cronicler

We don't have much to go on CGirl. Other than hoping that pc version will have decent controls for the interface for keyboard&mouse combo there isn't much we can go on. When we go too far with speculating we just fall back on Fo3 bashing and Fo3 basher bashing and so on...

The "Cake" is a lie!

Oner: Personally I hate Madcat Mk:2. It is such a useless piece of crap. Besides those missles cost freaking lot. Generally I don't like missle heavy mechs as primary combatants as some artillery is needed only now and then. Try using your second lance as battleline positioned somewhat away from the enemy so you can fall back onto them and have them rip apart your pursuers with concentrated fire. I generally used my lance as missle platforms (if there was need for extremely fast destruction) positioned behind the battleline or light mechs to act as spotters. I favoured Light to Medium mechs with a mix of Laser (PPS if possible) and Kinetic heavy weapons at long range depending on heat budget. Putting in a heavy salvo of 8+ shots in some poor bastards ****pit at long range is the best medicine :D

For space opera I can recomend Honor Harrington saga from David Weber. You can find/try the first book for free at Baen free library. If you would like to try alternate history, I can recommend 1632 saga from Eric Flint or the Colonisation saga from Turtledove Another alternate history/fantasy series that I enjoyed a lot and would recommend is the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. As a side note, Ian M Banks and his "Culture" setting contains some of the most creative or original approaches into general space operas / sci-fi novels. Nightwatch series by Sergei Lukyanenko is also another saga that is ewnjoyable without falling into idiotic White Wolf or D&D cliches Edit: Now that I thin about it, you might want to fish in Baen and Del-Rey's sites to check their publishings. The little fact that those 2 publishers allow you to read sample chapters and even some of the books free online is quite atractive for me.

Primitive tools, locked content, lots of game file hacking, lots of work... Mutants Rising is still alive and kicking. Even worse, it seems to be nearly finished content vise. You might want to check their Storage Room to see all those old and not cool stuff they have added to the game. This Shameless advertisement of viral nature was brought to you by Nomad freerunners

I just wish we had "much more" decent M rated games that got the rating instead of being slapped an "M" for breasts galore. I just can't understand when games with gallons of blood and body-parts, 43 phragraph long monologues which only contain derivatives of F words and barely enough clothing to cover a "Japanese" censor strip get a "T" while the slightest "adult" content like politics, non porno sex, social issues are chased by pitchforks... Ps: Is there a way to tone down the auto language corrector other than using leetspeak? Pps: Krezack, I mean to ask but keep forgetting this, Where is your Picture from?

Now where did I put my pulse rifle? Its time to hunt bugs!

To be fair, the 4th ed had the most usable prestige class system I guess. (You advance till lvl 10 in any class you want. then from 10 to 20 you can add 1 base class and 1 prestige class "progression" per level, pcs giving extra saves and abilities only, then at 20+ you add an epic progression on top of it.) Too bad most of the "good" ideas in it are drowned in a sea of "easy to use" "streamlined" "for lowest common denominator" s...

I really suggest you take a close look at gurps. even if you don't use it, it has some nifty ideas that you can steal Also I really hate DnD spell system, In my games I use a bastardized version of White Wolf powers

Krezack; You are missing the point there mate. We are secular and still developing on private sector heavily but as the other people did point out, the usual Turkish family you meet in Eu are from more hardcore and clannish sorts instead of the more modern and western varierity. On minorities, well we "my government" does not like anyone outside the party line. (You have to understand that the branch of Sunni sect that is the norm in Anatolia is actually considered quite heretical by the "True" Muslims down south.) This also includes Anatolian Shi'ite s, Hanafitas and sub cultures of Sunni sect (which means about 7 or so sects.), Armenian and Orthodox Christians, Pagans, Judaism... It is less about harassment by the authorities but more about rural (and rural transplants into big cities) people being fed the usual batch of lies like "Christian missionaries open free school study groups to make your children into their religion!!!11!" and such. It is easy to put people into categories and be happy with simple solutions as long as you don't have to interact with them I guess.. As I have been saying, Religious bigotry is easier to grow. Morgoth; Being an Imam is power. The position contains elements from being a wise-man, a negotiator, a role model... I'm sorry that you have never seen a good person in that role but Imams are there to help people with their spirutual problems. Or it should have been. Thanks to some heavy handed help from some blue and some red friends the position has become (in some places), and is seen as terrorist recruitment center. Western governments are among the people who have helped these fundamentalist **** take over from normal people. Don't expect me to feel sad for you beyond being sad for another human being when my own country is even more fragged. *Imam is a person that has; memorized the Quran (This rule is from the days when books were rare and easily damaged), Knows to read and write (as he was probably one of the few people in the village with high education) and has been to Hajj (Which was actually quite simple logistic wise in the old times instead of the modern money grabber tours we have today...). His duties are to lead the mass in prayer and explain the mis or poorly understood parts and be a referee on the undocumented questions like "Is cigarettes evil?". Unlike other religions, We don't have a higher authority that manages the selection of Imams or their "propaganda" an Imam should be one from the local mass. When you say foreign person ""sent"" from x place, then my internal alarms start ringing loudly.

