Kazakovich

Well, the novel and the STALKER-games are very similar when it comes to the setting and design, so it's no wonder. It looks interesting, but I think I'll skip this. I'm content with the book, and I'm not really interested in the game. However, Dimitrij Gluchovski should have credit for allowing this, in spite of videogames being considered an inferior medium to litterature. However, the book, nice as it is, aren't really enthralling and it all feels rather familiar. So the game aren't exactly to light your world on fire, but it could be a fun experience. I'll stick to stalker, myself. However, it's good that they make a game that's not holding your hand like a paranoid lolipop-man like most FPS' today and that they focus on telling the story. Sandbox/free-roaming games are all great, but some variety out there are nice to have.

I'd make a Wild West-style online shooter, would the opportunity to make a real game fall in my lap. I'd call it 'Guns & Beans', and it'd be quite close to Counter Strike and other shooters like that. It'd be set in a desert, Wild West enviroment, and would center around making characters, much like in Battlefield Heroes and taking them to the field to have some shooty fun. It'd have a exaggerated ragdoll and physics-engine, making killed players flying backwards through windows and things like that. It'd feature customizable characters that you can equip with different weapons and clothing (weapons are unlocked as you progress in skill/level, clothings can be bought with Vanity Points) that recieve stronger abilities and weapons by killing enemies, completing objectives and winning games. No point subtraction would be featured, that's what obscure sadistic MMO's are for. :whistling: There'd be several different classes with different styles to choose from. Gunslinger. A class that reflects running & gunning, with large healthpools but limited range. Would be limited to powerful dual sixshooters and shotguns. Have a shield-ability that makes him harder to kill for a short time, along with a sprint-ability and can throw a dynamite-bundle for AoE-damage. Desperado. Long range marksman. Quite vulnerable in the open, but with powerful sniping weapons. Have a sprint-ability (sound sfx: 'Arriiiiba!!') and a camo-ability that makes them harder to see at a distant. Also, can mark a target, which makes it visible to his allies, as well as giving an accuracy-bonus. Native. Support-class. Equipped with medium range weapons (bows and the like, of course) and quite good at mêlée. Can heal himself and his allies with an AoE-ability. Can send bees in an AoE-circle around the target which cause damage and can stun for a brief moment in AoE with a warcry-ability. Detective. Deception-based. Equipped with a silent pistol and a sharp knife that recieve a large bonus when it's a backstab. Quite weak, but fast and nimble. The detective can sneak, using the same cloak as the Desperado, but can move while it's active. He can also activate an ability that allows him to jump much higher up into the air. Also, can drop a booby-trap that goes off when someone pass over it. There'd be different scenarios to play. Like, two gangs showing down to chase the other out of town (team deathmatch). Or breaking into the Sheriff's office to free a prisoner/prevent it from happening, or rob the bank, defending while explosions are being set before running off with the loot. Or just utter mayhem (deathmatch). The settings would be various little western towns, with several killable NPC's blundering about for sport. There would be plenty of things like window glass or furniture that'd be breakable and the gunshots on the wall should remain for the rest of the round. The style would be cartoony, trying to envoke the feel of an old western and a cartoon show, playing with the tropes present. The vanity clothing should be fun and worth the vanity points, but it shouldn't ever need to feel like a grind. This game would be about having fun for as long as you'd like, but made so that you can leave instantly when you need to and don't require you to grind your time away to reach the good stuff. Just a fun, actionfilled western cartoon-game, with cacti, beans, powdersmoke and everything. It'd be rather cheap and user-friendly, allowing you to host own servers and there'd be a trial-mode without some tiers, levels or any vanitypoint-system, to give a sample. Also, it shouldn't be one of the games that requires the dvd to play. Making things more inconvenient for the customers won't stop the internet piracy. Anyway, that'd be my game.

I'm planning on getting this, since I've played and liked the both previous games. It's not really the technical graphics, but rather the enviroment that makes your jaw drop. These games are really beautiful. The trees are rather poor, the stiffishly waving grass aren't very impressive... But they all go together to paint such a beautiful painting. Another thing I just love is the lighting-engine. The darkness really IS dark, and it reacts very well with your character's flashlight. I remember once when I was going to do some looting, when night fell and it began to rain quite heavily. You really didn't see a thing, and the flashlight weren't much help. So, I got afraid, thinking of lurking bloodsuckers and all, and decided to sit around the campfire, listening to the guitar instead. Fun times! Now, I also quite think that Crysis 2 will be more mediocre than the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-series, at least in my own opinion. :wink: But, they do get some points for having it take place somewhere off that fiercely contested Cry-island of theirs.

