These were a great series of games, though Unreal 2 was crap IMO. I played the original Unreal late in the game, after UT99 but enjoyed it immensely (I was a Quake guy). UT99 was where I spent most of my time... Loved that game - really liked the Razorback due to the havoc it causes! I also really liked UT3... I felt very "at home" in it with a PC, and there's no question about the quality of the engine.

Awesome! I love the series! Triumph hasn't let me down yet... I even enjoyed the heck out of their Overlord games!

Those brief moments when the AH is up = bliss

What amazes me about GW2 is the amount of stuff to learn and do. When you make a character, all that stuff you choose affects your personal storyline. There are 5 races to choose, each with different stories. I think there are 9 permutations of backstory you can choose, times the 5 races, making 45 different stories you'll see. It may only affect the cutscenes/dialog, but for RPG fans, this is just awesome! It took me two BWE's to beat the personal storyline, which was disappointing, but a lot of areas and races were missing in the beta, so the story may have been cut short.

Next are the classes themselves. Each class has different weapons, opening up different skills. Then there is the Trait system, which is similar to WoW's Talent Tree system. This allows even more cool builds; while most of the traits are just number multipliers (ie +20% burning durations), I've seen some interesting traits you can select, such as moveable Ranger spirits or elementalist attunement switching causes AOE effects. There are also a bunch of utility skills you can choose. While Guild Wars 1 had a much more strategic build system (each profession has 150 skills to choose, and you can have a secondary profession), since it played more like a Magic the Gathering card game, GW2's build system is definitely no slouch.
I personally didn't like WoW's build system, since it was too obvious; each class' role is predefined; you only really have to choose between pure PvP, PvE soloing or PvE party. In GW2, you have all sorts of cool builds you can do; support, healing, damage, aoe, crowd control, running and so on. For example, I have a build which boosts my movement speed at the cost of other skills. This is great for simply traveling around or collecting resources, but it sucks for doing events/hearts. When I'm in a party, I veer to be more supportive with healing etc. Depends on what professions are in my party, too. It's just so cool being able to do everything, but you have to make a choice and be strategic about it. I remember in WoW, you were basically screwed without a tank or a healer, and there was no way around it. That problem simply does not exist in GW2.

GW2 isn't without its faults, though. I hope they add a build-swapping system; it's a pain swapping different skills etc.
The auction house downtime really sucks. I'm packing my mules to the brim here!
GW2 starts to feel like a grind. I feel like the hearts, and dynamic events don't matter; I will rush through some, especially the boring city ones with no combat. I hope there are longer dynamic event chains in later areas, and maybe a more enticing server-wide impact. What I really enjoyed in GW1 was the linear, epic story - it made it feel less of a grind. I hope GW2 still has that kind of thing; the personal story kind of sucks. I guess Anet can't have too many people not doing the dynamic stuff.

This comment was edited on Aug 29, 2012, 02:54.

I remember discovering holding "attack" with the Excalibat would cause it to charge up and launch a bunch of green baseballs. It was the greatest thing in the world!

Riker wrote on Dec 27, 2011, 13:22:
So, those who have played, is it as much of a WoW clone as it has looked to be from the start? Does it evoke any of the amazing kickassity of either of the preceding Knights of the Old Republic games?

I spent admittedly very little time in the closed beta, but it was exactly what I was expecting... WoW in space. Which isn't all horrible, but it's not what I wanted, and not worth my money or time.

From my beta experiences: The gameplay mechanics are very WoW-clone-ish, but the quests, story and environment is a massive step-up. The quests and story were the actual driving elements that kept me playing, and not the levels/experience/etc. that WoW hooked on you.

I did not subscribe because it did indeed feel very much like a single-player experience. This game probably would've been a lot better as a non-MMO multiplayer game (ie you can play it with a few friends or online folks). This game doesn't seem to try anything new in the MMORPG gameplay department, aside from adding a meaningful story and quests. I don't think that's enough, sadly.

Now, Guild Wars 2 is one title I am definitely looking forward to, because they are trying some interesting things in the mmorpg gameplay department, such as automatic partying (helping a random person in the wilderness actually *gets* you stuff!!!), and dynamic world events, which seamlessly group participating players and the event scales dynamically with the participation count. Sounds really cool! Of course, Guild Wars will still have its (improved) story system, unlike World of Warcraft which had absolutely no story.

This one is a great bundle if you enjoy platformers! The only one that sticks out is Gratuitous Space Battles, the only non-action game in that pack. The other games are all actually quite tough (but a lot of fun!).

I'm not too concerned about this, since the forums are separate from account logins, and I'm not stupid enough to have the same password for forums and accounts, but it does bring security in question. I would definitely love to get a dongle for my Steam account. Sure, it'd be a bit more painful and there's the risk of it getting damaged/lost, but the value of my Steam account grows every month and I'd like better protection.

Well it's nice and all for id to come out and say this stuff (ok, it's not all that nice at all), but the real question here is:
Will they fix the game? Should we expect patches, and to what extent? Are they still dedicated to the PC, or should we expect the same story for Doom 4?

