The stories are so similar it wouldn't surprise me if there was an algorithm to create a jRPG story randomly that would be hard to tell apart from a hand written one.
But the sidequests feel like true tabletop playing, with *multiple choices*, something you'll never, ever see in a japanese RPG.
Not in the mainstream variety but the Romancing Saga series (don't be confused by the name, it doesn't involve much romance) has a lot of choices, consequences and permanent death for party members.
D&D isn't the only RPG out there. I think we need to define a turing machine equivalent for RPGs so we can say "if a game can be successfully reduced to this it is an RPG".
Statistics are only a crutch to allow somewhat objective resoluton of conflicts. You can have an RPG without any real stats but that would mean outcomes are hard to decide/judge. RPGs are traditionally defined as playing a role, nothing more, nothing less. The character sheets make your role known and clear so you know what you can do and what not. Your character can have a goal or morality that does not match your personal one, if the player isn't restricted by the role his character is often a schizo who can turn from benevolent to homicidal in seconds, a game that enforces consistent roles wouldn't allow that unless the character is already known to have such mood swings. I think role playing should be neither "here, watch this movie and play a few battles" nor "do whatever you want". One isn't a role, the other isn't playing it.
IMO an RPG is basically an improvised play with each player being an actor that has to portray a role but can make choices within the constraints of his role. How this translates to videogames I don't know. Probably a "sandbox" but with defining your character's personality beforehand and preventing the player from acting against this personality.
You can have an RPG without battles. It's just that nobody's doing that. Or maybe they are if you consider adventure games RPGs. If you're playing through a whodunnit with character sheets that define specifics of your role and a GM it's an RPG, after all.
It's not necessary to paint nipples on the texture of the basemesh since they won't be seen but most game developers are male and a nipple takes seconds.
It's just a fundamental flaw with the ESRB system, the board relies on the publisher to compose a video of the worst scenes in the game. This relies on the judgement of the publisher (and the lack of unforeseen situations). A much better method would be to require the ESRB to play through a game and unlock everything (if unlocking takes a lot of time the testee should provide a savegame or password that unlocks everything) before giving out a rating. The german USK requires a complete playthrough with the help of walkthroughs that include every secret room or easteregg and possibly cheats (if anything is left out the rating is void). Since they still manage to rate over 4000 games each year that can't be too demanding. The ESRB really needs to be less lazy.
Well, the previous one sucked and we haven't seen any real graphics yet so it MUST be good!
Re:Hopefully this sets a standard
on
EA's Army of Two
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· Score: 1
I think it was the first game where people noticed it as special because coop modes were pretty much standard in the age of arcade games and until coop died out there was no reason to talk much about it, it was just assumed to be there.
With that pressure difference there may be a severe effect on the liquid's melting point. I couldn't find any reference with a quick google but I suppose 100 bar should have a severe effect.
That plan might backfire, if Halo 3 was out now the XC would look better to potential buyers and they might decide to buy one now. But since their big exclusive doesn't come until the competition gets in gear you can just as well wait until the competition is really there and compare them. Essentially they are wasting their time advantage. What if Sony manages to wow people enough to make them decide Halo 3 alone can't make up for that? What if people don't want to buy a new console for a slight update to a game they can play on their hardware already? The latter seems to be a big factor with making and breaking a killer app, a game won't sell hardware if it's not unique enough of an experience and the user feels that for the price attached he can just keep playing the older substitute. For full hardware selling potential your game would ideally have no suitable substitutes available.
That would be nice and all if their competitors had to do the same to get into their current position. But they didn't. Both Sony and Nintendo took the market on their first attempt. There is no need for a long time strategy for entering the console market, a successful strategy can take it in short term. Sega was the only company who managed to have a successful console despite their first attempt pretty much failing and after that they quickly faded into obscurity, everyone else dropped dead quickly after their first failure.
No other company would have taken 4 milliards losses, Sony would have pulled out and anyone else would have hit bankrupcy if they were to make these losses.
During the preparation phase you spend the most on R&D and make nothing on sales. Comparing that with a product on the market is pointless, the R&D for that has already been paid and the product is already selling.
Can you sell what you don't own? The seller doesn't own the items and as such cannot sell them without running afoul of other laws (probably fraud). What sellers do to circumvent that is saying they are selling a service. This is like getting paid to design a website, the result remains in the virtual realm but the service is very real. This shouldn't need a separate ruling, the rules on services are defined already.
So the selling is taxable just like any other service while the "possession" and ingame trade of the items shouldn't be taxable. If virtual items were subject to property tax the only one paying it would be the MMO provider.
Of course, property tax on data (especially the kind that is used only internally) is completely insane.
1. Yes, that is legally binding. You were offered the contract that stated this and you agreed. This isn't a normal EULA, this is in the terms of service. 2. Since those items were never yours to begin with you aren't allowed to sell them.
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The stories are so similar it wouldn't surprise me if there was an algorithm to create a jRPG story randomly that would be hard to tell apart from a hand written one.
But the sidequests feel like true tabletop playing, with *multiple choices*, something you'll never, ever see in a japanese RPG.
