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Me, a child? Heh, I wish. The old timers remark I meant as in long-time fans of the franchise. The whole "kids today can't appreciate how we did things back in the day" talk may hold true for some, but it doesn't account for everyone. There's plenty of examples right here of people who were fans of the originals and actually enjoyed FO3. If some kid from the Halo generation can't get over the "ugly" graphics of Fallout, well then, it's his loss. Well, sure. That may be your philosophy and I could agree with you... but it also probably means we'll never sell anything by the millions.

Lol, what? Did you actually fund the development cycle of FO3 when I wasn't looking? Because it sure sounds like you feel you've been cheated out of something. If you've been let down on your expectations, well. Bethy can't very well control that. And no, I'm pretty sure that neither FO3 was designed as it was to spite you old timers, nor those that do enjoy the game do so for that reason. Oh, and the point is, quite obviously, to make money. That, if nothing else, they did get right.

Yeah. I wouldn't trust Whittaker Chambers even if that was a recipe for tomato sauce, though. Anyway, what are we discussing, Objectivism or Rand's ability as a writer? After reading O'Neil's text, I came to the conclusion that his only argument against Objectivism's "objectiveness" (and his venue for introducing the is-ought problem) is the hypothetical that somebody can make the conscious choice to act against their nature. To deny the place of life as the ultimate value, and act in accordance. Understandably, the problem of the rationality of such a choice arises, but the problem comes from the author's hypotheses, not Rand's view. That's not a choice that Rand considers valid - no choice that results in non-being can come from being rational. It all seems to hinge on that, and Rand realized that ("Man is the only living species that has the potential to act as its own destroyer"); it's strongly implied that immorality equals irrationality for her. For her it's not so much "be good" as "be rational" (and therefore live qua man). You may disagree with her views, but it's hard to claim there's a contradiction. Please professor, do elaborate!

Spider-Man disagrees.

Hahaha. Leader/minister epithets are awesome. Have you seen any new ones?

I'm part, alright. I'm not out there fighting the good fight with LoF, after all.

Lol. What game is that?

*sigh* I'm arguing that good art direction and modern technical thingamajigs aren't necessarily linked. I thought it should be clear from my first post in this thread: As a general statement, this is simply false. Art direction predates polycount. AoD's engine looks plain ugly, though. I'm not so sure now, though. Did that somehow come out in swahili and I can't see it or what?

It has 2D sprites you can turn on/ff. And anyway, does that mean the game has bad or no "art direction"? That's why I started my original rebuttal with "as a general statement". Shouldn't be too hard to understand? Okay now. How about...? Or Pokemon? Or any other game that doesn't do 3D? Contrary to this widespread myth, those do exist.

...err, was that comic supposed to be very funny, just mildly so, or...? On the other hand...

Folks used to play games on the Zone back in the 90's man. FULL games, I mean. You just gotta know what you're doing... and be a micromanagement GOD.

Oh, my. Morgy is confused and can't find something to say, so it's hissy fit time for him. Apparently, it's you who can't read, asswipe. Much less follow an argument through multiple posts without looking like a headless chicken: This is patently false, as evidenced by the example you kindly provided yourself, but which, somehow, you didn't quite stop to think through: Games have been achieving lighting effects by means of hand-made scenarios LONG before crap like polycount was even an issue. And, of course, lighting isn't even a factor in some games: But I guess that if a game doesn't require Quad SLI, then it either has NO art direction, or it sucks anyway, right? Either that, or it's (yet) another instance of Morgy not knowing what the **** he's talking about. Go back to benchmarking, assclown.

Therefore, my point stands. Art direction predates polycount and thus polycount by itself has ZERO influence on whether a game's art direction is good or bad, stupid.

As a general statement, this is simply false. Art direction predates polycount. AoD's engine looks plain ugly, though.

I've been following some of the dev reports, and one of the things I found most interesting was the new front/reserves combat system in provinces. How is it? And, did they do something about northern and central Russia being essentially four huge provinces? What about central China?

Problem is, in vanilla ARMA, CHC is pretty much neglected by the devs as far as events go. A CHC game I played with MOD34 (or was it 33?) was one of the most I enjoyed. Getting events like Long March, formation of popular armies, etc... really changes things. HOI2 was very accessible to strategy n00bs... but I only found this out after I discovered an AAR that explained every single thing in great detail. Think Fall Wei

I think it's horrible. It's the closest we have come to functional mind control. We are constantly bombarded with opinions that tell us who our heroes have to be, what we are to think, what we have to fear, what's the road to happiness, who are the good guys and the bad guys... etc. Throw in video games (or any other form of mental anesthesia), and we might as well dump our brains in the trash can. And it takes a conscious, sustained and focused effort on the individual's part to fight this.

Couldn't be a pirate even if I wanted to...

Uh, he's actually talking about a MODDED version of BG. Vanilla was a piece of cake.

Sorry, preorder only!

Quit squirming. You asked for examples that were elected by the people and had had their powers expanded by democratic institutions. Both fit the bill. Mussolini had a ~2/3 majority in the 1924 election AFTER the Acerbo Law was passed by the Italian Parliament. Vote rigging and coercion can only do so much if you don't have a vast popular support. So much for democratic convictions, eh? Hitler did earn his seats in the Reichstag, like it or not. And with von Papen as his vice chancellor and von Hindenburg as President, his power was FAR from absolute. It was in fact von Papen's overconfidence and von Hindenburg's apathy and inability that allowed things like the Reichstag fire decree to be enacted. It's a clear example of a powermonger manipulating the people and gaming the system. Um, not quite. If you had actually read, you would know that all it took for citizens to earn the right to vote was for them to complete their basic military service. It wasn't dependant on heritage, wealth or influence, so it's only an oligarchy in your mind. Twice you have dodged the question of why political rights should be freely given as opposed to earned somehow. What have YOU done for the good of your country to be entitled to ANYTHING? Wrong. Outsiders in any given society in antiquity were treated as inferior beings. There was no argument behind it other than "they are barbarians". Pretty much the same as it's with your racism, only there's more words and pseudoscience to disguise it, a reminiscence of the Enlightenment, perhaps. I'm still waiting for you to elaborate on that connection between "scientific" racism and capitalism, though. You know that's the title of the guy that made the Spanish Empire, right?

Actually, you can lose the AI or, at least, throw them off the track of the stealthing character. But once they go mad, they WILL track the rest of your group, across the map if need be, even if they don't KNOW there are other people apart from the sneaking/invisible character. Yeah, it's easy to piss him off. Getting the good ending involves playing super nice with him and only confronting him directly once, which is... difficult to justify from a RP perspective. Problem is, if you refuse to go along with his mad schemes and failed to convince him, the final battle becomes so much more difficult (Ascension+Irenicus+SCSII=world of hurt). It's still one of my favorite mods anyway. BTW, you need to save both the kid and her father, in Amkethran.

I mostly listen to the radio when at the gym... but it doesn't matter. I saw a video of some dude squatting 250kg with Rihanna playing on the background. Anyway, do you know of Millencolin?