Zoraptor

It certainly couldn't fund an AP2 in the same fashion as the original AP. Full VO, high detail graphics and the other AAA trappings would have to go and it would have to be a roughly PoE scale game. I think that could still work well though, since I don't think that most people who enjoyed AP enjoyed it for those AAA trappings- so long as they were honest about what changes were being made. Having said that, very very unlikely to happen. Personally, I'd be happy with a spiritual successor building on the things AP did well, it's certainly a more realistic prospect.

Yep. Cherry picking the best written movies and books also ignores that for every [my favourite book/ movie] that is untrammelled and objective awesome there is an absolute horde of Stephenie Meyer/ Dan Brown/ Michael Bay garbage extruded, year on year. Much like video games. But I do agree- in general- with Monte's basic premise in that if I were to make a list of favourite story tellings there'd be few game ones compared to others- but I'm nowhere near as concrete in it. Plus, per below, in games it really depends on how the story is told as well, and that is difficult to separate from the story itself. You can most definitely prefer games as a medium for story telling without necessarily thinking the stories being told are themselves good in an absolute sense. Most of the people I've seen that like Oblivion don't argue that the story itself is good, but that the way of telling it is good- they're able to put themselves into the story and world in a way that is literally (heh) impossible for other media. In video games the story is not just what is said and done, it is also the interaction with a world, the immersion and the feeling of being part of the action yourself- something that movies and books and other such 'art' cannot do. I love Stalker, its story, if separated from the game itself, is pretty mediocre. Its way of telling the story is, at least in SoC, absolutely brilliant as it oozes atmosphere and especially immersion that a movie (yes, my eastern european friends, I know) or book (ditto) can only dream of. And that way of telling the story makes up for a lot of the story's shortcomings.

Probably, it was certainly the case for Bioshock (1*). Levine's games' stories have a certain amount of depth and a certain amount of genuine craft about them, and are in a medium in which most commonly neither is present. In that sort of context anything with some competency about it stands out because it is, relatively speaking, very good even if it is not good in an 'absolute' sense- ie it is one of the better examples, until you start comparing it to the best storytelling in other media. Or start looking at it in detail, though it certainly isn't alone in falling apart under those circumstances. Personally, I still prefer the Thief and System Shock 2 story lines of his as they weren't so encumbered by Ken Levine, video game auteur as opposed to Ken Levine, writer. *If you're going to skewer a fundamental trope of gaming (the lack of true player agency) then you need to do something, anything to subvert it once pointed out. Going back to 'obey the voice in your head, may as well be with added would you kindly' after making such a point of it... wasted opportunity. It's also ironic, because video games is one of the few media in which you can have elements of choice in how the story plays out even if it does at the end boil down to following branches in a script rather than writing your own story. That is the big advantage video games have as a storytelling medium- interactivity, player agency- and that is the thing that should be taken advantage of. It often isn't because it's hard to do and takes more work than trying to shoehorn in a merely 'interactive' movie like script.

I was surprised that they had tatu* performing and actually had to check it was them. Though I would have been more surprised if it was feline riot, of course. *only really famous for girl on girl snogging, for those not au fait with 2000s (?) Russian pop.

"An RPG is a game in which the player plays the role(s) of a character avatar or multiple instances thereof, features development of the character's abilities and in which the gameplay skill of the player is subservient to the abilities developed by their avatar(s)." There you go, what is an RPG defined with absolutely no argumentation possible at all. List? Planescape Torment Fallouts System Shock 2 Gothic 2/ NdR BG 2 MOTB VtM: Bloodlines Wizardry original (and Icewind Dale KOTOR 2 Order is fluid and subject to change, addition or deletion at no notice. No warranty given or implied. Realistically, everything below MOTB is about equal to stuff that is left out like TWitcher/2, Alpha Protocol and a couple of others so if it were a point system like the codex one some would be missing.

Heh, here it's drilled into us not to do anything around snow in jeans. Of course, we don't actually have snow sitting around populated areas much so you're far more likely to be tramping or skiing when encountering snow here.

NWN2 vanilla is listed as well as MOTB, I think... yes, #61, on the additional list. I presume Throne of Bhaal isn't there because either it was rolled into SoA in people's minds (it's been impossible to buy them separately for ages, after all, and all digital versions include the Xpac) or simply because it isn't considered particularly good.

I don't own 8 of them though I haven't got around to playing a fair few of those I do own; so it's very much my kind of list. If I didn't include freeware titles like Daggerfall and Betrayal at Krondor I wouldn't own 6- FONV (have played it on console though), Dark Souls, Knight of the Chalice, QfG Shadows of Darkness, Geneforge, Pools of Darkness.

And, while her jacket seems quite practical I'd have to question the choice of jeans in snow. They'll get wet, don't hold heat well and are a recipe for hypothermia. Talking fashion, I am also somewhat amused by the profusion of faux rainbow uniforms people and teams have come up with. Mainly because I'm unsure who is being genuinely being subversive and when it's just the media leaping on things to get reaction (as with the Russian official liking the 'rainbow' gloves who was obviously making a political statement. The 'rainbow' in question being the colours of the olympic rings...)

