Tale

Fire ants would work.

People must say that explicitly to make fun of that movie. I saw 3 different people say that, seriously, in another thread on another forum. The silliness of it, to me, is that the distance between planets alone, even within our own solar system, is enough to qualify it for an awful lot of wasted space. What movie Contact

I thought I made that clear. That would fall under unsound perception. I even referenced one such of your examples. Unsound perception can mitigate the morality of the perpetrator, but does not alter the weight of the act.

No, thats not what Im saying at all. What Im saying is that the influence system inadvertently encourages players to metagame. Just like the example Tale brough up where you're encouraged to metagame in Kotor and JE in order to get enough 'good' or 'evil' points to get a bonus. IMO, a system that encourages metagaming is a faulty system. Especially in a game where you are supposed to be immersed into the story/setting, because metagaming draws you out into reality where it's Kaftan playing a computer game, not Bertil the Barbarian saving a dragon in distress. However, all systems encourage metagaming that offer multiple choices. So, as I said before you can not loft the fault upon the system. It's a feature inherent in choice.

They are certainly not equivalent - but they are both cruel murders. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is, after all, "just" a father on his way back from war practice. I don't know what reasoning these killers might have but I know their reasons will make sense to them but likely not to me. The one who kills the general might imagine that he is cutting off the head of a hostle snake. The other who kills the civilian mother might imagine that he is weakening the support provided by the feet of a huge hostle giant. In both cases the killers minimize the positive value of the regular life of their target and focus on other "values". In the case of suicide attacks the killer even minimizes the value of their own life. Sometimes people kill only themselves - like the monks who burned themselves in protest during the Vietnam war. Crazy. You are muddying the difference between perception and reality. The killing of an individual is not exclusively weighed by the unqualified perception of the killer. The soundness of that perception, and the subjective morality of that perception are both factors to be considered. A man who shoots another man to prevent him from viciously murdering and raping another should not be looked at in the same way as one man who shoots another man because he thinks he has the right to because of his race. One is doing something to save other's lives and if indeed the situation is as he percieves, both the perception is sound and the morality of saving lives is found to alter the weight of a killing. The other is killing because of a faulty perception of other races as animals or otherwise immoral racist belief. This is an example of unsound perception. It may mitigate the moral judgement upon the killer, but it does not have the same effect of weight upon the killing that a sound and moral perception would have.

If cheat codes were still proliferating as they once were, I'd have beaten Condemned: Criminal Origins long ago. I hate being so ridiculously tense all the time and often cheat my way through scary games. I cheated through: Resident Evil Resident Evil 2 Doom 3 (but, I blame this on Doom 3 being too long) Resident Evil Remake (using the infinite grenade glitch) I have not cheated through: Resident Evil 3 (they started adding action elements) Resident Evil Code Veronica (You could kill anything with just the knife) Resident Evil 4 (almost full action game at this point) Silent Hill 1-4 (and have never gotten even halfway through one) Eternal Darkness (and have not beaten) Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (and have not beaten) Condemned: Criminal Origins (almost have beaten!) FEAR (action game, barely scary when you understand it) What I'm pointing out here is that, for me, cheat codes help ensure I can finish a game, experiencing the story and mechanics (even if muted mechanics). It's becoming common knowledge in gaming that relatively few players seem to complete any individual game. I think encouraging cheat codes to be included can result in more players being able to finish. I think that the more players that finish, and the more the developers can trust the players to finish, the more effort they'll be willing to put into the end game. This is a train of logic I like to follow for "cheat codes = good ending."