I wonder how much it would cost to contact one of those "manager" companies to hire 50? 100? guys to read & record the generic NPC lines once. Id doesn't have to be perfect, just different unknown voices... (Edit: I have NO idea how much such a thing would cost. Heck they could have auditions for the main characters and have all tested people read the lines and use them for all I care )

My biggest beef with the GWB was probably his connection to Saudis and other Middle Eastern Moneybags. Now there is nothing wrong with doing business with other people but those people with questionable parentage are exporting trouble to rest of the wold to keep their own regimes free of hardliners and real troublemakers. There were a lot of "WTF?" factors uncovered about 9/11 and they were all squashed/ hushed up. The WoT was seen as a real thing until it devolved into the usual division of spoils into friendly companies. It is comic to see how many Medical companies have "Medical" depots in Afghanistan and North Iraq nowadays. Same goes for the trade outposts. Too many opportunities were squandered and too many "wrong" choices were made. I can understand using X faction to balance Y faction but the last 8 years just taught us that US can shift its policies 180' in a moment. A lot of "trust" was spent and it was spent very poorly.

Can't say I blame him. To be honest I can't really see any decent solution without some really drastic measures in the education department. However as long as there is "feel good" and other nonsense crammed into the "public" schools then there won't be any decent way to make the whole culture a whole. Then again how can you "force" education when there are n+3 vultures that are going to play the "victim" card to whore media and other attention. I just wish....

Let me give you the view from a native Turk a bit then. In the aftermath of WWII there was a very heavy push for low class labor workers. In a very small time period the people who were branded "leftist" or to be more basic, the people who were thinking beyond their immediate time frame were cut off from important areas like education, decision making and general immigrant society both here and there in Eu. Coupled with this was the fact that most of the immigrants were clannish "rural" people. In the period up to today, we had a lot of problems with radical and takeover minded groups who use islamic motives to hide behind. As you might notice we are going to hell in a hand-basket pretty fast over here. In Eu most people didn't know jack about those manipulative bastards who started teaching their own propaganda in the communities. So after years and years of silent brainwashing (free education for smart kids with brainwashing on top, free "help" in the form of monetary aids and cheap goods, community meetings that has become frighteningly cabalistic...) you have a group of people who are encouraged to make 4 babies a couple at least, who donate their cash to "legal" organizations that aim to "help" Turkey become another Iran (No I am not talking about secessionist Kurdish organizations here). Don't look at me, Some Western governments were so afraid that we would go red, they had most of the progression advocated purged with other evil people like teachers and such while transferring heavy funding and education to Radical Islamics to counter the red threat. Now we are stuck with all the sabotages and the setbacks. A very angry part of me wants to say something stupid like; "Hope you enjoy your own crop of useless parasites" but thats just a primitive reaction. Anyway, As far as I can see, the only solution will be heavy racist policies to clean out the place from some ethnic people. It would be nice for your politicans to wake up and smell the coffee about some of the mutual help organizations and the like too but at the moment its shutting the barn door after the horses have run off It would have been nice if there was a way to selectively clean out these cobweb headed prehistoric relics but these people are so poisonous that even if you remove them the next 5 people or so will also be tainted against you. Not to forget, there is also the fact that most of the youngsters from "unwanted" Islamic backgrounds are also told and shown that their own gangs are hated by this this and these "native" gangs. When you look at the attacks and counter attacks between such divided societies, a spark is all that is needed to provide the start. The rest will happen from the normal social tensions by itself. And my countryman are quick to anger and idiots when angry type does not help at all...

