JsARCLIGHT

As far as I've encountered the critters all stay the same, just you encounter new, more deadly critters or just more of them. Such as, at the beginning all you bump into are wolves and the occasional imp... but as you get stronger out come the elementals, the trolls, the ogres and the nasties like clanfears and daedra. When it comes to "armed opponents" it's somewhat more complex. At low levels you encounter just plain Goblins with cheap weapons, as you get more powerful you encounter Goblin Berserkers and Skirmishers with more advanced weapons. Same goes for bandits and other humans... early on they carry crap equipment and suck just like you but as you level up they get better and carry top shelf gear just like you... and sometimes they have that good gear before you so you can loot yourself some nice stuff from beating them. I myself enjoy the way the game ramps up with you. It keeps me on my toes. It's almost two faced of me to say this but I love and hate the way this game makes me panic when I'm down to like ten hit points, surrouned by vampires or ogres and running in circles screaming sh!t sh!t sh!t sh!t.

Roy Focker: The plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months. Disgruntled MW Poster: Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything. Roy Focker: But the plans were on display … Disgruntled MW Poster: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them. Roy Focker: That’s the display department. Disgruntled MW Poster: With a flashlight. Roy Focker: Ah, well, the lights had probably gone. Disgruntled MW Poster: So had the stairs. Roy Focker: But look, you found the notice, didn’t you? Disgruntled MW Poster: Yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the leopard’. ... anyway... Aside from creating a new section, moving the huge topics that needed restarting, leaving links in the original section to the topics so people could find the old ones if they missed the new section, posting a new notice pinned at the top of both the new section and the section the topics where moved and closed from plus this thread here the only thing I think Roy could have done was to post in each individual thread and repeat himself about what was going on. People have already restarted two of the threads, perhaps more. I think all those threads will be restarted by the end of the day, not really skipping much of a beat. Just my opinion though.

I've all but abandonded the main quest at this point. But I have been making some big strides on the sidequests. Has anyone else become a Brother in the Order of the Virtuous Blood? That was a pretty neat quest. I've also continued to level up to around 11 now and have a half and half suit of Orcish heavy armor and Dwarven heavy armor. My Heavy Armor, Blade and Block skills have finally passed Journeyman level and I'm near lethal in combat now. I can put down those punk Trolls, Fire Elementals, heavily armed bandits and vampires with ease now. I suppose I should be getting back to the main quest at some point... oh well!

I use "travel quests" to force me to move between towns. Once on a travel quest I don't take the roads, I plow right through the countryside... which usually turns up oodles of caves, ruins, old forts, you name it. I charge in and loot those places then sell off what I don't want in the new town I show up in. Then I meander around and see what sort of "town quests" there are. Usually the town quests are short and keep you within the curtain of the town. I've also found that completing the town quests in good number raises your fame level pretty quick. All I've done of the main story is just give the amulet to Jauffrey but I've managed to join both legit guilds (fighter and mage) and get two recommendations from mages to get into the magic school at the capital, solve the crime of the stolen painting in Chorrol, help defend what's his name's farm, spy on people in Skingrad for the nutjob, and several other weird jobs... and in between more cave diving and ruin looting that I can remember. I really like how almost all of the side quests can have multiple outcomes, if not double outcomes in some cases. For instance, the head of the Chorrol mage's guild wanted me to oust a woman he did not like... I go to bust her chops and the angry hag wants me to go get her a special book. I tell the mage guild head about this and he wanted me to get HIM the book instead. So I go get the book, on the way back I stumble into super ogre cave (see my post above), barely escape with my teeth in my head and take the book to the mage guild head. I then go to rub the hag's face in it and she hires me to steal the book back for her... so what do I do? Swipe the book back and give it to her which she then translates and sends me back up the mountain to perform some special trick on the spot I got the book that is supposed to supercharge my magic... I have not done that part yet because it requires a lightening bolt spell which I don't posess... so it's off to another town to get that spell. This game just sucks me in and I find it so addicting... sadly I think that if the same is not happening for others playing the game then perhaps it is just not for them. I would ask though... what is not "doing it for you"? Is the combat too repetative? Are the quests just not quite what you want to do? Is there just something missing from the game that is keeping the enjoyment level down?

