RangerSG

1) Baldur's Gate 2-- The most immersive, most complete, and thoroughly enjoyable gaming experience I've ever had. Again and again and again. 2) Europa Universalis II. 400 years of alternate history...anywhere in the world. I wrote a couple stories for it on the old AAR forums as shawng1. Lots of fun. I can't say if this game took more of my life or BG. hehe I never thought I'd like a RTS game...then I played this, and it officially made me say goodbye to Civ2 at last. The absolute perfect game for a history buff like me. 3) Civilzation II. Everything in the series since has been crap compared to the options, replayability, and sheer scope of Civ II. 4) Fallout 2- This one gets the nod for me over the original because although the game isn't as polished, it's scope, ambition, and open-endedness make me play it more. 5) Fallout- Great gameplay, great story, well polished. 6) Baldur's Gate 1- The game that brought be back to D&D and convinced me CRPGs would be fun. 7) NWN- Yeah, the OCs were weak. The original graphics mediocre. I actually took this back the 1st time I bought it. I bought it again 2 years later, and the modding community has kept me busy ever since, so much so I had to become part of it and work on a PW myself. 8 ) Morrowind- Out of the box, a better game than NWN. Though the combat system was weaker. The leveling system not really ideal. The open-ended gameplay kept me busy for hundreds of hours a half dozen times. 9) Europa Uniersalis- Not as advanced as EU2. But with the alterate start options the community added, it was almost as expansive, if not as detailed outside Europe. 10) Knights of the Old Republic-- Cheesy in places? Sure. But a good story, good characters. And a fun game in a great setting.

Firaxis only took the least interesting aspects of their best game, Alpha Centauri, and integrated them into Civ III and IV. They're tripe by comparison. Agreed, Sid Meier one day woke up and decided that people really didn't like customizing their games anymore. Nevermind that both Civ2 and Alpha Centauri were applauded for the degree of customization you had. Nevermind the fans loved BOTH games for that. So Civ3 became this slimmed down 3d graphics dumbed-down version of a classic. And Civ4 more of the same with Leonard Nimoy voicing. Oh yay. Just who I want to hear mindlessly reciting discoveries. Come on, THAT is better than Civ2, with all the customization opportunities that game had. Or Alpha Centauri, where you could customize everything you built? egads. I don't know how.

Nah, I don't feel like bard and paladin and cavalier (which was in dragon back then) and such were 'prestige classes.' I know many do, but I've never had that feeling. The only requirements were starting requirements, so in the end, they're a different concept. I think 1st ed was the best done system, period. And honestly, I do like the prestige class concept, though I'm not sure of it's implementation. I think PrCs would be better if rather than "blending" aspects of one class into another, they made it so that they amplified a particular trait of a class. And I could not disagree more strongly about class systems being unnecessary in a modern game. That's simply rubbish. If you want your PC to be a jack-of-all-trades, then great, have a classless system. But the classless system leads to all players doing everything by nature. As a result, that system is entirely unsuited to a party-based game. So if you're a primarily SP game/PC do it all game; which, let's not kid ourselves, FO was about the PC, and only the PC, the companions were comedy relief and meat shields, the end game was intended for the PC and the PC alone; then a classless system makes sense. If you're a party-based game, where every player should contribute, or NPCs are closer to equals, then absolutely you need a class-based system. What's more, honestly, I think class-based (with maybe some limited multi-classing) is the most believable method. People tend to refine a given skill set as they become more experienced, not branch into a jack of all trades. Renaissance men are rare. And usually fail to be as effective in any area as a specialist.

I love the Special System. I love 1st Ed D&D. And yeah, I still have 1st edition books tucked away someplace. I've never given them up, and I've never bought another D&D product other than a CRPG. To me 1st ed. is still the best system for a class-based game. FO2 the best for a classless. I love both. Either done well is great by me. Either done poorly can break the game. I don't get the attachment some have to one or the other, other than I guess some people want the illusion of freedom, though in truth, the environment of the setting will almost always force their hand if they want to be effective in a classless setting anyway.

Pidesco, Personally, I don't get why controlling your whole party should even be plausible. OK, IE games did it. So? I'm not roleplaying my NPCs. I'm roleplaying the PC. That's so far from a dealbreaker to me as not to matter. Besides, use TonyK's AI hak and you can get a 'lot' more control over your henchmen. Most quality mods will let you control when they switch weapons, how they use potions and spells. As for the content, the CEP adds so much material you could basically build an entire mod and never see anything from the OC if you didn't want to. And the "highly-regarded mods" of 3-4 years ago are mostly blown away by what's come out in the last 2 years. Even builders who were around then, like Savant, have polished their craft a great deal. And there's other builders who are involved now who are simply better writers than most of those. That said, there's Firestarter's Ravenloft series, which uses no haks and just base material, but you would rarely know unless you had screenshots out and looked at them at the same time.

I honestly don't get all the NWN1 hate. Yeah, the OCs were poor. I'll concede that. But the mod community for the game has been amazing, and taken it far beyond what you get out of the box. There's modules on the Vault that have writing and content quality as high as any professionally released RPG today. The only game that I got more value out of than it was BG. Mass Effect makes me cry right now though...as I'm one of the countless victims of the game's catastrophic bug list. Two months after release, and it's still a $50 coaster.

