Enoch

Actually, given how easy it is to raise stats is probably why they didn't have considerably more impact on the gameplay. No, I think Slowtrain had it right. The reason that the effect of skill levels tends to get stripped out of ARPGs is that players generally dislike playing shootery combat that features their onscreen avatar missing what the player aims at. Short of taking the ME2 route and removing combat skills entirely, there are a couple of ways to mitigate this effect. Two of the more dubious ways of doing so are to make the difference in skill level minuscule, and to throw enough skillpoints at the player that he never gets to experience much of the low-skill state of affairs. Bethesda took the worst of both worlds and implemented both of these lousy approaches-- having already swamped the character in skillpoints, the drawback of making them matter a lot in the feel of the shooting goes away to a great degree. (Other, better ways to address this are to make the skill affect things other than accuracy or damage-- rate of fire, reload time, chance of a jam, rate of decay-- or to make leveling up a skill more about acquiring special moves than about marginal improvements in overall effectiveness.)

I probably enjoy living vicariously through Shyke's posts as much as any other forum member (well, at least the married ones), but mixing rum with white wine is where I draw the line. Dude, you've got to have some standards. Anyhow, the wife suggested opening a bottle of champagne that had been in the back of our fridge for months tonight. I obliged and made some champagne ****tails. (A.k.a., a flute of champagne with a sugar cube soaked with angostura bitters in the bottom.) Angostura bitters make everything better.

Charles Mingus-- Oh Lord Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me The 1962 version of the same sentiment, in a more urban milieu. Edit: Also, the (warning: naughty language).

from our pov, the strength o' fo3 were not its gameplay or story elements but rather the degree to which bethesda managed to capture the feel o' a Fallout washington dc. the quirky, retro-sci-fi freak show that is fallout were realized in a rather inspired choice o' Americana steeped locales... the best character in fo3 were the setting itself. HA! Good Fun! Agreed. To me, the most compelling quest I went on in FO3 was the one I invented myself: "Find my house." (Sadly, there was nothing here but rocks. Although a little further to the NW I found one of those camper-trailers that I claimed as my own. It even has a little charcoal grill out front!) I would've also tried "find my office," but the particular part of DC I work in wasn't modeled in the game. Other locations that they nailed include Dupont Circle (including the car tunnel underneath it), the Capitol, the lobby of the Nat'l History Museum (a.k.a. Underworld), and the entrance to the Nat'l Archives. The re-imagining of the Pentagon was pretty freakin' cool, too.

I enjoyed the metro more than most areas of the game. But that's probably because I spend about an hour a day in the actual DC metro, and they nailed the look of the place, to a great degree. Also, I'd have probably hated them more if I didn't use the fast travel to skip through after I had explored a particular stretch fully. It beat sneaking around the Yogis in the wasteland, anyway.

Please critique those game play elements in your own words instead of modifying mine. 'cause by doing so the critique is changed in some meaningful way? *shrug* I suspect it has more to do with the fact that Josh's forum posts often find their content quoted and posted on blogs, other forums, fansites, wikis, and the like. While it would certainly be lazy and irresponsible (if not downright deceitful) for a web denizen to retell the contents of the Josh quote-box in your post as if it had been said by Sawyer himself, such behavior would hardly be unusual by internetz standards.

The private banks certainly had a role-- they had little reason to bid up the yeild on the government debts they were buying because they knew that the ECB would accept it as collateral. But, in the end, private financial companies are like gasses-- they expand to fill the container they're in. If Bank Y wasn't going to abuse the ECB's lending practices, Bank Z would've stepped in and done it instead. I'd say that the 'failure' lies with the design of the overall system. Simon Johnson explains it better than I can:

I don't disagree about Orzammar and the Deep Roads being a grind. The atmosphere is a positive, but the bigger plus to me is that it has the best setpiece boss fights in the game. The casteless gang leader, the spider queen, the broodmother, and the fight at the anvil were all great fun.

Heh. Reminds me of the various media panics about "Pharm parties". Trend pieces are among the easiest deadline-fodder that lazy journalists can do. Pick an anecdote, google it to get 2 other occurences, and you can call it a "trend" and write a story about it. Bonus points if it's a trend that angers or terrifies your core audience. Plus, everybody knows that if your eyeballing liquor, high-proof rum is the way to go.

Neat idea, although it's a little disappointing that all roads lead to the Marburg Proposition. Makes the game look more like it's driven by a ME-style black/white "seek vengeance" or "stick to your principles" dichotomy, which we know it isn't.

