Aristes

I think folks are a little harsh on Flash Forward on account of the crow angle. Yes, it struck me also. Two things, though. 1 -- While they should have mentioned it in the show, it's quite possible that specialists in the field were trying to make noise about the sudden drop in crow population, but no one was listening. After all, with the world suffering from a catastrophic event, maybe most folks weren't worried about the birds. Remember, the only reason the nazi thought of it was because of his flash forward and the "murder" of crows. 2 -- It's tv. Sure, you can see those breaks in continuity and all, but tv is just that way. It's like the problems you see in LOST or Fringe, or any other show. Frasier is my favorite tv series and it has all sorts of no-brainer inconsistencies. I guess that's a sit-com, so continuity doesn't matter as much. Even so, I've hardly ever seen any show that hasn't had a continuity slip or no brainer error.

Hey, I like Bass, you bastard!* *This was not a troll.

lol Shadow Shadow Bo Badow

I figured I'd get that answer, but even skipping most of the available previews and other information out there, you still get a good idea of the background for the story. Maybe there will be something that comes out in gameplay that changes my mind, but something so dramatic that it "turns the usual assumptions of fantasy on its head" would undoubtedly be clear with even a quick view of the available information.

I completely disagree that Dragon Age "turns the usual assumptions of fantasy on its head."

I don't know. The ape armed dwarves just don't seem all that big of a deal. I mean, most of the gripes could be solved by simply letting the player modify the body. I don't know how hard that would be, but it could make sense. I've seen other games that allowed the player to adjust the bulkiness of the body type for both men and women. I guess we'll see if there are a flood of complaints about the long armed dwarf characters. Bioware might not need to 'justify' themselves at all.

Common problem in games that use unibody type of solution. In MMOGs even the most casual players seem to notice the difference, even when they can't explain why models look "wrong" somehow. Blizzard don't use unibody type of system and has to custom make animations for models that have different proportions. In Dragon Age dwarf is really good example when unibody goes wrong. For example take default human female model, face it towards the camera and take screenshot. Then do the same with default dwarf female. Open up two different screenshots in your photoshop (or similar program that allow easy image manipulation). Then resize different parts of the one model to match the other. Hands are identical (nimble hands ms. dwarf), arms are same lenght, only thicker. Neck shorter and face is wider. Torso and legs about 1/3 shorter. Human female model is actually very close to a ideal 8 head size like it should be. But dwarf model proportions are complitely messed up. It's too roughly 8 head sizes but not for arms. And it shouldn't be 8 head sizes as it makes models look very awkward, if they are wider (or more like flatten in case of dwarf female). I noticed the proportions as well. The arms and hands stood out in particular. On the other hand, what is the correct proportion size for a Dragon Age dwarf in real life? It seems to me that having significantly shorter arms would be somewhat of a disadvantage in reach. Maybe dwarves have longer arms proportionally. We can't assume that dwarves are just short stocky humans. There might be any number of differences and, frankly, the proportionally longer arms on the dwarves makes their martial prowess more believable.

The cutscene wasn't very good. I do like the ability to get in there and really modify all of the physical characteristics, though. Not much to do with it until the actual game ships.

Downloading now. Sadly, my connection is not exactly all that great. Damned old wiring.

I'm kind of an Anglophile, so I would also suggest the UK. Lovely place, even if I didn't much care for the food. The history is the big draw for me there. I would think that Australia would provide enough natural wonders to keep you satisfied, but super Cal is right about Yosemite. It's a splendid place, Some of the scenery is breathtaking. Same goes for Hawaii, which I've visited a couple of times. If you're into the night life, Las Vegas would work really well and it's surprisingly inexpensive. Night life is not my cup of tea, but some folks think it's the bomb. Great desert surrounding it, though, which is a big plus for me. Hell, the Grand Canyon isn't that far away if you think about it. Japan is great, and you might even get a chance to check out South Korea if you can hit both places. The flight isn't that bad so you could make it a two for one special. If you try the east coast of the US, New York is a must see. If I remember correctly, crime is still way down from the bad old days and it's really a sight. Frankly, I'd go to Europe simply because there are so many nations close together. If you want to take the time getting to know different folks and try different cuisine and brews, you've got the most exposure there.

