🚀 go-pugleaf

Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>Other then Breath of Death VII which I just posted about which was
>good, but more of a light snack, I'm having a hard time remembering
>any games in recent history I've played that I really enjoyed.  Money
>is an issue, and anything I can buy on steam is a plus.
>
>My recent history...
>
>Cthulhu Saves the World - not sure yet, quit because too similar to
>BODVII am not quite ready for that again.

The title made it sound interesting, then I saw some screenshots, JRPG
style combat YEECH!

>BoDVII good, not great, but short.
>
>Evil Genius - meh.  2nd attempt to play, didn't get very far I think,
>1st time I didn't make it past the tutorial.
>
>The Witcher - meh.  2nd attempt, did finish it this time now that
>saves/transitions are down to about 10-30 seconds instead of 2-5
>minutes of last time.  Just didn't feel it, combat too boring or
>something.
>
>Magicka - actually pretty good (I see it's currently $2.49 on steam)
>more of an action/adventure game.
>
>GTA IV - meh. just lost what I'd liked about the previous ones
>somehow, or perhaps I've played too many before.

Or they just fucked it up.

>Star Wars: The Old Republic - Not bad, has elements that remind me in
>a good way of KotR but I found trying to play an MMO extremely
>frustrating since I may have to leave the game at any moment.  Not
>awesome though either.  I suppose I can go back and be super adamant
>to only solo, but seems a huge money dump if I'm playing just solo.  I
>know I can play for free, but my experience of one day doing that was
>enough to dissuade me.
>
>Planetside 2 - only played this because of a friend, played for 2
>hours, I think, but am not sure I only managed to kill one friendly
>and no enemies.  this one gets a wtf?! hell no.
>
>Borderlands 2 - o.k. Just not as good as BL1.  Of course I didn't
>really get into BL1 until I finally discovered Lillith then got all
>the DLCs.
>
>Diablo III - not bad, just don't like the whole MMOish market thing -
>seemed like I spent almost as much time there as playing, and the fact
>you are best off in a pair, or perhaps alone, 4 person parties suck.
>
>World of Tanks - actually the best thing I can remember in some time,
>but it's an MMO, and I found the early stuff more fun, and eventually
>repetitive.
>
>Rage - o.k. waaay too short for the money.
>
>Gold Box Pool of Radiance - doesn't really stand up to time, couldn't
>bring myself to finish it, and too tempting to cheat by giving all
>your characters 18s in everything.
>
>Dragon Age - good game, some very memorable moments, having some form
>of spell caster was mandatory and you had to put up with very limited
>choices for that especially early.  Still lacking something to make it
>great.  Not great enough to want to play the sequel.
>
>I'm really trying to think of the last game I played I thought was
>really awesome, and I just can't.  Probably World of Tanks or Fallout
>3, but I don't know that even they qualify.

Well if you can stomach the things that are, in my opinion anyway, half
done or badly implemented, there's always Skyrim.

There are some damn good mods out there for it for free download.

A lot of the stuff they skimped on or did in a halfassed way can be
fixed with mods - not all unfortunately.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On 5/13/2013 11:35 PM, Justisaur wrote:
> Other then Breath of Death VII which I just posted about which was
> good, but more of a light snack, I'm having a hard time remembering
> any games in recent history I've played that I really enjoyed.  Money
> is an issue, and anything I can buy on steam is a plus.
>
><<SNIP>>
>
  J-I really enjoyed Divinity II-Ego Draconis and Dragon Knight Saga, if 
for no other reason than the character development/RPG elements. I only 
saw Ego Draconis on Steam, not DKS.

Played them thru a couple of times and they were really enjoyable for me.

Diane

On May 14, 2:02 pm, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
> Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
> the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>

> Well if you can stomach the things that are, in my opinion anyway, half
> done or badly implemented, there's always Skyrim.

I'm a sucker for buggy but good games.  Master of Magic was nearly
unplayable at impossible due to bugs, but still found it one of the
best games ever made.  The Fallouts were pretty buggy too.  I'm not
sure half done/badly implemented would qualify as buggy though.

>
> There are some damn good mods out there for it for free download.

That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
afterward it's become one of my favorites.

> A lot of the stuff they skimped on or did in a halfassed way can be
> fixed with mods - not all unfortunately.

I'm probably going to avoid it anyway. I haven't really cared for
Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall. Hated Morrowind, and Oblivion was
barely tolerable.   Unless they've significantly changed the combat?

- Justisaur

In article <1d5aa933-b2d9-4ce1-8f6d-eb57a473b1d5
@pd6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
> 
> That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
> afterward it's become one of my favorites.

Can you suggest some mods, and/or a good site for same? 

I started FO3, then went on holiday, I haven't touched it in 7 weeks and 
I am practically at the point where I might as well start it from 
scratch. My biggest bugbear with it so far has been crashes and lockups.

> > A lot of the stuff they skimped on or did in a halfassed way can be
> > fixed with mods - not all unfortunately.
> 
> I'm probably going to avoid it anyway. I haven't really cared for
> Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall. Hated Morrowind, and Oblivion was
> barely tolerable.   Unless they've significantly changed the combat?
 
I have memories of spending hours, days, weeks and months with Arena, 
the first offering (and hating the bugs and crashes) I have tried two 
others in the series, and, ironically, they mostly failed to grip me.
I played Skyrim for little over a week before I felt totally jaded. 
Don't know why, but Bethesda's game design just doesn't seem to grip me 
these days -- one reason why I resisted buing FO3 for such a long time: 
I was sure they'd make a hash of it. My take so far is: yes and no. It 
seems more focussed that Skyrim somehow. 

-P.
 

Peter Huebner <no.one@this.address> writes:

> In article <1d5aa933-b2d9-4ce1-8f6d-eb57a473b1d5
> @pd6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
>> 
>> That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
>> afterward it's become one of my favorites.
>
> Can you suggest some mods, and/or a good site for same? 

I'm curious too. Back when I played FO3 I looked for mods but in the end
all I used was a text size mod to change the huge consolitis text to
something more suited to a computer monitor. Even that was kind of
half-assed, I often felt the text should've been just a little smaller
still to avoid some completely pointless scrollbars.

  

Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On May 14, 2:02�pm, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
>> Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
>> the porn spammer to utter �"The Augury is good, the signs say:
>>
>
>> Well if you can stomach the things that are, in my opinion anyway, half
>> done or badly implemented, there's always Skyrim.
>
>I'm a sucker for buggy but good games.  Master of Magic was nearly
>unplayable at impossible due to bugs, but still found it one of the
>best games ever made. 

I loved that game.  One of the best strategy games ever.

> The Fallouts were pretty buggy too.  

I gave up on the first couple, especially FO2 which seemed to crash
every other step.

>I'm not
>sure half done/badly implemented would qualify as buggy though.

Oh Skyrim has bugs as well as bad implementations.

>> There are some damn good mods out there for it for free download.
>
>That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
>afterward it's become one of my favorites.
>
>> A lot of the stuff they skimped on or did in a halfassed way can be
>> fixed with mods - not all unfortunately.
>
>I'm probably going to avoid it anyway. I haven't really cared for
>Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall. Hated Morrowind, and Oblivion was
>barely tolerable.   Unless they've significantly changed the combat?

I still think Daggerfall was the high point - they did so much and gave
you so much freedom to just _live_ in the world and be whatever you
wanted to be.

Skyrim's downsides:
Magic system is gelded, there's no spell crafter at all and not that
many spells - and the trainers who sell the spells won't even let you
know they exist until you hit the recommended skill level and the top
level destruction spells are utter garbage.

Item enchanting:  You can't pay to have it done, you have to do it, with
an entirely new system - the spells you know have nothing to do with
enchanting.  To make an item of waterbreathing you first have to find
one and destroy it at the enchantment table to learn how it was
enchanted. and spell effects can only go on certain pieces - IE no boots
of waterbreathing only amulets and head item.

Quests/Storylines that pretty much ignore what you are and what your
skills are - it's a real one-size-fits-all straightjacket. (You are a
mortal warrior with no stealth, no matter what you actually are.)

