Tigranes

Midichlorians.

Just bumping to say that the interview with our very own Obsidian employee Matthew Rorie is up on the site, just go to main page at http://alleyofinfiniteangles.com/ . Really didn't want to put it up because my brain died while writing the questions and they turned out horrible, but Matthew very kindly answered them, so... Will have an interview with our former nwn2 community manager Rob in a few weeks, and also hope to start asking some of our forumers some questions soon, if there is any interest.

What a waste of 50 bucks. I mean, he could have just gone on wikipedia then the second link available on google! Doubt any journalist will bother to check that, though.

Ah yes, it was Theme Hospital. Got that mixed up.

I would hate actually playing in that place. Reminds me of the Garden in FF8 where you had to run around a massive decorative centre-core to get anywhere. Would certain look great though, imagine playing in that 'stem' area and you look out the windows. Pingpongyingyang is great, stop knocking my hometown.

True, the guy actually coming out and claiming he wanted to emulate a specific game scene isn't very common. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if this happened in the US - would they go as far?

I generally have extremely fluid dreams that jump across lots of genres, and generally don't really have a coherent story or message, but then you wake up with a very specific and poignant sensation that's absolutely impossible to communicate to others or even articulate to yourself, and all you can do is sit there entrapped in it until you realise your feet are cold and you come back to reality. You pretentious art-emo Wait, what

I remember Sim Golf and Sim Hospital when I was 7 or 8. My first PC games, actually. I was really excited about Hospital and spent a lot of time with the manual, but recall it being pretty boring, though I'm not sure why. Sim Golf was fun. I believe I soon moved on to Sim City and Caesar 2 (3?). Good times.

One of those games that I played for 10 minutes then destroyed to pieces. I can't actually speak for the game as a whole, because I didn't really read up on it, but I tried the first bits of Beyond Divinity (is that the 2nd one?), found it ugly, boring, uninspired and cumbersome... basically with nothing to make me play more. I seem to recall everyone hating on it at the time, but seeing posts here, maybe that's not necessarily the case.

Hey? I think the videogame industry/culture just has a lot less power and representation in Thailand, as opposed to the home of EA, etc. You dont see Japan shutting down the anime industry after the akihabara stabbing. That said, Asian countries in general *are* more prone to a more extreme reaction, I agree. I wonder if the ban will hold permanently though.

Oddly, everything from escapistmagazine.com has been getting instant page load errors for a good while now. It's just my computer, but ah well.

It was scripted, from what I recall. Could be wrong, of course, but I believe the toning-down (which DID happen, yes) was another story. The fact that every time any fan or journo asks to see about RPG elements, they get like the same 3 examples again and again? (Megaton, girl/bully/cake, uh...dogmeat) I agree with you that Bethesda isn't wildly different from a lot of other companies, but I think what they're doing could be accurately called a conscious and worrying emphasis on juvenile 'cool' elements to a severe detriment of traidtional RPG info.

All that money, it's such a waste, though.

Woah, are we back to people listing games again? Let's not go there. This is Hell Kitty (I think) from page 15, but: Remember the uberlong Witcher video? Hell, remember the Oblivion Radiant AI video (that turned out to be fake)? Bloodlines did show a lot of dialogue as well, even if there was a lot of FPS elements. And even if the big trailers focused on the 'actiony' elements in general, mostly, the fans were able to get more info about the RPG elements than this blockout from Beth. Really, there are a few persevering myths, both positive and negative, and this is one of them.

I'd say Kirottu's right, considering how we *still* have people comign in here to ask why Bioware is being so evil, etc, etc. However, if we use Vologic, Kirottu is wrong.

Yep... I don't think anybody has a problem with the teddy bear launcher being in there as an easter egg... or if they do have a problem, its not that big a deal. The problem is how it's taken up half the E3 coverage with Todd and 'journalists' like that Adam Sessler going WOW THATS COOL DUDE x50. I mean, how would you feel if Chris Avellone went to E3 1998 (or whatever) and spent half his time showing people the holy grenade easter egg and talking about how cool that is? There's 2 things that are probably interrelated. One, Todd & co. actually think that's the coolest thing about their game, and it's really driven how they've made the game. Two, based on whatever market research or imagination or whatever they've done, they decided that it's going to be a very effective market strategy to talk about this stuff and nearly completely exclude actual RPG elements. (1) tells you that the game is not going to be very good an RPG (though it might be good at other things); (2) may be being 'realistic', but that doesn't mean I have to applaud them for being so radically 'realistic' about the market to the point that they're pretty much showering fans of the franchise with mud as they splash by with their fast cars.

From what I read, it sounds as if it wasn't really going ot to kill your wife or going nuts, as much as a combination of hotheadedness, the heat of the moment, dementia and so forth... while it's not the best precedent to set long-term, I can perfectly understand the judge's point that if sent to prison, he would be released quickly. Some of us might feel happy and safe that lots of people are sleeping behind bars for double-digit years, but so many people get released quickly and ridiculously, and it's not like prison makes them any better. I'm unsure why full care facility/etc was not considered, but we don't have all the details. However, I'm shocked that the man has been visiting the same pub to begin with - that shows a lack of even basic principles and/or full mental faculties. *shrug* Also, once again a sensational, unrepresentative, unsympathetic headline once again. Why am I not surprised?

Trust me, that won't be fun. You know, instead of the usual expansion-pack model, that might be pretty fun, too. Essentially release medium-sized sidequests - ranging around the scope and pricing range of NWN premium modules, adding something like one town/hub area, one or two quests, one or two clothing thingies and whatnot. Not sure how economically viable that would be, though.

