Monte Carlo

Saw Valkyrie last night, about the Von Stauffenberg plot in 1944. It was pretty good, blimey every decent British character actor in THE WORLD was in it. A few problems, though... 1. Most of us know the plot failed, ergo difficult to maintain any suspense, just curiosity about at what point everybody will get caught and executed by the Gestapo and (1A) they only touch on the fact that some of the plotters were pretty fair-weather characters who were quite happy to support Hitler until it was obvious that Russia was the fatal error. 2. The acting is very formal and strangely old-fashioned. I don't think one character ever made any sort of joke. Hey, I know that they're risking their lives in Op Certain Death, but when humans are under pressure sometimes they joke about it. 3. Tom Cruise might have his own strange personal beliefs but I think he is a consistently accomplished actor. However, in this, I find that he lacks the gravitas to play the character. Wait, gravitas is perhaps unfair, like I say, Cruise is a good actor. It's just that perhaps every other character has a pronounced English or German accent and Cruise still has his American accent. It jars. There's nothing wrong with American accents, it's just that it's incongruous that he's the only guy with one in the movie. 4. It's a Brian Singer joint. I like his stuff, but this didn't feel like one of his movies. 5. The foreign language trick, where a foreign tongue segues into English, has been done before (and better) in The Hunt for Red October and (especially) The 13th Warrior (hey, must see that one again, savaged by critics, loved by Monte). --- I did, however, love the visuals. Nazi Germany is antiseptic, clean, modernist with angular architecture and billowing swastikas everywhere. It feels brutal and crushing and triumphalist. There is also a scene where there is a clandestine meeting in a church, a staple of thrillers.... but the camera pans up at the end and the roof is missing as a consequence of allied bombing. It's striking and clever piece of directing. Anyway, it's worth a look, an original and interesting take on a little-told aspect of WW2 and German history (i.e. the German resistance to Hitler).

^ From what I've done so far the item recipe is 'the hammer' if that makes sense, you click on it and it becomes an activation icon.

@ Sannom - crafting is extremely easy and, no, you don't need moulds. It works like this: 1. Buy or otherwise acquire the relevant recipe (a scroll you keep in a crafting book) 2. Find the required items 3. Find a crafting station 4. Stand the character with the crafting skills / feats near it (that's all you have to do) 5. Click on the recipe and then the item you are enchanting 6. Done, apart from naming the item a little context box pops up that asks you what you wish to call the thing you've crafted (yes, I have a +2 Keen Spear called 'Dave')

Ditto Hitler, and to a certain extent, Mussolini. Does that make it right? Chavez is a clown, and he's incrementally subverting the democratic process to the point where the country will become yet another banana republic, will spawn a violent right-wing counter-revolution then ooops! Op. Condor all over again. This isn't rocket science, this is politics 101. Most democracies are an imperfect but discrete balancing act between state power and that of capital, else they tend to veer off into some sort of authoritarian / corporatist nightmare. Western Capitalist democracy is the least worst system yet developed by the human race, but let's be honest, LotF knows better. He also, secretly, doesn't like democracy. In his dreams he will always win 'debates' because they will be broadcast over a tannoy, in the camp, where the middle-classes and people who wear spectacles will be made to toil in the fields behind barbed wire fences patrolled by men who would happily wear the other side's uniform if they were in power. Cheers MC

@ Oner's point about nomads and stuff... In rural Spain there is a small village where even now, allegedly, a donkey is pushed off of a church spire to ward off demons / bad luck / evil spirits. Hey, let's have a gravity-fed anti-evil spirit donkey-murder ritual in Dragon Age! Cheers MC

Valencia = Always wanted to go to the crazy tomato festival, am genuinely jealous. Enjoy!

^ I'm splitting my sides laughing. Not.

Until SoZ came along I wasn't that bothered about it either. However, SoZ makes it (a) extremely easy to understand and (b) the first chapter of the game is pretty light on good kit, so I had to craft stuff for my party. For example, could I find a non-magical battleaxe in Samargol? Er, no. I'm now having fun making items and, even more importantly, giving them names worthy of the WoRst FAntASy SeTTinG EVaR! My Blade of the Fell Apple Crumble (+2) is especially good.

