alanschu

I disagree. I adamantly disagree. They are still playing the PC, it's just a role that is similar to the person playing the game. Games like Oblivion absolutely do not make it impossible to play any other way. It's not at all difficult to play games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion in ways that in no way mesh with the type of person that I actually am. In fact, I'd argue that the opportunities to do so are greater than in games like PS:T and BG, since there's just THAT much more freedom to create the character in any way. I won't begrudge you your definition of what you think it means to appropriately "roleplay" a character, although I do disagree with it. I'm just stating this as it's important to understand the subjective interpretations that many people have of such terms, so that you don't incorrectly ascribe your own interpretations of the terms onto others when it may not be appropriate. You may not agree with it, but hopefully it'll make it easier to see where other people come from. For instance, I disagree with your interpretation of what it means to "roleplay" a character, but I understand where you're coming from.

I am not at all familiar with that origin's background at all, but my guess would be that the various ways they attempted to do a Human Commoner type story that would be consistent with the setting they have created that didn't in some way look like the "schlub that moves on to greatness." Hence, after attempting to make it work, they decided to have to call it at some point to focus efforts elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried coming up with some ideas, but the ones that fit the setting best could be broken down as the small time guy (whether he be a farmboy, merchant, petty thief, etc.) that becomes the hero.

You're not at all understanding what people mean when they say they project themselves onto the character in the game. It has nothing to do with the "blank slate" type characters that you describe in Oblivion and Fallout 3. People project themselves into the characters they play in almost every RPG. They have the characters make decisions based on how they themselves would make the decisions if given the area, and so forth. People just assume control of the character at the start of the game, and place themselves into that role of the main character. I have projected myself onto the characters of The Nameless One, The Bhaalspawn, JC Denton, Revan, both Vault Dwellers, and the original Vault Dweller's decendent, etc. etc. etc.. It doesn't have to do with whether or not there is background or the ability to go anywhere and do anything. That just allows for more flexibility in how you create the character and proceed through, but it ultimately it's not at all necessary to need this in order for game players to project themselves onto the main character.

If you deliberately murder a person then the only just recourse is to have your own life forfeited. This man help kill hundreds. Why show him mercy when he showed none to his victims? That's not explaining how that is specifically justice. You still didn't actually answer the question anyway. You gave an example of what you feels is justice with a justification for why you feel the punishment in this case is appropriate. I was hoping for something more macro level, then a specific verdict for a specific case. Having said that, I have more than beat this horse in the past with you, and quite frankly I wasn't asking you when I inquired. I'm well aware of your position.

Well, those that don't like the cliches are probably happy about that cut haha

I had heard it was behind closed doors. Too bad.

I find combat in RPGs is usually pretty meh, going back to Baldur's Gate and Fallout even. Passable, but certainly not why I play the games.

Your grasping at straws if you think it makes more sense for them to ignore their sales numbers WHILE updating the game, than to think that games that range between 7 and 12 years old probably don't ship many units anymore. While the PAGE itself hasn't been updated in some, declaring that the other values that are a part of the page must not have been updated since even before reeks of bending the data to fit the conclusion that you want it to do. Even if vgcharts includes the sales numbers of the PC version, it's contribution is minimal. I know for a fact that the PC version wasn't a big seller. It did make an easy profit for EA after purchasing BioWare though, so I doubt they really cared. Not that it matters. Selling 2 million units of a game IS an achievement, no matter how much you want to downplay it. There's not many games that do so, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in or near the top 20 all-time sellers for the XBOX 360.

Okay, if you're a straight male, how is it fun to have the (interactive) option to have a sex scene with another male? I have never done an interactive sex scene as a female character, and hence, cannot really judge. Having said that, I'm skeptical that I'd be bothered. I did not have issues pursuing a romance on Carth or Anomen. Having said that, it was never an issue for me while playing the Peppermint Patty sections of Leisure Suit Larry hehehe. No one has any issue that she's disappointed that this Obsidian game doesn't have a female character option. However, when one of her favourite games doesn't have a female character option, AND she expects Alpha Protocol to be even better than Deus Ex, then she's just being absurd. She basically said "I refuse to enjoy this game that I suspect I'll really like, based purely on the grounds that it doesn't have a female character in it." Not only that, she seemed to indicate she was also going to ignore future Obsidian titles as well.