Radical feminists will have a field day. http://kotaku.com/gaming/instruct-them/ubi...lace-287100.php

Fable! post>

So, this basically goes to a larger issue not exclusive to the influence companion system. Limited access content, content that has qualifiers, often used to encourage multiple replays or display multiple choices vs open access content, which is accessible to everyone regardless of any other actions. I don't think giving roleplaying options that can be metagamed through is counterproductive to roleplaying. You can't pigeonhole someone into roleplaying. You don't encourage roleplaying by eliminating cause and effect, by turning all choices into the same one with different letters. This same thing also applies to Jade Empire and KOTOR as well as NWN2. In Kotor, for example, you are encouraged to metagame character responses for light/dark side mastery buffs. Jade Empire encourages metagaming responses for a similar purpose of obtaining new Open Palm/Closed Fist moves.

Because people choose to be influenced by their environment. Or y'know... not.

People must say that explicitly to make fun of that movie. I saw 3 different people say that, seriously, in another thread on another forum. The silliness of it, to me, is that the distance between planets alone, even within our own solar system, is enough to qualify it for an awful lot of wasted space.

Johnny 5 is alive!

The only aliens I believe in impregnate a living host with their young and have concentrated acid for blood. And believe me, you don't want those to visit Earth.

The hooks of Baldur's Gate 2 for me were Minsc and Irenicus. Irenicus just has that classic villain feel to him that's not too cheesy, but keeps him memorable. Minsc is funny and I feel everything needs good humor. The hook for Torment for me was the writing on your back. You're no farmboy out to save the world, you're just trying to get some memories back using clues scrawled into your own flesh. I don't think this discussion should be limited to CRPGs. Just so long as we don't get confused between games we like for reasons other than story that attempt a story and games we like for their story. It's a harder distinction to make than it seems. The game with the absolute biggest hook for me was Xenogears. I've raved about it in multiple threads, I rave about it practically every chance I get. My personal photo is a major character from this game. The hooks for me in that game are nearly countless. My first hooks were the mingling of sci-fiction and more traditional fantasy. Your character starts off little more than a simple youth in a village. Then the giant robots appear and start fighting each other! Then a mystery begins. The way the writers weaved Christian Gnosticism, science fiction, fantasy, and abnormal psychology into a unified epic really appealed to me. The stories that appeal to me most have a depth of well written backstory and I would be challenged, and challenge others, to find one with a deeper backstory than the one Xenogears presents. It goes back nearly to the dawn of human life on that planet and still feels personal. Because the back story of the hero, heroine, and villain reaches that far back without turning into a prophecy. Despite the wide spread of opinions of the game, I also include Final Fantasy VII in my games with a great story. The back story may not be as deep as Xenogears, but it is deep. It also breaches into abnormal psychological considerations. Many games are satisfied to simply define a character's personality. Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears actually give explanations for why the character is how they are and they do it beyond the cliched conventions. Sephiroth is arguable in that regard, but Cloud I would never consider that way. He's a character whose personality was all based on a lie he convinced himself of.

I like Guard Dog's theories. They make sense to me and fit in with my own experiences. I have a lot of difficulty with the outside areas, but that's actually not enough to discourage me. The two major contributors to how long it's taking me for my own modules are: 1) I doubt I'll be able to really compete with the good mods already created for NWN1. Modding now at this time, even with NWN2, has me feeling like I'm arriving late to the game because the vast amount of good mods already created that mine will likely not be as good as. 2) I have ADHD. I get 1/10th the way into my mod and I'm already designing my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

Whatever happend to intials? Why do we have to have stupid acronyms? If they made the FBI with this attitude towards naming they'd probably end up calling it something stupid like FOPS, Federal Organized Police Service. Just name the dang robot RTFG, Robot That Fires Gun.

Who, me? I mean that in a friendly way.

Hypocrite. What happened to encouraging him to express himself?

woMEN is a term used to establish the dominance of the phallocracy over the other gender of the species. See that since it includes men (and female includes male) it implies that men are the more dominant and that women are subservient, merely sub groups of men. Womyn helps establish their own identity.

Do you believe in magic? Do you believe in love?

I have little to say about this without becoming offensive. Though I am curious as if this is a response to her suffered abuse, if the abuse was simply percieved and not physical, or if she was like this before and physical abuse did nothing but further solidify it.

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