Brother None

Right off the bat, GameBanshee has an interview with Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart, talking details of Project Eternity. Buck: As you're going with a fantasy world, one would assume that there will be a magic system of some kind. What are your goals for the game's magic system, and will the spells that we gain access to be reminiscient of the D&D-based arsenal we had in the IE games? Feargus: We will be talking about the magic system more in the coming week and months, but we are tying magic and overall potential of all characters to the power of a character

As Vince D Weller pointed out on the Codex, Red Eagle had the lead on Wheel of Time, not Obsidian. As it's their project, wouldn't they be the ones announcing it?

Doubtful considering everyone is currently working on something. The most vocal person about doing a Kickstarter is Chris Avellone and he's stated if he's going to do one it won't be until Wasteland 2 is done. Doubtful? Maybe. But keep in mind Kickstarter takes a while to execute and then gather funds, and you don't need a lot of people just to start pre-production. With South Park SoT cycling down sooner rather than later, there's no reason not to look forward on this now. Seems like a safe assumption.

^________^ No way. No way.

Haha, nice teasin'. This is a project RPG fans should get excited about. Don't tease us too long or we might break! I'd speculate but that would be cheating.

Here is the press release:

I don't know if the interview's already been but I can still reach him for burning questions.

Huh? See, talking of affirmative bias, it's exactly this kind of attitude I don't get. Does NMA send out missionaries from door-to-door, preaching the gospel of Fallout 3 Hate? Does it stand behind everyone person when they're playing Fallout 3, whispering "this game is stupid" over and over in their ears? No? What does NMA do? Have a forum populated by quite a few people who loathe the game, quite a few who dislike it as a Fallout sequel (like me, I don't mind it as much as a game overall), and a few who like or liked it (like my fellow admin Michael Grizzly). The frontpage, with a few exceptions, is pretty much free from hateful remarks, so even that can freely be read by Fallout 3 aficionados without them getting annoyed by us daring to have a different opinion. And yet here we are, we stand accused, collectively, of "not letting people have fun". How exactly does that work? Can't stand the opinion of people on NMA's forums? Then don't read the forums. The kind of discussion you see here in this thread, smack-talking another community, we don't even allow that, so NMA is in no way responsibly for what people choose to post on other message forums. But hey, you need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way! *chews scenery* Overall, in the sense of gameworld consistency? For Fallout 3? Probably yes. Fallout 2 had shovelloads of silly stuff, and it got a LOT of flak for it over the years. Chris Avellone's ears are probably still burning from the scrubbings they got over New Reno. Hell, no single town in the entire Fallout franchise history got as much flak as New Reno did as a setting piece, yet New Reno is also recognized as the best-designed town in RPG mechanics in the history of the Fallout franchise. That juxtaposition is the key to the difference between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. Besides, while I'd say they got the atmosphere right quite a few times, including some awesome locations (like Rivet City, loved it) or moments (Signal Oscar Zulu), they also built a gameworld that lacked plausibility, which for me is a game-breaker. Megaton didn't make any sense. The world economy wasn't even remotely explained. Why was there still so much unlooted stuff, including unscrapped nuclear engines? What did people eat? There was no attempt at building a plausible world, and that's pretty important for RPGs. Fallout 2 did that better. And then there's the DLCs. If you add the DLCs, I think there's a fair race between Fallout 3 and Fallout 2 in which one added the most silly putty. Fallout 2 probably still wins, but it's getting to be close in the "random stuff inserted" category. EDIT: also what the heck? This is a FOnline thread? Awesome, but then why are we talking Fallout 3 and NMA?

Who's pretending to be objective? The preview is written from a fan's viewpoint. It never claims to be especially objective, and clearly marks where it moves into opinion territory. Did you even read it?

If you say so. You must know, since you obviously have a very level-headed, clear, non-biased view of our website.

