Antagonist

Does anybody have an alternative link for lgNPC ? I used Google to locate it but the site http://lgnpc.tesmods.net/ seems to be down and Summit does not have it. Better NPCs might convince me to give this game another try. EDIT: Forget the LGNPC question. In the last 15 minutes I learned to use the Summit search engine :">

There are official forums now ? On topic: Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Bethesda say that Oblivion would cover a landmass which is even bigger than Morrowinds ? How on earth do they hope to make it less steril if they didn't manage it in the predecessor ? Radiant AI sounds neat but it will never substitute well-written NPCs and custom quests and I fear that their solution to the dead world is an automated AI rather than old-fashioned design.

My first advice would be similar to Kaftan Barlasts but since I think it is a little bit unrealistic I'd like to tell you to use your journal if you ever get lost. If you own Bloodmoon or Tribunal it should be organised. Oh, and although it might seem tempting don't ever leave the main quest in order to do some exploring. This is the best way to kill any fun you might have with the game.

I really don't understand why people are so excited about Oblivion. All Bethesda did in the past were huge empty worlds with a bare minium of story and medicore artwork. So why this shoud change with their next title, considering that they made a huge profit with Morrowind, is beyond me. But if you like the style of gameplay more kudos to you. Piranha Bytes on the other hand created two games which had an solid story (Gothic 1) or at least decently told (Gothic 2) and their world-building skills exceed those of Bethesda by far. I don't know how many times I just stood in both Gothics and was in awe about the majesty and realism of the world. At least Gothic has NPCs with personality and not some sloppy disguised hyper-terminal connection to http://morrowind.wikipedia.org. And I think both Morrowind and Gothic had similar amount of roleplaying considering that your race and class choices never really had an effect upon the gameworld. I dare to say that maybe some people are a little blinded by Oblivions shiny new graphics and the empty (and vague) promises Bethesda makes about how they want to make the world seem more lively. All I read is about some new AI but nothing about unique NPCs or a more stringent plot.

Ratzinger is difficult to like, but his reasons for him being conservative are a little bit more complex. Although many people don't know it, he was once considered a liberal among the catholic youth and he was a strong advocate for the second vatikan council and even after his "turn" he was one of the chief thinkers of the apopogy to the jews and other religions which was issued a few years ago.. His turning-point were the student revolts around 1968. He was a professor in T

Here's the link to Weimer's message about him stopping development on IWG. Weimer's announcement He also released the beta builds he has made so far: Download Page

Don't forget to mention Gibberlings Three. They released the BG1 Banter Pack for Tutu. Link

According to Wesley Weimar, the chief (and sole) developer, the project is officially dead. It never made it past early beta stage and ToB is not supported at all.

Oh, but I disagree with that assessment. One games makes a repution, 3 games only proof if the reputation was justly deserved. Nevertheless, this whole KotOR 2 thingie is becoming a disaster of epic proportions for Obsidian. <_<

The small download size indicates that they did not release the music in high quality. That's irritating, because someone claimed he/she wrote an email to the composer and he said that the patch would take care of it. So, either Lucasarts or the one who supposedly wrote to the composer lied or it may be not the last patch the game has seen. But as others have already noted, the list is far from what I had expected after they kept delaying it for so long. The question remains whether the patch really had so much technical problems or LucasArts couldn't be bothered to QA the patch.

That would pretty much take Obsidian out of business as patches just don't leak randomly. Not only would they face a lawsuit for breaking contracts with LucasArts they would also look bad in the eyes of future publishers. What they could do is to include a paragraph into their next contract that they are allowed to develop and QA patches on their own, so they would not be in this unfortunate situation again. And I agree with Master D. The patch might never be released because it's not profitable for LucasArts anymore. Even if the fault is evenly distributed between the developer and the publisher I won't buy (at least) Obsidian's next game on release day, as NWN 2 has also a very tight schedule. Oh, and they are deleting topics about the patch without a warning, not just closing them.

I'm very grateful for what you are trying to achieve. Keep on coding

Hey, stop the criticism of Jade Empire or Volourn will have to work overtime for days to rebut all those filthy infidels across the internet

They had no choice but to announce the patch before they knew a definite release date. People reported problems constantly after release so most people expected Obsidian to start working on fixing bugs. If they had decided to say nothing about the patch people would have been even more angry because they would have thought that Obsidian indeed abondoned them. Nevertheless, Obsidian is in dire need of a public relations manager. Even if the encountered unexpected technical difficulties (which is not unlikely considering the sad state of KotOR II) they still could have kept people in the loop like telling what problems they exactly encountered. But as many suspect the real problem is not a technical one but their publisher LucasArts who can not be bothered with QA right now because they have to finish their crappy Episode 3 games before the movie hits the screens.

