Nadril

9800GTX is pretty outdated now, considering it's just a buffed up 8800GT. Anyways heres what I can think of for a ~$1200 PC Intel Core i7-920 $289 ASRock X58 Extreme Mobo $160 GTX 275 $290 OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) x2 $260 Western Digital 1TB $110 Corsair PSU 650w $89 Sony DVD/CD drive $32 Windows 7 64 Bit $105 ANTEX Mid Tower Case $50 TOTAL: $1385 or (if you stick with 1x 6GB ram not 2) TOTAL: $1255

I have one, but I rarely use it. I can see it being useful but I'd rather talk to someone through means other than a facebook chat.

That would require shopping and cash, the former I hate, the latter I do not have. Haha, yep. Unless I'm doing something important like a job interview (or an actual job) I'm not going to bother with more than a standard T-Shirt/Jeans. Most people don't really care to dress for success in college unless you have to ;p. To answer though, generally just a T-Shirt and jeans, and some "skater" kind of shoes. A lot of my shirts are back from a few years ago when I skated and I've just not had the want to spend money on a whole bunch of new clothes. I wear a hoodie as well if it's cold out, which generally people will see me in a lot because I really only wear the one hoodie no matter if it is 45 degrees or 10 degrees outside.

If it was incompatible (nonsense) then it wouldn't connect at all. depends how incompatible it is. If its outright then yeah it wont connect, if its jsut buggy incomptaible it will connect but be buggy as he described. As for the op don;t get snotty at me, you indicated you had a new laptop, but u didnt specify the wifi card it has, so there was no way I could of checked or known its age. Laptops often have ones tht r a good 4 or 5 yrs bkdated in them despite being brand new. Reading is hard.

Recently it's been the indie offerings that have kept me proud of the industry. For every major screwup that the "big dogs" have in the industry (MW2, Tony Hawk: Ride) there is always some great stuff coming out by the little guys (Braid, Torchlight, ect.). Even though most indie games aren't favorites by any means they keep me happy that not all of the gaming industry has lost its touch.

The rate of hardware changing and the rate of video game technology changing are two separate speeds. Video game requirements haven't changed all that much in years, and looking at the future they aren't going to change much more (next big thing will be CryEngine 3).

Add Cyrant. Also I would just stick to 5v5 normal mode matches. Stay away from EM or matches less than 5v5 :P.

notebook == laptop. You might be thinking of a netbook. Plenty of notebooks are just fine for gaming. Mine cost me $1100 a year ago and can play any game on all high details 1920x1200 just fine.

I've been wondering, why do you not like xkcd? I read Penny Arcade and xkcd every day they come out, I've tried to find more webcomics but few have interested me. I read all of Unit B a while ago but forgot about it and now I'm not up to date. Eh, it's hard to really pinpoint why. The jokes just aren't funny and generally he really sucks at delivering a punchline correctly. It's not the worst web comic in the world but it's just really bland. Like you have CAD/VGcats which are just god-awful abominations and crimes against humanity, then you have QC/XKCD which just can never really deliver a punchline correctly and half of the time you read them with a straight face :|. You def should. It feels like sort of the same kind of humor as SMBC, it's just that the art, jokes and punchlines are infinitely better than SMBC. SMBC a lot of times seems to really stumble with a joke.

