MacNN.com has done a fairly in-depth preview of (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/upcoming/pog_betashots.html")Pillars of Garendall(/url), the upcoming epic role playing game from Ambrosia created using the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/upcoming/coldstone_betashots.html")Coldstone(/url) game engine. From the preview:

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Even in its beta stages, Pillars of Garendall works as a full-featured RPG, complete with quests, items, characters, towns, battles, spells, an extensive array of monsters, 3D sprites, 2D tile layers, QuickTime movies and a rich, detailed storyline. The game is as well-rounded as any commercially sold role-playing game—despite its creation with a consumer-oriented editor.

Check out the full preview here:

(url="http://"http://www.macnn.com/feature.php?id=228")http://www.macnn.com...ture.php?id=228(/url)

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

A very nicely done article. PoG keeps sounding better and better!

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"How do you know that she's a witch?""She turned me into a newt!" "A newt?" "...I got better!"~Monty Python and the Holy Grail
~Nick

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Pillars of Garendall is combat-intensive and features a Diablo II-style point-and-click battle engine

Say it ain't so....

Other than that, the game looks spectacular; graphics are top-notch, I love all the scenes included. One minor detail that still nags at me is the lack of a party in PoG, but hopefully that flaw won't bleed over to impair the engine. All in all, very nice review.

Saphfire

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Ok, so everyone just ignore the post I made on this same subject 5 hours before Andrew...

Seriously, it's an excellent review. And fairly accurate too.

I didn't ignore your post :)...in fact, I was going to reply to that one until I saw Andrew's.

Saphfire

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"working your way up from characters that can barely defend themselves to warriors that will make dragons whimper in terror at the sight of your awesome presence"

note the plural "characters"
hey can someone tell the site that previewed the game to make their pictures as thumbnails THEN downloadable? I wanna see them before I download em(with more detail). And how do I expand them?

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"I felt you.. dying"
"I'm dying..?"
"I won't let you die..."

They are that way, at least on my machine. Clicking on a picture results in a new window in which the picture is revealed at one hundred percent, at which point you can download the image. Some very nice shots in there, though some are a little rough around the edges - I hope that's just in screens.

And I hope you are correct about "characters".

BTW, I like the screensaver pics, can anyone offer them as regular pics, for viewing or for desktop? Seven megs is killer on my 28k.

Saphfire

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Originally posted by saphfire:
**
BTW, I like the screensaver pics, can anyone offer them as regular pics, for viewing or for desktop? Seven megs is killer on my 28k.

Saphfire

**

What is your screen resolution? I'll put one up for you, if you'd like.

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I realize that I am on the lower slopes of the mountain. I have crested the easiest, and as I gaze with hope upwards, I know that discipline will be needed to reach the highest peaks of understanding. This is my goal.

Re: The combat engine, something just occurred to me.

It should be dirt simple.

I don't know this for sure, since I'm not a beta tester, but it seems that if Coldstone ships with a minimalist, baseline combat system and robust event support then it should not be that hard to embellish it or even ignore it in place of your own event-driven combat model. I don't know if it's even possible to design an engine that could be tweaked to support the various combat systems I'm familiar with without becoming a complicated, bloated beast.

Just a hunch.

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James
dystopia, n.: A utopia, in practice.

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Originally posted by theGlueBubble:
**What is your screen resolution? I'll put one up for you, if you'd like.

**

800 x 600...thanks, I'd really appreciate it!

Saphfire

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