Nepenthe

I like having a well-built car with enough power reserves (and superb brakes) for potential emergency situations.

Maybe, but "gaming circles" in general have a ton of negatively suggestible people.

Time to go eReader. I just bought an Ipad. Mostly for airplane moviez (none on intra-european flights) and Baldur's Gate, but probably a few books too.

"A person who is highly suggestible in a negative direction is as much in bondage to others around him as is the person who is positively suggestible." And this is what I really referred to earlier. That a lot of self-professed critical thinkers are, in-fact, "highly suggestible in a negative direction". And an Aldous Huxley quote from the same source "Perhaps men of genius are the only true men. In all the history of the race there have been only a few thousand real men. And the rest of us--what are we? Teachable animals. Without the help of the real man, we should have found out almost nothing at all. Almost all the ideas with which we are familiar could never have occurred to minds like ours. Plant the seeds there and they will grow; but our minds could never spontaneously have generated them."

Nobody knows our troubles but God. (Moby reference)

Nah, it's just that they view games as single-use products no matter how good they are. Personally, have yet to sell a game, though I've considered it with GTA IV (overrated) and Fallout 4 (to mebbe get the version with all dlc). Everything else I have bought is still neatly in its shelf, starting with Pool of Radiance (for mac, of course). ... I have three versions of Baldur's Gate... And a fourth one coming soon! ;D

This sadly won't change anything long-term. Companies still consider EULAs binding even in countries that had ruled against them. If they pretend it didn't happen for long enough it will go away. Haha, they're dealing with the European Commission now, the most efficient and ruthless bureaucracy in the history of mankind, the reason why you get that "pick a browser" screen in Windows... in Europe. I assume it'll force Steam & co to create a used game marketplace, where the games can be sold and traded in-system. I also assume that they'll be allowed to take a slice off the top for running it. I additionally assume that publishers will want a part of that slice.

Reluctantly agree with Nepenthe, critical thinking is something better learn with real life experience rather than on the classroom. Then you're not agreeing with Nepenthe. He stated critical thinking skills can't be taught. But if you can learn them through life experience (which I agree with you is the primary means of learning them) then you can learn them. Bit of a tautology, but eh. ... No. To refine/amend my earlier statement (), I believe that there's a large amount of people who simply can't think critically, and it does make sense from an evolutionary perspective (easier to keep the herd going). Apart from that, Orogun's closer to what I had mind for the rest.

I have a yearning for a greasy burger. Which I might give in to. Hilton bacon burger? Hmm.

Otoh, spelling CAN be taught. Oops.

That is why you give out demos and on today's economy I treat every game purchase as if I was investing my money, with tons of research before I actually decide to buy a game. And that's why the economy is in the crapper, due to people just sitting on their money, afraid to use it for even the smallest purchases.

Personally doubt if critical thinking can be thought. Most people who think themselves capable of independent thought will just latch themselves into the thinking of some subgroup. It's terribly boring.

If you make arbitraty decision such as "never buying dlc", you have no reason to expect the full experience. Maybe it's sad, but it's the way things are these days. I'll take DLC that matters over fully meaningless any day. OTOH, I happily buy CEs and other stuff on the very few games that really intest me, so maybe I really am in a completely different boat. The setting sucked, but the game mechanics, skill system and their attempts at building a "honey comb" structure leaving you free to roam around between major locations as you desired was nice to the degree that it felt promising for the future. I.e. lots of potential mixed with a bit of nostalgia because it brought back memories of a time when they were more ambitious when it came to scope and level of detail. I thought the mechanics and system were atrocious, as was their habit of cut-scening you into ambushes. I agree that what you refer to as "honey comb" was good, and something I'd forgotten about. Probably because every cell in the comb is an endless gauntlet of boring combat encounters. Also, the structure of time was an interesting showing. The potential developments and fallout over x years in a specific locale based on choices you made.. If it had just been pushed along a bit more .. but again, it was "idea conception rather then what actually got built". I think you're talking about DA2, here. Personally still prefer it over DAO, it "gels" better, even if they are both flawed. It still would have been vastly superior to leave the Reapers shrouded in mystery. Whether you accept it the logic of the Starchild or not, his very existence takes the Reapers down a few pegs on the "impressive villain" scale. Sacrificing our solar system to stop them would have been a much more fitting ending for the scope of the conflict, I think. Probably. I think the Dark Energy aspect would already have been better. But as it is, both me2 and me3 have ludicrously bad endings (well, at least ME2 in the original release, Arrival did a much better job of driving the cliffhanger home. Too bad they won't do the same for me3). I think you're talking about DA2, here. In which case I agree. And I still think that it gelled better than the first one, which REALLY showed the long stretch of development hell (a bunch of tossed-together elements).

Wrong team won. Now at work, major headache and some sort of high pressure pump outside, it's like a hangover from hell without drinking.

Now, if somebody could only tell me what was so good about DAO, apart from the fact that if you squinted really hard, it looked like one of the games that originally launched Bioware.

Everybody who cares enough about the games to analyse their respective plots and how they connect, I'd hope. You're just assuming that the flawed logic of the Reaper AI is supposed to be ignored. I listened to it, decided it was crazy, and proceeded to destroy all synthetics (even with the hope that the non-Reaper synthetics could be recovered one day by an unified galaxy).

The superweapon was foreshadowed in Lair of the Shadow Broker.

Not at all

Aston Martin DB9 Coup

there's "making little attempt to be polite" and then there's just posting to take a smoldering dump in a thread.

In a fireplace??? Well, that would make her a hot chick, no? Smoldering. Don't give up you day job just yet!

You need to update your jokes for ME3.

I don't find a naked chick in a fireplace particularly titillating, more something that I need to see in a larger size before I go talk to a doctor about misogynic hallucinations.

I considered it, but then I decided I'd do something that I care more about, like watch Italy kick Germany's butt. I don't want to imagine a world where I would enjoy watching soccer more than I would enjoy analysis of a complex, high-profile legal opinion. Perhaps working a legal job you hate in a different country that already has universal healthcare would suffice.

Invisible War had DLC?