If you don't understand something please ask for clarification. We don't really know what you do or do not know so at times we might go over your head with something. It's better for you to just ask instead of try to guess what something might mean. What software are you using (currently)? Also do you have a firm grasp on the various laws and rules of design? I'm talking about stuff such as balance, color theory, focal points and a lot of the more "boring" parts of art. If not I would strongly suggest reading up on all of these on the web, I can probably find some links if you are unable to. Knowing theory is a big big part of creating a good design and you would be surprised how much all of it applies even in an abstract piece. In all honesty learning the software is really important but I think what helps people improve is just knowing what is and is not good and, more importantly, knowing why it is or isn't good. I spent a few good years myself just doing jack-[cabbage] and sort of messing around in photoshop 5 (and then later 7). These days it is a lot easier to really sort of get good help, because not only is the software more advanced but there are just a lot more resources out there for artists. Back when I started I don't even remember brush packs being a big thing, most people would be flamed to hell if they used someone else's brush work in their own signature. What I'm trying to say is that today that is less of the case. Same thing with using images from the web, most people back then despised it but it's not as despised today (and encouraged at a lot of places). Eh that was probably a lot less of actual C/C and more of just trying to throw some motivation your way. The worst thing to do is just be defeatist and give up. The best thing you can do is try and prove people wrong and get better. Just trying to say that even though people may be overly harsh (myself included) it was something all of us went through. I have seen a lot of artists go from being really terrible to really good over the years and in all honesty some people just do learn it slower than others. It took me 8 years to get to where I am today, yet I have seen a lot of people who have been doing this [cabbage] for just a couple of years and are already really good.

aHonestly, don't even bother with instances until you're 80. In the time it takes to find a group and run an instance you could get much more experience from quests. Plus, there's no point to trying to get better gear because you'll just be replacing it in a few quests. From a pure speed running point it's better to just quest, sure. However from a normal player perspective getting an instance group (as long as you don't just sit around while waiting for it to form) is great because not only do you get a good bit of experience but you also generally will make out with an item or two from the run. Those items means that, at least for a new player, you will kill faster, live longer and in general be able to tackle harder challenges. While a "pro" might be able to make out with using crap gear a new player will probably want all the help they can get. Not to mention that with instances being a large part of the game not getting experience with them and running them is a really poor idea for a new player. Heh I've been a little tempted to return (I sold my account though at the same time I sold my Aion, just for some extra cash) but for now I've just been reminding myself that even though the ride to 80 is fun once you get there and get settled in it really sucks. The notion of rated battlegrounds sounds appealing to me for sure, although does anyone know the specifics of it? I mean, are you going to be able to set up clan matches vs another clan, or what kind of addition will it really be? For now though HoN/L4D2 are keeping me busy =P

I think regressing to those 3 simple shapes representing land/air/water is good. I would move them closer together, as shiny stated, and possibly let them intertwine a bit.

You really regressed from before. Experimentation is fine but I wouldn't post anything that took you 5 mins to do. The .GIF is just a bunch of pre-done "vector brushes" and an unnecessary animation that doesn't even make any sense. Not to mention that the animation is really jerky and the font used for it is one of the most annoyingly overused fonts for signatures (it's also a terrible font). Shiny summed up the 1st one just fine so I won't sound like a broken record and just agree with him. It's a start but it just simply has no depth.

I disagree. The old stuff was good in a sense that at times, it was genuinely depressing if you read a whole bunch of them at once. After the last Paul strip, though, that kind of went away, but I still find it enjoyable. Like this one: Beyond that, I read XKCD, Amazing Super Powers, Cyanide & Happiness, Penny Arcade, and every so often I'll catch Abstruse Goose, Simulated Comic Product (though I think that one's retired now), and SMBC. [bleep] VGCATS. I actually really just got tired of pfsc a few months ago. I do agree though that after the main storyline it really lost a lot of what was awesome about it. Some of the filler comics, like the one you posted, are great... but some of them have just been dumb. Good to see someone else can't stand VGCats. Honestly I'm not sure which one sucks more, CAD or VGcats...

I saw that video a few days ago and I do have to say that it seems unnecessary. Killing animals to aid us is perfectly fine, but I do think that going to such drastic measures to cook a fish like that is a bit over the top. I can't say I'm outraged by it or anything though, and I know that it certainly isn't a common practice.

Usually they are done poorly. Now and then though the AI is smart enough and is more of an actual partner than a nuisance, which is what I like. Good example would be Alex tagging alongside of you in Episode 1 for HL2.

