Tigranes

I think everything points to DX3 being closer than DS3, in terms of marketing schedules and development progress.

Hopefully the fact that there is limited level scaling also means that the rate can be modded. Really, I think the big concern is whether you have area-based or global level scaling; the latter is insanely stupid, the former can be ok.

This should work quite well in Elder Scrolls. Perks are an excellent reward system actually, and I'm glad they lifted this. Of course, one each level is an about turn towards overpowered PCs, but we will see. re. Radiant Storytelling, I actually think it's great news. Radiant AI was overhyped and ultimately about as interesting (or groundbreaking) as a puddle of poo, but I think Bethesda should be praised for the effort they are putting into try and make the RPG gameworld more alive and reactive. Here's hoping they are more successful this time, as it seems Radiant Storytelling would, well, require Radiant AI to work better first.

As you say, Q1 2011 is the only piece of official information we have at the moment. And even then, if we are already in Q1 and we have no proper date or hype going on, there's a good chance it might be delayed. If we're speculating, I'd agree that if it makes it in Q1 it would be March/April. As for anything else, I hate to be a downer but Square Enix customer support helpers are again about as reliable as a wet potato in this matter. Release dates from anywhere except the devs/publishers themselves are just random stabs in the dark.

Fallout 2. After New Vegas you realise how short the originals are in comparison, I'm already level 15 and done with a lot of locations. Doesn't feel jarring at all, which is a tribute to Obsidian - although now I notice even more how excessively silly FO2 could be. One thing I will say is that combat is a lot more memorably fun.

Doesn't even look 6 in the first photo, just shows you what makeup can do. In the Korean context it's a topic I've been following for quite some time - ironically, as a more conservative neo-Confucian Asian society, it's much easier to tell what's happening rather than this wall of blase you sometimes get in the West (see: Gorgon ). Last year or so there was a furore at a 14 year old shooting an advertisement topless with a male model. Actually, this isn't so prudish - this year New Zealand had a mild fit over a ~16 year old filming nude as part of the "Next Top Model" TV programme. The media will be media, of course, but I've also seen some frankly disturbing reflections of that in ordinary people. Last time in Korea I ran across a family at a random building, where they were shooting their ~3 year old girl for something or other. The kid actually knew enough to, without direction, make various "sexy girl" poses like leaning against the wall and pushing out her bottom, and the parents loved it - they literally couldn't contain their excitement at how 'precocious' their little girl was and how pretty she looked, and gave her pointers on how to do it better. You might still have parents that baulk at their girls demanding frilly bras at the age of 9, but they're in a losing battle. To be honest, one of the overall impacts of all this sexualisation and beautification for me has been that I place a lot LESS importance on how women look, now. For one, I know that so many beautiful women you see on TV or wherever are at least partially the result of photoshop, lighting and other computer fudgery, and/or the product of extremely time consuming and expensive makeup, clothing, accessories, etc. It just starts to feel so far removed from reality that it's kind of pointless - why ogle at a model if she only looks that way because they airbrushed her skin, cut away her stomach fat, trimmed down her arm muscles, erased half of her lower jaw and even trimmed her hair on photoshop? (All of this applies to men, just not as much... yet. )

I think he's asking for the link to the video, so we know what you're talking about. I remember videos that include a cliff but not a video where they just stand around for 15 minutes while the narrator talks. Anyway, since half of your post is about the video and the other half is "what I want in this game", for the first half - again, need to see the link, but I think that eagle vision stuff is down to preference. I'd rather have a realistic vista view where I see a town far off, and I know that later on I can reach that town (which was confirmed by the devs), instead of having some magical cinematic cam swooping around. All opinion, of course. For the second half, I believe dodging/rolling is in? For other stuff like accessories, crafting, etc., we don't have a lot of info on concrete game mechanics yet but I don't see most of that stuff not being there in some form or other. I believe (might be wrong) that the focus is on controlling a single hero character for DS3 - with a big emphasis on hotseat co-op play where people come in seamlessly into your game and control a companion.

I know, but we've also seen plenty of dialogue that are "normal" (i.e. Hello, what's up, yes I'll kill that bastard in return for that shiny pom-pom on your muffin, g'bye), and surely building a fully explorable 3D world is kind of silly if all your quests are going to be a series of screens. The way Vince et al talk about the text adventures also mark them out to be a specific part of the gameplay rather than how the entire game works. Hard to say for sure but I haven't seen anything that leads me to think AOD quests will mostly go that way.

