Tigranes

Um, my computer lags with BG2. Granted, it was probably the SCSII mod with its new scripts. But the point is, it doesn't have enough processing power to handle new games, though the Card and RAM can. And I'm sticking with this computer for the rest of the year at least. Having played NWN2, MOTB and Witcher at 5-15fps, well... Mass Effect doesn't attract me enough to suffer through that again. I may bargain-bin it, after checking out how its DRM does after release. But then, I said this with Witcher too, and things didn't turn out that way. It's the CRPG craving.

Go to Add Reply (not Fast), then on the bottom right, use the Upload menu to upload the said file, then insert it into the post. Or I must be misunderstanding a lot of things here. :/

Congrats taks. Just upload it directly from the CD, I guess?

Heh. I heard the hype about Fable, but after Black & White (I believe my first experience with Molyneux), I was already thoroughly skeptical and decided to ignore all the hype (indeed, I had forgotten about it really). I played what might be called the first 'chapter' of the game, until you rescue your sister (i think). It was a pretty fun, if basic and transparent, game, but it basically played like an odd parody that's not really funny of CRPGs. Eventually, I realised there was nothing in this game that is actually unique, or enough of a 'hook' to make me come back to it. But then, I was never that fond of Zelda, either, only really liked Ocarina of Time. I did enjoy Hurlshots point though.

Nothing wrong with having wildly different opinions guys, but stick to constructive, analytical opinions rather than blanket pejoratives. Not hate speech or anything, but it's hardly conducive to debate and likely to offend more than anything else. Like, uh, Laozi! If I knew what he was saying.

The snippet I saw was MCA talking about his methods, which I have seen a few times before - still think it a very weird method, but hey, you can't argue with the result. Good of them to give us something to read, I'll check it out later tonight.

I didn't see anything wrong in the Kennedy comment, she basically said "nothing wrong with this still going in June, remember, Kennedy was still campaigning in June". Of course it was imprudent to say and a social faux pas, but it doesn't say anything about her 'ambition' or 'ruthlessness'. It's just a bad comparison and a bad way to say whati s actually a innocuous point. It's not that easy. The truth is neither that US is simply sitting there going "God, I want to go and destroy Iran, when can we get a half-way reasonable excuse?" nor that US is the great superman police come to save us from the evil Iranians, etc. It is rather that the US government has certain fundamental beliefs about what its role is, and that they have a certain inalienable right to declare war and judgement against anyone in extraordinary conditions - and these beliefs and rights they have given themselves are difficult to either approve or attack, because on one hand, it is arrogant and dangerous, and polarising; on the other, it is in some ways necessary for them now, after 9/11. Of course you can argue that it was US that really started the whole thing off, and I'd say you're probably right, but sort of like two teenage girls with vendettas, after a while, nobody remembers nor cares who actually started it: the vendetta, the polarisation, is already there, and neither side can easily lay down their paranoia, hatred, whatever. My other point actually arises from your comment: Diplomacy always comes first. In other words, Obama, for all his talk about diplomacy and conciliation, will go to war with Iran if he thinks he needs to. And how do they judge if they should go to war or not? I don't think that standard is going to be very different between Obama, Clinton and McCain. Heh. They could say the same to you though. i.e. "The Iranian government is...." Again, I have to bring up that comparison of two teenage girls: there's mud on everyone and for any one side to claim that the other is the 'definition of evil' is rather pointless, and ultimately just as polarising as George Bush. The solution, as you say, 'untangling', does lie in realising that the unequivocal American support of Israel is not helping the situation and that Israel's "holy right" is not quite as absolute as they believe: but to then go and say their quest is absolutely evil and so forth would be to commit the same exact error.

