Monte Carlo

Just checked out the 'City Elf' origins video. It's not very good, is it? The elves, despite being allegedly second-class, impoverished denizens of the barrio, all look like perfectly well-groomed humans with pointy ears. They are then subjected to the indignity of a plot device lifted from the first fifteen minutes of Braveheart*, when the English-accented Waffen SS act-a-likes come to scoop up all the elf maidens for a party at the human noble's frat house. Or something. It's dark and gritty in the same way as an episode of the Dungeons and Dragons TV cartoon show is. I half-expected the bad guys to be wearing top hats and have long enough moustaches to twirl as they tie the elf chicks to the railway tracks. Naturally, when the stormtroopers come for the elf maidens (the one that, almost inevitably, looks just like Imoen from BG1) grabs a sword and goes all Kill Bill on a half dozen well-built, plate-armoured warriors. After, of course, they callously slay one of the elf maidens just for a laugh (cue odd but ubiquitous blood-jet animation). Before the predictable backlash from the Bio-fans here, let me say that OTOH I really liked the Dwarf Commoner origin and everything about it. It felt fresh, different and (yes) even a little bit dark. This, though, is really quite poor. Am coming to the conclusion that this game, as opposed to not being aimed at players like me, is really not aimed at players like me. Still looking forward to the game, but won't be playing this origin - the dwarf commoner looks cool and I've hopes that the Dalish Elf one will be better, not that it would be difficult. Cheers MC * Let it be said that Dragon Age is probably more accurate piece of story-telling when it comes to Scotland in the 13th Century, though.

It was much funnier, though. I think Dave Gaider is too genuine to include same-sex romances just for the added publicity, but I'm sure there are some out there in developer land hoping for a bit of controversy to go along with the Marilyn Manson and preponderance of blood 'n' gore. I'm with Grom and the others who are utterly indifferent to romances of any persuasion, think they take up otherwise fruitfully spent development time and are generally cheesier than a truck-load of camembert. So, for the sake of posterity.... WHY, BIO, WHY? Cheers MC

The gay romance issue has been kicked about for so long they needed to just get on with it. People are gay, including people in war-torn countries. What, in the name of f***, is such a big deal about it? Bioware is a company operating out of a western liberal democracy, why is it so difficult to accept that it was inevitable that they would include same-sex relationships? I'm hardly Mister Political Correctness 2009, and I loathe CRPG romances, but if you are going to have them then denying the existence of gay relationships is ridiculous. And, just in case it matters, I'm straight. However, I am proud to be intolerant of intolerance, from whatever direction it comes from. Cheers MC

I have a copy of PS: Torment in very good condition (CDs only - no box) that I'd happily sell if someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Cheers MC

^ My bad. Actually, now I've thought about it some more, I remember Coran from BG1 as being a favourite NPC: a useful party member (in fact, used correctly a dungeon level-clearing death god given the sick powaz of archery and backstab in BG1 - both Coran's specialities) with a deftly drawn character and a sad little vignette about his deadbeat dad status that put his romeo persona into context. All in about twenty lines of dialogue and a funny portrait. And they left him out of BG2 as a joinable NPC to make you take Yoshimo as your party thief, deus ex machina. Like I said, sometimes less is more. Cheers MC

Praise the Lord (and pass the ammunition). That's why I like it so much, along with the IWD games. That's why Dragon Age is interesting, because Bio are TRYING TO DO IT ALL. I'm sure the end product will fall five miles short of the gargantuan plume of hype, but at least they seem to accept that plot, fleshed-out NPCs and crunchy tactical combat aren't necessarily contradictory. My favourite NPC is Llyranor, the idiotic talking sword from BG2 along with all the action-movie stereotypes from JA2. Sometimes less is more, Bejaysus the time I spend clicking through pointless NPC dialogue (::Cough::MaskoftheBetrayer::Cough:...

