alanschu

And you got mad at me for putting words in your mouth. Tsk tsk.

Given past interactions with him, I think he's just a big fan of the original Fallouts and doesn't hesitate to slam Fallout 3 at every opportunity.

Hmmm, I don't remember that happening when I killed Wynne haha. I don't remember if I killed her outright or if I was just playing around with various dialogue options though.

I doubt anyone is looking at the Hong Kong level in Deus Ex, a game set in the future where almost every conspiracy theory turns out to be true, and thinking "Wow, Hong Kong is really a third world place! Heck, New York and Paris felt like a Third World places in Deus Ex if that's the definition of a Third World place. I can understand the concerns you and Nigel have, but given it didn't affect me in Deus Ex (pretty much my favourite game of all time), I doubt it will affect me much in Alpha Protocol. That sort of stuff is nice, but a good game is a good game and the stuff that makes the game good is of utmost importance to me. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that even if they don't get the subtleties of Taipei to make it seem like Taipei, they can still make the city seem Asian. Nigel seemed to be implying that if they can't make it seem like Taipei, then they can't even make it seem like an Asian city. But were any of those games really an accurate representation of the cities that were depicted. The Japan level in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory seemed like a standard Japanese level to me. You might get a skyline that you recognize, or perhaps a famous building like LAX (which I don't even know if it is accurately depicted in Pandora Tomorrow), but outside of famous landmarks a lot of that work is really wasted. If they can fake entire cities in movies, I doubt it'll be that big of a deal in a video game. I think you're overstating how realistic Obsidian was claiming this game would be.

A lot of game engines never go open source. In fact, you could probably argue that most don't.

Yeah the graphics are clearly only a moderate improvement. And only if you get really close to the monitor and squint.

I strongly recommend verifying your information before you start posting a rant condemning a company for things they are not doing. One look at Mass Effect 2 gameplay videos shows that it's going to be a lot like the first Mass Effect and not an MMO. I'm sure Bioware has in fact looked into how many people are adamantly against an MMO. The number is probably a lot smaller than you think.

Why all the demanding it to be representative of Taipei when it seems you're concerned as to whether or not it looks like an Asian city? I'm confused as to what it is exactly that you're wanting. Now you're starting to put words in Obsidian's mouth about what you think there intent is, and so forth. To use mkreku's example though, I know nothing about what Chernobyl looks like, so the fact it was accurate meant little. Though seeing the Washington landmarks in Fallout 3 was indeed a plus.

Seemed pretty clear to me. The whole quest to save the vault and all that jazz. I mean, the game does stop when your vault is attacked.

it *is* pretty awesome.

I agree the enthusiasm is a bit much. But he did say old school gamers would be happy haha.

I don't see where Lucasarts, or Kotaku for that matter, mention anything about a new game. Am I blind?

haha definitely. I can't think of any instances of FO3 where I noticed music, so I think you're right. In some ways that can be good (walking through a desolate wasteland with no music did seem appropriate), but cues for big events would be nice.

Haha, I'm actually excited for the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade one. I remember getting that one year (my parents won it as a prize at a Comdex on year) but I always got stuck in the library!

Really? I definitely remember getting fireball, but I didn't think it was because of that dungeon. Hmmm.

Not the 10-man runs, they drop Badges of Heroism, of which I have over 150 gathering dust as there is nothing to spend them on thats better then what I already have. TBH, I was pretty surprised by the Naxx loot. Its only slightly better then the stuff that drops in 5-man heroics (which I already have). Only slightly better than the purple drops from the heroics, but with a few exceptions, quite a bit better than the blues IMO. The biggies I find are weapons though (especially as a rogue). Much better than the heroics/crafted ones IMO. Getting the Tier pieces is usually quite handy too. You can turn your badges into gold at least, but making orbs and gems out of them.

I'd say Morgoth's is pretty generic too.

The thing is, if I get the impression that Taipei is an Asian city (and different from the other places), it'll probably be good enough for me. It probably will be for a lot of people. In many of these spy movies there's really no way for me to validate that a destination is really a destination. They could take plenty of places and tell me it's Munich or whatever, and I'll believe them.

Hahaha. In any case, fixed some bugs. Woo

The badges are still useful

That is true. Music can really help. I also agree that I tend to hate it when my character is told to feel something.

I don't remember much of the original BG (played much more BG2). Why would Firewine be easier with no party members?

xp was split I believe so I guess that makes sense.

The advantage of the text update is that it's explicit. You can't miss it. So while walking out of the vault in Fallout 3 you might not think to yourself "Hey, this is the first time my PC has seen the stars," a text dialogue describing that your PC is seeing the stars for the first time is that reminder of the significance of his events.

I didn't say better, I said different. I still say that individual writer's and painters for that manner should improve as they advance their technique or craft don't you? I'm not a painter so it's hard to say. If you were to ask a lot of random people what they felt were the best pieces of literature or paintings, you'd probably get a lot of people bringing up old pieces. Nostalgia? Maybe. I don't know. I know it's a loaded question. Some people will love the writing of Baldur's Gate more than DA, while others will prefer the writing of DA. In what ways can the writing be improved? For some the NPCs, as shallow as they may be in BG, were actually still quite detailed and entertaining (I still love Minsc, but as you say, nostalgia). DA allows for interaction with party members though, so I guess that's the step in the right direction that you're looking for, correct? Some stuff gets trickier though. You say you want better pathfinding, but pathfinding is actually a pretty complex problem in which Universities spend several millions of dollars researching, with relatively slow progress for implementation in games due to cost. Cost in terms of complexity (good solutions are hard to implement), as well as in computational power (there's some fantastically accurate ways of doing it, but you can't do it in real time). Never mind that there will be 2D vs 3D problems as well. There is give and take though. There's still very finite resources available, and unfortunately a very large chunk of them go to graphics (I definitely see this as a problem, though many don't). Having said that, you say that Bio has chosen to downgrade the gameplay of their games. The issue there is that Bioware did something different, which unfortunately doesn't always mean better. No doubt they were hoping that the changes in gameplay would have a net positive effect (perhaps they did, given that they were more viable for consoles?). I find the two pretty similar to be honest. At least on the PC. I don't have much experience with the console versions of the game so it's hard for me to say. In a strawman argument, you'll take my original argument and distort it in some way, and then argue against that distortion. The distortion that you made here is that you shifted it to a legal discussion, which I never intended it to be. Obsidian message boards isn't a place where appropriate legal definitions and distinctions are necessary. It's a casual place with casual conversation. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html The examples are a bit over the top, and I suppose an argument could be made that you were just making an analogy. But given the conversation was about Kelverin's decidedly casual use of the term "stealing," I certainly do feel that discussing the terms from a very legal perspective is indeed a distortion of the argument. Having said that, the context with which I was using the term stealing, with the examples I provided (all from general dictionaries, not from books of Law), actually fits quite well for your example. In the word of the law, copyright infringement and stealing are different, just as manslaughter and murder are different. In casual use though, you can say that someone stole something and it'd be satisfactory, even if in the eyes of the law there'd need to be a distinction between the legal definition of stealing and copyright infringement, just as you can say someone killed another person even though in the legal eyes you'd need to make a distinction between murder and manslaughter. Before you go "Oh, you use the legal term in the casual use though," all I have to say is that "stealing" has an abundance of uses that go beyond the legal application of the term. Hence, I feel it's just as satisfactory to say that someone stole some computer software via piracy, as it is to say that that young woman stole my heart. Language is fluid, and the casual use of language changes all the time.