Valsuelm

Well Russia is generally ranked as third world country, which is likely why Putin made a priority to nationalized media, and I read that they have directives to broadcast at least 50% of reports must be "positive" after all if you are an oblivious fly a big pile of warm steaming **** looks sweet.. That is exactly why the circumstance of the vote were illegal, people got no debate what the ramifications of their vote, iirc opposition members were escorted from the hall, and Russia propaganda was a huge ad campaign for Russian forward base Crimea. As for what culture shock it may incur, I don't know since the majority of Crimea were Russian speakers who watched Russia news as their primary outlet.. besides people don't tend to admit mistakes, and conscription might help unemployment in the short term so who knows, will have to wait and see. You fundamentally don't understand what 'third world' even is. Russia, is second world, not third. The term is all about who is aligned with whom. First world generally being US, NATO, and it's allies, and Second world being Russia, China, and their allies. In other words, east vs. west, or in some people's mind's historically democracy vs. communism. The Third World makes up the folks that aren't directly aligned with either the First or Second. Generally those in the 3rd world came to be viewed in almost a derogatory manner as they were considered 'backwards' by those in the First, for not joining the First. Dismissed with hubris as if they don't matter. It is those in the Third World that were often used as pawns by the First and Second to gain influence, resources, etc, or attack the opposing World's influence and resources. ie: Vietnam, various coups and guerrilla wars in Africa, South America, and the middle east, etc. The whole Three Worlds concept is western in origin, and even though the Cold War is over (or is it?) it's still applicable in some people's minds today.

It's not antisemitism.

Way to exaggerate and misinterpret.

If it makes sense for the environment then ok, sure, no problemo. But if you're actually designing every part of the game to cater to people who aren't savvy enough to split their party up at times, I'm disappointed.

Uh... no. Tactics were a large part of dungeoneering in BG and BG2, in particular in those smaller areas. I enjoyed Firewine Ruins and the rest. Never once did I think the corridors were too small, and the pathing complaints are very exaggerated. I seriously wonder at the game playing abilities of many of the people making these complaints. As others have mentioned, if you don't split your party up sometimes, and in particular when you're going through the smaller places, you're doing it wrong. And yes, it bears repeating, you are doing it wrong. While there are options, there are indeed right and wrong ways to go about playing the game. It irks me to think that anything in PoE will be designed around people making such complaints, far better would be to explain in the manual or somehow hint in game that splitting the party is a good idea (or whatever other thing that might not be obvious to an inexperienced player that would be wise to do). A large reason I backed this game was the hopes that noobery would not be catered to, as it was not in the IE titles, with the exception of the aforementioned sped up walking in the IWDs, which was horribad imo. They got the walking speed right with the first BG. Insofar as the pathing, really, turn it all the way up in the settings and click your destination more than once if it's way across the map and the pathing is better than most modern games even (two clicks is almost always sufficient). I'm playing through NWN2 right now and I find the pathing there to be worse than in the IE games, especially inside. Though it's likely that fewer destination control options (ie no formations) and lack of real party order compared to the IE games the are really the issue. (I've said to myself 'no really guys, I said FOLLOW ME!' too many times in NWN2..... it's great when it works, but it's not rare when it doesn't). And to go a little further on splitting your party: For pretty much everywhere, in the IE games and other RPGs with similar party make up I always scout ahead with my rogue, leaving the rest of the party behind, and only bringing who is needed to a fight after I find enemies (how you generally avoid the noobish complaint of zomg my wizard was 1 shot in the IE games; don't put your wizard in harms way noob ). If you're trollopsing through the unexplored wilderness or wherever with your whole party all the time I can only imagine how many times you end up having to reload after stumbling on something that rocks your party's world. If you scout, you can control who enters the fight first, and from what angle.

I'm astounded at this.

That's weird? How?

The sanctions against Russia may finally be felt in real terms. Poor Finns, innocent bystanders to all of this, and they're the ones paying. A matter of time before Putin caves now? Is the a cause of celebration that sanctions can actually do some good? Or is this what it all really is?

Quite interesting logic here. At some point of time some people believed cleansing certain regions from certain ethnicities are "what is best for the region". Anyway, looking at how everything turned out for Iraq, Lybia, Syria and Egypt I kinda think someone asking wrong people about "what is best for the region". Actually you have unintentionally supported my view about the right way the West can implement regime change. You mentioned some examples, Libya is the correct way to implement regime change and Syria is the result of where the West is prevented from getting involved by the vetoing power of Russia and China So lets look at the state of Syria and Libya now and ask yourself what country is better off? Yes things aren't perfect in Libya but its no where near the catastrophic level of economic and social collapse that Syria is at.... So once again I do support the principle of Western intervention to assist with regime change in some cases. Libya was far far far far far far FAR better off before the 'west' got involved, attacked, and toppled Gaddafi. Same for Syria. The west is involved in Syria. Who do you think is funding and arming the 'rebels'?

No need to apologize as it's not really an old thread but this one before it was interrupted. That threads are closed on this forum just for reaching an arbitrary # of posts is pretty retarded in my opinion. IIRC, this was originally done for stablility reasons—huge topics caused issues and posts would go missing or something; it's not arbitrary. The software has been updated numerous times however, so I'm not sure it's still necessary. Also, the old version of the forum software allowed you to go into "reply" mode even in locked threads, where you could then copy the whole post and paste it on the new thread, with proper quotations and link to the original post. Maybe the mod squad could check with Admin if it would be possible to have that option back or enable the "multiquote" button in locked topics? If the forum software really becomes unstable due to a large # of posts in a thread I'd say it's past time to ditch the company that Obsidian uses and move on to new forum software. The technology for stable threads with posts well beyond 500 and into the many many many thousands has been around for a couple of decades now. And yes, I preferred the old way of quoting/replying as well. The new way can be a bit buggy, and I find myself going into BBC Code mode fairly often.

