AGX-17

Worst area of the game, bar none. "Oh look, a forest maze, never seen one of these before."

One of the most hilarious things about this is that Israelis pretty much hate Obama for his refusal to follow the standard "100% behind Israel" line and opposing settlements, but it was the Obama administration that gave them their precious Iron Dome missile defense system. Because most Hamas rockets fail to do any harm. The people of Gaza are impotent, hopeless and desperate because of Israeli policy, that's what turned them toward voting for Hamas. Israel has a hard time looking like the "good guys" when the advise Gazan civlians to leave when Israel and Egypt spent the last decade walling them in. Last I heard Hamas had killed 3 Israelis and injured a few dozen, Israel has killed over 100 Palestinians and wounded hundreds. Multiple western news sources have also reported that Israel seems to be targeting buildings and areas of Gaza where news media/journalists are based, which is even more troubling. The simple fact of the matter is that Israel holds the position of dominance and power, not innocent victim. It's within their power to end the violence but Israel's increasingly right-wing government is determined to expand illegal settlements in Palestinian territories until there are no Palestinian territories left. And as many political commentators both in Israel and abroad have said, Israel can't simultaneously be a free, open democracy and a Jewish theocratic state where Palestinians/Arabs are second-class citizens. Eventually they're going to have to choose one or the other, and with the growing numbers of ultra-orthodox right wingers, there's going to be more trouble unless Israel's more moderate and liberal citizens stand up to the conservatives who dominate their policies. The most brutal irony is that the Israelis claim they have a religious right to this land by virtue of their religious scriptures, something which would not be tolerated by the international community if it were any other group. Native Americans can say they have a religious right to have their homelands back and non-native Americans will just laugh in their faces or say "that's all in the past, you should be grateful for US tax aid that doesn't reduce your massive rates of poverty, alcoholism and domestic violence!" Nobody's going to give the Nez Perce tribe (or any other Native American tribe/group/nation,) a bunch of guns, tanks and military training to forcibly take their original homeland in northeastern Oregon back from the white men who now occupy it.

Just finished Walking Dead ep. 5. Not an unexpected end, but still pretty affecting. Noticed rather blatant mechanical foreshadowing of a direct sequel (they already announced a second "season," but it shows that choices made during (and especially at the end of,) the first "season" will carry over to the second.) For anyone who does play it, don't skip the credits, there is a befuddling post-credit epilogue. Not nearly as befuddling as a Metal Gear Solid game, but still.

I can't... why... how is this... even possible? I'd understand if it was something with built-in replay value/long scenarios like Super Robot Wars, but this...

It's a shame this thread is limited to video games, because there's one where a guy will lithograph an entire book onto a T-shirt (in the form of an image made up of the entire text of said book,) for you. Came with the reccomendation of Neil Gaiman. Too bad I can't link it. It's already nearly doubled its goal anyway, so I guess that's ok.

I said Ranger because I find a certain romance to it, but in fact I will try every single race (unless there turn out to be beastman/anthropomorphic animal-type races which I will not touch out of spite for furries,) and class option before deciding on which path to take. Edit: Barbarian: 0.00% made me laugh.

It has already been established that "Stamina" will be the primary statistic for taking damage in combat and the full loss of it will result in knockout, while a "health" statistic will result in death if completely depleted. Please read/view the updates, this has been covered in them. And I have to take issue with the poll options. Beating someone within an inch of their life is not "non-lethal" it is "letting the internal bleeding and organ failure finish the job." Clubbing someone over the head to induce unconsciousness or using a chemical like ether or chloroform is non-lethal subjugation. Curbstomping is not generally considered a non or less-lethal form of subjugation. I have yet to see any evidence that savage beatings are less lethal than simply tackling and handcuffing someone. Even if your intent was not to kill, a savage beating can be and often is completely lethal.

It's simply ludicrous to suggest that all your companions should be mindless drone thralls for you to mold as you please. They're not real characters if they're devoid of personal beliefs, morals ethics and convictions. This idea sounds more like sexual fetish than legitimate storytelling (yes, this is another stupid sexual fetish around which an entire subculture revolves. I am aware of practically every ludicrous sexual fetish present on the internet after 20 years of using it.) There's nothing wrong with swaying a character's opinion on a particular subject, situation or personal dilemma, but this sort of black & white morality and total domination of every character's personality you're expecting will not be present in P:E, so your (bad) idea wouldn't even fit. You're not going to get to turn a chaste and innocent female companion into a skanky hermaphrodite succubus or a kindly healer into a sadistic pedophile serial killer. So deal with it, I guess.