Right at the moment, it's STALKER Clear Sky. There's just too many great games being released right now, so I've more or less gone undercover until the awesome-storm is over and I can begin to pick up the games for a more reasonable prize.

It shouldn't be illegal, I've been using it earlier and I've never heard of anything suggesting its against any rules or regulations. It's a model viewer, it doesn't affect the actual game, after all. It can be rather buggy at times; you see, the original creator have left the project, so there's only volunteers keeping the project alive. Now, with every patch, Blizzard obviously changes things, and sometimes it can cause problems for the model viewer. I suggest updating the program, since it's most likely conflicting with some new content. Or, if it's been recently updated, stick around for the next update on the site. Again, it's a great tool, but very vounerable to patches and bugs, so see if it works better after an update.

Wow... I sure hopes this is all sarcasm that I'm too thick to identify. >.> Oh, really, now. It's just a game. I can safely say that almost everyone can handle it, without turning into Gollum-impersonators. Everything can be addictive to someone; that's why we have some people at the back of busses sniffing superglue. But I bet you most people will see this game for what it is: a pleasant little romp, not really worth the mountains of praise it's had but still a competent game and a nice way to meet people. Those who doesn't, however, and get addicted for real, they will need help, and that has less to do with the game itself (compared to other MMOs, WoW's grind & timesink-levels required to get anywhere's very generous) and more to do with addiction and the reason why to loose yourself like that. What WoW isn't is some kind of hideous monster spawned from the nine hells to consume innocent children's lives and pile up money for *insert peril of today, like terrorists, communists, AmWay-salesmen, Saracens, here*. Despite what the papers will tell us.

I've actually never bought one. I can see why people do, it's probably quite handy to have around the house in some cases, but I don't feel like I need it. But I probably should get one or two some time. A friend of mine bought the guides for WoW and Oblivion, and I enjoyed leafing through them, and I did learn a few things I didn't look up on the websites. So maybe I'll start picking up gameguides as well sometime in the future.

I collect books, keys and skulls, for some reason. Books because I actually really enjoy reading them ingame, keys because I don't want to face an unpickable door without the key and skulls because... I don't know, really. They look quite decorative in a bookcase, though. Too bad I usually just plonk them down in a pile on the floor, usually.

Absolutely Right. Good thing for me that the majority of the developers seems to be of a different opinion, then. :thumbsup:

But then again... Dumbing things down and making them accessible for people like me who keep their pants on their head; is that really undermining quality?

And some of us will be very glad indeed. Please, please let D3 not just be D2.5. Let it be a worthy successor to the Diablo name. I literally thought oh please god no when I read the first half of that sentence. Funny, that's how I feel about D2. I find it vaguely amusing that I feel the same way about Diablo 1 vs Diablo 2 as you guys seem to feel about Fallout 1/2 vs Fallout 3., and yet you like Diablo 2 and consider it an improvement upon the original, whereas I hate it. I like Fallout 3, and consider it more enjoyable than Fallout 1/2. Both are dumbed down from their heritage (I'll concede that about Fallout 3), yet get diametrically opposite reactions. I agree. I quite like the new look they're going with. This 'cartoony' feel is alot more easy to the eye in my opinion, and I wish more games would start experiment with that concept. Diablo is a fantasy, and thus don't really have to be drenched in earthy colours, vision shift/blur and bloom. Cartoony doesn't have to mean childish either, I'm certain Blizzard will manage to pull that gloomy feel off regardless. Really, what's so bad about the inspiration they have had from WoW? Gameplay must (or should) come first, and if they can implement ways to improve it from WoW, of which they have now huge amounts of experience, then it's just an improvement, isn't it? As long as there's no monthly fee, of course... No, I have faith in this game. It's always nice to see a series evolve, in my opinion. D3's main objective (along with making more money, of course) seems to be simple, rewarding hack-n-slash fun in gorgeous enviroments. Now, if enjoying a 'dumbed down' part of a series makes me a scrub or a casual, then that's exactly what I am. Now, let's hope they stop teasing and plasters on a releasedate...

