Amentep

I'm guessing Drakensang:River of Time? Isn't Drakensang based on The Dark Eye, which would be Das Schwarze Auge (DSA)? I admit Drakensang was my first thought and DAS could just be a typo...

Yes but plagues are a bacteria causing illness, not a parasite so not within the scope of the question asked. By comparison Pasmodium berghei and toxoplasma gondii are both parastic protozoans

Helminths (tapeworms, roundworms, etc) can infect rodents. Plasmodium berghei has thicket rats from africa in its life cycle. The cat parasite mentioned above toxoplasma gondii can infect rats and make them lose their fear of predators.

Cell phone records indicate he wasn't on his cell phone texting or calling. Manslaughter hadn't been ruled out (and still hasn't, AFAIK) because even though he was under the speed limit, there were questions on whether he was still driving too fast considering the traffic ahead of him.

Better safe than not.

As far as I know the investigation is still ongoing - haven't heard anything one way or the other about that accident. Edit: Last News Stories i could find: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/bruce-jenner-dodge-manslaughter-charge-crash-article-1.2171873 http://www.ibtimes.com/bruce-jenner-car-crash-victim-kim-howes-family-reportedly-looking-legal-action-1867966

As an aside, toxoplasma gondii can cause toxoplasmosis which can kill those with compromised immune systems and babies. Pregnant women should limit their contact with cat's fecal matter to avoid inadvertantly infecting their babies.

2 Episodes into the 1st season of Bates Motel. Promising so far. Like how it feels like the films (although so far it feels more Psycho 2 than Psycho) even with all the changes.

Pretty sure whether the person was "locked away" (much less treated) would be highly variable depending on whether the person was still functioning in society and/or a danger to themselves or other. A person who feels a kinship with Napoleon, buys Napoleonic things, dresses as Napoleon in their spare time... perhaps even thinks they were Napoleon in a past life but who holds a steady job, has not trouble with the police and doesn't intend to conscript an army and conquer Europe would probably be ignored by the mental health profession in the US. Are you saying that transgenders are basically cosplayers? That or you try to diminish the argument about mentally ill people who truly think they are for example Napoleon (not fans, not cosplayers, not comedians, a sincere belief and acting on this belief). I think you really insult mentally ill people by comparing them to mentally healthy cosplayers. When discussing a serious issues like mental health we should at least try not to derail the conversation to absurd territories. No, in answer to your question, I am not. What I am saying is that 9 times out of 10 a fully functioning person with mental illness is going to be treated privately according to the current standards of care OR they're not going to be treated at all because they haven't done anything actually criminal to trigger forced treatement upon them.

Of course; I'd never argue anything else. Mind you I'd argue a Spiritual Successor can be completely different as well (David People's SOLDIER and BLADE RUNNER for example - set in the same universe, similar themes but different movies). Heck an actual successor can be completely different as well, depending on how the story goes.

You may have noticed we're dealing with a tad unreliable narrator here. Or at the very least one that's most certainly not unbiased. Harlan Ellison is a raconteur; I think if you've ever heard much of him you'll realize he exaggerates for effect. But he's also fairly blunt in his interactions with people too.

Fair enough, I'll agree that "Spiritual Successor" can be nebulous; that said I'll argue that PoE touting an attempt to craft an homage to the Infinity Engine games would mean more than a brief nod.

am very disappointed in you. did we not thoroughly and complete exorcise this demon during the past couple years? the ie games, ALL the ie games, were listed as inspirations for poe... along with other unnamed crpgs from the increasing distant past. no "spiritual successor" nonsense from obsidian. evar. Would you rather I say "homage" - like Obsidian did in their Kickstarter pitch ("Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.") than "Spiritual Successor"? I'm not sure such a semantic split is necessary, but I suppose that depends on what you see a Spiritual Successor means...

Sure, but it is their first game using it. And they had to create the systems and mechanics (stats, how they're used). That's all stuff a BG2 would have benefited from that a PoE can't. Heck even IWD and PST had the benefit of BG already existing even though they were BIS's first shot at the IE engine.

It can put a constraint on the scope of the game though. BG2, for example, has the benefit of an engine, systems and assets made for it (through the production of BG1) that BG1 didn't. Therefore time that was eaten by working on the engine or working on assets isn't a factor for BG2 like it was for BG1, that development time can be spent elsewhere. PoE did have Obs working on a new engine and having to create all their assets and develop their systems. Now I'm not saying PoE and BG2 aren't a fair comparison (IMO its all fair game), all I'm saying is that I can buy an argument that if you want to look at what's potential with development time, a first game might make more sense compared to another first game.