I know they wouldn't do this, because then they would not be playable, but... They should be the "fair folk" of ancient northern European folklore who steal your children in the night, afflict you and your livestock with disease, etc. rather than the Romanticized/Bowdlerized versions that turned into Tolkien-standard. Nymphs should be nymph-like. Nymphs are Hellenic nature deities, not elves. Elves and fairies are the unknown threat skittering at the edge of the campfire's light, not delightful female nature deities who love to sing and dance and have sex with humans.

Wait, you "disagree" that The Others is someone else's favorite show? That's like someone making a "what's your favorite food thread," someone says "pepperoni pizza" and you respond "I disagree, pepperoni is not your favorite pizza topping, it is overdone and childish."

Heroes III was the best (and effectively final,) installment of the series, and one of the greatest games of all time. Heroes IV does not exist (I refuse to acknowledge it.) Heroes V and VI are just shoddy imitations with better graphics. For the record, I have not played VI because V was so bad. Dark Messiah was made by the developers of Dishonored (Arkane,) and all of their games (even Dishonored,) are basically the same game design getting less clunky and unintuitive with each iteration. Arx Fatalis was a mess, the basic principles are the same in DM and Dishonored (it's easy to kill and be killed in direct combat, key configuration is awkward and cumbersome, blocking is extremely important, etc.) Dark Messiah also had a big focus on environmental kills, something Dishonored does as well. Except they were all performed with a kick move (which was also poorly mapped,) and consisted primarily of kicking enemies into spiked walls, or off of ledges (there were also dropping stuff on enemies' heads type kills.)

Never stopped playing Borderlands 2, now using TORGUE EXPLOSIVE WEAPONS IN PREPARATION FOR TOMORROW'S EXPLOSIVE DLC TO DROP. I've played through DA:O twice and didn't use Zevran at all in either playthrough, not even to do his personal quest. For whatever reason, I really really dislike him. Because he's an unlikable donkey-faced douche. First run I brought him along, every other time I stabbed him in the neck with the magic instant permadeath knife but he magically came back to life for DA2. lolbioware

I think this can work, if it's treated as the absurdity it is. Like, there's this random merchant wandering a dungeon saying things like,"Man, I am so ****ing lost." or "Hey, do you know how to get to (insert major city here) from here?" or "That is the last time I ask directions from an ogre." As long as it doesn't happen too often, it could be funny. Lampshading it doesn't really help.

I liked OWB, but it was too dense (and had too many bullet-sponge enemies, also sneaking didn't work there,) the game region was too compact and the dialogue was so constant and rapid that it got hard to remember even some great, hilarious gems of writing. If it had been slower paced, had non-bullet sponge enemies and was more geographically spread out (and also if it didn't crash the game when fast travelling so frequently,) it would have been my favorite DLC.

People who enjoy non-dumb gameplay. A typical "dumb action game" has more complex gameplay than Skyrim. And the main story and faction quests aren't fun, they're boring and stereotypical. You should pack up and go to Bethesda's forums if you can't stand the people who enjoy well-designed quests, well-written characters, story and dialogue and gameplay that requires some degree of intellectual fortitude (i.e. the majority of Obsidian fans.) Making ad hominem attacks on anyone who doesn't like Skyrim doesn't strengthen your position, it makes it as weak as the cuss-filled Xbox Live rants of a 14 year old Call of Duty player.

He's not going to pay you millions or even tens of thousands of caps because that would break the game economy. It's about game design and balance, not House being an a-hole (still not a four letter word, Obsidian naughty language filter.) That's why they dramatically reduced casino payouts with one of the updates. I used to roll into the strip with 9-10 luck and walk out with about 200,000 caps because you could get upwards of 50,000 caps per casino. All you needed was a jackpot on the slots with a maximum bet to get around 40k caps. For a typical wasteland nobody 1000 (or 1250) is a lot of caps, and unless you've been really busy with faction jobs, you're generally walking in as a nobody in the eyes of all the factions of the Mojave. Except Mr. House, who sees your potential and your value. Besides, it's necessary to continue the main quest, which is more pressing than what the reward is.

