PlayStation 2 is a bit of a tough call, but it was probably responsible for the creation of true 'fanboys' more than anything
Not really; I can remember plenty of Nintendo-vs-Sega fanboy wars back in the 8-bit and 16-bit days, and quite a few Atari-vs-Intellivision ones before that. It's just that the PS2 came along in an age where such slapfights occurred in the more visible, persistent media of the web.
I didn't say that, or anything even remotely resembling that, or anything from which that logically flows. And you know it. If you're going to lie, learn to do it competently.
1. It is impossible to play video games without playing them obsessively and to the exclusion of all other activities; casual gamers do not exist.
2. You're an idiot.
Paragon/Renegade doesn't affect dialog choices. Your Intimidation/Charisma skills do. It's simply that using those skills tend to accrue renegade/paragon appropriately.
They do actually affect your dialog choices indirectly, as your Charm/Intimidate skill is capped according to your Paragon/Renegade score respectively.
1) Too many AoO rules. If there had been either fewer triggers, or fewer exceptions, it would not have been so bad. The AoO's themselves were fine. They add an interesting tactical element to the game, and they give a much better way for fighter types to interrupt spells. But arguements about what does and does not trigger an AoO are a problem.
AoO's aren't really that complicated. The bulk of the blame for the confusion surrounding them lies with the 3.0 rulebook, which gave a confusing and poorly-worded description of the way AoO's are provoked. The 3.5 book vastly improved on this, but not in time to diffuse the stigma.
2) Grapple: Way too many steps and way too many modifiers. If grapple was reduced to requiring a single roll to resolve, it would have been fine. But you have a potential AoO (good, since every similar action also provoked them), then a touch attack (not so good), than the opposed grapple check (bad, since it requires very specific modifiers for size). Then you have to make yet another grapple check to do anything with the grapple (very bad). A better system would be to just have an opposed grapple check followed by the attacker declaring what he would do to the opponent in the round he had him grappled.
God, yes. Probably my single biggest gripe with 3.x.
3) Too many Variables: Many people on En-World will complain about 3rd edition math getting too difficult. This is not a case of the addition / subtraction being too hard. This is a case of having to juggle and track way too many variables, and having to recalculate multiple things if a single value was changed.
Eh. I don't think the variable-juggling is much worse than in 2nd ed, and I find it easier to do in 3rd because of the greater consistency - high numbers are always good (unlike the AC and save values in 1st and 2nd) and ability scores provide a flat modifier to relevant skills/attacks (contrast this with things like the "% to do X task" tables in previous versions, and don't even get me started on that percentile-STR crap). Even conditional stuff like touch AC is easy enough to track with a minimum of forethought.
Most of the time, it seemed only a few of those feat options actually made sense to pick...
Only if you don't understand the feats in question and/or don't have a clear character concept in mind.
what's the point of having all this supposed flexibility if you feel like a fool for selecting less powerful feats, or like a tool for selecting the same ones as everyone else?
If you feel bad for making your character the "wrong" way, then the problem is with you as a gamer, not with the system.
Having been through all of the various editions from basic (yes the red and blue books)to Advanced up to 3.5,
I've come to believe that 3 was written to convince card gamers that role-playing is cool, 3.5 was to fix the f-ups in 3. Both were almost worthless.
I've also been through all the various editions, and it's clear to me you haven't a clue
2nd was ugly and the black books were worse, but you could as a DM make house rules that didn't completely blow the whole system to shreds. In 3 and 3.5 the entire thing is so finely tuned that any mods (like taking out AoA's {what a piece of shit}) unbalanced the entire thing.
Maybe you couldn't mod it without screwing everything up, but plenty of other people could, can, and do.
And don't get me started on feats. "Oh, it's a way to better customize my character." Bullshit, customizing your character is playing him/her in a way that makes a unique individual other than a piece of paper or working with the DM to come up with a good backstory that can be expanded upon as the character progesses and grows.
That's part of customizing a character. The mechanical aspects of character customization are a no less important or legitimate part.
Feats are just another way for the f-ing powergamers to munchkin a game.
Just because they can be used that way doesn't mean that's all they're good for. Feats are great for gearing a character towards the adventuring style that best fits the character concept (whether it's the "best" style or not), and for providing in-game reflections of the character's background and history. Powergaming and roleplaying are in no way mutually exclusive. In fact they often dovetail quite nicely.
The only good thing that came out of 3 and 3.5 are the Prestige classes, but thats what High Level Campaigns in 2nd was for.
Those fulfill exactly the same function that feats do, just in a slightly different way.
Used as part of a rehab programme, it kills the drug use without addressing the underlying weakness of character that created the addict. They are likely to fuck themselves up in some other way.
