alanschu

Considering I keep the side of my case open and I make sure that there is no cables cover any fans, I consider it a rather low priority.

I'd recommend not arguing with her on this particular point. I *think* she's just trying to be silly.

It just seemed odd to spontaneously start talking about the technical aspects of a game engine.

I think the NDP gaining power would probably be the worst thing possible for Canada. I don't hold much faith in a political party who's response to questions about where they plan to get the money for their plan of increasing spending for Health Care and Education is "Don't worry about it." And I support public spending for both Health Care and Education. And the Liberal Party is not a left leaning party, they're a pragmatic party. If you were to classify them, they'd be Centrist, with the exception of Chretien/Martin's Liberals, who (especially financially) would be more on the right than on the left. The recent Liberal Party has only been to the left when it comes to social concerns, but this is more of a reflection of their pragmatism than anything else.

That's partly why I was surprised. I was wondering if someone asked some questions or something.

I could see it working.

Yep. Also, it's entirely possible that licensing the engine allows for local modifications and whatnot. This seems to be the case with Half-Life 2, as according to IGN, it uses a modified version of the Havoc Physics engine.

Errr, I think we may have miscommunications about what the term abstraction means. I'm using it with this definition: "a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance." SPECIAL does not require Fallout to exist. It's not associated with any specific instance (i.e. world/game). It can be applied to whatever game world you want. Rulesets are important, but they abstract aspects of the world (such as the attributes of characters, how weapons are fired, and so on) in such a way that allows designers/players/whatevers to quantify aspects of the game world. In real life, a Strength value of 12 means nothing. What exactly does it mean to have 1 hit point remaining? And does it mean the same thing if you have 1 hit point remaining out of 4, or 1 hit point remaining out of 200.

I'm not sure what you mean here when you use the word robust. I can't make sense of this.

I remember PC Gamer talking about it in a sidebar during an article about Prey.

Just curious, why the sudden lecture about aspects of Half-Life 2? It just sort of seemed to come out of no where.

Oh?

What are you talking about? The ruleset is the abstraction because it doesn't need to be associated with the Universe. You can use a ruleset to do whatever you want, it doesn't have to be a specific game. In this sense (not being associated with a specific instance), it is an abstraction. In the case of computer game, it served as a mechanism by which we can quantify the attributes and abilities of a character (among other things). But it's still an abstraction. I mean, what exactly is a Strength value of 12? The only real thing we can get from it is that a Strength value of 12 is greater than a Strength value of 11 (i.e. relative comparisons). On specific gameplay yes, because it's the mechanism by which the player interacts with the setting. In terms of what makes a game fun, I don't think it's any more important than the setting and other creative aspects. Rock solid rulesets can't carry a poor, boring game, and a great game creatively will be hampered by a poor ruleset. The thing is, how the ruleset works is arbitrary. As long as it is functional and doesn't hinder experiencing the game world, it doesn't matter really matter what it is. Had Fallout not had an interesting premise and been an overall boring game, I suspect there'd be little fun to be had from playing the game just the same.

Why wouldn't they?

Say what?!?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Your optimism is palpable!

Not really. If someone decides not to buy Bethesda's FO3 based on something he/she reads on the site, say a comparison between FO1's turn-based combat and FO3's (hypothetical) real-time combat, an accomplishment has been made. Why? Because if Bethesda makes a FO3 which doesn't appeal to some people who liked the past two games, and they refuse to buy it because of certain features that were altered, the resulting lack of sales would signal the developers that they lost a portion of their customers due to such design decisions. That's what I'm advocating here. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Is it still an accomplishment if you convince old school Fallout players to actually buy Fallout 3?

Those "simple rulesets" are what dictate how a game plays, which is far more important in interactive entertainment than how good it looks. I think the idea was that a ruleset is an abstraction. It's possible that you could have a infinite number of rulesets that all work and make for a fun game with a particular setting.

Hey, the spreadsheet interface is letting me refuel my carriers in the Marshall Islands to go and decimate more Japanese shipping! Next goal is to conquer Truk, to cut off Rabaul, which recon has counted 33 (!) divisions at. I'd very much like to cut them off.

I don't know. I think the cameras may have been close to the ground. I do think that the Dam is probably bigger, though it's hard to say.

It was cool recognizing all those places. It'll be nice because enemies won't necessarily be in all the same spots any more!

Agreed, Close Combat was a very fun game to play, and it was real-time. As Llyranor pointed out, an RTS does not need to be a clickfest. I think the game he was describing was Red Devils Over Arnhem. When I worked on ORTS, we were looking on making an intelligent AI that worked well tactically from both sides. This was so that players were no longer small scale tacticians that had to click 1000x a second, but the strategic scale Generals.

Eli isn't in the Superbowl. I'm expecting Peyton to have an excellent game.

risking your life to save another's, and fighting to save your own, are two different things <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Did you actually read my post? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> yes... weren't we discussing the right to defend yourself, though? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> My comments were directed towards taks' observation that the idea "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" was motivated by socialist politics. I was giving an example about how it can still be an issue without socialism being present.

As someone that lives in the West, and votes Conservative with no love for the Liberal Party, I feel that the separatist movement is still quite grassroots. As much as the Liberal Party had done things in recent years to piss me off, I still consider myself a Canadian, and the general consensus still seems to be that way. I'd be very surprised if next election Albertans all decided to vote for a separatist party.