BruceVC

Funny picture But Orog is obviously using hyperbole to make his point that you need to use Mods to make Skyrim enjoyable and or playable

Playing a role or character makes you a schizophrenic? Interesting stance, given the forums we're on... Barti do you think you are schizophrenic ? Gromnir is definitely not schizo

Generally I tend to think that the people on here give you an unnecessarily hard time, but I'm beginning to understand why they find you exasperating. I took from your comment that he was an embarrassment while fighting for social justice causes, not stuff that he did years ago. Okay ....dude...please. I'm kinda joking and kinda not, so I don't like Miles for the reasons I mentioned, thats true But I don't believe in a real anti-GG side, I don't prescribe to that. So I was joking when I said " dissent is tolerated " because I don't have any clue what the anti-GG thinks or what rules they follow So I was therefore joking when I said he was your role model Now after that am I still exasperating? If you prefer I can stop joking completely

What exactly did Mr Cheong do that could be considered an "embarrassment"? You really need to ask? http://theralphretort.com/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-ian-miles-cheong/ Just to set the foundation.....you can't claim to care about SJ causes but you have the checkered past he has ....sorry I understand you feel the need to defend him....but I suggest you find other role models

Yes perfectly understandable....we need commitment, fortitude and resolve in the anti-GG movement .,.,...dissent isn't tolerated Why do you think its so effective and permeates so much of society Miles was an embarrassment..its good he is gone

We still haven't moved off XP here. What !!! You know Microsoft now requires you to pay for support for XP? Its not free anymore ? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/end-support-help

But to be fair for some incomprehensible reason you are bias towards CDPR....so we have to treat your view with prejudice But Orog will be seen as objective so your point is still noted

And that is a very unreasonable, untrue and scurrilous view to have about CDPR..... See, based on the Witcher 2 and this one I get the feeling that they have some trouble with basic game design. They excel at everything else but the core gameplay has been an issue these last 2 games. Before you couldn't drink potions, now you can't equip oils Witcher 2 combat relied heavily on rolling, Witcher 3 combat relies on dodging and rolling. Both games have very restrictive skill trees that encourage specialization and punish multiclassing. I installed a mod to get rid of the level restrictions on Witcher gear as it is already difficult to get and craft without me having to wait 2 levels to equip it. I also installed a mod that changes the level scaling for enemies so that you can fight higher level enemies and so lower level enemies give more of a challenge. Because I would like to explore and finish quest without having to come back to them 3 days after without remembering what the hell were they about. Big problem in my vanilla playthrough, particularly with one quest that i got early on that had a level 33 restriction that I never finished because I barely hit level 29 after all the main quest was done. Alright.....you do make some sobering and worrying points. I haven't played W3 so I can't comment I would like to get others views on this?

And that is a very unreasonable, untrue and scurrilous view to have about CDPR.....

Please....lets not play the old " The Jews control the worlds financial markets "card ....that's a very outdated view of the world economy and its very 1990's

Yes I watched from minute 42 and it doesn't in anyway change my fundamental point. For example In the video they talk about the government having no control over its markets and you see that annoying trader gloating over all the money his bank made selling the pound But that has been my point from the beginning of this thread...no government can really control the free market. So you cannot prevent people and corporations from selling shares, buying shares and trading in currency. But you have regulations and certain expected business practices that exist nowadays and when financial firms are in contravention of this they are fined and there are real consequences http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Financial-Services/Deutsche-Bank-fined-record-25bn-20150424 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-04/deutsche-bank-to-rbs-fined-by-eu-for-rate-rigging Also of course speculators and short-term traders exist and profit on the expense of certain countries economic woes..but there is no tenebrous and surreptitious organisation that manipulates currencies and wants to "dominate " the worlds governments like that video suggests through manipulation of the worlds stock markets That is just "conspiracy theory 101 " and I reject it as I mentioned as gross exaggeration

I don't know...this just sounds like " first world country rhetoric " and a specious view of how global trading works and more importantly the inherent risks. Its an exaggeration For much of the world they consider, for example, the Europeans as "owning the real capital "...yet ironically you think that " the nefarious few " somehow own the wealth So your view on who controls the wealth is very subjective because in the minds of many Africans...you control the wealth and have gained it unfairly Yet this is of course unfair and untrue and ignores the main reasons why for example the EU is such a successful trading block

I don't know, I won't say it looks fantastic ....but it seems sort of fun ?

