Endrosz

1. It is a young adult novel with no age restriction. The Krueger movies are adult horror movies. Big difference. 2. I don't think that any argument can be made that Krueger serves as a point of identification for the viewer. We're outside of him, never think of being friends with him and sharing a table on a Friday night. Bella, on the other hand, is the protagonist, and the narrative is even told from a first person POV. When she is portrayed as powerless and dependent on men (the essay aluminiumtrioxid linked highlights this in detail), the reader is drawn into that. Yes, those stalker/abuse/etc. undertones DO matter a lot in light of these facts. I've never read the books, but I've seen the first movie (which is, I am told, pretty faithful to the book), and it creeped ME out. And I'm an adult guy, who simply values relationships based on mutual trust and respect, not a teenage girl filled with uncertainty and low self-esteem. Again, this is fine, I have nothing to say against Fifty Shades of Grey as a novel for adults.

Blackmailed? Here, have some wubwub as consolation: :wub:

Outlast is 66% off at GOG. It's a horror-adventure-exploration game, and the reviews are pretty good.

Once again you impress me with your insight. Yes, it's entirely plausible that Stephanie Meyer, as a first-book author (first books are always more "raw"), didn't consciously create these scenarios. I also won't argue with Gaider over his statement that Meyer stumbled upon something essential that resonated with a lot of readers, even before the series became a mainstream overhyped thing. Yes, there's something deep down in recesses of the Twilight Saga. I just have a foreboding feeling that I don't really want know what that essence is. That it's something best left undisturbed...

A few years back when I was seeing a female headshrink, once we had a great conversation about this exact topic. She, knowing the topic of abusive relationships all too well, explained to me why Edward is a very creepy stalker in real-life terms and that the whole series just "smells" of abuse.

I thought about this, and I think the core question is about being impenetrable. A game is made (mostly) trivial if there are ways to make all the harm the enemy can do go away. And if X party members (where X is less than 6) is enough to make you impenetrable to all forms of possible harm, then you don't need 6... What can harm you in an IE game? -- Physical attacks. You can get extra high AC (here's an IWD2 HoF FAQ which tells you, among other things, how to get AC up to 72, that's the impenetrable level since the highest attack bonus for enemies is 52), or you can use meat shields in the form of summons, there's Stoneskin and Protection from Missiles, there are AoE control spells -- there are actually a number of ways to make pshyical damage to your party diminished to negligible levels. -- Spells and spell-like abilities. Use a scroll or potion of magic whatever, and poof, you're suddenly protected. There are also specific spells and magic items which give you blanket, long-lasting protection against nasty effects: death effects, mind-affecting, elemental damage, etc. And then we didn't even use mage spells like Spell Turning (ADnD) or Spell Mantle (3rd ed). My favorite example of this is the Master level of the Energy Resistance power in KoToR 2 (it's not an IE game, but it's related, uses D20 mechanics). It gives you a huge damage reduction to energy damage (20 points), which happens to include all lightsabers. It lasts for an eternity from a combat standpoint, 120 seconds. Poof, those hard fights against multiple and/or strong Jedis and Siths are now completely trivial if you invested in this power. Only critical hits will get through... then you equip the implant which negates critical hits, and just stand there as some Sith Lord whacks you futilely. Comical. (In my mind's eye, it makes me imagine an alternative version of the movies: Darth Vader lunges at Luke, aiming to cut off his hand in that epic duel... but Luke just lets him connect, and stands there smiling. "Master Yoda taught me Energy Resistance, you bitch! Now bow down and lick my boots.") -- Traps. Most traps can be disarmed out of combat, or you can simply heal back the trap damage if you don't have a thief/rogue. I played NWN OC that way, for example, I was a wizard, chose Linu the cleric as a companion and sucked up trap damage, no problem. The few traps that are placed in combat zones, most of those you can avoid while the fighting is going on. Bottom line, traps became nuisances in the '90s RPGs, stopped being real threats. In the old tile-based RPGs, like the Bard's Tale series, traps were deadly, because there was no rest scumming or save scumming to shake off the effects, and traps could instantly kill or turn insane or turn to stone or age (turn old, decreased attributes) characters. --- In a well-designed party/squad tactical game, you can't become impenetrable. And that's why you need others, that's why an additional party member is always welcome. Here's how Incubation does it. -- Armor: 1. Armor has different protection values for different attack direction. Front is good, back is weak, side is in between. The net result is that you need the other squad members to watch your back. If you're surrounded, or allow the enemy to shoot from the back, YOU WILL TAKE DAMAGE. If this happens 3-4 times during the enemy's turn, you're DEAD, even with max HP. 2. There is no single best armor in the game. You either choose Assault Armor, which gives strong front armor and negligible side and back armor, or you choose Battle Armor, which has lesser front armor, but better side and back armor. 3. A few really strong enemies. Some enemy damage cannot be fully stopped even by front armor, only mitigated. Which means you can't just tank those enemies for as long as you like. -- Morale Even if an attack fails to penetrate. it will substract 1 morale point from that unit. When morale drops to 0, the unit panics, and you can't do anything with him/her on your turn. Morale will raise automatically, IF he/she is not mobbed again. So if you're mobbed by weak enemies that you can't destroy fast enough, you can still lose a unit eventually even if that unit's armor is impenetrable to them initially. This is why even the weakest enemies are dangerous in large numbers, even late-game, and another reason for proper teamwork. All told, your marines are not impenatrable in Incubation, and there's absolutely NO WAY to make them so. Even if you disregard the ammo issue (there are weapons equipped with bayonets, so you have a melee option, and theoretically you can kill unlimited enemies with it), you need others to win. You know, actual squad tactics like bait-and switch, support fire/overwatch, using height advantage, and so on. (Incubation has levels and skill points, so it's an RPG lite, by the way.)

