Healing Items - This form will allow the user to make there healing items here.

Story Line Items - This is where the user can make items that affect the flow of the story line.

Status Relief Items - This is where the user can make items to take away a status effect.

Stats Altering Items - This is where the user will be able to make items to increase the basic stats of the user character.

Tomorrow, I will be editing the Create Character Form, and also the New Project Form.

So as of right now the programme is making good progress.

I also found out I need todo a Simester of school next year. So Im stuck for another half year. At first, I was panicing and felt sick. I couldn't believe I was 0.5 credits short of graduation. Then I thought, I get some extra time to save for college, Get scholorships and I get half a year break. Not bad. But then again, I dont get to graduate with my friends. D:

I took a break from coding my CRPG (Calcualtor Role Playing Game) and started on a Network Based game. Kinda like Uplink, but all texted based where you manage a network. Get new routers, ISP, etc. Its coming along alright, I got the mainmenu done which is quite nice. Other than that, Not too far into gameplay yet. Not sure where to start.

Well, Talk to you all later. Thanks for reading.

Name - Tales Of Despair.

Game Maker - RMXP

Design Phase - Design Document.

Releash date - TBA( To be announced.)

I know alof of you will ask me what happened to my seeds of alchemy game, well that game is still be worked on but as of now. There are not that many custom title sites for rmvx and I have some graphic ability but not enough to make custom tile sets. So RMXP has more custom tile sets I can use to make more in depth maps and game play. Don't fare though Seeds of Alchemy will still be a semi Active Game Project.

And know to the second project I am workin on... *Drum roll*.

Name -2D RPG Visual Game Creator

Back Round  - This programme will be my pet project as I have been learning c# for the last couple of months, and also come from a programing back round. So far I have the GUI design down and I plan on add the events button to the programme very soon. Also this Game maker will all the player to choose from three different battle system built in to the the core system. This battle system will be, Front View, Side View and Tactial View. I will be working more on this project and soon the site for info and screen shots will be open for public view.

General Features

Dynamic and stylish “Fusion-Layered” 2.5D graphics

Adventure Module System

24bit color

The heartfelt, gripping story also teaches a valuable lesson to our generation.

Multiplayer Features (tentative separate standalone release)

Up to 5 simultaneous players

Easy to find a game (through Animit’s Game Initiative network)

Can chat during gameplay

Leaderboards

Monthly Quests for special loot

Members’ avatars from Animit Game Initiative become player characters.

Earn credits for your Animit account by conquering Multiplayer Adventure Modules

Gameplay

An ethereal and heartfelt story pulls 5 hours of gameplay for the core game.

Additional downloadable Adventure Modules are 5 hours each

“Fusion-Layered” 2.5D dungeons

Hack the MicroCosm Web Matrix

Dynamic battles: enemies will adjust their tactics to your play style

Support for hours of continued quests with the Adventure Module System

Retro-styled sprite graphics and pumping chiptunes call back to the glory days of gaming.

Battle hundreds of fully animated enemies

Spells and hacks are beautifully animated

Editor

The level editor is intended for development purposes only. It might be sold at a later date or bundled with the release of the game at retail (if that were to happen).

Conversation trees, scripted events, textures, sprites, monsters, traps, dungeon maps, towns, music, and sound FX can all be edited with the Adventure Module System editor. You can save as a module and load it into the game environment from the title screen. Downloadable Adventure Modules will automatically load into the game from the online menu system from the main screen. The ultimate goal is to create an editor that can be released to the community for them to create not only their own modules for use in our universe, but easily create total conversion packages and their own storylines using the Wirepunks engine.

Once the game design document is completed we will post it in it's entirety on this blog so that everyone knows where we are headed with this project and can offer input where they feel necessary as well as giving advice to help us construct a better game for everyone!

thanks, looking forward to your feedback!
-Carsten

Common Questions

What is Wirepunks?

Wirepunks is a fresh yet retro styled First Person RPG that takes place in a cyberpunk environment. The game is supported by Adventure Modules that extend the life of the game experience allowing players to take their characters through solo and group adventures. Eventual online capabilities in the future will allow multiple gamers to group together in a single dungeon in a subsequent multiplayer-only release.

Why create this game?

Wirepunks is being created out of a desire to see a stylish First Person RPG that brings something fresh to a stale, dying, and often forgotten category of RPG. It is also born out of a longing to play a game just like this one, which no one else is making. Lastly, RPG’s have long been considered too difficult, too complicated, or too lengthy for newcomers to the gaming industry (and some veterans!). Wirepunks aims to negate each of these arguments through its Adventure Module system and combat those arguments with style, approachability, and playability.

Where does the game take place?

The cyberpunk matrix-esque world is called MicroCosm. The real world is an extension of our world today; only, in the future it has been ravaged by nuclear war and is in the control of corporations and a central global government. Our heroes battle across both of these fronts against a variety of villains and foes.

What do I control?

The player controls all the actions of the main characters during battle sequences, their inventories, status screens, and various spells and hacks screens, controls the movement of the party in dungeons, and navigates civilian areas and story sequences via menus.

How many characters do I control?

You start out as a party of one, but your party grows to at least five eventually.

There aren’t any plans to implement AI for automatic battling, so the player is responsible for all the decisions for each character in the battle. In Wirepunks, automatic battles or AI control would be detrimental to a player’s tactics during battle due to the changing nature of battle tactics of the enemies.

What is the main focus?

