alanschu

It's a place to start, but we won't be able to say for certain until we see some information. Sid Meier is known for making awesome empire games, but he still made an excellent little Golf Course simulator, complete with RPG elements (levelling up your pro) and so on. Furthermore, it's entirely possible that they wouldn't be making this change simply for the sake of one game. It may be that they bought the license so that they could make a game with minimal tweaks to Oblivion's engine and making it Oblivion with guns. Or they could have bought the license to expand out. If the design of the game doesn't match up what you'd like in a game, then fine. I will wholeheartedly suggest not buying it. Personally, my recommendations will be to not buy Fallout 3 if it is a bad game. If it's a great game, even though it doesn't strictly follow the "pure" Fallout fans image of the game, I'd still recommend it to people, by virtue of it being a great game. The only places where I'd offer a footnote to the recommendation would be if Bethesda decides that the events that happened in previous games need not apply. The setting and style of Fallout are the most "untouchable" things I can see. Things like ruleset abstractions and perspectives can be changed, perhaps even improved and made even better. However, IIRC Fallout 3 is leaning towards being on the East Coast, which is a bonus for the content creation since they won't be restricted by any Canon.

I'm pretty sure they aren't available until 1945. However, if I reduce Japan to nothing more than its mainland, it's ability to wage war will effectively be neutered. Their desire to fight on with extreme devotion won't mean much if they are all starving to death with no military forces to speak of (nor the infrastructure to build more).

You should work on your reading comprehension. Rather than straight up stating that I should "work on my reading comprehension," explain yourself. Unless all you have is mentions of it in reviews. Even then, it'd be useful to actually cite a review that actually supports your claim. Even then, when someone that actually gets paid to review games states otherwise (mkreku), you basically call him a liar. Nice For the record, the only thing your previous comments "prove" is that some reviewers mentioned the site. Unless one of the authors came straight out and said "This site made me give FOBOS a lower score" you can't prove anything with it. You're making (il)logical assumptions in an attempt to support your conclusion. You may be correct, but it's certainly not proven. Your intentions are not altrustic. Don't pretend that they are. Like many games, if the product is poor, it's poor. Not even the MOO franchise could save MOO3 from being a poor selling game. You are specifically picking less than definitive words such as "unsatisfactory" and "worthy" because those words are completely subjective. What is an unsatisfactory game? One that doesn't hold up to what YOU want Fallout 3 to be? Even if the game itself is actually a GOOD game? The issue here is that the campaign is not a campaign against a BAD game, it's a campaign against a game that doesn't mold to your vision. Fallout 3 could be the best game in the history of man, but you'll be convincing people to not buy it simply because it's not Fallout 1 or Fallout 2. It's going to be a smear campaign (and as we can already see from the link you posted, the public opinion of Bethesda is less than stellar at the Codex). People will overscrutinize simply because they are Bethesda, much like how people automatically overscrutinize anything that Electronic Arts or Microsoft does. If your site convinces people to not buy an excellent game simply because it isn't what "true" Fallout fans want, then yes, it is wrong. Heh, if Bethesda makes a worthy FO3 I'll happily eat my words and personally apologize to them. However, the chances of that happening are slimmer than a snowball's chance in hell ATM. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The thing is, what you consider a 'worthy' Fallout 3 is completely subjective. You've already made up your mind on the issue, and unless it's a carbon copy of Van Buren, or one of the other Fallouts, it will be criticized. If for no other reason than they are Bethesda. This whole campaign is going to be one motivated by confirmation bias, where people will be overscrutinizing aspects of the game, simply in an effort to undermine Fallout 3. It's already happening now, when we know virtually nothing about the game.