Chalk up another "Holy freaking sh!t!" moment for me while playing today... well that and I just noticed I almost spent all weekend playing this game. My wife is sooooo pissed at me right now. Anyway... has anyone else checked out that cave along the trail leading up to Cloud Top just outside of Chorrol? At the bottom of that cave are the gruesome twosome... two mother f'ing OGRES. I had my ass handed to me about two times before I finally developed the Monty Python "RUNAWAY!" fighting style. Oh and in case people are wondering... running away and out of the cave means one thing: the heavy sh!t you where running from follows you out of the cave. I finally killed the second ogre at Chorrol's front door, and only then with the help of Chorrol militia. One of them even got totally goosed by that last ogre.

When I leveled up to 8 it was in the low 70 range. I know I can carry 395 pounds of crap with me, about 140 of that is my armor, weapons, alchemy junk and various potions and other gear. The trick with tomb raiding in these games is to only take what is worth something. My rule of thumb is that if it is not tiny, weighs nothing and sells for a good price or is large and fetches a ton of gold then I'll bring it with me. The best items to loot are the "useless to you" enchanted items... like today I found some stupid shirt that was enchanted to be like a constant +10 to something dumb like acrobatics so I just sold it... netted me over 1000 gold. Also cook yourself a few dozen nice feather potions. The ones my guy is barfing out with his meager alchemy skills are good for quite a boost of strength for quite a while. This last trip out I wandered off with a bunch of silver weapons. I was over encumbered so I just chuged about four feather potions on my way back to town to sell the stuff. I have made almost all my money by looting the guilds I belong to for everything that is not bolted down that will not get me a steal offense and selling it to the shops in town and by making tons and tons of potions and selling all of those except the feather, magica recharge and health recharge ones.

If that is the info you need then I'm going to close this thread before the crazies get ahold of it. Follow WDC's link to the Macross Compendium. It will answer every question you have about the real Macross and what shows exsist that you can find.

I don't know the acutal years (yes I know I'm a poor quality fanboy) but here is *I think* the answer to your quesiton: Macross Time Line: Macross Zero SDF Macross TV Series (First third of Robotech) Macross: Do You Remember Love (retelling of SDF Macross in movie form) Macross: Flashback 2012 Macross Plus Macross 7 Macross 7 Dynamite Macross II: Lovers Again (Alternate Timeline) Southern Cross Timeline: Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (Second third of Robotech) Genesis Climber Timeline: Genesis Climber Mospeada (Last third of Robotech) Robotech Timeline: Uses the parts of three different series above, originall those three shows are not related in any way until they are used to make Robotech Robotech Sentinels (failed TV series) Robotech Shadow Cronicles (in production) For more info check out Lebhead's thread pinned here: Difference between Robotech and Macross and also check out his website.

My Major skills and their current levels are: Armorer (35+/-) Heavy Armor (42+/-) Block (28 +/-) Blade (near 50, closest skill I have to Journeyman level) Speechcraft (35 +/-) Destruction (25 +/-) Security (32 +/-) I got bonuses to Armorer, Blade and Heavy Armor from being a Nord. Edit: Other skills that are high but are not main skills are Restoration (near 23), Alchemy (above 30) and Mercantile (above 25). I also have not paid for any training in this game yet. I know in Morrowind you could atomic level blast if you had tons of money but I think they limit it in this game to only 5 levels through training. I do have a ton of cash though from selling everything that is not bolted down, I'm above $20K right now.

