Xard

Don't you mean TSR? Stupid corporates

Awesome, I hope it isn't changed

I think it is just Betheda's desperate attempt to lure Sand to buy the game

Only thing not original about elves and orcs were their names What's next, am I not very different thing than some human being that had my name before me? No, I am different. Does that mean I have right to copyright the name? Umm... no Oh, and WotC also stole hobbits

I disagree; Tolkien could write well ...unless we're talking about characters and all that... He's no Kafka, Steinbeck or Dickens for sure (it is **** you for those to compare them to Tolkien) but on great scale of writers he's definetly on "good" perimeters. But then again, it's not like fantasy literature has any other great writers in it than some Le Guin here and some Martin there... what I'm saying is, fantasy literature sucks

lol u r so funny

Nope, both orcs and elves as we see them in Tolkien's works are original creations. Elf meaned very different thing in England when Tolkien wrote Hobbit and his other works

(actually WotC was clever enough to call it balor instead of Balrog. Design is that of balrog though, not of one eyed giant *shrug* ) Tolkien was great writer. The Hobbit might be his best written work. It is very witty and charming...so very english Not to say LotR's writing isn't great but it is tad a bit heavyweight at places (which was choice from Tolkien's part). But still it has many genius bits in it. The story of Turin Turambar is especially well written, leaving LotR and maybe Hobbit too behind it as far as writing goes. Silmarillion - although being LotR heavyweightness tp ^10 - is also great work with very good writing at places. Tolkien didn't steal anything. He borrowed stuff, revised and tweaked and sometimes completely changing their meaning (e.g word elf. Elves themselves are entirely original). It is quite a big difference to FR and FR cosmology in which you can copy & paste Yssgard, egyptian gods (even acknowledging they are egyptian gods from EARTH) and all that

Again. I love this track With Dark Side of the Moon's Brain Damage/Eclipse couple and Sgt Pepper's A Day In Life one of best album enders evarr

I remember when I first encountered balor in some CRPG... I was quite new to FR. I burst some veins when WotC were ****y enough to even steal the ****ing name edit: brainfart, they didn't steal the name, but the design and everything else apart from the name. Name is off the same creature word barlog was derived from though

Nope, both orcs and elves as they are nowadays known are Tolkien's creations Tolkien took the name "Ork" (and changed k to c) from old english or something. It means monster or something like that like Pid said. edit: sorry, old english

more like villagers are trying to torch you

Spies games have been around since beginning. But nothing like AP has

I'm totally addicted at PS:T currently Roll your eyes if you want but combat was a lot better than I remembered.

David Bowie - Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

it's low magic in sense that magic is rare The fact it is very powerful and dangerous has been known since day one

Gnome Elf Mammoth Tranquillity And the best... Femininity Descent edit: Frontier Sexual

Vulgar the Condemn Evening Confidence Consumer Shooter

oh gow how I hated those poisonous headcrabs and those frickin fast leaping zombies...

Pink Floyd - Coming Back to Life Second best track of TDB and one of my favourites. Great structure, beautiful melody and naturally awsum guitar

David Gilmour - Comfortably Numb (demo)

Same here

oh he's so dreamy

Volo, FR stole a lot from Tolkien - orcs, elves etc. - so get over with it. have you played it then? thought not. i'm willing to predict that DA, whenever it comes out, will have its phat loot just like any game. in fact, i'm struggling to remember any CRPG that didn't. the closest i can get is the Witcher, which professed to be low magic but still doled out the most powerful stuff at the end of each chapter or so. which really just goes to reinforce my point that even games that claim they're low-magic aren't really: they're just less obvious about it. seems to have taken So giving phat loot automatically makes setting not low magic? Ummm, no note also I never claimed DA is low magic setting in sense of magic's powerfulness.

Yeah, Tolkien draw A LOT from Norse and finnish mythology. Finnish language too played huge role in beautiful elven languages. sigh... mythology =/= fantasy literature Have you - heaven forbid - READ any of Tolkien's works instead of just watching the films? FR has nil beliavability, cohesion, depth or originality. All Tolkien's magnificent world has. (though my personal favourite might be the Earthsea there's no denying ME beating every single world out there) to help you with your fixation with dwarves: There are differing kinds of dwarves in Tolkien's world (called Ea as a whole) though apart from The Hobbitt they've never been in centre of Tolkien's body of work. Elves are incredibly indepth and varied people in Middle Earth. That's still only setting in which elves are frickin' awesome. ESPECIALLY in Silmarillion.Then there's human characters and stories such as Turin Turambar (drawing a lot from Kullervo myth from Kalevala) that leaves anything in FR far behind. There's reasons why there are bajillion books written about Tolkien's world, thousands of websites and all for the only purpose of studying the world. You wouldn't believe how much lore you could unearth from cross referring between Tolkien's letters and few lines from Silmarillion for example. What we see in LotR is just barely scratch on the surface. Even for all of his careful planning, design of frickin languages and all that Tolkien STILL managed to shroud things in mystery. Because that is vital for fantasy. You must not explain everything. This is why Tolkien never specified workings of magic or what the heck Tom Bombadill is. Or the reason why all supernatural abilities and events are never explitically nailed down in horror genre. There's always the unknown bit in it. WotC also realized this in Planescape setting as seen from PS:T. Setting which was frankly killed alongside other original ones for favour of something as bland and uninspired as FR In D&D (in general) magic is just plain boring, worlds are inconsistent full with logical gaps and brain farts and level of literature is about as low as can get. There's reason why "roleplaying fantasy books" are in general huge sign just screaming RUBBISH RUBBISH RUBBISH Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game is rather popular you know, or at least it used to be. (though it is despited by Tolkien puristits due to it bringing a lot of characteristics of roleplaying settings such as FR which do only harm for Middle-Earth) The thing is, Tolkien never planned Middle-Earth as roleplaying setting and it shows. Just like happened with other great settings such as King's multiverse, Martin's world or Hyberion edit: took esp. out because I think things that came from finnish and norse mythologies are rather even. though I'd still say biggest single source is celtic and other british mythologies. *shrug* It's been many years since I last "studied" Tolkien's world and its inspirations.