Slowtrain

What do you mean? that sounds interesting, but I'm not entirely sure what it means.

They did? To my memory all encounters in BG 1 and 2 were static, level-wise. Loot as well. Its been a loig time though so perhaps I misremember. I never played ToB so my knowledge fails there. Yeah. It's weird because it worked more or less the same way in Morrowind and Daggerfall, but it didn't seem nearly so annoying and stupid in either of those games.

It will be interesting to see if level scaling returns in the next ES game. Level scaling goes back at least as far as Daggerfall; I can't remember if Arena had it though. There's nothing wrong with level scaling in and of itself, Jagged Alliance 2 and XCOM both use it. So do the Wizardry games. The key is how it is implemented. Anyway, I have nothing against FO 3 and Bethesda but the info that has been released about the game so far has caused my potential interest to drop signifcantly. Still a long long way to go though.

And reading is for those that lack imagination! Reading is for books.

WHo is talking about killing anybody; the sex bomb is non-lethal. At least if you don't already have a weak heart or something, I suppose.

Ah, yes, I see what you mean. So its not really a "Gay Bomb" but rather an "Indiscriminate Msss Orgy Bomb" aka IMOB or "Bomb of Mass SeXX0rs"

Anybody have a current release date on this game? Last I heard it was the end of Jnne, which is now fast approaching. But unless they go gold in a week or two, that isn't going to happen. WHich isn't a big deal; I'm just curious.

If this would actually work, wouldn't the Catholic church have built a Straight Bomb years ago?

My days of flaming tards are over. In my declining yaers I find it much easier to simply be a tard and not worry about the flames.

I'm not saying Bioshock is going to be exactly like SS2 in design, btw. Only that if you go by what Levine has worked on in the past, he is not opposed to linearity, so I think it would be unfair to criticize Bioshock for being somewhat linear ( if it turns out in fact to be that way).

Exactly. Although clear goals are not neccessarily dependent on how linear. I don't understand why it seems one of the major "complaints" that is being offered up by people who are playing these pre-release builds of Bioshock is about the linearity of the game. Not only did SS2 only open up levels as certain tasks were completed, but within each level access to certain areas was strictly controlled by the need to find access cards and passcodes to open up otherwise unpassable doorways and bulkheads. In the hydroponics level for example, first you had to find the access card for section A, which in turn contained the access card for section B, which in turn contained the access card for section C, which in turn contained the access card for Seciton D, and onyl by completing all four sections could you clear the elevator shaft which would allow you to take the elvator to the next level of the game! In many ways SS2 was even more of a "keyhunt" than Doom ever was. The linearity was more cleverly disguised than in Doom certainly, but it is no less there. I think SS2 has become one of those games that a lot of people like to talk about but not many have played or remember.

Based on what Ken Levine has said about the game, there is a good deal of depth to it that is simply not being pushed in the pr campaign because it won't really sell the game. But that doesn't mean the depth is not there. Also, I should point out that both SS2 and Thief were fairly linear games. Thief was mission-based and SS2 only opened up new levels as tasks were completed (as did System Shock 1). Within the levels you had a good deal of freedom how you approached things. Same as Deus Ex. A lot of people seem to a) not know or remember the actual gameplay of SS2 and b) are expecting Bioshock to be something it is not. Bioshock is a first person shooter. As was System Shock 2. Ken Levine has never said anything but.

So, in keeping with the logic, I should go register an account with bethsoft and post in their fallout forum how displeased I am that the alien crpg is in the hands of Obsidian. k.

Its interesting to see that there are developers who actually admit that there are differences between pc and console game design. Its not something I've heard very often. Its also interesting to see developers specifically point to IW as an example (read between the lines) of a cross-platform design that didn't work very well.

Wouldn't bother me.

For most gamers grueling difficulty does not equal fun.

<3 <3 <3 Ken Levine is my HERO. yes. I have great faith in the man!

I don't think that's the point of STALKER so much as survival is. The point isn't to kill ****, it's to prevent your own death, which usually entails killing ****. You've got limited amounts of everything and you have to make the best of it, and there's no sport in killing, it's all tactical. I'd say it shares more with Resident Evil than it does with Doom. All it really needs is a severe deficit in the quantity of ammunition and playing FPS-style, guns blazing, would no longer be a viable option. In your average FPS, such a deficit would effectively break the game. That it wouldn't break STALKER (since conservation and planning are already a part of the game) indicates to me that lumping it together with Half-Life or Halo would be rash. Good point, I agree.

Good lord, such postive thinking! er, I am still on the internet, right?

But that's the same goal in CRPGs too, but with the difference that I can avoid some bad guys in Stalker or Shock2 if I want. sorta, I guess. But not really. The role playing really comes in HOW you choose to obliterate your foes; not DO you want to obliterate them.

System Shock 2 IS an FPS. As was System Shock 1. Both games do some genre blending: System Shock 1 made heavy use of adventure and arcade game elements; System Shock 2 made heavy use of rpg elements. SS2 is more of an rpg than say STALKER because it does allow you to develop your character both through the spending of skill points (called cyber-modules in game) and also by finding and using sofware implants, but there is no dialogue, no alternate quest solutions, none of the other aspects of a crpg. Your goal in SS2 was the same as STALKER: kill everything that gets in your way. Ergo: FPS.

This sounds pretty OK to me. Character death in a save anywhere single-player crpg is an iffy subject. Simply forcing people to reload 7 billion times to win a hard battle without everyone ending up dead seems dumb to me. I've got better thing to do with my time. Unless you have a game that restricts saves or is only balanced for an "iron-man" mode (which I don't think would be a bad thing), then I've got no problems with looking at different ways of dealing with character death.

argh. argharghargh. the pain.

Also, FO's combat was pretty easy. The only thing that was really as threat was a critical hit from a minigun. But it was still a great game regardless. No crpg is going to have combat like an XCOM or a Jagged Alliance 2. That is not the focus of a crpg.

I don't see a problem then.