I'm not sure... I'm only at level 8 and don't have too high of stats. I have no skills at journeyman yet but a few are close. I just did a huge hike from Skingrad to Choroll, took down two caves and and two elven shrines on the way. Found a few nice enchanted items like a firebow and a few other pieces to round out my combat a bit better. I also ran into my first two Trolls in the game... scared the bajebus out of me when the first one came plodding up in a dark cave. I think my main suckiness early on was a result of me not being used to the fighting the game has and making very poor choice in equipment... now that my block skill is higher and my guy is wearing heavy all steel armor and using a decent silver sword I can hold my own against almost anything. Magic users give me the hardest time though... I can't seem to block any magic thrown at me (I'm not sure you can actually block magic) and dodging it is a real pain in the cramped dungeons I keep encountering these punks in.

I have only played the PC version so all I can do is tell you what I think the positives and negatives compared to the XBox version are. Positives: - graphics are superb provided you have a system that can handle it - very fast load times, almost no wait (once again system specs) - mouse/keyboard combo is IMHO the only way to play FPS style games, no matter what their style Negatives: - slowdown... I have encountered it a few times and have had to keep trying to adjust my system settings to get the best framerate while keeping the look of the game going. I even have a "high tilt" system, too... or so I thought. - graphical annomilies... I have encountered a few, mostly in item pictures. A lot of the "breeches" items icons are corrupt on my game. All in all the greatness or the terribleness of the game I think is going to be totally dependent on your hardware. A killer rig will give you the best possible experience while a bargin rig will make you wish you never got the game... then again the same thing can be said for every PC game. In the end I think the only massive standout difference between the XBox and PC version is the question "Are you more comfortable with a controller or a mouse/keyboard?"

I'm for it. Then again I view those super threads as containment... as a place for people to discuss a topic without spreading it out over ten other topics. I know a lot of people dislike that "enclave" strategy but it keeps things tidy. Archiving the old topic will also keep the library book type people happy in that they can go back and re-read all that has gone before.

Physically I'm 36, mentally I'm perminantly 25. My personality stopped aging around then.

I'm not sure where you are wandering but I've been killed four times so far and had more narrow escapes than I can remember. I just now finished playing a round and I barely made it out of a cave with my arms attached. I even had to restart and change a few of my specialties because I kept getting totally creamed in combat. I had to switch to a nord with heavy armor and block in order to attempt to hold my own against most of the heavily armed bandits I was encountering in dungeons. The dungeon I just finished this morning was rife with bandits carrying silver weapons, heavy armor and two really nasty summoners who fired up a herd of zombies. There have been several times, even with my new guy in my new game, that I have bolted in a fast retreat from a lot of fights muttering sh!t sh!t sh!t sh!t sh!t while trying to heal myself as fast as I could. I will admit that I have yet to encounter a dungeon or cave that is just totally off the charts as far as running into something ten times stronger than me... but from what I have been hearing that is supposed to be the Oblivion gates. I have yet to see an Oblivion gate mostly because I have totally ignored the storyline quests and have been just bumming around Skingrad region for most of my play time.

As for how "engrossing" the story is that is up to the player's tastes. I myself find the main story of Oblivion that I have seen so far to be quite commonplace and very "seen it before". There is not much of anything special about it as far as I have gone in the game... it may go totally nuts on me at any point but Morrowind never really did that to you. Sure there where some times in Morrowind when you just said "oh f##k" when you saw how things where going down but the majority of the story is spent running between setpiece battles. And that is why I relish the non-story depth of the game. To me the real joy in these ES games is in just wandering around between the towns getting into trouble. Find a dungeon and smash it, find some bandits and wipe them out... heck last night while playing I had just found an old fort and was walking around checking it out when this Kajiit highwayman just wanders up to me and tries to mug me. It's that totally open, random, craziness that draws me into the game.

