Starwars

Well, the "format" of the post wasn't using quotes from the magazine. So I just put that down as the writer of the post being sort of stupid and using the term for the Chinese soldiers, as well as misspelling it.

Dodge definitely on the low side there. But even so, I seem to recall Dellar being so skilled with his weapon that I didn't really dodge much in that fight at any rate despite having a high doge skill. Also, if you're having a lot of trouble, it can be worth it to try using nets. My most successful builds have actually been those where I put a slight focus on the defensive skills vs the weapon skills. My instinct was always to give a slight edge to the weapons, but there just isn't that much trouble hitting people towards the end. But either blocking or dodging is very important if your guy can't take people out very quickly (people say that ranged + crit builds can do that nicely).

We are waiting! *taps foot*

Hm, he can be rather rough but I don't recall having too much trouble with him as a hammer/dodger guy. His crits can be really nasty though, I can't remember what strategy I decided on. Think either aim vs head or aim vs torso worked well against him, but yeah... Can't remember at the moment.

Dellar is the last guy (arena champion) in the actual arena. After that, there is one more optional fight.

All this hubbub got me to take a look at th Van Buren design docs again. One thing I'd *really* want to see in New Vegas is them reviving the idea of Combat Boy, Science Boy, Diploboy and Stealthboy. That'd give a lot of flavor to the game.

That certainly shows confidence in the game at least, which is what a lot of people (including myself) have been doubting a bit with the under-the-radar PR thus far. I hope OEI gets to do the sequel at any rate (if the first game is good at least, hehe) in that case. Now, let's release the goddamn game please.

Huh, mixed feelings if that is true. It sounds like it could be since afaik it was planned to have expanded character creation options in Van Buren, allowing for the player to be a ghoul for example. I guess it would be too much to hope for them to get rid of the "radiation blast" ability, never liked that at all. But the idea of the backgrounds a'la Dragon Age is wonderful. I'm really glad that idea seems to have gotten a foothold in RPGs. The idea of finding out that you're a ghoul seems chilling and I bet Obsidian could make that come alive in a good way. The SPECIAL system changes sounds great and, again, sounds like something that JE Sawyer could implement. The gambling sounds good. Not crazy about working vehicles in the Fallout universe, but I can live with it. Surprising if the Vegas deserts indeed dwarfs the Capital Wasteland. If anything, I had expected New Vegas to be smaller for some reason. Could be either good or bad. Caesar's legion was to be in Van Buren if I remember correctly, and if so, it seems to lend credit that this information is actually true. Not crazy about everything, but I'd say if this is true overall, color me excited.

For me personally, I feel the disjointed feel is not only due to how they treated the setting (though the ancestors of the Vault Dweller being tribals, New Reno ad its gangsters, San Fransisco with its weird eastern kung-fu stuff, the hubologists, talking plants, talking deathclaws etc manage that just fine) but it was also the gameplay. The game goes up so wildly in quality. New Reno is overall a really excellent RPG location (ironically, given how it's sorta weird in the setting sense), Vault City is pretty good as is New Reno. The Den was nice. But then you have San Fransisco which is just terrible, and I find Broken Hills, Klamath, Modoc to be pretty sub-par. While Fallout 3 thankfully didn't have the endless pop culture references and stuff like that, I think it also had some problems regardning the internal consistancy. Both Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 to me feels like they're a result of "hey, this is cool, let's throw it in the game" type of design philosophy which I'm not a fan of. So hence you've got a really nice quest-line in the Android bit, where you can end the quest prematurely and in different ways, or have the game reward you if you decide to really explore the options. On the other hand, you've got a town which is being plagued by two super-heroes called the Antagonizer and the Mechanic (was that it?). Again, I'm not opposed to humor in games at all. But I really want it to fit into the setting itself, and I think both Fallout 2 and 3 breaks that quite often.

Whenever I have time off from work or school, like now over Christmas, I have a really hard time to stop myself from slipping into a schedule where I go to sleep late and sleep the morning away. But this time around, I must say that I've really noticed the difference and how much more "sluggish" I feel all-together. I remember when I worked at the hospital. I gotta say I had trouble adjusting to those schedules where you work until 0930PM, then take about 45 minutes to get home, and then have to go up in the morning to start work at 0630AM. I mean, there is just no way that I can instantly fall asleep when I get home. I have to have some time to unwind myself and relax before heading to bed. It was a lotta fun working there, but the healthcare schedules really kill me sometimes.

