Sunday - March 10, 2002
Planet Dungeon Siege has posted a chat log of the recent chat with some folks from Gas Powered Games about their upcoming action RPG Dungeon Siege. Here's something about the models in the game_
a0 asks Question for animators: Can you confirm the polygon budget for Characters 200-800, Weapons 20-50, buildings?
GPG_Calix Okay, Steve the Art Director sez: lower end monsters that you want to have many onscreen at once are around 200 polys. Player Characters are around 700, and high end boss monsters that you will only have one of, like the Dragon, are 1500 polys.
GPG_Guttyr Hmmm, I don't know about buildings - do you Sarah?
GPG_Guttyr But if I recall correctly that is the right range for weapons
GPG_Calix I'm not sure what the absolute limits are, but the blacksmith house in Stonebridge appears to be around 7000 polys
GPG_Guttyr As always, the fewer the better.
GPG_Calix This is just a guess from the looking at it top down in the editor with the poly counter on, though.
GPG_Calix It looks like a basic house (like the starting Farmhouse) is around 2000 polys. |
Here's the latest from the Icewind Dale II <forums:
Josh SawyerJosh dug up an old IWD1 document
I just came across an old document for Icewind Dale (the original). When Dorn's Deep was being created, the artists asked me what the writing on the walls should say. Though it didn't come out in the rendering, here's the list from which phrases were chosen:
So gems, metal, rock abide, these three; but the greatest of these is rock.
The breath of Moradin is within us all.
May Berronar protect our homes and Clangeddin protect our honor.
Not this way, dummy.
Constructed by Bokkes and Sons contractors.
A wise dwarf once said that wielding a longsword in each hand is silly.
Death to the giants. Long life for the dwarven race.
If you are drow and reading this, we are probably dead and unhappy.
Lux
Samosud
A wise dwarf once said that a dull axe does not cut very well. Go sharpen it.
A wise dwarf once said that a short dwarf with a long beard always has a clean table.
May our lives be as rich as the living rock.
Light, more light! Truth is light.
Every act of creation glorifies Moradin. Every act of destruction wounds his pride in us.
If you want to make a dwarven stronghold, you have to break a few orc skulls.
Dropping boulders on your enemies is not very honorable, but it gets the job done.
About colours for Drows
That is how it currently is. Drow can pick from a range of dark greys, blues, and greens for skin tones, and the standard white, silver, pale gold hair colors.
Reacting on: If they faithfully emulate the PnP game of DnD it will be innately balanced
You should be on Showtime at the Apollo.
I think you may find that many 3E players find that several 3E spells are not balanced. Haste, in particular, has reversed the old "double your fighter's effectiveness" problem. Now, weapon combatants get a decent bonus out of it; spellcasters double their ability. Stinky.
About the 3E Multiclassing investigations
BTW, we should be able to talk more about our 3E multiclassing investigations in a few weeks.
It's going on, not going in. As previously stated, these are dangerous waters.
About pickpocketing
You can pick-pocket off of a LOT of people in IWD2.
Kevin OsburnAbout the end level a party can reach
Currently, finishing the game on Normal will have your party in the range of 13th-16th level.
BloodLustAbout gamepace
As mentioned before on some of the other threads, balance and fun are some of our higher priorities with IWD2, and there will certainly be places in the game where the pacing will take you to areas where you'll take different approaches to the battles due to the resources that you available at the time.
And the stat increasinf potions
Players will have to earn (and I do mean EARN) the permanent stat increasing potions.
On the accessibility of potion bags and the likes
Potion bags, gem bags, and scroll cases will be available to be purchased in the first city (one of each). |
| 18 new screenshots from the PC version of Grandia 2 have been posted at RPGPlanet. |
Tomorrow there's another playing session of A Tale in the Desert, as you can read from the following:Everyone,
The next play session will be:
Monday, 3/9/2002 from 9:00AM EST until 1:00PM (GMT-0500)
Toward the end of the last session, a vote on the Clear Roads Act, introduced by Tchrin, was called for. By a vote of 26 to 8, the law passed, and was implemented approximately a half-hour later.
A number of people spotted wild sheep in the grassland near the Nile. Both Scholars of Thoth and House of Bes began raising sheep, which promise to be a good source of meat (for the upcoming Test of Cooking), leather,
and wool. Sheep dung can rot in a tub to make saltpeter, a component of fireworks.
Most people I talked to considered building decay and maintenance only a minor irritation this session. As I promised, if it becomes a real bother then I'll make changes, or scrap the system entirely and look for an
alternative. Don't be bashful about sending us email on this.
