alanschu

It's been what, 3 decades? You're suggesting that their stay in the prison has left them institutionalized? Is there any rough number for how long instituationalization takes?

I didn't go through all the links, but this one is pretty good. It's in french, but the questions and answers are straightforward. The question though, is what orbits the Earth.

I don't think so either. The Fallout child killer is a good one! Though Fallout's setting makes for things to be a bit more isolated in their consequences, this certainly is one that spreads. Though it's a bit annoying, because if I eradicate Junktown, who's left to say I'm a child killer?

If you want to be thorough, test it with a no-CD crack.

Unit Customization and the Civics. The setting itself was neat too. Civ 4 brought in the Civics though, which was a great idea.

Where'd you get High Treason then? I posted that link because the problem people seem to be having on the forum (as I looked around), was the Install Shield issue.

Did you check this out?

I was under the impression that Mass Effect was an Action RPG as well. And from what I can tell, you don't get to play your own character either, but rather Commander Shephard. Given both of these impressions, I suddenly think the idea becomes much more moot. Llyranor does have a point, that interface issues become much more important on a console.

I haven't had any problems with Securom historically either.

Who are you? Just a gamer/enthusiast? Because you have made references to a "we" in your posts. Who is "we?" You also indicate that you have connections with technical support, since you knew that pirated copies of these games do not suffer from these problems. Who's tech support?

Not too surprisingly. Games seem to have been making the transition to cinematic experiences since graphics were introduced.

You listed the culprits in a super awesome clear sentence like this: You'll forgive me, but this sentence starts off saying that games such as Stormreach, UT2004, Timeshift, and AOW: High treason have no problems (read the sentence carefully). Hence my confusion. Hence why your statement was obscure, since you seemed to be contradicting yourself at times. Since you know the games, this is an easy thing, just give me a list of the games. No other comments. So it would look like this: Is it just AOW: High Treason and Timeshift? I would think yes, but your last statement confused me.

Okay, since your previous post was rather opaque with respect to which Atari games, tell me which Atari games. Where would both these companies be without you!

Or perhaps they aren't letting you post slander on their forum. EDIT: I guess it'd technically be libel.

I think I remember that level too. It was in the fun part of SS.

Oh. My verbosity has entirely substituted for clarity, it seems. Let's see.. Difference between paraphrasing and full-blown dialogue options: in one, you make a choice of generalised intent. In the other, you make a choice of both generalised intent and specific connotations that can only be delivered through the wording, the tone, the individual words. These are important not only in that they are eventually delivered (which paraphrasing does), but in that they are fully visible BEFORE we make a dialogue choice. Why? Because then our choices can be that much more specific. It's like saying there's a choice between a green apple and a red banana (yeah, sue me), and ME says "Apple or Banana", IE engine says "Green Apple or Red Banana". Perhaps, ultimately, whether it's green or red doesn't really matter; it certainly doesn't to the game mechanics and the NPC responses. I'm saying it is in the act of player choice itself, not what comes after, that we should be given a full understanding of available options, because then we can make a choice that we identify with / desire to the most. Well, surely you'll see that the apple is green, and the Banana is red, in the actual game. I argue that, ultimately, unless the dialogue is written exceptionally poorly, the player chooses what to do based on intent, not the words that are written. The illusion of choice is not any greater. You're just given the benefit of seeing what you are actually going to say before you say it. Given that in both cases, your character will still say it, then I don't see it as that big of a difference. In both cases, the character is still going to ultimately do what I want him to do. The big caveat is if the dialogue is good or not. The only time I can see people really choosing a dialogue option that has the intent they want, but doesn't because of the choice of words, is because of really poor dialogue. You ask me to provide reasons to prefer the other one, when quite honestly I don't think the reasons you've given me for the traditional way are deal breakers either. I guess it's all about preference. If that sort of situation presents itself, then it's a knock against the system. If the paraphrase is more appropriately chosen "Kill for justice" (or some other more creative way) then nothing is lost as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, it's quite possible that dialogues become much more than straight forward. It's quite possible that this type of system was implemented because quite frankly, the dialogue options would have been far too long. To the point where you'd only see one or two options without scrolling. This works the same if the number of dialogue choices signficantly increases. Displaying 9 dialogue options in a text window below can become cumbersome, and intimidating, especially if some of them happen to be verbose. This cleans up the interface by removing clutter, and still allows the player to choose the course of action that they want to follow.

You forgot the part about real combat situations.

I think it lets you add your wisdom bonus to your defense.

Why? When I say "If you had the money," I'm talking about the fact that $600 is literally chump change, to the point where if you were to lose you wallet with $600 in it, you wouldn't care.

I'm not so sure. I think it's the fact that they want to keep reading down. Typing text in a game is cheap. Yes a voice actor costs money, but I think it was meta that was showing, especially for the big budget AAA titles, voice acting costs represent a very, very small amount of the overall cost. I think he references GamaSutra. This would have significance if you were a representative sample of the bulk of the video game industry.

If you had the money, what's the difference?

Would you have preferred it if the werewolf actually took damage, even though it had so many hitpoints it was essentially unkillable?

Yes. And in this discussion, we naturally have to compare with the other implementation, which is full dialogue options. How could I ask you for examples for a paradigm that hasn't been implemented yet?

That is why the Observation doors would still be an option. The point is even thought the werewolf is tough it is not invincible. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, it's poor design. One group of people get easy street where they just flame the thing down, and make the scene exceptionally anticlimactic, where the other group has to actually survive the werewolf and is essentially defenseless and has a much more difficult time.

I'm not asking for examples of a Mass Effect style game.