Slowtrain

It's fascinating how people fixate so on "the end of the world". The History Channel has more programming on the end of the world scenarios of all sorts than anything else. It's always struck me as kind of bizarre, but it must bring in the ratings or they wouldn't keep running the stuff.

Good Luck! Maybe you'll find Bigfoot out there. I hear they are all over the place now. Is this your first RV trip? Or somethign you do regularly?

It would be fab. I looked for a flashlight mod but couldn't find one.

Billy Mays

Indeed it is. I am more upset over his death than anyone else. :/ Me too.

Yeah, that brighter pipboy and cosmetic changes to my pcs size REALLY CHANGES THE GAMEPLAY! Don't it. Its a whole new FO3. Yep. It is.

I don't prioritize celebtries. I merely pointed out that I've been watching Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel this season. One if its 2 leads is Billy Mays. It will be weird watching a new episode this week when he just died. He seemed like a pretty OK guy. He's got a wife, a son. A good friend/business partner that he does the show with. I didn't know him personally, so I'm not losing any sleep over it, but there are people who are. I'm not saying he is more important than anyone else because he is a celebrity, but he's not less important either.

Celebrities are people, too.

I've really been enjoying Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel this season. It's going to be weird watching it this Wednesday. I don't know if I'll be able to.

Ya, it does get old, but I'd be more interested in seeing the development time going into something else, like better quests. The graphics aren't that important to me. SO would I. But I'm more hopeful in getting graphic/technical improvements than better quests and stuff. Better story/quests/complexity doesn't seem high on most developers to do lists these days. Obsidian has a better track record than most in this area, so I have some hope, but not a lot of hope. SO if I can't get a cool complex story than I'll settle for a cool and complex attachment system for weapons.

The velcro weapons are getting old.

NICE, I say. or maybe cool. Depending.

It would be nice to be able to detach the scope though. A slightly more intersting attachment system similar to Crysis would be cool. Also it would be nice to see scoped weapons receive a close range to hit penalty. Also, it would be nice to see holsters for handguns. Also it would be nice to see avatars be able to wear handgun plus knife plus rifle in different slots at the same time.

But..but...but Cyrodil is so PRETTY!

FO3 and Oblivion are the only games I've played in a while that hard lock my entire system when they crash forcing a hard reboot. I had thought those days were over when we left DOS/Win98 behind.

I would like to make the request that we be allowed to name our save games. I mean, wtf about that? It's hardly a new concept.

No, they are scribbling furiously trying to get it all down, while wondering why they never thought of all these great ideas. Actually, there's probably a lot of fantasy authors taking notes as well.

So do players.* That's the problem with "evil", what is it exactly? * I suppose there is a market for cartoonish evil, considering games in which we play the villian (like Overlord) tend to go for the comedic angle. Yes, I agree. I'm definitely not saying cartoon evil = bad. Cartoon evil has its place definitely. And I also agree that the question "what is evil" is pretty interesting and would be probably a neat place to start development of a crpg that allowed you to play evil.

The problem is that eating babies for breakfat is cartoon evil. And yeah, that is the way most crpgs portray being evil. And it is hardly compelling. I think the main reason developers don't try to develop the concept of evil much further is because real evil is pretty subtle and nefarious. Evil often does "good" things in pursuit of evil ends. In computer games evil is usually simplified to dumb and brutal. Evil is much more intersting when it is charasmatic, seductive, and subtle. With the occasional bout of brutality thrown in when necessary, of course. Look at the whole concept of doing a quest for a reward. Why would an evil charcter ever turn down a quest in a crpg? They know they get more from doing the quest than by simply slaughtering the quest giver and slowly depopulating the world. Yet crpgs offer the choice more often than not of good=do the quest and bad=call ghe questgiver nasty names and perhaps kill them. The only crpg I can think of that tried to track a more subtle evil was PS:T. I don't know how well it worked either since I don't think you cold really play Namelesss as a dark and rising evil.

More difficult, yes. But not entirely impossible though. Just outsource the creative lead to some sociopath on death row and we have a winner. I don't really see a sociopath on death row as being a good model for a rising dark evil. That I think is one problem with how developers portray evil, they trivialize it until it becomes cartoonish. a Rising Dark Evil is neither trivial nor cartoonish. A Rising Dark Evil doesn't sit in jail cells or anything so mundane. OR if it does, only at the very early part of its ascendancy before it ha begun to grow in power.

I dunno. I certainly see a lot of threads about playing evil chars, about how developers can't do evil well, and about the joy of killing all the "good" NPCS from Elminster and Drizzt right up to Three Dog. Well he did say the majority. People who post on the internet are certainly not the majority. True. That's always a valid point. Those who post, especilly regularly, are a pretty small subset of any group. Still, the fact that "playing evil" topics seem to come up so regularly in crpg forums indicate that there is at least some sort of market for it. I mean how many times have I seen people posting about how they wiped out Vault CIty or Megaton (and THEN blew it up)? In many games/movies/books the dark evil force often goes through a period of ascendancy while it tries to gain power to crush all oppostion and blanket the land/world/univers in a second darkness. Very similar to how the "good" player character goes through their ascendancy until they become powerful enough to defeat the rising dark evil. I don't think it owuld be much if a switch to subvert that paradigm a bit.

I dunno. I certainly see a lot of threads about playing evil chars, about how developers can't do evil well, and about the joy of killing all the "good" NPCS from Elminster and Drizzt right up to Three Dog.

I voted no. Its just a personal preference but I don't even like novels in which there is switiching between characters. The Malazan Books of the FAllen that MC mentioned are tough for me because ther are so many charaacters that the noevls tend to lose forward momentum and I struggle to maintain interest in what is going on. I hate it when just as you get caught up into one character's arc, boom! the story arc switches to another arc. Makes me want to stop reading. Its one of the thigns that hurt my interest in RObert Jordan's books. Too many pov characters. Way too many. If a book is well written I can tolerate 2 or 3 different story arcs, such as in Glen Cooks Instrumentalities of the NIght, but even there I fidn I have to take breaks when the story arcs switch or I'll just end up skipping through the next arc to get back to the one I was reading. Its always kind of amusing in a painful way to see so many authors who have problems handling a one character POV try to do a novel with 7. One character well told and well developed is worth 50 feeble ones.

My point was that trying to make them look better doesn't really work, especially with faux-3d sprites(you would have to redraw all the animations). Old games are awesome! I see what you are saying, but I do think old games can be improved graphically and enjoyed more. FOr example the 1.13 mod that lets you play Jag 2 in 1024*768 instead of 640*480. It defintely makes the game look better. DOesn't mean I would stop playing it if I had to go back to 640*480, but it is a graphical improvement that I relish.

Somebody should make a crpg where you get to the play the unknown dark evil instead of a dweeby hero type.