Tigranes

Dozens of vaults are left unaccounted for in Fallout lore, to allow for mods and sequels, and also to allow for some 'normal' vaults. I agree it's not the most plausible premise to play with humanity's future like that, but it makes for some good story, so I'm fine with it - as loong as they don't go too far with it. I think FO3 went slightly overboard, like a joke told one time too many.

I am hearing that the AI does indeed use flanking and other maneuvres better, but I am also hearing that it is pretty dreadful at protecting its cannons actively, or adapting to situations later in the battle, past the initial encounter. This appears to match my experiences in the demo. In RTW & MTW2 the AI was retarded on VH; this was also because they were crap at arranging their forces on the campaign map. I hear reports that in ETW at least they invade with a full stack rather than run around with fifty little squads. I already gave in with the demo, but the Steam idiocy and the AI are putting up a good fight against my TW urges. I might just wait for someone to disable Steam before I buy. On how good it is - it doesn't matter how 'good' a program is, once you throw in a middleman between yourself and the game the only way you can go is down.

Grrr, won't be out here for another couple of days. Tell me about the AI! I'm getting conflicting reports.

These guys were way ahead of their time!!!

I'll bite Hades. The Christian doctrine, as I understand it, is founded on the fact that God is the source of all Good and defines all Good. i.e. what you are doing here is applying your own standards of 'loving', 'caring', 'kind' and 'benevolent' - which have a wide range of sources - on God and saying "hang on, that doesn't sound right". Of course it doesn't! Of course, if I left it there, then it's just pointless waffle. The whole bit about Hell is simply about free choice and consequence. If you just say it bluntly, God says, "Look, I have given you the tools to follow me and do what I say should you desire to. I have also given you the opportunity to completely ignore what I say. But there are consequences to each choice. And it happens that the consequence to what I define as 'sin', is eternal suffering." I think it's a perspective issue to say that "God punishes you for not donig what he says"; it's more a case of "God has created this sytem and these laws of what is good, bad, what are the consequences of being sinful, etc". When your dad says "don't touch the frying-pan on the stove", you have a *free choice* of whether to obey that or not. But if you do touch it, you'll get burnt, not because your dad has said "haha you bastard, you didn't listen to me I WILL BURN YOU". You get burnt because that was the consequences to your action, and your dad told you not to do it because he knows what the consequences are. Obviously, the main difference in this metaphor is that your dad did not invent the rules of physics; God, apparently did. So he *could* remove the consequences to your 'sins' or at least make them lighter, if he so chose. Certainly would be nice. But then, you could say, that a world without harsh consequences to your wrongdoings is a world that encourages wrongdoings. I'm not completely committed to this, because I see the ambiguity and mystery of the communication between God as a deity and you as the believer to be much too specious and potentially corrupt. But that is how I understand the system, and that makes sense to me. After all, being a good God is different from being a nice God. I would much prefer the former than the latter. Which is a massive indictment to Christianity as a religion, Christians as a group of people who claim to follow God's word, and humanity as a whole; but not to God. Unless we prove the argument that the actions of prayer or the words of the Bible are unmistakeably biased towards eliciting such 'evil'. And I hardly think that is the case, in general. Christians that try to force their views are wrong. Pure and simple. I have a great deal of time for the religion and regularly attend church (for now), but I abhor this and protest against it. Harlequin: One of the reasons I can't trust the Bible completely, at the moment. The text does raise a great deal of questions. The most fundamental issue is that there is no consistent, general framework in whcih to interpret it; is it literal or symbolic, or both (and if both, where is it which)? Is it a collection of writings by the faithful, or with a degree of direct intervention from the divine (and to what degree)? Is it an interpretation and adaptation of divine will into a text that can be contextualised and understood by the readers of that time, or an absolutely pure and timeless text? Is the Bible as we know it "approved" by God, or were the countless editors of the text who divided the Apocrypha and persecuted various sects working 'independently'? Who knows.

Ironically, I'm still playing Oblivion and enjoying it a fair bit. Playing it straight after Morrowind I feel like I'm just trying to suck the juice out of the pale shadow, but with the mods the exploration / dungeoneering is still fun. I've just walked to all 7 cities in a fairly roundabout manner, stopping by at most places I find, and doing some quests in all the guilds. I'm level 10 and just got access to the Arcane University. This is near where the game broke completely for me last time - level scaling started producing uberbandits of Glass/whatever armour and of course enchanting gives you completely broken gear. We'll see how Fransesco and other mods fare with that. The Dark Brotherhood quests are still fun enough as I remember, but they are just as railroaded as anything else. In the Bruma one where you drop the stuffed head on top of the guy in the couch, you can hardly sneak around because the house is so tiny; in fact most of the quests feel like you are in some sort of Fast-Track world where an 'investigation' consists of talking to one beggar and stealing one book, a 'rescue' consists of kililng five goblins in a miniature dungeon, and so forth. I'll probably stick with it for a few more hours, then move on to E:TW on Friday, when it comes out here. Anybody getting it as soon as it unlocks (which I think is very soon)?

