alanschu

So the consensus it that people don't bother registering because they don't want to waste the time on it, and feel as though they will receive additional spam?

I don't think so. I think they are just special prestige classes you can take since you have achieved those titles.

Optional content?

Absolute values mean nothing. It doesn't matter if suddenly a few thousand more people are playing the game online. Who is to say that there haven't been significantly more people buying the game playing it offline? Or that a large chunk of these people are the same MP players that took a year or two off from playing the game before? And that is why they are worthless. Just because it's what you see happening, doesn't mean that that is an accurate reflection of the actual customer base. Your sample size is far to small, and heavily biased (since you're not talking to offline gamers). It's easy to remember the "thousands" of unique identities you met while playing a game over five years? Exactly. Since you only talk with people that are online, all of your information comes from them. You're sample is not representative. The people you meet playing the game online are not an unbiased sample. As for my experience with narcisstic gamers, I played Counterstrike, the grand poombah of total asswipes. So don't go talking around about how I don't have experience playing online. The thing is, (as I've stated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over) you cannot base your assumptions of a game that offers a single player experience purely on the fans that you see playing MP. If NWN was an online MP only game, your views would have a bit more validity. But since you have zero information about the single player users, your sample is worthless. It doesn't account for them. For the last time, you're not using deductive reasoning. Take a logic course. Your premises aren't true. My biased views? And I'm sure the guy that loves NWN MP and has been beating on NWN2 before it even came out is a beacon of objectivity on the issue. The examples you cite are worthless, because they are based upon personal experience. And I've been playing games online since 1999, starting with Action Quake 2. I've sunk mountains of time into games like Counterstrike, Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo II, Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Guild Wars, and so on. What counter example would you really like me to cite? Me speaking with many people that don't like playing games online?

You provide feedback to the game company about the game styles you are interested in. You also provide hardware specifications such as DVD drive capability. People claim that DVDs should have been the mainstay for years now, but if the registrations that they get are from people that all answer 'no' to that question, why should they think that the bulk of their target base does have DVD drives? I understand that the biggest vote is the sale itself (money talks), but I guess I just figure that taking the time to tell them the game types that I am interested in, as well as some information about my computer and my gaming preferences is worth it. Oh well.

Poor Spider

How is the game "so bad?" I know I'm one of the luckier gamers out there, as I rarely seem to suffer from many of the problems that people get at new releases, outside of the poor party AI and some AI quirks, I was able to play through the OC unpatched with no major issues. I had one crash that happened when loading a saved game, but that's it.

Then I share the same disdain for your opinion. Or at least 80% of the disdain. COmplaining because the game has similiarities to KOTOR. Wow.

I'm just curious how many people take the time to register the PC games they buy? I usually register all of my games, since it provides some feedback to the company about the types of games I am interested in and whatnot, and I was just curious if other people did the same thing. The reason why I brought this up is I just registered Madden 07, and it asks questions such as whether I have a DVD drive, my preferred gaming platform of choice, and so on. The DVD one in particular caught my eye, because I know a lot of people in North America are annoyed that more games don't come out on DVD (though it's less of an issue now IMO). It's hardly scientific, but I'm the only person in my group of PC gaming friends who bothers to register my games, so maybe PC gamers are unknowingly giving themselves a quieter voice than they really need? Discuss. Or not.

Black Isle and Bioware had a lot of fanboys willing to rush and buy NWN2 right away. Nowhere near the same number of fans that Blizzard or Bethesda have, but still a significant number. I dont think that it is a coincidence that many of the NWN2 lovers have been on these boards a long time. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Volourn is right. Black Isle may have fanboys, but I doubt it's truly that significant of a number. Otherwise they would have had a few more games that were significant financial successes. Did they have any? It took PST years to become a financial success. The Bioware fanboys are more numerous, but for every person that goes out and buys it just because it's NWN2, you're going to get fanboys that refuse to buy it because it's not a Bioware game.