RPGCodex has its top 50 list of RPGs up. Mainly interesting as it's the anti-IGN/ Gamespot list and because a lot of stats are provided, even if there are some oddities like having a JRPG at #1 and their 2009 RPG of the year being rated far lower than you'd expect.

Don't know about that, corporations like free money and from their pov that's what kickstarter provides, and in that case it would be working with a developer with a proven record in D&D and who had shown fairly recent interest in it until diddled over by Atari. They aren't exactly flush with options for potential developers and I could see that overriding any other considerations, especially if there really isn't a big queue of publishers just waiting for a licence opportunity. (Overall I don't think it was Hasbro on balance of probability, but someone else being clueless about things. But I do think they'd make most sense if we were looking for a sensible suggestion.)

My general idea for reinvigorating the D&D computer game subgenre was something along the lines of NWN3, with the SoZ world map as a starting feature. Have a strong campaign, have bolt on/ plug in DLC, profit! Which is pretty similar to Monte's idea, really. I think there are inherent problems with a cheap licensing solution though. Going back to my big list on the first page you still have the problems of who will develop it and how it is funded, plus add the problem of potentially having a load of low budget shovelware options crop up. The last years of Atari were not just bad because they released few titles, they were also bad because the titles they did release were definitely not of the highest quality. I did wonder if the 'publisher' that approached Obsidian about doing a kickstarter around the time of P: E was actually Hasbro. It's one of the few options where a publisher retaining the IP rights could actually make sense to the IP owner and still have them think it would be a benefit to the kickstarter as well.

That's the accusation, certainly, though the actual proof of it amounts to "but it was Stalin!". The original objective of Bagration was Minsk, you can see from the map how much further Warsaw was from there. The Red Army's logistical tail was always problematic and their offensives always ran out of steam after around six weeks- and it was the entire front that stopped during early August not just the part opposite Warsaw. That's simply the way the Red Army worked, they'd build up supplies, roll forward until those supplies ran out, then stop for a couple of months. In order for the stop in front of Warsaw to be nefarious in nature it has to be shown that in this case they could have pressed on (preferably without the usual "their tanks ran out of fuel... Aha! Stalin must have ordered no fuel deliveries!) when they didn't on occasions in which they had no reason not to, and they would have benefited if they could. I'd have more sympathy for Poland if they hadn't been... well, apart from the war with the soviets they also attacked Lithuania, tried to get France to attack Germany at least twice ('33 and '36, iirc), plus took part in the partition of Czechosolvakia. I'm not entirely unsympathetic, but in terms of honourable conduct they certainly were no Finland.

It really doesn't have much to do with shutting their pie hole, in the sense you're using. If you ate exactly the same amount of cheap convenience food as healthy food you will almost certainly be more overweight and less healthy than if you ate the 'good' food alternative, there is an inherent quality issue at play. Cheap convenience food typically has more calories, a worse glycemic performance (ie you feel hungry quicker, even if you aimed for an equal calorie diet) and stuff like salt which makes you need to drink more as well. Obviously there are choice and non inherent factors at play as well, being lazy, being poorly educated (about food), not caring, not being able to or having the facilities to cook stuff; but there are genuine underlying reasons for obesity apart from those. Having said that, I still reckon you can buy and eat healthily for similar or less cost to eating from McD's/ KFC/ TV meals or whatever, if you know how. And I'd far prefer to see people told how to do that than the standard "we'll tax it, for your benefit!" justification, because if you don't know how to eat properly any taxes will just result in people having even less money to no health benefit. It'll also, as usual, hit poorer people harder. Incentivise healthy eating rather than punish bad, in other words, though that will never happen as it's hard while tax it is easy and makes money for the government.

I have to admit that Europe having 3 Sochi's/ year worth of corruption was something I found somewhat amusing given all the comments about Russian corruption. Physician, heal thyself!

Bro, it uses steamworks. Only real advantage is that at least we won't be subjected to the squeals of outrage from people who think steam is the only source of games about having to run multiple clients (instead of, like, buying anywhere else apart from steam where you get one client only), it'll just be the one client they happen to like and don't mind other people being forced to use. I'd bet it has nothing to do with Ubisoft themselves, more to do with THQ who were original fans of steamworks. If steamworks features had been integrated it would require time and money to identify and excise the infection from the healthy underlying tissue.

I haven't played Skyrim. I don't much like Bethesda games or Bethesda/ Zenimax as companies- plus I almost certainly wouldn't like it and thus won't bother playing just to be able to criticise it properly. I don't think I've ever said anything against Skyrim itself though. And Spartacus- then they went and made Crixus Manu Bennett an Australian in Arrow. On the other hand, Craig Parker (Haldir in the LOTR films, Darken Rahl in Legend of the Seeker, Glaber in Spartacus) seems to narrate every other documentary of the past ten years wherever they're sourced from. Alan Dale was Miranda's father in ME3, that's about the only NZer doing game vo I can think of apart from some stuff Temuera Morrison did for Star Wars, but since he was playing his movie character(s) I'm not sure that counts.

