MasterDex

Shogun 2 hit retail today and, as is becoming tradition, I went on the hunt for the collector's edition. First stop was HMV. They didn't have it but would order it in for the cheap price of €78. Screw that! I want it today and for no more than €70! So off I go to Gamestop and as luck would have it, I grab the last of the only two collectors editions they had left. The collectors edition comes with the limited edition of the game which features 4 "exclusive" unlocks: The Hattori Ninja clan, the battle of Nagashino historical battle, special armour for your online avatar and some starting XP for your online avatar. The collectors edition comes with one more thing - a lovely hand-painted bamboo chess set. You can see pictures of it here at Eurogamer. Anyway, onto the game. DX11 isn't patched in yet and since DX11 support encompasses DX10.1 (Don't ask me why), the game runs only in DX9 mode. This, unfortunately, means that you can't enable AA through the in-game options but I had no problem forcing AA through catalyst. The game runs well and everything seems to be smoother than in ETW and NTW - loading is faster, the campaign map doesn't seem to lag (yet) and battles play like silk (so far). I've played just under 2 hours so far and everything seems to work well at first glance. One bug (or maybe it's just a change) that will be immediately noticeable is that in battle, the markers aren't showing - this means no path markers or selection markers - and it can throw you off but it's perfectly manageable. I don't think I'll get really stuck into it until later on tonight but I'm looking forward to checking out the new multiplayer campaign mode. So is it just me or has anyone else here bought the game on day 1?

I don't want to derail the thread but I'm compelled to ask: What lie? Do you believe that global warming and the effects of global warming on Earth are a lie? The evidence is there. Perhaps he is referring to the fact that we are constantly told that CO2 causes global warming, despite the fact this is just one of many theories with regards to the cause of our current climate change. Ahh yes, I can understand that.

I don't want to derail the thread but I'm compelled to ask: What lie? Do you believe that global warming and the effects of global warming on Earth are a lie? The evidence is there.

I crack my neck and fingers the whole time to loosen them up and I'll crack or try to crack anything else that feels stiff. It's an old wives tale that it gives you artheritis.

Born to a Roman Catholic family in Ireland, I used to go to church most Sunday's, learned religion(The Catholic bible) in school and made my first communion and my confirmation. I was surrounded by catholicism. In school, I'd hear about Noah, lepers and the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert. When I went home, I'd have to say grace before a meal and be quite for the angelus. I believed in a life after death where I'd spend eternity being happy in the clouds (or burning deep beneath the Earth for being a bad boy). By the time I was making my confirmation, I was already growing a dislike of catholicism and it's strict rules and over the next few years, as my beliefs changed, I began looking for other avenues of spiritual enlightenment. I read the writings of LaVey and Crowley, strange men even by strange standards but they led me to where I am today - a firm non-believer in deities and magical miracles and an avid supporter of secular states. Now, as someone who could be described as an Atheist int he most simple of terms, I've presented myself a bit snobby in my views of religion and religious beliefs but that snobbiness, for the most part, has softened. I believe everyone is entitled to believe what they want to believe. If you want to believe that thetans are stuck to your body or that there's an omnipotent being guiding you through good times and bad then so be it. I don't agree but as long as you don't try and force your beliefs on me, I won't force mine on you. Then there's the set of morals and ethics that reilgions promote and I have a lot more time for them. Regardless on anyone's stance on religion, we should at least acknowledge how it has helped in forming a strong moral compass in many people. The biggest problem I have with religion is with the religious organisations. They start wars, twist the words of their saints and saviours to suit their own ends, entrench people into a life of hardship and take choice out of the equation. Here in Ireland, the school system is run, for the most part, by the cleregy. You want your child to be educated? Chances are you'll be sending them to a catholic or protestant school where they'll be indoctrinated into the religion, regardless of your own beliefs or your own view on how your child should discover and learn about religion. There's a rather new organisation that has been fighting against the tide and setting up secular schools where those of all faiths or none can learn without indoctrination but they're so few and far between that most are still left with the choice of choosing a catholic school or a protestant school. This is just for Primary school (Grade school? In America?). Trying to find a secular school once the child reaches Secondary school (high school) is even harder...unless you want to deny your child educational opportunities by sticking them in a VEC technical school (usually the worst schools in an area). I think everyone is entitled to follow their own beliefs but I think trying to institutionalise entire nations is wrong and needs to stop. Far too many wars have been carried out in the name of gods and religion. P.S. WTF should be banned. His posts are far too good relative to everyone else's.

I haven't played Fallout: New Vegas so I can't comment on that but the choice-consequence method of dealing with moral decisions that you talk about reminds me of The Witcher. Throughout the game, you're presented with choices and none of them are really black and white. It's unclear whether you're doing the right thing or not. Shit just happens and you have to accept the consequences. The Witcher 2 seems to be upping the ante again but we'll have to wait until it's out to judge it. Anyway, onto my point, the polarising morals that many games present us with are boring to the point of pointlessness. I understand the issues trying to implement a strong moral mechanic can present but the world doesn't work on a good vs evil basis. We make decisions and they have consequences. We have to accept them whether we like the result or not. Games need to go that route. Games aren't just about fun. They're also about experiences. It's ok to throw the player a curveball every now and again.

I think one of the big problems with how piracy is treated is that so many people see it in shades of black and white. You either do it or you don't. You hate it or you revel in it. For or against. It's rare that the inbetweeners are heard. It's hard to view it in shades of grey. Maybe you're a developer and it's hit your bottom line hard, it's going to be understandable if you're pissed off. That's the way the cookie crumbles though. In today's world, it's just going to happen, regardless of the platform. A lot of smaller developers seem to understand that but the larger developers and the publishers; the ones that shape the industry just seem to want to take this 'us vs them' approach. Piracy can be controlled to some degree but it will always exist. We have to change our approach to the issue before we can really begin to understand how to do so.

