Slammy1

You know, technically post count should be more like golf (the lowest count wins). And the Bioware compliment, with a few exceptions, was very decent and helpful with my many tech issues with KotOR 1, so I think they'll be a decent addition. I know this is not a serious thread, but I just wanted to add my $0.02 just in case by some miracle someone cares.

This may not be on-topic, but I thought they should have sensitivities like they do in the books. For example, Han's and Leia's kids all had specific talents. Annakin could fix anything, his sister Jenna was an exceptional pilot, and Jason was more of a force-sensitive type. You also have natural healers. I suppose this could be mimicked using stats, but it was more like natural talents.

Hooray! I suggested a Sith storyline, now where's my royalties? Oh well, it was probably obvious and posted many times before and after me. I'm just happy a certain company that created a certain buggy product will not produce the sequel, and that Obsidian is being given a chance to make a name for themselves in the CRPG industry. However, if conscience should fail you and you decide to award me royalties, I shall not refuse. I have a question/concern about the storyline. Is it really going to be some memory wipe thing again? Surely there are better lead-ins like... A promising Sith Jedi with a conscience, facing expulsion from the academy (you usually only leave feet first) flees in hopes of evading that fate. On fleeing, while in the space lanes he's assisted by another promising jedi who left the regular academy for similar yet mirrored reasons. Together, they find a common goal (staying alive, say, or a simple power grab) while fighting both LS and DS jedi who seek to thwart their advancement (one tries to bring them back, the other tries to kill them). Rogue Jedi, there's a better storyline IMHO. Can we also have Darth Sidius tatoos? Pretty please.

You know, Sarge. I had concerns about Kroney

A T3 droid would be good if you have a ship and need a droid for repairs and such (as per the movie version R2 unit). If a CRPG it'd still be a limited choice, but I really don't have any use for a T4 aside from opening the doors that only it can open. A C3PO type unit would be much more usefult to a CRPG than an assassin droid. You need some searchable, interactive d-base for cultural info, schematics, etc. I wasn't at all invested in the original companions (though I couldn't bring myself to kill them off for a DS solution). If you're going to put Revan in the sequel, he'd have to be DS (either slipped back or continued on as the new Lord of the Sith). Though it might be interesting to make the goal of KoTOR 2 to either kill or bring him/her back to LS, it'd limit possibilities for a sequel in that you'd be stuck with similar cultures and peoples. I still say either set it well before or well after KoTOR 1 for both consistency (no assuimptions how the original was completed) and originality. How about this as a plot... As a young child with force potential on a Sith plaet (the real Sith, not the fake sort) you're placed in an academy (or temple) to learn the force. As the game starts, you are given te option to continue your training as a Sith jedi (specializing in class at that point)) or to escape and pursue another career. It'd provide a greater flexibility but would be difficult to script.

Well, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a troll effort from you Eldar. If you try to read the first part as being overly serious, you would be confused. EDIT: And I suppose I do owe Volourn an apology. It's easy to slip back into character from the time when it was me against the entire BIS board.

Yes Volourn. Coming from you I feel mortally wounded. I was there when you were banned from BIS. I found your clumsy explanations when these boards first opened amd you were campaigning for modship rather humerous. With you, respect never enters the equation.

I once had respect for you Eldar, but that was a pretty dumb thing to post. I've been forced to reevaluate my opinion.

Well, I must say as far as "I Hate Interplay" sentiment, this is a big yawner. That's probably a good thing. I think my feelings are ambivalent, but not for the reasons that others might feel that way. It's a tough economy all around. Even those of us that arrange shrubbery are feeling the pinch. In the scope of current world events, even the framework of this apparant global recession, to suggest it would be a minor footnote in the history texts is to inflate the expected impact of the event itself. Well, enough teasing. I only visited the boards to ask people to not attack the company occasionally. I didn't want so ignoble an ending as what lead to the axing of the community boards in the first place. They haven't exactly been producing games I want to buy either. I still have that voice in my head that says "Gee, that's too bad" but it has been a long drawn out death, not surprising except to the easily surprised sort. I just hope this isn't an indication of a recession of the spirit of PC games. It's been so long since I've come across a title that so enthralled met hat it even kept me up late let alone provoked the old feelings that I used to get when I'd stay up all night playing, go to work the next day, then stay up late playing some more. The only thrill I've received from recent titles is going on the message boards and talking about how bad they sucked. I hope that trend does not continue, or I might actually be annoyed.

