Zimbra

Despite not having the time to play another CRPG I got Neverwinter Nights off of GOG. I'm enjoying it more than I did the first time around since I actually have an inkling of how D&D 3rd ed rules work.

Divinity is really, really good you guys. Combat is challenging and satisfying. The magic has a heavy emphasis on elemental effects, and the combinations thereof. The dialogue is very 90s RPG so far, which is to say "not very good." But the cast of characters they throw at you is interesting. I'm only about 5 hours deep but I can already tell I'll be replaying it at least once.

The Morris twins both got extended: Markieff gets 4/$32 and Marcus gets 4/$20. Pretty solid deals for both. If Kieff continues to improve that could look like a bargain in a couple of years.

That would be a Don Herzfeldt animation. Most of his stuff is that weird.

Ohio State assistant coach has a pretty solid uranage: Edit: And the video. That looked painful.

I dunno, it's a small financial investment but it's using up a roster spot where they could really use another shooting wing or backup big. Hopefully Zoran doesn't turn out to be a Chris Smith. "Boris is having pina coladas. We have a pool where you guess his weight. You have to start at 275." Greg Popovich is the fucking best.

I had no interest in Shadows of Mordor before, but the Polygon review makes it sound absolutely amazing. Like, that is exactly what I want from next-gen games. Time to start saving my pennies for a PS4.

I cracked and got Divinity: Original Sin last night. I don't think I've ever paid full price for a Steam game before, but the idea of a spiritual successor to Ultima 7 is too much to pass up.

Zoran signed today and it sounds like he'll be coming over this year. With their stock of guards I figure it'd make sense to leave him in Europe for a year, but nope.

I've had an old Galaxy Tab2 sitting around that was barely usable because it was so slow. This weekend I finally got a wild hair to put Cyanogen mod on it, and now it's like a whole new tablet. The installation was a bit tricky until I figured out that I didn't have the correct USB drivers, but totally worth it.

This will probably end up in the Son of A thread eventually, but I came in to work to find out my employer has been acquired by a German firm. I have no idea how this will impact my job, or if I'll still have a job soon. Awesome.

I saw a blue heron and 2 sandhill cranes at the pond across from work, so my week's going OK.

The latter. SwiftKey, Swype, et al are available on iOS for the first time.

Somebody I follow on twitter was posting screenshots all last night. This one is my favorite:

In honor of Rasheeeeeeed Wallace's 40th birthday I'm going to get kicked out of my job.

It's still hard for me to see that purchase working out well for Microsoft, at least from a financial perspective. It's nice to see the Mojang folks get real paid, though, as they all seem like decent enough people. I decided to give WoW a try this weekend for the first time. It's, like, really shitty but in a very compelling way. I don't know that I'm necessarily having fun, but I want to keep doing it. I appreciate how much work they've put into the lore and worldbuilding at least. I suppose I might think differently of it if I knew anyone else that played it, but everyone I know gave up on it long, long ago.

It's the best couch co-op game. Between the base game and the expansion my girlfriend and I have put easily 100 hours into it. I love that it's equally fun to roll through casually and try out different builds, and to get into serious min/maxing and loot grinding.

Still playing Diablo 3. Pandemonium can kiss the doughiest part of my ass. Tiny narrow hallways with swarms of enemies + elites leads to lots of deaths. I'm looking forward to getting through Act V and unlocking adventure mode to start getting the real sweet loot. I've also been futzing around with Bionic Dues. It's a mech-based roguelike with heavy customization and strategic elements. So it hits pretty much every one of my "awesome game" buttons. The execution leaves a bit to be desired; the systems are fairly opaque and the interface is limited, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. Plus it's from the makers of AI War, about which I've gone on at length.

Another one of my favorites is Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.

I highly recommend Rivers and Tides, about the artist Andy Goldsworthy. He's makes brilliant natural art, but is pretty much a stone weirdo. Watching him work is hypnotic. And the whole thing is free on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQiHfgFnY_A

Which is ridiculous, because that's already a thing

No big surprise, but Chauncey Billups is calling it a career. You have to figure he'll end up coaching or in the front office somewhere within a year or two.

The revenue from the toys has to be huge also if Microsoft owns minecraft couldn't they pull it from places like psn and ios to force people to buy xbone or windows phones? I got curious enough to look it up. In 2012 (the most recent year I could find numbers for) they made $90M in pre-tax profits. Call it $50M after taxes. So pretty respectable, but not huge. I believe that was before they started heavily exploiting the merchandise, though. Factoring in that and the XB1/PS4/Vita releases counting for new sales I'd say this year will probably look pretty good. But I have to figure that it's nearing a saturation point in terms of sales, and I'm not sure if licensing is enough of a revenue stream in the long (or even medium) term to make this look good. The future of the PS/iOS/Android versions is more interesting. My guess would be that they don't pull them outright, but discontinue support and patches. And down the road we see Minecraft 2: only on Windows/XBox One.

Huh, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to by Mojang (makers of Minecraft) for $2 billion. That's definitely unexpected. The price seems on the high side for what's essentially a one-game studio without anything particularly impressive in the pipeline, unless the revenue stream from servers/merchandise is huge.