Tigranes

No, it's nothing like that. See, in Deus Ex, the betrayal / revelation happens halfway through your game. You spend like, what, ten hours? Gradually figuring out what they're about and such. In Alpha Protocol, the particular spoiler you are referring to happens in the very first mission. It's like saying it's a spoiler to say you become a Grey Warden in Dragon Age, it's something that happens in the first few hours and sets up the story. Alpha Protocol isn't about the spoiler. Alpha Protocol is about what happens AFTER the spoiler. The point is you don't have anything to worry about here, you haven't been spoiled.

So what's the verdict here? For that matter, when do you plan on getting started, Blank? I imagine it might take a bit to get it ready.

Wait, there are no settlements? Man, all I remember from finishing FO3 is "wait, I can't get the bloody mutant/zombie to do it WTF". My bad - in that case I have no idea what the hundreds of endings was about. New preview sounds pretty positive, we already knew you can't really make a totally different Mike.

At least Iceland gave us Sigur Ros, what have you done for the world, eh?

If we had more info on skills, we'd pretty much have everything, it seems. Who knows about weapons and how many there are, though.

That's not part of the game plot, it's just something in the opening of the game / prologue that sets up the plot. So good news is you haven't really been spoiled anything, it's as much a spoiler as what you get in movie trailers.

The city screen shows a lot more clearly which tiles are actually allocated to your city, and which of these are actually being worked. My memory is fuzzy, but the right hand tab should show which of your tiles are being worked on. Your population (big number next to city name) is divided into a whole range of tasks: you should be reorganising these workers within the city to work on your most productive food tiles, and as many as you can, until you get out of starvation, and hopefully even a surplus. Then you can distribute the rest in commerce, production (increases building speed), research, etc. Can't remember cottage-specific info, sorry, but the water tiles are the same as above.

Alright Grom, I got what you're saying now. True, I think it's pretty damn trivial in FO3 / FNV though. In a first-person, relatively fast-paced shooter game you don't really need to know the gradations of damage reduction that are occuring with this particular enemy, which will most likely kill you or be killed within the next 20 seconds. It's not like a turn-based fantasy RPG where you have dozens of different elements to try out, enemies have buffs or 5000 health points.

You know what type of damage your weapon is doing, though. If you see a red shield you can assume that the weapon and/or ammo you are using now won't get past its DR. What exactly are you suggesting that is less 'obfuscating'? That the game should tell you how much damage is absorbed, and what type? Not that big a difference, and the FO3 GUI can't really handle detailed textual information, so we'd have something messy like separate icons for separate DR types.

Sounds good. If you keep this up for another few months it'll really get a solid grounding. One thing is the enthusiasm of your students may not last forever, so you might need to have that in the back fo your head.

So why not pick up the regular edition?

I'm not sure what your point is? The point here is that the number of 'endings' in the media these days can mean anything.

I only played FO3 once so I can't be sure, but you know, if you have 2 or 3 different endings for each major settlement (and there were, what, 7? more? in FO3), plus the final decision (2 choices, prior to Broken Steel?), then permutations should break a hundred easily?

It looks that way for some of the lines, but that would be limiting in that NPCs couldn't have one-line quips. I assume it's a bit more flexible than that, but generally not giving you much time after they're done.

Actually, I think that is the answer, unless Sega release some sort of Complete Collector's Edition.

I was thinking we really need a FAQ on this site, but maybe a sticky-link to the wiki would suffice. Ausir is amazing enough to do a good job by himself. ...you know, if you got the help of funcroc....

If real, awesome. If they mean combinations, poo. FO3 had "hundreds" of endings like Pete Hines originally claimed, if you take into account every single combination. i.e. in reality there were about 5 or 6. Maybe the success of that claim (which achieved remarkable longevity despite some fierce criticism) has made it the 'norm' now.

Sounds as reasonable as activations can get. -> 5 activations, you can get them back -> no limit on number of computers to install in -> you can deactivate anytime, even if your computer crashes, so you will never lose an activation -> later an official patch will get rid of this scheme to ensure longevity -> you can activate even if your game PC doesn't have internet access I mean, that covers pretty much everything. The only downside is minor annoyance.

Sounds like the scientists researching are much more faithful to science than you, though, because they're willing to put claims to test before they dismiss them? I mean, I thought that was the key difference between science and.. religion? (OK don't kill me ) Even if his central claim turns out to be a fib it might be worthwhile to see whats been going on in that man's body, regardless.

I tend to prefer 2nd edition but either is fine, whatever works.

No romances (ugh), first time I'll probably just play without a set plan in mind and see where the game takes me, let the dialogue system do its thing. In terms of combat, stealth.

I want to be the party rogue, but I'm not sure if I can handle all the rules - will have to look it up. Maybe a gruff dwarf rogue who uses his ugly looks and cantankerous demeanour to put people off guard, then stab / steal.

But you didn't have to talk to everyone. You only had to talk to all the named characters. Gothic never screwed you over by breaking that rule, all you had to do was find everyone with names and talk to them... anyway, yeah, I know what you mean. It won't be a big deal and it will probably help bring in a lot of new players.

I assume that we will simply post what we want to do and Blank will roll necessary dice. I guess combat could slow down quite a bit though if we do it per turn? I mean, if I win initiative I'd have to post first, etc?

Fantastic. I'll probably have to go dig up some info to refresh my memory so that I can actually build a character.