| Bordirtywhorelands

I'm worried that FTL is going to consume a big chunk of my time as I exhaust my exploration of the game.  I see how it's a Rogue-like, but so far I have a much stronger attachment to each game, and I've only played one so far.  My crew started at 3 and then through adventures expanded to 6 before my inevitable end... I was sad as each crewman learns skills from the locations they work in, and each were heroes during different parts of the mission - one alien crewman held off 3 pirates that boarded the ship while the other crew came to his rescue, but kept getting hurt so they had to cycle out to the infirmary to heal, all the while the alien crewman battled.  Another, while during a firefight, rushed from the engine room to repair the damaged sensor array that was blinding my view to the ship, then discovered that there was a fire in two of the compartments, then ran to the damaged 'door control module' which then enabled me to open the doors to vent the fire into space!

Pretty fun!

Unfortunately, The Starless Sea met their end when they had run out of fuel and turned on their distress beacon, hoping for help.  A well armed pirate came to the "rescue" and opened fire on the poor ship that had an already damaged hull, a crew size that had been reduced to 3 again (while the ships systems had increased in their need to be crew-managed), and no missiles...

I was sad, and obsessed with starting a new mission (with a freshly unlocked ship for reaching the 5th system [level]) as soon as I find some time tonight!  It would be a dream on the iPad....

| BorderLawesome

Okay, I spent probably a few dozen too many hours playing that damn game. But it was pretty much tout de sweet. Anyone who didn't like Borderlands, will not like Borderlands 2. It is pretty much the same game with more content and minor tweaks: better AI, some character class adjustments and a more cohesive plot. Looks like team jEnr0n will be playing by our sexy lonesomes, while continuously looping the Bike Shop episode in the background. Ahhhhhh yeah. I will still keep digging holes in Minecraft though.

I do remember the bike shop video at Kubla. In fact, that search remained on my phone for quite a while. Creepy, but inadvertent. Back on the iPhone 1, I didn't watch much YouTube on it. YouTube was slow as hell for videos on cellular and my house didn't have WiFi at the time. So I didn't watch videos on it really much at all. I don't remember being mad, but if I got all butthurt about that, then I probably deserved it. Anyway, did I trash the hotel room in blinding, seething anger? If I did, I'm soowrry Dr. Venkman.

Re: "We're Sailors on the moon, we carry a harpoon". Thanks for the nice write up Mr. jr0n. I look forward to our next session of killing and being killed.

Also delayed reaction: F the NHL players and the Owners and Gary Buttman and Donald Fuhr. Another lockout... 7 years after the last, 3rd under Buttman's watch. Come on!

D>M>

| BorderRADS

Well, I guess you'll miss out when me and enr0n are laughing and having a good time, shootin', lootin', and jerkin' off (to the picture-in-picture bike shop episode). Sucks to be you!

| BorderBLANDS

I think at one of the Kubla's I tried/succeeded(?) to pull up that Dudley clip on his phone and he got HELLUV angry! If I actually did that (the memories fade like sand through the hourglass), I'm totally sorry. What a dick.

B-Lands 2 has really good reviews so far, but for whatever reason, the first game was not a hit for me either. I will wait to hear what jawn and enron's mini-reviews say.

| Playing FTL Now!

The intrepid crew of The Sunless Sea -  Icon, Jasmine, and Captain Rascal have begun their journey through space!

Pretty fun indie resource management/rpg game.  Space combat is fairly interesting so far, although I have found targeting the opposition weapon systems is a fairly solid and consistent proposition... I have been boarded once and my crew was able to fight off the pirates with no losses!  I have also added two alien crew members via quests and events.

Fun game if you like the syfy, not sure its worth $10 if you don't.

PS OMG, Enron played so much Borderlands.  It fell 100% flat for me.  Diff'rent Strokes for different folks, I guess.   Enron likes the bicycle shop episode and I don't.  It's cool, I guess it's a matter of disgusting, perverted, worse-than-Hitler tastes, but whatevs.

Nice write up on DCC Jawn! Had a blast and can't wait to continue the game.

I was planning on buying FTL. Cheaper than Borderlands 2 by a bunch and I wasn't a fan of BLands 1 (Enron was forever playing that game!) - If I get it I'll give my impressions. Rogue-Like in space.

I am strongly interested in that game and would've picked it up if not for Borderlands 2 overriding it. It sounds like half the fun is seeing what terrible ways your crew can die! (Not unlike DCC, actually.)

You should do a playthrough and post pictures!

| Any of you guys play FTL?

Game Review

Sounds kinda fun. And it's only $9, so I'm considering it :D

LOL, loved this line from the review:

"Your initial ship -- the Kestrel Cruiser -- is the bucket of junk other buckets of junk look down on and say, "Man, that is one bucket of junk." To give a hint of this, you start with three crew members to manage four stations, with another four having to be kept in good repair if you want things like oxygen to be part of shipboard life. Your engine provides just enough power for two peashooter-grade weapons and a shield that barely deflects insults."

