alanschu

See, part of the problem here that doesn't help is the inability to accept that maybe his party/policies are part of the problem. Instead it's just "well he bought off people in his first term" as though those groups would have been shoo-ins for voting Republican otherwise.

You don't need to be religious in order to vote on the right. I'm athiest-agnostic and tend to vote on the right as well. I'm pretty pragmatic in my voting, although if I were to pick an ideology that I identify with the closest with, it'd be libertarian. Are the Evangelicals are just going to vote Democrat if the Republicans are less hardliner for some of the religious concerns? The issue here, IMO, is the primaries. In order to become the Republican candidate you need to win over the Republican voters, of which the Evangelicals will have a larger piece of the pie. This results in candidates trying to win those votes by catering to them, and then on the national level they have to rescind those hardline perspectives.

This is where the satire comes in. Volourn is hardly unique in presenting his position in this way. In virtually every forum that has RPG focused discussion this comes up a lot. Mind numbingly so. I mean, just as an observation, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments regarding those that are Bethesda haters (especially Fallout). The thing I found interesting, is that the way I read a lot of your comments regarding DA2 (and this could very well just be reader bias on my part) it comes across similar to those that you are standing up against with respect to Fallout 3. (Just an observation, not a critique. I am not meaning to talk down towards you or anything and I won't delude myself into believing that a person's personal perspective is going to lend itself to interpreting things in different ways. You're human and acting like a human as far as I'm concerned). I have no doubt that you don't consider them the same though (and I would prefer to not derail this into breaking down the differences because it's neither here nor there) and genuinely believe that you feel justified in your perspective towards the games you play. Which you are. On the BSN I basically have a policy of shutting down threads that turn into "what is an RPG" pissing matches because it never goes anywhere productive and people always get hyper defensive about it. While I have no issues whatsoever with people that say "This is what I want and value in an RPG," but get frustrated when I see people tell other people that they are RPGing wrong and things like that. What I found exceptionally interesting with respect to Project Eternity was how the notion that many fans loved the IE games (a statement I wholeheartedly believe to be true) and that in general they all liked it for the same reasons (something this forum has shown to be patently false). Suddenly there's a lot of arguments about what makes an RPG, and what exactly is required in a game for it to be properly "inspired" by the Infinity Engine games. Torment is my favourite of all of them, and I'd love something like that. But some absolutely love the D&D combat and like IWD and BG series more because of that.... whereas I found myself more enjoying Baldur's Gate in spite of not being a fan of the AD&D rules. IMO what Volo does is take the behaviours of a not insignificant part of many online forum goers and uses hyperbole and caricature to sort of mock the collective of internet forum goers. I don't know what the history is like on this forum, but if you go back to the beginning I was locked in with some epic mudslinging matches with him when I first joined this board. Something happened, though, and he doesn't even bother me in the hockey thread anymore! I think I may have just learned to not care and/or grew up a little bit.

There's a non-trivial amount of people that really like how the ending played out in ME2, particularly from the standpoint of how player choice was tracked and how it fed into whether or not the each individual survived the suicide mission, based on a variety of criteria. I think how this played out really fed in to why a lot of people were disappointed with the ME3 ending.

That too.

I laughed because it is in response to those that wish to secede from the United States. I don't know, to me it seemed like pretty blatant satire that pokes fun at those going and filling out those petitions. EDIT: GuyBrushWilco explains it in more detail.

I used to butt heads with Volo all the time. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it is that made him no longer bother me. Seeing your post makes me wonder if in large part I see Volo's hyperbole as being rather satirical.