I agree, it's weird, but... They are. Argonian and Khajiit are my two favourites, and I've been thinking a bit why. But I think I've found an answer now, and it's called the Uncanny Valley effect. You see, the closer an artificial humanoid comes to looking like a real human, the more glaring the little things that are off become. Bethesda-games do have a tendency to activate this effect for me, since most of their models look quite realistic. It makes sence, since it's the human races (Imperial, Reguard and... Briton? I forget) that puts me off. However, the beast-races don't have that problem, since they're non-human enough to avoid the effect, while still look believable (well, to me at least). So I think that's one of the reasons I prefer them. Oh, and they should be credited to be rather unique, too. Usually, originality isn't something I really take into account much; it doesn't matter if it's been done before, what matters is doing it in your own style. But in this case, they feel like a breath of fresh air in Tolkien-land. Not to mention that they're furries. +10 awesome.

Mate... Don't go to that horrid site, it's... Not worth it. Really, the amount of pointless whining and fan-hating (mental image of people in robes lynching an officefan) makes my head spin. It's like you need someone outside their site giving away cake, lemonade and loving hugs for when you stumble out there with your fath in man down the drain. They most deffinetly fits the description in the thread-name and then some. Now, enjoying Fallout 1 & 2 but not 3 doesn't make you a fanboy/jerk/other mean things, but these guys qualify. However, the chance of a new Fallout-game even meeting their contradictionary and unreasonable dempands is as good as none. Really, leave them there in a perpetual state of disappointment for something they never tried and whining about how much everything used to be better in the past. All while the developers concentrate on pleasing us casual scubs and shallow kiddies who actually buy their games. So; stay away from No Mutants Allowed, since people with any sence of civility doesn't seem to be allowed entry either. (Of course, there COULD be some nice folks in there, burried deep beneath all the small-minded, nostalgia-blinded rubbish that coats every surface like some kind of spitefull deep sea sediment.

As far as I know, you can't edit the terrain or enviroment in the map editor. It seems to work like the Operation Flashpoint-editor: you can drop down some things like props, units and vechicles, but you can't edit the terrain or something like that.

Yes, it's a really bad sign for the future. It's like splitscreen on console: why have split screen so one guy can buy one game and have 3 of his mates play with him? Wouldn't it be more economical if we had them only playing online, in which case they all need a copy of the game, a console and subscription to Xbox live? Moahahaha! My hopes is that developers with a strong footing in PC-gaming (like Bethesda and Valve) will remember the potential the modding-community have, and rather than go trying to stamp it out, they will embrace it. Or the very least start realising that gamers are not all that content with just sitting down, keeping quiet and keep the money pouring in. Giving us a construction set or not shackling us by making one of those infernal life-profiles you need to log on to and be connected (not to mention: they can ban you for some reason and thus barring you from accessing a game you've paid for; or will be able to at some point if things keeps going like this) won't be giving in to the pirates or ruining sales; the worst that could happen is that you stimulate some creativity in the community. But still... I really wish some PC-gamers could learn to actually purchase their games...

It's not the Bohemia Interactive-studio who made this game, actually. You see, the reason it's called Operation Flashpoint 2 despite it's been programmed by a different developer is because Codemasters owned the name Operation Flashpoint. The real sequel to Operation Flashpoint would be ArmA and ArmA 2. I haven't played Dragon Rising myself (once I heard Bohemia wasn't behind it, my enthusiasm just dried up; Bohemia is one of the few developers who can make realistic games that don't feel like pulling your own teeth) yet, but I'm not surprised it reminds you more of a Call of Duty-game. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, Call of Duty is awesome, but still... Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is OFP in name only. If you want the same, quite insane level of realism and difficulty we had in OFP, then the ArmA-series is where to look. But since I haven't played DR, I can't say whether it should be avoided or if it's fun, too. If Codemasters would rename it and keep developing their new kind of game down the line, we might get a very nice new niche of games, who knows? All in all, it's not Operation Flashpoint, other than in the title. It's probably still a good game in it's own way, but the 'real' OFP 2 would be the Armed Assault-series.

Khajiits. I just love them, espesially with the gorgeous custom textures available.