Pete Hines does know my name. They didn't handle applications themselves, though, Lunch PR did. I guess I'm going on the *forbidden* list now, tho' Indeed it was, which is why it's surprising to see it return. Maybe they'll rebalance it somehow. I have no problem with it, it may get annoying, but it's a good way to apply stat-checking to combat. I was really impressed by the start, the intro was cool and the vault was well done (if you ignore Mr Handy). I absolutely loved the Protectron and the look of nuclear explosions. I just wasn't very impressed otherwise. People who already decide up ahead that any preview/review by Fallout 3 is invalid can freely do so, I guess (though it's delightfully ironic to apply a preconception on a site claiming they have inherent, huge preconceptions. Teh funnt) None of the new info is huge, but it's good to have it in one place, and I hope I provided curious people with enough info. Information was my primary goal, people can skip the third page if they want. The bland supermutants are a pity. Maybe they look better closer up, but I kinda doubt it. The Behemoth wasn't terrible, if the whole endboss thing was way overdone. It's the BoS that's really going to get on old fan's nerves, though.

It's back now. Cheers, Musopticon

Part 2 is up, perhaps this time it's good enough for Gromnir? Ha, good fun!

Facts to back up an "if this was, then they would" statement? The hell? Next time ask me to walk on water, why dontcha. Ok, key question; and this makes sense to the PC every time this path is chosen? Doesn't depend on character stats? Intelligence/wisdom related stats do not make it so that he does or does not get it independent or only influenced by chosen paths? What if the PC is clever enough not to trust demons at all? Not guessing here, asking.

Uh, okay, "no they wouldn't." Can't add much more than that, tho'. That doesn't actually make much sense to me, but ok.

Yes, that's not the fragment I was referring to, though, was it. Jeesh, is it really this hard to observe a bit of objective truth; two dialogue options both lead to the NPC offering the PC "something you can do for me" or "do what I tell you." As much as VDweller assures me these are different, they look like two options leading to the same quest, which is railroading, which RPGCodex hates and Vdweller mocks in other games. Man, learn to take some friendly ribbing already. It's going to get a lot worse once this game is out.

There were no skillchecks visible in the fragment. Need we go back and forth on this? Jeesh.

I'm not jumping to any conclusion, I'm saying that if this was a fragment of Oblivion dialogue, the Codexers would be all over it, based on this fragment. I'm not reacting either way, I'm saying the Codexers *would* And that's not a derogatory remark towards them, it's just how they behave. I don't think there's much to argue around that, it's just the way it is. PS: I hate this nick.

So if I choose option 1 I get an entry to a quest, if I choose option 2 I get an entry to a quest. Heh, if this were any other cRPG, the Codex guys would be clamboring over this screaming "railroading!" Funny.

Wow, uhm, without being snide or anything, you guys planning to discuss the interview at any point in this thread, rather than this mud-slinging?

Wow, haven't seen Gromnir since the Interplay days. Good fun to see you again, ya cook. And actually, Gromnir, in the yet unreleased part 2 of this interview (yay interview spoiler!) Chris Avellone notes "game mechanics should come first, and Torment's game mechanics were very clunky." Since it's the same combat as BG, Infinity Engine and all, I don't think it contributed much either way to sales. Infinity Engine's RTwP is a disaster, in my opinion, and it was horrible in all the Infinity Engine games, but other people seemed to like it. Who do I pm here to get my nick changed in to "Brother None"? This "Kharn" nick is outdated.

But that was my point. I do listen to critique on DaC. I know, I know, maybe I shouldn't, 'cause a lot of it is written out of spite, but I firmly believe that somewhere there's a point, and often adapt my direction to it, just a bit.

