Tigranes

I tried the new steam, it was less bloated but it was still an unnecessary delay. I'm sure nothing I tell you will change your mind though.

Because some people would rather not waste money just to 'keep up' with whatever tech calendar Wired and such have set... yeah, we're poor Actually, I've lived on a 'computer lag time' most of my gaming life and I have to say it's not that bad. It sort of helps you become a gamer that doesn't wait like a drooling dog for the latest hyper-graphics release, you take your time and get to appreciate all kinds of good games... Anyway. After that debacle with ETW this piece of bloatware hasn't been allowed near my system, but still going back and forth over F:NV. I've decided to give Civ V a miss, though, not good enough to make me put up with Steam.

Neverwinter Nights!

With some other problems, creating an en-us folder & copying en files onto it helped. But yes, definitely seems like this is a quick internal in-progress thing for US only..

We can't rule out a 'real' patch release in the future, though.

Wow, someone else pulled an Alpha Protocol on the release date? Crikey. Somehow I have heard of this game all the time but never seen or read any bit of specific info... I'd ask but I probably did already then forgot about it.

OK, at least it works for about 1% of people out there, right? I suppose back up your .exe, use, and roll back if it does horrible things - yeah, it's not a patch, it's a lottery, but at least you can win if you're damn lucky. That's pretty cool, I guess if the patch works for you you're going to get a pretty nice set of technical fixes (which are always more urgent than gameplay ones). Hopefully we can narrow down the set of conditions where the patch is going to work, but somehow I don't suspect that will be the case.

Guys, I don't know any more than you do, obviously, but let's focus on the fact that it addresses installation/activation problems - i.e. if it works, then the people who need a patch most (i.e. people who couldn't play the game before) will be able to play, yes? Has anyone with such a problem tried it, yet? But since such things can be sources of frustration for those involved, let's take the snide ha-ha's elsewhere, be constructive.

I'm sure both of you can take care of yourselves, but let's not drive so close to the explosive lines, yeah? I'm as usual an idiot on politics but I am interested in one thing you mention GD - you do think the Tea Party will be a big force in the coming years? And how related is it to the continued political life of Sarah Palin and the inevitable prospect that next election, we will see (a) at least one minority candidate doing the Obama and (b) at least one 'core American' candidate doing the Palin?

Following up on that lawyer idea, you would ideally base that kind of thing on the gameplay of, say, the old KOEI game Uncharted Waters, or similarly, Sid Meier's Pirates! - a set of gameplay elements to manage and build up your particular business, make rivals, meet people, collect cool things, etc. Then we have stuff like that on the sim-like side of the spectrum, school sim/RPGs and the like. I want a properly done Dickensian English boarding school RPG, if we're going down that path. Hell, you could start off at one of those, then get fast-tracked on to a French penal colony in that period, which is remarkably similar... throw in some Kafka references.

After that, Thorasskus is small fish, and Monty demonstrates his camera friendliness by chunking the big man. Now we come to the infamous Time Stasis level. Everyone seems to hate it, but I always thought it was alright. IWD2 is certainly the most imaginative, at least. For those who never got this far - well, you enter the level to see Inspector Venomin throw himself into the lava. We speak to Ambassador Jasper, learning that this is the realm of fire, governed by one Lord Pyros, who has been assassinated by the said Venomin. So now we have to talk to the right people, learn the facts, and go back in time day by day until we can stop the Time Stasis spell from being cast. Day 5 simply sets us up for that background stuff - then we fight a beholder on an inaccessible plateau (typically) to go back a day. Malison + Circle of Death is fairly useful at thinning the mob... ...and what do you know, even beholders can be FoD'd. We go back to Day 4 to witness Venomin assassinating Lord Pyros, who was apparently a big fan of theatre. Pyros' deputy, the Fire Giant, gets pissed. I suppose these are the efreeti we had to fight before, having been sent to kill Thorasskus. Going back to Day 3, we offer an antidote to Lord Melodramaros... not that it would do much, I suppose, as we keep going back? We learn that it was High Sorceress Izbelah of the yuan-ti that cast the time stasis spell, and was imprisoned for this. Venomin comes to negotiate on behalf of Thoraskus, saying that the spell was to prevent some explosive thing going on with the lava. Pyros agrees to this, but the Giant gets angry and kills the priest anyway... then persuades Venomin that it was Pyros' doing, thus leading to the assassination. Finally, we go back to Day 1, and racing to the scene of the crime, skewer Izbelah before she casts the spell. Obviously, then the entire level starts going to hell, so we high-tail it out of there... to the Fields of Slaughter. I actually forgot to go back to get the Holy Avenger here, so again, I might just use the teleport cheat to go back and do that fight. It might wipe the party out, though...

