I'm kind of curious what it means when a game is "from" one company, but "developed" by another, and published by two others.

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That brings back memories. I remember that I never finished that game - I got to the level near the end where you're on the huuuuge ship, got lost, and never bothered to finish the game.

I'm glad I never had to write a walkthrough for that game.

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Yeah, pretty neat. I had no clue there was such a strong Q3 running community - I had no clue there was such a thing as Q3 running at all until I saw that vid, but there must be to have spawned all those levels.

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When are these audio engineers going to learn? Spatialization issues always affect the inverse kinematics of an engine, especially when the polarized field array of the Q8-400 rasterizational grid is misaligned in pre-alpha quantum testing.

Well, glad they fixed it.

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Probably just the one player. I also am not sure of the utility here, unless a player inside a Radar also has AA-fire under his control.

Personally, after playing Desert Combat, I can't go back to vanilla BF. So I guess it doesn't matter too much.

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If a MMORPG gets patched, and no one is playing, did it really happen?

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Boy, I wanted to sue the server I downloaded that Tron demo from. I think these guys might have something here...

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All of this reminds me a bit of this:

http://www.oldmanmurray.com/news/288.html

I think people have every right to expect the contents of a box they're paying money for to be worth the money in and of itself, rather than be told that they're buying potential brilliance once "the community" gets their hands on the tools. Even though Desert Combat rocks, I still wouldn't think BF1942 would've been worth the purchase if the game itself wasn't amazing. And a lot of people don't find NWN very amazing. Maybe this expansion pack is a big improvement over the original, but I'm not going to pay 30 bucks to find out.

And, speaking for myself, I'm not lining up to play any MMORPG. If I buy an RPG, I'm usually buying it for a compelling single-player experience, and I don't think that the NWN engine is capable of providing that to me. I just don't like controlling a single person and an AI sidekick. Didn't like it in the Fallouts, didn't like it in Arcanum, didn't like it in NWN. Give me a party I can control and we'll see what's what.


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Bah. Even if it's twice as good as NWN, it's still just a pale shadow of Baldur's Gate. Give me a party.

Here's hoping Greyhawk is quality.

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Shadows of Underwear
Shadows of Urinetide

Two of the better ones from the gonegold forums.

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Check this out:

http://www.diabloii.net/

Top news story. Some "founding members" of Blizzard, as well as Bill Roper, resigned today. Kind of weird timing.

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Is this the service pack that makes the OS fun?

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Yes, the humor was a plus. On the whole they were well-done games, but I just can't add them to my personal gaming pantheon. We agree to disagree.

I don't know the whole story behind Troika/Interplay/Black Isle/whatever, but my big pet peeve with Arcanum was the levelling-up system. Just too many buttons and knobs and options and doo-hickies. I played as a tech swordsman for a long time, pumping almost everything into being a Smith, and by level 35, I still hadn't unlocked a single item worth making; everything I made was inferior to what I could buy or find. That, and the story, even after maybe 20 hours into the game, still hadn't gone anywhere. Didn't make for an enjoyable gaming experience, so I shelved it and never finished it. I did the same thing with FO2 once; I eventually went back and completed it; maybe I'll do that for Arcanum too.

I actually liked the graphics of the game, although, again, the interface was a little wonky. I'm hoping that the rigors of adapting a well-known module with well-established DnD rules means that they can produce a good game with Grayhawk; at least it's turn-based combat.

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They're...ok. The RPG's, at least. The first game is hampered by rampant typos and a poorly-designed follower system, and both games share the same terrible interface. I get the sense that the milieu as much as anything is responsible for the cult following; if the same engine and interface were used for a dwarves and elfs RPG, I doubt people would be all that interested in it (which is probably why people don't go on and on about their love for Arcanum). Being able to use miniguns and plasma rifles in turn-based RPG combat is pretty neat, though, and the way you can essentially talk yourself through most of the game with a high Intelligence was really interesting. I wouldn't recommend them over, say, Baldur's Gate 2.

Keep in mind that I'm the guy who didn't like Zelda or Metroid Prime or Splinter Cell, so I hardly have my fingers on the pulse of the gaming mandarins. 10 bucks for both of them is a pretty good deal.


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This comment was edited on Jun 18, 20:54.

I'm sorry, but he's just not.

http://www.fair.org/extra/0205/oh_really.html

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Gameplay-wise, this is going to be a huge step backwards. There's actually going to be less stuff to do.

It must be nice, having already played the game and knowing its contents, even though it was just announced today.

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CD issues are fun. I remember back when Tropico came out, I had to take my old Dell system and run an IDE cable from its CD drive (which was unremovable) to my new computer just to play it, because it refused to play on my new comp. Fun, fun stuff. I love you, safedisc!

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This thing always used to be in the top ten best sellers, month in, month out. I wonder how much money MS has made on this series. Maybe they should make it into an MMOG.

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So, basically, the patch makes servers randomly hang without letting people play? And I thought that "Error: Disconnected" flashy thing when the Enemy Territory countdown got to zero was annoying.

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Jeez, the most popular online game OF ALL TIME Half Life has 100,000 average players, with the rest of them less than 10,000.

As of Jan. 03, Everquest had over 450,000 active subscribers. So Galaxies would have to be the most popular MMORPG of all time to reach their target, but that's not impossible, given the number of people who will buy any shovelware with Star Wars on the box, let alone a box with pretty pictures on it.

And, for the record, the most popular online game OF ALL TIME (excluding shit like Yahoo! Hearts) is Lineage. 4,000,000 accounts (that's not a typo) in South Korea, a country with 46,000,000 million people in it. And almost half of them play at home in the traditional subscription format; most of the rest play at gaming cafes.

Edit: My numbers are from here:

http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html

Another edit: I think it's worth comparing this to Final Fantasy XI, another game based on a well-known property. Despite the fact that the game requires you to buy a modem and a hard drive, at a cost of at least 150 dollars, plus a monthly subscription, the game has over 200,000 subscribers. We'll see if gamers are still in love with Star Wars, I guess; after the past few years of crappy games (except Outcast) and a couple of shitty movies, I'm not sure people are all that interested. At least it's set in the original trilogy.

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This comment was edited on Jun 17, 18:32.