Rostere

I got a 360 just to play Deadly Premonition. I understand how you feel

"Evil" in real life means taking whatever you want with immoral means. "Evil" solutions in games should always be quicker and give more substantial rewards, but come with other problems - a bad reputation, and having to fight people. Games that have equal rewards for "good" and "evil" choices and a token good/evil meter which does not make you a wanted criminal when you're evil (something the BG games actually did right - if you disregard the global, telepathic behaviour of this reputation) represent the worst solution to this. When there's no incentive to make the "evil" choice, the only reason to make it is if you're a psychopath.

As many of you might already know, the Israeli elections had an interesting outcome. Many moderate voters fled from Likud-Beitenu, a party created by the merge of conservative Likud and ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, to the newly- formed centrist Yesh Latid (they were probably scared by the merged party's nationalist turn). Only a month ago it looked as if the right would gain a significant majority, something which has now decreased to one seat. The leader of Yesh Latid, a former journalist, has made contradictory statements (he is now a politician, after all) but it's clear he wants a diplomatic effort towards a Palestinian state and (which is one of his primary election focuses) a removal of the privileges for ultra-orthodox Jews (which seems bizarre for an outsider, but they are exempt from draft and get other economic privileges). The ultra-orthodox parties have historically been kingmakers in Israeli elections because of their position between the left and right on economic issues in general, which explains in part why these privileges exist in the first place. Ultra- orthodox Jews are by far the largest growing part of the Israeli community, with about four times as high nativity as Israeli Jews or Palestinians IIRC. Here's an article from The Economist on the elections Here's an article from The Huffington Post about Yesh Latid (Abbas has actually invited all the Israeli parties for talks, but we already know that Netanyahu would rather expand the settlements than negotiate. Since the right is going to be in power, Yesh Latid is the only party whose opinion might matter) The results are as follows (shamelessly copied from elsewhere on the Internet): Right: Likud-Beitenu, 31; Habayit Hayehudi, 12 = 43 Centre: Yesh Atid, 19; Hatnu'a, 6; Kadima, 2 = 27 Left: Avoda, 15; Meretz, 6 = 21 Ultra-orthodox religious parties: Shas, 11; Yahadut ha-Torah, 7 = 18 Arab parties: Raam-Taal, 4; Hadas, 4; Balad, 3 = 11 I think it's kind of sad that Israeli Palestinians largely don't vote. If they all voted they would have about 24 seats total. But because many Palestinians feel that the entire Knesset is against them to start with, they don't bother to vote. There's an article online I can't seem to find at the moment about an Israeli volunteer organization which had contacted Palestinians in the occupied West Bank living under Israeli control (but with no right to vote) in order to donate their votes. The example in the article was an Palestinian who wanted his Israeli contact to hand in a blank vote as a protest against his current situation. BTW, here's a , which features famous nationalist Israeli politicians singing Israel's national anthem to an Arab tune. The talk in the start is about how they've remade the national anthem so that it can be sung by Palestinians as well, a joke about a suggested law which would require Palestinian Israelis to sing the national anthem and swear fealty to "the Jewish state of Israel". The voice in the end is saying basically "Are you laughing now? Reality is not as funny". (The cartoon was banned for "defacing the national anthem" or something like that) EDIT: No, wait, the cartoon was first banned by the Central Elections Committee, and then un-banned by the Supreme Court after it had spread on the Internet, together with an extreme-right ad with the tag line "no to an Arab state, no to a state of [African] infiltrators."

