Tigranes

Enough people, discuss the game instead of stropping about trying to be the ballsiest four year old. And no, 'he did it first / that isn't technically trolling' doesn't count.

(1) Steam in offline mode. FNV set to automatically update and I CANT CHANGE THE SETTING even though I set it to don't update before (2) Steam turned online, update starts downloading even though the setting is now on don't update by itself. Pause. (3) DLC bought. (4) No option to manually install DLC. Presumably Steam needs to do all of its retarded automatic **** even though its set not to. (5) Steam downloads an update for itself without telling me. Wants to restart. (6) Still stuck with a paused download I told steam explicitly not to make and a DLC that I can't install, unless I patch, doing God knows what to my mods. DIEEEEEEE

You know, even without the data, it's quite well known that RPGs are really bad at having a good start. And as much as I think the blood and guts is stupid, I think it's unquestionable that they've made the start slick, quick and easy to grasp. I think they did a good job in the intro/tutorial bit from what I've seen - the only problems with it are problems that have to do with the game as a whole, such as the combat mechanics or the level design (though it seems like the Blobby Darkspawn Land could be uniquely horrible-looking).

Oh, right. I have to put Steam online for it. Bloody hell, it's like having to call a telemarketer every time you want to order pizza.

This is a few pages back, but if only this were true, I wouldn't be so hard on Bioware, personally. Actually, Bioware games have become very unenjoyable for me, and thus I no longer buy them - ME series, and now most likely DA2, where I'm wondering whether I can even be bothered downloading the demo, having seen a youtube playthrough. Laughing at the stupid romances and softcore porn and then avoiding it is one thing, the core game actually being annoying and not very fun is another. Thus, as the Great Volourn once (or twice) said, don't like it, don't buy it.

Done with Gothic II. Loved the first 2 chapters and the xpack content, but decided Ch3/4/5 weren't worth playing. I don't think any Gothic or Risen has been fun past the halfway point - its not just the macguffin linearity, but the fact that high level game just isn't fun for me. I think the great fun in the early game is how challenging it is, how limited your resources are, and how you're running past / away from things you know you can't kill now, but can kill later. But that 'combat economy' often runs out, then in the lategame you're just introduced to completely new and strange creatures, often with souped up HP and attack (e.g. lizardmen), and it's not as if you get any new abilities or anything, either. Not sure what to play next, don't see anything on the horizon till Witcher 2.

Except all the stuff they don't complain about, right?

I might start my 5th run of New Vegas then, play Dead Money, and hopefully have the 2nd DLC come out in time. Do DLCs require you to patch the game to the latest version? I don't want to rejiggle all my mods.

Look, a Volourn! Get him!

YOU SHALL NOT HAVE IT HE SHALL HAVE IT

I tried AC1 and it was very dull. Unskippable pointlessly long B-movie sci-fi scenes waste a lot of your time, then you waste even more of your time just running/horseriding around the countryside and repeating the same 3-4 simple minigames to get to your kill. The fun in the actual assassination is terribly short-lived, then, as half your victims spout crap for 20 minutes with their 'last' breath. Apparently AC2 is much better.

Piranha Bytes have always been great at doing proper melee combat, so I'm not worried. I hav eno idea how they'll make guns work, though.

I don't think Gothics had interesting characters either, most of the time it was some entertaining moments to do with minor characters. It would be cool if they pulled a Gothic and had a few characters keep carrying over, the Inquisitor for instance was a fairly well written guy.

I think they hit on the 'soundbite' for the game quite nicely - a pirate role playing game. That'll help give it a clearly defined identity whereas with Risen it was really "the wha?" unless you were familiar with the Gothics and their convoluted histories. Screens look like Risen of the Future, which is fine with me.

We've been shipping down food to a nearby marae housing ~30 people, it seems like they're taking a couple of weeks just to assess damage, get people/bodies out, etc.

I had that castle set! I had a pile of lego filling up a sack and the sack was so large I could sit in it and read a book when I was six. I think my best memory finally actually building something that looked exactly like the box art in a huge space-themed 2m-by-1m rollercoaster, then falling directly on top of it while running around in the house.

I don't follow, what is wrong with this? This isn't "save resources", that's, well, customizable characters. You want 4 different types of warriors that are all 'locked' into one specialism? Well the loot drop system will then act as a balancer, i.e. ensure that nothing too OP drops for your character. Will be an interesting problem in MP though, where you could arguably drop some crazy stuff for Level 1s, or when chars of diff. levels are playing.

Keep it family friendly people, arguments not persons.

I'm not sure how I feel about Obsidian's strategy of trying to grow into their own by expanding their range of games and the range of target audiences - it'll get Feargus some good publisher backing but Alpha Protocol surely showed it doesn't necessarily play to Obsidian's strengths. We will see how Dungeon Siege 3 does in h itting the ARPG feel..

I'm not reading it unless it's turn-based.

Uh, dude, because there's, like, a demo out? I know what you mean, but I think they've shown quite a bit of the game now. I know at a similar stage I'd already signed on to buy DAO. The telemetry data is interesting because of course 'hardcore' gamers would be underrepresented (and they're a minority to begin with) as they're more likely to turn tht stuff off. Pretty sure I did, almost reflexively. But it's probably a good idea to leave it on, giving them better info can't hurt if they're using that info anyway.

I just had to come back to the trailer and say, I like the vast majority of it, but dear God, that mutilation of the Morrowind theme is like a weapon of mass destruction on the souls of TES fans everywhere. Seriously, WTF? Why don't they just buy up half the LOTR songs, put them on double speed and add in orchestral hits and trumpets on every note? Go and write a new song.

Of course coding involves building on previous iterations and lifting things from existing stuff, but isn't it still possible to demarcate certain major changes and say "that's a 'new' engine not just a new version'? Surely there's no point saying an engine is only new if everything in it is new, as that would be horribly inefficient. I guess the question is whether, given that, how significantly 'new', say, Lyceum (or Onyx?) is.

I don't know what you mean by 'persistent' here, as there certainly wouldn't be an MMO-style world. We don't know yet if we'd have something like that or not, they've kept a tight lip.

You'd only have two mian types of co-op though - ones where you play with buddies and keep going with the same guys, where it's not an issue, and ones where you just jump in anywhere, in which case you can just jump in wherever your character's available. Would only be a problem if balance issues meant everybody wanted to be X. I'm not crazy about the decision though, in the end to me MP/co-op is about playing with other people, SP is about the story and taking your time doing things, etc. I suppose there are a lot of char-specific things in the plot going on.