Slowtrain

haha what? I can't believe you said that. Next thing I know you'll be lining up for Fallout 3. Then hell freezes over. I have nothing against Bethy, except for them making Fallout 3. The Elder Scroll games are decent. But if you like the games they make, why does it bother you that they are the developer making Fallout 3?

haha what? I can't believe you said that. Next thing I know you'll be lining up for Fallout 3. Then hell freezes over.

Its sad cause I was actually looking forward to it. Probably the only person in the world who was actually looking forward to a third resident evil movie. And I couldn't sit through it. I still don't understand how someone can srew up a zombie movie. If I liked the first 2, then I should have liked the third. But I didn't. I watched Blood Diamond tonight. Fourth or fifth time I've seen it now. One of my most favorite of recent films. Not in a haha isn't this a jolly good time sort of way, but it is an enthralling film, however disturbing it might be.

Painkiller was awesome if you like games where you kill hundreds er thousands no millions everybody in the game other than yourself with all the subtlety of a nuclear locomotive. Its pretty sweet in that special way.

I thought the first 2 were pretty fun but I stopped watching the third one after the bird attack. I don't know why, I was just bored with it. Weird, since it is pretty much just MOTS. I was really looking forward to it as well. Maybe my expectaions were too high. I saw Iron Man tonight. It was all right. If I had been by myself I would have walked out of the theater at about the halfway point, not because it was so awful, just kinda meh. An hour was really all I wanted to see. But I was with other people and had to endure it in silence. They all loved it. God knows why. Superhero movies just don't do much for me. Except for Hellboy. WHich I like a decent amount.

lol. That is so true. I didn't even think anybody else noticed that. I guess recently, it was mostly while playing Oblivion, that I realized I wasn't worried about failing quests because the game system made it impossible to do so. I remember thinking how odd that was cause there once was a time when it was possible to actually fail at a quest when playing a computer game, a time when I would actually think about what I was doing so I didn't screw it up. Now it doesn't really seem to be an issue. I've become a lazy gamer.

I agree that SI was definitely a step foward. It's too bad that it is still entrapped in the overarching desgin flaws of the whole system, but yes, it does add to the reasons to hope for something better in FO3. I believe Emil was also reponsible for the DB faction story/quests in Oblivion, which are defintely the best parts of the main game.

I don't know ablout natural law, but all one has to do is look as far as Todd Howards last work to raise legitmate questions about Fallout 3. Oblivion had (By intentional design): - A counter-intuitive skill system that rewarded a player for putting least used skills in major slots - A leveling system that invalidated the actual significance of leveling - A gameword that was primarily designed for exploration but the game did not reward exploration - Quests that were essentially meaningless, even down to the leveled "rewards" - A piss poor and unimaginitve main story And they are just the main flaws, I could give you page after page of specific failures in game design: everything from hog farmers carrying daederic claymores to the totally broken and useless minigames. And since many of the same problems existed in MW as well, one can assume that they are part of Todd Hoawrd's design "philosphy" and will probably show up again in Fallout 3. My hope is that he has learned some lessons from the pretty intense negative reactions of people who bought the game and will make enough changes to his core philosphy that FO3 wil be better than Oblivion. I don't expect him to change everything, but even a few things would be enough. Of course, I had the same hope going from MW to Oblivion when we were assured that the problems of MW would be fixed. And that hope proved ill founded because Oblivion was far worse. If you loved Oblivion then you should probably be pretty content with what is going to happen in FO3. If you didn't love Oblivion then you have very right to be skeptical. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 have nothing to do with it. They were made 10 years ago by different designers. Nothing in FO3 is going to change them in anyway. Rather it is all about what Todd Howatrd believes a crpg should be and how good he is at designing games.

It doesn't so horrible or condescending to me. Most of the new games I've enjoyed over the last couple years have been developed by eastern european developers. It's sad to me, but most of the qualities I enjoy in computer games are generally lacking in US developed titles, I guess. My favorite developers right now are not US based. Except for Bethesda and Todd Howard (LOLOLOL) I find it distressing that EUropean develoeprs want to make their games more American. Gah. Its hideous, actually.

I'm playing Oblivion, totally vanilla except for the DLC and official expansions plus a mod I made that slows leveling. After playing STALKER, I can say that Oblivion really is a sweet looking game, but it also feels empty, lonely, and pointless. WHich is my biggest fear in FO3. An enoty game where there is little point to anything.

Unarmed solo? Sounds suicidal. Trying to punch out someone wearing power armor would seem unwise. I think if you get the Bonus H-t-H Attakcs, Slayer, Better Criticals and Earlier Sequnce perks (not to mention a lot of action points), you can do quite a bit of damage. The Mega Powerfist counts as unarmed for some reason. Powerfist is in the same class as brass and spiked knuckes: a hand protector that increases damage dealt by fists.

I'm ready for it! My only question is do I wait a couple days to see how buggy it is or do I buy it right away.

It always cracks me up when they get in a bad stituation and start to panic. Grizzly's "MAYDAY! MAYDAY!" makes me laugh every time.

