Octopus Overlords

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:19 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 1:56 pm It's always amused me how Americans invariably bugger up pronouncing the word melee or mêlée.
[...]

So the correct pronunciation sounds more akin to "mell-AY," and definitely not "MAY-lay."

Then I shouldn't tell you how many people I've heard pronounce it 'mee-lee.' Most of them RPGers.

Oof.

Yeah, I've heard that one before, too. I suspect that particular mispronunciation comes from those who grew up reading the word countless times in RPG materials, likely mentally sounding-out an otherwise largely unfamiliar term in the most perfunctory way possible.

I suspect it's a borrowed French pronunciation, as it's that's the way it's pronounced in French.

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:19 pm Shall we get into 'wyvern' (why, Vern?)

Wyvern and Shirley

Rumpy wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:58 pm I suspect it's a borrowed French pronunciation, as it's that's the way it's pronounced in French.

Perhaps in butchered Canuckian French? But native French-speakers in France definitely understand how to correctly pronounce an e with the circumflex accent (ê) and the e-acute (é). And MEE-LEE ain't even close.

You can hear a correct French pronunciation of mêlée here, and it's more akin to "meh-lay."

Sorry, that's what I actually meant. But that the reason why it gets mispronounced is the different emphasis by being lost in translation That's what often happens to borrowed words. Makes me cringe at times.

But that said, yeah, there are differences to pronunciations in Canadian-French via cultural drift. Just watched a video on it this week, in fact.

i call Quebecois "Prairie French"

but uh, i think this conversation is in the wrong thread. unless we're now discussing UbiSoft

And now for something completely different, Massive Fallout: New Vegas mod The Frontier is finally out after 7 years

Entire article:

The Fallout modding community is buzzing today thanks to the release of Fallout – The Frontier, a gigantic mod project for Fallout: New Vegas that adds a full new game’s worth of content to Obsidian’s iconic RPG game.

Fallout – The Frontier moves the action to the snowy streets of Portland, Oregon. However, many of the players remain the same: You’re a Courier, and you find yourself in the midst of a conflict between the New California Republic and the brutal Caesar’s Legion factions, and its three main questlines will take you beneath Portland’s streets to discover the city’s pre-war secrets.

This is a truly astonishing mod – not only does it add a new map that’s roughly the size of New Vegas’ Mojave, it also adds drivable vehicles, loads of new armours and more than 150 new weapons, and a thoughtfully written, mature storyline that doesn’t shy away from showing players the horrific ravages of nuclear war. It’s set before the events of the Battle of Hoover Dam, so that places it within the overarching Fallout timeline, but apart from the familiar factions, The Frontier is a wholly new Fallout story to explore and experience.

The creators say The Frontier is “without a doubt” the biggest mod ever released for Fallout: New Vegas (or any Fallout game, for that matter), and while we can’t independently verify that, there’s plenty in the mod to support the claim. Here’s the trailer:


Head over to Nexus Mods to download Fallout – The Frontier. You’ll also need the 4GB Patcher, the New Vegas Script Extender, the JIP LN NVSE Plugin, and the User Interface Organizer mod. The developers of The Frontier also recommend using New Vegas Anti-Crash and the Mod Configuration Menu.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:00 pm
Yeah, I've heard that one before, too. I suspect that particular mispronunciation comes from those who grew up reading the word countless times in RPG materials, likely mentally sounding-out an otherwise largely unfamiliar term in the most perfunctory way possible.

I pronounced it that way for years. To be fair, there aren't any accents on it in any of the RPG books I ever read, and I can't imagine any native English speaker (without French experience) seeing -lee and ending up with -lay. I'm sure I still pronounce any number of weapons wrong (stupid foreign polearms.) Of course, those same books taught some terrible history lessons when it came to historical weapons and armor (see longsword vs bastard sword - hint: one was the other, and the other never existed, while the one was called something never seen in a D&D book.)

You know what they say - When you meet someone who mispronounces unusual words all the time it doesn't mean they're dumb or uneducated. It means they read a lot.

DEBacle...

Giving up, at least temporarily, on Treasure Hunter Simulator, or as I would call it, "hiking / metal detecting simulator". The game is just so darn boring sometimes, as you continue to unearth crap like pull tabs and nails, instead of real treasures. Whoever wrote their English versions seems to have used a weird dictionary. They mean a hand drill. They wrote "trephine" (which is a bone marrow drill), then managed to misspell it in the same dialog box as "terphine" as well (!?). There are at least two other paired misspellings, like grenade/granade, and shear/sheer. You do occasionally find treasures, but the clues given were nonsense. Like giving you a PHOTO clue on where would Captain Cook's spyglass be hidden on the Scottish coast. WHO hid this that managed to leave an old B&W photo as clue, given that Captain Cook died in Hawaii in the 1700's?!?!?! Same problem with the rest of the items. And the idea that you can dig holes in a park willy-nilly is just such a silly idea. Got stuck on a mission where I was supposed to "clean" the amphitheater in Palmyra, Syria, except there was no metal in it... UNLESS it was large/deep objects that my current detector cannot detect, but then I need more missions to make money! The game isn't paced right. Money's too tight, most items you recover pays a few dollars, when metal detectors costs hundreds, thousands, and the most expensive one, is like 10000! (I am stuck at 7000, as I've pretty much combed over most of the previous maps and picked them clean except for the large/deep items)

