Orchomene

Playing Avadon : TBF. It seems good for the moment, but I'm just at the beginning.

Perhaps, but the task of a censorship committee is not to challenge the social norms, but to protect them and respond to them. It is essentially a tool of the norm itself to regulate the media industry so that its commercial logic does not violate the said norms excessively. In that respect it makes perfect sense to smack down on prostitution as quest reward and not so much, say, Assassin's Creed or even Hitman. If we're talking about it more generally, of course we have this huge mess with sexuality. But at the same time, I'm deeply suspicious of gamers that use that as an argument to say we should get boobs and sex and brothels in our games. Even less than other stories or issues that games deal with or reflect, their depiction of sex and sexuality has been generally terrible. As it stands this is the last place that we are going to see a healthier and more open representation of sex and sexuality - the truth is that most of the 'maturity' in TW1 or elsewhere is decadent, carnally indulgent and shameless marketing tricks. Sex sells, but it seems silly for the customer to defend it by arguing that the society's prudishness is flawed. (That is sort of a strawman because I don't think anyone's arguing that in this thread - it's more of a general thing, e.g. on people that want to kill children in the FO3/NV. At least the earlier ones had a child killer reputation thing.) Well, of course I wasn't challenging censorship commities who just apply the law, more the politicians that vote the law. We want to protect our children from something that is natural and even more than natural, that is a necessity for our species. Like eating, drinking and sleeping. We shouldn't forget that for the major part of our history, children were confronted to sexual relationships of their parents because of the lack of space in houses (just a single big room). Yet, there was no special sexual deviations that kept being mentioned in texts. On the other hand, sadism and other perverted sexual forms are rather recent (XVIIIth century and after) and arose mostly in prude socienties. It's the same thing with sex in video games (not that I'm interested specially in this since it's not something that is well abstracted in any media because it's based on sensations and emotions and very few on intellect, but it's another subject) : the more this is hidden, the more it's absurdly caricatural when seen. About children and sex : I'm not the only one that had sexual relationship when still not being an adult. It wasn't even rare when I was around 15 or 16. I've heard that now it may even seen before, like at 13 or 14, but I doubt it's may be that often. Of course, I don't talk about relationship between an adult and a child. It's thus highly hypocritical to forbid any metion or image of it for children. Also, last point : rape is more an act of violence than a sexual act. It's psychologically a way to physically constrain someone. It may not be physically harmful (yet, in most of the cases, it is on the related body parts of the victim), it is highly psychologically hurting. The way I wanted to present the comparison between sex and killing is that sex is generally between consenting persons whereas it's rare when this is the case with murder. Of course, it's not always the case for both, Prostitution, on the other hand is a complex issue where the limit between commerce and abuse is not sufficiently defined to consider it a legitim job. Yet, in some countries, prositution is authorised and controled to avoid abuse, but it's very rare. P.S. Sorry for the digressions, I won't go further with the subject. Else, the topic would slip to much out of the subject.

And in games where you play an assassin ? Sex doesn't harm anyone if it doesn't have a violence component. On the other hand, killing people, even in socially accepted circumstances (war) is harmful by essence. Of course there is a difference in both your situation : the marine is essentially making a lot of people suffer, even if it's in a legal way and the man that sleeps with a prostitute doesn't. The same is true with drugs, of course. It remains a misplaced orientation of our societies to be so prudish.

what None of this is right, but I can't be bothered explaining why because something tells me it'll be a waste of time. So, if this isn't right, that means that FPS are forbidden in Australia : All FPS depict murder as being positive.

I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children whereas violence is not. I think this is a misplaced social priority and a sign of social nevrosis. So, in Australia you can't depict prostitution and drug usage having a positive aspect but you can of course depict murdering as a positive aspect. Where is the logic in this ?

I'm trying Torchlight. It's fun but remains a diablo clone like one can find by dozens. But it was cheap on gamersgate last week (or the week before, don't remember).

