Noceur

Yeah, a medieval RPG could be fun. And if you really needed "magic", it could be like herbalism or something. It'd be more interesting if (as in our real medievals) people believed in elves and magic... so while the characters take them for granted, they don't actually excist. If you don't like real world medieval stuff, the game could always take the Guy Gavriel Kay route. A game with poison and intruige sort of thing, as you said. Eh, I keep thinking of Garret now.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of big bad boss endings. I think I obfuscated a lot in the end as well, but my Malk femme was totally kickass with the katana, so I didn't exactly have any problems in combat. Obfuscate may be overpowered at lvl 5 yeah, but I think that's fairly good since it enables the player to play stealthy in a game with mobs of enemies. Had the enemies been fewer between at all times, and you had to use tactics (guierilla warfare ;P ) to kill of patrolling enemies as nescessary it would've been different. But I have to say that obfuscate at all gives a real advantage. Since I played Malk on my first run, I can hardly play the game any more

I think Beyond Good and Evil was an excellent game. It is however not anything near an RPG, and I'd be surprised if it was marketed as such anywhere in the galaxy. If you don't like BG&E it's most likely because you don't like that type of game (as you've stated several times yourself) ... doesn't mean it's a bad game though, as I'm sure you're aware.

Amen to that. While I might be satisfied with another fantasy RPG, I'd be thrilled to see something sci-fi/wasteland or completely new. EDIT: And I mean satisfied as in "satisfying my hunger for RPGs while I wait for something REAL to happen".

Well, this discussion in the light of Obsidian's new game could be interesting. It would be interesting to see a game that you could finish without doing any fighting (if the player so chose). This is not unheard of, however, and has been attempted at. I'm thinking of Deus Ex mainly... they wanted the player to be able to sneak through the whole Deus Ex 2, I believe. It'd be interesting to see it in a real cRPG, though... instead of just sneaking through the whole game, the player might actually do a combination of that and talking. I for one think it's quite possible to do a game that has both options available, if the development cycle is long enough.

On the Nameless One's true name, by Chris Avellone and co

Oh, to that I agree. The way you said it in your initial post insinuated something different, however (at least to me). Roleplaying implies playing a role, though... if your GM sets a game where all the players were to play the roles of pacifists, then playing a pacifist and trying to solve problems without combat is roleplaying. If you break into combat during that session, you're not really playing your role very well But as this is terribly irrelevant to the thread, lets discontinue this discussion.

Hehe, in Fallout 2 you could head straight for the end station as soon as you could leave the first camp. Though you'd probably die big time. I've seen someone finish the game in 20 minutes or so, though. As with both games, I think it's as short as you make it, meaning both had a lot of things you didn't have to do to finish the game.

Hehe, I'm sorry but that's just not true. That would be implying that combat is what defines something as an RPG, which is almost the opposite of the truth. As for Obsidian's third game, l for one am hoping it's not D&D or SW, as we've seen a lot of those in the last few years.

I've got a lvl 23 warrior, and as a warrior I agree with having friends to group with is much more fun. But I do have fun just getting ore and fiddling with my crafting skills. The hunter class is, as mentioned by the Big Cheese himself, a great solo class. I've got a hunter that I play with when my friends aren't online and such.

Bwhahahaha, I enjoyed the EOB's. I remember that they had made this great CG end-sequence to the first game, but it got cut out because it didn't fit on the disc. They are most definately pure hack and slash of course... dungeon crawl, and the puzzles are all about Put the key item in the right slot or you get a fireball in your face. And "Oh you forgot to pick that item up, did you? Well hahaha, now you can't finish the game!" The second game did have some fun things, like one party member leaving after you rested and he stole some of your items. The third game actually had some even more interesting features, like the dwarf detecting unstable walls, and the ranger finding tracks and such things. For some reason the portraits kept growing uglier and uglier for each game though, even though they were "the same". This is pretty off-topic though... Rhomal, I look forward to reading some interviews with the other fellows on the NWN2 dev team. That's the plan right?

While I have not played DnD specifically on IRC, I've played a lot of RPG's on IRC. Mostly freeform. I do know that people do it however. Why don't you get your old group together and play on IRC? Or roger wilco, or both. And I'm sorry, but I don't know of any website who organize DnD Sessions. A quick google search yielded this: http://richards.sdf1.org/ircrpg/dnd.html If you find a good IRC RPG network, I'm sure you could find a DnD channel.

I did some research into the matter of his crimes: I'd say that it states pretty clearly what the original Nameless one did, without going into gross details.

You can apparantly admit that you are "to blame for the death of many innocents across the planes" at some point during the game. Which you apparantly could say to the Dustmen Mourners (only if you had replied "I don't know" to Ravel's question "What can change the nature of a man"). Not sure that's what the original Nameless One did that was so bad, however. Although, I personally don't feel it's bad storytelling that they don't give you the details on the crime. That's more a matter of taste. It wouldn't surprise me if they just felt it wasn't important (or if it's hidden in the code but not available due to some obscure dlg bug ;P ).

