Evening Reading: Weekend Confirmed

Not really sure where the confusion started but to clear it up once and for all; yes, this is the Evening Reading post. And here we are at the end of another week the biggest news of which was the excessive use of the word "javelin" in non-Olympic sport related stories. I have to admit I've never gotten the extreme to which griefing and glitching grows in game communities. Sure, there's the whole hahaha, wasn't that funny of it but the number of people who seriously get off on screwing up games makes me wonder what the hell.

I think part of the phenomenon comes not from anything to do with the game but the sense of power derived from breaking the rules to put yourself in charge. It is just a game after all so the consequences are what? Nothing really. That unhooks the usual restraints and it's hard to really reestablish them in a virtual world to put things back in balance. Server tools definitely go a long way in cases where you get admins who care enough to manage things by hand. But for the vast majority of open servers across PCs and consoles the hope lies with designers finding a solution to a better self-policing community.

Here's the rest of what we were up to today:

After her high-profile trial that included all kinds of accusations, American student Amanda Knox found guilty of murdering her roommate in Italy

British professional tennis player Andy Murray got dumped by his gorgeous girlfriend Kim Sears for his seven-hour-a-day PS3 habit

Okay, so the Hollywood Reporter broke down the ten most watched shows (individual episodes) since 2000. No surprise to see Friends there at the top but Joe Millionaire in thrid?

As long as we're chronicling the decade we might as well take a look at the evolution of the hipster

And since it's Friday I figure this is the perfect time for a NSFW link so hey, if you have a snugie, check out the snuggiesutra for some creative ways to put it to good use

From The Chatty
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    December 4, 2009 6:24 PM

    I don't understand Mass Effect's item/weapon system. Why do weapons of the same "level" (IV, V, III, etc) have such different values? There always seems to be one gun thats better than the rest. I wish bioware made items more "important", you see tons of good shit you can't afford right at the beginning of the game and it makes your current items feel like shit yet when you finally get to them they don't feel much better either.

    I love that bioware went with a main character that had a voice, they need to do that more but they need to take a tiny page out of the jrpg book and make items feel like their worth whatever they are worth.

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      December 4, 2009 6:30 PM

      it's in the codex, iirc - different manufacturers, different 'quality' levels. like some guns are ferrari guns, some are toyota guns. the ferrari gun will always be pretty badass.

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      December 4, 2009 6:31 PM

      Wait until you play Dragon Age. Oy vey.

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        December 4, 2009 6:32 PM

        Its not worse than ME.

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          December 4, 2009 6:35 PM

          I found it to be pretty bad overall. There's a real paucity of "holy shit that's cool" weapons/items in the game. Stuff with unique models and badass looks that make you feel like a tough hombre. Instead you have a bunch of generic daggers made from a dozen different kinds of materials that each take up a slot in a backpack that fills up halfway through a dungeon.

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            December 4, 2009 6:37 PM

            I love the game, though (as a disclaimer). Just wasn't a fan of the items included. I think they need to look at how WoW starts you out with a broken spoon at the beginning of the game and then near the end you start finding flaming bastard swords that are carved from the skulls of dead gods, etc. RPGs need to have that kind of stuff in them.

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              December 4, 2009 6:41 PM

              I vehemently disagree. Bioware RPGs are not focused around loot, and I like it that way.

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                December 4, 2009 6:46 PM

                It doesn't have to be Diablo II, but there's no excuse for "we made this awesome game and the loot is boring and you'll be using the same two-handed weapon for fifteen hours straight".

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                  December 4, 2009 6:46 PM

                  "but the loot is boring", rather.

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                  December 4, 2009 6:49 PM

                  exactly, bioware doesn't need to turn their games into lootwhore games but a good example to look to is something like final fantasy 4/6/7. Very easy to tell that the item you just got is a whole lot better than the previous one.

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                    December 4, 2009 6:54 PM

                    It is easy to tell in Dragon Age though. I agree that the system they used in ME was just silly, the massive amounts of slightly different guns seemed entirely pointless. But I would rather they just reduce the number of variations and lessen the importance of upgrading your guns.

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                      December 4, 2009 6:56 PM

                      That's a positive and negative for Borderlands. As cool as it is to find that one awesome gun that you can brag about, 99% of the time you find a weapon and it's functionally the same as the one you already have. And the drops by regular enemies are always useless, so you have to farm chests to find stuff rather than getting it by playing through the game.

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                        December 4, 2009 7:00 PM

                        Then again Borderlands is entirely focused on the loot. It's a fun game, but there really isn't much else to it. I do think I've found quite a few "unique" guns from random enemies though, and they constantly drop good class/shield mods.

