Tigranes

Yep. If I can quote myself: So I am not saying Fallout's setting was super-awesome and Bethesda aren't up to it (because it wasn't that super-awesome for me, either). The point is that Bethesda are trying to make their own atmosphere with lots of bits of old Fallout injected here and there, but the piecemeal manner in which they develop the game (to which they have admitted in the past) now result in what you can deduce from the screenshots - a game which really feelsl ike it should be more '24 Days Later' than 'Fallout', but has odd, disconcerting bits of Fallout pasted over in places. This was the case with the later two Elder Scrolls worlds, as well, for me. People point to the staggering amount of 'lore' and 'backstory' for the TES world, but most of it is extremely generic and completely meaningless. I tried out dozens of those 'books' you find in Morrowind and Oblivion, but they are, well, 95% crap, as if generated from some kind of Babelfish of High Fantasy. Most of it, naturally, isn't really integrated into the world anywhere else. The core stories and characters, and places/events, which have their distinct feel (especially architectural, in case of Morrowind), did well for atmosphere and setting; the rest was basically meaningless fluff. Finally, Morrowind had some very unique architecture, but Oblivion had a pretty but extremely generic world, and so far there is nothing in Fallout 3 screenies to distinguish that setting or make it 'come to life'; its just a very bland transposition of just about every movie scene in the last 15 years that contains bombed cities or desolate wastelands.

I finished Oblivion after +70 hours the month it came out, but never have been able to go back to it since. The comp is still too slow to run it smoothly, but the maturation of mods that fix the incredibly lazy UI and the stupid, stupid level scaling might mean I can stomach a second run, maybe. I'm still going to cheat through the idiotic oblivion gates, the world is uninspired and the story is crap; but hey, it looks alright and it's pretty fun to just run around and do stuff.

There's really not much point talking about who has the right to do what. Unless you talk to the most die-hard, deluded fan, you're not going to have somebody, much less me, say that they have 'no right' and 'cannot' do what they are doing with the franchise. No problem there, and it's really a banal point, though I understand why you are making it. The argument is really about 'should' - what consequences for the game do these decisions have, in context of the original game and the RPG climate of 2008? And my argument above was that Bethesda's development process is not a good one for their own purposes, never mind what NMA or Duck and Cover might want. Bethesda clearly have some fans of the franchise in their dev-pot. They clearly want to, or have decided to, integrate a lot of old Fallout style and features while making new ones. But their development process, as I have argued above, does not seem to, based on presented evidence, be a very good one for making that happen. It is silly to say that Fallout 3 should be judged without comparisons to its prequels anyway - maybe in an alternate universe, but those who know of the first two games (which is a lot of people) will make comparisons. And in comparison, maybe even by itself, I think theres a good chance Fallout 3 will have a rather fractured feel in terms of setting and atmosphere. Just like anything else, mkreku, video game development is a work of passion and committment. I think there is a point in investigating such a thing in more depth than that.

Well, second campaign crashed on me last night, so too bad. I had conquered all of Spain, blockaded the straits of Gibraltar and protected the Malta/Syracuse area from landing, then was trying to negotiate a good peace deal (the AI is STILL bloody stubborn)... then by mistake I move the navy out of the straits and all those 30,000 men Carthage had been building up with nowhere to go, land in Spain. Oerwinde, yeah, the interface is too big (I hope someone mods a 'minimal' version a la Oblivion). For multiple construction though you can still use the ledger.

Your health and comfort is a big concern with headphones as well IMO, especially if you use them a lot. I only use behind-the-neck headphones, and they can really hurt the back of your ear after a time, for example. The high frequency thing also applies to nearly everyone really. Right now I have no headphones for the computer as it broke, and for the mp3player, it came with a set of behind-the-neck bluetooth headphones that are decentish. Unfortunately, the blinking light keeps blinking for the entire time it's on, so to avoid looking like a complete clown I had to put some duct tape over it. Now I'm only sort-of-a-clown.

