Stephen Amber

Wrong. The old Torment, NWN, BG/BG2, IWD boards were Interplay boards, but were primitive to the point of having nothing like post counts... This whole thread is about post counts, something we didn't see til (I think) Red Queen Design and the "new" Interplay boards: the BIS boards, which opened up around the time Torn was announced. Bioware didn't start hosting their own boards til the legal acrimony twixt them and Interplay ensued, and they were basically booted from the BIS forums.

Wow. Can't believe I just read through all of that. If I remember right, a number of boards pre-dated the old black isle boards, in roughly this order: BG Torment NWN(#1 by far for flame wars) IWD BG2 Red Queen Design(a big step up in board features... my favorite board) Black Isle

It's that time of year... I usually set aside all else and delve into horror this time of year. In this case, I chose "Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by Lovecraft. It's short, so we will see what else I can get into before Halloween.

Microsoft published the Mechwarrior games.

If you are an ace at counting cards (like Rain Man) it helps for blackjack, though the house mitigates this by mixing six decks in a shuffle and only using about 2/3s of them before a re-shuffle. My experience stems not from Vegas, but rather one of the many small casinos that dots the upper mid-west. Of course I refer to the "pox on the prairie", a chain of garish reservation based gaming casinos across the dakota's and minnesota, operated by the sioux & chippewa. Historically contributing virtually nothing to their state/local economies, yet raking in the bucks now. Damn....

The cranium rats were too difficult for me. I had to go back to BG2 at the time.

The ozzy concert at the end of this thing is freaking hilarious. You can watch it on utube.

Guantlet in the arcade circa 1985 when I was a kid. You love things like that more as a kid I think.

Doesn't look like Brom... They need to get Brom on board.

District 9 yesterday. There's a mech type of thing towards the end which is completely cool. You will cheer the mech.

For weights I recommend Ronnie James Dio. Something off Holy Diver or Last in Line. Dio holds nothing back... neither should you.

today's josh sawyer gets high on you and the space he invades he gets by on you

A modern day warrior mean mean stride today's je sawyer mean mean pride...

What is "Points of Light" like? I prefer my settings to at least have a traditional feel to them, something Eberon didn't. In the past, I've liked the Birthright world (Cerilia) and also Mystara, which was the setting for the boxed games of the 80s.

Something that takes vast amounts of time and creative energy... Not to mention writing talent. I like that they create the settings. Just wish they'd make a new one now.

Let's see. Think I first played wizardry 1 soon after getting the red and blue boxes. A few years later bought Bard's Tale2 after reading a dragon magazine review (what wonderful fun that was), then Bard's Tale3(not as good). Then began a crpg dark age which lasted til the late 90's, though I still played nintendo along with all the other 80's kids. Currently going through another dark age and haven't bought and played any crpg since toee. Thus the low post count and relative inactivity. Burnout from earlier this decade. And yea je's responses do have a sort of disembodied marlon brando from superman "it is forbidden" thing to em.

Bard's Tale before d&d. hah. Usually it's the opposite.

You still need an account to visit, which is something most around here don't have. Should have been myspace instead.

I liked the major Icewind Dale characters. The heartstone gem druid, the lich with the astrolabe thingy, the long winded merelith/spooky little girl... yxonemei... IWDII on the other hand lacked good writing and the characters suffered for it. Toee had almost no writing.

I liked the art and music for ToEE. And of course it's turn based play. However, there were maybe two memorable characters for me in the entire game. Lareth and the vampire knight guy who was a bad ass fighter and could join your party. And who then splits when you leave the temple for town to sell stuff. Which was utter bs... your henchman leaving on you arbitrarily. Regarding 4e, I'm sure I will play them just as I have all the other d&d crpgs.

Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Wand. I actually did beat this game by cheating(some code or something to gather all the wand segments and go fight the end boss), but never did complete all the dungeons which the wand pieces were scattered about in. One in particular I've been curious about for 20 years... The Grey Crypt. It was a magic dead dungeon, completely dark, and filled with very nasty undead. Never did get to see what sort of puzzle was at the end.

There was something disturbing about Doom back in '95/'96 with it's crucified, half-eaten marines and the appearance of the cyber-demon, which had a formidable demonic presence about it. An entertaining shooter that poked at the christian sensibilities in the subconscious as well. System Shock2 was good at building tension and had it's share of shock moments as well... usually a dry zombie voice from over your shoulder when you weren't expecting it. Neither of those games left me horrified, though. True fear is reserved for real life... Like the passangers on that plane that emergency crash landed on the Hudson recently. Now that's fear...

Like NWN1's radial menus?

Well, speaking only personally, of course, I have no problems with playing a bloated grotesque supermutant with bad breath, smelly amrpits, and stainmed underpants. That sounds awesome; I never even considered it otherwise. No. That's not the way rpgs work. You can't be the monster; you're supposed to fight the monster. It'd be like stepping into the underdark with a mindflayer pc...