If considered in terms of partisanship - i.e. who's side are you on - then GD's comment sounds like 'making excuses'. But regardless of whether the opinion McCain expressed is 'right' or 'wrong' or 'moral', GD's point very much stands - Clinton and McCain's sabre-rattling about Iran shouldn't ever be taken so seriously as to believe it translates to actual policy immediately. I agree with you that the US government has a chronic inability to oppose Israel for various reasons, but by now, the webs are tangled so tight, I doubt it's possible for it to be untangled anytime soon. I really don't know why you think Obama is any better though. Do enlighten me if I've got something wrong, but even though Obama's talk is a lot more conciliatory than the other candidates right now, if Iran did something silly like invade Israel, I have no doubt at all that Clinton, Obama and McCain would all take exactly the same action: declare war on Iran.

Akira. Re-reading. It might be because of my natural disinclination towards any philosophy that gets more than several degrees away from practical reality, or just my hatred of Heidegger, but I never bothered to try and figure out what the heck was really going on during the last book. All that stuff about streams and power manifest. Still, it's undeniably excellent.

The latter. D_N: in theory, yes, but you don't really see it given as stringently as it should. How else can John Terry mobilise the entire team to swarm around the referee in a matter of seconds? How many times has Rooney been caught on mics yelling expletives at linesmen? The referee should just tell them once to back off, or give everyone surrounding him yellow cards. It will never happen, though, because the law has already bowed to popular practice. I didn't mean hitting refs by the way - it is the biggest irony how little things, like accidental contact between a flailing arm and the opponent's face, can result in a red card, but you can literally jump at someone with the studs aimed at the legs (yeah, aimed at the leg not the ball) and it gets off with less. I meant any form of touching, really, because you can see how refs get physically intimidated when ten burly men are standing around him holding his arm or shoulder 'in supplication'. I'm not naive enough to believe this will change anytime soon though.

Definitely, but the '4th official' in big matches already have access to TV replays, I don't see how it's bad to use them for very few important decisions (like did the ball go over the line?). They already waste that much time and stoppage thinking about it and with the players arguing. If, like rugby, the refs had the right to send off any player that didn't shut up or touched the ref at all, then it'd be fine. (Except John Terry and Wayne Rooney would be sent off all year..)

I am spending every waking hour on these essays, except for when I'm playing my football match or at church. My right eye has been twitching for 2 days now and I've taken to working on the essays one-eyed.

Happens all the time, really. Last year between AC Milan and Liverpool I think there was something, but I forget; and the year before, Barcelona vs Arsenal, the goalkeeper was sent off and the goal cancelled when it should have been the other way round, and then the ref fell for a blatant dive, which resulted in a goal.

I'm not necroposting, it's still on the first page! Yeah, I'm the furthest there can be from embracing the 'tough guy' image, but it feels a lot like how 'crying' and being 'sensitive' is the new fad now. I don't mind sincere emotion, but you can only look at Ronaldo cry at EVERY happy and sad event in football so many times without being jaded. John Terry is a very gifted defender, but he sets a bad example for footballers everywhere by intimidating and shouting at referees every time.

Not the most gifted player, but I agree that it's a pity he didn't get to play after helping United so much in the last few months. But then, Ferguson can be absolutely ruthless - one of his key weapons, really. Footballers seriously need to get over this new metrosexual soap drama stuff - Ronaldo cries every other game and suddenly all these 'big tough' British folks are breaking down, too.

Well, all my Korean friends support Manchester United because Park plays there - you can't get away from that, I suppose.

Oho, looks like I missed a good deal then. Yeah, extra time is usually entertaining. What did Drogba do?

*shrug* I'm an Arsenal fan but I was gunning for United, I just think the most entertaining team should get the trophy. And United were definitely more entertaining until Lampard's equaliser, after which I fell asleep (it wasn't that entertaining after 4 hours of sleep). Heard about the shootout after. Pretty hilarious that Ronaldo can score 42 goals then miss one penalty, but that's another very successful season for United and I'm sure they're happy (happy enough to cry, hah).

Haha - I never cared much for RPG romances anyway, so I can't say, but I must say Viconia's romance dialogues are starting up in my game, and they are pretty cringeworthy. I think the cultural stigma against Drizzt and the Drow in general have become so great, any attempt to add 'complexity' and 'depth' to a drow just falls on its face from the get go - Viconia's Beregost story had me going 'blurgh'.

