Cantousent

I reiterate, you swine. hahahah I actually drink a lot of tea at home, but it's all Lipton, so it doesn't count. Picture coming up. Oh, and since you always strike me as being a hell of a lot more private than me, I'll leave it to you to post a pic of us in front of the museum. :cant's tongue in cheek icon:

Anyone else having flashbacks to the EB preorder for Baldur's Gate 3?

Oh, bite me, you swine-hearted wretch. I drank plenty of tea in England. Hell, I drink plenty of tea at home and a damned lot less beer. Now, as to the Greeks and Romans, that's a short statement about a complex relationship if I've ever heard one, the reputation of the author notwithstanding. How about this, the Romans were exquisite builders and wonderful administrators, but the Greeks always felt superior. Their creative talents were far greater than the Romans, but the Romans were far more vicious. In fact, the Greeks had a view of the Romans as being brutal. At least, that was the way some Greeks felt. They didn't do polling back then. Since you're from New Zealand, I believe, (hahahaha) I don't think you have any great insight into the relationship the United States has with Great Britain. I've heard it said that the British walk upon the earth as if they own it while the Americans walks upon the earth as if they doesn't care who owns it.

No. Nor shall they.

Okay, I've started a new game, although I do not have the patch installed yet. I don't really care about the respawns in terms of danger. I just loot them and, while my ammo sometimes runs low, it all washes in the end. However, the respawns in terms of constantly slogging through them starts to get to me after a while. I don't need the area clear, but I hate fighting the same groups of bandits all the time. The soldiers not so much. First of all, soldiers carry some really good loot and much better weapons. I've got this modified smg for which I can find lots of ammo. I also have another smg that does great damage but ammo is pretty much non-existant. Mostly, I look for stashes and there are some that I just can't figure out what they mean. For example, there's this stash in the very first area that allegedly has something "right under the ceiling" or some such. I've found a box of shells up there, but I can't ever find what I would consider a real stash. There are anamolies in the area, but they don't really get in the way since the minimap shows the stash elsewhere. The only thing I can figure is that the stash is on this little platform suspended from the ceiling, but I can't figure out how to get there. Damn it. I search the place every time I go to the tunnel to cross the RR tracks. Also, I tend not to worry about failing in missions. I figure this time I'll head to the Garbage BEFORE I go to the Agroprom research area. I went back in the last game to see if I could find that flashdrive in the hideyhole where the upgraded smg and all the other phatloot is stored, but I couldn't find it. I did, however, blow a few ragged chunks in that LSD inducing zombie. Freaky looking thing. The stuff starts really getting good at agroprom and dark valley. At least, those are the areas where I start thinking I have halfway decent weapons. I'm sure the crazy stuff is up ahead.

I think the point where you diverged in your original statement was in citing magic as the panacea for lackluster writing. I recognize that your essential point is that setting with modern firearms appeal to you more than ones with swords and magic hurling mages. That's fair enough for me. ...And I've never been one for piling it on. I'm not going after you with fire and tongs, mkreku, you yutz. Wear out my keyboard. hahaha Good Lord.

hahaha Having driven in London, albeit briefly, I can laugh at your comments! Seriously, though, my sister was a freak about crossing the road. Even if there were no cars in sight, she insisted that we stay for the walk signal to cross. The locals, of course, were crossing in droves. If it were all countryside drives, I don't think I would have minded at all. The city and, heaven help me, village drives drove me insane. Not any worse than driving in... say... Boston, but I hate driving there also.

Where mkreku states a preferrence, I don't think his comments are out of line. Where I disagree with him, perhaps less vigorously than Gromnir, is in his scorn towards magic in games. If we just look at weaponry in stalker, then we can say it is more realistic. Of course, I can shoot someone a few times in the head with a pistol and they'll still live. There remains that progression of weapon damage geared more towards balance than real life. Yeah, a shotgun blast to the face does more damage than a pistol shot to the leg, but both do more damage than we see in this game. Hell, shots to the leg are often deadly. There's vital stuff in your legs. Once we get past the weapons, however, mkreku's argument is even thinner. stalker has no end of fantastic elements. I don't want to get into an argument over what is fantasy/scifi. My point is that, while it's legitimate to want a game where you shoot at folks with a firearm, it's perfectly reasonable if you prefer a game where you hack on someone with a sword. In advancing your own desires, mkreku, you insulted mine. I thought those Tom Clancy games were supposed to be realistic. No magic. No science fiction. Just soldiers shooting at one another. If that's your desire, you need only wait until for the next installment. ...But don't pretend that stalker is somehow better because it lacks the fantasy element. I've seen the landscape and the monsters in stalker. Finally, I prefer games where the swords look weapons don't look cartoonish. That's one of my beefs with WoW. Talk about a fantasy game which blatantly relies on magic to fill in the gaps, where nothing you do has real impact on the story line, and there are no meaningful choices. Still, it seems a lot of folks, like me, find it entertaining.

I'm planning to buy DA. It looks like it will be fun. As far as orignal content, I don't care. Sure, I would like something truly original, but I'm perfectly happy to have something unoriginal done well. Kind of like something Vol on the subject. I'm not sure about the Alien RPG, but I did love the Aliens movies, all of them. I'll have to see how my enthusiasm develops for the RPG in time.

