Volourn

"But yes, Bio was better as an independent developer, I fear." Youf ear this; but I doubt we know this yet since they haven't really made a game with EA outside of finishing up ME if I remember the timeline correctly... "Troika delivered what they said they would a true representation of a classic pnp game." Nah, not really. The only 'promise' they really delievered on with TOEE was being the closest to pnp DnD rules. Outside of that, not so much. They forgot the cardinal rule of all pnp pre amde campaigns like TOEE - ot's up to the DM aka Troika to 'fill in the blanks' and make the campaign worthwhile. NOBODY likes TOEE as written. People's fond memories of the pnp module are largely linked to how the campaign was ran by the DM, and what was added or ignored. "Atari not extending the release date when the game was still a buggy mess" They did give Troika an extension. They would ahve had to extend it indefinitely waiting for a 'perfect' version which likely would have been to expensive, and give no hope of getting a return of their investment. "ToEE suffered an extremely steep learning curve. Where the heck were you supposed to go at level 1? I gotta blame the developers on that one. " Nah. Talk to a couple of people in town (fi you can get past the subpar dialogue) woudl elt you where you ened to go. It's not like TOEE had lots of places you *could* go. "Combat was better in TOEE" Nope. Combat systemw as. Combat wa snot. "Oh look, another bugbear trying to trip my mage and suffers 3 AOOs!" R00fles! "Dont know if you caught this battle, but probably my favoite combat encounter of any game I have played" That battle was actually fun!

"i guess you could either welcome it or act like some little corporate weenie's lapdog." Actually, I have another option - don't buy products from companies I don't like and don't buy products I have no interest in. It tends to work for the most part. But, yeah, I do fail at some of the gamer obligiation. That's because I am a gamer, and by definition all gamers are selfish, greedy, all about me me me, act like immature brats, and are the most evil human beings on the planet.

1. Gamers have the obligation to pay $200 if they actually expect the rights listed above. 2. Gamers have the obligation to act like mature adults (possible exceptions apply for thsoe whoa rne't actually adults). 3. Gamers have the obligation to move on from games they dislike and don't harp on x game's 'failures' for years on end. 4. Gamers have the obligation to criticize in a civil manner, and stop acting like cavemen. 5. Gamers have the obligation to understand that if you attack a developer or publisher that they should ahev the right to attack you right back. 6. Gamers have the obligation to check their greed, selfishness, and 'me me me ness' to an actual reasonable level. ie. Don't pay $50 for a game, and expect to get the same level of service that you'd get buying that $25,000 vehicle. 7. Gamers have the obligation not to steal games whether the like the game or not. 8. Gamers have the obligation not to blame the publisher, and develoepr for fellow gamers' need to steal soemthing they don't need. 9. Gamers have the obligation to realize that games are not neccessities, and therefore not everybody is required to have them. 10. Gamers have the obligation to STFU.

"From a pure combat perspective, there's really no comparison, and anyone claiming that the responsiveness or actual aiming mechanics are better in Jade Empire or Oblivion or Mass Effect or Bloodlines than Virtua Fighter or Ninja Gaiden or Half-Life or whatever pretty much has some sort of agenda or has extremely limited experience in gaming outside RPGs when in comes to said combat" All this, and the rest of your spam tells me nothing other than your opinion. Perhaps people don't look for the same things you do in their combat. To me, JE and ME were a good mix of action and rpg hence why it's an Action RPG. The combat in both work for me just fine as theyw ere fun, reasonably challengeing, and cool. I have played my share of full fledge action games. They are fun; but they don't really require any thinking. I didn't play NG (the new modern one); but it looks like any bland action game. The old NG was fun when it was out. Again, the cool thing was that JE (and ME) weren't competing with NG. NG is an Action game. JE is an Action RPG. HUGE difference.

"Since when does the alignement wheel affect your intimidate/charm skills? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere..." Since the was created. Read the manual. Check out your skill screen. Pay attention!

"Also, the dialogue choices were not changed by your alignement wheel, they were changed by your Intimidate or Charm skill." Thanks for allowing me to win this 'debate' easily. You just confirmed what i said. The 'alignment wheel' greatly effected your ability to increase your intimidate or charm skills which means the alignment wheel does have an effect on gameplay. You lose.

"Well, the "thousands of casualties and tens of thousands of refugees" are from a paper from the US Library of Congress, not my invention (I think I posted the link previously in this thread, or was that at WW? Thats possible). Blame them if they are fiddling with the numbers. Mind you, this was in 1991 when the Georgians wanted to wipe out any sense of "Ossetian" cultural integrity." I was referring to the most recent fighting. Not since the whole dispute started. "There is only 1 difference some countries accepted the independence of Kosovo (46) but now dont accept the independence of South Ossetia and Abjazia" That's because those countries know there are differences between the two different situations. And, it's far from the only difference between the two.

