Zoraptor

I'll step up to the plate. But I'll also shift the goalposts a bit to an easier target... The subject of abuse has to be seen in a certain amount of context. It's a given that it's creepy, unpleasant and that most people who say such stuff wouldn't if they were face to face rather than online, or don't really mean what they say. If they do, they're in the genuinely crazy bracket. But, to a large extent the obsessive fan who is going to be upset by nerfing is exactly who the games companies are primarily targeting. They want people to spend money on unlocks, on selling/ buying items, to invest their time and more importantly their money into their games. They don't- by and large- care much about the rampant abuse that happens in voice chat and the like, only when it spills over into their real world. So on one hand they're saying that people should spend time in the game, maybe spend extra real money to buy stuff, care about it, refine your skills, be an arse online to your fellow gamers. On the other, they're saying that they have the right to arbitrarily reduce the effectiveness of your tactics and equipment, including stuff you may have bought with real money; and shouldn't post "I'm going to asterisking kill you you asterisk, gonna asterisk your dog and your mum too!"* to a dev despite not (generally) having any problem with someone saying it in game to another player. To reiterate, I'm not defending the abuse, at best it's either childish or trolling, at worst it's the symptom of a disturbed individual. But unique snowflake provisions for those who work at games companies is a bit... precious, if it isn't consistently applied and if you are actually targeting the obsessives in the first place. (I see incidents like the Hepler one as fundamentally different. I didn't agree with what Hepler said as an adventure game would have suited her comments better, but she's perfectly within her rights to hold that opinion and ironically avoiding combat and just playing the story was a touted feature of Fallout from some of those most vociferous in the abuse. But rather than attack that it rapidly became attack her personally. I put that sort of thing into a completely different bracket from an actual change) *No idea what the guy actually sent, of course

Vodafone? She should be sponsored by Orange.

That whole thing benefits politicians though- Andy Coulson (for non UKers, an ex editor of the Sun who is I believe currently arrested for phone tapping; the Sun makes Morgan's old rag The Mirror look almost like old style NYT in terms of reticence and quality) being appointed as David Cameron's press secretary is pretty indicative that spin is the absolute aim with any truth being coincidental. By and large it is in the politicians best interests to have people be ill informed, so voting choices are made on things like "who you'd want to have a beer with". There was always tabloid journalism but at least previously there was some quality stuff to balance it out, now even the Beeb/ NYT/ WP/ Times are as interested in telling stories as informing. On the Martin case, the civil rights case people are talking about now is pretty weak. I don't have much doubt that Zimmerman did profile and followed Martin because he was black*, how he was clothed (rain, irrelevant) and that he was young. But that's just my opinion, you cannot prove that. *Frankly, I came out as subconsciously racist and quite strongly so, last time I took a test on the matter- probably one of the Harvard Project Implicit ones- and I wouldn't think of myself as such without prompting.

That's a bit unfair. You could also vote to increase the price of the games on sale as well (seriously, Strike Suit Zero 75% off, vote for it and get... 66% off?) which is worth a bit in unintentional amusement.

Bit late there, champ. Still, at least the news isn't included in the post directly above yours or anything obvious like that.

Bunch of Atari IPs got auctioned off. Total Annihilation and MoO went to Wargaming.net (who, it should be noted, bought Gas Powered Games so have Chris Taylor working for them) while Star Control went to Stardock.

The simple answer is that you'd need to ask Bethesda why. The slightly more complex answer is that AI is notoriously difficult to get right and can end up using a lot of computer power very easily; and can in any case only take advantage of what it is programmed to 'know' and sense. The amount of stuff that a real Thief would know and be able to sense is currently far more than can be realistically programmed into an AI for a game as a real thief would have the innate ability to balance risk vs reward and the like. And after you'd got the thief right you'd then have to do it for guards, farmers, villagers and whatever other types you have.

Giant Virus Opens Pandora's Box! Apart from the headline reading as if Nature has hired a Daily Mail sub editor it's interesting stuff. Very large viruses with (for one at least) very low number of previously identified genes.

Well, the drug dealer story sounds like it didn't exist at all in the released version. It doesn't, but that was unrelated to anything Radiant AI. They turned off both the ability to kill plot critical characters and for those plot critical characters to become hostile to other NPCs through their actions. When a non plot critical thief steals apples from in front of a shopkeeper it would be "stop criminal scum!" and he'd be chopped to sausage (indeed, the shopkeeper starts saying "stop thief" but stops halfway through stop for the plot critical one); so the general behaviour is still there and the problems at the heart of it remain. And that fundamental problem is that while the thief 'knows' he should steal he has none of the essential context of how he should steal, so he goes to a shop and steals stuff in front of witnesses and in broad daylight. For a functioning behavioural AI that is a fundamental error as it breaks verisimilitude, no real person could behave that way, be regarded as a thief, and get away with it. That's also why you end up with people raking carpets and the like.

