jdodson: I am going to check out that site. It's interesting to offer Steam deals after people do things. Wonder if CG could do that :D

Travis: That's a good thought. It couldn't be Steam coupons or anything like that unless you make a deal with the publishers. But for further giveaways, it could definitely work. Just have it send something to you saying who won what, and you could just give them the game on Steam.

If you wanted to reuse steamgifts.com you could create a giveaway that is restricted to a Steam group, and play slots or whatever you choose for a place in that group. But that would start to have way too many moving pieces.

jdodson: Yeah, interesting. Maybe I can try and contact the publishers. This site did it, so ill add it to my list of things to do. :D Its free promotion for them either way.

Travis: Well, this site *is* one of the publishers. But they got the others on board, so yeah. I don't see why they'd complain.

jdodson: Yeah, for sure. Admit to my list as something to look into.

Travis: I was totally unaware of any of this. I'm going to have to watch AVGN's coverage, and get with the program.

jdodson: I was a new to it until I saw the Cheetahmen booth at Portland Retro Games Expo and talked to Greg and he handed me a Cheetahmen comic book reprint.

After that I had to know more!

Travis: So I preordered it and now I have to stare at it there in my inventory for 12 days.

jdodson: Appreciate seeing deluxe versions of games not dying and instead migrating to digital deluxe versions.

Adym: How did you end up liking the game Travis?

jdodson: Yes. Also, any prominent political figures you enjoyed assassinating? King George perhaps. Wait, I don't think he was in the colonies...

Travis: It was fantastic. I don't think it was as good as Ezio's games, but it was a ton of fun. I'd recommend it if you liked the previous games, but be prepared for some gameplay mechanics changes. Nothing too jarring, but it takes some getting used to.

Adym: I've not played any AC games, but this one still looks really cool. Contemplating picking it up on Steam :)

Travis: Nice Half-Life 3 easter egg. ;)

Travis: Or I guess I should be thanking myself, since I apparently posted it!

I really dig the new site design. It's going to make expanding and adding new features much easier in the future. I like the side-by-side, but I can see why some may find it distracting. If it's easy to do a toggle, that might be an option.

Adym: I love the new look! I really like incorporating more pulldown menus, so there's less button clutter on the screen. The side-by-side threw me for a minute, but I think I'll like that a lot when I get used to it. Plus it'll be twice as much content to interest a new user!

Jacob_Richardson: Yay I am in the video haha. So I wanted to make a few small comments. Love the new look. I personally really enjoy the side by side. However there's a small thing that I feel like can be done now because of the newly designed titles. As an ocd person I would love to be able to auto center them. I so want to see the title in the dead center of the post. Also in the new site design it'd be really cool if in the settings menu you could mess around with different colors. I love the colors right now but maybe I might want to mess around with them at some point. Colors of the backgrounds and font and such I mean. It wouldn't change for anyone else just like personal color settings.

jdodson: @jacob I will look into centering the titles. That shouldn't be hard to do.

I will add a UI customization or theme option to my list. Not sure when I will get to it, but its a great idea!

Travis: If I may add a dissenting opinion, I'm not sure centered titles would look right considering the layout. With the avatar where it is, dead center wouldn't look centered because there would be less space from the avatar to the left edge of the title, and centering it in the space after that wouldn't look centered to the article text.

I do love the idea of user-configurable color/theme choices though.

jdodson: @panickedthumb Good point. I prefer it the way it is but I will experiment with it either way.

Jacob_Richardson: hmm. That is a good point panicked. Hadn't really thought about that. I guess that probably would still bother me since it wouldn't line up with the text. That's a bummer. It's not a major thing I just get really ocd about titles in particular.

BR: I like the sleek new design. It makes the site look new and like it has a bit of depth to it. I'm back and forth on the side by side posts though. I feel like in some situations it would be nice, and in others it wouldn't. Haven't made my mind up whether I like it better or not.

jdodson: Thanks BR! I am too, I am leaning to not side by side right this minute though. Easy enough to bring back though.

Travis: If not side-by-side, would you have it auto expand (to a certain point) so there isn't a ton of wasted space?

jdodson: Yes, it would expand to fill the entire space.

Travis: Longer titles would be nice. "Assassin's Creed III PC now available for pre-order on Steam" was too long to fit.

jdodson: Yep longer titles would be good.

Jacob_Richardson: Hm. About longer titles john. You think you'd be able to have like a sub context spot for the titles? On panicked's example "Assassin's Creed III PC" would be the title. With the sub-text being "now available for pre-order on Steam". There'd be a lot of instances I could see that coming in handy.

