Tigranes

I tried Divine Divinity before and couldn't get into it, but I would like to be interested in this, I think. a) How is the story and dialogue? Is it worth paying attention to? I enjoyed Risen and TW in this regard, Dragon Age was meh. b) How fun is a magic-user? How does magic work? c) Performance, do you need a beast?

Van Buren received a lot of criticism, doubt and in fact the same kind of discussion about whether it is Fallout-y during its development. The marked difference was that it was evident the developers were trying a lot harder to recreate the original Fallouts in every sense of the word, whereas Bethesda deliberately wanted to, to a large extent, reimagine the series. Thus, those unhappy with the way in which Bethesda reimagined the series, or didn't even want a reimagining, obviously have accumulated a somewhat unfairly positive sense of nostalgia about VB. But the core difference is sound. Ironically, I was very happy with one of the biggest ways in which Bethesda re-imagined the series; the transformation into a persistent 3D world that you explore in first-person view. The exploration was really good, much better than in MW and OB i think. The decision to go for real-time combat, in the context of such a game-world, did sort of come in tandem, and I think the pity is really that it just wasn't very good or balanced, not that it was real-time. In fact, even more ironic, is the fact that the areas of FO3 that the 'insane hardcore fans' that killed mkreku's dog criticise the most, isn't the areas in which Bethesda changed Fallout. It's the areas in which Bethesda tried their best to stay true to the series and recreate the feel of the original Fallouts. The story. The moral ambiguity. The SPECIAL. The choice and consequences. The sardonic style. The 'R18' parts. The black humour. The dog. Apart from some extremists who will accept nothing other than a turn-based 2D Fallout (by the way, mkreku, that is very much a minority even amongst your hated enemies ), most people who felt FO3 was not a 'true' Fallout did so because of these areas. It was sort of inevitable because Bethesda, both as a collection of individual people and as a corporate entity, have a vastly different culture, attitude and principles in terms of game design and what is 'cool' or 'fun'. A 'Fallouty' FO3 was never going to happen if Bethesda made it, that's just not their thing, and that's not their 'fault'. I think as far as it was reasonable, Bethesda did hit a good balance in their direction, a good level of compromise between what they do well and the essence of Fallout. My only regret is that the implementation was pretty poor in some crucial areas, so that it remains a not-very-Fallouty-but-very-fun-game.

Absolutely Fantastic.

If you can run and sneak at the same time, doesn't that mean free kills?

It's funny how those lenses work. I re-played FO1, 2, BG1, 2 and PS:T last year, and they were still great. I'm playing Ultima 7 for the first time now, and it's great too. I think it works the best with people who just play whatever's out in the market right now, and not very well with people who go back adn forth the timeline and play games whenever.

I had an interesting experience yesterday. Friend of mine likes games and is generally good at them, but has never had time to play them a lot or keep up with anything. I saw that he had been playing Oblivion for quite a while, and got up to level 22. Of course, he had only completed about 3 or 4 quests (he called them 'missions', I guess he treated it as a fantasy GTA), wasn't quite sure how to use most of the spells or how to enchant things, but maintained that the game was quite fun for just wandering around doing whatever he liked and ignoring the stupid-sounding dialogue... he just wished the world wouldn't scale. Yeah, he couldn't tell how to kill a ghost but he could tell the world level-scaled. mkreku's been pretty determined for about two years that all FO1/2 fans who happen to dislike FO3 are all tinfoil nutters, by the way, so I wouldn't mind... FO3 had books as well, I seem to remember? The bobbleheads were different as they (1) gave you much more significant bonuses, (2) were linked to achievements and (3) colecting one, as opposed to reading a book, doesn't make much sense. It was more a symptom than the illness, though, as far as allegations of pastiche come against FO3.

Reinstalled Dragon Age on the reformatted comp, and my social network profile seems to have lost my redeemed Shale code. So now I can't get Shale and my code is invalid, unless I resort to 'workarounds'. Screw that, I can live without Shale since he'll probably bug out before the game's done anyway. When it comes to the user, keep it simple, doofus.

Project for myself this year is to sleep before midnight. Not doing well so far, averaging 1am-2am, but I really do need to scale it back. It sucks, because on odd days when I do get up at something crazy like 7am I really feel how great it is.

