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"Alistair's cool dragon-finishing move"
(Dragon Age: Origins screenshot submitted by Caradhras)
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Wynne
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I haven't played Dragon Age: Origins (yet)
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Latest General News Headlines:
Electronic Arts Consolidates Pandemic - December 1, 2009, 11:49 am by chevalier
Global Game Jam 2010 - December 1, 2009, 11:41 am by chevalier
What Is Your Favourite Experience with a Fallout 3 Glitch? - December 1, 2009, 11:35 am by chevalier
Baldur's Gate 2 Memorable at Digihub - December 1, 2009, 11:33 am by chevalier
Different Set of Deals Every Day at Steam - December 1, 2009, 11:30 am by chevalier
Weekly Wizards of the Coast News Round-up - November 30, 2009, 2:27 pm by Taluntain
Weekly Wizards of the Coast News Round-up - November 21, 2009, 5:14 pm by Taluntain
Latest Poll Results - Online vs. Offline Gaming - November 20, 2009, 11:08 pm by Taluntain
Weekly Wizards of the Coast News Round-up - November 14, 2009, 8:27 pm by Taluntain
Electronic Arts Lays People Off, Cancels Projects - November 14, 2009, 5:39 pm by chevalier
Check out the best online casinos and get rid of some stress.
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Try your luck at an online casino where you can play many slots games like Tomb Raider or Stash of the Titans.
Electronic Arts Consolidates Pandemic
Posted: December 1, 2009, 11:49 am by chevalier
 BioWare's other half, Pandemic, is being consolidated by Electronic Arts, the owner. Around 200 employes will be laid off and the three founders will leave too. There is, however, a new hire in the person of Jon Van Caneghem, Might and Magic creator, who is now to lead the Command & Conquer branch. Here's a snip:
According to an internal memo obtained by Gamasutra, Pandemic founders Josh Resnick, Andrew Goldman, and Greg Borrud will leave the company. "A reduction in the work force at Pandemic" is being reported elsewhere at around 200 employees, with the remainder of the Pandemic team reporting to EALA's Sean Decker at the company's Playa Vista offices.
The cuts are part of a new round of layoffs and restructuring EA recently announced as its second fiscal quarter saw its losses widen to $391 million; the publisher plans to cut 1,500 jobs by April 2010.
Read the rest at Gamasutra.
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Global Game Jam 2010
Posted: December 1, 2009, 11:41 am by chevalier
 The two days working game concept factory known as Global Game Jam is scheduled for 29th January 2010. One can still book spots:
Organizers have announced that registration for the 2010 Global Game Jam is now open, and interested parties can secure a spot at one of more than 90 global locations.
The Game Jams, which take place January 29, 2010, are aimed at fostering innovation and experimental design -- groups get together and, working under similar constraints and rules, must produce a working game concept within two days.
Read the rest at Gamasutra.
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What Is Your Favourite Experience with a Fallout 3 Glitch?
Posted: December 1, 2009, 11:35 am by chevalier
 This is one of the questions asked by Bitmob. The other is, "What is your worst experience with a glitch in Fallout 3?" Here's the first one among the favourites, however:
The super-collision effect (an enemy or weapon goes flying off into the distance despite only being shot at by a normal ballistic weapon) is both the best and worst glitch that I've come across. In one fight with a super mutant, I shot a gun out of his hand and then launched it off into who-knows-where before killing him and looting the gun off his now-mutilated body (because it's still linked to his inventory).
Read the rest at Bitmob.
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Baldur's Gate 2 Memorable at Digihub
Posted: December 1, 2009, 11:33 am by chevalier
 Digihub says there are five memorable games on the PC and Baldur's Gate 2 is among them. Here's what they say:
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2001)
Some still claim this as the PC’s greatest role-playing game, though it would be fair to say that the Baldur’s Gate formula has since been bettered by many an epic RPG. Games like Dragon Age: Origins still owe much to this party-based romp, with its stat-heavy D&D core, companion sub-plots and entertaining dialogue.
Read the rest at Digihub.
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Different Set of Deals Every Day at Steam
Posted: December 1, 2009, 11:30 am by chevalier
Ladies and gentlemen - yes, Deekin, goblins too, - Steam is offering several different classical titles every day at a severely reduced price - 70% off is not unheard of. For example, Tal's favourite game ever (or successor thereof, to be precise) is down from EUR 8.99 to EUR 2.24, here. You find out which one. I won't give you any hints. Arr, matey! ...Ooops...
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Weekly Wizards of the Coast News Round-up
Posted: November 30, 2009, 2:27 pm by Taluntain
 » Player's Handbook Holiday Bundle Signing (News)
» Plane Below: Pandemonium Stone (Excerpts)
» Dragon 381 (Art Galleries)
» Quests (Dungeoncraft)
» The Foundling (Features)
» Sorcerer Essentials (Class Acts)
» Freaks & Geeks (Confessions...)