There is a story to Oblivion and a definate path you need to follow to "beat" the game... the problem is that you are not railroaded through that path. Just like Morrowind (and to an extent Grand Theft Auto), the actual game itself is not all that long and consists of only about a third if not a little less of the total possible actual gameplay in the game... the rest is all side quests and optional adventures. It's that openness however that is daunting. Without the game forcing you to "complete it" people can get lost. Edit: and there is always going to be repetition in a single player game no matter how large they make it. You can still see repetition in Oblivion... but that does not bug me as it is mostly dialogue repetition and that sort of thing is no big deal in my book. To give everyone unique dialoge all the time would take ten or more DVD discs of just audio. That is a tad excessive for me.

What sort of issues where you having? Mine only took some messing with the settings to get a good balance between looks and peformance it has since been running like a top. And does anyone have the HDR renderer up and running? I heard you need one of the new uber video cards to pull it off. I'm running a ATI X800 PRO and the HDR setting is greyed out (always off) on me.

I think this is a case of Anime Pareidolia. Sometimes we perceive the basis of things we like in things that have nothing to do with them. Last week I thought I saw a cat like mine on a magazine at the grocery store but upon closer inspection it was a dog.

That is this game's (and Morrowind's) blessing and it's curse... it is so open that people like me who are constantly looking for ways out of the chains that common games put on you it's manna from heaven but the same openness causes a lot of people to quit playing feeling there is no "direction". I think that is why I loved Morrowind and I'm starting to love this game... the direction is up to you. When I play games on the PC I'm always clawing at the walls of my cage like a rat... meaning I always try to do things in the game that I want to do, not neccessarily what the game wants me to do. Be it trying to shoot my teammates, trying to "get out of the maze and see what's behind it" to trying to open doors and go into places I can't go. When I was a kid I was that kid who would see a tree limb and try to climb up there, I'd see a ledge on a rock face and see if I could get up there. When it comes to games I feel cheated when I can only take one path, take one direction, only be the good guy or bad guy. There are so many greys, so many inbetweens left unexplored. Call me a rebel but RPG games like most of the japanese ones that coddle you and handhold you, limit you to only doing what they want you to do, really make me not want to play RPGs. It's the openness... the direcitonlessness of it that I love. I feel the game lets me do whatever I want to do, it does not preach to me to play it only one way like most games today do. Oblivion is a game I feel is purpose made for you to "get lost in". Simply exploring the countryside, picking things, seeing the deer jumping around, watching the trees sway... the simple exploration is great. Then finding a temple or a cave or something is all gravy. Putting the shackles of order and direction on it would make it like everything else out there. Then again I was never an RPG fan... I was always that guy invited to play D&D with the D&D dorks who was constantly telling the gamemaster that I wanted to go do something else other than his quest he had in mind. The guy killing the other players and taking their stuff or burning down things, starting fights and doing things "just because I could". Sure the kingdom needs saving... but that old elven ruin over there behind those trees looks more interesting. (Edits)

After hearing of Southpaw's "Archer duel" it makes me wonder... what is everyone's Oblivion ROE? My personal choice in combat is to pelt the target with fireballs at long range then when the magica is gone I raise my shield and close in for the kill with my longsword. I only use my bow and arrows for disarming traps and other mundane uses like hunting deer, knocking things loose and sniping small weak critters like mudcrabs from a distance. I also prefer to travel as light as possible using only light armor and relying on rest and magic for healing rather than carrying potions... although I make boatloads of potions with the alchemy skill to sell for profit. I guess you could say my characters are always "lightfighters" in that I purposely travel light but give them tons of strength and agility to haul back the treasure to sell and to dodge and block like a mug when the furballs get thick. My non combat ROE are suave talking and lock picking... I love going from person to person, talking them into liking me, then greasing them for anything they have to give or sell. That is why I almost always play as an Imperial... the bonuses to speechcraft and mercantile are always put to good use by me. The lock picking is a necessity in this game it seems, everything good in the dungeons are behind locks.

