Commissar

Hot women and cold vodka. Nevskii Prospekt might as well be a Paris runway. Far more interesting historically than those countries that sit up north and try to act significant. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You know he is from one of those countries, hence you just insulted the person your sticking up for <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm sticking up for someone else, though. Wheels within wheels, my friend.

What makes you think I'm Scandinavian?

Hot women and cold vodka. Nevskii Prospekt might as well be a Paris runway. Far more interesting historically than those countries that sit up north and try to act significant.

And I liked you. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What the hell's wrong with Russians?

You're missing my point. When Palpatine said "some consider unnatural," he was referring to the Jedi. The Jedi consider the dark side, and the Sith, to be unnatural; thus, a balance of the Force would result in a removal of the dark side and the Sith, leaving just the Force - as someone pointed out earlier, nobody ever refers to it as the "light side." The Jedi presumably see things in terms of the Force and the dark side of the Force; the Force is natural, the dark side is a perversion. Edit: Know what? Nevermind. I'm going to go take a long hot shower and pretend I did not just further involve myself in this argument.

I think thats how it's supposed to be seen. Thats the point of the prophecy <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think it's rather dumb to debate potential plot inconsistencies in a Lucas movie, but here's my two cents: For the Jedi, balance is the removal of the Sith. Why? Because the dark side is unnatural. I'm pretty sure Palpyboy himself backs up that perspective when he tells Anakin that the Sith can do things that people consider unnatural, or something like that. In other words, when there's Dark Siders around, the force is imbalanced.

The only Native Americans I ever met got me so drunk I was splitting kings at the blackjack table, so I really can't help you.

Look, the octogenarian demographic is more important to the Star Wars roleplaying game market than you might think. I believe this post is highly justified, and doubtlessly a worthwhile read for many of our beloved antediluvian posters.

Pirates was published by Atari. SMAC isnt 20 years old btw according to the book it was 1999 which is 6 years ago. Obsidian have only created one game so far. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I didn't mean the game itself was twenty years old, I basically meant that EA hadn't undergone the...I don't even know how to describe it. The growth and change in philosophy, if you will, that we find in the EA of today. Or at least, what some would claim we find in the EA of today.

Sure, but the EA of, what, two decades ago? Bungie's a very different company now than from when it was making games for the Mac. We could very well be saying, "Man, remember when Obsidian used to create good games, rather than this action-RPG console crap?" ten years from now.

I don't think it's bland, I just think it's rather trendy. On the other hand, I hate looking like a Luke or Obi-Wan clone, so green and blue are both out, meaning I usually end up going with yellow.

There's no standard PC, no, but if you people genuinely have trouble making a game work on your system, I don't know what to tell you. I got conned into picking up a rather substandard graphics card when I bought my new computer from Dell, simply because I didn't know any better and I don't game as much as I used to in the first place. I can still get things to run, and I haven't had a problem yet with getting them to do it on the very first try. I'm far from tech-savvy when it comes to general computer hardware, so if you guys truly have that many problems, you must be a lot worse off than I am. The keyboard and mouse combo's part of the issue, but it's one that could be easily solved by tacking those accessories onto a console. My point was larger than that. The PC originated every genre except the platformer, and maybe sports. You think Baldur's Gate would've gotten made without the PC? Or Icewind Dale? Or Myst? Or my old standby example, Counter-Strike? Doom? Wolfenstein? Command and Conquer? Age of Empires? Civilization? No. The console does not support the small or independent developer. The console doesn't support the fresh idea, or the unique game. The console is by its very nature to play it safe, hit a wide audience, and be damned to whether or not the game's worthwhile. If people will pay for it, you've done your job. It's the business model of gaming, as opposed to the artistic model. You follow the money exclusively, you turn into EA. EA makes good games. EA does not make games with soul. I have several games that reside very fondly in my memory as experiences rather than simple diversions. Aces Over Europe. Doom. Myst. Pirates. Alpha Centauri. None of those were made by huge companies that were all about the profit. That's what the industry is turning into, on all platforms, but at least on the PC there's always the chance that a core group of dedicated individuals can come up with something truly brilliant, like Creative Assembly. It's a good business decision to sell out. If your motives are purely mercenary, there's nothing wrong with it. Me? I'll take a game developer who creates something truly great over a company attempting to clone EA's triumph of mediocrity any day of the week.

They were useful and obviously dedicated to the Republic. Twi'lek females, on the other hand, seem naturally inept at anything other than getting killed.

