Sarjahurmaaja.

Why should they? I don't think it's their concern whether or not Obsidian gets loads of cash. They want a game they will enjoy, and I see nothing wrong with them trying to influence Obsidian's design decisions with their requests.

"Where?s the truth? OK first lets get one thing straight. Know one man knows the truth. By truth i mean has actually happened. It is the actual reality. As humans we have devised methods of communicating and solving problems. Such as languages and maths. We decided to call 'that' number of objects 4. All i see u doing is going around the bush, by embarrassingly scrambling words in and effort for us to believe that u know what u r talking about. The fact is you appear continually is a state of denial, u are being ignorant. Lets hope that changes." Every time I'm thinking about our existance, whether this is all a dream and none of you are real, I get hit in the face with this. I could never come up with something as stupid as this. The level of idiocy you display is far beyond my grasp. It's a shame life will probably not kick you in the face for being stupid, but will instead go easy on you. There's no justice in the world. I hope you're sterile.

Kharn = teh win!!1

You're not really Visceris, are you?

Why should I believe in something that can't be proven to exist? Just because it can't be disproven? Very well, then. Craftsman, I'm the second coming of Jesus Christ. God said so. You must do exactly as I say, or you'll burn in hell for all eternity. If you question my authority, you'll be torn to bits and eaten by hellhounds when you die. It will hurt, a lot. Oh, by the way, first order is to go burn a church. They're all infidels. You will be rewarded in Heaven. Have a nice day. - The Big J

Kill da sig, mon, 'lest I make you ma bitch! Seriously.

"btw, cutscenes can also further the mood and involvement of the game if done right." I think Half-Life proved that immersion factor is a lot greater when player is involved in the events, too. I doubt watching those scientists being suddenly snatched by aliens would've been as fun if they had been just cut scenes. "Sure, you can answer every argument by saying: "It's a ROLEPLAYING game. If you don't roleplay, then it's not a RPG!" But that doesn't say much other than your personal opinion on what a RPG is." What I said about the roleplaying was based on the assumption that most games where you're given a character to play try to be as immersive as possible. Don't you think that by making the character's role easier to take, the game becomes more immersive?

How am I supposed roleplay a character who I have no control over?

I think it's midichloridians. Demystifying the Force was a bad move on Lucas's part. "EU(Expanded Universe) is canon, but there is a ladder of pogression of how to determine what takes precendence in a conflict. Movies being the top rung, video games probably be towards the end." I'm not sure, but I think the whole Expanded Universe is pretty close to the end, which I think is good, since all those MYSTARY SUPAR JEDI POWER artifacts get quite boring after a while. If the canon was up to me, it'd be episodes IV-VI, with some stuff from I and II (and III, whenever it shows up). Those would work as guideline to implementing new stuff, and if that stuff feels like it wouldn't fit the movies, it shouldn't be implemented. Midichloridians, Valleys of the Jedis, etc. would definately be banzored. edit: Seriously, who the hell came up with the damn midiclhoraidadsnds?!

I agree with the blind man. There shouldn't be cut scenes like that. It's not fun watching your character just stand there when I would like to see him kick ass.

"Didn't he use clones to do that in the EU? Or is that not canon?" As far I know, only the movies are canon.

You cheat, Ferret.

I disagree with mkreku. While there may be new tech coming along soon, it's going to be overpriced, won't be supported for a long time and won't be required for a very long time.

That looks like an interesting post. It'd be nice if it had paragraphs so I could read it, too.

"my concern stems from my PC gaming background, where I do not want to see any reasons (real or otherwise) for a transition to a console format." Consoles are hardly pirate free. My friend has an X-box and tons of games for it, but don't think he has purchased those games. He has downloaded every single one of them from the internet.

No, I don't think so. Never said so, either.

You don't learn to draw by watching pretty pictures. You learn to draw by trying to create something similar to those pretty pictures. I believe the same thing applies to writing, too. PS: Gromnir, that text doesn't teach you how to draw. It tells you what you have to do in order to learn how to draw.

Undies are for sissies! Real men don't wear no stinking undies!

"Therefore making it pointless?" I said there was a possibility of it being too fast, but I guess I should've added that I seriously doubt it would be so. If I can read the enemies taunts (and reply, if I happen to find a safe corner) during a heated Quake fragfest, I don't think it would be a problem in an RPG, considering that they usually have a lot slower combat than FPSs. "Turn based is just y'know...better. Than real-time. Seems like a big discussion here though, so somebody would have given better reasons than I haven't." I don't think that RT is better than TB or vice versa. They're just different.

"Well, this I believe is one of those unenforceable goals. However, you can at least make it more difficult for people with security measures. IMO, even the slightest security features would be beneficial as they would make people feel ok purchasing the game for $50.00, knowing that some other guy isn't gonna download it off the web a week later for $0.00 and people are generally lazy so putting a barrier in the way I feel can assist." You do realise that all those security measures are not going to be an obstacle for anyone who can type "warez" or "crack"? Heck, in countries like Russia, you don't even have to be able to do that. You can buy a cracked CD with the game from a shop by the street if you want to. One thing I would like for the software industry to realise is that all that security stuff can and will be cracked. So, all those authenticity checks are just going to annoy the people who actually paid for the game. Maybe it stops some 9-year old kid from pirating your newest game - that is, until that kid's big brother gets a crack for the game from some russian warez size - but is it really worth pissing of paying customers? If you guys stopped making your customer's life harder, that'd make a lot more bigger dent on piratism than some useless copyprotections. Also, those extra goodies Exitium mentioned, those might just be enough of a reason for someone to actually pay for the game. Oh, and for those who think that piracy can be fought with nastier laws: Get real. It is way too widespread.

