Diogo Ribeiro

I'm going to disagree. I can't use my crowbar or baton because someone flicked the 'lock-down' switch built into it. That makes no sense. Concept vs. implementation.

Coarse, but strangely true.

I suspect the game will be akin to those SQUIDs from Strange Days. Now we can all experience being a hot, sweaty female.

Pot. Kettle. Black. And all that. I don't think I'm nicer. Just too old to pop a vein at people who type furiously at me over the internet. I mean, I can disagree without being a douche. You're calmer as well; I remember you used to lash out a bit at others So I guess today I realized some people tend to mellow out with age. +2 to Obvious Rolls

Today I've been wondering if it's just my imagination or is newc0253 nicer and calmer than before.

The whole "[series] is dead" can be many things; I just went with my gut feeling on what he may have meant. My apologies to him if he meant otherwise, but still, he seemed to be using financial success as a measure of sorts.

Wouldn't a character question the existence of invulnerable entities in a gameworld that requires you to protect or, at least, not harm them? In any case, I could use the same logic to describle invulnerable NPCs - hand holding to prevent players from screwing a game. If that explanation had existed in FC2, I certainly wouldn't mind since it provides two things I enjoy in games - effective build up of the setting and no out of character explanation of game rules. And also probably for the same reason you dislike initial tutorial areas (*) - hand holding. Perhaps, but in retrospect, it also facilitates the reverse. Players who want to see a different ending just don't need to care about the damage she receives at all. I don't argue for immersion or realism, really. Never have, never will. Which is why I actually used quotes for immersion - it's a bloated, misunderstood term; yet, it's taken a hold of general consensus as some arbitrary rule games must abide to. I decided to go preemptive strike before someone threw that in to the mix. If anything, I argue for consistency in setting and game rules. (*) Erm, at least I think it was you.

Hey, don't diss those movies. That's the kind of inspiration Michael Bay drew from, you know. Something has got to explode and burn during a movie. He just took it one step further and made entire movies about things burning and exploding all the time.

If you want to argue that it wasn't a huge commercial success at the time, that's fine; even if it falls on the twisted logic that, unless it becomes a market anomaly like Baldur's Gate, then no other cRPG was selling well at the time which simply isn't true. But if it was dead as you said, there wouldn't be any interest in reviving it. To put your Beatles example to better use, if Fallout hadn't turn a profit, you wouldn't have Fallout 3 right now.

And they also try to protect them from harm. Which becomes pointless when they can't be harmed. Where's the emotional connection there.

One lousy implementation - or rather, a potentially good one followed by a string of illogical absences - doesn't mean it's not a good idea in itself. The problem wasn't so much that a scabby bar had it, but that, as you say, large corporations didn't seem to. But the core concept is the same - invincible NPCs whose condition is explained by ingame context is much preferable. I'm fine with HL2's system as well. It's a good compromise. But the minute you give players the choice to use a weapon against an NPC, but then negate any consequence of using it, is farcical (which is why Deus Ex, God bless all its other goodness, and similar titles get mentioned). Although I understand your point, that's not quite what I'm getting at. One thing are environmental hazards like cliffs; an invisible wall of sorts that prevents accidental collapse is fine. Not every game can be, or needs to be like Morrowind, STALKER, and so on. Another is, say, Jade Empire, where a jumping martial arts phenomenon can't even jump over a few pebbles and needs to go the long route around something to reach the intended destination. The first Fable also comes to mind in this regard. Haven't played the sequel yet, since I suspect it's going to be the same all over again.

Tell me again what happens in a game where your teammates have godmode on. What happens to challenge, story telling, "immersion"?

You might want to consider some beer goggles, MC Don't think I really can add much to what's been said, though. I disagree with unkillable NPCs on principle, since it shackles the player to antiquated design fetishes. However, if you can't really design the game any better, there are ways to integrate this more efficiently. If you want to make liberal use of these, create reasons and design areas that explain ingame why they are invulnerable. Invisible War comes to mind as a good example, as it had areas lockdown your weapons usage for security reasons (which actually tied in neatly to the setting without ruining suspension of disbelief or breaking "immersion"). Otherwise, just place random signposts with mandatory story or fetch quests, since at least there's the chance people will find it amusing rather than farcical. Minigames. Not minigames themselves, but the way they are often a clear division of the remainder of the game. A minigame can - and should be - a game within a game, not a different game altogether. Why do I have to play a surreal version of Wheel of Fortune to dialogue with characters? Stronghold maintenance quests in Baldur's Gate 2 can be considered minigames; they are set within the gameworld you've been exploring for the last hours, operate under the same rules (which brings familiarity to players and largely means there's no point in coming up with akward new rules on how to play your newfangled Frogger remix, all of them eloquently explained to gamers with GIANT INDICATORS ALL OVER THE SCREEN), and are generally more satisfying than playing unrelated segments. Romances. Don't. Or if you have to, don't. Cutscenes. We get it. The Xbox is an awesome platform for crummy, low quality FMVs. However, sequences using an ingame engine are much less jarring and often produce equally good results, if not better - for the simple reason you won't be introducing stuff like character abilities that players can never have (like heroically jumping over chasms when you can't even use the Z axis). Invisible Walls and unpassable design miscellanea. The mightiest hero can kill hundreds of demons but can't even jump - let alone walk over - a few pebbles. At least create environments that justify this, instead of creating exploration'em ups where you're playing the medieval equivalent of a corridor shooter like Doom - which actually *let* you fall over acidic pits. Unlikely Armor Design. I know you have to pander to preteens who think a bikini is as good as full plate, but strive to dignify gender representation a bit more. A barbarian wearing nothing other than loincloth, a horned helm and some boots is as tasteless as a female warrior clad in a bikini and assorted bondage gear.