Pearlstein is one of the sharper business columnists out there, and that's a pretty good piece. The bargain that was offered to the peripherial Euro nations was essentially this: Cede control of your monetary policy to the (mostly German and French controlled) ECB, and get the ECB's liberal lending practices in exchange. (The lending worked like this: governments sell debt to private banks, banks use that debt as collateral for 'repo' transactions with the ECB lending window, the whole of which made it very easy for these governments to keep issuing debt beyond the point where a cautious investor would start demanding a higher risk premium.) The central nations, on the other hand, got the benefit of having markets for their exports whose monetary policy they control, which, as Pearlstein describes, is essentially old-as-the-hills mercantilism. The cost is what they're paying now-- creating the atmosphere in which the peripherial nations could issue too much cheap debt. The other key insight here is that this really isn't a bailout of profligate governments-- it's mostly a bailout of the German banks, French insurance companies, Dutch pension funds, etc., that are holding all of that Greek (and Portuguese, Irish, etc.) debt. I don't expect the current bailout to actually prevent default. What it will do is delay it until Greece, et al., can "rollover" their debt-- pay off their current bonds (mostly held by big players in the Euro financial industry) at face value with the bonds backed by the ECB and IMF. It's taking the risk that these financial institutions assumed when they bought the debt and shifting it onto the taxpayers of Europe (and, via the IMF, the rest of the developed world, too).

Actually, a 30-something loser who sits in his room playing xbox and watching tv all day is exactly the image that comes to mind when I hear the words "king of the wellington metal scene" and "warlock of the highest order in satan's army." In truth, I'm a little shocked that he doesn't also live with his mother.

I'm actually a little irritated right now-- I just tried to order the game from Amazon, and the "release date delivery" option that they usually have for upcoming games wasn't available. Poking around other major retailers, they're all either charging crazy shipping, or would require me to get in my car and fight evening traffic to go get it after work on the day it comes out. (Rockville Pike is a frikken nightmare.) This is a game that I'd prefer to have an actual box for, but now I'm starting to lean towards the Steam option.

As I understand it, a large part of the Chinese support for NK stems from the speculation that any fall of the NK government would lead to hundreds of thousands of refugees coming over the border for the Chinese to deal with. It's cheaper and less destabilizing to throw Kim some support to help maintain the status quo.

Well, that would be a possible course of action if you were dealing with rational people. When you're dealing with "lunatics," though, the options are often a lot more limited (particularly lunatics with thousands of artillery pieces pointed at a city of 10 million people).

Today, I managed to be less than a total offensive liability for my team in after-work pickup basketball. I'm going to count that as a win. Plus, apart from some tall staircases, it's all the meaningful aerobic exercise I get, so I'm feeling reasonably good about myself right now.

Yes. YES. It was awesome fun to kick reborn in the face and send them plumetting to their death in JK2... a Q3A-powered game from 2002. It's ridiculous that this isn't a viable strategy in action games anymore. Obsidz is purportedly filling that need in Alpha Protocol.

Even in the most catastrophic nuclear war, excessive pollution, resource exhaustion, or zombie apocolypse scenarios, Earth is still going to be a thousand times more suitable for human life than is any other rock in this solar system. (At least up until the point when the sun starts dying in 5 or so billion years.) Human space travel has a powerful emotional appeal, but, based on the data presently available, there isn't much to be said for it from a logical point of view.

The rebels are idiots-- they need to pick a different color. Everybody who has ever watched Star Trek knows that "red shirts" are doomed to die as soon as they are placed in any moderately dangerous situation.

An illustration. When I say "production city," this is exactly what I mean: The whole purpose of this city is only to work those mines and bring in those Hammers. The Pigs and the farmed Grasslands are being worked only to feed the Citizens in the mines. (In 15 turns, when the city grows again, I'm going to make the new Citizen into an Engineer specialist.) Note that the only improvements built are ones to grow the city (Granary), keep order (Temple), reduce overall maintenance costs (Courthouse), and, most importantly, magnify unit production (Barracks, Forge, Heroic Epic). (I would have a Stable there, too, but I don't have Horses.) With all that production and the Heroic Epic, this city can provide most of the military needs of my entire empire. A Library, Market, or the like in a city like this would be a complete waste of hammers that could be used in making more military. As an added bonus, it also has a settled Great General, so all troops produced there (i.e., 90% of the troops my whole empire produces) will start with 5 XP (3 for the Barracks, 2 for the GG), which gets them 2 promotions right out of the gate. That said, you don't need to specialize every city. Most of your cities will be primarily Commerce producers, bringing in just enough Hammers to build all the necessary infrastructure, and just enough food to keep the city growing while working as many cottages as possible. But it is very important to specialize the cities where you have your big multiplier Small Wonders-- Oxford U, the Heroic Epic, the Ironworks, Wall Street, and the National Epic. (And, later on, a city specialized with high food production and the Globe Theatre can abuse the Drafting mechanic if you have the right Civics running.)

Huh. I never knew that MCA went to the Thomas Jefferson HS in Alexandria. I work with some people whose kids go there.

