Tigranes

Well, managed to pummel my way into Act 4, level 24. Had to solo the High Council and Mephisto, which was annoying - when Chain Lightning and Glacial Spike are your main weapons those life-leeching lords are relaly hard to get rid of. Spammed a lot of Static for the council bosses & the big baddy, but got by alright. Act 4's too hard for me to solo though, it seems. I've got about 30str, 60dex, 50vit and 40en - plus items. Pelta Lunata, Isenhart(?) Set breastplate, Death Set sash, +40%FCR amulet, then the rest are forgettable (including, somehow, a plain cap). Got a nice staff in the works but I'm reluctant to lose Lunata, and I haven't found a single decent orb yet, which is sad. Tagged all cold/lightning skills up to the level24-tier so far, with 2 in CB/Lightning/CL, and 5 in Warmth. I expect I'll invest in Lightning now, while saving up for the next tier.

Yeah, did end up starting a new character. Found a nice unique buckler early on (P-something Lunata? +10vit +10energy and a bunch of othe things?) that helped me solo Act 1 in 2 hours, and get to Level 12. Only died once I think. Put 1 in CB, Static, Telki, Lightning, Icebolt, Iceblast, Frozen Armour, Shiver Armour, Frozen Nova, 2 in Warmth. I have no idea how you can tell if you have 'Max Block' so I've just been alternating points in Vit and Dex. I assume "base energy" meant put nothing in Energy, but I put a few since I never had enough.

Funnily enough, they're doing their idiot PR again. Instead of just telling us "oh, probably 20 perks? More? Definitely more than 20" they're doing completely bankrupt maths of "100 if you included multiple ranks". Who includes multiple ranks when counting the number of perks?! Well, the same people that release the number of ending permutations but not of endings, thereby making the media think the game has 200 endings! If they weren't doing this on purpose, then.... I don't mind the news about kids at all, because I think it was pretty inevitable. It would be more tiresome for Beth and us to deal with the massive backlash if you COULD shoot children. I like the bar screenie as well, really. Finally we see a ghoul that doesn't look like a Resident Evil zombie! Building is nice too, looks very American.

I don't know about 2, as apparently it was better, but 1 was truly a horrible experience. And I say that inbetween grinding Diablo 2 to catch up with my friends.

No, not at all. Bethesda's design philosophy has always been quite friendly to people new to a series.

Play on USEast, I'll play with you. Wherever 'HC' is. I will go with FO/CB and follow your guidelines, its just a matter of new character or not. We'll see, it's 9:30pm and I've got some thesis work to do.

Well I've played for only 5 hours, but I'm in Kurast with level 20. Most of that was played with one other sorc starting anew, so I consider that good time. It was pretty hilarious when I fought Duriel with 15 Vitality and like 90 health, and he would basically kill me in 1 or 2 hits. We just decided to forego tactics and go in TP, teleport around attacking him before lag killed us, immediately going back in, until he broke. I think I lost 40k in that battle. The noobage out of my system, I've got 8 in icebolt which I'm going to regret, so I may just do that and start a new character. I've been using lightning a bit in the Act 2 tombs and it *is* an appealing prospect. With Frozen Orb as additional ranged skill CB/FO does sound appealing (and new). Or I might do CB/FO anyway with this char and accept less efficiency. Depends.

I assume one takes charged bolt because of lightning? Damn, I alreayd have 8 in ice bolt (for the cold stuff).

Hah, yes, I remember following big 'uns around in Cow Level as level 30 or something. I was never very good at avoiding getting killed though (already died about 5 times in Act 1).

*shrug* The original Fallouts had their (numerous, outrageous) indulgences, but I always considered the world at large to be quite sparse. The Enclave was generally limited to their own base, and the Brotherhood of Steel were never big - and always dwindling, themselves mostly ruined and forgotten, by the time the player got there. In practice you never had big squads of Enclaves or BoS or whoever running around fighting big firefights with supermutants, which is what is being hinted at in Washington. But no, it's not a big gripe from me. I was happy with FO2 having all those whacky things - its more about delivery. The idea of having even robotic horses wouldn't really bother me if the delivery was on target. That's how I look at things. I was fine with BoS because you didn't actually see them trotting around, they were mostly gone. I was fine with Enclave as a limited thread. I wasn't fine with Hubologists and the Chinese because they were ill-defined and seemed to be planted there just to add 'colour'. And equally, the reason I don't want to see BoS and Enclave in FO3 is because of poor delivery: they have no reason to bet here, and not only that, there seems to be a possibility they'll run amok like some sort of army. I mean, they might as well create some of their own lore..

