Dragon Age 2 - News Roundup #7

aries100 said:
And I'm more and more sure that it is the use of the word 'gay' that did get him banned as this word could is probably flagged as 'profanity' by the text parser at EA.
But this post by Stanley Woo indicates that his ban was due to users reporting him and not due to a text parser.
Stanley Woo said:
2. EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.
He did, after all, call the guy who insulted him a retard. I think what happened was that the guy who insulted him first got banned and then this guy in turn reported v_ware. Or the report user button was abused in v_ware's other thread.

It also unlikely that "gay" is on the profanity filter, given the fact that the word is pretty much embraced by the LBGT community in North America.

aries100 said:
As for banning people from playing (or in this case activating!) their game, is not cool, not at least because this did happen because of a forum post made by the user. In multiplayer games, where you communicate over the net, it is something else entirely.
I respectfully disagree. A lot of people don't take forums or other forms of communication over the internet seriously and behave in a way they would never do in real life (and really, behavior in multiplayer games and forums should not be that much different from each other). And this is largely due to the complete lack of consequences for being a dick on the net. In this particular case the reaction was overzealous, but I definitely agree with the intentions.

aries100 said:
As for text parters, think in the broader perspective: What if goverments had access to this? (oh - wait - they do!). This would mean that each government in the world would be able to monitor every webpage in the world, flagging every word that deemed to be dangerous. Just like EA apparently reserves the right to be doing as for their Terms Of Service. On a more general perspective, it seems that big corporations like EA slowly are undermining the consumer's legal rights by making customers i.e. gamers agree to EA's terms if they wish to play a game published by EA.
I agree, internet censorship by governments can become a serious problem. However, I think that communities on the net should have the right to police themselves or not at all, if they so choose. Government should only come in as a guarantee for a minimum of rights. So, that cyber stalking and personal threats can be dealt with accordingly.

As far as I know most EULAs have already been in conflict with EU consumer protection laws for the last few years, though I am no lawyer. But gamers as a whole are just not the kind of people to organize to change this. So far, experience, for example the recent World of Starcraft mod debacle, has shown that when a controversial issue comes up, the internet backlash is usually strong enough to make publishers and developers back down. However, it becomes problematic when a valid concern lacks media penetration. This seems to be the case here.

The customer definitely needs better protection, but corporations should not be stripped of the possibility of harsh penalties, either. It is a debatable issue. And in the end I think corporations will win, mainly because today's generation never learned to fight for their rights. But I don't think this will be the end of the world; video games are rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Regarding DA2, the game itself:
From what I heard and read of Kirkwall I am getting a strong G.R.R. Martin vibe. Especially from the cities Daenerys Targaryen visits and conquers. Is this accurate, is Kirkwall inspired by these cities or am I just imagining things?
 
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As far G.R.R.R Martin and a Song of Fire and Ice are concerned, no you pretty much got it. Bioware themselves has said, or rather David Gaider in interviews, that Dragon Age was heavily inspired by A song of Fire and Ice.

As for how this happened, this whole thing with the user being banned, I'm just going by Priestly words about 'profanity' and another user's words that they probably have been using text parsers. Or maybe EA themselves have people watching the forums for profanity content? It wouldn't surprise me - if they indeed do this…

I think if you look closely, you'll see that this comment Are you a homosexual or a retard? actually comes from another member of the forums, Gaius Octavian.
By the very nature of things, I can't see what v_ware wrote in his second post, since is has the 'inappropriate content removed' tag placed in it.

There is another reason to be worried here. though. And that is that the US views on profanity and nudity will be enforced no matter what. Danish newspapers have in the past weeks told the curious story about Facebook has people monitoring the forums, or rather the pictures, they upload to their profile. User profiles on Facebook has been banned for nudity, full, it seems, because they've uploaded pictures of ancient Greek statues. Very disappointing, I find.
 
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The one thing I despise about some of the negative reviews of this game is how the reviewers completely ruin any chance at being taken seriously by engaging in childish behavior. akourbat's post, while trolling, had me interested for about 2 paragraphs, because there was some decent critical info in there, but you had to sift through 3 "fucks" and two "shits" for every real piece of information. Not to mention that engaging in that level of aggression and hyperbole completely paints you in the "Bioware Hater" corner, and destroys your legitimacy.
 
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Great guns, this topic got interesting! Nice job Tilean & Aries100! (And possibly thanks to the nice man with the great big banning stick.)

I don't know if those are US views being imposed or Canadian in the BioWare social forums but whichever the case, it will be a case of one cultural norm imposing it's views on a world-wide group. Unfortunately, I'm not real sure how you could avoid that. If they have people from multiple cultures policing the forums, the posters aren't going to know what the rules are. You might even get forum moderators banning each other! You have to pick one cultural norm and the easiest one to enforce is going to be the norm the people doing the policing already know.

What interests me more is how this got turned into 'user was banned from the game for saying he didn't like it' out on the Internet. That isn't even close to what happened. Lots of other aspects have been blown WAY out of proportion, too. As we've seen here, people are trying to interject all sorts of wild accusations in any topic that might be read by anyone who might buy the game. If they can find a place to vote on the game, they give it a 0 to force the score down as much as possible. It isn't about whether or not this game is good anymore, it's about DESTROYING the game. Pretty much the internet equivalent of a street riot, really.

This seems to happen only when you make something really popular and follow it up with something that's so-so for a significant portion of the players that loved the original game. Suddenly the so-so game is seen as being worse than those clunky games they make along side of big movie releases and the peasants grab their torches to go burn down the Amazon rating.
 
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@rune_74 – sorry, but I have to skip past what you write. You seem to be jumping on every single post critical of DA2. Gets kinda hard to browse.

@ Zloth – discussing social norms across the globe is irrelevant. Even if the guy had spammed the forum wiht a picture of the Pope having sex with a dead goat, all that should have happened was a forum ban. The fact that EA even has a system that links forum bans with license registration blocks is downright wrong. It gives yet another credible argument for the pirates. Although irrelevant we do not know for certain what this person was banned for. He claims he has an email from Priestly explaining that it was because he said "[Bioware] you sold your soul to the EA devil". I can see the thread where he implies that either he, or the person he's addressing, is a homosexual. I saw other threads where he really bashed BW and DA2.

@ Tilean – the length of time during which a person cannot activate a game is irrelevant also. If I criticize my Toyota car, I do not expect it to be towed away by Toyota, period. Even if they bring it back again in 3 hours. I have paid for the car. If you allow this to go unchallenged, then next you will not be allowed to play if you have not made an "approved positive review" on the Social Forum. A joke today, a reality tomorrow, if we behave as EA apologists today.
 
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I really recommend reading the review from Worthplaying mentioned in OP.
It´s pretty much spot on in every aspect.
 
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As a handy (and today quite futile) reference point, I always think of x/10 scores on "the Fallout scale":

  1. Very Bad
  2. Bad
  3. Poor
  4. Fair
  5. Average
  6. Good
  7. Very Good
  8. Great
  9. Excellent
  10. Heroic

Obviously, game review scores crack me up :) However, once I become the Dictator of Universe, be prepared to have this list tattooed on all game journalists' hands :p

Because seriously, if the trend continues, soon 8/10 will be "really, really negative". A few years later, 9/10 will mean "absolute crap game". And the pinnacle will be reached when each reviewed game automatically gets 10/10, and what the reviewer really thinks of the game can only be found out if you drive to their house and refuse to leave until they tell you.

no your wong, it goes like this

7 = 0-5 bad
8 = 6 mediocre, worth buying if you like the series/genre
9 = 7 good
9.4 = 8 p.good
9.5+ = very few games genuinely get this, its either 9-10 or the opinion was paid for

no, it isn't illegal to pay for reviews or demand a score from a reviewer
 
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Gaxkang said:
the length of time during which a person cannot activate a game is irrelevant
So you are saying that an indefinite ban would be equally unjust. I don't share that kind of reasoning.
Gaxkang said:
If I criticize my Toyota car, I do not expect it to be towed away by Toyota, period. Even if they bring it back again in 3 hours. I have paid for the car. If you allow this to go unchallenged, then next you will not be allowed to play if you have not made an "approved positive review" on the Social Forum. A joke today, a reality tomorrow, if we behave as EA apologists today.
That is not a valid comparison. Despite the obvious difference in price, when you buy a car you are not agreeing to a clause that would permit the described removal.
This procedure has been standard practice for online games since the early 2000's, it's not like EA is quietly starting to take away freedom of opinion. There has always been the clause that the licensor can revoke your access for whatever reason he deems appropriate.

