Tigranes

You jock. When I really get into a game I squeeze every possible hour of it until I'm done, but I also try to delay the inevitable end as much as I can, doing absolutely everything in the game. Last time I was that absorbed it was MOTB I think... I actually had no time to play it at all, so I simply cut down my sleep to 4 a day for a couple of weeks. Mass Effect is on sale at the moment and I was considering whether to get it.. hrm.

That was what made me pick up Torment, what exactly is the issue here? Every story sounds crap in careless 2-sentence summaries, the problem with BG1 is that the story was pretty poor even when told in full. I am glad that I never watched the BG1 opening cinematic until much later (the one with the clunky animations where Sarevok throws some Crusader Knight model down from the roof)... now that was hilariously bad. Gromnir, who knows if BG was meant to be as 'camp' as it was. Probably not to the extent. But it still hit a certain charm, I think.

well, yes, there were tons of Jews in Israel already by the end of WW2. A more appropriate time would have been after WW1 and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire... but then there wouldn't have been a good pretext.

Some would say that such a judgment call should never be the US's to make (though many people are retroactively making that call about Saddam Hussein these days). But then, realistically, if you don't make the judgment call as a hegemon, who will? Killian, maybe, but I imagine that would have resulted in a massive disaster... and wouldn't have lasted long, either. It was going to be a problem wherever you put the Jews.

Sounds good. One of the biggest drawbacks to giving players real choices, though, is the amount of scripting involved - it's easy when everyone stays the way they are and treats you the same way all game, but if you have them switch sides and whatnot managing all the variables and triggers can get headachy. Good luck though, it's been done before. Really pissed with how the toolset won't let you 'tilt' placeables - without it I can't, say, have stuff floating in the water without them standing stock still.

Absolutely, on all accounts. You can never be the perfect hegemon, but that's no reason to pretend the failings don't exist.

WoD, you continue to implicitly and very completely associate the American citizen with the tendrils of government policy. Are you saying that the good America has done was carried out under your direction, that you had a say in it, that you even know about all of it, and that you are, in fact, responsible for it? Because if so, then the American citizen carries the burden for all the crap the US has done over the years, as well. Someone brings up the Iraq War and inevitably somebody will say, "you can't use that to generalise about the attitude and benevolence of the average American". Which sounds reasonable to me. But then you seem to be happy enough to take the credit for all the good the US has done in the world (of which there is a lot). So which is it? You can't puff up in national pride and quote something that essentially says "We are such nice people, we are the man, and anything that we screw up wasn't on purpose so it's all okay" unless you're also willing to say that the American citizen also needs to take the burden and feel responsible about the more negative impacts of US intervention over the years. I mean, for instance, I stated from the very start that in my opinion, there's been a lot of good done by the Americans since WW2, and if faced with a choice of zero US intervention or the current situation, I'd take the latter. That doesn't mean you can be blind to what doesn't go quite as well - when you're involved in as many things as the US is you're bound to have failures and mishaps. The Ralph Peters quote may be appropriate when faced against an overwhelmingly negative "GO AWAY" view of US hegemony, but I don't see anybody espousing that here. Maybe we're a bit too liberal on these boards, but still.

Still focusing on fooling around with the toolset and getting my hands wet. 8x12 rural area with some hills, some trees, an inn maybe, and so forth. So hard to muster the motivation to get those non-playable squares down, but fog solves the problem. Think I'm doing decently. Well I have a big chunk, but I'll organise it into something more friendly then fire you a PM. It'd be a good test to see if it can hold your interest. Feel free to give me anything you've got, I always love reading this kind of stuff. Definitely. And thanks for those lip flappers - they'll be very handy. EdwinP, sounds like you're keeping things simple, which allows a lot of variations within that limited area. I like the three different ways to reaching the Castle the most, I think. (Is there any payoff for charging in the front?)