I stand corrected, I didn't express myself well there at all. I love the story behind IWD: sometimes less is more and, yeah, even the item descriptions give a great sense of place. What I meant is that the setting is... ambient, it's good but it doesn't get in your face. TBH, fighting through the Yuan-Ti temple was so much fun I completely forgot the setting, but that's a good thing in my book. As for the music - for me the best of any IE game, period. Cheers MC

I think I mentioned my Sorcerer / Pale Master build. This ain't any kind of power build, but it's quite interesting especially as a Sorcerer is kind of gimped when focussing on Necromancy. By level 12, though, it gets quite interesting. Given the touch attack emphasis of a lot of necromantic spells that a few melee levels might make an interesting build. The other one I like is a straightforward Wiz / Red Wizard build for that Edwin nostalgia buzz (naturally, mine is called Edwin). It's easy to understand, has lots of spells and you can turn him into your item creation monkey very easily, esp. in SoZ.

^ Funny, never had any problems with SoZ load screens. I have a year old gaming rig, but I'm hardly running HAL or anything... Intel Core Quad 2 CPU; 4.0GB RAM; GeFORCE 9800 GX2 x 2

Hmmm, SoZ bullet-point based mini review, with some very small spoilers, follows for your benefit: * I am biased, I prefer this type of set up. It reminds me of old-skool, fun D&D. Please bear this in mind. * Clearly, the design ethos was 'lets make Icewind Dale but with an even lighter story and concentrate on loot, making stuff, trading and exploring.' It fulfils this design brief. * The exploration is fun, based on (i) random encounters (ii) small adventure locations that are there for the sake of them (iii) quest areas (iv) special encounters * The random combat encounters can get really dull, but you can avoid them on the exploration map. Some of the areas you can explore are too small, Obz could have dumped a largish dungeon in the middle of the jungle quite easily * It's a low-loot game by D&D computer game standards - even with crafting, the most potent weapon on my team is a +2 flaming greatsword (10th level), pretty balanced. * The games adds some welcome polish to the engine, performance, camera and graphics. * The NPCs are pretty one-dimensional, reminding me of BG1 NPCs. Then again, none of them bother you with their problems or bore you rigid with meaningful soliloquies about the meaning of life etc. If they die, hire a new one. There is a very abstract employee book in every inn where you swap personnel in and out of your team. Undead infestation? Call in a cleric. Etc. * Trading is quite interesting, I like it some people don't, it's not mandatory. * The plot is there because you need a plot, but it doesn't get in the way of wandering around making your little band of adventurers even more powerful and strangely multi-classed. * You can give your party a silly name and motto, hit the 'retire' button and enjoy. Stuff like this is important to me. Monte Score: A solid 7/10 if you know what you're letting yourself in for, if you are expecting a meaningful, plot-fuelled romp full of richly detailed NPCs then you'll want to melt the thing down with a flamethrower. I have three games of this one saved and I dip in and out of them trying out new parties and characters... it's that sort of game and I'm glad Obz made it as a conuter-balance to MotB (which I liked, but was a bit heavy-going). Cheers MC

I think I've mentioned before that arcane spellcasters are my least favourite character class.

^ Thanks, TBH I never really thought about the ranger option. 2 Questions - 1. My WIS is low, how many points do I need to put in there? 2. Does a fighters extra feats make up for the ranger bonuses? The whole point of taking maybe up to 6 or 7 Rog levels was for skills and sneak attack. SA is a big part of my idea for a build, if I was evil this wouldn't even be an issue because I've already seen a well-crafted Blackguard / RDD build on the NWN character builder site.

I've started a character, I'm only in the early stages of the OC: Human, Chaotic Good (currently level 4, thus the +1 I dumped in DEX). STR 14 DEX 15 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 14 Bard 1 Fighter 1 Rogue 2 FEATS Power Attack Cleave Dodge Able Learner I'm investing skill points heavily in dialogue skills, lore, crafting, disable device / lock, UMD and tumble. Not interested in stealth. The plan is to build up some good sneak attack damage and extra skills, then use fighter levels to develop monkey-gripped dual wielded Falchions (crit hit x 3 + power criticals). Then start as a Red Dragon Disciple for added twinkiness, extra INT and STR. I'm putting my level based extra abiltity points into DEX and CHA, any spare feats into mobility / spring attack. The intended result is a combat-heavy skills monkey with superb melee / sneak attack / critical hit opportunities. Any thoughts?

As long as you don't actually believe that ****e, bravo.

Sure, if Bioware told them that they had to wear clothes made from pineapples and sing Happy Birthday backwards some of the folks on the Bio forums would agree. Adding a brothel is perfectly OK in a game - hey they might even be really mature and add some content about the inhumanity of much of the 'World's oldest Profession'. Alternatively, you could make an awkward, gauche gag about it. I'm hardly a killjoy (I thought the gnome gigolo from NWN1 OC was quite amusing). But the hype is telling us that this is a new type of fantasy, maybe even one where brothels aren't full of tarts-with-a-heart. Interesting brothel moment in popular culture of late: Titus Pullo and Vorenius rescuing the girl from the mining camp brothel in Rome. The girls are slaves, the brothel is hellish and the two ex-legionnaires slaughter the pimps and punters alike, as you probably would in ancient Rome. That would be interesting and dare I say it mature. Edit: When you are reduced to saying that to people who have supported and respected your games design work for years, your natural customers and fan base, then you've lost already. It's as simple as that.