Heh. American placenames never cease to surprise me. Fair enough, I will have to retract my frothing, then. About the Enclave, unless my memory is very very wrong, there are allusions within FO2 itself that says the Enclave had various spread out outposts farther East. I really don't see them moving wholesale to bloody Washington DC and still having enough materials to Vertibird everywhere though, that's the point. You blow up their big offshore base, kill the president, Horrigan, etc etc etc, and after 30 years you find them helicoptering everywhere pouring in army-size troops all the way on the East Coast? In as sparse a postapoc setting as Fallout?

Yeah, I think I quit before synergies came in. Looked a little bit up and am investing into Ice Bolt as apparently that helps Frozen Orb. Glacial Spike as well? Ah. Level 15 and got to Act 2, doing okayish with no real swag to speak of (obviously). Already have 100 energy (i thinka bout 90 without items), so probably time to put a reasonable amount in Dex. (heh, still on 10vit.) Good point about only going for cold - sorely tempted to just branch out into lightning, but not really sure how that would work - in the past it wasn't really a good idea.

To be fair, no, a robotic horse is not confirmed: a previewer saw the blueprints for a robotic horse in the loading screens and assumed this. It could actually be in the game, yes, but... well, I do have a low opinion of Bethesda, but would even they do something so stupid? I mean, a robotic horse? Edit: RangerSG: The problem is that this is "'Giddyup buttercup', a robot pony for little girls.". The parts I thought were really stupid in that recent preview were, though: (see http://www.nma-fallout.com/ for source) Apparently we've got a fully organised military organisation which has the resources to just vertibird in and out everywhere because some guy and a dog is attacking them. So your radio is going to give you Ink Spots and other '50s-ish songs, then, uh, Three Dawg will buzz in and give you 'da w3rd on the latest akshun! Possibly with lots of swear words, blunt parody about pornography/drugs and whatnot? Nothing wrong with this, at all, I like it. Except we're going from Bigtown to Germantown. I mean, okay. We had Junktown. Where everything was junk. But Germantown? I mean, seriously, that's the best name you can come up with? I dunno. They aren't big things. I just find it so odd that such a high-budget title by such a high-profile studio which has made RPGs for so long, comes up with... Germantown.

So uh, I caved in and bought meself some cheap second hand D2/LoD. Wa-hey! Its been so long since I played though, so I forgot everything. I know I want to play sorcereress again, but I forgot all those basic things like where I should put my skill points in and the possible combinations. I don't like following cookie cutter builds, but I want to remember those basic competitive hints - help Krezack, etc? I really don't remember much at all - I'm thinking of going Frozen Orb / Energy Shield though I might look at alternatives like Inferno or Blizzard specialisation. Just basic questions like, do I simply pump all the points into Energy or look at putting some into Dexterity? For skills it would be Orb, Cold Mastery, Telekinesis and Energy Shield at 20.. then probably a bit in Static Energy and Teleport.

I'm quite surprised at all the vitriol. I mean, I can't blame people for being skeptical of a game that has spent 4 years in pseudo-hype-no-info-simmering-pot, but what really is there to hate? Do you really hate anything in any fantasy setting? Really? From the very limited information/promises we have available, I think its quite very clear that they are trying to distance themselves from D&D / FR / LOTR style settings. Whether their 'alternaative' turns out to be any fresher remains unknown, but they are very consciously fronting this different fantasy setting, with elements that a lot of people on this board have wanted (low magic, distinct cultures, backgrounds, customisation within classes, politics, etc). Sorry Kaftan, but you aren't doing yourself any favours with this one. Isn't it all about delivery? Mass Effect's setting doesnt' really interest me at all, it feels to me like generic B-grade sci-fi. Now that's subjective and you can argue that, but that's fine. What I'm saying is, sci-fi / futuristic settings are just as overdone and cliche as fantasy ones. It depends on your exact execution, variations within a type, etc. Saying anything is better than fantasy, even sci-fi, is like saying, uh, anything's better than another Bourne, why can't we have another Bond?