They do regularly get writing nominations (eg WGA for Fallout 3, BAFTA for Skyrim). Then again, video game awards are universally rubbish, even those with some pedigree in other fields like the BAFTAs or WGAs.

Likely issues: 1) The big publishers have more control over their own IP and don't have to pay royalties for their own IP, so they're more likely to do their own IP or a safe/ lucrative licensed one (Star Wars) 2) The mid range publisher of the type that has traditionally published D&D games are an endangered species 3) Hasbro has been litigious with its previous two rights holders. They also managed to grant two exclusive licenses that weren't exclusive. 3a) There were issues with content control too 4) 4e was, it's fair to say, not received to universal acclaim 5) It's questionable whether the D&D name would be a net benefit at this point 6) Scale. AAA/ Console? Smaller scale? 6a) Who would fund it, would Hasbro accept a kickstarter? 7) Who would make it? In terms of established CRPG makers there aren't exactly a surfeit. I doubt there's a huge queue of people waiting at Hasbro's door. When it comes right down to it they haven't managed D&D well at either the computer game or P&P level the last few years.

Ah, but I don't charge you for reading my pearls of wisdom- it's a service I provide for free for the betterment of mankind and as such I have no obligation to be in the least bit interesting. My posts are also not intended to be entertainment (most of the time), entertainment is meant to, well, entertain. I literally cannot remember doing anything entertainment wise and thinking 'wow, that was serviceable, an average experience which was neither overly good nor overly bad'. I'm sure I have thought that at various times, but if the experience was that bland and unremarkable then I will have forgotten about it near instantly. On the other hand I can at least remember stuff that was rubbish as well as stuff that was good, but the 'average' stuff? May as well not have happened.

I can actually. The writing doesn't stand out much (as most of us agree), but that goes both ways. Not bad, not very good. Serviceable. In writing terms being unremarkable is in most cases worse than being actively bad. At least actively bad stuff like 2-dog/ Moira/ Jean-Luc Picard Uriel Septim is memorable, if the best you can say about writing is "well, it exists" then it may as well not.

Everyone knows that dwarves are the must have addition if you want to maximise pledges.

I guess the emphasis would be on "collecting the crew for this mission against the collectors" in Bioware's (and mine, really) mind. I really don't have much problem with it for reasons tied up in why I think that ME: Subtitle would be better as its name, I see the recruitments as inherently self contained, all about this mission then people go back to their lives. The other option is them sitting twiddling their thumbs for the months you're in jail for, plus, in many cases it would not make much sense for them to be diddling around in an earth ship, they're either ex Cerberus without the Shepard name and distinguished service in ME1 as protection, aliens, no longer have a reason for being there/ have a good reason not to be there or a combination of all three. And it would also then be completely fair to complain about the recruitables from 1 that aren't recruitable in 2- Wrex, Liara, Ashden. I'd argue that is pretty much exactly what ME2 does- it's a contrived plot device to get you to work for Cerberus against everything established in ME1.

Having killable NPCs is not stupid, it was necessary and fine if you don't plan on using them again as recruitables. What dramatic gravitas ME2 has would be lost if you gave NPCs character shields. I'd also note that most of the defences of ME2 ignore that ME2 did exactly the same thing vis-a-vis ME1 that people say ME3 did to it, ie a general disregard of the main plot points, but if you look at the plot progression factors then ME1 and ME3 are clearly related and denote a- more or less- logical progression. ME2 though? It isn't just that it doesn't set things up for ME3, it's also that it doesn't really mesh with and build on ME1 either. As a standalone game it's fine enough which is why I'd be fine if it were ME: Subtitle. But you don't progress the fight against the reapers or learn anything significant about them, you don't progress the political situation in the wider galaxy, you don't progress the, er, progress of the reapers into the galaxy (until the last dlc), you're fighting for Cerberus who you fight against in 1 and 3, against a bunch of enemies you don't see in either 1 or 3. ME3 could have integrated some things from ME2 better certainly, had the odd Collector around or whatever but they were insignificant as defined by ME2 itself- a slave rave, altered and distinct from the Protheans. In the end they can barely be more significant than husks as established by ME2 itself. But there's very little to build on there (ME2) when it comes to the climactic battle against the Evil Enemy, because the game is mainly about the Evil Enemy's butler.

Yes, Iraq invaded Iran in reality. I was being snarky at the general attitude that Iran is The Aggressor all the time. The US, under Obama, rejected the deal that would have seen the Turks (note, Mor) and Brazilians supply Iran with nuclear fuel, for more sanctions. Albeit that when he still had to worry about re-election, and being mean to Iran seldom loses votes. They've got a nuclear reactor already. Ultimately, whether it was a deliberate tactic or not the US made it extremely difficult for Iran to generate power conventionally. So we have the rather odd situation of one of the champions of nuclear power, the US, throwing a wobbly at someone pursuing nuclear power. The still current public US intelligence position is that Iran stopped pursuing a bomb in 2003.