Yes, Finland is a titan of world politics and when the president of Finland speaks everyone stops listening to the president of the United States. Oh, and we sure as hell better hope the Finns never decide to invade because that small, rugged army will undoubtedly be the ruination of us all. They did defeat the Soviet Army, after all. ...And with no outside help. They also never received any aid from the United States after they were forced to pay reparations to the Soviets at the end of World War 2. Well, maybe they did, but that's just not worth mentioning. Of course, the Soviet Army of the late 1930s was almost identical to the Soviet Army at the end of World War 2. I'm not much of a world war 2 buff. A little late in history for me. Nevertheless, I think folks are overstating and oversimplifying things in this particular discussion. Finland is a great country with a noble history. They've done extremely well for themselves, as have their neighbors, and I don't begrudge them any of their successes. While folks describe them as socialist, they are indeed quite caught up in free market trade in the global economy, which means that the United States, as well as the EU and Russia provide markets for their exports. Comparing the Finnish economy with that of the United States is perfectly legitimate, but keep in mind that it is a tiny nation with a homogenous population. I think Wrath is wrong to cast aspersions on Finland, but it seems that folks have gone overboard on the other side as well. I would think that Finns have the right to be proud of themselves, not only for their history, but also because they've done extremely well economically. That doesn't mean that Finland is going to step up as leader of the free world any time soon.

It seemed pretty clear the mage killed the dragon. But the glowing-blue-eyed-warrior-guy got to "kill" it at the end by stabbing its head. Ahh, that's right.

It seemed pretty clear the mage killed the dragon.

I thought the trailer was cool. Second time I've had one sent my way. Actually, the HD I saw from the link here. Anyhow, I liked the flying elf bow chic or whatever. That was cool. Yeah, it's not going to win an academy award, but I don't want filet mignon every night. A good juicy hamburger works just fine for me too.

Only if that quid pro quo comes through will that be a valid statement. Otherwise, it's just another policy decision. Missle Defense, for those of us old enough to remember when it first made the headlines, was never as awesome as the proponents touted nor as terrible as the critics accused.

The point is, whether it is 'secondary' or 'primary,' the story gets a lot of attention. To be candid, while I don't like a lot of the WoW story, there are certain ones that I enjoy in particular. For example, the Redpath family quest-line in the Western Plague Lands and Eastern Plagueland is a great story and I appreciate it every time I do those quests. Even a junior high PnP session has a few gems. ...And those junior high stories, for all of the coolness of combat and giving your characters uber loot, is one of the primary reasons a lot of junior high school kids play. Yeah, I spend a lot of time these days skipping lines of dialogue to get to the 'fun' stuff, but that doesn't mean that I can ignore the story or even want to ignore it most of the time. All's I'm saying is that a lot of developers put a lot of effort into the backstory and that most of them want folks to enjoy that story. In Bioware's case, whether you think the story is the equivalent of a junior high monte haul, it is by the story that the developer chooses to differentiate their product. They can't go the route of an MMORPG because, frankly, an MMORPG (or Bethesda game) will do that better. Now that Bio is getting into the MMORPG business, we'll have to see, but I suspect that the reason that they're taking a chance on Star Wars is that it's has a built in story to differentiate itself from the very beginning.

Even MMOs put a huge amount of effort into story. I simply don't believe that folks like MoCa don't care about the story. After all, RTS with pause is just as valid as RPG RTwP, right? If all you're looking to find in a game is tactics, there are simply better titles out there in the first place. ...And RTSes also develop a story. Sure, you can ignore it, but it certainly seems that the 'average consumer' wants a story in place. Otherwise, they could simply provide gameplay information and let the player decide what to do. Explain that a knight moves in this way and a rook moves in that way and you've satisfied someone who cares for nothing more than gameplay. Games today aren't like that, which tells me that either the designers are hopelessly out of touch with the consumers, which I don't believe is a universal truth, or the folks playing the game enjoy these backstories. RPGs are different in that the biggest pull of an RPG is character impact on the story. If there is no story, there is no RPG. Sure, you might hate required NPCs. In principle, I hate them also. In practice, I tend to be forgiving of forced NPCs. The idea that WoW has very little story or that Blizzard largely ignored the story is laughable. I'm not a big fan of the World of Warcraft backstory. In some cases, I think the design team should be slapped in the face for stupid crap they've done in terms of both gameplay and story, but that doesn't change that they've built an extensive backstory. The biggest difference between a Bioware RPG and Diablo/WoW is that Bioware includes dialogue decisions in order to help move the story and permit relationships whereas the story in Blizzard games tends to be a one way street. Even so, Blizzard is addressing the question of player impact by introducing such things as phased content and the like. Whatever any designer/developer/publisher says, follow the money and everyone fashions stories for their games. It's inescapable. So, secondary or not, story plays a major part in just about every computer game I've played. Yeah, not Chess and maybe some others, but for the vast majority it's there.

