Endoxos

IMHO, Fallout 3 is an eyesore, and due to the constrained story, hinders immersion, made only worse by not being an emulation of PnP gameplay. With 90% of the quests being completely irrelevant to your character's life, the lives of the respective quest givers, or the world as a whole. If it's not broke, why fix it... if it was broken to begin with, why should I have to fix it to enjoy it? Whale and Petunias>AntAgonizer and the Mechanist. A mile of tripe is not better than an ounce of prime rib. QFT. Even Ian, who reminds me a lot of Christina in Wasteland... always running the SMG on auto. Wasteland>Fallout 1>Fallout 2> FO:T>Fallout 3.

Playing CounterStrike: Source for the first time in 6 months... amazing what a little hiatus (and an FPS boost from 10 to 100) can do for my aim.

FO:T wasn't that bad at all, imho. It does to FO what WoW does to Warcraft, just... in reverse. I mean, I have no probs seeing FO spin off into other genres, as long as they wholly embrace what FO is within that genre, and FO:T did that pretty well with squad-strategy (well, the only other games I could relate to it is Jagged Edge, and XCom, and while it's no Jagged Edge, it does well enough, I think). Problem with FO3 is it asks itself "what genre do I fall in?" and winds up having an identity crisis. FPSes and RPGs are too distinct from one another to mesh well in a hybrid. Add the pathetic writing (well, pathetic as far as a FO game goes... it's exceptional compared to TES games overall, though), and it was bound to not reach our standards. I can't help but wonder if the dialogue writers down at Bethesda speak in only two-sentence blocks. I mean, in 2nd grade English, I was taught that a paragraph should have at least 3 sentences at minimum- a topic sentence, a body sentence, and either a header or a footer sentence. The only NPCs I can think of offhand that actually speak in paragraphs are Moira and Vance.

Pft, I've been asking for better games for 20 years now. I've only been satisfied with about 10-20 of 'em. People don't *want* War and Peace or Gone With the Wind, they want Transformers and The Day After. Nothing too deep, nothing too thought-provoking, but something to entertain them for a little while until they get bored and rush to wally-world to buy a new game. Developers feed them tripe, because the masses ask for tripe. We want top sirloin, so we have to hunt down the sole butcher shop in the next state to get what we hunger for. I can think of only a few that rival FO- Wasteland (scope of FO's greatness 10 years prior to it, deep and intricate... erm... journal entries, excellent plot, unique system), Nethack (it thinks of everything for items, the way FO thinks of everything when it comes to choices), and Planescape: Torment (the utterly and individually epic storyline). *grumbles* It's not just Bethesda... imho, every dev company who was not somehow touched by early Interplay, BIS, or Troika and their respective lead guys. Everyone wants a sandbox game where you get to do everything, but accomplish nothing. I mean, I like SimWhatevers, but it seems like everything tries to be Sim-Race-Farm-Hacknslash-Shooter with an army to back you up, stats to label your character with, and a pet for you to baby. No genre is sacred anymore, imho. Amen. I have a general line of thinking: "As individuals, people are highly intelligent and work very hard. As a collective, the total IQ and effort put forth drops exponentially as their numbers are incremented. Bureaucracy and peer pressure is to blame." I feel that, yes, the people working for the "head honchos" try very hard. It's just the "head honchos" who ruin it. IMHO, Daggerfall, despite its massive amount of bugs and the ever-constant threat of The Void, was Bethesda's Magnum Opus. At least Daggerfall was a sandbox *RPG*, that merged the various sub-types of RPGs into one: roguelike, hack-and-slash, adventure, and tabletop-styled CRPG. Unfortunately, they kept the bad (almost solely "fed ex" and "kill the foo" quests) and dropped the good (detailed information, randomness, stats taking precedence over skill, the cart, etc) through the next incarnations of TES. Now, their games feel more akin to FPSes (either first-person-shooters or first-person-slashers) with a handful of numbers for good measure. Meh. See above. FO3, while it does have its good points, still does not feel nearly as broad in scope as what Daggerfall was, nor as open to choice as FO1, or even 2, was. However, admittedly, I have yet to attempt to blow up a jammed door with a mine or bash one with a sledgehammer, so I could be proven wrong. ...well, I have yet to jam a door at all, so I'll cross that bridge when I burn it. Agreed wholeheartedly.

