Tigranes

So if one's primary motivation is not heroic, then no deeds accomplished in that time are heroic? The standard of 'epic' has to come when most people cognisant of the medium look at a certain length and say "woah, that's LONG." That certainly occurs at 60: it probably occurs at 40 or 50. 30? Probably not. But then, this is all blind man's guesses. *shrug* you could equally not care about Vault 13 / Arroyo, you could still wander around (a la BG) but you couldn't complete the game. Or you could just not care about your mortality or your past in PS:T. Certain parameters must be drawn, and accommodating for characters that 1/ care about childhood friend 2/ does not like getting kidnapped, tortured, robbed and generally screwed and (you forgot this one) 3/ is not tempted by Irenicus' talk of untapping your potential is a lot more sensible than accommodating for a character that cares about none of these things and is happy to simply walk away after having been tortured and seeing his comrades killed/kidnapped. I mean, BG2 didn't exactly give you an amazing sense of torture and hurt in that first dungeon, but still.

Yes. Extending that logic, you are a hero in BG because in the process of saving yourself, you also save the Sword Coast from war (I mean, you could have just run away to Kara-Tur. ) This 'discussion' is really anal though. You know BG is going to be labelled epic by the media, and casual gamers will think its epic, and hardcore gamers will be divided.

In that case, ALL the save-the-world heroes aren't heroes, since if the world is doomed, so are they.

Dremora Lords? I don't really notice since I play thief/mage, but then, half the "light armor" in this game look heavy. Anyway, I am absolutely fed up with the stupid recharging business, so it's about time I used Azura's Star. That, I guess, means going back into Oblivion for the first time since Kvatch.

Except you won't be there. I won't be around this saturday, and living in Korea/NZ means I've never been able to actually sit down and play pnp properly, anyway, so I'd probably have no idea if I tried to play. Are you guys going to do it in IM or on here? If the latter I'd love to come and read up on it later, but I assume IM would make much more sense.

Yeah, but then with sidequests and without walkthroughs I completed Jade Empire in one 11-hour sitting. I believe most claimed it to be 20+.

That's very interesting. I assume that the definition of "attractive" was based on a general standard agreed upon by most of the populace? (e.g. we know people with more symmetrical / balanced facial features are often considered attractive) A built-in predisposition does support the theory that 'attractivity' as a personality trait is not primarily an environmental product.

Well, Oblivion's easy enough, so I didn't bother to read those instructions.

You can carry one thousand elven shields?

Ok. Some things from a Korean (me): 1/ Our president looks like a serial killer. You know, the one from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with the mask made of human flesh. Maybe he got his surgery done in Zambia. 2/ Plastic surgery *is* big, but studies from as early as the early 90's (conducted in US / Europe) have shown that good-looking people, male or female, of all ages in most white-collar professions get jobs easier. It's not just the females, and it's not just Korea. In fact, Korea/Japan would have a higher cultural revulsion of 'pretty guys' than Western countries at the moment. 3/ Most people that DO do it seem to do minor things. Like that eyelash thing, I forget what it's called in English and Babelfish translation gives me "Pair it is big the grass". The inner eyelash or something. Most girls do that. All in all, I live in new zealand so I haven't seen it as much, but it's partly because urban South Korea is such a highly populated and competitive place. The youth / fashion culture is about as vibrant as the biggest of the western metropolises.

Eldar, I am amazed that you do not use the UI mod. Makes the font smaller to a reasonable size, meaning you can see +10 items/skills in one go and makes maps/journals wider. I assume that the robe is the Black Hand robe? Nice creativity on enchanted items too.

Level 22, I just finished the Dark Brotherhood storyline. That was quite excellent actually, the schizophrenic diary is a good one. I'm finally convinced that Oblivion's got its moments. *reads eldar's post* Hm. You miss out I guess. Regarding the Grey Prince, I don't think there's anything you can do. Kind of a pity, his VO was crap and threatened to break immersion but the story was a nice one. Speaking of AI, there was a funky moment during one of the DB kills where I was following this person around. She's a member of the Leyawiin City Watch: and she does. not. sleep. Like, ever. Her schedule pretty much rotates between Patrolling, Sitting absolutely still without eating anything in the Sisters Inn for a few hours, then going to the city barracks and sleeping for exactly 2 seconds before getting up and walking out again. >.< In the end I managed to whack her in the middle of the street in broad daylight while everyone's heads were momentarily turned. STILL got 1k bounty though, ran to contact a Thieves Doyen to get rid of that, ran into 2 guards right where the Doyen should be, had to get rid of a 3k bounty in the end. Still, 5000 items stolen and only 1 day in jail (to complete that quets in Bruma). I have managed to curb my frightening desire to enter and complete EVERY single location I come across on the map (hell, you walk for 2 minutes to get from 1 city to a quest dungeon and you find 3 others) because at high levels it's just not as exciting. The potion system seems clunky because I have so many of them and I could keep glunking, the spells are still pretty cool but mostly upgrades of what I had before, etc. I'm just holding out until I can cast Enemies Explode.

GAH! PARIS HILTON! EVAC!

True, the questline itself was much better, they were either average or good. Not sure about 'favourite' though. There really wasn't any character to the necromances , and their motivations / desires are really nonexistent. I guess if you can fill those in naturally, then you're going to like that arc more.

Codex has the occasional gold nugget. It's under a lot of goat entrails, but it's there. and I can confirm that becoming the Archmage of the mage guild is about as satisfying as it was in Morrowind, i.e. nothing changes. You get access to a room and archmage's robes that look exactly the same as millions of other robes, and isn't even enchanted. Then you get a chest that duplicates your alchemy ingredients. Would be nice except about 2 of the NPCs recognises you as Archmages and the rest keep saying "you're the new guy, right?"

I take it you don't regularly visit the Codex.

I don't kill random people in games because it's just.. not fun. If I kill there's a reason. *cough* *noober* *cough* On the quest:

Heaven forbid, I think.

The latter gives you money money money.

tl; dr.

Good good. I'm up to nearly 60 hours on my first char, the Thieves Guild quests are nearly done as well so I'll probably finish them off then do the main quest. If only to stop Gray Fox from saying "Capital" again. >.<

Caffeine has no effect on me whatsoever. I feel a little refreshed / rejuvenated for about 5 seconds, then it fades away. " Actually, I have like a cup every 2,3,or 4 days, so I don't count. I want to be part of the demographic!

sucky, on the Arrow of Extrication quest: SP: how does Azura's Star work exactly? Do you need to use Soul Trap the spell? I don't really get it. Anyway, just finished the Mages Guild quest, and I'm onto like the 7th Dead Drop for Dark Brotherhood. Mages quests were good and so were DB, but most of hte dead drops are kinda uninspired assassinations, and I"m wondering when it'll all end. Of course,

There is a lot for those who follow and look for the info. I, not being one of them, don't actually know much about it. I assume I will be bothered enough after NWN2. I mean, most of the nwn2news.net news, for example, is based on dev postings on the forum. I believe ol' Dave has posted a LOT of stuff about DA.