Malekith

Because HoMM VI was in the continuity of HoMM V and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic? I'm surprised that Ubisoft would ask such a small studio to handle their first foray in the RPG genre, you would think that they would go bigger! Bigger in a turn based blobber? You must be crazy. This will be a low budget excperiment for them. They want to know if the "old school" market is big enough to support such games made in a low budget.(1-3M$)

Sucks to be you then. The only way is to cheat. Go to the point you have the cleric and instead of traveling to the mines use the console to teleport there. Saves you the time of travel. If you don't want to do that, go find Viconia.

They have game veterans in the team. I won't trust them like i do Obsidian, but 20$ are not a huge price for a game, and the consept sounds promising.But i won't go any higher.

Well they do have an IWD module for NWN2.....would that count? IMO 3/3.5E/Pathfinder rules are much better than 2E(and translate into video games slightly better). It counts, but i cannot understand why someone would prefer to play the game in NWN2 engine instead of IE. Good way to ruin a perfectly good game

Check this out. Looks interesting. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1604283933/the-dark-triad-dragons-death

Start Icewind Dale. We need variety.

Why did they change the world completely? The world has been destroyed many times over and they just traveled to another one in a spaceship. But in homm5 they just erased everything, dropped all the heroes I knew from the previous games, dropped everything from a to z, made up a generic world with generic heroes and it was a spit in the face of all the fans as I saw it. The mechanics aren't difficult to port on a new visual engine, there's no achievement in that, but what they did to the story/world was an abomination. Well, to be fair Heroes IV "new" world was sheet anyway. I felt the same way as you, but with heroes 4 instead of 5. And from the 2 games i prefered 5

I don't think Obsidian will be a good fit for M&M. Their strenghts are elsewhere. Unless they kind of "reboot" the series in a new direction, but then the old fans will feel betrayed even if is a good game.

You are not the only. And i'm not even a fan of Sanderson.

How far have you played? I put Arcanum down 3 times because i found it boring. That it has one of the worse opening areas in history of gaming doesn't help either. But the forth time i pressed on and after a while i was hooked. The atmosphere of that game needs time to grow on you. Gameplay is terrible and completely unbalanced. But it has it's own charm and some very interesting ideas. Try to press on a little, let's say 5 areas. If by then you aren't having fun, the game is not for you. And don't feel bad about it, Arcanum is the definition of flawed gem. The flaws realy bring the game down if you can't ignore them.

Mass Effect series, even with it's failings and limitations are not bad games per se. Most people who hate them are people who only play RPGs and view ME from an RPG ankle. And ME is not an RPG, or at least is a pretty bad one. IF you can excamine the game in it's own merits as a game and not as an RPG and you like other genres as well, MEs are fun games.

I liked the dungeons in the IE games. On the other hand i find sprawling, huge dungeons like in the old Gold Box games or ToEE temple dungeons boring. I hope P:E dungeons to be in line with Watcher's Keep, Durlag's Tower, Dragon's Eye etc.

Oh, there other forums too. RPG Codex and NMA for example. Most people who played the original Fallouts and most Obsidian fans like New Vegas. But sadly Oblivion fans are much more.

Oh, sorry. But " an interesting take on races: nop" Are you saying that you fount Planescape:Torment's races generic?

I also play almost only RPGs. But - living world (NPC schedules etc.): not importand(my opinion) - interactive world:no thank god for that(if you mean what i think you mean) - a new take on combat or thieving or diplomacy options: nop Again not importand for this game. If you find yourself in combat in a Torment game, you screw up somewhere - an interesting new take on races: nop you don't know that yet - working economy: nop you don't know that yet dialogue and text the most importand part in this type of game (or any game for that matter (personal opinion))

