Nonek

And that's the beauty of text as a medium, the conversation does not have to start immediately, we can have an introduction: An armoured knight of Lord McMurderpants strides towards you, his steel gauntlets flexing and his eyes burning with the light of a true fanatic. Though your party members quail and wibble in fear you stand tall and strike an Errol Flynn pose, before thrusting out your hand to accept the warriors salutation. Dropping to one knee he places his lips upon your signet ring, before enquiring whether you want to meet up with Tarquin for tea, scones and a good old natter.

Always loved the idea, thinking about it though i'd like to see a few unique trainers for the more exotic classes: Wizard - An ancient grimoire penned by the greatest minds over millenia, a riddle strewn and cryptic treatise that must be unravelled through cunning and mental gymnastics. Cipher - Venture through the labyrinthine depths of a most stygian abyss, your own mind, opening doors and facing the horrors of the id. Monk - Whilst meditating spar verbally or mentally with the masters of your order, until only an unknown opponent stand before you, his soul strong and strangely familiar. Druid - Hunt the totem animal of your people. Follow its path over hill and down dale, until the ancient dance is once more resolved, and its hot blood grants you and yours new life.

As I said at the time, Dragon Age was about as tame as a Mid-West Ren Fayre. If having to do battle with the man who brutally murdered your mother while her twitching, reanimated, stitched together corpse stumbles about the battlefield is tame to you, I'm guessing I wouldn't enjoy anything you actually think is hardcore. That was the most hilarious part of the game, I immediately started singing Thriller when zombiemom appeared, god that was dire. Still good laugh.

On its own horn?

No happy endings, no winning, no good guys, endless fields of decapitated and disembowelled ponies. The glib tongues of those prone to infantile witticisms lying beneath my armoured boot, the severed wings of angels stitched into my cloak of human flesh. The moaning of the violated forming a dirge as they are slowly impaled, cthuloid horrors gibbering and feasting in the shadows, civilisation torn down, burned and ground to dust. And above my throne a banner waving in the wind bearing two monolithic runes: EA. Nah, i'm fine with Dead Money level of Grimdark. Nice moral quandaries and people being their own verminous selves.

One of my old campaigns I had an order of Necromantic historians, who gathered history from the most authentic of primary witnesses and were revered as some of the most benign individuals in my entire campaign setting. There were quite a few liches and such amongst them, but these were just older members of the fraternity who'd decided to dedicate their "retirement" to the job. My players were always creeped out when a lore puzzle drove them to conduct research in the halls, but they were never once given reason to distrust or fear the brotherhood. I've got to say Mr 17 i'd like to see your idea of Vampires as stupid overly aggressive cannibals implemented somewhere, that's quite original.

It's funny how the myth of vampires plays on this horror over drinking a little blood, especially when we humans have entire abattoirs stuffed with the corpses of fellow living creatures whose flesh we consume in massive quantities. I'm partial to a little black pudding with my fried breakfast of a sunday, that's almost entirely made of blood and yet we romanticise and demonise this timid imbibing of a little claret. It's kind of ridiculous. Now if they were soul drinkers in Eternity, then we could begin to see something interesting unfolding. Great fattened beasts, gorging on the blood and souls sacrificed to them by their mindless thralls, who see only beauty and grace amidst the cancerous corruption. Who knows maybe that is what a god is in this world.

Hopefully all classes have a massive amount of play in them (obviously at a cost) so we can have that pacifist with strong soul powers, or an Ironfist homage but not both. Be less reason to have multiclass that way and help define our characters somewhat.

Surely that build will be available Hormalakh? Just prioritise your dialogue skills, charisma, (sneaking?) and such.

Got to say I wasn't particularly impressed by the Monk illustration, i'd prefer more conservative sensible attire, a certain stillness in pose but a glimmer of pent up potential. My own idea for the class, a mixture of an ascetic, a flagellant and a mystic: You were born on the field of battle, crawling from your dying mothers womb and lying in the pool of warm blood which spread around her. The Awoken found you there, as they have found survivors amid devastation for over a millenium, attracted by your lusty cries and the equally outraged roaring of your infant soul, they knew you were one of them. Since that day you have been trained and tested, some would call it abuse to subject a child to such harsh measures, but with each lesson you glimpsed the Oneness that was promised to the aspirant. It was beautiful. When the body is strong, the mind keen and the soul chained then an Awoken suffices to any task. The world slows, the elements are humbled and the power within one may be brought forth to stunning effect. I have seen granite smashed by a bare hand, a half dozen arrows plucked from the air and wounds close leaving neither scar or injury. But to harness such powers one must know oneself, body, mind and soul, only in that knowing can the Oneness be attained. We Awoken aim to attain Oneness in all things, but we are not masters and we are all mortal. If we do not see the arrow, then it will tear into our fragile flesh. If the granite wall is too thick then it is as impenetrable as star iron. If the wound is too grievous then body, mind and soul are all harmed by it. The speeding bullet we may percieve but not even the fastest or wisest may evade. Many ask why we follow this path when there are easier options available, we can only answer with a smile for what better path is there to follow than the hardest of all? We seek to test ourselves with the greatest of trials, master every aspect of our being so that we are worthy to bathe for awhile in the unity of mind, body and soul. The Oneness is beautiful, and all men should aspire to it.

