Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Last night I went to the Magic: The Gathering Avacyn

Last night I went to the Magic: The Gathering Avacyn Restored pre-release party at Red Castle Games in Portland.

Red Castle Games is a pretty cool games store. It has a very large selection of awesome board games ranging from Settlers of Catan, Arkham Horror, Castle Ravenloft, Pandemic and others as well has a hefty supply of Magic, Pokemon and other collectable cards. It also has a farily large set of games you can pull of the shelf and play if you want. One such game, Hero Quest caught my eye as it has been out of print for quite some time. I asked at the front if it was for sale as its hard to find and alas, it was not.

My friends arrived and we started with a card... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 04/30/2012 at 04:52pm

It's just so weird to see people referencing Star City Games all over the internet. That's about 45 minutes from here, it's where I went a few times to grab booster boxes back when I was playing more since they're way cheaper than anywhere else in the area, and... they're apparently one of the major MtG authorities on the Internet.

You'd expect the place to be a massive warehouse, but it's mostly just full of tables for tournaments, with all the goods behind the counter taking up less space than most small hobby shops.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/30/2012 at 08:24pm

Awesome, they just came up after a quick Google for the Goblin and Elves dueling deck. Cool they built up their online portion so well!

Travis Admin wrote on 05/02/2012 at 08:17pm

A co-worker was telling me recently about pack wars. You take a booster pack, two lands of each color, shuffle it all together, and that's your deck. Optionally, no peeking before the game starts.

Totally random results, but often hilarious.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/02/2012 at 11:16pm

Huh. That could be cool! :)

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Any of you MMOers out there... do you think your game would

http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/226632-/K3TJe%20-%20Imgur-620x.jpg

Any of you MMOers out there... do you think your game would let this happen?

http://www.destructoid.com/eve-players-band-together-to-destroy-the-economy-226632.phtml

Ever since I first heard about it, EVE has tempted me. I don't really have the time, and I doubt I could really pull off explaining the monthly subscription to my wife, but a game where this happens sounds... entertaining. All of the other games try to make you "believe you are part of a larger world." Well, guess what: this game actually let's you interact with everyone and change the world, even if it's for destructive purposes Just like the real world.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/28/2012 at 08:24pm

Interesting. I sort of give it to EVE a bit for letting this happen. They do allow practically anything to happen so if certain people want to blow up things haphazardly then it makes sense that they would allow it as it could happen in real life.

I find the reasoning to allow it interesting. Its sort of the "broken window parable" that I don't generally subscribe to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Anyways its cool to see that there are MMO's that do allow anything to happen but if I sunk a ton into a great ship and it was destroyed for little reason id be pretty upset.

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 04/29/2012 at 01:25am

I am wondering how they got those bad-ass ships though...

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/29/2012 at 07:18am

Lots of time?

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 04/29/2012 at 01:43pm

Maybe the market will respond and people will start maKing bank doing escorts

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/29/2012 at 04:35pm

If people stick with the game they will adapt something like that.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/29/2012 at 04:38pm

Or maybe blockade some sectors like we used to do in the ol Tradewars days.

Jason_Taylor wrote on 03/05/2013 at 06:19am

lol. I'm in goonswarm and while I didn't partake in the burning of Jita personally, I do know that the repercussions were felt around the universe.

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Search Google for Zerg Rush.

Guys. Holy crap. Its not like this is my first foray into

Guys. Holy crap. It's not like this is my first foray into Steam. I've been using it for simpler games for ages now, but I'm more into it since I'm playing more "serious" games on it.

But I *just* finally decided to see what pressing shift+tab to access the Steam community did. That thing is badass. You can get a full tabbed browser in your game as you're playing it.

Why had I never checked that out before?

Tungsten wrote on 04/27/2012 at 09:55pm

Ya, I've used it for all sorts of things. It's great. I usually just use it for the clock though.

Now that I think about it though, I've been alt-tabbing out of skyrim to look up console codes. Guess I don't need to do that anymore.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/28/2012 at 12:29am

Good tip, I have Steam too but some of these in game key presses illude me.

shift+tab. Try to run that in my mind like a mantra.

SHIFT+TAB!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/24/2014 at 03:24am

LOL You sound like me when I first discovered it. Tim was the first person to chat with me while I was playing Terraria. Then I was like, "whoa," because I had been saving my game and exiting Steam so that I could go check out the Terraria Wiki. Interesting stuff!

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/24/2014 at 04:50am

Wow, Travis seriously hit up Steam a year+ ago? Man, seems like a lot longer than that.

But yeah, that's about right for me too I suppose. Maybe two.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/24/2014 at 04:58am

I'm not sure how long I've been on Steam, I suspect that it's been less than a year. I found out that Portal was on Steam for free, so I created an account and tried it out. I thought the game was humorous, but the puzzle aspect of it had me feeling stupid, so I uninstalled it. Then, Travis gifted me Terraria, which is only the 2nd game I have on Steam. Otherwise, I tried a Ys demo. That's about it. It's kind of sad, I think, thinking of how I've had friends that have been on Steam much longer and have many more games in their library, but then it goes back to my whole, "I'm oblivious" idea when it comes to modern gaming.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 01/24/2014 at 05:08am

No, no, I've had it since the HL2 days, just barely using it. :)

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/24/2014 at 06:21am

Travis: Ah, yeah, me too but little compelled me back then I got some Bundles....

