Monte Carlo

^ Pop, do you think that the vice-like grip D&D has had on CRPGs is finally on the wane? I personally think this would be a good thing, but without the brand how do developers get the suits to agree to big CRPG titles nowadays? DA is a hit, especially on the console (where D&D has only ever been marginal). I'm hoping that other companies are looking at DA and thinking that maybe they could throw their hats into the ring. Of course, we've got Blizzard and D3 but that's aimed at a different audience (is D3 going out on console too?) and some indie Euro CRPGs, but what about the niche that Bio / BIS used to occupy?

With regards to the water spells - I wish to remind you that a tunnel with water flowing through it is technically a sewer. Which is where most of your minds are OK, we now have an intrepid band of tunnel explorers. Which tunnel would you like to explore? There are the Tunnels of Chaos The Tunnels of Fury and... The Tunnels of Unnecessary Exposition. --- Your party has three small swords, a plank of wood with a nail hammered through it, a length of rope, iron rations, two suits of grubby tunnel armour, a torch and a copy of a book called Tunnels: A History.

^ Aha, but you will all download and play my mod when it comes out. Oh yes, you will.

^ Yeah, my 2H warrior has a spare bow he plinks away at the bag guys with, I have low DEX and no archery talents and I can still get off three or four arrows at 10-14 damage before drawing my sword. In fact, a crossbow / 2H warrior with one tier of archery talent is a viable little build for sniping before closing for melee. Might try it out. Hard is quite enjoyable, I have to think about battles a lot more, those bandit groups in Lothering were a bit more of a challenge and Idiot Al is carrying a boat-load of injuries. Ha!

Obz reminds me of those expert, but not-very-well-known screenwriters they parachute into ailing movies to sharpen things up, or make the sequel more awesome. Shame they won't unleash them on Dragon Age 2, they'd sort it out. Oh yes, they would.

Hmmm. The Left have taken to environmental politics with great gusto. Ergo, there must be something bogus about it --- what greater reason for ordering us about and taking our money to give to their client groups than "we're saving the planet"? The Germans always called their Greens 'watermelons', green on the outside but Red in the middle. So, for me, Greens are just commies with a wind turbine fetish. Only rugged individuals with access to powerful hunting rifles and tinned food can save the planet, after civilization has broken down Can Crash Gordon turn his party around? Er, no. Not that the other lot exactly inspire confidence.

OK, a claustrophobic tunnel fighter and a stat-obsessed tunnel munchkin. What could possibly go wrong?

I've been holding a piece of A4-sized cardboard fooscap file over a kettle for twenty minutes now and it's still empty.

^ That would be an awesome design decision, maybe a CRPG set in the empty carpark of a suburban supermarket?

It is my pleasure as Tunnel Master to answer sensible questions and address issues concerning splendidly named characters. There are no metaphysical restraints and you may use magic. Being set predominantly in tunnels, spells that involve light sources and oxygen supply are useful. Some tunnels are very small, some are very large -characters capable of metamorphosis might wish to use a range of creature sizes.

^ Please stay on topic, whelp. The expansion you describe is extremely good value for money DLC that will be released later.

Hello. Fighting In Tunnels* © is my exciting new fantasy game. in it, you play the part of intrepid adventurers fighting monsters. In tunnels. Please post your characters, the ruleset is quite flexible. Although it is a classless system you may give your characters an archetypal descriptor (i.e. Tunnel Warrior). I, of course, am the Tunnel Master. When we have four characters I will begin. Honestly, it will be awesome. --- --- --- * Fighting in Tunnels is a copyright of Monte Carlo Enterprises (UK), if you want to use this exciting IP please PM me and we can haggle. I like artesan cheese and decent claret.

I guess it's easier to get the money together using a big-name brand like D&D. Although I couldn't be less excited about a 4E D&D game, which as far as this Grognard is concerned ain't even a D&D game anymore. It's like saying that because there's beef in it that a McDonald's burger is the same as a filet mignon. Yeah, try and get something going using an original IP and ruleset already. Cheers MC

Oh, and about re-starting Mass Effect for a character to carry over... I did the exact same thing for BG1 to take the same character into BG2. If you love the game it just gets you fired up for the next one and adds a bit of personalization and continuity. So I totally understand it. My gimpy dual classed thief-to-fighter wasn't exactly optimal, but it was fun anyway...

