Tigranes

Heh, well, I was going to reply to Cycloneman's rebuttal to my post, but, uh, that's like 5 pages in the past now. I guess at least we're getting some activity. Patrick appears to have shut the door on getting it 'changed', and while I'm not necessarily happy (since I can't really imagine what mechanics they would have that revolve around infinite ammo), I reserve the right to be surprised.

I read that in the descriptions, but never really noticed it happening. I'll have to try that again if I go back to my game. The real problem with SCSII has been that it's made BG2 lag. My machine is pretty crap but it used to be able to handle BG2 fine - with SCS2, I think it's the scripts, every time some monsters / NPCs spawn in an area the game hangs for a few seconds. I may have to give up on the mod, though I enjoy what it does. Certainly. The mod is written very well in general, I thought, because while there *are* 'Paladin Good' options (smite evil!), the dialogue is generally complex and not always obvious as to how irenicus will respond. I probably had Irenicus insisting on the Bhaalspawn souls because I was hesitating between wanting to see him stick it out to the end, and my Lawful Evil protagonist personality - and in the end I suppose he decided that I didn't do enough to convince him. I was just thinking that there was a sort of gap between two 'Talks' that made me think, was this just the writing, or did I miss something? After all, BG2 companion talks are notorious for skipping, stopping, being stuck in the same talk, etc (Jaheira Lovetalk for instance). It's a good mod and I think I'll try it later on with a Good character. The only gripe I have is that the personality of the writer(s) slips through sometimes. I understand the primary contributor is Dorotea, whose Bitter Grey Ashes I have read some of - and you sometimes get her kind of 'pastoral' tone in the PC's options which I didn't always appreciate, and Irenicus sometimes tends to talk like a snarky internet forum personality (sort of like a badly written Edwin). Heh. But the quality is overall very nice. Never liked Jaheira much. Gameplay-wise Fighter/Druid is not something I appreciate (esp. since if she is your only priest character, she loses some of the heal/buff spells), and character-wise she just nags a lot. But yeah, with Minsc going berserk I was wondering how the likes of her and Keldorn might have reacted.

All screenies old, except for the sad pipboy one I think. The pipboy doesn't look amazing, but it looks pretty good to me, generally. Certainly, Fallout Boy is a charm in and of itself. And yeah, things like weapon holsters, better collision physics and so forth would be so, so much better than HDR or whatever, but as Night says they're hell of a task to undertake. I'm just waiting for the day when we can blow up pillars, and organically, that makes the ceiling crumble down due to the physics - then FPS will finally be fun!

Oh, I was thinking about playing Torment next at some point, and it just came to me. There are so many reasons that an actual project would be fruitless (yeah, round lengths, etc), of course. Not practical. Glitterdust, huh? I always forget about that spell. It's one of those that I just never end up using. Probably would've.

True Sight < Spell Immunity: Divination. Or at least, that's what I've found. Purge Invisibility, Oracle, Dispel Magic, True Sight, etc, etc, no dice. You can see why it's a good decision in group vs. group battles though, because your characters are so powerful, once the mages do become visible/targetable they can die in as soon as 2 rounds (two mages. Spellstrike / Greater Malison, Finger of Death). It makes sure that the mages are actually effective and cause a lot of havoc when you're fighting off fighters, etc. But when you're just fighting one mage, well, it's a lot of "RUN" The Longer Road mod decided that the Evil Irenicus will take the soul of Balthazar and fashion himself alive again, and Minsc didn't like it, going hostile and letting rip on my party. Not too pleased because I dont' think I really got a fair shot at persuading him to wait until the end for another solution (I think one or two talks were left out due to bugginess). Wondering now whether to fiddle around with global variables and try and reverse it, go without Minsc or just abandon it altogether - I never really enjoyed the Melissan battle, anyway. Man, forget Icewind Gate II, someone should convert Torment into the BG2 engine. Probably way too hard, but mmm.

Unfortunately, it was a single piece of concept art.

