Cycloneman

In finite ammo design this doesn't mean anything. Find cover and shoot from there to the general direction of enemy. They'll go down before you run out of ammo as long as you aren't firing randomly. Let me respond with a question: if in real life, someone had a magical AK-47 (or shotgun, or whatever) that never ran out of ammunition, do you think they could take down "entire fortresses"? No, you get shot dead because you're running around and your enemies can shoot you. Then they throw a grenade down the hallway, and you die. Your example rests on the AI acting like a retard, which can be manipulated with or without limited ammunition. Oh wait, I forgot, shooting people with powerful guns makes it impossible for you to be shot - oh wait. I didn't realize "infinite ammo" meant "spray and pray". In fact, I'm quite certain that tactic would still be terrifyingly bad in every first person shooter ever made if almost every gun (except the rocket launchers and sniper rifles and such) had infinite ammunition. That's wrong. If you try to just snipe your enemies from behind cover, your enemies will frequently close in on you. Let's use cover-shoot-cover while a Krogan slams the butt end of his gun in my face! No you didn't. Not in the sense of "don't stick your head out while you write '****' on the wall, or you will get shot." Just "without limited ammunition all the weapons will be ****," which is truly a grand logical leap. I'm sorry, I thought we were complaining about how infinite ammo will somehow force me to get out from behind cover/use a stealthy approach and randomly spray bullets anywhere.

Two-parter for quote limits. I'm just going to ignore this "point" because it's nothing more than a prelude to the rest of your argument. I didn't make the realism argument. Because infinite ammunition = invulnerability? If I'm shooting at Random Terrorist 01, why aren't Random Terrorist 02 and his sibling Random Terrorist 03 shooting at me? Oh right, because their guns magically disappear as long as mine is pumping out bullets. Right, because we all know that ammunition control actually alters the gun balance. Take a look at the Halo games - besides the stupid-powerful guns (like the Rocket Launcher), as long as you wander around a little you can constantly keep your ammunition up. But somehow, the guns are still pretty balanced (except, again, for the stupid-powerful guns, and the ****-tastic needler). When did you ever use "special weapons" (in other words: gun with a handful of bullets) in FPSs except to kill the most powerful enemies? Did you ever use the rocket launcher on a grunt, or the pistol on a tank? Because an AK-47 dealing high levels of damage can only possibly work if I can "only" carry hundreds of shots, instead of an infinite number? If this game has limited ammo, players will just stock up to ridiculous quantities, just like they always do, because they don't like running out of ammo. Okay, so apparently you don't want people who want to play with an AK-47 all the time, spraying-and-praying, to play the same game as you? Beyond which, running around like a moron and spraying bullets everywhere won't work because you will GET SHOT AT AND DIE.

Yeah, but it prevents spamming bullets constantly, which is also the purpose of weapons overheating in "recent sci-fi themed games."

They could use ammunition clips, just infinite ones. I don't have a copy of the magazine in question, so was that ruled out?

If you don't want to use the weapon you like, you could, you know... change weapons. I don't understand why you would want to be forced to use a weapon you don't like. That seems backwards. I like having choices too. I don't like being forced to buy a million billion bullets because I like a particular gun and find most of the other ones annoying. I don't need to be prepared to make a run for it or use kung-fu because the game has infinite ammo.

Anti-signed, because: 1) Realism? In this game's combat? Are you guys serious? It's a game which specifically draws on action movies for its combat. Your character can shoot a bunch of people in a row right after popping out of cover if you get the right skills (he can presumably do just as much ridiculous **** if you get other skills). Is that "realistic"? Come on. 2) Running out of ammo is lame. If I wanted to run out of ammo and have to kill all my enemies with a weapon that I didn't like and purposefully chose to avoid, I wouldn't be playing an RPG where I have individual weapon specialization skills. 3) Running out of ammo is lame. It's not fun to end up scrounging around an area you've already cleared for a minute just to have a handful of shots in order to avoid/recover from running out of ammo. 4) Running out of ammo is lame. It's not like its somehow "tenser" to have "only" three hundred bullets for your machine gun. This isn't a survival horror game. 5) What's worse than your character running out of ammo? Its corollary: that your character can't store large amounts of ammo. Come on, it's really annoying to have a big bunch of ammo just lying around but lose it all because, oh yeah, you can only carry four bullets for your gun at a time. 6) It does not remove strategy as long as weapons remain fairly lethal. You still had to use tactics in Mass Effect despite having infinite ammunition, because any number of enemies can kill you very rapidly if you just spam bullets at them. Okay, that's only on higher difficulties, but the point stands.