After thinking about it I've decided I'll probably buy it. They've changed enough stuff that should keep me interested, though I hope the AI isn't broken again. But then NZ has a Mar.6 release so I should have a couple of days to check the news about bugs, loading times, combat AI, etc.

I own Arcanum and Bloodlines, though I'm not sure if I can still find the former CD. I thought Arcanum was brilliant but flawed; combat was interesting with cool stuff, but broken; there were lots of bugs, including 'interface-ones', which made it annoying if you tried to quickly rush past (broken) combat; the main story was humdrum crap until a decent final twist; but the sidequests, the atmosphere, the crafting, the dialogue - all top notch stuff. I tried TOEE when it first came out. It looked horrible; art design, the presentation, the interface, etc, everything just looked B-grade and clunky, so that playing it felt like wading through mud. I appreciated the excellent conversion of D&D rules (though not as much as a pnper might, I guess), but could see no reason to suffer the story and such. Bloodlines I played a few hours with, but my computer wasn't very good yet, so the unoptimised engine *really* screwed with me (HL2 was fine) and the game was really chuggy. Combat was boring and mashy, as well. I don't mind terrible graphics or complex interfaces, and hell I played Gothic 3 at 1.00 so I don't even mind lag, but it's that feeling that everything isn't very solid that I hate. I keep thinking of going back to it, but what few hours I saw of it wasn't this super-atmospheric awesomeness that some people rave on about. It might be the setting - Deus Ex didn't do much for me, either.

That part of the quest is quite bugged; you can get stalled before offering to help, while helping, etc.

I had the same problem Mus, somebody posted a fix on the spellhold forums. I found it by the link-vine from the Widescreen Mod forum there. It involves some Microsoft compatibility program, not a lot of hassle at all - everything you tried shouldn't be needed. I'm at work but you should be able to find it pretty quickly. Give that a go, I just finished Torment on 1280x800 and it was beautiful. Anyway, I'm still on Oblivion. Thanks to Deadly Reflexes and other mods dungeoneering is quite fun and challenging, but of course the blandness of the world and dialogue remains. It just strikes me, playing FO3, Morrowind and Oblivion all in the last 3 months - for multiple quest solutions or creative solutions MW is the best, followed closely by FO3, lagging far behind on most Oblivion quests. Take 2 quests I ran into recently; -> Cheydinhal, Aldos Othran quest. Llevana asks you to investigate the extortionate taxes Ulrich Leland, the captain of the guard, is levying on the city. Okay, sure. Except his personal quarters reveal nothing, you can't even talk to him because he's so bad-tempered, nobody in town has any particular stories to tell (except the standard 'Rumours') and you can't even ask the Count about it! So you only have the option of speaking to Garrus, the second-in-command, like the Journal tells you to. Then he tells you to get the one witness, Aldos Othran. Okay, sure. You find him, then he says, "follow me", gets all angry at the guard and gets himself killed. Naturally, you can't intervene (and the guard is Unkillable anyway). Then, you finally get some options; either to trick Ulrich into coming to Llevana and get her to kill him, or kill him yourself, or follow Garrus' advice and find some evidence in his room - hang on, we've already been to his room and there's nothing! Turns out that if you go to his room before it breaks the quest because the cell has already loaded. Reloading, we now magically find an incriminating note, because the quest is in the right bloody place. Of course, we can NEVER talk to Ulrich about any of this. We can't double-cross, we can't taunt, we can't blackmail him ourselves with the note to get a cut of the pie, we can't shift the blame onto Garrus. Nuthin'. I felt like I was in some sort of Scooby Doo episode. -> Bruma, some Dark elf (Reynal or whatever) is apparently a vampire hunter, and kills a local man, says he's a vamp. I spoke to the guard, then I spoke to the widow. Well the widow says he is innocent (we don't really get any clues one way or the other), then the guard suddenly refers to me as if I had offered to 'investigate' the matter for him. (FO3 does this, too.) Well we end up finding a small journal lodged behind the dresser in Reynal's room at the local inn, which incriminates him. (That was... complex.) Basically 3 adventurers found a treasure and left it in a cave with 3 keys; one of them (Reynal) is now killing the other 2 to get it for himself. Not the most original, but I don't mind that at all, it's quite cool. Except you have no option to go to the cave and try and intercept him. You have to tell the guard captain first. Who then says "the only cave matching that description is X cave, which I shall now mark on your map so you can follow the compass". Yeah. You get told exactly what the cave is. So you go there, and Reynal or whoever walks up to you and launches into a Disney Villain Monologue about how he knew you'd come and blah blah. IF YOU KNEW I WAS COMING WHY DIDNT YOU TAKE THE TREASURE AND RUN? OR EVEN SET SOME TRAPS FOR ME? It's like we scheduled a picnic in a cave at 4 o'clock. And then, of course, at the end, you get the Macguffin, and the widow unveils its true powers for you, even though the whole reason they locked it up to begin with was because they didn't know what it was exactly. Another Scooby Doo episode. Man. I'm going to not even start the main quest and just go around do things, and exploration/combat is great with the mods, but the world really did suck int his one.

