lukeiamyourdad

There are indirect returns, prestige and other reasons to host the Olympics. As a fellow Montrealer, I understand why you'd hate the idea (yes, I was "born" into that debt), but I think that for an emerging country, such as Brazil, having all the eyes of the worlds directed towards you in a positive way would bring great benefits in the long term. Depending on how they organize it, they can minimize the monetary issues.

Work, sleep, get money, spend time partying with friends. Not much time for forums anymore haha.

I think he's still alive. I mean, when you wear an exosuit, it's always possible.

Eh forgot about coop games, but you get the point. MP games are repetitive by nature. I played the same Omaha Beach map in BF1942 countless times. I used the same tactic in UT2k4 countless times with the Flak cannon. Now, they're cashing in with DLCs to provide more content for shooters. They even do it for SPRPGs (starting famously...or infamously...with Oblivion). Honestly, I don't see it as much of a problem. The cost of producing a game is rising and well, the era of freebies can't last. And mods are not free either. Well, technically they are since you can't sell them, but you need a place to host them and that costs something. So some person is kind enough to volunteer time and energy for the mod and some people are kind enough to host it. Open-ended or non-linear?: Although Oblivion featured large open-ended areas, they were scarcely populated and made you feel...alone...more then everything. Sometimes, it's good and realistic such as the large forests, but the cities were underpopulated. They lacked any sort of life to them, from the remote towns in the mountains to the Imperial city that's supposed to be a metropolis. Realistically, everyone has house and a place to stay, so no NPC is "just there". However, it has the downside of making the population of Cyrodiil ridiculously small. The "epic" defense of Bruma involved around 10 soldiers...epic indeed. KotOR had it better with non-linear small areas that concentrated on quests. Unlike Oblivion, almost everything had a purpose. Every area you went to had something there, unlike Oblivion's empty spaces (no, the one-hundredth generic cave with generic monsters doesn't count). Areas bristling with life are bristling with life, areas devoid of life were devoid of life. However, the downside was that areas were very small and the game concentrated on only a fraction of the planet. Though it makes sense for some of them, a planet like Nar Shaddaa was so tiny in TSL when it's supposed to be so large. The same can be said for Taris. An explorer like myself never had a good fix with KotOR. WoW (yes, an MMO), I think struck a better balance between large open areas and their feel then Oblivion did, making them not too large and always properly populated. It was great to explore. Killing generic-random guys: I'm sorry, but the KotOR games made you kill a lot of nameless critters and individuals. There were many instances where you did things differently, but as far as I know, I can least an equal number of instances where there's no avoiding combat. Just listing a few... -Taris Lower City: No parlays with Rakghouls, you just killed them. -Lower City Sewers: You wiped out all the Gammorreans. -Vulkar Base: You killed everyone in the base unless you decide to betray the Beks, which makes you kill everyone in the Bek base. Either way, you killed a lot of generic NPCs. -Davik's estate: You killed everyone there including Davik and including the first death of Calo Nord. You cannot avoid it. -Encounters with Sith: On every planet, you encounter Sith that are sent to kill you and even if you try to convert them, you end up fighting and killing them. And that's just a few, before the famous Star Forge final level which involved no parlays whatsoever and just killing, up to Bastila's chambers.

First off, been an MP player for years. I like the socializing aspect of it all. Even with strangers, a good game of UT2k4 or BF2, with some nice and fun chatting, beats sitting alone playing an SP only game. That doesn't mean an SP game isn't good in my eyes. Think of it this way... SP is like reading a book. You can't really read a book with a group of friends. You can however, watch a movie with a group of friends. Some people prefer reading books, others watching movies. TOR is like a movie. It's ok alone, but better with friends! I'm doubting a bit about TOR succeeding at the ''MMO'' part of MMORPG, but oh well. This is how it works...some games are made purely for SP (think Oblivion), some games have both (think...errr...Halo?) and some are made for MP (think Unreal Tournament or Battlefield series). You will not fully enjoy an MP-designed game if you're alone blowing up bots or something. I don't think there's inherently more you can do and that endgame being provided by the player is a better thing then being provided by the developer. Modding is too unreliable to be an incentive to buy a game. The game has to be popular and be easy to mod. What if it flops? What if the developers do not provide the tools for easy modding? Would games like Oblivion or Unreal Tournament have as many great mods if they were obscure? Final note: Why is there such a feeling of uneasiness towards a certain genre? Sure, people rightly prefer one genre over another, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a game just because it's not exactly the type that fits you. Sure, I'm more comfy in the world of FPS or RPGs, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a rhythm game or a good platformer. Keep your minds open to the art of gaming