I can answer that for my part. I have two reasons I actively dislike FO2, despite having completed it a number of times. Short version: trash combat with crazy balance issues, and way too much carp for its own good. Edit: and @Malekith by the way, I played FO2 first. I was startled by how good FO was in comparison when I played it later, after I had finished FO2 once or twice. The combat system in the Fallouts isn't very good. It's very heavy on thresholds, which means that you either do zero damage, or a megaton of damage. Plus, the enemy AI is just plain bad. The upshot is that the difficulty is either "fall asleep on the keyboard" or "insta-death." These threshold effects get worse as you go up in level. The original Fallout was relatively short, which meant that things only got kinda wonky near the endgame, so most of the game you were experiencing something like decent combat. With Fallout 2, this system breaks down pretty quickly. The early game is both tedious and punishingly tough (especially if you're not powergaming), after which it switches to a state where areas are either fall-asleep easy or insta-death hard, right up to the endgame -- it's insta-death hard if you haven't done most of the optional content, and fall-asleep easy if you have. So my experience with FO2 is that in the early game I'm playing kite + creep'n'save against trash mobs, which is tedious, whereas in the late to middle games I'm figuring out by trial and error which order I'm supposed to play the areas (and quickly getting bored because it gets so easy). Second: there's too much stuff in the game. On the one hand they've made caps and loot matter by making ammo for the most high-powered weapons scarce and expensive, so there's a strong incentive to packrat; in addition, you get the car with the trunk where you can dump things. But merchants have limited caps & other lightweight loot. The upshot is that I spend way more time than is fun on inventory management -- just trucking stuff to merchants and sorting through the junk I have in the car, on me, and my mules. More tedium. The same applies to the larger scale of the game as well. There's really no reason for me to visit many of the areas, other than metagame ones ("I need the XP"). When I last replayed it -- after an interval long enough that I didn't remember much about it -- I was just following the clues of the main thread and got my Advanced Power Armor before even having visited some of the main areas. There goes the challenge, and the incentive to visi them. Too much stuff, and it's not connected up properly. Bottom line? FO2 could have been good. It has its moments, but it fails in the execution. The areas don't hang together, the level cap is high enough that the character development and combat systems collapse, and it's way, way too exploitable. It's not as much fun as FO in the narrative/story sense, it's much, much less fun in the combat/character development sense, there's much more tedious busywork, and to have any fun at all you need to "metagame" continuously -- by creep-and-save, by a priori knowledge about which areas to visit in which order, or with exploits that make you way overpowered for any point in the game. If the resulting gameplay was really good this would be tolerable, but it isn't: it merely switches from bad and frustratingly hard to bad and mind-numbingly easy. I see your points. But to be fair, Fallout was broken as well. Power armor made you invinsible(which was the whole point by the way) and Turbo Plasme Rifle was combletly broken( Feargus even apologised for that, he is the one who put it in the game without checking it) Fallout series never had balanced combat.

Haha, yeah 4 times is too few. I have replayed my favorite games much,much more. But to be fair i like isometric, 2D, text heavy games with tactical non action combat. So i don't have many alternatives with modern games. Most modern games that i liked, even realy liked , i haven't bothered to replay them as i didn't enjoy the gameplay much. Alpha Protocol, Fallout New Vegas etc. are very good games, but i don't want to replay them. But i can fire Planescape, Icewind Dale or Fallouts any time and replay them.They just don't get old. So i can understand someone who has many alternatives not wanting to replay the same games over and over. 2013-2014 be the first years i wont replay any of the old games. Shadowrun Returns, Wasteland 2, Age of Decadence, Chaos Chronicles, Dead State, Divinity:Original Sin and Dragon Comander, Project Eternity, Torment:Tides of Numenera. For the first time in years i have games that i realy want to play instead of games that i play simply because i have money to burn and time to waste.

I don't think thats true. Almost all people like both games. Sure, some prefer the one or the other but i think very few like the one and dislike the other. Which you like more comes mostly to which you have played first. If you played 1, 2 dillutes the atmosphere will over the top jokes, some supernatural elements,New Reno doesn't fit in the setting despite being the most interesting area in the game etc. Fallout "purists" don't like that. If you played 2 first, 1 fells smaller, worse mechanically, more serious/less funny etc. Fallout 2 has more contend, and better gameplay, Fallout 1 is more focused and coherent. I prefer 2 myself, but only by a very small margin. But as i said, most people like both games. F3 on the other hand....