I quite like the idea of Drakensang as my pre-DA autumn CRPG but I can't find it in the shops at the price it should be. I only found it at HMV for UK

I like both single-player and party CRPGs altho' I much prefer party-based games. Artificial intelligence, at the moment, just ain't up to it. One day there will be intuitive, light-touch AI for NPCs. Until then, paty based games where you control to a greater degree what's going on will be, for me, the ideal. NWN1 suffered from the simple design premise that one character plus an NPC should be able to master every challenge. This is contrary to what D&D was originally about (I know I bang on about this but it's a small unit fantasy combat / tactics game where classes replicate the rock-scissors-stone or cavalry-infantry-archers idea). If you say "this is a D&D game" people will, not unreasonably, expect the classic D&D elements. OK, if you moved the whole concept away from dungeon with multiple challenges (i.e. where you need a thief, a cleric and fighter and a magic-user) to one that is neutral then fine. But in NWN1 they didn't. Notice how NWN mod-makers make extremely good single-player mods and fearlessly add the caveat - "this mod is intended for a thief type character." That works. You play a cleric at your peril. Even though it's single-player it feels like D&D. The result of the single-player compromise in NWN1? It was my single-classed thief and the Bard NPC chick (who I thought was very well done) put a melee smackdown on a Black Dragon. Please. I didn't feel like I'd been really clever or skilfull, I just felt that the game was gimped in my favour. For all my moaning, at least Bio realise that enough people like the old-skool model and implemented it in Dragon Age. Cheers MC

Hmmm, woman has visions and is burnt at the stake? Perhaps a superficial similarity to the tale of the Maid of Orleans, but not a lot more. Cheers MC

Nov 3rd release date in the US and Nov 6th in Europe? Heck, a lot of people State-side will have finished the game twice before I get to install it. Better go dark from Nov 3rd to avoid epic spoilz. Cheers MC

"The Chantry teaches that it is the hubris of men that brought the darkspawn into Thedas. Mages sought to usurp Heaven, but were cast out, twisted by their own corruption, only to return as monsters, the first of the darkspawn." Alternatively, it could just be the result of poor food hygiene, perhaps as the result of leaving some particularly ripe cheese out too long.

I would say the Total War series, but for me it's not an RTS series - it's a strategic war game with episodic real-time combat Pedantic? Probably. Nonetheless, the brilliance of the series speaks for itself and I will leave it there and move onto other games. The Command & Conquer duo of C&C1 and Red Alert are all-time classics and favourites of mine - wacky story, easy but well-implemented gameplay, a fun unit roster and eye-pleasing isometric graphics. I'm tempted to put the Close Combat series in there (my favourite is the Eastern Front, closely followed by Battle of the Bulge) but seeing as the strategy element occurs off-screen (a tiny bit like MTW2) I think it also eliminates itself from the running. I'm still playing them in compatability mode and love them to bits. Modded Blitzkreig (1 & 2) is a lot of fun with great graphics and that 'Wow, look at all my scale model panzers!' feel about it that appeals to most wargamers. However, when I look back over the dozens of RTS games I've played over the years one that really stands out and should be considered for any hall of fame is the original Warcraft. Quite brilliant, and was flattered by literally dozens of imitations. Most disappointing? The 3.5E Eberron RTS that was so awful that I can't even remember it's name. Cheers MC

I didn't intent to derail the thread, but medieval life expectancy has proved to be more interesting than the ongoing Dragon Age debate...

^ Many medieval physicians maintained, well into the 15th Century, that washing weakened the skin and made a person more vulnerable to disease.

With regards to over-size weapons: I was at a museum last year where there were lots of medieval-era weapons on display. They all look rather small... axes, warhammers, poleaxes (by the 1400s English ones were steel-hafted hammers with a long thin spike on the opposite side) and even broadswords. Of course, in the realworld, common cannon-fodder grade medieval people were rather small because of poor nutrition and had a life-span of about forty-odd. Although thousands of Englishmen could still achieve the 120-odd lb pull of a longbow. Go figure. Conversely, I once visited a German castle full of comedy-sized zweihanders and polearms that I am assured were genuine. Cheers MC

^ That shot reminds me of a club I went to in Cyprus a few years back. All it needs is a guy with a drink with an umbrella in. Cheers MC

Right I'm off, up a mountain with no internet access for a bit. Will see y'all later and see how the best fantasy game / setting EVAR is getting on. Should be back by the end of the month. Cheers MC

^ Only as a codename during the TOP SECRET development cycle.

