DanJW

Oh man, that takes me back. I think I've seen all of those dance moves in Brighton's drum'n'bass clubs in the past. Probably dancing to Andy C at the time.

Well there is an achievement for completing the game without using any kind of attack, so it must be possible. Just very very hard.

Migrate them. It's what, $10? The DeathKnight is pretty fun. The core mechanic seems to be a cross between Warrior and Rogue; you spend recharging runes on basic attacks, which generate runic power as a byproduct. Then you spend that runic power on more advanced spells. I'm going with the Unholy talent tree - undead minions and disease FTW.

Well, I played through the Deathknight area. It was all pretty great, interesting what they're doing with multiple versions of the same area to show passage of time. Also the evolution of Burning Crusades "kill masses of people at once" mechanics, that was fun. I think I missed something at the pivotal moment though. It's annoying because I can't watch it again, as it were. Well, not without making another Deathknight on a different server and playing through again. Hmmm.... no no no that would be silly. Spaff and I will be taking our level 70 Blood Elves into Northrend tomorrow, probably. Goodbye weird sci-fantasy, hello epic bleak gothic norse fantasy! I can't wait!

Finished it. I wanted to see as much of the wasteland as possible, and I think I found most of it. No doubt there are some things I missed though. I expect I will play it gain at some point, with un upgraded PC and being a very evil female vault-dweller with a penchant for big guns and explosives. Towards the end some of the atmosphere did wear off and it became a bit of a slog. Probably this is due to being a level 20 badass with a choice of unique power-armours (offset by a stylish trilby and tortoishell glasses). Although in its favour I was in no way immune to a pounding - it was just a case of me killing them first. Once you have traversed the wasteland and DC a few times the mystique obviously thins, when compared to the sense of adventure I got when stepping out of the vault for the first time. One excellent moment of badassary though: using VATS to shoot an enemy grenade out of the air. Booya! Errki, I had the same thought at the end as you did

Meh, the Victorian 'A Christmas Carol' theme is the most unimaginative thing they could have done, and so very very BBC. I guess it's easy for them because of the tonnes of period costumes lying around from all the Jane Austen pap they constantly peddle. I do like the occasional standout episode of Dr Who, but none of the christmas specials have impressed me so far.

Dammit I thought I might be wrong but I couldn't think why, so I ran with it. Their logo has, like, the same exact typeface I bet it's the same guy, moonlighting.

Hello and Welcome! At least the name now has even more of a story behind it

The custom weapons are mostly of the Big Gun variety. Some of them are pretty hilarious. It's always fun to take off an enemies' head by launching a toy car at them. I wouldn't worry about stockpiling the junk though. When you decide to make something it won't take too long to find the parts - most of them are very common and the rarer ones can usually be found in a factory or something similar. The 'requested' items mentioned by Errki are often worth stashing somewhere, until you decide to make a trip to see whatever guy wants them. What I did find out, by accident, is that if you gain multiple copies of the same schematic, the quality of the weapon you make will be better.

That's fantastic, and I love what you did with the Idle Thumbs one, BigJKO. I would definately buy that as a poster.

He's Capcom guy isn't he? Isn't he the same guy who says "welcome to the stage of history" in Soul Calibur games?

I don't know why people would compare it to Dead Rising; they are compeltely different styles of game. As for the other... perhaps you need to play a few games until you see the way the AI director works and the excellent replayability, and perhaps until something really fun and spectacular happens. Problem with randomised gameplay - you might just have a run-of-the-mill game the first time round. Great Valve blog post here about the visual effects and how they aid gameplay. I don't think I'll be able to get the full game until Christmas Hopefully will have the the demo tonight though.

It looks mind-breakingly good.

Wow. Thank goodness for the electoral college votes system eh?

That old chestnut! Close steam and restart. Might have to reboot your whole system Either that or it really is the steam servers. What with the Left 4 Dead demo it is highly possible.

Buying repairs is pretty expensive. If you have a half-decent repair skill then it probably works out the same to sacrifice the weapon and do the repairs yourself. That way you have more carry capacity for trade goods, since weapons are heavy. Money seems tight early on, but later in the game you should become pretty wealthy. It's that normal RPG "gotta get rich" compulsion, where you never need as much money as you think you do. But yes you have plenty of time left.

The response to Iain's (it's the proper spelling!) question was probably the best. More like that! Although I still suggest editing the questions before the show.