Haha Spider. I got the sarcasm don't worry As for the article, I laugh at some of these complaints: "- You are unable to multiple-select your characters in a party under your control. Why could you do that in every single Infinity engine game and most every other RPG with a party system, but not in NWN2? Because that's the way it was in KotOR." I don't recall being able to do that in NWN either!!1 NPCs with no freedom of selection of class? Check. Auto-level button? Not here! Okay, so it's a regressed KotOR engine. Outside of Deekin, was it possible to affect anyone's level in NWN? Even then I think Deekin was only in HotU, which isn't technically NWN, but rather NWN++. - licensed a (perfectly unsuitable) engine that they did not develop - refrained from modifying that engine to suit the needs of the game This is super awesome, as the engine (as Volo pointed out) at its root is the same as NWN. - Inventory. Who stole a paycheck for designing this travesty? The icons are about as informative as C3PO's beeps. It has 128 one-cell slots each of which can fit any item, potentially enabling you to carry one hundred and twenty eight scythes on your person. If the elementary "realism" and "roleplay" connotations of this do not worry you like they do me, then I hope you will at least agree with me that the inventory is nigh impossible to manage visually. Inventory tetris was a part of my pack-rat roleplaying experience. I liked the fact that even if I was inhumanly strong, I could carry at most 30 greatswords. I never understand beefs like this. If he's that interested in roleplaying, there's nothing stopping him in not picking up 128 Scythes. - You have more quickslots than in NWN, but they are inaccessible by hotkeys. In a way, you have less quickslots, but more useless slowslots. Why in the hells can't I drag a spell from the quickcast into one of those? Hitting Shift+Number works fine. Though it means I only use the first 4 or so (Shift-7 is an awkward reach, and not even really necessary anyways). - There is no freedom of choice in this game, and the difference between good and evil is that evil simply kills everyone, while good talks to them a bit and then kills everyone. Lovely roleplay. Is this really any different than pretty much every CRPG out there? - Being evil. The campaign is simply not made for it. Nothing should stop me from murdering peasants for a few gold coins if that is what I want, but this game stops me. It's nearly impossible to maintain an evil alignment in this game to keep, say, assassin or blackguard class features within the frames of roleplay. The "evil" dialog options are mostly just obnoxious or rude. Rude does not equal evil. I'm rude. And obnoxious. But I'll give you a hand if you're drowning, and I will not ask for any compensation. In this game you end up inadvertently doing good deeds to just advance the plot. I'm not sure I understand. He just genuinely performed a good deed by saving someone's life, and gets some Good points for it. It's not like it put him all the way to full Good! I played an Evil Rogue/Assassin, and they still did the odd Good deed. But it didn't suddenly make my character something other than Evil. - The quests are all regurgitated nonsense that we saw in NWN. Go to area A, kill baddie B, and bring quest token Q to move on. Only this time you have the NPCs tag along with their... Heh...welcome to CRPGs! - The OC is non-multiplayable. It has dialog pauses, forced party transitions, a plot thoroughly incompatible with multiplayer (so which of the four of us is the main character?). Makes you remember how the NWN OC started perfectly compatible with multiplayer - a few friends in a city's military academy called to serve their homeland. Great hook! Everyone is equal, everyone can complete the tasks, and the plot is not character related. In NWN2, most dialogs make no sense whatsoever unless initiated by the main character. Seeing how the developers specifically designed the OC to not be played in multiplayer, it is not surprising. Meh. Never stopped me from playing BG and BG2 in multiplayer, and won't stop me from playing NWN2 in multiplayer. The guy is a moron.

When I said better games, I meant PC games.

Neither have you. You're just guessing. I'm basing my statements on the trends that have existed, and continue to exist, in gaming. Because your points are baseless conjecture. They are what you THINK is happening. But you had no problems counting the few thousand of them that you have just recently met.... I'm curious, how on Earth do you plan on encountering people that don't play the game online to begin with? (and it's not deductive reasoning at all, because you cannot verify whether or not your premises are actually truth) But people don't need to play video games to experience companionship, acknowledgement, or to interact with others. You're making an assumption that the majority of people that buy video games fit your category of "gamer" which you just gave. Believe it or not, a lot of plain jane average people buy video games. The type that play maybe a few hours a week. I doubt the type of gamer that is narcissistic and wants to prove how powerful they are make up more than a rather insignificant amount of the total gaming populace. Deductive Reasoning based on unverified assumptions is not useful. You're making blind suppositions based on what you THINK the world of gaming is actually like. You talk about the "gaming community" as if it is made up of people vastly different than everyday people.

