metadigital

I like patches. Patches to me equal more content, better polish. I have broadband I just dont have the inclination to knowingly buy rubbish just so I can patch it to make it playable. Wow a dozen games , guess I have more free time :cool: ... Dont forget the defintion of crap here which is a game that requires patching in order to be functional. Not a game that someone thinks is bad because they cant stand a particular type of game. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> 1. Please read my posts. 2. Crap is anything I don't want to play, whether poor quality content or execution. Not sure why you are making a meaningless distinction. 3. If you don't use broadband to update content (whether to update bugs or not) then that's your own look-out. 4. Who said owning a PC means having to buy rubbish games?

Here is a list of stars, by abstruce name. Also try Googling results. Pretty picture: No names Galactic Navigation ... Galactic Latitude and Galactic longitude ... and this might help (check out the yellow dots: they are individual stars).

Whipping is a central tenet of that conviction based on that film.

*gives candy*

Sanity is relative, you know.

Sitar music is very underrated.

Where is your prefecture?

I do. :Darque: Economics 101 Marketing: the concept of a loss leader. ... One use of a loss leader is to draw customers into a store where they are likely to buy other goods. The vendor expects that the typical customer will purchase other items at the same time as the loss leader and that the profit made on these items will be such that an overall profit is generated for the vendor. ... So, to apply this logic to the console: selling the delivery platform (console) at a loss provides the revenue stream that would otherwise not exist (sales of games). That is the benefit of capitalist economics. Be sure that these companies wouldn't put out an expensively advanced console loss leader if they didn't have to fight tooth-and-nail for the same demographic. Halo? Who plays f**king Halo? 1. More crap ≠ better choice. 2. Broadband is your friend. Apples and oranges. Some of us like to play different games, like TOMBS. Oh theres certainly a lot of crap out there regarldless of platform. Of course it's important to make a distinction between stuff you dont like and hence call crap. Or stuff that is actually crap because it's flawed, buggy or what have you. Since I'm not in the habbit of buying games I dont like anyway the former doesn't matter. Since I've never had to patch any of the console games I've played where as PC games have frequently required patching I think I'm safe in saying the PC has way more of the latter. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Fallacy. I buy more than a dozen games a year for my PC, I spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time playing them, and I have barely enough time to play all the games I buy as much as I want. Just because there are more buggy games on the PC platform doesn't mean that more games that we buy and play are crap, as a total percentage, for the PC. Yes, I'm sure that the quality of games produced through a similar development cycle is significantly different on one platform to another.

Hmm... why didn't you like PS:T, pray tell? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Boredom, as I recall. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Interesting. Standard chosen-one fare, giving plenty of scope for rich character development. (Good thing Magical Volo's got you to proof read his typographical dilettantism ...) I liked Llyranor's idea (<{POST_SNAPBACK}>); it treats the whole "chosen one" device with the genial contempt it deserves, whilst performing a community service. You should try to incorporate that idea now it's an orphan ... "

Too often player development is just a euphemistic phrase for a single dimension array representing some alignment quality (LIGHT-DARK side of the Force, for instance). Choose the first option and get bonus LIGHT points; choose the last option and suffer DARK demerits. Still the same story pans out and the only difference is the immediate reaction of NPCs (i.e. the storekeepers still trade with you regardless of your homocidal megalomania). Poor utilisation of a Reputation attribute can turn out to be just an extension of this single dimension. (Now the simple tactical response from the shopkeeper, above, is tempered by a global response to the PC's overall treatment of NPCs throughout the game). Blaise's example demonstrates the subtlety that can be employed with a little more effort in the planning side. It's not that big a step up from the minimum level available at the moment in RPG narratives, and the development costs would be not dissimilar to the game without the extra Weltanschauung sophistication. I really don't know what you are talking about here. If you are saying that themes must be appropriate to plot, then I would tend to agree. I'm not at all sure what your anthology metaphor is trying to say ... a series of narratives (e.g. films) centres on the same core characters experiencing different stories, which ideally demonstrate the length and breadth of their virtues and vices, and the depth of their characters. So I don't know what point you are trying to make: please elaborate. That's really difficult, in my opinion. There is just so much creativity, insight and possibility that the audience could bring to a game, that no matter HOW big the game is, the audience will still feel restricted. And the bigger the game, the more expensive it is: so I don't think this will be happening anytime soon simply because of monetary limits. It's an ideal, though, and I too wish that games could evolve to a level of such sophistication. But sadly, I doubt that's going to happen in our lifetime. That's because the more the player can affect, the more variables are involved, and with more variables involved, the content required to cover it all grows exponentially. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> How is this any different from creating an RPG NPCs that only team up with a like-minded alignment, with magic weapons and items that can only be used by a certain class, or subquests for NPCs that are unlocked by a specific trigger? I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Sure it involves a certain amount of work, but no more than is done for standard RPG development of a decent game. It's a geometric relationship, not exponential. Think of Onderon, for example, in K2. Depending on how the planet is played, the NPCs react totally differently (allies or enemies), yet they're all still there as part of the story, and the story is still an integral part of the narrative, even though it can be told in a dramatically different way. All the same artwork (backgrounds, characters, etc) has to be completed, so graphics expense is negligible. VO and scripting is more complex, but these costs are dwarfed by the graphics. If anything it is a quick win for the development team: easy money for the invested artwork, making more efficient use of the same graphical assets. Seems like a no-brainer, to me.

