alanschu

I remember playing a game similar, but it didn't follow the "chess" setup quite as closely. You could build units and set them up on your side, as well as various types of traps. I remember one "unit" being a vampire like bat that could fly around and drain an enemy's health. Then when a unit was "taken" they would fight it out, winner prevails.

I would actually agree that skipping an otherwise appealing game because you dislike a single mechanic is likely to mean cutting off your nose to spite your face. For me the equation is more like: + chance that Obsidian has done something interesting one way or another (which I estimate as being pretty high) - (*action* rpg + can't play a female character + timed dialogue choices) - still enjoying WoW raiding 2 nights/week - (high interest in FO 3 GOTY, Dragon Age, and DaggerXL (a Windows port of Daggerfall currently under development)) = lack of immediate interest in AP Deus Ex is my husband's favorite game, but I've never played it, mostly because of the action element. I enjoy tactical challenges in RPGs, tests of reflexes not so much. Perhaps if my gaming plate is less full when AP is finally released, and I read that it was very interesting and less action-oriented than it sounded, I'll give it a try. I certainly won't judge if the gameplay style isn't for you. Try to get a gauge of the situation when it comes out because I do think that the action in the game will be faster paced than most RPGs.

I'm not really qualified to say how hard it would be to get permission or not. I think the idea is that, presumably, the addition of "real" guns is a selling point for some games. The best I was able to find was some random forum posts alleging that Colt sued Ubisoft one time, but I can't find anything more concrete than that.

That is true. But how often does open source stuff get put into commercial games?

Not without licensing anyway. It seems it only becomes an issue once there's money being made though. Various JA2 mods seem unaffected, as well as Counterstrike before it went retail.

What makes you think it was supposed to be in the final product?

I was curious so I looked into things a bit more. The first link I found here concluded that the effects of classroom size were minimal, particularly compared to the teacher. I found a textbook here that has a chapter dedicated to classroom size. The results were interesting so I thought I'd share them. Biddle and Berliner state in the chapter abstract that research paints a mixed picture about the relationship between class sizes and student performance. According to them there have been studies that both show the correlation between smaller classroom sizes and improved student performance, and studies that have been inconclusive. The authors also give a brief analysis of many of the errors done by early research on both sides that didn't properly account for potential confounding variables. Things get interesting with an analysis of the Tennessee Project STAR which involved setting up a program to ensure a variety of classroom setups for kids to be taught in. These included a "normal" classroom, a larger classroom with a teacher's aide, and a classroom with a single teacher and less than twenty students. Results did not differ much between the teacher's aide group and the normal group, but there was a significant improvement in the smaller classrooms, particularly for students typically considered to be 'disadvantaged' in the educational system (students from poor families, as well as from visible minorities). The gains also carried on once students left the program (grade 4 and beyond), with longitudinal studies showing that the students from small classes in early school tended to do better throughout their educational careers. Biddle and Berliner are quick to temper the results of the study though, recognizing that the sample size was not a random distribution of the United States based on Tennessee's demographics, and that there could be additional confounding variables from the fact that the study was conducted on a volunteer basis with no additional funding provided outside of money to hire teachers and teacher's aides. On the whole though, Biddle and Berliner support the idea. Here's a synopsis of their bullet points: With good planning and funding, small class sizes have substantial gains, and the gains are more pronounced the longer the student is exposed The gains are seen in a variety of academic disciplines (math, languages, etc.) The gains are retained once the student moves into larger classes All students benefit, but the ones that benefit most are those that have traditionally been disadvantaged The gains apply equally to boys and girls Evidence for the advantages of smaller classes in later grades is inconclusive My suppostion (i.e. guess ) is that many of the studies that have found class size research to be inconclusive probably performed the studies on older students. I just thought that was interesting and felt like sharing it.

