Tigranes

I could bet my virginity on it.

Hrm. I think I played KOTOR quite a bit after it came out, I guess. There was a massive furore with NWN1 OC though, which is to be expected with such a massive project. Personally, I was just sad at how crap it was, but there you go. Point being that I think it's very probable Dragon Age will be relatively stable.

HK doesn't seem to be addressing posters in this thread or the arguments in this thread, which is why I'm a bit peevish. In general, who's arguing against new or different interpretations? Or Disney? Yes, I agree...? One day I want to see you as a mod somewhere, just so you can close with this.

So if it's not real, it's not important? Boy, sounds like a line from a lumberjack in the German wilderness in the 700's. That just weighs down the debate with a language of condescension that comes from an essentially flawed position (though whether intentionally or not, I won't presume). I think Kaftan's core point still stands strongly, i.e. too often there is no need to violate the content and spirit of the original work, but it happens anyway, and it doesn't do any good. Certainly, when the myths, or stories of different cultures, etc, are watered down by the guiding conventions and philosophies of the day, it does not good for our range of thoughts and experiences.

I never understood all the rave about GTA, and only saw little bits and pieces, but I was always assured that San Andreas, for instance, had good missions apart from the pizza-delivering, taxi-driving crap (which was, oddly, all I ever saw). I did think the voice acting was very good. People like Fable, so I guess anything is possible. I found a mod I liked for Medieval: Total War 2 but it keeps crashing, so channeling all that into working on the Toolset. Trying some NWN2 mods including Harp & Chrysanthemum (lovely), Asphyxia (pretty areas, not much else yet), Dark Waters (since when did Adam Miller start doing rubbish Harry Potter crap?), Tale of a City and a couple others. Throughout NWN1 and 2 I've never found a really exquisite module, though, and so many, even "hall of fame" ones, lack polish and professionalism (i.e. random in-jokes for quest names and no periods after sentences). Area design is good and they do some crazy stuff with scripts, though.

Until the US is no longer in a position where it is a sole power, or able to give hand-outs, or is overwhelmingly superior militarily, etc.

That's fair enough, and it is a lot more enjoyable when MGS makes fun. I just felt that if you jsut sit down and play it, then most of your playing experience is that 'straight ball', and I couldn't stomach it. Got to say I never managed to get close to finishing a single MGS though, so perhaps my experience is skewed? Actually, that's a part of Solid Snake's overflowing indulgent cool. Except I didn't really find it very cool.

They were being butchered and called 'unsuitable for society' as early as ancient Greece, though. I've forgotten a lot of my Classics, but there was concern in, say, ancient Rome about the 'moral depravity' a bulkl of Greek myths were seen to promote, and there was a lot of Christianising of 'pagan' myths and tales later on. Doesn't disagree with what you say though, I guess.

I thought Oblivion was pretty in general. It had very poor ground textures at a distance, it had very ugly people whose models were simply wrong from the ground up and the animations were silly, but the rest was fine. Now, those are not small failures, but on all three counts I think Fallout 3 improved, to varying degrees. It is indeed adequate for the job it does.

Volourn, "capable of a wide range of interpretations" doesn't mean "able to hold any crazy thing you think of". ROOFLES!

Which Bio game did that, ever? NWN1 OC for the first month of release, is all, I think.

After looking around, I might leave it because 99% of people would never look from that angle (besides which, this is a test area for no purpose). Not at the moment, no. I know of powerbar, but I am waiting for SOZ and then the patch. Fiddling with conversations and scripts now - I've done convs before and of course there's not an issue there, but scripts are indeed the most challenging and time-consuming for me. I get the smallest and weirdest things wrong, so I'm building myself back up from the basics, doing stuff like variables, effects and whatnot.

