SilentScope001

Eh. 1) The average citizen will know jack about Jack. Hack, ask an average citizen about Alpha Protocol, and they'd think it's an new RPG made by Obisidan. Jack may be a newbie, but he should know that spies shouldn't walk around and get noticed by the average plebian, because an 'average pleb' may be another spy. 2) A repuation system would be nice, only if you organize it by Faction, like how GTAII and Merc1 handled it. You got 4 factions, and they want you to accomplish missions. If you accomplish a mission succesfully, then you get 'increased repuation', and being friendly with the factions can gain you special beniefts. For example, if you are friendly with the Mafia, they'd give you a discount in their military warehouse. If you get caught blowing up Faction B's HQ for Faction A, however, your repuation with Faction B goes down to zero, and Faction B is going to respond by trying to murder you. The only way to increase your rep (and stop Faction B from killing you) would be to go and kill Faction A's HQ, so as to prove Faction B that you are on their side. 3) However, I don't think it's going to be that complex for Obz. I think it's going to be a plain old battle between Jack and 'UBER EVIL CONSPIRACY', which is where the morality system comes into being. How will you take down the Conspiracy? Will you follow the Geneva Convention within the letter (and risk looking like an idiot), or do whatever you want to do?

You should have. The account was a year old, but the actual video was posted on : March 24, 2008. I still think it's fake though.

Uh...

One thing I need to know: Some peopel on the offical forums are screaming about the implausiblty of the IG, the SoB, and the SM all killing each other in the Soulstorm campagin. What do you guys feel of it? Oh, and DoW 2 would be interesting to look at.

Egad, what happened? The form format has changed. Before, it was like a normal forum, where you scroll down and read all the posts. Now, you have to go and CLICK on a post to read it. Do you know how to fix it? Or am I stuck with it?

Not so certain though. Well, one, if you die and there is no Heaven or Hell, and there is obivlion, you can't feel any feeling anyway, so you don't feel your life is a waste. Another thing is that while Heaven is supposed to be eternal, Earth is not, and Earth will eventually get destroyed anyway in 5 billion years, and the human race is likely to go excitnt before that time period. Therefore, if you devote resources to Earth, you know for a fact that your effort WILL be lost in the void. But if you devote resources to helping you and your fellow humans go to Heaven, there is a chance that your effort may in fact prove worthwhile, and that since you are going to live forever in Heaven, it becomes more effective to spend resources to Heaven than to Earth. But suppose the other thing: Suppose you die and there was Heaven but you didn't get enough "points" to get to Heaven, so you lose out. Prehaps erring on the side of caution may be better. That, or seeking a happy compromise where you are doing something that you really like to do on Earth, and it just so happens to get you a ticket to Heaven in the process. EDIT: This is supposing reincartion and all the other religions are not true. If reincaration is correct, then that means I'm stuck having to live in this Earth for a long, long time, and due to the fact that the Earth isn't perfect, hm, I would like to explore a way to end reincaration and die my last death, thank you very much.

Am I the only gamer who want some sort of government regulation? Studies has shown that violent video games can cause aggressive behavior. Granted, not as much as other people claim, but we should make an effort to have some sort of policy. Plus, it might be me, but I'm utterly bored of seeing violence. It's not fun at all. Stop protraying blood, it's not that important!

Bonds took steriods, Bond admitted it as such. Did Bond knowingly taken Steriods? Bond said he didn't, that he got flaxseed oil, and he thought it was flaxseed oil, and it really wasn't flaxseed oil. Therefore, Bond does not get an asterix, because we don't know if Bond knows or if Bond did not know. "Innocent before proven guilty". Bond may be lying under oath, as that is what he was accused of. But lying does not equal taking steriods.

I would like to make a new topic, but I realize it might be better to just combine it here. Walsh, I need you reaction to this news event that is freaking me out and could very well signal an end to the "Iraq Getting Better" topic. Shia Militas Are Using Lull in Violence To Fight Each Other

But is westernisation the same as becoming a 'puppet'? Even Japan manitans its worship of the emproer, and their history textbooks believe that fighting WWII was the right thing to do. You still have some traditional elements, just that it's combined with western ideals. It's a hybrid. I think this 'hyrbid' is a possible solution (combining aspects of Islam and westernization), but in the end, since Islam has 800 million followers, you can't get everyone on board. Its strength is at the same time its weakness.