I recommend The Shootist for a great John Wayne movie. It's his last film, my favorite of his, and he's surrounded by good actors in it.

I brought your concern up In another thread and Obsidian assured us that we'd see only real expansions and no piecemeal DLCs. I do recommend reading that thread if you have any questions/concerns about the partnership as BAdler has done a very good job of addressing the concerns mentioned there. Clarification from BjornB is of course much appreciated as well.

I wouldn't say Gravity and ER are similar at all. And ER was horribad imo. Gravity is the only movie I've seen in 3D that I actually liked in 3D. And Volourn.... the commercials for Gravity turned me off to it as well, but I went with my movie buddy as he wanted to see it and was pleasantly surprised. Gravity was at least a good flick, great really in IMAX 3D (how I saw it).

The story of the 47 Ronin is one of the greatest stories in the annuls of world history methinks, and one with so much great potential for an amazing movie. Not only did Hollywood drop the ball with their recent telling of the story, they squashed it, opened it up, pooped in it. pissed on it, then smashed it and put it through a wood chipper and sent what was left off to ferment in mad cow manure.

I agree that the CoC insanity mechanic is pretty retarded. Not only was it unrealistic but it had the potential to take the ability of a person to role play their character out of their hands, dictating to them how they reacted in a permanent manner (which is bad game design for an RPG). I always preferred Beyond The Supernatural 1st edition to CoC (I've not played 2nd edition and it's my understanding that it's somewhat in limbo). Granted some house rules were used, and it always depends on who you play with, but to this day BTS was the most fun PnP RPG I ever played due to the campaign subject matter and setting. On the subject of insanity. There is one sure path to insanity, it's called denial. And that's how the vast majority of people get there. On the subject of love. No, love is not the result of omission. Rand didn't know what she was talking about with that either. Not real love anyways. Real love is unconditional and it is not blind. One can see the faults, imperfections, etc and still love. Most people in modern society really suck at character judgement and suffer from varying degrees of denial. These folks rarely truly love someone. On the subject of depression. This is a much more complicated subject as there are many ways and reasons for which one can become sad to varying degrees, which really are dependent on the person and their circumstances.

The quality is assured if I bought something? I dunno, I've bought a lot of things over the years that turned out to be poop once the box was opened (hence why I have so little faith in the game industry overall these days). I think anyone backing the game that opted for physical goods can and should expect high quality physical goods, at the very least to the level of quality we found with the games that inspired PoE. That's what we told we were going to get, and that's what I expect to get. I'm pretty sure Obsidian will deliver, they will lose many of their most ardent supporters if they don't, and really... I think they truly want to deliver quality. I will genuinely be surprised if they don't.

That was the first golden age of PC gaming, though I'd say it started sooner than 1988 it did end around '91.. The mid 90s was horrible overall for PC gaming, for a time the consoles really did almost exclusively have the better games. Unfortunately this time around, with the current dearth of good PC games there is also a dearth in good console games. My hope is that PoE and Torment represents a light at the end of the tunnel. or at least a bright reprieve in the darkness.

My thoughts: Additional interface options are pretty much always good, especially when they fall into the customization/preferences category like this suggestion does.

I enjoyed one of the Twilight movies (I don't even know which one it was I was dragged to) only because of the eye candy in the form of Kristen Stewart on screen. Harry Potter however, was horribly bland I thought. Tried to read and watch each repsectively but couldn't finish either. But I wasn't a tween or younger when they came out so perhaps the appeal is lost on me (though I normally love fantasy), then again I never really liked 'YA' books even when I was a 'YA', but I've been reading full length 'adult' novels since I was about 8. That said, as I've said previously, the Hunger Games trilogy was a pleasant surprise. I've heard others mention 'The Host', I'll have to check that out. Likely will see Divergent in the coming days.

What were the other ones? Only 'YA' movie I've seen that I liked was the Hunger Games and it's sequel. Which was a pleasant surprise.

Skyrim, followed by either Fallout 3 or Oblivion. I really tried to like FO3, I liked the first two FOs of course, and I attempted to play through FO3 on three separate occasions as a buddy of mine said it was the best thing since sliced bread, but frankly I think it was **** and always stopped after a few hours. Good looking **** it was, but still **** all the same. Bethesda makes some of the worst games out there in my opinion. They excel at graphics, marketing, and hiring good voice actors, not at game design.

I agree with this. I think my problem with rogues is that devs always try to make them as effective in combat as fighters, rather than giving them fun rogue stuff to do outside of combat. The Quest For Glory series has had the best class implementation in games IMO. Indeed. And this is because the QFG was made before the asinine concept of 'must have class balance' permeated the minds of developers. A concept that has gone a long way towards dumbing down games in recent years, the homogenization of classes in games, and making them less interesting overall. The whiny posts on forums of 'zomg my warrior can't take that fireball spitting wizard' should have been and should be ignored. I don't think the gems of yesteryear would ever have been made if their game designers paid as much heed as many designers today do to the plethora of retardism posted by players who frankly are just bad at the game and/or lack understanding of the mechanics on your average game forum these days.

As in most cases, The Hunger Games books are better than the movies.

Level scaling, in particular foes scaling with your level, is one of worst game designs out there. It's a primary reason why the TES games suck in my opinion, and the reason I did not buy D3's expansion.

If it's that much of a snooze fest for you, why watch it?