A few points that might assist the debate - 1. The Daily Express is an ailing dead tree press outfit that specialises in salacious, headline grabbing stories that tend to be light on actualite. 2. The current government has a definitely nasty authoritarian streak in it. People are tiring of it though, not that Mr. Balls has noticed. 3. The UK has generous welfare provision that is a talking point amongst taxpayers, focus group data will be telling the politicians that there is electoral mileage in the issue. There is, unambiguously, a problem with the economically inactive living on benefits in the UK, the data is pretty compelling to mainstream politicians of both the centre left and right. 4. The current government is heading for crushing defeat - it has about seven or eight meaningful legislative months left in it before it is utterly wiped off of the political map at the next UK General Election by the centre right Conservative Party. Therefore this is one of those scoping reports designed deliberately to get papers like The Express to crank out a front page about it. No doubt they'll also be promising free BMWs, flat screen TVs and massage therapy on the NHS next, knowing full well that it'll never happen but might save a marginal seat in some obscure East Midlands consituency. 5. Please carry on, but this is more of a bit of cynical media management by a dead government walking than 1984. Cheers MC

Hey, why not make a cute and ironic Star Wars game where all the characters are made out of Lego?

It would be ironic if a potentially critical success was marred by an attempt to be 'mature' for the sake of it. Not that the brothel feature mentioned above is in any way mature, in fact quite the opposite. No doubt over at EA / Bio towers some management android will already be picking the 'learning points' out of the marketing debacle. I've never felt the need, personally, to play Grand Theft Auto: Ferelden.

^ Thanks Grom, but what I'm wondering is how to integrate the Red Dragon Disciple into my favourite overall build, Ftr / Rog? I want a dual-wielding character, I prefer STR based tanking augmented by sneak attack to the weapon finesse route (but am open to persuasion) and I'm thinking something outrageous (i.e. two monkey-gripped weapons, specialised and looking at critical hit-enhancing feats). Obviously, as I'm playing thru OC / MotB I want to be skill-boy with lots of dialogue options. Any suggestions, especially - Race (I'm thinking human for obvious reasons, not a fan of ECL races as a rule) What base Class for RDD and when to take it, i.e. Bard or Sorc (am thinking a level of bard for the skill points and low-level song), do I only take the one level? Able learner seems a must-have feat, any others I'm missing bearing in mind that I'm going to be spending a few getting my dual-wielding / crit hit abilities going? Alignments / Dieties that provide interesting in-game stuff? Cheers MC

How about calibrating their pocket money with treasure looted in the dungeon? 100 gp = 1 real-world dollar / pound / euro seems fair to me.

C minus for sophistry. You qualified that with a 'unpopular' revolution. A popular violent one would be OK though, especially if there were hammers and sickles all over the uniforms. Revolutions are almost always violent and the counter-revolutions even more so, the 'Velvet Revolutions' of the early 90's weren't actually revolutions - they were the consequences of collapse so they don't count. Unless you believe that one morning class consciousness will be acheived without Year Zero. History teaches us that the left are far more accomplished at terror and repression than the political right, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. As for the trolling, stop behaving like one comrade and I'll consider it. Cheers tovaritch, MC p.s. as I said in another thread, it's twenty years since I stood and watched the Berlin Wall come down - there's nothing more enervating than watching totalitarianism crumble, literally, in front of your eyes.

Am looking for an interesting fighter build, maybe one like Jaesun's but will be fun developing. I note that a lot of these builds are all about outcomes at level 30, but I want a character that's fun to play on the way there, if you get my drift. Any ideas? Cheers MC

Ergo, we should attempt to overthrow their democratically elected government in a rightist military coup, right? While simultaneously leaving the governments of countries like Zimbabwe intact? Go on, admit it, you think it would be OK to overthrow democratically elected governments in a leftist military coup. Maybe you'd love to put on your Che-like beret and bandolier and machinegun the running dogs of capitalism. Think about it: is there about a quarter of an inch between the position you espouse and that of those you purport to despise? I do wonder if you are in fact a troll, role-playing an extreme left-wing stereotype to provoke debate, if so I take my hat off to you. Bravo. Cheers MC