As some of you know, the demo is now available (~350mb) for Europa Universalis: Rome, which uses the EU3 engine and is sort of a spinoff-slash-sequel. It is set basically in the last three centuries before Christ, covering the Punic Wars and the last years of the Republic up to the Augustan reforms. The demo gives you control of Rome or Carthage for about 25 years, just after the start of the first Punic War. I finished one campaign, and will play another tonight if I can. I found the screenie key, so maybe a short warstory in the works, I know we have a few EU enthusiasts here. A very disorganised 'first impressions': I fired up the demo with my 4-year-old computer, which can barely (~10fps) run NWN2, Oblivion, KOTOR2, etc, at the lowest settings. The poor CPU especially meant EU3 wouldn't go quite very fast, either. I was pleasantly surprised with Rome because while it uses the EU3 engine, the map now only covers Europe and some surrounding areas, so the game plays quite smooth and fast - and if it does for me, it will for most of you. No bugs, no crashes, etc., so all good there. The core game plays very much like EU3; same combat system, same events system, similar research/civics system, etc, etc. But as a whole, I found that the game's pace was now a lot more sensible. I like slow games and one of my biggest peeves with TW is that in 20 years you've pulled a Genghis Khan and rule the world; but in EU3 there were times you'd spend 5 or even 10 in-game years (over an hour on my machine) not doing much at all, just waiting to build up some cash and manpower. It's a lot better in Rome as the pace is a bit faster, and there are more things for you to do when you are having that sort of down-time. I definitely think it's a winner. Specifically, the biggest 'innovation' in Rome is the introduction of characters. Think Total War here. You have a pool of generated characters who belong to specific families. They have 3 stats that correspond to military leadership, diplomatic skill and governorship/research. They also have traits such as Corrupt, Unhealthy, Invalid or Brave. They can be appointed to lead armies, go on diplomatic/intrigue missions (where they could be caught and executed), carry out research (no funding slider anymore), govern provinces or be elected as leaders (i.e. consuls). They each have friends and rivals, can get married and have children, and with a dynasty you will be able to see the family tree. Historical characters such as Cato and Hannibal can be found, and some have their own portraits. Most interestingly, they have loyalty (to the state) rating and popularity (to the people) rating. If a character has low loyalty and high popularity (a state most commonly found in long-time, victorious generals), they can disobey orders (e.g. refuse to leave command or disband), or even carry out rebellion. Troops that have fought under a general can become 'loyal' to him: they will follow him if he rebels anywhere - and since disbanding now requires you to pay out retirement packages based on their contribution, simply disbanding 'loyal' troops can be costly. Lots of fun - I had Cato with 10,000 mean on the straits of Gibraltar refusing orders, so I had to try to assassinate him. Cities have individual trade routes, and each trade good provides special bonus. So if X has Stone, that's +100% defence; if Y has Iron, you need that for heavy infantry. If you have X trade with Y (tkaing up one trade route), they both get both bonuses. So no CoTs. It's simple, it's good. Cities also have governors. Cities have a 'civilisation' rating. You want this rating high, because: The 'grey' territories have barbarians living there. You can negotiate with them sometimes, e.g. bribe, but if you take troops there they'll most likely rise up. If you've somehow dealt with the barbs, and you have provinces nearby with Civilisation rating and civilians, you can colonise; and the process is a lot faster and lot more painless than EU3 colonisation, just once, a few months' wait, and voila. Barbarians can be pretty damn punishing though, I had a 19-barb stack led by one of the best generals in the world smash into Italy in the middle of the Punic War when everybody was in Spain, Rome was sacked and I nearly lost the war because of the income loss. The negatives? Firstly, no historical events, just 'casual'/'generic' events. I hate this. But I'm sure a mod will rectify this very soon (Europa Barbarorum, of Rome: Total War fame, are already working on their own version.) Secondly, the ping-pong armies are still around; you will still have random 1-unit armies run around beesieging you or harrassing you. I wish casualties were higher and the battle engine dealt with routs, but ah well. It's still a substantial step up in enjoyment from EU3 and it's a lovely game. Will post short warstory of second campaign when I get around to it, this no-save thing really kills you.

Well, if you don't know anything about a PSU and open it up and look around, you're going to die... but [see tarna]. First step is clean the fan through Tarna's method; second is to get a new fan, I had to do this a few months ago and it's not too expensive.

CrashGirl, which is why I'm hoping there is a significant reimagination of Thief this time round. I can think of multiple ways in which the new Thief game could signifiacntly differ and still provide an enjoyable experience.

EU: Rome demo!

I picked it up a couple of years ago for $5 and it's great. It's not that dated IMO, and is a nice game. Go play Krez, now.

Yeah, well.. I still can't get enough of Thief, and I want more. I mean, by that logic, Icewind Dale 2 or the last six Mario games were all quite redundant. I think you might be implying that Thief 3 was perhaps too much of the same. I guess I see what you mean. There is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of climbing and acrobatics. I hated the undead and whatnot though. The levels I most enjoyed were town levels, and then the hammerites/metalist levels; 'human' buildings with human enemies. I don't know. I really see Garrett as a 'city thief', not infiltrating weird magical places with pseudo-primitive whatnots. But I suppose they are really needed to provide a variation.

