melkathi

I think the acceptance of Mike being Mike, with his own personality, is the major factor that liberates you during dialogues. In Mass Effect, Dragon Age or other games, Shepard, or whatever the character is called, appears to be given personality by you (even though this is impossible, as the dialogue has to be pre-written and de facto includes personality - that is another discussion, I guess, about why some games are doomed to anger players ) while Mike's character stays the same, it is only the way he judges a situation and decides to handle it that changes. Something the dialogue tutorial with Westridge tries to explain even. From there on, the "right" approaches are pretty much intuitive and, since there are only labels for the approach and nothing to actually read, should not take time. You see a man in a dingy bar enjoying a quit drink. What are you going to do? Wave a badge at him? Of course he wont like that. Sit down, order a drink... you have the time to spare for that after all. But it will be Mike who does the actual sitting down.

So, at what point do people have to start using the spoiler tags?

That's why later you should move on to Startopia. Best game from the post-bulfrog-era made by former bullfrogians.

I enjoyed meeting Reinhart so much, that I forget all other characters. (not direct quotes) "How did you survive the mansion?" "You mean the meeting of all legion descendants in one location? That was so obviously a trap, I didn't go."

Waily, waily, waily!

Jane Austen! ( You said I should pick just one )

Great idea! Food for thought: Gorth feeds lizards. But Fionavar is a huge green lizard. Is there a connection? Does Gorth try to raise a Fionavar 2.0 ? Or is there something even more sinister looming in our future? Find out soon in our Season Special: What You Did Today - Rise of the Poisonous Lizard Moderators edit: just on a side note to that: Gorth feeds lizards cheese. Fionavar is a wine connoisseur. That can't be coincidence.

While it's not Moo2, Endless Space is still one good game

Started Spec Ops last night. Too early to give an opinion, since I only played 10 minutes before supper.

Gah, now the suspense is killing me. Will Cantousent respond to the message despite having been asked not to? Will he do it exactly because he was asked not to? Will the mysterious poster read it? What about the Quest of the mysterious poster to discover the fabled Ignore Function? Will he be successfull? What perils will he face on this Quest? If Cartousent decides to reply to the message, will the mysterious poster have found the fabled Ignore Function in time? Even protected by the fabled Ignore Function, will the mysterious poster be able to resist the siren song of the View It Anyway option? Is the mysterious poster even a he? Or is the narrator asking these questions unintenionally promoting sexist internet stereotyping? Who is this mysterious poster anyway? For that matter, who is Cartousent? Will these questions be answered? Tune in next week for another exciting episode of What You Did Today

΅ηaτ Ρaιτηε σaιδ oops, sorry, keyboard set to wrong language... "What Raithe said"

Playing Age of Wonders, Giana Sisters, Geneforge and Spec Ops. Which sounds like a lot but I really only did about 30 mins of gaming today

My point is though that for a choice to matter as a moral dilemma, then the person making the choice must not be choosing between adhering to their morals or not, but between the weight different aspects of their morals have. Moral greyness is just as subjective as morality itself. And a choice does not need simply legitimacy and understandability: it needs moral legitimacy. Over the top example: I want to be famous. Understandable and legitimate. So i) I spend my life fighting poverty ii) I go to some casting show or iii) I grab a gun and go on a killing spree: everybody knows me. That is not morally grey. Goal and motivation were legitimate and understandable, but they had no moral relevance. There were a good, neutral and evil choice, but no moral dilemma. There are differences that you don't seem to look at. First is you use choice and dilemma interchangably. A choice can be moral without being a dilemma or morally grey. You choose to do an action based on morals or not. The other thing is that you talk about goals, motivations, gains and pay-offs. But for these to affect the morality of the choice and make it grey, then the those goals and gains must be moral in nature. Caesar's Legion butchers, enslaves and rapes anyone who is not part of the Legion (or happens to be of the wrong gender). If you put this on the moral scale, for there to be greyness, then there must be something on the other side to give a semblence of balance. To balance the means we need an end. What is the end? The murderers and slavers have murdered and enslaved everyone there was and are continuing the rape? In Dragon Age, Loghain's act of allowing the enslavement of the elves is morally grey: a morally wrong action to reach the higher goal of defeating the blight. Dragon Age 2, the choice to let a bloodmage live because he can assist you in finding the bloodmage you are hunting for, morally grey as you weigh the potential evil of the first mage against the known evil of the second. The desecration of Andraste's ashes was not a moral dilemma. It was a faux-moral choice just to add another choice to the game. You could interpret a moral dilemma into findign the Ashes: a boost to moral during the dark days of the blight, but also strengthenign of the religious power of the Chantry which you may not see as a positive result. Then the dilemma though is: do I go discover the ashes or should I better leave them lost - if you did not want them found, why waste time finding them? Arcanum, as great as the ending was, had no moral greyness in the choice to side with Kerghan. Mass Effect choices (and I haven't played 3) where often simply silly: if I use the sniper rifle to shoot one of the attacking droids then I am a renegade but if I hand the rifle back to Garrus and then shoot the droids with my shotgun I am not? Starcontrol 2 had the dilemma of allying with the Druuge or not. The Druuge require human sacrifice to power their furnaces. Can we fight the Khor-Ah without them or do we need their help to safe the species as a whole?

