Longknife

Still worth it!

I'mma go out on a wild and crazy fringe-like idea here.... And suggest that the failings of the games she named wasn't a result of a writer being purposefully misogynistic towards women, but rather the writer just so happened to be a dude, and as a dude, had little clue what women would or would not want in a romantic partner, thus he wrote some romantic partners that are sometimes viewed as unappealing or sub-par, and seldomly wrote them compared to how many female romantic partners he wrote. This combined with the fact that the game's target demographic is men and thus any voiced concern on behalf of the writer himself that maybe he's not so good with writing male love interests for women would likely be silenced by a project director with statements like "don't sweat the small stuff, that's hardly a priority for this project so it's fine as-is," and yeah, there you go: limited romance options for female characters. To remedy it, she should simply be more vocal and encourage other female gamers to be vocal about their existence within the gaming demographic, while we should all be more vocal in voicing desire for better writers for video games in general. (cept Obsidian, they pro) Respectful letters written to the company would help with this. Or we could go with her theory that the writer has an intentional and personal vendetta against anything with a vagina and instead voice the desire for better romantic partners with a more dramatic, conspiracy theorist-esque tone while embarassingly failing to provide reasons why a black guy qualifies as a bad romance partner beyond "he's black," thus distracting from the overall message entirely and making the author rather difficult for readers to sympathize with. That works too.

I would sell both my kidneys and give away my spleen for another game like New Vegas, ijs

That wasn't firing the bazooka That was.... Firing the bass cannon YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Oh no she didn't!

I was the one who got Chris Avellone (& co.) to sing Don't Stop Believin' on the promise of donating $50 if he did. Then I donated way more cause that BOSS went above and beyond and got everyone to sing with him. But I only pop in here every so often so I've no idea if I got dat K, hence why I'm posting here to find out. If I don't, fix pls. Or don't, it's no biggie. :D I got my karaoke song, I don't need more.

Inb4 Chaos Wars EDIT: FUUUUUUUUUUUU- charms beat me to it :C

I expect the Grim Reaper himself to arrive here shortly to file a police report about the corpse that was recently stolen from him, this thread is so old...

But in collaboration with that company, they created the best game they've ever made. They clearly love that license. Even after how distant and messy their relationship was with LucasArts, they wanted a chance to work with them again to make KotOR 3. Besides, we don't know all the details of that working relationship. Whether or not they want to work with them again may not be as dicey as it looks to us. And this is exactly why people love Obsidian. Some art is made with love, because an idea or concept was important enough to it's creator that they wanted to dedicate a work of art to expressing it and sharing it with all. Some "art" is manufactured, with money in profit being the core driving force behind it's creation, forcing a product and telling inspiration to hurry it's ass up. Obsidian makes games because they want to, and it shows in the quality of their work. At the very least, while an 84 point score on a website might not win them a big cash price, it certainly earns them some well-deserved respect.

I am prepared to sacrifice 14 lambs and 3 young pastey virgins to make this happen.

German bureocracy is best bureocracy. Best at being the worst.