See? That's exactly the attitude I try to prevent, this happy-go-getter "oh, places are just different" Yeah sure, could've said that about nazi-Germany too (I invoke Godwin's Law before anyone else beats me to it). Doesn't prevent me to criticise places or take criticism seriously. <3 Brio, though

I wasn't *incredibly* pleased with that myself, but there was nothing to do because, in all honesty, kumquatq3 brought it up on himself. He had stated before (not publicly) that his mod powers on the News forum would just be used to post news, not to moderate the forum, which was the job of the rest of the NMA Team. He failed to do so, by deleting (not even moving or vatting, but deleting) a thread in which, apparently, Rosh and Saint P were attacking one of the few devs who still dares visit such hard-core fansites Maybe he was right? I don't know, I can't know because the thread is gone, all I know is he was completely over-stepping his bounds and violating the agreement by which he was hired by using his mod powers, and on an admin no less. No matter how right he was in thought, the act was over-stepping his authority and was wrong. And for that reason none of us could make any case against Rosh. In essence he was right. Like it or not the Codex and DaC (to some extent) survive exactly on being biased, unremitting ****. It's *what they do*. If a Codex newsposter doesn't completely humiliate a dev or crack down hard on some article in a newspost the people won't remain entertained, and they'll leave. It must be hell on any relations they have with any devs, though I agree with them that sucking up to devs just because they're devs blows big wind, and the old Interplay forums were rich with just that kind of ass-kissing.

Well that'd not be entirely right. Depends on who you listen to, really, but let me just say Mr. Teas remarks didn't surprise me, as I've heard these complaints before. There are more people of the same type as me and Teas, who're rather sensitive to that sense of boiling hormones. The fact that such criticism seems rather novel to you of Missy's forum puzzles me somewhat, but it's also what makes this whole line of conversation strangely interesting. Are you implying I'd go by speculation too if I were to say I understand the reasons immigrants prefer Germany to Denmark, although I can't prove it? Tchyeah right. Call it an "educated guess" I think you think I'm implying that this is a concious process. That people actually *think* "wow, a chick, I'll join up here". No they don't. No more than they conciously think "that woman has this and that anatomy features, she's hawt". The internet, I'm sory to report, has always been a breeding ground of the socially inept (and 90% of the socially inept will deny they are, in fact, socially inept) and the socially inept get a certain something when a woman shows up on a message forum. If you have over-bearing female presence, even if it's just one active chick poster, you will, depending on the spirit of the forum, invariably end up with a chickocentric forum. NMA suffers from it too, from the handful of females that post there, but it tends to be actively discouraged (no, not by moderating, but by social pessure). Your choice, though you might find GD more to your liking, but that's still Rosh's turf. TO, however, the hosted forum, is no longer Rosh's turf. That's mine. Not everyone likes NMA and hey, that's not surprising. I've learned over the years that that's just the way it is...HOWEVER (big however): I do not brush criticism aside. When another DaCer makes some asinine comment about NMA being this or NMA being that, I know he's just saying it out of habit, because NMA and DaC are like two rivaling kindergartens that insist on throwing faeces at each other for no reason except that it's tradition. But still it often contains a core of truth, and I always listen. One of the most important factors of leading any succesfull community is realising that there always people that are going to think your community sucks, and the worst thing about that is that almost always the criticism uttered by those people (unless they're bonehead flamers) contains *some* core of truth. For that reason it's important not to brush criticism aside with a "if you don't like it, don't go there" or "maybe that's just, like, your opinion, man" (name the quote) I do not believe in that. People have the right to criticise as they want, they just have to show a healthy dose of self-criticism along with it, else they're just being biased Also, important here is that NMA's faults are not like the Lairs faults in any way. You'll never get a nice fiery discussion going that way. 'course, I try to prevent most name-calling, though I've simply learned to live with the state of things when it comes to Fallout subjects (I know, I know, I should try and work on that too), but a nice, fiery debate requires that you truely disagree, and *truely* disagreeing requires that you have little to no respect for the other person's opinion. "Respect is weakness", Conan would say. Which is not the same as not respecting the other person, you just don't respect his opinion. In other words, "tolerate the person, not his opinion" I really miss CC, he could spark some heated Christianity debates, he could Dude read that again, it was a joke about you saying you like to think of yourself as capable of individual thought