Monte Carlo

I know some of these have already been mentioned, but I think they are worth reiterating. Then, perhaps, developers might stop doing them. LENGTHY CUTSCENES - No, you don't work in the movies. I know you might like to, but until you do stop trying to impress me with your screenplay and directing skillz. I pine for the days of the brief "up the stairs to the brick wall in Spellhold" cutscene. MYSTARY! ROMANCES - Just. Stop. It. JOINABLE NPCs - Dear developer. You might think that you've created the best NPC ever. So good, in fact, that they MUST join my party. Trust me, they don't. And, whatever you do, don't compound this heinous crime by giving said NPC (a) a cutscene and (b) a romance. CRAFTING - Why? Let me collect the bits, give it to the Scottish Dwarf, pay him ten grand and bingo! I can get back to the freaking game. Thanks. GAMES WITH MULTIPLE CONTROLS - I love Fallout 3. I really do. I also hate Fallout 3. Why? I can't play and drink beer at the same time. Shame on you. OVER-NERFED BOSSES - So the Orc has 600 hp and is resistant to the "Kill Orc" spell. Why? Because it's easier than developing a level / encounter that uses the rules? OK, we don't mind you taking liberties here and there (Rule Zero) but there has to be a limit. GAMES THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO MOD - I know it's painful for some pros to accept that there are fans who can make the game more fun than they could. Unfortunately, it's a fact of life. Some real pros join in and win undying respect (Gaider springs to mind). Cheers MC

Maybe it's because I'm a klutz, but I'm finding the inventory / barter system (designed as it clearly is for a console game pad) a pain in the arse. Apart from that, having a ball. Cheers MC

OK, it's taken me all day to get the thing working, but now it is I suggest that it's a game of rare beauty. It's like an Italian sports car... horribly made but definitely worth the ride all the same. I finally realised why I spent the extra money on a decent video card - first time in ages I've just walked around a game just enjoying the scenery. Anyway, it does beg the question - why couldn't they make their fantasy RPGs as good as this? Am looking forward to VATS with axes, shield bashes, horned helmet goring (etc). Cheers MC

There are a number of common issues, not least SecuROM, the need to run MSConfig and disable all startup apps and renaming your install shield manually... I think I'm making some progress, but lots of people have had install issues. And I'm running a higher-than-minimum-specs gaming rig with a GeForce 9800 video card and bags of memory... Cheers MC

I'm sure I'd enjoy this game if I could actually install it. Been trying all day and am now going to buy an Xbox instead.

Could Bethesda outsource Fallout to Obsidian? I'm not a business school graduate, but let me ponder this question anyway. You've just spent a great deal of blood and treasure taking on a dormant, controversial, not-very-easy-to-understand IP. The fan base hates you. The mainstream's response to Fallout is, by and large, "Huh?" and nobody really seems to rate your ability to pull it off based on your history of sandbox fantasy games that look nice but are full of cardboard NPCs. In the real world, we call this a risk. Anyhow, you release your game and guess what? By and large, people love it. Gamers who were sceptical have been magnanimous in admitting they were wrong and extend their respect. Hell, you even turn a profit. In particular, the console crossover works and is pulling in the dollars. The franchise is alive and well and a potential cash-cow. In the office you pop open some champagne and, not unreasonably, pat yourselves on the back. What do you do next? Hmmm. Well I'll tell you what I'd be unlikely to do, and that's offer up my new-found and hard won success to a third party to keep some backwoodsmen fans happy. Cheers MC

I'm picking the game up today or tomorrow. This is a really good thread, helped me make my mind up, thanks to all who've contributed. I like marksman / stealth characters with some diplomacy skills and maybe a tiny smattering of tech ability. Any ideas for a character build? Because to be honest that manual will kill me and I haven't played anything using SPECIAL for a couple of years. Don't mind minor spoilers, power-gaming or meta-builds either. Cheers in advance, MC BTW: Most surreal moment of the week? Walking through a small rural English village on a frosty autumn morning to be confronted by a 3' high picture of a BOS trooper at a bus stop ad. FO3 advertising has gone massive here in the UK, presumably because it's a big console title.

