alanschu

So you actually think that developers wanting compensation because someone else took their work and distributed it for free is nothing more than asking for charity? In this case it's just a sense of entitlement (someone acquiring something for free, simply because they can and they want to). At this point it's nothing more than an honor system of "Buy the game, which is effectively giving away to charity since you could simply acquire it for free through other means." So what sort of monetization are we talking about here?

Are you referring to receiving the product via piracy as "receive your product from another party?"

Meh. If I had creative control I likely wouldn't change them either. And I say this as a gamer. People already get into irrational frenzies regarding DLC being "essential." For all the people on the BSN and beyond that stated they would be perfectly fine paying for a DLC that significantly changed the ending into something they wanted, I think it'd be stepping into a minefield. Imagine if you needed all 3 of the DLC to get some significantly better ending. People already crap on us for Javik (an NPC I do not consider essential, though he is an interesting one). Imagine if the DLC actually was required for something better/more thorough for the endings. IMO the challenges that the game is incomplete without the DLC would actually be accurate, and I think it'd be much, much worse for gaming if big publishers went "Hmmmmm, this popular franchise would probably be better if we gave them an emotionally frustrating ending, but we then strung them along to pick up our DLCs in order to get the real ending."

The stars are only known to be relative in size based on the wavelength of light they emit (since larger stars have more mass and more powerful fusion reactions) If you look at a star through a telescope (or any sort of optic magnification) from Earth, they still appear to be single points of light. We are not able to discern the size of a star through any optical means. Not even Hubble can do this. The stars are just too far away. Mars doesn't shine (unless the sun's light reflects off of it) because it doesn't have enough energy to emit light in the visible spectrum. The sun is a giant fusion reaction, with its wavelength peaking exactly where we'd expect a 5800 Kelvin black body emitter to do so. The surface temperature of Mars is about, oh, 300 Kelvin on a warm day (and half that on a cold one). This isn't going to emit light in the visible spectrum. Hence, Mars doesn't "shine." This is easy to see with a simple mind experiment. The top temperatures of Mars reach about 35 Celsius. This temperature happens on Earth. This is in the sun. When not in the sun, Mars can get far below -100, which is much colder than Earth. If Mars could shine in the visible spectrum at those temperatures, then Earth's "dark" side when the sun sets would also shine. Looking outside right now, it's definitely not shining where I am!

Last chance to un**** the game, I'd say. Don't expect the endings to change.

Illlusion 3 is harder to discern. I think there's a language barrier because I'm not sure what you're measuring. Imaginary scale indeed! On that note, time to call it a night.

Ah yes, more funny maths: The fractal value should be: (Distance from Earth for size of Venus to appear the same of the sun) / (Distance Earth is from Venus normally) 1,338,000 / (149,600,000 - 108,200,000) = ~0.033% Which can be easily verified with trig: atan(12,100 / 41,400,000) = 0.017 deg which is approximately.033% of 0.53 deg This is fun!

Well since I can't ignore the obvious.... (I think this is a posting of "spot where i made my mistake" which is easily found here): So, using your acknowledgements: Earth is roughly the same size as venus. The moon and sun are positioned relatively that they appear to be the same size in our sky. Lets do some quick trig to find out just how large it appears in our sky (in degrees for simplicity): using the sun atan(1,390,000/149,600,000) = ~0.53 degrees Now that we know this, and we know that Venus' diameter is roughly: 12,103 we can: 12,103/tan(0.53) = 1,308,360 Venus would have to be roughly 1,308,360km away from us to appear as big as the sun in our sky. Of course, since tan(theta) is simply a ratio, we can easily verify this just be taking the ratios (numbers from wikipedia) Moon = ~3400/356,400 = 0.0095 Venus = ~12100/1,308,360 = 0.0092 Sun = ~1,390,000/149,600,000 = 0.0093 I'm not sure why you were talking about distance from the sun in your analysis, with Venus needing to be 42 million km away. You took the ratio of the diameter of the sun to venus, when you needed to take the diameter of venus to the moon. Instead of this nonsense: You would instead go: Sun - Earth = 149,600,000 / (Sun/Moon, 400) = 374,000 * (Venus / Moon, 3.56) = 1,331,440 (close enough given rounding). So, if you actually use Math properly, illusion 1 is completely debunked. Given that you recognize this is the correct value as part of "illusion" 2, it's almost QED that you're not using Math properly in the second "illusion" too.

Spartan Federation! \m/ One thing I miss is the UN votes. I like the idea of the countries not necessarily being so adversarial.

It's funny. I really liked Alpha Centauri. The idea of unit customization and the fantastic government system was pretty great. But I always find myself preferring Civ over it. I must just like the historical setting. I wonder if it just feeds into some nostalgic feedback loop (that gets larger with every iteration) since I still remember some of the awesome times I had with the original. (never did play Civ II though )

As a distributor, I doubt that GoG would give two craps about selling the Enhanced Edition. This would sort of be like Walmart hesitating to stock Pepsi because it might affect their Coca-Cola sales. That said, it's not up to GoG.

Civ 5 expansion. <Looks at time> FML

I am willing to accept that, due to the nature of the game's perspective, levels of clarity and distinction will be somewhat compromised. At the same time, this can be an advantage. Everyone having the same body type is less ostensibly obvious if they are all small. This would allow them to spend more time in customizing what they do can do with the base body (rather than having to duplicate their work for different body types). We already do this in Dragon Age (which makes some people upset, but c'est la vie), but I think it's much more noticeable in Dragon Age due to it's more detailed close up shots. In the Infinity Engine I don't think there's much level of caring. Still, Torment had pretty unique and distinguishable character models too. I'm rambling now.... so bedtime for me.

