Never Winter NightsMorrowind..I know you like the "Tolkien" slant on things...Just wondering if you get into RPG's..Both of these games are excellent...

Hi Paul,Indeed, my name has always given me the "bent" to be highly interested in Fantasy of all types. I've always wondered if someone named Burlington Trainer has the same fascination with trains and their sims? :-)Thanks for the recommendations Paul. I've been playing Morrowind since its release and it is indeed an excellent game: one of the most immersive computer RPG's I've ever played. I've also been following Neverwinter Nights since its announcement and plan to buy it as soon as its on the shelves here. My long-time friends and I used to D&D every weekend when we were younger... Now that Neverwinter supports a full DM mode to control the plot and everything else, we've discussed doing some "virtual" dungeon crawls with Neverwinter. It sure looks like an excellent tool to do so.Another somewhat related game you might be interested in is Dungeon Siege. While its not exactly an RPG (its more of the hack and slash variety), it is an excellent game in its own right. I've been fairly active in its developer community since release and there are a TON of extremely high quality "modules" coming down the pipe for the game. The engine and the end-user SDK and tools that Gas Powered Games has released for Dungeon Siege allows more end-user addons and ideas than I've ever seen: Flight Sims included. Neverwinter Nights is looking to be just as developer friendly as well. Its exciting times in the RPG field - finally!Thanks and take care,http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

I bought Dungeon Siege on the name of Chris Taylor (creator of the legendary Total Annihilation) and have to say I'm a bit disappointed by the gameplay.I'd have preferred if the bad guys didn't always spawn in exactly the same place and type (more variety thus) and the story wasn't so linear (maybe I've been spoiled by Diablo II :-)).Graphics and sound effects are marvellous of course, and so is performance. But I think the long-term playability leaves to be desired.

Hi Jeroen,I agree. The default single player game is a bit too linear and once you've played it, you've played it, as there's no variety in replays. The great thing about Dungeon Siege however, is its multiplayer and the easy-as-pie SDK and editor released by Gas Powered. With those tools, the game will be never ending as so many people are working on so many modules - both for single player and multiplayer. And not all of them are fantasy based either: there's some great reality based modules in the works as well. Give the end user designers another three to six months and you'll start to see the flood cool addons for Dungeon Siege. It should have an extremely long life as an end user engine.Take care,http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

Probably true. Shame I don't have a permanent connection so playing it online gets very expensive real soon.And running a multiplayer campaign alone (using a LAN connection) gets boring quickly.oh well, maybe in 3-6 months they'll have made up their minds and started offering DSL here.