Again I'm frustrated, because your implication is that you think I want to be skeptical or want to hate what I see, or want Fallout 4 to fail. I really loathe this attitude of yours and that of others, because it highlights how people falsely associate criticism with hate. Of course not wtf, I want it to succeed (if it deserves to). But I'm not so blindly loyal to that desire of mine that I'll let it cloud my perception of reality. What purpose would that serve, lying to myself so that I too pre-order it and pray for an amazing game when my gut expects otherwise? I wanted a decent Fallout game, and I wanted to play one, so of course I pay attention to the news. But no matter how much new info we get, nothing seems explained or like it was thought-out. Instead it feels like the game is focused more on sales than on being an exceptional experience. I don't want a 6/10 game, I want a 10/10 one. I will be here to watch a Let's player play the game and either confirm or deny my suspicions that the game sucks. And if it sucks...? Then that's probably the nail in the coffin for my history with Bethesda. That'll probably be my final sign that it's time to stop following their work or bothering with them. If I wanted the game to fail, I wouldn't be around discussing it like the rest of you. Just because I'm not practicing 20 different ways to kiss it's ass as I wait for it to release doesn't mean I don't want it to be a good product, I just don't see how blind praise is the superior alternative to a critical eye. Aside from that, this is becoming a fascination of mine. Not just Fallout, but games in general. Hype, marketing, pre-orders, and the cycle of disappointment. It amazes me to watch this happen over and over and over and over. I'm tempted to ask for the age of every person in this thread, wondering if it's my age and experience that makes me so critical while others are still young (16 or so) and have yet to be burned by a lackluster product that regresses in quality, and thus such companies feed off of that inexperience to make more money for less effort. Fallout 4, Skyrim, Sims 4, every Call of Duty release ever, Bioshock Infinite...these are all games that I'd follow moreso out of astonishment to watch people fall for their hype trains and try to understand why. Let me say this, and try to refute this if you can, just for the sake of making a point: We would have better quality games if the general audience were more critical and cautious with purchases. If people were quicker to focus on flaws that might discourage a purchase rather than to focus on the EXACT flashy features the developers make a focal point of their presentation, then it would demand higher quality from the developers if they truly wish to make a sale, no? So why are people so turned off by my critical approach to gameplay releases...? You make some good points and sorry if I am making assumptions around your view of the game. But I don't think you hate Fallout 4...but your view has been primarily negative...lets be honest But I can understand what you are protesting about, it is summarized nicely in the last paragraph. And I don't disagree...but I have learnt to chose my battles in life and this is one you cant win even if you are right And the main reason you can't win is to really change the development trajectory of a company like Bethesda you would have to implement a real consumer boycott of there games ..as you alluded to you can change corporate behavior and strategy by hitting them in there revenue stream But even if every person on this forum boycotted there next game there are millions of people who are very happy with there games and will still purchase Fallout 4. So it makes no difference if I support you to be honest because we cannot change the reality of there dedicated fanbase who will support them financially and they will still be very profitable....hence they will miss our support but end of the day they won't change there core game design ?