I haven't contributed (my policy for contributing is effectively "Would I buy this game right now knowing virtually nothing about the game and not having seen it"). If it gets close though, I'll probably chip in. Money isn't super flowing and it's tough to justify plopping down some money for something I won't see a return in for upwards of 2 years. Sorry :\

I liked Morrowind, but it really struck me as the first game I played that I considered a "single player MMO"

Hahahhaha. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/peacefully-grant-city-austin-texas-withdraw-state-texas-remain-part-united-states/TDD212hQ

King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame

Lying in the financial reports (which are also audited by people outside the company) would not be the best idea in the entire world. You can argue tricky logic regarding subscribers, but in terms of the sales for DA2, lying about that would cost money in the way of fines and whatnot. Sold in is shipped (as opposed to sold through). Although I'm not sure why there would be Walmarts raging about buying tons of stock and not being able to sell it, since it's not like our sell in was insanely high, plus the pricing model set up with retails does take into account anticipated price drops that haven't even happened yet. Sell through is obviously important, however, because that is ultimately people picking up the game. I don't know the exact sell through numbers (or at this point even the sell in), nor am I particularly motivated at this point in time in bothering people to find out. In terms of finances, however, DA2 was a success, as was the DLC.

I'd be inclined to agree if it wasn't for this: I'm getting the impression he doesn't think very much of the game.

I think this is total kneejerk. In the 80s you would have never thought that the Democrats would have a chance in hell of doing anything ever again. Parties, people, and policy change all the time. If the Republican party is losing support, however, then maybe they should rethink their platform. Which they will. This all came at a time of insane stagflation and a very serious economic situation. A dozen years later a Democrat is leading the United States (and being fiscally responsible to boot). Furthermore, I saw more than a few people that took the time to discuss how they were Republican but felt that a vote for Romney was not the way to go. There's plenty of Republicans that didn't like the nebulousness of a lot of the Republican ideas, and downright wanted nothing to do with some of the issues that are strongly associated with the Republican party. I suppose you could argue that this means that these people aren't represented, but if you want to get down to the specifics it's unlikely that any candidate or party will be perfectly represented. I'm pretty staunchly conservative and voted for the Conservative Party in Canada, but based on this election campaign I probably would have voted for Obama as well. Tangentially related, I did find this cartograms interesting: http://aidontheedge.info/2012/11/07/mapping-politics-and-the-politics-of-maps/

ROFL that's awesome.

LOL really!? XD I hadn't heard that.

Back in the day BASIC used to be taught in our computer classes in Jr. High (Grades 7-9). I doubt any sort of code work is done now though. Though computer classes are probably also more mandatory now.

He mentions it because he found that (perhaps surprisingly) a video game helped him really recognize and appreciate what he did was wrong and the harm it caused others. Without that context the message is weaker.

I like the "Assuming Direct Control" jokes that have gone out regarding that.

The real question is why you would spend so much time playing something that you don't like? Or is Morrowind so immaculate that even though Skyrim is worse than even Oblivion, it's still a good enough game to sink "hundreds of hours" into it?

This may be the most ridiculous thing I have read on these forums. It's like when people validate their opinions of why a game sucks because they have spent 60+ hours on such a game, so they are well qualified in stating that the game is total suck, (oops I see Volourn commented on this too.... WTF I have been entirely too agreeable with the chap lately!?)

I have a feeling that that will be said about now in about 10 years. I just remember all the cries of excessive copycat, especially for RTS and FPS, back then too. Although I do agree that costs are high. I'm actually a supporter of the idea that BioWare have a smaller team to work on third games that focus more on game concepts and proofing out ideas. While I understand the importance of metrics and don't think they can be discounted, I think AAA studios may rely on them too much. If you make a game built entirely out of metrics, you'll never innovate. But I think it'd be value added if we can proof out some concepts and then substantiate them with numbers. I'd love to see a BioWare game that had a lot more breadth (instead of depth) in its design. Lots of branching and replayability, rather than a singularly long game experience.

I understand my joke wasn't really that funny, but I am getting the impression that it zipped right over your head...

Whenever I hear "are you Finnish?" I am reminded of Once Upon A Crime... http://movieclips.com/D8Eh-once-upon-a-crime-movie-are-you-finnish/

They were a part of ME2 and ME3's development. A good chunk of people in Montreal are actually people that have relocated from Edmonton (Quebec offers huge cost savings for tech companies, which is why so many are based out of there). Unsurprisingly, the Edmonton team is shifting onto a different project.