Xard

An Effervescing Elephant with tiny eyes and great big trunk once whispered to the tiny ear the ear of one inferior that by next June he'd die, oh yeah! because the tiger would roam. The little one said: "Oh my goodness I must stay at home! and every time I hear a growl I'll know the tiger's on the prowl and I'll be really safe, you know the elephant he told me so." Everyone was nervy, oh yeah! and the message was spread to zebra, mongoose, and the dirty hippopotamus who wallowed in the mud and chewed his spicy hippo-plankton food and tended to ignore the word preferring to survey a herd of stupid water bison, oh yeah! And all the jungle took fright, and ran around for all the day and the night but all in vain, because, you see, the tiger came and said: "Who me?! You know, I wouldn't hurt not one of you. I'd much prefer something to chew and you're all to scant." oh yeah! He ate the Elephant

Actually - to my great surprise - no, it wasn't the "fine lady" Melirinda. It was "girlygeek" or something like that

Yeah well, there was often option for the "brute dump" approach. I took that with my first Exile. With my second I did it the hard way and was shocked by how much more I got teh XP. Then I read I could just persuade info out HK-50 and that's the approach I've often used since. I think it was good design. If player roleplays "Conan" he should have option to use method his character would (if it is sensible that it would work which was the case here. Not all puzzles can be solved with brute force of course), but he gets much lesser rewards than player giving some thought and care for the matter In friendly way for dump (or easily bored) players wanting to play smart character some puzzles were automatically cracked if you had sufficient INT - great design from roleplaying perspective (After all nuclear physicist should know damn about protons for example) - but Obz made one mistake - they were uniformally too low. I think the most usual limit for the easy solving was INT 14 which was with my characters after the first one nearly rule (because I like skillpoints and all that). And it breaks part of Kreia's conversations. If you had INT 14 you just went "ZOMG - I KNOW YOU'RE HIDING SOMETHING" and then rolled in the whole thing about Kreia being Darth Traya and cutscene where Sion beated crap out of her. That was secret I had to work hard to get for nearly half the game! INT limit should've been 18 instead of 14 for that *shrug* anyway, this is off-topic... edit: Gorth, could you delete my double post, please? edit2: Thanks

Today (this night) I was reminded why I rarely dare venture to Bioware forums.

There was another option. If you had a high enough persuade skill you could trick the HK droid to playback the whole code with the voice you needed cause the droid could imitate voices, like the T-101 in Terminator 2. Or then you could just bash the console (for much lesser XP)

Meh, the v-v-v-v-v conv. is teh best (you know, the intoduction speech with every word beginning with letter v. It was awesome)

There was this one excellent puzzle in Kotor 2 that was basically just like that, although you'd have to run all over the place in search for good soundbits

There was this one excellent puzzle in Kotor 2 that was basically just like that, although you'd have to run all over the place in search for good soundbits

Oh yeah, that video shop in Hollywood! The dude at the counter was also hilarious... in a dry and creepy kind of way. Anyway, I guess you're right. The whole computer thing can't really be called a minigame. But it just worked, and the idea would fit AP. Plus, a skill check is one of the most RPG-ish things you can find in a game. :D Well, there was somewhere talk about (interview or developer comment in here) whole internet etc. section of game which seems to be Bloodlines's computer thingie ^3 So we should get goodies like that. It's funny how much Troika put care in these emails. For example I wasn't aware (until my recent playthrough in which I've currently reached nosferatu caverns) that in Santa Monica hospital if your hacking skills are good enough you can find about one of the docs having relationship. It doesn't have any relevance to anything but you can go and blackmail money from the dude, threatening to expose the thing to his wife. Or in Hollywood comments left in some machines at internet cafe. Or "YOU ****IN' AWP WHORE" "NO U U ONLY OWN WITH NEWBCANNON" stuff found on computers in Chinatown (at that firm where you must sneak in if you take Gary's quest) edit: Oh, and that ridiculous (and on purpose) badly written geek flaming actually serves purpose and if you read between the lines you find valuable bits of information related to quest. Those are just some examples (though porn shop was unbeatable IMO. The creepy dude who spies his residents and their - ermm - activities in Downtown was great too...)

Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath Glorious guitar

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun

well this wasn't. One of the best matches. It was pure awesomeness from beginning to end. lol@Silva headbutting though. Zidane started the new trend! Without one headbutt it ain't final at all!

on the other hand PC killed Amiga edit: Or was it Commodore... or both of them?

Oh yes, the whole computer deal was great. But the hacking itself was simple matter of pressing Control + C and watch if your skill is good enough. Yet even that was strangely interesting. I remember many times when it started to generate first few letters that seem to make sensible word... and then comes something like K7i6x and soon afterwards "hacking failed" I loved the whole computer thing. But I wouldn't call it minigame Damn it was funny to hack that porn shop's files (I still lol at j-pron entries)

The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations

...there was no minigame in Bloodlines

Oh yes, SS2 style (and level of quality) minigames would be fine But somehow I can see them going more in vein of Bioshock's, Oblivion's and other newer and retarted minigames

WOOHOO! That was AWESOME game And right team won

Not sure if this fits in with your idea of "narrative," but I thought the story pacing was weak. The central mystery was solved for the player at the end of the 2nd act, which takes away a good portion of the player's incentive to continue. I don't know, Kotor's "central mystery" or "plot twist" was solved early as in Leviathan, same with Jade Empire. You have to remember that was the culmination and end point of the Act II - and one my favourite moments in any game ever - and yes, the "mystery" is finally resolved. But there's not that much game time left afterwards. After Act II there comes Founder's Sanctum (those mazes hold some of the most interesting battles in the game where I actually had to employ tactics and such) and . Then immeaditly afterwards the end game rolls in which takes about hour or two at max. And I don't know about you, but for me alone was enough reason to keep on going. What a nice surprise was waiting for me in the end...

enemm

you know, Mass Effect didn't try to push sneaking as playing method

And you argued with me about James Bond? Alas I left my side open It is even more annoying when remembering that you only live twice is my second favourite Connery Bond flick

Aaahh, what's better way to make your 4,500th post than let some steam out? Heh heh. Please do not leave "or something" from the end of sentence next time. I had small heart attack for thinking "crazy punch-man" was from actual dialogue

Even previewers who most of the time care only about hyping are lukewarm towards infinite ammo (as showcased by this and previous's "potentially controversial decisions"), what does that tell? AUUUUGGGGHHGHGHGHGH Obz, when you can do a lot better why do you have to follow the most stupid ****ing trends around such as infinite ammo and freaking minigames? Seriously... Well, apart from lulzing at Michale "Thornton", getting frustrated again by infinite ammo deal and being severely annoyed by "minigames" I liked all else what I read. Gameplay holds a lot potential (loved the bit amout martial arts) but could you please stop sabotaging your own game with stupid design decision?

It looks like OE is't like all these other developers filling journalists mouths ( and every other hole ) with cash, because that actually offers us some insights and - heaven forbid - something else than omg hype hype... Anyway, reason for my triple post... COUGH COUGH