The even funnier thing is, I bet you there are hundreds of people who went: "I like these KOTOR2 and NWN2 games, I want some more from the guys who made this" www.bioware.com "Oh wow, Dragon Age! Sweet!" The whole "is Obsidian a copycat/bastard child" argument is so filled with nonsensical points I won't even go into it, but I'm sure there are a few people out there who've done that.

The inner city is basically identical subways full of the undead after another, with the occasional breath for air in a tiny area closed off by ruins and filled to the brim with supermutants. There *are* some interesting places like the Museums, though. I didn't know you could skip GNR quest by talking to Li, that's really cool (if it doesn't break the quest, that is). You didn't skip that much, though (and it's a big plus nto having to talk to that Three Dog retard).

Troika *did* design some good trolls, though.

...So this is what happens when Volourn and Sand talk at the same time.

Or just... walk around. I deliberately went North first, I believe, over the river.

Following up on that Oblivion: so I was having trouble with those bandits even after getting up to level 2, then remembered a trip wire that I jumped over. Got a bandit to chase me, tripped the wire coming backwards on to it, turned and watched as a big spikey block swung down and killed him outright (Deadlier Traps mod). Only the bandit ringleader remained, but there weren't any traps nearby. I decided to shadow him, track his movements, cast the 60 second invisibility power from the birth sign, sneak behind him, then try the jumping backstab Deadly Reflexes mod had added. Well, the first time, probably because my strength and agility are pretty low at the moment, the ringleader countered with a kick, so I fell down, then he coup de grace'd me. Second try... Yep, beheading. I guess they looked at Fallout 3. You can set the % for this though, and I set it to the lowest (10 or 15), so it won't be silly like in FO3 hopefully. So as dungeoneering goes that was pretty good. Walked over to that snow town, now I'll see how the thieving's changed and how the modified Persuasion works, etc.

Btw, while not everyone may be aware, it seems Guard Dog got himself knocked up. I don't know if anyone has close contact with him? Hope he comes back all stitched up.

He's insane... in space.

I avoided most graphical upgrades or mods that added new content, for two reasons; firstly, my internet is very slow right now; secondly, i distrust most *new* mod content like new monsters or locales, as they are usually very poor quality and don't fit well. I am not sure if there are mods to improve animations *in general*, but this combat mod I am using, I think, has added new animations for dodging and shield bashing that are very good. Im using: -> Official Patch -> Unofficial Patch -> Fransesco's Levelling Mod (which also fixes levelled quests/quest rewards, etc) -> S.P.A.M. (fixes the levelling system so its no longer uber or broken; i.e. no more putting your favourite skills in 'minor' or becoming a God superfast) -> L.A.M.E. (some sort of magic system upgrade, not quite sure what it does yet) -> Deadly Reflexes or something like that; this is the combat mod that adds the bash, kick, coup de grace, dodge and so forth. I haven't worked out everything it's added (apparently it has a jumping sneak melee attack), but it's made the combat a *lot* more challenging, dynamic, varied and hectic. it's hard and it's awesome. -> Some Guard mod that makes guards less psychic, so you can actually thief things properly. That should get fun soon. -> BTMod, Color Map, Quests Popup Remover, Landscape LOD fix, Keychain, Extended Hotkeys, some mod that makes alchemy ingredients lighter, and I think a couple of others. The important thing I think is that levelling mods like OOO and Fransesco have really matured now, so you are getting proper consistent fixes of some of the most horrendous game-ruining flaws of the vanilla game (badly level scaled monsters, level scaling quests/quest loot, broken player progression system), and adds some nice things. I'll let you guys know how it is after another session, probably tonight or tomorrow. Blood Money is entertaining, though other titles in that series are more atmospheric. It has a great level later on where its some sort of festival and you have to dodge literally hundreds of people. Bloodlines has very actiony combat. I own it, but I could never get past its chuggy gameplay on my old PC, its bugs and its boring combat. I need to try it again though. The Witcher is a solid RPG and not *that* actiony.