Zantetsuken, I believe the point Mr Brown was trying to make was that perhaps going with turnbased in the Fallouts wasn't the right choice. There was no need for the player to be granted so much time to think, since you had so limited options in combat and, because you couldn't control your party members, a big part of the combat was spent waiting for them to finish their turns by shooting you in the back. "When it's your turn in TB combat, have your character's weapon (lets say, gun) be aimed in the direction the targetting cursor is- so you see him pivoting and swinging the gun around. And when the cursor passes over an enemy, have them sorta try to duck ,wince, cover their face, or have a worried expression- which makes it all the more satisfying when you finally pull the trigger" Nice idea, Revolver. I'd like to see eye-candy like that implemented more often, too. There was a feature like that in Worms 3D and it added a nice little touch to all those "Last Worm" situations. Nothing beats throwing a sticky bomb at an enemy worm's face in that game... "I loved the combat feedback and taunts- all RPGs should have them... What? It's not practical in realtime? Thats just too bad" What do you mean? As far as I can see, the only element of impracticality realtime can bring to that is that it may run too fast for the player to read.

"we agree that it feels right. that is the reason why we ended that way. for what was our goals, it was a suitable and satisfactory way to end post. momentarily you is thinking that we left something missing... you was left hanging, but 'pon reflection you realize that it was probably inevitable that we would end post that way, no?" Yes, you're right. In hindsight, I would say it was so obvious I wouldn't have needed to even point it out, but, oh well... "now, when you read the end of, "richard iii" or "of mice & men" or even moore's "the watchmen," do you really think that those stories would have been as satisfactory if you had an endings that largely ignored everything that had gone on in the dozens of pages leading up to the conclusion?" I don't think I meant that, rather that the endings could show those events that led to the conclusion in a manner that they would seem less important than they did when they happened. Of course, if the ending wouldn't go along with Gardner's guidelines, it might seem shallow and pointless. I would still like to see it done, just to sate my curiosity. Maybe I'm just crazy, as I'd also in some level would like to see a shrink give a particularly whiny and apathetic patient a razor, just to observe the patient's reaction to it. By the way, when you refer to these books, could you ellaborate a bit on their content? Most of them are unfamiliar to me, possibly because I'm an illiterate Finnish barbarian. Cultural differences and all that, you know? PS: A joke, where it doesn't matter what the punchline is can be funny, because it's stupid. If, you're laughing, you're not laughing because it's funny, but because it's so damn stupid. Now, if it was intentionally so stupid that it makes you laugh, it has sort of achieved it's goal as joke. It's a joke where the joke is the joke. Am I making any sense?

"gardner ain't talking 'bout leaving you feeling happy and content with resolution. ending with a world in chaos can very easily be a satisfactory conclusion in that all goals of author is met and all major questions is answered." I guess you misunderstood me there on the "world is chaos" part. That was just me speaking figuratively. The resolution could be anything, really, just as long as it would shatter the illusion of all things being connected. Of course, I might be misunderstanding you right now, so feel free to tell me to shut up before it's too late. "is possible that the ending should make you wanna howl at the protagonist or the author who wrote 'em, but that not mean that the story fails to conclude properly. ultimately, we thinks that a great ending should be a surprise, but upon reflection, the careful reader should recognize that the ending as written was inevitable as well. in any event, you probably wouldn't end a sentence in mid thought, so why is" You know, in some strange way that feels so right. It fits quite well with what you stated above. By the way, if your reaction to this is "well, duh!" or "what's that guy smoking?", please take into account that it is late and my brain is not working properly before you pass on any judgements. PS: I don't think we're on topic any longer. Should we start a new thread on this, or would it be better to just continue this here, since the topic seems to be widely ignored? And, of course, do we even have anything left to discuss about this subject, either?

Finland, the land of the people who have only two things in their mind: 1.) is there booze? 2.) is there enough booze? Fortunately, with Estonia joining the European Union, #2 will not torment our feeble minds any longer.

"Toward the close of a novel, the writer brings back?directly or in the form of his characters recollections?images, characters, events, and intellectual motifs encountered earlier. Unexpected connections begin to surface; hidden causes become plain; life becomes, however briefly and unstably, organized, the universe reveals itself if only for the moment, as inexorably moral; the outcome of various characters? actions is at least manifest and we shall see the responsibility of free will. It is this closing orchestration that the novel exists for. If such a close does not come, for whatever theoretically good reason, we shut the book with feelings of dissatisfaction, as if cheated." I can't possibly be the only person here who actually enjoys these kinds of unsatisfactory endings, can I? Surely others like the "this is not right" feeling you get when things don't work like they should, especially when the process Gardner describes has already begun. Then, when it suddenly fails, and the world is chaos again, the shock effect is indescribable, if it is executed well. Of course, I will afterwards feel cheated, but right then it doesn't matter, and when the moment has passed, I will remember.