..and we celebrate our first Finger of Death, there in the right corner. Ancient Wyvern got nothin on Mkreku the Dragon Slayer. I thought we could expose the very obviously fake Nathaniel with Mkreu's Pally Powers, but I guess he doesn't have enough wisdom or something. We forget to come back afterwards, and let him live to see another day. Feargus is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's good to know that severe physical damage helps Feargus sleep. I guess he's used to abuse. Anyway, that particular corridor held the ghost of one poor adventurer, and we are able to put him to rest... ...and threaten some deus ex machina character to make potions for us... ...so that his weird academic friend can experiment with being a freaking histachii for four hours. Dude. Not cool. I'm skipping a few thousand filler fights here, but to be honest they were sort of mowed down by the party. We quickly proceed to the third level of Dragon's Eye. Gromnir takes a modified histachii potion himself to proceed... Allowing us to access the room of the yuan-ti high priest. Who apparently keeps a lot of efreeti. Like, a dozen. That many bodies and that many fire shields naturally meant that the entire battle took place at 3fps. Since we were still missing one tank in histachii'd Gromnir, we sent in some undead to hold the efreeti, and unleashed about 6 ice storms. I love sorcerers.

We proceed, in our quest to make this page as long as possible. We are in the yuan-ti temple and we have to move quickly to disrupt the ritual. Thankfully, the Obsidianites receive some otherwordly inspiration on what to do... First, Feargus sneaks into the ritual chamber and steals the dessicated hearts, using an invisibility potion (rare in IWD2) to remain undetected. He passes them on to Mkreku, who is waiting at the back, to place them behind the chamber - this will be the lure. Finally, we raise the pit prison and let out the heartless zombies, who will pursue their removed hearts and kill anything in the way... Which is, of course, the yuan-ti. We let them fight it out for a while then rush in before the zombies are killed, for maximum effect. We loves them pretty colours, we does. We keep getting them while retreating, and soon the yuan-ti temple is cleared. And now it's time for the big one. We rest, buff up, even drink some potions, and summon several monsters. Dragon time. We open with a Lower Magic resistance and Malison while the summons hold the fort, then start dishing it out. Ironically, magic missile is the most effective for the spellcasters. Steadily the dragon's HP goes down, but by now he's really doing a number on our tanks. Wals runs in with a Heal spell and such but the tanks end up running away half the time, leaving the other members in jeopardy. It's a good thing that between mkreku and Chris Avellone we have about 16 magic missiles... Mkreku the Dragon-Slayer. Via Magic Missile. After that one we relax a little by beating up on some yuan-ti, and now it's off to Dragon's Eye. We'll go through this one pretty quickish...

Yep, let us know how it is. If it seems fun I might try it.

Screenies look awesome. What's the actual gameplay like? Is the combat changed from Oblivion? Is the appeal meant to be better (i.e. bearable) writing/plot?

Ah, I actually forgot about that, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it would be the death of the party, but it feels bad to leave a fight hanging.

When I get the game I am going to brutally murder that digger. and that barmaid, and that brigand. If they can't get good VA for minor characters they might as well make them unobtrusive, or let you turn off VA altogether. Seriously, it's amazing that these days devs spend money to make their own game worse. That said, still looks like a good old RPG romp and I should be getting it.

