Llyranor

I'd recommend the premium version. It's a sound investment if you have any plans of playing online or downloading demos. And Nick is a moron. Half the games he listed don't even allow teamkilling. And in the other half he was the victim of said teamkilling. As for FPS gamepad aiming, I used to hate it. Goldeneye was a chore back in the day. Since the past year, though, I've gotten quite used to them, though, and don't really feel like they detract. Sure, there's autoaim and stuff, but that's good enough for me. I mean, I'm not playing photoshop simulator and don't need pinpoint accuracy.

You should have named it the Order of the Dragon, or whatever it is that LARPing group was called.

I'm not Chinese, but I can watch Chinese series pretty easily, since they're dubbed (not in English, though - they really could benefit from some English subs for more broad appeal, actually). Jade Empire, haha. What a joke.

Isn't that the game that was made into a TV series? I think I saw bits of that. And yeah, there are tons of Wuxia novels that could be converted into good RPGs. Too bad. EDIT: THAT. MUSIC.

IIRC, MCA only did the dialogue for K and G. The rest is probably mainly from Ziets and Saunders or something (major kudos). Now, the game isn't perfect, so I think it's fair to get a bit of criticism on the way. 1) Complete lack of intraparty interaction. The party members basically don't talk to each other. NWN2 at least had a (very) small amount of it, but here it's absent. Strangely enough, I was compelled enough into the story/characters that I didn't notice/mind this until I've thought about it post-game. 2) Influence worked well in terms of getting in the backstories of the party members. However, mechanically, it feels like it's gone a step back in terms of actually trying to influence party members. In KOTOR2, for example, you could at least convert people into Jedi and make them go Dark Side or whatever. Here, though, it seems a tad lacking. Maybe it's just my playthrough, but I didn't - for instance - get the opportunity to try to make G or K . In terms of application, that didn't really bother me during my playthrough, but having the options would have been nice, since it's - like - an influence system or something. Actual characterization of the party members makes up for this. 3) I didn't think about it at the time since it made sense and I (as mentioned in my prev post) already had doubts about it, but apparently many people have had problems with how easily the PC gives up on . The game justifies it by having While that's fair, the game could have probably done a better job pushing the point forward. More argumenting with 4) Having 5) From a gameplay perspective, the last events were pretty lackluster. Didn't mind so much. 6) Lack of official confirmation of a 2nd xpac. What were they thinking?

Regarding the bard/final battle question, I played as a bard/red dragon disciple. I maxxed out RDD to 10 before the game started, so I was a fairly low-level bard. Still, with a spellcaster-heavy party, having less spells wasn't an issues. Inspirations were still useful, though to be honest I didn't really use the songs except in rare cases. That being said, I was able to invest heavily (don't forget RDD gives you Int/Cha bonuses too, and tons of Str - which makes you a very potent melee character) into all the diplomatic skills (I though able learner for intimidate, though it still ended up with me having half the skill level there), with plenty to spare. I was a good speech character, was good in melee (as I mentioned in another thread, I managed to melee myself through most of the game, including the end battle), and with some good backup spells/buffs. Despite having Safiya as my backup, the end battle wasn't difficult.

Hmm, well, they should have made it more apparent. Two further random thoughts in the interim. 1) My two favorite moments in the game were and the awesome encounter with 2)

Finished the game yesterday. Went through ending . Overally, awesome game. Writing/story/characters/music are topnotch. Gameplay was fine, but I found it too easy. I was playing a bard/red dragon disciple, and despite having a party of spellcasters and playing on the hardest diff (double damage), I was still for the most part mowing through the enemies with melee (with buffs, haste, etc). Some of the battles involved more enemy spellcasters, but they went down so fast that their big spells weren't really an issue for the most part. The only part where I had a bit of difficulty was in I enjoyed the spirit meter mechanics. It wasn't perfectly designed, but it drove its point home. It was a nice balancing act, but the alignment changes they imposed on you were nasty, especially since I had to maintain some sort of neutrality. I ended up as lawful good too. I had a bit of difficulty with it in the beginning, but after using the 'last resort' measure once, I got it well in-check for the rest of the game with no problem. Reviewers emo'ing over this are full of sand, but this was already *known* to us. The writing overall was nicely done, a good step up from NWN2. The story/plot itself was actually worth going through, and justifies NWN2's existence (whose plot I found to be a tad disappointing). The plot, perhaps as mentioned before, reminded me a bit of PST's, but also KOTOR2's. The party members were great. were all closely related to the story, and had some good backstory. as well, though I didn't keep him around except for that sidequest mentioned above (which was enough to grant me tons of influence, and get some backstory out of the intro. Good stuff. This is why I usually prefer to have fewer party member choices, but have them have more backstory and more integrated into the story (yet, optional - good stuff). I didn't particularly care for NWN2's character save a few - same applies to BG2 where you had too many choices; all were diluted in content. The way you found out about the fate of your previous allies wasn't perfect, but good enough. I probably would have minded if they were actually memorable. It was nice to see get an appearance in some of the endings. The endings themselves were good (<3 music), and the variants made sense. Given the divergence of fates, you probably won't be importing this char again for a potential xpac, which is a good thing. Lvl 1, thanks. Music was excellent both in quality and quantity. VA was good. Excellent audio work, Mr audio director thingie. Length was good. It was long enough to provide a strong story without feeling as though bits were missing, but short enough to not feel like it was dragging on (I didn't really get the sense that some areas were really needless). This is how NWN2 should have been in the first place; that game would have been better had it been half its length and had the extra resources put into polishing the remaining content. Nicely done, Obs team, your CEO commends you. It's nice to see rising talent. MCA, you're going down. Good review, Eldar.

