less!

Hey Ryan!

I am still really really interested in buying your iPod. Are you still interested in selling it?

scattered notes from almost outta the basement

Well, I'm packing up my stuff trying to get ready for Friday morning. Tomorrow's my last day at work, Friday I fly out, Saturday I maybe play Neverwinter Nights--yeehaw!

Rudy and Johnny: The NWN camera isn't great, but to make it suck less, go into options and turn up the speed at which the mouse turns the camera. That lets you keep your hands off the arrow keys.

NWN is lots of fun, but the reason that I stopped playing in the first place was because I got tired of all the dialogue spewed at me! In my new game, I've rationalized this by deciding that my Wizard is a brusque fellow with mild dementia and ADHD. He's not really a "details" guy, he just likes to attack. I may rename him "President Shrub."

Anyway, I know nothing of this voicechat. Will I be able to use it on a Mac? Also, I may not have full access to the router that I'm operating off. Will I need to open up a shedload of ports? Will it slow down the computer much? I am already pretty much at the minimum limit for the game and get lots of chug.

Aaron: I've got a PC version of NWN that you can use. The price: allow me to use the Toolset on it from time to time if we decide to start creating stuff.

Rudy: creating modules is a lotta work... I doubt anyone would want to create a fully-fledged mod. HOWEVER, it's pretty easy to create custom maps, monsters, and treasure for DM-run games, and probably easy to insert custom music.

I've been reading too much about Fantasy Football lately; yesterday I dreamed that some of us were going to an Oakland Raiders game. As soon as we got to the parking lot, Eric and Aaron strode off into the distance leaving behind me, Rudy, and Johnny. The crowd split us the three of us up, so I had to take a different path into the bleachers. It turned out the bleachers were actually an infinite dirt slope, mostly natural but with occasional small, crude terraces. No field or game was visible. Dug into the mountain slope were small, knee-high caves, which given the fact that the entire slope was loose dirt, seemed likely to collapse at any second.

The real Coliseum, viewed from the BART, looks like a sci-fi prison. Pretty cool.

The thing with the snake game that is maddening is when it doesn't register your keystroke and the snake enevitably goes head first into the wall.. argh. I'd say 95% of my deaths in that game have to do with unregistered keystrokes. I've managed to wall myself in a few times, yes.. but anyway. I couldn't believe I was so close to your score that last time! LOL!

I'll take a few more pokes at it through the day.

=]

An hour and a half of repititous boredom to be exact.

Doh! I see that you got pretty dam close on the snake game! I thought my lead would be unpregnable but hmmm... I may get dethroned yet.

I am now third in the FFL. Stupid running backs of mine, either hurt/unproducign! jeez.

Wow.

200k !! That must have taken like an hour or more straight. LOL

I dunno if my capacity for repetitious boredom is as high as yours. I bow to your superior will power. Damn, nice score on the snake and pacman. Those I'll take a shot at. Maybe when I need to rock/feed the baby for an hour or two I'll take another stab at the Space Invaders score. Hehe..

Apparently me!

Snake or worms... whatever! O rugs: beat that sucka! nobody beats me at worms.

Space invaders: Yeah... I stopped at 200k. It was more a test of grit and sheer willpower to continue battling the endless aliens! They just don't know when to quit, so I quit instead. I figured they wouldn't be returning to their planets anytime soon.
*games quite broken* I found two good patterns to knock off the aliens.

Okay, I'm done playing these games for a while. I was on a temporary reprieve from NWN because I left it at my moms place. =(

*snaps out of the game trance*

So what's new in the world?

Jael

Fuck Tetris!

Check out how much time I wasted mindlessly killing the invading aliens! I only quit racking up points because I had to take a phone call and actually use my computer for something useful, causing my stagnant demise at the hands of the alien hoards.

Hehe.. who can battle the boredom longer?

Jael.. rock that snake score, bubba smith! LOL!

battle of teh flash gamers

slow down you pricks! my dominance is starting to wain!

yarz - takes a new signup.

Dudes, let's friggin' bring the rpg'n back to the group! I dunno why I'm so amped about this, but it's probably all the stress about my cd and plus its seems like it'll be a fun way to keep in voice/chat contact with each other.

I'll be the cleric! Hehehe... minus the whole "healing" business.

I'm gonna go buy some iron-on letters and make a t-shirt that says "neutral good" or something cool like that. My politico-buddy from work made one that says "November 2" which came out looking cool.

