Gorth

I'm not Chinese, but I added facebook to my firewall block list

Yeah, Tigs already brought up Little Lamplight. The location that killed Fallout 3 for me and caused it to get uninstalled. When not even the Fatman can kill the little brats and remove that obstacle on my path of progress, I lost interest in the game. There is silly in a fun way and there is insulting the player in a non-fun way. My first (and only) nudie mod was "nude patch" for the original Tombraider. Turned all 15 pixels of her butt into something remotely looking like skin colour Mind you, there wasn't really much internet available to the public at the time and mod scenes were usually limited to usenet and bbs boards.

Whee! $1.95m not including Paypal. Brian Fargo posted update #8 Something about how they are going to spend excess money.

You know, for the first quarter of the game I didn't even pay attention to that percentage bonus/penalty for carrying extra weapons. I had my character carrying all five weapon slots, with something like a -200% recharge penalty until I took a closer look at that equipment page and realized that my powers recharge faster the less items I carry. I decided to try out the game a second time. This time with a downloaded and heavily "doctored" save file. Took a bit fiddling around with gibbed's editor. Playing a Vanguard this time, since I didn't bother with cover half the time in my first game anyway. Also took Kaidan in my party instead of that whinging windbag Ashley. He seems to have come a long way since Carth Onassis, I didn't even find him awful right away. Got a good laugh out of the gift shop selection at the hospital. For Ashley you could chose between flowers, chocolate, Tennyson and half a dozen romance novels. For Kaidan you can chose a bottle of rum

I think there is one key difference, which may or not be important in how you experience media. Games often tries to make you the protagonist, whereas books, movies etc. while told through the eyes of a protagonist, still relegate you to the role of an observer. When reading a story, you experience it through somebody elses observations and interpretations (and sometimes expositions), but when you play a game, it will sometimes try (rather unsubtly) to force a particular emotion/mood on the gamer. Like bashing you over your head with a hammer that says "You feel sad now". I think good game design is like make-up in that regard. It usually works best when you don't notice it. Few master that particular artform.

...or the season where people decided to pay for the experience they prefer rather than what gets offered in bulk quantities? I've been looking forward to this game for a while, so I better put my money where my mouth is here too

Almost at $1.9m. A measly $0.2m away from the goal. Is there anywhere you can see a geographical spread of backers?

In my younger years, I tried to kill all the centipedes running towards me. I still don't like centipedes. Not sure if the two are related though Maybe younger people are more impressionable when it comes to moral/emotional stuff in games? Some of us jaded old cynics probably spend more time analyzing which buttons the developers were attempting to push. Oh God, you are the only one who can save us Gorth... you are such a hero! (urrkkk!...).

I moved this thread to the games secion, as you are more likely to get suggestions (if any) here. Sounds like Atari is screwing you over, as they are the official support place for the game. Notice that this place doesn't have a dedicated NWN2 section? Atari claimed total ownership of the product.

Faily sure this isn't related to computer games... moved to WoT.

I actually think Paradox did a fairly decent job of modelling religion in EUIII. Move the slider in one direction and you limit your technological achievements (heh, trade research is heretical my butt), but gain stability and more colonists to settle in heathen lands, move it the other way, you encourage technological research, but at the cost of revolting peasants when the going gets tough and war exhaustion starts climbing. Not so much a right or wrong as different consquences from national policies. Oh, and of course the casus belli you get against the non-believers is worth it's weight in gold. A simplified world model, but it works (at least in the game world). The world worked in different ways in the fifteenth century.

While I didn't pick up a lot I didn't already know from a Eurocentric view, if definitely made me more interested in medieval Indian and Asian history. Started reading up a lot on a lot of stuff from the Mughal Empire over various south-east Asian realms to the various Chinese kingdoms. Also re-kindled my interest in the part of European history leading up to the games start (1100-1400). Wasn't that why they invented the Guillotine? Where such options are available, I usually try to strike a balanced approach first. If I like the game and suspect it might be worth the effort, then I play the extremes. First the Lawful Stupid character and then the Chaotic Neanderthal option. I often find myself cringing at my characters actions in both extremes. Speaking of Crusader Kings, I wonder how many people have some kind of romantic notion about Richard "Lionheart" based on the Hollywood movies? Aka, Richard Plantagenet, french duke of Aquitaine, mostly interested in murdering fellow noblemen and when in short supply of victims, resorting to wholesale massacres of thousands of pow's, earning him the epithet "The Butcher of Accra". Funny trivia, he only visited the most remote province of his realm (England) a very few times in his lifetime and he didn't speak English at all. Yes, too much reading, blame it on EU III

If you didn't carry a tonne of guns around (and maxed out on your stamina for more carrying capacity), you could spam bionic spells with impunity and neglible wait times. Stick to a pistol and a reduced weight SMG and you can fire Shockwaves and Slams as fast as you can click on them.

Yeah, I've got both Tomb Raider movies on DVD. I used to be a Tomb Raider fan, although that's a thing of the past.

:Cant's shuddering icon: Seriously, though, I think he did Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon Siege, and Something of the Dead, didn't he? I saw Dungeon Siege, like I said. I know it was low budget, but it wasn't really that bad all things considered. That is to say, I figured it would be pretty bad and it was, but it wasn't absolutely completely horrible. I kept watching it while I did other stuff. There are some movies so bad I literally can't have them in the same room even if I'm not paying attention. I sat through the entirety of Bloodrayne (because the only other thing on the stupid hotel TV was porn). He seriously managed to make an entire movie with a scantily clad Kristanna Loken that wasn't worth watching. *That* takes a special talent

Every time I hear "movie" and "based on video game IP", I always conjure up the name Uwe Boll...

I've got a huge backlog of games that I've purchased and only installed. Sort of spoiled for choice what to pick up next. Probably Skyrim or one of the Grand Theft Auto games.

According to Wikipedia, the movie script and ovnership of the movie project has been shuffled around and changed hands (studios) several times since 2000. Maybe movies have "development hell" too?

I think Chris Avellone said something in an interview about hating Star Wars (or at least certain aspects of it) and Kreia's loathing of the force being a proxy for his own feelings on the subject (paraphrased quite a bit as I don't remember the exact quite anymore) Of course, a lot of SW fans probably didn't take too kindly on all the not so clear cut stuff... and there was also the thing with a certain Lobster Mecha that didn't look like some silly comic book version.

Anybody making good movies at all these days?

Beginning to look forward to some days off around Easter. I feel like a banana that has taken a beating... only held together by my skin Crossing fingers and hoping for some nice weather, then go for a ride up along the east coast for a bit. Time to see the Sunshine Coast.

Not uniquely Cutlock though, as my Sikh friends do pretty much the same thing. Of course it's counterproductive as few people ever gets taken seriously when resorting to schoolyard style name calling (and when pushed a bit about the "why" going into circular logic).

My favourite FPS games are FPS games... Painkiller, Quake II, Unreal Tournament, Delta Force etc. IMO few games pull off the hybrid part well and most if not all fail in one or more aspect of what they are trying to mix. Action "RPG", Real Time "Strategy", Action "Adventure" and so on are games where either Action or the quoted bit fails to some degree.

Creating a bit of hype for a DLC maybe?

It's better than most of the other reality shows that gets exported overseas? Realistically though, as the world gets more integrated and economies more interwoven, the repercussions of the actions of one of the larger economies will invariably be of interest to those it affects, eligible for voting or not.