This is a complete non-issue for me, but.... Just you know, the US Army started development of body armor for females in 2011, after receiving numerous complaints about bruising etc. The first combat deployments of female-fitted body armor happened in 2012. However, the major changes are NOT in the breast area, but in the arms and the hip area. So that seems to prove that there's no need for bulged breastplates and such. This is the first half of the article, there's more beyond the link. EDIT: This just in! Replaying BG1, and I encountered this conversation right now: Right-o. When I encounter my close friend Boob, I turn into Dimwit, Brainless and Moron, all at the same time.

Quests, NPC stories and personalities give a lot of opportunity to make fun of what's going on. RPGs are prime material for great talkers to show off their own brand of humor. Just think of what Avellone did in his yet-be-finished Arcanum playthrough (you hear that, MCA? probably not), how he mocked elves, narrow dialogue choices, simplistic NPCs, and many other things. And he doesn't do game commentary for a living, he just spoke his mind.

Brian Fargo said in an interview that based on other KS games, if the game's a success, then the sales will surpass 10 times the number of KS backers as "first 3 months" sales (that's roughly when you can sell it reliably without heavy discounting). That projection means 800 000 units sold in the frist 3 months, assuming Eterniy turns out to be a success. More than 1.2 million as first year sales then seems likely, though most of those additional sales will be at discounted prices.

I kind of agree that if a party-based game is soloable, it's probably because of lacking monster/combat/encounter design. Not necessarily, there's certainly a lot of player skill and relentless experimentation involved in such feats, but most of the time it comes down to abusing some part of the game. Soloing IWD 2 Heart of Fury mode, which is definitely the hardest challenge in the IE games, is based on endless Monster Summoning (+Animate Dead, +Gate etc.), best done with an aasimar paladin 1/sorcerer X. There's basically no other way to do it (if there is, please let me know!). It abuses these facts: - No limit on summons. - Summons get the same stat upgrades that mobs get, so these spells become automatically über-powerful by playing HoF, while all others spells don't (in fact, thanks to the +10 to monster attributes AND higher base saves AND tons of extra hit points, most of other the spells get significantly weaker in actual use). So the extra party helpers which are disposable by default are also incredibly strong in HoF, and numerous by DnD default. And yes, I consider that broken game design. Abusing broken game design DOESN'T make you a better player. That's just the power fantasy that you tell yourself. There's very little skill involved in the above playstyle, you call a crapton of summons safely out of enemy sight, drop a few buffs and then focus target mobs, maybe throwing in some AoE disable spells like the Symbols or Wail of the Banshee at the start, hoping for a few fails on the tough HoF saves. Repeat until your fingers are sore, not that much different from Diablo's gameplay. The only challenging fights are where you're immediately dropped into combat after traveling, with no buffs on you and no summons with you. Even then, casting invisibility takes care of the immediate threat, and you can continue to cheese your way through the game. Anyone who wants a "nice" solo challenge should try any of the following games with just a single character: -- Bard's Tale 3 -- Dragons Wars -- Incubation and its expansion, The WIlderness Missions Good luck. The above games didn't fail to provide an abuse-proof party-sized challenge.