I don't think anyone's even threatened to ignore me even under my more infamous accounts. Perhaps I need to rethink the whole arch-villain role and go for straight annoyance posting.

KOTOR suffered in trying to make the game look great. The time it takes to program a scene limited player choices to make it more a story being told rather than a story we were playing a part in. I'm not entirely sure this is the wrong approach given the game's success, but personally I'd have liked to have a less stringent storyline to allow more chances for the character to influence events. I'd have given up a lot of the graphical elements of the first KOTOR for more freedom and some improved mechanics. The problem with allowing too many options in character creation is that you still need to allow for the casual gamer who cannot manipulate (or at least does not want to devote themselves to understanding the mechanics)the various bonuses to make a character that works as good as he/she could) the mechanics. The game needs to encompass both casual and involved play, and unfortunately that typically means to more power oriented player will find the game unchallenging. At the end, Malek didn't have a chance against me even with the limited manipulations in character development allowed. Rather than a scale to increase the creature's HPs, how about making it more puzzle and less combat oriented? You can still allow combat as a potential solution, but give options (as mentioned) for non-combative solutions. This allows people to invest themselves in the game in different ways. Some more involvement in combat mechanics beyond point select click would be good , but perhaps a bit much to learn and may imply a more action vs RP/strategy motif which should be the primary aspect of game design. Strategy beyond "everyone attacks this guy"like... cover for instance. That would add some more strategic elements to combat which would add to my game enjoyment a lot and would not entail people learning how to jump right, force jump forward, etc. It would also add some realism to combat without making the mechanics too complex. Things like scopes for rifles can easily be added to a combat system without having the character manipulate the weapon, say in improving to hit at a distance. Clear kill shots can enter into how situations are handled by stealth or possibly assassination (both would add a strategic level) For example, let's say we have a smuggler (or space pirate). What might trigger some necessary game advances could be money, acquisition, or reputation. It'd be nice to be able to manipulate the mechanical elements of gameplay by, for exaple, building your ship more towards a goal (eg combat for piracy or pure speed for smuggling). Allow the exploration of the universe some, with direction being given in the form of assignments, news, and/or rumors. Not every world needs to be drawn out in excruciating detail, some standard can be established to minimize the data set (a space station is a space station with a few differences). Similarly, it'd be hard to identify individuals of the same species and they would have similar regulations and culture giving similar responses. It may detract some from the glitz, but there's a familiarity your character would have with the organization of the culture the user would lack so familiar elements actually can improve the simulation. It's how I got around having to design a whole bunch of cities in D&D land campaigns while still allowing some adventure detail. Having different companions for different parts of the campaign would overall improve gameplay. You may not be able to develop the characters as well, but you could still have 1 or 2 core companions with several others that come and go their own direction depending on outcome. I really didn't find having to be tortured with the ramplings of the old man or the self pity of catwoman too important to the game, more something I did to advance the quests. In a sense it's much easier to not have to explain why they react or do things in peripheral characters, it's also more true to life. If I want scripted dialogue, I'll read a novel. If I want to script dialogue, I'll write. Somewhere in between is what I hope for from a game.

Think of me as Nurse Ratched (sp?) in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

How about a Space Opera type game basd on a campy sci-fi series. Something like "Lost in Space" or "Flash Gordon"/Buck Rogers". Even Doctor Who could be interesting, but I'd tend towards something where the tech is more obvious. I think you'd have a lot of room for roleplay with campy bad guys. Or maybe a space pirate theme. You have ship-to-ship, boarding parties, and you can get parts to upgrade your ship. It might end up being more of a strategy than RP perhaps, but once you build up ships, assign captains from more experienced crews, etc. you still have lots of room for role-play. If all else fails, Massters of Magic 2 is a title I'll buy as soon as it hits the shelves.

Biggest problem was poor QA in converting from console to PC. Numerous graphics problems. Very annoying to forget to save for a while of to go through a big combat and have the game crash. There

It's not that Alienware is a bad company, just that they're overpriced. And there are a lot of threads complaining about them on the tech boards, though I did a search on Anandtech and it has been a bit since someone wrote a negative thread about them (1 month). I think there was a phase ca 3 months ago when they were getting slammed on A-Tech, but mostly it went back to pricing from what I remember and some CS concerns. The concensus was Falcon NW (or Blue Tooth, as mentioned) were better sources for pre-builts. The EE is a bragging rights CPU. Intel didn't seem to want to really mass market the CPU, but wanted a response to the A64 which beats the other Intel processors in gaming benchmarks. The Prescotts are power hogs, and really run hot. My 3.0C runs 43C under stress, but I've been reading the Prescotts are running much hotter (ca 60-70C). For a top gaming machine, right now the A64 seems the clear choice, but for multi-media Intel still is the winner.

