Tigranes

Caesar 3. A classic. I'm always pretty bad at this game. I cheat for money and I still find it hard to stop everything from setting on fire, or from people starving, or something - never mind balancing the books. It's a really fun game, though, tons of character in it.

Yeah, cause every time we change something, it automatically means we are improving in every way over whatever there was before; every step we take is forward! YUS PROGRESS GOGOGO. *ahem* They both have their advantages. Fundamentally, though, I too prefer the simple hit point system, because there's nothing like being reduced to two or three HP, and trying to navigate the rest of the level on tip-toes or searching desperately for a healthpack. I find there's much more tension in there than hiding in a corner waiting for it to fill back up, though that does have its moments.

Mus, sounds lovely. I love history and I wish I could have studied it in university, but in New Zealand most of the papers available in undergraduate levels are, well, pretty crap - firstly periods/areas I'm not fond of, like Elizabethan era England or WWI/WWII, and secondly, naturally, undergraduate papers make you just go over the whol eperiod in a sweeping event-based history. I do have a Classics degree, though. I just took a nap from 7pm to 10pm. Arsenal are playing at 4am my time, so it's a dilemma whether to wait or not.

Civ4 is way better than before, but you still have spearmen and bowmen beating 5 tanks.

Sand, I still don't get one very simple thing. You say the US has no compunction to help rebuild a country that has attacked the US. That's fine. 1/ No 'country' attacked the US, but ano rganisation. That's like saying if the KKK bombs China, China has the right to invade US and destroy US and just leave. 2/ Iraq had nothing substantial to do with Al Qaeda. So, as you say, invadingi n the first place was wrong. So what's wrong with helping restabilise the place? I mean, does'nt the US have an obligation HERE if not in Afghanisatn?

I'm horrible at naming things. I come across all these really weird and wonderful names, but when I have to sign up to a forum they're all hiding in the cranial recesses. Ah well. Deraldin - Tigranes was the name for several Armenian kings, among them 'the Great' (95-55BC), but really, 'great' for Armenia doesn't really mean anything for Tacitus and Rome. I find Greek history a lot more interesting than most of the Roman actually, except for the late Republic/Augustan transition period. The Periklean era for Athens is absolutely fascinating and Thucydides is a superior historian to virtually anybody in antiquity.

I have both Tacitus at Suetonius at home - they're pretty darn good, yes. Also Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus and a few others. They're actually very nice reading.

I know this is a cheap shot, but if America listened to you Sand, they wouldn't have been in there to begin with. What you are saying now is something like, "Look, it's YOUR vase. I know my son was wrong to break it with his baseball bat, but it's your vase, your business. There's no way we're going to pay for a new one, or fix this one. We've got our own vases to worry about."

Hah - that's probably a good price to get rid of the headaches.

I'm sure Daggerfall was a great game for some. I don't think 30 minutes is enough for me to contradict those opinions. I just mean that, it was just a little too ugly and eye-hurting for me (I can tolerate Fallout and FFVI, but go back to Wasteland it's hard): and there just wasn't much there to grab my interest. Random level design, for example. I could definitely see that there was a huge range of skills though, and some good potential for a nice roguelike experience.

It looks like the game has been ready to go for some time, but just waiting for Atari to get the security working. Pity.

Personally, I find most vehicles in games an annoyance - their control schemes are often weird and they don't really provide you with huge bags of fun. I mean, I loved Halo vehicles for example, but that's because the controls were decent and you were basically just running over people and aliens. HL2 had this 10-minute boat sequence that was boring as heck.

walkerguy, actually saying what you are confused about would be better. I thought it made sense. It's a very simple fact that brdavs is talking about, and not as polemical as his other posts.

Quite a few core Morrowind fans dropped out in disgust after Oblivion though. I'm not really sure why. I played both games and I thought all in all they were both good games, if not my cup of tea; certainly I didn't really see a case for saying Oblivion was a perversion; Morrowind, when it came down to it, was pretty bland and lifeless anyway. But then, those are longer, Arena/Daggerfall fans we're talking about. I played 30 mins of Daggerfall and my eyes fell out.

You know, that second picture appears in EVERY Feargus interview/article now, it's like that's the only picture they have of him. I'm sure he's torturing the photographer appropriately.

"Here now, angry mob. Now why don't we just sit down for some nice tea, and we can talk this out. Perhaps with a poetry contest."

I think China can be very pragmatic when it comes down to it, which works to their advantage; the Chinese leaders might sometimes get flak for being 'hypocrits' or 'without principle' when it comes to such pragmatic policy decisions, but in the end it can be very effective. The problem with South Korean politics is that it is to dominated by polemic, and the last few decades of amazing economic growth, together with the previous period of Japanese domination, has resulted in a sort of overinflated national pride with the undercurrent of a complex in the national consciousness; thus, when Japan does something like edit their textbooks to inaccurately obscure their imperial history (which, by the way, is a very silly thing to do anyway), Korea is going to be a lot more reactionary.

