701

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Elder Scrolls Online

« on: January 23, 2014, 11:42:05 PM »

I'm convinced there are no MMOs, no matter how well designed, that don't end up sucking as a result of terrible userbases. Based on my general experience of Bethesda fans, I don't think that's going to change, in fact it might even get worse.

Re: Voice cast. Who cares? Bethesda always rams star voice overs in their games and utilises them in an array of terribly underwhelming ways, usually by killing their characters 10 minutes after you meet them.

702

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?

« on: January 20, 2014, 06:30:10 PM »

North Korea has unicorn layers, though.

There are literally layers upon layers of unicorns in North Korea.

703

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Heaven

« on: January 18, 2014, 11:12:19 AM »

Well, Christianity does talk of an afterlife realm of purity or perfection, but I don't think that makes the idea exclusively Christian, anyone could hold it on its own, these are simply my musings on what such a place would actually be like according to my own ideas of purity and perfection. I have long held the belief that humanity is incompatible with perfection; when someone talks about a piece of music and calls it "perfect," for example, I always say that not only are human beings incapable of creating something perfect, they would also be incapable of comprehending or liking something that is perfect, whatever it may be, because "perfect" is entirely alien to us. Purity is similarly alien, and I think it is incongruous with our mundane lives, that if we are to ascend to a state of purity we must also shed everything that made us human and revert to a pre-birth state in which we are untouched by experience, emotion, sensation, knowledge and so on. The pure self is the undeveloped self, if you like, because it has no experiential data, it is an empty vessel capable of containing such data, but without the right input it remains empty. That is why I imagine such a place as Heaven to be indistinguishable from nothingness, because by being pure it has no allowance for anything we know here on this plane of existence, all of which is crucial to our understanding of the self and its relationship to its environment, but we would not experience this as loss because we would cease to experience anything, our memories of a time when the self and its surroundings were other than they are would be entirely lost, but we would also have no means of experiencing them as they are because there is none of that right input available.

Alternatively we could just say I was tired and drunk and leave it at that.

704

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Heaven

« on: January 17, 2014, 05:20:57 PM »

You cannot cherry pick philosophies. Christian dualism contends that it is our soul that makes us human; otherwise we would be indistinguishable from animals. So when your soul goes to heaven it is taking the essential humanity only.

I'm not cherry picking anything. Furthermore the OP clearly states "many religions," not just Christianity (so far, you are the only person to explicitly mention it), so it seems reasonable to believe that "Heaven" and "Hell" are being used as a place-holder for the myriad concepts of afterlife around the world. If I've misinterpreted the OP, fair enough, but as it stands your rebuttal doesn't really have anything to do with what I said.

705

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Heaven

« on: January 17, 2014, 04:13:20 AM »

Disclaimer: I am tired and I have been drinking.

Say that in death the self gives up the body and upon being accepted into Heaven it is then stripped of all earthly things in a process of purification. All the things we carry with us in our mundane lives — knowledge, experience, memory, emotion and so on — we cannot take with us into Heaven because they are impurities of the self, but our impurities and imperfections are what make us human, so to be purified we must necessarily transcend our humanity and become something totally alien and incomprehensible. Chris could not know his loved ones were in Hell because not only would they no longer be his loved ones, he would not even be aware of their existence, he would have no memory or knowledge of love, he would not care that he knew nothing because he would not know what it is to know something or to care etc. Similarly, Franklin would not know that he was constantly orgasming or the joy of it, having no concept of pleasure, no physical senses as an incorporeal being and no memory of the five human senses or of the orgasm with which to simulate an impression of one, and he too would not care. Simply put, Heaven would be practically indistinguishable from absolute nothingness.

706

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: January 13, 2014, 10:36:53 AM »

One thing I'm hoping for in particular is a big improvement in the voice acting.  Bethesda seems to be really lazy in that department.

Do you mean the quality of the acting or the quantity of actors? It's a staple that they race each other to shatter the illusion first in each new TES or Fallout game, but I'm wondering how much money and time Bethesda actually sinks in to v/o as is. Their special NPCs can be well voiced at times, Max von Sydow was pretty awesome as Esbern, and we already talked about Malcolm McDowell's highly entertaining President Eden, unfortunately they probably can't afford to populate the entire game with unique performances from people who can actually act. Maybe they should focus on casting people who can do lots of different voices, instead of Jennifer Hale types who all do the same voice no matter who they're supposed to be? Of course, having said that, I do wonder if Bethesda even tells the "talent" what their character is when they give them a set of lines to read.

707

Arts & Entertainment / Re: FES Book Club

« on: January 08, 2014, 09:43:32 PM »

I feel somewhat bad about this, but yesterday I shelved The Third Policeman to start Pynchon's Vineland, by his standards a slim volume at a mere 400 pages.

708

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: January 07, 2014, 07:32:31 PM »

Guys, no. She is literally the only person who thinks Fallout 3 was good at all.

Oh how I wish that were true.

709

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: January 07, 2014, 07:25:58 PM »

Am I the only one who loves Fallout 3 and likes Bethesda in general?

Yeah the engine is terrible, but I always thought the awkward faces and movement was part of the charm.

No, I'm pretty sure most people agree with you, in fact most people seem to think F3 is a big improvement over the original games. And there's no end of people positively gushing about Bethesda.

710

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: January 07, 2014, 05:47:05 PM »

If I was going to start a Fallout petition, it'd be asking Bethesda to give Obsidian the rights to all the Van Buren materials. Sure, they're already slated to co-develop Wasteland 2 with inXile (which is going to be like a real Black Isle reunion, unlike the practically in-name-only team Interplay recently started*) but man, Van Buren!

