Zoraptor

I have been playing Pharaoh/ Cleopatra which I bought on a whim from the mighty GOG and it's the first game for ages that I'm unreservedly enjoying. It's not that it's a perfect game by any stretch but it gives a beautiful warm feeling that reminds me of weeing in a wetsuit Better Days. I'm meant to be playing NWN2 which has stalled after I had no time for a couple of days. I'm pretty close to the trial so I've actually got through most of the slog, so there's no doubt I'll go back to it.

Isn't your example really two checks, though? The [bluff] to believe I'm the Great Zappo and then the [intimidate] of arm ripping? Hmm, problem is that that requires- presumably- two skill checks rather than one which makes it fundamentally more difficult than any single check, and to most purposes you should be using the non existent "Zappo's" intimidate rather than your own. Using an "intimidation" option requires that you both convince the target that you're capable of doing the violence and convincing the target that you're capable of doing the violence, in effect bluffing an identity is the same and not twice as difficult. Dunno really, I'm not particularly happy with the D&D diplomacy/ bluff/ intimidate system on a fundamental level anyway.

Yes, i already tried this and it not worked. OpenGL maybe? IIRC IWD2 used it for some acceleration and the original did not. If so it may end up getting fixed by a driver update, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

hmm. In the order they occur to me, not in actual preference 1. Cracker Not a weak episode in the lot and two of the most memorable characters of all time from Robert Carlyse and Lorchan Crannitch, let alone Fitz himself. 2. Blackadder Still as funny now as they were first time 3. The Muppet Show Watched them as a kid, also enjoyed them as a somewhat older kid 4. A bunch of documentaries Ken Burns' documentary on the US Civil War, Line Of Fire, History of Warfare etc. I'm just glad our History Channel still has this stuff as well as Ancient asterisking Aliens. Yeah, not technically a single series but I laugh at list making convention. 5. Red Dwarf (mid run series) ditto Blackadder. Went on too long and had a rough start, but the middle is uniformly excellent. 6. The Wire/ Breaking Bad Both beautifully constructed and well written. On an episode by episode basis The Wire would probably win out, but BB's high points are absolutely brilliant so I can't really separate them. 7. Blake's 7 Have to pick it, given my avatar. Avon is the best anti hero ever, and the series was hugely influential. Well, in the small niche of dark space opera, at least. Honourable mentions to House of Cards (Ian Richardson/ Francis Urqhart ftw), Dangermouse, Top Gear, Time Time, Farscape, Buffy/ Angel, Between the Lines, Homicide: LotS, mid run ST: TNG. More no doubt that I'm missing.

I generally agree but it is context dependent, for example... is not a good example. In the real world, sure, a 100lb kid ain't going to frighten anyone, but in a world with magic that 100lb kid may actually be able to rip your arms off- and being a wizard capable of doing that is potentially something you could bluff. If I claim to be The Great Zappo who will rip your arms off (with the power of my mind) then the 'intimidation' aspect is dependent on bluffing the identity. In any case there still needs to be some way to differentiate "I'll kill you" (genuine intention) from "I'll kill you" (threat, but not intended to be carried out whether bluff or intimidation) as for all the talk of bad design there will be inevitable situations where designer intent and player intent clash.

That's 2e where lower AC = better rather than 3e where higher is better. I've been replaying NWN2 myself and not run into any problems with AC. Lots of scripting/AI issues, but no outright bugs.

I pretty much agree with Gorth- I don't like tags on principle but I'm not sure there's a better option. You need to effectively communicate to the player what their character 'knows' via their skills and that is not just a matter of writing stuff clearly, it is also a matter of player vs designer intentions, making sure that the character's skills are primary rather than the player's ability to discern what a designer intends. I may not know what a Blood Eagle is, but if I'm playing 'Ivar the Boneless' he certainly knows and knows that it would be an effective threat; similarly Maurice de Talleyrand would be more effective at deciding on a decent diplomatic option than I would be. Tags do so effectively and show it in a way that everybody understands implicitly. Else you can end up with something equally as obvious and facile as having the tags in the first place- "do it or I'll be mildly unpleasant to you!!!" vs "Would you like your lungs to remain inside your ribcage, hmm?". The trouble is that without all the cues people normally have when communicating- facial, audio etc- it is very easy to misunderstand what is meant even if you are both intelligent and have good intentions. Thus the very common misunderstandings on forums with respect to intent. Some of the concerns can be alleviated a bit. For bluff vs real threat you could have a single response treated as an 'intimidation', with the option to choose which was meant coming in a subsequent conversation node- after all, a good bluff or threat should by definition be delivered identically to a genuine intent. The drawback is that that may get tiresome if needed too often. You could also replace 'poor' persuade options with 'better' or 'optimal' ones seamlessly, though that is heading a bit down the railroad route. I'd say that most of the drawbacks of tags in terms of metagaming could be solved by having proper consequences for failing dialogue checks. Try a [wisdom] option against someone wiser than you and you may well convince them you're actually more stupid than if you pick a standard option, for example. That approach retains the strengths of a tag system but means that tag chasing is not an automatic choice.

