Monte Carlo

Basically the Russians want the Red Army depicted as gleaming paladins of virtue, none of whom murdered prisoners, their own dissidents or raped their way across Germany.

I'm kind of between Death Machine and Sarex. I find evil play-throughs in BG games are more difficult and the path less travelled, which has its own appeal.

^ He said that Pathfinder, were you to base a computer game on a ruleset and keep the IE vibe, would be the way forward. I agree. Pathfinder rocks. It could be McGuyvered into a decent CRPG, but I keep coming back to the point, why pimp your Porsche into a truck when you could just buy a truck?

Chrononaut, hi. It's great to see another D&D fan on the forum. And AD&D v1.0 is still great, hell I could crack open my books with all the home-brew rule annotations and have a great game right now. I liked 3E, not 3.5, loathe 4 (never played 2) and agree with you about Pathfinder... ...but I have an issue with your post. I wouldn't want Gary Gygax to design a CRPG ruleset and I would be leery, TBH, to play a pen and paper game designed by OE. On is designed for computers to figure out everything, the other by wet-ware. So for me a pen & paper, turn-based ruleset will never be optimal for designing a computer game. The reason folks did it back in the day was for reasons of brand recognition and affection for D&D in the round. It certainly wasn't because D&D was an optimal ruleset for computer games. So, D&D fan! Yay. But kinda grognarding around arguing that PE owes itself a dollop of D&D? Boo.

Horses look neat. But Jesus you can predict everything they're going to say in one of those videos. Stuff about re-connecting with fans (but nothing went wrong, did it?) and the inevitable BG reference. Its like the guys who brought us Jar-Jar Binks claiming credit for R2D2.

There's a surprise tomorrow! I've heard it on the QT that Dave Gaider is going to write a bonus NPC, a romance-able, sexually ambiguous sofa called Humphrey.

BG2 had some credible evil options. Take, for example, Trademeet. If, like me, you find druids the most annoying character class ever, then poisoning their precious well and slaying them all for a bounty (from an agreeably evil halfling representative from the Faerun branch of BP) is very satisfying. There's also a sort of logic to it. For neutral characters it's not even that evil. OTOH you can be good and get rid of the evil druids and restore the po-faced birkenstock wearers (if that's your bag). The folks of Trademeet are happy either way, but there are still some consequences for you as the PC (for example, you can lose Jaheira and her whole quest arc).

Ha ha ha Ha ha ha for proving Nonek's point precisely.

Aw *feels warm and fuzzy*

DA:O almost had too much story. The story and game levels collided into a sort of spaghetti. There was no sense of serendipity, or a freaking break from the plot. And remember, I liked DA:O. And the dwarf origin stories were, for me, easily the best. Look, I know Alan is in an invidious position as an employee, but BiowEAre now make lowest common denominator RPGs for the hideously needy, fan-service voracious fanbase they've created in the fetid petri dish of snarky Buffy-esque dialogue, poorly animated diaper-sex and emo-Twilight-esque romance.

^ I'm glad they realised how awful it was.

As for the other dude, suggesting I don't follow this game because of Fallout... I'm not really a Fallout fan. I never even knew there was a child-killer rep. That screenie, if I'm honest, disgusts me. The cartoon is especially vile. The developer(s) concerned with that particular aspect of the game should be ashamed of themselves and have (hopefully) grown up since. Those are my lines in the sand *shrugs* What some random dude on the internet thinks about that bothers me not a jot. Edit: while I'm thinking about it, hipster politically-correct game devs are on thin ice defending that Fallout image. It suggests a level of puerile misogyny that I think we all want to move on from. And I'm the most unlikely white knight you'll meet today. People who are offended by cleavage and chainmail bikinis associating themselves with images of a pregnant woman being kicked in her belly? FFS.

