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I like games for the story. Starflight, Planescape Torment, Monkey Island, Civilization (the story of progress), Alpha Centauri, Baldurs Gate II, Mass Effect 2. Put a good story with some fun gameplay in front of me and I'm hooked. Except for Dragon's Age oddly, which I felt really bored and can't explain. Pretty though, did I mention I also play games to appreciate the artwork? World of Warcraft was awful for me, I kept touristing and getting eaten by crocodil

Of course you can always chose to believe that the citizens of your faction are not monolothic -- this is a weakness of modern games with their rich graphics and backstories and the strength of extremely silly games like Dwarven Fortress. Definitely the reason I prefer pen and paper games where the complexity and texture of the game can be as much as you like. I like to imagine there is more subtlety and nuance to my digital people and when I build a marketplace in Civ or improv

I'd love to see a none-cheating AI that actually challenges the player like a human being would, but I suspect building something of that complexity for a game this intricate would be EXTREMELY challenging and I'm not convinced its been done before (at least not with a game so close to release with so many features still up in the air). I suspect SirPleb is right that the only workable approach to this would be to have different AIs handling the various scales. I would lov

There is a lot of discussion noting that cheating AI's can be fun, but without the important caveat: They can't JUST be cheating. Every time you declare war in Civ4 the other side magically gets piles of units at the same tech level as you, regardless of where they were before. Its so blatant it takes all the fun out of things. But if the cheating is disguised and just looks like a common player strategy done very well then the fun is maintained. I guess

To say that fantasy means orcs, elves, etc... well, that seems to be a pretty narrow definition. I've always thought that Sci-Fi is fiction that hinges on semi-scientific ideas: what if we could fly into space, go faster than light, rewrite life, etc... epitomized by authors like Niven and Pournelle. Fantasy, on the other hand, was fiction that drew its strength and aesthetic from the frankly unexplainable, that is "magic." There is plenty of magic in Eleme

What an interesting, if a little angry thread. As a compulsive world-creator myself I am really excited to see how Elemental's backstory is setting out on its own without using the crutch of 40 years of pretending to be half as talented as Tolkien. I think it is pretty cool that it doesn't involve orcs, or elves, or humans with different color skins (whoops, nevermind), but any truly fantastical races would have to be so alien as to be unsympathetic to players entirely (anyone w

A good analogy would be game-packaging. Despite a certain amount of setback recently from online retailers, the packaging of a game has always been a pretty big project because it is the first glimpse a browsing shopper will see. The packaging needs to present a clear, crisp, and engaging product that the shopper can immediately identify as being of interest or not. Fantasy and sci-fi novel covers are like this. A good cover will sell a book, and I've definitely boug

Technomagical cultures are usually fun though not strictly fantasy. The best version of this is Baker's Eberron where technological systems are powered by magic (elemental trains, eternal light streetlights, etc.) Another good one would be a psychic race, perhaps even one where the psychic powers stem from alien intelligences taking over people (mindflayer seeds, Riedrans, etc.)

Just like the mention that a dragon thread with no mention of Todd Lockwood is really sad. Considering that he made perhaps the best Dragon painting ever... http://toddlockwood.com/galleries/dnd/01/draconomicon.shtml Though maybe opening the discussion up to illustrated dragons might be dangerous.

Spot on Twohawks. The site theme looks really nice, but the content needs a little more thought and consistency.

I just heard about Elemental two days ago, and already I've become entranced with the possibilities of this game. It is obvious that a tremendous amount of excitement and work is going into it through the Beta. The forums are humming and there are lots of great journal entries. But that is only if you're willing to dig through the mounds and mounds of inconsistent updates, forum topics, and journal entries. A less dedicated gamer would just look at the official websi

I'm with Peter Molyneux on this one: cheats and exploits make games a lot more fun for a lot of players and definitely have a place in things (in reference to the Fable II date change exploit). Sometimes you just want to bash the heck out of everything when you're having a bad day. Other times you don't have the time to play your best and just want to have fun. As for hyper-advanced alien ships... isn't that what the mod-tools are for?