Tigranes

Yep, I am sure somebody out there wanted to pick the license up again; I'm sure Feargus or Cain would have considered it. It's just the fact that WoTC doesn't want anybody using settings they've killed, to 'direct interest' towards 'official' settings.

I nearly always play some sort of mage or thief. I use BG1Tutu, which I'm sure you already know about, but if not, definitely use it before you start the game. I loved Minsc and Edwin in BG2, so it always gives me a big dilemma when I play BG1. For one thing, Dynaheir is bloody annoying, and her portrait looks like some sort of shamanistic prostitute on opium. These days I just cheat to take them both, and in my role-playing justify that my assassin has carefully crafted a situation where the Gnolls kill Dynaheir and the player is made to look like he tried his best. Khalid and Jaheira are good, Kivan is nice and Viconia isn't bad either. In BG2 I like Edwin and I always take him, even if I'm a mage. Hey, more mages the better. Jan is funny, though he is hit-and-miss for people, Minsc is great, so is Korgan. Kheldon is probably the only paladin I like, Sarevok/Yoshimo are great too. I don't think I've *ever* taken Mazzy, Aerie, Nalia or Haer'Dalis for any length of time, just because they're more annoying than an obsidian religion debate + Codex discussion on sexual deviance + those bits on chocolate chip cookies that look like chocolate chips but are actually grapefruits, making for an altogether disappointing experience. What mods are you using? In fact, from what you say it sounds like vanilla BG2 - can it be true? I don't think I've played vanilla in years. There are several mods which I would consider almost 'patches' in how well they are integrated and how they add to the gameplay, such as the Banter Pack.

I think it might have been, but I don't remember the movie clearly enough.

By natural reasons, I mean IWDs had a deliberate focus on combat. But I could never see this 'tactical' side of IWD. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's just me not seeing it, but in terms of movement, position, maneuvre and so forth, the IE engine has a limited repertoire; there are few and very obvious things you can do. Most of the tactical flair in IE combat comes from the arsenal of abilities each side is able to command, including buffs, debuffs, immunities, AOEs, summons, transformations, items, etc. BG1's strength was that a low-level campaign allowed them to maximise the excitement of scarcity, and ranged combat was actually useful; BG2's strength was the huge number of varied mage-duels and a huge variety of enemies with all their special abilities, weaknesses and immunities. IWD2 also used exploding barrels liberally and had a few interesting 3E builds on their enemies. I've finished IWD1 twice (3x?) and I don't really see much of that going on - to me it feels more like BG1/BG2 but without those specialties. I have no idea why I seem to get that experience, though.

Yep. I definitely Ctrl+Y (instakill) through about one in three 'mundane encounters' in the BG series now (e.g. oh god, another swarm of hobgoblins?). This occurs with higher frequency in IWD series for natural reasons; I'd rather spend my time on the 'fun' battles (which is why I still enjoy most BG2 battles). I think that's a fair enough accusation against western CRPGs in general, not just Bioware; BIS and Obsidian are thus guilty of it too. I would much prefer that there were half or even a third the number of encounters, but they were carefully prepared set pieces rather than 'here, have 5 monsters, do whatever'. Challenges like crafted ambushes, exploding barrels a la IWD2, or particular conditions in a dungeon which really tax your endurance and make you rue every potion you drink, conserve your energy. This can exhaust the player if done often, but once or twice in the game it really makes a special experience. Imagine that instead of your standard dungeon in NWN2 OC, e.g. the orc one, where you can leave at any time, rest at nearly any time, and most encounters involve "orcs in a room, you run in, you fight, orcs in a room...". Some rooms should be empty; you shouldn't have to find enemies in every room. This actually increases tension, and it makes it less grindy. Set pieces like you find a secret door but the Orcs are actually waiting there: poisoning Orcs; trying to find the best way to their supply room or med-room of some sort to stack up on potions: contraptions you can turn against them; 'special enemies' with particular quirks; etc.

Yeah, I was still around when both mods were going full steam. EB was a lot more ambitious, but I actually preferred RTR, mainly because EB was like at 0.6v after 3 years or something, and it was too ambitious for my computer - it couldn't handle having 3000 provinces and the map stretching all the way to India or something (and I didn't even WANT that, either). As Leferd says, too, I felt they were more concerned about making it *the* historical simulation rather than making a fun game on some points, and at that time it really had to be a labour of love to play it. I saw that they rae finally up to 1.0 now, I wonder how it is.