The British is the largest, then the Mongolian. The Roman doesn't even come close.

Heh. Okay, we've reduced it down to a simple difference I think, over the modern scientific method (or a specific branch of empirical logic). I hate to leave a discussion unfinished, but from past experience I know that that's another whole can of worms, and I myself can't articulate my own opinions satisfactorily when it comes to there. I hope you won't think it rude of me to leave it there (after all, it is getting off topic). And while I maintain that I strongly disagree with rn, there's no need to flame him guys.

I'll try not to disappoint, Mus. Edit: See below, actually - I am repeating myself a lot. The approach I am advocating is 'rational' as well. I am not advocating that 'art just can't be understood, leave it alone'. I am not arguing against taking a 'rational' or 'systematic' approach at all. Can I make self any clearer, I wonder? I'll try. I do not have a problem with analysing art, games, etc., in a logical manner: I am saying that I believe your specific method of analysis ill-suited to this particular subject, though it might be for objects normally associated with mathematics and the 'sciences' as we have come to know of it post-18th century. The approach of modern-era science with its desire to create clearly defined taxonomies of independent, atomised variables is not the only 'rational' or 'logical' approach - the 'human sciences' of our era alone show us many others, as do the likes of Condillac (or was it before Condillac? Gah) in the previous centuries. Again, I never said it's 'unfathomable'. Of course it's, uh, 'fathomable'. Just not in the way you suggest: mechanically taking apart particular characteristics of a media product, defining them in that decontextualised/atomised state then assembling them together with different variables - that is unlikely to produce an overall experience that one would say was 'faithful' to the original, IMO. Of course, we can agree to disagree, but I would hate for you to think that I was simply saying, "Oh no, we can't find this out, at all". Absolutely not. I can see where you get this impression, because the gaping hole in my first post was an alternative suggestion - if I think your approach doesn't get us to the heart of the matter, then what does? Very simple version - a media product is often more than the 'sum of its parts'. If we understand 'parts' as things such as 'bright colour palette', 'a disposition towards certain chords' or 'a wikipedia dialogue system', then just a sum of such parts are not guaranteed to successfully produce a particular experience. I would suggest that atomisation is the problem: we want to look at how the product is contextualised, defined and absorbed as a whole by real people - how certain disparate elements, such as the accent of Morte and the colour-tone of the Mortuary and whatnot, came together in the player's mind to create several overarching themes or 'feel'. There is nothing mystical about any of this, though it is a good deal less certain than the properties of rocks. But a media product is more than the mechanical assembly of certain tropes, because what is just as important as the nature of these tropes, is how they are put together, and how they are presented and consumed by the player, as a whole. That's why monkeys cannot recreate Fallout. I think we're sort of both arguing against an invisible man: you are trying to debunk the idea that there is something unexplainable and mystical about game production, but that was never what I was arguing at all (I was simply suggesting, as I say above, a different way). Equally, I am fighting the argument that (a) it is an uncreative, mechanical and pointless work to try and 'recapture' the 'experience' of the original Fallouts, because all it takes is a taxonomic definition and re-assembly of tropes, and by extension suggesting that (b) the 'hardcore fans' real gripe with Bethesda is not that they are taking particular key tropes and trashing them, but that the overall impression that develops from these independent tropes is very different. (for example, quite a few of NMA, which we love to lampoon so much, would be quite happy with a first-person real-time Fallout if it recaptured the overall experience). Again, I feel as though you have, in your mind, a view of an argument which screams mysticism - as if I was arguing that no, no, we can't possibly understand these works of art, they're impossible to define, they defy all attempts, they have a soul of their own! Notice that I judiciously avoid all such language - though I should have defined the 'more than the sum of' bit better, as I hopefully rectified just above. I have to stress again that whereas you are building towards a conclusion that I am advocating a mystical path of non-knowledge, that could not be further from the truth. I am simply saying that I respectfully disagree with your approach towards analysing these works, and that I believe a more holistic and contextual approach, coming less from 'what parts is this work made out of' and more from 'how have people understood this work as a whole' might work better. I wish I had time to actually edit this post and make it less of a repetitive ramble, sorry. Looking at it now, every paragraph seems to say similar things, but just saying it a bit better. I'll leave it though, (a) no time and (b) every time I attempt to condense it down, I seem to misrepresent myself and get in more trouble. But really - I am in no way advocating the sort of 'mysticism' you are getting an impression of. I just think we can't so easily trash the 'more than the sum of' vernacular, and approach analysis from such a technical, object-oriented dimension.

