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Aristes

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Everything posted by Aristes

  1. "and please... no 20' pike hyperbole." Then how about a Scythe hyperbole? I don't think it's a matter of what the game allows players to use. It's a matter of what players want to have available to them. In PnP DnD, the DM can work around the dynamics of the group. In a CRPG, the weapons available to suit any player's tastes must be available to every player despite taste, so we get a hodgepodge of exotic weapons. Sometimes, it seems excessive to me. That's not a problem with the ruleset. It's because some player wants to use a scythe or long spear and thinks it should be just as viable as a sword. However, while there are regions that, at one point or another, used exotic sorts of weapons, most don't. That's why they're considered exotic. *shrug* Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I always find it jarring. At any rate, I simply don't believe that a scythe should have a technical advantage over the sword in any ruleset. We're not even talking player tates there. If your setting favors halberds, fine. There is a historical example of widespread halberd use. It's certainly feasible. If your setting favors the use of Scythes, that's cool for the exact same reason. However, DnD CRPGs seem to include a vast weapon repertoire despite the setting. That's because players want them. I find it personally distracting. Otherwise, in terms of Fallout, I don't see our dispute. I guess you might want to turn this into one of your acrimonious arguments. Okay. I know better than to try to stop that. I guess I could say, "if we leave out the reference to the 20' pike, would you still have a beef?" Or maybe I could point out that I said, "What I'm also getting from you is that you think the problem is worse in Fallout." How about "...And energy weapons are, as folks have said, essentially the same as other weapons types, only changing out the ammunition. Gatling Lasers? Alien Blasters? Plasma Rifles? I agree whole heartedly with folks who want to scrap the old categories and put new categories in the game." Would that stave off making this a personal argument between the two of us that will last for several pages? Maybe you'd like me to bow before your imminence and simply say, "I was wrong, oh great Gromnir?" I get that you feel like I attacked DnD unfairly, but as it seems to me you then went on to create a conflict in regards to Fallout where we don't have one. I doubt this will work, but if we put the DnD discussion aside what exactly is your problem with my position? It is almost identical to yours at any rate. *shrug* I'd rather not have a bitter dispute because I used "20' pike" in an example, but I'm not going to slink off with my tail between my legs because you feel the need to flex your message board muscles. Just sayin'.
  2. I've as yet not seen 4 edition. My comments regarding the 20' pike have more to do with weapon choice on the part of the player. I can appreciate the commentary, but the idea that saying that DnD isn't as bad as Fallout doesn't say much for either DnD or Fallout. I don't think there is a particular problem with the ruleset in DnD so much as the design team catering to folks' exotic weapon desires. I find the idea that scythes and the like have some sort of equal footing with swords ridiculous on its face. I suppose someone might post a couple dozen links or so 'proving' that scythes were in equally widespread use as an infantry weapon or that pikes were the prefered weapon of individuals dueling each other in close quarters. CRPG DnD games sport an increasingly large assortment of melee weapons in order to accomodate folks fixating on one particular weapon, even to the detriment of the setting. Your response seems to be that it's no big deal with DnD, which is fair enough. What I'm also getting from you is that you think the problem is worse in Fallout. Hell, I agree. That's what I'm saying. This is where I think straight shooters have a distinct advantage. I might prefer the shotgun while someone else prefers the smg, but we're going to use both during a game of Halflife. Sure, I might never bother with the smg later in the game because I have a variety of weapons available to me, which is exactly the point. There are times and places where different weapons come in handy. I don't think any of the Fallout games have explored the idea particularly well, but pistols are lighter weight and easier to conceal than rifles. From my experience, which is admittedly well in the past, a pistol is easier to draw from a holster than a rifle is to unsling and bring to bear. We don't have any notion of these things in a Fallout game. It's simply a matter of firepower and range stacked up against resistances. ...And who the hell ever heard of carrying a rocket launcher around some of the narrow and confined hallways such as we see in Fallout 1/2? You'd end up killing yourself. Real life might not be the best basis for deciding on design, but certainly it would make a bit more sense for players to have a sidearm available for situations where they don't want to fire that rocket six feet ahead of them. I kind of figured that's what two weapon slots were meant to accomplish in Fallout 1/2, but I never really paid that much attention. Now we have a nuclear rocket launcher. ...And, what? We're going to use it on a target in the same room? I don't have a problem with the nuclear rockets per se. Fine, leave them in, but the whole arrangement strikes me as strange. In tems of my own personal beefs, however, I don't really care all that much about the weapons. They can stay the way they are for all I care. I have my own nitpicking to do, but it's not all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. What I do hate is the way repair works and being forced to carry around several duplicate copies of weapons. That's one of the reasons I just finally gave up on the Rail Gun in FO3. It's heavy and you're forced to build several just to keep one in working order. ...And there are better weapons anyhow. It would be a nice little weapon to have, but it's not worth the hassle.