Rofl, no, just an avid fan of his, with enough time on my hands and skills in my head to have pulled it off. Back then, I didn't know much about fan-made remakes and their legality, so I was gonna try to buy the IP outright. In a nutshell, their lawyers told me 'talk to person B', while person B told me to go back to person A. Didn't take me long to give up and work on my own projects. 'Sides, Brian eventually bought it... he could (obviously) do far more justice to it than I could.

Yeah, I stopped paying attention to what became of FO after the whole Fat Man thing... I kind of gave up hope then. Schweet. ^_^ IMHO, and this is just my opinion only, everything Bryan Fargo has touched, in my eyes, has turned to gold (yes, even the bard's tale remake to a lesser extent, but I digress)... and the lead people at Obsidian got a good hearty smack, be it directly or indirectly, and share a bit of that Midas touch. And I have yet to see Obsidian (or any form and name it was incarnated in or spawned from in the past) make a genuinely bad game (even KOTOR2 was actually really good, just... suffered from unfortunate circumstances). That's not to say they couldn't make a bad game... I just haven't seen it happen yet, so I give 'em the benefit of the doubt that it'll be far better than FO3. ^_~ I know this is a horrible thing to say, at least for Obsidian's perspective, but I would honestly want see FO:NV go the way of FOBOS. Just as FOBOS was a massive departure from the series, being low-brow, all about sex/drugs/gore/metal, ignoring lore, and full of idiocy... I would love to see FO:NV take a 'similar' departure from the series that we know now has *embraced* that same idiocy... and make a return to the cleverness and depth that FO1 and 2 embraced... ...even if it means hurting FO:NV's sales. ...Not that I want it to fail or anything, far be it... I just want a *really* *good* game, in the old-school sense, even if 90% of the rest of the gaming population's idea of a *really* *good* game is Guitar Hero and Farmville. Oh, I know. But needless to say, the mere asking of the question gives me hope that it'll be read, lending them a reason to think about, ponder upon, and mayhaps propose the idea. ...I mean, *shrugs* what harm could naming an SMG-toting NPC Christina, bringing back the BB gun, or having drunk hobos line a back alley, do? ^_~

TBH, I haven't played a *single* game that came out this past year... but I do want to pick up Dragon Age here soon. That, Brutal Legend, and Borderlands. Other than those, there hasn't been *anything* that remotely piqued my interest.

I have too many favorite games... but... Relevant 5 (in order): Wasteland- Without Wasteland, there would be no Fallout. It was my first exposure to the post-apoc genre, and it quite literally shaped the next 20-some-odd years of my life more than almost all other influences. Believe it or not, I *still* play it, have every journal entry memorized (though, not their order), possibly know why Van Buren was called Van Buren (I could be wrong, but it's an uncanny hypothesis), and if it weren't for EA's lawyers giving me the runaround 'bout 10 years ago, probably would/could have made the official sequel to it by now. Fallout 1- It was all that Wasteland was, with pretty graphics. Shame it was about mutants instead of robots. Oh well. Fallout 2- It was all that FO1 was, with a really unique twist to it. Too many pop culture references for my tastes though. Planescape: Torment- Amazing storytelling, insightful, clever, and deep... it was everything a fantasy RPG should be. Unfortunately, it would've been nice to have more spoken dialogue. Nethack- I spent way too many years on this roguelike, and *still* have not won without save-scumming. I plan to eventually, though. Hopefully. They thought of *everything* in that... zapping a stone-to-flesh wand on a giant boulder creates meatballs. You can die from getting your head bashed in from a heavy iron ball attached to your ankle by a chain while tripping downstairs. Cream pies can be used as weapons, and good ones at that. You don't see stuff like *that* in WoW. Irrelevant 5 (no particular order): Tales of the Unknown: The Bard's Tale Counter-Strike: Source Nuclear War Shenmue Guild Wars

