J.E. Sawyer

Characters in most Alien/s films, novels, comics, and graphic novels rarely have the luxury of turning each other down for support. And I think that all four films had compelling reasons for (most) of the folks to stay together. In Alien, the cast was a ship crew with nowhere to go. In Aliens, Ripley, Newt, and Burke were the outsiders among a (stranded) marine platoon. In Alien3, you had the inmates of the prison in a mutually-loathing bond of brotherhood. And in Alien: Resurrection, it went back to the ship crew. Most of the characters don't have any practical alternative to helping each other. Even if they hate the guts of everyone around them, the best they can do is wait for an opportune moment to screw everyone else over and take off into the darkness of space.

VATS gives an enormous advantage to the player, since attacks occur in "magic time". Even against a large group, it's not uncommon for the PC to get off five or six attacks vs. a total of one or two from the enemy. Also, there's no penalty for VATSing with a firearm in close quarters, so the preferred tactic is to rush forward with a combat shotgun and VATS them at point blank range. EDIT: There's also a mod at the Fallout 3 Nexus that gives penalties for VATSing with firearms at close range. I recommend it if you want a more challenging experience while still using VATS.

Pros only. The idea is to not get in the middle of such a scuffle. I should say that you still get over half of the stim's benefit in the first five seconds, but the second half trickles in over the next 10-12 or something like that. Which, for practical purposes, means you win every fight if you have enough stims/a high Medicine.

BTW, I think the mod called "Better Stims" (or something like that) is great. It's basically healing over time, like Oblivion. It makes combat a lot more tactical since you can't just run into a group of three Regulators like a mindless slob.

That should go without saying.

I use the Ripper for dismemberment, but its condition goes down very fast and the body doesn't hold still. You can also use the combat shotgun, though it tends to pulp the head. If you want to cut off the head (say, for placing in the bed of their child), grab the body by the head with the drag button and then use a knife on it.

lol no not really. We have no problem making M-rated games. The only concern is usually nudity, which is a classic American issue. The problems with Oblivion had to do with a) content included in the shipped game that could easily be unlocked (nude textures) and b) content that was stated by BethSoft but glossed over/missed by the ESRB itself (Lucien Lachance's mutilated body, infanticide/child skeletons in the same plotline, etc.). By comparison, people made nude textures for NWN2 almost immediately, but there were no nude textures in the shipped game. In fact, if you turn off the succubus' clothing, her breasts are completely removed.

Alta

College, though I remember almost none of it. After that one term, I had no reason to ever use it. :/

? Arabic uses very few diphthongs, and the diaresis in the Romanized name (Alta

I'm one of those future mod makers, so I'm extra-happy with them.

I initially typed out more examples of things that are beloved by people in popular CRPG franchises and hated by me, but deleted them in the hope that the underlying point would be clear: like romance, it's the execution of humor in the game that makes or breaks it for me... usually breaks it. Noober is an extreme example of lame humor in a CRPG, but I doubt many people would be considered Enemies of Jokes if they declared they hated Noober. You asked me what I liked and I told you. I think a lot of the content was too generic and the rest of the game could have benefited from a smaller scope. No folks who worked on IWD2 worked on SoZ, unless you count the Skullcrusher encounter itself. And combat scenarios were the "whole deal" of IWD2. I think there are a lot of valid criticisms of the content of SoZ, but overall I think that SoZ added more new gameplay functionality to NWN2 than IWD2 added to IWD. What caliber of comedy are we really dealing with here? I need to know your frame of reference for gaming hilarity. If we're talking about "comedy in games", Full Throttle and its ilk pretty much blow away anything we at Obsidian, or Black Isle, or Bioware have ever done. Hell, the stuff Bioware did on MDK2 is still way funnier than anything they did in CRPGs before or since. That is perfectly fine. I certainly don't think there's anything bad about that encounter. You have some entertaining conversation options, skill checks that open up a little special content, some unique weapons, and a unique scripted battle sequence. I don't think it stands up to great content created in the NWN/2 or IE engines, but I'm proud of it because I created on my own time as a small homage to a series of games that I grew up with. I wouldn't call it out on a resume because designing content isn't my professional strength. If someone asked me in an interview if I were proud of it, I wouldn't hesitate to say so.

