Derek K.

@edgecrusherO0 Indeed - the buff occurs iff you have a male playing a male near a female playing a female. It's an odd little thing, but they didn't give any bonuses to female players. They gave bonuses to mixed gender teams playing together and in close physical (in game) proximity.

Which isn't a terrible way to encourage mixed gender teams, really. But also makes for a far less exciting story.

Put me in the "I don't see the problem" camp too. Despite the widespread factual knowledge that every player hates it, I'm fine with it. If it we're new power sets or the like I'd rage a bit. New costumes I can live with. It's just like buying a CCG booster....

On xbox live, there's a group called The Good Game Network for precisely this reason!

And all we can do is change ourselves, and set a good example. So congratulate the ass. Even he ignores it, a teammate might not!

2 or 3. My guild chat, a personal chat (I tell my friends to join it so we don't have to friend 5 alts a piece) and general, if it hasn't pissed me off lately. That's all I'm interested in.

In SWG I would have planetary, faction and Wookiee chats.

Say what you want about greed, but my son gets a PC character, a 360 character, and a toy to play with, all for $8. That's a deal.

OMG. I didn't know anyone else in the world played Magi-Nation. I was a beta tester for that from the beginning. I have binders and binders full of cards! I even designed one of the Arderial Magi!

Weave was always my favorite (well, once it came out. :) ). I still take out my cards and go through them from time to time.

And yeah, I really didn't play anything after the Jungle expansion - it kept getting more and more powerful, rather than more and more diverse.

To answer the original question, no. It's 8 cards, of which 4 come out. You can build single clan decks or 2-clans (you can do more, but it's rare, and not a great idea). You have Pillz, which have changed over time. I think at this point, you start with a certain number, and gain one each round. The strategy is in picking the 8 characters. Most people play ELO, which limits you to 25 total levels, meaning you have to mix high power cards (5 is the top) with lower. The cards that are from the same clan get their clan bonus. The ones that aren't, don't. You've got to build knowing that, on a bad day, you'll get your four weakest cards out at a time.

I played a *lot* of UR for a while. It's a very fun game. And you can pretty easily get most of the cards you want for low cash - you just buy a handful of the new boosters, and sell whatever the rares are. That lets you buy the good cards that aren't the flavor of the month....

In theory, I prefer JtL type space. In practice, I've spent more time in space in TOR than I did in all of JtL. I always wished I could do more, but it was just too much on top of all the other awesome stuff.

Really, I'd like both.

Sure. But TOR is far ahead at least. I'd wager you could ask 10 random players in TOR "what's your character like?" and at least 8 would have some kind of answer. "He just wants money, but won't hurt kids" or "she pi ks all the good choices, except she hates twi'leks" or the like. Not huge, but people at least think of TOR chars as a personality, rather than "my character is a subtlety rogue."

@Gaugamela This. Tabula Rasa was an odd failure. And it's time to memorialize SWG.

I'd also love to reminisce about Auto Assault, and talk about the changes to Age of Conan from start to now.

Also, Warhammer Online, the first WoW Killer. ;)

Obligatory "SW:TOR?"

TOR has a ton of story - it really does. It's hard to get in to it without spoilers, but suffice to say that even my wife, who hardly listens to the stories, knows who the major antagonist is in her class story.

Also, The Secret World looks poised to answer a number of these issues (especially the environmental aspects), if Ragnar and crew do it right.