Not in the mainstream variety but the Romancing Saga series (don't be confused by the name, it doesn't involve much romance) has a lot of choices, consequences and permanent death for party members.
D&D isn't the only RPG out there. I think we need to define a turing machine equivalent for RPGs so we can say "if a game can be successfully reduced to this it is an RPG".
Statistics are only a crutch to allow somewhat objective resoluton of conflicts. You can have an RPG without any real stats but that would mean outcomes are hard to decide/judge. RPGs are traditionally defined as playing a role, nothing more, nothing less. The character sheets make your role known and clear so you know what you can do and what not. Your character can have a goal or morality that does not match your personal one, if the player isn't restricted by the role his character is often a schizo who can turn from benevolent to homicidal in seconds, a game that enforces consistent roles wouldn't allow that unless the character is already known to have such mood swings. I think role playing should be neither "here, watch this movie and play a few battles" nor "do whatever you want". One isn't a role, the other isn't playing it.
IMO an RPG is basically an improvised play with each player being an actor that has to portray a role but can make choices within the constraints of his role. How this translates to videogames I don't know. Probably a "sandbox" but with defining your character's personality beforehand and preventing the player from acting against this personality.
You can have an RPG without battles. It's just that nobody's doing that. Or maybe they are if you consider adventure games RPGs. If you're playing through a whodunnit with character sheets that define specifics of your role and a GM it's an RPG, after all.
On a mesh, yes. On a texture?
It's not necessary to paint nipples on the texture of the basemesh since they won't be seen but most game developers are male and a nipple takes seconds.
It's just a fundamental flaw with the ESRB system, the board relies on the publisher to compose a video of the worst scenes in the game. This relies on the judgement of the publisher (and the lack of unforeseen situations). A much better method would be to require the ESRB to play through a game and unlock everything (if unlocking takes a lot of time the testee should provide a savegame or password that unlocks everything) before giving out a rating. The german USK requires a complete playthrough with the help of walkthroughs that include every secret room or easteregg and possibly cheats (if anything is left out the rating is void). Since they still manage to rate over 4000 games each year that can't be too demanding. The ESRB really needs to be less lazy.
Sounds like a project: Make mods involving explicit sex scenes for any moddable game and see the ESRB go nuts with giving out AO ratings.
Games only know triangles, thus she'd have six.
I can't play a fighting game on my PC keyboard
You need practice. The keyboard is second only to the arcade stick when it comes to controlling fighting games.
Where does Ian Bell figure into this?
Well, the previous one sucked and we haven't seen any real graphics yet so it MUST be good!
I think it was the first game where people noticed it as special because coop modes were pretty much standard in the age of arcade games and until coop died out there was no reason to talk much about it, it was just assumed to be there.
Oops, forgot the first one I noticed: Wik.
Blazing Angels, Hexic, Outpost Kaloki and probably a few others have PC versions available.
With that pressure difference there may be a severe effect on the liquid's melting point. I couldn't find any reference with a quick google but I suppose 100 bar should have a severe effect.
That plan might backfire, if Halo 3 was out now the XC would look better to potential buyers and they might decide to buy one now. But since their big exclusive doesn't come until the competition gets in gear you can just as well wait until the competition is really there and compare them. Essentially they are wasting their time advantage. What if Sony manages to wow people enough to make them decide Halo 3 alone can't make up for that? What if people don't want to buy a new console for a slight update to a game they can play on their hardware already? The latter seems to be a big factor with making and breaking a killer app, a game won't sell hardware if it's not unique enough of an experience and the user feels that for the price attached he can just keep playing the older substitute. For full hardware selling potential your game would ideally have no suitable substitutes available.
That would be nice and all if their competitors had to do the same to get into their current position. But they didn't. Both Sony and Nintendo took the market on their first attempt. There is no need for a long time strategy for entering the console market, a successful strategy can take it in short term. Sega was the only company who managed to have a successful console despite their first attempt pretty much failing and after that they quickly faded into obscurity, everyone else dropped dead quickly after their first failure.
No other company would have taken 4 milliards losses, Sony would have pulled out and anyone else would have hit bankrupcy if they were to make these losses.
During the preparation phase you spend the most on R&D and make nothing on sales. Comparing that with a product on the market is pointless, the R&D for that has already been paid and the product is already selling.
Wii is female?
Can you sell what you don't own? The seller doesn't own the items and as such cannot sell them without running afoul of other laws (probably fraud). What sellers do to circumvent that is saying they are selling a service. This is like getting paid to design a website, the result remains in the virtual realm but the service is very real. This shouldn't need a separate ruling, the rules on services are defined already.
So the selling is taxable just like any other service while the "possession" and ingame trade of the items shouldn't be taxable. If virtual items were subject to property tax the only one paying it would be the MMO provider.
Of course, property tax on data (especially the kind that is used only internally) is completely insane.
1. Yes, that is legally binding. You were offered the contract that stated this and you agreed. This isn't a normal EULA, this is in the terms of service.
2. Since those items were never yours to begin with you aren't allowed to sell them.
That's because the good pirates aren't seen by anyone they aren't going to kill.
How is hurting children necessary for the greater good?
I was SO expecting a hentai link there...