Amentep

I frequent a forum on certain classic films that has a complete forum dedicated to memorializing those of artistic talent who have passed away (...and its been going on so long, memorializing some of the posters of the board). Given that we've had individual threads on various people here before, I don't think there's anything wrong with mentioning people of distinction - actors, directors, scientists, musicians, writers, artists, etc. And with that in mind, Bruce Lansbury, producer of Mission: Impossible, Wild, Wild West, Knight Rider and - working with his older sister - Murder She Wrote passed away - http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/bruce-lansbury-angela-brother-tv-producer-dead-87-article-1.2973846

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/arts/music/al-jarreau-singer-who-spanned-jazz-pop-and-rb-worlds-dies-at-76.html Al Jarreau, Jazz, R&B & pop singer passed away Sunday.

And in the case of the unknown, there's only a legal requirement that a person is innocent until proven guilty. There is no requirement that people can't rightly/wrongly believe in guilt before a legal (or even HR, as in this case) determination is made. That doesn't follow from what I said. People had a right to be offended. If offended they had a right to complain about the offense. At that point it goes to ESPN's ball field for action/inaction. I'm not an HR person, so I could only speculate on things. I imagine that HR has to take a neutral stance when investigating for fairness, but I suspect that the burden of proof is closer to civil law (where the proof standard is, as I understand it, 'more likely than not' than 'beyond a reasonable doubt'). And whether he was treated fairly by ESPN per their HR policies, the terms of his contract and applicable law seems to be the root of the lawsuit.

Actually no one has to give him the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise everyone can do anything they want so long as they say it wasn't intentional afterwards. People have a right to be offended whether he wittingly or unwittingly made offense. He has a right to say he was misunderstood and try to prove it. ESPN has an obligation to do due diligence and accord sanctions according to their policy and relevant laws. . Now that there's a suit, ESPN has to prove he violated some terms of his working agreement since they took correct and legal action. He has to prove that the firing was either (a) not following the organizations policies or applicable law, or (b) applied to him incorrectly as he used a homophone of a racial slur, not an actual racial slur.

No, but a human being should care. And how does that theoretical human know if the theoretical 'minefield stepper' did it by accident or not, in a verifiable, independent sort of way?

Do you really think he would've intentionally used a racial slur knowing he would be fired immediately? "There's a small chance he meant this in a racist way, we better destroy his career and reputation just to be safe." As I've said, I think he said gorilla not intending it to be a racial remark. He might even have been unaware of the words historical racist context. Is ignorance a defense? Did he have other disciplinary actions against him we don't know about? Is there more context that can explain his guerilla defense? I don't know. I do know if you step into a minefield, the mine doesn't care if you did so by accident or not. Some sort of disciplinary action was going to come forth on this; is the firing justified? I guess we'll find out in the court case - if it happens.

Perhaps it could act similar to Stevenson's Black Spot in TREASURE ISLAND? That said, if I was making an item with an Obsidian theme, I'd be hard pressed not to make a shield and call it the Black Shield of Falworth...

The difference with the Gorilla/Guerilla thing is that there actually is a history of using the term gorilla to portray/present those of African descent as sub-human. So it does have a historically racist connotation. The real question is whether he said "gorilla" or "guerilla" and what he possibly meant by either use.

I don't see discussing romance and its implementation in games as a side track in the romance thread. Anyhow, I dislike the term 'wish fulfillment' precisely because it has a connotation of lacking in the player actually having to work at or towards a goal. The player wants it, so they're going to get it; this is true whether the wish is fulfilled in their wildest fashions or in a 'monkey's paw' sort of way to create drama. "You would never say that the action segments of a game being boring is the fault of the player not being able to put themselves in the character's shoes, so by that same argument, you should never say that romantic characters being unattractive is the fault of the player putting too much of themselves & their own standards into their character." Not finding a romantic character attractive or viable for the player character is inevitable, as its a function of character and no character can appeal to everyone. If I say I don't like Durance its either because (a) he's non-optimal for my party build from a functional standpoint or (b) I dislike him as a character. In the case of (b), should games not include a non-player character I don't like? If your answer is yes, then I disagree with the concept that NPCs have to be universally likeable (I'd also argue that it would be fundamentally impossible to create); if your answer is no, then I disagree that a distinction needs to be made in the subset of character that is romance. To me, if you're building non-player characters with the idea that any one (or all) has to be attractive to the player you're losing sight of the NPC as a character and as such, the NPC has lost any agency they might have had in the narrative. IMO, YMMV.