I didn't do the tutorial Purkake. I only realised halfway through the battle that there is a 'stay in formation' button that will prevent my ships from going all over the place spinning weirdly. Gorgon: The thing is, there is a little arrow up the top that I think shows you the wind, but that's not really visible in the game. I mean, it's not like the sea waves will reflect the wind significantly in most cases. Maybe I should have watched the sails? I don't know. I think I'll need to try the sea battle a couple more times and see how well it does when I 'get it'. No chip off the game's shoulder if that takes me a while. I might also look around TWC and other places to see how people have modded the demo to allow different battles.

Finally finished downloading the demo today, I wasn't impressed. I read a lot of impressions on various forums, and while some lauded the 'improved' AI others were skeptical that it was much different. Well, in the land battle, you are separated by a creek that you cross on the WEST side, while the American army is on the EAST. So: ---------------enemy---- --crossing--------------- -----------you------------ Well, you cross, and you find ONE unit of light infantry hiding in the woods and coming out to get ya. Yeah, outnumbered twenty to one. I didn't even notice until my hussars just walked through them. It happens AGAIN a little later. The enemy hardly moves, or just turns to face you. ---------------enemy---- --------------------------- -----you------------ec--- --------------------------- --crossing---------------- And then, you are moving slowly in an eastward arc, and you notice 'ec' (enemy cannons) separated from the enemy and CLOSER TO YOU. Except the enemy doesn't seem to care. I send some hussars down to get rid of them. The enemy responds pretty slow (i.e. AFTER you start hitting the cannons, not when they see the hussars emerge from the woods), and then only sends a tiny unit of dragoons - i.e. blatantly insufficient. so, cannons gone. I eventually have to walk right up to the enemy to engage battle. They keep formation reasonably (as they did in MTW2), but I notice the general unit is STILL by the creek facing the other way, never having moved the whole battle. So he's basically a screen away from the battle smoking a pipe looking out the countryside while his army dies behind him. Cool. I fail to see how the AI has improved in any way, but I will give it another go later and see if that one was just borked up. The sea battle I lost, because I didn't have a clue what was happening, but sea battles have always confused me, so that's probably my fault. The graphics are nice. The ships are hard to maneuvre, but I guess that is realistic. edit: oh, you wanted to know something OTHER than AI? Graphics are very nice. I played on high-ish settings and the 'persistent grass' makes the ground look very nice, units are good, smoke, etc. Didn't look too closely at the much vaunted ragdolls and such. Basic mechanics like movement, formations and whatnot haven't really changed, which is both good and bad.

Playing Oblivion again. I could never go back to it, but with all the mods now that it's 'matured' it's actually quite fresh. The game is actually hard. Everyone knows the ruins you see right in front of you when you exit the sewers, right? 2 bandits outside? I sneak attacked with a bow, but with such a low marksman skill I only did 2x sneak damage, and didn't take a lot off. Arrows are harder to dodge with the mods so I was dodging, but then the guy with the hammer came at me and with the weapon & strength really knocks me back, so that I can't really get a good rhythm going. Then when I'm down he kicks me (mod). Backward running speeds are slower now so I can't even run back while firing arrows. I used all the potions I found in the sewers then used the Imperial power to drain the fatigue so I could knock HIM down. Then I got inside the ruins, but that bandit ringleader is too strong so I'm having to sneak around everywhere *actually afraid* (because they can kill me so bad). And I'm still Level 1, with the level adjustment mods.

I am reading the HARDEN MURRUMBURRAH EXPRESS from COOTAMUNDRA, Australia, for work. You freaking crazy people

That is, by the way, 22 years of being stationed in the middle of some God-forsaken crapland, not to mention the occasional threat of death. And then, if you're lucky, you'll get that plot of land in some other God-forsaken crapland! Other legions did, too, and I suppose some of them did get on the gravy train when it all worked out.

Perhaps it never got off the ground and was rejected in favour of Obsidian. Interesting nonetheless. What have Liquid done, again? (I'm sure I've heard about them...)