Tigranes

Really? I really loved some of the touches. What did you think was fizzling out? I'm probably going to start Icewind Dale II, to prepare me for SOZ.

*shrug* that's the case with programmes. And that's what I'm saying. I don't like the philosophy here. Microsoft understands OS as something like an Adobe programme, where you have to keep adding new crap and making things look shiny and whatever. I don't want revolution or shinies or help tools or whatever with my OS, I don't want them to keep making bloated crap like Live to try and "integrate" everything. I want them to stick with lean, basic, performance-oriented OS that gives me the freedom to do what I want. I want to buy a freaking empty house, Microsoft only sells you IKEA full sets and have bolted down the furniture to the floor.

Fair enough. I'm not sure what the 'proper' terms are, but: The Witcher, for me, was dark derivative fantasy. In other words it followed most laws of your stock fantasy worlds, but then basically threw buckets of blood, ichor and sawdust into it and depicted what happens. It constructed the world in such a way that it showed the other side of fantasy 'as it is', and tried to do that without screaming in your face "LOOK ITS SO BAD". I enjoyed it because the setting was able to thence present some common fantasy situations in a way that is more believable, or more effective - the elf resistance in chapter 4(?), your quarrell with that villain duo in the swamps (sorry, it's been a while), and so forth. It even had soap drama with that 'party', but because it was delivered within the context of the setting it remained pretty realistic. And I'm pretty sure this was the purpose behind the game - to present a fantasy world that's gone and got itself screwed up. What I'm trying to say about DA is that it's unlikely it will be 'dark' like the Witcher, because everything I've seen - from in-game dialogue, to art direction, to devs talking, to the book chapter (which may not be the same as the game, yes, but it seems to fit at the moment) - is that the world, its narratives, its elements and its events will mostly be high fantasy stuff, and the only 'dark' bit comes from the way it's interpreted/described. So more about adding, or trying to add, to the poignancy (uh...) of the pillage & rape involved in an invasion, or an NPC with a complex, or losing your comrade in battle, or whatever. If done badly, DA will just seem like family-friendly teenage TV trying to seem cool and wise; if done well, DA will be a well-polished, standard fantasy that is a little more up-front, ruthless and 'dark'. Iasically, if you had a situation where a pregnant woman is killed by invading orc: -KOTOR1/NWN1 said "Oh, the poor unborn baby and the woman!", to which you could reply "It is horrible, and I am so sorry" or "Pfft, I don't care about them". -KOTOR2 said, "The pregnant woman died because she was weak. Because she did not have the power." -The Witcher said, "Pregnant women die. It ****ing sucks." -Dragon Age is likely to say, IMO, "Look at that pregnant woman die, with her unborn child. This is our reality. This is what the Blight/whatever means to our land. That child will never know life, etc, etc." Obviously this is provisional opinion based on a small sample of facts and may change wildly or turn out very wrong. Also, if DA turns out the way I expect... nothing wrong with that at all. About the only thing I see as a "problem" at the moment is just how much some of its devs try to trump up the 'dark' stuff.

Read it.. it's your standard fantasy fare really. For all their talk of 'dark fantasy' and 'different' and whatever, I'm pretty sure DA will turn out to be your normal fantasy world and normal fantasy story, just with a bit more death and 'mature' circumstances (no, not sexxorz). Possibly as much as the Witcher, probably a bit less. I would have welcomed a much more derivative setting than the one they are clearly going for, but I don't mind too much. Writing itself seems to be, again, your standard fantasy fare, pretty decent so far.

Maybe, just maybe, it'll end up being the most polished game in history.

MoW's been done for a year or so, its just that Atari kept delaying it to develop their retarded DRM, and now... I don't know what the hell is up with it now.

I stayed on 98SE as long as I could. Only moved to XP as programmes started becoming incompatible. Will do the same with Vista/7 then, and not before. Also, apparently if XP was a hog, it's okay for Vista to be a bigger hog? lulz. Because Microsoft won't give people who like performance and stability over shininess and "Help" features an option.

http://dragonage.bioware.com/noveltst.html You can download the first chapter of Gaider's prequel here. Won't load for my stupid internet, but will have a look at work later.

Just finished Mask of the Betrayer, for the third time. As good as it ever was. Great endings.

1) lol 32bit lol 2) lol so if its cheap its okay to be a resource hog No excuses for Vista.

Yeah, I think he didn't want to get into it unfortunately. Clearly, he hates you and will destroy your favourite chocolate brands. Honestly, I think KOTOR's stupid combat was a direct consequence of trying to bring NWN combat into a behind-the-shoulder 3D perspective. They wanted realtime/pause, they wanted lots of abilities, theyw anted direct control of party, but they wanted it all done in a camera which makes it very difficult to select things and effect large-scale abilities. As a result combat is a clusterfest, your abilities are mostly confined to smaller areas of effect, the difficulty is ramped down to comical, and so forth. Also, of course, the fact that you had blasters for half the game, and gun combat just didn't work with that system and that camera. At least ME, as far as I know, actually catered to guns.