The main focus of the game varies from adventure to adventure. Overall however, the player’s primary goal is to help the main character, Ilsa, find out why the world changed into what it is in the game. It is through her eyes we learn about what happened to the natural order of things to throw life out of balance. In each dungeon, the goal is to reach the mission objective, which could range anywhere from recovering a long lost artifact to destroying a power source of great evil or even hacking into MicroCosm to track criminals as bounty hunters.

What’s different about Wirepunks?

Firstly, it is an RPG that is scalable based on the needs of the player. For people who are apprehensive about playing RPG’s because of their immense depth, or time commitment, Wirepunks offers Adventure Modules; shorter, self-contained stories with finite beginnings, middle, and endings. The game is also approachable. It is not so hardcore that it is impossible for newcomers to understand, but not so simple that veterans will keep their distance. The goal is to expand the accessibility of RPG’s, while doing something new with something old and out of date.

I agree with them in some regards... but, still, it isn't the best game I've played; if I was to judge gaming just by fun.

Planescape was released around the time when Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Fallout were popular amongst the role playing crowd, and a while before MMO's and the current generation of consoles began to swamp the PC gaming market. In a lot of ways, it plays in a way typical to a mid 1990's RPG. Planescape is dense, deep, far from intuitive, text-heavy, non-linear to a degree, and viewed from a typical top down, isometric perspective. A bit of nostalgia has grown over it, especially after the recent popularity of more simplified and popular games like Oblivion or World of Warcraft. Some people have even gone so far as to write essays about how wonderful and deep the story was, or have gone out of their way to convince others to try playing it.

I decided to go back in time, while I had no Internet, and gave it a go. I made it through about two-thirds of the game before losing interest. Afterwards, I never really regained the desire to play it again.

The player is in control of the Nameless One, an immortal man who has been losing his memories each time he 'dies'. The game starts with the Nameless One waking on a mortuary slab. When the player takes control, the Nameless One has no recollection of how he got there, and has no company or clues besides a talking skull called Morte and a slightly cryptic tatoo on his back. From here, the game sets out on a long journey through the world of the planes, or, actually, the city of Sigil in an effort to solves the numerous questions surrounding his past lives and to bring a conclusion to the Nameless One's immortal life. The settings are morbid and grimy, and definitely give the atmosphere a downtrodden and gritty feel, which I suppose was the point.

Obviously, the graphics are dated. It's in an unchangeable 640 by 480 resolution, which gives it that classic grainy, zoomed in texture. I don't recommend using fullscreen view on an LCD monitor. The graphics are good enough to convey the image the developers were trying to make, and some of the art is pretty creative, so I personally didn't feel that the dated graphics were a big problem. Still, the old graphics may be jarring for anyone who is used to bump-mapped, well textured environments or who started gaming around the time the PS2 reached the shops.

Planescape is not an easy game to get into, especially for people who haven't learnt the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. I'd go so far as to say that anyone new to Dungeons and Dragons couldn't really enjoy the game without some sort of explanation of the rules. Not that I didn't have a couple of stupid problems. It took me about fifteen minutes to learn how to converse with a party member, as I shuffled through a whole series of obscure and unexplained icons. This seems to be a typical problem with older RPG's.

The text is detailed and well-written, for the most part. There's a great database of NPC's that is both descriptive and interesting. Many important characters have quite detailed conversation trees. There are a variety of different playable characters, that all feel like they have quite distinct personalities. The themes that Planescape presents, revolving around death, existence and immortality are done in a much more mature way than most other games that I can think of.

Unfortunately, it also feels like verbal diarrhea at times. Apparently there are 800,000 words of text throughout the game. To put that in context, most novels are only about a quarter that size. A lot of those words seemed completely redundant. There were several points where I simply couldn't be bothered reading the endless, long winded diatribes that every single NPC needed to give. I didn't care about the paragraph long description of some guy standing on a street corner. I didn't want to know all that much about a random wandering zombie. I didn't need to have a long, uninteresting conversation with a merchant who doesn't, in fact, sell or otherwise do anything useful within the game. I honestly think Planescape would have benefited greatly from cutting out a lot of useless text and focusing instead on the best, most powerful pieces of writing that were hidden beneath the swathes of white text. The sheer amount reading actually detracted heavily from the insights and story the game was trying to tell me. A good novelist tries to write efficiently. Planescape would have benefited from the same treatment.

Planescape is about as non-linear as a game can get without simply turning it into a sandbox environment. There are multiple endings, different factions to join and events that do, to a point, change the gameworld. On the flipside, that non-linearity, combined with the stodgy, uninformative gameplay creates a lot of confusion. I could choose to be good or evil, a spellcaster or a fighter, and I could choose how the game would end – though only if I knew how to go about doing so. You're given no clue about how much of an advantage it is storywise just to shovel points into wisdom and intelligence, and are quite strongly penalised for making a combat focused character. Without a guide, I'd say that you have to play through it at least a couple of times to get the most important parts of the plot.

Planescape is an example of a great RPG, and at the same time shows deep flaws. It's only fun if you know how to play it. For a D&D newbie that means at least a few hours of learning the game mechanics, and a few more just to work out what this game is all about. Planescape shows traces of the elitist mindset of hardcore PC role playing, consistently refusing to give out information, penalising you for what seem like valid character choices, before assaulting you with endless lines of pointless text. I'm sure some people think this is a good thing... but I personally wonder if a game being so dense is a sign of mature, interesting gameplay or simply bad design. It definitely only appeals to the patient, hardcore gamer who doesn't mind dated graphics and is willing to suffer through the learning process.