Absolutely. If the goblins used the player's information about the town to raid it, that would take a massive amount of work to show in-game properly - redoing the map, changing lots of dialogue, etc. Much better to show long-term consequences. Search for BGUI on the vault for the UI. Back when NWN1 was released I was really disappointed at the slick, metallic style they had gone for (and have stuck to since) - I think it really looks out of place with the setting and is rarely pretty anyway. Kind of sucks how you can't move some of the stuff (or I haven't figured out how, yet), but still. Oddly enough I'm pretty comfortable with hilly terrain and such, but really struggle with rocky stuff. If you look at somewhere like the Old Owl Well or whatever it was called, the 'cliffs' are actually mostly dirt with seemingly random streaks of cliff rock thrown in, and big boulders sitting in the middle - it all looks really patchy, but somehow when you're playing it's fine. I hate how much work the non-playable areas create in NWN1/2 exteriors, but that's what fogs are for: From above, no fog. edit: wow, I need to fix that wagon. It annoys me that you can't do walkmeshes precisely, triangle by triangle, because if you set a brush to 1 / 0 it doesn't really do anything most of the time. You notice this with grass or elevation as well - sometimes it just won't let you touch that precise place.

Whether you love or hate MGS, it most definitely is not 'aware' and it is too self-indulgent for its own good (which is what happens when you let a prodigal child loose in the fields of cash). Maybe it's improved a lot in 3 and 4, but I couldn't stand how cool and important it seemed to treat itself. Sort of like the effect you'd get if you took Final Fantasy VII, made the summon CGI sequences five times as long (which they, heh, did in the next iteration), and then started inserting epic in every FMV. But then, I don't think I have an affinity to certain genres, like sci-fi. Deus Ex's story (admittedly, didn't quite finish it) just left me feeling "yawn, another evil multinational organisation of doom" for most of it, as did Beyond Good & Evil.

Sure it does, or does an effect have to be cataclysmic in order to register interest? Anyway, yeah, alternative interpretations or even mistakes in minutiae aren't a problem. But when you start, say, interposing standard Hollywood crap on Greek mythology, you've got to ask where your head is at.

Ooh, that is cool. Might use it eventually.

GD, sounds good. Working in FR does give you the chance to network with other modders and you seem to be following up that advantage. Let us know how that rolls along - though CoW I assume is the big priority? Fleshing out the various questlines and places of interest and such, I think the module is very well suited for a series of 'ending slides' a la Fallout. Nothing fancy - just photoshop-treat a few screenshots of the relevant areas then give the text as a one-way conversation cinematic, which is all quite simple. Have a single conversation trigger the 'ending' conversations, and the selection of which depends on the global variables set by the completion of particular quests or the killing of particular critters. It sounds pretty straightforward in my head, and I'm wondering if I'm thinking on the right track and if anybody's ever seen it done. In short, while the town asks for help finding out more about the goblins migrating in great numbers into the region and perhaps to just kill them all to be safe, the player actually has the option of making the goblins fight each other, or helping them out by telling them about the town's defences and so forth. It would take too much scripting work to actually show the results of that (burnt down towns, invasions, closing of questlines, etc), but assuming that such consequences would take a few weeks to pan out, you could show it in the ending slides.

Except for the Mycenae bit and gladiatorial combat, all the other ones would fit in quite snugly into the massive range of 'accepted' / 'authentic' ancient Greek interpretations and versions of their own mythology. The only problem is when the change serves no point and/or violates the spirit and atmosphere of the mythology - which, arguably, the Mycenae/gladiator differences can be said to have done. Also, Zeus does die in at least one ancient interpretation of Greek myth. It's one of my favourite bits.

No prob - besides, if it turns out too boring, even that is good feedback. Just what I'm fiddling at the moment, rediscovering the toolset (but it messed up to default lighting). Grass textures all look the same from a distance, which is what you get for trying a 'subtle blend' I guess.

1.30pm here, already. I entered the year 2009 leading William the Conqueror's armies against the Scots.

Oh yes, I only had one day to finish Jade Empire, so I did it in one sitting. Only took something like ten hours, though.

They're motion capturing him already. edit: Man, those pandas freak me out.

I think the number for just MOTB is 1, from memory. No idea for the others, and it kinda sucks to test this on your own. I don't have SOZ yet so you can try it with me, I suppose. Does it need to be set early to resolve issues? Still writing down bits and pieces and fiddling with toolset for me. Eager to start once SOZ arrives (though that'll mean I'll have to blitz the campaign, first!)

That will ruin the economy, you reckless fool. It's better the porn remains in responsible, aristocratic hands.