Fallout by Obsidian with TIM CAIN as Project Lead

Yeah, definitely diffirent definition. After all the ancients's "epics" were tragedies more often than not. You can have a story that you can kick everybody's ass, being glorious, having a great impact and despite all of that you descover that you were doomed from the start and there is no way for you to achive your true goal/happy ending whatever.

But Baldur's Gate 2 was mostly a personal story. The whole "epic" feel isn't exclusive with Torment. I think Colin said it better in Torment:Tides of Numenera pitch. Torment will be a tragic personal story, but it will fell epic to the ones involved. Maybe you have a diffirent definition of "epic" than mine.

Exactly. Though I think we can solve this problem of ours. Math and English do rock after all... just for two entirely different reasons. Care to take the plunge Prime? I got Planescape:Torment sitting right here ready to be fired up. I've already played it once so I can avoid the pitfalls that might get me if I need to but I really won't go into it expecting I need to. The game only generally has as much control over me as I give it anyways. For you, about the only thing you'd "need" to do is simply write *your* story. Baldur's Gate is generally sandbox enough that it allows you to. I rarely for instance beeline to Nashkel. Instead, I usually wander all over the place. I head up north toward Baldur's Gate occasionally picking up a companion or two, quest around the Friendly Arm then head toward Beregost. After that, I hit up the areas around there and take care of a certain pesky cleric. Then and only then (ie generally when I feel like it) do I start on the chapter 2 stuff. As I recall in Enhanced Edition I believe you can write your own journal entries. Maybe write about how you're absolutely sick of seeing bland looking trees. Fall into the world. "Mud" is only whatever you make of it. I'll do it if you do it . Then we can come back to this thread at a later date... or make a new one and see if we've learned anything. At least for me, *knowing* is believing we can actually do this. I replayed BG recently. It's by no means a bad game(except if like Junta you focus on the writting) but i still my opinion is that is the weakest of the IE games. I know what makes me say that. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63480-what-makes-you-like-your-favorite-games/?do=findComment&comment=1315135

It can be done. Baldur's Gate 2 had a fine balance between the two, and that's why almost every person who liked the IE games liked it. Yes, the writting aspects of the game were way behind Torment, but that was because Bioware writters weren't in the same level than Black Isle's. P:E is trying to do just that. Baldur's Gate 2 with Torment's narratiive focus and writting and Icewind Dale dungeons. And i thing the majority of the backers want excactly that.

In order: 1)Baldur's Gate 2 + Throne of Bhaal 2)Planescape:Torment(should be first, but BG2 was the first game i realy liked and nostalgia clouds my judgement. Razor thin margin behind my #1) 3)Fallout 2 4)Fallout 5)Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura 6)Icewind Dale 7)Mask of the Betrayer( The engine and 3D really harms it, if it was made in IE it would be No3) 8)Icewind Dale 2 9)Baldur's Gate/Sacrifice - TIE 10)Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines The common factor? Excactly what PrimeJunta said. It was as he read my mind. The only think i want to add is that i don't like sandboxes. The whole "go craft your own story" just tells me that the devs didn't bother to make an interesting one themselves. To sit and play a game for hours it means that it draws me in and makes me prefer it from the other things i could be doing like reading a book, go for a drink to meet new people, watch a movie etc. I don't want something to simply waste my time. Drop me in a game like Skyrim and i'm like "Why should i bother to do anything? What fun is to walking around hacking things in a repeated environment?" There were some sandboxes that did it right. Fallouts 1+2 and Arcanum. But both had superb atmosphere, they had good stories(nothing special but they were not the focus of the game, like Icewind Dales) and more importantly the focus wasn't on exploration.(By that i mean TES,new Fallouts or BG1 wilderness kind of exploration) Each area was self contained, packed with interesting content. They weren't made for you to simply walk around and waste your time.