I don't see one. So torturing a prisoner for information (for example) is the same as rape? There are so many shades of grey here that the discussion becomes circular, but I'm sure you see what I mean. So, yes, there is a world of difference. From the ****-Dastardly tying a damsel to a railway track in an old silent movie, twirling his moustache, through to Jack Bauer beating up terrorists, and everything inbetween... those are all different to me than rape. I can explain this to you but I can't understand it for you. I don't want to get personal, as you have been civil, but I can't help you here. Your own moral compass is for you to consider. But, even among the most hardened criminals, harming children holds a special status as wretched. Child-murderers have to be kept separate from the general prison population once incarcerated, lest they be shivved. A prison favourite is pouring boiling water and sugar on child murderers. In almost every culture there is a strong moral and ethical imperative to protect children, even among those outlawed. Of course, there have been slaughters and massacres throughout history when children have been slain: they are remembered because the practice is outlandish. I'm not known for my PC credentials. But if you think there's some sort of mendacious dichotomy between wanting to play a villain (say, for example, a Hannibal Lecter style murderer) but not wanting to play a rapist and child murderer then you, sir, are bat**** crazy. I accept your apology unreservedly and thank you for it. I stand by my assertion, though, that folks on gaming forums who think that keeping rape and child murder out of games is somehow censorious are (you guessed it) bat**** crazy. And sick. People who want these things in games are disturbed. Props to you for not writing "it breaks my immersion." tl;dr: there is a world of difference from wanting to play a morally reprehensible villain and wanting to play a rapist and child-murderer. There is no hypocrisy at play.

My message to Argentina is "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

My two gold pieces: 1. The BG modding community is awesome. Admittedly, there are pearls amongst swine, but we have folks like aVENGER who post here who have genuinely made BG2 more fun to play than it was. How can you slag off Unfinished Business, for example? Or Weimer's Tactics? 2. So, a blanket 'Mods are ****e' stance is retarded. Some mods are ****e? Sure. Alll of them? No. In fact, a significant minority are inspired. 3. The best mods, in my humble, simply put stuff into a game that (a) devs would have done if they'd had more time and / or money or (b) put right the po-faced dev bias against 'degenerative' play. If I want to stack 200 arrows in a non-competitive, single-player game why the **** should it bother anyone? 4. There is a reason why the ranks of developers are bolstered by modders - it is because they are great devs in their own (albeit unpaid) right. 5. Lest anybody wonders, I have no dog in this fight: I struggle to install a bloody mod, let alone create one. But I do respect passion and creativity and technical nous, which the best modders have in abundance.

Just hypocritical (no offense, everyone is in some way). But that discussion is too long to be had on something as slow as forums. *cough*IRC*cough* No, I'm not remotely hypocritical and yes, I do take offence. Please explain.

Wasn't DA2 a product of "data mining" DAO? Or am I thinking of the ME series? I remember the DA2 devs quoting the data they took from DA1 to justify the epic dumbing-down in DA2 and all the other ****ty design decisions.

I liked the Fade, a lot. For the heretical reason that it was a mega-dungeon, an intelligent take on fighting in tunnels. I would never skip it.

I am astonishingly old-fashioned: slavery, slaughter and murder are fine. Rape and killing kids? You sick ****s need turning over. I don't really care about ethical inconsistency, those are my lines in the sand.

We have different tastes, Maria. Your passion for the game is clear. I can drink to that.

I've never played a Borderlands game, but Humanoid and I traded some games on Steam and he (ludicrously generously) gave me Borderlands 2. It is currently downloading. I'm up to my ears in work, both day-job and proof-reading for a book release. Yet, as a gamer, I always find a sneaky hour or two for CoH2 and Diablo. So this weekend I will forsake both and try some Borderlands 2.

Dragon Age Origins was a decent CRPG and I enjoyed most of it. I was about to forgive Bioware until DA2 when they fell beyond grace. Not like it matters, but I want to see *stellar* reviews from credible sources (i.e. the folks I trust on forums like this, certainly not games journalists) before I touch it with a bargepole.

Have seriously got back into Diablo 3 and loving it.

d00d it has a really, *really* big dungeon and a Baldur's Gate-sized city. Chill. Really. Just chill.

In Company of Heroes, Easy AI owns you!