PrimeJunta

@Keyrock, yes. Yes, it was. Mind-bogglingly bad. Puts the midichlorians to shame. (Well, almost.) @ManifestedISO Those were among the minor quibbles IMO. I could go on about the problems in the systems and gameplay too, many of which were far bigger than the economy-related stuff, but eh.

I'm mostly writing this just because I need to get it out of my system, but partly because it relates to something close to my heart. Namely, writing, and the quality thereof, in computer RPG's. I just finished the Mass Effect trilogy (finally), and it's made me want to scream almost all through. Not because it's irredeemably bad. It isn't. There's some fine writing in it actually, Mordin and the Krogan for example. But because it would have been so easy to make it so much better, and because it illustrates a lot of what's wrong with writing in computer games. A cRPG's story is, by definition, not perfectly linear. You make choices which have consequences, at the very least, or you can do things in a different order, or choose how you react to characters and events. This means that consistency in the setting is paramount. If the setting makes sense and sticks to the rules that have been made up for it, then every individual event and story-let can also make sense. If it doesn't, it won't. Mass Effect's great flaw is that the authors didn't even try to have the setting and story make sense, and they keep violating the rules they have established earlier. It wouldn't even have been hard. My version follows, and it didn't take me more than a half an hour to think it up. The Reapers. The crucial flaw in ME: the authors had no idea what their motivations were and came up with a really colossally stupid explanation at the end. My solution: The Crucible, and the completely nonsensical deus-ex-machina endings. My solution: The Normandy and Shepard. My main beef with Shepard and the Normandy is that Normandy was a warship and Shepard is a soldier -- but the game itself has her swashbuckling across the galaxy, romancing aliens left and right, and doing all kinds of inconsequential stuff while the Universe is being destroyed. It simply doesn't fit. I would've written a different Shepard in order to keep the swashbuckling. I would also have made the various cultures of the galaxy much more distinctive; in particular I thought it was a cryin' shame that everywhere looked either like a bombed-out parking garage or an office building, with even the exact same font in use all across the galaxy. I would also have made the Asari Communists, but that's only because I think Communists are cool and no galaxy would be complete without interstellar Communists. End rant. Had to get that out of my system somehow.

Also polyamory is wrong. You don't mix Greek and Latin roots. It's polyphilia or multiamory dagnabbit! (JK)

The personal is the political, mang. The status quo is not neutral. Silently approving it is a political act, every bit as much as protesting it. Everything we do and say shapes our social environment, in games forums as much as anywhere else. I also don't accept that criticizing a game's particle effects is OK but criticizing its use of racial or gender stereotypes is not, because it might make a small minority of reactionary white males upset. Sorry, @Malekith!

:must: :resist: :temptation: :fail: :runs off to buy a beta key:

@Macrae, what ethnicity and gender are you, out of curiosity?

Absolutely.

Not exacctly. We're not infallible. I'm sure there are times when people see racism when it's not really there. I'm also pretty damn sure that this is much rarer than not speaking up when seeing racism that is actually there. So I'm not saying that we should call out racism if it isn't there. What I am saying is that (1) we should develop more tolerance for the "false positives" so that the social cost of calling out the real thing becomes lower, and (2) that a lot of the time we -- as in, we whites -- tend to reflexively reject call-outs of racism without examining if they actually have some merit, and this is bad. I.e., I don't think false accusations of racism are a problem big enough to get all flustered about, whereas I do think that racism is. Therefore, I think we can fairly safely ignore any events of the former, while paying attention to the latter.

@BruceVC I kind of think the opposite. Namely, that we white people tend to be hypersensitive to being accused of racism and raise a sh1tstorm -- "playing the race card," "playing the victim," "social justice warrior" etc. ad nauseam -- whenever somebody brings it up. This puts a high social price on calling out racism, which means that most racism remains unchallenged. Fact: the system we live in is racist. Fact: we can't help absorbing unconscious influences from said system. Consequence: we're all racist to some degree or another. Ethical imperative: being racist is bad. Ethical consequence: trying not to be racist is good. Conclusion: therefore, being called out on racism is no big deal. Sometimes everybody does or says racist stuff. If called out, see if you can learn something about your unconscious attitudes from it, and try not to do it again. If the price I have to pay for moving towards a less racist and more just world is getting occasionally called out for racism/sexism/whatever, then that is a pretty piddling price to pay, compared to what the people at the actual receiving end of racism go through in the system as it is. And finally -- and I really have to emphasize this -- I do not believe it is wrong to enjoy an artwork (or whatever) even if it is problematic in many respects. For example I am an unabashed fan of Richard Wagner's operas, despite the incredible unpleasantness of the composer and the highly problematic elements in them. Recognizing that a work has problematic features does not and should not mean a demand to ban it or not enjoy it. You can recognize that there is no excuse for the way Picasso treated women, while being awed at his art. That's how people are. Contradictory.

