Darth Jebus

I just finished Fable 2. /facepalm

Wait, Jedi Academy is an FPS? I must be retarded, because I though FPS stood for First Person Shooter. I played JA entirely with third person view. With a lightsaber.

Now, actually. It's a 2pm press conference. They are announcing it right now.

Title says it all, really. After over three years in WoW, dabbling in EQ, CoH, GW, giving a lot of time and attention to LOTRO, and being tempted to play WAR, I think I'm finally burned out. And what made me go back to single-player games? Well, two games actually did: Mass Effect and Oblivion. I enjoyed Mass Effect immensely, but Oblivion is what reminded me of my gaming roots, so to speak. Four years ago, a buddy of mine was playing the beta for WoW, and all he did was rave about it. Saying it was so epic and all of that. He knew I was a die hard RPG fan, but he also knew I loathed MMOs because I thought they were retarded. I'm actually not a RPG vet like many of you here. My first experience with RPGs was not the old PnP D&Ds back in the day, but the original KotOR back in 2003. Because that game had such a profound impact on me and how I play games, it prompted me to go to Amazon and order the classics that made Bioware and Black Isle legends in the gaming industry. I played BG, BG2, IWD, NWN, PS:T, Fallout (but not FO2) and never looked back. I then launched myself headfirst into the Elder Scrolls universe, tackling Morrowind and its expansions. And KotOR was single-handedly responsible for all this. I simply could not imagine myself playing a never ending game with no story whatsoever with a bunch of undoubtedly 12-year olds running around waving their epeens at how leet they were - WHILE PAYING A MONTHLY FEE. The whole thing seemed so dumb to me. But alas, my buddy convinced me to just try it out, and if I didn't like it, I could just quit. And thus, my journey down the dark path of planned obsolescence and perpetual grinding for loot began. Blizzard had me. And they had me good. I leveled three 70s and forgot all about single-player games. I mean, online gaming seemed to be where it was at, and where the gaming industry was going (I still believe this, by the way). And then one weekend on a whim, I went out and bought Mass Effect and Oblivion. A few weeks later after I had played through both games, I went back to WoW and realized how empty the game felt to me. I kept thinking about Oblivion and how comfortable the game felt to me. How Jeremy Soule's music jolted memories of KotOR back into my mind, and how much I enjoyed playing the old DnD games into the wee hours of the morning. No, I wasn't playing those games with anyone but me. But that was the thing. Those games were unbelievably immersive. And the focus was on the story, (although Mass Effect strayed heavily from this by focusing on looks and cinematics) which allowed me to just completely lose myself in those games. I missed it. And playing Oblivion reminded of how I used to feel about MMOs and why I fell in love with single-player RPGs. So, when a couple friends canceled their WoW accounts to go play WAR and asked me if I wanted to go with them, I thought about it for a while and then said "Not only no, but hell no." That's like getting over a heroine addiction by smoking crack. I'm done with MMOs. And I don't think I'm ever going back.

wow, that's complete nonsense. our economy actually tends to benefit when one of two things (or both) happen: 1) taxes are cut and 2) there's a party split between congress and the white house. in the former, people simply spend more, which also coincidentally increases revenues (happened after both reagan and bush cuts, i can't understand why everyone refuses to acknowledge the facts!). the latter simply means the government doesn't spend us into oblivion. clinton had a split, bush did not for the first 6. that's the last 15 years. to make such a broad statement as you have, without delving deeper is truly superficial and silly biased. again i note, people seem to only read deep enough to find the facts that support their pre-conceived notions, then all else is ignored. taks I did say it was silly and biased.. It was based on the fact that Clinton had to recover the economy after G. H. W. Bush and now, if Obama is elected, he'll have to recover it from G. W. Bush. Of course I recognize that Republicans can run the economy. It just seems to me that Republicans are better at rallying the public and getting the big things done and Democrats are better at keeping the house tidy. Both things are needed in a moderen household, which is why it seems like a good 2 party system. If the two can keep each other in check. Kinda like marriage, if one is too much in charge and the other can't get a say in - nothing useful gets done and spendings go through the roof. As I've said many times before (though I can't take credit for the saying itself) America always works best when there's gridlock in Washington. One party should have the White House, and the other should have the Congress. When party has everything, America falters. Right now, the Democrats have to be extremely careful because they are poised to receive the proverbial keys to the all-powerful kingdom. They already have congress and stand to gain a bigger majority in November, and Obama just might win. Which also means he'll be appointing maybe three Supreme Court justices to reshape the highest court in the land. If they haven't learned anything from the Republicans these last eight years, then they are in for a massive crash and burn a couple years after Obama takes office.