Beef-o-login


I can't seem to use the "login" thingy in the bottom left corner of the website/blog to show my incredible flash-game skills off. (LOL) Do I not use the same login as the blog?

Apologies in advance for my tech-stupidity.

~O.


Edit: neverwintermind. I had to make a new sign-up.. or something. Dunno.

Marble Madness!

I tend to prefer the three-quarters camera angle as it gives me the widest possible field of view. I rotate the camera (adjust rotate speed accordingly) quickly with my mouse to check corners, nooks and crannies for stuff.

Also.. another great tip: Hit your TAB key to make functional/interactive items "glow". That will let you know at a glance if you've got a chest/amoire or bag blocked by your camera view.

Rude-man.. you don't HAVE to re-play the initial scene, no. But, you might find yourself slightly low on XP and gold if you do not. I believe you can start off with the 1st Chapter and perhaps use the DM console to gift yourself some XP/gold as equivalency.

What character types are you fellas playing, anyway? (just out of curiosity)

I tend to think that the cleric class is my El Guapo. I just can't seem to get a character going under that class that is good enough to consistently do well in combat and otherwise. About the only class (of the basic, original-box options) I think I've never really played is the Bard class. I've still yet to play many of the expansion classes for any meaninful length, but I really did enjoy the Arcane Archer class, Weapon Master and BlackGuard (yay for bad guys!)

=]

So I finally jammed through the NWN demo - seems like a pretty rad game! I'm with Jael though in thinking the cameras are pretty horrible. I guess once I play it more, I'll get used to it. But for this first game through, i hated it! I settled on the chase cam.

Let's make our own module and then I can make music for it! I've been reading about some of the mods in that NWN Vault, and some of them have original music. Jon - remember that bounty hunters game we all played? Was that your own creation or a module? It was sweet (the little of it I played.)

Do I have to replay that intro chapter when I get the full game? I should get the full ver in the mail tomorrow! This weekend we should try firing up the multiplayer or something.

-Rico Longtwig

Uhm.. this website takes the cake:


How To Hunt Deer With A Mountain (Civil War) Howitzer

:shock:

Das Burnt

I have to drive to Paradise California tonight for work. Yee Ha. 180 miles tonight. 180 tomarrow. Rule!

Rude: tetris was always my thing. I only played one game to get that score. ;) On the other hand I got my ass handed to me in Pac-Man. Boo.

Chopper, suck ballz!

NWN.. teh weee!


Monks are pretty good once they get to a certain level. You sure it isn't a racial bonus that is saving them from mind-affecting magic (elven?). I don't believe that their magic resistance is beefed up to absolute rediculous levels until they are well above level 10, no? (Don't have my guide in front of me).

Also, regarding treasure and XP.. have you patched the game yet? The original out-of-the-box version gives way too much treasure and XP and was toned down to more appropriate levels. As it stands out of the box, you can easily reach level 20 by the end of the module whereas with the patches, I think you're lucky to max out around 16 or 17 by the end.

I once made a monk but for my character, gave him a katana instead of using hand-strikes or Katas/Ki's. A lot harder to do well, but it was really quite fun to play an unbalanced and non-buffed-to-the-freaking-max player.

For extra fun, try playing something like a barbarian wizard/sorcerer or bard. Hehe..

I think the original game/module was easiest to complete with the sorcerer class. You have your henchman, familiar, and summoned beastie on top of your insane area-effecting spells and self-protection stuff.

I think one of my most kick ass solo characters was a elven thief/arcane-archer guy. It was just absolute rediculousness. Hide in shadows, launch fireball arrows and various other poison/effect arrows with the sneak attack bonus.. pretty nasty.

Good Tips!

You know, the blogger is funny. I think blogger sets a time on the posts, hence your post appeared before mine because you created a new post earlier. That would be my guess.

NWN: Yeah, those are some good tips. I didn't know that the experience points was shared with your henchmen, although the missions are excrutiatingly difficult as it, I suppose with your strategy, it would be harder at first but as you gain levels faster, should be easier.

SLIGHT SPOILERS included
Notice these weird things?
-monks are immune to enemy magic (jeez... that's powerful) -Most of the times I get dazed and just watch my henchmen kick the crap out of the casters.