Travis: That's a good thought too. For another example...

John Carmack buys Zynga!
What does this mean for the future of Farmville?

Travis: I'm working on something for tomorrow or Monday that would benefit from the ability to add images or embeds inline, rather than just the one at the top. The potential for overuse is quite high, but it would be convenient.

jdodson: Hmmm. I want to seriously talk more about this. Lets take it up after the site redesign.

Travis: If you're looking for some possible inspiration for a 404 page: http://i.imgur.com/fcHae.jpg

;)

jdodson: Heh. Hmmmm. Yeah, we could do something similar.... Hmmm.

Travis: Thank you Mario! But the requested page is in another server.

Travis: Or,
"This page is an illusion and is a trap devised by our servers. Go ahead dauntlessly! Make rapid progress!"

http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/nes/a/ghosts.htm

Travis: IMDB has something similar. It gives you random relevant movie quotes.

http://www.imdb.com/qweljhqerjqher

Just keep hitting F5

jdodson: I like the Mario idea. That's really clever!

jdodson: Adding it to my list of things to do :D

Travis: I had no idea there was a demo. From what I've read this is a lot like Valkyria Chronicles, which really makes me want to play it. I will definitely be grabbing the demo.

While we're at it Valkyria Chronicles is something that I think any PS3 owner should try.

Jacob_Richardson: Well awesome I can comment on every one of these things. I just recently bought Valkyria Chronicles. I have to say I agree that it is a must own game and secondly, that it is somewhat similar. You can certainly compare the two.

As I have also played the original xcom recently. I REALLY like it. Never has a game so old still been able to actually make me think about buying it over a newer game. Especially with no nostalgia interfering as I never played it as a kid. Hands down its one of the best strategy games out there on top with some of my all-time favorites. The newer xcom is definitely worth playing it's in a whole new league of gameplay though.

Travis: Whoa... really? This may be too little too late. Most people have abandoned this. I'll probably dust it off though, if one can dust off a digital game.

jdodson: The bits are so stale we need to warm them!

Travis: Do you have it for PC or PS3?

jdodson: Both.

Gary_Butterfield: I'd be up for some people doing cool shit with this. I'm a Rage apologist.

jdodson: I am too. On both counts. Did you play it on PC or console Gary?

Gary_Butterfield: PC. It came at the exact right time. I was in the mood for a semi intelligent shooter.

jdodson: That makes sense.

I am a iD fan, so I was extremely excited about Rage. I kind of had a roller coaster of experiences with it. My first experience was on PC and it was incredible. The first half of the game is really great. But I switched to PS3 when my copy arrive and had a bad go of it all as Rage was hard as hell with the controller(for me). Plus the load times and I died a lot made the game way less fun.

Went back to the PC version after WAY too much un comfort with the console version and had more fun. I came to the half way point and the story and pacing really changed I felt. It was less story driven and it started to lose me a bit.

That said, I still come back and co-op legends of the wasteland with my friends and will complete Rage single player at some point. The is also very pretty. Really pretty on PC.

Gary_Butterfield: The halfway point of Rage is about 80% through the game, unfortunately. I was seriously blindsided by the ending. That's my main complaint.

jdodson: I just beat Rage. Will write my full bit on it. Interesting ending.

Missile_Drop_Kick: The 80's feel is hilarious.

Tungsten: "Punch Monk in Space"
My new favorite movie.

jdodson: Looks really fun.

BR: If you want someone to play with, ask me when I'm online. I'm still fairly new at the game so I'm not amazing.

jdodson: Yeah, will do!

TonyJapMayo: I play too.. If u wanna trade items, add me k =)

jdodson: This is awesome. Excited to be able to get Steam in Linux natively. I currently run it in Wine and wherein works, its not amazing.

Travis: Apparently there's a way to use it without being accepted into the beta, but I'm nervous about trying that.

jdodson: Oh, so just getting the client and logging in then? Yeah, that could work I mean they could lock people out, but they might not :D

Maybe that means early access? hmmm.

Travis: Yeah, you get the client and log in, then just move the window telling you that you shouldn't be doing this off to the side and use it as normal, basically.

I have to wonder if they didn't guard against that intentionally.

jdodson: Prob more work to limit it than just let it swing open if people want it. Seems like Valve makes choices to what is better for the user, not much else.

