Calax

Yeah, they kinda drag to a point don't they?

http://kotaku.com/5498362/adult-rated-vide...d-for-australia POOF!

Wals, this is a bit random, but are you writing a story on our little microcosm? That said, I (in my current sleepless state) have in my head that humanity is getting more violent and a bit more extreme because we don't have a major "us or them" fight. Human history is fraught with wars and conflicts, and usually there is a significant war that is causes the worlds population to drop by a large %. Within the past two (three now?) generations we haven't seen a war on that scale that attracts those who are like this. Admittedly this is sort of a mixed blessing, as those sorts of soldiers will generally lead to atrocities, but at least it gets them out of the domestic side of things. And there's also the fact that there is a good chance that if a person like this gets drawn in, they'll find that they're killed pretty quick because they enjoy the kill to long. Also (at least in america) military enlistment is low, partly because of the... interesting requirements that are foisted on people. They won't take people below a certain level of intelligence, if you have basically any mental or physical disability they won't take you, obesity, homosexuality, tattoos, basically anything that they can find they will DQ you for. Previously the army had fairly lax standards for entrance (16 year olds joining up for example) and thus was able to attract a much larger demographic, but that's been removed. This removes a possible outlet for the people that Wals mentioned (as a criminal record ALSO DQ's you PDQ, seriously a guy I know was enlisted and got caught SHOPLIFTING and had to wait 2 years before his record was expunged), and seriously drops the enlistment numbers. Admittedly some would join simply for the hero worship that they get for having anything remotely close to military service. Anyway, in order to get an ideal correction system, you'd have to do almost a paradigm shift on the system so that rather than be pushed in with the harder criminals you put the softer ones (thieves, druggies) in with somebody who can help em. Oner mentioned the fact that the prison system is "shark and fish", which promotes darwinism to a surprising extent. If you don't scare you'll end up as somebodies toy, or end up bribing them for protection etc. To put somebody who's quite malleable into this system and expect them to come out any semblance of "normal" is to trick yourself. And the mental institutions are even worse. The Docs there are so scared of releasing somebody who has a psychotic break that they won't release anyone who's not a complete vegetable. People can stay for YEARS beyond a prison sentence simply because of a doctor fearing what's going to happen and trying to cover his/her ass.

I don't like that at all. If it is the director of 13 then when yo play the remake of 7 you will only control Cloud and everyone else will have to fulfill MMO roles That is the problem with remaking older games, people want to be creative and they are going to screw with what made the games popular in the first place. Leave classic games where they are....except FF4....i keep pumping out money for every incarnation of that game. I donno, they probably wouldn't mess with it to much otherwise they'd get a REALLY bad fan backlash.

Back before Muslims got involved, 'terrorist' meant somebody who sows fear & panic and targets civilians to further a political/ideological agenda. So yeah, he's definitely a terrorist. *takes a LOOONG look at the church of scientology* so... why aren't they on a terrorist watch list? That said, what Krez and Deadly say is perfectly true, by the definition he's a terrorist.

Every so often, mainly when somebody I know is playing (and most of my friends now play the second because one had to reformat his comp and lost the first). Which is unfortunate, because I ended up preferring the first game to the sequel. Something about L4D2 just didn't grab me the same way. I've got about 50 hours in that compared to nearly 300 or so for the original and I really have no desire to go back and start it up myself. I'd join someone if they invited me, but I haven't played any pub games of L4D2 and have no desire to waste time going for the achievements. I think it's mostly because you don't have nearly as many cute little discussions like "Look bill, your favorite! STAIRS!" and zoeys zombie bull**** remark.

I watched that video, that was hideous, I'm wondering how that THING made it into production given that any black guy who watches that would probably laugh his ass off and then turn around and sue for racism.

SA (South Australia). Generally very arid landscape. Most of the state is desert. Some farming along the coast line and up the River Murray. Lots of bitching going on between the states about water allocation. Water restrictions are in place for households. So basically Southern California?