Season started for my university social team, 8-2, 3-2 and 7-1 losses, I think (I lost count of the goals we conceded.) Problem is that generally our team is good and we have a few able players, but we have two or three players who really have no idea what they are doing. Our fullbacks have no concept of line defence, and basically every time an opposition throws a throw-in behind them they just stand there and go 'huh' instead of tracking back. It's really sad when throw-ins rip open your defence with regularity. Also, no standard goalkeeper really hurts; one of the players brought in his buddy for the first game and he palmed in completely easy balls into the net 4 times in 10 minutes. In fact, he was about as good as my mom. I got pretty pissed off last game, in fact, because I was right-wing, but due to the aforementioned failures of the right-back I was basically defending both their right wing and their right back; then when we attack I'd bust my butt to get up there, but idiotically both our central midfielders, our left winger and both our strikers would bunch up in the left quadrant of the field and try to do everything there (and get bunched up and failz) while I am open. Then the right-back who was subbed on proceeded to just say, "I want to attack! Everyone is attacking on the left! Let's go!" and stay in the left attack zone leaving me dry. Ah well. Of course, the next day I had the sense to play three hours of basketball, and now I'm dying.

I read the article Xard, but CA gave a huge middle-finger to the community and their own reputation when they hyped up AI and stuff in M:TW2 and the AI was basically just as stupid (or even worse) as in RTW. You were playing, essentially, the same game with a few extra features added on like a boil on a skin and lots of re-texturising. The AI was an amazing disaster and until I see improved AI with my own eyes CA won't get nothing from me. It's a pity, I put a lot of hours into TW and they would be fantastic games without that caveat.

Yeah, NMA seem to hate it, but I don't mind. But then, I never get CE's, anyway. Maybe once I have real disposable income in my life. I thought the bobblehead was pretty cool, the lunchbox was a pretty silly idea - what would have been fun was a GECK, Repair Kit or something of the sort. Stylised can of nuka-cola. Gecko-skin eraser/magnet/plasticthingy.

It does seem that there are many cases of people enjoying BG1 more than BG2, Fallout 1 more than 2, IWD1 more than 2, NWN-(uh, oh wait) when they have played the original first. I actually ended up playing all three of those backwards, and like the sequel more. I guess its' about the first one you get into. To be fair, though, BG1 and BG2 had a number of crucial differences, so you can see how one can enjoy one and not the other. I still play both games, of course, but it seems that every game has a little 'peeve' for me that I end up finding an expedient loophole to bypass, like a cheat. Having seen all the scenery there is I Ctrl+J (insta-teleport) or use area code teleport in IE games to avoid backtracking and going back and forth in quests; I godmode the Warehouse Of the Thieves of the Black Silhouette Guild in NWN2; so forth.

Well... I'm definitely not buying another Total War game until they fix the stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid AI. Ugh. I love the sound of a tech-tree, but the fact is, they sound like they are still only concerned with making the scale bigger and bigger and adding new features, without making the AI understand any of it. Another resource-hog, crap-and-unplayably-stupid/boring-AI TW in the works. But you can't help but be excited when you look at that game.