Name one ~(seriously); I cannot think of anything specific to RPGs that alienates ~or fails to exploit, an (available) 3D open world technolog if it's done in 3/4 top down. What did you have in mind? I did. Look at Dead Money. How are you going to do Dead Money isometrically and still hold the same feel and abilities? As I said, I did a LOT of listening for sparks or radio white noise to pinpoint potential radio sources, and I don't see how this could be done with an isometric system. Sure you could do "if the player is within this many spaces of the radio they begin to hear the sound," but it's more sloppy in the sense that you can't determine which direction the sound is coming from without a lot of walking around and process of elimination. The same difference arise in regards to the holographic security. I can name at least one point in Dead Money where the difficulty would rise significantly with an isometric system simply because, quite ironically, a certain puzzle has not one but two ways to solve it THANKS TO the unpredictable (unreliable?) AI within the game, albeit the second one is still risky; it's simply reliably risky so that you can often get away with taking that risk. Likewise how the radios would be found and located would be entirely different. Ever play, for example, Sims 3 World Adventures? There's "puzzles" of a sort, but ultimately all of them can quickly be solved by merely scanning the room completely and clicking on any spot that happens to change your cursor. This is more or less how radios would be spotted, which isn't nearly as fun as having to actively spot them yourself. And with an overhead view of things, how the HELL are they supposed to be difficult to spot in the first place? For the most part the DLCs is where I simply can't see isometric gameplay doing them justice the way the FPS style presented them (and again, that's not to say isometric gameplay couldn't produce something excellent too; that's NOT my point here. I simply mean to show that FPS has it's advantages as well). Isometry wouldn't be able to provide the scenery of the High Road (one of the few instances I'd praise scenery and presentation and regard it as vital to the experience), the fast-paced action of the Tunnelers elevator; hell I don't think it could really do the Giant Roboscorpion battle justice. The fight vs. the Think Tank would DEFINITELY require massive tweaking as they'd easily tear a player to shreds with turn-based combat. (ever been hit by them? They hit deceivingly hard) Overall the point is that both have their advantages. There's no superior or inferior with FPS vs isometric. FPS simply encompasses more fast-paced action with more dependence on basic player skill within the game (I'd argue the character stats are still more important, but FPS at least makes player skill significant), whereas isometric encompasses more strategy all across the board, where there's no such thing as player skill, only player strategy and properly built character builds. You cannot simply translate something like the Legendary Bloatfly fight to isometric and have it feel completely the same: no, it'd require tweaking. What was standing above the Legendary Bloatfly with a ledge as cover and dodging any stray plasma beams as you fire back on him, with isometric gameplay would be....well, how would you do it? You'd either be safely in cover with no risk of him hitting you each turn or you'd die. Also should note, and not saying this is a bad thing, but when I try to picture an isometric New Vegas, I end up picturing Fallout Tactics far more than I do Fallout 1 or 2. The playstyle is simply more similar between the two as Tactics accounted for taking cover quite a bit more, as well as the possibility (depends on options settings, though imo it made things A LOT harder) for more fluid gameplay as opposed to a locked-in turn-based style. In some ways FPS is more flexible and allows for more fluid, action-packed gameplay, in other ways isometric is more logical and allows for a more logical style of play that puts a bit more stress on strategy and RPG elements. There is no superior. That's merely my point. I'm constantly hearing praise for "the good 'ole days" as these very same people will praise the ever-living hell out of New Vegas and call it a fantastic game as many entertain thoughts of an isometric New Vegas. I'm sorry, but I simply don't see it working. And I'm sorry, but I find it rather close-minded and negligent to cling to ONE style of gameplay that worked when we've now seen two different styles work. Again, I don't have a problem with either, I suppose if asked I would slightly prefer FSP style (talking 55-45 in favor of it over isometric), I just simply find it a shame that we have two perfectly valid gameplay styles and a lot of the older Fallout fans still can't stop clinging to the first one because it came first. Turn-about is fair play; It's what was done to us. <_< It doesn't work like that. Try writing Bethesda and saying "turn about is fair play!" See how they respond. If anything, you're discouraging them from supporting an isometric style because you're acknowledging that an isometric game would alienate and frustrate their newer player base. You want results? Actual ones? Come up with a plan or idea that Bethesda would buy into, don't fantasize about what you want without asking if it's even plausible. I'm simply being a realist when I say that I think Bethesda would be far more likely to bite if the offer was "let Obsidian make a funded for-profit New Vegas mod" or "let Obsidian make another Fallout with the same old engine." This re-introduces their fans to things they already know and a style that EVERYONE is familiar with. Isometric? That'd be asking Bethesda to fund a project with a style they themselves are entirely unfamiliar with and have no engine for or experience with such an engine (issues with them properly overseeing the project), as well as a style that their newer fans are entirely unfamiliar with. It's not gonna happen. In that same sense I would never come knocking on Obsidian's door asking for a 3D open world FPSer, (not that I have any problem whatsoever with isometric gameplay, but for this example pretend I do. ) I can accept both styles as both are entirely valid experiences. And as stated, while I'm rather pessimistic any convincing can truly be done, If anyone were to actively try, then be smart about it. Don't run at Bethesda screaming about Isometry and the good ole days and how their fanbase doesn't truly know what they want and they'd love isometry! That kind of unadaptive perspective and approach won't accomplish squat. I honestly don't really consider this a valid argument simply because the gaming market has grown tenfold since then. Please remember, Mario himself is only 28 years old; dunno about you, but he's only about 4 years older than me. We are the first generation of gamers. We come from a time when playing games was "just for kids," but as time moves on, it's becoming more and more abundantly clear that that's not the case. We cannot prove New Vegas and FO3 sold more because FPS style is more popular, as it could very well be merely a matter of when they were released.