Ironically you could watch the 3rd party debate on RT and Al-J, of all places. Everyone should use multi-member STV as the electoral system. Politicians hate it, thus it's awesome. It's also beautifully capitalist, in that having multi members for the same area make them compete against each other for things that actually count rather than just pander to their 51% target group every X years.

I'm sure they'll use Win8. They'll also integrate the new version of Live into desktop Win8 etc. I think it's pretty much a given that they'll try and absorb/ combine PC and NextBox gaming this cycle- which is a whole lot more sensible than their previous approach of trying to suffocate PC gaming and handing the whole system to a competitor as a consequence. Doubt they'll use ARM though, as its main advantage (low power draw) is not an advantage in a non-mobile device since the trade off for it in sheer processing power is probably too much. OTOH there might not have been RROD problems with ARM due to their low draw/ heat output. Also, if they want to unify PC and nextbox gaming having both running on similar architecture makes that easier.

It's usually the TOC that goes if it's writing at a hard poweroff, not the spindle. Still an annoying problem, but it doesn't actually trash the hard drive as the data is still there, it's just that the HD then doesn't 'know' where anything is.

A full 1/3 of those are governmental mouthpieces every bit as much as much as RT. BBC is cowed by potential funding cuts and says whatever the brit government wants on foreign policy (see for example their censoring of the Syrian rebels using unwitting suicide bombers, throwing prisoners off apartment blocks etc). Al-J is outright owned by Gulf State Oligarchs and it's absolutely obvious with their editorial slant- their Kalifah pals in Bahrain barely rate a mention with their loveable doctor torturing hijinks. Anyone who doesn't think that western media gets stampeded into stupidity and facile lead following should think back to the lead up to Gulf War II and exactly how much hapless flag waving, soundbite parroting and absolute and total lack of critical faculty was on show there. Hasn't changed, won't change and given how much more beholden media are to groupthink and concensus in an internet age where Outrage!!!!1!! at non conformist articles can be mustered by a few facebook or twitter postings it is unlikely to change, ever. Which is absolutely and totally how politicians like it since it means they don't face effective scrutiny. Sheesh, look at the Beeb's coverage of the "pro-democracy" demonstrations in Russia. No comment whatsoever on all the Soviet and Russian Imperial Flags. People waving those aren't really 'democratic' in the soppy hand wringing western sense, yet they're made out to be brave heroes of freeeeedom. All you'd get if they were elected is some ossified fossil like Brezhnev Zyuganov and they'd be even less democratic. And marches an order of magnitude larger in Britain itself somehow got far less coverage. Demonstrations in Beirut? Saad Hariri's party and the asterisking Phalange, who were probably the worst bunch in a conflict notable for having a lot of bad bunches (for example, see Sabra and Chatila; their particular brand of nutbartastic ethno-religious zealotry was largely responsible for civil war in the first place), yet somehow you got the impression that it was some sort of unified Lebanese response and one of the Phalangist leaders got a patsy interview by the beeb. You'd also not have the slightest inkling that there's still fighting going on in Libya, with the glorious freedom loving ex rebels levelling another city with their heavy weapons because according to the beeb et alia everyone in Libya actually hated Gaddafi. It's all narrative based fairy tale telling of good guys and bad guys, and anything that doesn't fit the preprepared script gets dropped like a rock.

Yeah, they've mentioned it multiple times including when they inked the deal, that's how I knew about it in the first place. I don't really have a problem with it either since they were upfront about it. If there isn't something on RPS in the next few days it would probably mean they've got a do not criticise clause in the adserver contract, but so far as I am aware that's standard practice even for something like Google Ads.

Ironic really, since RPS's ads are all (well, for the moment at least, can't imagine anyone there would be at all happy at them shafting one of their contributors) served via Eurogamer. I presume that is why they are using their personal blogs for it rather than RPS itself.

If you want ME2 "in the cloud" add its key to Origin. Doesn't even cost anything.

Nobody's randomly hating EA. Did you read at all what I have been saying here? Do you seriously think me and thousands of others hate them just because that's what everybody does nowdays? Heh, my dear suomi friend you appear to be Taking Things Rather Seriously. But to be frank, yes, I think a lot of people hate on EA because it's "cool" to do so. I don't like EA nor pretty much any other publisher but it gets utterly tiresome to go on and on and on and on and on and on about it, and you can hardly open a topic without either a Tourette's or 5 Minute Hate style EA loatheathon at some point. Origin is what it is (a direct steam equivalent lacking 3rd party originworks), the pricing is what it is (high, but it will inevitably drop), the dlc policy is what it is and they do do these things for a reason and not just to randomly annoy 'customers'. If you seriously believe raging on the internet will have the slightest influence on that then... well, it won't, you're wasting your time and you'll end up giving yourself an ulcer to boot. If you don't like it, don't buy it, simple as that. End of the day money is what corporations understand above all else.

