Monte Carlo

BTW, does anybody have a definitive release date for DA? Has it been pushed back to November (as I read somewhere). Cheers MC

BG2 again, Ftr / Thf with a pretty vanilla party (Nalia, Valygar, Minsc, Jaheira), the objective is to crack on and rescue Imoen ASAP and see how a small 12th - 13th level party fares in the Underdark. SoZ, re-started again with comedy evil party (led by a Lawful Evil, ruggedly handsome Ftr/Blackguard and comprising elven Rog / Rngr / Assn, Chaotic Evil pale master, actually that should be mistress and a Grey Orc cleric of some crazy CN god of plunder - how cool is a god of plunder I ask you?) It's good fun. Cheers MC

And there, you see, is the rub. Because I'm the polar opposite, I find combat compelling and think it should be central to gameplay considerations. I'd rather have excellent, crunchy tactical combat than uber-complex NPCs (beginning to see why Torment was my idea of, well, torment?). Of course, there's nothing wrong with either preference unless you are a games designer, where you will try to accommodate both camps. I'm pretty easily assauged by difficulty sliders and options - there's no reason why Maria can't have her all-party-die mechanic and I can have main character dies and it's all over mechanic. Losing a key NPC can make a game even more rewarding. I know it sounds obtuse, but it can be. The first time I played BG2-ToB and fought Demogorgon I lost Minsc. Minsc by this time was my primary melee character, had bags of experience and was a pivotal part of my party. But he perma-died, gibbed by the arch-demon. His portrait disappeared forever. I'd won the battle, though, and wow it was tough. I thought about it decided to accept the loss and carry on. It made the game more challenging, I had to develop a new NPC to fit that role and so on. It made the battle more meaningful, and the overall game more immersive. I accept that I'm in a minority there, but it shows how we all look at gameplay mechanics very differently. Cheers MC

If Bioware are trying this then more power to them and I'll happily eat a whole crow pie with crow-flavoured gravy if they do. Remember, though, we are told (ad nauseum) that choices, actions, multiple endings, re-playability (etc) are not as important anymore. Why? 'Cuz the mythical Joe Gamer will only play the game once, will in all probability never actually finish it yet will feel cheated that he didn't actually get to see everything in it. I don't buy this argument, but hey, I don't work in the marketing department of a major computer entertainment company. So if Bio are swimming against the Tsunami of alleged gamer attention-deficit then maybe I'm being too harsh on them. I don't think so, but we'll see. Cheers MC

Chris Priestly's comments are quite revealing, Bio is obviously out to save the gamer from himself. Then again, remember the original Dungeon Siege, the world's first game that doubled as a screensaver? They clearly realised that gamers in fact wanted a game that demanded the same input as watching a fish-tank. Even NWN2, if you leave the 'AI' on, will do a pretty similar trick, dumping every decent spell on that incalcitrant goblin archer that had the temerity to lurk about at the back. I'm guessing Dragon Age's AI will be similar. TBH, the industry / customer insistence on 3D perspective that you can zoom out of doesn't help, I know isometric is dead but that view at least gives you some appreciation of what's going on. The Total War series engine is the only game I've ever played where the engine allows you to appreciate toe-to-toe closeness to truly tactical apprecation of the battle. If you can do it with thousands of troops why can't you do it with a party of six and a couple of monsters?

Amen, brother. Maybe we need a 'Most Overrated' things in popular culture thread.

Ayn Rand is obviously the poster girl for Libertarians, many of whom haven't actually read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead (for the record I've read the first, struggled with the second). Many libertarians also wouldn't have a clue about Objectivism or how it might (or might not) fit into mainstream libertarianism. I'm a 'small l' libertarian (i.e. small state = groovy, not so sure about legalizing crack and heavy automatic weapons). Many libertarians would naturally riposte that I was therefore not really a libertarian, just an unwitting pupper of the state living a facsimile of freedom.... Rand's importance is symbolic - her work is a paen to self-reliance and the soul-sapping nature of statism. The message is harsh, but I don't know if anyone's noticed but life often is. So don't take her literally, like a lot of visionaries much of what she says is confusing waffle, but in there is a kernel of truth, albeit uncomfortable for some. Especially the feckless, the authoritarian and the idle. Cheers MC

Thing is, I really like sandbox games but hate Oblivion too. A lot. Why? I mean, the gameworld is pretty. The graphics are nice. I can join things and make stuff and jump a lot to enhance my stats. Because it's dull. Dull and humourless and machine-like. I feel like I'm taking part in some radical early 80's Czech animation film that is in fact a simile for the grinding pointlessness of living in a totalitarian regime. Any videogame that makes you feel like this cannot be good.