Oh and your welcome for the article. Actually since this PC appears to run stuff pretty well I might sign up for the free trial if I can find some spare time next week. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I quit just before they made the latest big changes and everything they had done before the last big change was to make it LESS solo friendly. SWG should be a great grouping game but with interface and how it works its not. So once solo play was removed, I left. Its sad really, SWG still has the most potential of ANY MMORPG (including WoW) on the market but Sony has failed to realize that potential from day one. Its just a really bad product run by folks that are even worse! Really dont expect that to change to be honest, SOE has no clue what their doing, the few players they do listen to are only out for themselves and NEVER suggest stuff good for over all game, and its based on a updated version of the old UO engine which had limitations at the best of times. Im still hoping LA will realize this and contract someone like Obsidian or Bioware to make a NEW Star Wars MMORPG based on the KotoOR time era and style. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I doubt it's likely that Sony Online Entertainment is going to release its deathgrip on a product that still could have profit squeezed out of it. I also doubt Obsidian or even Bioware has the amount of staff necessary to start up an MMORPG. My woman played a little WoW back in the day, so I followed it to a limited degree, just to help her out - she's not much of a gamer - and from what I understand, Blizzard was completely overwhelmed by the job of keeping things together for the first couple of months. I don't necessarily know that Star Wars does in fact lend itself to the MMORPG genre. I mean, almost everyone wants to be a Jedi, right? And despite the prequel trilogy coming out, people still think of the Rebellion - Empire conflict as the definitive Star Wars setting, and that doesn't lend itself well to a bunch of Jedi running around, as seems to be the case with SWG. Hasn't turned most people off, true, but it's the primary reason I don't play.

That sounds familiar. How about a quick synopsis ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's about a German reserve police battalion during World War II. Instead of writing my own synposis, I stole from Amazon: Shocking as it is, this book--a crucial source of original research used for the bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners--gives evidence to suggest the opposite conclusion: that the sad-sack German draftees who perpetrated much of the Holocaust were not expressing some uniquely Germanic evil, but that they were average men comparable to the run of humanity, twisted by historical forces into inhuman shapes. Browning, a thorough historian who lets no one off the moral hook nor fails to weigh any contributing factor--cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force the others to bear more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty--interviewed hundreds of the killers, who simply could not explain how they had sunken into savagery under Hitler. A good book to read along with Ron Rosenbaum's comparably excellent study Explaining Hitler. --Tim Appelo

You guys need to read Ordinary Men.

Nobody likes the Bothans? Whaddup wid dat?

How is it selling out ? They made games for the PC when the PC was the most successful platform. Now the PC is waning as a gaming platform they are making them for something else. Don't recall anyone ever saying we will only make PC games for all time do you ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Except that it is selling out. You can argue that consoles are getting close, but they're not there yet, in terms of the sheer depth of a game that can run on a PC. There are inherent limitations in console titles, prominent amongst them the fact that a controller only has so many buttons. The PC simply allows better control in almost every genre save sports, and even that is probably debatable. Modability is also nonexistent, and while that might not be a big issue depending on which gamer you talk to, games like Counter-Strike never would have been made without the ability to actually dig around in a game's guts. The normal console doesn't allow that. I like looking at how the different platforms started out. Consoles essentially ported arcade games to the television. Computers did their own thing with the likes of first-person shooters, strategy games, simulations, and roleplaying games, much moreso than consoles ever did or attempted to do until recently. Compare a side-scroller's depth to the depth of even something fairly early and unsophisticated like Wolfenstein 3D, or Doom. I'm not saying that consoles haven't greatly improved in that department over the years, and it's entirely possible that a sort of synergy will occur in coming years, but right now truly "deep" games can only be brought out on the PC. Selling out, by definition, is following the money whether it's your personal inclination or not. Console titles may very well be Obsidian's personal inclination. If the developers ever bothered to post in their own forums, I'm sure they'd pile on a load of talk about the wonderous possibilities of the console. It's probably a great business decision, too. EA makes great business decisions all the time, and they're widely regarded as the evil empire of the development world. Does it stop people from buying their games? Not many. A lot of great studios that have gamers' respect have gone under in the past because they refused to shovel out crap and stuck with what they liked making, and what their fanbase liked playing. It's the old love or money choice. Guy A sells out and starts working for the big corporation, pulling eighty hours a week and not having time to enjoy the money he's making, despite being richer than God. Guy B goes down to the islands and starts up a charter fishing company that struggles to make ends meet from year to year, but he's having the time of his life. Which one made the right decision?

Ideally? I don't think so. My college years would have been much easier, and my BA in History even more worthless, if history exams had consisted of simply reciting learned facts.

Well, no problem. Just convince LucasArts and whoever ends up developing the game that a console title will not sell as well as a PC title. Probably not going to happen, right? Even Obsidian sold out, if I recall corectly; isn't New Jersey a console exclusive?

Any history major will tell you that history itself is rarely, if ever, about cold hard facts.

i think i remember something along those lines... been a while. so many pointless threads, so little time. hehe. taks <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You on a three-day bender or something? You've been surprisingly cheery in your posts of late.

Man, I love that robe. I was originally a Norris Robe fan, but Ossus Keeper takes the cake.

Well. I've never played it myself, but for some reason or another I was browsing the official SWG forums the other day. Apparently the playerbase is up in arms over recent changes, to the point where the president of Sony Online Entertainment actually had to write an open letter to the community explaining why they did what they did and asking for patience. I also know that there hundreds of Jedi per server, which would've been cool had it been set before Episode I, but instead it's set during the events of the original trilogy, when there were supposed to be, like, what, four or five Jedi left alive? So for a stickler like me, that's a turn-off. On the other hand, I finished KotOR II a couple of days ago, leave's not quite up, and I'm in a new, sudden, desperate need for a Star Wars fix, so if anybody gives it a good review, I'll probably try it out, despite my aversion to MMORPGs in general.

Traitor. Filthy, vile traitor.