Aurora

Okay, but "completely uninspiring" and "crap" are a LOT different from what you were saying about the mods in the straight-5s post. If it's riddled with typos, blatant grammatical errors, and filled with very poor writing, that's one thing - but I've played about 20 mods so far at random, and I haven't seen more than one or two mods with any of those things. (And honestly, that surprised me, given the usual level of writing on the vault - I've played exactly one normal module that had very good writing and only a few others with passable writing). I've played some that started out slow and got better, and some that had promising beginnings but didn't really go anywhere, and some that didn't have the best dialogue but good evenly spread out writing, etc. Either way, I don't believe it's fair to vote without playing the entire module - moving on and ignoring it, fine, but there's no way you can seriously evaluate a module without playing it all the way through. Something might surprise you and make you up your score a bit, or something might make you drop it even further - but telling someone that you gave their mod a 2 because they didn't draw you in within 30 seconds is just going to make them write you off as someone who's trying to screw up the competition. Bioware has assured the community that they'll be looking over the votes as well, and I'm almost certain that they'll discount that kind of vote.

I think that playing through enough mods per day that it becomes a chore to you is going to mess things up as well, though. Bioware says they'll go through them all, but they're getting paid for it and you're not. "Writers I'd definitely want to see at Bioware" isn't too bad a criteria, but if you want to be consistent, you really should play the mods for longer than 30 seconds - that's not fair at all. Yes, Bioware said that it's important for the first character/dialogue to be engaging, but they didn't say that that should determine everything - I played several mods that didn't have brilliant beginnings but became much better. Really, aim for playing half of the mods all the way through, and you'll be doing a much fairer job all-around. I'm also troubled by the inconsistency I've seen in the votes so far - lots of people judging as if these were meant to be full modules and not writing contest entries and complaining that the mod is too short or even "confined", some people outright lying about the module content and giving them low rankings, people consistently giving higher votes to well-known mod-makers or popular folks on the Bio boards, and people giving higher votes for scripting.

I'd like to mention here that I hope everyone who votes for writing contest mods does so by followingthe contest rules fairly closely. So far, I've seen a LOT of high scores given out due to scripting for mods with mediocre or okay writing, and several lower scores given by players who were sad about the mods being "too short," and that is not fair to anyone in the contest. Knocking off points for typos & scripting errors that leave you unable to finish the mod or certain quests is one thing, but judging a contest entry as if it were the same as any other mod is another, significantly more sucky thing. Thx bye.

Excellent. Now I can finally ask WHY WON'T YOU RETURN MY PHONE CALLS, OBSIDIAN? Oh. Filtered chat. Crap.

Oh, my god. That is far too tasteful for me to find fault with.

I think people are getting hurt, but that is a quite more complex topic than this and would just branch out into insanity if pursued here. I have a problem with sex being marketed to sell most anything, but I think it's definitely effective in certain cases where it's not in computer games because they're totally different products, and also often because those products tend to be cheaper and/or necessary in a way that computer games are not. For simpler products like deodorant, clothing, recordable DVDs, whatever, brand recognition matters a lot more than the quality of the actual product. If a brand name is stuck in your head because of a memorable commercial, whether because the commercial was full of half-naked women & that turned you on or because it was actually well-written doesn't matter - what matters is that the brand name & possibly brand claims are in your head. Most people need deodorant to function in society, deodorant is cheap, and you're familiar with this brand, plus on the label it claims to be the most effective sweat-killer ever. You might read reviews of deodorant, but they won't necessarily help you, as different human bodies respond differently to chemicals and you don't know if the reviewers have the same biological makeup as you do - plus it's going to be pretty hard to find a variety of reviews on deodorant. Most deodorants are basically going to have the same effect. When choosing a game, though, half-naked commercial women might make the game title stick in your head and make you curious enough to pick up the box, but if you have no interest in the genre or game in particular, you're probably not going to shell out $55 for that game. After all, you're going to be devoting 10-100 hours to a game you buy, you have plenty of choices and if you have the internet you have access to reviews (from a variety of viewpoints, generally from reviewers whose past reviews you can check out to see if their tastes match up with yours) about every single one of those, and playing a game is a recreational activity - basically, you can judge the quality in many, many ways that you cannot judge the quality of something like deodorant. I think genre & company recognition beat out brand recognition in computer games.

So how many people in this thread have bought games solely or largely because of hot siliconed bikini chicks (Playboy Mansion & Leisure Suit Larry excepted)? How many have even bought games they otherwise hadn't heard of because of hot siliconed bikini chicks? I buy that "sex sells" sometimes, though I'm repulsed by the idea that that makes it okay, given that only one narrow, vicious idea of sex is generally used in the mass media. I don't buy that "sex sells" for computer games the same way it does for foul-smelling deodorant. Computer games are a larger investment of time and money and more dependent on particular interests than most products out there. If someone is considering buying a game because of sex, they have to know (Sims & Singles excepted) that it'd be a much wiser investment to simply hand over 5 bucks for Playboy. Or 30 bucks more for the Playboy game, I suppose. Or paying nothing, just googling for pictures of the hot siliconed bikini chicks. Additionally, as I've never heard anyone complain about the lack of scantily-cladness in a game (though I have heard people complain about the lack of explicit sex scenes or such) but plenty complaining when it is in, I think that companies that adopt "sex sells" as their motto actually drive off more customers than they bring in.