Geez Louise but Ray Donovan is a really, really good series...season 3 is out for those unaware The phlegmatic and stoical nature of Ray I find highly entertaining

So being negative for the sake of being negative is ok. Got it. It would be great if people could just focus on the context of what's said without responding with useless rhetorical questions or strawman arguments. It will never cease to amaze me the kinds of responses one can expect when being critical of a beloved game series or a game many are looking forward to. There are a multitude of reasons I am skeptical and pessimistic about FO4. If you're at all familiar with my post history at the Bethesda forums (not expecting you to be), you'd know I've listed them and I'm not just "being negative for the sake of it." I've posted extensively on reasons I suspect FO4 will be very much akin to the quality of Skyrim based on what little we've seen from FO4 and based on Bethesda's track record in general. I would be more than happy to break down all my reasons in great detail and have even considered making a youtube video on the subject matter (something accessible to people across all forums). For the moment? Forgive me, I'm a bit "fatigued" about the subject matter, what with being banned and all for "flaming" while discussing the subject. For a very brief summary of some issues and fears I have with FO4 without going into great detail...? -Check the footage of the deathclaw fight. Check the damage taken by a singular swipe, check how much damage the deathclaw takes from a minigun. Entire fight seems more akin to a dragon fight in Skyrim rather than a deathclaw fight in New Vegas. Too much HP, not enough damage. Seems Bethesda is in their old habit of thinking more HP = harder, rather than actually giving enemies more damage. Very same fight also suggests damage resistance is still the major form of defense, and balancing a game when there's a 0-80% damage reduction gap across characters is definitely difficult. -Very same clip, deathclaw seems to perform a killcam move on the player. Dunno about you, but I loathed killcams. If we're getting those again....? Oh boy.... They were so lazily programmed in in Skyrim, and often resulted in enemies killing you twice as fast as normal, simply cause you'd get locked into one the moment they had the potential to oneshot you, with the game not even bothering to check if you dodged or resisted the damage in some way. -As stated, the game exhibits similarities to popular game franchises such as Mass Effect and Bioshock Infinite. I hardly think this was someone saying "let's use these systems because they're clearly superior," but rather an instance of "let's copy popular franchises cause that'll definitely attract new customers." You could write a book about all the ways the new dialog system seems less flexible or more tedious at the very least (thumbing through speech checks IF they even exist now) compared to the old one. -Voiced protagonist. Initially? I didn't really care, cause I'm usually interested in seeing what the intent behind the canon protagonist was in these kinds of games. Over time it dawned on me though that while I do do this out of habit with such games, I still roleplay several other characters after. I do feel voiced protagonist will limit this or encroach upon this for me, which is unfortunate. Why did they opt to have one...? They do claim it helps with their writing, but I for one can't recall a convincingly voiced character in Bethesda games (beyond those that get killed off almost immediately and are played by big name actors...) and wtf, there's still rocket engines on the USS Constition. No clue if this is them trying to pander to popular titles again or if they truly believe this means better writing, but I have my doubts it'll be worth it, given their track record with writing. On the contrary, I would think voice acting demands a good script, not that voice acting covers up for bad writing. Need we go over Skyrim's Thieves' guild as an example of how abysmal their writing is? -The scale and scope of perks and weapon mods. It's too much. In New Vegas I sometimes catch myself wishing for more weapons, but then realize I struggle to name new ones that don't suit a job that isn't already fulfilled by another weapon. The weapons in New Vegas pretty much covered every style, and only two weapon mods from the nexus come to mind as being balanced and a welcome addition (a laser sniper with DPH rather than DPS and a hunting shotgun that is more capable of competing with the riot shotgun). I cannot fathom 700 weapons being balanced or useful, and sure enough, examples like "plasma sniper," "plasma scattergun" and "night vision rocket launcher" make me question the quality or the usefulness of many of the mods. This worry is made worse by the fact that Skyrim as a reference material had soooooo much weapon customization