I find Win 7 to be a good OS for a MS one and you should use it the moment you reach around 4 GB of RAM : with 4 GB you need a 64 bits OS to run it properly and Win 7 is the only good MS OS for that. Generally, I upgrade my OS once every two releases of MS OS : 98, XP and now 7. 2000 and Vista were dump and I use to say that Win 7 is what would have been if MS dedicated two more years to the development of it. With respect to playing old games, most has been said already. Many games will directly work (2005+) and some will need adjustments. Some won't play at all, sadly.

I've just ended a play through Divine Divinity. I also played a bit of 1257 mod for M&B Warband. Now I'm hesitating between SM's Pirates, Risen and Etherlords 2.

In Planescape Torment, you begin as an immortal which is not your classic character. In Ascension to the throne, you are an overthrown king that will fight to regain his throne. In KB Armored Princess, you are a princess. There are some examples, yet it remains pretty rare.

I don't know if it's already written here, but DS3 is on preorder at GG with 10% reduction : http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DS3/dungeon-siege-3

Trying to be good at Fate of the World. Not that easy for a strategy game, it seems there are lots of parameters to manage.

About the fast forward button idea, it's not not what I find the most problematic about writers that are not into RPGs yet write for CRPGs. The main issue for me is not that games don't have anymore interesting gameplay when compared with some ten year old crpgs, some recent games have more intuitive controls and some gameplay ideas that really helpful to enjoy the games, but... But the main issue is in the writing of many recent games where you don't see anymore the goal to write a rpg story and not a book/movie story. You can call it non linearity but it encompasses different things, non linearity may be more linked to "sandbox" games. You can also call it choice & consequences, but c&c is generally more a local concept. I don't have a proper word for it in mind, but it's the strength of many Obsid crpgs and the good crpgs we like : the way a crpg writer is a rpg writer in goal that wants to give the player more freedom in the way the story is built. Recent games may have strong stories and good moments, good plots or interesting dialogues, but for me, it's not my story, it's their story. What I want to see is a crpg where the writer restrains him/herself from railroading the player into too many story "key-points". I think only a good DM or rpg scenario writer knows well that the story is not built before the game is played but during the gameplay and partly by the DM and partly by the players. Of course, it's very difficult for crpgs where the writing is set in stone when the game is delivered. Yet, some writers like MCA have strong RPG writing experience and know that it's the goal. That's why I like AP besides the gameplay that I didn't like at all. The problem is trully that without combat, many recent crpgs would feel like movies more that "choose your own adventure" games. And to be honest, the writing in video games is closer to LotR than to Dune : bland, epic and without much interest by itself. What most of us enjoy in crpgs is a mix between a sandbox game and a story/character driven game : a game that delivers a compelling story and interesting characters but that is not entirelly set in stone from begining to end.

About Gothic 2, I found the following guide to be quite helpful in the beginning. No spoiler, just tweakings and strategies : http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/561413-gothic-ii/faqs/27856 In M&B : Warbands, there is an issue with the beginning army orders during a battle : all the troups are in charge mode. There are shortcuts using F keys (like F8 and F4, don't remember which combination) that allows you to put all your troops into wait mode very quickly so that you give proper orders to each group. I used to begin every battle by that combination that would allow my hero to be in front of the battle to do the first charge.

After a bit less than 10 hours in, I just want to say that the friendship/rivalry system is as bad as I imagined it was : just a bit more better than in DAO, but not enough. It's not that hard to have two scales : - positive/negative opinion - respect/disrespect or confidence/no confidence or interest/no interest I've never seen any friendship that has been built with a complete adhesion of the other ones thoughts. On the other end, I can't see a rivalry relation based on complete disagreements. It's too caricatural. But with the relation mechanism in DA2, you can't see a real friendship being built like that : if you have a complex relation based on part of agreements and part of disagreements, that's the same thing as if you just are complete strangers.

