Vintage

…especially now that I don’t need it! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass GFWL.

GFWL is henceforth known locally as Get F***ed With Licensing? - honestly people, copy protection that doesn’t protect your product but just punishes the honest purchaser is mind boggling. It’s like buying a car alarm that ONLY GETS SET OFF IF YOU USE THE KEYS.

This is old (in internet terms), but Shamus sums it up nicely.

I ranted a bit about it here and after the latest Fallout 3 DLC came out, I had my latest outbreak of self-loathing and Tourettes Syndrom that I hope other PC gamers go through, and again considered giving up on PC gaming all together…

(Although I don’t have the money for the Xbox/PS3 AND the required lobotomy, so I have to soldier on)

After many head-banging moments it turns out that while it’s impossible to *prove* the 1.5 patch is causing crashes for tons of players, *coincidently* the folks that work around the 1.5 patch aren’t having those crashes.

Yeah. Coincidence.

I know patches are a bitch, you fix one problem and cause another. But I’m not your beta-tester Bethesda, I bought the game.

Back on topic: After some digging I’ve fixed my problems, and am happily playing again. I’ll post my ‘must have’ addons and the fix in a separate post.

See it. Obsessive fanboy whiners go soak your heads; being a TOS and later Star Fleet Universe fan (Star Fleet Battles) its nice to see alot of the damage undone to the story line.

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

While I’m still thinking of it;

So the party managed to beat the Sea Giant, Scare off the Sea Witch, and capture Nos’ brother, Vetok.

Next session: Rashida will be in command of 10 of the knights, and 100 dwarven mercenaries.

The Knights
Rashida
Bedemere
Nos
Jaerik
Tash
Jor
Fang
Fist
Gwynn
Beth

Ok, so there’s a new expansion for Fallout 3, and being a tool, I got it. Despite all the grousing out on the interweb, my FO3 experience has been pretty bug free.

The expansions haven’t been buggy - the damn Live client has. I constantly have connection issues TO PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME, AND THE EXPANSIONS I BOUGHT AND DOWNLOADED…

Just so I can compare my achievements with some retard that can’t operate a PC so he got an XBox instead. Yay. When the hell are the game companies going to realize that making it a pain in the ass to PLAY your games means we are going to stop buying them and move on to companies that don’t rely on such crap?

Honestly, I HAD to have Steam to install and play Empire:Total War - if my internet connection goes down, I can’t play a single player wargame? WTF?

I’ve moved the write-ups ‘MC’ and I both did for the Campaign to the front page. Interesting contrast.

Pop back here to look.

I’ve played through and beaten the ‘Grand Campaign’ as the Prussians, and started a new game as the Matarahahahaha Confederacy (Whatever, the Hindu Indian faction).

Overall I like the game. The battles are excellent, even if the AI is exploitable, its still fun.

The diplomacy/research/economic bit is a mixed bag, and is definately secondary to the battle engine.

Assassins, Missionaries and Scholars are a neat extra.

Overall I’m pleased, but I’ve got the nagging suspicion that I’d be just as happy if not happier playing Europa Universalis II to scratch that campaign ‘itch’ and just load up E:TW for the occasional ‘quick’ battle.

The scores coming in at 7.8, 80% etc. etc. Seem about right.

The poor D&D halfling… talk about an identity crisis.

Lets see, they’ve gone from pure tolkien rip-off (D&D, AD&D)

… to a wierd chameleon species AD&D
Tallfellows (vaguely elf-looking that lived near elves)
Stouts (vaguely dwarf-looking that lived near dwarves)

… to being made setting specific and being made into Kender (AD&D Dragonlance setting)
… to being cannibals (AD&D Dark Sun Setting)

Back to being Kender in D&D3e (and I presume 4e).

Boggles the mind. They’ve gone from a pastoral homey (not homie damnit) folk where an adventurer would be an odd duck (role playing potential assh**es, think about it) to a gypsy folk where every one of them is eager to see whats over the next hill etc. (i.e. every halfling is an adventurer by temperment. Great.) and if the art is to be believed, are indistinguishable from elves except for size.

Jeez.

Also, when did gnomes loose the beards and all get nose jobs?

http://x.delcarsdungeon.com/components/com_mojo/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/derail.thumbnail.jpg
Ok,

Let me set it up for those of you that A) don’t know me personally and/or B) aren’t mind readers.

With me? Both of you? Good.

I’m grateful to have new players for my World of Greyhawk campaign. ‘Mark Caliber’s’ missus, their spwan, my son, and his buddy are now all playing as well as my wife.

File that away, we’ll get back to it.

I’m flirting with disaster already; the game is chock-full of GMPCs - they literally ARE my old PCs.

Delcar, Neltara and Turgor.

Add to the mix the fact that my wife’s beloved half-orc pitfighter is happily married and has spawned two kids.

So; Missus ‘Mark Caliber’ (hereafter MMC) has taken over MC’s character Shethba, evolving her from a manipulative, greedy, selfish twit, into a manipulative, greedy, selfless lady.

The whole family are munchkins, MMC just smiles and disarms me. Her shopping trips are endless lists that make my eyes glaze over and when I handwave and say ‘Yes, you can have all of it.’ I later regret it bitterly.

So ANYWAY. The lady Shethba (now a baroness) is long overdue to find a husband. (Queue the theme to Jaws someone)

To my growing horror, my story-heavy style of game has gone heavy on the romance and I haven’t noticed it.
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GMPCs: Used lightly they’re a tool for the GM to join the group socially as a peer. Typically though, they’re just there to feed the ego.

I was going to start by saying ‘Used correctly, they’re an important mouthpiece for the GM as storyteller.’ but then they’re not GMPCs, they’re NPCs.

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