Slowtrain

The silence is deafening. *pin drops*

Far Cry 2 had save points. Those terminals that were located in safehouses and quest locations and the like. You just couldn't use them when you were out wandering about in a dangerous world. FOr me, I thought that worked well. The game felt risky when I was out and about, but I never felt like I was in danger of losing a huge chunk of playing time if something bad happened since there were enough safe houses I could almost always make it to one pretty easily. Far Cry 2 for PC also had Save Anywhere functionality, I never used it becaose I felt it detracted from the spirit of the game. My biggest concern about games that don't allow Save Anywhere functionality us that they are STABLE and DON'T CRASH. WHen you are dealing with save point only systems, a game that crashes, even infrequently, is one of the most frustrating things to play. ALso don't put in encounters that are insanely difficult just to force extended replays from the last checkpoint over and over again until you finally get lucky and beat the encounter. That kind of repetition ain't fun.

But see I could asK: Are you or are you not looking at making changes to VATS combat. By simply answering with a yes or no, but yet providing no other info, it would help me (and others)get an better understanding of what the possibilities are with the game. Or by answering: Has Bethesda given you the latitutde to change VATS if you see fit? This would also be helpful to know.

Well if Bioware wants to includes romances/sex, regardless of how horrible or awkward, it won't affect me buying the game. If the gameworld is interesting and fun to explore, if the skill/leveling system creates interesting characters, if the combat is fun, then its worth 50 USD. Really, its not like computer games in general are known for the quality of their writing, voice acting etc anyway. No reason to start holding it against Bioware now. It can't possibly be worse than Oblivion anyway.

Thank you. I still have nightmares about the save in the Witcher that forces you to page through a huge dialogue/cut scene sequence just to get to the really hard battle with The Beast, which almost always get you killed. Forcing you to sit through the entire dialogue sequence ALL OVER AGAIN, because the autosave is before the sequence. Autiosaves should always be AFTER dialogue sequences/cutscenes, especially ones that are really drawn out. Thank you again. SIncerely.

This is high security stuff, man. Lives will be CHANGED. Or not. Where's my giant panda?

There was a Max Payne 2?

If taks is right then you guys are all jumping the gun at NWN MMORPG == NWN3. Did the article actually say that NWN 3 is going to be a mmorpg?

I'm trying to imagine George Clooney dual-wielding SMGs in Syriana, but the mind just can't go there. I'm looking forward to the game; I've already put my money down, but that doesn't mean there aren't a few things I could do without. Dual wielding smgs was fine in Shadow Warrior, but I mean, you know....

Here we are at Day 20 then. It's actually been pretty tough so far. Only the Drassen SAM was really a cakewalk.

Hey guys, Sorry no posts today, but I was in class for 9 straight hours. Any last night I played through a bit, but got a bit lazy with the screenies. Mostly becasue it seemed we had already decided on a course and nothing particularly unusual happened. We took the Drassen SAM without problems, blew up the computers, repelled two enemy counterattacks. At that point I had to make some cuts and Buzz, Len, and Thor were all dismissed. I left Reaper, Wolf, Raider, and Ivan as garrison in Drassen to watch over the mine, airport, and SAM site. I took everybody else to San MOna and sold a bunch of guns. Then we went to CHitzena and attacked the soputhern sector at night. It was actually a pretty hairy battle and we took some damage, but made it through OK. Next step wil be to attack the northern sector of Chitzena. AFter that, things should get a lot more interesting and we wil haev to make some tougher decisions. I've been getting hosed on the weapon and item drops. Not even a pair gen 1 nvgs or any sort of good rifle. Barely even any usuable ammo. Hopefully thet wil change soon. ANyway, I'll post a screenie showing the current situation shortly. After CHitzena is secured we need to decide what to do. A lot of options at that point.

Here's the 12 day map: Looks a little weird since I skipped the middle sector of Drassen, taking the mine and airport only. But even with only 2/3's control the income is better than Chitznea with full control. Also, most of the mercs at end of contract. I'm going to have to cut a few and tighten down the team. I guess the NE SAM is the next stop. I'm a little bit afraid to leave the mine unattended though.

Well, when sweeping around south of Drassen, I ran into my first bad situation. A sniper with a couple buddies was buried deep in a bunch of thick trees. They didn't open fire until my team got close and they started doing serious damage. I was able to flank them with 2 mercs who were advancing ahead of the main group which kept Buzz alive. I seriously thought I was going to lose her. But everything ended well, except the sniper didn't drop his rifle when he died. ALso, it appears Grizzlty won't be joing us this time out.

"See enemy now." "Good. All dead." Ivan is awesome.

Well it seems like the vote is to go to Drassen so we will. Here are the numbers. The mine numebrs are very good for Drassen on expert level. So its worth it, if we can keep it.

Well, I scouted the sectors between Omerta and Cambria just so Icould see what was going on there. But immediatly upon returning to Omerta I was counterattackef on day 2 by a pretty sizeable force. We had a strong defensive position and only Ivan took even small damage.

I try to stay as close to the original game settings as possible. The only things I usually change in the .ini is give myself more money and increase the imp stats a bit. Then I make a few changes to the expert level norms such as set the queen to agreessive and give her unlimited troops. I can train veteran and roving militias and I keep allow reinforcements on. I don't usually change to much else. I find that the Insane level difficulty is too hard to be really fun, but defult expert is a little too easy, so I try to blend the two difficulty levels togther a bit. I can never decide on whether to leave the Drassen counterattack on. On the one hand, it's fun and challenging. Otoh, it really unbalances the game by changing Drassen from the easiet place to go first to the hardest.

No, I haven't insured any yet. If you make too many claims on the insurance the insurance copmapny tends to give you a hard time. I usaully pick one or two mercs to buy up long term, then I only have one or two insurance policies to worry about it.

I'm thinking possibly attack Cambria. Its a long fight but easier than the Drassen counterattack, plus there is lots of good supplies in the city. If I go to Drassen first and take only two sectors, I would still have to leave some the mercs as garrison units to help defend the town. I'm reluctant to split the team this early. Of the 16 mercs only 6 are good combat mercs. The rest are mostly support and training.

Indeed I do. Which is my big concern about attacking Drassen first. Even with 16 mercs its going to be hard to beat that attack with the crappy weapons nad piddling amount of ammo most of the team has. There are ways to do it, but if I screw up it could be game over before it even starts.

SO the question is where do we go from here? I wil post a map view of the country with the current mine situation and we can decided what our first objective should be.

After the fracas we made contact with the local population still hiding in Omerta and we're lead to meet Miguel, the leader of the country's small band of rebels. Ira was recruited to help as a local guide and trainer.

We immediately encountered a small patrol of the Queens forces in the bombed out ruins of Omerta. Facing such a large group of mercs they didn't have much of a chance.

OK. I finished picking the starting squads this afternnoon. I've gone for a large number of mercs with few elites. Our current personnel cost is roughly $25,000 USD/day. Our current income is roughly $0 USD/day. AS the campaign heats up we can begin to refine our personnel group. I've started by dividing into three squads for ease of managment: Squad 1 is the command squad: Snake Raider Reaper Len Squad 2 is the primary combat squad: Shadow Raven Ivan Buzz Ice Squad 3 is the support and development squad: Trevor Danny Igor Bull Thor Wolf We can change and redo squad assignments as neccessary. EVentually we may change them into seperate and self-sufficent combat teams. ANyway, its a lot of people to start and when we arrived in Omerta the drop zone was a little crowded. lol

Heyya, Majek! 1.13.2124 (Build 08.05.10)