DarthParametric

It's a holdover from the pre-digital age. Physical goods do cost more to sell down here, as you have to ship them half way across the world, then distribute them internally here across a large country with a tiny population. The exchange rate also played a part. Historically the Oz dollar was generally fairly weak, down around US65-70c or so. It's only in more recent times when the US economy tanked that it made some gains, even passing parity for a while (it has since slumped again). Seeing as there were established price points for certain goods, software companies saw an easy way to cash in by keeping high prices on digital versions. There's no justification there. We've reached a point now where circumvention tricks like grey importing and using VPNs, etc. are mainstream enough that the government has finally taken notice. I suspect their motivation is probably driven more by potential lost tax revenue than the financial welfare of their citizens however.

Posting while drunk?

Per the above request. Note that I have done zero in-game testing of this, as I don't have the time. I think I got all her creature files, but possibly I missed some. As with the Dawn Star mods, this obviously doesn't change the pre-rendered videos. I also left the Lian model as-is, so now her Silk Fox persona really does make her incognito, as she physically becomes a completely different person. Jade Empire: Special Edition SCHOLAR LING AS SILK FOX ========================= AUTHOR: DarthParametric ABOUT: This mod replaces Silk Fox's default model and portraits with those for Scholar Ling, normally a female PC character. The portraits are custom ones derived from wallpaper images made by Bioware. This mod is a variation on my original Dawn Star replacement mods available here: https://dpmods.wheb.org/jade_empire.html INSTALLATION: Copy the CRE and TGA files in the archive's Override folder to the Override folder in your JE installation directory. You must also delete the following TXB files in your JE Override folder: ui_ph_silk.txb ui_ph_silkd.txb ui_ph_silke.txb ui_ph_silkg.txb ui_ph_silkq.txb These are Silk Fox's default portraits. If you don't delete these, they will supersede the replacement TGAs and you won't get the custom Ling portraits. UNINSTALLATION: Delete the CRE and TGA files from the JE Override folder. Copy the backup TXB files in the ORIGINAL PORTRAITS folder to your JE Override directory. KNOWN ISSUES: This mod was a request and has not been tested at the time of writing. However, based on the previous Dawn Star mods, there is likely to be some occasional minor clipping of the mouth box through the cheeks during some lip sync animations, and possibly other distortions like bug eyes. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to stoffe and tk102 for providing the tools that allow mods like this to be made. CONTACT: You can contact me via the SWKnights forums - http://www.lucasforums.com/member.php?u=108447 PERMISSIONS: This mod may not be altered or distributed on other sites without the express permission of the author. DISCLAIMER: This modification is provided as-is and is not supported or sanctioned by Bioware, Gray Matter, or 2K. Use of this file is at your own risk. Neither the aforementioned companies or the author/s are responsible for any damage that may be caused to your computer by the usage of this file. Download here

On the subject of emulators, yes, some can play legitimate media. Optical-based media anyway. A bit difficult for cart-based consoles like the NES/SNES/Master System/Genesis (Megadrive) obviously. But assuming you are playing legit copies of, say, Saturn or PS1 discs on an emulator, the issue of legality arises in the BIOS dumps that most emus require. Dolphin is interesting in that regard, as it doesn't seem to require any BIOS rom/s.

They are much lower power than the current gen, being basically laptop/mobile parts. You can see in the Wired article that MS have well and truly learned their lesson with RROD and gone all out with heat management. I suspect the Xbone will be a massive dust trap as a consequence though. No idea yet what Sony is doing until we get a peek under the PS4's hood.

And you are surprised why exactly? The entirety of human history is defined by fanboyism of one sort or another, from what sports team/car brand/gaming device is the best, all the way up to politics, religion, etc. People invariably pick a team and stick it to the other lot. Neutrality is a rare commodity.

On the contrary, I'm pretty sure that will make them more likely to tune in.

The logical thing would be to just crack open the case and physically disconnect or otherwise impair the offending spy apparatus, but I'm sure people will find some way to circumvent it without voiding the warranty eventually.

I have to say I am genuinely surprised at this. I still think the E3 outcry was a vocal minority in terms of their target market, and I think they could have sold plenty with the former restrictions in place. I wonder if the real reason was that the publishers didn't back them, so they really had nowhere to go with it. It would have been very interesting to watch as a social experiment. Oh well, maybe next next next gen.

Yes, I know. The consumer Jaguar was only scheduled to launch a few weeks ago (not sure if it did or not), plus initial yields were very low (especially for MS's customised version with eSRAM), hence why neither MS nor Sony had it in their early devkits.

It's not worrying at all. Both the Xbone and PS4 are basically just laptops in plastic boxes. You could use any x86 hardware, as long as it has the appropriate OS. Which in the Xbone case is pretty much just a cutdown Windows kernel with DirectX. You have to code to the hardware, not necessarily on the hardware. You have to test on the final hardware, sure. But that's a different issue altogether. If the rumours from a few months back are to be believed, the PS4 devkit isn't much like the PS4 hardware either, aside from being AMD kit. It was reported as off-the-shelf components - Bulldozer CPU, 7000/R10XX series GPU, 8GB RAM, etc.

Yes, they were running on devkits. Which are PCs.

Kind of funny that even MS doesn't use Win 8. Not sure what relevance this has though. You realise that all your precious PS4 games were also running on PC, right?

Meh, kill em both I say. Both are obnoxious as hell in ME2 and a waste of space in ME3. Uninstalling ME3?

Nobody is "winning". The consoles aren't on sale for months yet. Sony has got some PR one-upmanship over MS in the last couple of days, sure, but what does that actually equate to in the end? We won't know until launch day and the following weeks/months/years. My guess is that it won't amount to squat. Both systems will likely sell out at Xmas. Whether one system ends up dominating in the long term, I have no idea. I suspect though that it will remain a fairly close race, much like the current gen.

Cool. It seemed odd to only have it on the Wii U. I'm sure there will be some sort of upgrade offer for existing owners of the original. I doubt it will be free like The Witcher Enhanced Editions, although that would be a pleasant surprise.

Given that used games/sharing seemed to be the number one thing pre-E3 that people were getting their panties in a twist over, it seems odd to suddenly disregard it. But fine, for the sake of argument, let's leave aside all redistribution of games (be it resale/secondhand, lending/sharing, as they are all effectively tied together). What then, in your opinion, are the other pressing categories of interest to gamers where the PS4 comes out ahead?

Seeing as Sony just alluded to 3rd party titles having DRM at the discretion of publishers, don't be surprised if PS4 essentially ends up identical to the Xbone in terms of things like used games/ownership. Might want to hold your horses on declaring a winner when the war hasn't even started yet.

Who said anything about piracy?

Sure you can. You just need to wait until someone makes the appropriate emulator.

I had a brief poke around in it during closed beta. I recall it had a couple of interesting features, but I didn't really wrap my head around their workflow conventions in the limited time I spent with it. I think they have left it a bit late in the day, 2 years after the release of the game and with TW3 on the horizon. I'm hoping that TW3 support can be patched into it at some point in the future, otherwise it would seem like a waste of time and resources.

The only hope I would see for Obsidian is getting a sequel or spinoff a few years down the track for whatever new SW series Bioware comes up with. But under EA, that seems highly unlikely.

Never say never....

It was only a pitch. There's no indication that it had moved to anything beyond that.