alanschu

The party limit count in the game slowly increases by default anyways, so meh.

Define "taking your time?" I didn't exactly rush through the game, I just played it a lot. There were some stuff I didn't do, mostly because I didn't really know about it. And in any case, Bishop's character is cold and ruthless, but I think he is very well written. He's also quite useful.

I love the fact that NPCs aren't autonomous drones that follow me around and are essentially pack mules that do my every bidding. Still, I never found inventory to be a big issue. Things like crafting items I never picked up, since I couldn't craft items. I gave them to the people that could craft items instead. No point in hoarding all of those scrolls, since I couldn't use them, so I gave them to other people that could. Given the fact that the game really isn't all that hard, there was only one time I found myself going "Doh!" when I realized a weapon was on a party member I didn't have on me.

You're only allowed one prestige class anyways.

I'm pretty ambivalent. The one bad thing about the historical monarchs, is that it lets you plan for the future, which is a big problem with the Paradox games IMO. I love playing HOI2, but in a MP game, it's almost pointless. Because if I'm Germany and you're the UK, you're going to be doing as big of a militarization as you can since you KNOW that war will be coming, and precisely which date as well. It's a Catch-22.

I'm not too active at the moment. I posted mostly in the HOI2 boards though, as well as a little bit in Vicky. I haven't been following EU3 too closely, but the bit I have seen looks cool. What parts have you concerned?

I didn't really have a problem with the QUANTITY of inventory. I'd suggest having other people pick stuff up to help keep it simple. I did this because finding stuff in the inventory can be rather difficult. But even then, it was mostly just split between Khelgar and myself. Though I'm not one to pick up every single item.

Ahem. If not for me, they'd still be hesitant about those games!!!!!!1212312 I have sunk a whole shwack of time into HOI2, and played many a MP game in EU2.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I really enjoyed the entire game. While I finished it in a "short" amount of time, it was mostly due to some rather lengthy game sessions on a weekend where I had not too much planned. Plus, my work (a bunch of geeks at University) all decided to play it on Friday as well. I'm playing through as a Human Paladin this time, going more as a good guy (I was an exploitative Tiefling Rogue my first playthrough).

I finished the game with most people being level 19 as well (I was a level 18 Tiefling). There were some things at Crossroad Keep that I didn't finish though, so I may have been able to get more. As for content, I really enjoyed the game in its entirety. It had good pacing, and I found the Crossroad Keep stuff very entertaining. I also really liked every single NPC. I thought they had good dialogue, and excellent banter with each other. As for the quest prestige classes, you can get Shadow Thief of Amn significantly earlier than the Neverwinter Nine one. Though I didn't pick it because I had already picked Assassin.

That's not the problem. The problem is the people that get all uppity when a white person does make an ethnic joke.

Setzer, since you insist on saying he was trying to change what he said, I went back and looked at the original posts, and I noticed something rather important: When he was talking about your monitor, he was talking about video quality, not performance. Since the performance was subpar at the high resolutions, you tried dropping it down but then complained that the game looked horrible. At no point did he say that your monitor was causing poor performance in this post that you mention. If anything, I think you just misinterpretted his post, and then continued onwards. He said the large LCD monitors can be poor for gaming because their native resolution is excessively high, and can outstrip the performance of a video card very easily if you want to play in the native resolution (i.e. the best quality). He never said it was the cause of poor performance. You misread his post, and then continued on an argument with him with that misinterpretation, which naturally made him defensive. Unfortunately, even when you went back to look at his post, you failed to look at the post directly above his post that was yours, where you made a comment about how the image quality was poor. In essence, you took his quote out of context, and incorrectly assumed (again) that he was talking about your monitor being the cause for the performance problem. To reiterate, the comment about the monitor was referring to the poor image quality at lower resolutions.

From a plot related perspective, I'd wager not even the Elder Scrolls games are non-linear, which is what we were talking about: non-linear plots. I haven't played through the main plot of either Morrowind or Oblivion, but I don't remember approaching them from a different perspective. They are more of an open sandbox game, with lots of quests in it (and a longer main quest).