First, in gaming benchmarks the AMD is slightly behind HT systems, but that does not hold for the 64-bit processors which are faster. The EE CPU is the fastest currently, but there is a price premium ($859 lowest on price watch). They stopped making the 2.4 a long time ago (in tech time), but they built up stock and it's still selling. Without getting into an Intel vs AMD debate, I've only owned Intel but I don't use my system solely for gaming and browsing. If that's what you want, then AMD is much cheaper for comparable performance. Ultimately the GPU is the system bottleneck on a gaming system, and I only think the most backward tech board would say ATI is not the performance leader. Whether it's worth the price difference when the FX5900 is so cheap is debatable. Really, it's not a good time for a big system investment. As mentioned, PCI express looks to be taking care of another bottleneck in processing, the next gen of video cards are due out soon, and the Prescott is just being introduced along with unforeseen potential with the 64-bit architecture of the AMD. Once they start programming to take advantage of the newer tech, the situation could easily shift one way or another and you may find yourself with a dead end technology. The key to building your own system is thorough research. State of the art components may have issues and conflicts, asking experienced builders about what works is what makes it work. That's easily the hardest part of a system build, the rest is pretty easy if you can handle a screwdriver. I run a 3.0C on an Asus P4P800-D with 2 raptors striped for my primary, I spent a while researching the components. Spending that much for an uglly case is not wise, but it's not like I haven't overspent on components I simply liked. There are cases that look similar out there.

Well, AlienWare isn't as bad as it's reputation seems to hold (on the nerd er tech boards you see a fair number of dissatisfied customers), they are undoubtedly overpriced. For a pure gaming rig, I'd invest in an AMD 2500 (or higher) instead and put more into the memory and GPU. What the heck type of memory is that, a rather critical question for the P4C800. And go for a 9800XT, which will give you much better (well at least with high graphics demand) performance. OMG, the 3.2 EE is great if you have so much money value is unimportant, but if you have to go the Intel route I'd go 2.4 or 3.0 (depending on desire to overclock). Video cooling is a waste at this time for a faster GPU since there's no reason to o/c with current gen games. I wouldn't RAID unless you're willing to invest in some high quality drives (Raptor or SCSI), and for a gaming rig the only real advantage you'll see is if you play online games it'll start you sooner giving you an advantage. No brand on DVD ROM, it's about at the point where you should consider a DVD writable drive for a system that is that high end. Aside from that, no problems with that build. Wait, just noticed, no mention of PSU either. Bottom line, if you're going to build a high end gaming system I'd say an AMD with the fastest video card is your best bet. NVidia may bench the same as ATI, but graphics quality is superior with ATI. For $1500 I could build a system that absolutely pwns that one. I'm not trying to be rough or flame or anything, but I'd definitely recommend against that purchase for that application.

Rather depends on where you live. In the Mid-West, where I grew up, homosexual people tended to hide it due to prevailing bigotries. When I lived in Miami, which has a gay community on par with San Fran there were a lot of flaming individuals.

Yes, unfortunately most CRPGs are based on the DnD system due to product recognition, and I also don't think we'd see great commercial success in a non-DnD venture. I remember in grad school I got together with a couple of friends (a CS grad student and a graphics designer) and we designed a game. We decided just to make it for ourselves as to try and make a marketable product involved too many compromises on what we wanted to do. Never finished it, but it really wasn't about finishing the game.

Well, I'm neither that upset nor invested in my ideas... I like the classless systems, with complex record keeping you could keep track of individal actions as they pertain to subsequent actions. It also makes more sense than suddenly, you know a lot you didn't 1 minute before. I'd worry the loss in acievement, however, might be a bit much for the typical player. It's important that any system not be so complex that the average user will not want to learn it. When I wrote a combat system modification to DnD for my PnP campaign it was based on the idea that we all can take approximately the same actual amount of physical damage. Experience reduces the liklihood of being hit, armor prevents a hit from doing actual damage (or reduces the severity), but in the end if it hits, penetrates, and causes a given level of damage to an area it doesn't matter if you're 1st or 50th level. Then again, a high level character would be able to adjust to damage and not let it affect their performance as much as a lower level character. Of course, the last part adds a level of complexity that could not be used effectively in PnP, and there are other greater things that could be done. I always play some mage variant in CRPGs (and PnP) also. The random effects of the system with magic make far better sense in a DnD system than the hack, hack, hack, death of the typical fighter class.