There is no argument, it's a problem, period end of story if you don't think it is well good on you but it's a huge issue. Though hasn't it always been a problem? Or has it gotten worse? It's gotten much, much worse. Twenty times worse since Reagan declared amnesty to the then-1/2 million illegals in the USA. Now there are between 15-20 million illegals, and it hits the border states hard. The cost of required bilingual education has skyrocketed. Over 60 hospitals closed in California alone from 1993-2003, bankrupted by the enormous cost of providing services to illegals. It's estimated that more than 70-80% of hospital births in some border states are to illegals, and the cost is not reimbursed. Illegals have jobs in all areas of the economy, but because they are using stolen green card or social security numbers, they don't pay state or federal income taxes... and in fact make life a nightmare for the real owners of those stolen numbers, who are charged with taxes on income they never received. And half of the prisoners in our over-crowded prison system are illegals. The cost of housing them is enormous. Nobody wants to do anything about it because they're afraid of losing the Hispanic vote. Thing is, there are a hell of a lot of legal immigrants who resent those who didn't wait their turn. The legal immigrants are suffering the backlash for problems caused by the illegals. Yeah. It's a big problem. Big. Problem. Do you have any idea where I could get the prison numbers? The best I found was this document from this page. The page seems to have a bit of a left slant during my brief look this evening, though the document itself has been referenced on a couple of sites now. Unfortunately it doesn't do an analysis of illegal immigrants. Wikipedia (ugh) certainly agrees with your position that illegal immigration is much higher now than it was. By my findings the Amnesty in the 80s applied to roughly 3 million illegal immigrants, but the wiki link shows 12 million illegal immigrants entered the United States from 2000 to January 2006. Three million of them into California specifically. I don't know what the rates were prior to that though. EDIT: I found a different document that addresses just immigration and incarceration. I will preface this by saying I have NOT yet read it in its entirety, but I did find a comment on page 7: According to the article, foreignborn counts both citizen and noncitizen, and they define "noncitizen" as "A foreign-born person who is not a naturalized U.S. citizen. Noncitizens may be in the country legally on a permanent or temporary visa (tourist, business, or student) or may be in the country illegally."

that's called the laffer curve and it has nothing to do with economic growth, and everything to do with revenue generated for the government from income taxes. But everything to do with Wrath of Dagon's comments about revenue. Hence, the rest of your post has become irrelevant. If you want unmitigated economic growth then yes, set taxes to zero. But that'll still net you zero revenues. Look at what I was quoting, since you're being disingenuous: Cheers junior.

I feel punked for having read this.

Your posts became incoherent .... once you started saying stuff like this Directly from the article: "State officials estimate that they add between $4 billion and $6 billion in costs." You pick $6 billion simply because it makes your number look higher. Which is pretty much just being dishonest about the situation. Furthermore, how much of the $4 billion and $6 billion in costs cover child care? Is the $640 million mentioned for US born immigrants completely separate from the $4 billion and $6 billion? Who did the estimates and did they double count any numbers? Heck, did they MISS any numbers? I attack it because it's a blog period, not where it's from. I openly criticize the citation of Canadian blogs too. Heck, newspapers in general are not particularly good sources. [Gorths edit note: Removed some of the personal stuff in the quoted lines, lets see if we can't make mkreku's dragon repellant unnecessary]

That's an anecdote and even less valuable than the information provided in the very link you gave. You provided the link that states the idea of long term benefits, NOT me. You can't just pick and choose the information in it because of what you think the situation is. Large classroom sizes can be a hindrance indeed, but at the same time a large classroom size increases the chances of a sufficiently heterogeneous classroom. Here's a link describing the benefits to students learning math in a heterogeneous classroom. Since I'm not biased: Here's a large study that [EDIT: THIS IS ACTUALLY WRONG...MY BAD...KEEPING IT HERE TO KEEP POST RELATIVELY INTACT] shows that "teachers who have classes more heterogeneous than homogeneous in ability levels are at a distinct disadvantage in producing effects on student learning and subsequent achievement, particularly as inferred from standardized test scores." (58) Though this same article cites that heterogeneity is probably overrated, they also say the same for classroom sizes. In this study, it's the teacher that makes the biggest contribution. EDIT: Whoops, I misread the quote on page 58. My bad. It's actually: As the argument typically proceeds, teachers who have classes more heterogeneous than homogeneous in ability levels are at a distinct disadvantage in producing effects on student learning and subsequent achievement, particularly as inferred from standardized test scores. This makes more sense given their comments about how heterogeneity is overrated. Whew.

Well, I don't understand why it's such a handicap/hindrance to the enjoyment of people's games? Maybe I'm just buying what Obsidian is selling, but I can foresee the tension of dialogues increasing as a result. The problem with your analogy is that you don't pause the game in combat and kill all the badguys. The tension there still comes from the actual combat. The small benefits you may (or may not) gain by spotting someone or whatever is not the entire solution to your problem, whereas removing the timer from the conversation completely circumvents the type of experience that Obsidian is looking to provide.

Taking a look at that LA Times internal link: Short-term costs with long-term positive effects?

