Spider

The Pilot was so... awesome. That they didn't get to make the series is a real tragedy. That this would be the last season for 7th Heaven has been known for a while. Rumor is that there will be some sort of spin-off to take it's place. Edit: About Smallville, this season has been a ratings success, so it's quite likely there will be another season.

All is written in light spirit of course. If I write anything serious, my posts tend to be much, much, MUCH longer. :cool:

You basically have three options: 1. Suck it up 2. Get new friends 3. Whine until you get what you want (which, if you're unlucky may force you to chose option 2). Welcome to the rock and the hard place.

I don't think the Flamethrower uses the Firearms skill at all. It just kills people, especially Vampires. The Tzimisce never had a chance.

In his ramblings, Hades actually has a point. A sequel needs to be a sequel more than in name only. A game that builds upon an existing franchise and tries to cater to that games fanbase needs to give the fans what they want. If too many things change, those fans won't want the game while other people may get turned off because they didn't like the original. I only need to point as far as FO:BOS to illustrate my point. By the way, when I write established fan base, I'm not talking about the true fanatics at places like NMA (no slight to them, I've been a member at NMA at times), but at people who played the first two games and still have fond memories of them. Exactly how much can be changed without alienating said fan base is hard to know though as it varies from person to person. Some will stay away if there is no turn-based combat, some will if the game plays out in first person. Some will if the dialogue system is the same as in Morrowind and some if SPECIAL isn't used. Some will refuse to buy it if Deathclaws are hairy. Maybe Bethesda can pull of turning the game into "Oblivion with guns" and still sell it to their own established fan base, the people who loved Morrowind and probably will love Oblivion as well. But if those are the people they intend to make the game for, the name Fallout is kinda meaningless. I'm not saying that people who like Morrowind don't like Fallout, but if they're buying the game because they like the Bethesda style, then the game might as well have been called Morrowout or whatever. The point is, that if that's the case the money spent to acquire the liscense were pretty much wasted. So Bethesda is probably going to try and cater to both fanbases. So where is the cut-off point? How much can they change or keep and still keep a majority of both groups happy? I have no idea, but I hope they do. Very little information has been released so far, but I hope it will turn out to be a great game. I'm afraid it's going to be a lot like Morrowind (which I cannot stand). I can live with a lot of changes, but I still feel there have to be enough left of the originals for it to feel like a sequel and not an entirely different franchise. The things I want and that can be deal-breakers for me are actual branching dialogue, both what my character is saying and what the NPCs are saying; the SPECIAL rule set; the feel and athmosphere of the original setting (and not that of FO: Tactics or, worse, FO: BOS) and combat that makes use of my characters skills and not my own. Maybe I can even live with a combat model similar to the one in Vampire: Bloodlines, but I'm hesitant. Regardless, I am willing to give Bethesda the benefit of a doubt until more information about the game surfaces. As of yet we have no idea what they're actually planning and can only speculate.

I'll go one step further though. Any race that is shorter than my leg should be banished from all fantasy settings. With a possible exception for the really tiny races like pixies and such.

I wouldn't really say that Dawn of War had a good story though. It was kinda mediocre, although I like the setting. The NWN story is about the same as the one in DoW on more levels than one. It does drag out a lot more though. I think IWD2 has a better story than either though. This is only for the NWN original campaign. The expansions (especially HotU) is a different beast altogether.

Actually, it's still only two rolls, one to hit and one to damage. The rest is just math. Your point is still valid though because doing percentages when playing a normal RPG would slow it down a lot. Though I have played PnP RPGS that use more complex models than Fallout does. Back to the AC thing. I have absolutely nothing against having a system with one AC component and one bullet stopping component. I really don't see the need for both DT and DR though. They basically do the same thing so one of them should be able to cover both. But that's an idea I'm not married to, so I don't care all that much. Although I do prefer one number to keep track of, it makes it easier to compare different armor types.