Hooray, we're not going to die!! \o/

If I may, since I'm an opinionated **** and don't do well reading opinions that aren't quite mine without voicing my own... I feel like I have a "duty" to speak up on the matter of the points of "isometric" and "voice-acting," since I'm in the minority (or perhaps a silent majority) on this: after FO:NV, I don't see any reason to hate on Bethesda's style of Fallout (3D open world) or voice-acting. No, of course I'm not blind to the advantages of skipping voice acting or how isometric systems could be easier, but I always hear self-proclaimed dinosaurs saying how everything should be like "the good ole days" and isometric etc. Personally? I have nothing against isometric games, and for the most part I would agree that voice-acting helps limit RPGs. However, yknow two things New Vegas accomplished for me? It was both my personal favorite Fallout title despite not being isometric and it has - hands down - the best voice acting I've personally seen from a video game. (With Chaos Wars being the obvious runner-up) I personally cannot picture New Vegas as an isometric game. Some things, such as Dead Money, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road in their entirety, simply don't feel like they'd be executed as well had they been isometric. Dead Money's puzzles I often solved by using my ears to listen for speakers and static (not possible with isometric), Lonesome Road is a rare occurance where "cinematics" and scenery feel entirely needed to help build what was essentially a giant fan-service-driven finale for New Vegas fans (mean no disrespect by that as it's a fantastic DLC with a fantastic backstory provided by foreshadowing throughout the course of New Vegas, but let's be real, Lonesome Road hardly stands on it's own two feet without the support of the rest of the game and DLC) and Old World Blues, with it's enemy frequency, just feels like it'd be this nightmarish "omg I keep finding random encounters" feel reminiscent of Pokemon or Final Fantasy. (not quite the same, but still that groaning of "omg more enemies") My point in short is simply that any time I hear claims of isometric gameplay being superior or the like, I can't help but feel like this COMPLETELY alienates several advantages to a 3D open world that New Vegas highlighted. Ultimately it comes down to player preference of course, and there is no superior or inferior with isometric vs. 3D open world, but I can't help but feel like as far as the Fallout fanbase goes, there's this ongoing lack of respect for 3D open world gameplay despite New Vegas' success and the strengths of that very style, which I simply cannot understand. It almost feel nostalgia-driven, as if anything that diverges from 1 and 2 cannot possibly be any good or an improvement in any way. Neverthless, it should be the public that decides which style they prefer. If I were in the minority, so be it. I simply feel obligated to voice support for 3D open world style since no one else seems to be doing so. And as far as voice-acting goes? As I said, normally I would be in the camp that says "yeah let's skip it." Why is this an exception? Because Obsidian did it right. OMG!!! This is a miracle I've been waiting for for ages as far as video games go. Never before have I played a game where I thought "this voice actor's really good, I wanna google and find out who it is." Whereas I can play Skyrim and absolutely grooooooooaaaaaaaan as NPCs force this faux-Skandinavian accent, pronouncing the same word 40 different ways one after the other (com-rads becomes com-raids two seconds later from the EXACT same character, because this is a totally normal thing people do) in an attempt to "sound foreign-y," all as Bethesda points and says "LOOK, We got big name voice actor #4!!!" as if that automatically validates the voice acting quality as good, New Vegas voice actors are truly a pleasure to listen to. New Vegas got it right: a wide cast of voice actors, no need for "OMG WE GOT SEAN CONNERY AREN'T WE BALLER?" while still managing to get a plaetoria of recognizable names, all with clever management that assigns unique voice actors to only the most important characters with lots of dialog while giving "no name" voice actors (no disrespect intended, these guys are just as good in their own way) to generic characters and makes sure each voice actor truly understands the scene and character. It's refreshing to know that my only criticism of New Vegas voice acting is the infamous "LATER! >:E" that's merely a case of misplaced files. It's refreshing to know that Felicia Day, the voice actress who probably got advertised the most in promos to attract customers, is in my opinion one of the weakest voice actors the game has to offer. So look, while if you came to me right now and asked if Dark Souls II should have more voice acting, I'd give you a resounding "HELL NO" merely out of fear that'd distract from the core focus of the game and drain resources ($$$) from other parts of the game? I would 100% support Obsidian making another Fallout with voice actors. Yknow why? Cause omg they do it right. It's so rare to see a game with exceptional voice acting, so I hardly want to discourage the very company that pulled it off from ever touching the subject again. Please, by all means, encourage this company with this series to continue with voice acting. When they manage to screw up and we have random NPCs trying their hardest to "sound foreign-y!!!" and pronouncing a word like "vawl-cane-oh" one moment and "vüll-khan-noh" the next sentence? Yes, then we can ban Obsidian from voice acting. Until then though? The industry needs them to show it how to do voice acting right, in my opinion. On that note, I hate to sound realist and pessimistic, but I simply don't think this will happen. If it would? Don't get me wrong, I'd be behind it 100%. I'm not saying "I won't play a Fallout unless it has 3D open design and voice acting!!" No no, I was merely defending two minority opinions that I believe have merit and aren't receiving the defense they deserve. That does NOT mean I find isometric design or a lack of voice acting to be terrible. But between Project Eternity, Bethesda's own projects and a presumption of mine that I highly doubt Bethesda would be willing to risk -anything- on a style of game that isn't tried and true for them NOR popular on the market (not exactly unpopular, but regardless, it's a change that could get customers loading up the game and thinking "wtf is this???" when they're accustomed to the style of FO3 and NV already), I simply don't see it happening. Something I desperately wish would happen is, and again I know this won't happen, but...: Am I the only one that couldn't give two ****s about graphics? I honestly wouldn't mind seeing yet another Fallout using the exact graphics, engine, resources etc of FO3 and New Vegas. Screw wasting time developing new graphics and resources, just make another one. Hell, it kind of has it's advantages in the sense that, well, Tale of Two Wastelands mod for PC is simply astoundingly awesome; it's beyond interesting to essentially be able to link of two game worlds and truly feel like these events all occured within the same universe and world. I would love to simply see another spin-off from Obsidian, graphics be damned, or hell a PC mod by Obsidian for New Vegas that simply creates a new world entirely (ala Project Brazil) that has all the proper legal sanctions from Bethesda to allow Obsidian to profit from it. I would pay actual money made out of actual paper to actual Obsidian/Bethesda employees to see either of those happen. Sadly though, and I hate to rain on our parade, I dunno if any of these are possible...

