Volourn

BG1 + expansion sold 2.6mil copies. BG2 + expansion sold 2.5mil copies. NWN + expansions sold 3mil copies. KOTOR + no expansion sold 2.5 copies. You lose. Again. Stop trying. You are losing here. Huge. Game over. NEWSFLASH: Your theory that BIO's sales have gone south since BG2 is plain old fashion FALSE. "I'm pretty sure NWN and KOTOR managed more than 5.5 copies too since I have 4 Heh. must edit quicker. It's (obviously) 5.5 mil copies. :D

"In terms of sales Biowares been on a downward slide since BG II hasnt it." False. False. False. Combined, BG and BG2 sold 5 million copies. Combined, NWN and KOTOR has sold 5.5 MILLION copies. (lol) JE has 600k+, and it's just over 6 months old while the BG series have had years to sell + expansions as well. You better learn to do math, moi boy. It's embarassing to have to embarass you so much. You lose. P.S. Hades, I never said BIo was dead. I said they were no longer independent. Big difference.

"I don't think it's the end of Bioware." Huh? It *is* the end. They are no longer independent. The Doctors no longer have absolute final nor the only say. They have new partners whose opinion is equal to theirs now. Period.

You missed the point SP. The point of that post wa snot toa rgue how much money JE lost or did not lost. or even how much it earned or did not earned. It was simply used to kaboch the idea that somehow JE's "failure" or "success" is what somehow led to BIO choosing to partnering up with other companies. I seriously doubt one game underperforming (if that is even the case which I doubt) would bring financial ruin to a company. Anyways, BIo is no longer independent. Period. Game over.

Jade Empire has sold over 600k copies and counting. There is already a semi annoucned sequel on the way. For some reason a game that would lead to a dveloper's demise would not be getting the go ahead for the sequel by the publisher...

"I hope Bioware fights this." Why would they fight something they wanted? This was their choice. It wans't like they were bought out in the stock market. They chose to be a aprt of this partnership. Period. A bad choice, imo; but meh. Game over.

Bioware is no longer independent. This is bad news. Meh.

"Volo's becoming too predictable." Thanks. I like to be consistent whenever possible. It's better than changing one's mind everyday.

Laws override the EULA of any company's products. if this is found to be illegal, they could write it in bold letters,a nd tehy still coulnd't get away with it. Period. However, anyone who steals something after this is scum as wll and should be fried. You do NOT have the right to these products.

"Creating enemies - (low leveled, level 3-5)" Make them varied. Don't just do basic goblins, orc, or zombies. Use animal/zombie skeletons, use a goblin fighter, use a orc sorceror, or have goblins riding mean dogs (goblins typical ride woves; but wolves are a tad much for 1st level PCs). At level 3-5, have spider riding duergar (though duergar can be tircky as their extra abiltiies like invsibility and imunity to paralysis hurts low level spells like hold person and the like) "How to best describe areas -" It varies. If you are in some cave, you shouldn't have to describe each room in detail since most cave rooms should feel, and look basically the same. In a more elaborate setting like a castle or a manufatcured dungeon (ala the steroetypical abandoned dwarven mine/stronghold) then be as colourful as you can as long as its meaningful to the players. "How to make use of the PC's abilities -" Take advantage of their abilities. One example is that even a low level decent charisma cleric can take out low level undead like skeletons and zombies in bunch. If you are sneding half a dozen skeletons to tackle a part of 4 1st level adventurers; normally that would be a challenge; but that cleric can destroy those undead before they even enter melee making the encounter meaningless other than to show off kewl turning powerz. Send instead a score of undead so the cleric can kill many if not most of them while the other characters will still have a chance to be useful in battle. In areas where the players will be tackling undead, add traps or doors that cna be picked by rogue to make them feel usefuls ince a rogue's primary combat ability - sneak - is worthless versus undead. Create situations where spellcasters cna't always depend on the same old spells but places where odd spells like spider climb and the like may be useful. "Things to NOT DO as a DM" Don't taregt one PC because for whatever reasona nnoyed you. Don't give powerful magical items out unless you've gone over what kind of effect it may have your campaign long term as well as short term. Even a helm of underwater action can be unbalancing in the wrong situation. Don't force players to complete your quest. If they seem interested in soemthing let them explore whatever they want. Even if they are first level, and they want to explore 'The Swamp of the Damned' Do not fudge the dice in favor of the monsters. Ever. If players find a way way to beat your Uber Monster tm. then elt them enjoy the victory. Don't make it artifically harder. You can always make notes for the next encounter to up the challeneg if needed. You cna't take back player deaths; but you can learn from defeated monsters what your party's abilities are. "Things Encouraged as a DM" Do not be afraid to fudge the dice in favor of the PCs. Pcs only have one life; monsters don't matter in the long term. However, do not to this often as the purpose is to challeneg the PCs not make it easy on them. Use rumour, myths, and innuendo to bring the PCs to wher eyou wnat them to be. Players are more liekly to be interetsed in adventure they looked for then one brought to them because the local family asked for help or the king ordered it. Or as I put it, let the adventurers seek adventure. Make sure the Pcs have a background, and eventually bring that background into play. Introduce as many interesting npcs as possible. This is espicially important at low leevls as thats's where friendship bonds are built. The PC will have more motivation to 'rescue the farmer's daughter from the big bad ogres at 8th level' if danced with her at the village summer celebration when he was 1st level than any random farmer's daughter. The list goes on; but I won't... P.S. I tend to use max hit points at 1st level + random lows from then on. I only allow 1s to eb rerolled if it seems to occur tot eh same player over,a nd over again or simply give them half the die roll. Bleeding I use the -10 + con bonus level. Chance to stop bleeding unhelped is 10% + con bonus x5. Meaning with a con of 14 it would be 20% chance. Resting gets you back 1hp + con bonus + level back. That is all.