No it hasn't. See, look at what your goal is. It's to convince people NOT to buy the game. Your metric for determining success is by convincing people to NOT buy the game. Will you still consider it an accomplishment if the site convinces just one person to decide for and by himself/herself to actually buy the game? Look at precisely what you said. Your goal is specifically to convince people to NOT buy the game. I don't expect the Bethesda PR hype to be any different. Bethesda has a vested financial interest in seeing the game succeeds. Futhermore, ALL game developers have PR hype. I guarantee you that Van Buren would have had PR hype attached to it as well. Unfortunately, you are claiming that NMA et al. ARE going to be sources of unbiased, objective truth. Now you're backpedalling saying "Oh, well it's not like Bethesda is either." See, you've already made up your mind. Bethesda has ruined the third installation of a great franchise. But I'm sure that the criticisms will be fair and unbiased. No, it was a poor game. What's your point? Poor games happen all the time. Are you saying that I should have made a website prior to the game's release badmouthing Quicksilver? I knew full well that there were changes to the game. It's not like MOO3 in any way soured my memories of MOO1 or MOO2. This isn't isolated. I love Deus Ex (favourite game of all time for me). After playing the demo of Invisible War, I figured the game was not for me. I didn't scream bloody murder. They tried something different, and it didn't work out the way I would have liked. Big whoop. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory decided to change some things, and shifted a bit from the pure Stealth that the first two games were. I found the changes to be significant improvements over the previous games. Yay me! Double Agent made a few more changes, these ones I didn't like as much, but I still enjoyed the game. Oh well. Ultima VII made a transition from an explicit/obvious tilebased, turn based game that was Ultima VI, and substituted in real-time combat instead. As far as I (and many others) are concerned, it's the best Ultima of all time. And it certainly doesn't bare much resemblance at all to the earlier Ultima games. Thank GOD the Internet wasn't around for "pure Ultima fans" to vent and petition about how Richard Garriott had decided that the first person perspective while in dungeons should be dropped. Sorry, but I don't consider it an unholy blight that MOO3 didn't live up to the other MOO games. I also don't hate Quicksilver for trying to do something new and different with the franchise. Unfortunately, it seems as though many "pure fans" are perfectly okay with paying for an updated version of a previous game, which is doubly applicable in the case of Master of Orion because the game did not particularly focus on a story, but was a 4X adventure. People bitched and moaned because MOO3 wasn't MOO2 with shiny new graphics. So tell me, what is the bigger problem with the games industry, that someone makes a game that may not be a carbon copy of the original, and ends up making a poorer game? Or the people that would rather pay for a sequel that makes no significant attempt to do anything different, and milks the license by releasing the same game as before, with perhaps shinier graphics? I wonder how many "pure MOO fans" make fun of EA Sports and their business model they use with their sports games.

Speak for yourself. I loved and wasted many hours playing MOO, and when MOO2 came out, I loved and wasted many hours playing MOO2.

That's not really the impression I got. It's been stated repeatedly that the goal of this doesn't really accomplish anything. It's not going to get you the Fallout that you want, and the impact on anything will be insignificant (if there's impact at all). Futhermore, there's no reason to believe that the sites are going to be sources of unbiased, objective truth. The site is being created in protest of where people think Fallout 3 is going to go. It's entire idea was spawned out of bitterness.

I think that that is a distinct possibility, but of course we'll have to see.

And aVENGER, the people here are very much bashing the idea. You're just not seeing it. I guess we can look forward to an influx of Codex posters for the next little while.

Ah yes, I forgot

I personally saw a whole bunch of people that loved Fallout get giddy with glee when they heard it was being made by Bethesda!

I have no doubt that it won't be sugar-coated. I fully expect it to be laced with arsenic. Unless it's so blatantly Fallout that it pretty much IS Fallout, I suspect it will be ripped to shreds. The game could have a very convenient, easy to use, and exceptionally appropriate real-time engine that makes playing the game fun, straight-forward, and very intuitive, and these places will bash it, because it's not turn-based. I have mixed expectations, based mostly on Bethesda's previous two games I have played (Morrowind and Oblivion), but I do hope that Fallout 3 is a great game. Why? Because I'm a Fallout fan, and love the series. I don't care about specific rules or player perspectives, because the parts of the game that I really enjoyed transcend any trivialities. Do I hope it captures the spirit of the original games. Absolutely. Will it be world ending if it doesn't? Absolutely not. At best, it's still a good game that I enjoy playing. At worst, it's crap and I don't buy it. In either case, it's not really any different than if "Fallout 3" never existed, and it was just called something else. Fallout 3 has zero impact on Fallout or Fallout 2, but the impression I'm getting is that people seem to be concerned that Fallout 3 will be a blight to the Fallout name. Whoop-dee-freaking-do. Ultima IX was a poor game as well, but it didn't do much to take away from the lustre of the franchise. Any fan of CRPG games in the early 90s that played Ultima VI, or Ultima VII still love those games. To agree with what Vic stated, if you don't think Fallout 3 is the game for you, then move on. Calling up a crusade of "anti-hype" because you liked two games that are approaching 10 years old now doesn't give you the Fallout game that you want. Quite frankly, it looks like the goal of this is purely to try to bash Bethesda. Which is pretty darn immature, and reeks of sour grapes.

