Tigranes

That last one is disturbing. "Oh, you want sex? I was just killing this chicken. For dinner. Topless."

I enjoy the fact that inventory screens are small actually, didn't bother me much. There are mods out there to let you see them all at once though, if you like. I'm sure somebody's made them MOTB compatible by now.

I just think Kreia was well written, actually, and 'hit the spot'. Now, I think if Kaelyn, for example, was as integral to the story as Kreia, then she could have had more impact. i.e. in MOTB, Kaelyin is a 'parallel / tangent' character to the main plot: she provides additional information and perspectives on the Wall of the Faithless and Akachi's Crusade. If Kaelyn was somehow neceessary for the Second Crusade, or wanted to use you or benefit from you somehow for her Crusade - which is the level of involvement Kreia has with you in K2 - then I think there could have been more from Kaelyn. As it is, she pretty much has nothing to do with the story come its eventual climax. Equally, Safiya is supposed to be crucial to the story, but ends up little more than a bystander and the big revelation about her identity only matters if she wants to declare luvluv. But all this doesn't go around the fact that, IMO, Kreia was a lot better and more ambitiously written than the MOTB characters.

Kaelyn was pretty damn involved in the story, if not "integral", so there's really no excuse. I do think that she had the most potential but ended up a little bit too contradictory and unclear, as if a smudged painting that is never really lit up properly at any point. Other than that, I don't know. They weren't especially complicated or amazing NPCs but I liked them around - Okku, OoM, Gann, Safiya. If I had moments that irked me, that would be the fact that Safiya's character is too goody-good for a Red Wizard and this makes her a bit boring - and it should have been possible to work out some back-stories of One of Many's various facets. Why devour the Sleeper if you can't even get her story?

If Tale is lucky, 7 working days. If Tale is not lucky, a month. If Tale killed a baby in his past life, Lost and Not Found Despite Many Frustrating Calls To Post Office.

I went to a rehearsal for a wedding, since I'm managing all audiovisual equipment and proceedings. Pretty nice small place with classy stuff, though they're doing it small with less than 50 people and the actual ceremony is only half an hour.

Unfortunately that's beyond what I know, sorry. I know you could do it with global variables in BG2 but NWN engines are a bit different on quest things I think. Maybe someone else here can help on that. I assume even if you cheated in the Spirit Eater curse yourself, Chapter 2 doesn't start, you can't get new quests from people, etc?

Di, On spirit meter: To the argument that it is annoying and tedious - well, each to his own. I didn't, but if you found it annoying, then of course I accept that it was annoying for you, so that's a pity. To the argument that But isn't that the whole point of the spirit meter? For example, maybe you are a lawful good Paladin, but the game's point is that being a lawful good Paladin doing good wherever he goes isn't easy as pie and it's not without consequences. If you have the spirit eater curse, you really have to struggle to try and be good and to resist the curse. Devouring is tempting because of all the cool loot as well. Isn't it interesting and good roleplay mechanic that you really have to think about and try to do good, and sometimes, there are no choices that just let you be 'good'? I looked at it that way so found it really interesting. It's a lot more realistic and a lot more interesting.

Doesn't it work if you just hack in the spirit eater curse? I assume the quests have to be signed as done using scripts as well though.

My rogue ain't got VampFeast. I guess I could do this back at the Veil, then talk to my party members and put them back int he party while OoM is attacking (i think you can) and then kill him. I don't think there's a way in hell my Rogue/Assassin can kill him.

