I was thinking something along those lines. A modular system like GuildWars, so you could have non-combat maps [such as a quake/strogg/marine/vadrigar HQ] where players meet up and discuss tactics etc. before jumping through a slipgate or on to a spaceship to go to a battle map and meet a set of players from an opposing force. Upon winning a battle, the team wins something or other for their HQ. Quakes forces might win Runes, whilst the Strogg could take back the corpses for energy, etc. etc. 

if you had separate textures, downloading maps could be really quick. This could already be possible by making maps with really simple textures and using external tga:s. Dunno.

Slipgates to other servers were done already in 1997 or so (remember when iNET had a "front end" server which had slipgates to all of their servers). 

All you Titan Quest gits need to get on irc sometime and we can have romp around online. I have a lvl42 battlemage and recently beat normal skill. 

my current character is fire / ice mage, and yeah the lower tier ice spells are a bit poo, but DAMN once you get a high level lightning bolt spell it does serious damage! basicly my level 11 lightning bolt can 1-hit pretty much anything apart from bosses, and as it goes up levels it gains area damage too (heh).

Anyone tried the "spirit" (I think its called that) class tree? It looked kind of necromancer 'ish and I was gonna try it next. 

http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/etqw/ 

I think Quake2 as some sort of "Guild wars" alike game. Is a central server for coop games. but I am not a q2 guy so I dont know much. 

i replayed both games, system shock 1 and 2, recently. what a great retro experience! :)

i thought ss1 would be too hard to swallow in terms of graphics, but with the cd version (which is abandonware apparently) it was very ok. all it needed was an inofficial winxp patch..
controls are dodgy at first but it works once one knows the strafe keys. i really liked the game's atmosphere - very immersive - and the textures looked cool (colorful, in a positive way). also, this was the first time i played the game with voice-acted audio logs, which are a nice addition (even though they always pronounced "cyborg" incorrectly :)).
proper story (back then it was still original) and story development; cyberspace; skulls in crates..
the ending was a bit strange though, because the final cutscene started immediately after having drained shodan's health (no death animation).
strongly recommended if you are in the mood again!

getting ss2 to run, on the other hand, was quite an effort: i had to run the setup with some arcane parameter, apply lots of patches and use a slowdown tool while playing. later, i had to get fixed versions of two of the maps for they would not load, and finally needed to regsvr some file to be able to watch the ending cutscene...
well, graphics are better of course (3d), though at the same time made the game look kind of boring - too bright and shiny. compare ss1 with ss2 screenshots and you will see.
i liked the way the story was continued, with the approach of "the many" and all. near the end, one even has to destroy its body and fights within a living organism grown over a part of the ship. the final area (shortly before the fight against shodan) was also pretty nice, as it is a part of the first level from ss1. average ending, but at least made way for another sequel.
the 'leveling system' (buying tech/weapon/etc upgrades) as well as the choice of different player classes in the beginning was more distracting than helpful. psi powers did not really kick it either.
what annoyed me most were the respawning enemies - it's ok in principle, but it just sucks having to blast away security mechs every single time when returning to certain spots..
psi reaver enemies were quite a nice idea, though: they are floating apparitions with very tough psi attacks that respawn after a short when being killed. the only way to defeat them is to destroy a weak 'brain organism' hidden nearby. might be interesting to see something like that in quake... ;)

btw. a somewhat nice feature of both games (related to recent prey fake-death discussions): almost every deck of the station/ship has a regenerator which can restore your body when you have been killed. but it has to be found and activated first (otherwise one gets transformed into a cyborg or just dies). this at least still maintains some tension until the 'rescuing switch' is found (especially if one plays as intelligently as i did and walks into the wrong direction, only finding it after having cleared the entire deck :P). 

now that I have a comp that can run it, either of the dungeons sieges recommended ?

which one's better ? grpahics ? 

I completed the 1st one and quite enjoyed it, though it can get quite trite in places. I only played the demo of number 2 and wasn't particularly impressed by it.

Have you looked at titan quest also? 

I thought it was pretty good. I normally suck quite profusely at RPGs (how ironic, eh?) but I didn't have much trouble with this. I never finished it, though. I got near the end and just stopped playing, but I don't remember why exactly.

Graphics are decent to good. If you're still playing Quake and those graphics don't bother you, then I doubt you'll have a problem with this.