Looks like another Windows going further towards the WE-KNOW-BEST-STOP-CUSTOMISING stages. What? I can't find anything with that crap. The Start Panel won't allow manual sorting, won't stay where it is, and... sucks. That's... what. WHY WOULD THAT BE MINOR ...they instead show previews on the taskbar. Sounds exactly like those previews in Vista's folders that caused so much frigging lag for lower-end computers. More stupid annoyances you just hope you'll be able to turn off. Sounds like the Return to Desktop button, except NEW AGE So what reason is there to get this, unless to look at the shinies? Looks like more XP for me.

Yet that's how it SHOULD work. We are experiencing a conscious and concerted effort on the part of the industry to change this mindset that if you buy it you SHOULD own it, and that's a load of crap. If Kevin is basing his argument on that (and he may not be), then I call it rubbish. Pop, the letter of the law is very different from what actually happens in the market, what people expect and what can be enforced. But when we ignore who made the law or why the law is there and just decide to follow it, that's when the law is properly realised. And, depending on the law, that's a bad thing.

Nightshape, I always thought we wanted our devs to joke around with us, not produce PR essays. I think the level design argument just got your thorns up. Also, for all the uninformed JRPG bashing that goes around here (half of which IS justified), there've been many JRPGs with more complex annd interesting combat than KOTOR. If your combat is crappier than combat where people stand on opposing sides of a tiny little patch of grass and take five minutes to summon creatures, you have a problem.

Well, devouring shot up the craving to 100 and life is really difficult there - of course, you are such a high level by then that you can play for an hour without needing to rest. I had no choice but to use Satiate and lose some XP - it seems to reset the craving at 0, as well. Quite pleasant to be forced into the action, actually. It's the consequence of getting that essence. I could never figure out how to make OoM useful. He'd always just die too fast.

How was MOTB story not finished? And I doubt Obsidian would like working on it again. The engine is about as screwed up as FO3 Harold now, and probably couldn't take any more additional functionalities. Tehy've done a massive campaign, a story-focused campaign and an exploration campaign. There's nothing screaming 'make me'. I mean, I'd love another Ziets story. But with MoW coming up (I hope), I'm sure Obs will move on.

90% of NWN looked worse than any IE game, for me. It was still good graphics in the sense that compared to other 3D games, and considering its needs as an RPG, PW-supportive MP game and toolset-supportive game, it had as good graphics as you're going to get. But I think in general 3D took a while to look good.

It would remain exactly the same, except bigger.

Is ME combat any better than KOTOR's, though? Looks pretty boring to me, but I obviously haven't tried it much.

What is really odd is how he takes the game when he runs away. I mean, why would you do that?

No, no you don't. Mine still isn't here yet, doggonit. One day I will bring death to the mail system.

The prodigal child returns!

NWN OC > KOTOR & ME. Period. ROOFLES!

Clearly, Feargus is not intimidating enough these days.

Hahahaha Carth was well developed, but in the sense that he was pure crap finely developed into a statue of crap. He screamed "generic friendly supportive companion guy who gets along with you" from the get-go, what with his bland voice, bland family-friendly dialogue and even his stats. Then he kept popping up with more inane, forgettable dialogue trying to add some kind of depth. It was like watching someone make a companion equipped only with fantasy books for 12-year olds and RPG Maker. edit: To clarify... basically, Carth's entire concept was boring. Loyal soldier blah blah blah, hate this guy for killing my family blah blah blah. It wasn't implausible or inappropriate, but there was nothing interesting in there. And it was delivered, to the hilt... sort of like Casavir or Ajantis. (For bland stereotypes delivered in an interesting/entertaining manner, see: Korgan, HK, etc.) And I obviously say that with no comparisons to this 'Kaiden', not having played mucch of ME. Seriously? How is that even possible? KOTOR1 had a tight, decent Biowarian story, meaning a Chosen One story that makes enough sense to work for the duration of the game (if not that much more), provides some fun situations, and allows for discussions of straight-up good/evil morality. It had archetypical companions that were polished to a hilt, which isn't quite so different from BG2, and worked well for archetypes that had something to deliver (HK, Canderous, etc), not so much for those whose archetypes were crap to begin with (Carth). It had abominable combat, mainly because it was too easy and the AI kept not listening to you, but it didn't kill the game or anything. And of course, the main quest and a few side quests were fine, but you did have relatively empty worlds and NPCs you could neither kill nor steal from. I wouldn't know how any of that squares up to ME, but KOTOR1 was neither a particularly deep nor complex game in terms of story, characters or world. I don't think it was trying to be, either. What it did well was provide a relatively tight-knit experience with a classic Gaiderian motley crew.