Yeah pretty much

Sure is easy to call people stupid from your high horse. You've hardly demonstrated exceptional intelligence the past couple of weeks on this very forum. Bwahaha, what, the percentage thing? Is that all youve got? Well that, and your other insane rambling and nonsensical posts in the health care thread, demonstrating a complete inability to comprehend the arguments of others. I was willing to grant you some clemency as I thought you were just trying to be difficult in that thread, but watching you spout forth your ridiculous examples as analogies started to border on sad. As it went on, I was less convinced it was a show. This is in addition to your gross misunderstandings in this very thread (your "does not compute" post was another exquisite example). But yeah, people are stupid. Easy to say that, when they don't believe what you believe. It just looks quite bad when you talk and behave stupid yourself. Well, right there in post 37 the LA Times shows you almost 7 billion per year in money wasted on illegal immigrants, and thats just a few examples. Seriously, dial down the snark, you dont get any e-points for it, and engage your brain. I'll dial down the snark when people stop making stupid posts. I'm not looking for e-points, but I will most definitely snark back at people that have increasingly demonstrated their inability to act intelligent. But yes a BLOG on the LA Times is clearly the most non-partisan source out there. Not only that, it's numbers completely refute the 10s of billions of dollars per year argument that you made earlier. Heck it doesn't even support the "almost 7 billion per year" argument that you just made!

It could be pondering the "best dialogue option." It could also just be pondering how I want to roleplay my character. Either way it's about playing the way they want me to rather than in the way I will enjoy most, and I'm left wondering why they made choices that they had to realize would limit the game's appeal to some players of RPGs. I don't understand how pondering how you want to roleplay your character takes as long as all the skeptics seem to make. For starters, you can already begin to decide on an appropriate way to roleplay your character based on your character's previous responses with the NPC that you are dealing with, based on previous responses your character has already made. Moving forward, for the specific line of dialogue, you can already begin to decide on a type of response (especially since you know 3 of the types of responses already, for every situation you approach) as the character speaks. You already do this as a human being in real life interactions, so you are already well practiced in doing this. I'd argue that if you're already doing a good job of being in the character you're roleplaying, this actually won't be very difficult at all. Because I adamantly disagree that they are sending that message at all. My favourite RPG is far and away Planescape: Torment, but I am very much looking forward to Alpha Protocol. Because like Planescape: Torment, they are doing something different in an attempt to enhance the experience of playing RPG games. A lot of people were initially turned off (and I'd argue still are, unfortunately) by the gigantic walls of text and unfamiliar setting of Planescape: Torment. Look at how the long-term customers think back on that game now. I know something different is scary for a lot of people, and personally I think people are doing a disservice to themselves to skip on this game for a game mechanic they aren't familiar with.

Sure is easy to call people stupid from your high horse. You've hardly demonstrated exceptional intelligence the past couple of weeks on this very forum. Of course, if there's no disputing that 10s of billions of dollars per year of California's budget is sunk into the illegal immigration problem, it wouldn't actually be that hard to find the answers to whether or not they could balance the budget.

If you wish to consider them Quick Time Events then fine, but the fact of the matter is it's not much different than a conversation system like Mass Effect, except with a timer. You get a brief description of the general tone of your response, and pick it. They just give you a timed response because they want the player to have to make fluid and quick decisions (like a spy) and not sit there and metagame for 40 minutes pondering exactly what the best dialogue option is for a current situation.

No, I can't prove that you have been punished for every crime you have committed. Maybe it's for the better, You seem very grounded in you belief in your own righteousness and I don't have enough time or interest to get into lengthy online debates anymore. I wouldn't mind picking it up in person, over a beer or two, though. So if you're ever in Chicago, reach out and I'll be glad to continue this over a pint. I wouldn't get too caught up on Hades/Killian's posts. He's been notorious for bouncing all over the place and has actively stated and supported that the best solution for the middle east is to drop nuclear bombs and turn it all to glass.

Amen. People in this thread are either being purposely dense or are willfully ignoring the difference between legal and illegal immigration. But hey, what the hell, the illegals DESERVE to come and go as they please and bleed the country dry. Who the hell will pick our fruit! THINK OF THE FRUIT!!!1uno! No, they are just not as willing to blame large chunks of your woes on illegal immigration.

I lolled at the truck part.

What's the rate of incidence for this for everyone else?

Except the company that makes uber kickass netcode will want to profit off of it. Plus, from what I can understand, generic netcode is a bit tricky. A lot of it depends on what is needed to transfer.

I'll agree anti-cheat stuff could be an issue... But the lack of CD key? Pirates = cheaters it seems. And people with valid CD keys never cheat... or something. I doubt the game will be big enough to warrant a significant cheating culture for it anyway haha.