A feather in your cap mr Developer-san!

I've always liked Fallout 2 as a roleplaying game (though I do think it really screwed up the setting in many ways) but I find it harder and harder to replay it. Humor doesn't bother me at all but you can barely speak to a NPC without getting some *wink wink* comment, it makes it rather tedious since most of it is not really that funny. I adore Monty Python for example but finding the bridgekeeper is not funny in itself, it's just a cheap shot laugh where you can say "hey, I recognize this, it's from a funny movie!" There were many good parts about the game though, but yeah... The game is slipping on my "good games list".

Age of Decadence combat demo, still trying out different builds, though only a handful make it in the end (with the optional fight). This is some of the most fun I've had the last year gaming-wise. This demo keeps pulling me away from playing some other full-on games I had planned on playing.

Many people have had huge luck with ranged attackers focusing more on critical, it can apparantly be very deadly. I haven't tried ranged stuff yet. I personally did find doing a close quarters fighter with critical hit + whatever weapon skill to be very hard. This is a really hard fight, and I gotta say I've had to reload it several times with any build that doesn't use block (because it really hampers the Ordu archer). It's really important to try and get as good a critical hit protection as you possibly can. The helmets can help a lot here, and even if you don't use shields normally, it can really be worth it to get a big one just for when you're moving up against the enemies at the start. Some fights can be a lot easier if you make liberal use of your inventory and have set gear for different situations. But it's cool. My first build was a sword/block guy and he didn't have any problems at all with the Ordu. His "nemesis" fight were definitely the Triarii coming up later on. But when I went with a hammer/dodge character, it was pretty much the opposite.

Unless something very fun, with very fun people, ends up happening close to where I live, I'm gonna solo this New Years Eve in protest of the "you have *got* to do something on New Years Eve". And I'll probably end up feeling ashamed because I didn't do anything this New Years Eve. Social relations... Man, it's annoying sometimes. I don't really feel like drinking today and I feel even less like being in the company of people who drink a lot when I'm sober.

I felt like Jade Empire was such a wasted opportunity. The visuals of the game-world was absolutely fantastic but the content felt the same ol'. it had all the potential in the world for a really fun action-RPG combat system but it was so pitifully easy that it came across as really flat. If they had created something with the Jade Empire type of visuals and inserted some of the political machinations, darkness and grit (oh yeah) of Dragon Age then it could've been an extremely cool game.

Ah, nice. I was gonna try a spear build with nearly everything put into the spear skill (to maximize the interrupts) and use heavy armor and see how that goes. I kinda like using the spears since it makes for a cool playstyle, especially the 2-handed ones. Where you can sort of back away and stab the enemies each time they try to get close to you.

My parties of 6 are usually around level 16/17 (depending on ECL) around the time I get to the final boss, and I usually barely manage the fight. So beating it with 4 people of that level sounds like it could be a real challenge. There might have been some stuff you missed that would've squeezed out an extra level or two for the party, it's pretty easy to miss some stuff on the first playthrough. But yeah, if nothing else works then I'd head back to grab a few cohorts (don't forget to level them up at the adventurers guild if you do that). But that ending battle is really hard. I also like the NWN2 engine. It doesn't run as well as it should, but it can look really awesome in capable area designing hands (which is the case with MotB and SoZ) and it plays pretty good once you've got it configured to your liking.

Dude, you have *got* to be on crack. DoD was the most boring explorative game I can think of where nothing interesting ever happens. It's such a snore that I couldn't bring myself to finish it. MoW isn't the best game I ever played, but it's such a huge step forward. Worth it for one of the coolest endgames (it's optional) I've seen. Good thing about Atari: they took the extremely lackluster NWN1 premium modules system and managed to improve it. Bad thing about Atari: they don't actually release the content (MoW) despite it being finished.

Haven't tried any ranged weapons yet. Are crossbows fun? I've done sword and shield (heavy armor and block), a hammer guy (hammers and dodge) and a spear with shield guy (heavy armor and block, though used a 2-handed spear for certain fights). All of those were extremely fun and rewarding. I tried out a dagger and dodge guy but I didn't have much fun with that. Normally I like to play sneaky characters but couldn't get into this one for some reason. At any rate, I'm also having a blast. The fact that I keep replaying a combat demo is a really good sign for the game I think.