that daedric artifacts and random loot were worthless and meaningless by comparison; crafted stuff was superior. And of course, there was a meta and very clear weaponry that was superior. I fear that of the 700 weapon possibilities, 17 will be used. -Skills merged to perks. Why? There's no reason or benefit for this. Skyrim essentially did this too. It's effect...? The skill perks were "required." You could skip the 20% cooler perks at the base of the skill trees....if you were a masochist. Skipping those was pure torture and made for tediously long battles. No, you took those 100% of the time, and all those meant was that the overall quality of perks dropped. Why? Because half the perks were actually "add 20 points to your skill" or the equivalent effect, so instead of getting 20 actual perks, we got 10 actual perks and 10 that were "increase your skill." Skills were forced on you for a reason: not increasing those was suicide. Having certain perks practically forced upon me just gets in the way of taking the actually enjoyable perks. -The SPECIAL-perk system. Two possibilities: either the 10 Luck perk (for example) is not worth taking and therefore 10 Luck is never viable, or it is worth taking - as are all other luck perks below it - and thus EVERY 10 Luck character takes EVERY Luck perk available to them. The result is that characters with similar SPECIAL scores will perform the same, and you have ~7 playthroughs in this game. This is more limiting than New Vegas' system, where for example I could get two identical SPECIAL characters, but still create quite a bit of diversity between them by perking different skills (for example explosives on one and unarmed/melee on the other) while also taking different traits. No, doing this in FO4 would either require a great deal of self-nerfing on one of the two characters, OR it would require that a lot of the higher level perks are terrible in design and not worth taking or no big loss if skipped, which is obviously imperfect design too in it's own way. -Lack of traits. Why? Absolutely no reason for this beyond a casualized hand-holding mentality of "don't allow the player to fail! Heaven forbid something include a downside!" This entire philosophy in general suggests to me we'll also see insta-heal stimpacks, illusion-of-challenge battles where HP is stressed (see above) and a lot of focus on selling to as many people as possible. I see this as evidence of their general design philosophy, and it seems to be geared towards money, not polished gameplay. -ADHD game design. This one is more a fear with less evidence for it, but was prevelant by the now infamous quote for Skyrim: "A mile wide, an inch deep." Skyrim tried to be a variety of games at once, probably highlighted best in Hearthfire when Skyrim decided it was the Sims. For this reason, I did feel a little put off when they showed off the minigames you could play on the pipboy. If I want donkey kong, I'll play donkey kong. It just feels gimmicky rather than useful, and I'd prefer if time on such gimmicks went towards the core gameplay. -Writing. USS Consititution has rocket engines. Why? RULE OF COOL, MANG. RULE OF COOL. -The timespan of development. Todd said Fallout 4 started development in 2009. This means the game overlapped with Skyrim and Bethesda's attitude of that time. This is made visible in gameplay by even minor details, such as "Raider Scum" and "Raider Psycho," suggesting different levels of leveled raiders, just like the system in Skyrim. I doubt that's the only similarity, because at least 2-3 years (depends on if you include DLCs of Skyrim) of Fallout 4 would be done during the time when Bethesda had the design philosophy that created Skyrim. Does any of that sound like being negative for the sake of it? No, I'm taking what little evidence we've received and drawing logical conclusions from there while using . I could be wrong of course, but that's a given. Should I be skeptical regardless? Yeah, probably, so I'll wait and see some game footage before I even consider a purchase. But **** me for being critical and not blindly praising a game I've not yet played as GAME OF THE YEAR ALL YEARS, amirite? Look I'll admit you are more passionate about this me, I can see you have spent time researching what has been released and giving an honest view of what you think is lacking And I respect that, and I'm not being sarcastic. I mean that. But there does seem to be a strange incongruity with your posts...you know so much about the game in the sense of what has been released yet you still say you don't really like the concept or many game design decisions ? I'm simplifying my question but why spend so much time on a subject if you don't care about it ? You know more than me about Fallout 4 yet I'm excited. I guess I don't understand why anyone would spend so much time in RL on a game that they don't even care for ?

