213374U

True story: I consider 1989 to be the best pop album in over 20 years. So do many others who aren't the stereotypical teeny bopper fan.. Eh. I'm more of a Pink guy myself...

Yeah, same here. Problem is hitting "cancel" after hitting "post" doesn't work so well. I blame poor impulse control. Again: PM the mod who locked the thread, ask them to clean it up and re-open it, or split the salvageable part into a new discussion. I've done it a few times and they always granted my request -- even when I was the chief culprit of the topic taking a nosedive. Curating a topic that has gone completely off the rails is a waste of time if nobody is interested in it anymore, so lockdown by default makes sense, because the decision is rarely final.

Perhaps. But if a significant portion of participants would rather rehash the same old topics and perspectives over and over and over than engage in -by your standards- productive discussions that lead somewhere... is it really <trollname>'s fault? I'm fairly certain that any one user's ability to shape or direct a thread is basically zero after the first post. It's a collective effort. Takes two to tango and all that. Try to engage people that you consider capable of responding in kind, in a manner that you consider conducive to productive debate, see what happens. You will either get the sort of conversations you'd like... or come to despise humanity a bit more. Either way, I doubt strict(er) rules are a solution to this "problem". This is my theory and I'm sticking with it. http://phys.org/news/2011-11-poop-throwing-chimps-intelligence.html

Well, evil options were always somewhat underwhelming in the originals. Through my obsessive reloading I found that some quests (dwarves, Bridgefort, druids) do offer satisfying alternatives for evil characters beyond "now give me everything or else"... even if dialogues leading to said alternatives aren't great. The problem is finding a solid justification for an evil character to get involved to begin with. But again, that was already problematic in the originals as well... and to some degree also in pretty much every CRPG out there. OMG, reported.

Yeah, so basically, I can't participate in the political or otherwise serious discussions because these people are always in them and always domineering discussion and people are always replying to and shaping the discussion around their posts. Fun. I'm not really following. What exactly prevents you from participating? When the poo-flinging festival starts, bystanders will usually not get involved. What you get is a few mini-conversations going on in parallel inside a given thread, simultaneously, against a background of playground scuffle sounds. Their posts won't get more attention than yours unless they are, well, more interesting. Quality something something Taylor Swift popularity something something. But that's a discussion for another thread. It what bothers you is the bad snr and threads getting bloated with back-and-forths that go nowhere quick (both legit complaints), you can always add the usual suspects to the ignore list -- looks like you already have them (us?) identified anyway. It's not good for much but it will at least help with post clutter. You can also PM some mod and ask them to prune if there is yet hope of salvaging the thread; I've found they'll usually be happy to oblige. If you take the bait, you have nobody to blame but yourself. And if you honestly believe someone is harassing you, the report function actually works. This I know for a fact. When all's said and done I much prefer users exercising their discretion than moderators exercising their power.

I just can't be arsed to log in anymore. I renewed my sub for two more months but... nah. And that's despite the fact that I finally found me a guild to run HM ops with, where I basically have a guaranteed spot as main tank. And it's not MMO burnout either, I just got back to DDO... I don't know. The game just feels stale. The terribad episodes and broken ranked PVP sure don't help.

Has anyone actually ever been banned, outside of spambots? I couldn't name anyone. Personally I like it that way. You can always head out to RPGWatch or SA for stricter moderation... or the KKKodex for the opposite.

That's actually... a good point? Perhaps "racism" in this context doesn't even apply. Racism is not cool IRL because no useful conclusions about an individual can be drawn from their skin color. However, in D&D, races often have an assigned alignment. Goblins are "usually neutral evil", so it is perfectly justified for goblins to be generally reviled. Being accused of being prejudiced against goblins is a bit like being accused of cowardice for not being big on petting Australian tiger snakes (I just love me some National Geographic). I don't really remember the goblin in question, though. Is it the new companion?

Fair enough. The telomere lengthening in cancer cells is commonly brought up in this context, but from what I understand, it's more a with this ergo because of this argument than an actual proven causal relationship. It's not telomeric lengthening that turns healthy adult stem cells into cancer cells, but rather telomerase is upregulated in cancer cells... for various reasons. If you have an actual background in biochemistry, you are in a better position than me to explain those reasons (and I'd thank you if you did). However, telomerase upregulation does indeed appear to be necessary to sustain the growth of cancers. If you weren't suggesting a causal relationship... why bring it up, though?

So confused already that you can't remember what you posted just a few hours ago? Some weird comment about you going to the theatre and not getting a boner or something: If you weren't making a ridiculous parallel between Shakespeare and Gaider, as the ultimate masters of their respective media whose works are universally lauded and thus far unsurpassed, what was that, just another of your mildly heartwarming yet completely irrelevant ramblings? Oh, I don't know, maybe somebody who recognizes that the earlier incarnations of said story within a franchise aren't absolute timeless masterpieces that can very well be improved upon? I didn't expect superiority in the scope (i.e. a bigger game, more plot branches, different systems etc.) and I dare you to find a quote where I said that. I expected better writing within the scope of the game because one does not need to be Shakespeare or be working on something the size of War and Peace to write a main antagonist that isn't an insane, childish mary sue. The game falls short in this regard for the reasons I've been explaining in the last few pages. Again, you are just making general, off-base statements that simply do not apply to the game because you are arguing for the sake of argument and without an iota of actual knowledge. Not only you insist on swinging blindly, you're also convinced that you hit a home run. Wish I could say I'm surprised or disappointed or something equally pompous... but we've both been around the block. You're welcome to try again when you have actually played the game and have something of substance to add to the discussion, though. Until then, trading barbs with you is a waste of time that even I have trouble justifying.

but based on your expectations, why shouldn't we have julius caesar writing at this point? Nah, those aren't my expectations, they are just some weird reinterpretation of yours based on a hilariously inappropriate parallel between Shakespeare and... James Ohlen? David Gaider? Haha... edit: what are these "significant obstacles" BD have encountered, that you keep referring to, to excuse mediocre writing? It costs the same to write a crappy character than it does to write a good one.

