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Hardly anything so dramatic. Was BG built around the death system? They simply accounted for the fact that X or Y may die if you were careless, and not be present for interjection with Z. I may be inclined to think they actually promoted NPC deaths, the way some were written... I don't know man, a central part of the fun in games that aim to have a strategy component is the looming consequences for bad calls. If you screw up, you learn, you get better. If the game doesn't have a way of telling you "charging the Adamantine golem may not be the smartest approach", there is no learning curve -- it's a plateau. The player will not refine his tactics, as there's no need. And when the big climactic fight comes, the player will wipe and blame the crappy encounter design, the terrible difficulty curve, or whatever. Or, conversely, the big climactic fight will not be quite so climactic from a gameplay standpoint, and beating the game will feel hollow and pointless. This is the approach taken by BIO ever since BG2. Remember Dave Gaider's Ascension? Yeah, that was pretty silly.

Before or after they magically get up a while after receiving the coup de grace? Just because I can "pretend" there's consequences to death in the game it doesn't mean those consequences are real.

Cute. Apparently, now the job of the US President is to be Mr. Nice Guy. I suppose that, by extension, the US should be the world's largest charity organization. Oh wait... He's a VAST improvement only in PR. So far he has done nothing. Except stepping up UAV assassination strikes in Pakistan.

90% of the time? Um, learn to play? Or, failing that, learn to spam potions. Let the player make that call.

Oblivion Lost re-enabled grenade throwing for enemies, presumably using the original mechanics which the devs chose not to use in the game. Every lousy bandit had an uncanny ability to hit you in the head with grenades, regardless of distance and field of view. That, coupled with the fact that grenades made no sound when landing among the abundant foliage and their lethality made the game quite difficult. They didn't really fix this for CS, they simply added a HUD warning that a grenade was flying towards you, and a rather mild sound for grenades hitting the ground. STALKER/CS is not a very good example of balanced (read: fun) grenade implementation. I remember reading one of the previews where the devs were repeatedly owned by bandits essentially spamming grenades everytime the player went behind cover. They reduced the frequency and STILL it was pretty ridiculous. You were actually safer in the open exposed to direct fire than behind cover...

Got banned there, too. I don't think Wals' comment was directed at me, though. Also, I'm probably a total n00b when compared to vets from countries such as the UK or the US. But hey, it's the feeling that counts, right? Thoughts: i. I never saw any gays while serving. Your guess is as good as mine as to why ii. The only people whose morale would have been damaged if that were the case would be the gays themselves, what with NCOs and corporals being for the most part a bunch of ****ing cavemen -- people with brains were unfortunately in the minority iii. I fully agree with lof on his ideas about anti-gay policies, in the army and elsewhere -- yet another example of the nefarious influence of the Pope iv. I also agree with GD on the (in)convenience of things, but depending on who you ask, the purpose of a school is debatable... Also, "reasonable" is closer in meaning to "consensual" than it is to "rational". In reality it has very little to do with actual rational reason. edit: just realized that lof's original post (the one Wals was most likely replying to) has gone *poof*. Coming close to becoming a non-user, I see!

Think again.

And don't you feel even slightly aroused?

War is peace.

"Madness" is just misunderstood genius. You are only deranged if you don't get to write history!

Yup.

I hope you're not implying that to be a successful communist one must be deranged!

Some things should never go out of fashion.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Hey man, don't complain. You're getting off easy. Julius had to win a civil war before getting his triumph.

Fun Fact #2: Gandhi wasn't good enough.

I guess about whether he should or shouldn't be able to dress in women's clothes and whether what he did wear was against a "reasonble" (in lieu of looking up the school system's) dress code. And since there is no mathematical proof for "reasonable" and it's hardly self-evident, there will always be some people that will stand against what is "reasonable", with whatever excuses. In this case, the excuse is personal expression (a subset of FREEDOM).

And, ironically enough, Nazi Germany failed rather spectacularly. Not the way they intended to prove their theories, I'm sure, but it's good enough anyway. Social Darwinism doesn't need your approval and doesn't care about your contempt - much like its biological counterpart, it's apparently the way of the world. But since there's no analog to the scientific method for history, there will always be some people that cling to sweet fantasies of dream lands where everyone can be happy and all conflicts can be solved through words alone. True. Anyone wishing for their neighbouring countries to fail should take a look at Somalia for a reality check on what failed states look like.

Yeah, that's the ticket! When everything else fails, bring up the Nazis.

Good thing you mentioned the wig, I had forgotten about that. If not FREEDOM, what's this about, then?

That's the Nobel Peace prize we're talking about, not the Nobel Sycophancy prize.

Hey man, don't you know he's Barack Hussein Obama? Been living under a stone or something?

Um, why do I get the impression that everything is turned into a debate about "FREEDOM" these days? He's just a teen fooling around. He's testing the limits of the discipline that's supposed to apply to him. Hardly news. Let's put things back in perspective, shall we? You are mixing things up. Not segregating students is about some Constitutional principle or other that talks about discrimination. That's not the same as actively educating children. If schools had to do the parenting as well, what happens with the kids that are educated by their parents (an alien concept to be sure) and go to school to learn about silly things like math and history? Did this lecturer undergo his (her?) surgery to make a statement? It would be worth knowing if lecturers are under the same discipline and regulations as students, too. And yeah, Waffen-SS posers suck. Gestapo is where it's at, I say!

Schooling can't substitute parenting.

Not even mods are safe from the Nazi filtering, huh. The Law is the Law... etc.

It could be pondering the "best dialogue option." It could also just be pondering how I want to roleplay my character. Either way it's about playing the way they want me to rather than in the way I will enjoy most, and I'm left wondering why they made choices that they had to realize would limit the game's appeal to some players of RPGs. I don't understand how pondering how you want to roleplay your character takes as long as all the skeptics seem to make. For starters, you can already begin to decide on an appropriate way to roleplay your character based on your character's previous responses with the NPC that you are dealing with, based on previous responses your character has already made. Moving forward, for the specific line of dialogue, you can already begin to decide on a type of response (especially since you know 3 of the types of responses already, for every situation you approach) as the character speaks. You already do this as a human being in real life interactions, so you are already well practiced in doing this. I'd argue that if you're already doing a good job of being in the character you're roleplaying, this actually won't be very difficult at all. Also, think faster. This ain't rocket science. I'm thinking the devs may be wanting to entice and place a greater emphasis on the emotional knee-jerk response, rather than the usual, cold and rationally chosen roleplay response. If some guy has been pissing you off since the first minute, you are more likely to press "headslam" than "apologetic", when faced with a quick choice - which in a tense environment is probably more coherent. This is, at least, an interesting concept and will be fun to see if it can deliver a more authentic, less gamey conversation system. Any UI breaks immersion. Any control mechanics that are not breaking somebody's neck with your own hands is gamey. The degree of importance of these things is largely arbitrary, as suspension of disbelief is not the same for everyone. QTEs may be a copout, but they are also a sensible development choice, given that people work with limited time and resources. I'd have loved if Fahrenheit had featured a Tenkaichi-esque control scheme, but given the scope of the game, it would have made little sense to invest much effort into that. QTEs are also a pretty good way to avoid forcing the player to master a different gameplay scheme for something that's outside of the focus of the game, without leaving the player out completely. Still looking for that Holy Grail, I presume?