AGX-17

I can't re-read any book and have fun. The only books I re-read are textbooks, because I have to. Currently reading Fragile Things by Gaiman Himself. Strange order (reverse,) but both good, if a bit tedious at times. I don't understand why concision is such a sin in the world of writing. Diamond often writes as though he's just padding for extra page length. It's especially tough when you're dealing with subjects for which there is a dearth of evidence, and that's something Collapse suffers for.

La Jette, the french movie that 12 Monkeys was based on. In the comics, Peter Parker was exactly like that - a wiseguy brat, instead of the awkward nerd from the Raimi movies. Looks like you've never read Amazing Fantasy #15 (Spiderman's first appearance/origin story.) Peter Parker was a nerd harried by bullies. It wasn't until he got super powers that he later became a wise-cracking smartass, and only in the guise of Spiderman. Man, it's funny when people who don't know what they're talking about think they know what they're talking about.

Would it surprise you to hear me say "nice waifu brother" in a sarcastic way missed by the intended recipient of the comment? It's a pretty good game. Pretty boring selection of races, though. I'm pretty sure 99% of players chose sexually sexual gray elves over blue elves (man those guys were dumb looking,) multiracial generic humans and aryan nordic master race humans. Gameplay was its strongest aspect, the story and lore were uninteresting (thanks Oblivion guy!) Visually it was like a modern WoW (you know, better than DX7,) whether that's good or bad is up to you. Shallow fun, more like a straight action game than an action RPG for the most part.

Ignoring the fact that buckshot already causes bleeding... The idea of guns that fire enchanted bullets (which are the ideal offense against magic users in their own universe, especially cherished by non-mages for leveling the proverbial playing field) has been done: If it was good enough for Joss Whedon, why not?

Which was a carbon copy of the Batman Arkham games' gameplay. Not to say it was bad, but when your game's saving grace is ripped off of another game, you might need to rethink your design principles. It's pretty clear that two middle aged white guys and an inner city minority gang member are not going to be kung-fu experts.

Guns are popular "simply" because they can pierce everyone's defenses. They're what made steel plate armor a relic of a bygone era. It wasn't until the development of synthetic fibers like kevlar that functional protection from firearms in the form of body armor came back. In the 1970s. Even then, that can only stop small-arms fire, and the impact is still roughly equivalent to being hit by a baseball bat swung by a major league hitter. Even if you're not dead, you're down for the count.

... You didn't notice Uomoz's Tali profile picture, I take it?

That legitimately made me laugh out loud. "ME2 has one of the best endings ever in any game" is just the cherry topper icing on that cake, puts it really over the top. +10 troll points for that one phrase alone. Current subtotal: 27. Keep up the good work.

You psychic or something? He can tell she's a bad character because she's not a romanceable Bioware character. "OH SNAP NO YOU DI'INT!"

The only problem being that plate armor was being abandoned at that point because firearms made it worthless. A plate-armored knight has to close to melee range to inflict damage, leaving a musketeer a very good chance of shooting that steel-plated knight successfully. The only continued use of plate armor was in the colonization of the New World where there were no enemies brandishing firearms to worry about, only arrows, spears, rocks, clubs and so on. And like -Zin- said, the presence of the Monk as a class, a bare-fisted fighter who can defeat a plate-armored opponent in combat, further destroys these fantastical illusions of total armor realism.

The problem is that often times, the sorts of results you're talking about are insufferably slim, and if a player were to play the game through 100 times, they might never get the ideal result because it's still based on chance. All you're doing is permanently locking some players out of content based on chance, period.

Depends entirely on the game. There can still be fixed enemies/ bosses, and the scaling can allow for some difference in level (both are true in Wiz8). granted. Wait - do you mean these bandits didn't have the stats and skills to explain their gear plausibly? Were they too easy to kill still? If yes, that's more of an example of scaling done badly. If not, there's nothing implausible about them having this equipment. If you haven't read a lot of posts on level scaling with exactly this statement, then you haven't read a lot of posts on level scaling. Personally I'm not decided on the matter btw, level scaling can be useful if done right but there are drawbacks. If these bandits had the skills and attributes to justify having this legendary-tier equipment, why are they still podunk bandits hiding out in the woods? Why haven't they farmed Daedric and Glass armor and weapons and sold them to become filthy rich and buy huge tracts of land or estates? Why haven't they formed their own nation-state or mercenary army and invaded one of the local cities? They've got the best base, unenchanted gear available in the entire Elder Scrolls universe and they're content to just **** in the woods and use poison oak as toilet paper while living in burlap tents? How does that make a lick of sense? The town guards and imperial army don't have access to gear half that good. Those "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM" Imperial Soldiers/Guards have the equivalent of second tier heavy armor equipped for the game's duration. If we assume that their stats scale equal to the bandits', the bandits must win by virtue of the fact that they have vastly superior arms and armor. And it should go without saying that I am not speaking for the powergamer/minmaxer or casual Xbox Oblivion/Skyrim player when I say "we don't want stupid easy oneshot fights."

Well, let's all cherish this moment, and this thread, because those of us who've been on the internet in the last 15 years already know of the horrors yet to come.

