Monte Carlo

^ Fallout Tactics = Love the Sherman tank. A lot.

That's my entire point: CRPG combat often boils down to squad-level tactics using weapons designed for large units. Of course, small unit skirmishes have always been a feature of warfare but the preferred personal weapon of the warrior throughout history, give or take an exception or two, has been a three foot long piece of sharp metal of some description and a shield. Crossbows? Great in fifty man lines, useless in a six man ruckus. Polearms? Fabulous when you're two hundred deep facing cavalry, useless in a building fighting the evil humanoid du jour. Flamberge / Zweihander / Claymore? Great for hacking through stacks of armoured footmen in the middle of a field, useless in a 10 x 10 room. I could go on. Tunnel-rat dungeon combat would involve short swords, poleaxes, daggers, stilettos, misericords, kamas, maces, warhammers and other compact, nasty, brutish melee weapons. The other large weapons are there to add flavour and echo the knight-in-shining-armour meme. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but when you start thinking about your character armed with a crossbow and a halberd in a dungeon....

Absolutely, in armies. I'm sure someone can enlighten us about the Papal decree banning them because they made it possible for a lowly peasant to take out a high-born knight clad in thousands of florins worth of Milanese plate. But we're talking about small unit tactics. Where they are pretty useless as a missile weapon.

^ That's a good call, crafting in lots of games seems to turn into answering a question nobody actually asked.

^ I'm not sure about crafting. As for crossbows, actually when you think about it they're useless in a small unit context, a bit like black powder weapons. You fire them as an opening volley then... that's it, you ain't ever going to get the opportunity to use it again in any meaningful way. Let's hope you hit that target! An archer can plink happily away as long as he's got arrows and some guys keeping melee fighters away from him. Like I said, it's all about Rate of Fire. In a big unit, as in a long line of trained Genoese hiding behind the palise? Yep, crossbows make a lot of sense, but a CRPG is invariably small unit tactics. I'd make crossbows (a) really slow to load but (b) powerful. Characters would have to use them tactically, i.e. an opening and carefully planned salvo then dump them and go to melee combat. But that's just me. Cheers MC

Even I won't beat up on them for the bowstring animations - a lot of resources for very limited returns visually. Mind you, to nock an arrow on one of those bows you'd need inch thick tungsten rope anyhoo

BTW, watched the Blind Guardian in-game concert you posted, I laughed initially but actually it was cool. Very reminiscent of Number of the Beast era Iron Maiden

^ That's a shame, I'm not really a spell-casting enthusiast as a main PC. Except for clerics. I like the Fallen Paladin guy and the half-elf not-quite-Annah NPCs but the cleric was so irritating it hurt. Two out of three ain't bad, as Meatloaf used to warble. Thanks for the Druid suggestion though, hadn't thought of it and I quite like them as you can make a pretty cool melee-orientated druid. :: Ponders crazily gimped Druid - Swashbuckler build ::

^ Marilyn Manson is far too dark and gritty for Dragon Age, although he'd make an excellent prestige class.

Um, first, I meant those two "acerbic episodes" you just had about the weapons Second, if you really just said that because you have been a member here for 5 years you are somehow above me, I think I have to go outside and laugh. Hard. Go and walk into a bar, sit in the pub bore's favourite chair he's been sat in since forever and start telling him to calm down. Get over yourself.

^ Yep, longbow = approx 6'. However, they were relatively thin, cut across the heart of a Southern European wood (typically Yew from Sicily or some other sunny place) from one piece of wood. When not in use they were unstrung. Arrows were hand-crafter from silk and goose feathers with a variety of heads based on the killing task (bodkins for armour). I'm always surprised that arrows are so cheap in RPGs, realism notwithstanding. The RoF of longbowmen was agreeably high - the 5000 odd archers at Agincourt allegedly achieved 75,000 arrows a minute. This was their real advantage - the crossbow had better range and penetration but was painfully slow. Cheers MC

Hi, Got this yesterday and rolled up a character (Rog3/Ftr5 with spear specialisation / monkey-grip going for a gladiator type vibe) and met 3 NPCs (the female cleric got booted ASAP, which is rare because I'm a tart for keeping useful characters even if they are annoying, and I do like a good undead-spattering cleric). There was one encounter (SPOILER) with the spider dude that I couldn't beat and the levelling up looks agreeably slow. So, I'm going to re-start, we all do it. Don't spoil me, but what character builds did others use and enjoy? Looking at it superficially, it does look rogue-based so I'm thinking a swashbuckling type character. Cheers MC

I don't rant, I am agreeably acerbic. I will spare you another acerbic episode because you joined about five minutes ago and presumably have better things to do than read all my old posts

I'm not surprised the CE is a sell-out, the game is going to be a huge commercial success. It will shift units by the bucketload. I guess Zombies ain't as scary as they used to be. I've taught my kid that the age restrictions on games are sacrosanct, I know it won't last but at the moment he knows that he's not allowed games with an age restriction on unless it's on the grounds of complexity (i.e. Lego - if he wants to try and build the tough stuff then let him try mwuahahhahahaaa!!!).