  3. This is like the folks who want to go through an entire DnD game using a 20' long pike. Good Lord, are they compensating for something? It's unfortunate, because I think bhlaab is entirely right. Folks want to use whatever weapon they want, which is cool, but some of those weapons are absolutely stupid. It's like WoW, with it's weapons that are larger than the characters who weild them. Maybe not that bad, but it seems that way. As far as different firearms go, I would think that there would be plenty of times that you would rather use a pistol or a rifle than a rocket launcher. I can even think of some cases where you'd rather use a pistol than a rifle. ...And energy weapons are, as folks have said, essentially the same as other weapons types, only changing out the ammunition. Gatling Lasers? Alien Blasters? Plasma Rifles? I agree whole heartedly with folks who want to scrap the old categories and put new categories in the game. This is especially true in light of the anecdotal evidence Sawyer cites about the confusion some players have regarding weapon types. Frankly, while these might be isolated incidences, intuitively, it makes sense to me that some folks would be confused. This is especially true since there is no real frame of reference for big guns in a lot of early game. I mean, the first firearm the PC receives in all three games is a pistol. If you're not a freaking crazy gun nut, then it's actually sensible to figure that a sniper rifle, which is considerably larger than that pistol you first found, is a 'big gun.' Now, if the player had read the descriptions, it would make more sense to him, so he does have some responsibility. Nevertheless, it's not all his fault. Something else that seems true in a lot of games, from fantasy to modern warfare to sci fi, is that the player can pick his weapon and super specialize. This is along the lines of what bhlaab was saying. On one hand, I don't think that's such a terrible thing. Go ahead and allow folks to specialize in one weapon type. On the other hand, it does mean a lot of wasted hours investing in a variety of weapons that a lot of folks don't use. I've never been a fan of big guns in the Fallout games. I guess the nuke rocket launcher was handy for some tough battles, but not even necessary as I recall. Even then, the player could get by with small guns until energy weapons came along. I don't know if more players used big guns because of the coolness factor or fewer players used big guns because of the logistical nightmare of using them. Crashgirl mentions the terrible repair system, and that simply must be a factor for other players. I know that I find it irritating. No big deal in the long run, but frustrating for players who like to nab all the loot. Hey, punish those players for nabbing all the loot, but punish them for choosing a weapon? Especially since the consensus seems to be that the big gun category is a natural progression for players 'in the know.' Since so much of the Fallout cache comes from weapon variety in the setting, you can't really scrap it, but the ability to carry around several nuke rockets is dumbfounding. I guess the howls from folks who would miss it might be deafening, but it seems to me that it's a simple thing to remove from the NV title. I can't believe it would be a deal breaker. I think all weird or simply crazy weapons should be toned down. Maybe one nuclear rocket, and that's actually put in the game for a specific purpose and you're making it hard on yourself by wasting it on a random raider. If big guns are going to be norm, then make them more readily accessible, as folks up and down the line have said, and certainly try to make it as clear as possible which weapons fit into which category.
  4. Going to rewind for a bit. The idea of punishing folks for saving in different areas is idiotic. sorry, CG, just calling it as I see it. Hell, since FO moved to consoles with FO3, simply deny saves at certain places and you're better off than if you punish folks for saving outside of the city. I've always hated the heavy handed approach to game design packaged in such a way. If you want to be heavy handed, be heavy handed. Don't use half measures. You don't think folks should be able to save anywhere, make save points. Lots of consoles use them. Folks are used to them. The require even more strategy than the 'sin tax' method of policing the player. To be clear, I despise the idea of the design team penalizing the player for saving outside of certain spots. It sounds all 'hard core' and 'ol' skool,' but in reality it's just one more irritating thing that hampers the player. I've never been a fan of savepoints, although I've played quite a few games that use savepoints. Savepoints do require some forthought simply because you have to be able to size up the situation and plan accordingly to be able to progress. I've never liked them, but I understand them. Save penalties are the weak willed version of save points where the design team simply lacks the balls to institute save points. I don't want any doubts that I loathe the idea of save penalties. I don't suppose my opinion matters, and I know I've said some unkind things about Obsidz vis a vis the community, but, while I'm advocating my preference, I don't believe the idea would improve the game.
