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Topics - amauriel

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Off Topic / Where I've Been...
« on: June 05, 2015, 09:37:21 am »
Hi everybody! I swear I've been lurking a bit and not posting, but I haven't been around the last month very much.

Well, today I'm having one of those "OMG, I need to tell SOMEONE" days. So here we go...Ronalopolis and I put in an offer (that was accepted) on a house!

We've always had the majority of our games in a storage room because we've never had the room to put them out. The new place isn't too much bigger than the townhouse we've lived in for the last 7 years, but it does have a downstairs room that is about double the size of the basement we have now. AND the one we have now is also the computer room, which will have a dedicated room in the new place. So basically, we're going to have FOUR TIMES the space to put out all of our retro games!

We've still got lots to do before we can call the house ours, but the waiting without telling people (because we don't want to post it all over Facebook and then have something go wrong before closing) is killing me. Also, trying to figure out what games are going where and what kind of shelves we need and how we want to organize everything...I can't wait to take a measuring tape and the IKEA catalog to the new place and have a few hours to plan.

Unless something goes wrong, I'd like to post pictures of the transformation from what we have now and the boring room we're moving it all into, so people can see what all goes in to making it awesome.

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Off Topic / Does Anyone Play Android: Netrunner?
« on: April 01, 2015, 11:47:40 am »
Hi everybody! I know we had a board game thread going a while back, but I hadn't seen anything about Netrunner.

For those who don't know, Netrunner is a LCG or Living Card Game. Think something like Magic: The Gathering, but the booster packs are not randomized. Instead of buying a bunch of $4 random card packs, drop $15 every once in a while and get 3 copies of each of the next 20 cards.

I've never been into a competitive card game like this before, but Ronalopolis and I got the core set a couple of years ago and we've now caught up on all of the expansions and packs too.

Does anyone else play?

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Off Topic / Umm...Hey Guys!
« on: June 03, 2014, 03:45:47 pm »
Hi everyone! I don't know how to start this or what to say, but I think my life is much more in order than it has been for the last couple of years, so I am going to do my very best to start frequenting this forum again.

For those of you who don't know me, I was really active pretty early on in the site. Then life got weird. I lost a job, husband lost a job, husband had some major health issues, I went back to school for a Master's degree, I wrote a novel (part of said degree), and video games and even the Internet took a back seat to everything going on.

But news! Those of you that I have as Steam friends may have seen that I've actually been playing a game here and there. Although it's only been Skylanders, I've had a bit of time on the PS4 as well. And heck, I even turned my 3DS on the other day. It's like a light at the end of a weird, twisty tunnel with bad cell reception.

Although I practically disappeared from the site, Ronalopolis (my husband) and I have thought of you often throughout the last couple of years. This is the one of only two forums I've ever really felt a part of, and this is the first place online he ever really felt he belonged. There's something special here! (If there wasn't, I wouldn't be writing this right now.)

 Ronalopolis has finally gotten better control of his health. (Partially thanks to an insulin pump, partially thanks to some new meds, and partially thanks to some really great neural doctors.) AND we've both gotten new jobs, even though I don't get to start mine until next week.

Point is, it's going to be a while before I'm up on everything that you all have talked about the last couple of years. And I'm sure I have loads of new people to get to know. (Hi! ::waves::) But I'm ready to be back in this awesome community and chat up Harvest Moon, Shin Megami Tensei, and all the other awesome games I've played or need to know about to add to that ridiculous backlog I have.

4
User Feedback / disgaeniac
« on: June 04, 2012, 08:07:58 pm »
Received the Persona 2: Innocent Sin guide from disgaeniac today, as part of the Pay it Forward. Packed great, looks fantastic, and came quickly.

Thanks so much, I'm having a blast with the devil names. Even though some of them are Japanese names, they were all printed phonetically and, as far as I've seen so far, are the same as their American counterparts, so I know who they are talking about.

Thanks again!

5
General / Diamond Trust of London (Game related, not spam!!)
« on: May 14, 2012, 04:16:35 pm »
I don't know if anyone knows about this game, so I figured I'd give you all a heads up. Years ago, a game was being developed for the DS by indie developer Jason Rohrer. Majesco was supposed to publish it, but things sometimes happen. So now, there's a Kickstarter for the game.

What's weird about this one is that the game has already been approved by Nintendo. It's ready. He's just trying to make sure that there's enough interest in the game to warrant the minimum printing requirements from Nintendo. So there's an indie DS game with the Nintendo Seal of Approval and ESRB rated on Kickstarter, basically.

Add to this that Kickstarter seems to be fueled on rewards, and there's going to be 1000 limited edition release copies of this game, then the standard ones. I don't back games very often (Tim Schafer/Double Fine was my only one till today), but as a DS collector, I figure that this might become one of those rare gems for the system in 20 years. Also, the game is a simultaneous interactive board game about a diamond trade, so it sounds pretty fun.

