Spider

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> It deserves mention that those are costs for Japanese developers though. Costs for American developers need not be the same (especially since I've seen the numbers $5-10 thrown aorund more than once as the approximate cost to develop a AAA game in the US).

And the Hotel!

The problem with the fanpatches is that they don't only fix bugs, the also change things gameplay-wise. Stuff that doesn't need changing just because the patchmakers feel things should be different. I wish they'd stick to just fixing bugs, then I'd use them in a heartbeat.

I'm not sure, I haven't looked at it since v6 myself. I know they released a free add-on on their webpage with rules for a levelless version of the game. Or maybe in a Player's Guide style book if such has ever been released, not 100% sure. Given how frequently such a system was requested, I'd guess it's have made it into the core rules now one way or another. And the classes have always existed in Drakar och Demoner, they were just a tad more customizable. In an attempt to not stray too far off topic: For all of those complaining that WotC are releasing new versions of the game too rapidly, v6 of Drakar and Demoner was released at roughly the same time as D&D and has apparently released two full editions since then. Releasing new editions a few years or so apart is fairly common practice and besides that good business. edit: according to wikipedia, the current version is v9, but the first from Paradox was v7 so everything else still stands. edit again: Riotminds (the publisher of Drakar and Demoner who leased the liscence from Paradox and then bought it) did release a Player's Guide type supplement, Drakar och Demoner: Expert and I think that's where the levelless rules where. That was merged into the next (v8) edition, although v9 is a huge reworking of the rules so I have no idea how they look like now. final edit: After some more checking around I found that Riotminds on their webpage has a short description on how the rules work. It appears that the system is now indeed levelles and that the classes are more customizable. However, they have incorporated a few big changes. The biggest being the removal of Grundegenskaper (abilities I think in D&D) in favor of focusin only on skills.

Drakar och Demoner is still in print though. And the most recent version isn't bad. It's just different enough from the older version that old school people wrinkle their nose. And it's got much better layouts and nie hardcover books. So it could be worth checking out if all you want is a Swedish RPG system. @Kaftan: I'm note sure you're right on that copyright thing. If a RPG reaches verksh

It seems like it was only my memory failing a bit, it wasn't an issue introduced by a patch rather one that was there from the start. So why you aren't affected by it I have no idea. Unless you switched your crew around a lot. I did some checking and apparently the people that didn't go with you on missions but were left at the base auto-leveled (staying two levels behind you) and their skills increased quite rapidly.

Someone who can afford to spend $80000 on a TV I guess.

Titan Quest is now up to version 1.15. A better link to the TQ patch would be this: http://www.ironlore.com/patches.html (ironlores page rather than THQ's, the latter of which is a mess to find things on) Then a nit-pick. UFO: Aftershock is listed in the UFO franchise as turn-based strategy, when in fact it's not. It's real time with pause. I don't know what is more important, keeping franchises together or to have games correctly labeled. And finally a few suggestions for more stuff to add: Since it's apparently ok to list BitTorrent clients (Azureus is there) I'd like to recommend

Did you play the patched version of S2? If memory serves, the patch nerfed skill progression. Maybe there's been a later patch that fixed that again though. When I played S2, my mechanic progressed so slowly (even though I tried having him do stuff) that in the later parts of the game he wasn't able to do anything at all. No locks were ever picked, no traps disarmed and so on. And the medic was just as bad, although it could still heal some, just not use the higher level stuff.

Snipers can become good enough at stealth to be able to sneak up close, at least in S3. From what I remember from S2 though, skills grow so slowly that if it's not something you're specialized in from the start you may as well not bother (and when it comes to medic and tech not even then).

Werewolves could definitely show up in a Vampire campaign, they do exist in the same world. And they can potentially make for good adversaries. What I mean with cross-campaign was playing a vampire and a werewolf (or a mage) in the same group. It can be done and it can be great fun, but the rules aren't balanced for this. Although fitting a werewolf into a vampire chronicle is probably easier than the other way around, since not all werewolves are fighting machines. A vampire in a standard werewolf chronicle would have it a lot tougher.

The werewolves aren't overpowered in the old WoD. They can, however, be made into combat machines. So yeah, in man-to-man combat, Werewolves would beat anyother playable creature in the WoD (except possibly mages who could be grossly overpowered). But werewolves also fight tougher enemies than vampires do and they fight a lot more. Werewolf is a much more combat oriented game at the core, they're fighting to prevent the Apocalypse, while Vampire is a game of political intrigue and dealing with being a monster. (in the old WoD anyway, the focus has shifted in the new version) This is why crossing campaigns in the old WoD could be such a pain. The focus on the games were so different and the power levels kinda skewed. Then again, they were never really intended to be played together in the first case, people just did anyway.

Copy Protection aren't there to prevent Piracy. They're there to delay it. Most of a games sales are made within the first few weeks and if a cracked copy doesn't turn up until after that, then it's considered a huge win for the publisher.