While this is true, the vast majority of Iraqis are indeed Muslim. In a way though, you are right, it is inaccurate. It's like saying, "Oh, America is a Chrisitan Nation with Chrisitan values", which is true, but also simplistic. That why I didn't add Gulf Storm to the list of "American Military Defeats". The United States won that war. Fair and square, because of their limited objectives. There are also lots of other military victories as well: The Revolutionary War, the Settler/Indian Wars in the 1860-90's, the Invasion of Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, the Phillpine Insurgency, the various interventions in South America and the Carribean to overthrow communist governments... True, not all wars are grotesque grinding messes, I didn't mean to give that impression actually. I did however mention what I did because sometimes, the US lose wars. That doesn't mean later the US might eventually prevail over its enemies, but it can suffer setbacks. It would be better to take setbacks in strides rather than panic and worry too much about losing.

Don't play into the hands of extermists. By stating that you want to change the region and make it pro-Western, you are basically admitting that you want to turn Muslims into Western puppets. And, well, uh, Muslims don't want to be puppets. Nobody does, after all. It's understandable. To stop extermism, you have to buff the moderate wing of Islam who wants secularism and believe the US is a 'model', but at the same time, keep the 'yoke of Islam' and their traditional idenities. *** ...The PKK is still doing terror attacks in Turkey, and an Turkish intervention is possible. The dispute over Kirkuk and who should own it, Arabs, Kurds, or have it be 'multi-ethinc' looms. SCIRI and the Medhi Army are two major parties that hate each other very much so in the Shia controlled regions. Americans are allying with Sunni insurgent groups that hate Al-Qadiah more than they hate the Allied forces (but still hate the Allied Fores)...but the Shias are afraid of the insurgent groups, and actually some of the insurgent leaders working with the US are wanted by the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi Government, controlled by Shias, are friendly to Iran. However, there are good news: The Medhi Army is lying low, and in fact, is cracking down on the splinter groups that do attacks on Americans. And the surge, yes, it has great manpower, but how long can it last? But, uh, well, I hate talking about 'better' or 'worse' or 'winning' or 'losing'. You are going to have to deal with the small issues, and you can't frame it in big questions of "staying until we are done" or "withdraw now!" You have to look and say, "Alright. We got these problems. It could be worse, it could be better, but you know what, let deal with what we got." **** In the end, get used to this. Most of the wars the US have fought can be seen to be quamires and failures. The War of 1812, declared by the US, was nothing more than a meaningless stalemate that led to the destruction of Washigiton, DC. The Civil War and Reconstruction failed to reform the South, and instead, saw the traditional system of Whites be kept. World War I failed to check German expansion (see Nazisim). The Cold War did not stop either Communism or Russia, in fact, with the rise of China as a world power and a resurging Russian empire led by Putin, one can argue it's still being fought today. The Americans ran away from Lebanon after a sucidice bombing, and from Somaila after a pitched battle with angry crowds of civilians. American involvement in Nicagrua was undone by the recent election that brought the Sandaraists back into power, American involvement in Afghanistan during the Cold War paved the way to the Taliban, and American involvement in Angola led to...nothing at all. Oh, and I didn't even mention the Korean and First and Second Indochina Wars (Vietnam War). Why I say that? To lessen the blow. So what if we 'lose' in Iraq? It's not the end of American hegomony. We can still recover. We lost many wars, we wasted lots of money, but look in the long haul, not in the short term. There are other issues out there, issues that may be more important than Iraq. The national debt, for one.

Yes, he is. And I'll back his statements.

I know many people love, er, I mean, know of WWI. However, I am afraid people are not so interested about the actual questions that sparked World War I. The actual debates, the struggles. Okay, I don't know much either, but I do remember only two questions during that time period. I need you guys to answer them. In Honor of Remembrance Day. Question of the Balkans: Should there be a pan-Slavic state, known as Yugoslavia? There were lots of nationalist setinment to unite the Slavs, which were in the indepedent nation of Serbia and in Bosna-Hergizationa, controlled by Austria-Hungray. In fact, a terrorist wanting this pan-Slavic state killed the Archduke of Austria, which sparked World War I. (Yugoslavia attacked Serbia in response to this terror attack, and Russia was allied to Serbia. The entangling alliances led up to Britian, France, and Russia to battle against Austria, Germany, and the Ottaman Empire) Question of Netural Waters: Should a netural nation trade with nations that are at war? And if they trade with nations that are waging war, are they therefore justifiable targets and should be bombed in order to stop the enemy from gaining resources? Germany did use u-boats to sink netural (american) ships, and the British mined waters in order to sink netural (american) ships as well. Has the neturality of a nation violated if they don't follow this sort of thing? And what about civilian deaths on those trading vessels? And, should Germany follow international law and state to the enemy that their ship will be attaked before attacking said ship? Alright, so that second question didn't start World War I, but it did lead to American involvement in the war, on the side of the Allies.

http://www.amazingben.com/rpg.html ...wow. Check this out. I understand full well that this is a pardoy/satire of actual RPG plots...but, I don't know, I sorta...well...enjoyed it. Hey, it's better than actually grinding in an RPG. I can see the generator took some inspiration from the first KOTOR game as well. You can set gerne, your alignment (of good or evil), and also backgrounds and music to go along with you reading it.

