metadigital

Yes but those are cartoon games. K1 was a cartoon. At no point did anyone even get maimed; no blood, no gore, no orphans eating pets to survive, no prostitution of the underclass, nor religious pogrom of the minority. Children can see the difference. And I would have liked Mr Dastardly to win the Wacky Races once or twice -- and even catch that pigeon. (There was a Road Runner cartoon made where Wile E Coyote catches Road Runner, but it has been self-censored by Warner Bros and rarely shown. But that is an aesthetic reason, not a moral one.) You wouldn't sell many games where the protagonist is a murdering paedophile and the plot revolves around committing unspeakable crimes and ultimately escaping conviction. No one would want to play it, let alone buy it. The recent JFK game at least was (allegedly) trying to teach some historical background to the assassination of JFK. (And that was roundly ostracized.) Children aren't obtuse, and they aren't inherently more evil than adults. But they do have good BS detectors, and suffer hypocrisy not at all, like adults. Certainly, some themes are mature for a reason; sarcasm is not easy for a child to grasp (I remember my first encounter with it). That said, adult themes wouldn't be given to a child audience, by definition. (And you can't legislate for the exception to the rule.)

Other. I would prefer to be Obi-Wan on the prequels: have a Master, become a Knight, train a Padawan. (Maybe have that padawan go Dark and fight them later on. And cut off their arms and legs. And boil them in oil. And stuff. )

You could be right, but if palpatine is sooooooooooooo powerfull that he can obscure is presence even from yoda, why is he defeated so easelly by mace and yoda???? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Maybe Palpie is strong in decepition but not offence. He is more an assassin than a soldier, to use an analogy. (Although I would say he is a different class altogether, like a "strategist" or "Machiavellian", say.) Even in the games, you have Consulars, Sentinels and Guardians: a Guardian is much better combatant than a Sentinel, and a Consular will wield Force Powers better than a Sentinel. And that's regardless of levels.

That is not made clear in the various ruminations of Atris and Kreia (and the Council members, for that matter) throughout the game. There is definitely a fear that destruction of the Force would destroy all life. But that's about as overt as it gets, we are left to decide whether the Force is in control of destiny, is sentient and provides free will or an illusion of it, whether life needs the Force or if indeed the Force is a parasite to life. Maybe being deaf to the Force would be a good thing, and Kreia was not insane. In fact, that must be it! Kreia IS the One True Prophet!

... or to be tortured by a sadist, Launchie? Taking our roleplay a bit far, aren't we? "

1. This should be in the technical forum. 2. I'm pretty sure it is a known bug. (I haven't had it happen to me, but in my perusal of the technical forum I have seen it mentioned several times.)

Some people are more prone and suggestable to outside sources than others. What I find interesting about metadigitals stance, is that he is perfectly willing to accept that a game could socialise a child in a positive way, but not in a negative way. To me that is completely illogical. At the heart of this is that RPGs should offer choice, you should not simply get to a point where crime = punishment. And logically if a child who witnesses crime being a punished in game would have a postive reinforcement, then one who constantly escapes "justice" in game would have a negative reinforcement. All of which would make the game as potentially harmful as it is benificial. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually I don't think the presentation of darker froms of abuse would have any effect at all. I was merely indicating that the best way to handle such delicate matters is in an idealist way. After all, as real as we want a game to be, almost everyone believes in some sort of cosmic justice, where "what goes around comes around", and we all therefore regard it as an essential that those who are willfully and deliberately evil to their fellow humans should and will be dealt some sort of appropriate come-uppance. To have an evil person "get away with it" might be more real, but it isn't going to sell many film tickets or game licences.

I think that religion in the US political arena is used as a trump card, a shot free of retaliation. Moral sanctimonious grandstanding. Hillary Clinton signalled that she was literate in the Republican rules by firing a shot across their bow wrt abortion. Instead of taking the traditional pro-choice stance, a trap that normally befalls those in opposition to the standard pro-life arguments, she instead hit the ball back into the Republican's court by suggesting that more needs to be done to prevent pregnancy in the first place; like education and free wide distribution of condoms. This had the immediate effect of causing the usually united strong anti-Democrat religious groups shiver with the beginnings of a schism, as the Roman Catholics railed against condoms, in addition to their episcopal partners' lack of revulsion to the method. The point is that Republicans aren't all religious anymore than all Democrats are secular. Religions wrt ethics and their faithful implementation are certainly worthy of debate, but to insist there is a religious party -- or a party with religious superiority -- is disingenuous to the point of corruption. When one group start invoking infallibility, for whatever reason, then I for one would have them disqualified from the argument. (This obviously doesn't preclude mutual agreement.)

Yep, it's due shortly after Sam & Max 2, which was also delayed.

No, Kreia is just Anti-Force. She hates the Force, because she sees it controlling the universe for its own agenda. The Force isn't good or evil, it is selfish. And it destroys the illusion of free will with its malevolent pre-destination of all things. That is why Kreia wants to destroy the Force. Why she loves the Exile, a Force Sensitive who turned away and survived (in contrast the frightened Jedi Council are not even prepared to contemplate this). Kreia seeks the death of the Force, and she sees an oppotunity in the Exile (the Wound), and the Force Bond between them, to precipitate a cascade overflow and destroy the Force. One presumes that some life would survive such a cataclysm (or else Kreia is truly insane beyond reach). What is not made clear is why Kreia needed to wait until the Jedi Conclave confrontation to precipitate the destruction of the Force ... surely if she were thusly insane and/or obsessed she would have just flown straight to M5 at the first opportunity. Anyway, don't forget here is a great plot summary: (<{POST_SNAPBACK}>).

