Morgoth

Just got the new Darkthrone ... hell, yeah, The Cult is Alive! The fact that Fenriz and Nocturno Culto have actually released a digipack is not the only surprise of this new release. The press releases announcing the single (gasp!) and album were already fun to read and every song of this album is groovy, memorable and ... different (quote: "Probably sounds like Motörhead meeting Hellhammer on a Crust Punk/Necrothrash trip." - I wouldn't know a better way to characterize it ;) ). Darkthrone have consequently developed the style they already employed on Hate Them and Sardonic Wrath (and this release contains even solos!) - if you like some not-so-everyday Black Metal, you'll love this release.

And one should not forget that many of the guys behind the earlier games have left Blizzard for good and have founded other studios like ArenaNet (Guild Wars) or Flagship Studios (Hellgate London) - although I did enjoy playing Diablo I & II very much (and still do from time to time), I am not raising my expectations very high until I've seen definite proof that Blizzard can be on par with earlier releases quality-wise.

Demons & Wizards - Touched by the Crimson King Second release of the project, and not worse than the first one. The sound is still more Iced Earth-ish (surprise, what did you think when Jon Schaffer is writing the music?), but Hansi's singing is fitting in nicely. Not a great leap in comparison to the first release, but certainly worth giving it a try. (I'm still rather anticipating the new Blind Guardian release.)

You know, there's something like Rules of Conduct.

If you ask me, that's the wisest decision you could make. Not that I disliked the "gaming hub" approach, nor did I loathe GamingSource's look and content, but in my eyes it couldn't compete with large, established sites like IGN or GameSpot. Good choice to focus on the hosting aspect instead :)

And it was such a nice feeling to be among the top ten posters... ;P

Additionally, the subtitle "Shadows of Angmar" is so non-sensical in connection to the actual title "Lord of the Rings Online" that the developers should be already slapped thoroughly for that (maybe with a large trout, but preferably with something harder). The graphics are a joke, I mean, why the hell did they change looks so massively, anyway? The quality of the graphics had been the last thing that I had found slightly enjoyable about this game. Of course it's impossible to draw any conclusions on gameplay from that trailer, but if the overall game design has also "improved" as much as the graphics ... then this is not only going to be an at best mediocre adaption of Middle-earth into an online RPG, but it's bound to become a complete farce. Apart from all that, it isn't as though the studio had created Asheron's Call 1 & 2 already O.o Simply embarassing.

I like the new colour scheme, can only second that it's nice how the "new posts" button can be distinguished much more easily from the "no new posts" one. :) - And it's good to have the "fast reply" option back ^^ The yellow member names are rather Project Phoenix, I think (and thus, great parts of former MEMod, yes ;) ). Gosh, you've been on these fora so long and still think that's coincidence?

deltree c: /y might suffice as well. I'm just glad this site doesn't also provide information on audio records ^^

As far as I can remember from playing the demo, at least the skill system and NPC interaction was more complex than Diablo's.

Erm, well, I personally didn't have any problems with the controls - not more complicated than the average fun racer with steering, throttle, break and handbreak. Of course, getting your car around a corner properly required a little bit of training, but that's what made the whole thing interesting ^^ The major downsides I can remember about this game was the unbelievably difficult starting mission (the one in the parking garage) and the incredibly unfair last mission. The ironical thing was that the better your system was, the harder the game would become because you could move the traffic slider farther up which made it harder to get safely through town.

Well, I have not been playing Guild Wars again for long enough, but from what I can remember there isn't much change in the course of the play. The game puts less of a focus on the "RPG" in its name, and accordingly there are less things you can do, less freedom and more repetition. The division into the various districts also appears to me to be not an ideal solution at the moment because you have only contact to a limited amount of people who are actually in the same place as you. I suppose (although I have not been playing long enough to be certain about this) that the main point of motivation for this game will lie in PvP, which should remain very entertaining due to the nigh on perfect balancing of the various character classes and the countless possible character builds. However, this does probably require guild membership of some sort and therefore a considerable time investment (although in return you'll probably have it easier to find companions for missions).

My personal opinion on Guild Wars will not be the topic of this post (yet) - too much time since the last beta event i was able to participate in (December), I'll have to see how much has changed since back then. As far as I know, here in Germany GW is meant to be released on 28th April, I'd expect something similar for the UK. Although I haven't played EQ2, I can safely say that if you can't decide between GW and EQ2, there's no answer to it. GW is far from what other MMORPG's practice. You have a quite limited amount of classes (six), and there are no additional professions, crafting skills or whatever. The game is solely focused on doing a good job at rather action-oriented RPing (which will hopefully commence once the game has been released - BWE's I experienced were overcrowded by "SELL SWORD DMG 12 FOR 3 HIDES!!!1111"-idiots which prevented any roleplaying effectively from the very beginning) with an extra ounce of attention for PvP (sort of greatly extended and more sophisticated DII on a MMORPG basis - surprise, taking into account that ArenaNet was founded by ex-Blizzard designer :rolleyes:). EQ 2 and GW should be nowhere near being comparable.

My goodness, if that isn't impressive, I don't know what else should be. My congratulations for this achievement, and let's hope GamingSource will prosper as much within the gamers' community as MWC/MML/MWS did in Morrowind's :)

Maybe Dark0ne forgot an "s" and meant "accents" ... although, then he'd have to struggle with a grammatical inconsistency, since "accents" "are" rather, and "is" not ... perhaps he was referring to Oxford English which is commonly regarded as the typical "British English"?