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I remember there being little hints, like treant activity coming from certain exits, but it wasn't nearly as easy when not using a Wilderness Lore character, obviously.

Wheel of Time aka The Most Diluted Series of Books Ever Printed.

Damn straight. And while we're on the topic of resisting progress; I hate dishwashers. They just take away the fun about painstakingly and manually removing grease and dried-in food, and instead giving us a smooth and highly efficient way of doing said process, thus leaving us more time to do boring stuff like playing games or having tons of sex. I mean, why would we want a system that lets us concentrate on gaming, when we could be faffing about looking for medkits or juggling health potions in the midst of heated combat? You're right. Health Regen is completely perfect. What arrogance to think that it doesn't adequately address any and every situation and gameplay issue that could arise. What folly to suggest that magical self-closing wounds aren't an acceptable gameplay element of all possible gameworlds. Catch up with the times, people.

Yeah, Newegg had something like 92% 4-star and above for the motherboard. And had I checked the EVGA forums beforehand I probably would've dismissed the reports anyway. It's just that now that I have a DOA board it seems a little alarming how widespread it is, and how replacements aren't guaranteed to smooth things out by any means. But like you say, it comes with the territory. The low price is frankly worth it, I think. Newegg's got a pretty good reputation when it comes to dealing with DOA products. Though next time, if I have the cash I might just pay Dell to build a computer for me. They'll make sure it works, at least. There's a lot of work that goes into building a computer that makes it so aggravating when it doesn't come together. It's even more aggravating to think that I might have to do all that two or three more times before it works.

While obviously some potions require a high quality liquor, it's always just easier to take a low-quality liquor and mix up some... white gull, was it? There are more than a few potions that require that exclusively.

I quit playing before I got my character up to bomb-tech. One of the things that drove me away from the game was the ridiculous rate of alchemical collection and production versus use, which is really just a roundabout way of saying that the inventory blew. It got to the point where any time I wanted to pick up anything it was a major headache trying to plan out space for it, while trying to keep prepared in any case with the potions and waxes and making sure I had a few bits of every alchemical ingredient I could find, so I would be spared mindless running / grinding against enemies in case somebody wanted me to collect for them.

That makes him teh awesome silly. He was pointing out your bad grammar, actually. You followed "both" with just one quality.

Motherboard was DOA. Should have checked the forums first, because from the sound of it people are getting 2 or 3 dead mobos in a row. Should've gotten the MSI.

lol

Hmmm, Leuvaarden is the merchant aristocrat, yes? I seem to remember buying it off of him somehow before heading off to the marsh. It was the first or second sephirot I had. Are you absolutely sure that's the one you're missing? The, uh, PI dude has one and will only give it to you after you've done certain things.

Uh, BIS made Fallout 3D. And even as a tech demo, it was pretty goddamn excellent.

Sieges are supposed to be difficult, of course, but even with gunpowder units v. archery defenders the defenders might still be thought to possess an advantage in a fortified city (though a 95% chance of success against units with 10 greater power seems a tad extreme). Civ4 allowed you to use siege units (trebuchets, cannons, etc.) to progressively eliminate that advantage. Get 5 cannon units together at the same time and they'll reduce the city defense bonus by at least 60% per round.

That's what I'd expect, yes.

Oh, also, forgot to say, they've expanded the possible endings from 8-12 to, uh, over 200. I'm sure there's something going unspoken there. Possibly a hair-splitting definition of "ending", possibly a serious case of Molyneuxsis.

So Todd Howard's given some updates. - Apparently the game is finished, as far as "expanding the borders of the game" go. It still needs to be filled in and polished. - The game is twice as long as they had originally planned. As big as Oblivion, 20 hour main plotline, 100 hours or so all told. - 1 NPC companion at any one time, not including Dogmeat.

It should brand Tale as a cheater if he indeed got his gamerscore demolished because of perceived infractions, we don't know if that's the case. Maybe somebody's finger slipped.

You have to learn not to hold onto things. The Witcher is not a game for the pack rat. In the third chapter, I believe you have limited fast-travel in the form of portals from map to map, but you'll always be running around maps.

Epic D&D is always ridiculous, but to tell the sort of stories that require epic content you have to leave your skills as a logician at the door. How about returning frost darts?

Yeah, didn't like Baator at all. As for the assassin guy, there was always a trick involved. Usually I just gave Imoen a bow and had her attack just before he got within speaking distance of the PC. This way the arrow would hit just as he became hostile and starts casting mirror image. Of course, you had to roll the dice on Imoen succeeding, but you have to do that in any case.

I didn't have much trouble with Nimbul the assassin, but I'm the type of BG player who will go to Nashkel to shut my companions up, and then adventure in the outlying areas to the tune of a few levels before hitting the Mines. I always hated the Resident Evil games up to 4 (and most survival horror games, for that matter) because ammo conservation was an unspoken goal, such that if you played without ammo conservation in mind up until the end, you found yourself powerless against the End Boss. I liked PS:T, but I found the party interaction system to be hopelessly convoluted. There's a lot of stuff I just can't seem to be able to figure out.

Storage is a "button" ala showing a signet ring or participating in a drinking game. You might be talking to the wrong person. I don't remember if the bartender in the first inn is also the storage dude.

Check it out. Gamespot had an interview with Yahtzee and he talked about some of his influences. This one's pretty funny. The Spoony Experiment reviews The Thing

AP looks like a solo game, as Xard pointed out, but why does Influence have to be confined to CNPCs? If there are constantly reccuring NPCs (there might not be) you could easily implement an Influence system with them.