(Why do I keep pressing Quote instead of Edit?)

Level scaling is one the few issues where I happily agree with Stun and other grognards. The worst offender, at least in my experience, is not Obvilion, but Final Fantasy 8. To my knowledge, FF8 is the only game in the series which had level scaling -- and boy did they mess it up royally. Apart from everything else that's been already said against level scaling, Final Fantasy also has a hard cap on character health and single attack damage: 9999, or 4 digits. But the same cap does not apply to enemies: they can have health in the 6 digits and damage in the 5 digits (which insta-kills any character without protective buffs). So if you leveled up, at a certain point -- different for each character -- you stopped gaining more health and doing more damage with your more powerful attacks. But the enemies kept getting stronger and stronger, so the punishment for leveling wasn't on a mostly psychological level, it was on a statistical, measurable level. Your relative power became less as you leveled past about 85-90. So much so, that on my first playthrough, where I ignorantly grinded up to near max level (99), I was unable to finish the game. The hard cap on health made the final battles unwinnable. Then I learned about the whole level scaling bull****, and that induced one of darkest nerdrages of my entire computer gaming hobby. HOW COULD THEY? I WANT TO SPILL GAME DESIGNER BLOOD. I started a second playthrough, to prove my new-founded theory that the game is easier to finish on low levels. During the first PT, I found a random encounter enemy on Cactuar Island (a Final Fantasy staple, a hidden island with special enemies) which gave only 1 XP but 200 AP, the latter is required to level up your abilities (XP/level-up gave you higher base attributes). I grinded for a while to max out the abilities I wanted, and then proceeded to steamroll/cakewalk/ROFLstomp the end-game bosses on level 34. Theory proven, game discarded forever (which is a shame, bcause FF8 had the best minigame ever, Triple Triad with changing house rules for different regions). In my memory, this story stands as an eternal monument to the utter stupidity of level scaling.

There are two games that I know of with a similar mechanic, but probably neither is the one you're looking for: The Company of Myself The Swapper

It's interesting that you used the term "frame" instead of a measure of time, like seconds. Am I to assume that you are making the framerate adjustable afterall, for those of us who want to play a "faster" game? It is highly likely that you misinterpreted 'frame'. I'm 99% sure that Josh is talking about animation frames, since that's how an attack is shown on-screen, not video FPS. It's a time unit, we just don't know the exact measurement (i.e. how many animation frames are shown per second). Probably around 30, that's safely beyond the human eye's change-sensing resolution.

What is high fantasy when it comes to armors? Two style that comes to mind... 1. Renowned Tolkien illustrators, the first one was an advisor to Peter Jackson on the movies: a. John Howe Legolas's helmet is ridiculous, but his armor is minimal joint-covering, which is fitting for an archer. Gimli looks like a historical Axeman. b. Ted Nasmith 2. The classic '80s ADnD look: a. Larry Elmore Elmore's paintings do have some ornate armors and overflowing capes, but by large, his artwork is pretty grounded, too. b. Clyde Caldwell This is samurai armor, nothing more, nothing less. Caldwell does boobplate (in many other paintings, too), but that's his only departure. --- Neither of the above is far in style from what Eternity offers. So, I guess we can call it high fantasy if we want to?

I was just going there to give that vote no matter what, but now I'm genuinely interested in the game! GL to your friend!

... and many backers, including me, are relieved that they look down to earth, with no Blood Bowl spikeball pauldrons and Final Fantasy surfboard swords (which are fine in their own game!). Arms- and armorwise they were shooting for midcore-realistic looks, and they're delivering on that.

I think both SW:TOR and The Secret World proved that even if subs are dropped (converted) only a few months after release, you can still get a good chunk of money out of them while the content's 'freshness' lasts (not everyone's a binge MMO player, most adults don't have the time even if they wanted to be one). So I see ESO's and WildStar's subs based on those examples: wring as much sub-money-juice as they can before they convert to F2P. It's part of the business plan.

