Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Nich got older today, in the "orbits around the sun completed" sense of the phrase. Good for him! Don't say we didn't warn you.

The smart thing to do here would be to completely do an end run around any fallout produced by AK's weekend columns... but I, of course, am not that smart.

With regards to RPGamer, I think it's safe to say that obviously AK will have different feelings on the matter than I do. As a founder of the place, I imagine he feels somewhat like Steve Wozniack did about Apple during the John Scully years. Me, on the other hand, I was just a reader of the site, and I admit I still keep an eye on it to see what my peers are up to. I'll say that the people they've got writing their columns have made very different choices than I have, column wise... but once you take those policy decisions as a given, I think they do a pretty good job with what they've got. Case in point, Brad Lohr. I really got the impression that we were near polar opposites in what we looked for out of our columns, out of our games, programming languages, political parties, music, root beer... nearly everything that defines someone, in other words. But I thought he was a great columnist for the type of column he did, and I wrote him a small email congratulating him on his run when he left. There's a lot of issues between the GIA and RPGamer, and a lot of history that I really have no opinion on. All I can personally say is that I hope our two sites can just go their separate ways, operating in their own styles, and let the readership make its own decision based on the work itself if a ranking judgement needs to be made at all.

Which brings us to my basic philosophy in doing the column. First off, as far as I'm concerned, this is not a Q&A column, and never has been under my watch. Q&A is well and good, but there are several reasons I personally don't feel it's really suited for a daily letters column. I freely admit I don't have the encyclopedic knowledge I'd would need to answer every serious gaming question the GIA's readers might have, and frankly, given how many games there are out there and how long games have been around, I'm not sure any single human being actually could. Then there's the actual interest in questions and answers themselves - obviously whoever asked the question is interested in the answer, but as a rule I can't see that people would be all that interested in reading Q&A day in and day out, especially if they already knew the answers themselves or had never even played the game in question. The only thing that could really drive continuing interest in a column like that is the writing skills of the columnist running the show... and I know I'm not that good. Somebody like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett might be good enough, but even then I'm not sure they could do so on a daily basis. And last, there's the question of how necessary Q&A is in the first place. Most gameplay questions can easily be researched by the interested parties much more quickly than a Q&A column could answer back, and as for the ones that can't be, you might not be able to get a concrete answer, period. Take a look at the message boards sometime when a question like "Why do all three hit percentages in CC sometimes go to 99%?" comes up and see how many differing answers you come across.

I don't mind answering hard questions, if I can, and I admit I could probably do a better job of tracking down info on the ones I do get, like the Saga Frontier 2 question last week. But a column has to be more than that. What I've tried to do is put something together where people can hash out their opinions on everything gaming related, from new releases to old philosophical debates. Somebody pointed out over the weekend that a moderated board could do that just as well - maybe, but I think a moderated board would do an even better job of Q&A. And you could also argue that what this column does could be done by an Editorial section, but I'd argue that we get a much higher throughput and readability than an Editorial section; because we're daily, we have ideas from wildly diverse subjects cross-pollinate, and writers are competing with other writers to make their letters more streamlined and publishable.

Ultimately, I'd like to see this column serve the same basic purpose as the letters columns in a major newspaper or magazine - feedback on what's going on in the world and the industry, a rough snapshot on what the public's currently thinking about, and commentary on the site itself. I'd hope that under my watch I've acted as some sort of catalyst to make you write better letters on a wider array of topics, and more of them, but that's not something that I can really tell if I'm doing or not - I need feedback from you guys.

And the above paragraphs are why you never want to get me started talking about the column itself. I'm always open to feedback, both on the column in general and on what I've said above, but fortunately for now I think I've said everything I have to say on the subject. That being the case, why don't I stop talking about writing columns and actually write one?

Onward.

In a way, I'd prefer it if the translation team didn't attempt to overcompensate for us not getting the first game by dumping lots of expository dialog on us. Flashbacks when needed are fine, but I'd rather be left guessing (which can be pleasant, under the right circumstances) than scroll through page after page of "Remember when Person A did that thing that made Person B do some other thing?" I mean, heck, if I can enjoy Silent Hill with all that game's loose ends, I think I can enjoy Persona 2 without any problems.

UPDATE: I've been informed by reliable sources that Persona 2.5 will not have any additional flashbacks or expository dialog, and that since it's pretty well self-contained it won't need any such things. In other words, what you see is what you get, and that should be plenty sufficient.

I'm only too happy to talk to cashiers, personally, but for two things. First off, I've been one myself and at the end of a busy stretch of getting people in and out as fast as possible, the last thing I want to do is chat pleasantly about the weather or whatnot. (Of course, I'm not much for chatting pleasantly in any case...) Second, I always get the impression female cashiers are a bit wary of being hit on by guys, and at least one or two lady friends of mine have told me it's been a problem for them in the past. So at a video store, for example, I might make a joke about Joe Pesci's acting if I was renting "Goodfellas", (as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a letters columnist...) but if they let it drop, I'm cool with it.

