ShadowPaladin V1.0

The number developers on VB was taken from one of JE's old posts. Think it dropped even lower after that (4 or 5). Of course the number changed over time the initial number may have been 20 or more. There are 80 something people working on JE apparently. If it is including all those under the umbrella of developers then it does make a bit more sense.

Thats true as well. They should have consolidated a lot faster. TORN should have been the turning point. Then again hindsight being 20/20 and all that What did come as kind of a shock was finding out they had 75+ delepment staff left.. When people were talking about 9 developers on VB it seems remarkably unproductive (unless those numbers were wrong).

Thats partially true though this goes all the way back to the Fargo days anyway. Interplay never made what you would call blockbuster games. They just made a lot of games overall. Of course lots of games with lower turn over means higher overheads. Brian Fargo put the initial problem down to missing the boat when it came to the popularity of console titles. Probably some truth in that.

It's quite sickening really and probably not very healthy to take things like that personally. On the other hand all the non board websites are still active.

D&D titles usually enter in at the top spot for at least a week or two. Which would tend to contradict that theory. Even games like PORII and TOEE which are widely acknowledged as total crap managed this. If anything D&D games enjoy strong initial sales regardless.

Well it's sound advice whether or not it happens. SS was supposed to be sexy and 3d but it didnt help much still sold very badly by normal standards.

Happy Birthday Feargus.

Yep cant really blame the developers for giving the people what they want.

Good and evil are man made concepts. Like gods really

The PS2 title{Kingdom Hearts}, released in September 2002, has sold more than 2 million units in North America, 1.2 million units in Japan, and 820,000 units in Europe The Japanese are far more accepting of different settings for some reason. Possibly because compared to us they have in the past had way more RPG games released so peoples perceptions are not quite so narrow. I heard something really funny on a message board once which was along the lines of "If its not D&D then its not a proper RPG". The Japanese on the other hand take all the things that are normally argued over. Like mixing Sci Fi and Fantasy. Or having fire arms and swords in the same game totally in their stride.On the other hand if you have access to it and it boosts your sales by 50-75% then that is reason enough to use D&D.

It depends which FF because they all have very different "level up" criteria. The thing with FF games is its rarely just about levels anyway. Unlike D&D in most cases your powers are not directly linked to your levels (IV being the obvious exception). Levels are generally secondary to things like junctions, job abilities, dress spheres,learning abilities from equipment etc. Yes if you take the level alone then thats pretty close to the mark. However unlike FF D&D dosnt have the extra's. Which means that in D&D levels is all you get so you have to make them that much more interesting. Generally unless its a spell or feat level you get some more hps and an increase in BAB and thats it. If you play FFX-2 new game (reward for completion) then you start will all the dress spheres(as long as you collected them previously of course ). And you can see first hand just how their power levels vary independent of levels.

It should be Exhalted next. Thats not a debt. Thats pocket change

Well you know that in battle the majority of casualties are caused when one side or the other routs. If the AI breaks and flees. The rat packs do this in FOBOS. The rats split up and find a corner to hide in. Of course its then just a matter of finding them and hitting them once or twice.Althouh in the case of rats they could just as easily bolt into sewer grates or ventilation shafts. At least then you deprive the character of easy XP In my experience the AI isnt very adept at spotting when the player is about to run, or dosnt have the abilities to keep up with them. So the player has a much easier time of fleeing combat than an AI does. Bit like Zoning in EQ. After all the AI really has no where to go. It would however make for some interesting battles where the leader tries to run and the minions try to hold you off long enough for them to escape. Otherwise you have those kinda cheesey disapearing enemies.