It's still early (so yeah, now's the time for feedback), but I find myself pretty satisfied. The new race style looks interesting enough. I think it's a tricky balance between just getting stuff up, running and seeing what it's like (sounds like they already ran into some hurdles, which is a good thing at this stage), while being representative. Curious what level of customization there will be too, which will lend itself some more flair and variety. Could always give him some spiked shoulder pauldrons in the worst case!

It looks to me like they are in pretty heavy duty prototyping, which makes sense especially if they are ramping up on new tools. According to Rob's update, it looks like there is ONE concept artist actually doing concepting right now. Which means the concepts will be, well, concepts. As opposed to full on materials for marketing. As awesome as the WL2 Ranger Squad concept art is to look at, I'd argue it's more important for a marketing/buzz piece than something reflective for in game. Until you're doing the prototyping in engine, it's still just out of game concepting. I'm personally impressed that their already willing to show off in game assets even if they are WIP. At this stage I'm already pretty confident.

I did mention the stamina advantage men typically have. Although it's still important to note that melee combat is usually over pretty quickly (i.e. a matter of minutes) and in a disciplined fighting formation there's not going to be a ton of wasted movement (most people spent their time being defensive and mostly just took rare opportunities to actually make offensive moves).

By not caring about it. I don't usually use my middle name though. If I'm going to self-insert it makes more sense to use my first name. Although the charisma is typically an accurate representation. I can't help that part. I just am!

First, the weight of medieval weapons (and armor) is grossly overstated, and even then fails to take into account weapon balance. Speed is so valuable in a melee fight. Men would definitely still typically have an advantage in the speed of their blade and their stamina due to physical characteristics, but women wouldn't have issues with fainting while in a fight. Furthermore, appropriate equipment can make a world of difference. The Japanese trained their women to fight with the naginata because it mitigated the strength advantage that men would have in hand to hand. I know you weren't the one suggesting this, but in the end this all comes down to not being particularly relevant when discussing a fantasy game (and certainly not the PC). As far as I'm concerned, if this is the line in the sand for someone as to whether or not the setting is believable and appropriate, I think that's on the person and not on the game developer.

I had Winter Games for the Mac, World Games and California games for the Apple II. Faaaaaar too much time wasted. To echo Gorth: Epyx was pretty awesome. I had to goofy habit of making full rosters and using my friends names as names. So 90% of the world records were set by me, but under the name of my friends. My brother pointed out the silliness of my naming scheme for this reason lol. I think World Games was my favourite. Weightlifting, skiing, cliff diving. So much fun! Although, that was JUST those events, so maybe I didn't like it... as much. Was pretty dope at surfing, bmx riding, and footbag in California games. I was STUPIDLY good at the Biathalon in Winter Games lol. I would just go max speed because I had the timing down for the marksmanship spots. This was balanced out by being just putrid at the figure skating. Sadly I never did play Summer Games.

Convince me that this thread is about showing the female sexism as it exists in today's world, and I'll have no problems championing this post. Yes, both men and women can be and are sexist. Fortunately for men, we're the power brokers and such sexism is less frequently applied to me to the point where I feel any sort of measurable disadvantage. Especially compared to the advantages that I receive. Furthermore, pixels don't offend me either. I don't find the excessive posts that ask for sexism (and other "mature" themes) ridiculous simply for the point of asking for them. If you're really looking for conflict and adversity it can be done in a multitude of ways. it doesn't need to be done via something like sexism, and there are disadvantages for doing so.

You cannot say this without seeing how it's done in game. Here's the delicious irony: If a game doesn't have the sexism, it's unrealistic. If the game has sexism but the roles are reversed, it's simply dismissed as an unoriginal attempt to mirror it and its point is undermined. I'd argue it's significantly lazier to just use Earth's history as a foundation for how to make the characters. This is a seriously bad reflection of ourselves. You're right, it's true that people justify their perception this way. It's horrifying that it is. This is the problem. We are not wired biologically this way. There are reasons why people assume that we are, but it's not a good thing. There have actually been functioning societies in history that did not have significant gender inequality. Biological determinism would not allow this if it were true. Realistically what you're looking for here isn't gender inequality though. It's borderline misogyny. Being a woman should be more difficult in Project Eternity because it's the only way women should have it. The really horrifying thing is that people say they want it so that they can overcome it. But if the roles are reversed and it's matriarchal, it's just not acceptable. It's not believable. This is awful.

Nice twist on the Terminator's bassy undertones. Especially for a system that didn't have fantastic audio capability.

That's just it. It always happens to someone else. Have it happen to the PC for a change. Double the point value if it only happens to the PC if the PC is male, and double it further if there's no way to actually enact revenge (you can follow up on it and attempt it, but ultimately payback is beyond your reach).

I agree, the devs should totally make males subservient and oppressed by the women of the universe. I think it'd be really interesting to have the male character have to face all the adversity of living in a predominantly matriarchal society and all the challenges that that presents. Of course, this means that the setting should properly reflect the improved standing of women. If they can make this type of reactivity in the game, I think it'd be great and very replayable.

This is in large part why I almost never preorder. In fact, I think the only games I do preorder tend to be Obsidian games.... This probably feeds into why I had no problems contributing to their kickstarter. Wasteland's is a bit more of a risk on my part, but that was the "Ooo this idea is neat" contribution. And it still had Avellone... >.>