They bought us all the newest Transformers action figures.

I would do anything for another New Vegas. Anything. And no that's not some weaksauce empty claim and exaggeration, I legit would.

I ate bread. Get on my level, scrubs.

Ganon Gannon Know the difference!

Austrian accents: "Close enough" to Scandinavian ones, apparently. Also if Obsidian makes another Fallout I'll mail both Obsidian and Bethesda topless photos of myself. I may be a man with a rather modest A-cup, but hell such news would tease the shirt right off me so they deserve to see the results of their work.

Comes from Scruffy.

Personally I just wanna see a photo of Urquhart's face when Sawyer told him Obsidian funding his parties in Vegas was an important part of the game development process.

You mean how much I care if I can immediately figure out how to pronounce something correctly or not and how long it takes me to grasp it's correct pronounciation? Omfg, NERDS!! Who cares if we get it wrong? I feel like people often forget the purpose of a language is to express oneself, and that doing so is possible even with heavy mispronounciations. This reminds me of how I cannot for the life of me find a Dark Souls video covering Ornstein and Smough and for some reason everyone has to fight about how to pronounce Smough as if it were the most important thing ever. Then Artorias of the Abyss came out, Gough said his own name for us, and there was world peace amongst the lands and there was much rejoicing. Live and learn, and it could be kinda cool to have tiny little references to real world languages from which to learn and get a feel from. I'm pretty sure I can intuitively pronounce words from a lot of languages I don't even speak, and I'd imagine that has something to do with some games I played as a child. Besides, I for one liked your little real-world language references in Honest Hearts. As a German-American dual-citizen who owned the German copy first (forces German language on you...) and later bought an english copy, I was doing little double-takes when I realized the Dead Horses were still speaking "German" even in my english copy. Played games with my head; the kind I get when I go to the Netherlands and my mind is screaming "OMG IS THAT ENGLISH OR IS THAT GERMAN," but it was pretty cool and a nice little extra touch for German speakers.