Wake me up when a game has Julius Caesar-level writing.

Funny thing is, I enjoyed it sufficiently to finish it, and will probably replay it as an evil character at some point. As I said, I'd probably buy another Beamdog IE game, though I'd prefer if they didn't use the Baldur's Gate property. Gameplay is solid. Area and encounter design, challenge, etc. All of that works pretty well and it's as good as anything found in previous titles. I'd say bringing accomplished modders on board has paid off as well. Again, I got my money's worth. However, the writing is not only the weakest part of the game, it is weak in and of itself. The scope and length of the game are absolutely irrelevant to the quality of storytelling, the plausibility of situations and circumstances, how original it is or how believable, consistent and unique the characters are. Unsurprisingly, one of the areas I'd liked the most is one where there's very little writing or dialogue: the old temple of Bhaal, where the mood and plot are conveyed more through gameplay and ambient cues than written exposition. And sorry folks, but BG2 isn't exactly the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven's 9th, or Crime and Punishment. So yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more experienced developers to improve on it. Arguably they have done so in the gameplay and tech aspects, so I don't see what's so esoteric about writing that BG2 simply cannot be topped in that regard.

Stem cells. It's not as simple as "repairing telomeres = cancer". Read up on telomerase reverse transcriptase, apoptosis and cancer cells. The issue is really complex (as all cutting-edge science should be), and I'd probably make some fairly embarassing blunders trying to explain it. As a side note, this woman was trying to reverse a condition that involved abnormally short telomeres for her age (according to her own proprietary diagnostic tech). Short telomeres are linked to immune system problems. It's not the same as using gene therapy to secure eternal life, so her looking younger would be even more of a ridiculous PR stunt than the whole thing already is. paging Zoraptor...

So... anyone wanna discuss the actual writing in this game, or we settling for irrelevant non-specific platitudes, spiced with a bit of indirect aggression and circle jerking? Yeah, didn't think so.

Takes one to know one? (;

Watch it, now. He's one of your boss's favorite authors. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24166

But really, that's as much on you as it is on the other person. You've got to be able to let the little stuff go. Sometimes even the big stuff. Yeah, it's not just that I have to put up with her, it's that she has to put up with ME, and I can't manage that half the time. So, ideal, as in "ideal gas" (i.e. doesn't exist in reality)?

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck... Seems to fail Malcador's test, though. But hey no such thing as "ideal", right? Lol. Disturbing? Fantasizing about your own clone is so 2009. Also, lol @ Hurl going on about how looks aren't important. Dude's married to a bikini model. Seems legit.

Misread that as "Mightworkgames.com", not terribly reassuring. I'll probably throw money at it, though. Can't be worse than Doom 2016... right?

I think your tagging this thread with "Leopard 2 MBT" may be somewhat unwarranted. My ideal lifelong partner: (if you couldn't tell, it's the hammock)

It's hard to discuss the antagonist without spoiling stuff, but I felt she's weak. Her characterization is shallow, her motives range from difficult to relate to to plain madness, and rather than gruesomely murder or righteously smite her, I just wanted her to get off her damn soapbox. Characters in game keep telling you how immensely charismatic she is, yet the character comes across as anything but. In my eyes, she's a massively missed opportunity to make a poignant point regarding how "good" people can do great evil, and maybe even explore a bit what alignments in D&D draw from the juxtaposition between virtue and consequentialist ethics. (how's that last bit doing for my air of superiority?) smug.jpeg Oh, look. A KKKodex review: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10279 And it's not even half as negative as I'd expect. What's the world coming to...

Kind of like the original, then? EDIT: I know this sounds super-edgy, so let me clarify: I immensely loved the original Baldur's Gate when I was a teen. In retrospect, though, I think the writing in the original Baldur's Gate is simply *awkward*, and while some of the intrigue and build-up to the Iron Throne is good, it falls apart as a bundle of fantasy clichés barely held together by cute one-liners. For all my complaints about them, both Siege of Dragonspear and Baldur's Gate II improved on Baldur's Gate 1 immensely. I don't know about edgy, but it's accurate. Baldur's Gate was released in 1998, though. SoD is a 2016 game, so while chronologically it goes right before BG2, I would expect have liked the writing to be, I don't know, better than BG2? Even with how uneven the quality of the writing is in BG2, the best of SoD doesn't compare favorably. So if I find fault with something that you have enjoyed tremendously, I'm doing it to maintain an air of superiority, is what you're saying? Heh, o-kay. I mean, we could go into full spoiler mode to actually discuss the writing, but then again, do you want to get busy with people who are wrong on the internet?

I'm surprised that you're surprised. (the writing is kinda bland...)

/thread