213374U

I think that's supposed to be a joke...

Yes. If you can't lose, you can't very well "win". Uncertainty in the outcome is one of the necessary conditions for something to be a "game". If you remove that, you no longer have a game, it's something else. I don't know why but lately I'm getting this weird idea that game devs in some genres are attempting to minimize the chances of losing as much as possible, while keeping the illusion of challenge -- "excessive" losing can result, as alan points out, in the player giving up on the game, and devs don't want that. Of course, what constitutes "excessive" is up for debate; however if you keep lowering challenge standards, then we'll eventually reach the point where a game without a win button will be deemed "too challenging" by some people that aren't interested in actually playing... they simply want plots and characters spoonfed to them. Why have we seen huge advances in graphics but innovative AI and gameplay design are, for all intents and purposes, stuck? Nah, couldn't be. Better tell my shrink. That's your problem. I play games for GAMEPLAY (who woulda thunk it?) If you are looking for "experiences" in that vein, books are the way to go.

Couldn't that be easily solved by an exponential XP-level curve? You'd have a hard time for maybe two hours after the confrontation, but your new companions would catch up pretty quick. Just thinking aloud here.

I'm going to trust you on the "impossible to proceed" thing, because you have actually played the game and I haven't. It's hard to think of a recent BIO game that puts the player in a situation that's worse than having your tank (Sarevok) turn on you for the fight with Melissan, though. I have to say, having the player's actions result in massive NPC hate which in turn leads to their deaths sounds awesome... shame they watered down the consequences.

Are you suggesting that this is a dev gimmick to prevent metagaming? Because I get the feeling this is a dev gimmick to minimize, at worst, the piss-off factor of writing railroading, and at best, the consequences of poorly made choices. Sarevok and others had some chance to turn on the player in the final confrontation of ToB. The player could find ways to metagame around that but... so what? The line between metagaming and cheating is fine indeed, but that's irrelevant because it's a strictly single player game we're talking about. If people want to metagame or use cheat codes... who cares? It's their own enjoyment of the game they are compromising, not mine. This is no big deal because I can always forget about NPCs back at the camp. But I still don't understand why.

Wait, wait. Are you seriously asking for financial advice? Here? \o/ Ahem, seriously now. I have a friend that can help you double or even triple that amount in the blink of an eye. Something to do with Nigeria, guaranteed profit. I'll PM you the account # where to make the deposit.

For a game that puts so much emphasis on story, this setup makes no sense at all, from a story perspective. What sense does it make dumping the faithful, battle-hardened companion Z, who has been with the player since day one, to take the green companion X that has spent the whole game sitting by the campfire, for the EPIC END FIGHT? Imagine Frodo suddenly going, "sorry Sam old chum, you'd better go back to the Shire. I think I'd feel safer with, say, Elrond once I cross the Black Gate..." Also, the alternative has worked fine in the past. I just don't see the need to constantly re-invent the wheel. Virmire revisited? Ok, ok. I'm stopping now... We're discussing the gameplay. This is a game, last time I checked. Feel free to comment on other aspects... but since the game isn't out yet, we gotta work with what we're given. People complain about this and that. You complain about people complaining about this and that. Where does that leave you? Is there a weekly quota of hours spent here you must fill or...?

Yet another delightfully bad translation work, apparently. Even the summary features awkward grammar that's a staple of the genre. The game looks fun, though.

Oh, I agree. Where would we be without the great tinkerers? Case in point. Pretty much. Gravity was enunciated by Newton in the 1600s. Not only have we NOT found a way around gravity (despite our discovery of flight)... science has been further reinforcing and expanding Newton's postulates. You can only sidestep the fundamental barriers of nature so much.

Actually, it was not only conceivable... it was predicted.

Yeah, big IF. Especially considering that the distortion of space-time (gravitational wave) does NOT travel faster than light.

Yeah, I just had been assuming that when you said "3x 'A' exercise max" it meant working to failure. As for working to your measured max with a minute and a half rest between sets...

From what I've read, photon entanglement-based communications still requires that you send packets over a distance. It isn't FTL, as mentioned in p.37 of the ESA doc you linked to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation "Effects" aren't delivered magically across space. In the case of gravity, it's a field that transfers energy (they are trying to find the particle responsible for that). Gravitational waves (effectively the equivalent of sudden changes like "moving the sun") don't travel faster than light -- they preserve causality.

Okay, I don't understand what you're doing. This formally tested total is the 39 pushups you did in the first page? And are you seriously shooting for 3 sets of your tested max with 30-90 secs rest in between sets? I'm confused.

Semantics. AND misrepresentation. The choice to reload imposes a penalty: you get to repeat the segment where you screwed up, until you perform adequately. The choice not to reload has a penalty as well: the game becomes harder from that point on, due to the loss of a companion. Saving at any point doesn't nullify those, but a lack of that feature would undoubtedly make the game less forgiving (if not necessarily more difficult). However, the lack of permadeath doesn't mean there's no penalty for failure. It doesn't mean it's impossible to fail, either. The overall difficulty is lowered, though.

Get out of my head!

You are mad. When it says "3x pushups max", it means you do each set until you cannot perform any more reps. Not to your theoretical max. That is with a given rest time. On the other hand, if you are shooting for a given number of reps in each set, you should rest as much as you need to (reasonably) hit your target. Rest days are for resting. Stick to your plan and don't be greedy!

I see. So, then the answer is "yes".

Feeling a bit cranky today, are we?

No, I mean the speed at which one processor does one calculation doesn't depend on how many processors you have sitting next to each other.

And if you read further down, you can find a rebuttal. In the end, you are still sending data packets across a given distance. The time required for that packet to reach its destination cannot be infinitely small. Using colours means working with photons, which like the rest of EM radiation, travels at the speed of light. As Krez says, that is the true limit, and there's no way around it, that we know of. From a theoretical perspective, "instantaneous" makes sense only if time itself is assumed to be continuous. edit: and even so, I'm not too sure... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_time Parallel processing makes computers faster the same way more bandwidth gives your connection a lower latency... that is, not at all.

I see your giant wyrm and raise you some cheese. IIRC, Aimo used to post here. She had quite a few KotOR (I/II) romance drawings too. What's "hard" for you may be plain impossible for a "casual player". If you have a degree of veterancy (apparently that's not a word, heh) in games that require tactical thinking, you have an important head start, and the difficulty curve is completely different for you. Once you have learned the particularities of the game, you're good to go. How does the difficulty slider change the game? Does it prevent enemies from using special abilities? Does it simplify their tactics somehow? Or does it just decrease the damage they deal and increase damage dealt by the player?

This. All hail the democratisation of games. Customers have a RIGHT to snore their way through epic fights, you know!

When they can't even stand each other, it's difficult to imagine that they would agree to stand together against something other than Israel. And even then...

Yeah, that's the way I think as well. What bothers me is that there's lots and lots of people going on about how serious this is and stuff -- it's another fad for them. And when you start questioning why do they believe that, they either can't answer or recite some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo that doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny. Most people don't have the scientific background needed to understand the arguments being put forth either for or against it. I am one of those people, but I have enough scientific formation to understand that consensus doesn't equal rigour when science is being discussed. It's not just neocon nutjobs raising doubts about this. And then I can only wonder why we are accepting models that are admittedly inaccurate to dictate the policies we should follow. It's a sad state of affairs when science is used just as another political weapon.