J.E. Sawyer

Your combos become longer with increased skill, and the moves at the end of the combo are more spectacular/damaging/crazy/sexy/cool. Also a few moves (like the flying knee) are unlocked with skill progression.

Unless Atari/Obsidian releases a patch that includes all of the various things that make overland maps possible, yes.

How do you determine which attacks are being used? Is melee tied to a single button, or multiple (or combinations of)? Or is the move dependant on the actual scenario (range, position, etc)? There is only one attack button for unarmed attacks. Attacks change based on Mike's state (standing or walking vs. running), the enemy's state (hostile vs. unaware or stunned) and length of button input (tap vs. hold). Standing/walking Mike vs. a hostile enemy will perform a hard strike with a held button, and will perform chained hits with taps. The chained hits are randomized linked combos. So there may be a total of five hits in combo A and five hits in combo B. When you start the chain, it randomly picks between combo A and B, though you are still giving individual inputs for each attack -- so you can stop whenever you want. But once combo A starts, it will only use combo A attacks unless you let the chain expire and start a new sequence.

SoZ cleared up a large number of technical issues/wishes that I wanted to see in the engine, so you should be hearing/seeing more soon.

All submachineguns are dual-wielded. All pistols are used singly. Submachineguns dump ammo everywhere and are not accurate at all. Pistols are quite accurate. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but yes there are times when you would definitely rather use a pistol than the submachineguns.

What constitutes "normal" gameplay mechanics? In the context of the two games I was just discussing, your Dead Space shooting mechanics no longer make sense if you're grappling and your God of War move set is also compromised. Something has grabbed you and you're not free to do what you normally do. If you were, there would be no point to grappling.

This forum has no convention for writing, so I am free to write in whatever manner I please, bullying those who do not follow suit. That's how the practical exchange and adoption of language works. When I write for publications or for games, I follow the conventions established by the client. I made no mistake in the topic's subtitle; I consciously punctuate dependent clauses inside of quotation marks to avoid issues like this: He asked if I wanted to "go inside." In this example, the fragment is logically from an interrogative independent clause. A period inside the quotation marks makes less sense because the proper punctuation for the full interrogative clause would be a question mark. You are punctuating the subject/verb he/asked. He asked if I wanted to "go inside". If you care enough to try to shape someone's use of language, apply pressure to them in whatever manner you see fit. "Dialogue" is simply my pet peeve. Improper use of the subjunctive mood is just below that. Improper use of the objective case of pronouns is next on the list.

Jericho sassed me so I broke into his house and stabbed him to death in his sleep. Problem solved.

Mashing a single button is a step up from doing nothing, but the GTA:SA implementation was boring because there was no pressure to what you were doing. Most button mashing in console games feels frantic because you're suddenly broken out of your normal control scheme (usually in combat) and have a limited amount of time to mash before something very bad happens. E.g. Dead Space grappling, God of War mini-games.

America's first kindergarten was imported by Margarethe Meyer Schurz to Watertown, Wisconsin (about twenty miles from where I grew up). That region was dominantly settled by Germans. I think the American rules for punctuation and quotation marks are inferior to the British rules. If you are quoting a dependent clause or fragment, you should punctuate outside of the quotation marks; after all, you're punctuating the larger independent clause outside of the quotation. If you are quoting an independent clause, punctuate inside the quotation marks.

Was he as garishly colored as everything else in that movie? I mean Ultraviolet the short-lived UK TV series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_AAdFmm84A

Idris Elba owned in Ultraviolet. Just FYI.

Elizabeth McGovern did a great job in the Scarlet Pimpernel mini-series with Richard E. Grant. She was born and raised in Illinois and Los Angeles. e: Also, Richard E. Grant has a really entertaining accent. I guess it's the result of being raised in Swaziland. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0PDs4e178

So what is the Australian view of the Australian film "Australia", made by Australian director Baz Luhrman starring Australian actor Hugh Jackman and Australian/Hawaiian actress Nicole Kidman?

We are dealing with a biased group though, since everyone here reads and writes English pretty well. Many Europeans speak some English, but not all do. I was in France earlier this year. In Paris and Orl

VO/language discussion split to its own thread.