Only when they create a WoW clone that's for free. Otherwise, it only harms us.

That poster I quoted was me. Sad to say, this forum is controlled by the game creator, nominally at least. So it's offical. Already have. The communities I seen are indeed somewhat more friendly...but that's not the point. That's because those communites are populated by those who believe in the same thing. The "Good" side has their own forum, the "Evil" Side has their own forum, and the "Chaos" Side has their own forum. And there are indeed some people who are friendly. (Note that these are not the actual names of the sides in the MMO, I just used them for descriptive purposes) Those people represent a small minority. The majority are violent, especially towards each other. The Evil and the Good side both have their own fanatics, caring only for themselves. And when the line is drawn on a big issue, everyone line up on the side they feel more aligned to. Actually, you may be wrong. In many MMOs, what you say does occur, including in my MMO. Most developers only listen to the small minority, because the minority screams and vents. WoW, this MMO which I don't want to mention its name, Eve, etc. I've seen this story repeated over and over, of changes being made due to vents, due to screams of balance. Sad to say, what you described in SWG may happen again. As long as there is a metagame, as long as there are people who care about their character, there will be the fanactics. How much? And how much compared to Jedi? And obivously, Bounty Hunters would whine because Jedi would be more powerful. If you make Bounty Hunters angry, they would threaten to go on "STRIKE", threaten to leave the game unless Bounty Hunters and Jedi are 'balanced', and make the company lose money. Make the Jedi angry, and they'll vent too. Is "Homing Rocket Launcher" okay? Or does it weaken Jedi? Even this question can lead to huge debates between dedicated Bounty Hunters and decidated Jedi, and would ruin the game.

In all the discussion about the KOTOR MMO, I think people may be forgetting one thing, the metagame/drama. We already see it in the debates over how powerful the Jedi should be in that MMO...here's a post about it, and I was wondering your throughts.

From a game development standpoint, numbers WILL be used. Even in Crawford's Storytron project that is supposed to have players do whatever they want and interact with people, there will be numbers that will tell the computer how much "Person A" likes "Person B". You can't get rid of stats. You need them. The only time when you can throw stats away is in a tabletop game, where the GM gets to rule on the important desicions. But should the actual numbers and stats be shown to the actual player, or should they be conveyed with facial impressions? I think the latter is far more reasonable, but still too risky...and for a player who wants to win games, the former is something I would rather stick with. For an example of how such communication can be done, take a look at Trust and Betrayal: The Legacy of Sibboth, with a very fine system by which you can talk to NPCs and understand how they feel about it by their facial impressions. But, even in that game, there were still a chart that allowed you to see if you are succesful in gaining trust or not. But I haven't played the higher difficulites, so maybe that chart may be more and more useless, and you're likely going to have to rely on often subtle facial cues from NPCs with long memories. And I think Storytron WON'T display such numbers to the players at all. Oh, and fun part, I think there is no save feature in that game. Meaning if you make a mistake in interaction and you make everyone hates you, oops.

Might as well bump this up concering the fear of an MMO project... How will the influx of hundreds of thousands of Player Characters will affect this? Roleplaying in MMORPG has some...ahem...bad characterstiscs that will likely bring about the Mary Sue phenomon and enhance it beyond Revan-like proportions. To back this up, I'm citing the Dadedalus Project, a project ran by a social scientist who who study MMORPGs for a living. Use this as an indication for the future of KOTOR MMO. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001526.php Read the comment section too, the academic nature of the conservation does help to shed more light onto the possiblity of roleplaying. Anyway, the bad roleplaying of OTHER people may end up ruining KOTOR MMO's storyline that Bioware is preparing. Remember the Rule, 90% of all created content is junk.

Bwah? You just have the 10 people who are able to show up to an important GM-run event become very important and heroic within the MMO. The whole allure of playing in an MMO is being famous within the game, so obivously, if you were lucky to head over to a GM-run event, then you deserve to become more famous and grand. The more people on the MMO server, the more likely that the few people that actually attended the events become seen as great and grand and mighty. You don't need all of the playerbase to attend an event. Just a small devoted high-level minority. After all, in Star Wars, it is always the minority that has the most effect. To have a mighty Hero, you need the 'lesser beings' too, you know. And before you argue about balance issues, I'm not calling for items to be handed out. I'm calling for plot-events that relate to the True Sith, mostly including them getting genocided. And I think the GM-run events, while a good idea, does little more than distract from the mains problems of MMOs, and probraly won't be done well.