Depends on a certain point of view. It could be view as common restrictions of the medium. Having to be creative within set boundaries. I mean...they are making a Star Wars game...there's only so much freedom... Somewhere in between, but to be honest, from my perspective, closer to the Prequels. However, that doesn't say much...Just as 4000 years in the past allowed Bioware to do whatever they want, storywise, putting it 300 years after KotOR is perfect to let them more freedom. 300 years is a long time... Not really. They see similar designs, but nothing totally like clonetroopers or Boba Fett. It's no different then seeing Sith warships. They kind of look like a predecessor to the Imperial Star Destroyer, but not quite. The same can be said of the new designs. Like I said, we're overexposed and things that are very common to us aren't to the common folks.

You can't find a solution when you can't understand something.

I fail to see how it is lost. Does some design choices for some ships and some characters looking like something that could be in the OT/PT mean a lack of freedom? When you look at KotOR, forgetting the fact that it says it's 4000 years in the past, can you make a correct estimation of the time it was set in? To the first question, it is a big no. They are free to construct their story and own world. They just made some design choices that makes some things look physically similar. It leads to the second question. What makes you believe KotOR looks so different from the OT/PT? There are so many similarities, listing them would take a while. I think I said it already. People on this forum are overexposed to Star Wars and KotOR, of course when things look similar, it will always be too similar to you, because you see it all the time. The larger crowd won't detect the similarities like we do, nor will they be bothered.

I'll add that this forum is heavily biased towards the KotOR world, with dedicated fans and all. My point is that it is not a good indicator of the popularity of the franchise, as such, you cannot know for sure that it is a wise economic choice to please the fans more then the large public of casual folks. The matter is that, although some KotOR conventions are well known by us, it isn't by the rest of the world.

1-Malak : Sort of...but doesn't make the guy look less like Malak. If anything, a cross between both him and Vader, but a pure rip-off of the man in black? I don't think so. 2- Triangle shape design: I understand what in terms of tactics it means, but it's not a point when you make Sith warships look like Imperial ones. If the triangle design was so successful, why was it not adapted to every single ship after the KotOR time? Choosing it to look like it does is a design choice is to pay homage to Star Destroyers, more then an analysis of space fleet tactics. 3- Sith Fighter swarms Well, I forgot to mention that it follows the basic design of the Tie Fighter: a central pod with wings linked to it. Their color scheme ressembles Tie Fighters too. The swarm look is similar to what Tie Fighters did in opposition to how Rebel Fighters behaved.

MMO on a console is possible, there's no denying that. FFXI seems to have been the only experiment. Was it that successful? It did quite alright to be honest but think about something... The MMO market is still a PC niche, just like the RTS. As far as I know, the market barely touches the consoles, so Bioware is putting its efforts into the PC. After all, if WoW can achieve its numbers without touching consoles, why can't TOR?

