I do agree, though, that it’s iffy whether the thing’ll ever hit retail; that’s why I get so excited at any hope of progress. But they’ve demonstrated the ability to run scenes with significant numbers of characters on current-gen hardware, and while I couldn’t care less about the number of points on the troll’s upper left second bicuspid, the ambience provided by the lighting and physics looks astounding.

More astounding is the fact that they’re not just hacking together a short-term movie, but building possibly the first truly artist-friendly FPS engine. Did you see the effect-piping IDE interface shots in the videos? Even Source requires a lot of abstruse tuning for a level or model to look good, and its HDR, while an admirable experiment, is nothing but a kludge in implementation. An engine like Offset gives the designer the freedom to be largely art-limited, and that lovely set is the product of three guys and nine months. When I think of what Valve or Trauma could do with that engine, I get weak in the knees.

Now let’s talk about Oblivion vis-a-vis Morrowind. When I was at university, my roommate was deep into it for roughly 6 months. Here’s Morrowind and, with different skills, Daggerfall.
Boinnng. Boinnng. Boinnng. Swish. Boinnng. Swish. Boinnng. Swish. Boinnng. Swish.
“Dude, what in the world are you doing?”
“If I don’t keep jumping and swinging my sword, the skills atrophy and I’ll get killed by the guy I’m headed out to fight.”

“Ah, yeah. I read about that skill practicing system. I guess that explains why you’re able to jump about ten feet in the air, huh.”

“Yep.”

Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Boinnng. Swish. Fwoosh. Boinnng. Fwoosh. Boinnng. Swish.
“Fireballs too.”
“Yep.”
“How much longer to the guy?”
“A few miles, I think.”
Boinnng. Boinnng. Swish. Boinnng. Swish. Boinnng. Boinnng. Swish. Boinnng. Boinnng. Boinnng. Fwoosh.
I AM PLAYNIG A ROLL!
Yes, this is blatantly unfair of me. I very rarely find any interest in RPGs, Patrick Stewart +1, and for all I know, it’s dispensed with all the silliness of Morrowind – but all I see is Morrowind 2 + fight some animated skeletons!1! + more attempted first-person swordfighting that is neither Jedi Knight nor Revolution. So myeh.

The Lost magazine, eh? It’s becomeing something of a juggernaut.

Apropos commenting, just a note to potential posters that basic HTML tags work. I know I’m not going to be the one who borks James by playing with tables etc., but at minimum a hrefs, brs, ps, bs, is and HTML character codes work. Just put them in your commentary text, and they get interpreted.

I read her preview, but it still didn’t get me fired up. I actually want fewer melee weapons, fewer special deaths, puzzle poisonings and set pieces. I just want Hitman 2 over again, with a better first-person mode, the ability to jump, climb and dive, and no lame priest friend.