-One level this guy casts the spell "instant death", which kills you instantaneously! The spell seems to work greater than 80% of the times, over your saving throw, and it's impossible to beat the guy without using the above. Invisibility potion yourself and watch your monk kick the crap out of him.
(a little bit too powerful if you ask me, bad guy not the monk)

- Treasures appears soooo random, it's almost stupid. Most of the times, I hate stealing from the townsfolk, trying to keep some realism by not robbing the entire town blind, but the treasures are almost just as good as the ones I find adventuring in deadly caves, IE battleaxe +1 in the room of a little girl. Or on the other hand, maybe the treasures in the caves suck, most of the times! Storage rooms will have 3 gold... It's too time consuming opening up those damn boxes. I wished they'd put less boxes to open, but the fear is, if you miss one, it could contain some important clue.

NWN hell...

Sweet: 7 hours of non-stop NWN goodness on sunday. The single player module, included in the standard game, is fairly addicting, with plenty of action. My only complaint after playing the game for so long is the long list of tasks, seemingly endless, that is given to you by everyone in town, from ye old' hemp farmer son to the weaponsmith. The missions can be incredibly useless to incredibly boring. Only a few missions are truly important to the game, the rest are just to throw you off. Experience is is also a problem as you never seem to be high enough to fight end monsters which can't possibly defeat, except to "cheat" by teleporting back to the temple for healing and re-teleport back, doing the a few times over. It devalues the game a little, a sense of cheating almost, and makes the missions too difficult. (It's also cheaper to teleport-cheat than to use healing potions, encourging even more cheating!)

I've gotten over the constant camera controlling, although still quite cumbersome, is more acceptable after lots of hourly practice. The last complaint is the slow movement rate of the characters, even running, which can take a few minutes to run across a map. Dungeoning makes it even more incredibly laborious when you have to enable your spot detecting to find set traps.

BTW, just for the critics: (MONKS ARE TEH BEST: WHAT A BROKEN GAME!) =) honestly though, they are really really powerful. He's probably the best fighting henchman.

After all that complaining, you would think I hate the game, but I don't. I'm eager to get the multiplayer session started!

Johnny

NWN the ride.

Edit: weird, this appeared "before" Johnny's post I was responding to?

*scratches head*

I dunno!

-----------------

A few NWN thoughts..

First, make sure you're all patched up! The auto-updater is really easy to use and helps with some of the quirks in the game including some over-treasure and XP giving.

All the side-quests are for XP building and item acquisition really.. I'd STRONGLY recommend not going adventuring without a suitable supply of potions. There are sections of the game wherein you cannot use the teleport-stone (like, near the end). Getting used to being able to heal yourself suitably while out and about for longer stretches is a very, very good idea. If the end-guys are too tough, you may need some more XP/equipment before tackling them.. or a little better strategy/henchman for the task. What kind of character are you playing? If not a theif-equivalent then you'd probably do best with Tommy Undergallows hitting for his sneak attack at range with his bow.. he'll also unlock doors/chests and auto-find traps.

Monks are very kick ass, yes.. but only in close! When you get into situations with ranged opponents, you may have a bit of trouble if you're getting plinked to death.

I've actually played the "original" game through three or four times now with different characters (yes, I'm a dork). Something else that is interesting to note.. you'll gain XP faster if you ditch your henchman and go beastie killing and/or quest solving without them because you don't share a portion of the goods. (leave them at the cleric shop, just make sure you pick them back up before going to the next level!) It's a bit more risky, but you can go back and pick them up if you need them for a particularly difficult area. In going solo, it helps a TON if you are either:

a) Beefcake 18+ strength (with potions too, maybe?) to bash open chests/doors.

b) Thief-type with LARGE lock-pick ability.

c) Something with a controllable familiar for.. well.. suiciding into traps. =/


Did I mention you need LOTS of potions in whatever area your character needs most? Strength/Dex are most common, but for Monks, the potions of Clarity (Wisdom) are key.


~O.

Tetris Master!

Damn Enron! Nice score. Pretty cool games eriknor! I dunno about Swarm though... Are there any other cool games you can get - I'm all about the competitive scoring thing, heh.

Stat tracker is teh shit

That thing is so cool! I added it as a link to the Menu section of the homepage because I just figured out how Art was so ontop of the scores in our league, he was using this kick ass tool! It tracks all live stats as they are happening in the game, and then you click on the 'fantasy' button, and it shows our weekly matchups and how many points we are scoring as it is happening! Coolio foolio!

And yes, I think that with 2 categories still unscored and Bubba Smith only behind by 6 points, I would say the Placeholders are going to be on the losing end again... as were the Costa Rippers as The Action Team ripped them a new one! Unless Portis can makeup 25 points tomorrow night and Coles does nothing! Bwahhahhaha!

