Drakron

I have to take Volourn word for it. I am tired of going into game balance, I am just going to point out since BAB progression is the same for all classes Its clear for me the work bench was designed that way not for game balance but for "replayability", game balance appears to be the least of OE concerns when creating his game.

And now people you are going to see something I never done before. All caps posting. FOR GOD SAKE BLACK ISLE DID NOT MADE BALDUR`S GATE SERIES INCLUDING ITS EXPANSIONS, BIOWARE DID.

No, IWD was a dungeon crawl game ... not a Diablo clone.

Still is pretty dumb since Malak knew the location all the time, also I remenber that Bastilla saying the Sith would not dare to attack Dantooine when we escaped from Taris so Revan was not exactly telling anything they did not knew. KotOR does a horrible way of showing the dark side, its more "the bully side" and even if Korriban does some reason to follow the Sith ideas its only makes things worst because its the only place in the game were there is a actual lure to the dark side, the rest is just being a **** and bully people around. Anyway your reasoning fails because he is blinded to all the evil the Sith does (including killing his mother) but it only needs to know they killed a friend so he turns his back on then ... now if there was something building to that it would work but its simply too fast. I had Bastila and Canderous with me, I think most people do it because their other choices are a beeping transcan, a walking rug, a snotty girl and Carth. BioWare also have the habbit of assuming people will play in a certain way, its true there is a flaw since that part is pure assuption of all parts with no evidence. Lets look. They destoy the planet surface. A ship escaped the planet. Bastilla must be on that ship. There are missing parts, if we were shown Malak feeling Bastilla persence being on that ship that would lead to a more belivable scenario but since such scene does not exist ...

Yes wait for the patch that might be released ... in two months.

The first had several issues, expecialy the Xbox version. I belive the fact is BioWare actually have a QA department and play test their games as Obsidian does not have one and relied on LucasArts for bug reports. I would not be holding my breath for a patch ...

People just get high expectations of games and feel "betrayed" when they are not meet. Of course a lot of that comes from hype done by the developers and publishers. Honestly I dont know what anyone expected much from this games, the advertisement was more concentrated in SW:KotOR with was a clear indication they expected the game to sell based on the previous game fame.

I agree a lot of people are doing for the "Maul factor" but also because its a effective weapon. Ah but lets look at earth history were we moved from big heavy swords to the rapier-and-dagger style. The reason of why its rare can be explained by the fact for 1000 years the Jedi had no large fights and so no reason to use more effective lightsaber combat styles. Before they were technical issues, for example at start the lightsaber hilt was connected to a cord to the power supply that was in a belt so dual wield as well a the lightstaff design could not funtion until the power supply was in the hilt. Problem with that is that Obi-Wan,Anakin and Mace come from a time were there was no reason to use anything but a single lightsaber, if they had to face oppoments that also used lightsabers they likely adapted to more effective combat styles. Luke have no reason to use more that one (he is that powerful in the force) and comes from a time were building just one lightsaber was very dificult, not to say he did not had the time (Yoda had even less) to learn more advanced combat technics. Again its about being effective, it might be "cool" to wield a katana but going against enemies armed with rifles in a open field its not going to work very well. In lightsaber case there is no reason for a consular to use a lightstaff or dual wield (in not for the idiotic BAB progression change from KotOR) since his strenght is using the Force but guardians that expecializes in combat have to use the most effective combat style there is and the single lightsaber style is only preferable until a certain point (during early levels) and then switch to a more effective combat style (staff or dual wield).

I will pass thank you. Note: I say this after I played Shenmue II and have nothing against "action" RPGs .., I am having a verygood time with Seal of Evil despite its awful voice acting and occasional script typos.

From what I read its just another MechWarrior shoot-then-up, I stop caring about MechWarrior when FASA gone under.

In case you are wondering its a Nintendo DS game. The "rub" is one of the things you can do in the DS (it have a touch screen), that game also uses the DS microphone.

http://www.darkhorse.com/zones/starwars/timeline.php Lets see were "Star Wars Tales" are under ... Infinities and what Infinities say? "Do not apply to the Timeline" Star Wars Tales are Infinities. Also lets look at Star Wars Tales #21 ... http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=10-379 Were does it says "its EU now"? No they step away from the "shorter sillier Star Wars stories" to "more serious longer stories" but that hardly means "we are doing EU now" ... Tales was designed for Infinities, if they want to do EU again they would either relaunch a older series or make a new one instead of adding much confusing by making a Infinities series a EU Timeline serie after number #20.

Exactly. Also Tales are Infinities so they dont factor in the actual EU timeline.

Right ... I can forget what exatly are the combo buttons on a controler as I doubt I would forget what is fire button on a mouse. In some games a gamepad is preferable (fighting games) but that holds true to all type of countrols, playing a flight sim without a joystick and trottle is not as a good experiance and the same goes with racing sims were a wheel is preferable. Also your aguments over binding is lost since PC usually allow binding of keys as consoles titles most of the time allow only certain configuration choices if any at all. Same goes with your "issues" with the keyboard, most games are mouse driven with menu systems with the keyboard storing quick keys, I had far more trouble with Fable interface that I had with KotOR PC interface. As for the Xbox not being as "bad" as the PS2 ... the PS2 have the R2 and L2 keys that I prefere over the Xbox controler have the white and black button, also the S controler replaced the orignal Xbox controler that was pretty bad in layout. Loading times depend on several factors, PCs will have less of loading times because they have more RAM and faster processors as in XBox vs PS2 case they would end up the same if the Xbox did not used the hard drive to speed up the process.

