chaosprism

*spits* Cutesy .. urrggh... vomit... Seriously though: Good gameplay is good gameplay and the cutesy overlay really is immaterial, in fact the games would have been even better with realistic graphics. All that cutesy graphics do is make is possibly more attractive to infants and nappy wearing teenagers (if there are any) :D And yes many are there to copy the display format of certain anime cartoons which although interesting in minor amounts is EASILY overused.

Possibly no staying power because the replayability is limited. The story is the same, visiting planets in a different order doesnt change the story. And if you did all the sub-missions the first time around they wont change the second time. Thing is kotor was like an interactive movie.. great the first time around.. but after you've watched it the first time it does nothing for you second time. I think if its a sequel it really shouldnt continue on the same storyline or characters.. its the engine , style and gamespace that should be sequential.. theres a million storylines you could go with.. Theres a lot of star-wars universe books written out there all telling different story parts from various perspectives, theres a lot to base stuff on out there. I REALLY dont want to see REVAN again, however much I liked the story the first time around and the character interaction therein. Just like I dont want to see jar-jar again (for a different reason )

Yep I have no problem with a new game , set in a new setting as long as it is in the end a decent game . Something the creators are proud off as if it was a work of art.. not something they just throw out the door to make some money. Greyhawk is hardly new, it just hasnt had much treatment in CRPG's. Theres a lot of areas in the f.realms they could place adventures as well.. even if people are supposedly sick of that setting.. theres nothing really a setting in greyhawk or eberron can give you that a strange place or plane off the realms couldnt give you. As an example they could set something in Halruua or in Muholrand/thay theres buckets of source material already made for many areas of the realms and a lot of it is very ineteresting. Theres even the city of calimport in calimshan.., Maztica or Kara-Tur. see here for downloads direct from WOTC themselves..settings cities etc. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/downloads

I havent read any of the star wars universe books, but to me it seems light sabres are extremely destructive devices in the movies. They sever flesh and armor in moments like hot knives through butter. They're also extremely light and dangerous to weild, without the jedi - slight look ahead in time you'd quite easily sever your own leg trying to fight with them. It also means in melee against a jedi you either kill him instantly, avoid the quick slash of his light sabre, disable his arm so he cant swing the sabre against you or die a grisly death against an near unblockable weapon , that also when weilded by jedi's makes them near immune to laser fire. It seems though that since light sabres can block other light sabres there could easily be a personal energy shield that could absorb or deflect a sabre. Also anything that could affect the light sabre's field like some sort of crystaline armor, electomagnetic field. Also in the pseudophysics of the sabre something is limiting its length. keeping the energy in a field.. some device to affect that could drastically affect the operation of the weapon.

I have noticed a disturbing trend in some games on consoles especially with them dumbing down the gameplay for younger audiences, oversimplifying things because they're trying to reach the younger game players in the market. You shouldnt underestimate kids, they can adapt quicker to things than adults can and they'll get bored if you throw the same chaff at them every game, instead of boring them and forcing them away from the gaming market you should be interesting them with innovative plots, engaging game play and show them that a well made game can be as good if not better than a good book or movie. But you do have to do the hard yards and strive for excellence in any particular area your working in, you should try to be proud of your creative efforts. I understand why WOTC are happy to promote their system, the d20 licence allows people to become familiar with their rule style and possibly become interested in other products. In the end though its all about if they're interest is maintained by it.. and its not the d20 system itself that will do that.. but the things its associated with.. the storys and worlds built in the framework. As for whether it holds back development of CRPG's , not at all.. its lack of imagination and fear of extending the boundaries of a genre that holds things back, holding too tight to the past and ignoring the changing flows of the future is what stagnates. Take the best and leave the chaff behind and delve on to new territories and leave your mark. Open new realities for people to partake of, details are all important.

Avoid gratuitous "looting" in the form of rewarding people for taking stuff from chests right in front of their owners. Only if you had amazing skills in silent theft and misdirection would you even be able to achieve that.. worse yet some games allow people to pick a lock on a chest right in front of its owner or police type character. And I'd like more stuff in the world to interact with .. I dont like the feeling i'm walking around a carboard cuttout world, even if its visually appealing. I know detail isnt easy to spend time on but you almost need a special visual artist to do just that job. Someone to overview maps and areas and add detail to make the areas more immersive.

Colour mapping is a type of image processing that gets used sometimes. It actually a very versatile tool thats been around in games for a long time. It allows an artist to make a cloak for example in grey scales. And then those greys get changed into colours based on the situation. it also alows say a metallic feature on that cloak to appear in silver or gold or wood or a green jade colour. With the advent of texture based 3d graphics this has largely been avoided however it still allows a great deal of flexibility even when used on the textures themselves. It also allows player customization on a much higher level , with people able to pick hair and skin colours from a large palette. The colour mapper will handle it.

Me I dont like sequels, to me they're lazy. Dont get me wrong , a lot of sequels are good (whether they be movies/games/books), if they're part of a predifined sequence that was envisioned at the first one's inception they're good and necessary. Setting a game/movie/book in the same world as something else is good though.. from a new point of view with new locations, characters in that world with some things recognisable and some things not. It evokes a familiarity with a twist, and has been used by storytellers from the dawn of time probably. For example the myths of vampires, evil that wears your skin, to mix the familiar with the unfamiliar.. it has an impact. Stories of parallel dimension from our own history, stories set in our time with twists. Twilight zone type stories , they're all compelling because it asks the "what if" in our mind and takes our mind outside the box for a while. Maybe makes us look at ourselves from without and in a new way. Anyway sequels are just more of the same, continuation of something that works in their eyes. The continuation of the wrong things usually... understand that its the game iself that working.. the way its made, the story , graphics , sound.. without the need to continue with more of the exact same story. The way the baldur's gate name is tagged onto other things that are really quite different, dark alliance for one. Tools of marketing "genius", used by people who let fear rule them. If obsidian do make a game within a pre-existing franchise/world, which is a good thing I hope they make their own story and dont follow on exactly from whats been done before.