Doing a quick google search, trying to find a picture of Rihanna with a closter facial angle the best I can say is that I think the nose and brow line might be the similar. Mouth and jawline are pretty different IMO.

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself though, not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O! be some other name: What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.

IIRC the thread limits were instituted after a board upgrade on the old BIS boards.1 The rationale was that threads of very long length became issues within the database. In BIS's case, it created the "Black Hole" thread, where you could post and the reply wouldn't show up. Or it would, randomly inserted somewhere in the thread making replies come pages before the message they're replying to. Eventually it caused a destabilization of the entire forum, screwed up indexing and ultimately ended up with the nuking of that board and moving to another. I'm assuming that the issue wasn't specific to any BBS or server and so has continued on so that a new "Black Hole" isn't ever created. 1It's been awhile, so I could be wrong.

To be fair, PST wasn't an instant classic. It took a few years for its reputation to be built; I remember being at BIS (and moderating the PST forums) and there were a lot of people who just plain didn't like it at the time.

I think you have not thought enough about this. If you are asking "What are the game made EXACTLY In 1998 which we take for context?" then it is an arbitrary judgment. AN year is not a metric of a formal comparison for contexts. The point in that PST, a game considered by many to be one of the best story tellings in RPGs was made in close vicinity of BG. That fact alone is sufficient to say that people in the relatively similar contexts of storytelling of BG could think about superior stories. Which is all that needs to be said. Same for DX. DX was being made before BG was released. So people in that time could and did come up with better stories. Is that not what context means? All this shows is that BG, which in my opinion had a bad plot and story telling can not be considered as a standard of comparison for storytelling in general. Okay, I understand what you're saying. However, you could argue that the first game in a new series (BG) is a more apt comparison to a first game in a new series (PoE) than the second game (BG2) to the first (PoE). Just because there are other comparisons that can be made doesn't make any one more/less valid than the other.

1) I think it is possible to be able to recognize that something is of good quality without necessarily being something that appeals to you; I wouldn't have called it "surprised" exactly, but I affirm it happens. For example I don't like a lot of crime stories, but I can recognize when I see a good one even though it's going to have a tough time actually appealing to me. Partially this is due to the fact that you can recognize the merit of the individual part (story structure, dialogue, character, game systems, etc) even if the total isn't personally appealing to ones personal taste. 2 & 3) I think bias recognition is going to be something that you recognize over time with a reviewer. First review from Darth Roxxor I have no clue what his biases are, so its harder to be able to relate what he might feel to how I might feel. Which is why the review is so ultimately irrelevant to my perspective of things - I just don't have enough context to make a decision as to whether the review is...well anything. 4) I'm not sure I'd call either example unenlightened. The first is merely one from a very different context from mine - but certainly I don't think a review has to be from someone who understand the complete context of the game industry to be able to make a valid observation; the second is a poor one because it reviews something other than the game (ie Oster's opinions).

I haven't finished because I keep restarting around the beginning of Act II...

I'm not sure what you mean here. Who are "they"? What kind of context are you building your comparison with? Game maker (Black Isle and Ion Storm are not Obsidian Entertainement)? Age (2007 is 8 years from PoE and MotB and Deus Ex is 2 years later than BG)? Gamestyle (Deus Ex and MotB are both 3D action RPG games, First Person and Third Person respectively)?

If you hate science fiction, it'll be readily apparent in your reviews. The need to clarify that (beyond, perhaps, the most introductory) would ultimately be unnecessary. Roger Moore (not the actor) is a film critic who I disagree with almost completely on film. But he's rather consistent and its relatively easy for me to see from his reviews whether I'd like something or not. In that instance, his job in personally reviewing a movie works as I can still use his opinion to make informed choices on what I might like to see. While recognizing bias is good, I'm not sure its necessary. And to me, not recognizing bias doesn't render a review "dishonest", it merely makes the review subjective...which it already is. Dishonesty in a review would only come if you're not being honest about your opinions and interpretations. What would be an "uninlightened opinion"? How many years of game design and theory should I have before I can make an enlightened opinion? Probably the only review that I think would be "bad" would be one in which the person didn't try to fairly engage in it at some point.

"Relative context of time" - you can discuss the relationship of a game to its relative context and then their relative contexts to their own. ie BG's narrative vs other games narratives in 1998 contrasted with PoE's narratives vs other games narratives in 2015. In other words, do the games compare within their relative contexts to one another (with respect to their "time" in video game production).