And the award for the most ignorant statement award goes to ...

I will get The Sims 2: University. Things are a little dead on other games, I really dont see any new titles I am wish to play, MGS3 is months away and I am waiting for Halo 2 price to drop (I refuse to play that much for a 10 hour game) ... that is pretty much it (besides FF XII but that is likely over a year away from my PS2). So far I said I would not get KotOR II, I likely will not get Fallout 3 as I would not get BG 3 ... I dont belive in resurrecting old games, even as a big Wing Command fan I would not play another Wing Commander game.

Well its Fallout, they wanted the licence so they could sell the game on name alone. The truth is a lot of people will buy it based on the name alone, unless it ends up as FOBOS (it can) and people get a warning before the release. To tell the truth I am not looking forward to FO3 (or whatever) since in my view Fallout 3 sould have been done a long time ago and I dont think its something people will care about now since Fallout is for a niche market that already voiced they want SPECIAL, trying to "bring it to the masses" at the expense of the core market will just end up in disaster, FOBOS already shown that. Perhaps its a lesson publishers need to learn that "retro gaming" is too much of a risk despite looking to the market latest fad and not really worth if its just the title with the latest maket latest fad in terms of gameplay since its going to produce a standart title in terms of quality that its not going even to appeal to the original series players. And yes, I am not forced to buy it and I likely I will not ...

What does turn base have to do with being simplistic? If anything it add dificulty when it allows large group fights to be more managable and force people to adapt tactics. Well if they start to make games for the lowest common denominator ... All games must have some dificulty, gameplay elements sould be intruduced at the start and do not offer much dificulty so people can grasp how the system basic works. Roleplaying on a cRPG is easy, its impossible to act out of character since it forces dialogue by multiple choice replies, being a effective character on the other hand does require knowledge of the rules. Its simple, if I play a spellcaster character, I the player dont actually need to wave my hands, throw around small objects and speak incantantions for my character to cast spells. So why sould it be diferent for other abilities? If my character is a dead eye archer there sould be no need for me to be a dead eye shoot as well and if my character have a shield and nows how to block then there sould be no point for me to press a "block" key, those abilities are known to my characters and it sould reflect their skill ... not my skill. There is a need for the player to input his choice for the character and real time system does not allow much more that "click here to swing sword/cast spell/fire arrow at this direction". Well I dont have anything against RT as long the game is a FPS with RPG elements (DeuxEx) and not the way around.

What the hell are you talking about. I said in 2nd Ed. AD&D a turn equals one minute and in d20 a turn equals six seconds. The reason of why time is meantioned is because sometimes times is a factor (like a door opening at midnight and close after a hour) and there is no way that can be factored into turns since turns only exist during combat, another reason is a player saying he wants to do something not mentioned in the rules during and the DM have to decide how many turns it takes and its easier to calculate when we can have a actual time unit convertion to use. Why they reached those time is boyond me, I am not or were part of TSR or WotC staff to decided how long sould a turn last.

No I am not ... saying NWN uses "rounds" shows your lack of knowledge. No, its based on GURPS system that is a turn based system.

Oh dear god ... No, its turned based since NwN,IWD,BG and KotOR series use it and what they use as a rule system is either 2nd ed AD&D, 3rd edition D&D (or 3.5 D&D) and the d20 system that *grasp* ARE turn based systems, same goes with PS:T that uses BG system. There is no other "Pause and Play" system other that the one used on these games. On 2nd edition a turn taken about 1 minute (if not in error) as in d20 (that D&D uses as a base) it takes 6 seconds, we know that because its what it comes on the rules books. Also everyone does not act at the same time, they act when their iniciative comes up so one is going to be acting before someone else does. Of course in 2nd ed rules they "act up" playing animations that dont do anything until their turn comes up as in d20 the turn takes so little time the animation might convice players its a "real time" system.

Sorry but no, if I pause the game I cannot issue commands. "Pause and Play" is simply turn based system were there is no delay within turns and everyone acts on their turn with the ability to pause the game. Its the system that BG, KoTOR, IWD and NWN use, its a turn base system ... not a real time system no matter how many idiots think its a real time system. Dont be silly, I done that in FPS such as Half Life and Far Cry ... expecialy in Far Cry were you dont have much of choice in close quarter combat without using such tactics due to its "not much forgiving" damage system. Its a question of waiting for the enemy to either rush into my field of view or having to reload, some smart enemies might circle around my position and take me from another angle, also they can just hold position and fire when I come into view. Besides its a valid tactic to fire behind cover (its one of those things they teach in the military, not "strafe so the enemy misses") and since there is no "peek behind cover" ... well I rather waste a couple of action points that wait to be gangbang by the enemies.

Tactical control over actions. In it I can hide behind a object, move a litle to the side, fire and move into cover again without being hit as in "real time" it becames a matter of how fast my reflexes are. Turn base can be a pain when there is no tactical use, also it sould only be activated when there are enemies in sight and not during the whole map.

FF VIII The juntion system requires learning, its not a easy or much funtional system. The magic system is pretty bad (in relation to the rest of FF games) since until GFs learn how to distill magic from items you need to steal it in combat, it ends up being boring spending a lot of time to max up the party magical storage (that is limited, another serious flaw) from weak fighters. Still there is best looking airship on FF games, its character lack the "anime" look of FF VII (I did not get it because of it), strong character development but I am going to warn that FF VIII is a love story, yes there is the save the world and all that stuff but that is not the game story.

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2649 Here is more about one of the Alone in the Dark scripts and how he worked with that scrip writers.