My understanding was that AOD includes some 'text adventures', where either a certain section is played out purely through dialogue choices and checks, but otherwise, the game works 'normally' - you walk around, there are dialogues, there is combat, etc. The quest in the video seems to be one such 'text adventure' + 'normal combat', but certainly we've seen a lot of other dialogue that is standard conversation + skill checks.

You're seriously letting a Gamespot review sway your mind on anything? Jumping bits sound stupid if true, yes, but then jumping bits can't really be that big, can it?

The retailer dates have absolutely zero relation to reality - they just sit there and make it up based on public information (i.e. not much).

Shhhh, don't tell Vince, it would crush him.

More than fun actually, I had an immensely great time with the combat demo. This is one of few RPGs where I'm actually looking forward to creating a combat type of character. I'm playing Fallout 2 now and it's great. What's the problem? It doesn't break any new ground but it's well polished. I wish they tried a couple of things like environmental interaction, but as a 1-2-3 man team I can sort of understand.

Nothing we haven't seen before (apart from the fact that they finally have lighting-ish stuff), but cool beans. Finally, a video where they won't spend 20 seconds just showing you the fifty affiliated logos.

That line would make so much more sense as a criticism, really.

Alas, NWN2 OC was probably the worst I've played at that, outside of JRPGs. Your rogue would cleverly sneak past an entire floor of opponents and creak open a door, only for a cutscene dialogue to teleport your entire party in front of the boss.

Oh, probably. It's just when you're not 'in' the whole thing it just appears as a great big blob to sort through, and to be honest I don't miss it. :/ Must try Rome at some point.

Shouldn't mages be using magic for alternative forms of armour/defense?

The Simpsons, Colbert Report and Friends are just about the only American TV shows I've watched with any regularity in the last decade. Can't say I feel like I've missed a whole lot.

Wait? Free DLC is ridicilous? What about Heart of Winter? UT Bonus packs? BG2 vendor(s)? Morrowind bonusses? It's PAYED DLC which is utterly ridicilous. Especially if you have to pay $7,- to get the same amount of content that was free before (see Oblivion-Morrowind). The free DLCs - in terms of how they are designed, how they are distributed, and what kind of terminology is used, are part of the DLC structure that the industry is pushing as The Future. After all, if you want to sell people paid DLCs, doesn't it make sense to give people a free one so they get interested? Heart of Winter was an expansion pack, by the way. Of course there's been 'special bonuses' to games for a long while now, and arguably the Collector's Edition is a similar mechanism for sales. It's more about how it's all coming together. btw, I don't really remember how aggro worked in DAO, but what was so different about it, other than the prioritisation system discussed, from previous single player RPGs? How is WOW-style aggro different from, say, IE-style? (I thought the Shout system implemented by various IE mods is the way to go, honestly. First refine the current largely LOS-based aggro/alert system to include sound, especially in first person RPGs; second, implement a basic threat assessment / enemy personality system that determines whether the alerted enemy calls for help, charges or flees. Of course, a proper Shout system would have huge implications on level/encounter design for CRPGs as they stand.... you couldn't just populate one room after another willy nilly.)

Actually, I don't remember it actually making things into 2 beams. Hrm. I wonder what happened there.

Yeah, it was a new game. With the Energy weapons denerfed I was powerful enough that I didn't mind, though. Laser Rifle is actually a very good weapon for 80% of the game with the laser scope and beam splitter mods, essentially a cheap, rapid-fire energy sniper.

The only thing that made Shale worthwhile was that he was actually a cooler NPC than most of the vanilla ones. The whole idea of "free DLCs" and "free but conditional DLCs" really annoy me though.

By the way, Morrowind now looks pretty nice. Video: It looks nice, it plays nice, it is nice. It looks like MW's superb art style was given a technical upgrade, so there's literally nothing it doesn't do better than Oblivion. A little too bloomy, though....

But mkreku, mag scans are just like game images! Are you suddenly endorsing piracy? Thanks for the summary Sannom, as magazine makers also need to eat to live no scans on the boards sorry.