Regarding Leah, it's not 100% clear. Nothing I've seen suggests there's anything you can do during the normal course of the game that'll unlock more story for Leah, other than what she says when you first meet her. On the other hand, apparently if you finish the game with her in your party (I believe it has to be one of the alternate endings, where the characters get a chance to talk, but I'm not sure) she mentions that she'll someday name her daughter "Ayla", which is where that rumor came from. I say it's yet another example of too little development on too many characters.

According to our resident Playstation experts, PSX games played on the PS2 actually require a PSX data card, which will work in a PS2. PS2 games require PS2 data cards, and data from one game typed cannot be moved to different card type. Therefore, you should have everything you need to rock and roll when FF9 comes out already at hand.

It looks like a rant from somebody from the GIA about that Rinoa picture where we say SOMETHING IN CAPS is becoming a weekly Monday feature here, but I hope this can be the end of it. Incidentally, there was a Rinoa at the Metreon event, but that picture was not her. And that's all that needs to be said.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that Pokemon should be looking to become a long-running game series... and part of that is jettisoning the existing shell of hype and story around the game. Consider that years ago Mario was just a story about a guy fighting a barrel-throwing monkey... and then he was a plumber fighting sewer vermin... and for the past several years, he's been saving some helpless princess from something that's supposed to be a giant turtle but looks more like a dragon, and even then he's gone through numerous small mutations. Anyone remember the "Koopa Kids?" Anyone?

But the core idea of Mario, heroic bouncing plumber, has remained constant for all of that. In Pokemon's case, I suspect we'll eventually see the departure of Brock and Misty and probably even Ash, as the cartoon loses popularity and the game reinvents itself on the GBA and Game Cube. Pikachu itself may eventually become less popular, but the "gotta catch 'em all" philosophy (if not the marketing phrase) will remain constant. Of course, one result of this might be that today's Pokemon addict kids will eventually be our age and demand Pokemon gameplay infused with Final Fantasy level plots, but we can worry about that bizarre hybrid when it happens.

The problem with your argument is, by most accounts PSO is only going to have the most basic of phrases: "fight", "run", "hello", "heal", "buy"... that kind of thing. There will basically be an extremely basic core language that will have interfaces in the five languages you mention above - all of which sounds easy enough for high school kids to put together.

Chrono Cross, on the other hand, had a powerful engine designed to provide standard dialog mixed with various accents on the fly. Frankly, I'm not even sure written German has the ability to convey an Australian accent as opposed to a Southern one (or whatever the German equivalents would be) so Square's excuse for not translating CC really does make sense.

Dude, you're scaring me, ok? Once upon a time I was a very heavy library user, and I know all to well the delight of finding out that my local branch has the complete works of Iain Banks on tap... but your twisted power trip frightens even me.

Still, the man has a good point. I get a fair amount of email talking about people like Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind like they're the end-all-be-all of fantastic literature... but they're not. Don't get me wrong, if you like them, more power to you. I certainly don't think they're bad writers, and at least you're reading something. But when I consider the more obscure authors that are infinitely better... I simply must weep that such books go undiscovered. I mean, in The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers the main villain was a misshapen midget sorcerer who ran around on stilts in Victorian London wearing peeling clown makeup while his hair was on fire... and in the context of the book IT MADE SENSE! You'll never get that kind of fun out of Robert Jordan...

But anyway. All I'm saying is that there are writers out there who are to Robert Jordan as Robert Jordan is to the plot of Dragon Quest I - and you won't find them at Barnes and Noble. Dive deep into the dusty stacks of your local underfunded library, my friends, and you will find enlightenment.

As for Zod Wallop, it's not a must-read book, but it would make a great RPG... at least, I'd love to see the insane asylum escape/wedding event done as a game intro. The bit with the monkey would especially kick arse.

When a developer speaks of such things, you should listen. Meantime, I like the idea of a Tick RPG... I guess I see kind of a Vagrant Story triangle between The Tick, Arthur, and American Maid, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Closing Comments:

Ok, for tomorrow, any feedback you have on my intro rant is welcome, but for now, I think I'm sick of ponderous matters. Time for a fluff column, say I!

And for our fluff column, I'd like to challenge you to a potentially fascinating, potentially lame little exercise in wish fulfillment: mix and match your games. I'm looking for stuff like "Mario Gear Solid", "PaRappa: Legacy of Kain", "The Legend of Zelda: No One Can Stop Mr. Domino!" You know, that kind of thing. Mere titles are fine, but a short description of the actual plot and gameplay would be good too. Yes, this will probably be really stupid sub-fanfic fodder, but even really stupid can be fun sometimes. Heck, I'm sure I'll get a kick out of all the dumbass ideas, if nothing else. See you tomorrow.

-Chris Jones, out of words to say.