No conditional checks for a lot of things and conditional checks in the
wrong place for others - IE fast travel.
You bring up the map and click on a destination and get a popup box
asking do you want to travel there, options yes, no, set a marker at
that location.
Except if you are in a condition where you can't fast travel (enemy near
or over encumbered) you don't get the popup, just a notice that you
can't fast travel and why.

But why exactly can't you set a marker at a map location when you're
overloaded?  Because they put the "can't fast travel" check before the
popup not at the point where you said yes I want to go there.
You can also get an enemies near notice if you're near the ocean and
there's a slaughterfish within range, even though it can't come on land,
and the ocean is in the opposite direction of where you want to go
(that's a missing sanity check on the enemies near check.)

There are various bugs and glitches - some of which are fixed by the
unofficial community patch some of which are intermittent but can be
worked around via google and console commands (IE main quest line last
night - going to Alduin's wall with these 2 blades people - except only
one of them showed up, so the mission dialog stalled since the second
one was scripted to say something after the first one said his piece and
he won't finish his dialog until #2 says their line and you reply.
Quick google check and a typed command to spawn person #2 and the
mission was back on the rails.)
I'd feel sorry for the console users who can't fix things this way, but
they chose to play on console.  It's like feeling sorry for someone who
_chooses_ to drive a Yugo.

Like the cartoon I saw as someone's sig on some web forum when I was
hunting for a particular mod.
http://media.photobucket.com/user/Genzou_Fotos/media/PC_Gaming_Master_Race.jpg.html?filters[term]=dirty%20console%20gaming&filters[primary]=images


Skyrim is a very pretty world, albeit a small one (tiny compared to
Daggerfall) and the magic and enchanting systems can be fixed with mods
as can some of the other annoyances like always gasping for breath when
you surface even when you were only under water for a millisecond or
don't breath or have an item of waterbreathing etc.


It's like Bethesda don't care as much anymore since as of Morrowind the
community stepped up and provided so much extra content and patched bugs
and glitches and such so Bethsoft is just providing the basics and not
even trying to make a _world_ anymore just a basic game/modding
platform.

There's so many mods now though you can almost roll your own.
Hell there's even a Zombie Apocalypse mod (as if there weren't enough
zombie games.)

I would really love a modern engine version of Daggerfall as long as it
was the whole damn game not a stripped down version.
Oh the modding possibilities in a world that size.

Arena and Daggerfall were PC games.
Morrowind was a PC game available on consoles.
Oblivion was a game designed for both.
Skyrim feels sometimes like a game designed for console that also
happens to be available for PC (the inverse of Morrowind.)

You could do worse, and unlike most games it _is_ moddable and there are
literally thousands of mods - a lot of which are available directly
through steam - so you can "fix" a lot of things that might bug you.  

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

Peter Huebner <no.one@this.address> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>In article <1d5aa933-b2d9-4ce1-8f6d-eb57a473b1d5
>@pd6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
>> 
>> That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
>> afterward it's become one of my favorites.
>
>Can you suggest some mods, and/or a good site for same? 
>
>I started FO3, then went on holiday, I haven't touched it in 7 weeks and 
>I am practically at the point where I might as well start it from 
>scratch. My biggest bugbear with it so far has been crashes and lockups.
>
>> > A lot of the stuff they skimped on or did in a halfassed way can be
>> > fixed with mods - not all unfortunately.
>> 
>> I'm probably going to avoid it anyway. I haven't really cared for
>> Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall. Hated Morrowind, and Oblivion was
>> barely tolerable.   Unless they've significantly changed the combat?
> 
>I have memories of spending hours, days, weeks and months with Arena, 
>the first offering (and hating the bugs and crashes) I have tried two 
>others in the series, and, ironically, they mostly failed to grip me.

Which two?  (remembering that there are also a couple of side games that
aren't really part of the Elder scrolls series (Redguard and
Battlespire,) neither of which I played.)

Daggerfall was huge and varied, but with bland randomly generated
landscapes, Morrowind was very static (shopkeepers never moved or went
home, had too many damn cliff racers and the dust storms were seriously
annoying.)
Oblivion started the indoor/outdoor thing with cities - you didn't walk
into a city, you clicked on the gate and thus entered a new area and
Skyrim follows that trend (although there are mods for both to make them
contiguous outdoor areas instead.)

>I played Skyrim for little over a week before I felt totally jaded. 
>Don't know why, but Bethesda's game design just doesn't seem to grip me 
>these days -- one reason why I resisted buing FO3 for such a long time: 
>I was sure they'd make a hash of it. My take so far is: yes and no. It 
>seems more focussed that Skyrim somehow. 

I have the feeling that Bethesda has a dedicated Elder Scrolls team and
the group who made the Fallout3 duo are a different group who are not
yet jaded.
Or maybe it was just working on something that was so different from the
Elder Scrolls that revitalized them before they slumped again with
Skyrim.

If you played Skyrim when it was first released you might want to check
out the mod sites to see what they have that could perhaps "fix" the
things you didn't like about Skyrim.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On 16/05/2013 1:48 a.m., Zaghadka wrote:
 > I'm working on Doublefine's "Stacking" right now. It's sort of an
 > adventrue game "light." Cheap to buy (in fact, it's in the Humble
 > Bundle right now with a name-your-price www.humblebundle.com). Easy
 > to put down at a moment's notice. Novel game play based in the early
 > 20th C, save children from child labor slavery, with a tiny little
 > stacking doll that can stack into bigger dolls.

Ooh! Thanks for the tip. I've wanted to try out Stacking for a while, 
and getting two other games at the least does not hurt either. :)

Afraid I have nothing to recommend to Justisaur; I'm still working on 
BG2 (stalled at Watchers Keep) and NWN1 original campaign (actually 
finding it not too bad, or at least my expectations were low after all 
these years of people trashing it, but I like it well enough. Guess it 
appeals to my OCD streak ;D )

-- 
};> Matt v3.3 <:{

On May 14, 5:24 pm, Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> wrote:
> In article <1d5aa933-b2d9-4ce1-8f6d-eb57a473b1d5
> @pd6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
>
>
>
> > That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
> > afterward it's become one of my favorites.
>
> Can you suggest some mods, and/or a good site for same?

It's been awhile, but I'd say an xp mod is an absolute requirement.
Hard mode is easier than easy due to xp scaling, it's also
disappointing playing anything other than easy mode without mods due
to hitting max level too quick.

This was the best site last time I played:

http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/

Ripped from my thread on completion about the mods to get, of course
this is 4.5 years ago, so it's likely other even better mods are
available:

------
I've found a few of mods indispensable (you should be able to search
and find them easily from the titles I've given)

#1 - XP Reward Hotfix.  Set xp to same as very easy (in case you
weren't paying attention to other posts fallout 3 designers decided
to
reverse the way XP works in most RPGs, by giving you more the harder
the setting of the game), so leveling takes longer (well unless you
are playing on very easy to begin with).  Leveling is way too fast
even just exploring the learnable areas as mentioned above.  It seems
about right to me with this mod.

#2 - Mod to increase level cap.  (actually just using the console
command "player.setlevel 19" to reset level to 19 when I reach 20,
but
comes out the same, I'd rather use a mod so I know what level I'm
actually at which I'll do for my next game).  Combined with the one
above, you shouldn't really need it unless you are hell bent on
exploring every little cranny, but once you reach the cap it's a real
downer.

#3 - MTUI for Fallout 3.  Improves the interface on the PC.  More
dialog on screen, more inventory, etc, basically un-consolizes text a
bit.

#4 - Respawn Timer.  The default respawn timer is only 3 days, so if
you leave the Super Duper Mart alone for that long all those raiders
have respawned (while none of the boxes have), making all your
efforts
of cleansing the wasteland for naught.  Even with the minimum
experience mod, there's probably enough monsters around that if they
all stayed dead forever you could get to level 40 (probably more like
100 without).  There's absolutely no reason for anything to respawn
ever, and it kills the wasteland feeling.  I'm pretty sure this
doesn't affect wandering monsters outside or random encounters, as
I've been jumped repeatedly by Talon at the same spot, but it seems
less than before, I'd like to know for sure.

