Jade Empire

[SirBruce]

When I was briefly associated with the SCA during college, I was turned off to it by two main issues:

1. Organizational politics -- I swear, you give anyone a little decision-making power and everything becomes lies, drama, and backstabbing.

2. Crazy people -- You know, there are always a couple of foks who take the whole thing WAY too seriously, and put the 'fanatic' back in 'fan'.  Some of the SCAers think they are really Sir Lancelot.

I've since learned that the above two traits occur with about the same regularity in all different types fandom organizations, so perhaps I was judging the SCA a bit too harshly.

Bruce

PS - As for Jade Empire, I'm looking forward to it because I really do need another game to give me an excuse for owning an X-Box.  You know, exclusive titles are really the ONLY reason for owning one particular piece of hardware over another.  If all software ran the same on every platform, we'd probably all be using the same platform.  Yes, I would prefer all these titles come out on the PC, but they aren't.  What bothers me more are the titles like Fable, KOTOR, Still Life, etc. which come out FIRST on the X-Box, and then on the PC, because that puts me in a position of trying to decide if I really want to wait that long for the PC version.  At least with Fable's case (as with KOTOR), it'll have new content, which is great -- but which also sucks, because then I'm annoyed I bought the X-Box version in the first place.

Bruce

[schild]

The PC Debate in this thread stops here. Got that?

Good.

[Sky]

Yes, it's true. And me thinks you need to get an HDTV to go with your phatty projector.  :-D

You've got it backwards, I already have a "phatty" hdtv :)

Don't you need to go dress up for another SCA meeting?

Actually, I've declined membership after thought. I can't see going to meetings and events when I'm not spending enough time (imo) on the guitar and playing shows. Also, armor = teh expensive and I = teh budgeter. Mortgage downpayments are unfair to some and whatnot (and honestly, I'm saving to buy land outright and skip the horrid mortgage costs entirely, which makes me 'teh broek').

As Megrim points out, it's a great way to get into traditional melee combat with some very talented instructors. I still plan to get into this after I'm landed gentry, with an eye to working rapier/dagger (I hate shields). Had to back out because it's /too much/ fun for me right now.

Whine more bitch? If the game is good suck it up and play it, or don't.

I do. Or rather, don't. Excuse me for discussing my opinion on a game in a forum about gaming, bitch.

[sinij]

The PC Debate in this thread stops here. Got that?

OK

[Hoax]

I always figured that Consoles existed for the morons who don't realize at this point they are definitely just shitty computers you can't upgrade.  You know the people who will play the latest madden, tony hawk, soul caliber, nba street whatever but are TOO COOL to play games on a computer.

*shrug*

[schild]

Christ.

Consoles are standardized.

PCs are not. This conversation is positively ludicrous. You all know it's happened a million times across the internet on millions of message boards. Why are we having it here?

Wait, don't answer that. Just talk about Jade Empire.

[Rasix]

PCs are not. This conversation is positively ludicrous. You all know it's happened a million times across the internet on millions of message boards. Why are we having it here?

Because at heart we're still just a dog responding to a bell telling us it's time to eat. 

Stop it, it's the same people doing this every time to these threads.  The thread's about a game, not about how the XBox fucked your wife and ran off with her to Cancun.

[HaemishM]

I will also chime in and say stop being fucktards about PC vs. Console vs. Other console debate.

Consoles exist because some people want to play games WITHOUT FUCKING WITH CONFIGURATIONS. Some people just like plug-n-play gaming. I am one of them. PC games all too often get hung up on this elitist hobbyist thing that says that a game can't be good unless you can customize it seven ways to Sunday, tweak it for .003 extra FPS, and have 16,000,000 levels of anti-aliasing.

That's great. IF YOU LIKE THAT. I do, sometimes, and sometimes I just want to sit on the fucking couch and play a game without learning how it was programmed. I pay the "premium" for that by buying non-upgradeable hardware. Exclusives are the reason I pick one console over the other, INCLUDING PC's and MAC's and LINUX, or whatever the fuck else distinction you want to make.

Come on people, this isn't raging douchebag week. Stop it.

[Strazos]

You know the people who will play the latest madden, tony hawk, soul caliber, nba street whatever but are TOO COOL to play games on a computer.

Don't you DARE hate on my Soul Calibur goodness, For Shame!

Come on people, this isn't raging douchebag week. Stop it.

Sigged like a mofo, yo.

[Merusk]

Stupid shit aside, have any of you bought it and played it yet today.  That's all I really care about.

[El Gallo]

Come on people, this isn't raging douchebag week. Stop it.

When does this glorious holiday begin?

[Riggswolfe]

The PC Debate in this thread stops here. Got that?

Good.

I meant it when I said my one post to him was the last post. Not dealing with it because it's not worth it.

As for having played it today, on my way to get it in about 30 minutes. If it's good you probably won't here from me for another 3 or 4 hours. Heh.