"Dialog" has only appeared in American English the past twenty to thirty years, thanks to programmers and Microsoft. "Dialogue" is communication between two groups of people. "Dialog" is a GUI box that pops up to prompt user input. It's as valid to use "dialog" in place of "dialogue" as it is to use "there" in place of "their" or "thru" in place of "through". I.e. the writer will communicate his or her point; my opinion of the writer will simply decrease. The spelling of "dialogue" is one of my pet peeves, slightly ahead of the improper use of the subjunctive mood. When I hear non-native English speakers say things like, "If I only I was eight feet tall," I cringe and know that it is because they hear and see native English speakers mangle their own language with stultifying ignorance. I know that language is fluid and ever-changing, but it is only ever-changing because people accept the changes that others make. It is currency, like any other, and can either be accepted implicitly or rejected explicitly. I reject the use of "dialog" to signify traditional conversations, and will not cease to berate my opponents in this matter until after I have drawn my last breath. It is as valid to me as a three dollar bill. If you are on my side in this battle, I have some good news: the bug I reported to Firefox over a year ago was finally resolved. The newest version of Firefox accepts "dialogue" as a valid spelling. The next step is removing "dialog" as a valid spelling. The step after that involves the public ostracization (in a McCarthy-esque purge) of people who improperly use "dialog". Peace.

A lot of RPG fans live in other countries (Europe in particular) and buy the English versions of games. They also tend to see previews in English, so if a French national or Quebecer hears what sounds like someone effectively making fun of their language/accent, it's probably not going to be very appealing to them. And the difference between Brazilian and Argentine accents? Well, Brazilians speak Brazilian Portuguese, not Spanish, and the languages sound pretty different. I don't expect you, the individual, to know the difference, but people who do know the difference will expect us to know the difference as well. I'm the guy who lobbied for over a year to have a Firefox spell check bug (which I reported) fixed so that "dialogue" would be a recognized spelling of that word. I'm almost always going to argue that getting language and accent right (even if it's intentionally wrong) is worth the effort.

I agree that Moira's VO actor did a good job, though the voice could become grating -- I think that was the point. I notice this problem a lot with how players respond to voices and accents. I'm a big fan of having crazy United Colors of Benetton casts, but I always want to have native speakers as actors for those roles. If a character is Qu

Depending on your adventure's place in the FR timeline, anywhere near a wild/dead magic zone could suffice. For example, Labelas Enoreth destroyed Clangeddin Silverbeard's avatar on Ruathym, which is way the heck out on the Sword Coast, east of Daggerford and the Whalebones. Hey, did you guys know that there was wild magic fallout there? Well, now there is. You could also put it in the Nelanther Isles, since that's an enormous archipelago where one island among a thousand could easily go unnoticed. The Nelanther Isles also have a series of weird Sea Towers that dot the archipelago. Some weirdo could have taken over one for his or her goofy purposes. The whole region is effectively an anarchic wasteland dominated by pirates, so it's not like locals would actively investigate the deaths or disappearances of others.

Aliens will be second person (informal) future perfect.

Why play a 1st person platformer set in the near future of an active dystopian metropolis when you could play a 3rd person action RPG set in the anarchic post-apocalyptic wasteland? They are quite similar, aren't they?

Ribsmasher the character predates Ribsmasher as Alvin's nickname.

As of NWN2, alignment, race, and even sex can restrict deity selection. As of Mask of the Betrayer (I believe), favored weapons are also associated with deities.

I can't remember all of my perks, but I tagged Sneak, Melee, and Lockpick. Took Cannibal, Commando, Action Boy, Sniper, Silent Running, Mr. Sandman, Mysterious Stranger, and Grim Reaper's Sprint as my most important perks. I killed and ate everyone in Tenpenny Tower. Also, half of the residents of Rivet City and everyone in Big Town. I cleared the slavers out of the Lincoln Memorial, invited the freed slaves in, and then shot them all with the Lincoln Repeater as they approached. Then ate them. Anyone who sassed me was stalked, Sandman-ed, and eaten. Needless to say, I was very disappointed that my 180+ corpse eatings did not merit an Xbox 360 achievement. My only regret is that I wasn't able to enslave Bumble. However, I was able to enslave Flak, which caused Shrapnel to wander the wastes. During the final march to the Jefferson Memorial, Shrapnel was wandering in Liberty Prime's path. He is set to essential, so after being blown up repeatedly, he joined the march of Lyons' Pride on the Enclave troopers. w00t