Sacred Defenders, transform! BG was very undeveloped in a number of ways - as you say Gromnir, Firewine & Gnoll Fortress were so shallow you'd stub your toe in the bottom. But I think it nevertheless constructed a certain verisimilitude to a great level of polish, and it was fun if you got into it. If you approached it from another angle and kept asking "how does this make sense" or whatnot, it was, well, very silly. Funnily enough, though, I thought the BG dialogue was a lot less emo and melodramatic than anything in, say, KOTOR or JE. It was a lot more sensible.

Not really. For the last ~15 years it's been a constant struggle between two perspectives; (a) we don't need no stinkin' US, screw their overbearing ways; (b) nevertheless they are a big economy and a big power and quite willing to be on generally amicable terms, so we need to keep on their good books. Now, the actual foreign policy that comes out of SK has been much more to (b) than (a), generally, because (i) our diplomats are usually quite spineless for some reason; (ii) well, taking aside national pride, (b) is usually the more pragmatic option, really, especially for the economy. Basic clarification: 'US' = foreign policy, not every US citizen, obviously. If your statements are coming from there, let me know. Otherwise: As seen above with SK, foreign policy of a nation is not always a reflection of what the statistical majority of Americans think. I hold no delusions about evil Americans in their nuclear families plotting to keep those damn Asians under the bootheel. But uh, no, I hardly think my observation is 'nonsense'. If you want reams of scholarly proof and a dates and so forth I can't provide that, and yeah, if you want to say I don't really have a say because of that, that's fair enough. But just to clarify further: The observation that the US is self-centred, overbearing and extremely selfish and quid-pro-quid in its help is... well, I think it's very much on target, especially with SK. But that doesn't make them bad guys, or even anything near what the USSR was doing to Communist states and its neighbours during the Cold War. It's more in the sense that the US knows it's got most of the bargaining chips and the other side doesn't, and it's best for the US if the countries it helps develops in such a way that it will continue to be dependent on, or friendly to, the US. That's... that's common sense, unless you're claiming that the US government helps the countries it does primarily out of the goodness of its heart. But that's gone on for well nigh 40-50 years now, and numerous countries have developed the perception that getting help from the US always has strings attached, and those strings are likely to leave a sour taste in the mouth. In other words US is only acting sensibly and practically, but it's doing so with the rhetoric of helping 'freedom' and it's doing it from such a position of power that makes some people see it as.... unsavoury. I'm certainly not suggesting that they should just stop, because that's both unrealistic and nonsensical. For the average US citizen, well, it kind of sucks, too; they help all these countries, and they're only looking out for their interests. It'd be stupid to just pour billions down other countries' treasuries for literally nothing in return. Again, they're nowhere as 'bastardy' as some others. But the fact remains that there is such a perception amongst the helped countries, and that perception is based on truth (if sometimes exaggerated in varying degrees). Again, I haven't put in a lot of time into politics so I can't provide a heap of empirical data. I'm just expressing my perspective based on what I see and read and hear. Feel free to correct and challenge it, but while my view may be partial, or incomplete, or biased, or incorrect, it's not baseless and it's not 'nonsense'. Yep, it's very different (and nowhere as evullll). In fact, even to call it a hegemon is kind of shaky, because it doesn't really hold the complete range of influences a theoretical hegemon would.

Lynch the Amish Man, Lynch the Amish Man I stand by my original statements Purkake. Overhyped by RPS and others, but a solid game and worth a purchase if you've got the money. It's not very long, though.

A perfect example of where they do a lot of good, but they also do a lot of damaging crap, because they don't really care about the country they help carving their own way out in the world, or the country's long-term strategic goals, act with overbearing arrogance and coercion, and so forth. It's still a given that they did a very good thing by coming in and helping, but it's a classic case of how they come in and help and do good things, but then do enough to get reviled by the beneficiaries.

