The Yeti of 66

Now I'm even more confused. I updated to patch 1.0b, and suddenly it started playing the movies in a windowed mode. I could live with that, so I just kept on playing that way. Now it's back to crashing every time a movie pops up. I tried repatching the game, but it's back to refusing to load movies.

While the game itself runs just fine, every time one of the movies has to load up, the game crashes out and makes my taskbar disappear. I could disable the movies and play it just fine, but that basically removes half the story. How do you fix this? I'm running XP, for reference.

We haven't really gotten to a point where you can have the "superstar" developers like we had for a while before gaming had picked up some legitimacy. Game development is incredibly large and jumps between so many different writers and teams that it's very difficult to say without a doubt that one person's vision was the reason it was all wrapped together. In film, the director as a grand facilitator truly does make his or her film with the combined experience of the team. However, can you really say the same for games at the moment? Gaming is at a point where it's too large to be anything other than a massive collaborative effort than a grand tribute to the master strokes of one person. Maybe as the technology gets better and teams get smaller, but definitely not now. Regarding bringing back Planescape and Arcanum... please don't. Part of the beauty of these two games was the huge scale and finality of their narratives. Even going in the same setting with a different story wouldn't hold up, because how the hell would you match their experiences? In Planescape you play someone who at their apex was basically a god, and came to the conclusion that it was time to stand and face all the things that got you to the position. In Arcanum you stop a quasi-dead creature whose goal is to end life as we know it. If the following acts are less substantial than the ones that preceded them, it'll just feel like they've stooped to mining their past for credibility. They're better than that. They just need the right IP to make lightning strike again.

LucasArts owns the rights to the game. If Obsidian had any IP rights, Bioware and LucasArts would need their consent to use their concepts and characters as far as I know. Typically in negotiations between content creators and producers/publishers (my experience is more grounded in film, so this probably isn't exact), even when things are sitting in favor of the content creator, the producer will 'buy' the rights of the product simply because they have the money and resources to get the product distribution, which the developer almost certainly could not do on their own. I doubt this is always the case, but with Star Wars? You can almost guarantee that they went into this hoping to wow everyone into getting the third game as a follow-up job.

Might be interesting if D&D rights weren't such a pain to get a hold of.

If there was going to be a game out this year, LucasArts would have announced it 2 years ago. If they started development recently or are planning on starting it in the near future to capitalize on The Old Republic, we won't see it until 2013 at the least, and unless they build it with an existing engine, it would probably be a complete mess.

Fallout 3 was a fine title. Bethesda does incredibly well with building lore and atmosphere, and I felt those were very strong in Fallout 3. It wasn't all correct or the same, but they had to rebuild this franchise from the ground up to pull it out of the early grave Interplay's financial woes tossed it in. It may not have had as great of an overall feel as the original Fallout, but I loved the atmosphere of the game. Sure, the main quest was weak, but they still managed to scrounge up some incredible moments in it (appearance of the Enclave, Liberty Prime etc). I haven't yet started New Vegas, so I can't comment on which of the two is better, but I don't think it will be of such a high magnitude that will make me look back on Fallout 3 as a farce. Now, Cutlock, have you considered all of the angles for getting a new installment of Dark Alliance created in the current market? First, you need to decide if you're going to rebuild the game for a modern age as an A or B list title or if you're going to go for more retro appeal and shoot for a budget title that would go on XBLA or similar services. I seriously doubt the latter would even be possible due to the fact that they don't even hold all of the rights to the setting. However, the former isn't likely unless Fallout Online is a success simply because Interplay has almost no free capital. Investors won't approach them with a ten foot pole until they can prove that they can handle a substantial investment that will actually make money. MDK doesn't count, that game was made years ago. If they can prove that their developers can hit the milestones on a large enough project and turn a profit, then there is a good chance of getting another Dark Alliance game. They have limited opportunities to do so currently, and the ones they do have look like a total farce. If I were a developer or an investor, I can't think of a publisher I'd want to work with less, and that's no hyperbole.