Best of luck trying to sort that one out As most people just see them as virtual avatars there isnt anything that would really stop you killing them. I mean if you get into a scuffle with someone in a pub both the law and your own morality will probably keep you from killing them. Knocking them down is more than enough. In a game neither law or morality exists in an enforcable way. So if someone starts with you in a pub you can kill them and rifle through their pockets. Its the most profitable route as well most likely. Yep but in EQ its either nuke them down before they pull a huge train on you. Or simply follow them along and hit them till they fall over. Likewise if your in slo motion mode and there is a monster on your tail, more than likely your not getting away. One reason I liked the Beastlord class so much Having to account for things fleeing does add strategy but in all the time I played very few critters actually escaped unless a train was coming.

The Japanese beat you to it Actually its more to do with the way they structure the games where you have several "stalemate" encounters with recurring villains. You might meet a villain 5 or 6 times over the course of the game before you finally get to finish them off for good. Of course in FF games (and in JRPG's in general) 0 hp's represents defeat not death. I got mucho annoyed when I wiped out Maleks Hps in KOTOR and he glibly ran off anyway. (Although any time you get that sort of stalemate encounter would work. BGII with Irenicus. KOTOR with Malak etc.) Aside from those sorts of scripted outcome encounters I dont recall much escaping. It's a very interesting idea though although I think you would kind of have to design the game around it rather than be able to just apply it to any game. That sort of AI would be brilliant in a sort of Gladiatorial fighting game or any game where battles dont always result in death. Killing things is generally the most profitable route though for both Xp and loot.

Is this for RPG's , or something else ? Assuming its for RPGs then an enemy should not be aware of what you can do in advance. Even though the same player may be playing. It's not the same character. The game would then be taking on the sort of role as those DM's who make it their job to kill the characters by whatever means they need. IWD II did it well on a small scale. If you hit someone with a firebased spell then they would react by casting protection from fire. Of course then smart mages hit them with some other type of spell but it was pretty effective against Sorcerers. Of course like any counter measure they still have to have access to it before they can use it. Rats casting protection from fire would just be silly. Generally by the time an enemy AI has figured out what you are upto then they are already dead. One of the most fiendish things in IWD.. End encounter. You know its coming so your buffed to the gills in advance. First thing that happens is a dispell magic goes off and your buffs along with it. I went through a phase of playing D&D in the following way. Because everyone knows the basic weaknesses of creatures in advance I came up with a random table. The degree of vulnerabiliy stayed the same but the type was totally at random. So Troll A could be only permenantly killed by Ice and Acid and Troll B could only be killed by Ice and blunt weapons. It wasnt D&D but it really kept the players on their toes and forced them to keep a much wider variety of equipment on hand. Some found the lack of logic really disturbing too. But it was a fun experiment. Whether or not its feasable in a computer game is a different matter. I doubt WOTC would be overjoyed somehow.

It wasnt it's just had a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG time to work on things. So even if the chance of intellegent life is 0.00000000000000000000001 (made up number of course) the only factor will be how long that takes. As long as the chance isnt absolutely zero then any odds will come true given enough time. It's evolution on a larger scale. Unless of course you believe that the world is only 10,000 or so years old Over time god has been credited with a lot of stuff that science later disproved. Heck in the old days even curing the sick was seen as interfering with gods purpose. And if you think this is perfection you have a very odd definition of the word is all I can say.

No Ninja in Jade Empire its all based around mythological China.

Sounds intereting. A bit like Teenagers from outer space(PnPgame) only in a normal school.

Thats pretty much how I would imagine a creature like Yodo to fight with a sword. Force speed and force jump accounts for the rest.

That would have looked incredibly cheesey. I dont know why people have such a hard time accepting that Yoda can actually fight

Perhaps this time they will make it the same rating as DAII Objectively there isnt much wrong with FOBOS and as an action game its better than DAII which was just so easy is it was pretty pointless.

Publishers do a lot of stuff. Look at Interplay when they were top of the class. They did RPGs, but it wasnt all they did. Atari are not going to quit on D&D just because Troika screwed up on one game. Stormfront are doing Demonstone for them for one thing.

Thats exactly what I was getting at Although it isnt really completely linear, more like hub based.