^ Vol's rant is the strategy, the shop staff simply deliver it tactically. As for my views on DLC - they remain unchanged. I'll happily pay full price for a proper XP, what I don't like is the idea of a balkanised game where you pay five pounds here and ten pounds there for piecemeal content. I read the link on your Wiki to a Biowarian discussing the DLC plan for the next two years and thought: (a) Two years? Cool, well done Bio. BUT (b) Shame you've chosen to deliver it via this method. I'm not bitching - I remember when Tales of the Sword Coast was being developed in tandem with BG1, the intention being to deliver it as an XP. That's great, TotSC was a chunky, good quality XP and worth every penny - it wasn't like BG1 wasn't big enough as it was. Yet people still moaned that it was cynical that it was being developed so aerly and not included in BG! I'm certainly not one of those! The DA approach looks different and strangely diffused. OTOH, the Bethseda FO3 strategy looks acceptable to me - it's modular. I'm wondering if Bio's experience with NWN might have informed this decision (let's face it, it must have done). After all, I remember reading grandoise plans for that, the mods released to buy were pretty grim - were they the best way to focus the development effort that went into them? I know that Bio have put a lot of effort to get the top mod-makers on board early with this (e.g. Adam Miller and so on) which is a great idea and for me shows much promise. I'm really excited about the longevity of DA not because of official content - I want to see the sort of effort that went into the NWN1 modding community turn this into something really substantial that we'll all be playing for years. That's one of the reasons why I'm so interested in DA, despite my reservations and criticism of so many other elements. Cheers MC

Dude, a career in retail middle-management beckons.

No elves, dwarves, hobbits... nada. I'm thinking that the player character has grown up in a fortified border monastery that provides protection to local settlers, who are by and large smallholders and subsistence farmers. They have an uneasy relationship with local tribal peoples who Got There First. However, the bitter wars fought between tribals and settlers are over, only the occasional skirmish by hot-heads on either side breaks the peace and this is usually resolved by negotiation between the monastery and the tribal council. The monastery is run by a faintly druidical order who believe that their destiny is to bring some semblance of harmony to the furthest reaches of human existence - that is to say they've deliberately eschewed civilization. Nobody in the monsatery has been East, back to civilization, in near living memory and only the occasional merchant or visiting church elder brings news of the wider world. Depending on your POV, the monastic settlers are either wack-job survivalists or rugged individualists carving a new life. The player only knows what he or she has been taught by the monks. The main external threat are The Beastmen. These primitive humanoids live in the primal forest to the West of the monastery, and have been the enemy of the tribals since antiquity. The tribals fear and respect the Beastmen, and are expert hunters of their kind. The settlers have tried to parley with them, but they do not seem to listen to reason. One legend is that once in a generation a Beastman is born who can take human form, pose as a human and go beserk in their village, slaying everyone and drinking their blood before scurrying back into the woods. Everybody is, in fact, utterly sh*t-scared of the Beastmen and our game begins as the military monks are planning the bi-annual war party into the woods to thin out their population. The monks do not fight fair, they use technology (the monks have ancient weapons not unlike flame throwers), sorcery, trained fighting animals and levies from the tribes to do the dirty work (who are well paid in alcohol and tobacco, which has become a form of currency). The player might be a trainee fighting monk, an adept, a tribal hunter or scout, or a monastic technologist (a frontier armourer / mechanic). The war party returns, having killed a number of beastmen and only sustaining light casualties thanks to superior technology and luck. A feast is held and the senior clerics take the opportunity to invite the tribal elders to join the celebrations. This is held in the Moothall inside the fortified monastery. After a feast and drinking stories are told. However, this is interrupted by the appearance of a giant warrior with jet-black skin and strange orange eyes, wearing armour and weapons never seen before. The tribals are awed, as the man (who is quite friendly and introduces himself as Jhun) closely resembles a character from their folklore, a portent of terrible events to come. Indeed, Jhun implores the humans to flee as the Beastmen are on the march and he has revealed himself to save lives... What happens next? (Memes - The Village, Fallout, The 13th Warrior, Celtic mythos, Beowulf, RuneQuest, Pilgrim Fathers, The Warrior in Jet-and-Gold / Corum / Hawkmoon)

I really like the idea of a few base classes customise via skill trees. 3.5E D&D was starting to get silly with all the prestige classes. I just don't know how it will work in DA - can I make a warrior with some rogue-ish twist of a magically-gifted rogue? In any case, this is one of the design decisions I think was extremely good and flew in the face of expectations in a good way. Cheers MC

^ No but it has a fully dynamic and meaningful influence system, like the one Sawyer described for TBH (the first time round). That way you might or might not see NPCs develop in the way you might choose.

^ For 'bitterness' I presume you mean a lack of slavish fanboy adoration for Bioware? Mate, go and check out RPG Codex then come back, sit round the fire and play the guitar with us.

It should have been called Game / Setting. My mistake, now rectified.