Phooee, what's that burning smell around here? Debate the point not the person, Pop/everyone else. There is nothing wrong with having a viewpoint about the medium or its users in general, as long as one is willing to accept new evidence and not force his own down everyone's throat. Personally speaking, I find this dichotomy between entertainment and art very very artificial. Certainly you find works in which everyone finds value but nobody enjoys; certainly you find works that people are aware have no value and is 'trash' but enjoy anyway. But inbetween those two extremes there is a whole world and putting it on a e-a scale is very reductive. Was Torment, for example, an 'artistic' game which was not as entertaining but was 'deeper'? Putting aside the question of whether Torment was 'deeper' than your average game aside, for a moment, personally speaking, I thoroughly enjoyed, and had fun playing, Torment precisely because of the qualities that others might say made it 'deep' or an 'artistic' game. Unless you want to push the archaic and pretentious high-brow / low-brow culture distinction, this would not mean that I have superior 'taste' than anyone else. Complexity is not always better than simplicity, and so forth. It's simply that Torment's particular strengths in storytelling and so forth hit the right notes for me, and I had fun, I was entertained, and I was enthralled. Which is what any game tries to do. Torment and Halo do not have, fundamentally, different aims. The only difference is the specific tropes each game uses to achieve that aim; and usually, the more simple and visceral that trope is, we tend to label it 'low-brow'. Someone who plays Torment and Halo and Mario Kart and enjoys them all (hah, me!) isn't being a hypocrit, in that sense. He is simply finding the games that use the right tropes in the right way to, personally, make him entertained. And msot people are capable of being entertained in numerous ways. However, this kind of debate is still very important, I feel - we could juts say "everyone just play whatever they want, nothing wrong with that", and sure, at a personal level, there is nothing wrong with that. But tastes are engineered, tastes are acquired and constructed. We aren't born with a natural tendency to like certain types of games over others. We are influenced by how we come to understand what kind of things games are, what kind of experiences they can give us and what we can/should expect from games. That's why we speak of the Halo Generation, some with worry. I'm not saying go to war over taste. I'm saying there is good reason to sound the drums and work up enthusiasm and debate about what you think games should be and what kind of experiences they shoudl deliver. Saying 'everyone do whatever they want' sounds very egalitarian and libertarian, but not really. As for Bioware, I don't think the author was saying their games are BAD, or that Bioware is at fault for the press they receive. Certainly, that's not my point of view, either. Bioware work hard to make good games and they are dedicated to their art. Bioware work hard to promote their game. It also happens to be that Bioware is much stronger at production value and polish than at any individual RPG element (IMO); also that they are very skillful at creating an image of themselves as stellar quadriple-A developers and of their games as groundbreaking superstars. Notice how I'm carefully avoiding any pejorative connotations. We could call them cookie-cutter, we could call them devilish smart, we could call them soulless corporate giants, or whatever, but that kind of name-calling implies judgment and that is eventually left up to the individual. For me, I like Bioware. They make good games. But from past experience I know that they are not likely to give me a game that really gives me fantastic, fantastic moments (except for bg1/2).

Definitely, I wouldn't say they are bad. The only BIO experience I would say was 'bad' was the NWN1 OC. That was just a piece of crap.

Getting away from comparisons with Black Isle, it is true that "Bioware seems better at making you believe their games are top-tier than actually making top-tier games", and that Bioware is very, very good at this art. The CEO-duos are very smart people in this regard. This doesn't make them soulless product machines out to manipulate honest innocent gamers or anything, its just an accurate statement I feel. Certainly this is very true, IMO, post-Shadows of Amn. Now we all know we can be veyr subjective about what constitutes good narrative, or good characterisation, or whatnot. What I'm saying is true is, that Bioware's greatest strength lies not in their dialogue/narrative: there is some good stuff there, but generally it's very Disney/Hollywood and very average and forgettable, nothing more or less than you expect. Similarly, their art direction and world design checks all the checks and jumps the hoops, but rarely more. In KOTOR you see worlds you expect to see, rendered suitably well to evoke Star Wars feel but not much more. Jade Empire was probably the strongest here, but anybody who isa ctually familiar with that region and its art knows that it was very much a poor man's substitute in many places. And so forth. But all of this is put together in a very competent and professional manner, and with the funding and the drive, they achieve very good production value that clothes the game and gives the entire package something of a irresistible momentum, especially because the RPG genre is not exactly bursting with games at the moment. That doesn't mean that Bio games suck, they don't. Precisely because they are so good at image control, setting expectations, making games with very good production value and internal coherence, and so forth. But this does go a long way to explain how you can play a bio game, have fun, be satisfied, but know that it's a long way from the dizzying heights of superlatives the reviewers seem to pop up with every day. Edit: yeah, I know somebody will come in and blast me for this post. Am I getting controversial or what?

Truth. I know some people out there just buy them because the functionalities fit their particular needs and don't buy into the hype, but I actually think they're in the negative. There are people who, just like in stories, buy an iPod because they think it's COOOL and Steve Jobs is like double chocolate chip cookie in ice cream. There are people who know nothing about gadgets and are intimidated by them, and just get an iPod because its huge marketing makes it instantly recognisable to even them, and it doesn't LOOK like it's going to cause you trouble, either. (Until it does.) There are people for whom iPod has become the standard and the 'leader' in the industry due to hype and marketing, and image control, and they judge all other players against the iPod. There are definitely mp3 players superior to the iPod, but usually not one absolutely and substantially superior; so in the face of that they'll go with the iPod. It's definitely not 'crap' or anything, but Apple did a very good job of marketing it, didn't they? I own a Samsung YP-10 that came with bluetooth headphones. Basically same as iPod nano, but much prettier interface, similar (i think a bit more) functionality, a touch screen rather than the wheel which I personally hate, and it looks better, for me.

