DanJW

I just don't like inconsistant moderating. It's always peeved me that Idle Thumbs apparently has a policy of banning people "because someone on the staff felt like it". On the other hand whenever I have stood up to it I get viciously chastised, so I guess I'll be quiet now before I get banned again

Strange, I always thought Idle Thumbs was lenient towards potentially offensive topics, you know like nazis and so on.... :hitler:

Incidentally, how long has Youtube had that audio preview option on comments? It scared the shit out of me. And is it something to do with this?

Idle Thumbs has fulfilled its destiny!

DO IT!

That was just an excuse to be free of royal taxes and so make more money from trading

I've been hanging out on the Bioware forums again recently, and from what Lead Writer David Gaider says, Bioware don't do negative affects for decisions. That is, if you make a choice in good faith, you will never be punished for it. It's a design philosophy they adhere to. There may be different outcomes, but they are different stories rather than good or bad versions of the same thing. So your concern is unfounded Personally I think it's great. We've talked here on thumbs before about how difficult it is to stop people from metagaming, what with quicksaves and stuff. This is finally an answer (AN answer not THE answer) to that.

It's a curse, really

Just to be clear I have no reason to think that the publisher will attempt to rip-off their crazy awesome idea. It's just the kind of thing you hear about - a good pitch is turned down, then a couple of years later something suspiciously familar arrives on the market...

No, I think the point is that there is only one action. I've managed to have another go only by entering an instruction that does nothing, like "wake up" (I was hoping for an Open Your Eyes/Vanilla Sky story).

Well yes, that's what makes it "property". However ideas are nebulous things and just a few changes can make them safe from charges of theft, or at least more difficult to pin down.

Press space bar It reminds me of Facade, being able to parse a reaction to almost any text input. Also with trying to figure out the backstory from lots of little fragments.

To clarify, from my standpoint on the periphery, a bunch of the NCSoft refugees were trying to start up their own dev studio, with a game pitch that Yufster told me was "truly amazing in concept" - although she refused to elaborate on why it was amazing, presumably so I couldn't steal it. Last week it looked like they had landed a deal with a major publisher, but now it has fallen through. Hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Be sure to look out for said amazing concept being produced by said publisher and one of their existing studios, now that they have had the pitch and can happily steal it for themselves without the hassle of taking on new talent.

He wasn't that much of a jerk, really. People are allowed to have opposing viewpoints and politics you know? Ah well, not that it matters anyway.

Why would you ban him?

Age of Conan also has an interesting approach to story - up to level 20 you can switch back and forth to "night time mode" which is a single player story campaign.

Awwwwww Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhh

Well, the Old Republic setting helps. During that time period there were actually a lot of Jedi. Still, I expect they will outnumber non-jedi players a bit too much, and in general Jedi will probably be weaker than they should be due to balance issues. Well they have several projects on the go at once. I've been keeping up with Dragon Age for instance, which is ounding very promising. Plus Mass Effect 2 is in there somewhere. If you love KOTOR especially then perhaps this will be an incentive to give this particular MMO a try.

Because you never have to upgrade your console firmware...

Chances are you can block all chat channels, and speech bubbles (with the exception of people on your friends list if you want). You can in WoW and other MMOs anyway. Then all those other players just become ambiance. The major story elements are likely to be instanced as well, so if you're not in a group then you will experience them solo (Han Solo... doh couldn't resist). From what Bioware said in the interview they have been wanting to do an MMO "for almost ten years". And this is a good choice of IP for the project. So what? Dismissing it as "Bioware wouldn't have chosen to do this unless they had somehow been forced to" is a silly stance to take. The weird thing about MMO haters, it seems to me, is not only do they not want to play them - which is fair enough - but they don't want anyone else to be allowed to enjoy them either

Eventually all democracy to take the form of the X-Factor, and we will have some Jade Goody type ruling us all

Fair enough. Having had a chance to read the available materials, I profess to be a tiny bit dissappointd by the setting. I was hoping for the same Jedi Civil War period as the KOTOR games, but they've bumped it 300 years on - so no Revan to give me jedi assassination orders . In addition they seem to have pulled this Return of the True Sith thing out of Lucas' ass. Prior to this the expanded universe just hinted at the fact that the True Sith might still be waiting out there. Revan and the Exile left the galaxy to confront this mysterious possibility in some region of space which seemed to be intrinsically different in an unexplained way, and their legends were better for having no answer to it. Now it turns out the True Sith did return actually, that one time that we didn't mention before, and they're just your basic empire like in the original trilogy (which is handy for evoking movie period in your game). No real mystery or menace there, just garden variety Evil Emporer lording over garden variety troopers. Still, hopefully the fates of Revan and the Exile will be told through a quest line or three, and be done in such a way as to not be so anticlimactic.

I learned that Lobstermen are armoured like a motherfucking panzer division, and will take everything you can throw at them for at least a couple of rounds. For this reason you should be sure to take at two Coelecanth Remote Weapons Platforms with you, just to give them something to lob grenades at other than your soft, squishy X-COM operatives. The crustaceous bastards killed William Adama, dammit!

Really? It's one thing to say that it's not your cup of tea. It's another thing entirely to say that you can't see why ayone else would play them. I mean, do you actually want us to explain the appeal to you?

SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOGE!!!!!! :clap::woohoo::tup::tup::worship::kiss::kiss: