Interview More Age of Decadence bullshit at NMA

[Spazmo]

Tags: Age of Decadence; Vault Dweller

The notorious drug dealer and probable wifebeater <b>Vince D. Weller</b> has suckered another respectable gaming news site into posting blatant lies about Iron Tower's upcoming pro-terrorist propaganda piece, Age of Decadence. <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com>No Mutants Allowed</a>, the venerable English as a second language Fallout fansite, have posted an <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=19882>interview</a> with the game's project leader.<blockquote>Ratty: Is it possible to become a faction leader and dictate the faction's policies?
<br>
<br>
Vince: No. You can influence your faction(s), however, and make sure that certain decisions are made. That requires some skills and reputation, obviously.</blockquote>This is exactly the kind of moronic design that's killing RPGs. Why shouldn't I be able to become the leader of every guild in the world? There ought to be quests that make me the leader of guilds I don't even know about. But no, Vince D. "Freedom Hater" Weller insists on forcing us to do what he wants us to do. Forshame.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I feel such an urge to make a post about how most of his new dialogue screens have exactly one reply. According to VD's logic and in the absence of "track record" that must mean that the dialogue in this game sucks, at least 50% of the time! Choices ahoi, the Oblivionization of AoD is underway!

I know that's bullshit, but the opportunity is too good to pass by

 

[Mr. Teatime]

I heard the police are cracking down on the kiddie-fiddlers holed up in The Order.

 

[Elwro]

OK, I'll just ignore the content and bitch about one sentence.

"The player is given choice between diametrical ideologies, none of which are blatantly "good" or "evil"."

Does this make sense in English? Shouldn't it be sth like "diametrically different"?

 

[Vault Dweller]

The notorious drug dealer and probable wifebeater <b>Vince D. Weller</b> has suckered another respectable gaming news site into posting blatant lies about Iron Tower's upcoming pro-terrorist propaganda piece, Age of Decadence. <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com>No Mutants Allowed</a>, the venerable English as a second language Fallout fansite, have posted an ...

Love it.

OK, I'll just ignore the content and bitch about one sentence.

I didn't write it, but you can direct your complaints to the nice NMA people.

 

[RGE]

... contol the magic they had unleashed to win that war.

I like the New Reno vibe I get from the different factions all trying to get the PC to work for them and against the others. And the Slayer of Lord Antidas trait/rank I spotted in the character sheet.

 

[Nicolai]

Speaking of which, do you get any neat traits if you, say, only kill women?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Nope.

 

[whatusername]

Why?

 

[Nicolai]

Maybe you should, you know, implement something like that.

 

[HanoverF]

There's a rumor if you kill only women, and rape men, you get the title Blackhart

 

[Roqua]

What if you kill a lot of Orcs and Golblins? Can you get a trait that will let you pause combat? That would be awesome. I'm going to play as a powerful wizard, like Gandalf or the guy in the Dungeon and Dragons games who wrote the manuals.

 

[Ratty]

I heard the police are cracking down on the kiddie-fiddlers holed up in The Order.

AZZY ISN'T A KIDDIE-FIDDLER, THAT CHILD PORN WAS PLANTED ON HIM BY SOMEONE!

Uh, at least I hope that's the case.

Does this make sense in English? Shouldn't it be sth like "diametrically different"?

Heheh. If that's a blunder, it's mine, not VD's. But if I'm not mistaken, "diametrical" is a synonym for "(wildly) different". That's how I always used it, anyway.

Here's what dictionary.com says:

<i>diametrical

adj 1: related to or along a diameter; "the diametral plane" [syn: diametral, diametric] 2: characterized by opposite extremes; completely opposed; "in diametric contradiction to his claims"; "<b>diametrical (or opposite) points of view</b>";...</i>

I win.

 

[Claw]

The English have a thing for redundancy, apparently. They love phrases like "diametrically opposed" and erm, that other one, which I forgot.

 

[kingcomrade]

Oh, there's lots of stuff like that. "Very Unique" is my favorite.

But anyways, saying something is "diametric" doesn't necessarily state that they are opposed to each other. It could just share the same diameter of some third object.

 

[suleo]

Oh, there's lots of stuff like that. "Very Unique" is my favorite.

But anyways, saying something is "diametric" doesn't necessarily state that they are opposed to each other. It could just share the same diameter of some third object.

Yes plus if you think about it in geometric terms, "opposite" is not the same as "diametrically opposite", as two points in a circle can be opposite to each other (based on an axis that runs across the center of the circle) but the only case where those 2 points are at the farthest distance from each other is when they are the edges of the diameter.

 

[John Yossarian]

What is this, internet Seinfeld?

 

[Frau Bishop]

What the world really needs is a turn-based Seinfeld RPG! With all teh consequenzes in dialogue! But until then AoD has to do it. Drug dealers ftw!

 

[galsiah]

With all this talk about word usage/meaning, I fear we've strayed from the central issue involved in that sentence:

"The player is given choice between diametrical ideologies, none of which are blatantly "good" or "evil"."

Any fool knows that it should be "...none of which is...".

 

[kingcomrade]

Being sardonic, or did you really not notice that ideology is plural in that sentence?

 

[galsiah]

Plurality of "ideologies" is irrelevant - "none" is singular, so gets an "is".

Consider:

The player is given choice between diametrical ideologies, not one of which are blatantly "good" or "evil".

That is clearly wrong. "not one" is singular, so it needs to be "is", not "are". The plurality of ideologies is not relevant.

Similarly, in:

The player is given choice between diametrical ideologies, none of which are blatantly "good" or "evil".

"none" is singular (like "not one" above). It needs an "is" too.

Note that my "none" / "not one" comparison is an illustration that the plurality of "ideologies" can't be the deciding factor (not that "none" is always identical to "not one").


I happen to be right, but it's a really pointless issue - saying "None of them is" etc. will usually sound silly, even though it is correct. Also, there's no real confusion either way.

You either have to sound odd, or be wrong. There is no absolutely "good" or "evil" grammatical decision here. Clearly it's an intentional grammatical "mistake" from Ratty to draw our attention to the pervasive nature of choice and consequence - to embody within the sentence structure itself the senselessness of a good vs evil characterization.
Genius.

 

[bryce777]

The notorious drug dealer and probable wifebeater <b>Vince D. Weller</b> has suckered another respectable gaming news site into posting blatant lies about Iron Tower's upcoming pro-terrorist propaganda piece, Age of Decadence. <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com>No Mutants Allowed</a>, the venerable English as a second language Fallout fansite, have posted an <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=19882>interview</a> with the game's project leader.<blockquote>Ratty: Is it possible to become a faction leader and dictate the faction's policies?

Vince: No. You can influence your faction(s), however, and make sure that certain decisions are made. That requires some skills and reputation, obviously.</blockquote>This is exactly the kind of moronic design that's killing RPGs. Why shouldn't I be able to become the leader of every guild in the world? There ought to be quests that make me the leader of guilds I don't even know about. But no, Vince D. "Freedom Hater" Weller insists on forcing us to do what he wants us to do. Forshame.

"has" posted

 

[7th Circle]

Since we are playing grammar Nazis.

Yes. It will be hard though, without anyone's backing you up.

This should be either "anyone's backing" or "anyone backing you up."

More seriously, in response to "You have not one, but three social skills: Persuasion, Etiquette and Streetwise. What do they do?" , you cut and pasted Disguise instead of Persuasion.

EDIT - Spelling...

 

[galsiah]

Since we are playing grammar Nazis.

Yes. It will be hard though, without anyone's backing you up.

This should be either "anyone's backing" or "anyone backing you up."

The Nazis might have got things wrong, but there's no need to follow in their footsteps :

"anyone's backing you up" is 100% correct.
As is:
"My being a picky bastard" rather than "Me being a picky bastard",
"Vince D. Weller's suckering a news site" rather than "Vince D. Weller suckering a news site"
...

It's possessive. The "backing you up" is owned by "anyone" - that forms the connection between the two.

I think it's ok to use the form you suggest if you're saying something like:
"This is VD suckering a news site"
I.e. something which means: "This is VD(. He is) suckering a news site".

There "VD" just works as an object, and the "He is" can be included or not. This isn't the situation with "anyone's backing you up", so the possessive version is the right one.


A general point:
The screenshots show things from the view of the three Houses. Do the other factions have similar takes on things from the beginning, or do some of them come into play later? Are most main quest goals at odds with every other faction, or is it possible to play through and do (nearly) everything for two of the factions - say one House and some guild?

 

[Spazmo]

"has" posted

I view any given website as a collective entity. Basically, NMA is several people. Therefore, I use "have". This kind of reasoning allows me to take partial credit for all of VD's interviews because I'm a part of RPGCodex.