Tigranes

Depends on what you are comparing it to, there are distinctly two tiers of high-profile games in the industry at the moment. There's the season-defining blockbuster release, which is at its core defined by making sure pretty much every gamer out there knows about the game. Obvious examples are Modern Warfare, Halo, Starcraft 2 and GTA. There are and can be only a handful of releases that fall under this bracket. In terms of RPGs, Bethesda's great success with Oblivion was that they were able to position this game as such a blockbuster. This was made possible through the establishment of a console fanbase with Morrowind, some clever marketing and a big budget - and it is a big part of what makes the company successful today, as it can continue to give its future games the same kind of marketing oomph. Bioware is trying to do similar with the Mass Effect franchise, and seems to be doing quite well at it. But the point remains that many top releases aren't in this bracket - even games that people in the genre might know well and did well commercially. I think games like Assassin's Creed 2 might just fall in this category, and then you have stuff like Rise of Nations and sequels, the Age of games, perhaps even Civilisation. These are big names and they get a bright spotlight just before and after their release, both in websites and in shop shelves, but that's all that can be afforded. With the marketing push going on right now, it looks like Alpha Protocol will comfortably sit in this bracket, but has really zero chance of getting in the first bracket - it never did, coming from a young studio (6 years old, but only 2 sequels + 2 expansions) with a new IP and not the top priority for the publisher (SEGA's biggest priorities and cash cows are the Total War and Football Manager series, which top sales lists.) There are preorder numbers somewhere in this forum which show it's doing pretty well, just not breaking any records. I think it should do fine, especially if it's a great game.

Considering the whole switch of devs and how awesome Risen was (spirit of Gothic but with sensible improvements & potential for even better), I didn't really care about Arcania - but I mean, it really looks like they've really tried to recreate G3. Obviously the big things to wait on will be quest reactivity, combat balance and world size, but right now it's great. I sort of forgot everything I ever heard about Two world, sso don't know what that is?

Well done recruit. The first thing you should know is that as the first person to report, I have the divine right to the first pick of the party's loot.

Arcania: Gothic 4 gameplay video. Really really looks like Gothic 3+. -> More reasonably, the UI finally has a minimap. The question marks on top of questgivers is stupid, though, can we stop making everything a WoW clone? -> City section minimap hints at a decently sized settlement, similar to Gothic 3. -> Old companions (Gorn, Diego, etc) return. -> Lockpick minigame, what a piece of ****. -> Combat is similar but spells seem to cast faster.

I'd only point out several awkward wordings / sentence structures (just needs more editing, but then every amateur piece does), and that maybe, as a short story, it might have been better to show some of these things instead of describing them - i.e. a Gahn v. Kate conversation at the start as opposed to a backstory (which we don't need to know to understand the current situation), same with Gahn suppressing orc urges - descriptions of what he feels now and the tension now, as opposed to why he's having them. Otherwise, not bad, I agree with Walsh, it's no worse a read than fantasy novels I've read, if it were continued it could easily become interesting.

Problem is nobody ever looks in this forum Come on, we surely have enough people to get a pnp game going.

Yeah, I left liberation till the end - it turns out I was pretty much at endgame with that one. I went for Innos this time and basically went Paladin + Fire Rain = truly warrior of the fire. Ended at level 70 or so, I was pleasantly surprised by the Fallout-style slides ending - nice. Started again and will go all out thief/mage this time, going for lots of magic & Murder, we'll see how I go. I'll probably pick Xardas' option at the end.. of course, not having played Gothic 1 & 2, the game does jack all at telling you which Gods are for what and why Xardas wants them gone.

If a widescreen is as wide as a screen can be wide, how wide could a widescreen be?

Ah, that's pretty cool. Not wanting to pre-order yet though, I have no intention of buying 3 Starcraft games and want to see how it pans out.

Everyone I know who got the beta sold their invites on ebay, so no. edit: those G4 screens look pretty Gothicy, but looks don't mean much...

Are you a regular in any other forum than here, e.g. with your LOTRO stuff? Word of mouth has to start from somewhere. Will we eventually be introduced to some of the classroom characters?

Geez, people. It is not confirmed that Alpha Protocol PC will have limited online activations. It will use a Uniloc DRM, and there have been Uniloc DRMs that have limited online activations. AP might do this, or might feature a Uniloc DRM that does not, and instead makes you rub Matt McLean's beard while singing the Titanic theme song. Also, DRM is likely to be set in stone by this stage and unlikely to change; it is also up to Sega, not Obsidian.

