Tale

Gas explosion. Hmm, that's kind of a weird way of saying "fuel air bomb." It unleashes a large cloud of vapor into the air, then ignites it. It uses up the oxygen in the area as fuel and creates a partial vacuum, which supposedly can increase devastation but I've not heard to what degree.

A fuel air bomb they're claiming is powerful enough to be compared to nuclear weapons.

I think the most important supposed "pseudo-philosophy" of PS:T was the power of belief. However, contextually speaking it was a reality in Planescape and it served more to describe the setting than to try to demonstrate, educate, or convince of the concept. If a game features people with wings, do we automatically draw that it is an allusion to human achievement? Or perhaps it is just a facet of the setting? Several of the abilities belief granted to people are just too outlandish to be taken with a seriousness required to think it's even attempting philosophy.

Only around noon.

We should arrange a friendly game of Civ4! And by friendly game I mean "DON'T DECLARE WAR ON ME, YOU BASTAGE!" We could team up against the computer!

Why not just find out that you, for some reason or another, ARE the big evil? Planescape did it. That was nice.

So, my friend turns out to have a 360. Totally going to be playing it with him. Didn't know when he'd get one for my to leech off of.

*adds Pidesco to the list of people to cut*

That was so last month in the games you're looking forward to thread. Pshaw. But yes, I love this game. I'm at war with Catherine the Great in my most recent game. I don't think I'll ever finish it because that ***** has too many bombers and stands between me and my nearest sources of oil. I was trying to play the game as an arrogant xenophobic technophile. I didn't get one of the main resources of the modern world (oil), but I did get the other (uranium). I eventually made a pact with the most technological nation (it's permitted, I'm a technophile), but that didn't stop the bastage from using the UN to get rid of my nuclear weapons before I could finish building my first one. God, I hate him. I was going to stockpile countless nukes as deterrent and just sit on them before Catherine declared. When she did declare I decided to wipe her from the map. Then my "ally" made it so I can't build any more (read ANY AT ALL) nukes. *extends middle finger*

You really have not played a KOTOR.

How YOU doin'?

Everyone should appreciate that game. I might just buy a PSP for the port.

I didn't mean explicitly RTS games, as you see I mentioned some RPG strategy games. But it does sounds as if you prefer units to characters.

I'm honestly curious. Why not just play RTS games instead if you're more interested in strategy than characters? There are even some strategy games based around RPG mechanics. The Final Fantasy Tactics games and I believe there's even a D&D Tactics game.

Dragon Wars or D-War is coming out Friday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-War I hear it's awful, but the Korean nationalism pushing it is why it did so well. The premise is neat, but I'll have to wait for some reviews before I see it.

I think two things should be done. Not necessarilly in the same game, but as two different ways of doing it depending upon the kind of experience developers want to give. 1) Increasing strategy. 2) Increasing independence. 1) If they want us to maintain strategic control over companions, we should be able to have some strategic control both in and out of combat. Including being able to plan who carries out what out of combat tasks and perhaps how they do it, such as who engages in conversations and at least some influence in how they engage. 2) Full control of companions is something that BG2 had not just because it was designed that way but because the nature of AI at the time, it couldn't really have been designed any other way. NPCs couldn't be trusted to behave intelligently. As computers become more powerful, AI can become more intelligent. Companions can start becoming more in control of their own actions without ****ing the player over. The player, as party leader, can assign roles and give basic outlines of tactics and strategy but its up to the AI to choose if and how to carry it out. This may seem a horrible idea simply because its relatively new and it seems to take away control from a player in comparison to the IE days. However, it encourages respect for the independence of AI characters and attachment to your own character. It can also have some interesting interactive consequences.

You haven't played a JRPG or the KOTOR games? The ability to slaughter entire armies with a wave of your hand or punch reality until it shatters seems a bit godlike.

So, you're arguing either that: A) You should not have companion control. B) During interparty conversations, you should be selecting responses from both your PC and your NPCs. Essentially a bout of talking with yourself. I can actually see a method for using companion conversation skills without taking control of a companion's personality. Such as the PC character makes a suggestion to the NPC for how to speak, but the NPC still maintains their personality, the dialogue changing depending upon their skill level to appear more convincing or intimidating or whatnot.

Listening to: Nothing Running through my head: Burn my Dread from the Persona 3 soundtrack. Why buy an MP3 player when you know how to create auditory hallucinations?

I would more support Sand being blindfolded and thrown into a soundproof room over developer's never discussing their plans with their customer base for potential feedback.

Because I recall numerous times in Baldur's Gate 2 where your party would be approached while your character hid and any time you so much as transitioned an area you would lose hiding. Which was reasonable enough, but there are many situations in BG and BG2 (in fact, possibly even IWD) where you can stealth up to something that is scripted to talk to you, yet it won't recognise a character that is stealthed. Alternatively, my main character (a rogue) can stand at the back while stealthed and Viconia can say whatever, then I can backstab the idiot (as I should be permitted to do). This is entirely different than NWN2, which takes the most offensive and insipid solution (teleporting you and making sure everyone can see EXACTLY where you are). What you've said sounds to me like you have characters that are not hiding in shadows, that are seen and then spoken to, which is fine. You don't actually lose your stealth in this situation (though I do believe the game keeps making checks, it's been a while). Again, BG2 did it right. The game doesn't have the engine to permit you things that you should be logically permitted to do anyway like jump through a window. So it gives a fair and reasonable abstraction given its limitations. NWN2 does not. Hence the objection. hmmm. Minsc talking about being a Bhaalspawn. Vs. the potential having my mage/rogue PC teleported right up to talk face to face with the likes of Demogorgon. I'll weigh these up on the scales of "What potentially aggravates me more" and get back to you.