Gorth

Indeed. Too many threads created on the subject. Anybody feel like creating a new one (and only one) on vancian and cooldown stuff?

Oh, somebody else played Forbidden Forest?

The only puzzle games I know of in VMBL are the sneaking games... sneak there, place camera, sneak there, acquire that etc.

So many little details that it's hard to find a starting and an ending point. Among the small things that makes me laugh are the three kids in Icewind Dale that sits around a squirrel and talks about poking it with a stick or in Kotor2 on Onderon where the queen would have given you a larger reward except somebody looted the museum (if you, the player plundered the treasures there).

Yeah, from top of my head, the Hitman games comes from Denmark, the STALKER games from Ukraine, the Gothic games from Germany, the Space Rangers games from Russia, the Divinity games from Belgium, the Witcher games from Poland and there are lots more. You don't need to live outside those parts of the world to be in the gaming industry (as a consumer or a producer).

Hmm... I got IV, V and VI off GOG. I wonder if they don't have VII too... yep Ultima VII Complete Added to my wishlist.

They did some good VO for that little skit too.

I don't know if it's the greatest, but it's definitely on my top 3 The downside to having played crpgs for many years is that some of the older ones tends to "slip" from your memory despite being masterpieces of their time. Is comparing a 25 year old game to a 2 year old game a fair comparison or should it be held up against it contemporaries? In the beginning was the dungeon crawler and it was good... First real fun "crpgs" (although I'm sure somebody today would shoot down the idea of calling the rpg's but that's a different can of worms), Temple of Apshai and Sword of Fargoal, which had gfx on the C64, followed by Rogue, where your '@' had to fight 'r's and 'k's while collecting '!'s and '?'s... all good fun Then I bought Lords of Midnight. Most awesome game ever and on my top 3 too. Later bought Doomdarks Revenge (the sequel) too and it was also awesome. Later came Bards Tale and Phantasie and it was still fun to play crpgs. Then I got hooked on the Ultima's, starting with III and being flabbergasted by the awesomeness of IV. Next one i played must have been VI and it was an instant turnoff, all style and no substance. I also played some of the SSI games (the 3 xyz of Krynn games) but the shops never had any of the other D&D titles (Curse of Azure Bonds, something about Silver Blades and some other), but it was still fun and atmospheric for its time. Last of the great games i remember from then was a gem called "Bloodnet". A cyberpunk rpg/adventure hybrid game featuring gadgets and bloodsuckers. Then came a long period where I don't remember the crpgs from. I vaguely remember some isometric continous world game on my Commodore Amiga, but I don't remember the name. Years later again I discovered Fallout and life was good. It was actually the game that made me cave in and retire my Amiga for a newly purchased PC (because the darn thing didn't run on the dos emulator on the Amiga). That was the beginning of my love affair with first Interplay and Black Isle when crpgs got their own division. PS:T and BG2 followed as did IWD, Fallout 2 and IWD2. Loved them all. I have a strained relationship with BG because I never really got into it and just play it for completeness sake. I loved VMBL and played through it a handful of times (Nosferatu being my favourite playthrough) and I also fell for the Witcher, completing that one a handful of times, trying different alliances and choices. I never could get into Witcher 2 though. Not sure what's wrong with it but it just doesn't appeal to me. I tried Mass Effect on an xbox and didn't like it, but eventually bought ME2 and found myself pleasantly surprised. Also got DA:O but skipped DA2 after trying the demo. As for ME3... well enough said about that in other threads. It was a mixed bag for me (and not because of the ending).

Now you are getting emotional again. Nope. Quit making stuff up or maybe you're just trolling. I don't know. It works both ways... Quit making stuff up or maybe you're just trolling. I don't know.

I think they underestimated the speed with which they reached their bare bones minimum target (which would allow them to create a game, showcasing their ideas and setting), I'm not sure they had banked on several millions either, which means the stretch goals have mostly been about expanding the "glorified proof of concept" into a full scale game. I for one is happy to see them not over committing themselves with hard/impossible to fulfill promises. I would rather see a complete product this time around than a showcase of unfulfilled potential.

Just a note to have a bit of care with the stereotyping. One mans fun is another mans mortal insult... Polls are worthless, but Obsidian mentioned in a passing comment years ago (I think just after NWN2 had been released) that they performed better in Europe than the US. I don't remember the exact wording or the exact quote, but they do seem to have a bit of a following there already.

So, when are we going to get ME3's combat in a DA game??? It wasn't perfect, but if you want to focus on action, it wasn't too shabby (that's a compliment in my native language).

Apart from those funny style sheet override things for Firefox, the only thing I know of is the "zoom" function (Ctrl +). The latter is probably not what you are looking (handy though when you got a 30" screen and people keep using miniscule text). For the former, I found a number of options by googling firefox stylesheet edit. That of course only works if you use FIrefox as browser.

Yup. You fail at "mine craft" You could create your own thread you know

Hmm, in that case I might just read the rest

CliffyB? Sounds like a rapper. You never know

Sounds a bit like the old 'Charisma' stat for sorcerers in D&D.

Now you are getting emotional again. I'm not excusing Bioware, you are the one excusing people who are being abusive. I find it pretty basic stuff, that if people have a beef with a company's decisions they simply stop buying games from that company. No matter how hard you try to excuse them, there are no excuses for stalking, harassment and being abusive towards individual people.

You keep repeating this, but what exactly *is* it you seem to feel that Bioware should take responsibility for? That some gamers are jerks with self entitlement issues? That some gamers lack the emotional and intellectual maturity to realise they are playing games? That they seem to get "attached" to fictive characters? Or is it simply that some guy oversold something (which might not have been the reality at the time of selling the point) and thereby mismanaged expectations? The only cure for that is not to share any information before a games release besides the usual non-committing marketing drivel. That usual leaves those who feel entitled to more very unhappy too.

Well, about as much romance as you can expect to wring out of MCA.

Listening to your customers is usually a good business practice. I'm not sure if that is entirely true in the video gaming business, but it's probably at least good for generating buzz and looking for prominent areas of interest. But they just asked questions. They didn't supply design docs Obs has to follow or anything. They asked questions! o_O They may have been loaded questions, sneakily manipulating Tim to change his mind accordingly

Hey, it was your AAR that made me buy the game in the first place way back

Sorry mate, but you seem to be the only getting emotional here... Wrong. You don't let **** "win", or you'll never get improvement on netiquette. This is the *real* core of the problem. Anything else is just excuses for acting like asterisks without fear of repercussions.

I read as far as 'multiplayer'... Dammit, I want games for people with no life and no friends! Why ruin a good looking, turn based combat game with multiplayer

Tell me about the cost of moving between countries Glad to hear you made it in one piece though I did wonder what became of you.