Blarghagh

That sounds like an interesting experiment.

Absolutely none.

Didn't everyone refer to the Clairvoyant as he? I can't recall. Crack theory time - Fitz is the Clairvoyant.

Doomsday?

You should be able to download that version of StarCraft if you attach your old version of StarCraft to your Battle.net account via the CD Key.

It's not crap. It's decent enough, but not amazing. Honest Trailers explains it best. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzzLngXfCcI&list=PL86F4D497FD3CACCE&feature=c4-overview-vl

Oops Double Post, Sorry.

I'm still on Windows 7 so I haven't tried solving problems in 8, but I'm a bit confused when you say you can't get WarCraft 2 up and running because that game runs like a dream on Dosbox. Unless you have one of the later battle.net editions that use windows installers... StarCraft should also run fine unless you're using a cracked version. Blizzard released a slightly updated version that doesn't need CDs anymore about a year back as long as you've got it on your battle.net account. I guess that means I'm not moving to Windows 8, ever. I play a lot of old games and I don't meet a lot that manage to beat me. The only old game that beat me was an old game called "Tanktics", not the actual strategy game but the puzzle game where you had to build tanks to beat obstacles by stacking tank parts. Although Theme Park World gave me a run for my money, costing me three days to get to work and only two days to actually go through all the content the game had to offer. Interestingly, a newer game has had me stumped forever. I have never managed to get Arkham Asylum to work, not on my current computer and not on the one before that. : / Haha, I know it sounds wrong. I'd have written it off as a fluke if my girlfriend didn't have a laptop by the same brand that has some of the same problems. Good components, cheap, but haphazardly put together. I struggle to remember her exact hardware but I remember when looking for a laptop for her, other brands with the same capabilities cost about 400-500€ more. You get what you pay for even in Germany I guess. It's a Medion Erazer, the aforementioned laptop my girlfriend uses is a Medion Akoya. I don't know if it actually gets made in Germany, but the company does operate pretty much solely in Germany except that occassionally Aldi stores across Europe will sell their computers (I ordered it in, though).

How is that a blasphemy instead of basic common sense?

Did anyone else hear something? I think our board might be haunted. This quote seems almost like a multi-quote in some eldritch way.

Okay.

Bethesda isn't involved with Pillars of Eternity?

Where has that been confirmed in the game? I haven't read anywhere that if you take your time exploring the game world, undead will change from one type to another because you were too slow getting to them. And I very much doubt this would be the case. This was a response in a discussion about an idea posted by another member, not a response to the actual update or a developer. Hope that clears it up.

Oh, this kindof speaks for itself, but the "tips for modmaking" thread started by Sawyer on this board is a treasure trove of mod and game making information. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/8168-tips-for-modmaking/

Come on Monte, I've been waiting long enough!

It doesn't help that UDK is bugged up to the wazoo and unless you have a good programmer you're going to be hard pressed to get something that works out of it. At least when I tried it a few years ago.

But this is not a quest, this is world variables. It's literally telling the players that take their time, explore and immerse themselves in the world that they are doing something wrong. In a story based RPG, I doubt that's what you want. I'm fine with time sensitive quests (i.e. BG2 Underdark, the Drow would often tell you "you have two days" or something similar and that worked nicely) but time sensitive world that means I miss out of stuff if I don't rush through the world?

Why? I don't know. I'm just the messenger. I reported it without comment because I really don't know what to say about it.

I have a desktop replacement laptop and I've never really had any problems with it not being supported. I have to admit I don't know much about hardware. I've got a Nvidia Geforce GTX 570 M in it, I don't know how it compares to yours. On the other hand, I tend to have huge heat problems. I've been taught how to open it up, use compressed air to get rid of excess dust and apply new cooling paste and I have an external cooling stand but even then it becomes pretty hard to use during hot days. To be perfectly honest though, I think that's because the laptop was shoddily put together. It's got pretty good components, but the first time I opened it up one of the hard drives almost fell out because there was nothing holding it in place. It's what I get for buying cheap german computers. It's got 16 gigs RAM, a Core i7 2670QM, a 17'3" screen and a built in blu-ray player coupled with the aforementioned video card, and considering I bought it around two and half to three years ago for roughly €1250 so I don't feel like I got ripped off. If I bought it now I'd feel ripped off, but back then it was pretty high end for a low price. I could be wrong though, like I said my hardware knowledge is limited so who knows, maybe I got super ripped off.

Still doesn't solve the "if you're too slow, we'll punish you by giving you a bunch of boring skeletons instead of the cool undead types" problem.

*raises hand* I'm a halfway decent modeler and a good character animator. I've taken a lot of classes in writing and narrative design (and some acting as well) because as an animator I'm the one responsible for telling the story (except for the times I've worked on games, where you're only a walk-cycle machine).

