Dungeon Siege II Underway

First time not posting at 3:00 or 5:00 in the morning.

Act 1 was just as difficult if not worse than I remember.  Sure you could work towards whatever specialization you'd like with anyone, but I think I wanted to stick to their initial preferences back then.  Which means I'm running around with two melee characters, the main one wanting to be a tank (by my own preference) but lacking the feats and gear to last more than a few seconds in a group of mobs.  I eventually give him a bow to kite everything and finish burning down the rest of the towers.  As I leave town for the next quest I run into the next party member who defaults as a ranger, and I have to wonder if she was there the first time.

I ran into some difficulties with group management after picking up the healer.  I don't remember what I did last time, but I thought the rampage formation worked pretty well.  Now some of them (like the main character) will move back to the group as soon as I issue the command and stand there, maybe taking a few hits before retaliating.  In the end I went with the mirror formation and controlled the ranger most of the time.  Otherwise, if I were moving back with the melee characters and started attacking again it would drag the healer to the middle of the battle since the active spell was a healing one, and the autocast healing spell wouldn't override the initial command to move to that spot.  After picking up the mage I controlled her more often due to the shorter range of her spells putting her near the heart of the battle and pulling enemies.

The game really picked up near the end of Act 1.  By then the tank was a real tank and I wouldn't have to run back so much.  Shortly into Act 2 after picking up the mage I had my old group composition back, but during Act 1 I considered discarding the tank role and turning him into another ranger.  I think I would have soon grown weary of all the kiting, though, and there would be competition for drops.  Maybe not that much competition; I wouldn't mind equipping more defensive items among all the members.  Still, one character who ridiculously outranges everything is enough for me.  And I like the traditional composition.

Get the ranger to engage then continue watching the Olympics.

The other members just happened to be female, really!  The order is like male warrior -> female ranger (bow/x-bow) -> female healer -> male ranger (throwing, shorter range) -> male warrior -> female mage -> female warrior...and I think a male ranger with bows shows up later.  Then I used him when I had an extra slot while playing a little bit of the next difficulty, but I could buy another right now since I'm trying the beta 4s hotfix mod.  Act 2 is nearing completion.  One more to go.

The question is why am I even conscious about gender preference / balance unless I had something to hide.  Heck, what about this name I'm using (not the guy in the game; I called him Isaac)?

Tried out Skyrim for a few hours the other day.  One freeze a minute into the beginning but no other issues so far.  A little bummed out over the lack of attributes and the clunky interface.  It'll just have to be fixed up with mods as usual.  I tried out SkyUI and it's an improvement, but I'd like to see if there's anything else out there.  When I think about Morrowind's inventory system it might supposedly be worse because you aren't presented with the names upfront, so I can't tell if it's nostalgia that's preventing me from really believing it.  I miss the item icons, and the ones in Oblivion look too simple.  Oh, I guess Skyrim has a model for you to look at but you need to have the item selected.  The interface in Morrowind just felt more homey.  Just right click and bam!  Numbers and stats and stuff to look at everywhere.

I don't have any saved games in this one again so I picked it up from Google Images, and then I saw that the site it came from had a rant about the very thing I'm talking about.

Still, what I'm looking for hasn't gone anywhere.  It's right there in Morrowind, and with a better computer I can take advantage of the graphical overhauls (always played without mods, save once) out there as well as explore new areas, including ones I haven't seen that have been there since the game was shipped out.  Just a matter of time before I rotate back to it.

Also took a walk the other day and enjoyed the nice, cloudy skies.  Quite humid still.