The Wild Geese. It's brilliant, my dad took me to see it at The Odeon, Leicester Square, when it was released. Thrillingly, there was a diaroma of jeeps and army trucks from the riverbed-bomber scene with large-scale model vehicles around the top of the cinema. I watched it again because I heard how Guy Ritchie is doing a re-make. Am wondering how on earth he's going to pull it off, but wish him well. I mean, the original has Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger. Nowadays that would be like getting Russell Crowe, Daniel Craig, Hugh Grant and Sean Bean to agree to be in the same movie. Ain't gonna happen. TWG is like a Brit version of The Dirty Dozen, it's a sort of macho totem that you f**k with at your peril. Cheers MC

^ Huh? It will quite legitimately be on the internet apres-release anyway. Strangely, it's the shiny toys and trinkets that draw me to collector's editions. In-game stuff will (a) be released for free and (b) surpassed by fan-created content. How long do people think it will take for the first half-decent, meaningful* mod to be released? I reckon 24 hours. Cheers MC * Not like 'this is a lovely hat for CHARNAME'

I am a Wes Wiemer's Tactics veteran, I can't actually play without it nowadays even if I do leave all the phat lewt those random evil parties leave behind! I've tried to segue the most complimentary elements of SCSII and Tactics, will post results / apparent conflicts. Blucher's mod rocks, beware Vista users (even with UAC switched off it really didn't like me putting stuff in the override - I had to do it a different way as opposed to simple copy-and-paste). I have Imoen in Chateau Irenicus as an 11th level thief (I Shadowkeeper in the level I'd finish BG1 / TotSC at) and Ilyich's mob are suffering much trap and backstab carnage as a result, as opposed to dual-class Imoens, er, Acid Arrow and Web spells Am toying with a Cavalier, one of the most munchkin kits is the game and lots of fun. However, I can now dual-class a Barbarian to a Thief (hey, thanks G3 Tweaks!) so I'm considering that too for the improved thief quests from Avenger's and Quest packs. I've always wanted to finish BG2 with a Bard, though, am thinking about trying one out in Irenicus' dungeon to see if I like it. Cheers MC

Even translated into

SoZ, am trying out my first Eldritch Knight and Red Dragon Disiciple twink builds. BG2, naturally, still making my modded build so haven't chosen a character yet. Maybe it's nostalgia, but after the over-kill of choice in NWN2 / 3.5E I find the ludicrously restrictive AD&D 2E strangely comforting. Weird. Cheers MC

Went for the Weaponmaster w/ Falchion. Sick melee death carnage-o-matic. Spirit-Eating bad-roleplay aside on my behalf aside, it was fun!

A the moment... G3 Fixpack SCSII A few bits of WW's Tactics WW's Item Upgrade Improved Oasis Rogue re-balancing / aPack 1PP BG1 avatar / graphics BG1 restoration Tower of Deception Ascension / Redemption Questpack Assassinations Widescreen Mod (v 2.2) Will add a few more, but not many.

Hey, here's Blucher's original, which I much prefer: LINK

In the beginning there was Blucher's level one NPCs mod, which you cimply dumped in the override folder and voila! Then some clever-clogs came up with this, which is quite good: LINK to G3 LVL 1 NPC Mod

:: Sigh :: Setting specific D&D was a 2E development, really. OD&D, and later 1E AD&D were meant to be generic fantasy settings with Greyhawk as this default, vanilla place hanging around in the background. I wish I still had my original World of Greyhawk campaign setting for 1E AD&D, just so we could compare it with (say) the 3E Forgotten Realms splat-book (which is a great product, but everything, including I suspect Thayvian pasta sauce recipes and different types of socks worn on the Sword Coast is in there). The original Greyhawk was in an old-style cardboard module cover. You got a big colourful map and a slim book which gave you about a paragraph on each area. You were encouraged to make the rest up. Every module gave you a rough Greyhawkian location if you were using it, no biggie if you weren't. Gary Gygax wrote long, rambling essays on campaign building in the DMG. The whole 2E business model, which foresaw the collapse of TSR, revolved around splatbooks and campaign settings and has been stuck there ever since, and now includes the inevitable rule amendments, complete with (yes) more splatbooks. The only setting-specific games I've ever played that really felt like the rules were segued nicely into the setting were RuneQuest and Traveller. D&D, for me, has always worked best, and in the spirit of the original game, in a home-brewed campaign setting. Cheers MC

Hi, thanks for helping me with the uninstall issue with BG2. I'm currently doing a completely fresh BG2 + ToB install for the second time only on this rig, after this I will apply the final official Bio patch. And after that... well it will be the widescreen mod probably. I've taken a look at my old mod installations and some of them are, well, old. Baldurdash, for example, which has probably moved on. Weimer's Tactics, which I think has also moved on. What I'm seeking to do is put together a balance of mods to make the vanilla game more challenging / different (and try out some stuff I've not tried before) while aiming for optimal stability (i.e. for some reason a mod I used last time caused Saemon Havarian never make the Brynlaww RV, thus I missed the Sahuaguin city). So, any ideas, suggestions and particularly mod installation order gratefully accepted. Not wildly interested in NPC mods unless you think they are either (a) really really good or (b) are for a thief. I now use that ancient mod that allows you to alter the core NPC's base class (so I now always have Jaheira as Rngr / Cleric and Imoen as either a single-classed thief or a sorcerer). Again, thanks in advance, I know this forum is the one place I can always come to on the web and get decent feedback on stuff like this and it is appreciated. Cheers MC

Thanks to everyone, esp. Morgoth. Went medieval on the directory then used CCleaner as suggested. A very easy-to-use tool, fixed the problem easily, plus it removed some of the dreck left behind (for some reason) by Crysis is the registry. See y'all on my new BG2 thread where I will be bugging you for more advice. Cheers MC

How do I delete it manually from the registry?

That didn't work, unfortunately.

Brutal works for me. How do I do that? Ditto removal via config.

So how about doing some pro bono then?

Ha ha ha. So, technical games industry person, what do I do?