TravisPennington

Here's a list of my favorate Anime Movies. - Vampire Hunter D - Wicked City - Ninja Scroll - Ghost in the Shell - Princess Mononoke I highly recommend all of them.

That is totally true. It even applies to horrible games. A couple of years back, a friend of mine had a really awful Dragonball Z game on his Gamecube. But we ran through it in coop mode, and had a lot of fun. :/ But yeah, I honestly don't care about Halo 3 at all. I have Bioshock and Warhawk. Those two games will hold me over just fine for a little while. Halo 3 is going to be infinitely more popular than both titles, and receive much more praise...but I know I won't like it to anywhere near the extent. Halo. Bleh.

I'm playing...Temple of Elemental Evil. Yes, that buggy Troika game. Shutup, I like it.

Oh see...actually I like those skill changes. There were way too many skills that accomplished very similar things. It's good to see them getting rid of some, combining others, etc. That doesn't bother me at all. As for completely eliminating skill ranks, though...yeah, I'm not so sure on that one. I wouldn't call it D&D Lite, though. 3'rd Edition brought in a lot to D&D that 1E and 2E AD&D simply didn't have. The skill system, even in its upcoming "dumbed down" form, is still more complex than all of the proficiencies that were in 2E. I don't like how they're eliminating some of the core classes, though. In addition, the whole Tier Hierarchy they're doing for abilities and whatnot is just too much like a videogame. I'm sure professional CRPG developers are totally digging it (with good reason), but I'm not. Still, I wouldn't go so far as to say I wouldn't give 4E a chance. I'll pick up the Players Handbook and read through it. If a group of people want to play, I'll try it out and see how it works out. If I don't like it better than 1E and 2E, I won't keep playing it. If I do, then I will.

What's an easier solution? Forcing people to go out and spend a bunch of money to buy the same three rulebooks again...or a DM deciding to put weaker Goblins without Spears in the adventure? Give the Human a "rusty" Greataxe with worse damage. There are all sorts of simple solutions to this that do not require a revamp of the rules. That's a a lot easier than sorting through the books and debating for hours and hours which guidelines you want to keep in and which you want to leave out. People can try to justify it all they want, but in reality it's all about cash. =P EDIT: And yeah, people die at level 1 from lucky crits. D&D is hard. That's what the game is about. It's not impossibly hard to survive through 1'st level, but it can be difficult. Sometimes you are just unlucky. Smart players will always roll two 1'st Level characters before going off on a new adventure. That way when you die, you can bring in the other one. People should die half the time at Level 1. They're considered inexperienced adventurers, and they're going out and facing dangers. This is tabletop gaming we're talking about. Not CPRG's. Tabletop gaming always has, and always will be more hardcore. CRPG's can be fun, exciting, and beautiful works of art...but they can never be what tabletop D&D is. They are different for a reason. Tabletop D&D isn't for everyone. If you can't handle a challenge or the possibility that you're going to die (a lot) then don't play it.

The thing is, I have never met a DM who isn't kind or nice to an inexperienced player. If it's someone first time playing, the DM will usually make sure to botch any bad initial die rolls to as to ensure he doesn't die. You want to give the new players a taste, and a chance. They don't usually think in D&D as they do in real life. They get intimidated. There's nothing wrong with going easy on a new player the first couple of levels, as a DM's choice. The problem I have, is that the general rules and guidelines are making it easier for everyone, not just the new players. I find levels 1-6 in AD&D to be the most exciting out of the entire game. The option used to be, "DM can just cheat a bit for the new player". Now the option seems to be, "Players can spend 5 hours sorting out what rules they do, and do not want to use, with the DM. Sorry, new players take precedence here." I don't hold it against anyone involved in the development of the game. You can't make money if you can't bring in more people. If you can't make money, you can't succeed a business, and you can't make any more D&D. That would be bad. But I can still whine about things I don't like.