» Dungeon 172 (Art Galleries)
» Dungeon 172 (Map Galleries)
» Death in the Pincers (Adventures)
» Countdown to Turkey (News)
» Explore Airspur: Villains and Vagabonds (Features)
» Plane Below: Wave (Excerpts)
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Weekly Wizards of the Coast News Round-up
Posted: November 21, 2009, 5:14 pm by Taluntain
» Friday Roundup (News)
» Plane Below: Orders out of Chaos (Excerpts)
» Metallic Dragons (D&D Alumni)
» Class Acts: Invoker (Class Acts)
» Author Ethan Gilsdorf (Podcasts)
» Codricuhn, the Blood Storm (Demonomicon)
» Savage Encounters Preview 7 (Previews)
» Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons (Wallpapers)
» Genesis of a Monster (Design & Development)
» The Paladin (Class Acts)
» Debut: The Monk (Features)
» Author Julie Halpern (Spotlight Interviews)
» Clash of Steel (Adventures)
» Winning Races: Tieflings (Features)
» Savage Encounters Preview 6 (Previews)
» Savage Encounters (Cartoons)
» Champions of Torm (Channel Divinity)
» The Warrior Forge Artificer (Features)
» Draconomicon (Map Galleries)
» Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos: Skill Challenge (Excerpts)
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Latest Poll Results - Online vs. Offline Gaming
Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:08 pm by Taluntain
 What we asked:
Q: Do you spend more time playing computer games online (Internet) or offline (single-player, LAN, etc.)?
(367 votes total)
Offline (279) 76%
Online and offline equally (45) 12%
Online (43) 12%
Surprise, surprise, the overwhelming majority of us (76%) spend more time playing computer games offline than online.
The remaining 24% of the votes are split evenly between those who spend an equal amount of time playing computer games online and offline, as well as those who spend more time playing them online.
» Current Poll
» Previous Polls
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Weekly Wizards of the Coast News Round-up
Posted: November 14, 2009, 8:27 pm by Taluntain
» Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons: Alternate Powers (Excerpts)
» Savage Encounters (Cartoons)
» Here's How to Write for LFR! (RPGA Report)
» The Honest Few (Features)
» Stealth Challenge (Ruling Skill Challenges)
» Gregor's Tangent (Adventures)
» Draconomicon (Art Galleries)
» City of Stormreach (Tutorials)
» Melora (Features)
» Amreth Gaunt, Master Merchant (Eye on the Realms)
» Legacy of Io (Adventure Path)
» Winning Races: Halflings (Features)
» The Winter Scourge (Fiction)
» Performing the Pact (Class Acts)
» Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons: Hall of Fame (Excerpts)
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Electronic Arts Lays People Off, Cancels Projects
Posted: November 14, 2009, 5:39 pm by chevalier
 BioWare's owner, Electronic Arts, is implementing a restructuring plan that involves terminating lots of jobs, cancelling a dozen or so unannounced projects and relying on sequels. Here's a snip:
During the company's financial investor call this afternoon, CEO John Riccitiello gave a bleak outlook to many "risk" titles fans were hopeful for release in the next couple years. When asked by an analyst where the reduction in work force would reflect its current crop of projects, Riccitiello responded by saying the company had decided to cut over a dozen still unannounced titles, and added the company is focusing on guaranteed hits going forward in this struggling economy.
Read the rest at IGN. There's also a bit more about staff lay-offs at Kotaku, including Mythic, BioWare's counterpart in the EA empire:
Also rumored to be affected are EA Redwood Shores' quality assurance team and Mythic Entertainment. Tweets from ex-staffers at those studios indicate "huge chunks" let go at the former, approximately 40% laid off at the latter.
Rumors of Electronic Arts' plans to cull staffers began circulating last week. The cutbacks appear to have been rolled out over the course of the past few days, ahead of EA's quarterly earnings report and alongside confirmation of the publisher's acquisition of Playfish, said to be a $300 million investment in the social gaming developer.
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Resolution Welcomes Baldur's Gate Re-Release
Posted: November 14, 2009, 5:29 pm by chevalier
 The old Baldur's Gate is getting re-released by Interplay, tweaked to work on the computing power we have today. Resolution rejoices at this event and reminisces about the impact Baldur's Gate has had on us and on the genre:
Baldur’s Gate wasn’t a difficult game to learn. Its design allowed the modified AD&D Second Edition rule set to work its magic behind the scenes, leaving the player to concentrate on enjoying the experience of the narrative and characters. Knowing how the rule system worked and taking the time to master all the elements involved made the experience a little less punishing along the way. But the true magic behind the game was that, whatever the player’s level of knowledge, Baldur’s Gate remained accessible to all. Nothing was overly complicated, and the initially harsh combat simply encouraged a more cerebral approach. Simple controls and well designed menus kept things tidy and intuitive, all adding to its phenomenal success.
Read the rest at Resolution.
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Bethesda Lied in Interplay Lawsuit?
