Dhruin

Well, Nivals SStorm did pretty poorly over here. TO the point that their having trouble releasing the expansion here. I seriously doubt that this game has an easy time making it to the states. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But it sold quite well in Europe (can't give you an easy link, I'm sorry, developer friend gave me some comparisons with the US NPD numbers but I've forgotten the exact numbers). So, does that prove TB games don't sell in the US, US gamers don't like Russian games, Europeans do like Tb games -- or that Encore sucks as a distributor? I can fully understand why some publishers think this way but I'm not convinced it's quite that black and white.

We tracked 31 full releases...seems a fair bit to me. Some won't make it, some won't get finished at all, some others will pop up and lots will be crap. You expected more than that?

I'm pretty sure Role-player likes turnbased games. He's being a little cynical because many publishers say there's no market for turnbased stuff.

I'm interested in a whole bunch. I'm sure they won't all turn out the way I'd like them to but I'll wait to judge them when I see them. KotOR2 Freedom Force vs TTR - more of a squad-based strategy but the original was brilliant The Fall The Witcher - fantastic art and the gameworld is intertesting Dungeon Lords - I want to see what Bradley has done Gothic 3 Oblivion Metalheart - don't like the two pre-generated characters but I'm a Fallout fan Star Wolves - I'm a space junkie Heart of Eternity - looks somewhat Gothic-like, horses Boiling Point And I'll probably pick up Power of Law and Restricted Area as short diversions.

Shouldn't you amortize the cost of development? Microsoft pulled the plug on Mythica at ~$40 million and that was still a fair way from market, so let's use that as a rough yardstick. How long should they have to operate before they get a return on investment, taking into account the risk that it will succeed in the first place and the costs of continued development? Anway, I think MMOs are pretty reasonable value if you have the time to invest. Can't say which is the best but I had the most fun with A Tale in the Desert and the least with Eve Online but I'm not much of a MMO player.

Ah - I see...you didn't actually mean what you originally said. Let me get it right -- just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. Won't stand for anything less but I don't hold everything to HL2 standards, and I will tolerate slight worse. Got it.

Why should you expect anything less? Because HL2 took 6 years and >$40M to develop , which allowed Valve the luxury to polish everything to a nice shine. That simply isn't going to happen with many games and certainly not with most PC RPGs (try a fifth of that budget and most often much lower), so it's unrealistic to hold everything to HL2's standard. That doesn't mean lower-budget games can't be polished but they can't do it all - they need to scale down content or find some other compromise. Of course, you may like the idea of mega-blockbuster titles, carefully planned to sell the millions of copies necessary for those budgets, along with the all design choices necessary to meet those goals.

I think the open-beta thingy supercedes the demo, which is a pity.

PC for a dozen reasons but not because I'm inherently anti-console. But please improve the PC interface.

Who said anything about LucasArts messing with things "too much"?

I'm surprised to see very few comments on anything but graphics, music, animations and length...no-one is interested in improving the core gameplay?

I don't think it would just be a rumour - they are seeing the game and talking to the reps at E3, after all. The IGN article is clear the demo was created purely for E3 and does not represent actual in-game areas - perhaps that's where the confusion comes from.

Given that the EGM article quotes LuasArts Producer Mike Gallo as saying "The Sith Lords will never, ever have multiplayer", it doesn't seem the little bird is right.

I was being sarcastic. We knew EGM would do a feature article on KotOR2 back in March.

Surprise, surprise. But is everyone sure? I've read you shouldn't trust anything that isn't an official announcement from Obsidian or LucasArts.

I think it might have promise and I'll certainly watch its development.

We'll find out how incisive those arguments are in just a few weeks.

Ah...I hadn't noticed the thread had gone. Bit of a waste of time since it was already widely reported and IGN posted a "response" from Grok.

While LucasArts owns Star Wars, BioWare would own the engine and other assets from KotOR. Clearly, a deal with Obsidian would involve all the parties. There is a clear precedent for this sort of situation. I'm sure you would agree that WotC are very protective of the D&D licence, right? But the first "official" mention of an out-of-house expansion for NWN (SoU was farmed out to Floogate) was an interview with BioWare at Gamespot in 2002. When the official announcement comes it will have LucasArts name at the top...in the meantime it isn't even unusual for BioWare to announce they are working with Obsidian just because it's a licensed property.

If I read correctly, some of you seem to be suggesting there is some doubt that BioWare and Obsidian are working on something. BioWare issued a press release saying they were "exploring opportunities" in August '03. There are other references but that should do. Just in case anyone thinks "exploring" means they're not working with BioWare on this project, from Gamespot The first mention of KotOR2 by major media was IGN in October. While it's based on rumour they quote a second press release from BioWare about Obsidian: So...Obsidian's current project is working with BioWare (Feargus, Gamespot interview) on an established game franchise with brand loyalty. Oh, and it's PC/Console. BioWare's only established game franchises that are both PC and console are KotOR and MDK. I guess it's theoretically possible Obsidian is porting NWN2 to console or something silly like that...but they ain't. On the items in Gorth's list, don't hold your breath for BG3 (how was Grok silenced, BTW?) and definitely don't hold your breath for FO3. IMO.

I don't think these elements made DX2 genuinely "open" but rather meaningless. It's completely linear and nothing you do has any meaningful impact in how the game progresses. The five different endings are all based on one decision made 5 minutes before the end.

Nope.

The "action" part seems a bit "me-too" but I'm pretty confident D.W. Bradley will put some genuine depth into it.