wow, that's complete nonsense. our economy actually tends to benefit when one of two things (or both) happen: 1) taxes are cut and 2) there's a party split between congress and the white house. in the former, people simply spend more, which also coincidentally increases revenues (happened after both reagan and bush cuts, i can't understand why everyone refuses to acknowledge the facts!). the latter simply means the government doesn't spend us into oblivion. clinton had a split, bush did not for the first 6. that's the last 15 years. to make such a broad statement as you have, without delving deeper is truly superficial and silly biased. again i note, people seem to only read deep enough to find the facts that support their pre-conceived notions, then all else is ignored. taks You are aware that Reagan raised taxes six times after he cut them, right?

I'm just now getting around to playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion even though it's been out for a while. I'm playing as a high elf...nightblade, is it? Not familiar with all the classes. There's like a 100 of them or something. But here's the thing. I played Morrowind a lot when that game was new. But I never finished it. I was wrapped up in all the sidequests and stuff and was able to achieve Master of the Fighter's Guild, and actually got pretty far into the main quest, but the game just kind of lagged out for me. Morrowind had a lot that made it great, but also a lot that dragged it down in my opinion. So, though I liked it, I certainly didn't love it. So, far, Oblivion is visually stunning. And the combat and UI has been greatly improved over Morrowind. I mean, Patrick Stewart voiced Uriel Septim. How can that not be full of win??? However, I'm just curious. How would you rate Oblivion next to Morrowind?

Only thing I really liked about Fable was Danny Elfman's score. I have the title song on my ipod.

So, I'm starting the process of building a PC specifically for gaming. I want to be able to run the newest games coming out towards the end of the year. My budget is around $2500. I've been looking into Alienware and a couple other gaming PC companies but I thought I would get some feedback before I finally make a purchase. I know most gaming systems can run you about $5k, but I honestly don't want to spend that much because, honestly, I won't be using it enough to warrant that kind of investment. The two games I really wanna try are Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, among others. Could I get a good gaming PC for $2500?

Exactly. I don't who in their right mind said that the MMO genre is a dying one, but whoever did is so...horrifyingly wrong. I mean, seriously. Have you even looked at mmorpg.com? Have you seen the sheer numbers of MMOs being released in North America in the next couple years? And that's not even counting how culturally phenomenal MMOs are in Asia. MMOs are actually considered an official sport over there, with government sanctioned events. Yet, this is a dying genre??? How? That makes no sense to me at all. I'm not trying to blindly defend MMOs because the genre does have some problems, I find. Not to mention there are some cultural challenges that MMOs face here in North America that might make certain MMOs difficult to market. But to say that it's a dying genre is like saying DVRs or MP3 players were all just a phase and are also dying out.

Only thing I'll mention is that, with all the speculation of OE doing a KOTOR 3 or not over the years, I can't BELIEVE that OE has postings all over the front page looking for new designers and UI artists for a new, secret console RPG and not a single person here has mentioned that this could be KOTOR 3. Y'all are slipping.

What's that on the front page of the website? Something about an opening for a Senior Level Designer for a console RPG?

Happy Birthday to the man that basically started the entire high fantasy genre! Cheers!

One thing that is REALLY irritating me is that there apparently was a magazine scan showing that OE is developing K3. But every single forum I visit to get the info either has the scan removed (like what happened in this thread) or the bandwidth limit has been reached, making the link or the image no longer available. What exactly did the article say or the picture show? And why the cover up?

I have to agree here. The first KOTOR remains and always will be the best game I've ever played. Mostly because it was my first RPG and kind of acted as a gateway drug to other RPG's, which eventually lead me to WoW. If I never played KOTOR, I never would've played BG, PS:T, IWD, NWN, FO, or even WoW. KOTOR was the game that started it all for me. So, to say that it holds a very special place in my heart would be an understatement. However, that being said, there wasn't a thing about the plot that was original. And having gone back and played older Bio games, I can see this even more. Heck, even the names Canderous and Juhani were characters in BG I believe. I know Canderous was at any rate. And on top of that, the characters, though very well developed, were done in the mold of classic Star Wars characters. Again, this shows that Bio understood the Star Wars universe and how to make a good Star Wars game, but to say it had originality is a bit much. The only thing original about it was that it took place 4000 years before the events of the movies.