[edit: I'm less than convinced by that drug dealer story, to be honest, or at least that it worked quite as described. Watching a character steal a pile of apples from in front of a shop keeper, one at a time, in broad daylight, in a crowd, while obviously being watched, that character being a thief and getting caught each time but not getting stopped because he was Plot Critical convinced me pretty much absolutely that their AI was... vestigial, in the I front, in practice if not in theory] I know about its failures because I played Oblivion, for my sins. It (or something similar) probably is the future at some point but it will have to overcome some significant problems with getting to a level of realism (verisimilitude, really) where it doesn't make you regularly facepalm.

Yeah, it's Keyrock's post about Tomb Raider with Thi(e/a)f substituted for TR and Garrett substituted for Lara. Delayed shock reaction from "headshot: 30 XP" and similar revelations. On more pleasant things, I'm playing Waking Mars which I'm liking a lot. Not surprising, having had a look at the credits and spotting a bunch of old LGS names. I actually fired it up just to make sure it worked OK (which it didn't, first time) and ended up spending a solid couple of hours playing, something which hasn't happened for ages.

I think so. i don't really understand how radiant works. Anyone care to explain? I know I could look it up, but I want an intelligent answer, not some random cyber-yokel. The idea of Radiant AI was to give AI knowledge, aims etc so they could develop their behaviour organically rather than have specific schedules and scripting governing their behaviour. It didn't work, leading to thieves stealing apples directly in front of shopkeepers repeatedly and house owners raking their carpets or staring at walls for hours. Radiant AI was a good if impractical idea, genuine scripting like in Gothic 3 was less flexible, but worked far better. Thought it was an open secret that the Radiant AI demo was specially scripted rather than being on the fly. The average 2005/6 PC would be considerably worse than a 360 in terms of power.

I'm not certain I finished it, though I definitely got past the big battle on level 4, and got frustrated by the level with all the teleporters (5?). My dad created the characters for me, so it wasn't a fully independent achievement anyway. I distinctly remember getting really upset when he went on a field trip with the computer, and one of his students killed most of my party.

Pool of Radiance? A game for parvenus and the nouveau rpgiche. Akalabeth is where the old school action is at. I was so committed to establishing my rpg cred that I played it in the womb*. (also, glad to see a certain someone has got rid of his steamprofile, I may have had an irony mediated infarction staring at the DAO badge that was prominently displayed there) *Well, I played the original Wizardry through to completion when I was like 5, at least.

Don't know whether Thiaf will have good AI; the murder simulator, QTEs, departure from the series' ethos and everything else seem to be pretty locked in though.

You said Z had a flashlight. That is pretty easy to see, in the darkness and all. Because he'd been told not to follow and it's generally a Bad Idea to not follow police instruction- especially if you end up shooting someone? Going by the timeline you linked to that has Martin arriving home at roughly 2.40 of the call after a 30 second jog, then spending a few minutes talking, then walking back. Going by wikipedia's timeline to clarify matters there's a (minimum) 2.20 minutes between Z hanging up and Martin's phone going dead, and it ought to take Z maybe 30s to walk back to his vehicle, at most. It's pretty much inescapable from that that Z didn't go straight back to his vehicle after hanging up. That isn't direct evidence that Z followed Martin further than he admitted- though the gf's testimony suggests that Martin felt that, at least- but if he took the stand you'd guarantee the prosecution would want to know what he was doing for that time and why he wasn't back at his car earlier.

Might work. The three wise men came from the east which in Australia's case would mean... Ah yes, fits perfectly.

If he had two free minutes, he could easily have got to Martin's house and back (there's no evidence he did though) since that is what everyone agrees Martin did, with a break to talk to his girlfriend at or around his house. When you only have one living witness and it's the guy accused it's very difficult to establish the truth about such things, but it certainly appears to be fact that Zimmerman had ample time, and opportunity, to get back to his car to wait for the police but it was only a few yards from where he had stopped where the incident occurred despite the weather conditions being unpleasant enough to warrant comment. It may not be fact but it is very likely that if Zimmerman simply returned to his vehicle, even at a slow pace, and waited for police then the last part of the incident would not have happened. If Zimmerman had been poking around further and still looking for Martin- which seems pretty likely to me given Zimmerman's obvious agitation, and provides a reason why he didn't go back to his warm dry truck- then Martin's feeling of being stalked by a creepy dude has more justification, with or without anything else Z may have said or done. The defence narrative was not proven to be false, but at the same time it was also not proven to be any sort of absolute truth either and will naturally seek to omit anything that puts Z in a potentially negative light, which would include things like trying to find Martin after being asked/ told not to in that missing two minutes.

