Gromnir

stimpacks is weightless... and so is all addictive and non-addictive drugs. blood packs is an exception, but a quest makes those valuable later in game. *shrug* as we noted already, is a balancing act. is no clear distinguishing line 'tween what adds and what detracts. you may (or may not) thinks food and requisite eating makes game better. others disagree. so, if you got a strength stat, and you wanna give value to that stat beyond combat, how to do? some small boon for inventory management? is a trifling matter, but if you is stuck with special and you wanna take some half-arsed stab at balancing... how to make strength useful, and at same time prevent game from becoming tedious for the great mass o' players. how it comes back to immersion? easy, 'cause immersion is gestalt. is a combo o' balancing and story plausibility and 1000 other things. you bring up immersion? you pretty much asking for the kitchen sink. the tactical considerations of weighted ammo with fast travel is trivialized to near meaningless... so all you got is immersion. HA! Good Fun!

three points: 1) immersion... sucks. is great if you can get "immersion", but immersion in and of itself is a highly personalized gestalt of myriad gameplay and story elements. an element in fo3 that kills immersion for you may be bearable in Widget Frenzy, or some other such game. can't find 10 people that has same exact notions as to what is necessary for immersion in any given game, much less find some kinda Truth that might be applied to all games... or even all crpgs. 2) unlimited ammo in fo3 changes tactics not at all... or so little as to be meaningless. fast travel makes weighted ammo near meaningless. developers no doubt realize that with fast travel and weighted ammo you simply has folks taking ridiculous number o' fast trips back to megaton or tenpenny or wherever else you got your 1007 stashed. developers no doubt realize that all that weighted ammo would accomplish is some general increase in tedium for most players. such aspects, like required eating, has near universal been dropped from game development. sure, is a balance act for developers... 'cause what is tedious for Gromnir may be immersive for Diogo, but end result is that such stuff likes weighted caps and ammo, things that not genuine add to tactics of fo3 for any player with 2 neurons to rub together, is probable gonna get dropped. 3) flinstones am still surprised by how many folks not see humor o' the fallout setting. is like flinstones. stegosauruses AND tyrannosauruses rex in same period? those dinosaurs not exist together... much less co-exist with mastadons and humans. my goodness, how can the writers o' the flinstones show face in public? fo is funny. is satirical and comic. sure, is dark and gritty too, but setting itself is some hodge-podge of b-movie 1950s sci-fi shtick. argue flinstones. is maybe not surprising that people who is most passionate about fo, is least capable in grasping the Ha Ha! am recalling when we first saw Kill Bill in theatre. Gromnir and friend were the only folks laughing in the entire theatre... is like we were the only folks who recognized that movie were so intentional over-the-top as to funny. perhaps everybody else watching the film were hardcore Tarentino fans. HA! Good Fun!

"I was simply disagreeing with Grom's idea that Fallout's setting was implausible and as such, anything that tags along for the ride is implausible as well and should not be held up to any such scrutiny." is pretty much impossible to argue reality/plausibility of any fo game... whether it be setting or combat or anything else. the way some fo fans wanna pick at some issues o' plausibility like an anorexic with ocd waffling at a salad bar is funny. sad, but funny. wooden houses bother, but newcs and Gromnir's list o' stuff don't? fo setting is 'posed to be funny... is 'posed to make you laugh. sure, there is a gritty aspect to it, but you might as well argue realism and plausibility of the Flinstones or Jetsons, 'cause fo is just as cartoony... simply darker. HA! Good Fun!

relative speaking, Gromnir followed development o' soz very little. having been kicked off of bio boards, where most real soz discussion took place, all we gots was a few news drops and the odd freaky man-love post from developers and fans regarding dinosaurs and/or yuan-ti. even so, one thing that we did know was that while obsinaties were insisting that cohorts would be more than glorified pack mules, the cohorts would not be Much more than glorified pack mules. *shrug* comparisons to iwd games were pretty ubiquitous. had to have been willful ignorant not to notice. ... perhaps marcus is actually screenie name for donovan mcnabb? we got a celebrity on boards? 2 shocks in one week: an nfl game can end in a tie, and soz has taciturn cohorts. HA! Good Fun! ps am feeling more compassion for non-board geeks. folks who not come to message boards for info and only bought sequel expecting more of same has an excuse... but obsidian had to know there would be a few peoples like that. unavoidable casualties when changing formula.

having read vd's review, we is more certain than ever that hardcore fallout fans is the ones who really just don't "get" fallout. the post-apocalyptic world o' fallout is... funny. the folks who made fallout 2 got that. bethesda got it. why then can't nma and codex get it? fallout is not 'posed to be realistic or plausible. is 'posed to be the imagined/realized post-apocalyptic wasteland as dreamed up in b-movies and trashy novellas circa 1950's and early 1960s. giant insects and super mutants? vaults and the duck & cover shtick? camp. fallout is campy, and the terrible thing is that the hardcore fallout fans not ever seems to realize. those serious fans that were offended by joke encounters in fallout 2 is same ones complaining 'bout changes in fallout 3. example: am recalling a recurring pre-release complaint we seen at codex regarding how bethesda's power armour "looked" in fo3. were wrong, just wrong. didn't look like fallout power armour at all. the thing is that bethesda's power armour design is actually more suitable for setting as a whole. a more art-deco inspired design makes much more sense in context of fallout setting. vd himself has mentioned how german-impressionism influenced fallout(perhaps too emphatically,) and there is few more enduring examples o' art-deco sensibilities and aesthetic than that which is depicted in the movie, Metropolis. bethesda's power armour clearly would be more at home in Metropolis than would original fallout power armour. ultimately, complaints 'bout look or feel o' setting from hardcore fallout fans causes us no end o' chuckles, 'cause is seeming ironic that fallout fans is the ones least likely to Get fallout. fallout were PERFECT, and all future incarnations is judged by how close they come to original? *snort* the original fallout were an often buggy and ridiculously unbalanced mess that were fun in spite of its flaws... much as is fo3... w/o all the bugs ('leastwise if you play on xbox.) btw, is all sorta gameplay criticisms we got. 1 hour sleep heals all wounds, including crippled limbs? special stats and related skills is almost as unbalanced as they were in original fallout games. is far too easy to max a majority o' skills... which diminishes replay value. etc. got all kinda complaints, some o' which vd echos. am not having a problem with many o' his gameplay concerns. in fact, Gromnir has already mentioned that we likes this game in spite of its many flaws. much like mass effect and kotor, Gromnir likes fo3 in spite of obvious and numerous gameplay wackiness. is many reasons for a reasonable person to hate fo3 if they wish to. however, as soon as vd starts comparing atmosphere and setting and feel o' fallout 3 to earlier incarnations, Gromnir becomes torn 'tween inaudible groan and actual laughter. oh, and vd complaint 'bout writing a survival guide 200 years after apocalypse were... retarded. is not like writing a book 'bout survival o' ice age, 200 years after end o' the ice age. the current dc watseland is still a very dangerous place. that being said, much o' the survival guide quest stuff were tongue-in-cheek; not meant to be taken serious. vd gets wrong on multiple levels. go figure, eh? aside: weightless ammo not bother us much more than does weightless gold in typical crpg. unlike the original fallouts, games in which choosing to make an unarmed or melee combatant were voluntary gimping of character compared to the small guns & energy weapons builds, fallout 3 makes melee and unarmed fun and powerful... and there becomes an actual payoff for choosing to boost strength... other than ability to carry more 1007. HA! Good Fun!

sales is one of the few readily available objective measures we got. is not a measure o' quality, 'cause quality is inherent subjective, but sales IS an objective measure... of sales. *shrug* btw, folks who scoff at sales numbers is being foolish. developers make and sell games to make money... and unlike cheese (HA!) or cars or other stuff, you can't survive in pc publish/development by making a specialized product with a limited clientele. makes a more quality game is possible? sure, but unlikes other products, pc games has a relative fixed price. given the fact that all games is pretty much sold at same price, sales is a pretty damn important indicator in guaging success... as 'posed to quality. HA! Good Fun!

sometimes you get lucky in spite of yourself. is typical better to not get game on day 1. lets others beta for you. unless word o' mouth is so overwhelming positive, Gromnir almost invariably waits until first patch is released before buying any pc game. saves us considerable headaches... and gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling o' superiority knowings we ain't a slave to junkie mentality like so many others. HA! Good Fun!

"Like Gromnir, my second run is to run up every skill and stat. I've got 5,10,6,7,10,10,10. At least I think so. I'm not at home right now, so I can't be sure. That includes 10 ranks of intense training and all of the stat bobbleheads." boosting skills makes powerful. boosting stats... some fallout 3 stats seem large useless. perception does what? boost a couple a skills slightly and makes enemies show up quicker on radar thingie? doesn't seem to impact ranged vats % at all. charisma gots 1 use: animal friendship perk. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

sadly. the subway is as segmented and encapsulated as is the streets o' dc... can't simply follow red line or blue line or white line. am admitting that we were moderate annoyed trying to navigate to rivet city or other dc city locales early in game. HA! Good Fun! Except that you don't need to use any metros to get to RC. the problem is once you get into the dc maze... according to maps and pointy arrows it seems likes metros makes sense to get to washington monument and rivet and other locales... but it not always work that way. also, why we would we expect long route o be any less blocked? long path only makes sense in retrospect. HA! Good Fun!