It says "individual weapons specialization." (GI p.43) Appeal to consequences. The functionality or lack thereof has nothing to do with whether or not it is true or not. Haha, that's "circular logic"? All I said was that such broad groups as you proposed could not possibly work with a skill like Chain Shot. I guess that wasn't quite clear out of context, but come on man, context. I was quoting your use of "catch-all term" talking about the use of "pistols" as a catch-all term in the context of the Chain Shot skill, and not two lines above I was specifically referring to the plausibility of that ability being used for a crossbow, sniper rifle or shotgun. Nope.

I'll make this quick, since your post is actually devoid of any arguments other than an appeal to motive and a couple unsupported statements. When has my "speculation" fallen outside the range of reasonable interpretation? When has my logic been circular?

Right, because it makes perfect sense that you could apply the rules to the Chain Shot ability to a crossbow, a shotgun or an assault rifle... No, wait, sorry. That was sarcasm. Even if that was a "catch-all term," the weapons it describes would be extremely similar (ie precise, fairly large clip, medium-to-long range, et cetera), and couldn't be held in such broad categories as "small guns". Face it: I'm right, you're wrong.

This is a third person shooter/RPG. Oni.

Then I don't think achievements is one of the 1337 skills. Also, not all consoles have achievements.

What, you mean like X-Box 360 achievements?

Nintendo consistently makes good games, and makes lots of them. They may not be "original" or "new" (except for when they are, like Metroid Prime or Pikmin or Pok

What, so when the GI article says "individual weapons specialization" (43) I'm interpreting that to mean specialization in individual weapons? Am I misinterpreting the following? "But what if he has an ability to unerringly pop out from cover and take down six assailants? If you place enough points in pistols, he will. That particular ability, called Chain Shot, allows Michael to enter a state of heightened awareness to quickly take stock of his surroundings as events around him slow to a crawl. In this mode, you can mark the positions of nearby hostiles, and when Michael returns to reality, he jumps out and fires a precise and lethal shot at each target." Does this not refer to a specific character ability gained in a specific way involving a specific skill? Sounds to me like the author of the article is pretty aware of what Chain Shot is.

It's not "my approach," it's my interpretation of the evidence (see my various posts with extensive quoting from the GI article). If you would like to counter my evidence or interpretation thereof, go right ahead. 'Evidence' hey? Well if you don't mind I'll wait till we have something more tangible than speculation before I lament the distribution of weapons. A preview from people who've actually had a chance to talk to developers and see the game in action is just baseless speculation? All right then, whatever.

It's not "my approach," it's my interpretation of the evidence (see my various posts with extensive quoting from the GI article). If you would like to counter my evidence or interpretation thereof, go right ahead. Your point being? A throwing skill encompasses a handful of possibilities whereas the various other weapons skills encompass a much wider variety. Obviously there's going to be a balance problem with such a large versatility disparity.

So it's fine if my non-religious cult does it? How exactly do you plan to make a non-religious cult?

Counterpoint: nobody needs rocket launchers or grenades or flamethrowers or crossbows in their third person shooter/RPG (see: Mass Effect), especially not their third person shooter where they can access special abilities which significantly alter the functionality of their weapons. Do you still need a flamethrower when you can just mow down enemies with rapid shotgun fire? What's the need for a rocket launcher when you can take out a vehicle full of bad guys nearly instantly by shooting the driver, machine gunner, and any humans inside by rapidly picking them off with your pistol? Do you still need a grenade to roll around the corner of some camping prick, when you can just charge a critical on your assault rifle and blow the head off anyone who pops out at you? Do you still need a sniper rifle to instant-kill a target by headshotting them from a mile away when you can just headshot them by charging up a critical with your pistol? And so forth and so on.

This is a skill-based system where enhancing your skill in a firearm will naturally give you special abilities to use with that firearm. It would be completely idiotic to give you an ability to shoot an RPG in a cool and unique way with the same skills as your flamethrower, since they would be governed by entirely different rules (one of them is short ranged, one of them is long, one of them is damage over time, one of them is blast radius, et cetera).

That is a terrible set-up. Most of these are highly distinct weapons. Which of these are similar enough to warrant lumping them together?

New PC Zone UK article warrants alteration. Mentioned several things which I'm pretty sure are new. GI pages are all like 40-something, PCZUK mentions this on page two.

Better question: what kinds of crates will we have? Will they be cover? Concealment? Full of ammo? Explosive? All of the above?

I'm pretty sure that's referring to the player, not Michael himself. But yeah, for those who (like me) thought that quote wasn't there... it totally is.

I wouldn't particularly have a problem with them "teaching" ID and creationism in the same way they "teach" things like prior models of the atom, perpetual motion, the classical four elements and such: as completely debunked bull****. Science classes do tend to have some "history of science" thrown in. But you know the creationists wouldn't stand for that. It's an important issue and teaching children that there is any real doubt about evolutionary biology I don't know about that. In this issue? There's one side: evolution as the origin of humanity is as much a fact as any scientific theory can be (read: pretty ****ing well).