take a look at avadirect. i'm not sure about canadian sales since they appear to insist upon credit card payments from U.S. credit cards, but it might be worth a try. i think i'll build myself from now on, but i got a nice desktop there that beat anything from dell, hp, etc. for the price.

z

RPG: planescape: torment

FPS: no one lives forever 1 & 2

T(3rd)PS: max payne 1 & 2, mafia

z

trying looking here. do a search for haruspex. you could also try looking at the hunting and dream mastery forums. from what i've read haruspex can be very powerful, especially with the right equipment.

z

definitely the BG series. i thought ID2 was better than the first, but neither can quite compare with BG...

z

not really. it's something i enjoy doing. i don't push out other hobbies just to game; i still enjoy cooking and reading. i spend money on games and a decent rig, but not so much that i feel guilty about it. when i consider that my boss is 60 and enjoys collecting baseball cards and other paraphernalia, gaming doesn't really seem juvenile. to each his own i guess...

z

3rd person shooters: max payne 1 and 2. mafia

z

[QUOTE="PuRe_CaNaDiaN_"][QUOTE="zebruter"]

i watched the 20 minute trailer last week and i was impressed most by the somewhat destructible environment and using it to help destroy enemies. while this thread has mainly focused on the color scheme, my concern is with something else.

in particular, the siegebeast thing was absolutely HUGE! and this was just a mini-boss? i realize that some of the enemies and creatures in diablo and diablo II were pretty fantastic, but there was nothing 100 times the size of your character. sure, diablo towered over even the barbarian, but that was as it should be; defeating him was difficult and a major event in the game and his size demonstrated that. but when a mini-boss's toenail is larger than your character, how can you fight it and make the game feel even somewhat believable? diablo isn't meant to be a realistic game, but that siegebeast kind of puts it over the top. i'll wait to judge the game after more has been shown by blizzard, but i'm a little concerned about the corniness factor more than the colors at this point.

z

fireandcloud

I think I'm going to start ignoring TeamR, as I don't think he reads beyond the concern and takes it as a big whine. But, what I think zebruter is getting at is that within the context of the Diablo universe, large massive beings seem out of place. If say in LOTR books Tolkien suddenly added a monster truck, while a fantasy universe it would feel out of context to the reader. He's just arguing the same principle but of something not as extreme.
Anyhow, interesting point. Still, I think Andariel and Duriel were both of fair size and would consider them more of mini bosses (read: not the prime evils). So, as long as we're not fighting 20 of those at a time, I can understand them being in the Diablo universe.

With all that said, I have a little doubt Diablo 3 will be a great game, but is it wrong to just wish that the game would be tailored to my preferences?

hmm... i dunno, z. i think it was mainly the limitation of technology that didn't allow for them to make big monsters. by looking at the design of the butcher in diablo and diablo in diablo 2, it seemed to me that they wanted something physically menacing, but they just couldn't make them any bigger, because - well, if they did, they'd take up the whole screen. plus, just because there HASN'T BEEN a big enemy in the past doesn't mean that there can't be.

fnc, i'm okay if blizzard wants to make a big boss for say the end battle. it just seems that for a mini-boss to takeup 3/4 of the screen seems too much. thinking of the bosses that i have faced that were big, i come up with typhon from TQ and the pit monster thing and nihilanth from HL. typhon was tough, but he was the final boss of the game; he wasn't a mini-boss. the same goes for nihilanth. and while the pit monster was what you could call a mini-boss, you couldn't use ordinary weapons to kill it. you had to essentially launch a rocket right above it. it just seems too crazy to think that i'm going to kill a siegebreaker with what amounts to a couple of toothpicks. i guess my point is that the boss doesn't need to fill the screen to make it tough. diablo and bhaal were tough SOBs in D2 without being excessively huge.

perhaps blizzard just wants to show off what they can do with larger models. i haven't played WoW and maybe that's part of my thinking in what i was expecting for D3.

z

i wouldnt' say that TQ is underrated. it is an average to good game. it basically took D2's concepts and refined them slightly and put it all in a 3D environment.

on the plus side you have the potential for deeper character development with a combination of 2 classes, the ability to redistribute skill points, and some nice looking landscapes and enemies.

on the other hand, the story doesn't really compare; the cutscenes in D2 helped drive the story and reinforced the object of your missions. in TQ you just go from one general/villager/shade to the next picking up quests in what feels like a string of hodgepodge minor missions. the overall storyline is there, but it never had the feeling of D2's story. the number of minor missions and how many don't relate to the overall goal actually seemed to take away from the main story in a way.

TQ is what it is, a clone of D2 with a few nice enhancements and a somewhat stale story. D2 set the stage several years ago and brought some new ideas to action RPGs; i guess that's why many people feel it contributed more to the genre.

z

i watched the 20 minute trailer last week and i was impressed most by the somewhat destructible environment and using it to help destroy enemies. while this thread has mainly focused on the color scheme, my concern is with something else.

in particular, the siegebeast thing was absolutely HUGE! and this was just a mini-boss? i realize that some of the enemies and creatures in diablo and diablo II were pretty fantastic, but there was nothing 100 times the size of your character. sure, diablo towered over even the barbarian, but that was as it should be; defeating him was difficult and a major event in the game and his size demonstrated that. but when a mini-boss's toenail is larger than your character, how can you fight it and make the game feel even somewhat believable? diablo isn't meant to be a realistic game, but that siegebeast kind of puts it over the top. i'll wait to judge the game after more has been shown by blizzard, but i'm a little concerned about the corniness factor more than the colors at this point.

z

i also have too many games and have a hard time deciding what to play. i usually try to stick with one until i'm finished, but every know and then i need to shake things up a little and play something else for awhile. especially if the game i'm working on is long.

just started riddick: EfBB this evening. somewhere out there mfsa should be proud :cry:; his review of the game was a big reason i bought it. i'm liking it so far; i think i'll stick with it.

z