Despite what some RPG enthusiasts would like, I honestly think that developers have moved beyond this type of game, at least a little. It's a great experience, but in the same way that Dickens or Tolstoy are a great experiences – they both feel a little bit like work. Sure, a game like Oblivion is too shallow, and WoW is little more than an endless social grind quest, but those games are still, to me, more fun than Planescape was.

A bit off topic but I've been so busy with the coming release of Fallout 3 and work that I've stopped for too long to take a look on whatelse is happening.

So this time I'll bring you the interview of Vince D. Weller to the excelent Alley of Infinite Angles blog:

4. What made you go for turn-based combat in Age of Decadence, and what do you have to say to those who believe that it is a relic of the past?

Real time and first-person view are as old as turn-based and isometric. Probably even older. See Diablo 3 "OMG! Why is it isometric?!" drama for more info:

“Camera is not technology,” says Wilson [Diablo 3 lead designer], clearly somewhat frustrated. “People associate the camera with isometric and say: ‘Oh, why didn’t you update the tech?’ Well, we did update the tech. The camera has nothing to do with tech, the camera is all about gameplay. Isometric gameplay is very different from FPS or over-the-shoulder third person – which is pretty much what the entire industry is moving towards. But then some of the biggest hits of the last year were Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and those were not high-tech games. Gameplay is what matters; it’s what’s always mattered to us.”

Similarly, turn-based isn't about tech, it's about gameplay. It can't be a relic because games like Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic still exist and aint going nowhere. To understand what TB offers, let's imagine RT Civ. Imagined? Well, there you go.

Turn-based gameplay is about thinking, considering your options, and using tactical advantages. Real-time gameplay is about clicking really, really fast (hence the twitch gameplay name). The fact that when developers want to offer you a bit more depth in your RT cereal they pause it, should tell you everything you need to know.

Why AoD is turn-based? Because we like TB games and we spit on your RT crap. What? The mike is still on. Oh, shit! Now we'd have to issue a press-release stating that RT games are as good as TB games and that we are all huge RT fans. Thanks a lot!

I love his interviews, and the Alley needs more exposure, it's one of my favorite places from those that take a serious look on gaming culture in general.

I've been a long time fan of Computer RPGs. I've played many an epic pixel-fest in my time. Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Knights of the Old Republic and the Elder Scrolls series have all graced my various computer screens over the years. I am, in particular a fan of the old-school, isometric computer rpgs. There was a generation of computer rpgs that embraced plot and character above all else. This was their main source of praise and damnation, depending on who you were talking to. Fans loved the depth of story and detractors complained that they were ugly and boring. I fell into the fan camp. Fallout and Planescape Torment are two excellent examples of this era of gaming. You had the opportunity to create a unique character, with a realistic personality and an expansive, open-ended world in which your actions had serious consequences (and occasionally rewards). This is not to say that every game of this ilk was any good (Icewind Dale was a dull slog of combat and snow) but, for a while there, we had a run of computer roleplaying games that actually allowed you to roleplay.

The perceptive among you will note that two of the games listed above, Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, were created by the good folks at Bioware and another, Planescape Torment, was created using Bioware's Infinity Engine. "What the hell does that have to do with anything", I hear you bray? Wel, our old friends at Bioware are back and they are back with a vengeance. The latest offering from Bioware is the epic, science fiction saga Mass Effect.

I have had some trouble with videos playing, so you can also veiw it here.

Ok, so the voice-over is a bit hammy but it's a launch trailer and they're trying to sell something but there are a few things about this clip you should know. The first thing you should know is that all of the visuals are in-game graphics. The second thing you should know is that a puny little youtube clip doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of illustrating how amazing this game looks in full HD on a nice big LCD screen at 1400x1050 resolution. The level of detail and 3D rendering is astounding. This incredible graphic detail and loving animation is crucial to Mass Effect's success and level of immersion. But I'm getting ahead of myself, before you can appreciate quite what this game does to me we need to talk a little about its character creation process.

If a roleplaying game is one in which you take the role of a character then surely one of the fundamental components of any roleplaying is the process in which you create your character. Now, this might seem elementary, but you'd be amazed how many games seem to miss this. A prime example is The Witcher in which you're simply 'the witcher' and, from the get-go, you have no say in your character's abilities or (perhaps more importantly) personality. Now that's all well and good if I'm interested in playing a misogynist, mutant, monster-slayer who talks with his sword, but what if I want to play a compassionate, pure-bred, sissy who talks with his vocal chords? The answer is, in the case of games like The Witcher, I'm screwed.

Straight off the bat, Mass Effect scores big points for its character creation process. First of all there are 6 basic kinds of character you can play: Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Basically you can be really good at fighting, manipulating technology or biotics (or as it should be called, but isn't for copyright reasons, 'the force'). Alternatively you can be mediocre at two things. This business of being able to select your character's specialty is nothing special in computer rpgs and any of them worth their salt will have it, so I won't dwell on it. Next the game asks you three questions about you character's background. This is a really nice feature because not only do you have a say on your character's past and psychological makeup, your answers to these questions affect the way other characters in the game react to you and opens up some quests specific to your background. This is another element that greatly adds to the ease of immersion within the game world. People and events around you refer to your character based on your preferences for the kind of guy (or gal) you want to portray.