Geese?

What if they take either role, depending on mood, subject and volition? :D

Bloody Portugese! It's a conspiracy! :Darque:

Hmm... why didn't you like PS:T, pray tell? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Boredom, as I recall. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That made me laugh. Edit: I laughed because it was a Snappy Answer to a Stupid Question, just as if it Al Jaffee had jumped from the pages of MAD to entertain us on the forum.

Yeah, I really liked his sarcastic wit, like when he cuts the Russian Witch (and the fourth wall) down to size about how locking a fortress should be done from the inside ..! )

Natch. It does my little black and shrivelled heart some good to be complimented on my writing by someone who writes much better than me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Your English is a damn sight better than my Portugese. Oooooooooo. Do tell ... I appreciate the list, thank you very much Unfortunately I was egged on by some people to submit my review to a couple of sites in the meantime, so many of those corrections and improvements were not made. Nonetheless your input won't be wasted as I'll take it as reference for future reviews <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I could see the writing discipline tailing off in the last paragraph and assumed time constraints were to blame ... apologies for not being available to deliver Six Sigma advice; damn pesky real world intrusions ... "

Sounds like a half-baked, ready-to-be-perfected TOMBS report. I concur, though, even my eyes are starting to bleed when trying to catch up on that reading. And please remember to use tags where appropriate. :angry: I skipped all your collective posts on the last three pages (which seemed to go on for thirty-four pages) because I didn't want to accidentally read any stuff I might encounter should I pick up and play Arcarnum again ...

Speaking of Freedom Force vs the Third Reich, I am really digging the voice work! They have captured the essence of the superhero characters (including the narrator). Mentor is my favourite.

The severity and numerousness of the flaws is not consistent across the populace.

Hmm. I still don't agree with the predicate of powerlessness. I think it is irrelevant, though I do confess to not seeing the link between your introductory remarks and magic and technology ... Literature is replete with the stuff of our mindscape: aspirations, temptations, frailties, etc. Both these examples are fiction; I think that is the point, rather than the use of fantasy or escapism. There is no reason why Joseph Conrad's prose should engender more philosophical weight. Depends on your definition of SF. I like just-future (or alternative past / time stream), verisimiliar fiction. There is no excuse for clich

This is a very bleak view of society. There is an alternative, positive view that we are in complete control of ourselves. As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in the August 1960 Catholic Digest: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Sure, to change the world, it might be necessary to wield power in some magnitude. However it might just take someone setting an example, like Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi's stand against violence. At no point did he force anyone to do anything, except by the weight of logic in his argument. I don't just read / watch / play SF for escapist purposes. I can also use the work to expand thought experiments of personality and scenario, to investigate traits and discover under which circumstances they are virtuous and when a fatal flaw. (See my reply to your "morality" comment, below.) Technology = Magic, just like Clark said. The only difference is that what we understand we call technology, what we don't we call magic. That was his point. I define magic as anything that does not follow natural laws ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Like lightsabers? " <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes. To us, unable to explain the physics behind the technology (assuming it is possible), it is magical. I don't agree technology is egalitarian: ask the nineteenth century Zulus about how fair British munitions were. Colonisation depends on the abuse of the technology-haves against the -have-nots, whether it's the Athenian navy, Roman legions or the US SDI. Magic is atainable by anyone learned in the arcane arts, just like anyone can use technology if they read a book. Don't healing potions used by fighters count as magic? A person of meagre intelligence is just as incapable of understanding rocket telemetry (reality) as nineth level spells (fantasy). The reason I pick your distinction apart is that it is entirely arbitrary. Magic doesn't permit anything to happen: at least not in CRPGs! Further: Yes. In the same way that people of the 1940s wielded atomic weapons without fully understanding their impact, magic is similar (unknown technology). Good entertainment does not rely on magic or technology. That is just a juvenile expression of impotence writ large on the fantasy universe: the poor servant of reality becomes the master of fantasy; the "chosen" god-in-mortal-form for the epic determining battle. Rather, engaging stories involve the interplay of strong, complex characters in a world where their strengths are tested and where supposed weakness may prove the winning ingredient. Where assumptions are challenged. Where intangible concepts like bravery, goodness and hope are explored: is it brave to fight against those who cannot win? Is it good to fight against non-evil for a greater good? What is hope: a rose-colouring, situation-underestimating weakness, or a mental decipline that provides an override for seemingly unbearable deprivation? Or both? Or neither? Was the Roman Empire Good? What about Stalin and his impact of the Soviet Union? Where does the definition of Good bifurcate; how much evil in a greater good turns the phenomenon evil? These are the themes of the epic and the mythic.

I vote Kaftan DMs this game here for us to play, too.

... Did he kill her anyway? In some fundamentalist expression of love for her to prevent her from living in a perpetual state of evil ...

Is that sort of like Neo in Matrix Revolutions?