Edit: That's what I get for taking a long time to write my post (phone call and such). When I started writing this, it was as a reply to the above post and no other posts had been made. So sorry for only repeating what Sawyer already said. I have no problems with abstractions. They just have to make sense, and the armor system in FO doesn't. Since I'm not familiar with GURPS, I am going to assume that the concept of AC is more or less ripped from AD&D. There both a characters agility and armor rating improves that characters AC, and it makes a lot more sense. AC represents how difficult it is to score a wounding blow rather than just to hit, which means a miss can be either a swing in the air or a blow that connected but was blocked by armor. I'm not advocating AD&D's AC system by any means (it certainly has a lot of flaws), but it does make a great deal more sense than the one in Fallout. The whole thing is that Fallout already has a way of showcasing armors damage stopping capacity (which is what armors effect on AC reflects in D&D) and that is it's DT/DR value. So if AC in no way accounts for that, where does the bonus to AC come from? I have no problems with seeing AC as a characters ability to avoid getting hit. The action point bonus and the perks make perfect sense. But the armor doesn't. Again, how does wearing a bunch of metal make me harder to hit? If Fallout would have a AC + DT/DR system where AC (which would then be horribly named) would be ruled by the characters ability to avoid getting hit and armor would actually carry with it a penalty to that AC, then I would have really liked it. And it's logical. Armor makes me easier to hit, but less likely to take damage when someone hits me. I thought the edge that armor was supposed to give you was DT/DR. If I put on a plate mail armor, everyone who takes a swing at me will hit me. But if they're swinging with their fists, they'll damage themselves more than me. And that's where the edge armor gives you in combat comes from. It does not increas your mobility. Some armor may not hamper my mobility, but that's about it.

Yes, and I can relate to how the leather armor would give me higher AC than the metal armor with this representation. My question is why does donning the metal armor make me harder to hit compared to wearing no armor at all? 40lbs of metal makes me more mobile? If wearing armor would decrease my AC compared to being unarmored, I would love the system, but that's not how it is.

I disagree. I think it makes no sense at all, actually. The DT/DR is supposed to show how armor stops incoming force from hurting you. If you're hit by something and it doesn't damage you, that means the armor completely blocked it. So what exactly does the AC represent? The in game effect is that I'm harder to hit in the first place, not harder to damage. So how do I get harder to hit by carrying around 40lbs of metal exactly? Doesn't that in fact make me easier to hit (there is more of me and I can't move as freely), but harder to damage? AC makes a little more sense in a game like D&D where the increase in AC represents the armor's damage stopping qualities as well as your own ability to not get hit. I don't think it's a very good concept there either, but at least in such a system I can understand it.

This is true, at least in the US. I'm not sure how high the percentage of women in the workforce is in Sweden, but I do know that there are more women seeking higher education (college and beyond) than there are men. You're absolutely right. The disparity is not as great as those numbers may indicate. But that is part of the problem. The question is why aren't there as many qualified women? Again, it is a matter of perception. Western society still encourages men more to seek leadership roles than it does women. This is what I feel needs to change. The second part of the problem is that women still get fewer breaks than men do. This also needs to change. That actually wasn't my intention and I'm sorry for not being clearer about this. What I set out to do was to illustrate that things aren't as good on this front as a lot of people are willing to believe in the Western part of the world. I used the US as an example because it dominates Western culture and because I knew where to find the numbers. It was never intended as a slight on the US specifically. I was responding to a post saying that the Norwegian quota would never even be something to consider unless men got paternity leave. I merely pointed out that men do get that. Note that I am not 100% for the Norwegian law, but I can understand where it's coming from. And I feel people that are just brushing it off as unneeded (I'm not saying you're doing this, btw) are missing something. Similar laws have been discussed in Sweden, but has not been implemented as far as I know. The problem is that the corporate world exists partially outside the democratic one that governs a country like Norway. The people clearly consider men and women equally capable, something the gender spread of those voted into parliament shows with that spread being 50/50 roughly (I don't have the exact numbers of Norway, but they aren't that far off from the Swedish ones). The problem with companies is that they're not ruled by a democratic process, they are ruled by old men. And old men tend to prefer other old men, or slightly younger men, when they promote people. So when the make-up of the corporate world doesn't reflect the views of the public, something needs to be done. What the best way to do this is, I do not know, but at least the Norwegians are doing something. I think that the most qualified for any position, regardless of gender (or race, but that's another issue), should get that position, but as it currently works, men that are less qualified than women still get jobs they shouldn't have. The opposite is quite rare (outside of affirmative actions, which can have this effect at times). Maybe it'll sort itself out in another 50 years, but I don't think it has the right to take that long. Women my age deserve the same shot as I would get and they deserve it now.