The really impressive thing about character creation in this game, however, is the degree to which you can sculpt your character's appearance. You can completely change your facial structure, skin colour, facial hair etc. Now, I know what you're going to say, "That's nothing new, why, Oblivion did that just last year!". To put it bluntly, you're wrong. What you mean to say is "Oblivion tried to do that and failed so miserably I wanted to cry because the character I ended up with was a horrible monster whose mother would sooner club it to death with a red-hot poker than love it." While Oblivion allowed you to morph the features of your character the facial structures didn't conform to any kind of real human parameters and it was very hard to create a character that looked like a human being. Mass Effect succeeds because every character I've made has looked like a completely believable, convincing human being. The textures, lighting and bone structure are so amazing that you can create a face which looks equally realistic in any skin tone. At one end of the spectrum I was being stared down by a cold, hard, space brother and at the other I was faced by a mean, stubbled, space-whitey.

So, bearing all this in mind, by the time we reach the game we are presented with a beautiful in-game cinematic sequence starring the charcter we just made, down to the finest detail. Elements of the history we created are woven into the plot and we are introduced to our character's place in the setting. By the end of this sequence we're completely immersed in the game and ready to kick some galactic-arse as we explore the universe. This is what roleplaying games are about. Playing a character you're excited about in an amazing setting.

To further enhance this all of the dialogue and cinematics are lovingly rendered with the in-game engine and presented in wide-screen, starring the character that you created and not some pregenerated jerk. Dialogue plays a huge role in this game. You're choices in what you say have an impact on what happens in the game, the way other characters relate to you and even allows you to apply skills you gain over the corse of the game (such as charm, intimidate and diplomacy). The interactions between all of the characters in the game (including yours) is a delight. The voice acting and character animation convey real emotion and result in an incredibly cinematic gameplay experience. Unlike nearly every computer roleplaying game I've played, in Mass Effect you feel like the star of a classic feature film. It plays like a golden era Science Fiction novel with you at the centre of the action. The characters, setting and dialogue are all incredibly convincing (especially the aliens which look real).

People have complained that there is too much dialogue in the game but, frankly, they're missing the point. If you want a quality shooter you're playing the wrong game. This isn't to say that the combat in Mass Effect isn't fun, it's a hell of alot of fun, but if you want non-stop action unfettered by all that pesky talking then get Gears of War or Crisis or any of the miriad of First Person Shooters out there. Don't assume that the only application for quality 3D graphics is the wholesale destruction of countless foes and interactive environments. Mass Effect proves that games have the the potential to be powerful, story driven and visually stunning all at once and is serious ammunition for the "games as art" argument. If you enjoy computer roleplaying games (or for that matter, pen and paper roleplaying games) then I strongly recommend you purchase Mass Effect.

Those interested can compare Mass Effect prices here.

(This is not a paid advertisement, I just really want people to purchase this game to encourage Bioware to make more)

French CanardPlus Emil Zoulou is asking for questions from fans about what he saw in the Fallout 3 demo, here's something from NMA:

Here's some chances to scratch out some more info from the meager offerings of this E3. First, Canardplus (who you may remember from this preview) contacted us to extend the offer to try and clarify any questions we have based on what they've seen:

This morning, we had the opportunity to try the 360 version of Fallout 3. The cheats weren't enabled. So ask your vicious questions and we will try to offer some honest answers.

If you know French you can ask them here, if not place them at NMA or in this blogpost and we'll try to translate them for you.

Meanwhile he already started answering the first batch of questions, and NMA got a (very good) translation from Vaultaire with the help of Mr.Bumble and posted them in English:

Is the gore associated with violent death logical or over-the-top?
That is the problem with E3. During the Fallout 3 Demo, Bethesda wanted to emphasize the games “adult” content and pushed the gore through the roof. During the initial demo, Peter Hines did the same: using the “Bloody Mess” trait, which makes every death really bloody, really pushed the gore over the top. Shoot someone in the foot and the entire body explodes in a fountain of blood. When actually playing it is a lot less impressive, the enemies die without too much fuss. On the other hand, the inconsistencies are apparent, like when a mini-nuke just cuts off an enemies foot.

Is playing Fallout 3 with a controller a good experience? How will the interface be adapted to mouse/keyboard combination?
We are not big FPS aficionados, I had a lot of trouble controlling my character and aiming was really hard. VATS helped with this a lot, something I was not expecting. When confronted by a group of enemies, it seems like the most sensible solution. On the other hand, I was much better on the PC. The mouse/keyboard interface allowed for more accurate aiming. One can imagine that the RT aspect will resemble Quake 3 where the player strafes around his enemies; avoiding their shots while simultaneously emptying clips into them – totally negating the need for VATS. Like Oblivion, character skill along with line of sight plays a factor in determining to-hit success but the translation to FPS must be tempered with the next question:

If the PC version is exactly the same as the one tested for the Xbox 360) ; it is very likely that this is the case, will the interface be marred by this (interface, save/load, …)
Oh yes, I think that on the PC the interface will prove unwieldy. Bethesda has chosen to put all the menus inside the Pipboy affixed to your arm. If it is a question of immersion, the intention is commendable, ergonomically it’s an absolute disgrace: A stick to switch between 3 large menus (stats-item-data) the other to navigate within the window and all the sub menus. On top of that, the inventory is reduced to simple lists of names, a miniature picture of the item appears to the right for each item. Also, forget about the two quick items found at the bottom of your inventory (in the originals) as Turn-based is completely dispensed with. In this system, one is faced with equipping a single thing or weapon at a time.