Alternating between toolset practice and writing reams of stuff. The former when I'm at home, the latter when I'm at work. Works out. Set out the parameters for the first module (one town and 4-5 outlying locations, each with only 2-3 areas each), the main quest, and some other specific details. It's getting me really excited, but I know I need at least a month or so just getting up to shape with the toolset, then lots of obstacles on the way. Texturing does have that problem, Starwars. Today I realised I was throwing in too many low-pressure textures and ending up with piles of goo. But instead of being anxious about progress or milestones I'm going to spend the next month at least (until SOZ arrives) just fooling around and making whatever. The only way I'll get my own style and work out tricks to making various kinds of areas is to just make dozens of 'em. I've marked out the RWS stuff too, actually. Using a lot of hakpaks and custom content on your first module is a surefire road to errors, big file sizes and tears, so I'm going to have to restrain myself, but they do look good. As for music, I loved the effect Asphyxia's use of IE music had, so I'll probably do some of that too, but mix it in with NWN1/2 music a lot more, too. And SOZ of course, I've heard very good things there. What are you up to Diogo? Just when the heck do you get NWN2? (If you're bored waiting for it I'll make you read the libraries of stuff I've written, grah)

It's still far away from coming to the PC though, isn't it? Halo 3 I mean. Fable 2 doesn't interest me at all because the first one didn't hold me at all (yes, I did give it a try).

JE was very much an RPG, because it was, well, the same KOTOR formula but in Asia. The only significant difference was the combat system (which I suppose was 'actiony').

I'm not buying it unless it's turn-based and isometric.

No more sex for shryke?

Very common fantasy trope. Now, I don't care about that at all - it's okay if it's cliche, it's all delivery. The problem is that we've seen quite a bit of him, and it's very dull. Immature eager glory hunter gets himself in trouble, yawn yawn. Hopefully he turns out to be less of a one-dimensional annoying brat and more of a character. As for Bio being awesome, that's a question of opinion, so it's all cool. What is definitely true is that, as they themselves know, their games and stories are formulaic to a hilt. And the question I'm wanting to ask them is, are they going to churn out that same bio-formula for DA, or mix it around a bit, after 5+ years?

Good find with the lighting, I'll check it out. Texturing is quite hard - I use some stock conventions like brownier / leavier grass below trees, patches of different grass or brown colour to differentiate from basic grass, and so forth. You can afford to, of course, get rid of shadows on everything beyond playable regions. This will take a while.

On romances - I recommend leaving them out or perhaps only leaving hints of them - in thematic, technical and workload terms they are a whole beast of their own, and need to be integrated with *everything* in game (abilities, combat, quests, dialogue, story...) in order to truly make sense. That is, again, unless you want to do them, in which case, why not? In terms of combat, yeah, in FR terms that's definitely true, too. Another reason I'm not using FR is because I have no confidence in myself looking up all the necessary info to see what monsters are supposed to be which CR and behave in such and such ways. I am limiting myself to a pretty small palette that doesn't look too weird in one region (animals, goblinoids, humans, orcs...). Anyway, mixing different densities and tints of grass textures and fiddling with tree seeds. It does hurt that I'm no good at making things look pretty. Gonna look at some areas from H&C, MOTB and so forth later and take some notes.

What exactly is so bad about dying then having to reload, anyway? It wasn't Contra, it wasn't even platformer-levels. :/

Is there a reason for these romances other than 'to just have them'? i.e. Is Jia's character one that is likely to fall in romance with the PC, and it makes sense, like Safiya's did (er, mostly)? Otherwise, I see no point putting in so much effort... unless you want to, of course. I'm using my day off to get reacquainted with the toolset. I forgot how much a pain texturing the land was and just how long it takes to get some area to look not-crap.

Ah, Steam Sale. Making you buy crap games.

Something that's quite often dealt with in anime, Patrick. Not saying it's cliche or unoriginal (pfff) - but it just reminds me of how hackneyed this kind of topic can be treated if one is not careful. (i.e. it's "human" to be horrified when struck with the proximity of what one has to do for the greater good, but 'sacrifice' is nevertheless needed to keep going, cry as you pull the trigger, etc.) It would be great to get a more mature exploration of the subject in AP.

I've been following Maerduin's blog for quite some time. I have yet to finish H&C, but yes, it is quite beautiful. I'm going to have to see exactly how SOZ's overland map is (my copy is not here yet) before I make a decision. Right now I'm thinking I prefer more of a Baldur's Gate 1 style approach (the entire map mapped out with wilderness areas)... but we'll see.