I am also pretty sure this is not just simply about EA silencing the "opposition", after all low review score are all over the place. Look at this guy's post:
v_ware said:
Why is everybody goin insane about this game? I don't get it. Either people are bashing it like it's the offspring off Hitler and killed your children or they are praising it like it's pure bliss, because it is perfection.

Let's just calm down and see this game for what it really is. A pretty good game, which is not as great or as polished as other Bioware games.

Calm down. Seriously.
Somehow, things don't add up with this guy. Apparently, he had not tested the game at this point, because judging by his "banned-post" he could not have had activated it by this time. But still he calls for sanity in judgement. Then, according to his "banned-post", he implied that "Bioware sold out to the EA Devil" without actually having played the game, which is a radical change from a sane and reasonable judgement.
Conveniently, he was told on the EA live chat that his "EA Devil" quote was the reason behind his ban with no reproducible proof, also very conveniently his posts in another thread were modified and/or removed, so that he can claim to have said virtually anything.

The Worthplaying review seems worth reading only if you are interested in seeing DA2 bashed with somewhat reasonable claims. A lot of its criticism can be applied to DA:O in the very same way (repetitive fights, party not completely customizable, an "ideal" character progression). You also have to keep in mind that this review is based on the console versions with no auto attack and presumably not ideal control for Nightmare mode.
The only interesting part is the bit dealing with the story. But there's of course the problem that you cannot really make compelling arguments about the story without giving away too much. The reviewer also seems to misjudge what the main focus of the story is.
 
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I have made some comments on the Bioware forums about not judging the game fairly and calling for people to react calmy and behave with decorum. I haven't played the game either, but I did play the demo and I did follow the development for DA2 closely as well. Most reviews that bash the game, bash the game for

a) use of the dialogue wheel
b) the fast paced combat (the animations used for combat)
c) the reuse of areas
d) all other stuff not related to story or characters.
e) No custumization of your npc much

I find this deeply unfair, but that's mainly because I like the dialogue wheel, the faced past combat and some of all the other stuff I've seen in the demo. As for the story, I can't really say anything about it except that 'thank the Maker it is not about saving the world, joining a secret order, raising an army, defeat an ancient evil' like the last 100th rpgs or so. This tale spun for DA2 tells a story about how Hawke went from rags to riches and it does so by using the unreliable narrator as the narration device.

As far as the Worthplaying review goes, in DA2, there is no main villain to slay, as I understand it. There is a choice you'll need to make - as I understand it.
 
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So you are saying that an indefinite ban would be equally unjust. I don't share that kind of reasoning.

Cheap relativism.

Both are unjust. But only a small degree separates the two. In other words, both (temp and perm) are an outrage, only that one is somewhat less so.

That is not a valid comparison. Despite the obvious difference in price, when you buy a car you are not agreeing to a clause that would permit the described removal.

As regards my analogy of Toyota confiscating my car for three hours because of a forum rant about (say) faulty brakes being “not valid”.

You are confusing the terms: “legal” and “just”. The judiciaries in many European countries are curtailing EULAs for example, as a form of unfair contract.

Let’s say I own a drugstore in France – the next nearest one is 50km away. One day a man crawls into my shop with a chest pain and asks for a thrombolytic. I quickly draw up a contract saying the I agree to sell the drug, and he agrees to buy … but for 1 million Euros per tablet. This contract is technically legal under French law, but there are general provisions that he could use to challenge my attempting to enforce this contract. He would probably win in the end. So looks legal, in fact may be deemed to be not legal, and is certainly not fair.

