Volourn

"Anyone who buys Bioware games for loot and awesome mindless combat is a moron." Wrong. I'd take BIO/IE/Aurora/D&D type combat over Diablo style combat ANY DAY. And, id dare say that Grom is quite correct. Plent of people buy BIO games because of ph@t lewt, and awesome combat. Not everyone shares your views.

I never claimed that wizards can go toe to toe with fighters in a melee fight. The argument you and others make is that wizards are virtually useless in low level D&D combat (be it level 1 or level 1-5). This simply isn't true. And, I've got 2 decades of personal experience to draw from (as I;'m sure you and Josh do if not more) so I've seen both wizards and warriros at low levels. Wizards hold their own just fine, and are far from 'weak' at low level.

"The engine wasn't designed for squad-based tactical combat and handles it badly. It was designed as a single-character action game, and the farther it gets pushed from that concept, the more clumsy and frustrating it's going to become. " Totally wrong. Aurora is no more action combat than any IE game. It has the same base combat engine - 6 second rules, and combat is done solely based on character skill not player skiller (outside of player intellect). Aurora combat > IE combat. It cna handle squad based tatical combat eaisly, and does it awesomely. AURORA > IE Period.

"feh, they are if a mage is firing them." Nah. All characters have the same attack bonus (or thaco in earlier additions) at level 1. Mages can have decent dex so they got +2 to attack give them an attack of +2 at basic. Fighters will usually have +5 to hit at level 1 (+1bab, +1weapon focus, +3 strength). Most enemies at low levels have ac12-18 so the differences aren't super huge. Not as effective as warriors (not should they be); but still not bad.

"I wish it was an option you could switch on and off. Infinity Engine combat was far more satisfying in this respect." Umm.. It is. Just play on hardcore rules, and play on player vs player settings. You can burn your companions just fine in the NWN series. You can also web them, grease them, and any other area e4ffect spells that effects everyone in the area. IE is NOT better in this area. And, Di, I never insulted you nor did I attack you in that post. All I said was NWN series isn't locked into one particular playstyle or ruleset. Heck, the base death rule is bleed to you die. BIO actually had to make a script in the NWN OC to get respawning to work. And, respawning was taken away in NWN1 starting in SOU (though in ch1 you had that vteelport ring that brought you back to your mentor's house); btu that no longer worked in in the next section. ...

"1) pnp does not allow sleep-at-will likes some crpgs." Huh? Irreleavnt. A mage is just a spwoerful if not more pwoerful than any 'ol warrior even at low levels. "perhaps vol didn't realize that a one encounter pvp scenario is pretty pointless in evaluating how fun it is to play mages at low levels. after your mage casts his/her spell, he/she then gets to hide in corner and fire ineffectual crossbow shots for rest of day's adventure. yipee." Mages are fun at any level. And, crossbow bolts aren't ineffectual at low levels. That's silly. Most things don't have super high AC anyways at that level so definitely hittable. And, bolts do decent damage. *shrug* Perhaps, you just don't know how to play mages? Or you had horrible DMs? I have lots of fun with mages at level whther its pnp or video games. *double shrug* King of Shadows wasn't THAT bad of a villain. Not the best; but acceptable.

"lame at low levels" Mages were awesome at low levels in earlier adition. I could have a mage defeat a warrior with 1 spell that the warrior can't avoid even with a saving throw. That's even better than a Death Spell! "btw, hardly anybody played gnomes..." Might as well take out dwarves, halflings, and half orcs then. They're nowhere near as popular as elves (though dwarves have a reaosmable amount of fans); but halflings and half orcs are *possibly* just a *tiny* bit more popualr than gnomes. LOL The logic doesn't fly. On SOZ: It'll be awesome. It'll be even awesome if they add Wild Dwraves. No excuse not to!!!

"If the hardcore "permanent death, no rest, friendly fire so your mages become equal-opportunity killers, turn it from an RPG to a tactical combat game" crowd gets its way, I'm sure they'll be very happy. But it won't be an NWN game, and only the hardcore gamers will be buying." Actually, it would be a NWN game. Great thing about NWN is that it incorporates all sorts of rule including variant resting rules. Heck, in HOTU, you cna get attacked when trying to sleep. IIRC, you couldn't rest in every area in SOU either. You also didn't have insta teleport stones after NWN1 except briefly in SOU either. NWN series is about rule changing, and experimenting. Heck, in most modules including some BIO created ones, there were actual hardcore death rules. *shrug* This is why NWN series is awesome as is Aurora. There is no set rules. It cna change module to module. Totally cool!!!