#5 - Fallout 3 Item Descriptions.  Gives the item descriptions in
inventory.  Only use it if you have high textures on though, I was
using it at medium and the descriptions were all fuzzy.  Not really
necessary, but adds something to the game.

----

I'll also rip from that thread the important (i.e. cool/fun) places to
visit you might miss if you just do the main quest - which I strongly
recommend against, it feels like a bad fps if you do that.

----

Big Town (can learn of from little lamplight quest, or stumble across
easily)
Girdershade (can learn of from traveling merchant random encounter)
Oasis (can learn of from wastelander encounter or radio)
Republic of Dave (can learn from Underworld quest, learn of
Underworld
various places)
Canterbury Commons (can learn of from caravan)

I haven't got any of the DLCs, I'll have to look and see how the
prices are on those currently, I might replay with those.

Although I finished FO3-NV, I never did explore everywhere.  I was
really disappointed with the feel of NV, Seemed like no humor (or
maybe I just didn't get it), felt more like a bad MMO.  Probably just
need a ton of mods too...

- Justisaur

On May 15, 6:13 am, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
> Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
> the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>
> >On May 14, 2:02 pm, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
> >> Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
> >> the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>
> > The Fallouts were pretty buggy too.

> I gave up on the first couple, especially FO2 which seemed to crash
> every other step.

I don't remember it being that buggy the last time I played, I think
some of the later (possibly fan) patches fixed it up pretty good.

>
> >I'm not
> >sure half done/badly implemented would qualify as buggy though.
>
> Oh Skyrim has bugs as well as bad implementations.

That's not a bonus :)

> Skyrim's downsides:
> Magic system is gelded, there's no spell crafter at all and not that
> many spells - and the trainers who sell the spells won't even let you
> know they exist until you hit the recommended skill level and the top
> level destruction spells are utter garbage.

Blech.  I already thought magic was gimpy in Oblivion.

> Item enchanting:  You can't pay to have it done, you have to do it, with
> an entirely new system - the spells you know have nothing to do with
> enchanting.  To make an item of waterbreathing you first have to find
> one and destroy it at the enchantment table to learn how it was
> enchanted. and spell effects can only go on certain pieces - IE no boots
> of waterbreathing only amulets and head item.

That's too bad, I hate crafting, feels too much like work (part of why
I didn't care so much for FO3-NV)

> Quests/Storylines that pretty much ignore what you are and what your
> skills are - it's a real one-size-fits-all straightjacket. (You are a
> mortal warrior with no stealth, no matter what you actually are.)

Ugh, that's real real bad.

> I'd feel sorry for the console users who can't fix things this way, but
> they chose to play on console.  It's like feeling sorry for someone who
> _chooses_ to drive a Yugo.

I don't understand how they can get away with that on consoles.  Of
course don't they all have hds and can update games?  I don't have one
of the last gen, so I don't really know.

> Like the cartoon I saw as someone's sig on some web forum when I was
> hunting for a particular mod.http://media.photobucket.com/user/Genzou_Fotos/media/PC_Gaming_Master...[term]=dirty%20console%20gaming&filters[primary]=images

link is broken for me.

> Skyrim is a very pretty world, albeit a small one (tiny compared to
> Daggerfall) and the magic and enchanting systems can be fixed with mods
> as can some of the other annoyances like always gasping for breath when
> you surface even when you were only under water for a millisecond or
> don't breath or have an item of waterbreathing etc.

So mods to fix, back to a maybe - although the bit about being a
fighter no matter what puts me off.

> It's like Bethesda don't care as much anymore since as of Morrowind the
> community stepped up and provided so much extra content and patched bugs
> and glitches and such so Bethsoft is just providing the basics and not
> even trying to make a _world_ anymore just a basic game/modding
> platform.
>
> There's so many mods now though you can almost roll your own.
> Hell there's even a Zombie Apocalypse mod (as if there weren't enough
> zombie games.)

Isn't it pretty much the same with Oblivion now too though?  What'd be
the point if you are just going to mod it until it's unrecognizable?

> Skyrim feels sometimes like a game designed for console that also
> happens to be available for PC (the inverse of Morrowind.)

I really don't like the consolization.  At least you can fix some of
that, infinitely better than consolized and can't fix.

- Justisaur

On Tue, 14 May 2013 07:35:54 +0400, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm having a hard time remembering
> any games in recent history I've played that I really enjoyed.  Money
> is an issue, and anything I can buy on steam is a plus

King's Bounty: Legend - normal difficulty
King's Bounty: Armored Princess - normal difficulty
King's Bounty: Crossworlds - impossible difficulty
King's Bounty: Red Sands - impossible difficulty

(Red Sands is in Russian and for Russian version only, but
to that moment you will get know the game to details, so Russian
language will not be that hard obstacle. On Steam you get 3 versions in one
  - English, German, Russian of King's Bounty. Red Sands is free and installs
over Crossworlds)

That will make you busy 2-3 months ;)

Also
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Revelations

(Though mostly arcadish those games are better RPG than most "true" RPG.)


-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

On May 15, 9:17 am, "Matt v3.3" <ethers.tra...@paradise.net.invalid>
wrote:
> On 16/05/2013 1:48 a.m., Zaghadka wrote:
>  > I'm working on Doublefine's "Stacking" right now. It's sort of an
>  > adventrue game "light." Cheap to buy (in fact, it's in the Humble
>  > Bundle right now with a name-your-pricewww.humblebundle.com). Easy
>  > to put down at a moment's notice. Novel game play based in the early
>  > 20th C, save children from child labor slavery, with a tiny little
>  > stacking doll that can stack into bigger dolls.

Weird.   I've got psychonauts on the PS2, an enjoyable game, but I
didn't think it was anywhere near as good as the hype.

On the indy scene I've been doing some more research and

Retro City Rampage

is really looking appealing to me.  I love mini-games, and it looks
quite awesome.  I'm worried at the 8 bit graphics though BoDVII didn't
bother me.  I'm also a bit worried because I tried GTA (the orginal) a
year or so ago and didn't really like it which might be similar.

Of course there's always Legend of Grimrock, but what I've read of it
doesn't sound terribly appealing to me.

> Ooh! Thanks for the tip. I've wanted to try out Stacking for a while,
> and getting two other games at the least does not hurt either. :)
>
> Afraid I have nothing to recommend to Justisaur; I'm still working on
> BG2 (stalled at Watchers Keep) and NWN1 original campaign (actually
> finding it not too bad, or at least my expectations were low after all
> these years of people trashing it, but I like it well enough. Guess it
> appeals to my OCD streak ;D )
>

I never did finish BG1, of course I was pissed off at the change from
turned based to 'real time with pause' and found travel so annoying I
eventually hacked boots of speed for all my party, and it still wasn't
enough.  I hear there's some good mods to modernize it a bit though.
I know BG2 is supposed to be better than BG1, but couldn't bring
myself to play it never having finished 1.  Sure I loved the party
member banter "Stop Touching Me!" and "Go for the Eyes, Boo!"

NWN wasn't that bad, though I found their implementation of magic
annoying and poor (being a huge PnP D&D player), I recently
reinstalled it, but couldn't find the dungeon I created anywhere on
backups so I was pretty bummed about that.  The original campaign is
the worst of NWN though, any of the additional campaigns are better,
as well there's some good fan made ones, though I only remember one
about mutant chickens.

Also thinking about revisiting some older games, FO2, Bloodlines
(especially as I haven't seen any updates from Werner in a long time),
or some games I missed a long time ago - I never did play any of the
Wizardry franchise.

- Justisaur

Wot no SKYRIM ??? You seemed to have missed the whole of Bathsheba's RPG 
catalogue ??

Also.
Kingdoms of Amalur : 3rd person Action RPG
Gothic's 2 & 3
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Bioshock 2 (cheap) or new Bioshock Infinite.