I am actually starting to see the rationale behind this. To me it seems like their goal is to have the game fully voice acted, including the PC, and from that perspective it actually makes sense. I know I don't want to listen to my character say something I already know it's going to say (as if I had already read the dialogue options). As for actual implementation, there's no way of sayin it'll be good or bad until I can actually play the game (which is something may never do since I won't get a 360 anytime soon).

Warform... Isn't that something like level 6 or 7 in protean? So that'd make the gangrel a generation 7 or so vampire. That kind of takes away the "of equal or higher" experience part for the werewolf though. Whithout silver it'd still be a hard fight (although if we have a werewolf of similar power, silver probably won't do much good either). As for the flamethrower again (not directed at Fenghuang). If we want to get technical here, from a WoD rules perspective it would be pretty much useless against a Werewolf. I don't have the WtA books so I don't remember if fire deals agg to werewolves, but let's say it does. It still doesn't deal very much damage and werewolves can soak aggravated damage unless it's silver. So all the flamethrower would have done is piss the wolf off while his claws (which a vampire without fortitude can't soak) would tear you to pieces.

I did some checking and it's possible that in addition to Securom, AoW:HT uses a hidden copy protection called Tages. Tages adds a lot of ingame checks to keep checking if the copy is legit, so even if Securom says the game is ok at startup, Tages will keep checking. This copy protection has been known to cause games to malfunction a lot though. Darkstar One uses it and that game was rendered virtually unplayable for a lot of people with legit copies. (the way Tages work is by modifying in-game stuff, the game will likely still run, but it'll be so heavily modified it may as well not, like equipment costing one million a piece instead of a few thousand in DSOne) In the case of Darkstar One, Ascaron released a patch within five days of the UK release to take care of that problem.

And they're probably right. I know several people who are totally put off with games that have too many words. I have, for example, a friend who thought the IWD games were much better than Torment due to there being too much text in the latter. He's a huge fan of Planescape, liked the game mechanics (hence liking IWD better) and did think the text in Torment was good (Dionarra's soulstone for instance) but just didn't want to spend as much time reading when playing a game. Although when it comes to modern video games, word count could very well apply to the numbers of lines spoken as well. Voice actors aren't free after all. But Bioware is likely in a position where they can have as many words they damn well please in their games, they've been succesful enough in the past.

I think this would cheapen the weerewolf too much. Machine guns and flamethrowers shouldn't cut it against werewolves. They're tougher than that. Bring silver or stay at home. (or at least some sort of magical weaponry) As for what weaponry is available, I'm pretty sure you can have the flamethrower by that time. Still shouldn't be enough imo.

The extras are nice and all, but it feels a bit odd buying the old Civ games. With Civ IV around there is no way I'd want to go back and play the othres, not even for nostalgia reasons, which means I'd be paying $20 for the extras alone. I think Warlords should have been included in this, then it could possibly have been a worthwile purchase, if I didn't already own both game and expansion.

Actually, after a fashion BG2 uses the gimmick-to-kill boss. And I'm not talking about Kangaxx. At Spellhold when you're going up against Irenicus, try just rushing into the room where he is. It's instant game over. You need to enlist aid from the psychopaths. How's that for a gimmick? Not to mention that it's inconsistent with itself, given how easy Irenicus is to defeat when you face him in the end game, I could clearly have defeated him at Spellhold if that's all he got. *shrugs* It's fairly common in games overall. As for the Flamethrower comment, that would only have made the Werewolf pissed. Fire may do agg (I'm not even sure it does) against them, but they can still soak it so it'd amount to bruises at best. Unless you're packing silver it is a logical assumption that fighting a werewolf is an exercise in futility.

I don't see the inconsistency either, I really don't. As has been pointed out, the game established werewolves as practically unbeatable in close combat. So from all the information we've been given in the game, it's very consistent. Sure, you have beaten some tough people before then, but none that are as tough as a werewolf can be. Besides, that's the way it's supposed to work in the WoD. No vampire can go toe to toe against a werewolf of equal or greater experience. The werewolves are just superior fighters. (at least not if we're talking about a combat oriented werewolf, which this clearly was)

You can also get that ending if you're siding with the Anarchs. Anytime you're present when the coffin is opened that's what happens.

How about a little of both? The gameplay is fun (although somewhat simplified) but the writing is a bit meh.

It would also mean that if I wanted to upgrade my GPU I'd need to upgrade the CPU as well. And CPUs do not need to be upgraded as frequently as the GPU does.

The problem with integrated solutions in regards to gaming is that gamers usually want to upgrade a few components well before the motherboard needs to be replaced. So I doubt the hardcore gamers will see it as viable. That is unless the rate at which new hardware gets released is significantly lowered, although I don't see that happening anytime soon. Mostly because that would cut into the profit margins of Nvidia and ATI. At least that's how I see things. Personally I prefer the modular approach, if something breaks down, I'd rather not have to replace everything. Although when I recently helped upgrade my mother's computer, I went with an integrated solution, but she has no demands whatsoever on performance so it hardly relates to gamers.