An expansion pack that completely turns on playing evil characters. From over-the-top Mwu-ha-ha comic book evil to sinister, pretending-to-be-someone-else evil. Choose the path of the evil warlord, dark mage aspiring to lich-hood, spy-master rogue or demonic cult-building cleric. To make it even better, and unlike vanilla D&D, try stuff like: the fighter / warrior path might involve leading the orc horde as an orc PC. And I'm not one of those people who usually plays an evil character, either, I just think that Obsidian would take this ball and run with it better than most other developers. No Drow though. Or Underdark. Please. Cheers MC

^ BTW, anybody else remember the Morrow Project and Gamma World? I'm wondering if MCA or Scott Bennie were influenced by them or played them? The Morrow Project (i.e. vault-frozen government specialists defrosted to tame post-apocalyptic America) is a bit Fallout-esque. Cheers MC

You, sir, are a genius. After all, Tactics showed how the setting could be used to make a solid squad-based wargame, and be more fun that the pure RPGs to boot (the best RPG in Fallout should be a grenade launcher). A strategy game set in a quirky PA setting like Fallout's would be groovier than Austin Powers wearing a pimp's hat whilst driving a segway scooter. Indifferent as I am towards FO1 & 2, you really can't fault the setting behind Fallout. Am buying FO3 out of idle curiosity, mainly because I've not bought a game for almost a year and I need a distraction until SoZ comes out. I'm hoping I like it. Cheers MC

Apparently, from the smug left-wing rubric on the side of their ice cream cartons, Ben & Jerry's have a soul. It almost puts me off eating their otherwise suplerlative 'Phish Phood' which is easily one of my favourites, alongside the amusingly titled 'Cherry Garcia.' Sorry, please continue discussing Dragon Age. Cheers MC

Full Spectrum Warrior = Problem was that it was a thinking person's game wearing a sexy, button-mashing disguise. Not for me, perhaps, but it might explain why it wasn't as big as it deserved to be. I find myself unmoved by the prospect of a WW2 version, though, for some reason. Probably because there have been so many WW2 FPS / squad tactics games.

Bit of a lazy generalisation isn't it? Perhaps you mean the "socially conservative bit in the middle most of us fly over sandwiched between the two anything-goes liberal bits on each coast". California has the biggest adult entertainment industry in the world, so how the USA is 'puritan' baffles me slightly. I do agree, however, that the 'sex is scarier than violence' meme is interesting. It's not a necessarily a Western thing either. Regards MC

"Morrigan plays a really key part in the story..." Not in my game she won't, she's going to die very quickly because I don't like being told who to take in my party. Unless of course there's a lame deus ex machina "she can't die" mechanic because it might spoil a lovingly crafted cutscene.

Well of course it would. More so than probably F3. I have to disagree. The BG fanbase is pretty chilled out compared to the Fallout Taleban. Unless, of course, BG3 was a side-scrolling retro kung-fu D&D console title.

Sorry to go slightly O/T (although it won't harm this thread given the non-rumour that kicked it off)... but it really is time for a HACKMASTER CRPG. Seriously. Cheers MC

With reference to the point about a Pathfinder CRPG... I'm pretty sure that the D20 'licence' (i.e. the Open Gaming Licence / SRD / etc upon which Pathfinder is based) specifically excludes third party media like computer games. Unsurprisingly, they saw that one coming a mile off when the lawyers wrote the OGL. I would be surprised if they ever allowed another 3.0 / 3.5 D&D computer game after NWN2. Wizards will want to push 4E. And future licenced products will be 4E. Would be giddily happy to be proved wrong because 4E = Pokemon. Cheers MC

About BG3 versus Throne of Bhaal. Vol can bang on as much as he like about it being an XP. Yes it is, but that wasn't the original intention. The idea was always to have a trilogy. Then it came to pass that they couldn't do Bg3. Why, I can't remember. I think it was either (a) NWN became Bio's focus or (b) something to do with WotC / the D&D licence. No doubt someone can provide us with the definitive answer. So, as Dave Gaider has explained, the role that BG3 would have played was essentially crammed into ToB. I know a lot of people are indifferent about ToB (I liked it personally) but it is a pretty big XP with lots going on. OK, it's a series of boss fights, but those are one of the best bits of the series. To say ToB isn't BG3 is technically correct, but a bit of a lawyer's answer. It's meant to be BG3, that's pretty unambiguous. Anyway, any BG game would have to be 4E and is, ergo, screwed from the off. Cheers MC

