Monte Carlo

^ Thinking about it every year Brits go to NY for their Xmas shopping, exchange rates willing, because Stuff's Cheaper There. Now, games are now cheaper in Europe since the Credit Crunch. If Americans are visiting the UK you might as well stock up on PC titles (dunno if the console titles are regionalised). I remember buying IWD: Heart of Winter in Las Vegas in 2001, it was much cheaper there. Not so now I suspect.

Is this a regionalised phenomenon? In the UK the difference isn't as pronounced. L4D Game of the Year Edition on the XBox 360:

Hey, you could have the worlds most crap crate-opening minigame. Oh. They already did that with lockpicking in FO3.

They've updated the official website with stuff about The Fade (etc). It's a scary red island on the map.

There should also be a horde-like army of orcs and undead led by a knight dressed in black ornate armour riding a scary-horse. He found his Greatsword of Hate +5 in a barrel... in hell. He, indeed, is intent of ENSLAVING NATIONS WITH NECROMANCY. He is the thrall of the Narco-Lich and I open his name up to the floor. Dave The Evil One is too mundane, although it's a start. He's too buff for the Harlequin Death Ninja prestige class, he is something far more badass, so badass in fact that nobody else can achieve even one level in it because if they did their brain would melt. A name for this class too, would be helpful. I will include all this in the 44th Bowl World splat book, "Dave's Compendium of Evil Warrior Stuff."

^ Sadly not, but one of the doctors mentioned that the dress-up-dolly gift items for the sims NPCs includes bones for the mutt. Honestly. Good doggy.

Yeah, Bard / Rogue seems to me to be over-symbiotic, if there is such a thing. Unless you want a bard who can sneak attack / get evasion etc but why not go Bard / Assassin or Bard / Barbarian or Bard / Ranger who all get similar roguish abilties plus more distinct bonuses too? For me, bards are primarily about spellcasting - the song and skills are good but its the spellcasting that's throwing in the meat and potatoes. Unlike rogue, who's pretty front-loaded at levels 1-4. +2d6 sneak attack is useful at even high levels, low-level bardsong ain't. This brings us back to the elephant in the character-building room - the bard level as access to the frankly awesome Red Dragon Disciple. Human Bard 1 / Ftr X / RDD X is a complelling tank fighter build. Add able learner and you get the dialogue skills too. Tough to beat. Cheers MC

So why make a TV series of it? Genuinely curious.

I think you can make Blackguard as a single-classed level 7 or 8 rogue without taking any fighter levels (is it +6 BAB, Hide 5 Ranks, Power Attack & Cleave?). If you want a fighter / rogue with a hatful of decent abilities (i.e. added, stackable sneak attack, summon undead, turn undead, aura of despair) you could do a lot worse. Ditto a bard, as the BG uses CHA as a bonus to his saves too. Bard 20 / BG 10 would be pretty powerful at Epic levels. Not to mention unusual.

Personally, NPC slot number one is going to the mutt in my party, he's right up my street. All I need then is a comedy demi-human rogue and somebody to chuck the occasional fireball about. Cheers MC

Can anybody do a Haiku length resume of what the book is about please?

^ Grom has said he doesn't like RDD builds, and all of the twinkiest ones I've seen on the NWN2 character builder site feature it as a PrC. Then again, using his logic, Brd2/Clrc 'X' would also seem to work

^ Quite possibly, I only played a little bit of KotOR and that was ages ago.

I picked up the Sept edition of UK PC Zone magazine. Big DA:O story, will pick out some highlights. Apologies if the DA:O experts know this already, it's stuff I hadn't really seen before. Quotes are marked quotes, the rest is my summary only of the article. Be warned, some of you might find a few minor spoilers in here... *Quote: "The game is massive. I think it's our biggest game to date..." Mike Laidlaw (lead designer) All I can say is... Wow. * Apparently the game has three parts - (1) Origins, (2) Becoming a Grey Warden and (3) Gathering allies to fight the Blight. (3) is where the game opens up into hub areas you can explore (I think they've obviously learnt from BG2 where this one was done in reverse and was a bit of a structural error in hindsight). * Quote: "On, then, to the free-roaming part of DA:O. At any time you'll have three favoured companions with you personally but the rest of your clan will be hanging around... whenever your travelling circus settles down to camp. The camp site acts very much like the spaceships of KotOR..." Meh. I don't like this, but whatever. If I leave my NPC in the middle of nowhere I expect them to either (a) stay there or (b) wander off and get on with their life, I'll find them if I need them. An abstract 'admin base' you can magically conjure every time you pitch a tent ain't doing it for me. A more apt comparison might have been the Pocket Plane in ToB. * There's a substantial mage-orientated part of the game called The Fade which messes with your head and looks pretty cool. non-mages will miss out on this origin stuff that reverberates around the game. Mages also have about 80 spells, are powerful and "most tank and rogue players may well raise an eyebrow." * The schools of Magic are Primal, Spirit, Creation and Entropy. I seldom play spellcasters but I don't mind the devs giving the class some extra lovin', at least it's consistent with what we know about the setting and how marginalised they are (etc). Mebbe I'll have a re-play with one. * There is a Dog NPC. He doesn't say much, but he likes bones and is faithful. He is also a brilliant tank fighter. * Apparently the whole Bioware office sit about singing "This is the New S**t" because they think it's cool. I don't. Dr. Greg says, "This is a new kind of fantasy." We'll see. They said NWN was a great single-player RPG out of the box, didn't they? * The reviewer goes over the whole marketing strategy in much the same way as many of us sceptics here have, they also reference that The Witcher has already jumped in with the Dark Fantasy vibe. He also mentions the embarrassing 'lurve scene' that got so much attention at E3 and relays how unconvincing it is. He says "If you defy the cynical attention deficit and teen-friendly marketing then you'll see the game for what it is: an absolute blinder." Remember, this is a games journalist, right? Hey, there's more to be encouraged about than not, I'm turning on my anti-hype earmuffs and awaiting the 'Remove Bad Romance Content' mod, then I'm sure this game will be worth my time and money! Cheers MC

