Starwars

Omg t's Brian who wrote a lot of great stuff on Bloodlines! I'm never washing my, er, monitor again...

In Robs latest blog update, it was stated that they were pleased with the sales (also adding that MotB was in the top 10 in EU for a while) and reception of MotB.

Just from memory, it's a city adventure set in the city of Westgate. Westgate is the type of city where anything goes basically, as long as you get the cash with ya. The story will involve the player finding out about a cursed (coincidence as Westgate and MotB were developed at the same time with no connection to each other) item that is in his possession. There will be 3 companions that can be recruited, 2 women and 1 man. I believe it will start at level 8 if I remember correctly (or around that area). Supposedly Ossian set out to make lots of choices for the player, and we will get to do huge choices in terms of the main storyline as well. Athkatla in Baldurs Gate 2 was the main inspiration in trying to create that wonderful city atmosphere. It will probably be released shortly after the 1.12 patch is released (which is in beta at the moment), as that patch contains a system for identifying that you're running a proper bought copy. It won't be released as a regular game to stores. A key-code for the download will be provided in an upcoming NWN2 release though (together with NWN2 itself and Mask of the Betrayer). It will feature around 15 hours of gameplay, though that will likely vary a lot depending on how many sidequests you do. It will feature voiceacting. There will be custom music, composed by dude who also did the music for Darkness over Daggerford. That's most of what I can remember at the moment.

It sounds like a good contest, and there will likely be quite a few prefabs cranked out for it. It's a shame that they couldn't judge the previous contest though, hopefully we won't get a similar problem with this one. Still, I think what NWN2 is lacking at the moment is creatures! Hopefully the Purgatorio guys will remedy that somewhat.

To bad.

Nice find there. Chult, Chult, Chuuuuuuuuuuuuuult!

I'd guess it's mostly the whole abstraction of the Internet itself. We all know people speak their minds wildly (sometimes without thinking beforehand) on here without caring, people are quick to pick fights and start arguments and so on. I would guess it's the same with pirating and it being acceptable so to speak. It's much more abstract, less risky and less confrontational to download something than to go and steal something in a store for example. And of course, it's fast. You can download a song in a few seconds, that's a big temptation. Even my otherwise very law-abiding parents have asked me to download stuff for them, and when I point out that it's illegal, they're just like "yeah, well" and laugh about it. Launching some great attack on piracy, well... I don't condone piracy at all, but this would need a massive effort, and to tell the truth there are *plenty* of other illegal activities that I'd rather see that effort go into. To be succesful, and actually deterring people from downloading stuff illegally... Well, yeah. That would have to be massive and also continious. Again, I'm not defending piracy, but I don't think it's viable to tell the truth. Are there really resources to do it properly and effeciently?

I think it should be pointed out that the protection method they chose probably wasn't thought through completely. In a rather bizarre way, they created a lot of their own problems with having a anti-piracy system like that. I also believe the best answer to piracy, at least in the short-term, is simply to make the game a real bugger to crack. Even though they likely will be cracked eventually, I have a feeling that most piracy occurs when the game is first released, and if you can hold off people cracking it for a while then I believe there will be a lot less downloaders. Though I'm still not convinced that it would raise sales all *that* much because I also believe in the whole "downloader isn't necessarily a possible customer". The hardware/software stuff must be extremely frustrating for PC gaming companies though. I really wish that the whole PC parts market would be streamlined, but at the same time it would suck for us who have *some* idea of what we're doing (I'm definetely not an expert though) because it would mean less customizing. That's both good and bad. What I would *really* like to see is less of the constant pushing of graphics, and just more optimization in general. I really wonder if hot graphics really sell PC games that well when compared to a game that can be played on a much wider range of systems. EDIT: I also believe developers should look more towards Europe as a market, and perhaps specifically Eastern Europe. STALKER seems to have done really well in that regard. http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/36980/S-...ion-Copies-Sold Though of course, it IS an Eastern European game itself. But if I remember correctly, I think JE Sawyer stated that NWN2 sold better in the EU than the US.

Saw this over at RPGWatch, and thought it was an interesting read. Like Dhruin said, it's likely fueled by anger of Iron Lore shutting down, but it's still kinda interesting. http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/sh...ead.php?t=42663

The Witcher did that as well for a few areas. STALKER is another one (though you've always got a flashlight with you in that one).

