Magister Lajciak

It's worse than you think. The European Commission exercises not just executive and judicial authority, but also has legislative powers. For the moment, I don't think there have been huge cases of abuse of this combination of powers by the European Commission, but the danger is there, especially as more and more powers get transferred from the European nation-states to the EU, so reform of the legislative/executive/judicial processes at the EU level is desirable. The new Constitutional Treaty/Lisbon Treaty does not address this. It transfers more powers to the EU level, but does not reform the combined legislative/executive/judicial function of the European Commission.

Form your point of view as a consumer, you won't even notice it. Most OEMs will ship a browser That does mitigate my anger. Hopefully, you are right about this.

Sigh, thanks European Commission! Now I will have the inconvenience of not having an OS come with a browser, even though people in all other regions of the world will have it bundled in, yet still have the choice of downloading other browsers should they choose to do so. Needless to say, from my point of views as a consumer, I think this decision is outright moronic. Perhaps instead of going after Microsoft for bundling a free browser (and in no way preventing the use of other browsers) with their OS, our esteemed regulators should concern themselves with artificial market segmentation through region coding of DVDs and Blu-ray. Oh, wait, that would actually be helpful to consumers, so that's not going to happen.

Do we really know these things? We know that Obsidian is working on a new game and that it is a fantasy game. I am not so sure, however, that it is their own IP. In fact, I suspect that the game will be BG3 (a new D&D game could be nice if it weren't 4E), since Atari has recently stated it is reviving the Baldur's Gate franchise. I'm pretty certain we do: "What we'd love to do instead is tackle something like Baldur's Gate 3 or create our own new fantasy world - or have we already been doing that? " There's no way it's BG3, because Fergus isn't about to just leak the fact that they are working on BG3 in casual conversation - even if he wanted to, he'd be under contract with Atari and hence very careful about his wording. It's far more likely he's referring to "our own new fantasy world", especially given the wording of the sentence. I don't know... that is a very vague and non-commital statement that might well be completely in jest. Yes, Obsidian could be making their own fantasy IP, but I wouldn't base that assumption on this quote.

I don't really want to derail the thread, but since you asked I will just mention a few things briefly. I should mention outright that I am primarily a PnP gamer (and mostly the Dungeon Master), more so than a player of CRPGs, though I clearly do enjoy CRPGs too (otherwise I wouldn't be here ). My problems with 4E can be grouped into two categories (which are, of course, related): flavor & mechanics/rules. In terms of flavor, 4E has run roughshod over all things D&D, getting rid of races such as gnomes, while introducing races such as Eladrin or Dragonborn. This is just one example among many, many, many - practically the whole D&D flavor has been removed and replaced with something completely different. The old planes, such as the elemental planes, or the outer planes are gone and instead there are new ones such as the Astral Sea or Feywild. Dragons are no longer intelligent creatures that are fearsome in physical combat, but can also cast spells as was traditionally the case in D&D, but are now feral monsters instead. And so on and so on - there is very little D&D left in 4E - the flavor changes are so huge I don't actually consider it D&D anymore, though I don't doubt that some might have a different perspective on the matter. A special mention in terms of flavor changes should be made with respect to Forgotten Realms. FR was the first setting to be switched to 4E (with others to follow) and it was basically butchered. Some continents no longer exist (e.g. Maztica) and have been replaced with new ones, most of the deities have either been killed or retconned out of existence and the setting, the planar structure has been changed to be the same as the new planes in 'core 4E' (again, meaning that the normal planes we know and love are gone and replaced by new 4E inventions), and plenty of other changes have been made to make it a more generic setting. Now as to the changes to the rules themselves, these are perhaps even more suckastic than the changes to flavor. The driving reason behind the new rules has been balance between the classes. This is in principle a nice goal, but the way they went about it was not suitable to my gaming needs (I won't say it was outright bad, because different people want different things from RPG games, but for me it was definitely bad). Essentially, their balancing methods took too forms. If something is not considered perfectly balanced between the classes do one of these three things: 1) Remove it from the game 2) Nerf it beyond being recognizable 3) Make it the same for all classes The result is that entire categories of special abilities have been removed from the game. These are often among the more interesting abilities, so the balancing has made the game much more boring. For example, all forms of summoning are completely gone from the game (give some players more actions per round than others), all save or die spells are gone (too dangerous), illusion magic is gone, and so on and so on. Oh and all classes now have the same 'power progression'. That means that the old magic system is gone and all classes, whether they are fighters or wizards get one ability usable once per day at level 1, another usable once per encounter at level 2 another usable at will at level 3, another usable once per day at level 4 and so on (the progression is made up to illustrate the principle, I don't actually remember at what level they get what type of ability - the point is that it is the same for all classes). This is majorly boring for me. There are many other things I dislike about 4E, but this a good start. I certainly won't be spending any money to support that system.