I'm a fan of humor in all genres of games. But, as with CRPG romances, CRPG humor typically falls short for me. I liked Fowl Play because I thought it was funny. For comparison, I did not think Noober was funny. Hopefully that gives a better frame of reference for what I like/dislike. So when I shoot down requests for yuk-yuk routines of a certain flavor, it isn't because I dislike humor. It's because I like humor. The Tempest's Fury main combat was (when I encountered it) very challenging. I also did like the sylph building up to the appearance of the big bad in the area. You don't have to know anything about Skullcrusher to listen to his "tales"; they don't actually have anything to do with Pool of Radiance. They're just heads and tails of weird adventuring mishaps. And yep, they're all brief. But brief can be good in a lot of cases.

I was addressing newc0253's comments about staff size and focus. In terms of gameplay, other than SoZ and IWD being player-created-party-based D&D games, I don't think they're that similar. My favorite SoZ encounters were probably: * Fowl Play * Tempest Fury * Underdark Black Market * And of course my Skullcrusher encounter w00t

It's kind of a mixed comparison. SoZ had a lead designer (Tony Evans) and effectively three content/systems designers (Nathaniel Chapman, Jeff Husges, Annie VanderMeer Carlson). They had two full-time artists (Jay Bakke and Roger Chang), a lead programmer (Rich Taylor), and an assortment of programming support (with Bobby Null and Justin Reyard doing most of the day to day programming). As with IWD, many of the SoZ folks were junior (though not rookies), but I do think that the similarities end there. IWD didn't add a lot to the IE in terms of groundbreaking new gameplay features. We mostly just expanded content and added/fixed in the racial features/weapon bonuses/spells that were missing from BG. Art also had to be made entirely by hand on IWD, from scratch. In terms of budget, I really don't know how they compare. It's been about eight and a half years since IWD came out. IWD had a total development of 14 months, of which 9 months was actual production. SoZ was nine and a half months, from pre-production to gold.

The toolset forums have a lot of info, Draxes. http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewf....html?forum=113

The short answer is that it's going to be a very large overhaul. As Sammael suggests, it's not the sort of thing you can just shuffle a few rules around. Green Ronin (I think) had a tabletop solution which involved giving partial equivalent levels for spellcasting while multiclassing. It was sort of BAB-ish in that you had an effective spellcaster level that continued to rise even when you were taking levels in non-spellcasting classes.

One might ask why clerics, druids, wizards, et al. don't just operate like that by default!

Not going to go to turn-based combat for TBH. Sorry, folks.

Again, my apologies for the over-generalization. The UK is much more secular than the US. When addressing individuals, I agree. But often when these phrases are spoken or printed, they are addressing larger sections of the populace. In an effort to be inclusive (at least in the US) many people will say or print "Happy Holidays". E.g. a business manager sending out warm wishes before a "late-December" break. The US backlash attempts to say, "No, it's Christmas booyah!" which is factually incorrect in its exclusivity and has the side-effect of being very obnoxious for people celebrating other things (or not). All of these dates (with the exception of Winter Solstice, I guess) are man-selected. Christians have no special claim over this time of year because the historical Jesus almost certainly wasn't born in December -- that's ultimately all I'm trying to say: many people have well-founded reasons to celebrate things in December! Aggressively suggesting otherwise is obnoxious.