The listing is here, if anyone is interested: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1443658586/diamond-trust-of-london

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Off Topic / History of Nintendo
« on: April 13, 2012, 01:54:28 pm »
This is silly but I enjoyed it. A catchy song (questionably) about the history of Nintendo.

Basically, I watched it twice and giggled a couple places both times. And it's worth sharing just for when he starts rattling games off that end in "quest".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR5DaYuDWYs

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General / PAX East 2012
« on: April 12, 2012, 02:11:03 pm »
Ok, I guess I'm ready to start this: My PAX impressions thread.

Basically, I thought I'd make a post or two with some pics and some "What I did" comments, then I'll get the swag together and get some pictures and add to it.

First off, PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo and is run by the PA guys. From what I can gather, they basically wanted an expo that they would want to go to, so there's a little bit of everything for the nerd or geek. I am a video gamer first, but I also enjoy tabletop and the other things going on, so I don't hit the expo hall as much as most people, and I honestly didn't take any pictures of it, sorry guys. Also, please assume that the good pictures are taken by Ronalopolis, and the questionable ones were me.

Anyway, first pic I've got on here is of the line to get into the keynote. This is after they got us into the waiting room, and really this is maybe a third or less of all the people in line. Lines are ridiculous at PAX. One thing I find hilarious here is how many people are sitting and looking down: They gave us Magic cards in our swag bags and about everyone has made random friends to duel. Lines are also AMAZING at PAX, because something will happen along the lines of "Yo, I'm playing Zombie Dice!" and people will shuffle around to join.

We didn't get any decent pictures of the Keynote, but it was Jordan Mencher, the guy who created Last Express and Prince of Persia. His actual speech left a bit to be desired, but the Q & A was much, much better. He did state that the last Prince of Persia game he worked on was Sands of Time and that the guys he worked with on that went on to do the Assassin's Creed games, so the later Prince of Persia games were completely devoid of any of the original people. He WAS the one that wrote the screenplay for the Prince of Persia movie, but I haven't seen it so I won't make any judgments there. He said they were bringing Last Express to iOS and the possibility of more Last Express stuff, which I was interested in. (Great Point 'n Click type game if you've never played it.)

The big reason that a lot of people go to the Keynote is that Mike and Jerry (better known as Gabe and Tycho) do their first Q & A directly after the speaker. And they are always HILARIOUS. Some guys in Aperture lab coats gave them potatoes in jars that they had to clip on their belts and wear around for all of PAX (and they did, at least every time I saw them they had them on) and a guy explained to them the faults of Dragon Dice, among other things. The second picture here is of them posing with a random tiny My Little Pony, by request of one of the audience members.

Let's see...after the Keynote I hit the Expo Hall, and some swag happened. (Pics later.) Then I hit the Arcade for a while...the arcade is provided by The American Classic Arcade Museum (http://www.classicarcademuseum.org) and is all classic games, all on free play. I got the high score on Carnival (knowing that it was just going to get unplugged and lost when it returns to New Hamshire  :'() and played a bunch of stuff from my childhood. I got Ronalopolis in there later and got a cute picture of him sucking at Space Ace.

Then I headed to the panel for On The Rainslick Precipice of Darkness Episode 3. Anyone here play Cthulhu Saves the World? (It's pretty great.) Well, those guys are the ones doing Episode 3, and they're doing it basically as Penny Arcade meets Final Fantasy III/VI, with Fruit Fuckers and Mimes. It looks amazing, and the guys from Zeboyd Games were fantastic, and Jerry from PA (Again, it's Tycho) was really, really cool. He stayed around after the panel and talked with people, and he talked with me for probably close to 10 minutes about writing. Signed my badge while we chatted and just acted excited about the game.

Leaving the panel, the third picture happened, which I think is an amazing example of PAX. The prince from Katamari Damacy stopped to dance near the Rock Band stage, where a bunch of guys are all trying to share the mike.

And the fourth picture for Friday is what Ronalopolis was doing while I was having fun: The LAN party area.

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General / My Cross Stitch
« on: April 04, 2012, 12:46:26 am »
I wouldn't consider either of these my best, but here's what I've got available at the moment to show y'all. (I'll get pictures of the others at some point too.)

I mentioned that I do cross stitch from games...I like the contradiction of the old style art with new media. (But I'm generally retro...more nostalgia and sprites lend themselves well to the art.)

The first one here is the box art from the Super Famicom version of Final Fantasy IV. (Minus the text, of course.) This was maybe the second video game cross stitch I had ever attempted and I obviously didn't know how to photograph them back then...it looks a bit better than what the picture depicts.

The second one here I did for a friend for her wedding. The sprites are Link, Zelda, and a Heart Container from LttP, the quote is from OoT (If you can't read it, I chose "A feeling in the heart that becomes even stronger over time..." It's what Sheik says before she teaches the Bolero of Fire.) Then I did their names, their date, the Hylian Crest, and the border is all gold rupees.