Speaking of parentage, yeah, my parents were very sensible about stuff like that. They got me a Sega Genesis when I was 5, and got me hooked on Sonic for most of my youth; my cousin had an SNES and later N64. But they absolutely forbid me from playing shooters or fighting games, like the ones you see in the arcade. I wasn't really part of a crowd that goes to arcade when they're 8, anyway, and so I never, ever, played a single shooter/fighter game till, I think, 10 years old. But by then I was already hooked on FF7, so yeah. I suppose my parents set me on my gaming path.

There are some games which are on my permanent replay pantheon. BG1/2 (I finished it over a dozen times without break in early high school days, with lots of time; since then, the last ~5 years, I've played it basically about once every six months.), Torment (again, once every year or so), Fallout 2 (same), Thief 2 and 3 (same). I've also come back time and time again to Icewind Dale 2 and Final Fantasy VI; I suspect I will also do the same with mask of the betrayer. Hard for me to go back to Fallout because I got so used to the zanyness of FO2, which is also a bit more colourful; FO1 looks a lot more aged in comparison. There's good stuff in there, but I don't have the patience. Similar situation with IWD, and really, its only the 3rd Ed combat that keeps me through IWD2 anyway. For 2nd Ed, BG2's magefest really tickles me right. Arcanum I've played 3 times, probably will try it again next year or so. Some games I really enjoyed the first time but couldn't stand to go back to were the KOTORs (probably a lot to do with my dislike of the setting though), Oblivion (you see it once...), anything on NWN1. I own Bloodlines, but my comp couldn't handle it, the badly optimised engine was struggling and it was just really jerky and laggy everywhere, so I quit. I still haven't gone back to it, I probably will when I get a new PC nxt year. ToEE never interested me.

Edit: Recap for Krezack. They say: 1. Our book seeks to redress some of the bad research and media hype surrounding violence. We suggest that there is no concrete evidence linking violence to videogames - I mean, violence has gone down a lot the last 20 years, vidgames have gone up! 2. The methods of some of the research are very questionable. For example, they have someone plya a violent game for 20 minutes then have them blow an air horn or something; then they find that those who played the game blow the horn for a fraction longer or something. The thing is, with violent films for example it's well documented that there are SHORT-TERM effects where you're more likely to be violent or try to emulate it,but long-term, it wears off (you watch a jackie chan film, you imitate it, but you aren't going to be doing that a month later). Same with games. 3. Their findings suggest that there are two demograhpics most predisposed to 'making trouble', whatever that may be. One, applying for both boys and girls, is those who play M-rated games for over 15 hours a week; the other, applying only to boys, is those who dont play videogames at all. The key point is that playing games seems to be a social marker of confidence for boys, and its notable that the Virginia shooter kid report quoted a roommate as saying, he never touched videogames, and that was odd because all boys play some video games. Note that the above is the opinions of the authors, not me or the interviewer. ---- Well, some of it is definitely good, such as their pointing out the idiocies in the air horn experiment method (i have heard of similar elsewhere, but they are not really scrutinised in media, are they? --;, but I have reservations about what they've done as well. Naturally, in 6 minutes they couldn't take the time to describe their own methods or go in depth, but they seem to be very, well, populationistic about their conclusions; they just count statistics, its eems, and work out correlations between statistics (i.e. how many % of boys who dont play vidgames at all get into trouble? That's the very worst of quantitative fudging). What counts as 'trouble'? If the people who dont play games at all get in trouble, what are some of the sources of their behaviour? What's defined as trouble, does that mean delinquency or also anti-socialness? Again, they might well clear all this up in the actual book, so it's a provisional critique. I was very satisfied again to hear the debunking of the Virginia Tech myth though, it was absolutely stupid how the media did their very best to prove a certain mister Debord right.