There's the 3 Mass Effect games ?
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  mouse (Totally Squeak !)

You mention NWN 1st & Dragon Age ...have you Neverwinter Nights II ?
IMO its better than Dragon Age 
@@@mouse@@@

Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On May 15, 6:13�am, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
>> Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
>> the porn spammer to utter �"The Augury is good, the signs say:
>>
>> >On May 14, 2:02 pm, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net> wrote:
>> >> Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
>> >> the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>>
>> > The Fallouts were pretty buggy too.
>
>> I gave up on the first couple, especially FO2 which seemed to crash
>> every other step.
>
>I don't remember it being that buggy the last time I played, I think
>some of the later (possibly fan) patches fixed it up pretty good.

Well that was a slight exaggeration, but only slight - don't think I had
any fan patches though only officials.

>>
>> >I'm not
>> >sure half done/badly implemented would qualify as buggy though.
>>
>> Oh Skyrim has bugs as well as bad implementations.
>
>That's not a bonus :)

Indeed, but everything has bugs, some more amusing than others and at
least since Skyrim has a console, you can look up a glitched quest and
force forward it.

>> Skyrim's downsides:
>> Magic system is gelded, there's no spell crafter at all and not that
>> many spells - and the trainers who sell the spells won't even let you
>> know they exist until you hit the recommended skill level and the top
>> level destruction spells are utter garbage.
>
>Blech.  I already thought magic was gimpy in Oblivion.

Yeah it's highly underwhelming in Skyrim, but there are so many mods
that give spells or entire magic systems now that it's not a big deal
really.  At release it would really have sucked.

>> Item enchanting: �You can't pay to have it done, you have to do it, with
>> an entirely new system - the spells you know have nothing to do with
>> enchanting. �To make an item of waterbreathing you first have to find
>> one and destroy it at the enchantment table to learn how it was
>> enchanted. and spell effects can only go on certain pieces - IE no boots
>> of waterbreathing only amulets and head item.
>
>That's too bad, I hate crafting, feels too much like work (part of why
>I didn't care so much for FO3-NV)

I've actually done a shitload of crafting working up smithing and
enchanting, not usually all at once but a bit here and a bit there
between dungeon runs and quests.   Find a few iron ingot, craft a few
iron daggers and sell them.

>> Quests/Storylines that pretty much ignore what you are and what your
>> skills are - it's a real one-size-fits-all straightjacket. (You are a
>> mortal warrior with no stealth, no matter what you actually are.)
>
>Ugh, that's real real bad.

Yeah it's scripted like a movie is - you really are bolted into a part.

>> I'd feel sorry for the console users who can't fix things this way, but
>> they chose to play on console. �It's like feeling sorry for someone who
>> _chooses_ to drive a Yugo.
>
>I don't understand how they can get away with that on consoles.  Of
>course don't they all have hds and can update games?  I don't have one
>of the last gen, so I don't really know.

I guess either console player put up with it as the price they pay for
being consolers or they're very understanding and/or so stoned they
don't care (I still have the mental picture of console players being
lazy stoners sitting on their couch playing.)

>> Like the cartoon I saw as someone's sig on some web forum when I was
>> hunting for a particular mod.http://media.photobucket.com/user/Genzou_Fotos/media/PC_Gaming_Master...[term]=dirty%20console%20gaming&filters[primary]=images
>
>link is broken for me.

Odd, I just went there and it worked fine.
I'll split the link (you'll have to paste it together again to use.)
http://media.photobucket.com/user/Genzou_Fotos/media/PC_Gaming_Master_Race.jpg.html

Actually it loaded for me with just the first part so I'll leave off the
rest.

>> Skyrim is a very pretty world, albeit a small one (tiny compared to
>> Daggerfall) and the magic and enchanting systems can be fixed with mods
>> as can some of the other annoyances like always gasping for breath when
>> you surface even when you were only under water for a millisecond or
>> don't breath or have an item of waterbreathing etc.
>
>So mods to fix, back to a maybe - although the bit about being a
>fighter no matter what puts me off.

Well that's a virtual thing as in there's scripted events that treat you
as though you have no stealth.
IE I got shot by someone even though I was sneaking, had a 100 stealth,
was muffled and invisible, because they scripted me getting shot.
I got poisoned by that shot, even though I was a vampire and thus immune
to poison.

Just as the guard will "detect" me and start their arrest routine, only
to cry "where are you" as soon as I decline to surrender, because they
can't detect me in the game.
The script can detect me, the actual guards can't - but of course since
a warrior type would always be detectible ...

That what I mean about the scripting - it's as though they assume you
WILL be a warrior and there's no need to consider anything else, they
just ignore anything that would interfere with the script.

>> It's like Bethesda don't care as much anymore since as of Morrowind the
>> community stepped up and provided so much extra content and patched bugs
>> and glitches and such so Bethsoft is just providing the basics and not
>> even trying to make a _world_ anymore just a basic game/modding
>> platform.
>>
>> There's so many mods now though you can almost roll your own.
>> Hell there's even a Zombie Apocalypse mod (as if there weren't enough
>> zombie games.)
>
>Isn't it pretty much the same with Oblivion now too though?  What'd be
>the point if you are just going to mod it until it's unrecognizable?

I think it's an ongoing thing.
First you add a few mods - new weapons, spells, armors, maybe a body
mod.
Then you maybe add a custom player house to store your stuff in.
Then it's quests and new dungeons.
Then finally zombie apocalypse type stuff, juts to keep on going with
that character instead of starting a new one.

>> Skyrim feels sometimes like a game designed for console that also
>> happens to be available for PC (the inverse of Morrowind.)
>
>I really don't like the consolization.  At least you can fix some of
>that, infinitely better than consolized and can't fix.

Yeah, the modability of the game is almost insane - you can change it so
much it's incredible.

I'd feel sorry for the console guys who get no mods, but, nah, they made
their choice.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On May 15, 4:44 pm, "Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-s...@never.spam> wrote:
> You mention NWN 1st & Dragon Age ...have you Neverwinter Nights II ?
> IMO its better than Dragon Age
> @@@mouse@@@

Yeah, I played NWN II, It was at release though, whereas I waited a
bit for Dragon Age.  I liked the intro, but got quickly irritated with
it after that.  I did finish the original campaign (again I had to
switch to a fighter type as magic was screwed up beyond use), but
never tried anything mods or DLCs.  I couldn't get the designer
program to even run, which I found highly disappointing, as I probably
has as much or more fun designing & playing my own in NWN.

I'd say Dragon Age was miles better than NWN II though.  Spellcasting
worked (although a bit too necessary) and there were some memorable
moments - mainly I remember where goblins came from (YUCK!).

I don't remember a damn thing about NWN II other than the starting
village and how badly spellcasting was implemented.

- Justisaur

On May 15, 4:33 pm, "Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-s...@never.spam> wrote:
> Wot no SKYRIM ??? You seemed to have missed the whole of Bathsheba's RPG
> catalogue ??

Didn't care much for Oblivion and hated Morrowind, so I'm putting that
way down the list

> Also.
> Kingdoms of Amalur : 3rd person Action RPG

That looks interesting.

> Gothic's 2 & 3

Never did try those.  Gothic was alright but felt a little too much
like an offline MMO, which I understand is similar to 2 and 3, but I
might get around to those some day.

> Deus Ex: Human Revolution
> Bioshock 2 (cheap) or new Bioshock Infinite.

Never played the originals and I hate jumping in at sequels, but it
does give me something to look for - I'll have to see if I can find
the originals.

> There's the 3 Mass Effect games ?

