TheMightyEthan

Well that's a sweet deal.

See, and that's an interesting thing to do. My issue with it is that if they're going to experiment with trying to change things up so much, do it with a new franchise. I can't speak for everyone, but I liked DA:O for what it was, and I wanted more of that. I'm not saying that franchises need to stagnate, but I think that if you're going to make such fundamental changes then you need to either pick a new franchise, or at the very least do a reboot rather than a sequel. I dunno. DA:O's storytelling wasn't the strongest. It wasn't what I liekd most about DA:O by a loooooooooooooooooong shot. I'm much more miffed at Bioware for borking companion outfits than by the change in narrative style. I think it's wonderful and appropriate to experiment within the same series. I mean, it still feels like a Dragon Age game, just with a different approach to storytelling. In fact, I feel that this style has a lot of promise. If it lives up to even half of its promise, it'll be a far better narrative than DA:O's sort of generic "Save the Realm!" narrative. Actually, the companion outfits and stuff is what I was talking about. I would be fine with the way they changed the narrative structure if they had just left everything else alone (or tweaked it, not canned it).

I agree with Johnny that Obsidian was on the right track with Fallout: New Vegas. Rather than having defined morality, you simply make the choices have consequences, and focus on how the people in the world react to the choices. This has the advantage of being more realistic (Faction A may think Action X was good, while Faction B thinks it was bad, jut like real life) and avoiding player disconnect when the player disagrees with the developer's conclusion as to whether a particular action is good or bad. Mass Effect spoilers in my example of player disconnect: By avoiding a universal meter of what is "good" or "bad", and basing it instead on people's reactions, you allow a much more interesting and realistic approach to morality.

See, and that's an interesting thing to do. My issue with it is that if they're going to experiment with trying to change things up so much, do it with a new franchise. I can't speak for everyone, but I liked DA:O for what it was, and I wanted more of that. I'm not saying that franchises need to stagnate, but I think that if you're going to make such fundamental changes then you need to either pick a new franchise, or at the very least do a reboot rather than a sequel.

Oh, you'll get no argument from me there, I was just debating the moral theory behind the actions, not necessarily the actual actions of any specific real person.

To be clear, that specific outlook only applies to digital goods. Taking a physical good without permission is always harming someone because you are depriving them of that physical thing. In the context of digital media piracy, however, the only thing you can be said to be depriving the rightful owner of is the money you would have paid for it, and so if you would not have given them the money anyway then you haven't deprived them of anything and so they aren't harmed. I believe you and I would agree that it is wrong to take physical items without permission.

Oh, my boots aren't falling apart, they're still in great shape. I do wear my tennis shoes until they're absolutely destroyed though.

What are you basing this off exactly? It wouldn't be the first time your companions in a BioWare game have been wrong on something. I think that makes it pretty clear how Bioware stands on the issue. I agree with you that the actual choices are much greyer than that, but that just goes to show the limitations of the wheel: even with choices that aren't so obviously "good" or "bad" Bioware shoehorned them into those labels and decided which was which. Although I do think "good" and "bad" don't quite capture the paragon/renegade distinction, I think it's closer to lawful/chaotic than good/evil.

First off, I'd like to say that I'm aware I'm only addressing some of your points. My own personal moral philosophy holds that something is only morally wrong if it harms someone else. If the pirate was not going to purchase the game, even in the absence of piracy being possible, then the dev wasn't getting the money either way and so is not harmed. Here's a misconception, it's not that the pirate "can't wait", it's that they don't need to. The whole thing is based on the assumption that the pirate would not buy the game even if it were impossible to pirate it, in which case he would wait until the price was such that he was willing/able to buy it. However, he still has some desire to play it, and piracy provides a way to satisfy that desire without harming anyone else in the process. Then later, once the price drops, he must buy it for the cost that he would have been willing to pay in a world without piracy, or I would agree he has committed a wrong.

Yeah, I thought that was weird too, why didn't they just include those textures?

You said you put a FAT32 partition on it, maybe that has something to do with it? Like maybe the PS3 needs it to be in one big FAT32 partition, and won't work if it's got more than one partition?

I haven't bought new boots since high school (some nice hunting boots), but that probably has to do with the fact that I only wear them when it snows or when it's really raining hard (they're waterproof).

I crack my joints when they feel like they need to be cracked, which is all the freaking time with my fingers and toes, occasionally my elbows and knees (sometimes my knees crack on their own too), and even more rarely my neck and back. I can't think of ever having intentionally cracked my shoulders or hips though, and my ankles only very rarely. I usually crack my wrists once in the morning when I wake up, but then they're set for the day and I don't have to do it again.

I wish I were excited for it. I really really do.

I just looked up on the Mass Effect Wiki which planets had interesting stuff and only scanned those (on subsequent playthroughs, my first time I did it blind).

it hurts developers/publishers because old habits die hard. If you pirate because you genuinely can't afford the game, why would you suddenly stop pirating when you're just barely squeaking by? For everything that you might want, including saving more than 10% of your annual salary, there's always something that has to be cut, and choosing to cut something you can't pirate isn't going to be at the top of your list if you've already gotten into the habit of pirating. I get that there are students working their way through college that have student loans and credit card debt that get a console from Mom and Dad, and that they genuinely can't afford games for it. That doesn't make pirating morally or legally OK. That harm is speculative an indirect. If I were to pirate Big Game because I can't afford it, that doesn't hurt developer of Big Game, regardless of whether at some point in the future I might be able to afford other, different games. If however, in the future, I pirate those games I could afford rather than buying them, I have hurt those developers, and thus have committed a morally wrong act. The initial piracy, however, of Big Game was not morally wrong because no harm came of it, or at the very least only becomes wrong at the point where the habit I developed causes me to not buy a game I might otherwise have bought. I'm going to take an even stronger stance than that, however: there is nothing morally wrong with pirating any media that the pirate would not have bought anyway. There's also nothing morally wrong with someone pirating a game when its price is at an unacceptable (to them) level, and then buying the game when it reaches a level they are willing to pay. I'm not making any claims as to how many people actually behave this way, but as a theoretically matter I would say those actions are perfectly morally acceptable. Legality is an entirely different issue, of course.

This is another regional thing, but "December the seventh" bothers me a lot, around here people just say "December seventh".

Yeah, you should be fine, the biggest DS games I have are like 256 MB, and most are more like 64 MB or smaller.

I used to not believe in the uncanny valley because stuff just doesn't creep me out by being almost-but-not-quite real looking. Then, however, I was at an art museum with my fiancee and there was this statute of an old man that was basically completely real looking. I thought it was cool, but it creeped my fiancee out, she was like begging me to leave it. I have since refined my belief: it's not that the uncanny valley doesn't exist, it's just that I'm weird and am not affected by it.

Oh, dean, you also need to get an actual SDHC card to go with that, unless you bought the one that comes with the SDHC. I didn't cause it was cheaper to buy the SDHC separate.

I think you're one of the few people that I know of that's like me in this regard - can be pretty ridiculous sometimes, and it's what keeps my game queue stacked to the heavens. I'm in the same boat, I've got multiple characters I'm trying to bring through ME1 and 2 in preparation for ME3. So far I've brought a paragon girl and do-whatever-I-want guy through, and I'm working on a renegade girl. After that I've got paragon guy, renegade guy, and actual-right-thing guy. The reason I need six is because I want to be able to see all the different outcomes of the different choices, which includes the reactions of the love interests from ME1 both when you stay true to them in ME2 and when you cheat on them (I'm not going to try and do the same with all the ME2 love interests though, there's just too many).

I'd like to see Cerberus try and take the SR2 back.

Ah, that sucks.

After I spent all that time scanning those motherfucking planets to get resources for upgrades?! DAMN YOU BIOWARE! *Edit* - Apparently it's unclear whether this is official concept art or just fan work.