I can't muster a top 10, but I'll give a top 3. 1. Knights of the Chalice 2. Dragon Age (was first for a while but I dunno, my excitement for the game really waned after the first playthrough. Good game though) 3. Risen

There are a few kinks to be worked out, functionality wise. Lack of tooltips, no "autorun" toggle (have to doubleclick to run), occasionally confusing text (saying it scores a critical hit when you didn't) in the message window, but I think they're planning on fixing a lot of them. At least for the final game. Many people have crashing problems and so forth, but a hotfix was released that helped a lot of them. They're working on squashing bugs I think and will release a patched version of the demo if I understand things correctly (they've got a list of issues fixed so far at least). Personally I've not had huge problems. I've had two crashes, both of which occured after I had re-loaded my game about a million times. I also got a bug where the characters start attacking themselves instead of opponents, but that was fixed by a reload. So yeah, personally I've not had any huge technical problems, but quite a few people do. The game looks pretty good for being a Torque engine game (it's not the new version of the engine). Sound effects and music are very well done. Animations are mostly good, they vary a bit in quality. Most of them have pretty good weight behind them, it's very satisfying to knock someone down with a 2 handed hammer for example. I had expected that I would enjoy the combat on the same level as Fallout. That is to say, I would feel it to be pretty OK but not particularly great. But I'm having a *lot* of fun with the combat system. It's not rewarding for jack-of-all-trades I think, but the different builds feel very different from one another to play which is awesome. My sword and shield, heavy armor guy felt completely different than my sledgehammer guy (with focus on dodging), and I'm now doing a character focusing on spear, shield (though in some battles it turned out to be better to use a 2-handed spear) and armor which again, feels very different. I've read about some other cool builds that have beaten the demo, including a character focused on throwing and critical hits for example All guys I've played have had very different experiences in which battle in the arena was the toughest for them. It's clear that there's a lot of thought gone into the combat system, it really shows. They're still tweaking some things based on the feedback off the demo though. I mean, this is the most fun I've had doing combat in a RPG in a pretty long time, aside from Knights of the Chalice (but that game is pretty much geared completely towards combat). I didn't expect it to be this strong since, in the full game, combat will be but one of many ways to play through. So yep, definitely worth a try if you ask me. Might be worth to wait for a patched version to be released but the download isn't that huge anyways.

Have beta tested a NWN2 mod called Trinity, very good stuff. Playing the Age of Decadence demo. Managed to beat it with a sword and shield guy, now doing a a character focused on hammers and dodging. Great fun.

Nah, I have a NWN2 mod lying around that I kinda poke away at every now and then but it's mostly for my own amusement. Don't know when or if it'll ever be finished. So I can't claim much cred in that area unfortunately. But I mean, I definitely agree with you in some ways. The mod should've been finished by now, no question. And with proper managing and planning it would've been finished a long time ago. It's all fine and well to want to bring the best and the biggest play experience, but it's more important to release something, even if it's smaller or whatever. And at this point, the mod won't live up to the hype and all that that's been slowly cooking throughout the years, reached boiling points and then simmered back down to a sort of quiet cynicism which is probably the worst situation for someone who wants to release a mod or a game. Where people can go "I waited all these years for this?!" even if it's the best thing since sliced bread. And while the Rogue Dao name once stood for innovative modders, the people who brought the Planescape universe back into play, the dudes that did all the kick-ass custom content for NWN2 etc. Now it's more like "oh yeah, those guys who to *forever* to finish that mod". So it's not a very good position for an aspiring young development team. So yep, it's a shame. But as I said, the project definitely isn't dead.

Yes, I'm sure they will be reading the OEI boards and go "Oh my god, this jaguars4ever guy has found out what we have been missing all this time! Get to work fellas!" And if they're dead I shouldn't be able to speak with them. I playtested the mod for about half a year (Spring and Summer or thereabouts, and they did good progress) and still speak with some of the teammembers. Like I said, mismanaged to hell and back? Oh yes. Dead? Not at all. But I know you do it out of the love of your heart!