"Kotor combat is NWN combat with three characters to control instead of one." Nope. It's dumbed down NWN combat that has none of the awesome factor. KOTOR combat is a joke. A big fat mystical joke on REAL gamers. NWN combat is just plain awesome. It's that simple.

Spell plague itself is fine. The death of Helm, and it was handled is lame. The reshaping of the land except the SC area around BG is silly. The lame removal of gnomes (i don't even like gnomes myself) as a playable race yet an addition of 2 new races INCLUDING ANOTHER ELVEN STYLE ONE - is rather pointless. The fact that spells and magic have been altered to a point of ridiculous that they're baisclaly nothing more than mere special powers that ALL classes get. The fact, pretty much every class can heal by attacking. The fact that there are just a handful of skills now menaing there is even less ways to make your character different than others. The retarded alignment thing. You have 3 logical choices: Keep as is as it has worked for decades, IMPROVE IT, or remove it all together. The current method pretty much please nobody. The list can go on as the nonsense won't stop. Don't get me wrong, 4E will likely be an okay fun time; but it is no doubt weaker than earlier versions, and definitely loses quite a bit of the D&D falovor that makes it D&D. P.S. My no was fine as is because Grom's argument wa snothing mnore than 'most 4E changes were reasonable'. Can't argue much when you get nothing to really discuss...

"most changes to 4e is actually pretty reasonable" No.

KOTOR combat is foolish. NWN combat is awesome.

I know a lot of people who don't have that problem, and they've enjoyed Aurora combat for years. *shrug*

Of course they won't say that. How many times has a team officially flat out said x player sucks? Even when a team cuts a player 'cause he's not good enough; they don't flat out say he sucks. They pretty much just say it didn't work, he needs to working on some things, not a good fit, etc., etc. That doesn't mean that isn't what they believe. GB has made it very clear that they think Rogers is a better QB than Favre. That's a joke, and an insult to any Gb fan who wants their team to do the best they can.

Nope, theya re saying that. They've mad eit quite clear that theyf eel Rogers is a better QB hence Favre sucks.,... unless youa re amditting they are puposely trying to tank this season by stubbornly sticking with the worse QB? Nope, they feel Favre trash. imo, You should retire when you can no longer play at a high level. Favre - depsite his gaffe vs the Giants - can do that.

"Really? I didn't know it couldn't be modified. I was wondering why the NWN series featured so few modifications to the official campaigns themselves." Actually, it has more than enough mods for it. Not a smuch as the IE games but why would one bother when youy can just make your own mod? The reeaosn why original mods for IE games are rare is because IE isn't really good for fan modding of that sort. P.S. I dunno how anyone cna claim NWN series combat is 'fast paced' and then claim that the IE combat isn't when the combat works the same way in terms of 6 second rounds. It's illogical. Perhaps, youa re getting old, and your reaction time is dropping so it seems faster. R00fles!

Well.. bottom line. there's nothing GB cna really do. If Favre wants to unretire he can unretire. So, they're gonna have to pay him big bucks eitehr way. Since GB has made it clear that they think Favre sucks and can't help him and they wnat him in the trash can, they might as well get rid of the trash. One team's trash is another team's gift horse.

C or not, Washington is Ovechkin's team. He leads they follow. Where he goes they go. He's pretty much the captain anyways so might as well make it official.

Besides hardcore fan(atics) of anythingc an be ignore because they'll buy anything with the logo on it anyways. They don't need to be convinced to buy the product. It's the mass of plebs that need to be brainwashed.. err.. convinced to buy it. Pretty much everyone posting on the AP/OBS baord are guaranteed to buy the game. It's the tools elsewhere who have to be tricked into surrendering their $50.

Doesn't sound quite mature to me. And, it seems m they're cutting down on role-playing. The main character doesn't cry under any circumsatnces? Doesn't sound like a spy, or human. Must be a robot we're playing. And, cna sleep with ALL the women? Where's the C&C? L0L Well.. at least I get to see HOT babes! YUM!

Ovechkin should be Captain.