I think you may well have hit the nail on the head there. Both K1 and K2 utterly outshone the prequels; and the darkness and ambiguity of K2 was somewhere Lucas seemed to never want to go (not even with the third prequel, which was crying out for it). The third prequel film was much darker than Kotor 2, it just lacked the same weight because Kotor 2 raised much more sinister implications on the nature of the force and what it meant for the future of the galaxy. In essence, it used a nice blend of something we were familiar with to shake up the formula rather than resorting to a major tone shift like killing children. Anyway, I wouldn't say there's jealousy. I don't think most members of LucasFilm really even care about the fate of Knights, why would they? Their involvement is tangential at best, disregarding the members of LucasArts who wear multiple hats of course.

Hard to say... very hard to say. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing such a thing in a modern engine with newer dialogue systems and a more sophisticated score and party interactions. The game was way ahead of its time in terms of party depth, and seeing the characters fleshed out in ways they were just begging to be would be very nice. I also long for a more complete ending. The Fortress of Regrets was amazing, but it seemed a bit off pace compared to the events that led up to it. For example, why didn't Morte have some kind of confrontation with The Transcendent One? I suppose playing dead makes sense for him, but that was an odd move for the most important side character to play. At the same time, I have a feeling that a lot would be lost through the game. Some of the magic of the experience was in its limited narrative style. The models were far more advanced than the ones in Baldur's Gate, so you got a feel for how they looked, but there was still enough removed from the visuals and replaced in the dialogue box to allow your imagination to fill in a lot of gaps. Not to mention the score adding a great deal to what sort of interactions you assumed you were having. The score assistance while speaking to Fall-From-Grace for the first time really sticks out as an example. Would even a simple change of perspective take a lot of feel from the game, despite bringing it to a modern age? I don't know. Either way, I would love to see another game in the same world. These deep, mysterious stories that rock you to your core never get old. Always too few of them.

If you really want PC BG fans to... get off... you probably chose the wrong (or right if you're a fan of innuendo) forum to do so. This place is basically CRPG heaven, and Baldur's Gate is a junior god up here behind Planescape: Torment. And before you call me a fantard, I played Dark Alliance first due to its highly praised nature, but all I remember playing was a Diablo clone that wasn't nearly as good. After actually playing the PC series, there was no going back. Baldur's Gate is not an anthology series with vaguely connecting continuities. They may have tried to make it such, but the fact that the PC series still permeates through CRPG culture and influences series like Dragon Age is pretty big. Dark Alliance isn't influencing anyone that isn't already entranced by Diablo 3 or the upcoming Dungeon Siege game. There is no Abdel Adrian. Suggesting otherwise causes scary things to happen.

For those who have seen the rampant My Little Pony phenomenon, you'll probably enjoy this.

I dunno about that. I actually think the industry is craving a title like it, but it's a very risky proposition, so most publishers won't go for it. I think it's very likely for the PS:T lightning to strike again before long.

Essentially, yes. However it won't really resolve the issues brought up at the end of Kotor 2 like most of us wanted to see. In essence, the backstory of TOR suggests that the Exile and Revan failed in their mission, or only postponed the invasion. As for Kotor 3, you shouldn't expect it ever now. This game has enough going for it to where it will be a pretty significant success compared to the many failed WoW clones that have come out in the last few years. In the end, it will probably do to Kotor what WoW did to Warcraft.

When they were promoting Dragon Age the co-founders of Bioware hinted that something might be in the works for Jade Empire. It was nothing concrete, mostly just them stating how much they loved the development process and that we shouldn't assume it's been brushed aside. I can't remember which interview they said that though... I want to say it was probably one on gamespot, but I can't be sure. I'd love it if they did pick it back up though, as I don't really think that kind of game is Obsidian's style.

The forum controversy and years of labor you mention are for the mod that was being developed (and abandoned?) by Team Gizka. This mod was made by other people. I know that it's a different team, but for the most part it's the same content being restored. That's why I was so baffled at the lack of wow factor.