Floodgate.

"They could oversee the expansions with another developer (bad images of Lionheart come to mind)." That didn't work out to well with SOU. BIO ended up having to do most of the work for SOU themselves espicially in regards to the actual campaign. R00fles!

"it doesnt seem like Feragie-style to do so" Yes. That must explain the expansions for IWD, and the Bg series. <>

Nonsense. It's cool. :cool:

"Ah thanks. Who owns the NWN game brand btw - Atari or Bio?" Atari. "Whatever suggestions Bioware gives to Obsidian I hope Obsidian does the opposite. The only real thing that Bioware did right on NWN was its tech support." That must explain why you bought the game more than once, the two expansions, the premium modules, and still play it three years after release. Uh yeah. Whatever. You are the biggest BIO, and NWN fanboya round. Even bigger than me. P.S. That's not flaming. It's a compliment. :D

"Why are they there in the first place if Bioware's not a middleman in the relationship with Atari?" In a way, they are. Supposedly, Obsidian 'reports' things to Bio about once a month. BIO also gives suggestions about the game. This is according to some of the early articles, and interviews from the various comoanies involved. So, it might have changed.

No worse than people that thunk BIO paid BIS/Interplay to develop the Bg series. LOL People - espicially on the net - need help.

Who's uptight? I'm surely not. I'm just teasin' him.

"Lame" Lamer. P.S. Someone will likely now post 'Lamest', 'Lamest Infinity', and so on. Good stuff. "

WOW! They're previewing a 3+ year old game. WOW!

I have no 'favorite'. I lean towards PC, and PS2 though.

"The monk's first death was by the necklace of stranglation. He found a necklace, the mage said it was magical, he thought to put it on without identifying it. Go figure." Well. In this case, he deserves what he got.

Games are not people.

"Really? You should check out Pokemon Emerald and Saphire, it sells for more now than it did at release." I never said NWN was the only game to have success years after its release. I even gave another example. I apologize for not mentioning your precious Pokemon. It wans't menat as a slight. I'm sure there are other games that fit in this group as well. As for your 3 copies. Geez.. You need help. I have two. One I bought when it came out, and I gave that way when I bought the Platinum Edition. You should try TOEE. You might like it. Probably not; but it's not *all* bad. Heh. "Yup. That reason being mainly the fact that the last installment in the BG series was released in 2001, and HotU came out in 2003. And, at any rate, mods keep coming out for the BG series." Mods played by the same 5 people for the same 5 people. And, mods that 100% suck. Don't get me wrong. NWN has its share of crappy mods too; but the percentage of qualkity to non quality mods is much better for NWN. Not to mention, BG is dead as evdienced by the fact that the devs and publishers don't do anything for it. Bottom line is NWN is still alive. BG series is not. This should be undisputable as the evidence is unstoppable.

"Thats because Atari package it with everything. I got a copy of NwN with TOEE for the grand sum of