I see that you have hit the problem of class restrictions of DnD. To be frank with you it is nearly impossible to emulate what you want with DnD rules as all the options are tied to feats and class abilities. My personal solution (is extremely far from prefect I know) was to scrap DnD rules all together. I generally use a homecooked system mashed up from gurps and WW basics. in the beginning the player has 12 stats. 4 Physical (Str, Ag, Con, Beauty), 4 Mental (Int, Per, Wis, Cha) and 4 Misc that are not written on "his" sheet (Sanity, Fate, Grounding, Luck) The 8 stats available to the player range from 9 to 12 for human norms. (other races usually have +2 to one or two stats and some - modifiers on social and other things as Humans are the norm.) Then I sit down and discuss the character's concept with the player, which skills he has some experience or interest, what he doesn't like etc. This generally-translates to things like "archery +1" or "acrobatics +1" or "Cooking and Foraging +2" at most. I use 3d6 as the normal control dice but allow the player to switch to d20 if he is going for reckless maneuvers. Generally I use all these to tailor the dice rolls into story instead of the dnd way of dice rolls=story. It allows me to have more stable and description heavy game overall Anyway If you want to or if you prefer to stay in DnD, the best way is to allow the special abilities like sneak attack, turn undead etc grow as if the player had taken a regular rogue or cleric level, if he is in a related path. (So no sneak attacks to thief turned into weapon master or arcane archer etc...)

System Shock 2 again. I think SS2 is the game that started the "Wrench" fetish. I certainly don't remember any other game before it that had it as melee weapon...

A little clip using high res models and a lot of editing. Doesn't look that bad I think Anyway back to engine; the original engine was extremely bare bones, depending on the art style to cover its flaws. However this allowed the game to be able to run on even office grade notebooks. With every expansion, the minimum system needs have gone up. It wouldn't suprise me to see a better texture using, more draw distance and little bits enabled, but essentially souped up WoW engine in the new MMO.

Want to bet on the speculation that we will see the new game released after all the possible dungeons, ie Emerald Dream, Naga Citadel and Arthas for WoW are done and the game will be over story wise?

I have to point out that Blizz. would be making a poor strategic decision if they let go off their Tech lead. Especially in a field, as cutthroat and as darwinian as Global MMO arena.

I think you are missing the little detail. Sure blizzard usually takes a long development time and does not "rush" it's products but they have a very sophisticated game system in development for the last 3 years and it has been tested for bugs mercilessly. It wouldn't suprise me to see their new MMO based on WotLK engine and game play. And if I were to guess some kind of modern paranormal/alternate universe in modern times MMO would be something NEW for them instead of a WoStarcraft... Edit: At the moment they are so far in front of their rivals in Tech and Misc. Stuff departments that it is not even funny. Out of about 10+ rival MMOs only WaR and LotR managed to get a decent footing and that was mostly thanks to setting.

Uh, oh... If they manage to base the structure of their new MMO on the WotLK mechanics then it will be pretty bad for the other MMOs. They have amassed a very serious amount of gimmicks and other stuff in the game. Wonder if it will be futuristic or something like shadowrun? I loves my hacker Orcs

Hey I liked Tom Clancy. Well at least I did until he went weird first with Ryan then other stuff I guess... Still the game is advertised to be more of the "Bourne" vibe than the usual "techno assassin" thing so I am also intrugued.

Wear normal clothes and don't act weirdly and the guards don't notice you in crowds Think of a silent assassination in a park or a zoo vs a going Rambo in such places in RL: Well at least thats what they are advertising

You need to remember that there are "glorified" expansions and then there are truly good expansions. I gave been advocating the belief that the basic game play mechanics which have been carried over from previous titles and the new gimmicks provide a good but extremely unpolished, in other worlds raw base for thew game. Most of the suggestions that you see here are not about adding completely new things (like my wish for BiA squad controls or ME party orders) but about refining the in game things (Vats, Stats and Skills, Weapons, Crafts, Economy and so on) For example, We don't need to cram 50 levels into the game if you give the player to "learn" some perks that allows him to do some special actions like "opening electronic locks as well as normal locks" "skinning hunted wildlife" and so on. Personally I would favor a White Wolf like XP system over the usual XP based level systems to be honest, But the game code about special is NOT suited for this so it would take too much time and balancing. On the other hand a Detailed crafting system is actually "purely cosmetic" and "interface based" as far as the game code is concerned so it wouldn't be too far fetched to see an improvement there.

One of the most stable but time consuming way to do this is by writing down the level 20 (for loong games) or the desired level (a game that will probably end before party gaet to level 12 from 3 for example) equvalent. This is your base template (that is supposedly equal to other templates...) look at it and decide which parts are useless and which parts are sub par, what you would use (and don't have) and what you would not use but is in the progression... then tweak it with replacements and such. Generally I allow my guys to have specific classes tailored for them and build the story/enemies on those. For example It gets really stupid to see a Roof Runner (Parkour runner and a gymnast) unable to dodge anything due to nonexistent AC. So I told him that he will be rolling reflex save for ac when he is trying not to get hit, so he is happy with his imba character. In reality, what I roll with my rolls have no relevance in the game. I have the spell numbers and hps in front of me and I am tailoring the action to test their edges and make them bleed. The written sheets in front of the players is there to satisfy their Egos (IMO). It is what you give them that makes the play balanced or boring...