Intent matters, of course, but it's not that simple. Most racism is unconscious: it's embedded into social structures and people's conditioned assumptions of what those structures are and how they work. This means that entirely well-meaning people who get extremely upset at accusations of racism can, in fact, do and say shockingly racist things. (Exhibit A: Paula Deen and her "plantation wedding" plans.) This is why the "I get to decide if what I say is racist" statement is fundamentally flawed. Unless you're an actual card-carrying Nazi, you're almost certainly not aware of your racism, which means you won't recognize it when you act in racist ways or say racist things. If a member of a minority tells you that something you said or did was racist, it is at the very least worth taking a very close look at it. 'Cuz they just might be right.

Big thumbs-up, @nzmccorm. An evil race that is evil because it's evil is boring. If you have to have orcs, at least question the trope, like in Arcanum. If you want to have a warlike culture, then make a warlike culture. Base it on a real culture, or make one up. Unthinkingly regurgitating clichés is boring. Leave that to BioWare.

Cooldowns, aggro mechanics, and locked-in tank/damager/support combat roles for classes, to name three things. Admittedly I'm assuming they're in and central to the gameplay only because they were in before. Maybe they've completely overhauled the combat and gotten rid of them.

Came across this rare photo of an actual historical woman warrior in full armor. Thought it was pretty cool. They were known as onna-bugeisha, and favored the naginata and bow. The armor ought to look familiar enough though...

Seriously, Sarex? You just got a list of specific critiques of the piece. I don't even...

A death godlike with pink sparkles instead of black mist would be entertaining, admittedly.

@Karranthain That does look good and pretty realistic, other than the hammer/mattock which would probably be a bit unwieldy as a real weapon. Unless dwarves actually are much stronger than humans, of course.

There are going to be a few variants, I imagine. They showed this earlier:

Adventurers' Hall is already in. You can make exactly the party you like, minus any companion quests of course.

Now imagine that, but painted on velvet.

It's looking bloody marvelous from where I'm at, especially the lighting. Didn't think it'd be possible to get dynamic lights like that in a 2D scene, although it's obvious after they explained it.

Tastes are funny. My BioWare preference list would be almost exactly the opposite of yours, TMZuk. Jade Empire > BG2 > NWN > ME2 > BG > DA:O > ME1. Haven't played DA2 nor finished ME3. So far ME3 seems to place somewhere between ME1 and ME2. ME2 was a glorified shooter, but it was a pretty good glorified shooter. Gameplay was much better than in ME, with less obvious filler, and the writing was better overall. As to NWN, yeah the story was bad but the mechanics were pretty well implemented, there was a quite a lot of stuff to use them on even in the OC, and the toolset was excellent -- some of the expansions and mods were downright enjoyble. Hordes of the Underdark was a great dungeon crawl, Dragon Crown of Cormyr was a lot of fun, as was Darkness over Daggerford. JE, BG2, and NWN are the only ones I've enjoyed playing multiple times, I never finished BG or DA:O, and only finished ME1 because the crit path was so short. I don't really get what y'all see in ME1; I thought the gameplay was clunky, the character and item mechanics bad -- I mean, REALLY bad --, and the writing hackneyed. There was really precious little game there; only, what, four actual missions, plus a lot of Fedexing and bouncing around on identical planets raiding identical bases. Pretty cool cinematics and voice acting, for sure, but if I want to see a movie I'll go see one, and as movies go ME1 wouldn't have been worth the time.

Mark Twain: “Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

Er, @Lephys. You are verbose and often redundant. You write a page when a line would do. These are no great sins, but they do have a side effect -- I, for example, usually simply don't read your posts, because extracting your point from that mass of words takes too much time and effort for the payoff. A forum is a scannable medium, to be read fast. It's not a blog, news outlet, or novel. I believe you would communicate much more effectively if you found a way to reduce the wordiness.

You know, you're right. That's probably why I found them least offensive of the BioWare romances.

That would be Magran. Don't expect it would be easy to blow her up.