Lord Sinister

I use this, and it works fine for me. I don't use the phantom functionality of mine, but it does have it, and it is under $100USD. Bear in mind I only really use my microphone to talk to friends online and on Mumble (a small VOIP application), and rare private messing around with voice acting, but I've never noticed any quality issues.

I'm guessing this will make for some sort of long harrowing tale when it eventually gets resolved...IF it gets resolved, and if you're permitted to talk about it at all. Good luck.

The voice fitted perfectly well with the repeated blasting and violence. Nice work.

Well I took this, no idea if it's accurate or not. Some of the statements were a bit ambiguous ('I am weird', that's really for other people to judge, not I.) Paranoid |||||||||||||||| 66% 50% Schizoid |||| 18% 40% Schizotypal |||||||||||| 42% 56% Antisocial |||||| 30% 46% Borderline || 10% 45% Histrionic |||||| 22% 35% Narcissistic |||||| 22% 40% Avoidant |||||| 30% 48% Dependent |||||| 22% 44% Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||||| 50% 45% From the looks of these results I'd say there's nothing abnormal about me.

It's my understanding that EA fund the salaries of the employees of said companies they control, as well as organise the advertising and distribution of the games they publish. I don't believe this is cheap. They're a publisher not a developer so they're obviously not going to be directly responsible for the actual game content, but they will have a hand in the direction it takes, the monetisation of game content, etc. They're probably behind the it's-not-drm-it's-feature always-online fabrication with the new Sim City. EA obviously aren't Saints, but I wouldn't say that EA as a company was all bad. But more on topic, it is a shame about THQ, they did publish some games I enjoyed, such as the Company of Heroes games, Metro 2033, Dawn of War....however, I believe they apparently made some questionable financial decisions. Something to do with some drawing application or something, I don't really know the specifics. Still, with any luck the franchises that have been scooped up will survive. I do wonder what will happen to the Homeworld franchise though as I think it's currently in limbo. Same with the Darksiders franchise as well I believe, although I've never played any of the Darksiders games.

Well I tested it against other servers and could connect, and a connection reset could have been caused by something on either end of the line, which is why I mentioned it. Also your server seems to now be out of date.

Whenever I try to join, I am on the server for a second or two, so I can see the world briefly, and then it disconnects saying: 'Connection Lost - Internal exception: java.net.SocketException: Connection Reset'

Well, at least it looks like there's progress with Machinima. And a side project... Just how many episodes of Freeman's Mind do you have ready to release now?

Heh, thanks.

FTFY. Also, I don't really get why people seem to think the forum is dead/dying. I mean, sure, there are slow days, but that's not unusual. We still get dozens of posts a day, that's not exactly inactive. I also have to agree with Alyxx that this is actually kind of nice since the forum does feel pretty relaxed now. I myself try to check the forum at least once a day as I don't check the forums at work (I enjoy my work, but I don't need extra distractions ), but I tend to just read rather than post. I wouldn't be surprised if there's other people here lurking. It is relaxed, but I expect things will pick up when new videos eventually get posted up.

The SS2 community was quick to notice (the show begins around post 30), and as some one who has often played the game over the years and used a variety of fan patches and mods I observed this myself just from a quick look at the install folder's structure and config file settings. As for the video issue, NewDark uses ffmpeg for video playback, if you need compatibility mode for this to work right something is definitely wrong, I have not seen any one report such a problem before that I can remember. Well I'm aware of the K-Lite codec pack having the required codec, but I'd already installed it (for my boxed copy of System Shock 2 a while ago), but compatibility mode was still needed then, as it is now. Otherwise it simply ignores the cutscenes, it doesn't crash, but it just doesn't play them. ie, if I hit the intro button, there's a brief black screen, then back to the main menu!

SS2 has been pretty stable on modern systems for many years now thanks to DDfix and its successor NewDark. GOG themselves didn't do jack, the GOG version is just patched with SS2Tool, with no other modifications, not even to the config files. Basically it uses the NewDark patch (developed from the leaked source code) and some other smaller community patches. Which makes some of the comments in the Rock Paper Shotgun interview a pretty cold slap in the face for the people who actually developed these patches and released them long before the GOG release happened. Where did you hear this from? On a related note, I still had to run it in compatibility mode (Windows XP Service Pack 2 was the one I selected) for cutscene videos such as the intro to play. EDIT: This? http://thegameinquirer.com/system_shock_2_back_from_legal_limbo/

Someone at work shared this earlier today. Glorious.

Apparently the legal issues surrounding who actually owned the distribution rights seem to have been resolved. It's available, on sale on GOG (for $9.99) right now! Everyone should play this. If you played Bioshock, you'll enjoy this even more, but bear in mind the graphics are fairly dated (although there are mods such as the Rebirth mod that go some way towards improving things such as the textures and models), but if you can look past that, the gameplay, the world and the atmosphere are glorious. And don't watch the trailer on the GOG page, it contains what I would consider to be spoilers. I actually played Bioshock before I played System Shock 2, but as much as I enjoyed Bioshock, I found this to be the better game. http://www.gog.com/gamecard/system_shock_2 There is no other game quite like it, I promise you that!

Does the console have any informative error messages?

This is probably because invites seem to be getting sent out like hot cakes.

I just read about this. If a project actually happens, if Valve's quality assurance methods and so on are a part, then I do not believe anything they create could be bad. Well, I can hope, anyway...

Reading all this dubious stuff about contracts and people actually giving away their rights to their own works, possibly without even realising it (although it could always be said that they should have read the terms they were signing up for), it's quite disturbing.

Ah, first the denials, then the reveal. Clearly Valve cannot be trusted.

Getting to sleep, I've stayed up too late again.

Apparently tomorrow will be snow. Entirely. Constantly. Should be interesting if it actually happens...

Lightly snowing, apparently. But it's not settling.

Why on Earth isn't Dishonored in that list?

I don't really know of a good online one. I do have a Klingon Dictionary book though, this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Klingon-Dictionary-English-Star/dp/067174559X/

Happy New Year, everyone!