sadly. the subway is as segmented and encapsulated as is the streets o' dc... can't simply follow red line or blue line or white line. am admitting that we were moderate annoyed trying to navigate to rivet city or other dc city locales early in game. HA! Good Fun!

a couple of lincoln repeater shots to the head from a character with maxed small guns in sneak-mode... lots of dead deathclaws. wasted points buy boosting perception... perception is far less useful in this game than in the other fallout games. ... for anybody that hates this game, Gromnir can understand. is some serious broken stuff in fallout 3. gameplay and story stuff is often inexplicable bad. nevertheless, am having fun many hours into game... which surprises us considering how quickly we became bored with oblivion. HA! Good Fun! ps hit level 20 a short time ago and have maxed the following skills: initial 3 "tags" small guns speech science next group o' 3 repair energy weapons sneak laststest group lockpick explosives medicine ... nuts to be fair, medicine is only at 92 % (

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I found that MotB actually ran better on my system than NWN2 OC. that was the case for Gromnir too... motb were much smoother. am simply curious if all the new features in soz came at a performance price. HA! Good Fun!

will give more feedback later, but for now... Gromnir is enjoying fo3... which is weird. no, we ain't a nma or codex freak who hates anything that screws with fo canon. heck, up until the robots portion of the game, we actually really enjoyed fo:t. "OMG, they put fur on the deathclaws. Those dumbf#@&$!" unlike others, we ain't measuring fo3 'gainst real & imagined standards of fo... or fo2. ... kotor and mass effect. when Gromnir lists what were wrong with those games we can comes up with BIG lists. however, in the end we enjoyed both kotor and mass effect in spite of numerous and seemingly insurmountable flaws. fo3 is similar. fo3 SPECIAL ain't particularly well-balanced. the skills ain't balanced neither... though it is nice to see that various combat approaches seem viable (melee weapon, unarmed, small guns and big guns all seems to works well...haven't tried energy weapons yet, so we hopes they ain't overwhelming powerful.) the writing ain't horrible, but is nothing to get excited 'bout. am seeing that skills and SPECIAL options pop up in dialogues often 'nuff, but the dialogues themselves is kinda pedestrian... and the quests won't be stuff we recall much beyond time we eventual stop playing fo3. jnpcs (like dogmeat) suck. have met a couple, and they is poorly written stimpack sinks. enemy ai is far less sophisticated than iwd2 or nwn2 and its expansion... which either means that developers didn't know how to make smart enemies, or they purposefully made stoopid so that it would be easy fro Gromnir to kill'em. skill points is too readily available so by end of game Gromnir's character will be pretty much great at just about everything... which diminishes our replay value. etc... sounds like Gromnir dislikes fo3, no? no. am liking fo3. combat is fun... enough. the quests is fun... enough. in spite of all the aforementioned flaws (and many more we didn't bother to list above,) Gromnir is having fun playing fo3, which is ultimately more important than identifying individual flaws. Gromnir likes Robert E. Howard. ask Gromnir to does a critical analysis o' any Robert E. Howard pulpy stories (and single novel) and we can makes sound like Robert. E. Howard were a hack without no skill in the craft... but that not change fact that Gromnir likes Robert E. Howard. Gromnir is liking fo3... so far. HA! Good Fun!

sssssoooooooo... has been been 'bout a year since we upgraded our pc with anything save more ram. there just ain't been enough pc games released to make it an issue for Gromnir. is more an issue of sloth than frugality. *shrug* is hardware requirements for soz much higher than motb? motb ran pretty smooth on Gromnir's rig... but that were a goodly time ago. heck, most o' our underwear is newer than our pc. am willing to buy a new gpu to play soz, but that would cut into nap time or gym time or fo3 time. anyone. bueller? HA! Good Fun!

best game intro? who freaking cares? ... well, obviously some o' you folks care, but to Gromnir, we typically value intro as much as we does the box art... or the crappy tchotchke stuff that sometimes gets included with purchase: cloth map, dice, autographed photo o' radio-face developers, etc. for story driven games, an intro "movie" can effectively entertain and educate player... let audience know important stuff w/o resorting to tedious in-game dialogue. iwd, with winchester's narration and the storybook kinda art, were one o' the best approaches we can be recalling. even so... am all for building a strong intro, but typically game intros is pre-intro material... cut out the intro and most games would play exact same. HA! Good Fun!