Civilization III "When the series jumped the shark." Europa Universalis III-- Paradox, why oh why did you think I wanted better graphics and not more of the classic historical grognard gameplay you'd given us before? *cries*

Being involved in building a large-scale module for NWN, I have nothing but respect for TG. Even more when I look at the fact that I have a released and fully supported toolset and they have had to do this mostly by trial and error and hacking. I know that I've suffered lots of heartache in the process of building our world. And I can only imagine how much more they've had, since they've been doing it longer with little official support. Do I wish I could be given a more concrete timeline? Of course. Have I wanted to see this done for a year? Yes. But will I ever...ever...look down on them for what they've been trying to do? Nope. Hats off to TG, and when it's done, I'm sure it will be quality.

As I recall, certain Jedi 'styles' prefer certain lightsaber colors. I read somewhere that Violet was the preferred blade color of the Type VII master. But nothing about classes. Anyway, unless I'm Sith, I typically prefer Violet or Silver.

A TES class is simply a template to try to show you how the skill system works to enable you to level. That's why you can make a custom class for any adventurer you put together yourself. TES is a classless system that used the term class to refer to "character building template." That's one advantage Bethsoft had in adapting Fallout, the two systems were fairly similar.

If a game is going to have alignments, it should make them so they actually try to encompass the various plausible worldviews. 4e's 'attempt' at alignments once again shows a shoddy implementation based on a dubious attempt at simplifying things that should not be simplified. But then, 4e hardly can be called a RPG.

I don't understand the whole "make the spells like PnP" either. I DO think however, that where a spell is supposed to be essentially instantaneous, and the spell-casting animation/vocalization sequence of the game screws up the sequence so bad that the caster is mobbed by enemies before the spell is cast, that there is essentially something wrong with the casting system. To whit: If a spell is instantaneous, or even has a casting time of less than 3; turn off the bloody animation so it fires in the correct amount of time...PLEASE. This is especially the case with spells like Magic Missile, which are essentially useless in NWN2 because they take so long to fire and reach the target that the enemy is already on top of you.

Hmm, seemed closer to the Rangers in Babylon 5 than anything else. And that wouldn't be bad, since they were hardly pure do-gooders. I think there's probably room for more than being a paladin in that. *shurgs* We'll see.

Compared to pyro-sorceress and oh, I can't tell he's going to betray me Ranger, Shandra was a dream. I actually felt gutted when she died. Even if I didn't like her, "I'm going to blame you for saving my life for all eternity," attitude.

Mandalorian Wars would be plausible, actually. And I think lots of people would play it and love it.

"Easily" retconning or killing PCs integral to the past series. I think not. The market for a KotOR MMO is those who know the lore and are interested in the series. At least long term. Killing the characters players know about will turn those people right off. And having all his memories back does not mean he's out of the PC's hands. There's plenty of room for a major story before or after the time frame for a K3. I doubt it would have any serious impact on it at all... Indeed, it could be positive impetus as easily as negative. If the game does well, it might motivate LA to spend the money and do the work to get K3 seriously moving, as it will demonstrate monetarily an interest in completing the story.

And as I said, nothing you said precludes continuing the story of Revan or the Exile. Which would not be served by an MMO. Before you say "Deal with it" take other people's comments seriously. K3 and an MMO are different markets. I'll never, ever, pay a monthly subscription for a game. Period.

*shrugs* I disagree. I think there's plenty of plotline between that without having a single story. I think the market for a Revan/Exile continuation is definitely there. And it's not going to be satisfied by an MMO, since people have different ideas of what Revan and the Exile represent. There's plenty of room for warfare in the time period I suggested, for instance, without touching what Revan or the Exile do.

I don't see how this would preclude a K3. In fact, I could see this set in the interim between K2 and K3, with interest in the rebuilding of the order, facing propulgating the "True Sith" threat to the Republic, etc. And K3 being the time when the real "war" breaks out. Just like the prequels jumped 10 or more years between each one (whatever you think of them), K2 to K3 could jump a good chunk of time as well.

Well, Swashbuckler is a fine choice. I was hoping for that. Doomguide...*sighs* That officially gets a meh from me. Mystic Theurge would've been nice. barring that, I don't think we needed MORE paladin/cleric love in a game that's already tilted to clerics balance-wise.

Indeed, I recall the hype for Oblivion, where they showed off the dialogue system in detail and promised Radiant AI would revolutionize RPGs. It seems that they are playing things far too close to the vest this time. Either they have something truly stellar they're really afraid of being stolen, or they know they're playing a shell game. Given that BethSoft is typically only stellar when it comes to graphics (particularly atmospherics) I'm not betting on the first.

That was one thing that intrigued me about Arcanum, Wizardry, and Warhammer. That mix of tech and magic. I could imagine the common folk not being sure which was which. Now, I'm pretty sure DA won't use even primitive firearms, but I'd love a fantasy RPG where you're not sure where magic ends and technology begins. And the alchemists blur the lines between both.

And if you had the violence setting turned up, you didn't even need bloody mess. Or if you were very good landing crits. Or if you loved mini-guns.

I think there's no reason the PC couldn't be either one. Especially since canon genders are opposing.

Some people will just fear you though, no ? I remember a while back Gaider or someone else (high on the food chain) saying that a fair amount of people would have a strong distrust (e.g. "They're witches!" type deal) towards anyone who can wield magic? Exactly, this has been repeated recently as well. Basically, mages are mages from birth. 'And' they are hated by the established religion. I think that's rather interesting.