  5. Are you going to swear the others into secrecy? I think it would be good to have the option to mislead them or hide the truth, but I don't know that it will be that easy to keep as a secret. Possible, yes. Easy, no.
  6. I can't help but think that exchanging ideas and discussing possibilities is good for any developer. On the other hand, there might not be a lot of time for this sort of thing. The developers who like talking about games and who enjoy the company of the members on their own forum undoubtedly do benefit from interaction. However, the benefit isn't great enough to devote actual man hours to it. Otherwise, the community is just something to manage. They just don't want folks getting too unruly or out of hand lest they create negative hype about the title. There are only two things that a fanbase can really do for a publisher. They can create negativity about a title, which is bad. They can create positive hype about a title, which is good. If you think that the potential hype will be a significant advantage, then it's worth it to invest in the community. If you think that the community will not significantly add to the hype or even have a negative impact on it, the community is simply not worth it. As far as our input as experienced gamers? *shrug* I'm sure that's true, but that experience is uneven, narrowed by tastes, and even contradictory between members. Like I said, discussion is generally good across the board for any endeavor, but developer message boards are not necessary for these discussion and, in some cases, might be a worse place to hold them.
  7. See, the way I look at it, I would take it and sell it to one of the faithful or give it to my companion in order to cement their loyalty.
  8. You know, maybe you're not right to destroy the urn. Maybe the problem isn't with your ****ty companion, but with your ****ty self.
  9. Oh Sawyer posts in all sorts of threads. Some of them are not legendary, I assure you.
  10. Naw, the way I see it, Gfted, it's that you get enough influence that you cause them to doubt or even forsake their religion. happens all the time in real life. I mean, the scenario in your example would be pretty silly, but maybe you convinced him either that his religion is wrong (hopefully over the course of several hours of play) or that his religion values individual life more than the relic. Think of Dakkon. You could deepen his doubt in his faith or reaffirm in. The interactions regarding his faith count as one of the reasons PS:T is my favorite game.
  11. Good thinkin' Stevie Wonder. :haksthumbsup:
  12. Krazi is a girl also. She was the community manager for Interplay back in the day.
  13. I don't think giving out info about your game or even discussing your decisions means that you must give fans the authority over your design. ...And just talking to folks interested in the game and divulging information certainly doesn't do anything to your design at all. I mean, I don't really care if they talk too terribly much about New Vegas anyhow. There are plenty of other discussions here and I'm picking up New Vegas sight unseen. If they discuss more, I'm happy, but it's not like I'm disgruntled by the cone of silence. I can see why they'd stay quiet and I can see why they shouldn't feel compelled to do so. Plus, maybe it's not Obsidian's decision to keep it on the down low? Maybe Bethsoft has something to do with the secracy.
  14. Oh, I have to admit I it was unsettling. Then I just figured it wouldn't be a real Fallout game. Still, there are folks who complained without buying the game and there were folks who bought the game already hating it in order to be able to say they bought the game when they complained about it. I mean, HK and... sorry other dude who's name I can't remember were right a few pages back bringing up Fallout 3 and the groin shot thing. The point is, complaining does show some amount of care about the topic, but it doesn't really tell anyone the nature of that care or concern. You might care enough about the game to want to discuss it. You might just have a hardon for the developer. If you hate Bioware, you care enough to participate in threads about the company, but not because you want to support their games. People are strange. Except for me, of course.
  15. Quick and Dirty answer? the developer doesn't want the traffic and the official forums are over in Bethie's territory.
  16. KraziKat?
  17. You people better stop scaring me! Plus, isn't that why it's the theory of gravity? I mean, we kind of take it for granted and it's not like we have anything better, but we still don't understand exactly how it works. As for myself, I just notice my weight increasing over the years. I take gravity for granted and figure that good ol' Newton had it right.
  18. Wait! Someone is urinating green radioactive waste? Anyhow, I don't understand arguing in a thread dedicated to a game you simply have no intention of buying, but folks do it all the time. *points to the comments folks made about Fallout 3*
  19. hehehehe This made me laugh out loud. Jerk-face! Seriously, though, someone mentioned that more news could come out after Alpha Protocol shipped. Maybe then the loose lips sinks ships posters will come down and they'll lift the cone of silence. That would be sweet. It would be kind of weird to design the whole game and present it fait accompli. Most developers want to get the presses rolling in order to engender interest. I suppose there's plenty of time to do that if they start in the last quarter of year. When is the game allegedly shipping again? I wonder if this is kind of like the genie scene in PS:T, what with the folks at Obsidian finally getting to work on a Fallout game. :harmless ribbing grin: Can you at least tell us if you guys are hot and heavy into the design yet? Maybe no specifics, but at least that you've got a full team working the design or you're still ramping up and waiting for folks to finish other projects? maybe?