There's no FR lore in there - hell, I hardly know any. I only use stuff I picked up from the game. The thing is Gorgon, I get what you are saying, but as I showed above, there is no way to cover for every contingency in terms of player motivations, and still have a D&D alignment system. So, if we have to use the D&D alignment system, then some measure of creative license *has* to be taken. And in development sense, I think it's much more prudent to cater to the assumption that the PC cares about the world around it and the central part of the plot, rather than the assumption that he/she doesn't, if it comes down to it. I understand how it wouldn't fit with your RP, but I'm at a loss to suggest how all such player motivations could be encapsulated in a D&D alignment system as executed in NWN2. I don't know why you think it doesn't make 'a modicum of sense' though. Morality is a social thing and not an individual thing, remember. For the most part, an act of Suppression in the MOTB campaign will be seen as a lawful and a good act thanks to the reasons I stated above (which can be expressed as simply as, "its lawful and good because it preserves status quo and doesn't destroy others' spirits"). I don't think it's a 'fundamental design flaw' to go with the most general understanding of a morality in that campaign. I note, also, that for Suppression to have forced you to give up your chosen class you must have used it quite frequently. Is this because you couldn't often find spirits to feed, or something like that? If so I can understand your grievance (and you would probably rather cheat your alignment back a bit and, well, move on). As Cant says, though, its a problemw ith the entire D&D ailgnment mechanic rather than MOTB making some random and nonsensical decision. The most prudent decision in design was for Suppression to be Lawful and Good, very obviously. I know it doesn't work for you (and as I said above, doesn't work 100% for me either), but well, we can hope that morality is represented better in future games and D&D.

To clarify, he attacks if you if you can't persuade him, not autokill. But my rogue had no chance against him, CR Impossible even though I was level 28. Hrm.

I may quote Simonides here - "As any man is good if fortune grant it, so if his fortune bring him evil, evil is the man.... necessity not even the gods resist." [/nerd] If we want to talk about good and evil and morality, then yes, spirit eating, understood as a permanent destruction of an entire spirit/soul, is an evil act. There is no buts and conditionals, the act is an evil one. Yet the PC may or may not be evil. Is a good man, who is driven to evil acts by necessity not only to save his own life but to end the curse and thus bring peace to the region and resolve the fate of Akachi, an 'evil man' because of this? The act is evil, but the man may be good, driven to it only by necessity. This is why Suppression is 'Good'. In terms of lawful and chaotic, the Spirit Eater curse is described here, with much contention, as 'unnatural'. 'Natural' simply means, status quo, the way the world is. That 'natural' state is of course constructed (i.e. somebody had to make the Wall and the laws at the start, so back then it wasn't 'natural'), but let's not go into that too much, it's not relevant. The point is, the Wall is 'natural', despite the fact that it was so cruel even Kelemvor himself wanted to end it. The Spirit Eater curse is not. It is a disruption in the equilibrium of the universal status quo, an anomaly that disrupts the harmony of other 'natural' things. This is the reason why the Gods and 'lawful' NPCs and Okku want to see the curse destroyed forever. Suppression, which is meant to serve as a (pale) substitute for devouring, is thus lawful because at that moment in time, you have chosen to contain the disruptive potential of the curse rather than expand it or allow it to manifest. Thus your willpower has acted as a force that has prevented the curse from disrupting the 'natural' way of things by devouring a spirit or soul. So I see the alignment points in Suppression as making sense. Now, the player's intentions could be evil and he could still suppress, though. This is where I see it break down. If I am an evil character, I might devour a lot of spirits, to gain the spirit essences. In that way, I could be materialistic. But, being an evil character, I could also say, I do not want this curse to take over and kill me. That's how I felt playing my evil PC. My PC had no problem with evil, with murder, with whatever, for power. But my PC had big big doubts over allowing some random dead curse to inhabit his body: he also was faced with the knowledge that with the increase of craving came increased dependence. Thus, my PC decided, get rid of this curse ASAP - whether permanently or not - and I can get on with my life doing whatever evil I want to do without the Spirit Eater consequences. Thus he suppressed. Was that 'lawful and good'? Well, maybe, by result. But if we get into Intention v. Result debate in D&D alignment it will never end.

Which reminds me, do you get a crafting essence for devouring the Founder? I spared her you see.

Wowzah, I let One of Many devour Myrkul and it said it had a new voice that wanted to speak to me alone - so I dismiss party members, and 'lo, its Myrkul who's revived himself in the shell of OoM. Diplo-check failed despite 30diplo / high charisma and he killed me, game over. Will have to try that again.

Have a backup, but I don't think so, unless you try to Devour through dialogue or sommat. If it does screw the game, just use the last cheat above to refill points to 100 every time you need.

Oh, it was much better than, say, NWN2 1.00, when basically the whole game ran at 5fps for me. I still dont' know how I chugged through it, and had massive fun, to boot. I just lament that the Skein tileset design has running and falling water built into every milimetre - I'm sure it does look very nice for other people though. It looks nice even without reflections/refractions and on 3fps.