K. But Bio still said they were not interested in developing any licensed IP's at the time. Doesn't mean that's the case today or even last year. That was the case four years ago.

Remember when K2 was first announced about four years ago? Remember the reason BioWare gave for not wanting to develop it themselves?

Actually, that's fact. BioWare actually stated shortly after they released the first KOTOR that they were no longer interested in developing licensed properties. Hence, Obs developed K2 and Bio developed to IP's of their own: JE and now ME. However, they didn't say anything about developing an MMO based on a licensed title of some sort. But you never know. Things change and it was kind of dumb for Bio to make such a proclamation. You never know how the business market is going to be. Especially the video game market.

LucasArts owns anything and everything that is Star Wars in regards to video game development of any kind. C'mon people, think. It's freaking George Lucas' company.

The reason why Obsidian developed KOTOR 2 and not BioWare was becasue the latter company said specifically that they were no longer interested in developing licensed properties. They were going to focus on their own IP's. Hence, we got Jade Empire and Mass Effect. MMO's, however, are a completely different bottle of wax.

Money>philosophical game design It may be unfortunate, but remember when Bio said that they were no longer going to do licensed titles, and only focus on their own IP's? Well, the fact that they have teamed up with LA pretty much throws all that out the window. So, unless this is in fact, an IP that they are just developing jointly with LA, and not a Star Wars game at all, I think it's safe to assume this is a Star Wars MMO. And I'm pretty sure it's KOTOR though you never know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy If wikipedia is not to your liking. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fantasy Star Wars does not elaborate or explore science or technology enough to truly be considered Sci-Fi. KOTOR goes all out and does little else but explore the supernatural aspects of the setting. An MMO of it would be only cosmetically different from the fantasy MMOs. We'd still have everyone running around with swords, wizards casting spells, and all that nonsense. Only the castles would look grey and shiny and instead of flying the griffin to a mountain named Blackrock to fight an old god, we'll fly a ship named Griffin to an asteroid named Blex'ock to fight an ancient creature of the Dark Side. We do indeed require a Sci-Fi or otherwise non-fantasy MMO, however KotOR won't fit the bill. EVE does, but it has its share of problems. Perhaps because of it's non-traditional design. Yeah. I think a lot of people get the two genres mixed up. I've always seen fantasy as pretty much what your first definition said. It's usually a completely fictional setting, a make believe kingdom, world, galaxy or whatever. In a completely made up timeline. Using magic or other forms of supernatural abilities to advance or enhance the story plot. Science Fiction takes place in an actual setting but with ficitonal elements. Like Blade Runner for example. Blade Runner is sci-fi. It takes place here on Earth, in a futuristic Los Angeles, in an actual year. There was no magic in it at all. The superpowerful beings so to speak, were Replicants. Androids that were near perfect in every way. These Replicants were then used to explore the meaning of human life, and how life itself is such a short thing, that in the end we realize when it's all said and done, we wish we had more time. That's sci-fi. Another good example of sci-fi is Star Trek. Now, it definitely has a TON of fantasy elements in it, but by and large it's roots are here on Earth. Earth makes numerous appearances throughout the Star Trek universe. And they explain mystical things and events not as magic, but as advanced science. Star Trek often explores the exact same themes that Blade Runner explored. All sci-fi does. So, even though the two genres are very similar, there are some very noticeable and distinct thematic differences that distinguish the two.

I really hope this rumor is true. A KOTOR MMO would be da filthy. I've been playing WoW for the last two years and am so ready for a change. ) Just thinking about a KOTOR MMO, though, what kind of classes would they have? I assume the same ones from the KOTOR single-player games. Guardians would be DPS, Consulars would be healers and buffers, and Sentinels would be a hybrid class? They would have to come up with a new class to be a tank. I never played SWG so I'm not sure how they worked out the classes in that game. But man, can you imagine a KOTOR MMO done by BioWare? There would be full PvP. You could probably play as either Sith or Jedi, and maybe they would even open the race selections. Human, Twilek, Yoda's race (Whills?). I don't know. I'm just having a fanboi moment. Needless to say, I hope this all true. )

No announcement at E3 this year means there will be no K3 for at least two more years. Or possibly, at all. Mark that down. LucasArts is just not into it.

/facepalm