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Looks like the Diablo 3 free beta weekend blew the doors off

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/546667_200311833421040_177648035687420_322024_1633520084_n.jpg

Looks like the Diablo 3 free beta weekend blew the doors off battle.net a bit:

"Diablo 3's weekend beta went about as smoothly as a hamster in a ball rolling down an erupting volcano – which is to say it was completely normal for a high-profile beta test. Saturday saw a peak of 300,000 concurrent players, Blizzard community manager Micah Whipple (Bashiok) tweeted, reporting the full number of testers for the weekend was "a lot.""

Friday night was quite laggy, Saturday was better but battle.net was out of commission until 9.50am. Some of my friends on Mac had the game crash a few times. My Windows client was stable but lagged out a bit. On Sunday battle.net was pretty... Read All

Portal 2: Valve Will Release Simplified Map Editor on PC

Valve will finally release the Portal 2 simplified level editor and rating system May 8th! Looks like it will be free DLC for all PC players and there is no word on it coming to consoles. Awesome.

I don't generally do much in the area of level editing but I plan on giving this editor a spin as it looks pretty straight forward to use. I picked up the PS3 version and that came with a free steam copy. Its cool they are releasing this so far after launch!

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http://www.giantbomb.com/news/portal-2s-perpetual-testing-initiative-launching-may-8/4107/

Tungsten wrote on 04/27/2012 at 10:24am

I thought I already had it...
That's pretty sweet. That Steam Workshop is looking pretty cool right about now. Good job Valve.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/27/2012 at 11:11am

This looks to be a simplified level editor and rating system for user uploaded levels. So something a bit easier to use and allows uploads for all it seems. The UI does look fairly easy.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/27/2012 at 04:53pm

I'm so glad they gave free PC copies to PS3 purchases.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/27/2012 at 05:32pm

I am too. Makes me question the value of other games that don't do it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/27/2012 at 07:42pm

Updated with the new DLC video. Check above.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/28/2012 at 02:58pm

I love Cave Johnson. Actually, I love everything that guy does. Even the Farmers commercials.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/28/2012 at 05:05pm

He is a good character actor. Apparently this was all done before the end of P2?

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Phoronix has confirmed that Steam is going to be released on

http://ironhammers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/steam.png

Phoronix has confirmed that Steam is going to be released on Linux:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1

Direct from the article:
"For those that have doubted the exclusive Phoronix claims for quite a while now that the Steam client and Source Engine are in fact being ported to Linux, the doubts can be nearly laid to rest. Even I began to wonder how long it would take before the clients for their popular games would be publicly released under Linux. However, after confirming the information perhaps a bit too soon, their level of Linux interest is much more clear after spending a day at their offices. A meeting topped off... Read All

This is a fun version of trivia and getting to know your

This is a fun version of trivia and getting to know your fellow members. Sometimes it helps to look at the date of the source, as some answers are outdated. Again this is fun and not to difficult.

This is a fun two player game. The strategy is fun while

This is a fun two player game. The strategy is fun while the limited amount of rules make is simple and challenging.

Just played a bit of Tribes: Ascend. Its pretty cool. It

http://www.hirezstudios.com/hirezwp/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/TribesAscendBetaComing2.jpg

Just played a bit of Tribes: Ascend. It's pretty cool. It rides the line between chaotic and smart well. It's almost like a first person SSX with guns. it has this skiing mechanic that becomes natural after just a few minutes, and I think it might make other shooters seem hobbled in comparison.

Check it out. If you do, I'm TungstenSt4

EDIT: Did I mention it's free?

https://account.hirezstudios.com/tribesascend/

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/26/2012 at 01:52am

I will check this out for sure. Everyone should know its free to play so its well within our gaming budgets :)

Tungsten Post Author wrote on 04/26/2012 at 02:43am

It's pretty laid back about it too. I don't get OMG YOU COULD HAVE THE COOLEST WEAPON NOW $9.95 kay?

And skiing is so much fun.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/26/2012 at 03:49am

Thats good. Not annoying is good. :)

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/27/2012 at 07:37pm

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/27/tribes-ascend-has-over-800k-registered-accounts/

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/28/2012 at 12:32am

Downloading it now. Kind of don't like it when companies impose a password character limit. My current password has some different characters in it and Tribes didn't like that. I had to resort to a less secure password.

Since I am a programmer I lend them no quarter in limiting the characters you put in a password, there is not reason for it these days.

Anyways, hope the rest of the game isn't as unfortunate.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/28/2012 at 01:24am

The game is very reminiscent of old Tribes. The jetpacks are very fun. Got my ass handed to me in multi-player but it was quite a bit of fun anyway.

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