It was originally Fox Interactive (who iirc owned Monolith at the time) but now; (LAST LISTED OWNER) VIVENDI GAMES, INC. CORPORATION DELAWARE 6060 CENTER DRIVE, 5TH FLOOR LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA 90045 So not actually listed as Activision, but close enough to make no difference. Trademark cancelled (well, lapsed most likely) May 2012, interestingly enough. There are plenty of Activision games on GOG, especially Sierra ones.

If it's all just EA crap then why even bother finding anything out about it? Not just because of you of course, but randomly hating on EA is getting just a tad boring now. As for complete sets including dlc as well things like the Bioshock pack don't include Minerva's Den either, it's usually the goty/ collection whatever for the individual game that contains the dlc, if there is one. The trilogy- as with the games themselves- isn't aimed primarily at PC anyway.

shift + reload page ought to work as an alternative to clearing the cache, iirc.

What's wrong, Infinitron? Found the discuss!on ain't scaling to your level? If you can't stand the heat etc etc It's hard to accept because there is basically zero chance of PE fitting the extremely narrow and- as even admitted by you- rare circumstances in which steam is just a glorified download manager and as such you're trying to get traction on an irrelevancy every bit as much as people claiming there will be standalone patches for a steam only game. Even your own picked source ran counter to your claims. Pointless discussion now anyway as there really ain't anything further to add. Anyone unconvinced either way ain't going to be now.

Presumably they look on the dlc as subsidising the low relative cost of the trilogy packaging. Pretty sensible from a business standpoint. If you're expecting anything else then disappointment is going to be a constant friend, I'm afraid. Personally I'd probably rebuy an ME2/3 with all dlc since it would be cheaper than the bandwidth cost of downloading it or buying the stuff separately, but wasn't realistically expecting it. As for complaining about weapon swapping in cutscenes... if that's the worst 'bug' in the game you're doing pretty well. Completely cosmetic and only likely to annoy people already looking for stuff to complain about.

The fan novel may be your best bet for that rather than a faq, mainly because it presents most of the in game dialogue as actual dialogue rather than focussing on quest specific stuff.

... That's clearly talking about moving folders around on the same computer- hence they have the right registry entries and My Docs already set up- rather than moving from computer to computer. The second quote is explicit about that. You've also completely destroyed your own claims that the download via the client is an inherency and should not be considered DRM, to whit "install the game and launch it once (this step is important, because this finalises the installation)". So you don't have to just install it, you also have to launch the game at least once with your gatekeeper app running- according to your own source. This DRM thing keeps getting more flexible by the minute... But hey, continue whiteknighting steam- and SecuROM Launch Control- if you wish, maybe at some point you'll even get the definition of DRM changed to "something that manages digital rights and is bad, so it can't be steam because steam is good!!!!". But at the moment steam is inherent drm, and that is FACT! pure and simple no matter how much it causes panty bunching amongst a certain subset of steam devotees.

That would be levelling the playing field as in a player more focussed on diplomacy or other skills is not at an automatic disadvantage to someone focussed on Killing Stuff or vice/versa, I'd presume. That's pretty much irrelevant to power gaming per se, as if you allow alternative solutions you could make a powergamer diplomacy build, a powergamer monsta killa build, a powergaming stealth build or other types. I'd presume that what is being looked at is a way to encourage and reward efficient- but variable- character builds rather than specifically kill off powergaming except in its ludicrous extremes (18/18/18/3/3/3 stats with little to no negatives for the 3s, do quests then kill quest givers for extra XP, that sort of thing).

Seriously though, I really can't understand the "logic" behind DRM. I'm pretty sure that's because there simply isn't one. Companies (and especially publicly traded ones) are at least theoretically obligated to take steps to protect copyrighted works. DRM won't work for anyone with a bit of technical knowledge but does work for the casual "just cut a copy to CD" types and it's something that a company can point to to its shareholders as "fighting piracy". Companies in general also love to have maximum control over their customers and drm is one tool that can influence this. At least in theory Blizzard has near complete control over Diablo 3, for example, including a captive marketplace and the like. Note: I actually agree that drm is pointless and definitively so from a consumer's POV, but that is pretty much the rationale that would be used for it by companies. I rather doubt that most companies really want to eliminate piracy though, as once that is gone they have to explain why they aren't making money to shareholders without being able to point to x billion 'lost' dollars from pirates.

But then he says that he has the right to assassinate US citizens by presidential fiat as well. He isn't exactly consistent on such matters.