Don't mind Volo, he's just being Volo. He'll say '80' eighty times before the xpack is out. I don't know about 'value for money' but I'm pleased they're actually getting something of a decent size out, even if I have to pay more I'd rather get something that actually takes more to play than it does to install (and fix). I'll see whether they actually introduce gameplay improvements and sensible 'epic' levels though.

Exporting 'final saves' has been a very standard feature of video gaming this decade, so I'm not worrying.

Hope they get that right, the character development system was clearly set for a ~20 level cap.

Things that are known to cause a high level of accidents and/or particularly damaging accidents are usually banned or called to be banned. Gun accidents also involve, say, the individual panicking or losing his/her head, not just handling problems.

It's pretty damn obvious that GD doesn't mean it in such an extreme way though. Or are you trying to say it's just a slippery slope? You'd think the obvious answer is try to find some balance between freedom and collective good, since thats what the Western world has tried to do for decades now. But here we are seemingly stuck between "FREE FREE FREE ALL BY MYSELF" and regime du Stalin.

If only Arcanum sold enough to make a sequel straight away. Same engine, same things, but produced better, balanced better and 'done right'.

It's fun. Besides, I picked up all this stuff while playing the game, actually, not sitting down with paper.

Bit extreme I think, taks. Sure a state with absolute control over an unarmed populace is bad, but it's not so sure if a 'reasonably' (yeah, i know) armed populace is better. Satisfy the needs of the individual first -> betterment of society 'always'? really, always? No time to unravel this properly at the moment, but just strikes me, why go that far?

You should never, for any weapon, need to go over 200, unless you're going for a specialised offensive build that tries to kill everyone with 95% aimed head shots before they lift their finger. You can, I believe, get a good (80%+) hit rate with 'normal' hits against all arena enemies at 175. This would have given you a 200 dodge - enough to survive against Dellar. If you're having trouble with balance, try this; first, get your attack up to ~75, then block up to ~75. Then alternate between them until 150 attack, and henceforth focus on dodge with the occasional attack when you get your hit % going lower.

Man, just got in here late, but we actually believed the hoax leak? That was rubbish, I'm disappointed. Chinese 'hari kiri', my ass.

Thing is, by that time you get so many points and so much money, unless you screw up (i.e. waste too much of your money or spread out your points weirdly) beforehand, it's impossible not to be superior. If you're a blocker, you will have as good as, or better, armour than him, and will be able to close in and slam him to death, as long as you work the movement squares and such right. e.g. you can simply aim-hit to arm and out-damage him. If you're a dodger, again, you should have at least 200, possibly up to 250 dodge by now, and therefore dodge ~80% of all his efforts.

A tower shield negates the use of a helmet as well, as you can use it to cover head shots. You might also wnat to use heavier shields if you have no more points but find you need block more than you need attack/dodge at that moment. Otherwise, yes, a buckler's pretty useful.

To be absolutely honest, I'm staying clear of actual volunteer work for now because I find strangers very uncomfortable. I've done very small-scale one-time stuff with the church and such and it hasn't been pleasant. I plan to begin with the impersonal bags of money first then work up to some regular involvement for my adult days, though. I considered all the names mentioned here, and I've decided to start with small but regular donations to the MSF. I like the sound of them and I probably want to help make sure kids get life-saving medicine, then add on education donations later on.

That's something I (try and) do already, though. I don't think it's a stretch to do a little of both. MSF sounds and looks good at the moment. I might take a couple days to fish round for any well-run and non-discriminatory Christian initiatives other than World Vision, and/or anything that looks at disadvantaged children in my country of birth (South Korea).

These days, I have a stable, if miniscule, source of income. As such, I thought it was high time I started giving away some of my money in some form of aid or charity. However, I am not exactly a paragon of virtue. So I want to start small, around 20-25NZD (15-18USD) a month, and work my way up. I want no letters from African kids or any such involvement at the moment. I would preferably like to help young children on areas of education and health. So: (1) What would be a reputable organisation I can trust to use the dosh properly and productively? None? All? (2) Does every little bit help, or am I better off raising the $ to something more substantial in order to actually be helpful? (3) General commentary. The only name that comes to my mind is World Vision who are very active at advertising in these parts, but my credit card wont' work with them at the moment anyway, so I'll take ideas from you all.

Yes, but Irenicus voice actor made the story enjoyable all by himself.

VIII was fun, its just that you could break the system so badly and get super powerful munchkins. The plot doesn't actually make sense, but runs the game well enough. And the card game is great. Playing Ultima VII: Black Gate on Exult. Runs and looks great.