Heh, I didn't even consider people that pirated the game. Though I suspect the game companies don't care as much about them.

I made no such statement. In fact, I don't even know what you are talking about here. Wow. A few thousand. Out of the millions of copies of the game sold. It is? Based on what? No it doesn't. All your story said was a few thousand (assuming you're even remotely correct in your estimate of a few thousand). Neverwinter Nights is a game that has sold million. It's one of the better selling games of all time. Well, there's ONE person. Anecdotal evidence doesn't mean anything. And unfortunately, it leads people to 'commonsense' conclusions. (for the record, using common sense in any sort of empirical analysis trying to describe something will literally get you laughed at in any academic circle. It's pretty much useless, because it is frequently wrong).

So basically, you're numbers are purely built up on suppositions and assumptions on how you THINK the world is. And while polls only question a sample of the community, there's no way you can say whether or not that sample is an accurate reflection of their customer base. Given that this type of research isn't just randomly polling people on their website or something, but actual market research, lends a bit more to its credibility. This is the type of research done to assess the marketplace, where big errors can result in the loss of millions of dollars. It's in Bioware's best interests to make sure that the information reflected in their research is accurate, in order to fully maximize it. It's not just some random poll. How would you know that people 'usually' do? While polls/research may not be accurate, your personal experiences and 'commonsense' notions of how things should be are infinitely less accurate.

It seems people are buying into the misrepresentation that is internet message boards, and thinking that they are accurate representations of how the entire market is.

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Hardly seems fitting that you accuse him of not having evidence, when you're speculating yourself. Why would most people buy it for the OC? Because it was a Bioware D&D game, and they had a reputation for making good D&D games. In fact, the majority of people that bought Neverwinter Nights only dabbled briefly in the Multiplayer world. It wasn't uncommon for people to do nothing but play the OC. There was a reason why HotU was designed explicitly only for single player. The multiplayer for it was simply "play at your own risk." It may work, it may not. They didn't design it for MP usage, and didn't support the MP of the HotU campaign. The reason why they did this is because the majority of their consumer base did not play these campaigns in multiplayer. They were played primarily in single player, and came to the conclusion that the majority of the fanbase would be more satisfied if they focused on the single player aspect of the HotU campaign. THESE VIEWS ARE SUPPORTED BY THE MARKET RESEARCH DONE BY BIOWARE THEMSELVES. The millions you saw playing online were likely different iterations of the same people! As for SoulThief's claim that it takes longer to cast something, then that is clearly because he just isn't willing to learn the exceptionally simple UI that is the quickcast menu. I mean, you hit 'F' select your spell, and pick a target. I'm not sure how it can be more simple. Unless you prefer right clicking to bring up the radial menu, selecting spells, then the spell level, then the spell. Most of his gripes about the UI (of which there are indeed issues) seems to simply be that it's not the exact same as NWN user interface.

Wow. I only saw one. I guess I need to check things out more closely on my second playthrough!

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That hardly seems like a concern for you, since you commented that you allowed the game to give you more than the standard number of NPC party members anyways.

If you want to argue semantics, the character in the game isn't you either. This can be demonstrated by the rather tiny amount of options you have to actually play this character. I wanted to do lots of different stuff, but since that character isn't me (I live in Edmonton, Canada, not West Harbour Faerun). In CRPG gaming, the character can never truly be you. It's always a designers character. If you want to nitpick even more, all that character truly is, is a bunch of 1's and 0's stored in memory, and displayed in likely 32-bit colour on a computer monitor. The character doesn't actually exist, and hence can't be you And I think a quadruple post should be enough for this thread. Moving on.

I'm not sure how he made fools out of anyone. Shandra is a good character, and I'm not really sure why you'd snicker. I thought she was an interesting character, and still do.