J.E. Sawyer

Hmm. I don't think I ever mentioned AP, which is using UE3. The Onyx engine/toolsets are not specifically designed for end-users, but we try to keep end-users in mind for the future. That said, I do think the Onyx tools are much more user-friendly than their Electron counterparts. I showed one of the Onyx tools, our conversation editor, at the end of the presentation. Unlike the standard "tree-style" editor, Onyx's conversation editor uses a flowchart, similar in many ways to a Visio flowchart or an AI state machine flowchart. I think it's a much more intuitive layout to work from.

It's a pretty brainless game, but if it's like $5 or $10, it's worth it.

If you are going to play absurd word games, you should at least try to get it right. You chastised someone for declaring that 3.5 magic had different sources. You did this by referring to arcane and divine, which are types of magic, not sources of magic. Page 169 of the 3.5 PHB defines them as types, not sources. "Arcane" and "divine" don't even make sense as sources; they're adjectives. They're always listed as types. However, things like "demonic bloodline" and "magical spellbook" do make sense as sources. In fact, in Complete Arcane, the warlock's demonic link is referred to as a source. Complete Divine also distinguishes between different sources among the general group of "divine" types. Complaining about using previously informal classifications that were already spelled out in 3E/3.5 is incredibly nitpicky. WotC already "made up" where a sorcerer's spells came from. They already "made up" where a druid's or bard's spells could come from. What's the big deal?

Not a problem at all. Onyx is very responsive.

It's not really a "3D" issue, but how the game state is updated relative to input being given.

Aurora is less responsive than the IE. It's just how the engine works.

There are two types that can be subdivided into numerous sources. Wizards = academic book learnin'. Sorcerers = innate power from draconic lineage. Warlock = demonic/fey link from a pact or lineage. Cleric = directly granted by deity or "self-granted" by personal philosophy. Druid = directly granted by deity or by nature itself. Paladin = directly granted by deity or ??? Ranger = directly granted by deity or by nature itself. There are/were also campaign-specific sources. E.g. in FR Mystra regulated the Weave, from which most arcane casters drew their power in a variety of ways. However, Shar controlled the Shadow Weave, from which arcane casters could also draw power. Also in FR, clerics/druids/rangers/paladins must worship a deity to gain spells, which is different from the core rules. As the list above shows (and all of that stuff is directly confirmed in the 3E/3.5 rulebooks), 3E/3.5 always had a variety of sources within those two categories. 4th Ed. just makes more use of those distinctions.

Yuan-ti own. Explorable overland maps own. Party building owns.

The Falcon's Talon forward jump + strong equivalent of Flying Swallow is absurdly good.

Yeah, the framerate issues are pretty bad in some places. There's one spot on the first level that's absolutely terrible and I can't believe it shipped like that. The camera is about as bad as NG's was on release, with a few really bad exceptions. Most of the other changes feel pretty good. I'm on the second level playing on Warrior and though some of the enemies feel pretty cheap -- seriously, ninja dogs that carry swords in their mouths and shoot explosive shuriken with their tails -- overall it's a good challenge.

Josh, please free up space in your PM box, thanks k

My 20-minute review: Ninja Gaiden 2 owns. Peace.

Some stores have copies now, but tomorrow is the street date. I picked up a new 360 just for this game.

mvBarracuda, you're making the right choice. Finish your exams, then finish FIFE. Take this advice from a Latin-class-failure. And think of how handy Latin will be when you make a Darklands sequel using FIFE.

I was trying to get at the fact that the average CoC party consists of something like a baker, university professor, prostitute, and 40 year-old private eye with a bastball bat and a .38 revolver between all of them. DG parties tend to be a lot better prepared, organized, and equipped. They also tend to fight a lot of human opponents, like members of The Fate/Maj-12/Karotechia, etc.

Delta Green is the only CoC game/setting where more than 5% of campaigns go beyond three sessions anyway -- and for good reason. Stock, old-fashioned Chaosium CoC is great if you want to simulate the story experiences heavily, but it kind of blows as a game.

You haven't seen side-by-side differences in color palettes, you don't know if individual SKUs will able to optionally switch between them, and you don't know how much effort the developers have put into making this change.

I wouldn't be surprised if the U.K. Arcania used the U.S. color palette. The localization of the Witcher to North America involved a great number of content changes. The localization of many games for the German market can involve radical changes due to the severely restrictive policies of the USK. Though many Japanese games are never "content-localized" for North America, NA games are often content-localized for Japan (adding fingers and whatnot). I think you guys are overreacting to changes that you haven't even seen, and complaining about a waste of resources that you have no way to quantify.

Because different markets have vastly different expectations in terms of visual aesthetics. Localization doesn't just apply to the translation of text.

Plus, it's obviously directed as opposed to the art in a lot of RPGs, which just looks like a bunch of conflicting styles (usually poorly rendered) thrown together in a book. However, I did just think of a recent book with art direction I like more: Cadwallon. For older books, it's still 3rd Edition Ars Magica.

[quote name='H

I've always believed that Athas is Abeir-Toril in the far future, anyway. So really, by sixth edition the Forgotten Realms will actually be 2nd Edition Dark Sun. Just be patient.

There's a big difference between "not many people are buying/playing our game" (i.e. no one likes it/no one has systems to run it) and "many people are pirating our game" (i.e. people are playing pirated copies). Those who can afford systems that run Crysis sure as hell can afford to buy Crysis. And if the game is at the top of the piracy charts, I'd assume that people are actually downloading it to play it.