Monte Carlo

Some excellent stuff here, but Virumor's contribution is especially awful: cliche ridden, derivative, full of silly, pretentious naming conventions largely free of vowels. I salute you. Here I present you with a fallen elven anti-hero who hopefully is as awful. X'Yaris D'Athbringer of the Nightvelvet Helm hefted his mighty war-blade, Heart-Eater, and contemplated his foe. The hated Corsairs of Odge, scarlet-clad pirates wielding cruelly curved swords and wearing the ears of their enemies in their hats, snarled and spat on the deck of the Moon-Cutter Sh'Rll. They had already slain his faithul retainer, Z'larg, a deaf mute Kozolani, one of the hardy reptilemen that live under the Scoldingash Mountains. He had died bravely, performing a blood-spattered calypso of death with his spear. A dozen Corsairs had fallen by his hand already, their heads and other bodyparts littering the bloodstained decking. "By the Night-Lord!" cried X'Yaris, his heavy, ash-coloured mail sodden with blood and his long yellow hair falling in bloodied strands across his face. Heart-Eater split the first corsair in two and X'Yaris cried a a hideous cackle as he fell on the next pirate. The Corsairs of Odge knew that they were, indeed, in the presence of the companion of death and prepared for oblivion as the mighty elven war-sword glittered and danced and spilt hot blood like it was the unique Zxly't''ian chocolate drink they call "Drthhyl'op." "Ouch!" They cried as they were split asunder. Then, like the first and unexpectedly sudden ray of sunlight piercing a particularly fat raincloud, a young woman dressed in white appeared on the deck between the dark elven swordsman and the ragged curs of Odge. "Hold, X'Yaris D'Atbringer," she said. Her large amber eyes and ridiculously short skirt marked her as one of the warrior sun-maidens of Laaaa, the golden god of all that is good and banishing all that is bad. A corsair lunged at her with his sword, and she snapped her fingers. A cloud of light engulfed the pirates and they were taken by the destructive rapture of Laaaa, melting like candals tossed into the giant hell volcano of the war-god Xok. "Enough of this mortal foolery," she said, fixing him with a stern but actually rather hot stare, "The sun-maidens of Laaaa seek your assistance, hell-bound avatar of chaos. The ancient dead sorceror-god of F'lik' stirs again. Can we count on your fealty?" "Perhaps..." said X'Yaris... (hopefully not to be continued)

The re-marketing might make commercial sense but what strikes me as interesting is the downgrading of the whole origin story / RP aspect of the game. Why was that?

Ouch. That's the most damning testimony I've spotted so far.

^ Actually, I think you're right. I've been waiting for the gap DA was meant to fill for a long time... and maybe the gap closed while I wasn't paying attention.

"Something that can shovel. Audi S6..." Larry the Wheelman, Ronin. Now it would be an RS6 I guess, mebbe an Avant. I like German cars.

Look, in Dragon Age they've actually named a region of wintry mountains "The Frostbacks." So I know our struggle is, indeed, a tough one.

Nobody link to FATAL. Please. FATAL is ridiculous for reasons unconnected to cheesy cliche.

The banter on the numerous Dragon Age threads amuse me a great deal, and I want to avoid filling them up with too much invective. Therefore I thought we could direct the collective creative will of the forum to creating the worst fantasy setting ever. The most hackneyed, cliched, unappealing piece of vanilla rubbish ever. Something that makes the Forgotten Realms look like Elric's Melnibone by comparison. But careful, my friends! You might just think that a Scottish-accented dwarf here, a chainmail bikini there and a dash of slumbering ancient evil will be enough. But no, like playing the piano badly, this game actually takes skill. It is free-form - post a brief idea, a character, a magic item, a monster..... anything that, collectively, would add up to the Worst Fantasy Setting Ever. Cheers MC

Sad thing is, they look much cooler after the EA thing.

Although I suspect that it's going to be about as dark and gritty as an episode of Go Diego, Go! I suspect it might be quite epic, in a sort of er, big way...

alanschu has a special Bio-Licence to talk about the game. He is a psychological warfare operative for the sneaky Biowarians, his mission is to blast a hole in the carapace of cynicism that exists here about DA:O and the DaRK heRoiC FAntASy (etc). Greg and Ray sit up at night fretting that the Obz board regulars are unimpressed so far. Honest. Cheers MC

A friend's father is a seasoned civil engineer with extensive experience of commercial / retail development. However, on his own, he'd struggle even to build a brick wall (he's not a bricklayer), render and skim it (he's not a plasterer), or fix the lighting (for the skills of the electrician tend to be discrete to that role). As for a multi-unit shopping mall? Hmmm. Not a perfect analogy, but not entirely innapropriate either. Cheers MC

Clearly it wasn't disingenuous. If you think my comments lacked sincerity then I'm not sure what to think.