And even that really makes no sense. Shouldn't the LARGER items be easier to pick up, and it's the SMALLER items that are harder to find and thus require a more advanced detector? Hmmm?

Was good to see some of my old favorites in there.

Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

EGADS! You poor souls. How did you ever survive? (Mountain Dew is my caffeine source of choice, enjoying the new "Major Melon" flavor currently).

Zenn7 wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:08 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

EGADS! You poor souls. How did you ever survive? (Mountain Dew is my caffeine source of choice, enjoying the new "Major Melon" flavor currently).

We made do. It's kind of like not knowing what you've been missing until you have it. It's just one of those Canadian oddities.

Been playing the freebie of Star Wars Battlefront 2, plowing through the single player campaign.

It's a fun enough Star Wars story, but two things kind of bug me.

First, the rag dolls on the bodies are all messed up. Half the time, they either a) act as if gravity isn't turned on, free-floating through the air or b) twitch on the ground, endlessly replaying the last two seconds of their death animation. Feels like something that should have been caught in QA. Fun enough otherwise, get to fly around in some TIE Fighters and X-Wings (and even a stint in the Millenium Falcon and one of those Bespin air cars).

Second, and I almost never say this about a video game, the campaign should have just ended at Jakku. They reached a good stopping point, all major plot threads resolved (not that there were too many to begin with), etc. Then we get a "decades later" time jump and now I have to play as whiny emo Kylo Ren. Feels the same as when Halo 2 sprung a surprise on me by making me play as some numbnuts elite.

Although, to be fair, the Arbiter kind of grew on me as time went on. I have my doubts about Kylo Ren, though, and it's also probably a one-shot anyway.

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:37 pm

Zenn7 wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:08 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

EGADS! You poor souls. How did you ever survive? (Mountain Dew is my caffeine source of choice, enjoying the new "Major Melon" flavor currently).

We made do. It's kind of like not knowing what you've been missing until you have it. It's just one of those Canadian oddities.

i actually preferred the Canuckian version - i am one of those weirdos that likes Mountain Dew but is sensitive to caffeine. i actually liked the Diet Caffeine-Free Mtn. Dew even more, but that's been out of production for years.

hitbyambulance wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 10:34 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:37 pm

Zenn7 wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:08 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

EGADS! You poor souls. How did you ever survive? (Mountain Dew is my caffeine source of choice, enjoying the new "Major Melon" flavor currently).

We made do. It's kind of like not knowing what you've been missing until you have it. It's just one of those Canadian oddities.

i actually preferred the Canuckian version - i am one of those weirdos that likes Mountain Dew but is sensitive to caffeine. i actually liked the Diet Caffeine-Free Mtn. Dew even more, but that's been out of production for years.

Thank you. I always wondered who the heck would want Diet, Caffiene free Mountain Dew.

jztemple2 wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 7:07 pm And now for something completely different, Massive Fallout: New Vegas mod The Frontier is finally out after 7 years

Entire article:

The Fallout modding community is buzzing today thanks to the release of Fallout – The Frontier, a gigantic mod project for Fallout: New Vegas that adds a full new game’s worth of content to Obsidian’s iconic RPG game.

Fallout – The Frontier moves the action to the snowy streets of Portland, Oregon.

Sold!

Curious to see their implementation of a post-apocalypse Portland.

Seen it. Looks sparse and bland.

Max Peck wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:17 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:23 pm I think I can't do pronunciation properly. I mean "chee-kom", rather than "chai-kom"

As in Chicom and the Man?

"Ees nah my chob."

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

Hmmm... Out of the various lemon-lime flavored soft drinks, I technically prefer Mountain Dew / or Mello Yellow, the Coke version of it over Sprite, which is a bit of a "bite" to it. OTOH, Mtn Dew is a bit too sweet, and Nutrasweet / Aspartame doesn't quite taste like sugar, so the diet version do taste a little different. But then, I prefer Diet Coke over regular Coke, NOT because it has less calories.

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

I have what are probably faulty memories of my family taking trips to the Dogpatch USA amusement park back in the day and them selling a drink call "Yahoo Mountain Dew", which had liquor in it.
I swear I can recall my Grandpa slipping me sips on the sly.

