Humanoid

^ Echoing the demihuman fatigue, and I'll toss in alien species in the same breath - which just makes a Darklands-esque take on fantasy, or indeed a similar approach applied instead to sci-fi, very attractive to me. So in the end, I don't care whether they want to throw classical era fantasy, medieval fantasy, Victorian fantasy, contemporary urban, steampunk, cyberpunk or far-future sci-fi at me - just make it a humans-only affair. After all, humans can be as vile, mysterious, deceptive and downright ugly as any monster or alien. Give me a human adversary instead of some ancient god, orcs, dragons, demons, insectoid aliens or indeed reapers.

My completely selfish position is that the big O avoid any horror IPs - because I don't do that genre, and thus would hate to miss out on the anticipation of, and later the playing of, any such announced game.

I tried the Bounty Hunter too - had more fun with it than the smuggler in terms of combat mechanics, but it's not really doing anything for me plotwise. I mean the plot drivers are: Between this and the Sith Warrior that I tried immediately before, I also feel like there's less decision space for me personally when resolving quests - it's fairly frequently either chaotic stupid or obedient patsy. I suppose the cartoon villainy is the fault of the setting more than the game specifically, but yeah, I think I'll lean towards the Republic instead for better roleplaying freedom. And now for the rant which I've delayed a bit prior until I got a taste of how it applies to the different classes. In the end it made no difference however, it's the same one if I had stuck with just the one class. In the end, I think what will be the killer for me are the UI limitations. Sure, it's unfair to compare seven years worth of user-driven interface ingenuity in WoW (at one point, infamously, going to the extent of being able to draw 3D objects directly onto the gameworld). But the closedness of the design in terms of allowing any experimentation user-side at all is potentially a terminal issue for any MMO. Bioware has been able to get aware by making their single-player games progressively less and less customisable over the past decade, but extending such a policy to SWTOR is a case of self-inflicted foot-severing. Further, I think it's also a case of a disparity between the design of character abilities and the backing of the interface required to effectively use them. My UI for WoW circa 2005 was roughly about as functional as TOR's today. Critically, however, TOR's combat complexity aspires to be about the same as WoW's circa 2012. A sensible goal, to be sure, but the player flat out doesn't have the tools to use the abilities effectively. To wit: In 2005, a typical class would use two, maybe three abilities total over the course of a standard battle. In 2012, it's more like 5-6 in constant use, plus 2-3 more that get used every 30-120 seconds. In the former case, it was fully possible to operate at near maximum effectiveness with the game's terrible standard interface. In the latter, the limitations would be crippling and I would elect not to play at all in preference to using it. That's how I'm starting to feel with TOR's combat, and I'm not yet even level 20. Either combat ability usage needs to be simplified to fit the limitations of the UI, or the UI advanced enough to accommodate the desired level of combat complexity.

Wasn't there some hinting about an expansion announcement this year? Could be bridging content so the shift wouldn't be so jarring.

Is there actually a way to properly preview voices other than the word or two they utter when you select the class/gender combination? Creating all 16 combos (necessarily involving deleting some of them to free up character slots) is tedious - especially if one's silly enough like me to spend way too long customising appearance then deciding to change because of the voice. Thus far: Female Smuggler - like the voice ....shame about the class not being fun Female Jedi Knight - didn't work for me Male Sith Warrior - most recent attempt, but about 5 levels in, starting to grate.

Guess even almighty GoG can't find any copies of The Lost Vale, U8's infamously 100% finished expansion which was destroyed when EA decided to not bother releasing it. Though really its only value is just as some sort of historical curio, it's interesting how thoroughly its existence has been scourged from the planet. One thing that has reemerged though, is the Prince of Persia source code, found in the back of Mechner's closets.

If by "cracking" one means "downloading the unprotected DRM-free files from the Internet," sure.

I fully accept the position that backing a game proposal on Kickstarter is not economically rational. But economically rational behaviour is what led us to the lamentable, creatively bankrupt, blockbuster-oriented current state of the gaming industry. Therefore I will embrace and celebrate the irrational amongst us - I paraphrase, but the saying goes "a reasonable man adapts to the world; an unreasonable man adapts the world to suit him - it is therefore upon unreasonable men that change depends on."

Wouldn't even need to change the character graphics for the gender switch!