I'll agree that low level characters in D&D are terrible. I've been in more adventures than not where battles consist of 10 minutes of misses (in real time) without anything happening. That was more of a problem with THAC0 being entirely too harsh, in my opinion. There were tables in the 1E DMG designating your weapons bonuses, or minuses, for hitting a certain AC type however, and that did help out a bit. It was a pain in the ass to have to keep referring to the charts though. And yeah, a lot of those old modules are very unforgiving. I didn't mention Tomb of Horrors, because its traps defy any and all human logic. I consider it to be a hilarious and fun challenge though. I don't disagree with all changes that have been made to D&D over the years. I feel a lot of them are positive. But the system as a whole feels too powerful, to me, and overly complex in some areas. I hate combat in 3'rd Edition with a passion. I love feats, I really do, but it's annoying to have to refer to charts and a tier hierarchy for your character everytime you want to select a feat. I always found selecting spells as a Magic-User (Mage, Wizard) to be an annoyance more than anything, and selecting Feats is done in a very similar way. Further complexity of feats in 4E (that's what it sounds like to me at the moment) makes me feel a little dissapointed. The skills system too is ridiculously complex. Not because it in itself is difficult to understand. There's just way too many skills. I haven't read anything about skills and how they'll work in 4E though, so forgive me if I'm assuming it's going to get worse. I guess I'm looking for complexity in some areas, and simplicity in others. I'm being picky and selfish, but that's what I like. And well...I'm pretty sure you're a very experienced DM and hardcore D&Der, Josh. I'm sure your regular groups of players don't have Level 30 Prestige Classes either. You probably do give your players a challenge. They probably die quite a bit. That's one major difference between a good DM, and a bad one. But I don't think the majority of DM's and players are like that. Everytime I meet a new person who's in to D&D, they just seem to be the individuals who have everything hand fed to them. Or they DM for their regulars, and are overly generous. Its next to impossible for me to find anyone these days who plays D&D with any kind of challenge. Not that I'm claiming to be some end all, be all, god of D&D. I'm not at all (maybe a poor player, infact), and aren't trying to suggest that in any way. I just feel 1E and 2E are more exciting, overall. 3E just gives off an "easy mode" vibe to me, I guess.

Yeah, I read through the changes that were posted (I had not before my first post). Instead of an Axe Master Prestige Class (example)...you'll just pick feats in that direction. Feats atop of feats atop of feats. It's the same thing, masked under a veil, to sell more books and make $$$. Level 1 Characters seem to get more and more powerful as D&D continues to be updated. It's to appease the whiners who want to start off as gods. Brings me back to my whole Prestige Classes rant...the classes everybody seems to play...in the mid 20's of levels. I bet you could take 99% of the 3.5 Edition Gaming Community and throw them into the classic Temple of Elemental Evil module, with 1'st Edition Rules, and they'd never survive, no matter how many attempts they made. I realize why WotC are doing this. You can't sell books and make money if you cant appeal the mainstream. But it just makes D&D less and less hardcore, less and less based on roleplaying of any form (roll diplomacy and DC!). They might as well just turn it in to a flat out boardgame. Something like Clue. The game is just way too easy these days.

Haven't done any PNP gaming in a long time... ...but I'm a sucker for 1'st Edition and 2'nd Edition AD&D. :D

I haven't played tabletop AD&D for a long time now (the last being 2nd Edition about 6 years ago), but I'm pretty excited about a 4'th Edition. I picked up the 3'rd Edition Players Handbook a while back and read through it, but was ultimately disappointed with how over complex a lot of it was. They changed THAC0 because it "confused" new players (bleh. It was part of what made 2nd Edition so unique! ), but then proceeded to add in a lot of unnecessary crap. Feats were great. Reminded me of Perks from Fallout. I liked the changes to Saving Throws. I liked the new skills system (except for how many there were - a diplomacy skill? Why can't I just roleplay it, and roll a Charisma check if necessary?). I disliked what they did to Thief (Rogue). They aren't as unique as a Class as they once were. And even though I was a fan of 2'nd Edition, I dislike the kind of game they tried to show D&D 3'rd Edition as being with its artwork and atmosphere. I know you can DM whatever type of campaign you wish, and that the supplements and such probably go in to the darker side of things...but bleh. I want the darker side of D&D. I want a 1'st Edition feel when I read the core rulebooks. Last but not least...the combat system. I watched that Teaser Video on youtube (they could have done a little better, but it is what it is), and laughed when they got to 3'rd Edition, regarding grappling and attacks of opportunity. Much too complex. I'm hoping that 4'th Edition keeps what I feel are the positive adjustments to D&D that 3'rd Edition brought in, and removes some of the complexities. Being a bit selfish here, but that's what I'm looking for. EDIT: Forgot one last gripe about 3'rd Edition...all those Prestige Classes! Holy *&$(! Expand the base classes, balance them, and leave it at that. There are way too many Prestige Classes in 3E (I don't mind a few), and everyone and their mother who plays 3rd Edition seems to play one. I highly doubt 90% of the individuals who play Prestige Classes even went through the work to meet its prerequisites; they just built them. Or they had an over-generous DM who awarded them a million experience for a simple adventure. I'm hoping 4E is more restrictive. Not 1E-type restrictive...but something. =P Finally, in response to Mr. Sawyer regarding buying your stats...I like the idea to an extent (I believe that base stats such as STR and DEX should be able to be raised), but not in the way you're suggesting. It makes no sense for someone to automatically be able to simply raise their Dexterity because they leveled and gained points. Unless it's by magical means such as a Wish spell, those kinds of abilities should have a natural growth and progression. I know I was just whining about overcomplexities earlier in this post, but it just doesn't make any sense to me that a Wizard can raise his Strength when he levels when he's been sitting in the back casting spells in his light weight robes the whole time. For a Computer RPG, something like that would be fine, but tabletop D&D has always been more realistic than those. Unless of course somethings changed the past half-decade that I'm unaware of. Oh, you know what, I just re-read and I think you were referring to character creation? Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. Buying stats with set points instead of rolling for them. There should still be some sort of rolling involved to designate a potential bonus, though. Something simple that would give you the kind of delight you used to get when you rolled 3 6's for an 18. :D