Loved 1, 2 was o.k. 3 was garbage, never played after that as it just
went deeper in the crapper from what I've read

- Justisaur

"Matt v3.3" <ethers.tragic@paradise.net.invalid> looked up from reading
the entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the
signs say:

>On 16/05/2013 1:48 a.m., Zaghadka wrote:
> > I'm working on Doublefine's "Stacking" right now. It's sort of an
> > adventrue game "light." Cheap to buy (in fact, it's in the Humble
> > Bundle right now with a name-your-price www.humblebundle.com). Easy
> > to put down at a moment's notice. Novel game play based in the early
> > 20th C, save children from child labor slavery, with a tiny little
> > stacking doll that can stack into bigger dolls.
>
>Ooh! Thanks for the tip. I've wanted to try out Stacking for a while, 
>and getting two other games at the least does not hurt either. :)
>
>Afraid I have nothing to recommend to Justisaur; I'm still working on 
>BG2 (stalled at Watchers Keep) and NWN1 original campaign (actually 
>finding it not too bad, or at least my expectations were low after all 
>these years of people trashing it, but I like it well enough. Guess it 
>appeals to my OCD streak ;D )

It's not exactly bad, but it's not great. (NWN)
The 2 expansions were much better (although technically the first one
wasn't made to be played after the original campaign but with a new
character.)

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On 16/05/2013 12:00 p.m., Justisaur wrote:
>> Also.
>> Kingdoms of Amalur : 3rd person Action RPG
>
> That looks interesting.

There is also Dark Souls that I've only ever heard people rave about how 
difficult (in a good way) and rewarding it is - might be worth a look. 
Although I hear you really need an Xbox-type controller to get the most 
out of it, as the PC port mouse /keyboard controls are bad. (That does 
not sound encouraging, but the game itself does get mostly great reviews)

>> Deus Ex: Human Revolution
>> Bioshock 2 (cheap) or new Bioshock Infinite.
>
> Never played the originals and I hate jumping in at sequels, but it
> does give me something to look for - I'll have to see if I can find
> the originals.

The original Deus Ex is looking better than ever these days with the New 
Vision mod. I need to find time to get into a replay of this! -

http://www.moddb.com/mods/new-vision

You can of course get the game on GOG, or Steam if you prefer, and you 
probably should, if you like the setting of dark futuristic conspiracy. 
One of the defining games of RPG/FPS crossovers. I'm also reminded of 
System Shock 2, which was recently released on GOG. (Both games have 
this eerie, lurking sentient AI which freaked me out at the time :-D )

-- 
};> Matt v3.3 <:{

>>>>"The original Deus Ex is looking better than ever these days with the 
>>>>New
Vision mod. I need to find time to get into a replay of this! -"<<<<
http://www.moddb.com/mods/new-vision

Thanks Matt for that info. I have this upgrade Mod from years ago.
Did not know it was still in development.
This new version is much improved.
Thanks @@@
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  mouse (Most Pleasing) 

In article <1d5e250f-0c59-4b71-a216-49ff65224fd6
@ve4g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
> That's too bad, I hate crafting, feels too much like work (part of why
> I didn't care so much for FO3-NV)
> 

I love crafting - but: it has to be based on a system that allows you to 
acquire skills by allocation, and buffing, and skill boosting equipment 
rather than repetitively wearing out your keyboard. I remember playing 
the LOTRO beta and watching folk planting, pulling, chucking, planting, 
pulling, chucking ... or similarly making arrows or whatever for hours 
on end, to raise the skills.  THAT SUCKS. 

You level, you get skill points,  you chose to put them in to crafting, 
dodging, shooting or whatever: now that makes sense to me. I loved 
having a crafter as main toon in Anarchy Online. Not only can you make a 
bit of pocket money that way, you can also be a great help to your 
team/org mates in a MMORPG.

Once again, crafting and enchanting in Skyrim does not take my fancy at 
all: back to the mindless repetitive crap thing. Just makes me want to 
"craft" by hacking the (save)-game or toon.
I really, really, really can't be arsed to turn 10,000 chunks of ore 
(after lugging them across half the map) into potmetal bars in order to 
turn those into steel bars in order to make a mediocre sword. Ye gods.
That's not having any kind of fun in my book. You find better stuff in 
the very easy dungeons as random loot. What were they THINKING?

-P. 

In article <e5e4647c-07d0-40f8-9200-e052c6ddb2b4
@j2g2000pbx.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
> 
> On May 15, 4:33ï¿œpm, "Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-s...@never.spam> wrote:
> [snip]
> > Also.
> > Kingdoms of Amalur : 3rd person Action RPG
> 
> That looks interesting.
> 
[snip]

It's more than interesting. It's an unexpected little gem actually.

3 basic classes: fighter, thief, mage. I wouldn't try mixed classes, at 
least not in the early game. I've tried all 3 classes to mid-game, and 
they're all viable: I found the thief the hardest to handle, initially.

If you want to give this a go: find the cheat page with the skill 
trainers' locations, unless you want to make life harder for yourself.
Each trainer will only train a certain range of skill levels, so once 
you're past that, you can no longer use that trainer, and it means you 
will be unable to max out your skill at the end of the game. 

Large world, 5 different factions who you can join and do quests for 
(they do not seem mutually exclusive and there doesn't generally seem 
much in the way of rivalry between them, but I may not have arrived at 
some fork in the road there). 

Haven't played in about 5 months, I've been busy with RL stuff ... I am 
very tempted to go back and get my skills up again at that game. Liked 
it much better than the Bethesda offerings. 

-P. 

On 16/05/2013 10:49 a.m., Justisaur wrote:
>> Afraid I have nothing to recommend to Justisaur; I'm still working
>> on BG2 (stalled at Watchers Keep) and NWN1 original campaign
>> (actually finding it not too bad, or at least my expectations were
>> low after all these years of people trashing it, but I like it well
>> enough. Guess it appeals to my OCD streak ;D )
>
> I never did finish BG1, of course I was pissed off at the change
> from turned based to 'real time with pause' and found travel so
> annoying I eventually hacked boots of speed for all my party, and it
> still wasn't enough. I hear there's some good mods to modernize it a
> bit though.

Well, the default walking speed in BG2 was made a little bit faster than 
BG1 (although not boots of speed level ;-P ), so I guess you were not 
the only one annoyed. And yes, if you play with either mod of BG Easy 
Tutu or BG Trilogy, you get all the other benefits of BG2 like better UI 
and more character classes/kits.

BG2 areas feel a bit tighter and more combat focused though; there is 
less wandering about exploring the aimless wilderness. Rather a bit more 
closer to IWD series, though not quite that linear.

I would probably rank BG1 as my least favorite of the five IE games, 
just because the others improved upon it so dramatically.

> I know BG2 is supposed to be better than BG1, but couldn't bring
> myself to play it never having finished 1.  Sure I loved the party
> member banter "Stop Touching Me!" and "Go for the Eyes, Boo!"
>
> NWN wasn't that bad, though I found their implementation of magic
> annoying and poor (being a huge PnP D&D player),

Fortunately I'm playing a stealthy Rogue/Assassin type and therefore not 
even bothering with the magic system, aside from casting the odd scroll. 
I do enjoy setting traps and ambushing the enemies... The only thing 
that annoys me is the damned amount of undead and other creatures that 
are *immune* to my sneak attacks - why so many(!?)

> Also thinking about revisiting some older games, FO2, Bloodlines

Speaking of not playing games out of order, I kind of feel I should play 
VTM: Redemption before I get to Bloodlines, but it does look a bit 
different style of game. (Anyone out there think it worth playing?)