The old tag line was Ya-hooo!, Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is southern slang for moonshine.

Daehawk wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:20 pm The old tag line was Ya-hooo!, Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is southern slang for moonshine.

Which is itself southern slang for white lightning, hooch, white whiskey, bathtub gin, and a hundred others.

With both KOTOR games Ive played them both good and evil and finished them about 4 times. But I usually play either totally good or totally evil. Is it possible to be neutral and do some evil stuff and some good stuff?

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:30 pm

Daehawk wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:20 pm The old tag line was Ya-hooo!, Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is southern slang for moonshine.

Which is itself southern slang for white lightning, hooch, white whiskey, bathtub gin, and a hundred others.

So it was probably just Gramps spiking his soda and being a bad influence on me.
Lord I miss that man.....

Daehawk wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:37 pm With both KOTOR games Ive played them both good and evil and finished them about 4 times. But I usually play either totally good or totally evil. Is it possible to be neutral and do some evil stuff and some good stuff?

To a degree, though I think you get locked out of some options and you end up making dick moves moreso than being evil. KOTOR 2 was also the first of their games to implement a dynamic reputation system where you could influence your party members, although my experience with it was rather buggy. Theoretically, you should have been able to sway anyone by your side with interesting consequences, but to my frustration, while playing through an evil run, I've witnessed the Handmaiden reset herself which was so unsatisfying given the hours I had worked to corrupt her. Maybe that implies she's incorruptible, but it would have been so satisfying to just let characters be completely swayed.

I like playing evil but always feel bad betraying Carth. Poor guy went through so much. He literally begs you to not be evil.

stimpy wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:07 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

I have what are probably faulty memories of my family taking trips to the Dogpatch USA amusement park back in the day and them selling a drink call "Yahoo Mountain Dew", which had liquor in it.
I swear I can recall my Grandpa slipping me sips on the sly.

My grandfather lived in Arkansas and we went to Dogpatch a few times. That was an interesting, if not super exciting place.

gbasden wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:52 pm

stimpy wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:07 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

I have what are probably faulty memories of my family taking trips to the Dogpatch USA amusement park back in the day and them selling a drink call "Yahoo Mountain Dew", which had liquor in it.
I swear I can recall my Grandpa slipping me sips on the sly.

My grandfather lived in Arkansas and we went to Dogpatch a few times. That was an interesting, if not super exciting place.

How can you not love a place that has just thrilling attractions as:
West Po'k Chop Speshul
Cornvention Center
Earthquake McGoon's Brain Rattler
Hairless Joe's Kickapoo Barrel
Barney Barnsmell's Skunk Works
and who could EVER forget the Trash Eaters, trash cans equipped with huge animal heads that "ate" (sucked) the trash out of patrons' hands.
Some of my favorite childhood memories are our trips to visit my Grandparents in Arkansas. Always dreamed of retiring there.

Zenn7 wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:58 pm

hitbyambulance wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 10:34 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:37 pm

Zenn7 wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:08 pm

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:51 pm Somewhat offtopic, but in Canada Mountain Dew didn't have caffeine in it for the longest time, due to a regulation involving light-colored soft-drinks. To get around that, they had to create an energy drink version to be sold in a different category. Although I now hear this is no longer the case, and the default Mountain Dew is now caffeinated with 51mg (vs 55mg in the American version).

EGADS! You poor souls. How did you ever survive? (Mountain Dew is my caffeine source of choice, enjoying the new "Major Melon" flavor currently).

We made do. It's kind of like not knowing what you've been missing until you have it. It's just one of those Canadian oddities.

i actually preferred the Canuckian version - i am one of those weirdos that likes Mountain Dew but is sensitive to caffeine. i actually liked the Diet Caffeine-Free Mtn. Dew even more, but that's been out of production for years.

Thank you. I always wondered who the heck would want Diet, Caffiene free Mountain Dew.

Probably the same type as those of us that prefer Caffeine-free Diet Pepsi and Caffeine-free Diet Coke. They both seem to be getting harder to find. I hope they don't d/c them.

Not to mention Tab.

We never got Tab either, I don't think...

The more you know...

Count yourself lucky.

What a random thing to find being discussed in video game randomness as I get back from the fridge with a caffeine free Diet Coke.

Some of you must be getting produce placement kickbacks.

Madmarcus wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 1:34 am Some of you must be getting produce placement kickbacks.

Yes, because of the high fruit and vegetable content found in most pop.

(It was an entertaining typo)

Yes! It's even better with the typo so I'm leafing it.

I ran with it once I saw that unlabeled Mtn Dew bottle in the video, (and come on, everyone knows what it is), so I fully take responsibility for the random derail It is gaming related though.