Dhruin

And you don't think that's caused by the "mechanics"?

I'd say make a different event altogether if you want to do a consumer thing, otherwise you are still taking the focus away from the real point of the event. It has nothing to do with sex (I'm all for that!) -- but it has turned into a carnival.

Thank heavens. It might help change E3 from a circus to a "serious" event about games.

No, not really. There's plenty of info about expected release windows for The Witcher. For example... Other than Obsidian's statements in interviews, I'd go to the NWN2 to check the official release date only there isn't one. Anyway, if you feel skeptical about games that don't have firm release dates that's entirely your prerogative - all I am saying is there are a large numbers of games in that position.

Just to clarify, saying "the same Aurora engine and toolset as NWN" is probably oversimplified. There is a significant number of changes, such as 3.5 rules, changes to support the different system for exterior maps etc etc.

I'm not sure what the point of telling me that was. My point is simply that lots of games don't have specific release dates, so that would seem to make GhostofAnakin skeptical of a lot of games.

You mean like NWN2 or Dragon Age or even Oblivion? NWN2 doesn't even have a website.

It was ancient history but you raised it yourself and I had a different memory of how it played out, so I decided to say so. Why bother? Simply because I thought your post was BS and I'm pretty sure you know that. I think you're smart enough not to "goof" multiple times with those posts about the Witcher and I don't think you misremembered what happened - just represented it differently to make the Witcher dev look bad. And you've done it again. Your comments were all about the graphics - the technical aspects - ("I am personally unimpressed, technically, with the Witcher") but now you've switched over to they don't have enough experience to make a AAA game. So if everyone else is concentrating too much on the graphics of the Witcher, why enter every thread about it on the Bio boards and argue about the graphics? I think you know why.

Sure you disputed it - you just side-stepped and stuck with your overall point, even though the evidence was discredited: What do I want? You're entitled to your opinion. In fact, I'd welcome a decent debate about why the Witcher will - or won't - be forgettable. I don't think it's perfect by any stretch. Just don't pretend the tech is old then complain about a rude dev who already corrected those same fallacies.

Now, now, Rhomal, I think you are misrepresenting what happened a little. You had decided that The Witcher was "technically" inferior to NWN2 - but you were simply wrong on essentially all the points you were arguing. I think you irritated Fallen Zen from CD Projekt because you stuck with saying the same things several times even though you had been corrected. You said in April ...and Fallen Zen corrected you: But you weren't prepared to accept that, so you repeated the same sort of thing several times, all the way up to June You had already been corrected so why did you keep saying it was a fixed camera, static lighting, "overglorified 2D"? Other posters even pointed it out. So Zen got a bit annoyed, because clearly you wanted to put down the technical aspects of The Witcher regardless of the facts.

Caveat that until the game is released, we don't know if they will succeed or not. I would suggest that those that say it doesn't look like much of an RPG probably haven't looked into it much. I'm sceptical of the action combat but they've released far more specific information on elements like non-linearity, multiple solutions and quest choices than games most people are prepared to accept as an RPG sight unseen - such as NWN2, for example. If they can pull it off (and they are fairly well resourced) and assuming the combat isn't too overwhelming, it has a lot of potential. They took a silly line with their marketing but unfortunately, the hype is required. Even RPG fans that frequent an RPG developer's site don't look into a lot of RPGs - imagine how hard it is breaking through into the average gamers consciousness.

Has anyone actually confirmed the anticipated character levels for the OC? Just because the cap is 20 doesn't mean they have to hit it. I'm not sure how anyone could see the levelling in BG as "fast". I think the game took me >50 hours and the cap was 8, right? I see to recall plenty of complaints about that.

God, I'm sick of sewers - this is a plus for me. As for the tileset, the new capabilities are quite powerful and might make it quite easy to create something just as good, so I'll reserve judgement until I see what it can do.

We have our second NWN2 interview up with Darren Monahan, Chris Avellone and Ferret Baudoin answering a wide variety of questions: http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=1200 It's pretty comprehensive, so I hope you enjoy it.

I guess it's a positive thing in as much as Irrational will have more resources to do BioShock - and perhaps Ken Levine and Jon Chey get to make some money out of this - but many of these deals ultimately lead to the disbandment of the developer. It's a pity this industry is so hard on independent developers.

News to me that Gothic 2 Gold has Starforce. I think you'll find it actually uses a version of Securom. G2G is a bargain - well worth it. That probably rules out Starforce causing your HDD crash, Kaftan.

I simply don't understand any of that but as far as I can see (regardless of the process itself), at any given resolution the "jaggy steps" are "filled in" with some gray (or whatever) pixels to hide them - which is what I think Matthias is saying. Anyway, on the topic itself I occasionally enable 2x AA when I think of it. It rarely bothers me. And if the gameplay works, I don't care too much about the graphics.

Throne of Darkness

What exactly does "cinematic" dialog mean?

I don't normally post RPGDot articles here but I thought you might be interested in a small interview we have with MCA on the process of writing for NWN2. It's not meant to cover gameplay issues but I hope you enjoy it: http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=1197

Is that post aimed at me? The only stereotype I commented on was the common androgenous angsty teenage protagonists and I asked for examples of those that didn't that I might look into. @Haitoku - yes, I realise you picked games that might suit me (thanks). I was curious if JRPG fans saw the genre as changing and it seems that's the case.

@Haitoku - thanks, I'll see if I can organise one of those titles. I notice none of them a new-ish or even this last generation...why is that? Are they not as good as the older games or is the genre changing?

That simply isn't true for current generation product. It varies from model to model but AMD Athlon64s can generate as little as half the heat of current P4 models. S754 is discontinued - buy a 939 AMD.

The handful of JRPGs I have tried all had an art-style I didn't like, angsty androgenous teenage protagonists and gameplay I didn't enjoy. Perhaps you keep trying a genre that disappoints until you find a good game but I generally don't. So, it's not merely the wrapper I dislike but the wrapper represents gameplay I don't like. Again, I'm willing to accept I might have short-changed the genre. I don't really like the sound of watching a story - and if I'm going to do that, the story needs to be damn good, with characters I enjoy. That is the gameplay, right? I have no idea who Varn or the other guy is and a google search was too confusing, so that didn't help. FFX skirts anime but doesn't look too over the top, so that's fine. I would have thought character creation was self-explanatory. No, you don't have to sell JRPGs to me but it will further the conversation if you at least give me an example to check out, since you presumably disagreed about the angsty teenagers comment.