Tigranes

Man, you people talk way too much. LOF, coming back to your point about DPRK being ahead of ROK till the late 1960s, drudging through my memory again, I can probably agree with you on that - the state of the infrastructure and industrial systems in both countries had been royally screwed up by the Japanese occupation, and it may be that the communist state was initially more successful at getting things running and getting things going. (Ironically, that's one of the reasons quite a few South Koreans view the military dictatorships up to 1987 to be a 'necessary evil' - it got the highways down, factories open and the money flowing.) And while the DPRK did receive a massive amount of Chinese / Soviet aid, ROK got quite a bit from the US as well. I think the main factor is that having been modelled quite closely on the USSR, the DPRK economy was never likely to keep up with the ROK, unless the domino effect came about and a much larger communist bloc was established (for trade / etc purposes). Kinda talking out of my ass here though, because it's been a while.

Interesting, first I hear of this. Evidence? I think the difficulty we have in getting clear, well-substantiated estimates about the quality of life in North Korea is a serious problem, especially in any discussions about reunification or collapse of DPRK - the best we have are the testimonies of asylum seekers (which are likely to exaggerate the terrible q.o.l, naturally) or clandestine photographs from Western visitors, which show, for example, swathes of disorderly straw/wood shacks that cover the ground between modern skyscrapers that line publicity photos (kind of like a badly designed Sim City).

Never got to try HoI or Victoria, always been an EU man.. should get into this maybe. I've only heard good things about Vicky. Kind of surprised Paradox are doing this though, are those games so commercially successful they can justify this? Especially the third one - seems kind of weak.

Torment, because MCA will destroy us all if it doesn't get a mention on the first page. Screw debates about what qualities a game is supposed to have, Torment was definitely a game and it was definitely amazing.

What we need is a rock band RPG, in the vein of Beck. Do quests for corporate magnets, underground DJs and label scouts! Earn money to upgrade your equipment, or seize the chance to get hold of unique custom instruments from famous rockers! Assemble your own band from many NPCs with different skills and personalities, and manage the party as it goes from your mom's garage to the world stage! Featuring a reactive world where citizens and key NPCs respond to your rising fame, you'll have to sneak around to catch paparazzis, avoid groupies, and of course save the world.

I say it is. Of course the concern is will majority of players then never see the other 50%, but perhaps it should be so that most players will, say, complete 60-70%; those who look for shortcuts or play deliberately in a minimal manner can go as low as 50%, etc. I don't know why we're talkingi n terms of %, but doesn't the actual game have a % marker for dossier info? I imagine it may be impossible to get that up to 100 as well.

Yep, that's the real answer for the 'spy chick'.

It's interesting, actually. I'd hope and expect it to be something fairly low, less than 50% (I mean, you can not meet Sie, etc...) Wonder how receptive to speedruns AP would be, too.

We will have to ban him for being an adbot, but yes, that does look amazing. I do wish the strategic interface was better and prettier, though - just because it looks like it'll tire me out quite quick, and it'll be hard for me to feel like something is actually happening. It just looks quite flat, opaque and messy at the moment. It *is* indie, and I can imagine it'd be a monstrous task to think of a cheap, clean interface for something like this, though. So do I have it aright in that you don't really have a 'campaign' of sorts, just a series of campaigns or battles?

There is certainly a difficulty option completely separate from Recruit / Veteran. Not much more is known, though. Usually they cop out by adding HP to enemies, increasing their damage and/or decreasing yours, but I wouldn't mind some of that for AP, based on the videos. The enemies seemed to die pretty fast, and while that *does* make sense when you're shooting people with a shotgun, I've been in the fantasy comfort zone for so long I can deal with the break in realism for some more 'gruelling' encounters. You'd hope that they'd work on things like AI awareness thresholds, level and range of 'shouts' for help, the speed at which they respond and track you down, and their use of special items such as grenades, though.