"1. A small number of tactical fights is vastly better than tons of trash fights." Agreed. "2. Please disable resting anywhere but in safe places." Agred witha caveate. You should be allowed to TRY to rest in some unsafe places but with major consequcnes of enemies attacking, and poor rest due to having to be at a higher level of watch. ie. You get negatives to abilities the bext day due to lack of full sleep, and make interuppting foes be tough. Not just a couple of random orcs; but actually encounters that cna threaten your party's well being. "3. Please add BG style autopause options." Not needed; but won't hurt naybody so go ahead and add them. "4. Please make enemy spell casters smarter, including removing your party's buffs." Enemies already do this in both NWN games. "5. Introduce spell duels like in BG2. Ironically this requires making some buffs stronger so that a fighter can't just pummel the mage like in the NWN2 OC and MotB." Umm.. I can have a mage laugh at fighters in NWN2/MOTB (as well as NWN1) with the already existing spells. Not hard, actually. Awesome spell battles already exist. "6. Replace the general stance of the character being very powerful with one where the party at its best is just strong enough to overcome the fights they face. This will make character development more meaningful, and fights more memorable." To a point yes, as long as there isn't a need to rest after every battle so you have to be amax strength to face the next encounter. That's not D&D or real adventuring. You should be able to deal with multiple encounters each day within reason. "From a design standpoint I think that combat is just too fast paced and easy for tactics to really matter in most encounters, and I'd like to see this rectified. The reason this is an "issue" is that if they don't make the encounters like this in SoZ, then the encounters in SoZ will NEVER be tactical, because the design of the module is not something up for fan base modification." It's not afst paced. Combat rounds are 6 seconds just like the IE, and you cna take your time. plus, there is the pause button. Use it. It's your friend. "As far as the actual combat engine goes, I'll list the problems." K. "1. The aurora engine auto follow needs to be eliminated. Even with MotB's improvements, your characters still all drop whatever they're doing to run over to the active character. This should replaced with an IE like system where each character is controlled totally individually. I should not have to order everyone to stand still during combat to select another character." Agreed. Best way to do this is for there to be line up orders/stances. That said, NWN2 does the other part youa re asking fine. You can control your characetrs as you see fit wither you use the AI or full control. That's why you can have multiple orders ready to fire. "2. Mages need more effective protection. Using the currently available protection spells, wizard duels are impossible unless you make the choice not to physically attack the enemy wizard, since a decent melee character will destroy the spell caster before 1 or 2 spells can even be cast." That's nonsense. NWN franchise has TONS of defensive spells. TONS. I cna have my mage laugh at your mage's most pwoerful spells without blinking an eye. And, i cna do it with 1 spell. "3. Enchantment and crafting need to be changed. They were both so overpowered in the OC and MotB that your characters became extremely powerful, to an unreasonable degree. The dragons were not even challenges." Has very little with item creation. "4. The death mechanic NEEDS to be changed. Right now there is no penalty for a suicide rush, as long as one character survives." Agreed. I think bleeding rules + death should be used. This is alreayd possible too by virtual of one little option in the toolset. "5. Immunities and reflex saves need to be made less overpowered. As it stands, it is MUCH to easy to make a character than can effectively stand in the middle of a group of enemies while the mages cast burst spells that the tank is immune to via resistances of reflex saves. This tactic should not be viable, or at least it should be much harder to pull off." Agreed. Less immunity items for sure. And, not as many save bonus items, too. It isn't too infeasibly cureently for characters to have +30 saving throws even on their 'weakest' stat now. "If suggestions like these are incorporated into the game, then SoZ will have the best gameplay of any NWN2 game yet. We already know from MotB that Obsidian can craft an awesome story with this engine, and all that is left is for the combat to be as enjoyable as the story." Definitely will be improved...

The old D&D alignment system was absolutely fine. It could have sued twinking; but this new disgusting creature is abhorent beyong belief.

"don't act like it is ridiculous to want a company that has only made games in a certain style to make more games in that style." Yeah, then people will whine that they aren't changing or adapting or making new things. Look at the DA stuff: "WAAA! It's 'generic fantasy'!" crap. Or the cries when Obsidian made KOTOR2, and NWN2. It's claled adaption. If games, and game devs didn't change; we'd still be stuck with 'RPGs' that were nothing more than dungeon crawlers with turn based combat not the RPGs that you say you like. Thank god, people didn't stick with doing the same. Or BIO would still be working on medical software, or Obsidian would stick with making KOTOR 10 10 years from now. *shrug*

"As for Bioware being better than Obsidian, I don't see one being better than the other" I was mocking those who insist that Obsidian should 'stick' with what they're 'good' at and not branch out in fear of 'bombing' or 'screwing up'. If BIo can go from making medical software to successful RPG development; I'm sure Obsidian can handle going from RPGs to MMORPGs since the differences are minor in comparison...