I'm not going into that as this is about the Russia/Georgia situation while the Kosovo situation is old news (well, like most things political, it's not 100% settled); but the point is every situation is different. Trying to lump such dynamic things into the same thing does a huge disservice to the people, groups, and countries involved. Georgia, and Kosovo are two different situations with their own history, background, people, etc. That alone is enough to not group them togetehr even if they makes it easier to make snap judgements. ie. Iraq = Vietnam. I shoudl also say that I don't think Georgia is innocent but people keep claiming they aattacked Russia and they did no such thing. And, the accusations if ethnic cleansing is ridiculous considering the flat out lies Russia has told - supposed 5k dead when it ended up being 100s (not saying 100s dead is a good thing); but that's not ethnic cleansing. Not by a long shot.

"There may be differences" So, you agree with me? They aren't the same situation. That's all I needed. So, the question remains if the two situations are different why are some - espicially the people who likely dissaproved of the West's handling Kosovo - expect the two situiations to be handled in the exact same way even if they do have similarities. They have differences hence they should be treated differently.

"well as biowarian design philosophy predicated on making mostest people happy." Their philososphy has worked well for them thus far. "Also, if you're going to have an alignment wheel, FFS please make it have at least some sort of use. Mass Effect's Paragon and Renegade alignment wheel was utterly useless and never brought ANYTHING to the game other than a small achivement on the 360." Nah. ME's 'alignemnt wheel' was to show the player where theyw ere. They also gave gameplay/dialogue/story differences too consdering it effected your character's dialogue choices which is a HUGE part of the game. So, in essence, you played a different ME than me if your version they brought NOTHING to the game otehr than small achievements. R00fles!

They don't 'have' to do anything. Games get postponed all the time. L0L On top of this, Bethesda has already shown a demo, and have allowed people to play it.

HAHA! Even Russia's Asian Allies snumb their war crimes of murdering innocent Georgians, and conquering another country and keeping their soldiers there. "The english always were very funny

"BG2 is their best and most successful ever." You cna argue about which is the 'best'; but the 'most successful' is not really a matter of opinion. Sorry, but I didn't make up the 'NWN is their most successful game' mantra. That was BIO that did. I'd think they know what game of theirs is most successful.

Wrong. It's their best gam,e. And, their most successful to date. R00fles!

"Yes, they haven't been repeating, after KOTOR they've been getting progressively worse. Sorry, couldn't resist." Getting better. KOTOR is their worst game that I played. "The amnesia thing is also something" No amnesia in ME, or JE. Or any NWN games. Only BIO game to have any form of amnesia was KOTOR.

It means absolutely nothing.

"you've played lots of action games then I presume" Yes. Some good ones. Some bad ones. *shrug* Thankfully, JE isn't an action game. It's an Action RPG. "Out of NWN1, ToEE and PS:T only latter one had passable radial menus, basically because there was only one of them" NWN's radial menu was aweosme. As was PST's for the most part. TOEE's was subpar but that's mainly because if you click too many times it could eventually lead to the radial menu section youa r eopening to go right off the screen. "lol" L0L

Doesn't everybody?

"only thing JE had over e.g KotOR's combat was the inclusion of dodging. It's still the least involved of all combat systems in Aurora-based rpgs." JE combat > KOTOR combat. No contest. I found JE's combat fun, challenging (not hard), cool, and all around sueprior to KOTOR 9that's not ahrd to do, lol). It's also better than most action games. Then bagain, JE was no 'simple' action game. It's an Action RPG.

"a D&D crpg game EVER had a good trailer? Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment etc all had meh trailers too." All the IE games had great trailers. Toee had a great trailer. NWN1, and NWN2 both had great trailers. Hell, even POR2 had a solid trailer considering the game was complete crap.

TOEE had a great combat SYSTEM; but the combat itself was horrid.

FO3 had a better trailer, and I hate Betehsda. I am interested in SOZ; but this traier does nothing but some of stuff NWN2 fans already know about the graphics. Sure doesn't pump me up like I think it should... could be just me being mad that Obsidian are bigots, and won't add wild dwarves. BOOOOOOOOOOO!

"Bloodlines has crappy combat? Try saying that while playing NWN2, KOTOR2, Mass Effect or Jade Empire." BL is a cool game; but it has some of the worst and most boring combat ever. KOTOR series (both games as is BL) are super easy but they at least look much cooler. "DA will probably follow ME and Jade combat wise." Nope. 'Caused while both ahve stat based combat, player skill plays a huge aprt too hence why they are Action RPG. BL has a lot more in common combat wise to JE and ME thoguh its combat is 1 billion times worse. "Bloodlines has crappy combat? You have a gun, you aim and fire. You have a melee weapon, you slice and dice or blungeon them to death. What is so hard about that?" Nobody said BL combat was hard... well.. other than hades. They said it was crap, and they are right.

"But it doesn't explain at all why they have to look and smell like orcs." They smell like orcs? How do you know this? And, to me, they don't really all that orcish to me outside of being ugly. L0L "give me example of crappy uniquiness and why it is worse than crappy genericness" When did I say this? Crappy is crappy. 'Originality' is a near useless buzz word much like 'epic' is. R00fles!

I'm glad the game is 'generic'. As long as its good. The thing I hate the most is people actually celebrating crappy unique stuff. L0L P.S. They're not orcs. Not even close. Any similarities are superficial. I'm gonna call the spawn gnolls as they have lots in common with them.