I haven't played Dungeon Siege 2. 

I'm not much ofan RPG man myself RPG (hehe), but I liked Diablo2 and heard this was similar (ie more hack/slash than RPG).

might give it a whirl. 

I had heard the enviroments wereboring but I couldn't imagine they would be SO AWEFULLY LIFELESS and they really killed the immersion. Bad dialouge/acting combat/enemies feel weak although when placed in groups in a room full of physic objects it gets slightly interesting.

I totally will not play the full game. 

People complain a lot about the FEAR environments being boring but they're just office buildings and warehouses with some tech facilities. They're not anything amazing or innovative but they are well executed and good at what they do. It's a game about a guy terrorizing a city and you work with a SWAT-type team to take him out within said city. What did you expect, volcanoes and tropical tree forts? 

It's definitely not for lack of talent on the level design team. They had some veterans including long lost community member and former Freshteam mapper kanaeda 

was not about it being offices and wareshouses but that they were poorly excecuted and not very convincing at all with crappy lighting etc.

Maybe later levels look better but these days I tend to judge games quick wich I guess in some cases might be unfair but if it doesn't hook me I'm not going to waste my time on it. 

http://frictionalgames.com/penumbra

Its a first person horror/thriller set in an underground complex of some sort in Greenland, and featues some pretty nifty ideas and oldskool puzzle gameplay.

I have to mention 1st the physics and how the player interacts with the world. Top open a door you have to click and hold the mouse and then drag the mouse in the direction you want to apply force to the door, thereby opening it, sounds simple but this mechanic is used for multiple things in the game and works great. Reminds me a little of that old game "Trespasser" with the virtual hands (that sucked) but thankgod the implementation here is solid and easy to control and really helps sell the immersion.

Which brings me nicely to the 2nd great thing about this game, the atmosphere. I dunno what it is about this game, but it really sucks me in, its just so creepy it freaks you out! The combo of doom3 style lighting and visuals, the player controled physics interaction, and the fact that you have NO WEAPONS to defend yourself just makes it terrifying.

Yes there is NO WEAPONS, this is not an fps, more of FPP (first perpon puzzler) like Portal etc, it does have some very oldskool puzzle elements such as combining items to create new items (this can be quite obscure at times) and using inventory items on the world.

Again this brings me nicely to the major drawback I found with this game, some of them item combos and world objects to use said items on can be very obscure and not clear at all, which does lead to frustration when you cannot find where to go or what to use items on. The game does have a handy notebook system to keep info on but its not enough, something I hope the developer fixes for the full product.

In closing, this game rocks, totally differrnt take on the horror/thriller genre and it works, it is created by an indie developer (just 3 guys iirc) and has cool motion blur :D

Please try this :) 

this sounds like the kind of game I'm inclined towards these days. 

that sounds like the first game in a looooong time that is interesting. 

...there seems to be some sort of electrical chord...

The in-game text really strikes a cord with me.

Oh, but yeah, the control scheme sounds interesting. 

pretty cool stuff! 2 levels from the game, 1 skirmish and 1 SP, where you play the new Tau race. Its a cool race made up of 2 seperate species which are allied together, the Tau are technically advanced and have cool guns and shit, while the other ones are like cavemen but are awesome at close combat.

New stuff - Upgradable commander units with new armour, weapons, abilities etc

- Tau have a split tech tree, if you go up 1 side (tau) then cavemen remain weak, or vice versa.

- they seem to have tweaked the effects, lots more blood and gore (heh) and cool fx.

- Not in the demo, but there is a full strategic map in SP now which is playable with all 7 races.

Definately gonna get this! 

I just played the first level. The Tau are SO cool! I love it and will definitely buy it. Wooooot! 

They're called Kroot.

I just tried it. Seemed good, but I'm not hugely inspired by more DOW, as good as that was. Haven't even played Winter Assault yet. 

Tried a bit of this. Got past the monster by just running. Then couldn't get up the overhead vent despite numerous attempts.

Agree with Daz in general about the atmosphere and interaction and stuff. I found the motion of things you interact with a bit sluggish though, and it was odd having things floating around. Definitely got an intriguing feel though. 

I know the vent you mean, believe it or not you just need to get close to the opening and 'use' it... Took me fooking ages to realise that!

...One of the downers of the game I geuss! 

Shambler go play Quake :p