Went back and looked at one of the articles about the incident I read to try and find context and realized I misread a date they gave. So reading fail on my part.

Correct me if I am wrong, but there is no concept of good or evil in the PoE universe, right? I'm pretty sure there is a concept of good and evil, but there isn't an alignment system that reflects whether you are basically at that point in time good or evil.

Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights? Barbarian and Barbarian? Aliens, Aliens, Aliens, Aliens, Aliens, or Aliens?

To be honest, I don't get his explanation and find it weird its taken him three years to come up with it rather than make this argument in 2012 when he came under fire. The Agassi-Sampras ad that was "Guerilla Tennis" featured Agasi and Sampras blocking off a NY city road with a net and playing tennis in the middle of the street. What Adler says is that Venus Williams "...put the gorilla effect in. Charging." I don't immediately see how that ties to the ad, or can tie to the concept portrayed in the ad. That said, without further word on what "guerilla tennis" came to mean in the tennis community past the ads, I guess it is possible that there's something to it. That doesn't necessarily mean that Adler meant it to be racist though although that could also be true. When he apologized at the time he said he used the wrong word. I suspect he was wanting to use an animal that is aggressive in defending territory and charges forward and intentionally/unintentionally/unwittingly/unawaredly used an animal that had long been used to portray those of African descent as sub-human.

I actually think its more exciting that they're working on deeper relationships in general. I'm happy that romance can be a part of that, but honestly a handful of really well written companions with a lot of reactivity is the goal in my eyes whether there's any sort of romance attached to the NPCs relationships (with PC or other NPCs) or not. And I'd be completely okay with romance being an unresolved end game element provided it was interesting getting there. Heck I could see with the right execution something where the PC and NPC have a lot of "you know when all this is over lets get dinner..." kind of dialogue, and have an end slide that just says the PC and NPC did go to dinner and leave it for the player to decide how that went outside of the game. There's no real reason that a romantic subplot needs to be 'resolved' before the final boss fight or resolved in a positive or concrete way, IMO.

To Aotrs Commander's questions. Just out of honest and genuine curiousity, what was the opinion on Obsidian including "sex with prostitutes (who have no apparent restrictions on gender of client) gives you (sometimes quite significant) stat bonuses" in PoE (and Tyranny)? (I mean, I know the inclusion of prostitutes somewhere was a staple of IE games since BG 1, but I don't think, for all the (not unjustified) flack people give Bioware over their one-sex-scene-at-conclusion-of-romance-arc, they have done that (unless they have in the post ME3 games i haven't played properly?) Is that better, worse, different or what? Its a way to add an element of gameplay to what is otherwise an economic sink in a game and thus give a cost-benefit rationale to go/not go with a prostitute while allowing the game to support the inclusion of element that probably would exist in the setting. Ancillery question (because, again, I'm interested in what people think), what would people feel about being able to have sex with your companions without romance ever coming up? (I'm not suggesting that is something that should be done, but I am interested in whether people would think that was better or worse than romances, and particularly in context with the above prostitute question.) If it makes sense for the NPC and the player the PC created to pursue that avenue, then it makes sense in the game. Ancillery ancillery question: what about romance that did not involve sex (in the course of the game's timeline, perhaps assuming that a character in question would want to wait until after [some event] (the world is safe/marriage/somethng else etc...)? (And would thus sidestepping any possbility of Bioware's... interesting...? attempts at sex scenes.) Better, worse etc...? I don't think relationships between NPC-PC or NPC-NPC need to be "resolved" in the same way. Maybe the PC-NPC have sex at the beginning and it never progresses past that. Maybe they never have it. The important thing is to make it a rich and interesting character interaction between PC and NPC that does not sublimate the NPC to the will of the PC.

There are several ways to send Sagani to that one ending path and all of them are tied - as I understand it - to essentially saying that her journey is a pointless ritual. When you meet her she's struggling to understand the point of the quest and missing her kids. Re-enforcing to her that the quest is pointless conceptually worms into her head such that she dreads going home and when she gets home she struggles to find a new meaning in her life. First part of the sentence when Sagani asks for council is "It doesn't matter what you say". You're telling her the quest was pointless. If you want to re-affirm her belief - even if you don't believe it yourself - you'd pick the option to tell Persoq what he meant to Massuk as it is clearly the re-affirmation of her beliefs choice (and in fact I think that's what she tells you she's supposed to do). As I recall the game tells you the Watcher will gather souls in crisis around him/her; clearly Sagani's crisis is one of faith in her traditions in the face of missing out on the life she left behind.