That's what I'm thinking as well. I actually don't mind the idea of episodic content, and think it's a wonderful way for consumers to test waters with new gamestyles. I also agree that SiN's moderate success, and relative low profile compared to Half-Life and Unreal, are probably bigger reasons to SiN's relative lack of popularity. While I don't know for sure, I imagine that Half-Life Episode One was significantly more successful, though Valve/Half-Life has made a big enough impact in the eyes of gamers that it could be digitized fecal matter and people (myself included) would still eat it up. It's certainly an interesting way to find ways to get incremental ROI, especially considering the costs associated with game development have reached such high levels.

Quite a bit has happened since my last update. It's now August 1943, and most of my carriers are now using the significantly better Hellcat over the Wildcat. First, some good news from New Guinea. My decision to build up the base on Hollandia has paid off immensely. LBA flying out from there were able to spot a carrier battlefleet. Dauntless' dropping 1000 lb AP bombs, Beauforts dropping 18" torpedoes, and B-25s dropping 2000 lb GP bombs all scored multiple hits. The IJN Shokaku was decimated in the attack, sinking the same night she was hit. Other hits were scored on some battleships on the fleet, but the bulk of the attack was wisely focused on the carrier itself. The CV Bunker Hill (Essex class) was recently made available, and along with the CV Essex, and the CVL Independence, made way to the Kwalajein Atoll to knock out her airfield. While this was happening, the rest of the entire US Carrier fleet escorted a Battleship bombardment Task Force, as well as landing forces consisting of the 2nd USMC Division, 3rd USMC Division, 24th US Army Division, and 27th US Army Division. Also preparing were smaller task forces carrying the US III, US XIV, and US XI Army Corps, the 5th Air Force HQ, and the Central Pacific HQ directly. The 2nd USMC Paratrooper division, as well as the 4th USMC Raider division also loaded up. They made way for the Kwalajein Atoll, and arrived in about a week and a half. During this time, B-24 Liberators out of the Tarawa Atoll (conquered last year) performed port strikes, with support from the raiding CVTF (Essex, Bunker Hill, and Independence). As troops arrived, the rest of the carrier fleet focused on port and coastal defenses, hoping to reduce the number of coastal guns that could fire at the transports. A battleship TF consisting of 13 battleships, including South Dakota class ships BB Indiana, Alabama, BB Massachusetts, in addition BB North Carolina, BB Washington, and a host of older battleships performed heavy shore bombardments on the Atoll. Casualty estimates exceeded 10,000 and troops from the 2nd and 3rd USMC Divisions began landing troops at night, with additional troops from the remaining combat divisions joining in the landings during the day. Initial fighting was exceptionally heavy, with the 3rd USMC Div taking heavy casualties. The Bombardment fleet made an additional, albeit less effective, bombardment, and all aircraft changed targets specifically to japanese combat troops, to aid in the fights. After two days of fighting, Allied forces were able to secure the base, and all that remains is to clean up the remaining pockets of Japanese resistance. 2 AA Divisions, the 10th USMC Coastal Battery Division, the 56th US Coastal Defense Unit, in addition the the 105th USN Base Force, 19th Engineer Aviation Brigade, and the 11th Navy Sea Bees (Engineers) will land in the next couple of days to repair infrastructure. One B-24 Liberator Flight Group is preparing to make the flight from Pearl Harbour, and cargo ships are beginning to load up USMC Corsairs, Avengers, and Dauntless' to provide aircover over the Marshall Islands. Currently there are only plans to occupy two other bases in the Marshall Islands, in order to bring Truk into range of land based bombers, as well as Guam and Saipan. I am content to leave the rest of the islands officially in Japanese control, and simply starve them out. Between holding Kwalajein, and a lesser extent the Tarawa Atoll, the remainder of the islands should be cutoff and suffer heavy attrition. In Southeast Asia, things are also going splendidly. Moulmein and Tavoy fell a few days after Rangoon, and troops prepared an invasion of Bangkok. While preparations were being made, much of the heavy bomber divisions flew into Wuchow China, to assist in the second attack on Canton. With the China's west secure, and the Burma Road open, most Chinese divisions relocated to Canton, with the aim of actually capturing it this time. With the help of hundreds of Medium and Heavy Bombers, the Chinese were able to pummel Japanese forces, and had them retreat into Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong is an island, they literally have no where to hide now. Before returning to Burma, the bomber divisions did heavy bombing runs over Hong Kong, decimating multiple ships inside the port. In fact, there were 104 confirmed hits on a light cruiser. It sunk Now a few divisions of Hurricane Fighter Bombers, P-40N Warhawk Fighter bombers, and a USMC Corsair division are flying out of Canton, interdicting any ships en route to resupply Hong Kong. Hong Kong is able to provide a limited about of supplies, but for the most part its heavy industry will be cut off and rendered useless, affecting Japan's ability to wage war. With Hong Kong cut off, and several Japanese Army Divisions effectively cut off from combat, my bomber divisions returned to Tavoy and Rangoon. From there, they performed heavy air and port strikes against Bangkok. 4 Tank Divisions blitzed into Bangkok to cut off the Malaya Penninsula from resupply via rail, and the siege of Bangkok had started. In a few days, the bulk of the Commonwealth Armies arrived and proceeded to pummel, with the help of air supremacy and numerous flights from heavy bombers, medium bombers, and even some dive bombers, Bangkok into submission. The strikes against the Ports and Airfields are done to reduce support troops, which in turn limit the effectiveness of restoring disabled combat troops to combat readiness. After a week or so of fighting, Bangkok fell. It's mid-August 1943, and things are looking very up for the Allied counterattacks! With some luck, the war will hopefully be over sometime in 1944.