Isair / Madae backstory. It's quite good, actually. One would argue that racial discrimination is more a fact of life in a world with such strong racially set tendencies, but hey, why not. Yadda yadda. In the end we're still sent off to fight more crap - this time the tropical home plane of the Yuan-Ti, via portal. Feargus scouts around hidden, and comes across some initiates. I'll take those robes, thank you. Uh... oh. I guess even though you're all dead, you can still carry on your conversation designed to reveal the secret passcodes of your organisation on to those listening. It's very nice of you all. And so it's time to do some infiltration, stop an evil ritual, and fight a dragon. Woo!

We lose Feargus as well, but eventually prove the golden rule in IWD2: enemy spellcasters suck at protecting themselves. Plot Recap: Thus, having survived the underdark, we rendezvous with Oswald's repaired airship and return to Kuldahar, only to find it under attack. Isair and Madae pursue (again) the heartstone Gem, now protected by Iselore. We first contact some holed up defenders in a tower, and Grommy demonstrates his diplomacy once again. Time to spend all our money. The awesomely named Every God Ring gives a whopping +5 to wisdom. I'm guessing it was a joint venture. The undead around are no real trouble, but Kuldahar really is quite pretty. First we deal with Hiepherus, the undead servant of... oh, hell, I don't know anymore. We start with Malison+Chaos again to take advantage of low-save foes. Badumpsh. It's good to know that more things change, more things stay the same. What Purkake didn't have, though, was a necklace of missiles. Since he has 3E evasion he can do the lure and the hit both by himself. Evil, meet sword, SWORD, MEET EEEEVIIIL Reaching Kuldahar, we find it's infested with Yuan-ti. This is the last 'town' in the game as well, which means +4 weapons for sale in all their glory. We sell all our remaining redundant gear, raising the 100k to get this beast. No more beetle armour for you Monty.

Page 6, wunderbar. We continue on, and judging from screenies I'm pretty sure IWD2 is a bit longer than its predecessor. Or perhaps it's packed with more 'notable' fights. At this stage in IWD1 we were the Hastemeisters mowing down everything in our way - in IWD2 it's still challenging, as we've seen with Gromnir the slayer of driders. In our bid to escape the laggiest area in the game we run into Beelthot ze Illithid. We open with Malison & Chaos to turn those giants on each other, but realise that we're being attacked from behnd as well, and Feargus proves himself susceptible to domination. So we go back to deal with the ambush first... And also celebrate our very first successful Disintegrate.(Wait, did we already have one?) The early Chaos played a very big role and eventually it wasn't too much trouble. Next we come to a fortress full of illithids, in true Underdark tradition. Let it forever be known that it was the hand of Monte Carlo that laid low Ecktarr'ilsen'ularr. The Elder Brain is surrounded by a lot of critters, but as usual the spellcasters are easy to pick off and it's all fairly manageable. Glorious Goo. After that it's straight through the exit up to the surface, and predictably, to an ambush by the Red Wizards. I always forget about this one, and you can see that we're not really prepared, half our health and spells gone... We take the opportunity to use a spell that I rarely memorise, but turns out pretty useful here - Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, on an earth elemental.Meanwhile we Web one of the wizards, another one stupidly remains out of sight. We lose Monty but take down the 2 other elementals.

I think that's enough handbags all.