...pity that this type o' thinkin' be mainstream...e'erythin' be about the ability ta git Uber-Munchkinized these days...misses, I does, the days where the gamin' experience was foremost in a cRPGers mindset... ...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!... Don't you see, Sargy? That's the whole issue with a DnD style game, it was designed for simple combat so that the emphasis is placed instead on roleplay. On a computer, even a very open ended CRPG you're left with limited directions. You're left with trying to build an uber character with uber magic items. Aside from some flimsy pretext to be running around gatherimg wealth and experience, what else is there? Imagine instead. fighters point to where they want to strike. Armor comes in pieces, so you go for a weak point. Left mouse click stab, right mouse click hack. You could bring up a diagram of opponent injuries. Maybe you can disable the sword arm, sweep their legs, or just go for the quick kill there are lots of potential. Contrast that to DnD. Move the mouse over the monster, click, beat until they're down. Sure there's some variance with abilities and such, but again you're taken back to power gaming. I don't think the game should be all about combat, I'm just using it as an example. Surely there are a lot of avenues to explore, including fuzzy logic algorithms to expand role playing potential. Maybe such a system would fail, it certainly would be difficult to grasp for the average CRPG fan, but there are simplifications like tactical combat for the novice PC. The old DnD paradigm may be stale to me, but I guess others aren't terminally bored with dungeon crawls (yet).

Wizard slayer - Thief all the way. It took a while to get powerful, but when you did... BG was much better IMO, but I guess it's what you're looking for in a CRPG.

If you could make a good Shadowrun game, which is yet to be done. All I've seen are consolesque games, so I'm reluctant. I really think CRPGs have possibilities unavailable in any DnD system. You can do a million things with criticals, tactics, etc., but DnD was designed as a PnP game. I've enjoyed the incarnations, but get tired of repeating the same thing. *sigh* I suppose such a thing is hard to risk since you're guaranteed a base audience. I guess when I've introduced new systems when running campaigns there was always resistance. But there's so much more that could be done than the limiting d20/any D7D system. You'd never get your hand cut off and a mechanical one installed in DnD unless you run some criticals table outside the rules. Swinging a sword is always swinging a sword, the objective is to bruise the other guy to death before he does it to you. Army-level battles are clumsy add-ons, as are a lot of rules. The computer offers a unique opportunity to do some really great things. The trick is to keep it intuitive enough to allow people to adjust, and of course the ability to properly market a game when there's no DnD logo on the cover. I can't see myself buying another DnD game, seems like a been-there done-that scenario.

I've read a fair number of SW novels and they have no mention of mitochlorians. I just get this image of Lenny and Karl fighting with plutonium rods like they were light sabers over which of the new SW sucked worse. Where Lucas messed up with the new series is that science fantasy makes better movies, science fiction makes better reading. When you try to explain things in the movies, it just bogs things down with technical jargon. Movies should let the people fill in the gaps, though a lot of unexplained things in the ROJ were better explained in the novels, which helped an otherwise story laden with plot holes make more sense. Like how did the republic win the battle, even if the emporer and the death star were destroyed? I hope KOTR2 allows us to hunt down and kill the teddy bears in that episode.

Or more realistic I would say. I'm not looking for some argument on what you perceive as the intention of my post. Truth is, KOTOR was a mediocre game with limited replay, yet it was considered game of the year. I guess we can simply say we're better than the rest of the people who have lesser understanding of the realm of gaming, but in the end it's a business. If you design a game for the hardcore community, you won't have a financial success. No one's ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the average person, but I'd say a few have in overestimating it. Actually, my point is as you argue against me. You have to keep it really simple, but put the elements in that would allow for more in depth options for the more hardcore fan base. But I think if they design a game based solely on the more vocal element here they'll just end up with a financial failure. It's why so many gaming companies are converting to console, as well as the whole pirating scene. I know on the spin off boards I've seen where people are actually proud of the fact that they never buy any software. You have to design games for the people without the knowledge of how to pirate, the unfortunate side effect of the whole p2p scene.