I disagree; making the romance an explicit wish fulfillment is leading down the path of creating a feel good mini-game at the expense of your NPC. I think what needs to happen is that the game needs to allow the player to make a choice and have the game react to the consequences of that choice. How I'd approach making a respectable romance - Romance should not lock out the player from having an interesting traveling companion if they don't pursue the romance and should not lock players out of essential elements (ie items, xp) The NPC's goals and interests should not be subsumed for a romance A pursued romance shouldn't fail only because the PC ends it; the NPC should be able to end it as well Each romance shouldn't end in the same place It is okay to have the PC make a choice to pursue a romance with a character that will never end well The game should react to the romance in a way that makes the romance meaningful as a choice/consequence regardless of the ultimate disposition of the romance All rules are mutable with the right idea and good writing.

Cespenar "Oooo... big weapon, this. You over-compensating, maybe?"

I'm not a fan of the idea of relationships providing items. If there is a bonus to be had, I think it needs to be a good/bad trade off so that its not something that the player will always want to have achieved (and thus can place more into the RPing of the character as opposed to metagaming). Items tend to fall into "absolutely must use" or "useless, will sell for gold" and either way always something the player would want to have (therefore the player is incentivized to always try to achieve the item).

I can't remember if there were bar rumors in PoE (I haven't restarted a new playthrough yet on it), but I am replaying BG1 and seeing the rumors when drinking (and how they're generally useless) and then this post makes me think that something like having bar rumors actually net you information about NPCs you could initiate talking to might be a way to solve the conundrum of "wander around and talk to everyone in case they have a quest" vs "walk two feet, be given a quest because you have the kind of face that says you do quests". Go to the bar, and spend enough on drinking / eating long enough you may hear about some NPC who is having some kind of problem, then you can decide if you want to find that NPC or not. Could be a way to complement other methods of finding quests.

A cool idea, to offer negative or positive rewards in % during combat based on your relationship status. You have a strong bromance with Eder and you receive the Got Your Back while fighting next to Eder for a small defense bonus because he is mindful to shift his shield now and then toward you for protection between attacks. In the event Eder has negative thoughts to you, perhaps a shield bash goes wrong during battle and stuns you. The problem with past examples of these mechanics is that it encourages players to game the system and just pick the +Approval option in all dialogue, while it punishes players who roleplay a coherent character - turning it even more into a mindless game of up the numbers. Tyranny tried to get around this by providing different combat bonuses based on high respect or high fear, but the issue remains that you're encouraged to look at the bar and say "I just have to insult/praise him one more time and I get the combat ability!". It would be like rewarding players with a unique item after they have sex with Aloth, or whatnot. The best dialogue moments in RPG history - Ravel, Myrkul, etc. - often involve no unnecessary gameplay bonuses or token rewards, so that both the writer and the player can focus fully on the situation, the words, the themes. If bonuses are used, there should always be a trade-off to the bonus. Aloth, if friends with Eder, feels confidence that Eder 'has his back' as Sylvus suggests. He casts faster if Eder is within X ft of him as he's concentrating more on the spell and not on the flow of combat as he's sure Eder has him covered. This makes him easier to hit if an opponent gets past Eder to attack Aloth as long as Eder is within X ft of him. The player then has to decide if the benefit of having them 'teamed' in formation outweighs the penalty. (note this is just an example, I'm not sure the bonus appropriately scales to the penalty) As far as the injury angle is concerned, I've often thought it'd be interesting to have the NPCs lose confidence in the PC if the PC kept using poor strategy. If the wizard keeps getting whacked, why wouldn't the wizard start to complain over the lack of protection. It could be an interesting conversation to play through.

I wonder if they'll take into account combat stats in relationships. If Eder and Aloth have a high friendship, will Eder favor helping Aloth in combat either in the AI or through a minor bonus of some kind? If you keep getting a companion injured in combat, will that companion start thinking less of you?

Was permadeath on?

Doubt obs would allow it given the California laws on use of appearances without proper rights. Werent there crazy lookalikes in BG2 come on. Valigar is Vin Diesel Depends on how close you come; the closer you come the more likely you're going to end up sued. If the image is transformative enough...probably not going to be an issue. But I doubt Obsidian would allow you to use a celeb picture; it ruins any plausible deniability one way or the other.