With real time combat, Is the concept or use of Action Points ala “Turn Based” useful or even captivating?
Like I said on the 360, the VATS system is indispensable for survival. Often, melee enemies get within range very quickly and VATS allows the player to get out of tight situations. I did not feel it was over-powerful and I was often forced to close the gap to improve my chances of hitting the target. In addition, aiming for specific body parts will appeal to the jokers amongst us: Fire at a super-mutants weapon and it will fall from his grasp. Such accurate shots are difficult to reproduce in real-time mode. In practice, we find ourselves using all our APs to fire at an enemies chest not even trying for the head. APs recharge in real-time mode but don’t affect ones ability to access the inventory. It seems to me that AP could be used for so much more than aimed shots. It is a terrible blow for the tactics of combat that existed in the franchise previously.

Adaptive difficulty Yes or No (Level Scaling)
Big question. The Bethesda lot have assured us for months that level scaling; railed against by Elder Scrolls Fan; was out. Permit me to cast strong doubt on this. See: towards the end of my half hour, whilst wandering through Washington DC, I fell upon a group of three super mutants. One was equipped with a Gatling. I was level 3 and I was only equipped with light Raider armor. For weapons, I had a baseball bat and a basic 10mm pistol and an ammo-less laser piston. I switch to VATS and aim for the Gatling mutant in the hopes of making him drop his weapon. I miss and the other two mutants head straight for me. I grab my baseball bat and alternate between VATS and real-time whilst waiting for my AP to recharge. The first mutant is downed, I loot a bat with a nail in it and kill the second mutant in much the same fashion. During this some sort of mutant spider joins the fray and attacks me. I kill it with my bat. The third super mutant fell to a combination of grenade and 10mm pistol. I’m a half hour into the game, level 3 and I manage to take down three super mutants and some unidentified thing without much trouble and find myself in possession of a Gatling fun. All is good.[...]

Once again, it is not easy to get a fair idea of what Fallout 3 will be like on release. All in all, the development team has a pile a bugs of all types to fix. It is in all cases certain that this will not shine on technical merits, with empty interiors, outdated and badly used character models, “Rigor Mortis” animations..
Disassociated from the gameplay of the preceding Fallouts, Bethesda try to impose their view of an action RPG, in the same vein as Oblivion. It is impossible for me to guarantee that this will be a good fallout game, or even a good game at all...

A must read, there's a lot more there.

Very interesting and detailed interview with Todd Howard and Emil Pagliarulo at GamesRadar/PCGamer, it's filled with spoilers though:

PCG: Do you have a rule for a bare-minimum number of ways to solve a quest?
Todd: No, we just do whatever comes naturally. We made a list initially showing the paths, so that we weren’t doing an overabundance of stealth paths versus other skills so that there was a good matrix, but if something fit in one we did it, and if it didn’t fit…
Emil: But as the game grew, just like we ended up making the game bigger, putting more stuff in, I think the quests themselves started to expand. We realized during playthroughs, you know what, there’s no talking path through this quest, or there’s no stealth path, so we went back and added that in. There are fewer quests and fewer NPCs, but probably just as much dialogue as Oblivion, just in all the variations.
Todd: It’s like when you were doing the bomb quest, and you were asking “Can I do this this way?” And so through testing we asked the same things, like “What if I kill Lucas Sims?” And ok, you have to go to the son. That kind of stuff.
Emil: We wanted to cover as many of those bases as we could.

PCG: So you tried to make it so that even if you take a few people out of the equation, the quest is still solvable?
Todd: As much as possible. It’s not always the case. You might kill someone and it will tell you “You can’t finish this quest anymore, this person has died.” Pretty much 99.9 percent of people in the game can be killed.
Emil: Yeah, even the quest-givers. They give you a quest, you blow their head off, that’s your decision. It’s simply more fun for the player where you might close off branches of the quest, but other branches are still open.
Todd: And the other answer to that question is that we don’t want players to have the expectation that they’ll be able to do every quest any style. Pretty much, Super-Duper Mart, there’s no way to talk your way through that. We get the question a lot, “Is there a non-violent path through the whole game?” No. I mean, you might be able to, I guess, but it’s not a goal.
Emil: I guess technically, because there’s a Stealth Boy, and because there’s a Protectron [security robot] in the back room of that Super-Duper Mart, if you could sneak in there and hack that computer, you could activate that Protectron, he’ll go and he’ll kick the s*** out of all of those raiders.
Todd: There are probably too many for him to kill every single one of them.
Emil: But enough to whittle them down so that science-boy could definitely get through there.

Another must read piece by Dan Stapleton.

PCZone Will Porter

There are still Fallout 3 at E3 previews showing up, you can find a new list at NMA, instead I'll just point out to this article at CVG/PCZone, that I've talked about before, now you can read it in full:

Is Fallout 3 Oblivion with guns? No, not really. While it's true that when you enter houses and watch people go about their business it instantly smacks of the last rendition of The Elder Scrolls, it seems that the old Fallout sensibilities and mannerisms are here as foundation not lip gloss.

Character S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats (luck, perception, etc) return as the base numbers for your character, for example. These can be boosted and drained by the full host of addictive stimulants present in the first games, such as strength-harbouring Buffout, the more traditional narcotic of Jet (the factory for which was technically destroyed in the earlier games, if I'm pedantic), intelligence-boosting Mentats and rage-infusing Psycho.

On top of these lie your skills (the numbers you can raise each time you level up, making you better at bartering, small guns, medicine, repair and the like), three of which you can specialise in and gain double the advance when it's gratz-time.