-- 
};> Matt v3.3 <:{

"Matt v3.3" <ethers.tragic@paradise.net.invalid> looked up from reading
the entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the
signs say:

>On 16/05/2013 10:49 a.m., Justisaur wrote:
>>> Afraid I have nothing to recommend to Justisaur; I'm still working
>>> on BG2 (stalled at Watchers Keep) and NWN1 original campaign
>>> (actually finding it not too bad, or at least my expectations were
>>> low after all these years of people trashing it, but I like it well
>>> enough. Guess it appeals to my OCD streak ;D )
>>
>> I never did finish BG1, of course I was pissed off at the change
>> from turned based to 'real time with pause' and found travel so
>> annoying I eventually hacked boots of speed for all my party, and it
>> still wasn't enough. I hear there's some good mods to modernize it a
>> bit though.
>
>Well, the default walking speed in BG2 was made a little bit faster than 
>BG1 (although not boots of speed level ;-P ), so I guess you were not 
>the only one annoyed. And yes, if you play with either mod of BG Easy 
>Tutu or BG Trilogy, you get all the other benefits of BG2 like better UI 
>and more character classes/kits.
>
>BG2 areas feel a bit tighter and more combat focused though; there is 
>less wandering about exploring the aimless wilderness. Rather a bit more 
>closer to IWD series, though not quite that linear.
>
>I would probably rank BG1 as my least favorite of the five IE games, 
>just because the others improved upon it so dramatically.
>
>> I know BG2 is supposed to be better than BG1, but couldn't bring
>> myself to play it never having finished 1.  Sure I loved the party
>> member banter "Stop Touching Me!" and "Go for the Eyes, Boo!"
>>
>> NWN wasn't that bad, though I found their implementation of magic
>> annoying and poor (being a huge PnP D&D player),
>
>Fortunately I'm playing a stealthy Rogue/Assassin type and therefore not 
>even bothering with the magic system, aside from casting the odd scroll. 
>I do enjoy setting traps and ambushing the enemies... The only thing 
>that annoys me is the damned amount of undead and other creatures that 
>are *immune* to my sneak attacks - why so many(!?)

Because they couldn't just punish the mages - obviously they have a
fighter bias.

>> Also thinking about revisiting some older games, FO2, Bloodlines
>
>Speaking of not playing games out of order, I kind of feel I should play 
>VTM: Redemption before I get to Bloodlines, but it does look a bit 
>different style of game. (Anyone out there think it worth playing?)

I always liked it and have replayed it more times than I've replayed
Bloodlines.   It's a bit more "Epic" since it starts in the days of the
Crusades and finishes in the modern day.
It's more "on rails" though since it's telling a story and you don't get
to pick your own character - you are Christof, a Crusader and you become
Brujah.

You can replay Bloodlines immediately playing another character with
another bloodline, while Redemption is a "replay next year" kind of game
(if you liked it the first time.)

I've played Redemption multiple times over several years, Bloodlines I
played, I think 3 times, all back-to-back within a 1-2 month period.

Make sure you get Werner's patches for Bloodlines they fix and improve
the game sooooooo much.

Oh and if you do play Redemption, search each area _thoroughly_ or
you'll miss stuff you may wish you had later.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

Peter Huebner <no.one@this.address> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>In article <1d5e250f-0c59-4b71-a216-49ff65224fd6
>@ve4g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
>> That's too bad, I hate crafting, feels too much like work (part of why
>> I didn't care so much for FO3-NV)
>> 
>
>I love crafting - but: it has to be based on a system that allows you to 
>acquire skills by allocation, and buffing, and skill boosting equipment 
>rather than repetitively wearing out your keyboard. I remember playing 
>the LOTRO beta and watching folk planting, pulling, chucking, planting, 
>pulling, chucking ... or similarly making arrows or whatever for hours 
>on end, to raise the skills.  THAT SUCKS. 
>
>You level, you get skill points,  you chose to put them in to crafting, 
>dodging, shooting or whatever: now that makes sense to me. 

That's the kind of system that's never made sense to me.

Think of it in real world terms - you just rebuilt 17 engines and
leveled up on the experience gain, and then put your points into
carpentry - something you'd never actually done.
You could get to 100% master carpenter this way without ever touching a
piece of wood.
How does that make sense, vs you rebuilt engines and improved your
mechanic skill or crafted a bookcase/table/bow and improved your
carpentry skill?

Most RPGs use this system, but it's never made any sense.
I killed a dragon with my bow, and now I'm better at something that has
nothing at all to do with anything I've actually done or any skill I've
used.

You get better at the skills you use, that's the only system that
actually makes sense.

>I loved 
>having a crafter as main toon in Anarchy Online. Not only can you make a 
>bit of pocket money that way, you can also be a great help to your 
>team/org mates in a MMORPG.
>
>Once again, crafting and enchanting in Skyrim does not take my fancy at 
>all: back to the mindless repetitive crap thing. Just makes me want to 
>"craft" by hacking the (save)-game or toon.
>I really, really, really can't be arsed to turn 10,000 chunks of ore 
>(after lugging them across half the map) into potmetal bars in order to 
>turn those into steel bars in order to make a mediocre sword. Ye gods.
>That's not having any kind of fun in my book. You find better stuff in 
>the very easy dungeons as random loot. What were they THINKING?

Probably that you'd sell that mediocre sword for money.

That's kind of the point - you can mine your own ore for free, smelt it
into ingots for free, smith it into weapons or armor for free, improve
it for free and then sell the weapon or armor for cash.

There's a "trick" that allows you to work up 3 skills fairly quickly;
Smith iron into iron daggers, enchant the daggers with anything (but if
you can do banish they become very valuable), sell the daggers
individually.   Smithing, Enchanting and Speechcraft all get increased
that way.

The enchanting is the annoying part, since you have to select item,
spell, and soul gem individually every time, whereas smithing is just
cRaft Yes and you can hit RY pretty fast and easily to make large
quantities.
Selling (if you have Sky UI and set quantity to 0 which forces 1 at a
time sale) is as easy as hitting e.

If you're an archer type, there's a mod (a couple actually) that allow
you to smith arrows (of whatever grade you have the skill for,) from
ingots and firewood (another mod also requires feathers.)

Suddenly you don't care if you get your arrows back off the corpse,
since you could make as many as you want.  Doesn't take many points into
smithing to get to Elven and those arrows are pretty good.


The other thing you're not thinking of is that it IS worth getting your
smithing skill up since you can _improve_ the base stats of weapons and
armor.  How much depends on your smithing skill (which can be boosted by
potions and enchanted item.)

Got 100 smithing, can work the relevant metal type and have enchanted
items of smithing and potions to get your smithing up another 100 points
and you might double (or more) the base damage of your weapon and
seriously increase your armor's capability.


It's not exactly "fun" working these things up, but it is worth it,
since you can't pay someone else to do it for you.

Ditto enchanting to get the spell effects YOU want on your gear.

The most tedious skill to increase in the entire game - Restoration
magic, because if a spell doesn't actually DO anything you get no skill
benefit from casting it - so you have to actually heal damage or ward
damage or whatever for it to work and it goes up SOOO Slowly.
The other schools are so much easier to train up fast.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

In article <p6j9p8hnf7fpeumlv...@4ax.com>, 
Xoc...@kingston.net says...
> >You level, you get skill points,  you chose to put them in to crafting, 
> >dodging, shooting or whatever: now that makes sense to me. 
> 
> That's the kind of system that's never made sense to me.
> 


Ok, I get your implications. Look at it this way - the aonline system is 
not about the toon's skill so much as about the player's skill. It takes 
probably a year or two at least to even learn the ins and outs of the 
higher level crafting processes. The player has to make the strategic 
decisions whether to put the skill points into electrical engineering, 
mechanical engineering, chemistry, weaponsmithing and many more esoteric 
skills or into skills  pertaining to combat (implies the ability to 
gather further experience) and survival. 

You can totally screw up a toon in that game by putting too many skill 
points into crafting or other profession related skills, because you 
become so gimp that you can't advance any more. Unfortunately experience 
for crafting is so skimpy in most games that levelling that way is 
simply not feasible. So if you want to craft, you have again expand a 
player experience far into what items and buffs are available to 
circumnavigate the bottlenecks of actual toon skillpoints that you can't 
afford to spend on crafting. The focus is a different one.

So yeah, in terms of roleplaying your toon it's not good to use your 
combat gained experience to put skill points in to crafts. I take your 
point. I find it much more demanding of the player skills though (found 
I should say, I stopped playing about a year ago with 6 toons at max 
level 220/30/70).
yeah, that's a mind-popping 320 levels+perks to gain all up. 
I think the game was depopulating though. Certainly too hard for the WoW 
crowd. Too patience-demanding for most kiddies.

------

Thank you for the heads up on the Skyrim crafting ladder. I must say 
that I had not really had an insight of the benefits of high crafting 
skill in that game - you make a compelling case for it. 