*Maybe Project V13 won't suck. Not holding my breath, but there's a chance.

711

Arts & Entertainment / Re: FES Book Club

« on: January 05, 2014, 01:00:16 PM »

The Colour of Magic was amusing and easy, which was just what I needed. Next up: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.

712

Arts & Entertainment / Re: FES Book Club

« on: January 03, 2014, 11:38:33 PM »

Finished Mason & Dixon, finally, and what an amazing experience it was. So amazing, in fact, that today I went out and bought two Pynchon novels at full retail price, something I would normally never do with books as I find them terribly overpriced in general.

I decided to move on to Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (hi sadaam). I wanted to contrast my previous book with something short, simple and reasonably entertaining that I could just steamroll through in a short amount of time. It has proven to be all these things so I'm enjoying it for what it is, despite now being more than a little spoiled by the mad genius of Pynchon.

713

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Fallout series

« on: January 03, 2014, 09:25:19 PM »

Moriarty has an Irish accent. Odd.

What's odd is that there's an Irishman around, not that the Irishman has an Irish accent.

Does he ever say he's Irish? It might just be an accent.

Moriarty is an Irish name, so he is either Irish or has adopted the name and accent to distinguish himself. If the latter, this might be inspired (in terms of design) by Loxley from F1, who models himself after Robin Hood, going so far as to adopt a hokey English accent.

714

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: January 03, 2014, 01:51:00 AM »

Death Wish (Michael Winner)
Unlike the reputation the Death Wish name would later come to hold by merit of its increasingly bloody and ridiculous sequels, the original is actually quite a reasonable and dare I say realistic thriller that sees a well-to-do man driven to vigilantism by a senseless attack on his family. A substantial portion of the film is spent developing Charles Bronson's now iconic character, and as such the switch from mild mannered office worker to streetcleaner extraordinaire is understandable, helped further in the believability department by the fact that he isn't gunning down hundreds of criminals with a magic never-need-to-reload gun in the manner of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger. Highly entertaining throughout.

Transmorphers (Leigh Scott)
What happens when you take the cast of Eastenders and insert them into FMV sequences from an unreleased Command & Conquer game? Transmorphers may be the closest we will ever come to discovering the answer to this pertinent question.

715

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: January 02, 2014, 12:53:08 AM »

hehehehe very funny

Also, modern medical opinions have taken a fairly skeptical view of Kaspar Hauser's claims.

You looked that up just for me, didn't you? Oh sadaam... <3

also

Wild at Heart (David Lynch)
Seen it a million times, still captivates me like no other film can. Watch it right now.

716

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: January 01, 2014, 06:34:10 PM »

And of course, it inspired one of the better sidequests of F3.  But that's its own thread, let's not derail this one.  Yes, it is a fine movie.  I first watched when I was pretty young, and I remember being really bored, but now that I'm older I can appreciate the intelligence and subtlety behind it a lot more.  I think I may have been expecting an action movie before I first saw it, which is just another part of my youthful foolishness.

Yeah, Kaspar Hauser is an unusual film.

717

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: January 01, 2014, 06:06:10 PM »

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog)
Classically indescribable Herzog takes the true story of Kaspar Hauser and uses it to conduct a social experiment, allowing the audience to see Western civilisation through the eyes of a true alien. Tragic, touching, astounding and funny, the character of Hauser fits perfectly with Herzog's idiosyncratic filmmaking style. A near masterpiece.

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
Ridley Scott has always been a great worldbuilder, even in his worst films, but here he manages to strike a balance between worldbuilding and storytelling he has seldom replicated, helped in no small part by a great performance by Rutger Hauer as the all-too-human replicant Roy Batty. However, the least believable romance captured on film since Moment By Moment casts a nagging shadow over the second half.

718

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Survivor2299

« on: January 01, 2014, 05:22:47 PM »

I am in agreement with Cruddy on this one

O wayward sadaam, hope for thou there yet be! 

719

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Survivor2299

« on: December 29, 2013, 10:14:50 AM »

What exactly do you mean when you compare the game's humor (whether positively or negatively) to the original two games?  I agree that F3 has pretty bad comedy for the most part, but it's at least given me a few laughs, which is more than I can say for the first game.  Admittedly, I haven't played a whole lot of it yet, but so far, the only funny thing I've seen is that they actually got MacGyver to voice one of the characters.  I'm not trying to be a sadaam or anything, but where's the humor?

I probably should have specified F2 when talking about the humour, as that's where most of the comedic writing is. F1 has some jokes, but overall it's played quite straight.

Then perhaps I should play F2 first.  Is it easier to get into?

If you're already a ways into F1 I'd stick with it, in my experience it definitely grows on you the further you get and it opens up considerably once you get the water chip. Besides, while it isn't necessary to play them in order, I think the emotional impact of revisiting the old locations and seeing how they've changed is lessened if you don't know how the first game plays out. If you are going to jump ahead to F2, be sure to get killap's restoration patch, it restores tons of cut content and fixes some bugs, generally providing a better overall experience, though you still have to put up with the shitty tutorial level Black Isle was forced to put in.

720

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Survivor2299

« on: December 28, 2013, 08:09:10 PM »

What exactly do you mean when you compare the game's humor (whether positively or negatively) to the original two games?  I agree that F3 has pretty bad comedy for the most part, but it's at least given me a few laughs, which is more than I can say for the first game.  Admittedly, I haven't played a whole lot of it yet, but so far, the only funny thing I've seen is that they actually got MacGyver to voice one of the characters.  I'm not trying to be a sadaam or anything, but where's the humor?

I probably should have specified F2 when talking about the humour, as that's where most of the comedic writing is. F1 has some jokes, but overall it's played quite straight.