The best ways to keep opportunistic AI attacks at bay is to: 1) make sure that you're not falling behind in the "Power" rating on the demographic screen, and 2) kiss ass diplomatically. Many AIs won't plan a war against you if they are "Pleased" with you, and almost none will start war preparations if you are at "Friendly." (I know that Catherine is one who you can never ever trust.) I'm playing a game now as Ramses. It was an insanely beneficial start-- 2 Gold and 2 Corn (all riverfront) within Thebes' workable area, and a large peninsula off to the NE that I natuarally box my rivals off from. A start like that makes Monarch feel more like Noble. But I'm playing it anyway-- sometimes it's fun to not have to worry about getting all the micromanaging right to have a chance at winning. I also have a tendency to "turtle" too much; I have to force myself to be aggressive. In that vein, I am in the process of wiping England off the map. Victoria was to my South, and even with my starting advantages, she was starting to pull ahead in technology. (She also had Gold, some seafood, and lots of mature cottages on Flood Plains. Plus, while I was expanding as quickly as I though was prudent, she kept her empire to 4 cities, which kept upkeep costs very low.) I had just gotten the Heroic Epic built in my production city (a beauty-- it works nothing but grassland pigs, 4 mined grassland hills, and 1 mined plains hill, and it builds almost nothing but military) when I decided to take her down before she gets Longbows. That city cranks out Swords and Catapults at about 1.5 turns each (on the "Epic" speed setting), so it wasn't long before I had my invasion force. When I had about a 70% advantage on the power graph, I knew that further delay would be silly. Never start a war that you haven't already won. (Unless you're just joining a war to kiss up to an ally.) Now I have to decide whether to leave her Civ as one pitiful landlocked city in the middle of the jungle, or to finish her off entirely. I can certainly extort some technologies from her for a peace treaty, but eliminating her will make pacifying and ruling the conquered territory easier, and if I have to fight her again Asoka will give me another permanent "you declared war on our friend" diplomatic demerit. (The other AI on the continent is Alexander, who is usually a stupid-aggressive backstabber. I bribed him into joining the war against England, to get the 'wartime allies' diplomatic bonus and to make Asoka think twice about helping out Victoria. India is between Greece and England, so I wasn't worried that Alex would take any cities before I got there.) I'm leaning towards termination.

I love 'em I'll admit I can do without the hot & humid Jersey summers. And the freezing winters. And the rainy fall. And then pollen full spring. I love NJ but we have some wacky weather Eh, NJ weather ain't so bad. After a few years living in Virginia, I started remembering NJ's "hot & humid" summers fondly. And sometimes I'd prefer a nice freeze to the consistent "cold, grey, and often rainy" winters that prevail in the DC area (the 2009-10 winter being a notable exception). The worst winter weather, to me, is temps just over the freezing point combined with wind and rain. Anyhow, today I had a pretty satisfying workday. Got to deal directly with an attorney in a rather senior position at a different agency, and I feel like I made a good showing of it. We disagreed about the meaning of a particular statute, but I came up with a way to avoid confronting that particular issue. It wasn't central to the project we were working on, and a disagreement probably would've just gotten in the way of our deadline. I don't know if it's a change in style, increased confidence in me, or the fact that I hadn't really filled him in on this issue in advance, but my boss has been curtailing his tendency to micromanage lately. It's really my only criticism of the guy as a supervisor-- he's very understanding about scheduling stuff (basically a "so long as your work gets done, I don't much care when and where you do it" attitude) and I have enormous amounts of respect for his intelligence and work ethic. The respect is key-- I can take a little micromanaging when it results in an obvious improvement in the quality of the work because the boss happens to be a genius with a 10-year experience advantage. But working for someone who isn't as smart or as dedicated as you are is hell. So now I'm playing some Civ4 and sipping some bourbon & ginger ale. For mixing bourbon, I really like 2 brands-- Elijah Craig (about $16 for .75L in my local jurisdiction) and Old Forester ($13!). I think they rival Makers Mark in flavor (which is more heavily marketed) and are available for 2/3rds the price or less. (I found the Old Forester on sale for $10.50 last week.) And, really, for sippin' whisky, I'd rather go with a Scotch, so these are the bourbons I buy.

That man's enthusiasm was disturbing. (And I couldn't help but notice that most of the hunks of meat had been boned.)

It's not underlying chemistry, it's energy balance. Energy spent by body, energy must go into body. Hell, you can even make it more basic than that and have it be a mass balance problem - unless he's no longer exhaling carbon dioxide, there has to be some carbon going into his body to replace the carbon going out. I was thinking more about water. Human cells use H2O, and the body loses a non-negligible amount of it through skin and by breathing. If more isn't provided, organs will start to fail.