Fallout is an excellent example that I had missed. It's definitely the most recent example. NWN2's plot is more linear than BG2 and NWN1. BG2 had the "get the money" chapter 2, as well as the decision to either go straight to the underdark as well as go back up to the surface (off the top of my head). NWN's non-linearity was too small scale for my liking, but it at least was present. But I find non-linear plots to be exceptionally rare. I wonder if it was more to do with time constraints. Making the world react appropriately (or at least to Obsidian's standards) to you butchering random civilians may have been something that would have taken more time than they were allotted. It seemed like things were getting the axe down the stretch, and it's possible that they didn't want it to just be "attack person X, and person X fights back" type of stuff. Because all the stuff you said about possibly losing the game can be taken care of by making plot related characters invincible. At the same time, maybe they didn't want people to randomly kill people to see what inventory they had, only to have them reload if they didn't like the outcome.

Baldur's Gate is a linear plot. PS:T is a linear plot. Baldur's Gate 2 was a bit less linear, as you could choose to not do some stuff when it came to acquiring money to track down Imoen, but even then, the plot is still pretty linear. At least there were ways to go through parts differently, but these ways were similar to the small branches that a game like KOTOR or NWN2 has. I'd also argue that the NWN plot is linear as well, as I don't particularly care for referring "Go get 4 things, but you can get the four of them in any order you want" as being particularly non-linear. The only RPG with a non-linear plot I can think of off the top of my head is Ultima 7, where you could literally solve parts of the main plot in a vastly different sequence of events. Not optional, go wander off and do whatever you want (which I don't consider to be non-linear gameplay either, since it's essentially just extra exploration that has no bearing on the plot) type stuff, but actual plot related quests that helped unlock the mysteries going on in Brittania. Even Oblivion (what I have played so far) has a linear plot. It may open up a bit more, but all the "non-linear" stuff is just extra, not particularly related to the plot at all. As for killing innocents, I don't particularly care. I never liked the wholesale slaughter of strangers in the older games because I thought it was not particularly punishing enough. And in games like Baldur's Gate, you can just run to the temple and buy back some reputation. I'm thinking he's referring to the comment that "the game looks horrible" that you made many pages ago when you switched out of your native resolution, which I would attribute more to your monitor as well, since the game looks pretty good to me at 1024x768.

The monitor will affect the quality of the image, since it's not in native resolution (like taks, this is the main reason why I'm still using a CRT monitor). Because the game does not run very well at high resolutions (one of the main reasons why, if I were to go for an LCD, I would not buy a big one is because the native resolution is far too high, and I'll be more inclined to spend more money on high quality video cards), you have to drop down the resolution, which would result in a larger hit in image quality than a CRT would probably experience. The "problem" is that the game doesn't run very well in high resolutions (if you want to call it a problem), so you have had to make some sacrifices. The funny thing is that if I could get an LCD that ran in native 1024x768, I'd probably get it. This way I could get more use out of it without having to buy top end cards all the time. I typically play at that resolution on my CRT anyways (which is only a 17" and can't get a very high refresh rate at high resolutions unfortunately, which hurts my eyes).

Just beat the game. Really enjoyed it. Played as a Tiefling Rogue/Assassin. Was a manipulative jerk. Didn't mind Neeshka. Plan on playing through as Human Paladin next, as well as playing with toolset and planning my story.

read forums on bioware, you can see many female players post. Heck, it's the 21st century EDIT: and about romances, I love them, atleast if they are somewhat plausible, of course the 'emotional increase' has to be much faster than in RL so it happens at all in the timeframe of the game. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> He's not talking about the people that play the game when he says GENDER=MALE.

Magoo is my hero.

Oh, and one more thing, any of you that wish to play the game MP, know how to get a hold of me.

I felt the need to interject here, despite my recent posting habits. I find it rather absurd that someone that openly admits to buying a game guide, and prefers to read ahead so that there are "no surprises" in the upcoming parts of the game, is bitching and moaning about somone "spoiling" the tutorial. And since I also used D2D and am currently installing the game, I will slink back into the shadows. Good day.