Bethesda is hardly 'working with core FO fans', though. I agree with you in general Rhomal, that some FO fans will never be satisfied and there's no point trying to do so, and that there's nothing wrong with changing some things in the franchise in a new iteration. But I think the design process of Bethesda was actually hurt by the buying of the franchise. Bethesda themselves admit that their design process 'begins small' and 'gets bigger'; they have a core 'experience' they want to deliver (i.e. Oblivion=big big world you can explore, alternate dimension, lifelike towns, etc), then as they go along they mix and match every new idea as long as it fits into that general principle. The problem with doing this when you take over an existing franchise is that some of them have never or hardly played Fallout, and come up with their own ideas; others have played Fallout and think of interesting things from it they can adapt into FO3. The end result is a hodge-podge of some things that are very faithfully adapted from FO (e.g. Pipboy), some things which don't have much Fallout in them at all, but mostly, thiings that are oddly Fallouty but oddly not. It is a curious perversion (meant in a literal and not derogatory sense) of the existing atmosphere and image, the identity of what Fallout was, and the real problem is not that it is dissimilar to Fallout of old; the problem is that this new game becomes a misdirected, chaotic hodgepodge of various design motivations and the way in which some FO traditions are involved even hurts the game (i.e. the BOS, the VATS). Of course that's very very subjective, based on my personal opinion of the things about the game we know so far. But I think most people will agree that with the orchestral music, the graphics and all it is going to have more of a recent Hollywood apocalyptic film feel about it with odd, misfitting traces of 1950's futurama; that VATS is going to result primarily in the player watching and going "COOL" while heads blow off in bullet time; that if Emil Pagliarulo's example of a good Fallout black humour is beheading an old lady, putting her head on the table and talking to it, we're going to see a lot more of excessive, juvenile violence and depravity.

Wombat: I was talking more about the NZ connection, but sure. Josh, the 8-0 to Obsidian? Now that's something unbelievable. Lots of training? Lots of red bull? Feargie the Motivator?

More to the point, who locks their grapes in the bedside drawers, then traps it with a lethal thingamagick?! Free trapped grape to whoever gets the reference first.

I have to say, though, the original FO-style ending scheme was demanded and hoped for by many FO fans in the years past, and I am personally glad to see it return, even if it may not be as extensive as FO1 (does it need to be?). I think it is a good thing Bethesda is doing here, as far as we know. Of course, I don't like how Todd Howard is hyping it up in a manner that is devoid of context or real explanation, as if purposefully encouraging confusion in order to push forward the magic number - but then, it's Todd Howard. His very discursive nature, it seems, is that of the merchant.

It's a permutations count. E.g. in hypothetical game, Journey of Rowe the Ant-Eater: 1. Rowe's loveable sidekick, Herbie, may or may not die. 2. Rowe's requisite love interest may turn out to be either the innocent Amy or the saucy Marilyn. 3. Rowe was able to hold back his natural cravings to save the highly developed civilisation of pacifist Samurai Ants in the equatorial region, or fell into the dark side and devoured the delicious chitins by the dozen. These three variables, in combination, result in an exponentially higher number of permutations. Thus, +200 endings shouldn't require that many variables. According to NMA, FO1 had even more. Furthermore, there is no way they could do 200+ endings in any other way than Fallout slides or some other system that involves a listing of independent outcomes presented in simple text, picture or voiceover manner.

My point wasn't really that they were deep, complex, thought-provoking characters; if they were, they would stay with me now, as opposed to remaining a relic of the teenage years. My point was rather that they aren't particularly any worse than most media characters I see on Hollywood blockbusters, TV programs or even many novels. They were just well polished enough to excel in their own way. I don't really think I'm giving much of a leeway just because they're games - it might just be that I have a lower opinion of existing popular media stories than others. True in theory, but I find in myself and others that it does happen.

The Witcher did make you think hard about what to keep and what to throw out. I had a system where items related to quests or some such would occupy the first box (e.g. I learnt always to carry various types of alcohol around, especially lots of weak ones for drinking contests); the second box for alchemical herbs of various types; the third for oils and those saltpeter things; the fourth for books and scrolls. What really got my knickers in a twist was how you can only carry one trophy around. I see no practical purpose in that. There is an area in Chapter 4 (I think) where you are rampaging around the countryside, and there are two monsters who can be trophy'd. If you happened to complete both areas without going back to town.... well. Lots of running back and forth for no reason whatsoever. It's great to see you're enjoying the game Di. Chapter 2 is IMO the best chapter in the game, sort of like playing in the city of Baldur's Gate in SoA. Lots to do, some interesting quests, and all that. Tell us how it goes.

Trivia: The Flying Purple Hippo made it into the game out of a forum joke about the FPH which turned into the first Age of Mythology clan in the world. The FPH Clan exists to this day (Yeah, I'm in it) and the Hippo also made it into AOE3. As for difficult fights that made me pull my hair out, I remember that half-dragon lady in the Ice Caves of IWD2, ah, Sherincal. She had really good AC and BAB from what I recall, hitting my tanks and getting away with it, with decent MR to boot. It's just one of those D&D battles where you neither have the firepower to gung-ho it or sit out the whole thing. I'm sure others have beaten her with ease, but it just seemed to get me.