What a load of rubbish. Jesus cannot be an Australian ... .. .

Well, Zimmerman apparently thought it was "****ing cold" yet took far longer than necessary to walk to his supposed end point and back, despite the weather- so much so that Martin could cover ~three times the distance at a "slow jog", in ~30 seconds, then walk most of that distance back after talking "a few minutes" just in time to- coincidentally, no doubt- find Zimmerman who had not managed to get back to his car in that time but had actually walked around a third of that distance from his 'end point' (E) towards Martin (F on the map; and away from his car). The link says that Martin covered around 5 times Zimmerman's distance, at either a walk of slow jog, and waited 'a few minutes' talking to his girlfriend yet Zimmerman had moved only around, what, 10 yards? since supposedly stopping his pursuit at roughly the point Martin arrived home, and ending his police call around half way through that 'few minutes' Martin was talking to his girlfriend. So, what was Zimmerman doing for the time it took Martin to talk for x seconds and walk all the way back to where he met Zimmerman? Enjoying the ****ing cold? There's simply no way Zimmerman went back to his vehicle directly or in any timely manner, based on the timings from that link. So, not exactly difficult to knock holes in the narrative- well, except legally, if the guy refuses to take the stand- just impossible to prove any alternative.

Dunno. Why did it take Zimmerman 4 minutes to get back to his car if all he did was walk, what, 30/ 50/ 100 yards, then back? That's one very pedestrian pedestrian, enjoying a quiet ramble on a wet and windy (and asterisking cold, apparently) night. Zimmerman may not have to prove his version correct, just plausible, but that also does not make what he says actual fact. And we have Zimmerman's word that he followed Martin somewhat since he admitted it (hence the whole "we don't need you to do that" from the dispatcher), the only point of contention is how much he followed; and his girlfriend's testimony supports that he at least felt he was still being followed/ thought Zimmerman was "creepy".

People can read, you're just telling a story of one way it may have happened, which is actually all Zimmerman had to do as well. There's nothing even slightly definitive about Zimmerman's overall story being true and there are plenty of ways that are either perfectly reasonable with respect to Martin or aren't flattering to Zimmerman about how they could have ended near his car- Martin deciding to go back and get his licence plate after being stalked by a creepy older male, parked up in his truck, watching him from the darkness, getting out and following him- for example- or Zimmerman being less than truthful about any extra provocation being given or who initiated the physical confrontation. Since Martin is dead and without any directly contradicting evidence being apparent the jury has to accept Zimmerman's version, but that doesn't make it true, only not disprovable.

"They were young, and needed a publisher..."

That is why it had to be not guilty, but it is also why it's a deplorable situation. Of the two people who knew the truth one was dead, shot by the other; and that fact was potentially decisive for the defence- though of course Martin might have confirmed Zimmerman's story, for all we know. The prosecution had to show that Zimmerman was not acting in self defence and was lying when the only (surviving) witness was Zimmerman himself, who (sensibly) did not testify so could not be cross examined. That is not a good situation at all as it makes it advantageous to kill the other guy. It's one of the few situations in which I'd be somewhat sympathetic to forcing a defendant to testify- in most places self defence has to be proven, and in that sort of situation Zimmerman would almost certainly testify voluntarily. With the burden of proof provisions differing significantly Zimmerman ends up with both the advantage of not having to testify and not having the other guy involved alive to gainsay him. If Martin stood up and said that Zimmerman jumped out at him so he tackled him, banging his head on the ground then it's two plausible stories of self defence against each other and it reverts to an armed guy getting out of a car to follow a 17 year old incorrectly and without foundation suspected of being a burglar (and who wasn't even trespassing, just staying with relatives) against a police suggestion. At that point, things start looking bad for Zimmerman.

I thought he would be found not guilty as soon as I read through a summary of the Stand Your Ground law (and I couldn't agree more how fundamentally stupid that law is) and it was probably the correct decision from the evidence and what little I saw of the trial. But it's a disturbing situation where someone can follow an innocent, unarmed person and get the benefit of the doubt- effectively- because that person is dead and cannot refute anything said about either them and their conduct, or the situation as a whole. I'm also less than convinced that had Martin wrestled the gun off Zimmerman and shot him that the police would either have taken so long to charge or that the groups that supported Zimmerman would have supported Martin, despite that being at least as much Stand Your Ground (probably more, really) as what actually happened. I also tend to wonder what the result might have been had Zimmerman been carrying and stabbed Martin with a knife, rather than a gun, as much of the political heat about guns specifically would have been removed.