This is a question that I'm not sure anyone here has the answer to yet but do enchantments and soul gems work the same in Oblivion as they did in Morrowind? I have a few enchanted items already that I pryed off of dead guys and I have a few soul gems but I lack the skill level for soultrap right now and I have yet to find a place to enchant items so the mechanics of it all are still not known to me. That was one of the big "sucker punches" of Morrowind, was getting a few grand soul gems with golden saint souls in them and then enchanting some rings and amulets with constant effect stuff like constant health, fatigue and magica recharge and then the other two with constant effect bound daedric armor and weapons. Then I'd get two more golden saint souls and enchant my exquisite shirt and pants with constant effect feather and constant effect water breathing. I was able to make my guy near invincible in Morrowind that way by giving him perminent bound armor, weapon and shield (that had pretty good armor ratings and attack power with no weight) with constantly refilling life, magica and fatigue with the added bonus of feather so I could carry like 600 pounds of extra crap plus breathe under water. I was a walking tank at that point and the game just became so easy that it was almost pointless to do anything. I wonder if that sort of strategy works in the new game? I bet they took steps to prevent that this time around... it was kind of a game killer in hindsight. Then again you had to be pretty badass and play quite a while to get all the grand soul gems and golden saint souls needed to pull that off... not to mention all the loot you needed to have to buy the enchantments. Then again once you found that rediculous talking mudcrab merchant you could unload anything in the game for profit. All those daedric dai katanas and other crap worth several hundred thousand gold now paid off.

I got my copy the day after it came out. I bought the collector's edition and for the extra ten bucks you get a making of DVD, a nice book that gives you background on the land and all the people and a goofy fake gold coin. Worth it? Maybee. As for the game I only have about ten hours under my belt so far, I don't have the time to play like I used to. I always play custom classes in the ES games because the presets limit me too much. This is my current configuration: Race: Imperial Class: Custom with emphasis on Stealth Birthsign: The Warrior Two best Attributes: Strength and Agility Seven prime Skills: Blade, Light Armor, Armorer, Destruction, Security, Alchemy, Speechcraft My opinion on the game is pretty positive. They changed just enough for this to be a new experience but left enough the same so that it's like a continuation of Morrowind without being a direct continuaiton. They FINALLY changed the combat to be more "correct"... no more "hitting them without hitting them" crap. The main praise I can give the game is that it is a lot harder than Morrowind combat wise and the logistics of block-strike-dodge have taken it up a notch. At the same time my cheif complaint against this game is that many of the once difficult activities have now become way too easy. Alchemy for instance... you cannot fail now. Every time you attempt a potion it works. Levelling up your alchemy skill simply makes your potions more powerful. While useful and profitable in Oblivion I miss the days of Morrowind when you botched most of your attempts because you where incompetent in early levels. Also combat in this game is a lot more frentic. No more just walking up to a baddie and hammering them until they fall. With block now under your command you have to master the tricky "dance of death" pretty fast or risk getting wiped out every fight you get into. The one on one battles are more in depth now because you have to read your opponent's movements and block his attacks while waiting for openings to strike him. Spells and magic are quite useful for long range attacks early on because bow and arrow at low skill levels take too long to knock and fire accurately... however you CAN recover all your arrows now unline in Morrowind. As a rule of thumb my kit my guy carries is a good longsword, a good set of light armor and shield, a good bow with good arrows hotkeyed and ready to use, a nice fireball spell equipped with a good healing spell hotkeyed and from there I just meander around. Well, this time around they built into the game a brief tutorial/class maker section at the beginning of the game. Basically when you start you make your character by choosing race and their physical looks and then the game starts. From there you go through a little mini quest in which you are given a chance to use almost every skill in the game to some degree and you can see how well they work for you and if you want to specialize in them or not. When this minigame is over it asks you to pick your class based on how you played the minigame. After that you are set in your class, race and birthsign until the exit of the miniquest when it asks you again to make sure you want what you want. The only advice I can give is to stay away from the "level blasting" skills... Don't make Athletics or Acrobatics a main skill because then simply wandering around levels you up and that can cause the game to get waaaaay too hard too fast by blasting you through the levels. When it comes to picking skills pick the skills you use the most that require high skill to use. For instance in this new game blocking is under your control... as long as your shield is up or you are parrying it will work to some degree. The better you are at blocking the better it is, if you catch my drift. Personally I know I'm going to be doing a lot of blocking so I know that skill will level up fast, but at the same time I don't want it to be a main skill otherwise it would "level blast" and I'd find myself at too high a level too early surrounded by mean-ass monsters while all I carry are simple early level weapons and armor. Also keep in mind that speechcraft persuasion and lock picking are now minigames, your skill level really helps you in these minigames massively by giving you extra abilities. For as many goodies as their are behind locks you can't go wrong with security as a main skill. Two new additions that so far are kind of useless to me are the horses and the "instant find" mapping. Horses are neat and all and you get one quite early in the game but unless you use it regularly for long range fast travel they are not much fun and are quite hard to steer. With the addition of the "instant fast travel" feature on the map using a horse is pretty much "only if you want to" sort of thing and outside of increased speed does not offer many perks. Combat on horseback is quite hard and I found myself dismounting to fight most of the time before I finally stabled the horse and left him behind. The other complaint I have is the "instant find" mapping that auto detects dungeons and such and leads you to them. While I can see how people could complain that they couldn't find anything in Morrowind that was the big draw for me... just wandering around seeing what I could find. Now that the game automaps everything when you get remotely close to it it sort of takes the mystery and fun out of stumbling across a daedric shrine out in the middle of nowhere. In the end though Oblivion is a nice "enhancement" of Morrowind... they kept enough of the old game and changed enough for the new game to keep it fresh. Plus the "living world" factor is a neat plus. Putting the NPCs on a clock and making them need to eat and perform tasks really adds to the feel of the game. Sure it's a little annoying when you are lugging 100 pounds of spoils from your last dungeon trek and you really want to sell them only to discover it's 3 in the morning and all the shops are closed. But when you think about it it just adds that extra level of "real" to the game that makes you play "smart" as opposed to simply blasting through the game with your ass on fire.