You can argue the toss from many perspectives, companies often licence engines because engine maintainance is seperate task to engine use. You also have to bare in mind the level of documentation coupled with an engine. Developing a game engine and game along side each other genuinely can lead to problems, the engine technology needs to be ahead of the rest of the team. When an engine is licenced it's usually comes with alot of documentation, it's easier to use someone else's technology, atleast initially it is, over a time period it actually makes more sense to develop in house technology. ToEE is alot more ambitious than IWD. IWD isn't all that far from a professionally produce mod for baldurs gate, that's not to balk at the results, and it is more than a mere mod as it did feature engine improvements, but at it's core like alot of games they're existing on a level equivilent to mods, the extremities of which can be debated. *chuckle* am understanding your pov, but you might wanna direct this to the obsidian developers rather than make as a reply to Gromnir. having no personal experience in such things we tends to defer to experts in the field... and at least one obsidian expert disagrees with you. HA! Good Fun!

"That had nothing to do with it really..." is this 'posed to make sense? xard makes a comparison... points out that troika had a big opportunity, but did less with more... more time and resources. 'course it looks like you is arguing out o' boredom and w/o a point, so to continue would be silly. HA! Good Fun!

What was the reason for the comparison? None as far as I can tell. No I would would pick bio everyday of the week and twice on sunday. you don't know what point o' comparison was? really? then why you argue it? *shrug* in any event, troika dropped the ball with toee... is too bad too, 'cause as xard points out, atari had envisioned a kinda series o' games. 'course iwd, a game built in less time by a largely rookie design team utilizing some other developer's engine, ended up being obsidian's greatest financial success... which is sadly the reason fergie kept coming back to the iwd well when maybe it woulda' been better to put more effort into fo3 or bg3. HA! Good Fun!

What the hell do I know? I am a businessman not a game developer. I would rather they concentrate on a fun, bug free games I agree, although it might be nice to have other companies work on D&D games, have a choice plus I simply can't get enough of those. Competition is a good thing! so you question xard's comparison 'tween iwd and toee development, but truth is you honestly got no reason or basis to question such a comparrsion. it would be good to see some other companies working on d&d rules... attempting to do a better crpg implementation, but so far the folks other than bio and obsidian who has been given such chances has really dropped the ball. so, as a businessman, if you is a publisher would rather have bio develop your next d&d game, or .... somebody else? HA! Good Fun!

"You don't have to, but you might when comparing a game on a brand new engine to one that has had 7? games." so, is easier to work with an engine you designed or to try an work with some other clown's engine? some o' the iwd guys is still 'round. maybe you can pose question to them. regardless, am doubting that the iwd guys felt much compassion for tim and co. HA! Good Fun!

no, Gromnir is a nerd, thats why he complains bout writing of pst. complaining about the philosophical merits of ps:t is like complaining about the improbability of a 10 yard flying kick in a kung fu movie poo has a point... as unbelievable as that seems. chrisA's philosophical introspection were akin to the wire-fu o' your typical kung fu movie.... kinda silly and over-the-top. camp quality perhaps? as for xard... post if you will, but Gromnir is finished here. surely not need some xardist piece on the social and cultural value o' the majority o' anime available... much less another attempt to convince us that all of chrisA's cliff's notes philosophy were on par with the bestest writing you has ever found in novels. HA! am betting even chrisA would balk at such. tell it to the wind. HA! Good Fun!

is habit o' codexians to disseminate Age of Decadence stuff wherever and whenever possible... average vd disciple is little different than those hare krishnas hanging out at airports. don't look 'em in eye and never ask for more info on their religion. HA! Good Fun!

"Just because those are just opinions doesn't mean there isn't seed of (subjective/objective) truth in them." of course there ain't no truth in his opinions... not as he or you state. what is Correct elements of RPG? what is non-linear? what is Proper role of combat in a crpg? bah. is no proper or right. is not like non-linear or rpg or other such game terms were developed through painstaking scientific process. were simply convenient labels that merchants o' games and/or geek gamers/developers comes up with at some point in past. is no Truth. explain why xard likes, but try to bolster by pretending that you got some kinda hold on truth is bs. if your start point is that there is a True or Proper, then you is just as deluded as vd. bunch o' clowns arguing over what is best flavor. HA! Good Fun! ps the best flavor for ice cream is vanilla... and best pudding flavor is pistachio

sure we did. is 'cause they is simply opinions. start from pov that Cannism is Only or Right way to do something is... wacky. again, we is talking 'bout game development, not religious dogma, so notion o' canon is misplaced. HA! Good Fun!