I've not bought the game but tried it during the week end on a friends computer. I have just some first impressions of the ten (at most, I didn't count) first hours. 1. I don't understand all the 'dumbed down' cries I've heard. I am still thinking that ME2 is too far from being a RPG and is dumbed down from ME1, but I don't see the same issue with DA2. Sure, there is no more skills, but skills were not a major point of DAO. Talents and attributes importance is the same as in DAO. For me, DA2 is a 'true' (if it has a sense) sequel of DAO. 2. Dialogues seem to be a bit better than DAO ones and a lot better than ME ones. I think the lack of good/bad tropism (paragon/renegade or light/dark and so on) allows us to see dialogues where the choices given avoid being either some naive optimist or some cynic jerk. What your character thinks remains at an unseen level and your choice is more on the attitude you have during a discussion. But I've only seen the french version. Also, with the french vo, I don't have the issues some may have with strange accents of protagonists or linked to racial aspects (like elves having a welsh accent or something like that). 3. Combat mechanism is not my big interest in a game, thus having quick and easy battles is not an issue for me. More than that, I can still pause and give order without issue. 4. The camera is not very flexible but I can get used to it. Of course, I'd rather have a highest zoom available, but that's not a big problem. 5. For the plot, I can't say, I've not seen a lot. At least, if the story doesn't revolve around the hero saving the world, it would be a plus. 6. Main quests, side quests are not spectacular nor too unoriginal. There is some diversity and perhaps some choices and consequences, but I'm not really sure (not seen enough of the game). In the end, I think I'll buy the game after a 50% price drop and enjoy it. It doesn't seem to be a game the will revolution the game industry, but seems to be an enjoyable game nonetheless.

Playing Might and Magic 7 after the sixth. I have fun playing those old games.

Never played any half life game too.

In Gothic 2, mercenaries are weapon oriented, paladins are hybrid weapon/magic (more weapon than magic, though) and mages are magic oriented.

None ? There is somewhat a hidden thief guild with some quests. Maybe the mercenaries would fit better with the 'outlaw' concept, but only mages tend to specialise in distance fighting even if it's possible with the other kind of characters. I'm currently replaying M&M 6.

I add my voice about not having the mechanics details somewhere else than in some forum or in a wikia. It's not that hard to put a table inside a pdf file.

Without going with the writing comparisons between past SW games, I don't see many BW games that have consistent good dialogues. In many games, there are good moments or good protagonists, but also a lot of mediocre and uninspired dialogues. Too many short and shock sentences as in action movies (like Schwarzy's) to my taste. Of course, Kotor 2 is vastly superior to ME2, but it's just a subjective point of view.

For french accents, if I use a qwerty keyboard, I do it by setting a key as a compose key. I will also try the demo since I can't decide at the moment if I will buy the game few days after launch or when it will be much cheaper.

BG II itself is overrated. Last time I played it, I couldn't finish it. On the other hand, I am doing my about tenth playthrough of Torment and find as much fun as the five first one.

You can read the skill books directly. No special advantage to wait. You can choose whatever skill seems to be interesting : you will have access later (but not before a third or half of the game) to a NPC that can allow you to respec at a cost (that increases at each use). Melee is possible in the begining of DKS, but you need to upgrade your weapons quickly and check frequently weapon sellers (restock at each level you go up, I think) to find good weapons with +X damage or magical damage). About mindread skill I chose to skip it in the begining completly and then put all the point I could in the end of ED : at that point, you will have a lot of skill points and XP penalties will become expensive compared to the XP earned by monster. Of course, I've never bothered with wisdom skill. For a melee character I would say to go for dual weapon or two hand weapon fighting depending of what you prefer and develop the associated skill to the max you have access each level. Then, have at least the first level of rush attack and use it extensively for mage and archer enemies, skipping all melee enemies at the begining of fights. Your essential attribute is strength of course, but intelligence helps for magical damages of your weapons. As skills, I used mostly rush attack (min), whirlwind (min) for the chests and some moments during fights, bleed (max), regeneration (max), way of the battle mage (max) (for magical damage enhancement), lockpick (but I regret having taken it since rewards were mediocre), mana drain (first level), health drain (max). After that, you can mix mage/rogue skills.

Depends on teh culture. I was todl by a couple of people that it's a big deal in France. Really ? Even being french, I've never heard that blowjob is a big deal here.