alanschu

I preferred the knife (or probably my fists actually) over the arm. Though it wasn't much longer until I got the fireaxe, which was a great stealth kill.

I don't find his response to be particularly rude, especially when Rhomal's post didn't give any indication that he did know what he was talking about. It's probably also annoying to see you chime in everytime someone says they think The Witcher looks impressive, and if NWN2 looks as good as it they'll be happy. What interest do you have in the game besides being a fan?

I think you have an incomplete sentence in there. What about no matter how good NWN2 is...

That's blowing things a bit out of proportion, I think. Now when somebody finds a few bugs here and there, everyone is like "OMFG BETA!!1" or "FFS SUPORT UR PRODUCT!!1", or some other catchphrase equally popular on dev message boards these days. Battlecruiser 3000 was a beta. Starfleet Command 2 was buggy as hell, but still playable. People who have played them can tell you how smoothly K2 and BL actually run. I didn't really mean it as a derogatory statement though. It seems wierd though, to not finance a company at all during the last stages of development and have them sit on their hands (for whatever reason), and then once release has come, keep the company around to make a patch. However, it would be cheaper for Activision to do this, as it would mean that they would not have to pay for the final bug tests and fixes, but would let us find the problems then fix them in a patch. I wasn't saying that Bloodlines was a beta when released. Though I did get stuck in the Kuei-Jin final part. As for Ultima 9, it was nice though that they shipped out a free CD with the fully patched game to everyone that registered their game.

Exactly Not sure how the mod community would affect things though. I'm going to release mine and don't really care what they have to say :D

Ok. Weekend meetings work well for me. I'm also a pretty understanding chap, and can find something else to do in the event that RL stuff pops up on short term

Well, it'd be the first time that I can think of where it was quite explicit that that was the case.

When?

No no no. Neither is interactive. To be honest, I don't think text should exist in games at all. Yes, even to the point where I should just be able to tell it's a Daedric Diakatana by looking at it.

I'll admit I am secretly hoping that DNF comes out and completely blows us off our feet, with the most outstanding gameplay experience EVER seen, to which point it completely redefines how we look at computer gaming in general.

I suppose. Though there'd be good PR in releasing a stable product as well. Unless there was a cost thing, and they basically used us as the beta testers.

Why do you need proper Epic rules?

Bloodlines and Half-Life 2 were released on the exact same day (November 16). The funny thing is, if Activision refused to put more money into Bloodlines, then why did they keep Troika active until the patch for Bloodlines came out?

I'm not criticizing it. I don't think any combination of the 3 are any better or worse than any others. They are all powerful.

Meh, IIRC Domination is pretty powerful too. They were all quite powerful.

Actually it can be exceptionally interesting. Especially if you incorporate your solution and mine. If you go in and kill the prisoner yourself, and come back and talk to the NPC, his responses will be adjusted to the action you had performed. I think it helps immensely with immersion, as it gives you the impression that you're in a living, breathing world. It would also make sense if you were roleplaying the game from a point of view where you prefer to not get your hands dirty, but rather let others do the dirty work for you.

To say that we want linear stories is also a misnomer. I also wouldn't consider "spamming on the flatter button" to be an "engaging conversation." I mean, if you want to get technical, everything is one-directional, in the terms that Crash Girl depicted. Nothing in the game is done without a designer having put it in the game for you to do. It's always from the designer to you.

Yes, clearly Example: NPC1: So, what should we do with the prisoner? PC: 1) Kill him 2) Spare him Naturally, I can't imagine how this has any affect on the gameworld. It is 100% the same before and after this dialogue. Especially if sparing him leads to help/backstabbing in the future.

I'm planning on making an adventure that is at least a couple of hours. I think you'll like it Llyranor

I think that's what I like about Total War (and Myth...hmmmm exploding undead) is that I don't have to worry about unit building or resource gathering. With Total War, it's quite possible to win (and win handily) even if you're outmatched (in unit strength, as well as unit numbers). The thing I like about Empire at War is that the unit building is abstracted out of the battlefield, which is kind of silly. I'd much rather have a game be about the tactical decisions (and strategic, if there's a world map) rather than making sure I don't forget to build my new units, or get my new tech upgrade, or whatever. My days of playing the C&C and SC style RTS games are definitely passed.

Well, when I say keep me in mind, it's not necessarily to play with. Just to mention it because I don't have as much time to keep up on this sort of stuff anymore. If I could consolidate my gaming information to one forum, that'd be sweet

I don't know if I would consider "Flying, seeing places, and swimming" as "gameplay." They all seem to fit under "moving around the gameworld." I will give you the custom spell options. But I think you're just breaking up similar stuff to make your list. I guess that asks, what exactly IS gameplay? Because to you, you considered going and seeing a place to be gameplay. Couldn't you say that going and having an engaging conversation with someone, that is interactive, gameplay as well?

OMG too bad you're busy. Thanks though I'll look into it. For the record, I'm all about the realistic WW2 strategy games, so keep me in mind

Sounds like Lucas was interested in that idea with Empire at War as well. While you have to build your units "outside" of combat, if you want to bring in more units you need to capture the reinforcement points on the map. I could see myself getting CoH simply because it's a WW2 game. Though it still depends on how RTSish it is. I don't want it to be like Codename Panzers where units still have HP and whatnot. Though I have a feeling that that is what it will be like. I am interested in its AI though.

What's Company of Heroes' MP going to be like. You mentioned it would be similar to Dawn of War? Though I haven't played Dawn of War.