I take it you live alone, Night.

I don't know. They look like panther hybrids trained to kill. Brian makes a lot of money off the side, see.

I might slate Bioware sometimes, but I nearly always enjoy their games, and they're good games, too. I think the only bit that really made me bang my head to the wall was the Master's dialogue in the opening of Jade Empire... it wasn't that long after KOTOR and you could so obviously tell that the Master was actually the big baddie and was going to betray you, by exploiting the completely silly "flaw in your technique that nobody can see and doesn't translate into gameplay at all and can't be fixed, and never comes into play except to justify my total pwning of you later". I think it could have been decent with better execution, but the dialogue was really atrocious there, it read like the kind of notes you scribble onto an early script draft with big arrows going "OMEN ABOUT BADDIE HERE". Sand or Volo or whoever (why do I always get those two mixed up?) will come and tell me again that JE is good, and yeah, I do think now that it was a good fun game... but that opening, combined with the fact that I had played KOTOR only a month or so ago, really gave me a "oh gawd" vibe. To balance the whining out, I'm shocked we don't have more adorations of the dead God dialogue in MOTB (what was his name again?). That's an example of good concept and briliant execution - you come through a portal after a really long basement dungeon and get this massive open space with the right kind of hollow ambience, adjust your camera to look up and walk up to the floating head. I think it's a very basic trick that really makes things special in games - where you stumble on something, and it dawns on you what you've just found, as it if was a buried rubble (even if you were meant to see it). Other examples I think would be Xachariah in PS:T.

Hey? That example would imply that Bethesda is just a random person walking down the road who have no significance or relation whatsoever, and that's clearly not true. It's not quite being punched in the face (though some might feel it that way, which is why I chose that initially), but there's certainly a relation... the logic that since Bethesda legally own Fallout, they own everything about Fallout, and whatever they do with is completely up to them, and nobody has any right to try and change that, might be technically / legally correct, but is quite out of touch with reality in terms of how people feel and how the whole industry works. You can try and logically disintegrate the entire concept of fandom and succeed, but it won't exactly go away (and unlike some other things, like child porn, on which this argument is used, fandom isn't 'bad'). Bethesda own Fallout completely in the world of law, but not in practice... and theres a tacit understanding within the culture that you need to hold certain levels of respect for those who buy, love and spread the word about the franchise as well (though not an absolute level of respect). I used to think Whip's avatar was one of those dentist apparatus you lie down in for the longest time, until I actually looked at it properly today. My god, it's a man (or woman) and some other things!

Yes, because choice is good! Freedom is good! Right? Giving player 'choice' about anything and everything is the quickest path to broken balance. It's about discipline anyway. Many players come to believe that the rules given in a game system should make sense, should stop them from doing anything ridiculous or breaking, but should let them do a lot of cool things: there is a tacit understanding and expectation ont he part of most gamers that the rules are tightly geared to promote a way of playing that will be 'fun' most of the time, and will not be too easy or too difficult. In other words, they want the rules to guide them in a specific way. They don't want to sit there and think, "Oh but I just realised putting my most used skills in minor is actually better! Is this supposed to be this way?" "Am I supposed to play this way or not? The game lets me, but it seems to be too easy / exploity/ etc..." In fact, it's usually the most hardcore of players who go down either path - of totally gaming the system or of respecting its intent even when the system does not / cannot restrict them. It's never good design to just give choice and freedom anywhere, and it's never good design to allow players to break your system. That doesn't mean you have to straitjacket them into watching the equivalent of MGS cinematics, but there's a limit and balance that can't be overcome by just saying "freedom>*".

Heh. A lot (but not all) of the negativity online about FO3 *is* pointless, just like how a lot of the positivity (but not all) is mindless. The thing is, when someone is bitter or negative, everybody always asks, "why are you so bitter? stop being so bitter." Maybe that question could also be directed at the people/things/events that made them bitter in the first place? Or does the fact that they are bitter disqualify them from any such consideration? It's like watching someone punch your friend twenty times, then you ask your friend, why are you so angry? Stop being so angry. I mean, it's probably a good idea for your friend to calm down (if the puncher is built like an elephant on steroids), but telling him he's a moron and he has no reason to be angry... well, it'll probably get you punched and bitter, too. There's plenty of reason for people to be provisionally disappointed/bitter and certain wary and pessimistic about the title. After Oblivion, their refusal to show more than baout 2 lines of dialogue and real C&C is certainly worrying, especially cast against all the PR stunts with giant army of BOS and the ridiculous 50USD plastic pipboy clocks. The stunted animations, the 'sweet lulz' emphasis of VATS and the Rock-It-Launcher (as well as som eothers, anybody remember those psychic guns and the other one?) are plenty cause for worry, if you don't like to see bad games get a lot of hype (it's not good for anybody) and if you dont like to see your favourite franchise miss the chance to come good. Someone could do a Volo (or was it Sand) impersonation and say "if you dont like something just stop talking about it or thinking about it and IT WILL GO AWAY" but well... some people can choose to just do that, other people want to be more involved, if only platonically, in the progress of the field of games... and how can you blame them for that? I will say that I don't like to see 60 "O GOD BETHESDA SUCKS" posts every time new info comes out, either. But if not all 60 are substantiated... I'd say at least some of them are. I recall lot more favourable reactions when the news wasn't so bad.

Well, if that works, good enough for me. I'm really not a code-person and unfortunately won't be able to invest too much time on that side of things for a while. Glad to have it running somewhat smoothly now though, presenting it to my class tomorrow, though that's not really that big a deal. Gonna see if I can stick to my bi-daily schedule, should finish that casualisation discussion next week.