Drowsy Emperor

I played only a little actual DnD 3.5 but there were tons of games that featured it and I read many of the supplements so the system got to be a bit boring. Not even a good setting can make up for constantly fighting the same monsters and the samey character progression.

High level DnD was always a pain in the ass. Everything either works too well or not at all.

People are the same everywhere. Businessmen and politicians in particular. Its just a question of how likely they are to get away with something. Believe whatever you want to believe.

I don't know what the real state of affairs was in those industries in the UK but I do know how the process of grabbing up state assets worked in the former Yugoslavian states during and post collapse. In short, its the result of a collusion between business circles (that wanted to privatize everything) and political circles which, if they weren't one and the same, did it for the equivalent of petty change. It goes like this: the process starts by appointing a co-opted individual to a top managerial position. This was done by the party which had the last say of who ran state owned industries. That individual would proceed to ruin the industry so its supposed value drops to nothing. I say supposed because the real value of a monopolistic, well developed industry is still obviously huge - even when its systematically operating at a loss. Then a foreign businessman or a domestic one would step in to "save" the industry by buying it for peanuts. Since its now their private property even a modicum of effort is enough to get the industry is running again and presto! Behold the wonders of privatization and technocratic rule! What the politicians mismanaged we'll fix! Etc. etc. That's one option. Its possible the foreign business buys the industry only to shut it down and destroy its competition. This is worse, obviously - because it ruins the country's overall wealth and people lose their jobs. Another option is that the domestic competition conspires to destroy the industry for reasons of its own. Example: If your company can import cheaper coal from China, you want to make sure all the domestic coal mines are ruined so that you're left as the major or only importer of coal. Why bother with buying out the industry and trying to make it work (which includes large expenses) when you can import the finished product? It seems like a plausible strategy, but the end result is dependency on foreign sources and prices, leaving people jobless and of course - all the money no longer fills the state budget but goes straight to private hands, of which very little makes it back to the state through taxes. This is why I despise the entire privatization mantra. Its nothing but a fictional story intended to sell the end effect, which is transferring state goods to private hands for a pittance. Another side effect is that politicians (which are blamed for everything) end up having less effective power and more open to bullying from the private sector - since they don't have effective control over any aspect of economic life. And the economy drives everything. In the end privatization makes the average person poorer while making a select few people richer. Which is what it was all about from the beginning.

The 2012 market for video games was US$67 billion. By comparison, Kickstarter earned $119 million in its third year. That's the combined total for everything, including games. It's about 0.2% of the video game market, so people are using a really small shovel. Maybe a trowel? Where did I say I absolved the plebs of the sin of buying 67 billion dollars worth of bad games? They're all guilty of crapping gold bars in these difficult times.

Regarding graphics, I don't honestly see how they could have improved much over CoH. CoH was ahead of its time, and in terms of clarity, animation and being easy on the eyes (detail tends to stand out in strategy games too much, making them a visual mess) - its probably still unsurpassed. DoW 2 is an example of how too much detail can make the game tiring to look at. At least that was the case for me.

I was hoping it would be as slow or slower than CoH, not faster. Another gripe is the perpetuation of the fiction that the Soviet army fought with Zerg tactics. The reality is that they fought with outdated WW1 tactics at the beginning of the war and adapted to modern warfare quickly afterwards. But, games are games... That said, the rest seems okay.

How fresh is Pathfinder compared to DnD 3.5? I realize its practically the same product rules wise, but in terms of setting, flavor and beasties - I'm wondering if its worth the effort for someone thoroughly tired of DnD 3.5?

I'm theoretically interested in the PnP setting. Meaning: while I like science fantasy in general and the idea of a Book of the New Sun inspired setting in particular - what I've seen on the Numenera site is not as appealing as it could be. The class system seems to be the same old stuff, the names and terms thrown around aren't very evocative or appealing. The rules are important too because it would take me too much time and effort to convert a bad rule set into one of the good ones while keeping the setting intact. I thought I could do it with Fading Suns which is probably the best science fantasy setting ever devised - that includes very annoying and clunky rules. I was going to adapt it to the very easy to learn and quick to play Savage Worlds rule set, but I simply can't bring myself to do it. In my opinion Fading Suns and its multitude of supplements are really the last word on space opera/science fantasy. Everything else I've seen is already included there in some form or the other (Warhammer 40K, Dune, Burning Empires, Starcraft, general medieval fantasy, science fiction, horror, straight up adventure, mystery, diplomacy, Elite like space exploration and trade, extremely low tech to very high tech with everything in between, etc.). This is another damper on my Numenera enthusiasm - there is simply no way that Cook can outdo FS. And from what little we've seen his setting is far more limited in scope already.

And they say we're in an economic crisis, while people are shoveling money at kickstarter.

If its half as sad and epic as Homeworld then... TAKE ALL MUH MONEYZ

I got my girlfriend to play Torment. I pimped up the GOG version with all the tweaks, widescreen and UI mods. The game looks better than ever. Honestly, I think the graphics kick ass especially in terms of design. I particularly like the zoom level. I'm not too thrilled about Project Eternity's zoom level, the closest one is still too far to get really distinct characters. I didn't mind it in BG or ID back in the day, but I think Torment pulled it off better. I hope this kickstarter crap succeeds enough so we get about two dozen games - that way there will be at least one or two worth keeping.