All I've seen so far is them point fingers at the video drivers - How come other games have gotten along fine with those drivers? Did they never test the game on the PC? Why did they never talk with the driver makers (nvidia, ati) and get this stuff sorted out before hand? Did they give nvidia/ati a preview copy of Rage and work with them?

It's a pity; if Rage had a smooth launch, the video card manufacturers would've made more money (people buying new cards due to good game reviews), and obviously id would make more in sales. Simply saying "oh the PC isn't leading anymore" and then not trying anymore definitely guarantees the PC will stay in that state.

Why is Carmack talking about audiences anyway? Why does he care? He's a game designer; he enjoys making great games. It's obviously the upper management who gave him orders for the design direction, and he has to follow that. I'm not blaming Carmack for anything - he's just doing as ordered. The issue is obviously a lack of testing; it was the upper management who decided "yeah, this game was tested enough and is ready for release. No, we don't need to delay the PC release and put more resources into fixing it."

Excellent! I'm glad they wisened up and decided to use Steamworks instead of GFWL.

Blizzard still hasn't grasped the fact that WoW players need stuff to do besides grinding in new, reskinned dungeons.

Blizzard's new content release schedule is just too infrequent. Why haven't they gotten faster at adding a new dungeon, or a new area? Haven't they been doing this for years already? Why not hire more people or improve their tools? To me, it just looks like they're getting lazy.

An easy solution is to open up new content creation to the community. You have 11.1 MILLION people who know and love the game; give them the tools to create dungeons, areas, quests, etc. and let them submit their creations to Blizzard. All they'd have to do is stamp it and ship it if it's good enough!

Razumen wrote on Jun 8, 2011, 21:59:
I hate how something as trivial as this has become one more thing gamers have to fight for to be included in modern releases.

Yes, I find it quite sad. I wouldn't be surprised if we have to fight for mouse support in the future.

YES! Thanks, iD. I'm glad they're paying attention to the details when it comes to the PC version.

While I absolutely loved PS:T, I really hope they don't do a sequel. PS:T wrapped itself up quite nicely, and stood well on its own. I would definitely not mind another game based in the UNIVERSE of PS:T, but not a direct sequel featuring the Nameless One, Morte, Dak'kon and all those great guys.

Of course, I'm all for remakes, though. You know, PS:T with fresh new graphics, bug fixes, improved gameplay etc. but with the same story, characters and gameplay.

\/ OK, mag just said exactly what I was thinking, but in different words. Glad I'm not alone on this!

Well, I didn't know that the xbox/ps3 versions came out already, but I've been having a blast with this Portal 2 ARG. I had a great time collecting those hidden potatoes and really enjoyed seeing people find and figure out those cryptic messages.

Draugr wrote on Feb 14, 2011, 21:05:
Yay, for recognition of the medium!

hopefully with this voting, people keep in mind what they are voting for, and don't look at it as a "vote for what you liked" situation.

I don't understand. I thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder. How can you vote for something you didn't like or even play?

Well, I voted. It's interesting how they break up all the games into 4 genres: Action, Adventure, Target and Strategy. Think 'arcade' for 'target'. What's even more weird is that they break up the games into consoles/systems. NES, PC, XBox, C64 etc. How does the medium affect the game's artistic qualities? Some games are on many systems, like Mass Effect 2 or Sim City 2000, yet they are only in one of the categories. It would've made more sense to have the 4 game genres and just throw all the games into each one, regardless of the game system.

There are some serious games missing, though... Planescape Torment, Braid, X Quest (Space Quest, King's Quest, Police Quest etc), Monkey Island, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Commander Keen ... I could go on, but overall it felt like a weak selection.

edit: It's still pretty nifty, though. Glad to see games are getting recognized. IMO anything that stirs up feelings and thought is art.

lol

Eh, I use D2D, GG and Impulse, too. Granted, I don't use them as often as Steam (as in, the majority of my purchases are on Steam), but sometimes there are some cool games and prices on non-steam DD services.

The truth is other digital distributors aren't trying. Yes, Steam is the best, but if you want to make a successful digital store, then you have to make it BETTER than Steam. Achievements, community features, in-game overlay, game tracking and so on. If you don't have these, then you'll always be #2 to Steam. Prices help out a lot, too. Sell every game at $1 less than Steam and see how that works for you.

Can someone tell me how this Cataclysm preorder costs? I can't log into Battle.net to see (it appears to be too busy?) Also, Blizzard sneakily doesn't mention the cost anywhere out in the open (as if they are ashamed of it).

ochentay4 wrote on Oct 10, 2010, 13:59:
Well, If I could choose I would opt for no service.

Why we need Steam of GFWL? How gamers have been playing online and getting updates beforce this services?

I do hate GFWL and do not hate Steam, but why do I need to have Steam and be Online to play Secret Monkey Island (for example).

Have you played any games that don't have an auto-patching system? It's a huge pain in the butt updating those games and you typically don't know about those patches unless you look for them. Steam allows those games to be automatically updated and gives developers easy to use tools for those patches.

The only real advantage GFWL has over steam is that it is more integrated into the game. It can be painful with steam when you have to start it first before being able to play anything.