Slowtrain

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul almost completely solves that, I agree though, the vanilla scaling is damn stupid. Yep. That was the mod that made Oblivion at least somewhat fun for me. It crashed a lot though. And I mean a lot. Especfially around Anvil.

Awesome! Good to have you aboard.

Welcome to the forum. Edit: I guess a cruddy game like Oblivion can serve some higher good after all.

If the story that Bioware has written requires the pc be a gray whatever how can the pc not be a gray whatever?

The only car focused game I've ever enjoyed was Interstate 76, which really wasn't a racing game. More like a mechwarrior game. With cars.

I use a mod that makes the pipboy light much brighter. It's very helpful since I had a lot of difficulty seeing very much in dark areas. I'd love to see an actual flashlight in NV.

Fair enough. But a part of message boards like this is that members of the community who want to offer their take on a game can have their opportunity to do so. If Ramza is just now getting around to FO3, no reason why he/she can't have their say like so many others. And other community members may or may not respond with variations on I agree/disagree. Many internet topics tend to be highly repitive in nature, part of that is simply because not everyone plays everything at the same time, but still want to talk about it when they do.

Or just a "My take on FO3 is..." thread? If someone's takle of FO3 is negative or mediocre, nothing wrong with that. On this forum, I think its pretty fair to assume that the overall take on FO3 is going to tend between the negative and mediocre and slightly positive VS say NMA and Codex which are going to tend even more toward the negative. VS Bethie's fan board which is going to tend toward the positive. Ramza tends to like crpgs in the more classical IE sense, so I think it natural that Ramza's take will definitely be not overwhelmingly positive.

I would agree. Unfortunately, as an rpg its about 1/10. But it does some other non-rpg things well.

Nope. Total crap. ANd yes, beside the point. True. lol.

I'm certainly not going to disagree that Far Cry 2 has a fair degree of repetition that does lead to boredom after a while (to some degree) however, I'd suggest that is more an issue of other game design facets (such as the lack of a living world that Hell Kitty mentions) than simply the respawns. I will also agree that Far Cry 2's respawn rate seems a tad aggressive even to me. But STALKER:SOC's respawns never seemed problematic to me, even before the ptach that slowed them down a bit. STALKER: CS has other problems that go beyond the respawns.

Having a completely empty world is as bad as having the enemies respawn every minute. To make it work you need to create a balance and if you really want to make it work, something that will slow down the respawn rate or allow you to make areas friendly forever. If you complete a series of nice hard story quests and liberate a sector it would be nice if it remained that way, I don't want to come back there and liberate it again and again. Games like STALKER and Far Cry 2 aren't about clearing a level and moving on to the next though. They're game play is more about surviving in a cpontinually hostile environment where you simply can't kill everything. It's a different style of shooter gameplay than the more traditional Doom-style level clearing FPS. I prefer it personally, but I understand its not for everyone.

The problem with cutting the respawn rate in games like Far Cry 2 and STALKER is that you would quickly end up with a completely empty world. Which pretty much defeats the purpose of a non-linear or open world game in the first place. If there is nothing alive in it.

I thought the game did a really good job with stealth. My favorite loadout, even later in the game, was the silenced Mp5 and the dart rifle while carrying the M79 for those moments when explosions seemed the best solution to a problem. One thing I loved was how good the AI was at running you over with a vehicle if they caught you out in the open on foot. It was always a good idea to have a handy tree nearby to duck behind if the AI started charging you with a jeep. \ @HK: I remember hearing about it but I never played. I think I'll go try and track down a copy when I have a moment. Thanks.

The respawn rate was pretty ridiculous. It does make me wonder what was going through the developers mind. Still, once I realized that the respawn rate was that fast I just either a) Never went back the way I came b) Stealthed on foot and avoided the checkpoints. Stealth worked pretty well in the game and I found I could pretty much avoid all contact if I wanted to. Agreed. Specifically for me that there was A) no actual inter-faction combat B) No non-combatant population The lack of both took a well-realized gameworld and made it seem quite artificial. Which seem to me to sort of defeat the purpose of spending so much time making the enviornment of the gameworld seem authentic.

Respawning enemies don't bother me in the least, which is no doubt one of the reasons I'm generally very positive about Farcry 2. Respawns are almost required in any sort of non-linear game, especially an open world one.

Just because they don't have one for this game doesn't mean they haven't turned any away. They may be looking for a publisher to sign a multi game deal or agree to advance them on their next game.

There's also Google Sketch-Up and Inkscape. Inkscape is vector graphics instead of raster. I haven't used Sketchup much but Inscape has some similiarities to Illustrator. It works pretty well with a Wacom

I totally agree about Vizima. One of the best done locations in an rpg. I didn't find the writing that clunky. ALthough it is defintely a bit rough, I sort of ascribed that to the translation process. Translation usually come off a bit stiff and awkward unless a lot of time is put into it. I though the voice acting was prety decent for the most part. Some of the body language animation sequences that occur during dialogue are somewhat off and don't really seem to fit with the dialogue. I'm playing the game on hard now and I do think the general combat is a bit too easy even still. Also I thought the alchemical system could have been a bit more developed and complex.

It reminded me a lot of Arcanum in that it had some really solid worldbuilding and role playing aspects to it, but it was a bitr aimless in places. The com,bat was a lot better than Arcanum though, though I know a lot of people felt the combat to be somewhat simplistic. But for a rpg it was pretty good. Might we see something like the way in which a choice was offered to the pc and then only later do we find out what the result of the choice was in an upcoming Obsidian game?

Yeah, I don't know if anything happens. Maybe you get an achievement or something? I played a lot of Far Cry 2 but I'm not sure I hit all the check points. Maybe I did. Can't remember. Good game, btw. Though I expect my view on that is a minority one.

What kind of game is that? A game devoid of good qualities. *shrugs* Fair enough.

What kind of game is that?

Specifically you're hugely rewarded with renaissance-themed porno! Your obsession with content that comprises something like .01% of the game is bizarre.

There are so many ways to get through the story and each time I've played it I've come across different options. They all lead to more or less the same place eventually, but it's great seeing how much work was actually put into stuff that wasn't about fighting/maiming/blowing something up. It reminds me a lot of PS:T except I enjoy the Witcher a lot more.