Bethesda are one of the biggest RPG sellers in the world, though, so that may not apply to everyone.

My one weak point!

Linkin Park's level of popular success in the early years of this decade was nothing short of phenomenal. Their music in this period was actually very simple and formulaic: it could be reduced to a sum of elements such as throaty male screaming, repetitive but unrelenting rap, simple and powerful electric guitar chords, a single ballad melody resounding through the entire composition, a strict intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus formula (with exactly tabulated systems of bridges in relation to the choruses), etc. If we took these elements separately, defined them 'scientifically', then fed them to a 'blind monkey', would the monkey, as you say, random noob, produce something that succeeds at the level of Linkin Park - no, rather, music that sounds like, and is 'as good as', Linkin Park? I don't think so. A media product is never simply a sum of its parts: in that very summation, something that is created is more than that. This is something that you can't explain if you try to import a purely mathematical / scientific mind to something so fluid, and try to 'define' what 'Fallout is', what the core of 'Fallout' is. NMA have been doing that for years, but you look at them arguing over the latest concept art and many of them still disagree with each other. That doesn't mean that 'what Fallout is' doesn't exist: it simply means that it is the wrong approach altogether to try and reduce it down to isolated essences which can be mathematically reconstructed. It's quite simply the wrong model to use. Of course art, music, etc. can be analysed and explained. But all (good) analysis of art, for example, always relates any exploration of a single essence or component back to that whole which is more than the sum of its parts: that which is evident in the work of art itself. Same with Fallout. Now, the fact that it's ab it of 1+1=3? doesn't mean that the study of art or other media is considered to be mystical: that dichotomy between a 'scientific' taxonomy and a 'prehistoric' mysticity is entirely unfounded in this case, because that implies that everything has a scientific-mathematical order with which it is composed, and with enough study, enough technology, enough tools, one can dissect anything to find these independent, atomised elements which follow the general logics of science. That is inverse logic because we are taking the scientific model and applying it to Jack and Joe, and when it doesn't seem to fit, we say "it's just not very clear yet, let's keep going". Art can be demystified, explained, analysed, deconstructed: but because of the nature of art, the way to do it is not to try and define clear, independent, atomised characteristics and say art is the mathematical sum of these parts. That simply flies in the face of art as we experience it, just to satisfy a scientific model. Art and other media have to be analysed in a way that is conscious of this 'more than the sum, etc' and the fact that experience of art and media is always holistic in regards to who consumes it and how. edit: Yeah, that was rambly tl;dr, sorry. But in relation to Fallout, really - it simply means that as Krezack says, it's more than just a sum of its parts, and therefore, making a Fallout sequel which recaptures that 'feel' of Fallout is NOT something a monkey could do. A monkey could reconstruct, say, a table from a blueprint exactly the same, but that's a table; a media product like Fallout is made in a different manner using different base elements which operate in a different manner, and a monkey, without the faculty to understand or adapt to that situation, would not be able to make something that recaptures that 'soul', if you like. Conversely, this means that making a 'faithful' sequel in this sense does not mean that individual symptomatic elements, such as turn-based gameplay or 2D graphics, have to be the same. It would probably be easier if they were, and I'm sure Sand will come and tell me that for him, it's not FO unless it's turn-based (I think it was Sand?). But the 'feel, the 'soul', of a game is not dependent on all such symptomatic elements being exactly the same. That's why making a 'faithful' Fallout would not be a pointless, or silly, or simple venture!