When people pass legislation that negatively affects you and has no practical impact on their lives (the implications of religious voting on Prop 8, for example), there is often a desire to undermine what some would view as the irrational source that motivates people to vote in that way. Richard Dawkins didn't personally buy this ad. The ad was purchased by the British Humanist Association. http://www.humanism.org.uk/bus-campaign "The advertisements were designed as a response to particular hellfire-and-brimstone adverts; our slogan is an affirmation for people that it

Really? If you live in such a pointedly secular society, then why is this news? There's also a significant difference between not claiming a religious affiliation and declaring a non-religious affiliation. EDIT: My apologies. Let me clarify: I believe that UK still has a strong religious element in it. I don't want to equate the UK's religious culture with the US's, but I do think you're downplaying the secularism of the UK too much. My point is that the Saturnalian tradition of gift-exchange pre-dates the Christian tradition and many other festivals currently (and previously) existed around this time. So when folks crow about Jesus "being the reason for the season" they're ignoring that many other festivals and traditions occur around this time, some before and some after the formalization of "Dec 25 = Christmas, let's burn yule logs around the Christmas tree and give gifts." Lots of cultures and religions have practiced celebrations and traditions around December. So when people say, "Jesus is the reason for the season!" and "It's Merry Christmas, not happy holidays!" they are pointedly invalidating not only the beliefs of non-religious people, but the beliefs of non-Christian people who currently celebrate (and in ancient times, also celebrated) around December. Well, as long as we're talking about the "insistedly real" Jesus, I don't think (m)any scholars believe he was actually born in December, much less December 25th, so it's a man-selected day, no matter what.

Cool, I guess I won't see/hear any more people saying, "IT'S MERRY CHRISTMAS NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS DEAL WITH IT!"* or "JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!"** next year like I have for the past... well, my entire life, I guess. Folks with strong religious beliefs often vote and consequently legislate according to their beliefs. Anyone who lived in California during the Prop 8 ballot understands just how much of an effect someone else's beliefs can negatively impact another person's life. Non-religious or anti-religious people have to deal with faux-persecution complexes thrown in their faces by religious folks all the time (please see the previously listed statements which are used un-ironically all over the U.S.). If anyone is so enraged by a statement as mild as, "There's probably no god," that they are filled with hatred, they should not be interacting with other human beings in 21st century societies. Anyone who reacts to a benign pro-religious message in such a manner is similarly unfit. The advertisement wasn't purchased out of hatred or malice; it was purchased because atheists/agnostics/humanists are an extreme minority and have virtually no voice and certainly no public representation in societies like the U.K. or U.S. Whether you believe the statement in the ad or not, it's saying the same thing that any pro-Christian ad spreading the gospel would be. "Good news: you're saved!" "There's no god, so you can go about your life without worry!" It's only considered audacious because atheists/agnostics/humanists aren't expected to come out and publicly say the fundamental thing they believe/don't believe. It can be pretty hard for a person to come out and say that they believe something that's extremely unpopular. And by "extremely unpopular" I mean that it has been proven time and again that Americans (in particular) view atheists as the least trustworthy minority. Bringing something like this into the public consciousness just makes it that much clearer. But it also says to atheists/agnostics/humanists, "It's okay to believe what you believe." * ignores Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Eid al-Adha, etc. ** ignores Mithras, Sol Invictus, Saturnalia, etc.

Intercession prior to the crime isn't the disincentive; the disincentive is that the police have been told that person x made a threat, so if you wind up lying in a pool of blood on your flat, Capt. Stupid is the first person they're going to look at. It would also make a pretty good defense if you wanted to pre-emptively stab him if he approached you in any environment after that point. Only a total nimrod would risk that level of scrutiny and danger for "no reason".

Does "one thing to stop me" include "reporting to the police that you threatened my life"? Because that's a pretty compelling reason for a person to not kill you after threatening to do so -- I mean, unless you're the dumbest Satanist in all of Christendom. Not to mention that killing someone for no reason isn't selfish. Again, openly telegraphing selfish motives or malicious intentions is stupid behavior, whether you're a Satanist or otherwise. I have to point back to Stevesy's advice: you don't say, "I'm gonna kill you, Steve." You just smile and act natural... and then you push him over a railing.