~Di

EnderWiggin, wow, I'm so sorry all that happened to you. That you have moved beyond it and accomplished so much is a credit to your own inner strength and grit. Good for you.

I absolutely adored Shrek 2, even more (if possible!) than the original. Fabulous movie, absolutely fabulous. Terrific fun. Thumbs up!

Yeah. Only 400,000 Americans died in WW2. No sacrifice at all. What a bigoted, mean-spirited post that was. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I've just tried to reinstall Might & Magic 7 on my fancy new Win2000, DirectX9 machine... and guess what? Won't play. So it occurs to me that many of my old favorites, which contain more gameplay goodness than most of the new games I've purchased recently, will eventually be relegated to the scrap heap simply because they won't be usable on new machines. So hell yes I'd buy any and all upgrades of my favorite games, including but not limited to: All the old Might & Magic games (excluding 9, which sucked); all the old Wizardry games; Baldurs Gate and Baldurs Gate 2, with expansions; both Fallouts; Jagged Alliance 2. Those are the main ones I can think of right now, but I'd buy all of these games at "new" game prices if they were upgraded for new software/hardware. The realization that all too soon I won't be able to play them at all is... scary.

Holy smokes. Here I thought this was a thread about the upswing in wonderful European games lately, and since several of my new favorite developers are European, I happily clicked into the conversation. Imagine my surprise to see it turn into yet another "America sucks" thread. Looks like Europe has not only a large contingent of talented game developers, it also has its own fair share of hateful, mean-spirited bigots... and a few of them are posting here. For shame.

Heh-heh. Wouldn't that be a blast? Not sure E3 would ever be the same after a joint visit by the Gromnir/Di tag-team, but it would sure be fun!

Argggghhhhhhh.... I would have had to take a plane and drive for hours to get there... but sharing cold pizza with my favorite BioWarians??? I'd have crawled over the Cajon Pass without kneepads for the chance! Argggghhhhhhh.... so.... jealous.

Death toll in VietNam: 58,168. Death toll in Iraq so far, 743. (Going from memory, no links... sorry... but I'm fairly comfortable those figures are correct... or darned close).

That did it, thank you, Missy! The Lair now comes up for me!

Hmm, the Lair isn't up and running on my computer. I get nothing but a critical error, something to do with sub-silver.

Krazikatt!!!! (((hugs))) So glad to see you and hear that you are happy in your new job. You deserve it after the hell you went through the past year! You bailed JUST in time, too.

Whoa! *does Snoopy dance* Mind you, even if a JA3 does come down the pike eventually I'd be skeptical it could compare to its predecessors since those who made the originals so great have gone on to other projects... but dang. I can't help but be excited about the potential. Then I think of Unfinished Business, and I realize potential alone does not a great game make. Thanks for the heads up and the link. I've bookmarked the forum, and will keep a close eyeball on it.

The best feature, in my opinion, is being able to block certain posters from using PM's for harassment. That's a feature I've used with great relief. So if the Obsidian powers-that-be are considering enhancing board features, an ignore option that has a PM blocking feature would be helpful. Just a thought.

My only problem with Bastilia was that she was too predictable and too Aribethian.

Hmmm... my experience with BioWare is that they do indeed listen to their fans' suggestions, and I know for a fact that they have frequently implemented fan suggestions. But they do not, of course, implement all of them. I don't spend a lot of time at the "new" BioWare forums, however, because they are so damned huge and because the forums themselves load so slowly on my rotten dial-up connection. So perhaps things have changed since the days of BG and TOB development, when fan input was a valued commodity.

Hmm... my first thought was that KotOR didn't fail; it did exactly what I perceived it wanted to do, and did it brilliantly. And yet if I was in charge of the KotOR world, there would have been some changes. Bastila, for example, and the obvious parallels in story between NWN and KotOR, which were blatant enough to make me spew coffee in spots. I wish KotOR had more replayability, but realize that wasn't possible inside the strict regimen of such a rich, detailed story. I would have kicked the aggragating mini-games that HAD to be accomplished to push the game forward. I hate twitch mini-games. Hate them, hate them, hate them. Oh, yes, I WAS the champion swoop racer in all the universe... but that was through my choice. I don't want to be forced into twitchy mini-games in order to survive the game itself. I would have made Carth my lover. Enough of this teasing crap. You enthalled with me, Carth baby? Strip down and show me. (Okay, I'm bad... but y'all asked). The controls were not bad, and the combat was fun. Kind of. For a while. There were a few memorable battles at the end game that made me flush with excitement, but mostly combat was just a casually enjoyable queing of various moves to see the result. There are a few other things too, but despite it all, KotOR was a magnificent gaming experience. I just wish it was one I could enjoy more than once. No, I won't do the dark side. Why is another topic.

No. Not if you paid me. Not if you crucified me.

The presumption that VO in and of itself adds quality is flawed, in my opinion. It can add to the enjoyment of a game; it can also detract from it. VO work is, as has been discussed herein, extremely expensive. Games, like everything else these days, must budget resources. Judicious use of good VO talent can be of benefit to the gaming experience, but not by reducing that experience overall simply for the sake of it. Something must be given up for every decision to use VO in a game. Design time. Art time. Animation time. Something. The key is balance, naturally. That, and knowing what your target audience wants. Without pleasing your target audience, you and your 6-hour VO masterpiece will most probably be a marketing disappointment on a rather massive scale.