That assumes that the vaccine is used as a complete solution to the addiction problem, which no decent rehab program would do. They could certainly use it as a short-term solution while the core problem is addressed through therapy.
All it costs you is the labor for getting more workers in over the holidays.
Right, because those workers are magical elves who simply will new Wiis into existence. It's not as if you need to build factories for them to work in or components for them to assemble.
Speaking of giants, they only found 1 of these things, not a whole race of them. How do they know it wasn't the "Andre the Giant" of the sea scorpions?
Because were that the case, they would also have found two smaller sea scorpions in the same place; one wearing black and the other looking for the six-clawed scorpion that killed his father.
The market can't be "correct", because there is no correct answer. The quality of each game is 100% subjective. WoW is clearly the game with the most mass-market appeal, but that makes it the best investment, not the best game. Which game is the best is purely a matter of opinion, and cannot be proven on a spreadsheet.
There's a difference between being better than something, and being far better than something.
Not when "better" is entirely subjective, there isn't. The higher subscriber numbers of WoW is proof that WoW is more popular (an objective standard), but say nothing whatsoever about the subjective nature of quality, either independently or relative to any other game. By your logic, the burgers from the stand down the street can only ever be "slightly better" than a Big Mac.
Not that you don't have a point about the "slag the big guy just 'cause he's the big guy" mentality common among critics of $CURRENT_MARKET_LEADER_IN_SOME_FIELD, but that doesn't mean that their preferences are somehow factually incorrect.
What's really pathetic are the people talking about how their fantasy MMORPG is sooo much better than WoW, despite the numbers clearly proving it isn't.
These sentiments are mutually exclusive. Pick one.
The players... are being promised many things that they used to say were impossible, such as the holy grail of MMORPGs, the 'one server' environment.
Point of order: The players have never been promised this. They've made asides to the effect of "It'd be cool if we could do this", but they've never confirmed that it's coming or even planned.
I read this guy's blog. He twists the details when it suits him.
He talks about the need to show a drivers license to walk through a parking lot. He wasn't walking through a parking lot. He CALLED THE POLICE to come deal with HIS PROBLEM. Part of the police dealing with his problem was for them to identify him. He refused to provide identification. That's impeding the progress of a police investigation that HE ASKED FOR. That's against the law, and the officer showed him that in writing.
The law only requires you to identify yourself to a requesting officer if that officer has a reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime. Arroyo did not have that.
Furthermore, in identifying yourself you are only required to give your name, address, and date of birth. You do not need to provide anything else.
So Righi did more than the law required of him, as he gave his name when he didn't need to. Arroyo's arrest was illegal, period.
Of course the store has the right to inspect bags as they leave. It's their property. They have the right to ask you to leave your incoming bags at the front, too. Neither means that they are accusing you of anything. If you don't like their policy, don't shop there. Simple enough.
They have the right to ask you to let them inspect your bags. You have the right to allow or deny that inspection as you like. They cannot force you to submit, or prevent you from leaving. The only time they can detain you is if they have reasonable cause to believe you've stolen something, and "He wouldn't show me a receipt" doesn't cut it.
This guy ought to be arrested for wasting the police and court's time by being a deliberate jackass.
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I didn't say that, or anything even remotely resembling that, or anything from which that logically flows. And you know it. If you're going to lie, learn to do it competently.
One, and only one, of the following is true:
1. It is impossible to play video games without playing them obsessively and to the exclusion of all other activities; casual gamers do not exist.
2. You're an idiot.
Maybe he means the British RoboCop?
A straw man argument expressed as poetry is still a straw man argument.
Yes, I have. But "it used to be this way" != "this is the core of the game"
The market can't be "correct", because there is no correct answer. The quality of each game is 100% subjective. WoW is clearly the game with the most mass-market appeal, but that makes it the best investment, not the best game. Which game is the best is purely a matter of opinion, and cannot be proven on a spreadsheet.
Not that you don't have a point about the "slag the big guy just 'cause he's the big guy" mentality common among critics of $CURRENT_MARKET_LEADER_IN_SOME_FIELD, but that doesn't mean that their preferences are somehow factually incorrect.
Because the more of those "masses" stay home watching TV, the better ROI you get influencing the ones who do get out and vote.
Furthermore, in identifying yourself you are only required to give your name, address, and date of birth. You do not need to provide anything else.
So Righi did more than the law required of him, as he gave his name when he didn't need to. Arroyo's arrest was illegal, period.
They have the right to ask you to let them inspect your bags. You have the right to allow or deny that inspection as you like. They cannot force you to submit, or prevent you from leaving. The only time they can detain you is if they have reasonable cause to believe you've stolen something, and "He wouldn't show me a receipt" doesn't cut it. On what charges? Nothing he did was illegal.