He spams all the KotOR II forums and many threads with this message. If he continues I'd might be tempted to report him to the local authorities unless he stops his evil spamming way.

Your opinion if indeed perfectly valid but I think many people like Obsidian to continue making tragic stories because there are not many developers that do them these days. It's really easy to go and find some nice and happy fairy tale story with great heroes and evil enemies, but look around for more ambiguous games and you find yourself pretty deserted. Troika tried it with Bloodlines and in my opinion they nailed the atmosphere perfectly but alas, Troika is no more. Developers probably hate it to be pidgenholed like this but I'd like to leave the so-called epic and light stories to Bioware and Obsidian continue to make darker games. Since Bioware and Obsidian are not very different companies and believe in similar design philosophies we might get games which suit both camps.

The CCC is pure bloatware. When it was first released I tried it once and was disgusted after I realized that the bloody thing eats over 30 MB RAM. ATI would be wise to drop CCC as it is broken by design and I hope it's not true that the CCC benefits from more bugfixes than the more efficient control panel. I have been been using my Radeon 9700Pro for years now, but recent developments (like Shader 3.0) and apparently better drivers might convince me to switch to nVidia if I upgrade to a newer PC. By the way, what is the glow effect everyone speaks of ?

You shouldn't mind reading a LOT. Torment is almost an interactive novel with a refreshingly original setting and the most developed NPCs which I know of. Most praise and confidence in Obsidian is actually based upon Torment and to a lesser extent on the Icewind Dale series, especially one. If some of the Obsidian stuff could produce games of such high quality I refuse to give them up right away and am willing to give them the benefit of doubt for now. If they manage to fail equally with NwN 2 I might reconsider my attitude.

Ok, I admit that I am too lazy to look it up right now but there is a thread in the Obsidian suggestions forum which is called "Obsidian's third game" or something similar. Somewhere there John Morgan posted that their next project is not a sequel and not related to Bioware. EDIT: Alright, I may be not THAT lazy Link

It has been discussed to death but I don't think that Obsidian had a say on when to finish the game. Bioware is lucky enough that they are a very big and influential by now and probably cannot be bossed arount that easily. By the way, there are more then 3 Black Isle people working at Obsidian. I remember that Feargus mentioned once that roughly half of the staff are ex-Black Islers and Chris Avellone is one of the three people which were heavily responsible for Torment. I felt the same quality in KotOR II, but as with everything else most character arcs are plain uncomplete and come to a grinding halt after the first few conversations. Nevertheless, characters like Kreia which are less incomplete were a real joy to converse with. In my opinion even the half-finished NPCs were far more enjoyable than anything Bioware devised (minus Joyee). Different tastes, I guess.

The problem was not the combat itself, it is indeed your typical love it or hate it Infinity Engine combat, but the pathetic enemy AI and the lack of really powerful enemies like spellcasters. The only time I got handed my ass was in Curst after Carceri when the deamon from Moridor's Box caught me unprepared. It also didn't really help that the game left phat loot in every corner of the gameworld. Torment was never about combat anyway, but it would have been a nice change of pace once in a while after hours of reading. As it stands enemies were just annoying because they never posed a threat and only hindered your progress to the next incredibly interesting NPC.

It's kinda ironic that Torment is voted as best DnD CRPG in this poll, although the game that felt least like your typical DnD game.

I usually prefer the old Black Isle games over Bioware stuff but this time I have to vote for KotOR I. KotOR II feels so horribly unfinished, and I don't even mean the endings or the technical bugs but the whole game has an aura of being rushed at least 6 months too early. KotOR II might have been a better game with better story but it's useless to speculate because the game we have is broken by design. I never managed to finish KotOR I more than once but it felt far more satisfying experience due to Bioware having the time to finish it properly. Be sure to play it at least once. As others have pointed out it is very cheap by now and the original planets like Dantooine and Koriban are a lot better in K1, just don't expect a great original story in KotOR I. It is good mainstream fun, but far from the quality of Obsidian's writing.

It's very unlikely that the patch is delayed because of people being redirected to work on Episode III, because LucasArts, LucasFilm, ILM and Skywalker Sound are seperate divisions of Lucas' company. More likely LucasArts must finish the Episode 3 games which will be propably released simultanously with the movie, so they might profit from the hype and they cannot be bothered with patch QA.