The sad thing is I got to shoot one of those full auto P90s at a demo held at a local missouri dealer called CMMG. I was not all that impressed with it. It was fun and all but the firing position you had with it was sort of "ape" and I found the top loading mag to be quite cumbersome... then again I've been shooting forward release magazine rifles and carbines my whole life and anything that does not conform to the press-drop-and-pop mag change messes with my head. You can't fault the clear magazine though... I bought a few of those Ram-Line AR magazines just out of novelty but I find myself using them more and more at the range because it is so handy to be able to see how many rounds you have left in the mag. Too bad all those zytel and aramid magazines wear out so quickly. I already burned up one Ram-Line mag... nasty too, the mag release bar dug and dug at the release notch until it finally wore it down over time so the mag does not seat properly and causes jams.

That freaking ROCKED. I was having flashbacks of the '80s Flash Gordon... Then again I have always been a fan of terrible '70s and '80s glam rock meeting sci fi.

While I have an interest in watching some decent background stories in the Star Wars universe isn't it a tad presumptuous of LFL that this show is going to go 100 episodes? They have no control over network TV let alone the networks themselves and if this show does not have and then keep a massive draw I think it will get yanked in favor of something else. About the only thing it would have going for it is that I'd assume LFL is bankrolling the whole thing which means the network airing it would most likely be splitting most of the ad revenues with LFL as the network will have no cost of creation overhead. That would be a big push towards the show staying on the air even with crap ratings... after all, what does the network have to lose? It that is the case then it sounds win-win for them. And you know Star Wars will be a massive first time draw... I bet the first episode draws American Idol level numbers. But after that if the show does not have a good hook to it then all the fairweather fans will stop watching, leaving only the diehards.