How would an "acid arrow" not be corroded by the acid on it? If it were made from glass how would it penetrate armor? Wouldn't most of the acid drip off before entering an enemy's body? And wouldn't the acid be too small a quantity to do serious damage? Acid works by chemical reaction, the atoms or molecules in the acid react with atoms or molecules in the victim's body, and once all the molecules have been torn up and recombined into the resultant substance the acid would cease to exist unless the resulting molecule or compound is also an acid.

The idea of psychics is another example of space magic masquerading as sci-fi. Some "sci-fi" comes up with wild explanations for it, which is better than typical fantasy magic which tends to go unexplained beyond "a wizard did it," but it is still space magic in the end.

No, the original game. The disc I bought in 1997.

The idea of merchants "doing business" at the bottom of a forbidden dungeon where adventurers die before reaching the end is silly. You might as well find some local, generally unknown cave and find your way into some unknown chamber and start hauling junk in without telling anyone and just sit there and wait for the cash to roll in.

Obviously doesn't fit P:E, but fits the thread topic. The "ruins" of an ancient, advanced civilization, as in a "future-tech" type civilization with nanotechnology and self-repairing/maintaining AI systems, so it's a bunch of fantasy primitives walking into a fully functioning sci-fi facility. Maybe some wild revelation that the "magic" your mages have been casting is just a globally-saturated nanomachine system artificially exciting the molecules in creatures' bodies into combustion with fire "magic" or the opposite with ice "magic," in response to what the AI/s interpret as command inputs from system users. How would that change the terrain? Teleporter mazes have been around for decades.

Heroes of Might and Magic III, the last, best entry in the series. As best I can since it barely works with Windows 7 and constantly crashes.

... Like Sawyer said in regard to his NV mod, New Vegas is over. That ship has sailed. Nobody's working on it anymore, the proverbial lights are off, doors closed, offices cleaned out, etc. Nothing is going to change from the complete/GOTY edition except for modding. You are barking up a tree stump with the mistaken belief that it is a standing tree. Which is all tangential to the fact that you're wrong on all counts simply because the game was written as it was because that was the story and those were the characters Obsidian wanted to convey. They didn't accidentally get their own characters wrong from the Akashic Record versions that exist in the universe that they're simply acting as mediums to express, they created the characters and designed the game as they saw fit. Mr. House clearly states that the NCR would invade the Strip if Caesar's Legion weren't a bigger threat, he clearly states that the Brotherhood of Steel is a threat, their only concern is keeping the flashiest toys out of everyone's hands but their own, and House has got some of the flashiest toys around. The BoS would kill House and then hoard his tech without recognizing the fact that House himself is far more valuable an asset than the tech he's produced, because he designed and produced it. House, again, states with crystal clarity that he had sent Securitrons to the area of the BoS bunker and they were all attacked and destroyed. The BoS has no interest in making contact with house to learn from one of the greatest minds of the pre-war world. Yes Man was designed to be a threat to House. Why would House want the ONE thing that can take his fledgling empire away anywhere near him? Every Securitron is already programmed to follow his will, Yes Man will do whatever anyone tells him. How does that benefit House in any way? And finally, House and the NCR already have a treaty and he explains its terms clearly. Your ideas are just bad. If you don't like House wanting the BoS, a legitimate threat to his position, destroyed, don't side with House. You can't have everything your way. It was House's appraisal of the BoS that turned me against them. The fundamental basis of their beliefs is flawed ("energy weapons destroyed the world, we will prevent that from happening again!" no, they didn't, 20th century technology destroyed the world, what does that have to do with stealing pew pew laser guns from everyone who's not part of your secret club?) Especially note the way he remarks that they don't raid old hospitals for Auto-Docs and advanced medical technology. They're just a tribe of raiders who possess and worship high-tech weapons. They steal those weapons from anyone who's not part of their secret club out of a religious fervor and jealous attempts to maintain their position of "superiority" over the "savages."

A more believable scenario would be that if you robbed a shop/merchant of everything, the merchant would go out of business, close shop, skip town in search of a new start and that building would be repurposed by the town's merchant prince ruler, sold by the merchant for the money needed for a new start or even abandoned.