That was a cool little find, thanks Xard. I refuse to give up my hope that FO3 will be at least pretty good, but Todd Howard sucks away that hope like a black hole. I don't care remotely if it is anything like FO1 or FO2. Please please please just don't make it as ****ed up and broken as Oblivion.

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/pacific-time/

I hadn't really thought of Jag 2 as being part of a discussion of joinable NPCS, but now that you bring it up, there is certainly merit to it. While not a crpg per se, the personalities of the mercs are so well-written and voiced so well that they do leave an impact. In many ways, Steroid and Grizzly and Magic and Shadow and all the rest are far more memorable npcs for me than in I would find in most other games, despite the fact that they don't have any of the game mechanics behind them that you find find for an npcs in a crpg. And when you consider the fact that there must be almost 60 joinable npcs (AIM + MERC + rebels + locals) in Jag 2 and they all have such strong and well done personalities, it is actually quite an impressive NPC feat.

You're obviously making some kind of complex point here, Hurlshot but it went right over my head. Please elaborate. How are you relating Hamous and Sulik and to what end? Are you saying that from a game design point of view Sulik is comparable to Hamous on an joinable npc level?

I'm tempted to reply to this with just "lol no", but that doesn't seem to sit well with moderation so I'll refrain. Now, how exactly are Sulik, Vic, or even Cassidy more interesting than even the worst of BG2 characters (Nalia, Anomen maybe)? Less dialogue, no interjections to speak of to NPCs along the game or other party members, no practical effects to having them in the party whatsoever? Now, that'd be fine if by "more interesting" you mean, "silent, inconsequential, and deadly in a fight". But unfortunately, FO2 NPCs are only deadly to the player and/or themselves. FO2 is one of my favorite games ever, but that doesn't make me blind to the fact that NPC development was most certainly not the game's forte. It's been a long time since I played either game, but to the best of my recollection the integration of joinable npcs into the gameworld is pretty similar in BG2 and FO2. In both games the NPCS stand around waiting for you to find them. When you do find them they have some sort of quest that needs to be played out before they will join or shortly afterwards. Once that arc is through they pretty much just tag along provising the occasional bit of atmosphere commentary. The only exceptions are VIc and Sulik who have a slightly larger presence in the FO2 and Imoen and Yoshimo in BG2. So I rate that a draw as far as comparisons go. Where FO2 shines is in the variety of npcs that will join you: deathclaw, supermutant, ghoul, robot, mad scientist. It is a pretty colorful and wacky crew you can have tailing along in your wake. Similar to Torment in that aspect. In BG2, the joinable npcs were far more generic and less imaginative. At least it felt so to me.

Wait a minute. The WItcher doesn't even have joinable npcs or even a party. WTF? WHy am I even discussing this game? It is not the least bit related to my original post.

meh. I don't even know why I am bothering to get into this, but all right for the moment, I guess. Please find a post I've made in which I lauded The WItcher's sex card/male conquest aspect. Don't even bother looking, cause you won't since I've never done so. I think it is an asinine and juvenile aspect to the game, made even more so that the fact that The WItcher is a strong enough game that it does not need such tawdry silliness. I think The WItcher is a well done game, but it has problems, just like most games. On the topic of BG2 npcs: None of them are hideous or made me cringe or made the game unplayable (well, Aerie came close). They served the purpose of providing heads to fil my party slots with no problems. I just dont' understand what made them so special that they deserved to be mentioned as something of a "plus" to the game. If you say Torment had great npcs, yes, I'll agree, Torment was brilliant in that aspect. BG2 was not.

I like this sentiment coming from the person who didn't see a problem with the Witcher's female NPCs being walking, talking vaginas. Right. Good point. I see exactly where I made the mistake of comparing BG2 to The WItcher. Oh wait. I didn't.

And there was much rejoicing. Holy crap, when was that press release from? Last I heard the game had been bounced way back to 2009. That's really great, if true.

I only played about 15 minutes of KoTOR so I can't directly compare, but I don't think any of the joinable NPCS in BG2 were anything great. They had their little quests but other than that they were mostly just trashcans filled with inane Bioware chatter. Certainly nothing compared to Torment. Even FO2 and Arcanum generally had more interesting joinable NPCS than BG2, I thought.

I still believe! The only game I really want is STALKER: Clear Sky but we'll be lucky to see that in early 2009. There are three games that I am interested and would probably buy just to check them out unless I were to hear really bad things: Mass Effect PC: Normally not my kind of game but I've heard so many positive things that I want to check it out. Fallout 3: Potential is there for a pretty good game, but I have such huge questions about the design team given their last 2 ES games that I can't really bring myself to believe it will be good. But I hope, I really really hope, that they learned from their mistakes with Oblivion and pull off a fabulous game. Aliens crpg: The Aliens IP is interesting and mysterious enough that I could see a pretty fun game coming out of it. Plus it is a chance for Josh to have a real crack at a genuine crpg. I am definitely curiosu to see what happens.

I didn't think it was possible to go backwards from MW, but somehow Todd Howard pulled it off. A neat trick!