That would be like implying auteur symbolisms and cameos should not be present in films because not all viewers might 'get' them, and thus miss out on the story. As long as the main story as a whole makes sense and and is presented in a strong and straightforward manner to most players, the rest should be up for grabs. For example, was talking to Xachariah in PS:T really necessary? No, without it the story made perfect sense, was 'whole'. But some people looked around, and by chance, foudn Xachariah (or whatever else that is not so easy to find), and it enriched their experience. It gave them an illusion of a world larger than one they were experiencing, and inspired them to go looking for more things - which they found. There is nothing wrong with that. Oh, and while you could indeed call it 'elitism' to say that games should not pander to the lowest common denominator... well, I disagree. There is nothing wrong with a media product that is aimed at a specific audience and presumes certain knowledge, and is not accessible to the lowest common denominator. Certainly, it may not be as marketable, and that's something it needs to overcome, but there's nothing inherently 'good' or 'democratic' or 'valuable' about having every product being available to everyone; this every-ness and all-ness ends up in a diluted loss of quality. Adorno may be a tinhat Marxist sometimes but he was right about that. We are all 'elites' in some way in some cultural fields, and 'noobs' in others. There's no problem. If I am some sort of RPG guru I should be able to find games that I can enjoy in my own way, and also respect the right of a lot more user-friendly, straightforward games for newcomers to exist. The only challenge is how to balance all tihs and make both kinds of games possible in the capitalist market; and certainly, as the market gets bigger, I hope developers find a way to make those niches sustainable.

I liked Thief 3. I played Thief 2 and 3; haven't got around to 1 yet because I can't find it in the local market. But I liked 3 almost as much as 2. There are long-time sequels that bring their ancestors to utter disrepute, but I always found it difficult to see why Thief 3 belongs in that ignomious category; it was a good, fun game and kept the general 'feel' of the Thief series alive. (I guess the one point was story, but all the stories were boring anyway.) I'd go buy Thief 4 in an instant, it's good news.

The classical Hollywood narrative provides a general architecture that should be replicated, either in terms of form or concept, for the most part - not a draconian checkbox which must be completely adhered to in order to generate sales. Many movies try to include one key variation from the norm, but keep the rest pretty solid: a movie which breaks conventions in every imaginable way is going to end up being incomprehensible. The same applies to videogames, perhaps even more, because in films the auteur status of some filmmakers allow them to carve out their own weird niches more successfully (bigger market and all, too). Anyway, someone in the AP forum said something about how they need to hire some interior designers and make better looking apartments. The vidgame industry, more than other media industries, rely on folks who do it for the love of the game, often have unrelated degrees and did not study the videogame as a text, and whose background research consists of similar pop culture material. This has its good points, of course, but that also means that, as Kaftan says, they don't really know how to tell a 'good' story. There's a reason most fantasy stories are not only crap, but exactly the same, and the kind of 'deviations' they have are strictly prescribed deviations. There's a problem when the best the industry comes up with is Dungeon Siege 1.

That is my desktop. Yeah, no icons. Icons are so 1995.

There are lots of different types - for us its half an excuse to go and have fun by ourselves (the 18-30 age group), play games and do some activities, campfire, etc: the other half, get some guests invited for good, focused seminars that you can't really get from the weekly sermons, and some in-depth bible study instead of gloss-over. Actually, it's probably 60-40 in former-latter. I guess we don't have drinking binges, but I don't really care for them anyway. We wouldn't have adults around either for most of the period, whereas if you went after kindergarten I assume you had all sorts of supervision. Personally, I don't see the logic in having a Christian camp where all you do is listen to lectures and pray on the ground for six hours.

Looks like they could be in-game, and looks pretty good. I'm happy that they aren't out to break the graphics barrier anyway, easier on folks who can't afford powerhouse PCs.

We will refer it to the admins and see what they can find out.

EMO ALERT I've been using Word2k7 for a while because there were some .docx I had to deal with, and it's an absolute pain. The new menu bars are okay once you get used to them, but my computer's pretty old and everything lags - the shiny buttons, the background, the visual previews for every damn menu - it hangs when I try to make a bloody text-box. Gah. Trying to book a camp spot for the church camp.

You forgot to finish the sentence: "...imaginary, though the fact that morality is imagined does not mean we should discard it." Saying there is no good and evil in the world at all and we are all pond scum is just as unproductive and dangerous as saying the US is the guardian of the world and will always be a force of righteous good, sort of like Superman Gundam.

1. So if the parent failz, screw the kid? That's going to do so much good for society. 2. So if the parent is a tinfoil oddball with wacky beliefs about media and information, their ownership of their children are such that the government should just let the parents, for example, show them Saw IV at age three?

Yep. If you need to grind an hour for every hour you play in a relatively linear game, for example, it's hell. (FF12) On the other hand, if 'story fights' are way too easy for someone who takes his time and wanders around a bit, it can be silly too. And if you have some sort of Great Equaliser for the entire world (Oblivion), it's just silly.

Oh, they weren't realistic or consistent or anything like that. And in single player, it was a pain because, well, it's not meant for 'sensible' driving or, uh, controlled driving. But in MP it did the job, which is go around like a maniac flattening things, well.

Ohh, yeah. I just use area codes to cheat around. It was a pretty good concept, but, well, IE mazes are just bad.

When you say you want 'character/location ideas', do you just mean you want a few more characters and locations to add into that big list? It's hard for us to just give you char/loc ideas out of the blue, without any prompts. If you need certain specific characters or areas that need fleshing out, giving us such a prompt might help. Although, you already have enough to fill a Tolkien-world. Unless you're going to be writing as much as he did, you might want to skip to the story-writing and plot design part, or you risk being overburdened.