The existence of paper buildings on Bowl World creates intriguing possibilities, not least the Papier Mache Master, a warrior who can Bend Paper to His Will! His arch-enemy is the Origami Summoner, a feral sorcerer who can spew forth millions of tiny folded up demons to do his bidding. The slums of Rimtip are known for producing the greatest Summoners on the whole of Bowl World, beings who can turn a two-up-two down cardboard hovel into a ravaging horde of tiny paper demons! The Warrior Maidens of Laaaa experienced a major doctrinal schism when their grand War-Mistress, Vixonia XVIII, hired a mercenary army of Papier Mache Masters to assault the paper walls. Their subsequent conduct in the slums of Rimtip caused a major reputation loss, leading to the formation of the Fell Order of Warrior Hags (all of whom obtained the Harlequin Death-Jester Ninja prestige class). I hope someone is writing all this down for the splat-book.

Never played JE, just didn't appeal, but 10/10 for awesome character names!

Do we have a UK release date by any chance, couldn't find it on the main UK Game store website.

^ Er, Neeshka is the only pure rogue, but there is a Gnome bard who is one of the most annoying NPCs ever if you want another skills-based character without sneak attack. Actually, I liked the noble half-orc barbarian NPC from NWN1. There's nothing like him available unfortunately, an goodie-two shoes paladin but I like Bishop the evil ranger. Go for Jaesun's Jack-of-Hearts, I'm going to try something very similar next time I play the OC.

My game worked fine with the previous patch, can't find the release notes for V1.23 anyway. I have SoZ installed, though. A couple of rogue levels + Able Learner, especially with a human works for any character build although purists might find it too much of a hit for a spellcaster. Seeing as I seldom play spellcasters it really isn't a biggie for me. Besides, all the bases are covered in NWN2 - they really did create an NPC for all seasons class-wise from the Neverwinter part of the game onwards.

You should be able to use The Dark Side as a cheezy game mechanic, i.e. "falling" (bonus) "redemption" (bonus) then "falling" again (yo-yo badness bonus). This process will lead to unlocking the Harlequin Death-Jester Ninja prestige class. We deliberately ignore this piece of twinkiness as to fuel flame wars on internet gaming forums, to deliberately encourage discussion of our brilliant fantasy setting.

Killer Rabbit notwithstanding, I really like the look of the gameplay from that clip and :: gasp :: the ability to jump up onto walls and use height for tactical advantage? Whatver will they think of next? Will be buying this upon UK release. Cheers MC

Jaesun speaketh words of wisdom, that's what I did. No problemo apart from the wierd freeze thing with patch 1.23 (which has mysteriously resolved itself and therefore might not be a Patch 1.23 issue after all).

:: Shrugs :: Most NPCs are archetypes of one sort or another and DA:O's look no different to me. Sten, for example, looks like a cliche-sandwich with extra cheese (surly, murdering, foreign-sounding two-handed sword wielding tank). Having said that, there might be hidden depths that the awful marketing has obfuscated. Why, though, does he have to be surly? Wouldn't it be really, really interesting to have a wise-cracking murdering uber-tank? Dexter with a greatsword? No, wise-cracking and streetwise, that's the dwarf / hobbit / whatever rogues job, right? Cheers MC

Druids are pretty groovy all on their own without being diluted with multiclassing. I made one with a few levels of Barbarian, purely because I wanted to rage / weapon profs and ended up with Bbn 3 / Drd 15 before my eye wandered onto something else. This was for the first level of MotB and it was a pretty awesome all-round character. The only downer was a less than epic skill point score, I mitigated that with a human with an INT score of 14. Yes, I was monkey-gripping a greataxe and using a shield. (Human Bbn levels 1-4 - pwer attack / cleave / monkey grip, 42 HP with 14 CON + rage and martial weapon profs) My stats were something like this at level 1: STR 13 DEX 13 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 14 CHA 10 Got my STR / DEX up to 14 then dumped the rest of my points into WIS. Optimal? No. Fun? Yes.

Huh? Am beginning to see the appeal of consoles.