Aaron Contreras

I disagree. They feel - to a certain extent - like clones of Warcraft characters. That female paladin would plug right into WoW. I was actually pretty pleased with the art - zooming in on models makes 'em purty. The units lack personality - which both Warcraft and Dawn of War (WH 40k) have in spades. I don't recall any spoken acknowledgement of you giving them orders...hopefully that'll be in the retail version. This could be a contender to Dawn of War / Warcraft III if they gave it another six months and the dev team had enough drive and juice to make some hard choices and polish it up good. Generally not enough spells/abilities being used and I don't get a visceral reaction when I do use them. When my rogue hero uses his fan of knives skill I don't instant sense that I just did something really cool that did a lot of damage. Little things like this make a big difference in an RTS.

If anyone has a clue as to how to create a solid (ie. as good as PS2 controls) control profile for San Andreas with the Saitek 2500...lemme know. Keyboard + Mouse is working okay but I ain't able to rock my BMX like I wanna.

I'm not responsible for designing the system. I'll probably generate content for it. The Diplomacy system in Vanguard is not a replacement for traditional conversations. Meaningful dialogues with NPCs will happen at all levels of gameplay across all three spheres (adventuring, crafting/harvesting, diplomacy). Diplomacy does serve as an abstraction of communication - it simply isn't realistic to use prose dialogues as your core system given just how much Diplomacy content is planned. Maybe once we figure out how to clone Avellone....

The Diplomacy system is very exciting. We got some great designers working on it.

I think I read the same article. My experiences and conversations with people in the industry suggest: 1 - If an employer (game industry or not) can take advantage of you they will. 2 - The best way to make more money is to bounce to another company. Some companies just don't pay as much as others. I've never brought up wanting more money to an employer without already having a better offer at another gig - prepare for the worst and all that.

Sorry to hear you didn't get it, Oerwinde. Keep bangin' away and you'll get there. One tip - I'd reallyreallyreally watch posting private correspondance from a company on any sort of forum/blog. I'd even suggest editing that post. Companies really don't like that sort of thing and I'd hate to see your chances for a future gig get lessened over something so trivial.

Good luck, Oerwinde. I've heard good things about the potential to move up if you get recognized at EA QA. Mostly from people who worked the Los Angeles office...but from everything I've heard EA Vancouver is the place to be. ...and my experience with Vancouver triple-super-quadruple reconfirms this info.

I find the combat in JE to be extremely lacking. I went through the entire game using only four stances - my Martial (Thousand Cuts, not that your choice there really matters), Storm Dragon (Fast area paralyze of all human opponents), Spirit Thief (if I needed Chi) and Sword. On certain fights I *did* use the big Transformation style if I knew a Chi battery was immediately available. The major reasons I found combat in JE to be a failure: * Only five martial styles and three moves per style. You can attack, power attack and area attack. That is it! You don't learn additional moves. Powering up your martial style just increases your DPS. This conflicts directly with the genre and - just as important - isn't very fun. They really should have remapped the Focus button to something else and given us a Kick button along with some basic X, X, Y / X Y X / X Y X+Y combos. * Poor balance. Any human opponent can be permanently shocked/paralyzed with Storm Dragon or Paralyzing Palm. As soon as I got Storm Dragon every 'human' fight in the game lost all challenge regardless of difficulty level. You just spam the area attack - which 'shocks' everyone around you and then switch to martial style for a short combo, then area attack again ad nauseum. I never got hit in the last fight of the game. This had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with me abusing the broken ass game mechanics. JE has a lot going for it - decent Bioware quality writing, great setting and an obvious love of the genre. The combat and character development portions of the game detract from the good stuff.

They really have made the engine look damn good. The look of the environments is a huge improvement over KOTOR.

TNO is struggling with himself.

Ooh, cool. I'll check it out when I have time.

No easy solution to moving to 3D First-person while retaining ToHit rolls. If I click on a monster in DII and my character misses the perspective and scale of the combat help me rationalize missing. 'Missing' in a FPS is the player failing to aim correctly - no 'Firearms Skill' involved. If I shoot someone in the chest but miss due to failing an attack roll...I get pissed off and feel cheated by the game. Be great if they pull it off, though. Diablo II gameplay and Doom III visuals sure sound sexy.

Why troll so much? You just make the forums less valuable.

The Vanguard FAQ states that they are using a heavily modded version of the Unreal 2 engine for release and considering moving to Unreal 3 for expansion. Maybe things have changed since the FAQ was written, 'course.

I've heard the women mentioned in quite a few sources. I quite liked the gameplay feel of the dogs and morale units. The mod doesn't seem to fix the two types of units that bug me the most - phalanxes and chariots.

I have the latest version (5.3, I think) installed now. I don't have a strong opinion on it yet. They take out a lot of the questionable units - the Screeching Women, Druids and Head Hurlers. They also made Athenian Hoplites almost as good as the Spartans...which strikes me as not very accurate. On the plus side it offers a very challenging start for Rome. edit - I'm also interested in feedback on SPQR from anyone who has played it.

I had a whole big response to this written up when something bad happened to the forums or my computer last night. Ah well. Some advice in no particular order. 1 - Go to college. 2 - Read everything. 3 - If you want to write, set aside a few hours a day or every other day for writing. Be strict with yourself. I don't care what you are writing or for who - just write. 4 - Experience stuff. The old 'you write what you know' line. Know more, write better. Work a weird job, travel the world, meet people, go places and do things. There is waywayway more to life than anime and RPGs. 5 - Research the game industry as much as possible. You'll probably be making less for more work than someone in another field. 6 - Make stuff and mod stuff before they pay you to do it. You have to be doing the job in order to get the job.

I dunno. Total War is doing about as well as it can. The games could sure be better - mostly better supported - but the series itself has oodles of critical acclaim and at least appears to be selling well. Good time to branch out and try something new. If CA grows to resemble, say, KOEI....I'll be ultra-frickin-delighted.

Spartan: Total Warrior What the hell?! Are they gonna pull some sort've Dynasty Warriors thing? Or maybe Kessen 3 / KUF? Only games I can think of that make a bizarre combo like 'action-strategy' make sense.

Shoddy graphics. Dull battles. Should've stuck with the six person party. Uninspired character designs. Obscene encounter rate. Way too many battles. It feels unfinished and underfunded.

I used to frequent writer Warren Ellis' forums on Delphi. He had a massive number of people reading and posting on the forums and a very dictatorial, draconian style of moderation. If a moderator thought you were trolling, being an ass or just posting too much fluff there were quick and public repercussions. It was the most valuable large forum I've ever seen. I hope you do not decide to close down the Obsidian forums - they really keep your company and product fresh in the minds of your market. Moving to a stricter moderation style would be a great decision.

'Search' on AA turns up: Handy Link.

What the game needs is more containers. They got the cool slidey-open-top box but we need more. They should push the envelope and go for something triangular or - development time permitting - octagonal. Hot pink lightsabers wouldn't hurt none either.

The first three or four buildings you make in any faction should be roads, ports, and traders/marketplaces. Unless you are badass and you know what you are doing. I'd strongly suggest Julii for a first faction. Brutii are the hardest Roman faction - you're often given Senate missions that deal more with Carthage than your real enems - the Greeks and Macedonians.

My Game of the Year 2004...although there are still way too many crash bugs and sketchy features. Kind've comes with the territory for a game that has such a massive scope.