Sadly, the BG2 morning stars always looked like a Puffer Fish on a stick. The rest of the weapons were fairly well scaled, even halberds. Daggers were tiny, look at the NWN2 ones which are huge with unfeasibly spikey guards and hilts.

:: Sigh :: I don't like some of the art direction. I've been positive about other aspects. I like the spell animations, the war-dogs, some of the monsters and the building architcture. Heck, zoomed out, I really like the top-down view and GUI as well as the character arbitration screens. I like some of the other origins and have said so on this and other DA threads. For every time I've had a go at Dave Gaider I've also trumpeted one of his (bountifully numerousd) good points I've observed over the years. Get a grip and read what others are posting and put it into context. However, the bits of DA I hate, I really hate. They deserve juxtaposition with the hype. I've said it before, but will reiterate, is this a "We all uncritically love Dragon Age" thread? These forums aren't a knitting circle, they are agreeably robust. When a moderator informs me that I've broken some unwritten rule that you can't monster the bits of a game you don't like then I'll desist, put on my kevlar and go someplace else (probably the...shudder... Codex). Cheers MC

Huzzah! It looks like a fun game, might pick it up for da kidz.

Because Bioware isn't a games developer, it's a belief system.

My criticisms are entirely valid. If you look beyond your general distaste for me, you'll see that they all hinge more or less on art direction. A fantasy game works by helping us suspend our disbelief - art direction helps achieve that. It makes us look at say... Sigil (good example) and go "Wow, that's so wierd and cool" not "look at that huge statue lady - that couldn't happen." Elminster on the other hand is a classic example of hokey art direction that makes me reach for my revolver. It destroys my suspension of disbelief. That's my line - and the Dalish Elves look like lincoln-green clad extras from Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, except armed with hilarious Manga bows. I'm not remotely interested in a Medieval life simulator or realistic weapons. I am interested in good art direction.

^ Not as awful as the City Elf origin, but still a bit.... meh. The Dalish elves look exactly like City elves but they've got ink on their faces. They also carry comedy longbows that would require a 200lb pull even if the laws of physics allowed that shape of bow to actually flex (note the slightly sexist composite shortbows deployed by the elf females, which look slightly more feasible). I also want the patent for the Ferelden pneumatic steadi-harness system that allows all characters, whatever their size, to carry huge weapons completely straight on their backs. The poor old humans wandering into the woods had shades of Deliverance about it, was half expecting Burt Reynolds in a wetsuit and firing a compound bow to rescue them For a game that wants to be dark and gritty, I also note how clean and antiseptic all the characters are. Except for the incessant blood spatters, the elves all shop at a baroque branch of Banana Republic. At least this origin story looks like it might have a tiny bit of dungeoneering involved (gasp!) which gives it a head start. So far I'd say that both the Dwarf origins and the Wizard origin are in the lead, the human noble in the meh-iddle and the elven ones flailing wildly at the back, weighed down by leaden cliche and impossibly large ranged weapons. Cheers MC

As I type I am downloading Mysteries of Westgate (first time I've bought and downloaded a game from a D/L site). So I'll be playing that for the next week or two and will jot down some thoughts as and when work allows. Cheers MC

No, there have been hex-based WW2 games on the PCs since forever. The Close Combat series was probably the first commercially successful squad-level WW2 wargame series (there were five I think, Matrix games do a couple of bundled, refreshed versions).

Dark Sun is indeed an original and refreshing setting, it feels strange and forbidding and Mad Max-ish. Fallout fans might like it. Unfortunately, for many, 4E is irrevocably broken and has literally nothing to do with the Dungeons and Dragons game. You can't make filet mignon with a scrap of gristly chuck stake. Cheers MC

^ I'll try to dig it out, the dwarf slums feel like a sort of Ancient Roman plebian mob crossed with Mad Max. Branded faces, lives of abject poverty, violence and criminality. There's also a gladitorial combat back-story that has a seedy boxing-match fixing vibe to it. It's as far as you can get from the Scottish-accented grumpy dwarf with a heart of gold cliche we usually have to suffer. Interestingly (and refreshingly), the dwarves all have strong American accents, personally I'd have made them all sound like they came from Brooklyn but I suppose that's too much to ask for. As long as they eschew the Fake-speare. I'll probably be playing that one. OTOH, the elves are still at-one-with nature emos. Personally, I think elves make good bad guys - intellectually brilliant fascists who live for a thousand years who would never find themselves under the human yoke. I'm thinking Elric of Melnibone rather than Dave's sob story. And the art direction for the elves is a massive fail - they are human with point ears. I just don't get where Bio, who usually have strong art direction, dropped the ball with that one. Cheers MC

I take your point, but I don't think this is the problem you envisage. In fact, you could present it as a win-win. CRPG gamers who like rulesets would like a Pathfinder-based game because of the ruleset. OTOH, Joe Gamer only wants to play a fun game and is un-bothered about what's going on under the hood as long as he / she can understand the key issues for his character and gameplay. I'd happily buy a Pathfinder-based CRPG, but conversely I'd also buy a game that was fun nomatter what the game ruleset. Cheers MC