You can see the stat bonuses from drugs etc when you highlight them (+1 strangth = +10 carry cpacity I think). When you are suffering from an addiction, you will get -1 to the stats affected by the drug if you haven't taken it for a while. Getting your addictons cured by a doctor only costs 50 caps though, and it will get rid of them all. I normally use unwanted armour and weapons to repair the ones I do use. But if you find something valuable then it is definately worth selling. After a while you will learn which is the more valuable bric-a-brac too - cartons of cigarettes are a good moneymaker early on. But yeah I also have a pile of parts to use for building weapons later... although I'm easing off on that now, as some parts are incredibly common, like pilot lights, whereas others are very rare. I only collect the rare ones now as I know I can easily find the others when I need them. Stimpacks are potentially the best healing item - they improve with your medical skill I think. Even so there are a lot of them about. I always forget to take Med-X before a battle though, but that helps avoid damage. Liquids are generally better than solid food for healing - purified water is great, but dirty water and nuka-cola are handy too, and there is a way to make blood-packs more benificial as well. Remember to take a Rad-X before every meal! The best way to regain health is sleep. If you find a bed out in the wasteland, say in a raider camp that you have just 'liberated', then use it. Even 1 hour restores full health.

Become a 'buffout' junky! Or an alchaholic, that will boost your carry capacity slightly as well. Stimpacks and food and drink will heal you. So in a way all those potions still exist. I still often run out of capacity even with buffout though. You are only meant to carry a couple of weapons and a couple of outfits - but screw that! Instead I have taken to hiding cachés of collectable goods around the map, in an easy to access container. Every so often I will do a round of me cachés and collect all the, say, scrap metal, and take it where it needs to go. It's a fun emergent strategy that feels like something you might actually do in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. One thing that is missing is disease. I guess the radiation kills all the microbes? Some other observations: Companions are stupid. Especially if you like to ambush guys (and really, what with the damage bonus, it's silly not to at least try, even if you don't have a good sneak skill). But a companion will rush in and get in the way, even if you have given instructions to stay back and flank. The only way to stop them spoiling an ambush is to tell them to 'wait here' several yards back. The other reason to do this is so that your companion does not die instantly. Seriously, it was the same in Oblivion; companions are pretty useless in a fight. Give them a minigun so they do some damage and don't run about everywhere like a loon. Obviously this is down to Bethesda's lacklustre AI, but at least enemies won't use explosives at close range and will run away if badly hurt. Good thing about companion: I gave mine a suit of advanced power armour, straight off a enclave goon , to try and improve her life expectancy. It was all shiny and black and threatening (you can tell because of the charisma decrease it carries). After a few days in the wasteland though it is now a big pile of rust. It was great to see it visibly, gradually, degrade. Still works though. Also the companion's inventory interface is nice and simple, making them useful as a mule - see above! Related to the degrading armour - I really like the repair system in this game. It makes total sense that you can only repair an item if you have a similar item to sacrifice for parts. None of that "magically improve the quality out of thin air" from other games. The repair quality of items also adds a nice natural level scaling to the game - a crappy hunting rifle is useful right at the start, but as your access to better repair improves, that hunting remains useful for quite some time. and you end up with a 'favourite' hunting rifle that you have been keeping in good(ish) condition for ages. Enemies also don't suddenly start carrying new types of weapons when you level up (OK they do, but not all of them); instead the quality of their weapons just improves a bit. And I have still only explored half the map! So much left to find.

No, I was going to suggest it myself a little while back, when they said they weren't getting enough email questions sent in. Perhaps you guys might get more if you tried harder to address the ones you do get? They mostly get kinda dismissed. Obviously several of them are a bit too rambling to read out on a podcast, so maybe editing them down to a main question before the show will help. Also, a minor gripe but something that has been constant since episode 1; whenever one of you is trying to make a serious game design related point or review or whatever, and casting around for words, they almost always get sidetracked by one of the others chipping in and derailing them. Just a pet peeve though. Other than those minor quibbles, another great episode

Yeah it has ocasionally been crashing for me too, but I assumed it was because It happens less now that I turned off scene reflections on the water. Also, somebody expressed a certain hope earlier, so I hope you forgive this minor spoiler... but some way into the game now, I have just picked up a distress signal from Vault 101! Can't wait to head back and see what's been going on edit: just wait 'til the guys back home check out my goggles and fedora, and the way it sets off my recon armour! Hmm, or maybe I should wear the pyjamas and the powdered wig...

You guys are such a gas.

Now to see what he can do. He's picked a tough term to be elected for. Of course,

Yeah just finished reading that myself. Seems pretty spot-on, although they had only minimal experience of the way the AI director can change things. Another thing that became apparent at the Expo: It's a great game for spectators. The huge queue and back-up onlookers where constantly providing 'oohs' and 'aahs' and 'holy shits'. Watching everything go tits-up for a team is fun all by itself, but there were also cheers and applause when a group managed to pull it back from the edge.