Incidentally: do ore veins in that game regenerate, or do you have to, 
in the end, rely on merchants whose inventory does respawn from time to 
time? 

-P.
 

Skyrims crafting is very disappointing.
I take a predominantly Action approach to any game but have
worked hard at the Skyrim crafting  with dreams of
mighty & special weapons & stuff.
Can't be done can it !

Its like the side quests & DLC's tempting with promise of exotic Loot reward
& ending up with something no more interesting than can be had in the main 
game.

I guess its unavoidable in the games design to avoid any player
acquiring a super ability that completely unbalances the Main Quest.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  mouse 

On May 15, 9:04 pm, Zaghadka <zagh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 May 2013 16:55:45 -0700 (PDT), in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,
>
> > Justisaur wrote:
> >On May 15, 4:44 pm, "Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-s...@never.spam> wrote:
> >> You mention NWN 1st & Dragon Age ...have you Neverwinter Nights II ?
> >> IMO its better than Dragon Age
> >> @@@mouse@@@
>

> I'm enjoying Dragon Age now. I'm playing as a noble human warrior. Mostly
> I did this because of how bad spellcasting had gotten in other similar
> games. If DA:O does it right, do you think it'd be worth it to restart as
> a mage? I haven't gotten very far into the story.

Mages are very good to play.  It's not a bad idea to have a couple in
your party, and you don't have wait till halfway through the game to
do so if you are playing one, or you can discard one of the NPCs if
they don't fit with how you want to play once you do get that 2nd one.

>
> Ever played Jade Empire? That's an odd duck. It has top down shooter
> sections, and arcade-style 3rd person martial arts combat. I found it to
> be quite a bit of fun and the graphics are a step-above-KotOR gorgeous.
> Nice writing too. Typical BioWare character archetypes, though.

Nope, haven't seen that one either.

I think I've got enough suggestions now, I just need to choose
something :)

I'll probably go with the FO3 DLCs for now (or rather buy another copy
since it'd be cheaper than buying the DLCs individually, and probably
not on steam since it's harder to mod steam games), but at least I've
got things to look forward to after I'm done with that.

- Justisaur

Justisaur does your new game search include Strategy type games?
I asked in this group back at a 16 March thread 
'What Strategy Game For An Action & RPG Gamer ?' 
if you can see that you might find some ideas there.
I now have Civilization V which I'm slowly getting into.
(\__/)
(='.'=) 
(")_(")  mouse (How About The SIMS ?)

Peter Huebner <no.one@this.address> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>In article <p6j9p8hnf7fpeumlv...@4ax.com>, 
>Xoc...@kingston.net says...
>> >You level, you get skill points,  you chose to put them in to crafting, 
>> >dodging, shooting or whatever: now that makes sense to me. 
>> 
>> That's the kind of system that's never made sense to me.
>> 
>
>
>Ok, I get your implications. Look at it this way - the aonline system is 
>not about the toon's skill so much as about the player's skill. It takes 
>probably a year or two at least to even learn the ins and outs of the 
>higher level crafting processes. The player has to make the strategic 
>decisions whether to put the skill points into electrical engineering, 
>mechanical engineering, chemistry, weaponsmithing and many more esoteric 
>skills or into skills  pertaining to combat (implies the ability to 
>gather further experience) and survival. 
>
>You can totally screw up a toon in that game by putting too many skill 
>points into crafting or other profession related skills, because you 
>become so gimp that you can't advance any more. Unfortunately experience 
>for crafting is so skimpy in most games that levelling that way is 
>simply not feasible. So if you want to craft, you have again expand a 
>player experience far into what items and buffs are available to 
>circumnavigate the bottlenecks of actual toon skillpoints that you can't 
>afford to spend on crafting. The focus is a different one.

But that's entirely because the devs CHOSE to gimp crafting exp, in
Skyrim you can level up while working on your enchanting or smithing or
whatever - that's kind of the point, regardless of the type of skill you
get exp for using it successfully.

You can sit in town and level up multiple times doing non-combat things
easily.
Just remember though:
http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/75/75543.jpg

>So yeah, in terms of roleplaying your toon it's not good to use your 
>combat gained experience to put skill points in to crafts. I take your 
>point. I find it much more demanding of the player skills though (found 
>I should say, I stopped playing about a year ago with 6 toons at max 
>level 220/30/70).
>yeah, that's a mind-popping 320 levels+perks to gain all up. 
>I think the game was depopulating though. Certainly too hard for the WoW 
>crowd. Too patience-demanding for most kiddies.
>
>------
>
>Thank you for the heads up on the Skyrim crafting ladder. I must say 
>that I had not really had an insight of the benefits of high crafting 
>skill in that game - you make a compelling case for it. 
>
>Incidentally: do ore veins in that game regenerate, or do you have to, 
>in the end, rely on merchants whose inventory does respawn from time to 
>time? 

They do regenerate over time, not sure exactly how long, but if a
dungeon no longer shows as cleared, chances are the veins in it are also
back.

Or there are mods.

When I was crafting arrows I got very sick of having to click on the
stump after every 2 logs chopped so I snagged a mod that makes it a
continuous process - once to start, once to stop and does the same for
mining (also makes the veins infinite I think which may imbalance things
a bit but logically makes far more sense than the vein depleting after
you get a couple ore bits - as a slight balance though it actually takes
longer per chunk mined, but since you can afk mine ... not such a
hassle.  No experience for mining or wood chopping though so it being
afk-able isn't an exploit really.

That's kind of the beauty of the Elder Scrolls games, at least the later
ones - don't like some aspect of game behavior, chances are someone else
didn't either and made a mod to change it to exactly what you'd prefer
or close enough.  

Hell there's even mods to make the cities a contiguous part of the
landscape like in Morrowind, instead of a separate cell.

I still miss the way it was in Daggerfall - arriving at a bigger city
after dark and finding the gates closed.  Hope your climbing skill is up
to snuff or you're not making it over the wall - unless you can levitate
anyway.

I miss that, evading guards coming to arrest or kill you by scaling the
side of a building, then fleeing across the rooftops to the wall and
escaping out into the night.

If you miss utility spells like levitate, water walking, beast of burden
(boosts carry capacity temporarily), Hinur's Hoptoad (boosts jump height
for 30 seconds) I recommend the mod _Spells of the Third Age_, which
adds a vendor where these and various other spells "missing" from Skyrim
can be purchased.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On May 15, 10:04 am, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 14, 5:24 pm, Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> wrote:
>
> > In article <1d5aa933-b2d9-4ce1-8f6d-eb57a473b1d5
> > @pd6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
>
> > > That does give some hope.  Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
> > > afterward it's become one of my favorites.
>
> > Can you suggest some mods, and/or a good site for same?

Replying to myself bad, yeah, yeah, just some additional information.
I think I'm going to go for the DLCs so I'll report back after I've
got everything modded up to my satisfaction.

> #2 - Mod to increase level cap.

I wouldn't think you'd need this if you've got the DLC that increases
max level to 30.

I'd also say from looking back at my review thread I'd look for
something that fixes the Family, as that section always irked me.

Also I'd look for something that fixes karma from items lying around.
If you kill some faction off then take all the stuff lying around
there you shouldn't get more bad karma from picking up their stuff,
especially not more than you got for killing them.

The fact that weapon damage scales with skill irritates some people,
there's a mod to fix that.  I never really found it that bothersome
though.

I seem to remember some mods that greatly improved the appearance of
the game too.

- Justisaur

Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On May 15, 10:04�am, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On May 14, 5:24�pm, Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> wrote:
>>
>> > In article <1d5aa933-b2d9-4ce1-8f6d-eb57a473b1d5
>> > @pd6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, just...@gmail.com says...
>>
>> > > That does give some hope. �Couldn't stand FO3 before modding,
>> > > afterward it's become one of my favorites.
>>
>> > Can you suggest some mods, and/or a good site for same?
>
>Replying to myself bad, yeah, yeah, just some additional information.
>I think I'm going to go for the DLCs so I'll report back after I've
>got everything modded up to my satisfaction.
<snip>
>The fact that weapon damage scales with skill irritates some people,
>there's a mod to fix that.  I never really found it that bothersome
>though.