I can't think of a statement of the top of my head that I disagree with more. When it comes to games, A. Hamilton is just plain wrong. "Quantity has a quality in itself" is just not true. There are just too many other games out there, and I'm not hurting for things to do anyway. I'd much much much much rather play a great game for 40 hours (or even 3 hours) than a mediocre one for 60 (or, heaven help me, 100s of hours). Would you rather watch a 4 hour crappy movie than a 30 minute one that blows you away? Which would you buy? Well, you're presuming that the only difference between a great game and a mediocre one is VO. That's plain silly. VO cannot turn a mediocre game great, no matter how talented the actors may be. As I've said, outstanding VO can immerse me in a game, bond me emotionally with the experience, and add immeasurably to my enjoyment. Bad VO can make my teeth ache. However, your position, if I understand it correctly, is that you wish every single line of text VO'd. My knowledge of game production costs may be minimal, but my finance background tells me that the cost of such a feat would be enormous, and would necessarily require severe corner-cutting elsewhere, corners I'd personally prefer not be cut. If I want to experience womb-to-tomb spoken dialogue, I'll watch a movie. KotOR was the only game with near-total VO that I've played, and as wonderful as the game was the time-consuming VO's for characters that did not matter added little or nothing to the game itself for me. I believe BG2 was the perfect marriage of magnificent VO talent on the characters in the game that truly mattered, and gave the game life. That was a game of extraordinary length and depth, in my opinion. As for which movie I'd watch, a bad long one or a good short one, may I simply say that a game is not a movie, but I'll bite anyway. I prefer a good movie. And I prefer a good long movie to a good short movie. When it comes to games, I feel let down and cheated when I see end credits roll after 10 hours of play time. Sorry, I just do. And if that 10 hours consisted of 6 hours of listening to spoken dialogue, and 4 hours of actual game play, then the game is for me a loser and the developer should make movies instead. IMHO, of course! :ph34r:

Hmm... actually blocking obnoxious PMs from certain folks is the primary appeal of an Ignore function. I'm not being flippant; totally serious. Excessive and abusive PMs are the bane of any message board. Being able to simply flip a switch and block PMs from those who are using the function as harassment is really quite handy. And keeps board user complaints to administration down, since it's quite easy to handle the problem on one's own.

Nothing grates my nerves more than really bad VO. Nothing immerses me in the experience and takes me into the game world more quickly than really good VO. I think VO should be used judiciously, for emphasis, for specific character enrichment, at turning points in the story, but certainly not for every process, lest the game grow tedious (with clicking the ESC key every time you go to a chatterbox Blacksmith to buy arrows, for example) and the tech requirements soar beyond the reach of the average computer. Most top-quality games have had excellent VO, in proper proportions for me personally... BG games, PS:T, KotOR (which actually had a bit too much, because I found myself hitting the ESC key often to zip past boring character speeches I'd heard too many times before), and yeah, JA2. I'd rather see developers save the cost of total VO for all lines of text, and put an additional 10-20 hours of gameplay in!

Yikes. Taking condescention and rudeness to a new low here. Anyway, I perceive you are not really interested in the views of others regarding non-linearity in game scripts (there is no such thing as a non-linear story, as has been repeatedly pointed out) so I'll leave y'all to your trading of juvenile insults. 'Tis a shame, because the discussion of alternative handling of script trees to allow players a non-linear gaming experience within the confines of a rich, atlhough necessarily linear, story-line could have been interesting.

@agris: Ah, I too enjoyed Morrowind... for the first 100 hours or so. :D Eventually I got bored wandering the beautiful world I had saved with my by-then-uber Tree Elf. I realized that the thrill of merely questing for questing's sake, exploring for exploring's sake, didn't last forever. I got so very tired of traveling, traveling, traveling. Take Strider to seaport, take seaport to city with mage teleport, take teleport to city closer to Strider that goes to city you need to visit to talk to someone who will no doubt send you halfway around the continent once more to pick a mushroom... But it was indeed a world of my own. I don't regret a minute I spent in it!

The confusion may be in combining the term "non-linear" with "story." Even in a game, the "story" is linear. You have a beginning; you have a destination. These are basically unchanged. It's the journey that may ramble, or sprint, or veer into uncharted lands for exploration. But eventually the player simply has to return to Route 66, if you will, and continue to the final destination. So the term "non-linear" refers to the journey, and how many sideroads the highway from beginning to destination will allow the player to take. The ending of a game is always the ending of the story (even if it's open ended, in a sense, to allow for a sequel), and minor variations of theme/ending do not a non-linear "story" make. In Fallout, for example, the beginning was always the same, the ending was always the same, the story was always the same. The journey, however, was variable. At least, this is my interpretation of what I perceive your question to be. Edit Note: LOL, I was responding to the original poster without bothering to read the entire thread... which no longer has much to do with the original question, so... neverrrr mind.

Bah. A bunch of spoiled geeklings stealing luxury items like video games then whinng about how impoverished they are 'cause games cost too much... *foot stamping here, for emphasis*... makes me wonder if I should laugh or cry. Stealing games that require top of the line, high-tech computers just to run 'em, then sobbing about poverty and how games cost too much is pretty lame. The 'morality only at my convenience' theme doesn't cut too much sympathy with most judges... or most parents either, although that may have changed lately, from what I read from folks who see nothing wrong with helping themselves to stuff that doesn't belong to them, then blaming the victims for allowing themselves to be robbed. Piracy has put one heck of a dent in too many industries to name (not that those who steal music, videos, movies, whatever, gave a fat rat's patooty about the livelihood of others). I just read in the newspaper this weekend about two more video rental stores and a music store shutting down; the owners say that their business is reduced to near zero because their previous customer base now gets all the music and movies they want for free... downloading illegal copies off the internet. So some of y'all steal because you can, because you'd rather spend your money elsewhere, or because it's a thrill. That's between you, your parents, your clergy and your God. It's still stealing, and what you are stealing is money rightfully earned by someone else. End of my semi-annual rant on this topic. For the moment.