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                          December 4, 2009 7:10 PM

                          Good, yes, but all of my best weapons, shields, and mods are from red chests or vending machines.

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                      December 4, 2009 7:10 PM

                      I agree it's easy to tell, but the variations aren't enough to make the new weapons feel significantly, meaningfully better than what I had before.

                      I guess some games have constantly increasing small upgrades (WoW) while others have longer waits in between big upgrades. DA just feels like it's long waits between small upgrades, which reduces the fun, at least for someone like me. And the higher-end weapons and armor don't look significantly cooler than the ones you start out with, which is another carrot that I would like. (There are some cool late-game armors, but they're all pretty standard-looking - nothing that says I was living in a fantasy-oriented world.)

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                        December 4, 2009 7:19 PM

                        This is all based off of my experience as a two-handed warrior, by the way; maybe there are better one-handed weapons in the game, but I played with a two-handed warrior, Shale, Morrigan, and Leilana as an archer, so I didn't upgrade weapons very often. I only upgraded Leilana's weapon once in the entire game. :(

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                          December 4, 2009 7:37 PM

                          I'm still using shit that has 0 +stats on it for most of my shit. I think wow spoiled me because I cant shake the feeling that I'm gimped right now (around lvl 11?) with shit gear.

                          I pickup ASSLOADS of gear, and ALL of it is shit, and that shit is ALSO what I'm wearing. Probably my least favorite part of DA;O

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                            December 4, 2009 7:40 PM

                            Same here. And whats really disappointing is the game looks great so it feels like its a waste to see so little variety in gear.

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                              December 4, 2009 7:54 PM

                              Well, they do have a lot of variety, of items that are identical. Also my tank didnt find a hat for like, 4 levels and got his ass kicked. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

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                December 4, 2009 7:09 PM

                I agree with his criticism but not with his suggestion. I think it would be better if you had a only dozen or so high powered unique items that had plot (or side quest) significance that make them more interesting.

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                  December 4, 2009 7:11 PM

                  Well, they had some unique items that would unlock Codex entries when you found them. Unfortunately they were rarely significantly more powerful than other items that I already had, just kind of sidegrades at best.

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                    December 4, 2009 7:23 PM

                    ya they didn't have any power to back them up

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            December 4, 2009 6:38 PM

            Well yeah it still sucked compared to a lot of other games.

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        December 4, 2009 6:33 PM

        In retrospect the looting/item systems in BioWare games hasn't been very good in a long time. I'm trying to think of the last game that had loot that really felt like a reward. KOTOR? In Dragon Age, I could walk to Orzammar, buy a two-handed weapon from a vendor, and use it through the rest of the game because I never found anything appreciably better. Jade Empire barely had loot in it. Mass Effect suffered from the problems mentioned above.

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          December 4, 2009 6:40 PM

          It's such a hard thing to balance. Make the vendors have the best weapons and there is no incentive to explore the game to find good ones. Make the bosses drop the best weapons and people will just farm the bosses over and over. I can't think of a lot of games that have done it particularly well.

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            December 4, 2009 6:42 PM

            Buy the weapons from NPCs with tokens from various bosses?

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              December 4, 2009 6:47 PM

              I think I'd enjoy a game that lets you find weapon parts and then craft a weapon with the traits you like. Maybe you prefer accuracy over stopping power, or you want a certain kind of elemental/status effect, etc.

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                December 4, 2009 7:00 PM

                I believe that's what runes, gems, enchantments, etc are for.

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                  December 4, 2009 7:12 PM

                  One of the reasons I still put Final Fantasy VII up on a pedestal is the Materia system. You could take any weapon and customize it to do all manner of things depending on your play style. I had one setup that let me beat that Emerald Weapon (the guy under the sea) in about 30 seconds.

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        December 4, 2009 6:38 PM

        Or Borderlands

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      December 4, 2009 6:32 PM

      The number equates to what level enemies they drop from. Bigger numbers are better for the same base item.

      But like you noticed the different company's items have varying quality. The companies that have level one stuff stay crappy throughout the game relative to the companies that only have stuff that appears at 5+ or 7+. Spectre items are pretty much best in slot for their level, but there are comparable ones you can find.

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        December 4, 2009 6:37 PM

        Oh and one other thing. Keep enough copies of armor piercing and anti personnel level VII if you can. Level VIII IX and X ammo have special features that make them do less damage overall.

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      December 4, 2009 6:39 PM

      I believe the different armories are better for different things. Or its just a straight X is better than Y thing.

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      December 4, 2009 6:39 PM

      Each manufacturer makes items rated 1-10.