While we're on levelling, it's important to underline that Fallout does address one of Oblivion's biggest foibles: the fact that as you levelled up, the entire world levelled up with you.

In the wasteland, as in the original Fallout games, the further you stray the more dangerous things get - as I discovered during my lonesome trudge into the glorious north-east and was increasingly battered by the mole rats, bloatflies and Raider bases I came across.

However, enemies that lie along the plotline will be levelled to match you so that the difficulty curve is kept to Bethesda's heel.

Whereas Oblivion hid away many of its stats, or at least let you batter away in mindless ignorance, in Fallout Bethesda have pulled the link between player experience and player statistics closer to Black Isle's model.

As in the original games, your skill specialisations not only give you options in conversation (my medical bent would later lead a doctor to confide a patient's medical history to me, for example), or show themselves concretely in percentage strike-probabilities during V.A.T.S. combat, but are integral to your performance - such as when I disarmed the century-old nuclear device threatening the town of Megaton, having guzzled Mentats to make me extra brainy.

Having played the game for only five hours, and with many of the hang-ups people had with Oblivion only becoming apparent after 50, I can't be definitive about this - but in terms of building a modern game on the systems of one that's now 10 years old, it's hard to think of how Fallout 3 could have been tied closer to what has gone before.

A must read.

I've been waiting for this game since it was announced.  It's very odd how Dragon Age is not currently revealed for being shown at E3, but the "new information" is coming only a few days before E3 launches.  Could we possibly see DA at E3?  It's a possibility...but only time will tell.

After much secrecy and whatnot, I can finally reveal that I have an article published on The Escapist!

I pitched the idea of interviewing Lead Writer from BioWare and best-selling author Drew Karpyshyn for the Star Wars themed issue; the idea was accepted, we rolled with it, and that rather chunky feature is what we ended up with.

I'm really happy with the quality of the article, and the fact it appears to be the lead story for this issue is just amazing.

This is my first major published article, so I'm really just very happy right now.

I would just like to thank Drew for being willing to talk to me in so much depth, and to The Escapist for giving me a shot.

- Tim Sweeney

I've been waiting for this game for a long time.  I just hope it's at least half as good as the Baldur's Gate series that appeared on the PC all those many years ago.

Mike Anderson from GamerDad (I'm glad Andrew is feeling better these days) went to order Fallout 3 at GameStop, and has a few ideas to share about the endeavor:

The associate at GameStop asked “Would you like to preorder Fallout 3 for the PS3 or XBOX360″? After deciding that I would not immediately kill the kid for forgetting that this is a PC franchise we’re talking about here, I said “PC version, standard not collector’s edition”. He said ‘oh’, rather surprised, but proceeded to take my money and give me the item that was the reason I pre-ordered the game about four months in advance: a DVD case containing a large poster and what looked like a 45RPM I might have bought thirty years or so ago.[...]

There is also a poster (~16 x 20) that looks much like the box at the top, but without the ‘Games for Windows’ and ESRB label, but definitely with a HUGE Bethesda logo.

Is it worth it? Not really - I had gone under the impression that you would get a soundtrack CD and hadn’t read about the sparse sampling you actually get. The two originals are available for download from the official Fallout 3 site, and that leaves the poster that I will never hang on a wall. Then there is the whole ‘playing into GameStops evil plans’ thing. But on the other hand, I will have the game when it comes out in September.

I say kill the kid anyway :)

When The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released we received one more such game.

Make no mistake, Oblivion was always going to be a smash hit; Bethesda's prior experience with the previous Elder Scrolls games, as well as an impressive pre-release hype machine and its status as a launch title for the 360 meant that this was always going to be a pretty special example of the roleplaying genre, and one that was bound to sell more than a few copies.

Despite not actually being a launch title overseas (it was when Australia finally got the Xbox 360), Oblivion nonetheless fulfilled all it's other promises; a stunningly beautiful setting, incredibly detailed despite its vastness; characters that were no longer, by and large, cookie-cutter clones of each other, but instead were real people with desires, goals, jobs, friends, enemies, and all that other realistic stuff; and, of course, the ability to enjoy a long, coherent, and interesting story while still having the ability to spend hour upon hour doing whatever you want in an entirely free world.

Two years on from its initial release, I can happily report that all of this is still the case; whilst the character models can occasionally be a bit freaky looking, and the voice-acting can be a bit repetitive, and perhaps the NPCs aren't quite as unique as they were made out to be; the simple fact is that, despite a few subtle and minor flaws, Oblivion is still up there as one of the best, most immersive RPGs you will ever play, and is certainly the best example of an open-world style RPG, bar none.

The game mechanics are a simple and intuitive take on the genre, focussing less on D&D-style number crunching, and far more on practicality - you like using a bow? Guess what, you just got better at it!  The graphics and sound are still better than most new games (regardless of genre or system), and the sheer amount of content in the initial release is mind blowing; it is possible to spend literally hundreds of hours playing this game if you so choose, a feat of game design that has not often been duplicated.

Just to sweeten the deal, it is now possible to purchase a ‘Game of the Year' addition which features the expansion pack ‘The Shivering Isles'- which is bigger than most "full" commercially released games - and the large content update ‘Knights of the Nine', which adds a nice quest line and the ability to restart and lead a new faction in Cyrodill.  Combine this with some very cheap content downloads via Xbox Live (or your nearest PC or PS3 equivalents), and you have a game that should keep you going for pretty much as long as you need it to.