I'm replaying Mask of the the Betrayer, this time with a character who gives in to the Hunger. I'm consulting GameBanshee's excellent walkthrough on the way. In the Barrow section, if you use the Imaskari Rod to open the path to the Upper Barrow, a lich from the ancient Imarkari Empire appears. Quite a freaky encounter, and I always ended up fighting him. The GB walkthrough mentions that if you take a talkative stance with the lich, he'll just walk away, and then later join you for a while in Nighthore (status: unconfirmed). Well I can confirm that it's: 1. true 2. awesome Maric the ancient lich joins your party while you're trying to get first place in line in Coveya Kurg'Annis. The first place is held by another lich, Ankhriva, and when the two meet, a lich showdown ensues! Maric first talks Ankhriva's minions into submission, then proceeds to threaten the other lich, who's much younger and less powerful than him. End result: Ha actually has a reason for talking to the Slumbering Coven (asking them what happened to the Imaskari Empire and stuff), and when the Mistress states that you're forbidden to enter, he just makes this hilarious comedy routine exit: Maric dear, you literal old fossil, I miss you!

Oh x5. Storybricks, a company specifically devoted to creating immersive AI-driven NPC societies, patnered up with SOE to enhance the sandbox gameplay they try to deliver with EverQuest Next. http://www.gamereactor.eu/grtv/?id=169464 I remember the Storybricks Kickstarter from 2012, I visited their page being very curious about any advancement in game AI technology, and decided not back it. What they proposed wasn't a game, but an expanded technology test. The equivalent of an NWN module where you can fool around and try stuff see how it works. I'm not paying for that. In contrast, Minecraft offers a very simple core gameplay, but it does have a core gameplay you can enjoy while shaping the world. Now, having partnered with SOE, they don't need to worry about a 3D engine, models, textures, items etc., the production values are delivered by another company. I was anticipating EverQuest Next even before they announced the partnership with Storybricks, being cautiously optimistic about it, but with them on board, I'm really looking forward to try it someday.

I do not favor the Codex as a place to hang out and talk to other RPGeeks, but both their interviews and reviews are the best you can find on the Interwebs. Their Might and Magic X review told me literally everything I wanted to know about the game. They're thorough and they dig deep, and not afraid to publish a really long wall of text, expecting readers with decent attention spans to visit their site. So yeah, definitely at least as good as games journo sites. This particular piece wasn't earth-shatteringly interesting, but it was a decent read.

I think the Far Cry series has strong exploration and atmosphere. I you can stomach the Doom-style graphics, System Shock 1 is one of my favorite exploration games. There are many secrets and interesting stuff off the main path. Entire levels are optional. System Shock 2 is awesome, but it's entirely inside a spaceship. Also, RPG mechanics. Half-Life 1 is pretty good as a sci-fi exploration game. There are some railroaded parts, but also some big open parts. When it came out, it was labeled "the thinking man's shooter", and I think that fits well. Half-Life 2 is a very-very carefully disguised corridor shooter. I like it very much regardless, but it's very linear, just tries hard not to look like that.

****roach genre? And a new phrase is coined today, ladies and gentlemen. Gotta love this guy!

Hmm. I started playing VtM: Bloodlines today for the first time. The game's subtitles are displayed in the upper left corner, and OH MY GOD IT'S HORRIBLE. Basically I either read the subtitles, or watch what's going on in the screen, can't do both at the same time. Now I know why subtitles are displayed at the bottom middle of the screen as a default for several decades now. They're much easier to read there, your eyes can flit back and forth with minimal loss of screen watching. (Fantastic game, though. I'm very impressed with the level of reactivity.)

While I'm rooting for a nice/good UI, it's one of those things that modding can take care of in a very short time. For popular games with modding capability, there are dozens of UI mods, you can even mix and match to your heart's desire. Content and game systems, however, are a lot more work to fix if broken... So I don't worry about UI a lot. BTW, I'm in the minimalist camp too, I want to see as much art as possible, and strongly dislike Sawyer's preference of skeuomorphic* design, but I don't lose any sleep over it. * I had to google this word. It means "has unnecessary elements that mimic real-life/archaic/old-fashioned things". So the stony/woody looks of IE games' UI are skeuomorphic, because those material-imitating back panels and frames have no functionality, but try to look like they're something touchable and from ages past. You're welcome if I saved you a search.