Your conclusion seems accurate - I consider every representation of a person that has an effect of the narrative to be a character. What you define as a type, I define as a character fitting a type. I didn't say tragedies don't have character arcs, in fact, I mentioned the Tragic Fall character arc that most tragedic characters follow as an opposite arc of the hero's journey. I can't comment on Tropa de Elite because I haven't seen it, however the character arc you describe sounds like the shift arc where a character overcomes not outward forces and changes radically (Hero's Journey) but gains different perspective or role. Regarding Romeo and Juliet, I'd say the family change is outside of the main narrative because the story of the lovers has already concluded. You are right however, I forgot that in the end they change their minds, at a point where this no longer matters, so I will concede that I was wrong in claiming the families in Romeo and Juliet had no change (though I'd stretch to call it an arc). With our differing definitions out of the way it would we mostly agree. Adjusting into your terms my point would be "not every important person in a narrative has to be a character, it depends on their role in the narrative" and I think the same applies to writing in RPGs. Whether a "type", as you call it, is stale, is a subjective matter - I find types to be, in fact, remarkably useful for creating the illusion of a living world for a reader, viewer or player and as a way to bounce the characters that have arcs into differing perspectives and the inclusion of a lot of types will create a world much more realistic* than a lot of dynamic characters. *Based on Dunbar's Number. Whether you want to or not, there is a fixed number of people one person can know and the human mind will merge people based on similarities into a single "person" even when they are truly not. This is why stereotypes exist, and why types are useful in creating a realistic world because a real person is literally able to only see people as types.

Notch just confirmed that he's working with the producers of The Lego Movie on a potential film version of Minecraft.

You may say that your experience counts and I may say the same. I don't mean to insult you, but your claim of experience doesn't mean anything to me. I don't mean that as a slight, but I do not know you and you may be a professor of literature or some redneck in a your mom's basement. I simply do not know and therefore your claims do not matter, and when I say you are wrong it is because in my experience your claims or wrong, not because I am making a judgement of you personally. Your misunderstanding of what a Mary Sue is (a Mary Sue is an author insert that is built for the writer based character to overcome or be assaulted by their real life shortcomings, it has nothing to do with how perfect they are and some of the worst Mary Sue's I've read are completely full of flaws to beg for sympathy including, for example, any character of Stephen King that is a writer who deals with addiction) further makes me unsure of your experience because your display of knowledge thus far hasn't shown it. I don't mean to offend you, but I consider your claims to be wrong and I will speak at length in the defense of archetypes and against character arcs. I don't know where the idea came from that all characters require arcs came from but I've read it before and it is simply incorrect at worst and a gross oversimplification at best. I blame the popularisation of "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and its ridiculous notion of every story being "the Hero's Journey" via the explosive popularity of Star Wars for this misconception because the hero's journey is but one of three similarely clichéd characters arcs (The Hero's Journey, The Tragic Fall and The Shift Arc). I will repeat that the narrative overrides all. If characters do not require an arc for the narrative, the arc is going to be superfluous and unneccesary and very rarely will there be a good narrative with more than three characters with arcs (protagonist, deuteragonist and antagonist) and most good narratives will have at most one or two. If you want a literary example, I present T.S. Elliot's The Once And Future King, which on a whole has solely the arc of Arthur. Merlin, Galahad, Mordred and Morgause are all archetypes who do not exhibit character growth because it is the story of Arthur and only his arc is important, the other characters exist as static characters for Arthur to come into contact with for his own growth. Even Lancelot, on which the most lengthy part of the book focuses, begins and ends the same. The narrative demands only the arc of Arthur, and no others. At the same time, Merlin remains the bumbling yet wise wizard with his "living backwards in time" gimmick, yet he is by far the most interesting character in this novel without having an arc. I do agree that a good arc can make a character much more interesting, but it is simply put not neccesary and it is infeasible to add arcs to all characters, even those with major roles in the narrative, and doing so leads to disingenuous writing, loose plotting, superfluous sidetracking and bad characters. In Romeo and Juliet, the only arc that matters is that of the two lovers and it is, in fact, of paramount importance to the narrative that their family members remain static and unchanged - their characters and the narrative only work because they have no character arcs. If you want a more recent example, take Breaking Bad, a show that is lauded for it's great characters and the great arc of it's main character. This show is an great example of long form narrative, it has five seasons and consists out of many hours. This entire show, with dozens of characters, has arguably only four characters that have arcs, and I'd argue even less (Walter, Hank, Skyler and Jesse, though I would contend Jesse doesn't have one and the events of the show reveal his personality rather than changing it in a meaningful way). Everyone else responds to how these characters act based from their set, unchanging perspective - Saul remains the slimy but loyal businessman out for himself, Mike remains the consumate professional - they are one note characters, yet Saul and Mike are two of the most interesting characters on the show. What is important isn't their arc, their purpose is to facilitate and respond to the arcs of other characters. They do not require arcs because the narrative doesn't require it. This is not to say that I am against character arcs completely. Very few examples of fiction exist that work where no characters have character arcs (House is the only example I can think of from the top of my head). But the idea that all good characters require a character arc, require growth and change, is simply incorrect and I scratch my head as to how this has somehow become conventional wisdom. I hold on to my conclusion that a character arc is neccesary and beneficial only if the greater narrative demands it, otherwise it is at best unneccesary and at worst detrimental to the character and the story. EDIT: For grammar and spelling errors.

So you say, but you advocate Mary Sue writing with your claims and nothing else. As for literary quality, substitute House with "Holmes" and you have 100% the same argument in a literary sense. It's fine and well to dismiss claims by saying "I know more and your thing doesn't count", doesn't make you any less wrong. Go read a book about narrative.