You know it's true.

Sounds like we have a clear case of unfair generalising! So it's not "kids these days" becoming unable or unwilling to master relatively complex rulesets. Looks to me like WotC is solely to blame for driving it to the ground, in their effort to force their ****ing miniatures down everyone's throats, in their effort to make it appealing to the widest possible audience. I wasn't suggesting the kids couldn't / wouldn't get complex rulesets. To the contrary, I know they can. Re. WotC and minis = totally agreed.

Alanschu's point about us not thinking big is disingenuous. Does anyone, honestly, think that a developer given the Star Trek licence to play with would be allowed to craft a deep, rich CRPG that allowed the player to have much fun as a Klingon or Romulan as it would a pointy-eared Star Fleet tech officer? Would they hell. It would be all set 'phasers to stun', running around the deck to simulate explosions, 'tha engines'll nae tek it cap'n' and the inevitabel tribute to Tribbles. Not to mention the countless hours spent getting the 'swishing' noise the doors make just so, much to the delight of the utter hordes of canon-obsessed trekkies such a title would attract. :: Yawn :: Honestly, Star Trek as a gaming franchise has got more baggage than Paris Hilton on a private jet. Anything else. Anything. 80's cheese Galactica for chrissakes, with Dirk Benedict in a plastic space fighter. Cheers MC

It really is a case of video killed the radio star. Pen & Paper gaming was dying. PC games rescued it, and to a certain extent needed it. A lot of gamers came back to PnP as a result of the Gold box or IE games (I played PnP with quite a few of them) and now PnP has to ape the relative simplicity of MMOs.... ergo 4E. It's insulting and patronizing - "Da Kidz" can only understand simple rules, have no time for complexity etc. Computer gaming irrevocably changed the way people approached PnP gaming. Two things I noticed immediately was what I called "Baldur's Gating" i.e. immediately resting after any combat encounter to recharge spells / hit points etc just like in BG. The other was a twitchy expectation of fast-levelling. Nothing wrong with this - it's what they expected from D&D after being introduced to it on the 'puter is all. 4E seems to me to be the ultimate manifestation of this - unfortunately it is characterless, pointless sludge. 3E was the apogee of the game, RIP Dungeons and Dragons. Cheers MC

Mass Effect says hi.(without the cool part) Let me re-phrase that. OTOH, there is easily scope for a classic space-opera type CRPG that references everything cool in science fiction that isn't made by Bioware. Cheers MC

Zombie word association: "Cherry" "Mwooaaahhh..." "Sofa" "Mwooaahhh...." "Comfort" "Mwoooahhh!" "Hamburger" "MWARGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!" *looks at clipboard* "Well, you're absolutely fine for a zombie of your age and level of decomposition, that'll be five hundred pounds please."

I say no. Sorry. Hey, I like Star Trek as much as the next fairweather sci-fi enthusiast. However, I also see Star Fleet, in a tin foil hat kinda way, as a soulless, socialistic, humourless organisation that I don't really want to be part of in a sixty-odd hour game. Personally, I'd rather be a Klingon (let's face it, the Klingons are vikings, they cut about in their dragon-boats being savage. That's cool), and simply blow up spaceships full of tight-sweater wearing, smug, goody-two-shoes Star Fleetians. OTOH, there is easily scope for a classic space-opera type CRPG that references everything cool in science fiction. So, with respect, I vote for an original IP. Cheers MC

About 90% of the Bio board forum members, for whom it is the pivotal lynchpin of the entire game.

WoW has Mister T and Ozzy Osbourne doing TV ads for it, which is cool. Not cool enough for me to try it out myself, but cool nonetheless. MMOs = fail. NWN3 is of marginal interest to me, but in the little online gaming I did with NWN it was kinda fun. Cheers MC

Jagged Alliance - The Jagged Edge. The Russian VO and written English is so dreadful I didn't know where to start. It's like a really, really bad mod. Anyway, I decided to think out of the box, so I put on some camouflage paint, drank a half-litre of supermarket vodka straight out of the freezer and put on a Metallica album. And y'know what? The Jagged Edge is utterly awesome. Or, in Jagged Edge-speak - Teh Jeggzed Eadege uz AWeSoME!!!

Etiquette requires that I label this one SPOILERS...

Puh-leez. This thread is a gossipy, bitchy confection for sniping, rumour and stuff. Dissection of Dave G's ponderous self-generated fanfic is verboten. Although y'all deserve a medal for reading it. Many thanks. Question - what music, apart from the MM track, would you have used for that trailer? I'm thinking Ride of the Valkyries, but perhaps a rap-metal version.