Apparently the Enhanced Edition is activated now - but there may be an issue with a corrupted patch pre-download which can be manually rectified with replacing parts 1 and 2 from the following: http://en.thewitcher.com/ee_manual reference: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/installer_corrupt/page1

A walled garden within a walled garden. *explodes*

^ Given the budgetary limitations though, I'd rather not see an attempt to create a completely new set of gameplay mechanics which aren't guaranteed to be used again for future projects. Would much rather see the use of mostly established nuts and bolts under the hood and focus the effort on content creation. Question then is what balanced and proven game system can be had for zero-to-minimal cost?

Just because I can do something on a harder difficulty, doesn't mean there's any extra enjoyment to be gained from it. Prime example is DAO's first Ogre in the tower in Ostagar. Just about everyone employed the run around in circles while shooting it strategy, and so did I on the first time around. Wasn't compelling gameplay in any way shape or form though. So next time through I set the game to easy right from the beginning to bypass the tedium.

Which is just another example of ME3 paying for ME2's sins. Biting off more than they can chew and so forth.

Those Heroes Chronicles standalone campaigns based on HoMM3 were such cynical cash-ins, but having skipped them initially, I'm rather happy with them being available on GoG. No matter how questionably written, HoMM campaigns do enough to keep me in.

Voting for which concept gets first dibs is open. Early numbers showing that the Moebius one easily ahead - one imagines because of the Gabriel Knight comparisons.

To fix ME3's plot, the first thing one should do is fix ME2's plot. Seriously, partial reboot up to the end of ME1, but with ME3's gameplay format would be the cleanest way to do it.

Inspired by the Kickstarter discussion thread, MOO2, for the first time in about 7-8 years. Getting crushed on average difficulty a number of times, could only win (and easily at that) with the overpowered Creative perk. Never was particularly good at it, mind, and I remember the reason not loving it as much as I could is one primary annoyance, building bloat. Just so many uninteresting things to build by the lategame that it becomes a chore.

Got to admit I know nothing about the original but what interests me about that picture isn't what's in the foreground - it's that it looks like a city with its skyscrapers mostly intact. That, and how lush the greenery is.

Of course, and that's my expectation - but it's not like there's a whole raft of alternatives out there, hence it's always worth at least tracking the development status of anything out there in the genre.

If I had to choose between two story concepts with no context, one being a summary of DAO and the other of DA2, I'd choose the latter every time. I am an anti-epic storytelling gamer and choose the tighter, more personal narrative every time. Even at the most cliched level - either a game with a quest for vengeance versus a quest for saving the world - revenge wins out for me as the narrative driver a hundred times out of a hundred. The top two reasons I loathe DAO are narrative then combat. The top two reasons I didn't even try DA2 combat then level design.

I support "story mode" 100% - provided the non-combat bits of the game are strong enough to support that style of gameplay. The issue then with that original developer suggestion was because in the context of Mass Effect, it would lead to long stretches of non-interactive or minimally interactive cutscenes. And this is the image I think people are getting in the various criticisms in the last dozen or so posts with regards to that proposal. I maintain it would be a tremendous boon provided the game was developed from the ground up with that idea in mind, it just requires a broadening of scope in what people believe an RPG to be. And for context, my favourite CRPG of all time is still Ultima 7. How did I play the combat? I hit the 'C' button, all my companions would run off and squish any nearby hostiles, and I'd collect the loot. And I had a blast playing like that. On the flipside, I don't enjoy dungeon crawlers at all, hence my disillusionment at Skyrim and complete non-interest in the recent talk about Grimrock. "Legends" like Eye of the Beholder do absolutely nothing for me. My dream remains a CRPG set in a generally non-hostile world where non-combat solutions are the norm, and the combat is generally considered the side-option.

My list would just a whole bunch of ex-Origin/Bullfrog/Microprose properties - such as Strike Commander F-19/117A Stealth Fighter Privateer Crusader System Shock Syndicate Populous Pirates! Theme Park/Hospital Dungeon Keeper Darklands Transport Tycoon Covert Action Master of Orion Masters of Magic Machiavelli: The Prince Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix Jane's Longbow ...you get the idea. And a few outside that: Flashback Giants: Citizen Kabuto Betrayal at Krondor Arx Fatalis The Last Express Interstate '76 and some of the non-Core Sim-something games.

My trinket-grubbing self is a bit disappointed that the new $150 tier goodies are mutually exclusive - either pick a T-shirt, or a poster+coin+extra boxed copy of the game. Sticking with the original offering which was the latter but still, could have just thrown the shirt in.

That's why D&D armour doesn't come in L, XL and XXL.