Scarlett Johansson Bondage Babe?

Well... Pictures are nice when you want to keep your hands busy, I'll grant you that.

What does it mean to be good? I don't think it's that clear cut; but certainly, there is some level of technical proficiency one can attribute to something, no? It wouldn't be farfetched to say the Rolling Stones are a "good band" to many, but can we claim - on a technical level - that Keith Richards is a better guitarist than Jimi Hendrix?

Evil Sir, You have piqued my interest by reaching out to the far reaches of my immorality. Can you divulge what exactly you are listening to, as well as pointing me in the right direction to acquiring these unholy tunes? Best Regards, Not A Closet Nazi.

I'd just be repeating what others have said if I go mentioning good examples of writing in CRPGs (Torment), but I'd also stand opposite of some opinions. In particular, I never could get into Minsc as he was terribly cartoonish and HK-47 just seemed like a laundry list of predictable gags. Although Jan Jansen's surreal tirades had some charm to them. I'm weird in that regard, I guess. Been playing the Icewind Dale games recently. Actually replaying the first for the expansion which I had never bothered with in the past, I was surprised with the Gloomfrost Seer. Well written, and much more interesting than the expansion's villainess. On the other hand, Poquelin was so one dimensional that it really threw me off the desire to finish the game once again. As for Icewind Dale 2, I'm taking my time with it. I never went very far but am loving the depth of some dialogues and the small dialogue variations with different party members. While looking for humor in Arcanum is like trying to find a good lay in a leper colony, some dialogues managed to fit the mood of the setting. Bloodlines also did something well - some characters were well written, and managed to do so without huge lines of dialogue. Not that I mind extensive dialogue lines but I'd rather read the short quips of someone like LaCroix and Nines than reading through most of Baldur's Gate's dialogue (Irenicus being pretty much the only exception).

Whether you are being proactive or not, time keeps ticking. Being proactive simply means you are actively spending time healing the wound faster, as opposed to letting it scar painfully until you stop feeling it altogether. But it's always a question of time and in particular, what you do with it.

Very true Alan, but even on the whole, can we distinguish between Fallout 3 as an entertaining game and Fallout 3 as a good game? If not, then these dichotomies are self-defeating. If we can, than how do we measure them?

Because it's entertaining to them. Of course, separating entertainment from quality can also be tricky. Many people were highly entertained by Bioware's first steps into the role-playing genre, but can we chalk up redundant choices and absence of meaningful consequences as being *good* - despite possibly entertaining? Fallout 3 seems to be a commercial and critical success, and many believe that the game has the "Fallout feel". But can we claim that the dialogue is *good* or well-written, just to name one element?

You don't. You just hope time's tide will wash it away, eventually. Some days you wake up and the fist thing that comes to mind is how you can no longer go "Sneak Attack!" before closing in for a kiss and make her smile by exploiting that particular gaming background you both shared. You will sit in your cubicle day after day, compiling pointless databases and shrug off the fact that dozens of clients on the listings have the same first name as her, as if the silent dead just rose from their graves and reminded you of your past. You'll smile as you read a good post on some internet forum and try to nevermind the fact that she's online; the nickname a cold, silent reminder that your object of affection is now gone. You will constantly remind yourself not to go to the bottom of your cellphone contact list because her name is *right there*, a pointless dash separating her from all others. You contemplate the silence in your bedroom as you try to push into the back of your mind whatever affection, tenderness and passion were spent under those sheets. It doesn't go away. Anytime soon, at least. But as you go by, you think less and less of it. Today, it's a stone that drags your heart and mind. Someday, it'll be a pebble, a keepsake, a warm memory that will stop asking for attention. Best thing to do is to tell yourself you were happy as you could have been. Take that with you and you'll do fine.

Oh, you know what I mean

Oh man, that shows how much out of the loop I have been.

Matt and Kim - "Daylight" A truckload of DeVotchKa stuff.