OMGOMGOMG! I *just* heard 'bout FO:NV, I feel like crying in joy! After the *insert long ranty tirade full of insults and depressing bouts of frustration at FO3*... mess... that was FO3, I am genuinely overjoyed to see FO:NV in Obsidian's hands. *gets on hands and knees and begs intently* please-please-please tell me that the overall IQ level of this will be along the lines of greatness that were FO1 and 2 (pft, even that of KOTOR2 or Dragon Age), instead of the glossy-eyed "point-blank-nukes, eye-shots-are-unrealistic, and bobble-headed" mentality of FO3? I don't mean to sound either trollish or fangirlish or anything like that, but I kind of feel like Obsidian holds the "last Great American Novel" (to quote Wasteland) within their hands, at least as far as Fallout is concerned... 9 years of waiting for another *good* FO RPG is too long. ...any chance of seeing a reference or nod or two to Wasteland in FO:NV, just to keep the FO tradition alive?

"Bad String Reference"... the game looked for a sentence, dialogue line, or other such descriptive thingie, and could not find it, either because it does not exist or it's looking in the wrong place (ie corrupted save/executable).

Hmmm... I've played DS once, but got the same last-hour-or-two as a LSer. How did you get it?

Against the boss, go and equip your best stuff (like Gamorrean Gauntlets, Combat Visor, etc) and upgrade your weapons as highly as possible. For the boss' weaponry... use Force/Knight/Master Speed and run away. You'll leave them behind, they'll split up, and you can take them on one at a time.

I play all four possibilities first (LSf, DSf, LSm, DSm) for the sake of seeing the entire story. Then, upon repeated plays, I always play LSf (however, I keep a DSf for when I'm having a bad day and need something to beat upon).

I'd still buy K3... I mean, I can't get enough of K1, and K2 was alright (story was decent, my main disappointments came from the general lack of completeness) but worth at least (so far) 2 replays through. If K3 follows in the same vein (though I pray it takes as long as possible to ensure it's a good game), I'll still get it, if for no other reason than completeness. Pft. I'd still get it if it used the same engine.

I'd say the Disciple. Handmaiden's cold-heartedness (in the beginning) gets on my nerves. Disciple is kind, wanting what is best for everyone, and a constant seeker of knowledge. Though I must admit, he does seem to be a bit of a fanboy, that does not lessen my view of him. His intents and goals are noble and worthy of respect.

Oddly, Visas appeared before I made it to Dantooine (where my last part lay), she didn't drop a lightsaber (despite her dialogue complaining that I broke it)... later, I went to Bao-Dur asking if I had all the parts yet, and though I was yet missing the lens, he said I did, and I got myself a lightsaber from that. Weird.

Okay, so (bloodthirstyness aside), what's the difference between an IridoRian and an IridoNian?

On Nar Shaddaa, that guy who says the Ebon Hawk is his, he mentions the hidden compartments on it, the door in the cargo area (where the food stores used to be), and one beneath the bunks in the starboard quarters... I can't seem to find this compartment, in either K1 or K2. Any help would be appriciated.

I'm playing female DS, and I chose to follow the Czerka storyline on Telos, and I've done everything they asked me to do, then I went and got my gear from the TSF, however, I have gone to the Czerka port, and when I speak to the Duros attendant, he gives me a lightsaber energy cell, and by all rights, should open the door... but doesn't. A little message window pops up and says "The docking bay doors on Citadel Station open by a nearby console" (as if I went up and tried to manually open it). Also, I noticed that I am offered the choice "What's-her-name said I would be provided a shuttle to the planet's surface" when speaking to the Duros port attendant, even before I tell the Czerka woman (Jana Lorro? I can't think of her name for the life of me) about having taken care of the Exchange. I have tried to reload from a prior savegame, and the same thing happens. Is there *any* way I can work around this?