Karma313th

I'm guess EA trollz/kids who have no idea who/what Obsidian is.

Not only are quite a few former Black Isle employees still with Obsidian, but Obsidian recently hired Tim Cain, as well.

So, Brian Fargo is effectively putting a big chunk of Interplay's former RPG studio back together to work on Wasteland 2, which would be a very, very awesome thing indeed.

Obsidian gets a bad rap for some reason, but when you sit down and look at what they've done, they've got an impressive pedigree.

KOTOR 2 was much deeper in character development and interaction/story than KOTOR. LucasArts rushing development and release didn't help matters, but it was still a fantastic game.

Alpha Protocol, I had a lot of fun with as well. It was an interesting take on action RPGs and had a great dialogue system as well as great characters and setting. Again, the final product wasn't helped by Sega screwing around with both game changes, schedules and financing, but...

New Vegas....I absolutely LOVE. As far as I'm concerned, New Vegas is Fallout 3 and that bland, dull 'Wander the debris strewn subway lines of DC in pursuit of Liam Neeson' never happened. In fact, New Vegas is right up there with FO 1 and 2 in the number of hours I've spent playing in the world they built. Everything works so well, the writing, the characters, the world building; it's all infused with the quirky fallout flavor.

Never had any bug issues with it, but sure they exist. After all, you had Bethesda/Zenimax screwing Obsidian over with release schedules and the demand on Bethesda handling QA, which they didn't really give a damn about. Which resulted in Obsidian getting royally screwed on the deal, so.....Who can blame them for refusing to do any more unpaid work on the game.

Frankly, Obsidian has a much better track record than inXile does.

I mean, ok, Bard's Tale wasn't bad. The humor was good, but it wasn't really an old school Bard's Tale.

Apart from that, they've done, what? Choplifter? Super Stacker and Super Stacker 2 on iOS?

So, really it's a matter of not looking at what they've had to do lately, but looking at their credits that mattered, the titles they worked on in the glory days of Interplay when they didn't have publishers just wanting CoD and Madden every year.

It's a matter of trusting that they have the experience and talent to pull it off if freed from the shackles of contract programming and "design by focus group".

Given the caliber of those involved with the project, I'm willing to trust them with my cash, and I'll continue to do so unless given cause not to in the future.

Yep.

I'm much more excited about Tex Murphy than I am about Wasteland 2, honestly.

And to think, when my dad brought home the copy of Mean Streets (and some sci-fi bounty hunter game I only vaguely recall) for me, I'd thought it would be some crappy shovelware.

How wrong I turned out to be. Loved it from the second I started it up, and the "Realsound" was mind blowing.

@LinkRazr

Legend of Zelda?

Forget that, Howard and Nester on the last page was what I'd look forward to in every issue.

@darkinchworm Somewhere around there, anyway.

Remember it being included in the Interplay 10th anniversary collection in 93, maybe?

Great game from an era when story meant being told to look up paragraphs in a thick book accompanying the game.

Definitely be interesting to see what inXile does with it.

Now bring on Tex Murphy!

@rabish12
Someone needs to get a refund on their Internet Law Degree (tm) (r), etc.

To begin with you're completely wrong about derivative works acquiring "copyright" as an original work.

It's a derivative work, thus the name and existence of assignable rights to create derivative works.

That aside, one needs not even look at IP law. One simply needs to look at the license agreement for Bethesda's editing/creation program wherein Bethesda explicitly states that they're granting users of the toolkit a license to create additional content.

Under the terms of that license, Bethesda permits mod makers to distribute (on a noncommercial basis) the additional content to legitimate users of Bethesda's work subject to the mod makers agreement that all tools, preexisting graphics, sound and other content and framework remain the sole property of Bethesda. In consideration for which, mod makers agree not to initiate or allow others to initiate legal action on the basis of copyright claims against Bethesda or any of its licensees. Furthermore, mod makers agree to relinquish "moral rights" or any other rights which might otherwise exist in the additional content.

Succinctly, these "mod makers" thinking they have some legitimate claim are not only seriously mistaken in their belief, but they're quite likely in breach of their contract with Bethesda for taking actions on the basis of claiming a copyright.

After all, the guy who bundled all these mods is presumptively a legitimate use of Morrowind as well and therefore protected as one of Bethesda's licensees acting in good faith.

@flyingburger

Wow....real gall to claim DCMike has no clue when it's pretty obvious, you're oblivious to what you're talking about.

First,as has been stated, the F-16 using force sensing controls though it's incorrect that the stick doesn't move. There is a little play in it though the movement was added as a haptic "feel" change as many pilots would accidentally use excessive flight control inputs due to lack of physical feedback from the stick that a command was registered.

And yes, as DCMike stated, when you're dealing with an aircraft using mechanical or hydromechanical control systems, under normal flight conditions, mechanical controls (such as those in a Cessna Skyhawk) don't require much force to activate if the aircraft is properly trimmed. Now, if you're excessively loading the aircraft through aerobatic or high performance maneuvers, then yes, the controls require more force to manipulate.

That's not the case with hydromechanical flight control systems as hydraulics are assisting with moving control surfaces. In fact, the lack of feedback from a loaded control surface is why manufacturers started adding artificial feedback like stick shakers.

And of course with a fly-by-wire aircraft like many military jets and most modern passenger aircraft, there is no control force other than what may be artificially added by the manufacturer as the stick has no direct linkage to control surfaces as mechanical control and hydromechanical controls systems provide.

@naterecording Actually, if you're willing to wait a while and give up the 3G connection, apparently Barnes & Noble has a Nook "lite" version coming out later this year for $199.

@Jimbojones That's exactly how they did it. That's why it took so long for some B&N stores to get the "More in store" feature working -- there was additional network build-out needed. Thus why those with rooted nooks can't get the additional in-store articles/promos that were already available from their homes.

@kabloink More precisely, it's an hour per day per book. So if you wanted to blow a day sitting around the cafe sampling different books, feel free, I guess.

Ross,

You're usually great with gadget news and whatnot, but you might want to leave legal analysis to others with the background for it as you've misinterpreted Judge Ware's order.

First, it kind of is a big deal that Spring's motion for the preliminary injunction was denied as it serves as an indication of the strength of Spring's case.

Judge Ware's job wasn't to adjudicate whether or not the nook was developed independently of Spring's information. Thus your "nutshell" summation is rather flawed.

I won't get in to all the criteria involved in determining whether it's appropriate for a preliminary injunction to issue, but suffice it to say a multi-pronged test is involved.

Judge Ware effectively looked at only one of those prongs (is the plaintiff likely to prevail at trial on the merits) and found that Spring's case didn't meet the standard required. Thus no analysis was needed of the remaining prongs involving public interest, balance of equities, etc.