Only clerics do, so no idea. But then, Spirit Shamans pretty much have 'spontaneousish' heal, I end up using all ~6 spells from that level (7?) on Heal. I do agree with Cant by the way that Okku is another damn overpowered beast. For those frustrated by NWN's general clunkiness and camera issues and control issues and whatever though, I think Okku would be great to have around - just stick in there and the battle is a whole lot less unmanageable. I just play with low settings, pause every 0.5 seconds and don't mind the camera, and with my crap rig is used to all the lag, so.. yeah. I just wish you could turn off all water effects, the Skein is a nightmare and I'm already cheating through it as fast as I can on my second playthrough. Though if you take Gann and OoM there are some delicioius dialogues. By the way, in the Academy, did anybody actually try to leave with more souls than they were allowed? The cutscene is actually pretty funny, the trap truly fowls you.

Actually, I have a funny experience with those pesky epic spells. I couldn't be bothered to read the manual for MOTB before starting you see, and one of the pet peeves I have with that game is if you don't meet the prereqs for a certain feat it is not viewable in the Level Up list at all; so I never even realised Spellcraft was the prereq for epic spells, and left everyone's at something like 20. So no Vampfeast, epic fowl, epic gate, etc, until I got to something like Thay Academy and said, "hang on, I'm supposed to be epic." Then yeah, Vampiric Feast blew my socks off, things were a lot easier after that. Before I was really struggling on core difficulty with Okku, and a couple of other fights. It's probably a good thing though, since I enjoyed it, mostly. Okku was just too damn hard without epic spells though. So second playthrough, well... I still forget to use epic spells half thet ime since they're not on quickcast (heh), but VF is definitely a lifesaver at best and huge overkill at worst. It should be a bit weaker, because it makes later epic spells rather disappointing, but oh well. I just wish there was an epic version of Disintegrate that actually looked good, instead of the crap we have now. I mean, white squares?

An update would be nice, too.

Indeed, I can understand some people not liking the camera, but it's preposterous that, say, five hours into the game it should still cause such trouble as to ruin the game experience. Load times have also improved even on my low-end machine and at least saves are done pretty fast. But then, I'm the type that will plug away at a game if its good, even if everything conspires against me. I used to play BG2 and have an alarm clock remind me to save every 14 minutes, because my computer would crash every 15. Like clockwork. That was when I was 13 and couldn't work out what was happening. Nearly as bad was playing 1.00 Gothic that would run at 6fps all game, stop for 10 seconds every minute, and take literally six minutes to save or load.

Wow, that brings back memories. Real old trailer.

The best role-playing character for it is Spirit Shaman with high WIS, yes.

....and here I thought we'd have a nice good discussion about the Witcher. WHY MUST YOU DESTROY ALL THAT I LOVE, SAND? WHY? :'( Still can't find it mkreku, I assume I'll only be able to get it when it's around in US or the Netherlands.

I think Oerwinde's idea should be the way to go for all RPG expansions though, in the sense that you're not just making another story of the same type (i.e. all NWN1/2 xpacks), but you're trying to create a module which has a variant, deviant gameplay experience; if the original game shoots forth straight and honest, expansions allow more tangential experiences and concepts, which wouldn't justify a full game in itself, especially for its limited marketability. It could work because in post-NWN era we are seeing games with multiple expansion packs, where the player just buys one, all or some as they like. So you have a NWN2 OC, then you have a super-expanded Crossroad Keep type expansion pack, then one where the focus is on.... well, I don't know. I guess MOTB did this too. But wackier. Damn, my rant fizzled and died there in the end didn't it? I hope XP2 doesn't go up to level 40 in the current format. I think the epic abilities on the whole are okay, but compared to TOB ones rather disappointing - and surely the NWN System is advanced enough to incorporate some of the more distinct sides of epic gameplay, like wizards constructing mighty golems and phylacteries, stuff like that. You want to see fighters with whirlwhind attack animations rip through opponents, contingency spells (oh god), planetars that actually look divine, and gameplay where you are more of a leader than the adventurer.