Also significant this session, was the formation of the Nubian Artisan's Guild. I normally wouldn't mention a new guild in one of these announcements, but in this case I will: They are the first in the land to discover gold. Gold wire already has uses in several higher-tech structures, is used for the Test of Trust (Leadership), and plays a future role in pyramid construction. I suspect that mk1anton and the rest of NAG will be quite popular next session.
Several guilds have created private forums to coordinate plans for future sessions. If your guild would like to do the same, Pluribus (pluribus@pluribus.org) has offered to host them and assist with setup, as a service to the community.
Standard Stuff:
Visit our official chat channel before the session: irc.stratics.com port 6667 channel #ATITD.
If you didn't play in either of the last three sessions, be sure to install the latest version of the client from our web site (www.ataleinthedesert.com, Downloads section).
On the Nile,
Teppy (Pharaoh)
Josh (Nekhmet)
James (AmenRa)
Dave (Orpheus)
Joe (SickJoe)
Ed (EdTut)
Jeff (JeffTut) |
A new review of Disciples 2 - Dark Prophecy can be found over at PC Strategy Gamer. The reviewer is very fond of Strategy First's game. There is no rating, but the game has been awarded the 'PCSG Award of Excellence', and here's the final verdict:The fact is I should probably go into much more detail about the way the game plays out etc. but I can’t! I have to return to the game – I’m going through withdrawal pains. If you have any interest at all in strategy games Disciples II is a must! If you are one who has never played a turn-based game before or perhaps have been limited to Civilization and its’ offspring grab this one and you’ll learn to love turn-based strategy games! |
No news to report about and still a bit cold here in Munich (I wonder if it's really THAT warm in Vienna already, Rend :).
So, what do I want to tell you?
I remembered a game, by a company of Ex-Origin employees, announced years ago, but never again heard of. I couldn't remember the name, neither the company - but after a while I remebered, it was called Seeker: One - The Story of Mimb, and I found the homepage again and also, that it is still under development and scheduled for a release 'soon', whatever that means (especially since I first heard of it in 1998 already).
The company, by the way, is Logic Factory and I have re-added the game to our database, after it has been lost somehow in the restructuring last july.
So feel free to click on the game info button and learn more about this interesting title... |
 Survivor of the Ages cancelled
(PC: Single-Player RPG) | Posted by Garrett @ 03:00 - Top 
| Game Info | Homepage |
| A look on Alien Logic's website reveals that the company is no more and therefore their long delayed Survivor of the Ages is no more either. The game was intended to be a downloadable episode title like Siege of Avalon, but since an 'almost done' announcement more than one year ago, noone ever heard of the title anymore. |
Rend's Rants: Weekend Silence
Posted by Rendelius @ 02:42 - Top
|
Well, this seems to be a VERY quiet weekend, regarding RPG news. Just one newsbit found by me, and one by Garrett - seems life is telling me that there are other things than sitting in front of the computer *g*. So I will prepare the balcony and the outdoors of my home for the spring (it's a beautiful day here in Vienna today, and the first green is showing up everyhwere). And then I will try to find out why XP seems to not like to work together with my midi-port (I installed Cubasis yesterday because I suddelny got interested in my keyboards and samplers again). Everything is fine when I use the sound card from within the programs (entering scores by hand), but whenever I want to use my Roland D70 or any other external keyboard, there is no data flow whatsoever - only when I plug in the midi cables the wrong way around - the there is a constant flow of sysex-messages that isn't triggered by me. Hm. The wonders of computing *g*.
Anyhow, I'll take a shower now and start cleaning up. Have a nice day :-) - maybe we'll spot some more newsbits for you today, else do yourself a favor and browse our forums a litte, some nice threads in there... |
And if there is nothing at all, there still is a preview of Warcraft 3 *g*. Erwin's Pages is the place where you can see it, and here's the usual snippet:
Overviewing the beta, there was predominantly the immense stability and "readiness": technically the beta (especially version 1.03) can be shipped. The graphics, sound, animation, terrain, etc. all seem to be definitive, although I hope Blizzard would liven up a bit the terrain. Excellent marks go to the relatively low system requirements and fast performance, although Blizzard has announced the retail version will have slightly heavier specs. As usual, the Blizzard's gameplay is extremely addicitive, this time offering a lethal mix of Starcraftian and Warcraftian RTS and Diablo hack & slash role playing. Certain new features like upkeep are striking, but need further refinement. What we'd also like to see perfected after the beta are the units differences. The basis is great, all 4 races are diverse enough and are designed brilliantly, but the gameplay still needs that razor-sharp edge Blizzard is renowned for. But putting on a less demanding face, the Warcraft 3 Beta is an impressive product that already levels with Warcraft 3's earlier released, biggest rival and most succesful clone, Battle Realms. |
| The official website for Shadowbane has been updated with 4 new gameplay screenshots. | | Source: Blues News |
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