I'm well aware of the Task Manager thanks. When you talk about running Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on an Intel Celeron 533 MHz processor "perfectly," I wonder exactly what you mean by "perfectly." We're talking about a processor that was released when the AMD "high end" chip was a K6-2 550 MHz. Unless you mean the old Coppermine version. In any case, you're getting a processor running on a 66 MHz FSB. Was it even possible to get a motherboard that supported RAM faster than PC-133 that would support it (because machines that shipped with it only came with 66 MHz RAM. Talk about speedy!). I'm going to assume it's at least the Coppermine Celeron II, otherwise you wouldn't even have support for SSE instructions. I'm surprised your emachine motherboard even supported a 128 MB video card. Maybe a GeForce 3....assuming your eMachine had at least an AGP 2X slot to put it in. And the GeForce 2 was the worst nVidia based video card you could have that had the required pixel shaders to run the game. "Perfectly" indeed. This is of course all running on a system with a 66 MHz system bus, with a 533 MHz processor, and slow memory.

I'm guessing it's time to chalk this one up to the "I guess we'll never really know" department. EDIT: Though we can go elsewhere with this. Do you think that SiN Episode 1 was hampered by the fact that it was episodic?

I have had no bad experiences with Gamer's Gate. I have used it to buy all of my Paradox games in the past year or so. I also used it to repurchase Doomsday after I lost the CD.

I picked mine up through Direct2Drive.

But, think of the travesty to the Fallout Franchise!!3211111. They're doing the world a favour!

I did not really expect this to particularly be "news." I've stated many times that my current project is this. I have also worked on this, though at the time it was a bit beyond my expertise, as my knowledge of AI was non-existant. Though I was paid via a scholarship, so it's not like it was a huge cost to him.

The issue I have is that their going into it with the point of being critical. What if it's actually a good game? Will they report it that way, or will their preconceived biases against the game that started years before actual release put them on a crusade to try to bring the game down any way they can?

I'm a computer programmer. Perhaps some lubricant will help you out of your viscous circle. Electronic Arts had ONE rewrite since the days of the Sega Genesis? The speed at which the NBA Live games run is not the issue.

Is this not a thread about NWN2, a sequel? Or are you referring to my comments about the NBA Live series, which could also be construed as sequels. What was the point of your original comment?

I liked Jung's influences on Cognitive Psychology. The main issue I have with Jung is his collective consciousness idea. The thing about it is that it doesn't seem to be provable, and more importantly, it doesn't seem to be falsifiable. IMO his contributions to psychology are similar to that of Freud's. Some interesting ideas, but too reliant on introspection and unfalsifiable theories. I think it's safe to say that Jung's ideas reflect his relationship with Freud. Though to be fair to Jung, his ideas are a bit less open to criticism than Freud's, which were often subject to circular logic. I tend to Occam's Razor his explanations of collective conscious and archetypes however. Yes archetypes exist, but I don't see why this has to be a part of the collective consciousness straight from the collective experiences of our DNA, when socialization seems to be an alternative explanation for such things.

He does what he needs to do to win. It's a very bad idea to cross that hero :D

And in what way are you qualified to make this statement? You were the one that said "Sometimes it's better just to use a clean slate and start from scratch."