I also think it's $1.4 million US. Pretty hefty prize, but for most folks the prestige is probably better. Hell, a lot of folks, such as Ossietzky (?) died before they ever saw any of the money anyhow.

To be fair to Obama, he did say he would donate the award money to charity. I mean, if he doesn't we should take him to task, but I'll assume he will do so. So, I don't think he deserves it, but he should get props for giving the cash to the needy.

That night idea is actually pretty nifty. Might encourage folks to fiddle with their dieals. I also agree that radio stations should not be particularly common, but I do think radios would be, especially if folks know there's even one radio station broadcasting. As far as power generation goes, both the enclave and the BoS seem to have no problem on that end. I think having a few competing radio stations would be good, maybe even up to three, depending on how Obs builds the communities. If there are two competing factions in Vegas proper, then there could be one at a community at the dam. I didn't like that the enclave's radio station was so completely bland, but I also understand that coming up with three lines of dialogue and complete song lists for two or three radio stations might be taxing on the design team. I don't know that it would, but I could accept that argument.

As a design decision, I don't like how combat handles death, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. I liked the way Fallout worked in that your NPCs who die are just plain gone. On the other hand, it does lead to a lot of reloading, especially when you're first getting used to the game.

Hey, it could be like Fallout. No running back to the temple in those games. Probably the most jarring feature of recent games is the lack of death consequences. Hell, it should be hard to bring someone back from death. It shouldn't be a matter of going to the local temple and dropping fifty ducats in the hand of the parish priest.

I met gays while in the navy. Go figure. haha Seriously though, not only are armed services different between countries, they are different between branches. While in the Navy, I had the pleasure of serving in a variety of commands, including a US army command, a US marine command, and a combined command with the South Korean marines. Let me tell you, there were a lot of differences between all of them. ...But I guess the big thing is that I don't think most folks care that much whether the guy watching their back is gay or not. Yeah, I'm sure they did at one point, but not so much any more. The US relies a lot on technology and training. That's not a commentary on the personal qualities of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines. To be perfectly candid, I don't think that there is really much of a difference between the quality of human beings regardless of where they're from or what (so called) race they are. As far as personal qualities go, what really matters is training, which is a great equalizer of personal bravery. After that, technology just plain rules the day. A significant advantage in techno paves the way for a much smaller group to defeat and subdue a larger group. With so many militaries around the world becoming increasingly diverse ethnically and by skin color, it just seems a matter of time before homosexuals are integrated and after that, eventually, I see women joining combat units as well. Women in the military do have somewhat of a bad rep in some corners, and I have witnessed some pretty strange things in regards to women in the military, but I still see women in combat roles as inevitable in the long term. After that, I think we'll see a lot of separating the 'women from the girls' in much the same way we see the separating of the 'men from the boys.' So to speak. Anyhow, what is a combat role today? With ambushes on supply lines being a popular sport, anyone in the area of conflict might as well be in a combat role.

If I could only convince my PnP group to play CoC, I would be happy. Alas, it's DnD or bust for my friends.

I think it makes a lot of sense to create a radio station. With the abundance of prewar tech, particularly weapons, you can't tell me that folks would not have come up with makeshift radios in order to hear music and news. It's ludicrous. Frankly, it makes so much sense, BIS could have implemented it into the earlier games. Maybe you don't like the way Bethesda did it, but maintaining a running radio station would be a tremendous source of influence and folks would greedily seek out a means to listen to whatever radio stations existed, not only for entertainment, which would be at a premium, but also for any news, even if not always reliable.