Huh... I actually fired up my old PS2 again today and had a look, and I was actually rather shocked. When did all those games become so... Ugly? It's like someone sneaked into my house and squashed a sardine with the CD-lid. :biggrin: Obviously, I'm just used to much better graphics as a standard, which makes things that looked great and groundbreaking back then look horrifying now. Anyway, now that I look at Fallout 3 again, after my little graphics-related heroic BSOD, it actually looks... Amazing in comparison. This arguement might be a dead horse by now, but... If this game could have been pulled off the way it is on a PS2 to you, then either you are the lucky possessor of some kind of super-PS2 crafted by the Old Ones, or there is something messing up your graphics. :wink: Of course, this is only my opinion, speaking as the person who never noticed any of the mega-graphics in Crysis. :sweat:

Well, I never really pay that much attention to the technical side of graphics; all that matters to me is the design and colouring/lightning. This might mean I'm not the right person to say anything in that matter, but... No, I think it's actually quite good. Maybe not exactly Next-Gen but far better than PS2. I've owned one for a long time, so I'm certain about this. It's not next-gen or groundbreaking, but it's not on PS2-level.

Well, Fallout 3 certainly isn't the most stable game out there, but I've never had gamebreaking bugs like that myself. It does freeze or crash on occasion, but the rate is the same as most games I have. Earlier, however, the crashes happened all the time. There weren't exactly that many bugs, but it sure crashed alot. Always out of thin air and, of course, as far away from a convenient savepoint as possible. I traced it down to the infamous mod-breaker patch, though. Once I had reinstalled the game and rolled without the stupid patch (What were they THINKING?!) it worked great again. I suppose you're just having ungodly amounts of bad luck, really. I can't imagine what could cause all those bugs. I sure hope things get better in the future for you. Now, according to an earlier poster, I'm now either a fanboy or a Bethesda-employee. But, obviously, that's complete rubbish. I am please to report that there are working editions of Fallout 3 out there after all. :thumbsup:

I can't wait, myself. Alltough it will take at least two months for them to iron out the worst bugs after release, I honestly believe it will be worth it. STALKER is one of the few FPSessesses (or whatever FPS is in plural) that have ever drawn me in so much; the atmosphere, the ambience, the story... Beneath the bugs and rather spartan surface, there's a wonderful gaming-expeirence. It's different, and absolutley beautiful. I can't wait to get back into the zone! My hope is that, since it's in the bonkin' title this time, they will make better use out of Pripyat itself. Yes, wandering the countryside and explorign the few abandoned farmsteads scattered around is great fun, but doing some urban scavenging would be great too. Not to mention, it would be a great opportunity to mix things up a bit with some more urban combat. It would make having a sniper rifle fun again. Well, from what I've seen, it looks promising. Everything that is STALKER is there, specifically that certain design and style the games have had. With some earlier games to find out whats nice and whats not, they got the potential to make this the best one yet. Or else, they might become bloodsucker-food. :cool:

Good luck with this project, it seems like a very promising idea. I'm up for anything that add diversity to that I kill. ^^ I've always wondered where the heck the females/males gone to.

19, on the 74'th. Get of me lawn!! *Throws an Ipod out the window*

I'm quite sure I'm not the only one here that just loves the humble Hunting Rifle. It's light, it shoots ammo that you can find in just about every corner and it's bolt action which makes you use every round more wisely. However, after a certain point in the leveling, it becomes too weak to compete with the stronger mobs, and always end up in the dusty corner of my Megaton-house, poor thing. So, my plan is to make a little stronger version of the rifle so that it stays somewhat useful at higher levels. But, there's one problem; those little wires and tapestraps holding it together just won't do... Plus, there's nothing resembling a sight on the barrel, which maybe only is a cosmetic complaint, but still... So, what I'm looking for is just a regular hunting rifle with the straps and strings removed and the riflebutt fixed, so it look less like I dug it out from a dustbin. The ideal would be to add some kind of small sight (just a dot on the tip of the barrel and two somewhere behind the lever would do, really) and maybe spice the textures up to look less battered, but just getting rid of the strings and tape is more than enough. I've searched high and low, but only found one mod that removes the strings and everything, but it also adds a scope, and I'd like one without. And since I got absolutley no skill whatsoever in texturing and modeling... If you know there's a mod like that out there somewhere, or you're someone more skilled with modeling than I am and think you can pull it off, then please tell. :smile: It doesn't have to be a hunting rifle, though, it can be like a Mauser or something similar. As long as it's bolt action, aren't too worn-down, don't have a scope and look somewhat traditional, it'll do. :happy:

"The Best of Frederik Pohl", a mix of different sci-fi stories. Not bad, and easy to chew through, being all in reading-friendly mouthfulls.