And now for EULAs. This is like being sold an ice cream, walking away from the stand, and then finding a note under the cone, stating that by taking your first lick, you automatically agree to have less freedom of speech for 72 hours. Furthermore, this note is 70 pages long, and written in a language which is archaic and deliberately over-complicated. Legislation in many countries is finding that this sort of practice, while prima facie, may be seen as a contract freely entered into by mutually consenting parties, can (and often are) actually, unfair. And therefore they can be illegal (under a variety of trading laws, provisions invalidation contracts under duress, agreements that go against the ‘wider public good’ etc.).

So the finer points of the legality of what EA may have done is enough to bore an international convention of IP lawyers. Irrespective of what conclusions this convention might reach, we, the customers, are free to determine that such practices are unfair, dishonest, abusive, underhand and unjust. And it is on these terms that I judge EA. And in so doing, I, like many others, find them guilty.

Somehow, things don't add up with this guy. Apparently, he had not tested the game at this point, because judging by his "banned-post" he could not have had activated it by this time. But still he calls for sanity in judgement. Then- snip -

I don’t know what fucked up conspiracy theory you are implying here, sounds like your brain has been exposed to too much BioWare. Just because a poster goes from “please be calm with this game” to “BioWare sold out to the EA devil” does not mean that he is insane, making things up, or some “plant” by the competition. Where are you trying to go with this? Just trying to put out some FUD of your own? You have no evidence other than - it's odd he went from reasonable to ranting. You're right, something doesn't add up…
 
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I think the game is good. Not a mind blowing experience by any means, but worth trying out for anyone. That said, I do have some grievances; mainly the 'copy-paste areas' and not being able to fully equip my followers. Bioware/EA are rightly taking some flak for streamlining the game. Not so much because they aren't catering enough to the 'hardcore rpg'ers', we all knew this wouldn't be the case, but because they are 'cutting corners' in the name of making a better game, which is really just an excuse to cut costs and enlarge profits, is transparent to most mainstream gamers.
 
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I think it's a combination of both. A lot of people played the original Bioware RPGs when they were in their impressionable youth and have gone on to become somewhat elitist in their hobby, yet have never realized that cRPGs are really not something to be elitist about. Most of these people never revisited the Baldur's Gate games with a more critical eye and now they basically live in denial of their own youthful naivity. So, maybe to not feel the shame of being "tricked" as a youth, they now picture old Bioware and new Bioware as fundamentally different.

This is a very interesting point. Thank you.

Yes, a game's perception could have something to do with the age of a gamer …
Especially when I read through this thread … Today I had a talk to an employee of a shop of an electronicvs chain, he was responsible for the games section.

We chatted about the fact that the older one gets, the more picky one becomes, regarding games. And he agreed to that.

We were talking about the horror genre (in film) as well. A few days ago, there was a documentation on TV (didn't see it but read a review of it the day after that) explaining that how the horror genre has evolved over time.
The result was that in earlier times, horror movies were more quiet, and capable of building up a horror feeling or theme with rather "using" emotions.
Nowadays, however, the horror gnre rather consists of what I called (slightly exaggerrated) "splatter movies". I didn't see them, but I heard that for example "Hostel" and "Saw" build up "horror" just by visuals, just by dramatic, graphic expressions of what's going on.
No subtlety at all.

He said that in his opinion it could be so that at one point the "horror" of something is … "worn out", and to get the same effect, one would need moe extremes.
Uh, this is difficult to explain what I mean … It's a bit like with drugs You'll constantly need more of it, because the body becomes so much used to it that a smaller amout of the same drug doesn't work at one point anymore.

I think this could be a part of the problem(s). Drakensang isn't interesting to youths anymore, because it is too childish, maybe. What they want is "more of the drug", and tht is the blood and the gore of Dragon Age, I guess.

Another point I brought into our small chat was that at one point in your life, you "just have seen everything". It's like … "outgrowing" something. "Been there, done that, went to rest at last", so to say. And when one has seen "everything",
"everything" isn't that impressive anymore. Or exciting. It's just what comes with the ages.