Gary_Butterfield: I bought the other DLC for Skyrim but haven't brought myself to get far enough to get them to proc. I played so much of that game when it came out, the thought of even getting to level 10 to unlock the vampire lord stuff is a little repugnant. I guess I should have kept my old save.

BR: Thank god its an expansion and not another crappy dlc. Hopefully it'll be something like the shivering isle in Oblivion. That would be amazing. A whole new continent to explore would be nice.

jdodson: Yeah it would be. I hope some more details surface over the next few days.

jdodson: @Gary: You should be able to do anything in open world games on day 1. Well maybe day 2, but you get the point. :D

Jacob_Richardson: I agree with that. If Morrowind did one thing exceptionally right. It was immediately dumping you off the boat and into the game to do whatever it is you want to do. Doing Skyrim's beginning for every character is a bit annoying. I remember using a mod in Oblivion that also got rid of the beginning.

Travis: It's very hard not to think of Diablo and Borderlands similarly. Take Diablo, make it first person, put it in a futuristic setting, and you have something close to Borderlands. A few more tweaks, and you're done.

Also, all the scanning in the world was never able to get that QR code to work. I haven't done that mission yet, but there's pizza all over Moxxi's place anyway. Nice to know what the reference is.

jdodson: Borderlands is similar to Diablo but somehow I love it more than Diablo 3. I just think its more akin to my style.

When I unlock any other QR codes ill post the text.

How far are you in Borderlands 2?

Travis: I have a level 10 Gaige and level 14 Maya.

jdodson: 16 Gunzerker, 11 Siren, 11 Mecromancer, 7 Axton

AutumnCat: My minecraft username is: hardeyez

jdodson: I checked it out, interesting server. Do you have an island yet?

AutumnCat: Yes!
Sorry, i haven't been able to check on cheerful ghost recently. We got a touch smart and i have been working on that. Tomorrow we're going to vegas, so i might not be able to check cheerful ghost. Please tell me your username and a time we can meet up on skyblock.org. See ya!

jdodson: Ill be pretty busy over the holidays but I might run a minecraft server in December for cheerfulghost peeps.

Stay tuned!

Travis: Is this the standalone Day Z project or something different altogether? From how you called it a laughable clone of Day Z, I'm assuming it's not related.

BR: It's not related. The Day Z standalone I believe is called exactly that. War Z is something entirely different. Made by different people. I believe its Arktos Interactive.

jdodson: Thanks for letting me know, this wasn't on my radar.

Travis: Sounds like it shouldn't be on your radar after all ;)

jdodson: What I meant is I now know about it, yeah not going to follow them. :D

Jacob_Richardson: Awesome job getting all of those things into the website. I look forward to the visual overhaul. If what your using has a way to add in anything semi-fancy you should ask me or my brother. I did graphic design on cards and a lot of other things for along while. I believe he is taking courses in school to do some things as well.

jdodson: When I get the Lets Play video up showing off the new design I'd love to get your thoughts for sure!

Travis: You should do a beta.cheerfulghost.com for a couple of weeks before launching the new design, just to have a ton of eyes on it with suggestions.

jdodson: A beta is a good idea I might do that depending on how much work it is to do it.

Gary_Butterfield: Great work so far, Jon.

jdodson: I play D3 here and there, but I am only level 54 or something like that. Is that high enough to take down this guy?

Travis: I don't even think they spawn in non-Inferno.

jdodson: Well there we are.

Tungsten: They spawn in all difficulties but they only drop keys in inferno mp1+. So yes, you are 6 levels and 10 mil gold or so away.

jdodson: Ok so an hour of grinding an I'm all set :D

jdodson: That all said I am pretty happy with picking up and playing Diablo 3 from time to time. Haven't got to any of the end game stuff yet, but at some point I will.

Travis: I can wallop The Butcher in Inferno pretty easily now, but the first bit of Act II still slays me. I may have hit the point where you have to love the grind to keep going.

I'm OK with that, I suppose. It's definitely a pick-up-put-down game for me. I play it a couple of days and have loads of fun, then I'm done for a while. If I quit right now and never looked at it again, I would have still gotten my $60 worth.

jdodson: I got a pretty good value out of mine too I think. I got ze Collectors which I think is superb. Prob listened to the soundtrack more than I've played the game.

Chowda: Yes, keys drop in inferno acts 1-3 when you have 5 stacks of valor. Each monster power gives an additional 10% chance for the key to drop. So MP10 has a 100% drop chance. We usually farm them on MP5 or 6.

I just finally got all 3 organs the other day and made my first hellfire ring. It didn't roll very well but at least I get the bonus XP!