Well.....if anyone on this board ever did something so horrible that it makes all the assorted crimes of TNO's past incarnations look like a drop in the bucket in comparison, I'd guess that someone on this board is Pol Pot, Stalin, or Hitler. But yeah, if they had mentioned what it was, I'm guessing I would end up thinking 'that's it? That's the uber-evil thing that no amount of good deeds can redeem? Meh.' Whether it be incinerating a planet or subsisting on a diet of live baby flesh for most of his life, I'm guessing anything the writers could have dreamed up for the first incarnation's crime would have been underwhelming. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hehe... and either way, it wouldn't have actually added anything substantial to the story. Interestingly enough, I read that the ending (probably the CGI sequence, though) was done at the very last moment in the production pipeline. Scott Warner on The Ending of PST

Oh! Sorry, I meant pre-generated NPC's. I personally prefer more control over the actual PC. But I can play either way, really. I just prefer if my party members have character, and I really do enjoy being able to initiate conversations with them. EDIT: Not sure what you mean with preconceptions. I just meant that some people may be put off by having pre gen characters. I wasn't implying that I myself got put off by said characters. In fact, I even implied that I enjoy playing with NPC's that I don't particularly like

I have to say that I agree with Ivan the Terrible... there just isn't a need for those details. The "why" is that he did something extremely horrible. And if they told you what, you might go "Well, I did that yesterday!" or "That ain't so bad?"...

Oh, I agree... that should go without saying. I might be in the minority though, because I like a game with characters that I hate. I don't mean "hate" as in I think they're badly made, but I hate them for what they stand for and such... like Kreia. I think she's a good character, because she's able to make me dislike her. The problem with character's generated by the player though, is that... well it's hard for the developer to give them conversation lines and such. I personally think it's rather boring, from a storytelling perspective, to have player generated characters. While it gave the IWD games good tactical control over your party, it also made those games slightly more hollow or stiff.

So do I, but you have to realize that the book is not an interactive medium. I think game developers are still trying to manage all this new technology, where they CAN make games with movie like quality but still make them interactive. It certainly doesn't help that "evolution" that we have a bunch of publishers that wants to push out products as fast as possible (and perhaps stick to the well tried, as well). I don't know if this has anything to do with game endings however. I think deadlines put on by publishers is a big problem with endings... whilst the ending(s) may be already written, the actual scripting/rendering of the ending might actually take place last in the pipeline, thus when the developer nears the extremely optimistic deadline they have to rush the ending. Or, in the middle of the production timeline the developer realize that they just don't have time to incorporate all of the plot-threads, and it all becomes a mess. Cut out the whole plot thread or just the end? I've seen my share of bad endings... I think the worst ever was in Tomb Raider 1. Actually, it's kind of amusing... The Fallout 2 ending kicked ass though... you got to keep playing, and some things happened depending on what you did during the game... actually, that was after the ending. The actual endings in Fallout 2 was also good, because the player was told about the consequences of his actions during the game were. Ron Gilbert and his team (during his time at Lucas Arts) said that the avarage gamer played through about half of an adventure game, and they used to joke about just making half the game since noone would play through the rest anyway. The Monkey Island games still had good endings. I believe it's easier to write an ending for a linear game though... although the ending of a non-linear game may be linear as well. It just depends on how much the developer wants the player's actions to affect the ending. edit: Also, I believe that the eastern games that are translated/published here in the west are the top of the crust, so to speak. There may be a whole bunch of games released in the east with endings that make even the most extreme otaku weep in his pillow with frustration.

Actually, if you play through the game thoroughly enough, you'll know that The Nameless one damn well deserve to be in hell... practically every bad thing that you see in the game is a consequence of what The Nameless one did in the past, hehe. Well, sure.. you can fix a lot of it if you play as good, but I'm not sure how redemption works in the PS setting. Hopefully this isn't considered as a spoiler...

Hah... I can't believe I forgot to mention the Monkey Island series. Now there's high quality right there. And yeah, System Shock was damn fancy... I think I only played System Shock 2 though. Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle were all fabolous games. Grim Fandango was also great. I miss adventure games.

Still, after all those tweaks it's not as good as Thief 1&2, blame it on Xbox. There are mods for Deus Ex 1 (check gamespot) and one of them is made by PC Gamer UK. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, one of the biggest changes is the size of each "level" I think... in Thief 1 and 2 the whole AREA was one level, so it made your freedom even larger. Also, there were more roofs and stuff I think. I felt a bit boxed in, in thief 3. Even though Thief 3 isn't as good as thief 1 and 2, I think it's a damn good game... which says a lot about the earlier games.

First off, I have to say that the game probably is a bit immature *L* ... but I wasn't offended, just amused. I found the game highly entertaining. I probably shouldn't have played through as a malkavian the first time, since now the game feels a tad boring when I play as Gangrel and stuff. The game ran just fine on my computer... only game stopping bug was the Leopold one. I enjoyed the hacking immensly, hehe. The combat was pretty boring, but since I played Malkavian I was more of a ninja anyway... silent kills are awesome. It's a shame Troika's dead now... I was waiting for them to release something of Arcanum proportions again.

Yeah, I picked up Planescape when it was released over here and I thought it was just too damn great. I was pretty amazed that it wasn't a huge success back then. I mean, it's leagues better than BG 1 when it comes to interaction between characters, story and stuff. But I think the kids want to play pretty boys and girls. Anyway, I would want a planescape torment 2, but then again I don't... because I feel that The Nameless One's story is finished. I just want a game that's as good as Planescape was. I'd also be interested in something in the Dark Sun setting... I never really played the Dark Sun games, but I fancy the setting. I just have to add that I enjoyed Torment a lot because it was pretty loose on the D20 system. I'm not a real big fan of that system. And it was a shame that you didn't get XP per found silver/gold in BG1 when you played as rogue *L*