Do we really know these things? We know that Obsidian is working on a new game and that it is a fantasy game. I am not so sure, however, that it is their own IP. In fact, I suspect that the game will be BG3 (a new D&D game could be nice if it weren't 4E), since Atari has recently stated it is reviving the Baldur's Gate franchise.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I mean... take a good franchise, but switch it to 4E (most likely) and turn it into an MMO? It's like they are actively trying to lose me as a customer. Oh well, I am sure there will be plenty of other people who will enjoy it even though it will be an MMO and most likely 4E, so I guess that will just leave me lamenting the demise of yet another good franchise as a setting for non-MMO games. I suppose BG3 is being made too and probably as a single player game (I recall reading that the BG franchise is being revived), but that too will likely be 4E and thus an automatic no-buy for me. I guess I should really stop tracking 'D&D' games now, since all new ones will likely be 4E, so there is no point for me to waste time on following them.

I really like the changes. Defensive casting will no longer be automatic - that should help balance the spellcasters.

Although I don't usually play shooters, I am definitely looking forward to this game. Some franchises do draw me in even to shooters: e.g. Jedi Knight and Alien versus Predator.

I don't even know most of the games he reviews, but I still enjoy seeing/hearing them thrashed.

I would say: KOTOR >> KOTOR 2 BUT NWN 2 >>> NWN AND MOTB >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NWN 2 I like both BioWare and Obsidian. In fact, they are the only two companies I truly trust to make first-class CRPGs.

This is unfortunate, but true!

You can purchase additional items (furniture, clothing, hairstyle etc) from the online store, which requires you register your game, but otherwise the only DRM is apparently a DVD check. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It seems pretty reasonable to me too.

Anyone who doesn't have a check card nowadays aren't living in the 21st century and has more problems than just trying to get a game to work. I don't agree. This may be the case in North America, but plenty of people in my country do not have credit cards. Heck, I am currently in the U.S. and I too don't have a credit card - I just see no need to get one.

Looks good!

OK, so the inevitable has finally happened and DNF has been cancelled.

The second and third Pathfinder RPG previews are up: http://paizo.com/paizo/blog

Pretty funny

Nice! I want many stages for the Aliens, facehugger, chestbuster, 'young alien', mature alien and king/queen would all be nice stages to experience! :D

I doubt the MMO will use WoW engine - the article seems to indirectly indicate that the only reason WoW engine is currently being used for testing purposes is because the dedicated engine is not ready yet. The engine not being ready yet even for preliminary testing also hints that the MMO is very, very far away from being released. It is true that there have also been rumors of a fifth project at Blizzard. Perhaps it is Warcraft 4 - that would at least show that a successful MMO within a franchise does not necessarily mean the end of that franchise for all other games.

Great - an offline version would be wunderbar! My internet connection is currently pretty bad (intermittent at best) and offline also enables usage away from any connection (which is where a lot of gaming takes place).

The new MMO Blizzard is developing will be based on a new franchise: http://www.wowblues.com/us/blizzard-going-...6903519279.html I am not really interested in MMOs, but who knows, the franchise might be translated to other non-MMO games eventually.

Hey thanks! This is nice work! Will it be available for download rather than online use?

Yeah, they made 4E Forgotten Realms more generic than it was before... and that is despite the fact that even before the genericization by 4E, Forgotten Realms have already been relatively often accused of being generic....

It was a pretty funny review.