Oh my god, Westerners who have read the Three Kingdoms?! LETS TALK, MY FRIENDS *ahem* Yeah, living in New Zealand it's so hard to find anyone who knows about it, it's pretty amazing. I read a 10-book version compiled and commented on by a Korean professor, very nice work. Obviously that means all the names are transliterated to Korean, but yeah. Its a fantastic story and really, there is absolutely no equivalent in Western history - never has a single scholar who studied books all day been able to so easily fit into the intrigues of the court and dictate the fates of nations. Also, some delightful tactical warfare, even if much of it is historically debatable. What versions have you folks read? Currently I'm getting a 3-book version of Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. Liu Bang is the first emperor of the Han dynasty, and thus is a distant (diiiistant) ancestor of Three Kingdoms' Liu Bei; this occurs ~400 years before the Three Kingdoms, when Qin Shi Huangdi, the unifier of China (Qin Dynasty, the one who burnt all those books) died and his empire fell apart. There's lot of the same things going on like Xianyang, the super-smart advisor. Liu Bang is very similar to Liu Bei in that they start off from low social positions, are absolutely useless at things like administration or warfare, but persevere through their charisma and leadership - though, of course, in this one Liu Bang actually wins. But then, Cao Cao was a bloody genius.

Inventory tetris in NWN1 was horrible. Well, it's in NWN2 too, right? Yeah. I will always prefer the IE engine solution, actually, or just Gothic's superdimension. As for immershun, I just imagine that my characters each have a bag of holding on their belt.

Martin and Andy, who used to work at Obsidian, have left to work in other places. So, the writer is sad. Sad as a melon.

Heh, ok. 1. How old are you? 20. 2. How often do you play MTW? I purchased the game at release, and played it quite often for about two-three months. Since then, I haven't touched it. 3. For how long a day do you play MTW? Back when I was playing, about two or three hours a day, if I was home. 4. To the best of your knowledge what is your family’s history? European? African? Asian? Asian. (South Korea) 5. What factions do you usually play as? Nearly always the Byzantine Empire, otherwise England. 6. Does your family history effect your faction choice? Well, since I'm Korean, it can't, as the game does not cover this area. If the game covered the area and faithfully rendered the countries in the region (instead of, say, Europa Universalis, where it's just a small country in the middle of nowhere), then yes, I think I would be playing my country a lot. But it also has to do with gameplay choices; e.g. I don't really like England or anything, but I used to play them just for the longbowmen. Finally, it wouldn't really have anything to do with patriotism or wanting to make my country awesome; it'd just be that I know a lot about Korean history and history of that region, so it would be more fun for me to play... just like, say, me playing the Byzantine Empire. 7. Why do you play MTW? I played MTW2 (and also RTW and MTW) because I love history, and that game, for a while, gives you a sense of forming a historical narrative, and it really helps immersion. In all of those games I would play in as much a 'historical' manner as possible (not expanding too fast, not conquering areas the said country never even had designs on, etc). I stopped because the AI was extremely horrible and the game became a grind-fest of battle after battle, and that didn't help the historical narrative thing either. It's a pity because it's a good concept and a good game. 8. Does the historic validity of MTW encourage you to play? See (7), I guess. Yeah, that is a large part of its appeal. 9. What aspects about MTW encourage you to play over other computer games of the same medieval genre, like World of Warcraft? World of Warcraft isn't medieval though. :/ I'm surprised you say this. The warcraft world is High Fantasy, a genre which takes inspiration from medieval Europe as well as other areas, such as Nordic mythology. World of Warcraft in the end really has nothing to do with the medieval genre. This might be pedantic, but I thought you would want to clear something like that up. Anyway, rather than MTW encouraging me, yeah, for the same reason I play MTW, I also got into other games like Civilisation or Europa Universalis.

That's fair enough a criticism, rn. The more I think about it, and the more I remember, I think it's just a subjective opinion, mainly fuelled by the fact that I don't like the Star Wars setting so I was never immersed as much, and that I found particular hooks in BG2 characters very good for me (Minsc, Jan, Edwin..). If we were trying to argue about quality, no, I would no longer say that there's a big and substantiated gap. I understand, conversely, there was quite a lot of love-hate involved with Kreia.

The problem is, it's actually pretty easy to avoid products made in China (except for clothing, maybe), but not products made with components possibly from China. Sand may have to get rid of random bits and pieces from his computer he's posting from if he decided to be really draconian with his boycott. In clothing, electronics, toys (if you're a parent you're screwed), food you eat in the restaurant or buy take-out, possibly - it's quite difficult to entirely avoid China. Which is why if America simply stopped all trade with China, they would be royally screwed. Still, it does seem to be the only way to get any country's attention, nowadays.