[Trippy]

Stupid shit aside, have any of you bought it and played it yet today.  That's all I really care about.

I thought the official "in store" date was April 14th.

[schild]

Today in some stores. Tomorrow in others. Thursday in crap stores.

[Riggswolfe]

Tonight at 6:30 in my local EB. So I'll have to wait a little longer it seems.

[Astorax]

Ok, i probably shouldn't derail any more, but i feel i must step up to defend my bretheren: i'm not sure how it is in the US, but here in Aus the SCA definitely does not suck. Having started fencing with them about a month ago i can honestly say that those guys know exactly what they are doing when it comes to both rapier work (they teach the Italian school here), as well as the heavy styles.

Someone mentioned people putting on football pads and going at it with sticks? Every thursday night i am witness to grown men in full plate-mail beating the bejesus out of each other with almost near replica broadswords, spears, maces, etc... It's not for the faint of heart.

Oh yea, and xbox exclusives suck TT (since we are in weird asian emoticon mode)

 - meg

I'll add a bit too - I was in the local SCA during highschool for a couple years. They had a pike squad (Got to wear a kilt). So we were at a local mall once for some event. And I ran into a couple girls from one of my classes. I was mortified. But the whole - whats under the kilt thing worked in my favor and I ended up going out with one of them for a while.  So geekout for the win.

Edited to add: The funniest part was to stand as still as possible. People would come up and look at you - thinking you were a statue. Then to move and watch them jump.

Also - my predition - Jade Empire will make you think.. "I think I played this before, only it was more fun when it was called KOTOR."

Just to make myself clear (given the tenor of the rabid flaming that's been going on by other folks)...I did not mean to imply that ALL SCA-ers are the football pad wearing freakazoids.  However, like all hobbies/activities, the people that take part in it are often judged by their lowest common denominator.  Just like there are certaintly cool people in the audio/visual club in high school...the stigma is of the broken spectacle wearing geek.

So to is it with the SCA.  Coming from someone that has not only attended both Estrella and Pensic, has in fact fought in both wars wearing said full armor, I feel qualified to speak of the moronic freaks whos hormones went the wrong way and they decided to wear football pads and beat the snot out of each other with ratan weapons. Again, I have not only seen, but have fought along side the very well organized, and historically accurate units that fight at the wars as well.

I was mostly drawing a comedic parallel with no intent to actually offend.  If I did so, I apologize. :)  Being that I am both a former SCA fighter AND a rennie, I don't really have a leg to stand on to insult folks of either type. :)

[Megrim]

Hahaha it's allright man, we are not made of glass. I take it by your post count that you'v not been here too long? If that is the case you'll quickly find that such threads are the norm here. As a matter of fact, most of us feel hollow if we don't wake up in the morning and read up on our daily dose of drama =)

By the way, does anyone know what the processing power ratio is for emulating the current console games on pc?

 - meg

[Strazos]

Well, the Xbox is what, 500mhz? I'm guessing to properly run on a PC, such games need ~2ghz.

[schild]

Xbox specs, iirc.
733 MHz
250MHz Nvidia GPU
64MB 200mhz DDR

I think the processor is a shoot-off of the Intel Celeron.

[Megrim]

So, like, how hard would it be to just emulate the game if it an xbox exclusive?

 - meg

[Tebonas]

Ah no, the original topic was who was going to get Jade Empire until it got derailed by Tebonas who was presumably commenting on my post about buying an Xbox to play Jade Empire.

I abandoned this thread as soon as Schild was derailing it and I knew what direction it would take (granted, the Ren fair stuff was a surprise). Too many Ataris vs Amiga and Sega vs Nintendo flashbacks to think this would end good. Don't blame this on me, bucko. I bit my tongue more than once to not comment on some of the interpretations prevailing here.

On topic (at least what seems to now be the topic). Yes, Schilds technical details about the X-Box are right. Since the underlying technology is extremely similar to IBM-compatible PCs (only minor patches are needed to get the Linux i386-Kernel running on the Xbox - just an example, no Linux discussions now please) it would be easy to emulate it, and the processor need wouldn't rise much because you don't have to emulate an entirely different system. I presume nobody did it because Microsoft pushed the hardware out at such low prices that everybody who had the faintest interest in the thing just bought it. The price (at least at the beginning) was much lower than a comparable PC.

[schild]

I abandoned this thread as soon as Schild was derailing it and I knew what direction it would take (granted, the Ren fair stuff was a surprise).

Too bad its an X-Box exclusive. Was looking forward to playing it.

For purely selfish reasons I hope the EB people are right and it sucks. But I doubt it.

And no, I won't buy a third nonupgradeable gimped PC for one game. Thats kinda insane, and just encourages them. Technically there is no reason for X-Box exclusives. Its all in the bribes exclusivity right payments from Microsoft.

What did I do now?

[SirBruce]

You didn't let go of it.