As pretty as the Witcher 2. The little campsite by the river intrigues me, does that broken bridge lead to another door? Are those stone statues actually weathering into corpses? Do we arrive via that boat or by the road?

That's the stuff right there, the lore's as engrossing as the land.

Some nice innovative uses of torture by the victorious, but involving souls and magic. The old Vikings had quite a flair for the dramatic with the blood eagle, and anyone who's read Egil's saga will remember the last scene of the battle of Clontarf, where the enemy has his guts nailed to a tree and is led around that flora slowly disembowelling himself. Sick but perfect for that moment of sitting back and remarking (as our colonial cousins would) that the manure just materialised into physicality. Add to that all the cruelty and torment that a cunning mage or cipher could inflict on the undying soul of a creature, and you've got some pretty fine incentivisation. I suppose i'm thinking of the disturbing nature of some of the vault experiments in New Vegas, especially 11, I really wanted to make somebody pay for those. Made me glad I blew up the oil rig. I thought the phrase "Grimdark" was taken from the opening mantra of Warhammer 40,000: In the grim darkness of the fourty first millenia there is only war, and was indicative of the pitch black amoral quagmire presented therein?

They had them twenty years ago in Ultima, don't see any reason why a modern isometric game can't have them, it only adds to the believability of the setting. It's also a great opportunity, to watch targets, to stage break ins under cover of night etcetera.

Soul Reaver 2, it's refreshing to see the games respect for its lore and the importance placed upon building a cohesive vision out of the previous games plots. I don't see why it should be so hard for a modern game to make a logical narrative when Soul Reaver 2 does this over millenia of altered history, and most importantly it never seeks to violate the players actions in either of the previous instalments. Great game.

Don't listen Monte, doing the lords work never goes out of fashion.

Nah already bought it three times, that's enough for me.

I would suspect that with pre orders and the limited development time that Dragon Age 2 worked at least in the short term, there seems to be a lot of negativity raised over the game however and I admit that if i'd known it was to be an action rpg I would have waited and bought it on a steam sale rather than pre ordering the signature edition, so they may well have sacrificed the long term viability of the franchise for those short term profits. However if they knock it out of the park with Dragon Age 3, then all might be forgiven, as most businesses are judged on their last viable success. There's a certain portion of their old audience however whom I think they might have alienated inextricably.

Well it's easy to understand their viewpoint for me, play an old game like Ultima 7 and tot up everything you can do in that game and then compare it to Dragon Age : Origins. You're left with an unavoidable conclusion, except for the graphic options and how pretty you can make your avatar (and sometimes combat,) games have been devolving in almost every way since the late 90's. Too much aiming for the lowest common denominator has rendered them into simplified combat and conversation in corridor simulators, with no real life or complexity outside those two functions. Personally I feel that Metimans fear are unjustified, Mr Cain will give us a deep and strategical system as he (and Obsidian) has proved in their previous games, but I can empathise with the mans viewpoint.

To be honest I could never go back to D&D after I made my own system, too many little niggles with all manner of systems. Tried my hand at fourth edition and stopped after I could get no definitive answer from the DM as to what a "healing surge" actually was. It did seem more suited to computer play than pen and paper though, the first melee we engaged in dragged on seemingly forever, really clunky.

I've got to admit I was inspired by old Mr Tolkien, i've always dreamed of leading an adventuring party through the depths of a dwarrow such as Moria, it's enchanted me ever since I was a lad.

How the hell does all that fluff get in my navel.

I always find that the grimmer the setting, the more those little moments of fairy tale happiness stands out. Little acts of kindness and personal stories of redemption that shine through the bleak times and inspire the hero to continue his struggle.

Taxes, i'd like to see them implemented for once. We've got a little house in some city, then we're going to have to contribute to the public purse, the same as everybody else. Not only that but if we're travelling with full purses and bulging backpacks, we should expect to be taxed just as heavily as the wandering peddler who seeks entrance to a foreign city to sell his goods. Of course there's one sure way to avoid taxation, and that's to become part of the landed gentry, but that has its own drawbacks. Feudal nobility are excused taxes because they provide service to their feudal masters, in the form of military and economic aid. So if we are proud owners of that keep on the borderlands, then we can expect at some point to be called upon to serve king and country. If we fail to do so, well that's called treason and is punishable by death. This is not an option I can see many players liking, or the reality that those peasants working the fields from dawn 'til dusk are basically slaves under the protagonist armoured thumb.

Pack mule does sound like the most viable solution, best part of the Dungeon Siege game.