Games I am looking forward to... #1 Starcraft 2!!!!!!!!!! #2 Fallout 3 #3 Unreal Tournament 3 #4 Team Fortress 2 #5 Metal Gear Solid 4 #6 Final Fantasy 13 #7 Heavenly Sword #8 The next WoW expansion?

Yeah meta. When I played the first Tomb Raider it was on PC and it was an awful experience. I did not enjoy it at all. To be fair, I was playing on a very poor system and the graphics were really bad. I think it was a Pentium 1 100 MHZ Processor, with 16 Megs of Ram? Maybe 24. I know it was after I upgraded the RAM so I could play the Quake demo. Did TR1 work with 3D Acceleration? I don't remember, I didn't have a 3D Card back then. It's amazing how different games were when you played them without a "3d accelerator", and then played them with one later on. Best example of this I can name is Jedi Knight. But yeah, after seeing and playing Tomb Raider on a Playstation I was hooked. Some games are just better on consoles.

I'm totally with you on Resident Evil 4. After the awesome experience that was Resident Evil 2, the whole series went on a major downhill streak. RE4 came back with a bang and saved the entire franchise from mediocrity. Tomb Raider: Legend was a good restart for Lara Croft, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. It didn't have that Tomb Raider "feel" to it that I got from the first two games in the series. I think the problem with the TR Series was just way too many damned games. They just kept cranking them out and it got old. Did anyone even hear of Tomb Raider: Chronicles when it came out? And did anyone care about Angel of Darkness? I didn't. It was just like the next Madden or MLB game. I know they sell well, but they come out year after year with the same rehashed crap that I simply couldn't care less. It's a problem with too many sequels. The game industry cashes in on these way too much, and it just leads to poor games. The movie industry does it too. Meh.

Yeah, I've heard countless rumors about this whole thing. "It's Starcraft 2!" "It's Diablo 3!" "It's a Starcraft MMORPG!" Personally, I would be ecstatic about any one of those. EDIT: If it is a Starcraft MMORPG that might explain the lack of Shaman love from Blizzard lately. WF nerf...meh! *raises off topic shield*

The concept art looks awesome. If the environmental artists and level designers can emulate the feel of the concept art, I'd say at the very least the game will look great. I think all of us Fallout fans will have to accept the fact that it will be a different feel than Fallout 1 & 2. Getting over changes isn't my main concern though. I can handle a different camera view and art style. I'm just worried about the gameplay and the mechanics behind it. I realize turn-based isn't going to happen, which leaves us with real-time combat. How is this going to work in Fallout 3? I really hope you don't have to aim your gun first person style and headshot enemies manually. I am a huge fan of First Person Shooters, it's probably my favorate genre...but that isn't Fallout. And Oblivion is definitely not Fallout. Personally I am more than willing to accept real time combat, but if it's like Oblivions then well...****. Then Bethesda screwed up. I really hope that doesn't happen. There are other issues I'm scared of too, but I for one am willing to give Bethesda the benefit of the doubt, to an extent. I can't help but feel a little "meh" about the whole thing at the moment though because of their resume. Not that the Elder Scrolls games are bad by any means...but they're not Fallout. Well, here's hoping.