Oh just read the thread if you want to know, you little doofus.

You know, I eventually went back to find it. Of course, I'm armed to the teeth and laying waste. I'm going to restart, I think. I've managed to completely confuse myself and I need to start a new game, fresh. I'll also probably go one notch lower difficulty.

It was just a bit of hyperbole. :D

See, this is where other Christians need to step in and set the matter straight. Christians themselves need to make it clear that we will not abide such behavior. It needs to be clear to every Christian who uses violence as a tactic that the person who reports you, the person who arrests you, the judge in the trial, and the jury of your peers are likely all going to be Christian and yet you will be punished for breaking the law. One of my biggest concerns regarding the response to the Mohammad cartoons was the response from the Muslim community at large to the acts of violence. The Muslims speaking unconditionally condemning the violence were too few while the majority reacted with either tepid condemnation or even tacit agreement. Christians must uphold the law, even if it requires the use of force on other Christians. Now, in some cases the law is wrong. In some cases, Christians would be obliged to break the law and even fight back against injustice, but I doubt offensive candy qualifies in either case.

That's true. Not only that, but there's nothing that says that something that works well in one genre cannot be tweaked to work in another.

Yeah, I tried lobbing a grenade at the damned thing also. In my defense, I'd just cleverly learned how to throw grenades. I just ignored it. It really didn't seem bent on following me, so I went back up top and took on the soldiers. They're much easier to kill. On the other hand, while I was down there getting all the goodies, it said that my mission to get info on Strelok had failed. The damned game confuses me, so I'm just kind of wandering around, being confused, and shooting things. Right now, there are more bandits rushing the Hangar.

I'm trying to understand what conclusion you've made about me that led you to this statement. Because the player would have to reload the battle every time until he finally realized that he can't win. Of course, now that I think about it, it was Tale who didn't want reloads. Freespace is a cool game, but not my idea of a good CRPG.

I'm not saying we should break the ruleset to create an unwinnable battle. I'm saying that, in designing an area, it is easy to make a battle unwinnable. I've never designed a computer game. however, in creating campaigns, the biggest problem isn't making an unwinnable battle. it's making sure the players can actually survive while still being challenged. See, that's why I find the dragon idea so ridiculously idiotic. I don't have to find a way to make sure the players can't beat the dragon. If I have one in the game, I have to go to great lengths to make sure they can survive it. Furthermore, I agree with Ros. Let the player finally realize, after 5,000 tries that he simply doesn't have a chance of winning. Unfortunately, that breaks the fun for folks like Llyranor and Maria. All those reloads kill the fun for some folks. Finally, maybe we should define unwinnable, just like Atreides and Tigranes have tried to do. Maybe we shouldn't even use the term "unwinnable." Maybe we should instead say, battles without victory but with a number of alternate outcomes.

England. You might think, from my previous post, that England was all bad and that I had a miserable time. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. In many ways, I miss England even now, sitting in the comfort of my own home. Like anything else, one bad aspect can color an experience. Had it not been for the troubles I brought with me, I

How would a 1st level paladin plan for a fight against a dragon? Unless you contrive some ridiculous way for the character to beat the dragon, it is an impossible battle. Sure, you could give the character super powered equipment, contrived to allow the character to put the dragon in a bad position, and maybe even provide some outside support to the character. A dragon is not a lion and it would be ridiculously stupid for a man to take on a lion with his bare hands unless he were forced to do so. Actually, it's all too often reload until you get the desired effect. A character who takes on a dragon at first level, without gaining the experience, the help, and the equipment to do so should die. This isn't really my point anyhow, however. I was thinking of it more as a battle, part of the narrative, that the NPC cannot win. If you are in a village of 100 people, you will not defeat the 10,000 well armed and battle-tested orcs. The adult population in your town would not stand a chance unless I, in designing the area, contrived some way to do so. Let me be clear, I think there are moments where the design team should let the character beat the dragon against the odds by some clever action. There are times when the design team should let the player defeat the invading army with determination and intelligence. I don't want unwinnable battles in every game and perhaps extremely rarely in any game. What I suggest is that an unwinnable battle, properly done, might enhance the dramatic impact of the scene. I continue to consider how such a battle might be implemented. What we really need is a specific, completely detailed scenario that shows how it might be done. I will try to think of such a scenario and I hope that, building on some of the examples we've seen thus far, some of you will do the same.

Awesome game.

Hey, I cleverly figured out how to throw grenades! Anyhow, where is the damned pseudodog. I've found a tail on a dog, but I'm sure it wasn't that easy. There must be some big, ugly pseudodog I have to fight. Where?!

By cleverly learning that I can unload weapons by right clicking on them in inventory, I've found that I have plenty of ammunition now! Woo hoo much better.

Sand, this was quite funny, you blasphemous bastard. :D

Ah, just let me complain. :Cant's easy going grin icon: The game is fun, but the respawn rate is still too aggressive. I started at veteran, and maybe my FPS skills are too rusty for that level, but I run out of ammo way too fast.

That's true, CrashGirl, but the respawn rate is just ridiculous. It's unrealistic. If the bandits had those kind of resources, they'd already own the whole area.