Not responding to your post as a whole oerwinde, but: I must disagree with that. Doesn't mean that I'm saying parental influence will screw with their head forever, but people aren't some sort of rational beings able to completely transcend their upbringing and formative years. Whether the injunction was right or not is certainly up for debate, but the mother's actions on her children do have significant consequences, if not absolute and total. Edit: Having read the article, I find it amusing (and sad) that her actual views and the views she was teaching her daughter were not elaborated on. Are they actually Nazi by admission, or what is their association with the symbol? I mean, you can be 'proud' to be White and be far away from drawing swastikas. What are their actual views? Have they even bothered to find out, or they just went SWASTIKA?

DA never was vapourware, but I wonder if we'll get anything new this time.

Griefing is undesirable, full stop. PVP if you want, PVE if you want. It's that easy - until you try to look at it backwards and see if it can be justified. That said, the ear thing *was* cool, I enjoyed a lot when I did have PVP 'duels'.

Sounds cool, I'll definitely check it out when I play IWD1 again.

Well, wow. I really liked SCSII's improvements to tactics, but as its system of scripts was lacking the game something fierce, I had a look around and decided to try Improved Anvil. It had a very no-nonsense, built for BG veterans look that kinda scared me (I played it lots but I'm pretty bad)... and well, it's great, but it's torturing me worse than the Chinese on a bad day. It introduces a lot of new spells and items, some powerful, but it increases the price of some vanilla items, and uses Item Randomiser to spread a lot of powerful existing items over the planes - all this done fairly sensibly (e.g. the AC3 bracers from Adventurer's Mart is now 48k, so it's actually a big investment). But no matter all the powerups offered - the tactical challenges are decidedly punishing. They can pull all the tricks you can pull (and more), exits are often blocked for 'boss' confrontations and most of your cheeses are disallowed as well. It's kind of scary when you go to the Umar Hills temple and the jailor for Massy's cell brings up Shield of the Archons and Blade Barrier in a Chain Contingency. I get trounced a lot on Easy difficulty and I'm fine with that, but I am starting to get really fed up with the very few cheesy things the mod does include. I really don't mind reloading 30 times and spending 2 hours on one battle if there is a reasonable way to win, but let's see. All bosses have some sort of Repel Paladin ability that makes Keldorn go panic and run around in circles - no saves, no protections, not one-time but periodic automatic fire. Is that even authentic D&D? Not to mention the insane regeneration rate some people seem to like (I'd prefer big chunky HP, thank you), Windspear Hills Guardian genies with unlimited stoneskin/shadow door, etc. But it does have some ingenious challenges that make the game very new. The addition of new golem types, for example. Yeah, this was a bump.

Well, since I'm sorta antidescriptivist, this entire argument makes me roll around on the ground and sing about rabbits. Virus is the other weird one, right?

Yes?

Ah, I see. I had experience with respec in Guild Wars: you had to earn respec 'points' as you levelled up or something, so you couldn't just rebuild allt het ime. You actually had to wait quite a while. I think it worked quite well. It allowed you to mainly undo very small screwups, and every once in a long long while, completely remake your character (i.e. I managed to play a fire sorc and ice sorc, etc, with one character, which is nice). It's interesting how Boyarski is pushing the "Diablo Evolved" language in his interviews - I wonder how hardcore Diablo fans are reacting to this, especially with Boyarski's background. Are they worried about things being clogged up?

Can someone give me an idiot's explanation of respecing? Funnily enough, never heard of it before. And Diablo 2 was very colourful, with a clearly defined (bright) colour palette for each Act. Act 1, and most of Diablo 1, was pretty dark (but then most of Diablo 1 was inside a freaking cave), but to me Diablo 3 looks exactly like Diablo 2 in terms of colour/lighting decisions. Which is fine. Its just that they opted for a Guild Wars approach to landscape/forestry which makes it look more fluffy than before.

They look a lot more realistic than pretty much anything Blizzard has done in 3D. I mean, that still means a bit cartoony, but it's not that bad. It looks Blizzard, but in the crypt it looks pretty grim.