hussar said:
i remember this place used to be much more lively.
True, but it doesn't help that there's absolutely no activity on the RPG front and all too much activity on the Exitium front. Obsidian's working under a Cone of Silence. Troika's kaput. Gothic III is quiet and (to me) uninteresting. Geneforge III's already out, and was pretty much more of the same. Sir-Tech's kaput, and the Jagged Alliance sequels from SFI and MistLand seem to be going nowhere fast. Apart from Gaider and Ohle's appearances, even BioWare's been damned quiet. With Ex gone, I doubt we'll see much more on Grimoire or Guild Wars fanboyism.
So apart from Oblivion pre-interviews (most of which degenerate into a round of why-not-remake-Daggerfall, because we don't exactly learn much that's new and exciting from them), there's nothing interesting going on. (No slight intended to Vault Dweller; I'm sure you're busily working away on AoD, but it sounds like you're still pretty far from the testing phase.)
Which is damned depressing, if you think about it. Not only are we in the traditional (and nonsensical) summer drought for all kinds of gaming, but nothing seems close enough to release for them even to start the hype machine. Five years ago, we got Diablo II and Icewind Dale by now. Four years ago, BG2 and Arcanum were coming up. Three years ago, we had Morrowind and the first wave of NWN-bashing. Two years ago, many of us were temporarily obsessed with Escape Velocity Nova, and the disappointing ToEE was two months away. Last year, we had Vampire previews.
Now, though? There isn't much on the horizon. I've basically got three hopes for boxed gaming: Oblivion, Longest Journey 2, and Serious Sam 2. What's worse is that I'm pretty leery of the first two given the prerelease information.
It's better than the Russian bots.