Hmm I haven't played in a while. For some reason with the main campaign it didn't stick with me

Then after a while grades will count even less. Nobody trusts grades from systems they didn't experience themselves If you work for international organisations, be they BINGOs, the UN system or whatever, after your first job the work experience will be all that counts. People will glance at your CV and skim through your cover letter. Neither of those is likely to mention grades. For them to look at your grades means that the whole package of who you are already has them interested. All grades show is that yes, you meet the qualification requirements. They probably will never be taken into account (after the first job) in any situation other than a tie breaker. And in those situations, as I understand it, people do not look for something to help them decide who to choose, but they look for something to give them an excuse to pick the one they lean towards. What area are you planning to work in?

Based on my moral compass? Indeed I do. What New Vegas did right in my opinion is to not create a clear cut good faction. The NCR is rather grey. But if the choice is to aid the NCR, Mr. House, go it on my own or assist Caesar's Legion, then I am faced with three grey choices and no fourth.

I can't because I never see a "dilemma". Obviously I will save the slaves from the Legion Outpost. Obviously I'll stop the cannibals. No dilemma for me anywhere Besides, there can not be clear cut good/evil moral dilemmas. The dichotomy of good/evil is a thing of opposits and a moral dilemma requires the existence of morals. If one has morals, there is no dilemma. If one has no morals, it ceases being a moral choice. A moral dilemma can only exist if there is a grey area that has to be morally navigated: Though shall not kill - yet if I do not kill this person, they will kill someone else. A deadly sin, the damnation of my eternal soul weighed against the protection of another man's right to life. On the other hand: one person paying you to save someone from canibals, while they pay you to let them keep eating people in secret. There is a question whether you believe it moraly wrong to eat people. Yes, then there is no choice to be made. No, then there is no moral part to your dilema. Though you mostly already explained that far more eloquently Now in the Witcher, there are dilemmas. Do you support the elves? Their cause is just. Their methods are questionable... but then again how else are they going to fight? Their leader is a complete bastard. Do you support the order? They are a bunch of racists. Their leader though is actually a good person. What good are good rank and file if the head is rotten vs how bad can an organisation remain if the leadership seems well-meaning. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together: Do you help commit a crime to frame your enemy and thus create the mass anger that will strengthen your rebellion and allow you to free your people? Or do you refuse to participate, knowing full well that you can't stop the events from happening? Those are dilemmas, not just choices.

To be fair though: Sean Bean getting killed has become kind of a staple. I want a completly unpredictable ending where everyone dies except for Sean Bean!

nose?

It was originally a pre-order bonus, that could be played a couple of weeks before release while waiting for the core game. They later released it as a DLC "Dead Legions" or something like that, I think. It adds quite a bit to the game because it is a prelude to what happens, explaining quite a bit of what is going on and fleshing out a couple of npcs that otherwise may have you go "Huh?" (though it probably had a lot of people go "Huh?" when they started up the prologue and where playing romans with no mention of Camelot or anything arthurian ) The real problem? It is probably a better story than the main campaign and set up better. You actually go through a character creation process with multiple choice scenarios that define your stats, class and starting troops.

They simplified KA2 a bit too much. Flying enemies were my favourid as I had one set of archers specialized in shooting flyers... Redsleeves or what are they called? Are you playing just the campaign or also the dead legion prologue?

Still playing Age of Wonders. This playthrough is taking me ages. Probably something to do with me keeping a diary of events

I like to irritate grammar naztis But nah...I just type real fast so sometimes a typo slips trough. It was driving me crazy "I know the actual joke is that Noris thought he was wrong, but is that a typo or is that meant to be a secret joke to throw people off track? Am I overthinking this? Did I fall for it and am I completly off track now?"

Thanks DeathQuaker. I was looking for an excuse to look into Pathfinder

alternatively it may be because its a fun game