I detest the idea of a Greek-ish pantheon in PE with a passion. The Greek gods are SO mundane. In my mind, they are like a bad Seinfeld show with childish superheroes in togas. Gods should be much more mysterious. I would want the approach to gods in PE to be as non- homogeneous as possible. I hate it when in a city there are three equally large temples, one for the "good" god, one for the "neutral" god and one for the "evil" god. I don't want such an artificial homogeneity in religion. All the gods should be entirely different in their characteristics and how they are worshipped. A religion could be/have... Monotheistic/Polytheistic (acknowledging the existence of several gods)/Polytheistic (allowing the worship of several gods)/Pantheistic Similar throughout civilization/ gods associated with cities (like in ancient Greece and Mesopotamia) A popular belief (exoteric - non- existent or non- influential priest class)/ a monastic order (esoteric - "common believers" do not exist or they have no true knowledge of the religion) Existed since the dawn of time/Appeared at a certain point/Disappeared at a certain point Prayer at any time/Prayers at certain special times/Communal prayer/Individual prayer A single place of worship (A single temple)/A single type of place for worship (beach, forest, desert, et.c.)/Multiple temples/No staffed temples (shrines only)/No particular place of worship Benevolent (you say a prayer to receive the blessing of your god)/ Malevolent (you sacrifice so that the god won't hurt you) Missionaries preaching their faith/No missionaries/No established way of converting/A secret society Theocratic (the religion rules/is the state)/Divine law (the laws are dictated by the religion)/Separated from the state Belief in an omnipotent god/Belief in a god or several gods with limited power/Belief in a god or several gods whose only power is immaterial (for example over the afterlife) Written tradition/Oral tradition One unified direction (Centralised)/Diverse beliefs (Decentralised) Focused on ritual/Focused on moral code Connected to certain sciences (astronomy, anatomy (see hepatomancy), mathematics (see Pythagoreans))/Connected to certain natural phenomena (the sea, the wind, fertility)/Connected to certain professions (soldiers and war, merchants and trade, artisans and artifice) A god or several gods with material presence (believed to inhabit a certain object or person)/A god or several gods without visible material presence Hostile/Tolerant Connected to a certain race/Not connected to any race Having all the different faiths as mirror images of each other save for colour of the priest's robes and alignment leaves you without a feeling of exploration and true choice when dealing with the religions. Having initiation quest for the "evil" church in black robes be to kill good guy X and initiation quest for the "good" church in white robes be to kill evil dude Y is just unimaginative. Do you want to go to Burger King or McDonalds? If we encounter, say, three major religions in the game let them be fundamentally different, not just aesthetically different but functionally identical. I also don't want everything about the religions to be explored and explained in the game. A strong advantage PE will have over the FR setting is that we won't already know everything about all the gods, and we won't know if all gods exist, or who (what?) they are. We won't have "portfolios", so the Aumaua might worship one god of the moon, while a human sect in a remote village worships another one - without us knowing if any if them really exist, and if they do, if they are the same deity.

I think the idea of a truck sim is actually better. Add some story elements, take inspiration on the atmosphere from, say, Twin Peaks and you've got it right there. To be honest, I think there's too few really original game concepts around.

Yeah, I know. I just picked the MMO because it exemplified "spinoff" in the best way.

You're right, Homeworld deserves a big budget, decently staffed team and good marketing, as did Arcanum 2, The Black Hound, Jagged Alliance 3 and lots of other titles. Let's just face reality, Homeworld is a type of RTS which died out during the 00s. There's never going to be an AAA Homeworld 3, just like there's never going to be a new AAA Wizardry (or any other game of a type which no longer has mainstream appeal)... ... unless it's a Japanese MMO

I think it is very important that when dangerous extremist groups take arms, you fight them back with arms just like the army of Mali is doing with the assistance of the French. However, the rebels might have many very valid reasons for fighting. People in dire situations often turn to extreme ideologies for guidance. Ideally, you should prevent the extremists from expanding their influence while addressing the injustices which give them their support among the population. To give an example, the Russian Revolution would never have happened if the Russian government had made the appropriate social and democratic reforms in time. Unfortunately, what might happen is that the French get stuck in a protracted occupation of a large patch of desert draining the ailing French economy in the process, possibly protecting some international private interests, while nothing gets better for the common citizen of Mali. Eventually the military will commit atrocities, by accident or because of "rotten eggs", and African and Muslim opinion will turn against France. The French army will come to be opposed by the very people it came to protect, and eventually they will pull out, leaving Mali in a bad state, with global opinion polarized against France. I want to support the French intervention, but if France treats the Malian rebels as another piece in a "pop-a-mole" game without thought given to why there is unrest in a poor, broken post-colonial country such as Mali they will inevitably lose both the conflict and my support.

Don't think for a second that the other surrounding nations aren't using Palestine as a playball in their politics. they too could have done more to help solve the local conflict. However, neither Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Syria nor Egypt have given significant options for accepting Palestinians. In fact in Lebanon they have a fairly sordid history in dealing with Palestinian refugees. So yeah, there's more players, and all of them seem stuck in popular politics and non of them (including Fatah, Hamas and Israel) are doing enough. The surrounding nations (and other Asian nations, such as Iran) indeed use Palestine and/or Palestinian refugees as a "play ball" in their politics, I couldn't agree more to that statement. However, by themselves, no single one of them is that powerful or influential. Like I wrote, if they all got together they could change the game as much as the US could, but that's not very likely to happen because of their internal divisions. It will be interesting to see what happens in a more democratic Middle East though. Also, I don't think the surrounding nations could (realistically) do much to ease the conflict, on the other hand there are a lot of things they could do to mess it up and prolong it further. Let's hope that the eventual new government in Syria is a sensible one. Basically, this.