They aren't guidelines, they are rules, and you get a hefty fine for not following them. I think there are better ways to change the whole booth babe standard. This is more of a threat to behave, perhaps they should try and spin the fact that a more child friendly and less sexist E3 will help greatly with PR. They need to open up the Boys Club of video games, but attacking the door with an axe is not the smoothest way to do so. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's a rule, yes, but it's still a private event, so it's not censorship. "Child friendliness" is also irrelevant since you have to be 18 to get in. And yes, I agree that it's probably not the best way to go about making the show female-friendly (probably not the reason, as pointed out, it's likely due to people freaking the hell out over Hot Coffee), but I'm just having trouble <i>caring.</i> Am just too amused, I suppose.

New guidelines for a private event = censorship?

I'm suspicious of the reasoning behind the new rule, but somehow I can't think that anything but good will come of it. Except the chorus of whines from kidlets who haven't figured out yet how to use the internet to find porn any time they want it - but it's such sweet music! Mmmm.

And I posted before you edited, and it certainly is a good point. I just think it's amusing that you picked one of the few Hollywood actresses who happened to secretly transform into a semi-Olympian when you weren't looking.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/...vis_archery_ap/

I just read an entire article in Reader's Digest about Geena Davis today, and an entire section was specifically about what great shape she was in, largely focusing on how she made it to the Olympic archery semifinals. Relevance. Look, I don't read Reader's Digest, it was just there. I'm going now.

Oh my god, you really are Pete?

I did know that he has a gay son, I did read the article he wrote about him, and I did link to it in my last post. I know over a dozen people who have gay friends and relatives and say they love them but don't support gay marriage, and several of those people get violently upset at the thought of a man hitting on them. I don't doubt that Shalit loves his son, but I don't think "some of my best friends are gay" has ever been a valid excuse in and of itself.

I never said he wouldn't write it (though technically he speaks it), or should be forced to resign, or anything of the sort. But I don't think it's insane for someone to be upset over his claims, because, well, they're entirely made up. Ex: If he did, however, insult every one of the movies I mentioned to the same extent (his reviews are televised so I can't check) as well as other movies where the same thing which happened in Brokeback Mountain happened in heterosexual relationships (Titanic is actually a very good comparison), then he's not hypocritical and people are overreacting. I don't know if he's homophobic -this would certainly indicate otherwise - but unless he's consistent about this, there's something really weird going on here. I just think he's an idiot for misunderstanding so much of the movie (which I suppose is subtle given the standard Hollywood relationship, but not *that* subtle) and I don't think it's impossible that that's related to some kind of weird gay hangup. I really don't understand what his problem is because I'm not familiar with his work and don't have access to it, but perhaps some of the people who are upset by his statements are familiar with it. Alternately, he could be trolling, since he appears to be laughing most of the time on the video clip (even through the phrase "sexual predator," which is always good for a laugh). Maybe that's just his thing!

Okay, speaking as apparently the only person who's seen the movie, Shalit is an idiot. Jack's initial "seduction" consists of putting Ennis' arm around his chest while he thinks Ennis is sleeping, after which Ennis forcibly pulls away, then pulls back and then they have wild obnoxiously-filmed consensual sex. If that's all it takes to seduce someone into gay sex, it's a wonder the whole world hasn't been recruited yet. His later "seductions" involve sending him a single postcard saying he's going to come by to visit, after which Ennis greets him with enormous happiness since it's been *four years* since they've seen each other. They then have consensual sex in a motel (well, a post-sex scene complete with a cigarette since even in a movie about gay men there are still more actual heterosexual sex scenes shown on-camera), and decide to spend a week together a few times each year. Jack also later eventually makes a few requests for the two of them to settle down, because he's sick of only seeing him two or three times a year. Trust me, I'm highly sensitive to sexual predation (one of the reasons I read here rarely and post even more rarely is because of the amount of people who think that rape is, in fact, a joke) and this movie had nothing of a sort. If Shalit saw it there, however, I certainly hope he also took to task "A History of Violence" (incredibly violent man-on-woman "no means yes even if I'm physically fighting you off" sex scene), "House of Flying Daggers" (both male leads try to rape the female lead but are never blamed for it), and "Closer" ("no means yes" male-on-female again). Those're just recent movies that come to mind.

We already have records of three whole people swearing to buy K2 for the PC since we're iffy on the status of the X-Box mod. PROFIT.* We... are? Ahem, that is to say, we are. *crosses 'leisurely jog through Skywalker Ranch wearing only spaghetti and a banner with the address http://www.team-gizka.org' off the to-do checklist* Anyway, let's all try to keep this topic impossibly trim, much like a photoshopped supermodel. *But not the kind that's for us. Because of the illegal.

Loom.

Eh, when we have, in the US, porn stars advertising sneakers, rape and pseudorape shown for entertainment both in porn and on weekly television shows, and the hyper-sexualization of underage girls... ...then I just can't believe that we're less "perverted" or openly sexual than Japan is, and I can't get so freaked out about tentacle monsters. I can laugh a little at tentacle monsters because it's still creepy and gross but it's not real. I can't laugh the fact that there are many, many sites where 8-year-olds (and 6 year olds, and 13 year olds) are posed in lingerie and bikinis, in extremely sexual positions but it's legal and okay because they're not technically naked. Plus other things, but hopefully the foulness of stuff like this isn't particularly controversial among the adult members of this board.

The old topic was bigger than a rancor and just as deadly - don't ask me how, I'm not a scientist. Here's a new one, complete with questions so that ya'll don't need to ask them daily just in case the answer has changed. Look, it's our website! Much is repeated from our official FAQ. Q: Do I have to read this thread's FAQ before posting? Because I'm sure I can post something that isn't covered in it. A: Yes. Q: When will this mod be done? A: We don't have a projected time of completion yet. However, rest assured that we will keep you updated on our progress. You can check our Work In Progress page for details on what we're currently up to. What we're up to, module-related. We're not giving details on what we do every single hour of the day, and seriously, quit talking about your pet moths, it's creepy. Q: I see a build version listed on the website. Where can I download it? A: We haven't released a public version of the mod yet. This number serves to help track our progress - we have one beta tester who is working with us right now. The downloadable version will be announced when finished. Q: Will you add ____ ?! A: Our focus is on restoring the missing content that Obsidian Entertainment originally intended for the game. We will add content as we see necessary to make the plot work, but we are not adding random new sub-plots. We will be revealing more details about our restoration efforts in future progress reports, but if you would like to know whether or not we already have plans to work on a specific restoration, feel free to ask us in our forums. Q: Yeah, but will you add difficulty tweaks? Or new items? A: No. Q: Are you fixing game bugs? A: We have found and fixed a few dialogue and scripting related bugs. Check it out. The "tweaks" will not be included in the mod, but the bug fixes will. Q: Will your mod work with existing savegames? A: Probably. We recommend starting over totally or, at the latest, before leaving Peragus just to avoid any potential weirdness. Even if your saved game from later doesn't end up buggy, you're going to miss additional content - the earliest of it appears quite soon after Peragus explodes. Really, just start over. Maybe we put in an easter egg with Sion playing with kittens and you'll never see it if you don't start a new game. Q: I have the XBox version of the game and a (legally) modded XBox - will your mod work on it? A: At this point we're unsure. There are reports that new model files (.mdl's) - which the mod will likely contain - do not work on the XBox. After our work is completed we may look into creating a more fully compatible version for the XBox. Q: Are you working on the Droid Planet? A: No, we are not currently working on restoring M4-78, the Droid Planet. The only material that exists for it is basically an outline and a couple of possibly incomplete voiceover sets. Storylining, scripting, writing dialogue and recording sounds for an entire planet, as well as working it into the plot of the rest of the game is beyond the scope of the project at the moment. Oh, but hey, you might want to check out the group that IS working on M4-78. Q: How can I help? Can I join the team? A: At this time, we don't need any additional help. If we have any future needs, we'll make an announcement. Thanks for the interest. But seriously, moths. Q: Pleaaaaaaaaase can I help? A: Okay, okay. We're looking for beta testers. Check out the long list of requirements here. In short: BE: Literate. Articulate. Able to take screenshots. Uh... having lots of free time. DON'T BE: A jerk. Q: I feel like bashing LucasArts. This is the right thread for it, right? A: No. Q: I'm looking forward to your mod still. A: Thanks!

Excellent, misreading all over the place. We both win! My God, upper 40s? I thought I had it hard here. I can't trade my purple pants, but I can give up my slightly torn pretend-satin pink penguin-and-star covered sleep-pants. They're warmer than pretend-fleece. Trade you around the corner of #mistresslair?

I certainly don't mean to suggest that it's not a problem because it's not new. I just thought it was a bit of a "duh" moment, and was a bit puzzled that it focused only on racist remarks and not a few of the other -ics or -isms that are all over the game-internets, but I suppose the writer had a word limit.

The way the writer only used examples from online consoles, which I think are all fairly new, gave me the impression that they were just discovering this. They do talk in more generic terms near the end, though. Also, I misread the X-Box 360 bit & took it to mean that these were people playing on the X-Box 360 Live. Mostly it was that part. All I've got are these purple pretend-fleece sleeper pants with sheep all over 'em. And it's dropped down to an all-time low of 64 degrees in this house, so I can't give them up - I depend on them for SURVIVAL in the unbearable winter.