With TotSC yes. I was referring to without when I wrote 60 hours though. It's possible I exaggerated the amount of time it took me to play through it, it was a long time ago (since I played it the first time, these days I do it significantly faster, partially due to Tutu). And yes, a lot of the time consisted of empty maps. Or at least mostly empty, there was always some encounter. This is true and this could have been handled differently. I usually reach the cap before entering Baldur's Gate so I know what you mean. This is more a problem with having so many sidequests though. Although I never really had a problem with the level cap.

I've had this discussion before, but I was totally underwhelmed with the Cradle. It wasn't at all scary and I thought it was one of the least fun levels in Thief III. I will say it was very athmospheric though and that gives it bonus points.

It does for the most part, although after a certain point it loses a lot of it and becomes a lot more combat oriented.

In Sweden men has the same right to paternity leave as women do maternity leave. A family divides up their days any way they chose between the parents, although the man is required to use a certain percentage (not sure what it is though). I wouldn't be surprised if there is something similar in place in Norway. Now then, to the issue at hand. Women make up 52% percent of the poulation and with the proper education they are every bit as qualified as men to run a large corporation. So how many women are present in the boards of large companies? Not all that many. I don't have any numbers for total board presence, but I do have it for the top position. From fortune.com: "Even with Carly's departure from Hewlett-Packard, there are more female FORTUNE 500 CEOs this year than there were last year. A total of 19 FORTUNE 1000 corporations have women in the top job, including Anne Mulcahy at Xerox. " 19! Out of one thousand. Or in other words, 1.9%. Does this mean that for every one qualified woman there are 49 equally qualified men? Or could it be that companies in our world are biased in favor of men over women? And leaving the world of corporations for a while, how may women senators are there in the US? 15-17 (when I checked this there were some names that to me felt male that I could have been mistaken about, I checked most but one or two may have slipped by me). In the US congress it's slightly better with 70 of 435 being women. Oh, and how many female presidents have the US had? How many female candidates? Female Vice Presidents? (btw, the corresponding political numbers for Sweden would be 208 of 395 in our legislative branch are female which is roughly 52.5%. We're a lot worse when it comes to corporations) According to these numbers, one of two things are true. Either women in general are incompetent when it comes to leadership or they are vastly underrepresented in leading positions. Since I don't believe women are any less capable than men, you may see where I'm getting with this. I don't agree 100% with the Norwegian law, but I don't totally disagree either. I would prefer if the best person was hired for the job, but since there are so many cases where a man gets hired over an equally (or more so) qualified woman I do think something needs to be done. Quotation may not be the best way, but at least it's a way to change the public perception. And the public perception needs to be changed. Our culture holds men in much too high regard, especially middle aged men. If anyone has any better ideas how to increase the female presence in companies and I'm all ears.

Detecting sarcasm is a tricky thing to do when it's just written words. So sorry for missing that. And the level progression in BG was anything but quick. I think it took me something like 60 hours to complete (it's been a long time) and throughout that my character gained something like 8 levels. Add another 20 or so hours for the expansion and 1-2 levels for that. Unless you were being sarcastic again.