I've already seen that done in a Japanese action RPG. Cue gasps of horror and scandalized swooning among Obsidian forum members.

Define "enhance." "More enemies" or "higher tier enemies" isn't necessarily an "enhancement." What about better enemy AI/tactics?

Evolution doesn't exist in fantasy worlds. Any fantasy game designer I'm aware of who has used the word evolution has used it incorrectly (I have seen it used in fantasy games, and it was always incorrect and the fantasy setting blatantly made the concept physically impossible.)

If it's a world where everyone can use magic, that means everyone has to buy mana potions, i'd imagine those are more expensive than wood. And who says the most basic fire spell is capable of melting iron, anyway? Maybe it's equivalent to a small campfire. If it's a world where not everyone can use magic, why would you hire a fulltime mage to just sit there shooting fire at your forge AND buy that mage mana potions to keep them flaming? It would still be cheaper to get wood or coal or charcoal. It's an economic lose-lose no matter how you look at it.

They should be dead languages like Latin that aren't spoken by anyone but wizards, like how Latin is a dead language spoken only by the Catholic church and Latin teachers. and the Vatican as a state. Honestly, people should stop saying latin is a dead language, not just that a nation and religion uses it, but also by knightly orders and it is also heavily used in education and medicine. No, it is a dead language. Ask any linguist. Nobody speaks it colloquially. Nobody is born and raised speaking Latin. You have to choose to learn it or be given away as a child as a ward of the Catholic Church to be taught it. Nobody is a native speaker of Latin. It has been a dead language for over a thousand years. Nobody really knows how to pronounce Latin words, even. Knightly orders? When the Queen of England knights somebody it's just a play, put on for show. Knights are as dead as Latin, and most real knights didn't speak a word of Latin because it was dead by the time medieval knights came around. The use of Latin in science is entirely technical and used for nomenclature purposes exclusively. Scientists do not speak to each other in Latin, and if it's any subject of public interest there's almost always a public colloquialism for it in English or whatever the native language is. Written Latin was the basis for scholastic activities simply because it was seen as more civilized than a pidgin like English or a derivative such as French. Just as much ancient Greek is used in science, and has contributed just as much to the English language as Latin (especially given how much Latin borrowed from ancient Greek.) The reason the King James Bible was a milestone in history is because it was the first time in a thousand years the bible was written in a language other than Latin, which broke the Catholic Church's monopoly on salvation. The Catholic Church used Latin precisely because it is a dead language and nobody natively speaks it. The idea of common people being able to hear a sermon in their native tongue was an outrage to the Vatican at the time.

Japan gives so few ****s about Mass Effect, it's not even funny. Maybe if they'd actually done Japanese voice overs it might have actually made a mark, but games like Fallout 3, New Vegas and Borderlands 2 are dramatically more popular there. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obTxjPGKSeg And before you ask, it's content from Fallout 3 synced to the opening credits of a 1970s Japanese cop show known for over the top action scenes and constant big explosions and shootouts despite the illegality of guns in Japan.

TES has never been an exceptional roleplaying series. It's always been the freedom/exploration aspect that garnered its high scores. Morrowind by far had the best main storyline, and the lore is respectable, if incredibly derivative of real world mythology and fantasy writers. But in the end, story has been degrading at Bethesda since Morrowind. That was their narrative peak, and though Skyrim's main quest is better than Oblivion's, it's still bland and mediocre at best. Characters and roleplaying have always been pretty bad. It was excusable in the mid 90s, but not in this day and age. And Bethesda still couldn't do a boss fight well if their jobs or lives hung in the balance. Also his name was Jyggalag. To me the most interesting Daedric Prince, and he'll probably never appear again.

Russia has always been like that. It's funny when slavophiles have this delusional fantasy image of Russia as a prosperous land of free democracy and equal rights and so on. And in that they differ from any other country how? The amount of corruption, industrialization, civil rights, political freedoms and average income varies greatly by country. Even so, you're right in saying that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, a result of neoliberal capitalist economic policies adopted in the past 40 years.

They should be dead languages like Latin that aren't spoken by anyone but wizards, like how Latin is a dead language spoken only by the Catholic church and Latin teachers.

Every class should have combat value, especially given the seperation of combat and non combat skills into their own separate zones. That's going to necessitate a broad diversity of skills that don't ultimately boil down to DPS, aggro-accumulation/distraction and buffs/debuffs.

It's already been established that they're separating combat and non-combat skills so that players don't have to choose between one or the other. One obvious method would be that players receive points to invest in each area separately on level up. They'll likely come up with a less obvious method. Despite having levels, you've essentially just noted the TES system of "skills go up by using them." It hasn't worked well in Oblivion or Skyrim, I highly doubt Obsidian will be taking the Elder Scrolls route here. It leads too easily to grinding, either for exploitative/powergaming purposes or because the rate of skill levelling is too slow and leaves players dependent on crafting overpowered items for success in combat.

= But Morrigan is kind of the opposite, she wants you to not sacrifice yourself. She's not fooling you into a meaningless sacrifice, she's fooling or tempting (depending on what kind of character you're playing,) you into breaking your vows as a Warden, which is just a practical means to an end for her, not the end in itself. That's assuming you're not already too selfish to go for that whole self-sacrifice thing.