No way there's gonna be mass layoffs. Relic is super busy with CoH2 and DoW3, Sega would be stupid to castrate such a cash cow. Never underestimate bureaucracy. Some deficits here and license trouble there, and you've got your layoffs. In addition to that, CoH2 and DoW3 might be rushed, or partially moved to other SEGA- controlled developers. There's a tendency of talent disappearing whenever similar corporate takeovers take place. Just look at all the companies who were bought by EA. I'm speaking strictly from what I know have happened in the past, not from what you or I would have done as the CEO of SEGA.

HK- 47 from KotOR 1 and 2 Jan Jansen (eventually replaced with Grobnar Gnomehands from NWN 2) from Baldur's Gate 2 Edwin Odesseiron from Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 Tiax from Baldur's Gate 1 ... and Stephen Heck Thinking of it, NPCs are made more/ less interesting by their context in the game. It's almost meaningless to think of NPCs outside of their narrative context.

In the grim dorkness of the far future, there is only Total War... I really wouldn't like Relic and CA getting merged into one entitiy. Diversity is good, and I also don't want DoW3 to be like Total War. I prefer the smaller squad-based tactical gameplay over the huge strategic one. Yes, they will probably fire a lot of people and we'll end up with half the amount of games and half the diversity. The ideal scenario is that the minds behind Homeworld gets fired/ leaves and does a Homeworld kickstarter, I guess.

If you don't count the bugs in the original release, I thought it was a very solid game, at least miles better than NWN 1. The graphics engine in the unpatched version was quite broken, but IIRC it became better with patches. Like someone stated before, just turn off party AI and you'll be fine - it's really quite like Baldur's Gate in 3D. Do you have trouble managing your party in BG as well? If that is the case, you will probably learn everything you need simply by playing more party- based RTwP games.

In the grim dorkness of the far future, there is only Total War...

I love Arcanum's soundtrack. Some of the themes are insidiously catchy and using minimalist chamber arrangements is something I have never heard outside of games based on Agatha Christie novels. It gives the world an atmosphere all its own that makes it feel distinct from any other game, and it's a soundtrack I can listen to outside of the game as well (and do, frequently). I also liked the Arcanum soundtrack very much. If you (or anyone else) want to listen to more similar music, I highly recommend this: http://www.gregbartholomew.com/suiterazindex.html

I've thought about this a lot and I have a hard time choosing between the different backgrounds and the impact of race. What I liked most about Arcanum was how the player character creation allowed for so diverse roleplaying options. Background traits such as "Dark Elf Follower" or "Frankenstein Monster" really inspired the player to play the character in different ways. Always when you talk to people about Arcanum and the different characters you've created, you'll hear of different builds.

OK Of course. But let me list the most important actors in this conflict for you: The Israeli government The US government Fatah Hamas If you were able to lump them all together, the governments of nearby predominantly Arab countries in the Middle East would share the second spot with the US. So, in short, both Hamas and Fatah are relatively powerless since they barely have own sources of income, et.c.. Hamas are also less important because the are only a real force on the ground in Gaza, which is essentially just a large refugee camp. Even when their leaders are assassinated and they make their worst threats they can barely make a scratch on Israel. Regarding the last statement, you can take a look at the statistics yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Palestinian_conflict#Fatalities_1948.E2.80.93present Indeed. Please elaborate...

I wasn't suggesting ideological similarities, rather organizational similarities.

This. "Al- Qaeda" is so similar to Anonymous in many ways...

I thought the old IE games' UI was great.

I want a mix of LP document and YouTube videos, not live streaming. I want Chris to be able to reload and not feel the pressure of a lot of people watching all the time.

Ugh...

Lol, I was just going to post that link here :S

We've talked a lot about the Israeli (extreme) right-wing, so here's what the leftist Tzipi Livni has to say about Israel's current situation and the "demographic issue": http://abcnews.go.co...es-end-18194072 Israeli Jews outnumber the various minorities, but if Israel were to annex the occupied territories and give voting rights to Palestinians, they would soon be outnumbered by the indigenous population. In Israel, this is referred to as the "demographic problem". On another note, I've recently gained interest in a new Oscar- nominated Israeli documentary called "The Gatekeepers". It's a series of interviews with six former leaders of the Shin Bet (roughly the equivalent of the FBI in Israel). They talk about what they did during their time in office, problems and dilemmas, and about Israel's future, and sadly they also all believe the future seems darker than ever. Here's an American review of the film, and here's some comments from a (slightly, so to say...) nationalist Israeli news source which describes the film as "self- hating", a "Palestinian propaganda film" on so on. Trailer on YouTube: Oh, come on... Name one thing I've written which shows hatred for Israel. I'm a staunch critic of Hamas. I'd like to discuss Hamas more but since we don't get a lot of news about what various Hamas leaders have said, the political climate of Gaza et.c. there's not much to discuss. Also, compared to Israel and also Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas is a much smaller player in the larger conflict.