Okay, let me spell it out: 1/ In Black and White, Black and White 2, Fable, etc., Peter Molyneux has repeatedly talked about how amazing his games are going to be and how they are going to do such and such things. While his insistence that his games are groundbreaking joymakers are simply more annoying than fallacious, he has consistently failed to deliver on his promises, a fact that he admits himself. So when he's talking about his new game (yeah, the one where you can mash one button to win battles and he advertises this as a new feature) in exactly the same way he's talked about his older games, you'd have to be logically bankrupt to be unable to draw the conclusion. 2/ Please go look at VD's play-throughs and extensive C&C examples; the sample rate is high (more examples than those given in the entire hype-run of, say, Oblivion), some examples allowed the readers to pick options, so that VD can't just pick the most consequenc-y outcomes, and they were detailed. Thus there is a lot more substance. I would also note that the comment about unlimited resources really has absolutely nothing to do with discussion, because it's not a lack of resources that stops Molyneux from doing what he wants, its poor conceptualisation and poor management - something which he's pretty much admitted himself over the years. That good C&C is 'hard', again, doesn't change anything, either. I am glad we have worked this out. In general - I don't see where the problem is, to be honest. VD is an outspoken and harsh indie dev that has a very specific vision of what an RPG should be, and is trying very hard to make it. He may succeed or he may not, but he is open about the process and is willing to honestly argue any part of the process, and he is showing as much pre-release 'evidence' as is realistically possible. To me if someone has a specific vision, provides a fair amount of things that indicate progress towards that vision, and speaks frankly about the process, that's enough to be excited about the project. The rest, about whether VD is 'Codexian', whether 'expectations differ' between VD and mainstream devs (well, duh) or the fact that previews can never guarantee a great end product (again, duh) are... well, quite irrelevant. There's a lot of fluff there.

My epic BG-TOTSC-BG2-TOB saga seems to have come to an end - a bug with Balthazar battle due to the mods where the conversation keeps looping. No matter, there was only Melissan left. I haven't played a lot of games in the last 6 months, I suspect it'll remain the case until Alpha Protocol if ETW doesn't fix itself.

This would be totally, totally awesome. For realz and all.

We have hype from a proven liar, and hype from an unproven person with a lot more substance to back up that hype than the former. You're going to treat both in exactly the same way? I'm not sure why you would do that. Maybe if people stopped taking things so personally or in such discourses of conflict and one-upmanship, public figures could voice their honest opinions on the media more often and not have to take pot shots for it. This is why vidgame devs never say anything substantial about other vidgames, why many celebrities refrain from talking politics, etc. Not to mention that he has never actually claimed AOD to be 'better'. It's just what he wants RPGs to be. Judging by his own yardstick, of course other games will come short, because they were not made to his yardstick. As long as he's not saying his yardstick should become a universal qualifier (which he isn't), I maintain that there's nothing in his statements that warrants your reaction.

Perhaps you can change the tone during the game as well, so that can roleplay a mixed-blood spy insecure about his racial background and appearances.

Neither yellow nor black are offensive words in mature company. And if they were, the fact that I am Asian wouldn't change it. This thread makes me curious about what kind of background, if any, Mike will get - i.e. rich family, poor family, parents with spy connections, whatever.

Ditto to Pidesco. The loudmouth syndrome may apply to technical bugs (hard to say from my pov), but the gameplay failures were apparent and true from the very beginning.

I'm fantastic at losing original boxes and even original CDs if I don't play for a while - I'm taking good care of my signed SOZ though. Right now I've only got that, ETW CE and Okami lying around - the rest just CDs in spindles.

I resent your implicit use of a white-black dichotomy, lord of flies. It's exactly that kind of inside-the-box thinking that reinforces negative race-relations. When you've just got a white male you can justify it by saying you can only have one character, but what happens when we have a black protagonist, huh? Where's the yellow? Or those weird ones like Greeks? Really disappointed.

It's like product placement, only with ANGAH Point not found...

No, a lot more, and lot more comprehensively. Besides which, lots of people *did* cut Beth a lot of slack on the Megaton hype and the Dog on Fire hype (Oblivion) because what they saw was promising. Those who didn't would probably have, if it weren't for Bethesda's track record of Molyneuxian hype. So... you have no point, here, at all. He has a very clear and narrow view of what a true RPG is. Consequently, many other games are not very good RPGs by his standards. Naturally, since he is making a game, he's going to try and make what he thinks is a true RPG. He does say things in terms that are easily understood as arrogant or narrow-minded, but at the core he has a very clear vision - can't say that's a bad thing for AoD. Because people here are worshipping AOD's greatness, right? Doesn't even happen at the Codex, which some people seem to think have gone head over heels for VD's dashing charm. There's not much here...

So it's playable now? I really need to know so I can finally suck some value of that one.

When you spend ten years talking bull**** about several games, you get what you deserve.

Me not expecting much doesn't mean I'm giving them a 'free pass', though. Is there some level of expectation we're meant to have for all commercial projects, or for indie projects, that I am 'cutting a break' from? Hrm.....

I never tried it, but it can't beat the real MTG.