There's nothing wrong with the Dalish Elf intro. It's just the one I liked the least. I still liked it But as I said, I played it a lot. It was one of the first levels/origins that was very stable when I first started working there, so a lot of my initial testing of the various systems used it by default. I can get through that origin hella fast now

Yeah well, I played Dragon Age today. And got paid for it!!!! So Nyah.

Did you play it at PAX?

What does it mean to serve justice? Give an explanation of justice, and specifically, since you're making the statement that "other, less civilized, nations may punish people for the reasons that [Rostere] cites," am I correct in assuming that you do not feel that these nations punish people to serve justice? Justice, in my view, is when a criminal is duly punished based on the severity of the crime. For the crime this man did Life In Prison without Parole should have been the minimum punishment allowed. He should have been executed for that terrorist act of cowardice. Why is that justice? What makes that appropriate justice compared to something else?

I know Just doing my duty to ensure that the blame is appropriately placed

They don't. They have individual sales for each platform, and they don't seem to post sales of PC versions of games. I'm not really sure how this is really all that relevant though. So Mass Effect didn't make as much profit as Baldur's Gate? As you say, that's likely the case for almost every game now-a-days, given the escalating cost of making games. This isn't a very convincing argument for much of anything, unless you're trying to imply that BioWare isn't financially secure or something to that effect. Are you saying that BioWare is under estimating their numbers for shipped copies of those games simply due to a lack of desire to update them? I think it'd be a lot easier to assume that Baldur's Gate probably hasn't sold many copies since 2005, then to assume that they have decided to neglect keeping those numbers up to date. I'd be willing to concede that the numbers are only accurate up to shortly after Mass Effect, given that page doesn't make reference to SWTOR. But if they're updating the page to then, I'd be very surprised if they would actively decide to not bother updating the sales figures if there was any significant change in them.

From what I have heard of the Dwarf Noble, definitely yes. There is one choice in the Dwarf Noble story that I know will play out a bit differently when you return to Orzammar in the main plot. It's not a huge difference, but for me it's the little details that are different that I still enjoy I could see the mage having some as well, and probably the City Elves. Changes/decisions in the origin story usually aren't too significant. It'd be awesome if there was more significance, but the game still needs to steer the player along towards the main plot at some point. The big thing that I really like is that the rest of the game does make acknowledgments to your origin story. I only played through with Human Noble, so I imagine most of my origin story can only be acknowledged somewhat superficially (there was some bigger impacts at the end game though, due to my noble heritage), but I would think that the Dwarf stories, as well as the Mage and City Elf stories, have much greater potential as you actually revisit the areas you were in in your origin story.

The Force Unleashed is the game that was made instead of KOTOR 3.

What does it mean to serve justice? Give an explanation of justice, and specifically, since you're making the statement that "other, less civilized, nations may punish people for the reasons that [Rostere] cites," am I correct in assuming that you do not feel that these nations punish people to serve justice?

From what I have heard of the Dwarf Noble, definitely yes. There is one choice in the Dwarf Noble story that I know will play out a bit differently when you return to Orzammar in the main plot. It's not a huge difference, but for me it's the little details that are different that I still enjoy I could see the mage having some as well, and probably the City Elves. Changes/decisions in the origin story usually aren't too significant. It'd be awesome if there was more significance, but the game still needs to steer the player along towards the main plot at some point. The big thing that I really like is that the rest of the game does make acknowledgments to your origin story. I only played through with Human Noble, so I imagine most of my origin story can only be acknowledged somewhat superficially (there was some bigger impacts at the end game though, due to my noble heritage), but I would think that the Dwarf stories, as well as the Mage and City Elf stories, have much greater potential as you actually revisit the areas you were in in your origin story.

Like I said, I have yet to not purchase a game that I believe will be a good game simply based on the character sex. Those that deny themselves fun games on this are missing out IMO.

Every single multiplayer game ever has sucked ass?

Finally have played all the origin stories. My favourite easily has to be Dwarf Noble. I'm very curious how it will play out differently once you proceed into the main plot. My order of preference is probably: Dwarf Noble Mage Dwarf Commoner City Elf Human Noble Dalish Elf To be fair to the Dalish Elf one, it is also the one that I have played the most.

Is it? What exactly does "justice" mean?

They're robots!