Since I had been walking around in the town for two hours already (never sitting on something to rest) I was quite exhausted, then, and thus I couldn't continue the chat anymore, since I was just *too* exhausted. So I kind of broke it up. I'd liked to chat a bit more, but I couldn't anymore.

And, besides, that employee didn't make the impression to me of being under 30 years …



User profiles on Facebook has been banned for nudity, full, it seems, because they've uploaded pictures of ancient Greek statues. Very disappointing, I find.

Disturbing. What's next ? Hordes of prude americans invading Greece and destroying all 3000+ years old statues because they can't stand nudity ?

You know this is a joke what I wrote, but I find it increasingly disturbing that people accuse … nudity of 3000+ years old statues …

Whom should they accuse ? Praxiteles ?

I begin to worry that there might be a thing like "pathological behaviour of a complete society" …

I don't know if those are US views being imposed or Canadian in the BioWare social forums but whichever the case, it will be a case of one cultural norm imposing it's views on a world-wide group. Unfortunately, I'm not real sure how you could avoid that. If they have people from multiple cultures policing the forums, the posters aren't going to know what the rules are. You might even get forum moderators banning each other! You have to pick one cultural norm and the easiest one to enforce is going to be the norm the people doing the policing already know.

I'd call that "indirect cultural imperialism".
 
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This is a very interesting point. Thank you.

Yes, a game's perception could have something to do with the age of a gamer …
Especially when I read through this thread … Today I had a talk to an employee of a shop of an electronicvs chain, he was responsible for the games section.

We chatted about the fact that the older one gets, the more picky one becomes, regarding games. And he agreed to that.

We were talking about the horror genre (in film) as well. A few days ago, there was a documentation on TV (didn't see it but read a review of it the day after that) explaining that how the horror genre has evolved over time.
The result was that in earlier times, horror movies were more quiet, and capable of building up a horror feeling or theme with rather "using" emotions.
Nowadays, however, the horror gnre rather consists of what I called (slightly exaggerrated) "splatter movies". I didn't see them, but I heard that for example "Hostel" and "Saw" build up "horror" just by visuals, just by dramatic, graphic expressions of what's going on.
No subtlety at all.

He said that in his opinion it could be so that at one point the "horror" of something is … "worn out", and to get the same effect, one would need moe extremes.
Uh, this is difficult to explain what I mean … It's a bit like with drugs You'll constantly need more of it, because the body becomes so much used to it that a smaller amout of the same drug doesn't work at one point anymore.

I think this could be a part of the problem(s). Drakensang isn't interesting to youths anymore, because it is too childish, maybe. What they want is "more of the drug", and tht is the blood and the gore of Dragon Age, I guess.

Another point I brought into our small chat was that at one point in your life, you "just have seen everything". It's like … "outgrowing" something. "Been there, done that, went to rest at last", so to say. And when one has seen "everything",
"everything" isn't that impressive anymore. Or exciting. It's just what comes with the ages.

Since I had been walking around in the town for two hours already (never sitting on something to rest) I was quite exhausted, then, and thus I couldn't continue the chat anymore, since I was just *too* exhausted. So I kind of broke it up. I'd liked to chat a bit more, but I couldn't anymore.

And, besides, that employee didn't make the impression to me of being under 30 years …





Disturbing. What's next ? Hordes of prude americans invading Greece and destroying all 3000+ years old statues because they can't stand nudity ?

You know this is a joke what I wrote, but I find it increasingly disturbing that people accuse … nudity of 3000+ years old statues …

Whom should they accuse ? Praxiteles ?

I begin to worry that there might be a thing like "pathological behaviour of a complete society" …



I'd call that "indirect cultural imperialism".

you put all that effort into something that they'll forget in a few hours

makes me cry
 
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you put all that effort into something that they'll forget in a few hours

makes me cry

It doesn't matter to me.

I just love writing and discussing ! :)

It just makes me cry that that you seem to feel the need to respond me in this way : SUCH a HUGE quote and then there tiny, nondescript lines …

What I find intresting is the tone of your lines, by the way.