IN the end turn based is akin to playing a board game, if you like that style of thing you'll like it. I never liked the non-interactivity of FF combat ( though I havent seen any of them past VIII) Surprise can be done in real time, just because it hasnt been implemented yet doesnt mean it cant be done.. surprise is just a side or certain characters delaying what they would normally do because they're "suprised" A non-dextrous character (ie bad initiative) can also have his attack delayed attack order wise, all those things can take place in real time without you even noticing them. This can be easily implemented you just run the round forward in time frames.. normally D&D has initiative + roll to determine the order of events which is exactly how the round can be played out. Special abilities are quite obviously special cases.. cleave in its very name literally means you swing and in ONE swing you slice through all 6 goblins with much spinning and dancing with your weapon there is really no consquence to time if its programmed right. Anything done just for the sake of money is always going to fail.. it has to stand on its own right outside of that, and then if its good it will sell and the money will follow anyway , doing it any other way is just foolish and will come back to bite you.

I'd like the ability for it to be 1st and 3rd. these days thats just a camera thing, theres no reason why you cant have both. One thing i'd like is an floating companion camera mode, maybe one that has acceleration, so its like a companion it floats above and behind you always looking in your general direction and then moves around when combat is on, giving you strange views.. it wont suit everyone. Oh and one thing thats always been BAD in nwn and kotor is the selection boxes for large creatures (in nwn) and mines in kotor... they override everything because they're just too big selection wise.. quite a simple bug to fix but so far no patches have done so.

Me I think they will be using the D20 SW rules. Modern D20 rules might be interesting as well, but don

I'm sure there probably isnt the money available to profession composers to make music specifically for a computer game (I dont really know maybe there is) But I could certainly see certain tunes that are hidden away of a movie soundtrack (and often never heard at all) that are pretty good and not even used in the original movie sometimes that would make good scores for computer games. Games are using some semi-professional actors now to voice over characters, it wouldnt be such a huge leap to see a semi-professional or more composer making scores for a game, it's probably even been done sometimes without our knowledge. RPG's these days are and should epic constructions with many paths that have to come together like a movie to be successful, I guess the money is just not there yet to justify it. But sometimes I wish the art of it was enough to lure some creative people away from high monetary return persuit into something they are then proud to be part of and at least gives them something in return.

People that only get things based on the visual hook wouldnt be the largest section of the gaming community anyway.. it is a portion granted. And I dont follow development usually myself and i'm been a gamer for a very long time. I do look at screenshots and such but thats after the games have already been developed, i'm not interested in looking at vapourware. I usually dont care about somebodies ratings but more what they have to say about the game itself, and the amount of bugs in TOEE for example didnt stop me from buying or playing it.(though they did get annoying, but you can blame atari QA for that, and atari's need to push it out the door before its ready but enough said about that) I like complex games, I like stuff which makes me think, i like immersive worlds that are good fun escapism. I also like the ability to travel in these worlds in a form of my own choosing (ie varied races/classes/characters) and see that actually change the experience. But most of all I like a good story much like I like a good book.

If you want to create a truly memorable experience gamewise you need to set the mood well, and music is a great way to do this. I know a lot of developers already know this but its good to reiterate sometimes. See track 11 off the soundtrack to the Last Samurai (a small measure of peace) It vaguely like the music heard near the end of Planescape: torment.. its Emotion evoking stuff, so important to a good story. (have a listen if you havent, not everyone's cup of tea but you should be able to see what I mean) Maybe some others can come up with some good examples of music that can set the right mood, whether it be movie or game.

Torment was a great game, and I left that game feeling I'd watched a great movie almost. Maybe the "outcast" part of me synched with the characters around the and including the nameless one. The game actually got better as you played it, it rewarded you for continuing to delve into it by showing you new things. And yes great games dont NEED sequels... sometimes a story is good enough to stand alone and it will be lessened by the need to revamp it. I mean look at highlander2, thats got to be the worst sequel EVER not only was the movie crap but it destroyed its own storyline by corrupting its mythology with the "alien" shizzle. Building a game in a framework world though I can understand, its good for the publishers because they like the fact people will recognise the world setting. Its also good for the developers because a lot of creative content has already been made up that can be incorporated into the game that is more or less consistent. What I'd like to see though is a game that really tries hard to be immersive, that means that there arent any "cardboard cuttout" characters, if you want to talk to people on the street you could talk to anyone for a while about various things (yes it is a bit of a dialog nightmare though) Games also like to make the main character in the story the figurehead at which the world pivots, raising them to a godlike status, but this only caters for powerheads that have something lacking in their own life that they want to become deified. You need to tell a good story, you could even take the "acting" part of many characters in the the game "like the old zak mckraken games" where no one character is god. Its even possible you could play multiple time threads through the same time, where the characters meet up for a while before again going off into their stories. And they could travel together for a time as well with the AI controlling the other characters that the player isnt. Its a wide canvas out there, and many many pictures that can be painted, many shades that havent been used yet that should be.