I got the Atton speil on the PC. I think it works if you start two games, I don't know if you have to finish two ... then again I did finish a few, and I don't remember the exact chronology of the events.

same way Kreia does. I guess it is some sort of "Force Camouflage", where the Force Sight doesn't work. (Maybe a reverse, self-directed Force Breach type of thing.)

Yeah, I would have liked this to be some sort of random five out of eight planets, or something, where you have to find clues as to what planets to travel to on each of the other planets, too. That way it's not just "go planet, kill everyone whilst investigating every corner, then repeat". You actually have to think and plan and do a bit of detective work. The story of K2 wasn't in and of itself interesting enough, nor told in a compelling enough way, for it to captivate the audience and impel us towards the exciting conclusion. It was banality dressed up as sublime.

That's the point. And Jedi definitely don't do stealth. They should lose LS points if they attack an enemy whilst cloaked. Bad form. Not good cricket, etc. Let those mangey Sith do all the stealthy stuff, and let them use a stiletto, like they should.

Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel ... (w00t)

Except, of course the unbending Lawful Good. Then, under those black and white rules, there is no pov to discolour the Good and dilute the Evil. Unfortunately, not everyone is Lawful Good, and there is a lot of argument about the grey areas ...

" :D Planetfall was the infocom game where you had to restart the hibernating civilization with the help of a (cute) little robot pal that you find there. Baley, when are you going to review a game?

Not true. Frequent exposure to fictional (or real) violence tends to erode the psychological barriers that make violence something despicable and unacceptable in a given situation. Take for example a child whose father beats him and his mother on a frequent basis. It's likely the child will become an abuser himself. Obviously, games don't go that far, but they can act as a catalyst for violent behaviours in people that are not completely stable. But then again, many things can. The thing is that games are the only thing that allow for such interactivity in fictional violent acts. ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I would argue that's all supposition. At the turn of the century the most popular film was simply a train shot from front on hurtling at the audience. That's it. People in the audience would jump out of their seats to avoid what they thought was certain collision with the train their eyes told them was about to hit them. People didn't think that it was okay to stand in front of a steam locomotive and emulate the experience in RL. None. After a while, the audiences became savvy to this, and now we have CGI to try to make dynosaurs real and such in an ever-increasing gradient to mimick reality. It doesn't change the fact that one is real and one is not, however convincing we try to make it. Maybe one day we'll have a direct transfer of emotion to the cortex, or some equivalent, and maybe then it might start to get difficult to tell reality from virtuality. Not yet. Not by us, and not by children. I'd be pretty lonely out here.

I think this is the point I was trying to make at 4.30 this morning (in a not-very-eloquent way). Children are quite astute, they know that Wile E Coyote can die seventy time in a Road Runner catoon hour, and yet the murder of a single girl on the tv news will give them nightmares (and righly so). It is political-correctness parentalism gone mad to start legislating against imaginary violence. That said, violence is (unfortnately) an integral part of our lives, and how we cope with it is a very important (and even defining) characteristic of our existence. So ity makes sense that it is a theme to be managed in a virtual world. To decry imaginary violence as a catalyst for RL violence is lazy, illogical and just bad science. (There was a case in the UK recently where it was claimed that the assault of a young boy by another coincidentally had the attacker with a copy of Manhunt. In actual fact, it was the victim who owned the game. The latter correction was not reported by the tabloid that broke the original rumour.) To propse that shooting a person even remotely resembles clicking a mouse is ludicrous. In a game the target is a green monster. There are much stronger statistical correlations to more mundane yet much more tragic causes for the violence in our society, like violence to children begets violent adults, in a vicious circle. Poll the inmates at Her Majesty's Pleasure, and you will find very few who were desensitized by video games and most who were beaten as children.

Where? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Just above from whence you took the quote!

I certainly will. Seriously. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I not meaning to be condescending -- if that's what it appears -- I was actually recommending the references for the original poster; I expected anyone who was programming in C to have encountered them (especially "Design Patterns") before. Still, it does us all good to get the whinney from the horse's mouth.

"Windows NT is mostly coded in C, with some parts coded in C++. Assembly language, which is platform specific, is used only where necessary." (Source) Look at WinAPI and tell me it is not C. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I am convinced we are arguing the same thing here. I said Windows was C/C++ with a little assembler. You said Windows was mainly C with some C++ and assembler. Yes, probably in USA it is, you should know better. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not in the USA. That's what I meant. I just emphasized that it is not a good tool for software development, apart from cases like automated testing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Once again we seem to be in violent agreement. I don't understand why you have corrected my post to agree with everything I said?!

That's not a bad idea, but I actually like the K1 scoundrel, solider and scout initial classes (especially as they had different sized models). Perhaps the non-Jedi classes is the bit you could skip, and be given a vanilla scout, soldier or scoundrel and start at a mid level? (Without all the neat plot-specific stuff you might find if you did that bit.) I wouldn't particluarly like to be a small child with Jedi powers -- although that does sound kinda cool, in a Sonic the Hedgehog kinda way. Still, I would like to see, for example in K2, the ability to skip the dormitories and jump on the Harbinger directly. Just make it more difficult, so there is a much more difficult path with harder obstacles: puzzles and stronger enemies which, coupled with the lesser experience and loot haul, should balance out gameplay.

Sleep is probably a very good idea, I can't believe I'm arguing for the real immolation of Sim babies and the merits of vampiric immunisation. Try explaining that at work tomorrow. "

Updates don't affect the ability to cheat. You need to update the .ini file. Also your keyboard might have a different key for the console, for example, mine is the ` (which is the extreme left top key, just under "Esc"). This should probably be in the Spoilers forum.