  20. I think they should let people switch factions while retaining their race. Let Orcs be Alliance and Humans be Horde. I think the faction system is retarded at any rate. If would rather see a bunch of different factions that have varying degrees of friendliness and animosity but no permanent alliances or enmities. Tauren are allied with the orcs, but they are no more inclined to Horde philosophy than the night elves are inclined to Alliance. If anything, the elves and taurens should form their own alliance instead of the massive copout of having the druids of each form a separate group. This static arrangement is stupid and only encourages folks to look at the gameworld as an either/or proposition.
  21. My widower buddy, with whom I have faithfully been sharing lunch at least once a week since his wife died (except when I've been out of state) called this morning before I went to bed to see if I could meet for lunch, significantly cutting down on my sleep time. I get ya, Enoch. I'm feeling my age right now. I think I'll simply take the whole weekend off and try to come to some semblance of a normal schedule. I can do the logic tests recreationally for a few hours every day and get away from the crushing schedule. As for you, Slug, I have to admit you have a point. I doubt if I'll ever be forced to keep track of which salesperson showed which tiger in any particular showroom. The ability to reason quickly might come in handy, but I think I'll have more than five minutes and better notes to keep track of the info.
  22. I don't know. I'll have to take your word for it because it seems so far fetched to me. On the other hand, I have to admit that I'm looking at it from a layman's point of view, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. My criteria, even for a chance to succeed, and that assumes that some unforseen variable doesn't scrap the whole thing is: A self sustaining colony that can move out past the confines of the solar system will be able to self repair from significant damage will not be dependent on external supply for thousands or perhaps even millions of years have steerage and mobility (ie the ability to go the direction it wants to go) a reliable and renewable energy source sufficient to keep a large enough population to ensure the survival of the species If you say that the technology exists to do that right now, then I'll leave the matter settled. No tricksies. EDIT: One thing, though. I'm not conflating science and technology. At most, you can say that I did not know we have technology that currently exists. Discovery precedes technology. If we don't have the techno, we need to discover the principles by which it works and then develop it.
  23. Claiming it to be impossible doesn't stop the guys from the University of Vienna from actually doing it in real, practical tests Well, in my imperfect understanding, since I don't claim to be a scientist at any rate, the experiments are trying to establish an entanglement between photons which, in theory would mean that information conveyed by one would be conveyed simultaneously by the other. It's not a matter of moving faster than light, per se. It's actually more a matter of information being simultaneous because it needn't move at all since all information is exactly the same in both places at the same time. I want to be clear, because I'm not trying to be clever and I would never take the devil on as a client. I don't disagree with the basic idea that we're moving along so swiftly, both in terms of science and the attendant technology, that moving out into the galaxy and establishing interstellar colonies is possible. I agree with Gorth, the smug bastard, that humanity is always taking on the impossible and making it possible. What I was trying to convey is that it's not a done deal. Maybe we will do it, but it's certainly not possible, at this moment or even with foreseeable technology based on current science, to create a lasting colony that exist independant of the sun outside of our solar system. It's not just a logistical problem, although we don't have the actual resources to build such a vessel and science has not yielded technology that would allow us to design such a vessel. Notice, we didn't say we'd colonize the Moon or Mars or even have a permanently manned space station. The argument was we'd move out of the solar system and survive the death of the Sun. To say it will happen as a certainty is making a bold statement that is not supported by the facts. It is, no matter how you cut it, conjecture. Yes, science and technology (and I think it's stupid to say that it's a matter of technological advancement since, regardless of what we say, we do not have the technology to make any of this happen and thus it is entirely dependent on scientific discovery) have advanced at incredible rates over the previous decades. However, it is still an assumption that this will lead to a sentient species surviving the demise of the sun. It just is. If we're to be intellectually honest, that is the simple truth. You might think that it's a certainty, but it's not based on actual information. It's just based on history. Fair enough. I hope you're right. After all, who would want something as grand as humanity (or the sentient lizard folk who come after us) to die with the Sun?
  24. Well, yes, because you have been arguing that the laws of physics might prevent us sorting out what are effectively logistical issues. If you want to boil my argument down to that level, then you're essentially making the same argument that the Roman citizen makes at 1AD. We've been successful this far, thus our empire is eternal. What I said is that there are too many variables to say it's all but a done deal. It could happen. I'd like to think we can do it, but I don't think it's all but certain we'll outlive the sun.
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