I currently own a PC, PS3, PSP and a 360. I have owned several spectrums (the bones of which I still have somewhere), Commadore C16\+4, Atari 2600, Amiga, an old Amstrad (came with the green screen, can't recall the actual name), SNES, Master System, Mega Drive (Genesis), Gameboy, Gameboy color, Dreamcast, N64, PSX, original Xbox and a few old PCs. That's it as far as I can recall.

I have to agree with everyone else. From what you've said, it appears your friend is at fault. We're all human so even best friends are going to lose the rag with each other from time to time. The sign of a good friendship is being able to set that shit aside and if you're in the wrong, being able to man up and admit it. I'd consider myself very passionate about the values and principles I hold so there can be times when I get pissed off with friends and become aggresive but if I go too far, I admit it and I apologize, like any good friend should do. The ball's in his court now, leave him be or make sure he knows it. If he's a friend worth keeping, he'll apologize for his behaviour.

Foget Jedwarb ever existed. We're sorry we made them famous. Blame Louie Walsh. Or just listen to the Rubberbandits new song instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FiKME7LAW8

Me drinking? Never!

Congrats! I look forward to reading your articles. Sooooo, now that you're an insider, are you gonna give us all the juicy gossip?

Ha! Sorry, didn't mean to come off aggressive. What else annoys me....people who can't accept they may be wrong or have made a mistake and decide to turn what might have been a decent debate into dirt. Just take a breath, accept you're not infalliable and end things amicably. I don't care how heated the debate gets, keep things clean and I'll hold no grudge.

I hate it when people lump everone together in blanket statements. "Gamers are such whiners! Console gamers are all retards! PC gamers are all elitist douchebags." Really? Well, you are an asshole!

Sure, it starts that way, but then you look at the clock, "OMG I'VE BEEN PLAYING THIS FOR SEVEN HOURS?!?!?!?!" Shhhh! Don't scare them away!

I want to lose weight myself but I can't see my diet changing. I'm practically 00% carnivore so it'd be hard to cut fat from my diet. To counteract that, I've started cycling again and I'm giving up smoking. Neither is off to a great start. I'd like to be fit. I don't have to be totally skinny or really buff but if I lost my beer belly and treetrunk thighs, I'd be happy enough. It's just soooo hard!

I don't think it's too much of a time investment. You can get sucked in for sure but playing it sparingly, you can have a single campaign last for ages jsut doing a handful of turns here and there. Or you can just do skirmishes, they can be fun too.

TL;DR comment?! BAN!! I kid! Yeah, the old comments don't string together at all really. The jist of it is that excel_excel made an off-handed comment saying he could imagine how a military-friendly city could be disturbing, the keyword being imagine. Then some guy decided to rip him a new one and went off on some tirade about how the Military are full of stand-up guys and gals only in it for their country, etc, etc, and how he was an asshole or some shit for imagining a disturbing scenario. Then I came in and foolishly tried to get the guy to see where excel_excel was coming from but he was having none of it. Unfortunately, he was the friend of the hammer wielder and I think that's how I got my ban. It's the only comments I could find that seemed liek they could be taking as ban-worthy anyway. tl;dr-tl;dr: Off-handed comment prompted ragepost which prompted my defense post which promtped another ragepost which I assume promted a ragetelltale.

Peteer01 found my old banned account from a few years ago and it brought back some memories so I decided to go seek out the comments that I believe got me banned. After I found them, I didn't want to derail the Fucking Kotaku thread so here's a thread where we can all share our stories on how we were banned or lost stars on Kotaku if we ever have. I won't waste time telling my tale so instead, take a look at the comments. Just click All to see the whole conversation. I'll leave it to all of you to decide whether it was justified or not. So, anyone else a story to share?

Apparently the DX11 features don't work in the demo and enabling DX11 brings in some performance issues. There was a post about it on the Bioware forums from a dev but I'm too tired to go looking for it.

If he's a criminal then anyone that turned their old Xbox into a media player is a criminal. The first people to jailbreak their Iphones are criminals and we're all living in 1984. Next thing you know, I'll be a criminal for borrowing a game from a friend.

The way I always saw it was Bulbasaur was easy mode, Squirtle was normal mode and Charmander was Hard mode...which is why I picked Charmander - I love a good challenge!

Keep in mind that I'm not the one making those generalisations, the developers and publishers are when they decide these sort of changes will help shift more copies on console and to be fair, they're not too wrong either. While I'm sure there are plenty of console gamers like yourself that would rather DA:O over DA2, you're probably in the minority just as those PC gamers who prefer DA2 over DA:O are probably in the minority. It's an unfortunate climate we have in the industry. It'd be great if the gap between console gamer & console games and PC gamer & PC games could be bridged.

We don't hate you! Seriously though. I can understand why people might prefer the changes over the original. We all have different tastes after all. It's just that we expected Dragon Age to be a series for the old Bioware/CRPG fans but they've changed it to cater to console gamers. I just wish they didn't have to disappoint PC gamers just to make console gamers happy, ya know?

Yeah, that's me. My current Kotaku account is -MasterDex-. I'm not sure why I was banned and any emails to the eds (and at the time, banhammer wielder Prinny) went ignored...apart from Crecente who told me that no one gets unbanned, no matter the reason. I believe it was because I defended Excel_excel in a thread. Have you got a link to that account? I could find the comments I think I got banned for.