If anyone has any ideas for anything that might do well for a stitching, feel free to pass info on. I've done two Final Fantasy ones and two Zelda ones, so I will be less willing to do those, but I'm up for any ideas.

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General / N64 Controller Collection
« on: April 03, 2012, 04:52:33 pm »
I thought I knew a lot about the N64, but I definitely didn't know about the Millennium 2000 controller or the gold/black one that was given out at E3 1997. It's sorta long (12 minutes) but I watched the whole thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--bvr6IvYig

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Site Feedback / Listing Skylanders
« on: March 29, 2012, 02:28:10 pm »
I saw that someone had added some of the Skylanders to the site, and now that I have all of the ones that have been released so far (as soon as Amazon delivers them -- HUGE YAY) I would like to add the others.

I figure that since some characters are sold in a single-pack or a three-pack, the easiest way to do them would just be to create a listing for each figure, as the ones already entered have been.

My question is the Adventure Packs. Basically, each adventure pack has one Skylander, a new world (basically on-disc DLC that gets unlocked when it's put on the portal), and two items. None of those pieces were intentionally sold separately. However, some eBayers realized that they could make a lot more initially, breaking up the sets and selling just the Skylander out of it. For a while, for example, Slam Bam by himself was selling for almost three times what the sealed pack that included him was. (And getting bids at that too, I figure people just didn't know that he came in the Empire of Ice set). If we list everything individually, it really does add a lot of fluff to the collections though, as what should be 4 items (4 Adventure Packs) becomes 16 total items.

Whoever originally put them in here put in the first Adventure Pack as a set (Pirate Seas) but then the Skylander that came in that pack is also listed separately (Terrafin).

Also, should the Skylanders that were only available in the initial game be listed as their own thing? Spyro was exclusive to the PS3/Wii/Xbox/PC version of the game but has his own listing right now. Also Dark Spyro was only in the 3DS pack and he has his own listing too.

What does everyone think? I have no problem going through and adding them, I'm just not sure how to go about it. I'd rather have something set up as a standard that we can follow now rather than trying to clean everything up later, as Skylanders Giants looks like it's going to have a ton of new figures as well. (Rumor has it there might be 8 Giants, 8 new Skylanders, and up to 24 new variants of the current Skylanders.)

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Off Topic / Gamer Music
« on: March 27, 2012, 03:38:01 pm »
I just finished watching Nerdcore Rising, the documentary of MC Frontalot, on Netflix. (While cataloging Odyssey2 games, I felt more like a nerd than ever.)

Anyway, it really got me thinking about the music out there and the genre and the way it's growing. I listen to very little MC Frontalot but I love Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton. I also enjoy The Black Mages, Minibosses, and VGO. (As well as the more mainstream nerd stuff like Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be Giants.)

Anybody else listen to nerd music? Who do you guys like?

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General / To Celebrate The Occasion...
« on: March 23, 2012, 05:13:04 am »
To celebrate the release of Kid Icarus: Uprising, and more importantly for those of us who pre-ordered, Kid Icarus Classic 3D, I thought I'd provide the link to the Game Center CX episode where Arino-Kacho plays through Kid Icarus.

If you've never seen Game Center CX, enjoy, and I apologize in advance for getting you addicted. It's basically a guy who loves video games but is awful at them, playing retro games, sucking at them, and bitching about how much he sucks at them or how hard they are. Usually with other commentary and jokes. It's the show that inspired Retro Game Challenge for the DS in the U.S.

Episode 30: Kid Icarus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap01_ucjvB4

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Video Game Deals, Sales and Promotions / Insomnia == Skylanders
« on: March 22, 2012, 02:30:30 pm »
Just thought I'd let anyone on the hunt for Skylanders know that although Amazon usually is showing these inflated prices from the marketplace, they ARE putting out new stock at their prices every once in a while. This morning, somewhere around 5, I'd say, I was able to order the last of the Wave 2 three-packs that I was missing, for retail price and from Amazon.

They're sold out now, it seems. But I had driven to Toys R Us for their big "release" yesterday morning, there before the store opened, to find the same 6 figures that I've found everywhere else. Then this morning I cashed in on the set I needed (minus the Toys R Us exclusive I want to get) without leaving my home. Might be good to keep an eye on there when Wave 4 is released here soon.

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General / PAX East 2012
« on: March 14, 2012, 12:29:08 am »
With PAX East a measly 25 days away, I am starting to get super excited.

Last year, it was the excitement of the unknown...this year, I know a little bit more what to expect, and I think I'm even more excited!

Any chance anyone else is heading to Boston for Geek Easter as well? I'd love to meet up!

Last year, we met a few people at the Sam Adam's Brewery the day before and we had a great time.

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