I don't, on the whole, like cutscenes. I like gameplay. Developers like cutscenes. They get to show off their writing skillz and pretend they're in the movie business. So, cutscenes, for me = meh. On the plus side, I like the way the gameplay looks. Yes, it does remind me of Gothic / Oblivion a little, but there's only so many ways to present a single-player CRPG. Personally, I'd rather play the whole thing in tactical view but that's just me. On aggregate, from those videos I like the look of the game. Just hope there's less darn cut-scenes. Yes, it's generic, but so what? I'm ignoring the hype and looking at the product, which looks pretty solid to me. And I'm as far from a Bioware fanboi as you are likely to get. Cheers MC

I know arguing with you is pointless, but I'll ask anyway - how would you pitch BG3? I'm not asking for a lot of detail, just a couple of ideas of how it would look / fit in with the brand and take it forward. Bear in mind FR canon - personally I'd have a Bhaal-spawn war decimate the FR and the player begins in an almost post-apocalyptic part of the Realms figuring out what went before, i.e. hundreds of years after the last game. But that is unlikely to happen because of the WotC attitude to their IP. Cheers MC

ToB is BG3. It was always the intention to make it the epic-level third game, except it ended up as an XP. The Black Hound was Interplay's (doomed) final hurrah - a D&D game using the BG brand but in fact something completely different. I'm sure JE will chip in if he thinks that this is an erroneous description. So at the end of ToB you are a 50th level badass demi-god. For me, that's it. The end. Mission accomplished and game over. What on earth are you going to do in BG3? Huh? I love BG. I also love Indiana Jones, which is why I didn't like the last movie. Stop flogging the horse when it's clearly dead. The type of plot-wrangling you'd need to do to get any sort of credible link between a FR 4E (shudder) D&D game and the Baldur's Gate franchise would be meaningless to new players. I mean, I was pretty impressed by the candour which Obsidian displayed about the actual link between BG and The Black Hound, but look where that all ended. Cheers MC

Quite possibly because there's nothing to comment on. OK, if it were in development Bio wouldn't be involved, we all the know the story about the licence etc. In any case, I doubt Bio really want to get wrapped up in the D&D / WotC licence again. I mean, they make Star Wars games, right? I suppose our intrepid writer met his 'Deep Throat' in the underground car park of the Watergate building. Because this is so vague as to be pointless. More incisive reportage from our hero. Now I'm losing my patience. I know for these youngsters the height of research is a quick once-around Wikipedia, but even that would yield some intelligence on The Black Hound. Not 'said to be' in development. No, I'm not going to speculate away because this story provides nothing to actually speculate about. I'm astonished Atari even bothered answering, to be honest. Cheers MC

Why does your archer need a Wisdom score of 21? I mean, if she was human and you were going for some cleric dual-classing action I'd get it.

Medieval TW 2 + Kingdoms Baldur's Gate 2 + TOB NWN2 + MotB Blitzkrieg 2 + expansions So only four at the moment. My rule of thumb is that if I'm not playing 'em regularly I uninstall but keep all my old saved games backed up. Cheers MC

@ Samm, By "my-way-or-the-highway" I mean scenarios that have only one real way of winning. In resource-restricted games like Blitzkrieg (i.e. it's not an RTS where you get to create units - they're allocated to you) there can be a tendency to have battles where you have to do things in a particular sequence of events or you won't / can't win. It's very frustrating. And it's not as if it's tough: once you've figured out the magic formula it's actually easy. But dull and took sixty re-loads. Happily, Blitz 2 and mods addresses this. Blitz 2 allows you to call on your reinforcements as and when you like, although the numbers of units is still controlled. However, if you want to call on three squadrons of tanks RIGHT NOW you can. Cheers MC