It looks really interesting and impressive, but the real kicker will be in how this stuff is actually used in the game, and how the actual experience of using a system like will be. If the controls are not good enough, then I believe this will be mainly an experience of extreme frustration, regardless of how impressive the physics are. It kinda looks a bit clunky to me, though obviously it's always different to play the game. If they manage to pull it off, then it could be great though..

It's Anthonys post on the first page of this thread: http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=22703 It could be trickery as well, one could interpret the post both ways really. But since Atari has that in their sheet thingie, then I'm choosing to believe it. If it is in the works, I really wonder who the main guy on it will be. I thought George Ziets did a marvellous job on Mask of the Betrayer. EDIT: Hah, looks like I'm the official Codex -> Obsidian boards spokesperson.

Usually I go to a shop in a city that lies close to where I live, because I know the guy who runs it and it's always fun to talk to him. But, a lot of my purchases have been through various Internet sites, as there have been very few new games that I've been interested in buying (and the shop mentioned above doesn't carry a whole lot of older PC games).

Tropico and STALKER still have their claws in me. STALKER is a lot of fun with the aliVe mod, while still staying fairly close to the vision of vanilla STALKER. And Tropico is shaping up to be one of my favourite games ever, very addictive.

I'd just like everyone to know that I'm currently enjoying a Staropramen Dark, and.... It's good and tasty. Yum yum! Love ya Czech people, just love ya.

I mostly like darker beers (though a really cool light one can be extremely tasty on a hot summer day). I tend to like Guiness, Staropramen, Urquell and similar stuff like that.

Well, since I installed STALKER again (this time with the alive mod, good fun), I must say that I'm really looking forward to Clear Sky now. Oh ye East European developers, let it not be delayed like STALKER was. I'm gonna try that AMK mod for STALKER once the translation to English is more finished. It looks very good. Also looking forward to the NWN2 expansion pack, Mysteries of Westgate and of course, Purgatorio (beta in April, yahooo). And, Age of Decadence.

Tried Tropico for the first time yesterday, needless to say this game has me in its claws now. I love relaxing builders like this, what a great game it is. Also installed STALKER for a bit to check out how it looked on my rig now since I upgraded it a bit a few months back. I still think this is one of the best looking games I've ever seen, because the visuals just don't feel like fluff. It feel well thought out, and it really serves the games atmosphere.

My card keeps pretty cool when playing NWN2 when compared to most other games. I think the game that has raised its temperature the most was STALKER for some reason. I do think NWN2 could get away with not having as smooth performance as many FPS games for example, since it doesn't rely as much on the players skills so to speak. But it is a shame that certain areas really slow the game down. I can run the game quite well for the most part and get satisfactory performance with medium shadows (Athlon 64 3200+, 2Gb and X1950PRO card), but it *really* slows down in certain areas. If it gets really bad, then usually it's in areas with water where I can only switch off Water reflections to up the performance again quite a bit. But it would be really nice to have a smoother performance overall for the game.

The Danes ARE crazy, but since I live closeby (about an hour all together, bus + ferry) it's a nice place to go to and have a few beers during the summer. And of course... P

No no nooooooooo... I want Obsidian to make KOTOR3.

Well, Anthony Davis of Obsidian kindly asked Josh about it and posted on the Codex. Thanks Anthony.

One more attempt in attracting Josh's attention and giving us an update. I suspect you're quite busy with Aliens, but it'd be nice if progress continues on this as well or if it's been put on the shelf for now. Cheers.

Yes, yes it does. Now let's force George Ziets to be the lead of another expansion!

Age of Decadence differs in that it's not a "modern setting" so to speak. But it is post-apocalyptic, and the gameplay and overall design seems to be very close to Fallout. There's also Afterfall, though it's a 3d game. The feature list is pretty jaw-dropping. In fact, to jaw-dropping as I believe it will fail to deliver on its promises (if it gets released that is), but it certainly looks like there is a good game there. It wouldn't surprise me to see a post-apocalyptic "upswing" soon among bigger game developers. There seems to be a few in production already. 4 years from now, we'll probably be sick to death of it and crying for good ole standard high fantasy. Well, maybe not.