Posted: November 14, 2009, 5:18 pm by chevalier
  Bethesda claims that Interplay abuses Fallout 3 sales by selling collections titled Saga or Fallout Trilogy. Except those sales were around before Fallout 3 - at least before Fallout 3 was released - which is as early as 2004. Interplay offers documentation - that Bethesda claims was not authenticated, so one can't ascertain the dates. Except I saw some of those sagas and such on my own eyes before Fallout 3 came out and it's lame for Bethesda to do that because, eventually, sales will be documented because there will be invoices, possibly financial statements and tax stuff. And then they're going to lookd doubly stupid for questioning Interplay's counter. Here's from Fallout Wiki:
Thanks to Kevin from the Copyright in the Internet Age blog, as well as another, anonymous source, I managed to get access to all of Bethesda's filings regarding the Bethesda v. Interplay court case.
In the original complaint, Bethesda not only claims that the name Fallout Trilogy for a compilation sold in the United States and containing Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics is misleading and cannibalizes on Fallout 3 sales. They also claim that around August 2009, Bethesda became aware of compilations of Fallout games distributed under the titles Fallout Collection and Saga Fallout in other countries. "Upon information and belief" Bethesda alleges that Interplay began packaging, advertising and promoting these packages after Bethesda's launch of Fallout 3.
While a lot of Bethesda's arguments in the filings are reasonable, this claim is entirely false. Saga Fallout has been sold in Poland by CD Projekt since 2004, and the White Label Fallout Collection has been available in the UK since 2006, while a previous Ultimate Fallout Collection was released in 2004.
Read the rest at Fallout Wiki. There's also some court stuff at Duck and Cover. Some of the writing looks rather personal, e.g.
There is no dispute between the parties as to the plain and ordinary heaning of the language setting forth the conditions in the TLA, or that both of the conditions—“full-scale development” and the minimum financing requirement of $30,000,000—had to be met before April 4, 2009 in order for Interplay to retain the MMOG rights. Interplay does not seriously dispute that it failed to meet both of those conditions. Instead, the Opposition argues that Interplay should not forfeit the conditional MMOG rights because, in the personal opinion of Herve Caen, Interplay’s CEO, Interplay “substantially” satisfied the conditions, Opp. at 4, by entering into an unauthorized development agreement with Masthead Studios, another violation of the TLA. As a fallback position, Interplay asserts that “the [$30,000,000] funding requirement serves no material financial purpose.” Id. at 18. Interplay is wrong.
While I'm not an American lawyer, it doesn't take one to know that, no matter if Interplay's reliance on it is justified or not, substantial completion is not a bizarre construct in contract law. It exists specifically to prevent all-or-nothing oops delivery is one minute late lawsuits. On the other hand, Interplay won't likely get far arguing that the $30M requirement doesn't serve any material financial purpose...
Read more at Duck and Cover.
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Which Edition to Play
Posted: November 14, 2009, 4:47 pm by chevalier
 There's been one more interesting article at The Escapist recently. This time, the author gives a run-down of options you have when starting a new game. Here's a snip:
If you're willing to play any version of D&D, you have at least nine different editions to choose from, and arguably many more. If you toss in the D&D variants that the Open Game License for Third Edition spawned, you have countless other choices.
You can even find and download versions of these older games for free. If you like the original D&D, check out OSRIC (Old School Reference & Index Compilation). If 3rd Edition (or the updated 3.5) is more your style, you can find lots of copies of the d20 SRD (System Resource Document) around, including the excellent Hypertext d20 SRD.
Read the rest at The Escapist.
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End of Dedicated Servers for PC Games?
Posted: November 14, 2009, 4:40 pm by chevalier
 Well, we're all skeptical about the end of something news. Let's take a look, however, at what The Escapist thinks about the tendency by publishers not to host dedicated PC servers. Here's a snip:
3. End of the Server-Based Community
The end of dedicated servers means the end of the communities they supported. On the PC side, lots of people frequent favorite servers. The servers act as a meeting place and a hangout. They have forums and regulars and moderators. People form friendships and rivalries, clans and communities; none of which is possible in games based on friend lists or random strangers. There is an entire multiplayer culture that is being abandoned here.
Well, in some sectors of the games industry, we've never really had dedicated servers, such as our part of the world: the Roleplaying Games sector (as opposed to the Rocket Propelled Grenade sector). Wonder what this is going to mean for us, if anything. Are we going to see a more vivid multiplayer when we've switched to consoles (those of us who will... yours truly doesn't even have a mobile PC, much less a console!)... or are we going to take some kind of a hit in some other area? After all, we can point out things that seem to be due to money cuts on projects. Short play times, dumbification of system rules, recycled area design and all other counterparts of a big fat polygon that wouldn't be acceptable in today's flashy graphics.
Anyway, enough of my brooding and voila, the link.
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Fallout MMOG Screenshots
Posted: November 14, 2009, 4:17 pm by chevalier
 Apart from the "V13" (project name?) concept art that I wrote about the last time, it seems three actual screenshots have apparently leaked as well. You can view them at Kotaku. Is it just my impression or does the graphics look like it's from the old times when Interplay was still big, except higher resolution, naturally? It does have a certain very specific cartoonish feel.
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