It's actually kind of amusing to think about, but as it stands Oblivion is currently a much better for money purchase than it was when it first came out.  For a pretty low sum of money (I've seen the GotY addition available brand new for 30 dollars), you get one of the best RPGs of all time, upgraded with some terrific content and patched to deal with a lot of the nigglies that aggravated players on release; hell, PC owners can also explore a thriving mod community, which has churned out hundreds of well made quests, areas, items, and more, most of which is entirely free.

Oblivion still looks, sounds, and most importantly, plays terrifically, and is currently superior in almost all regards to when it was released.  This is a phenomenal feat however you look at it, and I have no hesitation in suggesting that everyone who doesn't own the game run out and grab a copy of the GotY edition of Oblivion. To those, like me, who have played it quite a few times already, I say give it another go anyway; you may be surprised at how much you enjoy yourself, even on your umpteenth time through the game.

Oblivion is a true modern classic, and a game that will deservedly go down in history as one of the greats.

How I would have rated it on release: 9/10  (Just a terrific example of the freeform roleplaying game)

How I would rate it now: 9.5/10 (Even better than on release, this game still looks beautiful and plays as well as it looks)

- Tim Sweeney

Image Tower of Creation

I've already talked about Fallout: Between Good and Evil, a Fallout 2 total conversion made by the Czech modding group Tower of Creation. For those that missed it here's what they have been up to:

Fallout: Between Good & Evil is a freely distributed modification using Fallout 2 engine.

The mod is being developed since 2005 and it aims to offer experience which Bethesda's Fallout 3 can't or doesn't want to provide: prequel of events on the West Coast of US, very complex dialogues / quests and turn-based combat in 2D isometric view. Currently, more than twenty people actively prepare the game with the release date Christmas 2009. Our work should bring you back memories of Fallout, Fallout 2 PC games and will have many references to Van Buren and the Cold War.

Now my friend Jesterka sent news that they have a new update on their site, with some cool art. Must see stuff.

Nicolas Games SA, zgodnie z długofalowym planem rozwoju, powołuje do życia kolejne studio developerskie. Podpisany został już list intencyjny w tej sprawie, a prace rozpoczną się 15 maja. Nowe studio developerskie powstanie w Gdańsku i odpowiedzialne będzie za produkcję trzech gier edukacyjnych dla dzieci (linia produktowa Nicolas Kids) oraz rozwijanie linii gier typu casual. Firma Nicolas Games SA wychodzi w ten sposób naprzeciw oczekiwaniom klientów oraz realizuje cele strategiczne.

Rozpoczęcie sprzedaży pierwszych trzech gier planowane jest jeszcze na bieżący rok. Nowe produkty zostaną objęte kampanią reklamową w mediach branżowych oraz lifestyle'owych. Przedsięwzięcie będzie miało bardzo istotny wpływ na rozwój spółki w perspektywie długoterminowej.

Żródło

I still couldn't get the CanardPc magazine but, with the reservations that I haven't seen it by myself, others did and here are some impressions, starting with Seboss at RPGCodex:

Seboss:I have the preview right here. It's 6 pages long so I won't do a full transcript but I could give you guys some more excerpts if you're interested.

[right after the ability points allocation] Daddy comes back in the room, is very pleased by your agility [...] and cites an excerpt of the Apocalypse ("I am the Alpha and the Omega"), a passage of the Bible your former Mom used to like a lot, an element not so insignificant that should play an important role in the main quest.

Fade to black and you're now at your tenth birthday, ready to get your Pipboy3000, "the indispensable companion of the modern man". This scene introduces your first social interactions.
You'll go then from a little flirt with a girl your age through the confrontation with a little bully desiring to strip you from your birthday cake, to a surrealist discussion with a schizophrenic Mr Handy.
And there, I feel reassured. The dialogs and the argument with the dumbfuck in the making come right into the series spirit. During your conversation with the little scum, the game offers you ten different dialog options: immediate cowardly capitulation, insult leading to a brawl, lies, [...] spitting on the cake before offering it to him. The list is more than satisfying.

Seboss: The author states that many dialog options have tags like [Lie], [Charm], [Intimidation], [Science] and so one. Very Biowary.

A little later, you'll eventually receive your first AirSoft Gun, the famous RedRyder that allows you to familiarize with the combat system, then you choose your skills on the benches of the Vault's school.
Teenage hood will also be the occasion to solve a number of optional quests that influence the perception the other vault dwellers might have of you, as well as your karma and your personality. Undoubtedly, these first minutes make me comfortably euphoric.
[...]
While I was expecting an outright treason of the Fallout setting, more because of ineptitude than vice, I have the feeling the game is spot on. The ambiance, scenery and lighting of the Vault seem perfectly faithful to the series, with just the right dose of rust to enhance claustrophobia.
[...]
In opposition to Oblivion and Morrowind that just kicked you into the game without bonds of any sort, this time Bethesda clearly states its will to make you a part of a community, to create relationships right from the beginning. [...] What is the better way to make the player feel lost in the irradiated desert and make him realize the importance of his mission than create a genuine bond to his home just before kicking me out.

Seboss: Well, kicking him out right away worked pretty well in FO1 if you ask me.