Not really. MMORPGs has other allures. I'm not going to talk about the benefits of a community, you know how hogwash that is. But I do talk about the treadmill (100% possiblity of success if you put your nose to the grindstone), the ability to grow much more powerful (and being able to show that power to other people), the possibility of matching skills against other players, and, of course, the whole "I'm affecting the mythos of Star Wars!" belief. And bashing other players online? Heh, I see that as the only legit reason to play MMORPGs. It's the battle between Obisidan's TSL and Bioware's K1. What game you prefer tells more about you, the player, than it does about the merits of the actual game itself. I'm a fan of TSL, but the fans of K1 are fans all the same. I was playing Devil's Advocate really. Besides, regardless of what they would do, I wouldn't play it. But just because KOTOR is dead to me doesn't mean that what LA did was bad, per se. It's just different, not my taste. As for the possibility of K3 coming before an MMO or that K3 will be released soon...I'm going to reject that. The True Sith is the ultimate weapon, and if K3 ends the trilogy by destroying the True Sith race for the MMO...then what? You need to make a new villain to replace the earlier villian of the True Sith. You got a plot hook right here, don't just throw it away in a SP game. Well, you could try a SP game, but you can't have the True Sith be destroyed fully.

As much as I hate an MMO, other people love it a lot. And, if it does break WoW's back, then why not? Assuming that it will keep the same gameplay as WoW and other MMOs, there is also something you must realize: much MMO content is in fact intended for SP or for a small party (hm... ). It's just that since each player designs his/her avatar in a different way that will make the content pretty generic, and since the dungeons can be repeated by OTHER players...it will lead to a bad storyline. Now, what if Bioware decides to just do GM events? Basically, have lots of Dungeon Masters on each server running the storyline as if all the players are on one team? This will be seen as very unique, but been done lots of times in MUDs, and I think it was done in The Matrix Online as well. Even then, the storyline will STILL be terrible, but not as much, and if Bioware tries for such innovation, well, good for them. The MAIN sticking point is the True Sith. Will it be used as a generic E that the players will butcher endlessly? Then, bah. Can the True Sith be destroyed? Or will the True Sith be basically immortal, used as an excuse to throw more and more powerful military units to the slaughterhouses run by the Players, so that the Players can execute them? What if we actually see a True Sith? Will we laugh at their apperance, and cry at how they are ruined? You have to realize, MMOs last forever. You can't WIN. If you could win an MMO, if you can reach a screen stating, "Congrats, you beat the True Sith. Restart at level 1?" ...well, you know what? Bioware win. Bioware would be the most awesomest game designer ever. There WOULD be an ending, the game would be over, and you would have finally saved the galaxy. You can then restart and access even more hidden content, see even more Star Wars stuff, and maybe play the secret DS endings. But, I doubt that many people would go for that, especially because once you beat the game once, what incentive there is to press "Yes" instead of pressing "No", and leaving the Game forever. At the very least, it would combine the best of MMOs...with the best of SP. I would rather to see your plotline/idea for K3 finished, TA. Since it is unlikely Obisidan will get K3, if you complete your plotline and then accept it as canon, then so be it. But it must be noted that it does not really matter what happened in KOTOR MMO...in the end, the True Sith will lose. The Republic will fall. All humans will bite the dust and die.

Playing 3 short games is far better than playing 1 huge game. Why? More variation. More storylines. More gameplay. More, more, more. At the very least, I will have to adapt to the new cirmustance, and that adaption may be much more fun than getting used to the situation where it feels like grinding. It's exactly the reason why I favor cheat mode. If I get tired going through a grind, I can just just skip to the ending, then pump in game #2. But without a cheat mode, that game's going to be DELETED and I'll move on regardless. Of course, KOTOR is easy, so there is no need for a cheat mode. But for other games, ahem... Yeah, I like them. But I only play them for 2-3 hours too, before I get bored, shut off, and go to other games. Hey, blowing stuff up in GTA3 IS fun. Just that I like more variation. So, once I sample through the modes in a sandbox game, and beat the main story, I'll turn off the game.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/arts/07e...vhrZqXWze69bNLw I hope that democracy really does take root in this terrible wasteland, where scamming and pyramid schemes are tolerated and even encouraged. The endless warfare and war crimes, as well as unexcusable government corruption...is terrible. Just terrible. Plus, their currency exchange rate is so low, it's desipicable. $0.0000000549=1 ISK. Hyperinflation continues at a rapid pace. Poverty is at an all-time high. The online community has just hired a economist in order to help deal with the crisis, but is it a case of "too little, too late"? I hope Freedom House brings a report on them. Maybe there should be some UN intervention to end the violence. I mean, it has to be a big issue, the New York Times covered it. *** Due to registeration, I'm going to just post the whole article here for reading pleasure: