Tigranes

Incredibly unproductive this month, which makes me depressed. Still trying to get some work done, and also take some time out with games, exercise, cooking, etc., but not sure that's helping.

Finally, someone makes a game with that name... ..then fills half of it with giant monsters. *sigh* The rest was pretty cool.

re.TW: Not gamebreaking bugs but gamebreaking flaws. E.g. for a while after release, E:TW AI was so dumb that if you kept your line and marched slowly at an angle towards their army they would try and recreate a fractal diagram with their units, or try and attack you by constructing a battle line orthogonal to yours, and other nonsense. For a LONG time after release, M2TW AI was even dumber and would stand still and be slowly demolished by artillery fire without moving, amongst other stupidities. The way they behaved on the campaign map was also about as intelligent as a rat on drugs, forming and reforming stacks randomly and moving around the map with no regard for attack or defense. Shogun 2 did address this decade of unchanging failure, mostly by restricting scope (smaller range of units, smaller map, etc) but will R2TW bring this sensibility to bear in the new epic huge game?

NWN2 already showed how you can have party AI that people can turn off if they wanted to treat party members like ragdolls, and that mostly worked quite well. (IE games also had party AI, so they weren't exactly 'ragdolls', but the scripts weren't as sophisticated.)

Because just like every TW game for the last ten years it will be pretty much the same game with the same promises and the same gamebreaking flaws, and once again we'll all love it for a week then realise it's still broken, and then find out it's even less moddable than the last. Arguably it still provides enough fun to be worth the money, but it certainly isn't much to be excited about.

If you think Japan's democracy will disappear when the 'occupying' US forces withdraw, you're living in some weird ignorant multiculturalist's fantasy world where you think you're accounting for Asians' 'cultural differences' by ballooning an unsubstantiated imagination of 'Asians'. That democracy as Asia knows it was heavily a Western import, with all the pains associated with the process, is elementary. Arguing that there is some centuries-enduring 'Asian mentality' that is so ill-disposed to this democracy that today it remains a superficial layer ready to be overthrown doesn't stand up to any experience of actually talking to Asians, living in Asia, or studying Asian politics. What is potentially true is that the general population's desire for democracy is often exaggerated and misrepresented by journalists, politicians and scholars who talk about democracy - that is, it's often difficult to work out what 'they' mean by democracy when 'they' protest in the streets to overthrow their dictators in the name of elections and freedom. That 'they' themselves look to Western literature for guidance to articulate it to themselves doesn't help separate the waters. Finally, the way Asian democracy works in its most developed forms (South Korea and Japan) is rather different, but I'd hardly call American democracy a 'textbook example', for instance - it's very peculiarly American in a number of ways. Also, for both countries, there has not yet been a true generation change; most people in power, in the front or behind the scenes, are either of the pre-democratic generation or owe their clout to that generation.

I had a lot more trouble with Dragon Age in maneuvering characters. They'd skid around the floor and not stay still, chokepoints were useless because enemies would glide past your characters, it was like aiming cone area of effect spells while everybody was gently gliding around on an ice hockey floor. For some reason it was even worse than NWN1/2. On stuff like basic customisable AI scripts and ability bubbles, yeah, nothing wrong with that. NWN2 already had ability bubbles, enemy portraits when targeted and command queues, and I wouldn't mind seeing them here.

With always-online DRM.

A reboot of the franchise, calling it the XBOX without the hyphen.

Storm of Zehir and having a blast. I struggled through it a little the first time I played because my PC was useless and all the area transitions between all the tiny maps and battles were killing me. Now, of course, this is not the case, and I invested in a Survival/Spot/Hide character. The party: Ranger/Rogue/Swashbuckler/Shadow Thief of Amn - basically taking advantage of Swash's Level 1 free Weapon Finesse, then combining Rogue and STA's odd-level backstab upgrades (Rogue gets 1d6 damage at levels 1 & 3, so do STA, so you get one level of each and it's faster, and you get bonus stuff like Doublespeak) - then the main is Ranger for the Overland Map feats. Is a little fragile despite investing in Toughness, but is just as good at stabbing things as a dedicated fighter, especially now with Feint. Fighter / Dwarven Defender / Weapon Master - a dedicated dwarven axe swinger with toughness, whirlwind attack, and generally built to tank. SOZ I find is the toughest of all NWN1/2 official modules, and having one guy that can take it helps. Monk / Favoured Soul / Sacred Fist - never play monk so decided to try, though only 1 level in Monk for various benefits then FS & SF for the cleric levels. As I expected is too fragile, and generally gives supporting fire or goes around casting some spells. Probably need to invest in some good stat-buffing trinkets, at the moment when a difficult fight comes up she cowers behind the dwarf continuously healing him while he gets seven swords in the face. Wizard / Arcane Scholar / Pale Master - one level of PM for the +2 AC, but still squishy as hell, but I just love em wizards, got to have one. Currently in Act 2.

I actually love the monks, in that they actually came up with an in-game reason for monks to go unarmed that is reflected in gameplay styles, and as a bonus, it's not a 'hard limit' and it presents new and interesting tactical choices. What's not to like over the standard monks? And without going into some complicated historical debate about Eastern 'monks', I don't really see how this violates the popular imagination of the monk either. I didn't realise they were defined by their uncanny ability to dodge things, and they are on a continuum with ascetics, hardcore endurance training, etc. (Of course shrugging off sharp pointy sticks to the face is a stretch, but that applies to all classes.) Usually I'm turned off monks because you can't make use of all the items you find, so in this case they mitigate that too as much as you can while still focusing on unarmed monks.

Depends on what you want. It's a unique, flawed game and I had enough fun LPing it. In terms of semi-open RPG mechanics and combat you want Gothic 1/2 or Risen 1/2, but for a fairly humorous romp D2 is also good.

I think that border was crossed a long time ago. Happily, my childhood remains uspoiled by them ;P Nope. I just don't care, until they start making games I like. I know very little about Warhammer, so if they make it, sure, hopefully it's something fresh.

The peasant boy explains that his girlfriend was kidnapped by a skin-thief; to be precise, Rejiek Hidesman, who escaped our grasp and killed off a party member back in Athkatla. Revenge is near. Tracking his trail yields a conveniently placed skin dancer hunter. Nepenthe: Careful. This man may be the skin dancer we're looking for. Gorth: But he said his name is Darsidian Moor. Nepenthe: So? Gorth: Who would come up with a name like Darsidian Moor? He's clearly the real thing. Following the hunter, we finally arrive upon Rejiek's prone body, and the girl apparently safe... but of course, the ruse is obvious. BBMorti: I have no idea why anybody pulls the "Kill him now" schtick. The dude is lying there, barely conscious. You can kill him yourself! We raise arms upon the two skin dancers, and Rejiek is finally dead at our hands. We also heal the girl back onto her own flesh. Well. That wasn't particularly verbose, but at least we've got the ball rolling again. Here we are. We now have the money for Bodhi, and arguably, the levels; that is probably the next step. We could try the Planar Sphere now, but I'm pretty sure the mage battle would eat us alive...

...which receives a typically Greek narrative... ...and a very much Greek conclusion. We pick up just one object; the Belt of Inertial Barrier. You can see the immediate use; this thing is never coming off my arse for the rest of the adventure. The town fountain now featurse six hastily assembled statues of the Heroes of Trademeet. We assume that the only way they completed it in a single night was by turning to that blessed, fast-acting, easy-to-use material: Weeeeeee.

The djinn prove much squishier than the rakshasa. Our reward is a summoning bottle. Not bad. Finally, we receive our rewards; a five-digit compensation, a fancy ceremony, and the title of Heroes of Trademeet. Gorth: It'll go right above Mass Pest Exterminator. Our newfound fame opens the door ajar for the entry into politics. Two doors, in fact. We're moving up in the world. I level up, finally giving the party access to 6th level spells. (Azure does too, but I forgot to show.) That is usually my baseline criterion for proceeding with the storyline. We consider leaving the city for Irenicus straight away, but we are immediately accosted by a pathetic peasant. Fine, we'll help you. I suppose we should do something for the masses. With the Djinns gone, shopping is also on. The town's newfound liveliness is also proven by a healthy debate amongst philosophers...

Wait, Creeping Doom bypasses Spell Deflection? Okay, okay. No need to panic. Maybe invisibility will work. When we're not making Faldorn invisible instead. Or turning ourselves into wolves. Three more attempts later... I got it! We just interrupt every single spell she casts until she's dead! Oh, how stupid I've been. Goodbye, EVUL DRUIDS. I hope you do something about these squalid living conditions, or you will all catch typhus and malaria. Our reward... is a druid-only staff. Joy. Is there a druid in our waitlist? Returning to Trademeet, we need to sort out one more issue. Our failure to deal with the rakshasa. The djinn will be angry. Perhaps very angry. There's only one way we can rectify our failure... ...kill everybody else.

And so we stand, alone, against Faldorn. No items, no equipment, no weapons. Our first priority should be Protection against Normal Weapons; this will make us invulnerable to all kinds of weapon damage that Faldorn could raise against us. We don't have it memorized, but we can try a wild surge... Oh, that's not so bad. Aha! Another monster and the spell is cast! Marvellous. Things are going my way. Oh, wait. That's no good. Creeping Doom is a 7th-level druid spell; the affected has a chance to panic, and otherwise receives damage every turn, and 100% spell casting failure. Quick, Mislea- oh, fine. Run away! Run away! Oh god. Stung to death. The humiliation. Let's try again, and this time, rest and memorise spells beforehand. A Spell Deflection should be sufficient against Creeping Doom. Normal Weapons, too. Finally, just Mislead so we can't be targeted at all- oh. Oh.

We finally arrive at a small, rickety shack. There's a strange air around the place, it makes me uneasy. It almost seems as if, inside, we would find a great danger... ...something like three pre-buffed rakshasa, maybe... ....yes, best not go there. (To be precise: I only went in to show you how we would be totally wiped. There is no way we are actually going to try. The problem is that with SCS buffs and their innate MR the rakshasa are practically invulnerable for at least ten turns, and in the meantime we can hardly protect ourselves from 5th-7th level spells.) And so, we head further into the druid grove. Told you he would show up when we were nearly done. Cernd explains that druids can challenge Faldorn, the head shadow druid, in a one on one battle to resolve the issue. Nepenthe: For once, we don't have to do everything. Right? Right. It's nice. Wait, what? Remember: you installed "All Strongholds" component in one of your mods, ensuring that for all stronghold-related quests you will be treated as the relevant class. In this case, a druid! Nnnnnnngh. This is why a careless use of unauthorised mods is discouraged! We highly encourage Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition, where a selection of modder labour is repackaged into a convenient $20 product- Beat it.

For now, we stay out of it, and cast Web and Silence, then shoot down the trolls; then we can have a nice discussion about who exactly is fighting who. Oh, I see. You want to attack us. While all of you are webbed. Listen, evil and smart aren't mutually exclusive. Think on that. After a relaxing night of rest next to their corpses, we move forward. Twenty metres away, we find another group of EVUL DRUIDS, who have obviously declined to join their comrades against the trolls or ourselves. Druid: Your careless meanderings across the great earth mother will not go unpunished. I wasn't aware that walking carelessly was a crime. Chaos, Web and Ice Storm in the first turn are sufficient. Next, a bridge where a set of spore colonies stand in a row, churning out myconids should anyone approach. Clearly, nobody thought about actually living and navigating this place. "Sorry, Head Shadow Druid, I was late because the colonies kept farting noxious vapours on the bridge making me confused." It's important to remove them quickly before they spawn many myconids. We launch a lightning bolt. ....and it comes back. Everyone shuffle-dances three steps to the left.

The area is one battle after another, mostly trolls; after De'Arnise Keep, they aren't too much trouble for us. A narrow corridor full of spiders. Whoever designed this map really was short on time. My mirror-imaged self blocks the path then fireballs the lot. The mop-up process is fast... then a giant spider manages to poison and web/paralyze BBMorti before it falls. BBMorti: Well that's not a problem, there are no- *hurk* -enemies anymore. Just cast a couple of healing spells until it wears out. Actually.... we ran out. BBMorti: What. We used the last on Nepenthe before we realised. BBMorti: Was he poisoned? No, but he's at full health now. BBMorti: Wonderful. Listen, it's not a big deal. You've got lives left. Right? BBMorti: That spider was probably second level, or something. Aha. A dramatic recovery. BBMorti: Wait until I dramatically cone of cold your arse next encounter. Greater Earth Elementals join the menagerie. Finally, we come upon a group of druids - not yet aggressive - munching on some trolls. Druid: FALDORN AND HER SHADOW DRUIDS PROTECT THIS FOREST! Shadow Druids? Druid: YES, WE SHADOW DRUIDS, THE ONES THAT ARE NOT NICE BUT ARE TOTALLY EVIL, WHO WILL TOTALLY PROBABLY KILL YOU ALL AS SOON AS WE ARE DONE HERE- Oh, I see.

Say hello to Cernd, probably the most boring NPC Bioware has ever written. This is because he isn't emo about the poor animals, at all. He doesn't seem to really care. We send him up ahead, meaning we will do all the work and he'll sign off the paperwork. On the way out of the city, we find a... a, hand-reader? Hand-elicited hallucinator? Of course, what we get is gibberish. Nepenthe:Oh, I can make sense of that for you. Really? Nepenthe: It means you will soon come across two men, Tale. One will be a needy type, the kind that gets you by the mother instinct. Do this for me, I can't do that. Another will be a charismatic bad boy, who's made mistakes in his life, whose life indeed has been taken from him. That's.... go on. Nepenthe: And for a time you will think, oh, I have the pick of the bunch, which one shall I go for, the soft and squishy or the hard and, uh, hard? But then it turns out the bad boy's got another woman from the past, who he can't forget! Then, there's... a beast of a man, a man with exceptional prowess! And... another dark man, and... Okay, I think that's far too many men in my life. Nepenthe: That's why she was overwhelmed. Never read a fortune with that much man-meat in it, before. Just outside the town the djinns have set up camp; they refuse to allow traders access to caravans until their own mission for a rakshasa is complete. We accept the mission, but rakshasa are extremely dangerous; they will have access to 7th and 8th level spells, have very high magic resistance, and probably tear us apart single-handedly. We will see... A few hours' walk away is the Druid Grove. Charming place. Would buy real estate. Pauden: BE WARNED, STRANGER! YOU SHALL FACE NATURE'S WRATH! Listen, talking to us while trolls are in my face is not the best way to get my attention.

27. Love the Trees, Hate the Treehuggers Click Here For Table of Contents It's been a while. We are now steadily growing in power, and almost ready to cough up the money and chase after Irenicus. Just one or two more jobs, and we'll be there. Our next stop, therefore, is the animal-infested town of Trademeet. Who uses... what is that, stucco? Marble? Who lays down a giant face the size of a hundred people in the middle of the street? I have to admit, it's a nice looking city, but they could just sell half of the flooring and hire an army to conquer the Sword Coast. I've seen your tiles, Coprith. The rewards better be worth it. Gorth:I guess now I can put on my CV, Mass Pest Exterminator. We are directed to a druid who is accused of spying on the city, except he's offering to spy on the druids for the city, except everyone believes he's spying on the druids for the city in order to spy on the city for the druids, and now we're going to make him spy on the druids for the city so that he can be absolved of the charges of spying, by spying. For us.

Scored perfect. Huh.

My comments last page below. It is pretty fun, but it is about as complex as an Android app, which is obvious because they ripped off Game Dev Story almost entirely. I'm doing pretty well. I can tell I'll be done with it soon, there's no variation in platform popularity or other such things, and I'm starting to suspect that getting a 'hit' game that suddenly sells 8 times the normal is some kind of scripted affair in getting out of your garage. Haven't explored the endgame as much yet, though. $8 is probably slightly overpriced for this simple job. I think a much, much, much superior game is Nino Arndt's Gamebiz series. GB3 is ~$15 but GB2 is now freeware and is actually a sort of 'classic' in the series: http://www.veloci.dk...p?visnu=GB2.htm Cons: more grindy and the worst UI you've ever seen, though you get used to it quickly. Pros: best game dev simulation out there.