Ever watch a group of dogs eating next to each-other?  Usually they'll stay in their own bowls, but every once in a while one dog will do something to set another dog off, and that dog will snap and growl, and then they'll both go back to eating.  That's normal.  But no fight breaks out and the dinner is not derailed.

Tebonas growled about something, and instead of just snarling back, you bit down and held on like a pit bull.  A fight broke out and dinner was ruined for everyone.

Next time, just let it go.

Bruce

[Tebonas]

You want to drag me into this, do you? Running low on drama?

I stand by the boldtexted statement, but I saw no need to discuss it. Its a nobrainer anyway. Just a reminder what the X-Box was from day one. A marketing ploy. And, that obviously, that ploy worked on Trippy. Good for Microsoft. Nothing anybody would refute anyway, therefore nothing to discuss.

Your counter to "There is no reason to X-Box exclusives" was "But there are many X-Box exclusives". My answer was basically "Meh, whatever. Lets not escalate this and drop it."

And now Sir Bruce thinks of us as dogs in some kind of submission ritual. Hope you are happy.

[Riggswolfe]

To try and get back on topic before it all breaks loose again:

The game is damn fun. I don't know yet if it is 10/10 fun but I like it alot. Fighting is fun. The characters are cool. The feel is definitely ancient China-ish. The story is very typical so far, you are the chosen one. Everything revolves around you. Though I like the hints as to what you are chosen to do.

Now, I'm just waiting for the KOTR level plot twist. Heh. Bioware as the M. Night Shalyman of game plots.

[schild]

I stand by the boldtexted statement, but I saw no need to discuss it. Its a nobrainer anyway. Just a reminder what the X-Box was from day one. A marketing ploy. And, that obviously, that ploy worked on Trippy. Good for Microsoft. Nothing anybody would refute anyway, therefore nothing to discuss.

But that's the problem, there is a reason for Microsoft exclusives. Just like there's reason for PS2 exclusives and Gamecube exclusives. The comment was incredibly daft. It's not the sort of thing I'd expect from you. Also, considering Microsoft has the most powerful console and the most robust online capability, there's _very_ good reason for Xbox exclusives. You should just be glad they don't call them Xclusives. Quite simply, if you're a gamer, owning anything less than every console is just going to cause you to miss out on a few good games for whichever one you're missing each year.

As for Bruce he's a stupid troll who's taking a liking to what I'm pretty sure he thinks are "snappy" one-liners.

[schild]

Bioware as the M. Night Shalyman of game plots.

You're not in China. You're in New York, circa 2027.

[Stormwaltz]

You're not in China. You're in New York, circa 2027.

Dude, spoiler space!

The official word about Jade and the PC is "We have not announced any plans of a PC version of Jade Empire, but we are exploring the possibility."

[Riggswolfe]

*pokes his head in* Loving the game! Got into a frustrating fight (guided fireball spells should be illegal) but persevered.

[schild]

*pokes his head in* Loving the game! Got into a frustrating fight (guided fireball spells should be illegal) but persevered.

I've started playing. I'll have a review by weekends end. Unless I have to beat the game to unlock the Monk. Then it'll take a few days longer.

[MrHat]

*pokes his head in* Loving the game! Got into a frustrating fight (guided fireball spells should be illegal) but persevered.

I've started playing. I'll have a review by weekends end. Unless I have to beat the game to unlock the Monk. Then it'll take a few days longer.

Monk??

Fuck, there goes 50 bucks.

[Riggswolfe]

Is that the free limited edition character?

Figures. Heh.

[Lum]

Random unrelated points:

Linux as a desktop: Sorry, it's not there. And this is from someone who has a Linux box on his desk at work. It is a fine server platform. It is not a mature consumer desktop. Unless you think consumers like editing /etc/conf files? Maybe in 5 years someone will come out with a decent proprietary desktop OS running on top of Linux. Then again, you could very correctly describe OSX on a Mac as "a decent proprietary desktop OS running on top of Unix" and it hasn't quite set the world on fire.

SCA: There are two SCAs. The ren-faire roleplayers, and the people who go to fight other people with swords. The two often mock each other, as you'd expect. Ironically, neither faction is usually lacking for dates.

Jade Empire: Different but fun.

[Murgos]

Linux as a desktop: Sorry, it's not there. And this is from someone who has a Linux box on his desk at work. It is a fine server platform. It is not a mature consumer desktop. Unless you think consumers like editing /etc/conf files?

I await with eagerness the day my mom calls and asks me to teach her how to use VI.

[Riggswolfe]

Random unrelated points:


SCA: There are two SCAs. The ren-faire roleplayers, and the people who go to fight other people with swords. The two often mock each other, as you'd expect. Ironically, neither faction is usually lacking for dates.

The SCA here in Oklahoma is known in the geek world as the easiest way to get laid. Of course, I cannot take advantage of it because I'm allergic to penicillin. Still, I came damn close to joining after going to a ren faire and spending an hour or so talking to a lovely girl in a flimsy white dress. Then again, she probably could have talked me into sticking my manhood into a bear trap.