There's new developments on that list, apparently, as mkreku already pointed out. "1UP contacted Sony about the allegations, who quickly pointed out that, by Cynamite's own self admission, they couldn't be right -- the PS3 they tested was utilizing old firmware. When PS3 becomes available in Europe, so will a 1.6 firmware update updating software emulation. "The article is misleading," said SCEE director of corporate communications Nick Sharples. "As the console tested by Cynamite was not using the latest firmware upgrade, the information posted on its site is meaningless." The German websites PS3 didn't even have the new BC firmware. Of course those games aren't going to work. Source: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3158019

Don't worry guys. It's not just Europe. They're removing the emotion chip and going for full on emulation for PS3's in Japan and the US as well. This was the plan from the beginning, as I remember reading a statement Sony made a while back which informed us that they'd use hardware for BC initially, then move to emulation. The problem is, this statement wasn't really moved around as "big news". I remember reading it dug in to some other news story. The good news is, Sony is promising that over 1000 PS2 titles will be BC from the beginning, and that they'll be concentrating on hit games and franchises first. I would assume that means God of War, etc. At least the games will upscale now, I guess. Personally I prefer the hardware BC, but 1000 PS2 titles BC at launch isn't all that bad. A lot better than what the 360 does, at least. If you want the hardware BC, you'd better import fast. Apparently they're making the change in April for Japan and US consoles. Remember though, that the BC for PS2 and PS1 games is region locked. It isn't region free like PS3 titles. So if you import a US PS3, you need US PS2 and PS1 games. And there's no telling if Sony is going to lock out the hardware BC when they release the new patch for emulation. If I were you, I wouldn't bother importing. A thousand PS2 titles being bc at launch really isn't all that bad, and there's no telling if Sony locks out the hardware BC or not on existing PS3's. You don't want to get screwed over. Some good news for a change however, is this Playstation Home service. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6166926.html?...newstop;title;6 Sounds pretty neat. One last thing...I've got Motorstorm. I actually recommend picking it up! I wasn't a big fan of the demo, but the full game is really fun to play. It's lacking in a lot of areas ie. content. You can't customize your cars, only a handful of tracks, that sort of thing. But it's an original racer, and isn't in the pack with the rehashed Need for Speed crap EA keeps pooping out. It's sort of...the new Jet Moto, or Wipeout. It's pure gameplay, through and through. Pretty fun game.

Why is Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight not in that poll? Why are the X-Wing games not in that poll? Anyone remember TIE-Fighter? But you have Obi-Wan and Revenge of the Sith there? :angry: TIE and JK were the best Star Wars games ever. No other Star Wars FPS (or any FPS, imo) comes close to how great JK was. And Tie Fighter was just the pimp daddy of its time. Straight up

Yeah Rome is a really good show. I like it a lot better than most of the crap you find on TV (that includes HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime =P). The characters are all really interesting and carry a lot of depth to them. Missed the first Season way back when but was able to watch all of the episodes through that nifty HBO on Demand service. It's in Season 2 now, can't wait to see the next episode. Very addicting show

That response was hilarious.

I'll endup downloading Linux on my PS3 in the future, but at the moment I'm preoccupied with playing games. I messed around with the Motorstorm Demo a bit more. I must have sucked really bad at it before, but I'm starting to enjoy it a lot now. You feel like you're going *really* fast when you hold boost down for a while, and there's a geat motion blur. It feels like a Burnout game, but done in a different style. We'll see how it turns out at the end.