Yeah, cause the slow level progression in Baldur's Gate really hurt Bioware... Troika didn't die because you only hit level 10 in ToEE, in fact I think that was one of the better parts of that game. So yeah, I'm with Hades on this. I'm not a great fan of gaining levels everytime I turn around either. My reason for this is because I want gaining levels to be something special. I love the feeling you get when you play a game for hours and hours and then suddenly there is that level you've been waiting for. I also like the option of playing the same character through expansions or sequels. Yes, exactly like Baldur's Gate. The BG series simply worked very well for me. I had my character that I got to keep playing through four campaigns and when I hit the epic levels in the end I liked it because I felt that I deserved it. I'm not saying I think every game should have a slow level progression, but I don't think every game should reach epic levels either. There is room for both, only right now there are many more high level games out there. The only low level game released in recent years was ToEE and that was crap (but again, not due to the low level cap).

Nitpick mode: Not every hero, just those introduced to you through the storyline. There are a few additional ones that don't have a vignette. Anyway, they are both great games. RPGs they are not, but still great fun. It helps if you like superhero comics of course, even more so if you're familiar with the comics they pay tribute to. If you're interested, here is a review I once wrote for the sequel. Most of it is true for the original game as well (apart from the story comments I think).

This from rottentomatoes.com: "Uwe Boll is such a bad director that it must be intentional." -- Peter Hartlaub, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Edit: These are also pretty funny. "How fitting that director Uwe Boll (House of the Dead) would choose a vampire flick as his latest project - the man has a career that, despite the horror he continually inflicts on innocent moviegoers, simply will not die." -- Elizabeth Weitzman, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS "'You don't know the meaning of pain!' our heroine hisses at one point. Oh, honey, believe us, we do." -- Stephen Whitty, NEWARK STAR-LEDGER Edit again: I went to IMDB and these are the movies Uwe Boll is currently working on (as a director): # Fear Effect (2008) (announced) # Postal (2007) (announced) # Far Cry (2006) (announced) # Hunter: The Reckoning (2007) (pre-production) # In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2006) (post-production) See a trend?

I think a point that is being overlooked in the current discussion is that not every game should strive for maximum immersion. In some games, like a multiplayer FPS, the game is more about beating the crap out of your opponents than immersing yourself in the gameworld. Therefor it is obviously important to have information like health and ammo readily available at all times, because even a fraction of a second may be the difference between dominating or being a pile of goo. But in single player games like MSG or even the single player campaign of FEAR (or RPGs) immersion is something to strive for. In such games integrating the interface into the gameworld could very well be a good thing if done right. Not every idea is going to work for every game, because all games are different.

It depends on your priorities. The combat is somewhat lackluster and there are quite a few areas in the game that are only occupied by hostile creatures. Stealth is still an option though, so a lot of the combat can be avoided. Personally I thought the combat was kinda fun (at least once my combat skills were decent enough) but it's definitely the weakest part of the game. The rest, on the other hand, is amazing. The atmosphere is phantastic, the writing is very good and the game has the best set of quests I've seen in any RPG. There are loads of interesting characters and the fact that they're all voice acted really adds to the previously mentioned atmosphere. In my opinion it's the best RPG in a long, long time and definitely the best game Troika made.

If the other vampire has high enough Auspex (I believe you get Aura Sight at 2, but I'm not sure) and if you don't have high enough Obfuscate (the aura masking ability of Obfuscate is a higher level though, 4-6 not sure which)

If you know their names, they can probably be found at Amazon or EBay. I did a quick search on Amazon and found the only one I know the name of (since I have it), a Wraith athology called Death and Damnation.

13th gen aren't thin bloods if I recall correctly. A character created by the VtM rules that doesn't spend points in the Generation background is gen 13 by default and they still suffer the curse (and gets the powers) fully. Thin Bloods are generation 14 and higher. I think there are rules to play one in the book Time of Thin Bloods (or something like that). Thin Bloods didn't really appear in the VtM mythos (at least not in a prominent fashion) until that book was released. Also, while Thin Bloods can't generally embrace (their blood isn't strong enough) it has been known to happen. There have been mentions of gen 15 and even 16 Thin Bloods. As for the effect of lower generation, what it does is give you a larger blood pool and the ability to raise your powers higher. A normal vampire (generation 13 through can only have 5 points in a discipline or skill while a third generation can go as far as 10 points.