But, uh, they have a lot better shout system than most other enemies, for some reason, and our exit is blocked. Feargus dies.. but hey, our first successful Disintegrate! This is very bad. With Malison the driders were susceptible to my web, cloudkill et al, but we were badly positioned and there were too many of them, and you can see Gromnir dire charmed to boot. (There ended up being ab out a dozen driders or more). Our party goes down, down, down... I mean, look at that, 34 slashing damage from one hit. Bloody hell. I actually thought that would be the end of it, but in IWD2 charmed allies still count as living, apparently. There are 2 drider alive in the screen, one almost dead and another badly wounded. We wait for the charm to wear off.. Gromnir is da man. It turned out that that battle took care of pretty much all remaining driders in our way. After wasting a lot of money on resurrections and about 10 minutes re-equipping everyone, we're ready to conclude our business. We open with a very nice backstab... ...and the Thayan wizard is quickly down, but her special driders come to play. Mkreku nearly dies, but well prepared as we are, this is not too much trouble. There's an awesome bit here where you can use her laboratory not only for the viviscamera poison, but to activate one of the golems and have him fight for you in the Underdark. For some reason, though, even with good alchemy skill Chris Avellone didn't get the option. Ah well... The Viviscamera. I believe the medical term for these is 'fugly'. That's it - the party's been humiliated with actually running away from battle and nearly being wiped out, so I'm gonna have to be more careful from now on. There's still a way to go till the end...

Then ensure both monks are passed out on the two pedestals and then hit the lever. I skipped a few, but finally, random flame strikes all around the room as you fight. Again Grommy's Evasion comes in useful here. And so we progress to the next area on our way to the Underdark. After taking care of other critters we wonder if we can take the loot from the chest, then take down 4 Iron Golems. Pretty high MR, very high crushing damage and good damage reduction. We prepare with some Bone Golem summons and a couple of well placed skull traps... We can see the skull traps were highly effective. i.e. the killed my snake. This is bad. They seem immune to half of my spells and weapons and they are chewing up the summons like nothing. We kept fleeing and fleeing across the map while doing minimal damage with our best ammo. We did get one down to Badly Wounded, but it was quite clear we didn't really have the right stuff. Shamefully, the Obsidianites turn tail and flee into the next area, leaving the Iron Golems victorious. Thankfully, they don't follow, and we are finally at the Underdark. This area lagged massively, I was playing at 5fps or something - must be all the funky mushroom lights. We take on some drow assassins hiding in an alcove here, but underestimated them, and Grommy goes down. That's a first for him, I think? WE BE TRADERS We escape the lag as fast as we can in search of the Viviscamera, a drider-making machine we have been charged to destroy. In small numbers, the driders aren't so bad, so we go around getting them when they're alone and cornered...

We better get to p6 after this, or I will inflict arthritis on you all with the scrolling. We now approach the Black Raven Monastery, full of angry monks. Chris Avellone proves that someone actually can fall for the idiotic bridge trap.... but he is so badass he climbs back up from a bottomless chasm. Surprisingly, the Wyrm doesn't attack even when we nick his egg from right under him. Not the happiest family, then. We come across some yetis on a bridge, but that's unlikely to stop us. A nicely aimed lance of disruption gets mots of them. And so we arrive. Somehow Chris Avellone keeps levelling up just a bit in front of what the designers might have intended, so we have to wait to get new spells. From now on he will abuse Disintegrate at every opportunity, because it's what cool badass people do. We expose the Legion of the Chimera trying to manipulate the monk master, but her fluttery lady-heart is taken by his treachery and decides to throw away everything she has for a life on the run. Yep, that's right, feminism hasn't come to Faerun yet. And after that it's the 8 challenges, for which we will pick Grommy. They're pretty inane - here we have to push all the right levers. We lost all our equipment so had a look in this 'secret' compartment, but... yeah, what the hell is this? An initiation rite for monks and they give you three tons of weapons. You get hit by various lightning bolts if you aren't careful, but Gromnir is as flexible as a ballet dancer and avoids them all. The clockwork monks were more of a challenge, seemingly with much improved BAB, but we get through it. Sand Monk? What is this, Naruto? This is usually the trickiest one. You have to make the first monk pass out on the pedestal to open the door...

I still have no clue how 4E works, but I suppose this makes sense. The biggest fans of the NWN series were those who loved the toolsets and MP and the persistent worlds, not the SP campaigns. Ain't my boat, but good to see D&D CPRGs continue, I wouldn't want them completely dead.