Was this entire thread not about logical assumptions (look at the context in which Mothman is using the term logic, and see how much of it applies to the actual definition of logic)? I'll admit that my use of the word "logic" was not really accurate (though I doubt it's presense in this thread was used correctly either), but unfortunately this sort of stuff is what people consider logic. And the awesome thing about this "logic" (and philosophy in general) is that it's not too hard to manipulate it. If (1) Heterosexual males are not attracted to males and (2) little boys are sexually molested by males. (3) Homosexual males are sexually attracted to males. Therefore (4), the people sexually assaulting young males are homosexual males. It's not logically sound, because the premises are not all true. However, the only way to verify these premises is to have empirical data indicating that it's not true. Otherwise, people can (and WILL) continue to draw the same conclusions from this logical inference. Another use of "logic" in this thread was relating to environmental experiences: (1) Environmental experiences can affect the character of a person, and (2) hanging around gay men is an environmental influence. (3) Therefore, hanging around gay men will affect the character of a person. These premises aren't true (thanks to empirical studies that don't show any indication that homosexuality is contagious), but people insist on thinking that it is true, regardless of the findings. The problem is that people believe the premises to be true (and if they do believe it's true, then it's logically sound to them), and then make conclusions (and worse yet, government policy) based on those conclusions. If not for empiricism, you aren't going to be able to verify whether or not the premises is true, and won't be able to verify that your logic is, in fact, sound. I will concede though that what I was referring to as "logic" before, was not truly logic. As a counterpoint though, I doubt "logic" was ever really used in this thread correctly. I was more talking about the (inaccurate) deductive reasoning that people often do, and often refer to as "logic."

I was referring to the scientific, not the philosophical, usage of the term empircism (which includes the entire idea of forumlating hypotheses and drawing conclusions from data). I guarantee you though, that if you went somewhere making claims about the state of the world, using logic as the foundation of your argument, no academic will take you seriously. Logic leads people to make "commonsense" assessments of situations. Since it was already mentioned in this thread, a common notion is that homosexual men are more likely to molest little boys. Logically, this makes sense, as a homosexual man is attracted to other men. So if there was a man that would be more likely to molest a little boy, it would make more sense for it to be a homosexual male rather than a heterosexual male. However, the empirical analysis indicates that this absolutely is not the case. When making statements about the world, using logic as your foundation, your argument becomes significantly weakened.

People have sent me messages requesting to stay, so I may consider hanging around longer. Before I go, a few last quips. Logic is, and always will be, trumped by empiricism. It's a foundation of the scientific method, and logic and commonsense have routinely been shown to not coincide with actual reality. Furthermore, understand that any comment regarding social sciences can only be made with respect to what has been empirically found. Going around making comments about how people shouldn't say stuff hanging around homosexuals won't make some people homosexual because "you just don't know" is an exceptionally poor argument. This statement can be applied to anything. I am entirely open to the possibility that homosexuals may turn other people into homosexuals, but given that the literature and research unequivocally refutes this claim, I'm not about to rescind my statements simply because "it might be." It's possible that our understanding of gravity, with the weak and strong nuclear forces isn't correct either, although our current evidence says it does. It's what science and the scientific method is all about. And just to reiterate, science and logic are not common bedfellows. Logic is overrated, and without empirical evidence can (and frequently does) lead people to incorrect conclusions. And for any of you that questions the validity of homosexuality's presence in nature, I suggest reading Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity Other pages I quickly found on the internets: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20..._gayanimal.html http://www.bidstrup.com/sodomy.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality...sexual_behavior But seriously, read the book. It's very interesting and not written at too high of an academic level. As for why I cite that it's natural, because if something exists throughout the animal kingdom, I'm not going to judge it as being "right or wrong" if it seems to be something that exists throughout species. To ascribe the label of "wrong" to it implies that it must be a choice. Given that creatures of significantly less intellect and reasoning abilities than humans share the same homosexual tendencies, I'm not convinced there's much "choice" in the matter. Furthermore, given the rather large body of research indicating that homosexuality is strongly influenced by biology, I see labelling it "wrong" as being similar to labelling left-handed people as "wrong" (heck, you can even choose to be left-handed), or a chinese person as "wrong." And to be quite frank, I find it rather odd that many people against homosexuality are so quick to say it's a choice. I mean, did these people wake up one day and decide that life was too simple, and that they'd rather be part of pretty much the most stigmatized, ostracized, discrimated against group in the world? Did they go "Hmmm, you know, I think it'd be neat if I adopted a lifestyle that made it more susceptible for me to become a victim of hate crimes and to become a social outcast?" Why someone would *choose* a lifestyle that, for the most part, is going to make life far less bearable and enjoyable, seems pretty illogical to me.