majestic

Add a few things here and there and it's the perfect guide to BruceVC's posts.

Eternal Darkness 2. My personal dream game has no defined genre or structure. What I want for any game is to give me the same experience that the first playthrough through PS:T and Zelda: Ocarina of Time gave me: To be lost so completely in the game that time stops being noticable. For me these two games were the pinnacle of immersion, the perfect gaming experience never to be reached again afterwards. Oh, that is also probably one of the reasons why I hate Mass Effect 3 so much. The game came this close to reaching a similar level only to end the way it did.

So it is essentially like most recent Tarantino movies except the "everything's falling apart" bit at the end was moved to the 45 minute mark? Damn shame.

1. Yes 2. Definitely 3. Yes, I think so. 4. Indeed!

In terms of breaking established rules the one thing that bothered me most was Han's hyperspace jump behind the Starkiller base shields. Good grief why did they drop a ground team on Endor with a stolen shuttle in Return of the Jedi if they could have just jumped right on top of the shield generator, or just jumped straight to the entrance of the second Death Star's superstructure?

I see, I never followed the Cantina Tours. Well then, that was a straight out bust. On the other hand they also said they'll look into GSF (and that even on the GSF forum) and never really did. PVPers generally whine too much in MMOs anyway - regardless of the MMO they're playing. The funniest part is when they think they have mad skillz in an environment locked to ~40 APM. edit: Reading all this just proves that I was kind of right to quit when I did. It's a pity because I really loved this game and some of its content has the best atmosphere I've ever seen in MMOs.

DA2 wasn't that bad except for the reused assets and I'm not really talking about the fact that most of it plays in three seperate acts within the same area, a city won't completely change its face (barring some cataclysmic event) within a few years, but the fact that seperate caves and houses had the exact same layout all the time no matter where you went. Okay, no, the act three story climax was pretty terrible as well what with the way the templar/mage war started. No, that did not completely freel contrived, and no, certain people certainly did not start to act completely out of character so we can have RAAARGH DEMON BLOODMAGE because we wanted to reuse the Flesh Golem model from DA:O. Oh, and boom goes the Chantry.

Well, that's okay. I watched the entire run of Andromeda even though the show went from campy good fun to a ridiculous space-borne spinoff of Hercules for no other reason than to ogle Lexa Doig in a leather costume every week. The flashback we got when she touched the conveniently placed original lightsaber of Anakin showed her being brought to Jakku while she was pretty young. Not that there isn't sufficient precedence for Jedi training to begin very early that would not really account for her lightsaber prowess (and no, a quarterstaff is not the same proficiency as a blade, no matter how much streamlining D&D got in recent years ).

I think you're mixing Schengen with the "four freedoms" of the internal EU market. Quotas and limits placed on labour immigration of EU citizens are not regulated by the Schengen agreement, that was - and is - solely about abolishing physical barriers and border controls between common borders of nations within the Schengen area. Not that you don't have a point there, but the really rich EU nations and the US appendix north of France don't really need to use any (temporary) suspension of the Schengen agreement as fig leave for limits and quotas - they already got those anyway. If you really think the EU will cut support for the poorer members here's a little reality check: That would be a bad idea. That money is, for the most part, destined to be invested into infrastructure projects. Many of which are then awarded to corporations from the richer members of the EU. For that reason alone this isn't anything but sabre rattling.

RLM has a Half in the Bag episode about TFA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvsiJppCdmk I guess Mike got a bit too hyped about this totally not being like the prequels. Pretty much like I was when I left the theatre and before things settled in (and before a second watch, anyway). Still, it's quite fun to watch.

Odd, I don't recall Bioware stating that it'll be not long before operations - only that they plan on releasing content patches every 6 weeks, which was quickly put to a 6 to 8 weeks exactly one patch later, and during Shadows of Revan while KotFE was being developed Bioware never made any mention about new operations (only that silly scaling). But yeah, it does look like they're actually running on fumes over there even though EA supposedly increased resources for Köfte KotFE. Kind of odd considering that this is supposed to be one of the Hero Engine's strengths: Quickly adding content because developers and artists can work simultaneously on game assets in real time.

It's pretty amazing that the game works at all, considering the basis it is built upon. The Hero engine is an immense turd. Back when SWTOR launched the guys who made it claimed it was Bioware's engineers that messed it up when finishing the engine in-house, but now, four years later, the unmodified Hero Engine is still... a turd. Not to mention that IF is in financial dire straits. Not that this is supposed to excuse Bioware's blundering about, they do seem to have a massive problem with version control. A while back when I still played each new content patch reintroduced the same bugs to the upgraded version of certain relics. Without fail. Content patch -> same bugs come back -> fix three weeks later. I'm still waiting for my "The Red Blade" codex entry that I never got on my operative that I play since launch (well not so much recently, obviously). I kind of have given up on it.

Baby don't hurt me!

I'm not really chiming in on the side of leaving too many questions unanswered. Too many and everything becomes strange, for instance, a while ago when Satellite Reign came out I felt cheated by the ending. It just happens without any prior hints or explanations which I though was really bad. I just disagreed with the nerd-analogy and how important the open questions of PS:T really are in the context of the story it tries to tell.

We already have Cassandra. There were some outraged teenage boys who argued that she has some additional southern landmass. *wink* *wink*

That is a strange analogy.

The compass just points in the same direction. Always. Which is sort of obvious in a fixed perspective isometric view. Where else would "north" go?

Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that. The Practical Incarnation was magnificent in his... practicality, unfettered by any moral consideration.

Starting with 18 in WIS is a must, then distribute among INT and CHA. CHA is a little less important than INT. Focus on WIS while leveling up, get it to 25 as soon as possible (that includes some easy to find early boni to the stat). If I remember correctly the highest INT check is 21, so make that your second priority then work on CHA. The rest of the stats can easily be ignored. Look for a certain NPC that can help you become a mage so that you get most out of the stats - just make sure she is a mage before hitting level 7 (there's a stat level-up bonus that otherwise will go to STR as fighter or DEX as thief) so you get a point in INT as a freebie. Talk to your companions early and often, they all and you gain massive stat improvements through dialog. If you're worried about starting with annoyingly low physical stats you can drop a few points into DEX, maybe start with 15 (that's enough for the entire game). That also helps with playing an evil TNO if you're so inclined, but it's not really necessary. TNO *is* immortal after all and the only downside to dying is that you need to walk back a bit. Unlike in other RPGs, being an evil bastard in Torment is a bit different. You're not just evil for the lulz. You'll end up being a really, really terrible person. Especially to your companions. Heh. EVUL SPOILAH:

No, it isn't.

Of course both are silly. It is, however, possible to earn a living by being the snobbish variant. We call those people art critics.

Ah, now, see... Arcanum is a title that is utterly unmade by the terrible (combat) mechanics while ToEE is a title that is utterly unmade by all the elements that aren't combat. I kind of wish that someone would combine the two into one actually playable game.

I think the complaint was more about developers releasing "in-engine" footage with graphics and effects that are then not present or of reduced quality in the final product. Mostly so that console peasants don't feel bad about being console peasants. Erm, not that this would apply to a PC-only game.

Did you ever meet any of those swaggetarian hipster guys that seem to pop up everywhere? I'm perfectly certain such equivalents exist for entertainment too. Like a bunch of people I know who pretend to like jazz because it makes them feel superior to the grunts enjoying a bunch of Taylor Swift. Heh.

Careful, we don't want Luzianus to come back. Better not to talk too openly about this.