http://fareedzakaria.com/2015/07/24/obamas-critics-are-the-real-gamblers-on-iran/ Fareed Zakaria is my favorite political commentator in the media at the moment. The guy is seriously accurate, erudite and reasonable He hosts the famous GPS (Global public square ) series on CNN and arranges some of the best think tanks and interviews you will ever see on international news channels Anyway read this link and see why he is supportive of the negotiations

I mentioned before I make a killer cheese sauce that I typically make every second week and I always have it with a large piece of Rump...say 0.8- 1 kg and potato wedges Half the steak I keep for sandwiches at work so I don't gorge myself and the steak I always marinade 24-48 hours in different ways, like using Worcestershire Sauce, so of course its absolutely delicious on its own but the hero of the meal is the cheese sauce And thats what I want to tell you guys who like cheese and know how to make a basic cheese sauce...mix different cheese in the sauce. Experiment..I cannot tell you how delicious and unctuous mixing cheeses tastes And you can really experiment because its almost impossible to mess it up...the worse you can really do is mix one strong cheese like Gorgonzola in with a cheese like Emmenthaler and you will just negate the weaker cheese...no crisis and waste of money as it will still taste great Tonight I mixed a Danish blue with a mature cheddar and it was heavenly

Well its an interesting economic conundrum..." can and should a government manipulate its own stock market to save a wholesale crash " In the West we know that were several examples during the 2008 financial crisis of government intervention to prevent the collapse of what were considered key industries..like AIG. But many companies and banks were allowed to fail like Washington Mutual and Lehman Brothers Also what the USA did was basically provide additional credit channels that companies like AIG have subsequently paid back.,.its nothing like this artificial stimulation of there stock markets that the Chinese are doing I remember an interesting statistic, I can find the link if required, that only 8 % of Chinese people own shares in there stock market yet 40 % of Americans own shares in the USA . So the Chinese have much less control over there stock market than most Western countries as there own citizens aren't the majority shareholders which makes it much easier for foreigners to sell shares and sometimes cause re real mass selling which then impacts the overall Chinese economy So maybe they believe they have no choice than to intervene in such a draconian way ?

http://freemarketcafe.com/2015/07/china-when-4-trillion-goes-to-stock-market-heaven/ http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/chinese-sharemarket-intervention-and-stabilisation-the-most-likely-scenario-20150728-gilthl.html https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/china-regards-intervention-with-its-stock-market-as-a-norm/ Just some interesting links to support my perspective

The most valid and real concern is the state of Chinese markets..,..while we were all lamenting the state of Greece last month the Chinese had 4 Trillion dollars wiped off there stock market And there solution was artificial and direct intervention to prevent a stock market crash, not only did the Chinese buy here own shares they forced the various state influenced Chinese investment firms to also buy billions of shares to prevent a free flow collapse of there stock market Obviously this is not how free markets behave as if people are confidant in a market they won't sell but the Chinese do have the capital and aptitude to intervene But this doesn't fix the underlying problem...a real lack of confidence in the Chinese markets for a variety of reasons and this leads to mass selling We dont want China to be negatively impacted because this will effect the whole world and emerging markets, like South Africa, always get hit the hardest when these types economic fluctuations occur...and I'm worried, very worried

But....but .....the voices in my head are always nice to me, please don't deny me the inkling of support my voices give me...imagine how lonely I would be Thanks for the link but I don't support anything luzarius says or posts, I try to be a reasonable person but I really am not prepared to engage with someone who is a bigot and pretends to be " interested in discussing real issues and concerns " yet just uses his posts to make covert attacks on the LGBT community

Sure, I hear you. I am not saying people must be positive for positive sake....I find that kind of blanket expectation a little annoying and counterproductive I am saying lets judge Fallout 4 on its own criteria and merit. And I'm sure there are real and valid concerns but you shouldn't compare this game to older Fallouts...because then you will definitely be disappointed Hope it makes sense what I am trying to say ?

You must buy the expansion.,...I have heard from a VERY reliable source that there may be Romance in the expansion...you don't need any other reason except for that

Bruce i like how you have so corrupted view of world So you are telling us that we know there are great games but we should overlook how much crappy 'RPG' element in F3 was and enjoy bellow medicore shooter it become because??? Its like saying: Yeah I have know really nice girl few year back and she was great, but today some older dude will do, you know you have to enjoy the difference..... Very good analogy about the girl ...rather see it as you use to date hot porn star who fulfilled your dreams Now you are dating a really nice girl who is not a porn star but you can still have lots of fun and have a meaningful relationship...but she is NOT a porn star And its unfair to compare her to the porn star....you see my point ?