DanJW

Yeah, the E3 demo; it's up on a few sites now. Folks should be warned that it contains spoilers - so far that has put me off watching it for myself.

I'd say the theme is more 'natural disasters' - earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes. floods, wildfires. The cause may be a dragon, but that dragon is the 'corrupted guardian of the earth' and he just punched out of the 'elemental realm of earth' or something. Pretty strong metaphor for tectonic plate shenanigans. The scene in the trailer with the goblin exodus looks like a pretty close analogy to the Indian Ocean tsunami, I reckon. I can't see it appealing to new players much - not only is it more end level content they may never see, but the original early content is being actively overwritten - there may be certain things that are common knowledge amongst old-timers, that new players will never be able to experience. Maybe.

Not sure where you got the climate change from. Most of the changes are massive earthquake style things. A zone called Desolace has changed quite a bit but that fits in with very old story elements, and also because it was boring and ugly and everyone hated it. As for the rest; well that's high fantasy for you.

The textures in the last expansion were higher resolution, and I think they are upping the average number of polygons. The game is still amazingly economic with it's resources, but yes they are pushing that stuff up slowly. The details on Cataclysm leave me a bit cold TBH. The new races and class combinations don't appeal to me, and nothing about the new zones and story elements has sucked me in yet. I haven't been playing this much year anyway so I think my time with WOW is pretty much over.

Nice BBC deconstruction of Film Noir the other night. Not like most of these "introduction to" shows which are just clip shows in disguise. This one has plenty of good clips and talking heads, but they are actually informative.

Chuck Jordan's take on the whole controversy (basically, people should be told about Scott Card, and then make up their own mind whether to buy or not).

Cool. How about in audio form? Anyone got a backwards recording of the someone saying racecar?

:tmeh::tmeh:

OK, I think that confirms spambot assholery. Can someone squash it please before it shits out its payload?

I am indeed him, and he is me (and we are all together) edit: I really thought Danny Boy was a goner at the end there. I was so pleased we managed to save him. Also; ahhhhhhg my own voice. Actually not as bad as I remember it being in the past.

Also the Fable games are incredibly RPG Lite, and don't really resemble other RPGs all that much. So what he's saying is that there's something wrong with Fable. Yeah.

Yes, I can see that in some situations a choice between two "evils" could be genuinely upsetting for someone to play through. On the other hand if you make sure they are aware that this is that kind of game, then all should be good (but knowing consumers there would still be bitching and complaints). Plus there's the argument that all real art should be potentially upsetting, and they might actually learn something from experiencing that ie sometimes life throws you choices where there is no correct decision.

I may have to wait for the inevitable half-price sale.

There ought to be an equal achievement for not maxing out your karma score in any direction, so that all playstyles are rewarded.

Whose fault is that though? (actually a sincere question)

I associate that word too much with household cleaning products and Freddie Mercury (not at the same time).

Hehe no worries I was playing up to the inevitable nitpicking. Anyway; when those technologies do become available, I like to think that id will be there making use of them first. They will probably call the game Blast or Crash or Grrrr! or something...

It is a bit optimistic yeah... because I was being a bit optimistic You sure taught me. I mean, I did qualify with an "at least". Dunno why I bother TBH grumblegrumblemoan

He has an OBE?

Biological computers and quantum computers may be able to handle that kind of thing real time, but it will be a decade at least before gamers get their hands on that stuff.

To be pedantic, most of Wes Anderson's films are intended to be "timeless"; that is they combine styles and details from lots of different decades from the latter 20th century, but the exact date is usually left unspecified. Yes I'm a fan.

Agreed. It's the little details that both make something stand out and are most likely to suck in us geeks.

Is Dragon Age their flagship? I thought that was the Mass Effect series; Dragon Age struck me as "keeping their hand in on the epic fantasy niche, having dropped the D&D licence" (which is in no way a bad thing).

It think the developer interviews will give you a better idea. The thing is, a game like this goes for the slow build. It attempts to involve you with characters and plot over a period of hours. A gameplay video is completely incapable of conveying this.

Won't her road insurance company help her out?