Alright I got my PS3 via UPS yesterday. I don't have any games for it yet, but I guess I'll give some first impressions on my experience with setting everything up and the Motorstorm Demo. Setting up the PS3 is very, very, very easy. The main PS3 interface is actually very simple and intuitive. I thought it would be difficult, judging from some peoples opinions, but it was in fact very simple. Everything has a graphical picture which represents the area it leads to. You navigate by going left and right to select the area you wish to go to (Music, Display, Game, Movie, etc), then up and down to go through the subcategories. Pretty easy. Downloading updates and demos takes a long time. It took me about 10 minutes to download and install the latest PS3 update, and about 20 minutes to download and install the Motorstorm demo. It's really not that slow, and considering you don't have to pay any sort of fee to use the service, I suppose it's adequate. The main problem I have with that is you can't do anything else while it's downloading. I guess when a PS3 update comes, it's time to go hop in the shower or grab a sandwich or something. Motorstorm looks okay. It's nothing graphically overpowering. It didn't make me go "Wow!" or anything. It really wasn't all that fun to play, though. I don't even know how to say it. The game's probably going to suck. The motion sensing in Motorstorm is fun for a few seconds, but it doesn't really work too well. It could work, I think, but it just isn't optimized. It's just too sensitive. Plus, swaying the controller back and forth kind of gets irritating after a while. I think the best thing gaming devs can do with the motion sensing is just implement minor features to help immerse you in the game, instead of giving you full on "gameplay experiences" using it to control your guy. The motion sensing with Motorstorm is optional, and I turned it off after a while. Maybe it'll be better when the game's released, I know it's a few months off. The PS3 controller is lighter than the PS2's, but it doesn't really feel "cheap". It's exactly the same as the PS2's, except that L2 and R2 are trigger buttons now. I'll say this now... I DO NOT LIKE THESE TRIGGER BUTTONS. My finger constantly slipped off of them. They felt uncomfortable. There's no "up slide" at the back of it to hold your finger on it and keep it from slipping off. The angle is strange. I just don't like them at all. It probably isn't so bad if you use it as a trigger in say, a shooting game, but in a game like Motorstorm where you have to hold it down practically the entire time (as it's the main acceleration), it's awful. I don't like the trigger buttons at all. Some people love them though...we'll see I guess. The last thing I (briefly) looked at was the PS3's browser. I only messed with it once, but it pissed me off. I tried to go to gamespot.com, and it wouldn't go. So I tried to go to rpgamer.com and my PS3 froze completely. Bleh. I watched a Blu-Ray movie, Space Cowboys, and it looked great! So, in retrospect...good interface, crappy browser, crappy trigger buttons on the otherwise flawless (my opinion) tried and true PS2 controller converted to uber PS3 wireless omgz0rzness, Blu-Ray plays great, system runs completely silent, touch buttons for ejecting disks and turning the PS3 on make it "cool" (Don't ask), the Chrome Trim and shiny surface are sexy as hell. Until you touch it. Then it's a fingerprint magnet. I really need a game to try out on it. All in all, I can see the potential the PS3 has. There's some minor problems I have though. The biggest being those freakin trigger buttons. Edit: Oh, PSN ID. Mine is: Incinerat3. If any of you Obsidian / Old School Black Isle Fans happen to be on Resistance later today, hit me up.

When I first heard the PS3 would be able to run Linux as an Operating System, it never really hit me what kind of possibilities there would be. I didn't think about it, I guess. Now that all of this news is hitting...I'm totally shocked. Sony's answer to Xbox Live isn't just a free online plan with a unified login and a marketplace...it's giving you Linux. Real Linux. That can emulate Windows. That can pretty much do anything. This is great news to me. Sony are geniuses for doing this. And yeah, it sucks that it won't be released in Europe until next year, but I don't know why you'd want a boycott over it. The supply should be a bit higher, you probably won't have to deal with all the Ebayers, a lot of the defects will be worked out, along with (most likely) most of the minor issues the PS3 is currently having. Europe got the PS2 after the US and Japan too, I think. Honestly I think Microsoft sorta spoiled everyone with that worldwide launch. I know Sony planned it...but with only less than 500,000 units, releasing in Europe wouldn't have done much. You wouldn't have a PS3 right now even if they did, I don't think, due to such limited quantities. Just look at the bright side dude, when it does come out over there you'll have more games (*GOOD* games haha) and less problems to deal with.

The MGS4 videos weren't FMV, they were all realtime. Kojima proved it with a live demonstration a while back, actually. I tried really hard to get a PS3, but it just wasn't happening for me. You've got to camp out at least 24 hours if you want to get one. 6 - 12 hours isn't going to cut it unless you're really lucky. Which I wasn't.

I didn't want to make a topic if we already had one involving voting / politics, so I'll vent my frustrations here in this one. The harsher of the two public smoking bans in Nevada passed. I can't believe it. Boo. Go back to California you mongrels. :angry: Now you can't even smoke in bars that serve any kind of food! The lesser of the two only really banned it in restaurants, which I was okay with. But the one that actually passed bans smoking in any establishment which serves any sort of food. That's not just restaurants. That's all types of pubs, and those relaxed bars with those neat little grills in the back. You can't smoke in casino areas of grocery stores or gas stations anymore either (although that's not that bad to be honest). I'm only upset about the banning inside bars. You can still smoke in bars if they don't serve any sort of food, but christ. No more beer and wings nights at the local pub for you. And the minimum wage act passed. Now people on minimum wage make a whole $1 extra an hour. That wouldn't be a bad thing, but if you have any sense of economics you're going to realize that everyone else is going to complain about how they "only" make $1 more than minimum wage, or $5 more, or whatever. People are going to get paid more all around, prices on practically everything are going to go up, then it's going to stagnate. All in a few years. The raising of minimum wage will have achieved practically nothing. And I am done venting. Congratulations to you Californians on retaining the Governator for four years, btw.