The thing is - to me at least - there's no difference in an internal force (being born better) or an external force (an anointing) in terms of whether the story falls under a chosen one criteria. Yes, to look at Cloud any of the SeeD candidates could have been used by Sephiroth like Cloud was - but the point of the story is he does it to Cloud. Without that Cloud has no way to follow what Sephiroth is trying to do. The same could be argued about Mass Effect - it could have easily been Kaiden or Ashley (or looking broader some other person from the shortlist of human SPECTRE candidates) who could have been brain blasted by the Eden Prime beacon. But it was Shepard who was. In both cases choices outside the direct influence of the protagonist end up with them being the one person uniquely positioned to defeat the villains. In the case of Tidus, its Tidus' dad who went on the last Pilgramage. I don't remember it being coincidence that he came out of the (fayehd?) to be involved in the events, but actually directly tied to his dad's actions. Note I say this as someone who wouldn't still be playing video games if it weren't for the Final Fantasy series and I mean no disrespect to those games which I've spent many hours on. I admit that Shep was reaching for me. Also you mixed up Seed and SOLDIER. Anyway, Yes things were connected, but looking at VIII Everything kinda spirals out of the fact that you were chosen to assassinate a leader, and from that point on things get loopy to the point where a fan explanation is better than just taking it straight (the explanation of the rest of the game being Squall examining his life and the ending being hte last gasps of his mind before brain death). In VII you are a chosen one, in X I still argue that it's not so much a chosen one thing as the fact that Jecht accidentally fell through the world and ended up causing Tidus to be dragged kicking and screaming from the dream. IIRC the reason Tidus was yanked was because of Auron, although I'm not sure. I suppose we see the "chosen one" differently; I think there are circumstances that follow incidental involvement (FFIX comes to mind as Zidane gets involved totally due to circumstance) and those where - to my mind at least - events outside the control of the hero force their involvement . I never finished the 1st Drakensang but my experience with that is the protagonist gets involved in the main plot coincidentally (having gotten a letter from an old friend), but in FFVII I really think Sephiroth's choice of Cloud as an experiment subject puts Cloud on a path he has to follow just as much as if he'd been born with a specific destiny. Certainly the Breath of Fire series (you're the only dragon!) fall more into the "born different" category of chosen one (more akin to NWN2 or BG series) than the FF series as Orogun01 suggests, but I don't think that's the only form of "chosen one" story. Of course we may just end up disagreeing ultimately. Moving away a bit from this debate as someone who loved most of the FF series but has found himself slowly moved away from it (never played FFXII), is FFXIII worth returning to the series for? Was XII worth playing? I haven't really played many JRPG's other than FF (well, Suikoden V) so I can't really discuss that. Also, Sephiroth wasn't the one who chose Cloud to be the experimental subject, that was (I think) Hojo as Sephiroth was the one to impale Cloud causing him to be ripe for modification (as, for all intents and purposes, he was dead). As to 13 vs previous, It certainly is a departure from the standards of the series. It plays more like one REALLY long dungeon than an open world game. It feels odd given you don't really see many signs of civilization beyond flashbacks where all the characters were living happily, and the first couple of areas. Once you get the ability to use magic (and have the combat system actually be more than "auto attack!") you don't really meet anything remotely close to a town (at least I haven't, but I'm not as far as some others on the board I'd bet).

You argue a difference in motivation not on their character; both genres follow the Chosen One motif. Although FF is one of the franchises where it least explicit since it usually focuses on a motley crew of unique characters fighting some greater evil and an effeminate villain, and that's the plot of every game on the series I would argue that the Chosen One is more present on JRPGs: Breath of Fire series Star Ocean series The legend of Gaia and the rest of games vaguely related to it These are just a few. In all these games the main character has the same trait: a hidden power that comes to shine later on the game and makes him vital to defeat the evil terrorizing the land. Whether his motives are internal or external does not change this fact. I'm not necessairly arguing motivation. I'm more arguing the fact that in the JRPG's that I've played the characters appear to be more of a victim of circumstance than a chosen one who has some sort of special power that makes them do the primary quest. No "the last of their kind", no "object of power embedded in their chest". And your plot synopsis of FF is utterly useless given that in X the villain was the cloverfield monster, in XII it's a faceless empire, in VII I'd hardly consider Sephiroth to be effeminate. Same with Kefka from VI, and the villain in VIII was a woman...

Every so often, mainly when somebody I know is playing (and most of my friends now play the second because one had to reformat his comp and lost the first). The way that Steam works is you get an account that your game is tagged to, that account can only be online in one location at a time. But if you have to reformat your comp you'll end up being able to re-download the Steam program and then use that to download and install any game thats tagged to your account with two button clicks. You can also play in offline mode, but you need to be online once to activate it etc. It's actually a pretty nice form of DRM in that you get a benefit from it. Of course the problem is what happens if Valve+steam go under, but with the amount of business going on on that program, I doubt that'll happen.

http://kotaku.com/5497116/ffxiii-director-...nal-fantasy-vii SQUEEEEEEE!

FF8 had level scaling (which led to some pretty funny stories about a guy grinding up to lvl 99 at the very first dungeon), but it still provided a challenge to the player. The problem is when the targets level is set and the mobs are four levels lower than the boss then you get a problem where you can sweep the mobs aside and get blown up by the boss to the point where you have to grind yourself retarded (to steal from Yahtzee) just to compete. Usually I find one or two of these bosses in most games that I play (the first boss in Lost Oddessy, I think I hit this with the first Ultimate Weapon fight in FFVII) because I have a tendancy to just BUM RUSH the main story much faster than most people and probably faster than the devs expect.