^ I think I've made clear my general feeling of meh-ness towards Planescape: Torment on these pages many times. I don't eulogize it in the same way as many of my fellow-forumites do. As for AP, I will definitely be playing it. Admittedly, the unique setting and some of the features have sold it to me more than the pre-defined character, also (and I know it sounds a bit hokey) I want to support Obz in my own small way. Cheers MC

Am playing on hard, currently doing all the little Lothering sub-quests. By stat-dumping STR I got Critical Strike for my 2H warrior at level 6, by level 8 will be wearing the Dragon Armour. This makes life much easier. I'm also finding hard not so... hard. Having said that, it's early days. The middle row of 2H talents (mighty swing etc) seem pointless at low levels - the top row is teh win. I'm going to swap Morrigan out for Wynne for some quests to see how the melee-heavy with buffing party build works out, am also going to give Shale and Imoen-Chick a proper try out. Cheers MC

^ Damn your Eyes, Sawyer! Am now going to watch the Judge Dredd movie again. And it's awful, except for the bit where he blows up some dude's car for a minor parking violation. I might do it back-to-back with Demolition Man. 'Cuz that's how I roll.

It's strange, because I like Science Fiction but I'm not really bothered about Sci-Fi CRPGs. Mass Effect left me completely cold, never played it and had no interest. ME2 is the same. And I hate playing one pre-defined character.

The DA difficulty slider could, of course, simply increased / decreased the size of your party. Easy = 6.

^ I don't hate her, I just expect my mages to sort of blow stuff up. Wynne is a cleric in a game without clerics. A five or six character party in DA would have made her essential.

JNPCs... hmm have not played Mass Effect but my understanding is that you are a military officer. Is a fact that in the military you often don't get much choice who you work with - so mandatory NPCs in that context is sorta explainable (like every war movie with the basic training scene... look at Gromnir's avatar for example ). In DA the NPCs are designed deliberately so you take them. Wynne is... crap. When I say that, I mean tactically. Now I know the game I can get round it, but on a vanilla run? No way. Hey, I thought a heavily armoured dude with a 2H axe and high CON could tank in DA, and I've been playing these types of games forever. A warrior with a sword and a shield is, as I've posted previously, the tactical lynchpin of DA combat. If you ain't playing one there's only one JNPC who fits the description. Cheers MC

Vol, * Sten Disapproves - 20* That Bio need to make certain NPCs virtually unavoidable, like Morrigan and Alistair is their key weakness as a developer when it comes to plot. I say either (a) make the NPC mandatory or (b) make a mechanic outside of deus ex machina game design to propel the story forward. (a) isn't may favourite but at least you can make good plot-related reasons for it and it's more... honest. Alistair is so vanilla, so... meh, that I find myself totally unconcerned about anything to do with him. Yet he's, for some reason, the Bio pin-up boy for Dragon Age. It's unfair on all the Bio forum chicks who like romances, the guys get foxy Morrigan and the girls get... the guy next door with the lame haircut. Maybe the Bio devs hate CRPG romances as much as I do. then again, Bio forumites have, orgasmically, discovered how to make elves have really big ears and weird eye tints... they are as happy as larry and deeply scary. --- Back to Tactics --- My 2H-warrior is in the Korcari Wilds. Am playing on Hard, which is good fun. The 2H-guy is a bit like the rogue - needs lots of micro-managing in combat to get the best out of him. Also, timing is important - at low level I spam Pommel Strike > normal attack > Sunder Arms and do really well. it takes a while to get your head around no action queue, what you see is what you get in combat and spamming a new ability mid-swing ruins that attack. Oh, and Sunder seems to me to be two attacks. Am stat-dumping STR with the odd point of willpower now and then. Cheers MC

I'm not that old. It's just that you've stat-dumped into Youth Argot and I haven't

The youth of today. I'm going to try that one on my wife next time she annoys me, just to see what happens.

What's wrong with re-speccing The fact that you can break the game with them says more about the mechanics than the re-specc. My first re-specc of Morrigan was embarrassing, she was an artillery division. So I changed her back. OTOH, I'm going to make a 2H warrior for my next game. I like Sten, but I want a sword and board tank. So Sten gets a re-spec. The sky didn't fall in.