On some occasions, freedom is the best, sure, but on others, restriction and boundaries is exactly what makes an experience fun and exciting. There's nothing inherently wrong with 'being forced' to do things. It's nothing to do with what you are saying it is, though. It's not about forcing people to play in a particular way. More than anything, limited ammo is a way of making you think about what you are doing and having consequences for your actions, which inter-connects various encounters and the dungeon/mission as a whole, rather than having each separate encounter/room become a world in itself. That's the biggest advantage. Then there are other things such as encouraging you to mix up your tactics (arguably, if the AI was good enough, even with unlimited ammo you wouldn't be able to use the same tactic/trick/exploit every time, but we're nowhere near that stage yet), and therefore not only make the game more challenging, but make it more interesting. You can tell me that with unlimited ammo, people can 'mix it up' whenever they want to, but that is not how it works in reality. If I can use Gun X and just burst everywhere in every single room, and it is more efficient than mixing up Gun X with Gun Y and a bit of Skill/Projectile/Item Z, then even if I decide to 'mix things up' myself, I am going to feel like I am only fooling myself. This is a very, very popular sentiment amongst gamers in almost every game. Anybody who has read game forums or talked to gamers for any period of time will know this: people say things like "it sort of got borign when I got Gun X, 'cause it was so overpowered - it was better than anything else, and I just didn't see a point in using anything else." You can say that if the AI and enemy/level design are good, then no single gun would be the best choice in all rooms; sure. But with limited ammo you open up even more interesting challenges - e.g. you know Gun X would be the best option in this area, but you wasted some ammo (or whatever) and don't have that much. Unable to use the 'most efficient option' in that specific situation all of the time you are going to be looking at alternatives, makeshift solutions and that is a lot more challenging and interesting than figuring out what does the job in that situation and just spamming it. Actually, what you describe isn't 'a freedom of choice' on how to play: it's simply 'indulgence'. i.e. I want to walk into a given situation without preparation or thought, then I want to be able to have fun using whatever weapons I want, then move on without having to scavenge around for bullets. I'm not saying this is 'bad' or 'stupid' or whatever. Fair play to you, if that's what you want to do. But perhaps you can see how the option you advocate doesn't actually give everybody the freedom to play however they want to play: it opens up the possibility of a specific, indulgent (meant as a purely descriptive and not pejorative term) type of play, but forecloses possibilities of a consequential, scarcity-based, logistics kind of play. It's not a competition between unlimited ammo=freedom for all and limited ammo=one way it should be played: it's a debate between two different modes of playing that each have their advantages and disadvantages.

When I first heard of the concept what I envisioned was a normal dialogue tree system without a separate minigame component, where your 'normal' dialogue options, which any idiot can categorise as flattery or whatnot on their own, would elicit particular types of responses aided by facial expressions, and you would then know whether you were in safe or troubled waters. In fact, sort of like the relationship between Fallout's dialogue tree and the talking heads' expressions, but more interconnected. ....yeah, I was optimistic.

I've been sick and home-ridden, so I've been marathoning. Currently nearing the end of Throne of Bhaal with Sarevok, Minsc, Viconia, Edwin and Irenicus (Longer Road mod). SCS2's Improved Invisibility/Shadow Door + Immunity: Abjuration/Divination combo is really ticking me off, since there's no way at all to actually attack or dispel the mage for a good 10 rounds while he/she is free to dish out Horrid Wiltings and whatever. Still, more challenging and definitely smarter thieves/fighters. Every time I play ToB it gets me how barren the game is, it really would have been nice to have it as a proper part of the trilogy - expanding Amkethran and Saradush to even half the size of Athkatla, or even adding in a big Tethyrian city. As it is all the dungeoning does get a bit repetitive.

Definitely signed, it's generally better to have limited skills, fewer but more challenging opponents and situations of scarcity in almost any RPG-ish game.

Got to say this is one of the situations that completely slip past any corporations' radar, simply because of the way they categorise things and accumulate customer data: if the problem is solved, there is no problem. I am, by personality, willing to go to absolutely ridiculous lengths to get a game working exactly the way I want it (to the extent that I basically memorised several dozen area / item codes and global variable codes in BG2 back in high school), and have spent two-digit hours doing that - but hell, that was in high school, and I'm pretty odd when it comes to that sort of stuff. If you have a problem and you spend hours on it, and the official support is a piece of crap and they clearly can't be bothered to even apologise - then they turn around and talk about even more draconian DRM systems - well, does anyone really think they will succeed in convincing those customers? I have to say, on a lot of occasions I've seen Biodevs swoop in to answer queries (and thus have a nice dev icon appear on the forum view), only to suggest completely redundant stuff like stuff someone has already tried before, or never follow things up. Fair enough, there are a lot of people who never read the FAQ and need to be reminded, but it's just fitting that everywhere, they match ill-will with ill-will.

The current application of apostasy has less to do with what the Koran dictates, and more to do with the position Islam as a religion occupies in that region. Which, obviously, is why Christianity in one social context carried out apostasy, and but no longer even contemplates it. It's pointless to carry this into a general condemnation of Islam. That aside, it is sad to see such practices continue without any sign of letting up. (or any sign of a way to 'let up').