Amentep, the thing is, in most of those it wasn't an (as you put it) internal force. The external force you cite could have picked any bum in the street to do the job, while the Western games are with one or two exceptions, the exact opposite in that it's always some sort of force out of their control completely that compels them to go on the quest, or singles them out so that if they didn't go on the quest they'd live a life of simply fending off the bad guys. And I'd personally argue that pardoning the background connection, the overall saving the world arc could have been done by any SeeD candidate, same with X. Sure the main character is basically a ghost but that doesn't mean that those events were only possible specifically BECAUSE he was a ghost (I think, haven't played the game for a long time).

Just finished Project Origin and it's expansion again... And I reiterate my previous statements (from a year ago) Origin is a passable shooter, the horror is gone. Reborn? HOLY CHRIST LITTLE GIRL IN RED DRESS JUST CHUCKED A CAR AT ME! Part of me hopes that Monolith recognized the misstep and (assuming they make another game) comes back with a more fearful series of events. Of course Monolith seems to have a wacky job with Sequels (Condemned 2 also kinda went bonkers).

I'm with hurl. Having a boss be at a level that requires the player to run around for 2 hrs earning money is an idiotic idea at it's base. There is no real reason to force your player to get that frustrated (admittedly it does provide extra time the guy will be playing your game) just to progress through your story.

City of Heroes came first. Eldar would back me up if he was here.

"God dammit Deraldin! Stop shooting me in the back! I've taken more damage from you than I have from the zombies!" "Hey you jerk! Stop hogging all the pills!" "Oh no, don't mind me, I'm just being torn to shreds by a frakking Hunter over here! No rush or anything!" Guys, let's play L4D. I'll play Derladin. actually, usually der and our little crew does REALLY well... except for when I accidentally headshot somebody with a hunting rifle.

Really? The protagonists in VII, VIII, X, and XIII aren't exactly the "chosen one" or have "a special destiny" that ONLY THEY can pull off. In VII Cloud has the backstory connection to the antagonist, but that doesn't mean that he is the only one who can possibly beat the creatures coming at him and his party. In VIII you're kind of a victim of happenstance, in X any summoner could have done what the main protagonists did, and in XIII the characters are hardly unique in their abilities. Unlike, say, Baldurs Gate II where you're the son of bhaal, or Planetscape where you're an immortal and the only one of your kind, JE where you're the last of the only crew that can restore the world, ME where you're the first and only guy to even see the threat coming and only because you're the one who got really odd visions in his head... Are they special in terms of what ends up happening and the consequences? Yes, but in JRPGs you usually aren't that special at the beginning of your game (where most western RPG's have your character somehow having that unique thing that makes them different).

Ok, in your mind take a standard hose, now add some small hose branches off of it that have small holes that'll let water at at a very low pressure (at a drip). That's it, easily adjustable and low water usage. My mom (horticulture department head at a community college) loves em because they water her plants without losing much of the water to the wind and can go long distances. Our potted plants still need to be watered manually but the ones that are in the ground are either watered by a dripline or specifically chosen because they like the climate we're in. Our lines in the back yard are on a water timer that's attached to our faucet (usually the faucets have splitters on em too).

No, because this is an extension of an existing mechanism. Add a few terms and shazaam. And frankly nuts to your point about hypothetical newbies. I contend there are constantly new people here, and if there aren't then Obs may as well pack the whole thing in. We fail. Problem is when things like CoH require context to understand them, in context it could mean City of Heroes, Company of Heroes, Champion of Hargoth...

realistically we're fooling ourselves if we think we can rehabilitate anyone with our current system. If anything, "correction facilities" are where you go to learn how to do things like kill, steal, rape, pilliage etc and get caught less. Mainly because while there is programs to teach you stuff but they don't push the inmates to enter them, and the prison culture is one where you HAVE to fight like a rabid dog just to stay alive and in control of yourself.

Multiplayer is really what makes the game. They designed the multiplayer so that the AI director could dog you from start to finish and slightly change how the map was played, but more often than not it was the people you played with who caused the most changes.

same here And here... You people are sick! Had a gardener come and look at my place, preparing a quote for giving it a make over and replant dead trees etc. Stupid shrubbery keeps dying on me because I don't have time for it Driplines and faucet timers are your bestest friends

R.I.P. Phil Harris, Captain of the Cornealia Marie from the TV show Deadliest Catch.