Drowsy Emperor

I'm probably the only one who can't play MoO on account of how ugly the game is. Alpha Centauri was dangerously close to the line too in that regard, but MoO is in a different ...galaxy... altogether.

Yep, porn actress. Her filmography is as long as my forearm. Sad, really.

Labadal just cast summon L4D2 into my inbox. Give it up for the man. On three:

Í'm broke and I was really looking forward to getting Left 4 Dead 2 for cheap. Damn.

If I had a secretary I'd tell her to file EA under "obsolete" and reroute all my future shopping to GoG and Steam sales.

So that why you're still single?

I've been wondering why that is honestly. It used to be that tattoos were (and still are among the older generations) associated with lowlifes (sailors, army tattoos, criminals, some among the lower classes.). Now everyone wants to be a tribal and we're seemingly only a step away from the bone in the nose becoming a fashion item. I'm 26 and I'd never get a tattoo. Most are so ugly anyway. I wonder what goes through most people's heads when they go to do them.

It goes without saying that it would take a lot of tact to pull off to be meaningful and not dominate the actual "fun" part of the game.

To get emotionally invested in a game requires it to be directed at the pace of a good film or be told like a good book. That rarely happens. Most games tend to rely on negative emotions far too much to be emotionally engaging. Hate, vengeance, power fantasies. Too shallow to work most of the time. This is I remember games like Torment, Shadow of the Colossus, Homeworld etc. more fondly than others. Because they weren't negative power fantasies and because they tried actively to provoke an emotional response with beauty of sorts: whether it be writing, graphics, music or a combination of all.

I didn't mean it that way. The romance is second fiddle to whatever passes for the main storyline in those games. And its mostly juvenile. I meant a game where the theme is love and relationships between mature (or maybe not so mature) individuals - the adventuring elements of the story are secondary to it, not the other way around. Have you played Tales of Monkey Island? You don't think ToMI is juvenile? (in an entertaining way though) I'm talking about something contemporary leaning more towards "real life"drama than comedy. Its not about a guy trying to win the affection of a woman, its about relationships in a broader sense. If you've watched a Wong Kar-Wai film, something like that... only turned into a game.

Thank you. I'll need luck, three times as much time and the skill sets of at least two highly trained professionals

Keep us updated, I'll send you a PM of someone on these forums who I'm sure can help you if you ask Thanks Bruce. I'd buy you some biltong as a token of my affection but they don't sell any in these parts

I didn't mean it that way. The romance is second fiddle to whatever passes for the main storyline in those games. And its mostly juvenile. I meant a game where the theme is love and relationships between mature (or maybe not so mature) individuals - the adventuring elements of the story are secondary to it, not the other way around.

I'm trying to learn a bit about making sprites, photoshop, gif animtions, pixel art etc. Skills for making a 2D game some time... maybe. Learnt how to animate objects today to a simple gif, work with transparency etc. The fruit of those labors is the simple animation on the left. It includes more work than one would think.

What do you guys think about a game, say a point and click adventure with a story that revolves around romantic love? It would still be a traditional adventure with puzzles, purely story driven - not goal driven - in the sense that its not a game of finding the right options to score with someone. Neither is it an extended wooing of an NPC through dialog/puzzles. Rather, the romance is woven and integral to the plot as a platonic relationship that is a motivator behind the PC's actions and other events that transpire in the game. In other words, no lengthy cringe worthy dialog, no forced interactions between the player controlled character and the object of story/romance - no gamifying of the relationship in any way. The gamey parts would be strictly puzzles in service to the plot, but not to the romance itself, which would be a non interactive part of the story, save for perhaps the existence of more than one outcome to the story itself. The outcome, as per P&C standards wouldn't be the result of a multitude of modifiers but a simple and appropriate dialogue choice. To put it plainly: it would be a game, a story, about love that would not feature what passes for romance in today's games.

Can't you rent it? In these parts there are a few places where you can rent the console and games for a few days. I plan to draw up a list and if I'm able play the few titles that interest me.

In other words they're fragmenting. That's a good thing as it will probably lead to a quicker ending of the conflict.

Yeah, he's very much a salesman. I don't know if its a good or bad thing if the customer sees that, but it certainly didn't stop him from raking in the cash.

Fact is, the industry changed and certain people, like Fargo, Schafer, Richard Garriot etc. failed to re-position themselves within it. Most of them ran out of the original spark of creativity that brought them success in the first place. This is obvious by how they're now recreating their old ideas, not creating new ones. I'm not saying its a bad thing, but supremely talented people - like say, Picasso had the capacity to reinvent themselves repeatedly during their whole lifetime. The rest of us mere mortals generally cannot, which is probably what we'll see when the current lot of KS games is released.

I disagree with your view. I think you are being overly critical. There are legitimate reasons to find funding outside the traditional business model of publishers owning the IP and determining the ultimate direction of the game. Sure Fargo maybe played this to his advantage but he had some valid points. There is no doubt in my mind that we wouldn't be seeing games similar to Wasteland 2 or PE if it wasn't for the likes of alternative funding schemes like KS. The real question needs to be " when the first of these new RPG is released will they offer us entertainment and be worth our funding" I wasn't being critical of the concept of kickstarter, I was criticizing Fargo's populism. Publishers didn't want to make the games he wants to make because they're not economically viable (for them). The last game he made wasn't successful, therefore there was no incentive on the publisher's part to throw money at the man. So he found an alternative, good for him. But he didn't leave it at that, he had to go slamming the developer-publisher model that while it probably does have lot of conflicting interests - let him make all the games he's famous for. I mean, if Sid Meier can make a turn based strategy a must have AAA game in times when turn based strategies are dead as big budget projects, then things are not as black and white as Fargo suggests.

I had problems too with my copy of Jade Empire. The game ran markedly slower on my older PC because it read from the bloody DVD constantly. Sometimes it wouldn't recognize the disc either. ...Securom POS None of that with the people's edition of JE though.

Everything Fargo and Schafer said was 100% marketing from day one. It was all nonsense too, if you think about it. Just a stunt to take advantage of the anti-publisher sentiment many gamers have (and sentiment is all it is, they're all essentially conformists because they still keep buying those products). If you look back, turning games into a big business was neither a good nor bad thing, because a good game is like a good comic, or movie - a matter of pure luck of having talented people with a good idea in a good business arrangement. The reason Fargo, Schafer and others didn't get to make games was because they didn't have one or more of these things going for them.

Just download the pirated version for crying out loud. You already have the game, no harm done.

Sorry but that's not true. Its possible to die on occasion but its not that common, unless you wander around a higher level area. A party where everyone has ranged weapons will steamroll most things.

What we need is someone to crack open a bunch of Heavy Metal magazines from the 70ties and 80ties and make an RPG on more or less anything they see there. Moebius landscapes, Druillet buildings, Bilal dystopia... anything except US 90's tv show inspired crap. I pine for a real euro RPG. Even european games like Drakensang are built according to generic US genre parameters and aesthetics.