That actually makes sense, the better you are at the attack skill, the
better you are at placing your hits where they'll do more damage.
There's a huge difference between shooting someone in the chest and
shooting them in the heart.

>I seem to remember some mods that greatly improved the appearance of
>the game too.

Always - there's almost as many mods for the fallout3 games as for the
elder scrolls games (same basic engine as oblivion and Skyrim I think.)

There's even some appearance mods that have been ported between the two,
hairstyles, custom faces and such.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

"Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-spam@never.spam> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>Skyrims crafting is very disappointing.
>I take a predominantly Action approach to any game but have
>worked hard at the Skyrim crafting  with dreams of
>mighty & special weapons & stuff.
>Can't be done can it !

A little basic smithing math.

An Ebony battleaxe has a listed 33 damage (at least it does for me with
a 21 2handed skill.)
With 100 smithing skill (and the ability to work Ebony obviously) that
can be improved to 44 damage.
With 200 smithing that rises to 60.

Now enchant it for +20 Fire damage and +20 Frost damage.
Your base 33 is now 100

I've _found_ potions that give +50 skill for 30 seconds or so (which is
more than enough time) and many items giving +15 smithing skill, which
you can disenchant to learn the skill and if you use an enchant anything
mod that removed that retarded "this spell can only go on boots" and
such limitation letting you put any spell on any item.

With the default item set that's 6x15 smithing and if you use custom
armor/clothing mods that use some of the undefined slots and/or a
multiple jewelry mod, you can have lots more than 6 items worn.

My little vampiress was at one point wearing 13 clothing items (circlet,
amulet, 2 rings, dress, underwear, sleeves, armbands, stockings, boots,
leg straps a decorative dagger strapped to her leg and a cape.)

Items from multiple different custom clothing and armor sets
specifically so I would have as many as possible for enchanting purposes
(magic skill fortifications - reducing casting cost by 15% each - 7
items and the school is free.)

13x15 is +195 smithing skill if I enchanted a full set of gear just for
smithing.

And of course with higher enchanting skill perk points (the starting one
under enchanting) you get higher levels of enchantment, letting you put
even more +smithing on your smithing gear set.

>Its like the side quests & DLC's tempting with promise of exotic Loot reward
>& ending up with something no more interesting than can be had in the main 
>game.

Haven't bought the DLCs and really have no desire to at this time, but
some of the player made quests are quite extensive and some have some
pretty high level loot.
IE The Fang of Haynekhtnamet mod has you fight this exotic dragon to get
one of his teeth, which allows you to craft the item of the same name as
the mod which has high damage and does +40 shock on hit and
disintegrates any enemy below 15% health.
Also allows you to craft an unenchanted dragonbone dagger which actually
has slightly higher stats than Daedric and can have whatever you want
enchanted on it. Both can be smithed with dragonbone skill and
dragonbone.


>I guess its unavoidable in the games design to avoid any player
>acquiring a super ability that completely unbalances the Main Quest.

Nah, you can do that pretty easily by simply delaying doing the main
quest.
My wee Vamp chickie is level 67 and only just got the quest to go to the
top of the greybeard's mountain, because I have been deliberately NOT
doing the main quest, but I've run out of side quests I want to do and
done a bunch of player made quests so I'm either finishing the main
quest or starting a new character.  I've pretty much been to every
location on the map you can enter.
My map is seriously cluttered now.

Oh, check out Gersonia and Into The Deep: Atlantis available from the
steam workshop - two very large, very involved quests with custom areas
and weapons from the same author.  Expect to take 2-4 hours each - the
second one more like 4+ (one guy who took a low level char in said it
took him 4 days.)

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On Wed, 15 May 2013 18:51:39 -0500, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net>
wrote:

>Yeah, the modability of the game is almost insane - you can change it so
>much it's incredible.
>
>I'd feel sorry for the console guys who get no mods, but, nah, they made
>their choice.
>
>Xocyll

I first gave mods a try when I learned I could play Baldur's Gate with
the Baldur's Gate 2 engine. I was completely sold on them ever since.
I've used them in System Shock 2 to balance out the game better. I
used one in the first Borderlands to add fast travel locations in that
DLC where you have to drive over the highways to get anywhere.

If or when I buy Skyrim, the first thing I am going to do is go to
google and type something like 'Skyrim essential mods' or something
similar.

Whatever advantages the PC has over the consoles, modding your games
has to be at the top of the list.

(\__/)
(='.'=) 
(")_(")  We're impressed ;)
So fancy complex Super-power Crafting can be done.
But my Hero is a great Nord lump of Strength & endurance 
who can just about manage the calculation needed to swap a 
newer found Warhammer for the older one.
Warhammers in ES games seem to be the strongest basic weapons.

(\__/)
(='.'=) 
(")_(")  mouse (We Could Get Lydia To Do The Maths Maybe)

Thanks. Essentially then its about enhancing existing objects & the relevant 
abilities....
rather than creating/finding new ones with high basic inherent powers.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  (Mouse ;)

Zaghadka  <zagh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Hey, speaking of buggy Black Islish games, have you played Arcanum? If
>you liked Fallout 2, that one's pretty cool. Steampunkery.

I remember Arcanum being much less buggy than the first two Falout
games, though it's bit more incomplete.  Unique setting and interesting
RPG systems.  I seem to remember though that you need to be a careful
how you build your characters.

Other possible games to try: Torchlight, Drakensang: The Dark Eye,
Just Cause 2

I don't think Drakensang is on Steam though, and I'd wait to get Just
Cause 2 for $5 or less during a Steam sale.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Wed, 15 May 2013 18:51:39 -0500, Xocyll <Xoc...@kingston.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Yeah, the modability of the game is almost insane - you can change it so
>>much it's incredible.
>>
>>I'd feel sorry for the console guys who get no mods, but, nah, they made
>>their choice.
>>
>>Xocyll
>
>I first gave mods a try when I learned I could play Baldur's Gate with
>the Baldur's Gate 2 engine. I was completely sold on them ever since.
>I've used them in System Shock 2 to balance out the game better. I
>used one in the first Borderlands to add fast travel locations in that
>DLC where you have to drive over the highways to get anywhere.

Ahh yes, the Secret Armory of General Knoxx.

I rather liked the driving so I didn't mind the drive out, I'd often
shortcut back by simply quitting out since that put you back at town
again.

>If or when I buy Skyrim, the first thing I am going to do is go to
>google and type something like 'Skyrim essential mods' or something
>similar.

There's many lists out there - what's "essential" really depends on what
and how you want to play.

>Whatever advantages the PC has over the consoles, modding your games
>has to be at the top of the list.

Plus you're not a Dirty Console Gaming Peasant. :)

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

"Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-spam@never.spam> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>(\__/)
>(='.'=) 
>(")_(")  We're impressed ;)
>So fancy complex Super-power Crafting can be done.
>But my Hero is a great Nord lump of Strength & endurance 
>who can just about manage the calculation needed to swap a 
>newer found Warhammer for the older one.
>Warhammers in ES games seem to be the strongest basic weapons.

Well I used a battleaxe for my demonstration because that's what was for
sale at the shop and since I had other things running the game was
lagging like made precluding me from checking elsewhere, the same basic
percentages would still apply though.

Even a dagger can reach insanely lethal levels with high skill in 1
hand, enchanting and smithing and a plethora of enchanted smithing
items.

I think my listed damage on my dagger is 273 (78 1hand skill) - now X15
that for the sneak attack damage - I one-shot Draugr Deathlords.
My Nightingale bow does 375 (100 skill.)  I have several items of +bow
damage and +1hand damage though.
Naked both my dagger and bow have listed damages of 130.

I can 2shot a dragon with the bow (or at least I could before I swapped
some +bow damage for some +1hand since I mostly stab things no.)

Enchanting, smithing and alchemy (for +smithing potions) can be
seriously worth it if you want top flight gear.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr