You know its a wierd thing isnt it... the way people allow their minds to wander into the crossover area between depiction and reality.

I played UO for 6 years and during that time I made a GM tamer...I had a dragon that had been with me for like 3 years and at the time he died pet rezzing wasnt in the game yet... I was DEVASTATED!.... I was fully emotionally involved to the point it could have been my dog that died... and I really felt odd about how badly it hit me...

Equally I had an experience in EQ1 where we were in a group and exploring a forrest and came across a Unicorn for the firs time...Anyway someone in the group attacked and killed it and a couple of others went BALLISTIC! with rants about animal cruelty and how evil it was to kill unicorns...

Then we come to your question.....

My answer to which is... All you need to do is keep in mind you are not killing children. You are rearanging a pile of pixels from a representation of a child to a representation of a pile of body parts (or ash if you use energy weapons lol).

The net result is.... not a single child is hurt....

Is there a problem ?

Not in my mind....

But the people that set the standards for the rest of us to live by are not normal people. I mean example....

http://www.davidflint.com.au/

If this guy does not have at least one peadophilic skeleton in his closet then Im Solid Snake.... and he is about the most normal of the lot of them. The guy is a living anachronism and should probably teleported back to medieval england where he belongs and where his tiny brain still resides.

So keep in mind that you dont kill children, you dont even think about killing children, you reconfigure pixels.

Anyone that doesnt understand the difference is a moron...... and therefore well qualified to be on the ratings board.

Thanks I think Im gonna ring around...

Got a date with the g/f tonight but if I can send her home early I might get to play..... priorities....:D

Dont know how many of you read Escapist... because I dont know you all.... which would make it hard to know if you read it or not... I mean I could guess but....

Anyway I digress

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/

Had an article on why the opnly thing to come out of Aliens (Alien2) was stereotypical space marine games... Why was the main point of the whole series.... A tough but sexy and feminine female protagonist lost on game developers ?

Why has the pure success of Ripley never triggered a run of female heros ??

Maybe society really is more backward than we all think. I mean Id say I play female characters in MMO's and RPG's about 90% of the time for all the reasons that come out everytime that chestnut (whats is MMORPG - Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls) comes up. So I would have no drama playing a female FPS hero....

And for the record... I dont compare Lara Croft and Ellen Ripley.... Ellen would kicks Laras Ass!!.... now theres a thought for a game :D

EB told me tomorrow (thursday) but I was wondering if anyone else has got it yet ?

i imagine that a MMO like that would be complete chaos. unless there where commanders and stuff that gave instructions then people would just be running around shooting stuff and getting killed and it would never end.dangerd0g24

And the downside is ?? :D

Yeah I do have my hopes up for Huxley. As long as they keep it simple, none of this mechanics that have bullets chasing people round corners (nice one TR lol) and it will be all good by the looks.

Preferably DICE will just have the lighbulb appear above somoenes head and link their maps into a Euro or Asian campaign or something.... but thats probably asking a lot for the obvious to happen.

Seriously how hard is it ??'

For those of you who remember Operation Flashpoint, I could never help thinking when I played that game. "how cool would this be as an online persistent world". 2 teams, one trying to take the island, one trying to defend it. Lots of victory locations that give bonuses of one type or another... Like an ammo dump that gives your team 10 round increased mag capacity on all weapons or some crap like that...

Add to the mix character development of a basic nature... a combo of weapon unlocks by rank Ala BF2, perks like Fallout, and skill increases like reduced barrel waving for a sniper as they advance etc etc. Access to different vehicles and play modes like commander as you rank up, Ala, Planetide.

Include all the vehicles etc same as BF2. Have a command overview system same as BF2 but useable by multiple players. So like each squad of say 6 gets its own basic commander screen as well as a platoon commander type one for someone to oversee say 5 squads of 6 people.

Nothing I am writing here is rocket science. WW2 Online already does like 80% of it, however poorly. BF2 does the rest, throw in some basic MMO elements to add to the longivety and give people something meaningful to fight over and Robert is ya dads bruva.

What prompted this outburst ?

I just decided to drop Warhamer Online, its a good game but I have decided I am totally over the MMO formula now and I suspect I have aproximately 10 million friends on this one. People like me that played "The Realm" and "Meridian 59" then 6 years in UO and 4 in EQ1. Since then I have done the full rounds. SWG, DAoC, EQ2 and even spent a year in WoW. Can I safely say that unless you have the attention span of a gnat on rittalin (and I do), MMO's are DONE NOW!

We need to change the formula. Warhammer got very close. They have not eleminated the grind but they have made the grind so enjoyable that it takes longer to feel like a grind. Full credit to them for working out a way to PvP your way from 1 to 40. But it is still the same old same old.

Then when we got the news that Tabula Rasa was closing (surprise surprise) it reminded me that developers still dont seem to get it. Revolutionary combat systems tend to suck at a rate of about 9:10. Matrix Online, SWG, TR, the list goes on. The attempt to turn shooting weapons into psuedo turn based weapons has not been pretty.

So why bother ? Why try to reinvent a wheel that rolls prefectly well and has a history of successful transportation ?

Counter Strike, BFx (nam, 2, 2140 etc), OFP, UT, Quake. All games with successful combat systems that are blast to play. I still play CS Source and BF2 the only reason I have got even slightly bored with them is that its not going anywhere. I like a GOAL, a mission, a persistent world gives you that and creates attachment and longevity in the game.

All that time playing BF2 watching the maps load, thinking.... "why cant this map be building to some campaign goal ?"

CMON DEVS!! Stop using your rapidly shrinking testicles of imagination to try and copy WoW!!

Ask yourself what FUN! is, use your brains and grow some nuts.

How hard is it ?8)

Meh... had mine pre-ordered from the States for months anyway...

No screwed up kiddy fiddling christian censor is going to dictate to me what I can and cant play.

I reckon I must have imported just about every banned game ever released and some of them just because I could.

Its a game... FFS.... more controversy over this than when people ACTUALLY get hurt.... typical!