Just hopping back to agree with everything Gorgon said about the T10. The real advantages are a reasonably drag-and-drop / hassle-free mechanism, pretty and decent interface, very small size and good sound quality. But once again, if you are looking to go running around in this stuff, then a small fragile touch-screen unit may not be the best way to go - you will know yourself how well/carefully you treat your mp3 players, how prone they seem to be to break for you personally, and so forth. I tend to drop mine a lot, so have to be careful with this one.

This is what I use, it's basically an iPod but (a) while its not drag & drop its program is a lot easier and less hassle than itunes, (b) I hate ipod design and its wheely thing, personally, © purty, (d) deal came with free bluetooth headphones. But it's quite fragile, so probably not for you. Have heard ambivalent things about Zen, not that bad but not awesome in anything either.

Yes, indeed. Problem Solved.

What? My stuff is the same. Hmm.

Two 'indie' games - Positech Games' Diplomacy 2, which is more entertaining and thought-provoking than I ever thought it could be. I mean, the whole game is just a bunch of cross-referenced sliders and spreadsheets. Also the full version of Penny Arcade Adventures, but I have not got beyoond the Demo's limits. The gameplay's nothing to write home about, but the music, graphic design and general feel of the game is quite good, and they showed me enough interesting things (like the cartoon strip cutscenes) to convince me. We'll see.

Well, I have nothing to say until Sand provides a substantiated argument. Are we done here, or do we have some life left in this?

Well, personally, I agree with you Moat - but there appear to be some who think the characters were entertaining (in the classic Biowarian sense, they did have a Minsc Mach II, etc), the setting was particularly beautiful, and so on. But someone who actually liked the game, i.e. Volo, could speak better than I on that. I wonder if more people would have liked Jade Empire if it came several years earlier, and if the combat was more challenging and complicated than mashing two buttons together, or summoning Jade Golem then sittin' back. Certainly, I didn't think KOTOR was particularly superior to it, but it had the excuse of coming earlier (and everyone went OMG STAR WARS).

Wait, what?? No it's not. It's particular ways in which a particular group of people have chosen to interpret Islam, which has as much to do with Islam as it does with realpolitik, the current political and social climate, globalisation/modernity and the Western/American obsession with installing democracies everywhere it can, by force if it needs to. This is more than the kind of 'religious fanatics' you see in cartoons. You can do better than that Sand.

Radeon 9600Pro defies the laws of upgrade. Hell, it even does features it shouldn't. Krez, JE sucks. Let my partisan flamebait balance out Volo's enthusiasm. Depends on what elements of a Biowarian CRPG you value really, since JE, just like KOTOR, NWN and ME, is another variation of the same core model.

*shrug* there are nearly always suitable alternatives to frank depiction of sexual intercourse. Whether these alternatives 'protect' us or contribute to building up that imaginary of sex, is up for debate. But to say that the depiction of sex is necessary I think is stretching it a bit for *most* games or narratives. I know of many narratives that could do without it, certainly, in films, etc.

Interesting - it depends on margins, styles and font, etc., but for me a masters would be about 100 pages of pure writing. Currently working on a BA (Honours) thesis that will end up 50 pages by October, going to have an excruciating time writing that. The only time I ever wrote a single piece so long is back in middle school when I understood 'a report on the Crusades' to mean 'a report on EVERY crusade evar'. Science-related works seem to be as much about providing a comprehensive step-by-step of how you did it as much as providing your conclusions, of course, hence your 30-40p of simulations. Heck, I remember a biology masters that was 50 pages of describing data and 15 pages of analysis. Not sure how that one passed, but that's another matter. Heh. The neighbour's printer bled that day.

You have to look at the kind of people in the industry as well, though. Good writing is not something that just comes out of 'hard work' alone. Writing is a craft and you need to know how to write. And as we all know, talent in writing can't be equated to degrees in English literature. That's the quandary: on one hand, the problem is that writers aren't specialists, and often just people who love video games, and its difficult to expect the industry as a whole to generate anything above, say, Hollywood or daytime TV (if it needs to, anyway); on the other hand, hiring specialist 'game writers' or hiring writers to write games violates the holistic approach to game development that is so crucial in a truly multimedia enterprise.

Actually, one of the big motivations for pirating games is because it's released in US but some guy in [some country] has to wait for it. I know when I first came to NZ, the release lag was up to 2 months and it was absolutely infuriating. It was and remains, along with draconic DRM, the biggest temptation to piracy: I mean, why should they have to wait? It's very hard to give a reason that will convince people not to pirate it in the meantime. But you just told us it will starforce instead. How is that a drm-free version? If anything, starforce is *more* draconian. Sounds like they were very aware of the problem, and used starforce there, where unlike the US, the public outcry against that idiotic DRM will be easier to ignore.