Well, I am now reaching the endgame after 2 weeks of insane addiction. As I sort of expected, I didn't find Nordmar and Varant as fun as Myrtana - the desert was just so boring to trek through, and apart from quest-related places there's not much to find. Nordmar is just amazingly confusing, it's as if the designers tried to make you get lost a hundred times on purpose. After a while of going back and forth already trodden ground I decided to use maps from the net and god mode and just jump jump jump. Really missed the levitate spell from Risen. Also thought the designers got a bit too needlessly obtuse in areas - it's fine not handholding you and making you figure things out, but sometimes there is so little information inside the world that you are not so much relying on players using scraps of hints to figure things out, but players exploring and just killing everything and opening every chest. I'm reasonably thorough, but the only indication that you need the staff and sceptre seems to be a passage you read on the ancient knowledge bookshelves. These are not clearly differentiated from the five artifacts either, and there's noe xplanation why you need them - as opposed to the chalices, which were very well designed yet not easy to find. Still, the game remains fun (and challening, even at high levels). I've ended up going for a jack of all trades though, that might be why - 200 str/hunting & 300 ancient knowledge. I am using the El Bastardo sword + Round Shield, the Adanos crown, Paladin armor, Adanos amulet & rings, about to upgrade to Nimrod bow. I've already liberated Varant (the hashishin have low health/armor and are easy to chop through) and Nordmar (that was hard, had to jump on top of their tents and spam AOE spells while dodging arrows and shamans), and completed most of the quests out there. 1) I have one pure ore and the skill, are there any blueprints for pure ore weapons? 2) Going to find Xardas and see what he has to say before committing to one side, sensible?

Funnily enough, that's how I like it, actually. The entire game should be bleak and grey. I'm just afraid that if they try to make it more 'cinematic' and add more emotion and depth to characters they'll end up disneyfying everything. i.e. Do we really need to see Abigail or Triss break down and cry and tell sap stories about their past in TW2? I know that's not what you mean, but I'm just afraid of it being handled badly.

Yep, INT is the problem here. As the NWN2 manual states (In one of its massive tables), you need 10 + spell level. You might want to restart and do that level up thing again and make sure to give yourself 19 INT.

One caveat, though - most DRM companies / products have different options that clients can use. Uniloc for FM09 did what I described, but there's no guarantee AP would do it - far from it. AP could easily feature a version of Uniloc without activation limits.

Man, too much PR. Love Leland's voice acting, it's got the archetype down but also adds a bit of unique style. Didn't get that so much with the journo chick who looks a bit more cliche, but we'll see, I think there's a lot to find out there.

I fart on your disagreeing with your disagreeing, good sir. The Witcher had pretty good writing. Even in its first iteration when a lot of the dialogue was snipped for the English version, apart from odd bits where it seemed abrupt, the writing did its part and did its job, with moments of great stuff. With the Enhanced Edition it got better, too.

It was called... wait for it... Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.

Yep. I used my fire wave scrolls to get Eimar's helmet, but man Nordmar is tough. I ran for my life just to get the Wolf Clan teleport, but now I'm in the desert. Wilderness seems more boring here, though.

Montera liberation was a bitch, the slaves, poor things, don't last for long and my insistence on sticking with sword & shield means that the orcs with longer range weapons give me real trouble. When there are two or more of them swiping at me I can't get close. Took me over an hour, including reloads, and when I was done the place was not so much liberated as exterminated - of the resistance only a single rebel remained. Also hack and slashed my way through Vengard, the paladin companion was great as a meatshield but the shamans were a problem. In the end I had the paladin lure the other orcs, sneak round the back and stab the shamans to death - great stuff. Venturing into Nordmar now.

May 27 = Aus/NZ June 1 = US 28 might be European.

Where the hell do you learn spells apart from Innos/Beliar shrines? I don't think I've seen Ice Lance anywhere. Just managed Cape Dun liberation through the time-honoured 'arrows from rooftops' strategy + a heal other for Wenzel. Trying to get past 500 orcs in Vengard now, the one bit I think Gothic combat is not good for is mass fighting. The targeting system is very unpredictable so sometimes you keep turning away from the guy you want to hit.

I'll probably not do too much with magic, as it's not particularly developed in G3 anyway. Maybe I'll pick up a few smiithing skills if I can, though I haven't found any interesting blueprints yet despite combing large parts of the countryside. I got the battle bow (gives you level 3 bow skill) plus big game hunter - finally, FINALLY, wilderness animals aren't a big threat. Gotha demon I just lured to the orcs then got the finishing blow.

Now that is marketing.