You could have easily left the quote out, you know …
 
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I really recommend reading the review from Worthplaying mentioned in OP.
It´s pretty much spot on in every aspect.

Spot on?

They are totally wrong about the companions...
 
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Interesting post, Alric. I agree with the comparison to horror films. Before the rise of "awesome" special effects, horror movies (and movies in general) actually needed to be extremely creative in order to achieve the desired emotional response from the audience. Movies like Avatar, however? Completely predictable and nothing more than a bunch of flash with no substance. It looks absolutely amazing, sure, but the story itself is creatively and emotionally uninspired and shallow. I feel the same way about many modern games, and it's unfortunate because if developers would combine the technology and flash of modern games with the sheer creativity and inspiration of older games, we would currently be in the midst of a golden age of gaming. Sadly, many games have more in common with Avatar than they do with something along the lines of Arcanum, and I think that is tied to the focus on tech instead of an artistic vision designed to take advantage of the tech.
 
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Gaxkang said:
Both are unjust. But only a small degree separates the two. In other words, both (temp and perm) are an outrage, only that one is somewhat less so.
I simply think that only one of them is an outrage. 72 hours? Come on.

As I wrote earlier in this thread I am also fully aware that EULAs are not strictly legal in most European countries.

However, I think that agreeing to them for all these years and now suddenly making a fuss about them because this situation provides good cannon fodder is hypocritical. And EA/DA2 haters hijacking this issue is even worse because they are not genuinely concerned about it even though it definitely IS a serious issue.

Gaxkang said:
I don’t know what fucked up conspiracy theory you are implying here, sounds like your brain has been exposed to too much BioWare. Just because a poster goes from “please be calm with this game” to “BioWare sold out to the EA devil” does not mean that he is insane, making things up, or some “plant” by the competition. Where are you trying to go with this? Just trying to put out some FUD of your own? You have no evidence other than - it's odd he went from reasonable to ranting. You're right, something doesn't add up…
Well it is odd he went from reasonable to ranting on a single day without having played the game in the mean time. I am not saying he is a plant, but implying he was silenced because of criticism directed at EA was bound to speed up the process of him being unbannend. While he probably wrote the "EA Devil" quote, the reasoning behind his ban might very well be connected to something else he wrote in the now closed thread. Keep in mind, that his posts along with anothers user's were completely deleted. The close notice from the mod also mentions flaming and spamming, which means that the original thread was probably alot bigger than what we can see now.

It is just unrealistisc to think he got banned for criticising EA on the same day he got into a fight with another user, which led to the deletion of posts and the closing of the thread.
 
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Spot on?

They are totally wrong about the companions…

Interesting, I was thinking about this when I read the review. What specifically are you referring to?

I was under the impression the customization of companions was improved in DA2 because their skill points would not be spent until you "acquired" them. But this review makes it seem exactly the other way round, so I assumed I got it wrong somehow. And now I am confused again...

I was definitely looking forward to improved companion customization in DA2, so I am eager to hear the actual truth.
 
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Interesting post, Alric. I agree with the comparison to horror films. Before the rise of "awesome" special effects, horror movies (and movies in general) actually needed to be extremely creative in order to achieve the desired emotional response from the audience. Movies like Avatar, however? Completely predictable and nothing more than a bunch of flash with no substance. It looks absolutely amazing, sure, but the story itself is creatively and emotionally uninspired and shallow. I feel the same way about many modern games, and it's unfortunate because if developers would combine the technology and flash of modern games with the sheer creativity and inspiration of older games, we would currently be in the midst of a golden age of gaming. Sadly, many games have more in common with Avatar than they do with something along the lines of Arcanum, and I think that is tied to the focus on tech instead of an artistic vision designed to take advantage of the tech.

I've been banging my head against this very wall for the last 5 years, and I've said as much about Avatar (re-skinned Dances With Wolves + aliens). So much time and effort is spent in pushing the technological envelope that the story and character development take a back seat.
 
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