      Shit-on-a-stick-10 is going to be worse than bazooka-5.

      But I think they failed at distinguishing the manufacturers from one another (at least, it certainly seems that way coming from Borderlands).

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        December 4, 2009 6:47 PM

        Well yeah, i figured that. Its the fact that weapon V and weaponx V have very close but different stats but weaponxxx V usually trumps them all and its just as easy to get xxx over the others.

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          December 4, 2009 6:53 PM

          who gives a shit what the guns' levels are? just use the ones with good stats, and sell the rest of them.

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            December 4, 2009 6:55 PM

            Eventually it doesn't really matter anyways once you can buy the Spectre weapons.

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        December 4, 2009 7:35 PM

        I thought the manufacturer hierarchy wasn't too hard to understand - the info you got on them from various sources that went your codex pretty much asplain'd it.

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      December 4, 2009 6:57 PM

      [deleted]

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        December 4, 2009 7:02 PM

        I'm noticing this. Is it better to sell or just convert to gel?

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        December 4, 2009 7:03 PM

        Well, in Mass Effect, the vendor on the ship gets the best weapons once you get like 1 million credits.

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          December 4, 2009 7:08 PM

          Don't you have to find the right vendor card as well?

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            December 4, 2009 7:11 PM

            Gamefaqs just says 1 million credits. We are talking about the first one right?

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              December 4, 2009 7:15 PM

              Yeah, the first one. He always told me to keep getting him new card dealies so he could get different gear. My best gear game after finding some card that I don't recall who the manufacturer was, but then I got gear with names like XMM2-X Shotgun

              Never got any 'spectre' named gear that I can recall, and I had lots of cash.

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                December 4, 2009 7:18 PM

                That's weird, the Spectre stuff should be the best in the game. If you can still get to the Citadel there's a guy in the police station area there who'll sell it to you.

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                  December 4, 2009 7:23 PM

                  Nah, beat it for the second time a few weeks ago, probably won't touch it again.

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                December 4, 2009 7:22 PM

                The initial spectre gear is hmwsg2-vii. once you get to level 60 or the 1 million credit mark you can buy hmwsg-x weapons which are the best in the game. They will say spectre - master gear under the name.

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                  December 4, 2009 7:24 PM

                  It's possible to get to level 60? Crazy, think I beat it the first time at 38ish and the second time at 45ish.

                  Not about to scour every planet for minerals.

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                    December 4, 2009 7:28 PM

                    yeah i got up to 45 or so my 1st time. 2nd time 56 I think. Just loaded up the game I started so i could play the DLC to check the weapon names for you and my Shepard is a 57 right now. 60 is the max though and nets you an achievement on the 360.

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                      December 4, 2009 7:31 PM

                      Guess that was the spectre gear then, somehow missed seeing that was listed as the manufacturer.

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                    December 4, 2009 7:32 PM

                    [deleted]

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                  December 4, 2009 8:16 PM

                  yeah i got that but I didnt know it was because i hit the 1,000,000 credit mark sweet weapons.

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                December 4, 2009 7:24 PM

                But at or over a million credits?

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                  December 4, 2009 7:27 PM

                  Yeah, I had 1.6 mil at that point. Maybe it was the spectre gear, the gear name that sigpro mentioned looked similar. And it was expensive as fuck, was able to buy 3 or 4 things.

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            December 4, 2009 7:12 PM

            I don't think there's a vendor card for Spectre weapons? I think he's just allowed to sell them to you without a card being needed.

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              December 4, 2009 8:00 PM

              ^^^ This. As soon as you hit 1M credits, he gets the guns. Even though they're 7s, they're better than all the other 10s in the game.

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      December 4, 2009 7:32 PM

      IIRC, I believe the quality of a weapon/armor item is a product of both the model #, and manufacturer.

      That's why a Explosionistic Face Melter IV from Jiggery Pokery Industries is not the same as a Disintegrateatron Bowel Ruiner IV from Horrid, Horrid, and Abominable LLC.

      The HHA level IV weapon's stats will be better because they're a superior manufacturer than JPI.

      Read your codex (if thats what its called?) a lot, there should be info about weaps/armor in there by now, the worlds backstory is really clarified alot in those info nuggets.

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        December 4, 2009 7:51 PM

        then whats the point of giving us the choice?

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          December 4, 2009 7:55 PM

          Some manufacturers have same overall quality weapons, but one might do more damage in exchange for a higher heat generation and another less damage for lower heat.

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            December 4, 2009 8:00 PM

            But a lot of the common vendors' weapons are just trash.

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