I'mma be brutally honest and say I tried my hardest to avoid learning ANYTHING about the UK legal system. German Law students are expected to have SOME knowledge of a foreign legal system and given options of ones to study up on a bit, the UK system being amongst them, and I tend to tutor english for money, sometimes for lawyers, businesses and other niche groups where it's harder to find someone with experience in both english and german vocabulary for those areas. Tutored several friends who chose UK's legal system as their little foreign subject matter, and it always ended in me basically doing a collaborative effort with them to try and actually learn it all, because we'd both be sitting there scratching our heads, second-guessing ourselves and wondering if my translations were somehow off because the system sounded so nonsensical and needlessly complex. :D No offense, I mean obviously the system is working (or is it?), but yeah from my perspective and from a typical German perspective, the UK legal system seems like a nightmare, and I rue the days when a law student says they need my help translating and understanding the legal relations between the UK, Guernsey, Isle of Man etc. What I don't understand is why it should matter. That's part of my point: I don't understand ANYONE painting Trayvond as a thug or someone who deserved to die, and I especially don't understand the "Trayvond swung first" thing as an argument for why he's a thug. It honestly shouldn't matter, because what matters is the person's perception of the situation. The legal system seeks to punish and weed out individuals who are in some way a threat to society. In both Trayvond and Zimmerman's case, they're looking for if these two are a constant, potential threat to society. Trayvond swinging first BECAUSE he's aware he's being stalked and is nervous because of it is hardly a case for saying he's a dangerous individual, and he too would have a self-defense case. He swung under extremely specialized circumstances and we know he was aware he was being followed, to which he has every right to be worried, nervous or concerned. I just find it incredibly ironic that Trayvond could've (quite reasonably) believed he needed to do so to defend himself from an inevitable confrontation and some are calling him a thug for it, but Zimmerman provoking such a confrontation and then proceeding to use a gun to resolve the issue is A-OK. And again, this is assuming Trayvond actually swung first. Yes I know that's the story, but the story is based heavily on the defendant's testimony. Obviously that creates issues. Of course I don't neccesarily know if this was Trayvond's thought process either, but my point is that the very people arguing Trayvond's a thug are failing to use the "innocent until proven guilty" mentality that led to Zimmerman being found not guilty. It's hypocricy, plain and simple. We don't know what exactly went down, nor will we ever because the only other guy with a stake in the matter is dead. For all we know his actions could've been incredibly reasonable to rash and violent, but it's hypocritical and unjust to sit there and brand him as a thug when we have no reason to believe so (other than the defendent's testimony, herpderp), confronting someone who's stalking you isn't exactly unreasonable and the same attitude of assuming he's a thug would've gotten Zimmerman a guilty verdict. I think the big thing to take away from this case is that here, the burden of proof was moreso on the prosecution, not the defendant. Why? It's absolute nonsense, because if you were to walk into my apartment right now, find a dead body and I claimed "I used self defense, prove me wrong," how the HELL would you expect to do that? On the flip side, if the burden of proof is on me, then we should be able to find a weapon on the dead guy's body with DNA on it, the fact that he's on my property or not, etc etc. It's an issue of "innocent until proven guilty" meets the burden of proof being on the prosecutor in the case of self-defense. You just have to ask yourself how the hell is ANYONE supposed to prove a defendant did NOT use self-defense is they're found next to a dead body and excessive force is allowed?

I know, as I said I'm a dual-citizen. And as such, I think one thing I've come to learn to do is criticize the US when Germany does it better and vice versa. For example, bureocracies in any country are just annoying as hell, but German bureocracies are easily worse. Likewise, I'd rather deal with a German cop over an American cop any day of the week. In the US you get this guy on an ego trip walking up to your car with a hand on his god damn pistol holster (cause that's totally neccesary), in Germany you get this nice, reasonable guy that was basically required to do a decent amount of law studies himself with his pistol actually locked in place, meaning if I WERE to pull a gun on him I'd have such a huge advantage because it'd take him a couple seconds to even get his out. That right there kinda summons up the difference in attitude, as "if you fear for your life" doesn't quite translate over here as well. It does, but I think the cultural attitude is a bit different and therefore it'd sway in the other direction more often. Regardless, as I've said, the issue is more with how it is from an objective, purely legal perspective. I simply struggle to believe that the same conditions German law has about how you can't PROVOKE danger and then claim self-defense doesn't exist in the US. There's even a specific condition for if you provoke danger but then realize you're in over your head and now scared as hell, iirc. (been a bit since I've worked specifically with self-defense as the main focus, but pretty sure that's there) Of course the lawyers and courts and jury matter. However, there's a difference between a good lawyer managing to make a good case for a client, and a court actually allowing the defendant to bring up that Trayvond might be racist, as if it's at all relevant to the case. The lawyer's JOB is to see to it that his client is represented well, the judge? The court itself? The judge is supposed to make sure the case is fair, on-track, objective and relevant. That kind of stuff should've gotten weeded out before we're even in the court, and yet Trayvond potentially being racist and using racial slurs came up as if it mattered at all. THAT'S the part that gets me. The lawyer's job, in a way, encourages him to attempt bringing such issues to court; I'm not knocking the defense attorney. The court itself though? Absolutely. And I think you misunderstood me. Never claimed self-defense and minimum force don't exist in the UK, was simply naming an example I recalled where the legal systems had dramatically different results. And as I recall, part of their point was how the system the UK uses is dramatically different because it tends to rely on case law more. But that seems to speak against the outcome of the case even more, cause I recall seeing a statistic about the hypocrisy and unpredictability of when Stand your Ground incitement is justified or not; if I can find that statistic again, I'll post it here.

I pledged money because Avellone promised me he'd sing Don't Stop Believin' if I did. And he did. No complaints here.