SMBC is just a poor man's amazingsuperpowers. :)

I haven't actually looked at this thread in forever, but since when did Gallade finally realize that Brawl sucks for competitive play like every other normal person? *shrug*

Lol. Most good comics start in a cliche'd way. Wait till he has a couple pages completed before making comments like that. I know. Just saying that a lot don't change.

I'm a web comic snob, if that is possible >_> Right now I read: http://www.penny-arcade.com [hide=Example][/hide] http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/ [hide=Example][/hide] I used to read pictures for sad children, and a lot of its older strips are really awesome, but the newer stuff is just.. bad. He really lost his touch. I read perry bible fellowship as well but he doesn't do strips anymore. I do read C&H now and then, it's a funny strip, but it's generally not a daily thing for me. And just to get it out of the way, QC, CAD, XKCD and VGCats suck. I feel like I just alienated about 90% of people in this thread one way or another :S.

I probably won't really use any of the new features, although they seem cool.

Anything but Comic Sans. Wingdings would be a more apropriate font than comic sans.. If you can't think of any font to use you can always just use like Ariel or something. Story is feeling really cheesy right now from the first page, tone it down a bit and try to avoid cliches. Artwork still isn't even close to what the artist can supposedly pull off, I would work on that. I would do it in black and white personally until you get color right.

I was already on the fence about the game before everything was announced, at this point I'm just laughing at how god-awful the PC version is and everything happening with it. Cute sig btw, spoken like a true fanboy. It's the Activision way. Thing is people will devourer each new release, as seen here on the forums and on the NPA numbers, no matter how stale it is. I did blame Treyarch for blatantly copying CoD4 but it's not much better when IW does the same thing for MW2. Having new kill streaks and "new guns" (like you said, they aren't really new) isn't exactly good fodder for a sequel. This is, of course, magnified by the fact that they really did take out more than they added. FYI if console players want a good example of what its like, what would happen if they made the console version of MW3 to: - 3v3 matches max. - Cheaters never got banned. - Your ping was 2x-3x as high. - You couldn't set any custom match options at all. - They sold you the game for $70 instead. Of course their justification is that they would be having an iPhone version of MW3 coming out and it could only support that type of stuff. Instead of having to do all these complicated things and develop for separate systems and such they'd just port the iPhone version to 360. It's pretty much exactly what happened to the PC, where our copy is nothing more than a very lazy port of the 360 version. What is funny, however, is that it gets worse due to players having a much easier time cheating on a non-console system. Players already have found out a way to mess with others ping (Jazieks link), there is a console hack out there that allows you to open up the developer console in a match and turn on all sort of [cabbage] and the issue is without any admins or way to kick cheaters they just sit there and prosper. If you leave the match it will count as a loss on your overall rating. Not to mention they tried a competition, the 1st for MW2, a while back. Was sponsored by Activision and everything. Thing ended up being a disaster, and the IWNet worked terribly. :)

Wonderful. At least they already have dedicated servers cracked for MW2. If they really take off I may just pirate the game and play on the dedicated servers, I'll be damned if I'll buy the game. Just another example of why local hosting stuff sucks. If a 4v4 game like L4D2 can support dedicated servers why the hell can't MW2 lol. Even then I don't know if I could be bothered to even download the game, I've got better things to do right now. It's more of like instead of adding stuff they take away a bunch of it then add a few little things. Yup, fair tradeoff.

I did expert on Dead Center. Managed to get to the 3rd part of the campaign (with my roomate and 2 pubs) before giving up. That map is absolute hell on expert, haha. The new special infected really amp up the difficulty. I've been doing versus mode and scavanger the most though, they are a lot of fun. I can see scavange being real big because of how quick the matches go. Once there gets to be some more maps made for that mode (which I'm not sure if the SDK is available or not, I may give my hand at making some maps) it should be even better. Versus is good as always but is an issue of having the other side leave if you do too well at the start.