Thorton_AP

You hope he's right? What exactly have we to gain from Bioware and Mythic falling hard? Schadenfreude.

What about the experienced game designers that embraced the change? They need the money. Jokes aside, designers don't decide what's popular or what can make money, which is the one and only point of this change - someone thought this way DA would be a better cash cow. Nothing to do with creativity. Also this way its more easily adaptable to consoles, which is again the same thing - more moneyz. You're talking about it as though it was a creative issue. You're talking as though we should only listen to the designer that didn't want to do this game, and ignoring the other ones. You're selectively picking what you want because you feel as though BioWare not making games specifically for you is somehow a sleight against yourself. Face it bub, you don't have a clue what went on behind closed doors. Grow a pair and stop being such a baby. Clearly the ones that stayed with the project did it purely because "they need the money."

What about the experienced game designers that embraced the change?

No one here is saying he should have stayed with BioWare. Not even Volourn.

I also build a stupid amount of trading posts too.

ahaha, you sound as if he was indebted to you and to every other gamer in the world, to work for Bio forever and ever what do you mean "selfish"? I don't see how this word applies when a person's job choice is concerned. it's not like he's a savant, trying to make the world a better place. and by quitting his job because it doesn't pay, he lets the humanity down. on the contrary, he doesn't want to make Bio games so instead of tagging along and subduing his creativity urge he decides to look for a place where he can satisfy it. even if it means a smaller paycheck. Volo is quite outspoken that game developers are NOT indebted to the fans. It's a selfish decision because it is. It's not a derogatory statement, but rather that Ben did what was best for himself. Volourn thinks most fans are stupid for indicating that any dev "owes" the fans anything.

Well, DAO was decidedly not like Mass Effect. Hard to say what DA2 is like at this point.

More times than I can remember. Especially in the original Call of Duty. Except the argument actually included "scrounging for health packs." And yes, I remember back tracking to see if there were health packs missing. Right Because my justification and preference is obviously undermined because you're grasping at straws of strategy. You make it sound like you never die with health regen. Guess you're just a superstar. The whole "oh I can just hide behind the cover and I'm invincible" is blown out of proprotions too. Maybe Calax is a superstar too, but I died a ****ton in COD2 too. Modern Warfare is one hell of a tough game on the hardest difficulties as far as I'm concerned. If I'm not careful and strategic, I'm dead in an instant.

And certainly no more "**** I'm stuck because I don't have enough health, time to reload and replay parts of the game that I've already played through." The thing I like most about recharging health is that it keeps me in the intense action without backtracking and scrounging for health. Since I find that action part more fun, I tend to support the regenerating health mechanics.

It's pretty powerful I agree hahaha. Could probably use some tweaking based upon the percentage chance of it working, because you can somewhat effectively farm barbarians to improve your army. At the same time, it's an interesting gameplay decision

Killing Isolde?

I still <3 HL2 and especially the expansions... I did play HL1 more though

Actually NWN is far worse than KOTOR. I guess that's the sort of thing that happens when you're successful - you make one good thing and everything else gets praised by default. Like with Steven Spielberg. Except that in the movie industry there are higher standards than in game journalism, or at least more reputable critics. You didn't realize that Sorophx's comment is in response to Volo stating how those that talk up KOTOR make Volo hate KOTOR more, while Volo's commentary regarding NWN does the same for others?

But what about French Musketeers?

I think that that might only show up when you are promoting the unit though. Yeah, combat is easy. Still love the game though and MP is fun.

This does not change the fact that I am still stupid

They wouldn't if in the long run it was bad for business (i.e. people weren't buying it). Seems to me the only way to get these prices lower would be to not buy the game at those prices. I'm guessing many happily do though.

Yes I know that. But he said "And Napoleon has more points because of all those cities he took." and erroneously read "more points" as in "more culture points." Basically I'm dumb and illiterate.

Don't know how far along in the game you are, but nukes work to end this annoying bug. I had the same thing happen to me so I threw everything I had into research in order to tech up to nukes as fast as I could. Was going for culture so research was lagging a bit behind. With 3 cultural city states gone my cultural victory seems to be out of reach now. And Napoleon has more points because of all those cities he took. I've beaten him to pulp before when he tried invading my lands, I could easily take some of his cities, if only I could attack him. More cities will ultimately slow your progress towards a cultural victory though. I think I read somewhere that the optimal number of cities for cultural victory is actually 4.

I'm not so convinced it's entirely the fault of eeeevvviilll publishers, personally- I suspect Steam makes a good deal of extra cash from the arrangement. Given that it's probably a % cut, I'm sure Steam doesn't mind a whole lot either. I'd just be very surprised if publishers were giving games to Steam and the Steam decides to price them at uncompetitive prices. I'm a fanboi though so take that what you will. Causation is just a correlation controlled for all other variables enough to conclude causation (i.e. I agree with you haha)

It's not Steam that does it. It's individual publishers. ... If Steam doesn't have control over how the products are priced, then they are already at a serious disadvantage when compared to other retailers. Looks like Steam is locked to MSRP in most, if not all cases. Steam is a distribution service. Online is very different than brick and mortar. The thing about Steam is that publishers can sell the game for what they want, and Steam takes a cut of it. I think it'd be very bad if Steam did not allow individual publishers to have this type of control over their pricing.

The second peace offer is when they'll capitulate. I have had countries offer me every single thing that they could.

That sucks. GST in Canada doesn't apply to food (and I think some clothing but I'm not 100% sure) unless you're at a restaurant.

As the degradation of Detroit been a result of people resisting the changes to their city and not adapting to them appropriately?

Two of the largest nations in the world (Canada and the US) don't really have one specific culture. I'd say US culture is very predominant still, but I'd consider a much smaller nation like Italy to be a much more culturally recognized civilization. Large nations often integrate a large variety of subcultures into what makes up their culture.