I wanted to post a reply to this as a way to debunk popular misconceptions. First... More people died from wars and dictatorships in the last century then before. There is no denying this, but some things have to be taken into account. Since the 19th century, political turbulence trying to change the social order has been central in the evolution of what can now be properly called nations. The political began to split from the military, the people started to question their leaders instead of submitting to heavenly law. It is the first ingredient for death on a massive scale. Monarchies repressed Republicans in blood and Republicans did the same to monarchists. Let's add something else. New ideologies are pushing for a total change of the social order. Communism is one of those and to achieve their ends, they will do what "must" be done. Now add another thing...social darwinism. The idea that your "race" needs to be strong to survive leads to two elements. The first, is a total disregard for another human of another "race". Since that person is inferior, that person can die and the world should not weep for his weakness. Nazi you say? Not just Nazi. Before the beginning of World War I and even after, this sentiment was generalized in the Western world, from Britain to Russia. Social darwinism leads to the last thing... Total War. Development in military technology made old school line battles impossible, starting with the Franco-Prussian War (in a beginning form). Essentially, weapons. especially artillery, became too deadly, giving armies the ability to inflict massive casualties in battle. Of course, the same weapons are used when besieging a city for example, so the body count of civilian climbs up too. I could also add that there are more humans too, so more die in wars. You'd need a percentage of casualties to properly compare. Dictatorial regimes are responsible for wars and deaths and kill their own people. A common misconception. The list of wars where democracies are involved can be made and you'd realize they are just as numerous if not more then with dictatorial regimes. Are they responsible you ask? Hard to say, mainly because dictatorships do not evolve outside of the world. They have to coexists with democracies and play in the same diplomatic system. As such, everyone is a bit responsible for certain wars. When you look at what happened before World War II, you can see that the diplomacy, including that of the Western allies, failed to give results or to stop it. War was not inevitable, from our present point of view. Dictatorships kill their own people? Is Stalin the only communist leader the United States remembers? Yes, Stalin impose a great terror on his people, but you have to realize one thing...they cried when he died. No, not tears of relief, tears of sadness. So he must have done something right? The state of mind of Soviet citizens was that Stalin did what he did to strengthen the country against Germany. If that's what they wanted...who's to say they're wrong? Only when Stalin died did Khrushchev start the de-stalinization of the USSR. Only then did people realize the great terror. While it was in place, they didn't seem to mind it that much...hell, some even took the opportunity to rise in the communist party, seeing the old guard, people loyal to Lenin or Trotsky's ideas, killed off by Stalin. Life in the USSR was not so bad after Stalin died either. Many economic failures, but the people had decent lives. Just because it wasn't the american standard does not mean it was bad. Remember: this is a country devastate by World War II. It's going to take a while to rebuild. The USA never was touched on its mainland soil by massive German bombings. The infrastructure was intact and the economy could flourish. Under Khrushchev era USSR and later, such massacres on a massive scale were rare. Outside of political repression in satellite countries, the body count certainly is not impressive. What is the point of killing your own people? There is none really when another solution is possible. This is true of the Nazi regime too. When you look at their actions prior to the start of the war, you'd notice the Nazi trying to push the Jews out of the country rather then outright extermination. They're not stupid and it's easier to push people out then to create the infrastructure to destroy them. I can't say about the situation in China and in North Korea, but I assume the same holds true. They won't kill for nothing. Religion is the cause of wars. Yes and no. Religion has always been used as a supporting ideology to other goals. That means it's certainly a part of the general rationale for going to war. To say the Crusades were motivated by religion is only looking at one side of the larger picture. Saying that it's about economic control is the same. The first thing to take into account is that control of the trade routes would have made the local conquerors wealthy. Basically, European nobles who went to the Crusades would be the ones gathering the wealth and not the monarch who supposedly sent them. This is mainly because nation states as as they are known today did not exist. France or England cannot expect a proper return for their crusading activities. The other fact is that raising armies and sending them to what amounts to an expedition that would take years to complete is extremely costly. Lords who raised armies and kings who gave them support had to spend a lot of money. Would control of the Middle-East have offset the money drain? Doubtful. Lastly is that the regions the Crusaders ended up controlling simply did not have the same economic value as Constantinople for example. Only the Fourth Crusade, led by the Venitians, took control of the city. If trading was the main factor, this would have been a goal. Except that it wasn't. Saying that religion is just an excuse for the Crusades is utterly false. If that was the case, the People's Crusade would not have happened. Neither would the enterprise know its success in garnering support. The world is not only guided by material gain or else a religious man would not be religious. As such, Crusaders truly believed in their purpose to reclaim the Holy land. The exact same thing can be said of modern day crusaders. Suicide bombers used by terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda truly believe their goal. The leaders also believe their goals to be righteous or else they would not do it. Why would a wealthy man like Osama Bin Laden live his miserable life if he did not believe in his vocation? The same goes for any ideology. No, religion alone may not be the only factor, but saying that religion is not a factor is just as false. Religion is part of the greater scheme of things, not just a tiny footnote. With that being said, I'm not saying don't have an opinion on the actions of those regimes, only that you should think about their situations and try to understand their point of view, whether you find it twisted or not. It may be considered relativist, but you need that to understand the other side and maybe use the analysis to better change things

What if he thinks the teacher is hot? You'll Never Walk Alone. Nice anthem unless your school viciously hates Liverpool FC. Hmmm... I can recommend a classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pybSRca-cA Not so much graduation, but a good representation of teenage life back then and it's still relevant today.

I hope this is just a parallel to the fact that they both died in a hotel room... R.I.P. David Carradine...it sucks that someone has to go this way... Edit: Nevermind, I just read something alluding to an accident involving autoerotic asphyxiation. I'm waiting for a reputable source though...a Thai daily newspaper...errr...you know...might be trying to sell some copies...

I haven't read the book...thought it was very "meh". It's a decent thriller mind you, but it lacks this little touch that would make it better. I think if I had to compare it to the movie version of the Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons certainly is the weaker of the two. But it has two things going for it... Ewan McGregor and Ayelet Zurer... So hot...