But that's kind of what people have been asking for. Something more restrained and believable. That's been done to death a hundred times over. "Exotic" has as well. And P:E is meant to be in the style and spirit of BG and IWD, both of which are traditional in their design. So the art direction they've gone for makes sense in that way. Exactly where has exotic been done? Apart from PS:T I have a tough time recalling the last atypical medieval world in a PC RPG. Look, fantasy can mean that the ground is made of turtles and that people clobber each other with fish while riding pogo sticks. It doesn't have to be a ****ing Tolkien derivative, which I'm thoroughly sick of. Making an Infinity engine game doesn't mean anything apart from it being 2D isometric and semi turn based, RPG. Everything else is open to interpretation.

But that's kind of what people have been asking for. Something more restrained and believable. That's been done to death a hundred times over.

Carefully tiptoeing around say the question of Saudi Arabia which still enjoys unconditional support even though it is undoubtedly, the absolute worst country in the world especially when considering the potential of its wealth, incomparable on any level to the aforementioned nations above. Sorry my friend but I disagree. Our company has a branch in Dubai and I travel to the Middle East regularly for work. I have also had to work on 3 one month contracts in Saudi Arabia and its most definitely not the worst country in the region. A couple of points about Saudi Arabia (for the record I would never live there but you can work there) Is it a Western Democracy? No and it does have several conservative laws that I think are wrong but almost all countries in the Middle East have laws and cultures that I disagree with but these are things we need to accept when we work in other countries Is it a friend to the West? Yes, the Saudi's have been instrumental in the War on Terror and helped expose several plots by Al-Qaeda. When you travel there as a Westerner you don't feel threatened at all and the companies I worked for treated me really well Are the citizens of Saudi Arabia happy? Yes in the sense that they didn't have the violent riots and uprisings that we saw in Libya, Egypt and Syria. The Saudi King allocated $30 Billion to uplifting his poorer citizens when the Arab Spring started and he avoided any serious violence Why do you think Saudi Arabia is such a terrible place compared to Zimbabwe or Iraq under Saddam Hussein? You're misrepresenting things or uninformed. I went to Abu Dhabi, and spoke to several US expatriates that lived and worked in SA. They hated the place, said it was absolute hell to work there for an extended period of time and very unsafe. They were glad to get out in one piece, lived in closed off compounds and had tight security all the while. By conservative laws you mean chopping people's hands off for stealing, decapitation as capital punishment and stoning to death for adultery? Or is it the political system, the uncontested rule of an absolute monarch and his free will to do whatever he feel like at all times? A friend of the west? The friend that funnels astronomical sums of money into fundamentalist wahabi proselytism and terrorists cells all over the world? As for the protests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9313_Saudi_Arabian_protests Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm not sold on the project yet. The graphics fidelity is to be expected in this day and age. After all, this is old technology, polished up and updated. The art design of this one scene is not enough to judge by. However I was expecting something more exotic. This just falls in line with other similar stuff seen over the years. There are hundreds of different fantasy worlds I have no idea why computer games are always stuck on the most typical one. Its fantasy for crying out loud, it doesn't have to look like medieval europe with a few twists.

Not to mention how somehow supporting dictators is vindicated just by the existence of communism? But really, its all just shifting the discussion into the ideological sphere instead of where it should reside: a simple us vs them conflict. The USSR was and wanted to be a major independent player. The west, meaning the US, tolerates no independent states unless it absolutely must. Even then its not really tolerating but constantly attempting to undermine through other means - like with today's Iran, China, Russia, North Korea etc. And the new two minutes of hate start again when the evil enemy of the day is defined. Carefully tiptoeing around say the question of Saudi Arabia which still enjoys unconditional support even though it is undoubtedly, the absolute worst country in the world especially when considering the potential of its wealth, incomparable on any level to the aforementioned nations above.

There just is no corpse they won't dig up huh.

What the **** is wrong with these people? There probably won't be a decent PS4 title until well into 2015 and they can't set up an 8 year old console to work with their brand new hardware. When it says that Sony is "considering" it, that means in won't be working up until half the PS4's life cycle if ever. Also, The Last Guardian might be moved to PS4 according to rumors - yet another reason to skip on the PS3.

You're free to be a complete twit for exactly 5 minutes until the cops arrive and you get fired and blacklisted, for a word out of place. He approves.

No, I see you all too clearly, on the right

The woman was an ideological disaster. She and Reagan moved the entire political spectrum so far to the right that there are no real leftist parties around. Today's "left" is their brand of neo liberalism with a sprinkling of social policy for flavor. The entire goal of those two was to legalize the theft of state assets and ensure supremacy of big business over politics. Through deregulation and privatization they permanently transferred power and influence from the semi-transparent political sphere to completely opaque business circles, unaccountable to no one. Thereby killing the very idea of democracy in favor of a straight up plutocracy. There is no circle of hell deep enough for the two of them.

Its beyond sad that this topic, whose relevance is debatable (although certainly not completely irrelevant) takes precedence over the issue of violence in games. The only people who bother with it is the mass media when in search of poor explanations of some recent scandal or shooting. I don't recall a single game publication raising the issue. That would have been brave and necessary. And I'm not talking about the impact on real world violence - that's a very flimsy connection at best, I'm talking about simple prevalence of violence in so many genres. Today its practically impossible to find an AAA game without cringe worthy scenes. All the graphical and technological achievements of games have been mostly squandered on more torn limbs and gory kills. Its only when the fact that this isn't seen as a problem becomes obvious that the true horror of it all begins to sink in. Here we are, arguing the acceptability of bikinimail while ignoring the decapitated head flying in our direction. Yeah its all basically make believe- but is there a real necessity to see every jugular explode, eyeballs pop out etc.? What kind of person draws satisfaction from making that type of game? Or playing it? And what kind of person fails to notice that but notices the sexism in games - which if existent, surely isn't in his face most of the time, like violence is?