Sorry to take over the page with this. :)

Sailors on the Starless Sea, Session 1

Abductions! Over two dozen missing from the village, and rumors of bestial half-men in the woods. Could they be responsible?

Desperate, the village’s bravest, if not brightest, assemble to investigate the likeliest source of the trouble: the terrifying, abandoned keep on the hill. A former bastion of chaos, destroyed in ages past, the keep is thickly overgrown and pestilent. A ragged pennant flies from its battlements: a crimson skull on a black field.

Choosing to scout the hill rather than assault directly, the group adjoins to the northwest corner of the hill, where they find a section of wall that has crumbled down the hill. Rascal, the dwarven stonemason, identifies a safe path among the precarious stones. He tests the path, then urges the rest of the party up to join him in the courtyard of the keep.

The vast courtyard is muddy and filthy and the keep and battlements are mostly in ruins. In the northeastern corner a sinkhole has swallowed the walls. On the eastern wall a burned building is barred from the outside, REPENT written above the door in flaking red paint. In the southeastern corner is the only surviving tower of the keep. The mud of the courtyard is littered with tracks of men as well as of a myriad of strange beasts -- hawk-taloned, snake-tracked and more unrecognizable things. In the middle of the courtyard is a well made of black stone and this is where the party turns its attention.

The elven falconer Aviar Leafypants and Slapper the trapper investigate the well. Its walls are decorated with glyphs devoted to Chaos. As the two look into the well a peculiar visual effect causes the depths of the well to seem to move away even as it gets closer. Slapper is overcome by the vertiginous effect and tumbles into the well! Aviar scrambles to catch him, and would have if not for the errant lightning strike in his childhood that reduced his reflexes. Slapper makes one last grab for the well’s chain, misses, and his screams echo for long moments before fading away. Unknown to the rest of the party, the well is a wormhole leading into a nexus of pure chaos, and Slapper falls for several days before eventually being torn apart by its ravages.

Moving on, the party checks out the eastern building. It appears to be a recently burned chapel, its bronze double doors decorated with leering demons. It is barred shut from the outside. While examining the doorway, the miller/baker Dusty LeBuns spots a glyph-inscribed flagstone in the mud of the courtyard, but chooses not to waste time examining it. Instead the party tentatively unbars the door and moves into the building. It is a ruined temple to chaos, with fallen timbers and burned skeletons. Everything is still warm to the touch as though the carnage had happened recently. On the eastern wall of the room was a fountain of a toad of demonic mien, black ichor spilling from its mouth.

Aviar is first into the room and notices a golden censer emitting incense. He gingerly picks it up. The roguish Lucky LeSnare searches the room and found a small, locked iron coffer, which he puts into his pack, as well as three scorched but functional chain shirts, which the party splits up. He also notices a mace in a corner of the room, but this is forgotten in the chaos that ensues when Erasmus Cooper (the cooper) investigates the fountain. As Erasmus approaches, the hot, black, tar-like ichor animates and attacks! The party bravely leaps to his defense, rapidly pounding the ooze insensate with swords, spears, staves, and even a handful of Dusty’s flour.

The party departs and re-bars the chapel, then girds their courage and investigates the southeastern tower. The door is barred from within; listening at it reveals the sounds of human groans and bestial muttering. Jasmine, the porn star/trapper, Aviar and the halfling trader Lefty “The Gambler” McTiggy use the bar from the chapel door as a ram and smash down the door. Within is a tower covered with rotting hides of many beasts -- some with four legs, some with two -- as well as a group of hellishly mutated beast-men! Their chaotic features are inconsistent and warped. Horrifyingly, some of the party’s fellow villagers have been mutated in this way, among them the former Mayor Maggot, now ironically mutated so that flies, maggot and larvae are oozing from his orifices. The party storms the tower and attacks! As the halfling mariner, Tripod McSalty, stands in the middle of the room, the largest beastman of them all, a brute with the head of a bull, leaps down wildly swinging his axe. Ambush!

The party of brave little adventurers comports itself well, killing all six beastmen and their fell champion. Sadly, there is one loss: Icon, the indentured servant, is stabbed through by a beastman’s rusty spear. Freed from his life of servitude by sweet death, he passes into the other lands with a smile on his face. Free -- free at last! As Jasmine loots Icon’s body, she finds a locket on his corpse. Its contents? A crudely-drawn image of Jasmine herself! This poignant moment gives the players themselves pause.

The party turns its attention to the captured villagers chained to the walls. There are only a few here! They tell the party that some of the villagers were taken outside to the well and transformed into beastmen. The rest of the captives were taken downstairs into the depths of the tower only an hour ago! Make haste, brave party, who knows what fell purpose these abominations intend!?