About the SPECIAL system:

First satisfaction, the SPECIAL system have really been kept, no facade without substance. Every actions in the game, from the combat to bluff attempts through gambling are resolved by dice rolls against your skills and abilities. However, we can observe a whole lot of discrepancies, starting with this confession painfully extracted from the demonstrator: atypical character builds, like very low intelligence characters, won't have as many options as in the previous games. Some dialogs are heavily influenced by your IQ, however you can forget about your project of roaming the wastelands with a complete moron barely able to string two syllables together . What's more shocking for hardcore integrists like me, you can forget about beating the game as a cowardly pacifist weasel: most combats will be inevitable especially during travels and desert and ruins exploration.

Seboss: The wastelands are 65% the size of Cyrodiil, blah blah, the game is supposed to have a lot of landmarks like collapsed buildings, junkyards, diners, motels and baseball fields. These places are inhabited by people influenced by the nature of the location. Baseball fields should have descendants of the Baseball Furries from the movie Warriors, stuff like that.
The author hopes these places won't feel as generic as the bandit/goblin/wraith tombs of Oblivion , but he seems confident about that.

The game will have a significant dose of level scaling for the main quest. There are three difficuly levels (as you already know), but that seems a bit cheap.

Stimpacks won't have any side-effects anymore. There are just the regular "Cure Light" potions now.

To this point, the author was pretty confident about the quality of the game. Now there's the negative part:

Now here's the point where things get messy. We're going to get onto the thorny problem of the combat. [...] We'll note that the developers repeated ad nauseam that the efficiency of your shots depend on your statistics and that the FPS skills of the player don't have any importance, and that all shots fired in real-time mode will be automatically aimed to the torso. [Here goes a lengthy description of the VATS system]
The idea seems to stand theoretically, but in facts I'm far from convinced. Firstly, during the presentation, either he was wearing a Power Armor and holding a Gatling gun and fighting hordes of super mutants armed with heavy machine guns, bakookas and supersledges or fighting ghouls with a 9mm and wearing just a leather armor, the demonstrator was just standing there, shooting long bursts without using any kind of tactics.
Besides, aimed shots, possible even with a minigun, looked far less effective to me than just "run right next to the baddy and empty my magazine in one burst".

Seboss: Ouch. He also says that "bullet time" death animations are just as pleasant as stuffing rusty nails in your urethra after the third one. Or something like this.

The battle locations that were presented seemed a little dull. First was the no man's land surrounding the super mutants base in Washington DC. Like during WWI, it had lots of trenches where big green monsters ran into before attacking in melee or opening fire from not-so-far. Regularly, a monster set on high grounds would attack you with a rocket launcher. This scene painfully reminds me of some run-of-the-mill FPS.
[...]
Regarding monster design, I'm afraid they are completely off the mark. Forget about quirky, clumsy supermutants or weird ghouls with tree branches sticking out their skulls. All you'll get is overmuscular, overarmed orcs and undeads Oblivion style. But that was expected.

Seboss: Another expected shortcoming is the animation quality. The author confirms that they are as stiff and unnatural as ever.

Another summary comes from MrBumble at NMA:

Mr.Bumble: Finally bought the magazine. The author is rather critical, especially as regards combat. I love that, for one, he does not say that VATS is turn based, but " a sort of real time with pause combat system directly stolen from Bioware ". He says that the slow motion gets old really fast because it lasts for 15 seconds ( . . . ) and looks like a parody of Max Payne.

He also says that the wasteland themselves, outside of Washington look really uninspired, with lots of trenches ( wtf ? ) and that combat situations often lack of originality ( "does not get better than the most average FPS you can get" ). He also criticizes the appearance of Ghouls ( "zombies coming right from Oblivion" ) and Supermutants( "Orcs on steroids" ), very far from the previous designs. He also says that even though Bethesda are trying hard to be humourous ( at least they are trying eh ) it sometimes sounds like a little bit too much, a little bit forced.

Gory effects also look "a bit too much". He concludes by saying that he wants to see more of it because even though he liked some things ( Vault 101 ), some other elements really failed, that even though he has a long time ago lost the hope that Fallout 3 could be a decent Fallout, there is still hope for a good post apocalyptic RPG. Actually the first time I read that in an article...We are no longer alone brothers and sisters !

Characters with high Perception not only aim better but are able to "see the enemies coming a few seconds in advance". I'm not sure what it exactly means but that's what is said in the article. I should maybe ask the author on the forum.

French magazine CanardPC number 170 has an eight pages Fallout 3 preview that contains some interesting info, for a change, here on a summary by Mr.Bumble:

¤ Teen age gives you access to a few quests which will have an impact on how you are perceived within the Vault

¤ While travelling across the Wasteland, you can come across a few caravans, each heading to precise locations.

¤ There are three difficulty levels, as well as an "autolevelling difficulty" mode.

¤ A few new weapons : Cryolator allows you to freeze ennemies while you can hypnotize them with your Mesmetron.

¤ Also a new perk, Daddy's Little Girl, which gives a Science bonus to female characters.

Later the author of the article went to the Canardplus forum and added his impressions about the music on the Fallout 3 demo, saying it's "a f#&#=*&% catastrophe", with all the "Call of Duty and Wagner" style music replacing Mark Morgan's atmospheric tracks. He also says he is going to "piss on the composers mouth" after hearing that nonsense. Ouch.

Thank you Mr.Bumble at NMA.fr and NukaCola.

Zapraszamy serdecznie do oglądnięcia reportażu. Dowiadujemy sie z niego o wszytkich zmianach jakie bedą.

Najważniejszą zmianą jest poprawienie lokalizacji angielskiej i niemieckiej.

Link do videoreportażu:

http://www.gry-online.pl/S014.asp?ID=108