Who's the best at FF?!?!? Art is, I mean ERIC is!!!!!

Oh.. and how about our FFL showdown on MNF!

Team Bubba Smith going up against the Placeholders... can they pull off a comeback win for the second week in a row? Heh..

=]

Latest spam-mail poetry I received today:

first who was picked out to be my bedfellow, declined the honour without thanks. He was an old, heavy, IV There is a pleasant tale of some worthless, phrasing Frenchman, who was taxed with ingratitude: "IL FAUT SAVOIR GARDER L'INDEPENDANCE DU COEUR," cried he. I own I feel with him. Gratitude without familarity,

slow-spoken man, I think from Yankeeland, looked me all over with great timidity, and then began to excuse gratitude otherwise than as a nameless element in a seeship, is a thing so near to hatred that I do not care to split the difference. Until I find a man who is pleased to receive obligations, I shall continue to question the tact of those who are eager to confer them. What an art it is, to give, even

to our nearest sees! and what a test of manners, to receive! How, upon either side, we smuggle away the obligation, blushing for each other; how bluff and dull we make the giver; how hasty, how falsely cheerful, the receiver! And yet an act of such difficulty and distress between near sees, it is supposed

I am an idiot. I forgot to choose as well. I guess I will have to just kick ass next week... Eric, don't take this as an indication that I don't want to play, I just blew it.

Burn Out 3 may be one of the best games that has ever been created.

Quote of the week: "I hate racism... except when it is funny." -me. (I can't believe I said it.)

Well... '0' out of '16' isnt so good.

D'oh! Well You just dont get many points if you dont select teams. Meaning, no defaults. You just get screwed. Dont forget your pick'ems. At least I was smart enough to put my injured players on the bench a few days ago for my Fantasy team. Jon, I still do long division for a lot of my bills since we share utilities. Too much work to dig out a calculator.

Hmm JavaScript errors eh? Those can be a bitch to dig out. Ill have to take a look and see what is up. LunarPages are pretty good though huh?

Jon Ill have to skip on the 5¢/hour biz. Anyway, we will have to hook up Friday night. Check out your place. Give me a heads up when you get in.

D>M>

PS Eric I found the "NHL Lockout Timer" Very funny

Shaun of the Dead

I saw SotD on the plane when Leslie and I went to England however many months ago that was, and it is a great movie! Very funny, however there is also a very strange part where it gets very serious and dramatic and emotional. That was the only part that threw me off, is it a comedy or a drama? 80% full-on comedy, 20% full-on drama, if I remember correctly.

It is available on DVD too if you have a universal DVD player. Funny movie, I highly recommend it to all!

Long... division? Eh?

I feel the same way about math. My sister's in school re-taking math, and she was asking me a question about long division... I have no idea how to do long division anymore. It sucks.

I'm going to see "Shaun of the Dead" today... that looks pretty funny. Then it's off to the Precious Cheese Festival of San Genarro.

I've been checking out NWN content... take a look at Neverwinter Vault if you haven't already. There's a vast amount of user-made content there; probably best to start out with hack-n-slash, no-DM modules at first: this Conan mod might be good, or this Fire & Ice one, or here's a conversion of the Sunless Citadel, the first 3rd ed adventure we played!

dude, those mods look rad. Specially the night watch one! oh man - can't wait to get this game. I don't even know how the game runs - is it like diablo or more like A Fairy Tale... remember the sword "swing" ?

Let's game!!!!!!!

man, im getting dum

I spent the morning down at the LA convention center taking a test to get a job with the city (i wanna work at the library.) So, there had to be maybe a thousand people there literally, and we were all in one of the huge halls there taking this 100 question multiple choice test. Back in highschool, I would jammed through that test, but FUCK my math is so bad these days. There were maybe 20 math questions, and none of them were that hard, but i totally had to access parts of my brain that I haven't in SO long. But, I'm sure i did fine. SO many people there though, lol.

Footy! This week I went with most of the underdogs. I didn't do any research before I turned in the pool, so I just went balls out and picked most of the expected losers for this weekend. Shit, if I do well though, I'll probably win , heh. We'll see...

Star Wars Battlefront looks pretty cool - anyone got it yet? Its like FPS team-based with all the crazy SW vehicles - the preview movies for it look good - No time for it now, but if word is good, maybe ill check it out.

lATEZ