The party gives the villagers cursory instructions for exiting the keep and hurry downstairs. They descend a long, twisted stone staircase. The air grows dank and wet as they proceed. Aviar hurriedly scoops a few gold coins off the staircase. Shortly the group enters a long room, lined with grim mosaics displaying fell scenes, brackish water running down the walls and collecting into a long pool. Ed Tedsen, Lucky and Digby find themselves under a compulsion to stare into the black pool. As they do, skulls bob up from the bottom of the pool, eyes glowing with unknown magical purpose! The three tuck away their newfound skulls.

The party also finds a series of alcoves in the rooms, containing time-worn, hooded robes lined with symbol of chaos in silver stitching. What a find! Several party members stow away robes.

The party hurries down the long steps. Winding around and around, they find themselves on a black sand beach, at a dark, underground sea. A tremendous standing stone etched in glyphs towers nearby. In the distance across the sea is the golden glow of a distant pyramid. As the party stares agog at this mind-boggling site, a dragon longship sails out of the inky blackness, parking itself some fifty feet offshore.

And here, the adventure ends! FOR NOW.

| Yeah..

Wound up getting the Supercharged Mini Coop. Love it so much. Needs a little TLC (it's 8-9 years old and has gone through multiple owners). Stuff like I need to replace the power port / cigarette lighter, get a new battery for the keyless fob, get one of the windows retinted (some dings in the tint).

Overall, feel like we got a great deal on it and am looking forward to keeping this one for a long, long time. :D

| DCC & Borderlands 2, Electric Boogaloo

DCC was pretty damn fun yesterday. Next session is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Sept 29th, so pencil that in boys. r00d, sorry you had technical difficulties, but it did add a comical element to the game when you were biting the camera. I have never had my phone or iPad do that, but isn't it like 692 degrees in LA right now? That may have set the phone over the top. We did surprisingly well the first go around, here's hoping for some more spectacular deaths next session when we fight the longship.

Borderlands! In commemoration of the upcoming Borderlands 2 release, I fired up Borderlands 1 last night for a little bit. I am pretty excited about 2 coming out and will pick it up on Tuesday. Hopefully it will live up to the glory of the original release.

fArt, YAY car. What did you end up picking? Merc(in) or Coop?

Seeing Raiders on the big screen was great fun. That is still an awesome classic.

D>M>

| Where in the world was fArt at 2pm yesterday?

BUYING HIS NEW BABY! We drove all the way up to freaking Anacortes, WA... which is aboot as far north as you can go and not be in Canada. Test drove the car, got them to drop the price some more, and walked out an hour or two later with new wheels. So awesome. YAY!

I see that Borderlands 2 releases Tuesday! Anyone thinking of jumping in? I think I'll preorder it today since apparently you get some free class and whatnots. I'll be playing it over PC this time around. Yay, mindless shooting!

Update: actually I see there's a four-pack available for $180. So if 4 of us pitched in that would cut the cost down to $45 (frmo $60), if anyone's interested.

Thanks very much for playing, guys! And yes, it would be great to pack in Art and Ryan into the next game! The more the merrier...

Rude your technical issues were hilarious. Every time you went to talk there would be this disturbing closeup of your mouth, which would usually become the focus of my screen... good times. :) I guess we're not QUITE in the future where we play on our iPads yet. I'm sure this stuff will be more doable soon though! I've never seen that overheating issue before.

I think we decided to play again on Saturday the 29th, going for 2 PM again.

I'll finish up a session report later in the day. Elzar, what were your character's full names again?

Yesterday was my parents/the babysitters last night in town, so after the game, the cyber-Wife and I went out to dinner and then caught a showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark with Enron! They're playing it at theaters all over the place and it was GREAT! I don't remember if I saw that one in the theater or not back in the day, I was probably a touch young for it, but man, it was so cool on the big screen. Belloq's head exploding on a super-sized screen was the balls.

| Demonic Toe

Thanks for the great Dungeon Crawl Classic session today J-dawg. Was hoping for the ENTIRE Action Team to show up, but we were only missing Jael, Art, and RyRy, so that's pretty darn impressive. Sorry for my horrible technical difficulties - I thought the iPad would have been a much smoother way to "hangout" and let me take it outside for a change of pace, but the sound issues were ridiculous. Next time I'll try to use a proper laptop or just stick to the desktop.

Edit: Fun facts - I used the iPhone's Hangout app when I had the bluetooth going, but then the phone shut itself down after about 40 minutes with the warning "phone too hot, functionality will return once it cools down" - I'd never seen that! So I had to switch back to the iPad (where the mic is next to the camera - MotoByke commented on me talking into the camera, lol) - anyways, the iPad was ON FIRE - so fucking hot. It held out for the entire session, but being basically silenced was a huge bummer for me.