I generally enjoyed NWN1's premium mods. Mind you, I only got Shadowguard/Witch's Wake, Kingmaker and Pirates of the Sword Coast. They each provided a few hours of content. In terms of cost/value, it wasn't bad - the problem was that the content itself (story/writing/characters) was not that great, so I didn't bother with the ones that came up after that. But that's more my issue with Bioware. NWN2 DD is a great thing. I'd gladly support Obsidian-made mods. This, we'll have to see.

What I would want for the next xpac would be good overall design, good gameplay, good writing/story/characters and good music, but that's just me.

I'm using the Atari digital version, which works fine with D2D vanilla. The Atari retail/digital versions are supposedly the same, including patches and all, aside from copy protection. I wouldn't trust that Tale fellow, though.

Just got the game. 60 new music tracks, heheeehheheheheheheheheheheheheheehehehehehhehehe

Yay, another company that Hades will complain (or continue complaining) about!

Hold on, shouldn't the leader name have been Llyranor?

Give them to Hades!!!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=334 There's a 50ish-page pdf (direct link here http://www.rpgwatch.com/files/Files/00-020...tement_1997.pdf ) of design docs for a Planescape: Last Rites. This is a CRPG for which Chris Avellone is the lead designer. Enjoy ^_^

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15745 Excellent news! Tim Cain will once again rejuvenate the world of CRPGs with next generation design! With employees who had worked on groundbreaking titles such as WORLD OF WARCRAFT, CITIES OF HEROES, and ASHERON'S CALL, this title can't fail! Keep chugging along, Tim, you can't go wrong with this MMO!!!

Spirit Shaman seems pretty nice. I too prefer the druid spells over the cleric's. Nice set of skills, too. I'll be going for a bard/red dragon disciple, for a good skillset (opting for diplomatic endeavors), decent combat capabilities, and backup spellcasting, all while buffing the party.

Your face is a greatest hits collection.

Good thing you'll be picking up the superior version of what was only a mediocre game when it used to be console-exclusive!

Help me, Obs, I need help deciding which game is right for me. As you may or may not know, I thoroughly dislike the Elder Scrolls games. I've only played Morrowind and Oblivion, though, so it's a fairly narrow view on the franchise. Even though I've consistently bashed the games on numerous occasions, I feel as though perhaps there is some redeeming value to me. Millions of people can't be wrong, after all! For this reason, I've decided to keep an open mind and broaden my horizons! I've decided to go out and purchase and try out one of the many expansion packs for these games, to see if I can try to get back into them. I've created a poll so as to decide which one will be best for me? I want to know which one has the best value for me! I hope I change my mind on the ES series I may end up disliking these new games and posting on numerous (unrelated) threads about them, but I'll never know without at least giving them a chance, right? Thanks, guys!

The spirit meter sounds like it'll be pretty fun to manage resources, especially with a spellcaster-heavy party. NWN2 was too easy for the most part, or too cheap (LET'S MAKE A WAREHOUSE FULL OF BACKSTABBING ROGUES ROFLTUNASANDWICH). I've pondered what character to play for a bit. In the end, I think I'll go for a bard/red dragon disciple. The RDD will help out for tanking/meleeing, while still being a backup spellcaster and providing persistent buffing for the party (which might be pretty important for limited resting). More importantly, I'll have a pretty good skillset for a diplomatic 'jack of all trades' character. Might not be a very efficient powergaming character, but I'll take a challenge instead. I thought about the warlock as well, but the skillset simply sucks. I pondering a few other PrCs as well (eg. arcane trickster, sacred fist), but the bard/RDD seems to encompass better what I'm looking for. In any case, nice to see that people are agreeing on the quality of the story/writing/characters. Almost makes me proud to be the CEO of you losers.

Okay, 4 players driving around on mongooses with rocket-wielding marines in the back = best vehicular gameplay sequence ever. And that's even before the boss shows up. We were playing with no respawns (one player death = reload checkpoint), and that section took us forever, but every moment of it was pure bliss. Bungie was very cruel to put those ramps there - they knew we wouldn't be able to resist them, even though it'd often end up with us crashing into giant rocks or directly into enemy fire. Having cliffs on the side was doubly cruel. I lost track of the number of times I tackled Nick into oblivion. Surprisingly, I've been playing around with the PvP - something I had absolutely no interest in when obtaining the game. I decided to just try it out a bit with a few buddies, and it turned out to be pretty fun. Now, admittedly, its standard format is pretty much that of any online FPS, but things seem to be fairly well-polished. The maps are nice, the core gameplay seems to be conducive to fun competitive gameplay, and the wide variety of gamemodes is pretty neat. I particularly like the latter. Playing zombies, VIP, planting bombs, CTF, King of the Hill, territories, oddball, specific weapons only, etc - it's probably all been done before, but the broad options is certainly pleasing. The good thing is how easy it is to set up sessions with friends. The ability to form up a party before joining a server is really appreciated. Luckily enough, I haven't really been exposed to prepubescent trashtalk much (save for one match), and most matches have been strictly about actually playing (and us being destroyed :/ ). It's easy enough to mute specific players, though, so it shouldn't be so much of an issue. I could get used to this game.

The Chopper is great. It's too bad it won't allow 2 people on it. I'm enjoying the game quite a lot. 4p online co-op on Legendary with no respawns provides some awesome gameplay situations - though it can lead to a lot of reloading when some of us have some rambo tendencies. Though, I can't attest to how enjoyable the game would be on singleplayer. The story (after 3 levels) is nothing even remotely worthy of note (and Cortana's seizure-inducing appearances on screen are hilariously horrible, minus the hilarious part - good thing they last seconds at most). As mentioned, playing the first level with respawning was fairly ho-hum too. Honestly, I can't say the game is that different from H1/2, so how much you enjoy it probably depends on what you thought of those games or how much of an elitist dorkface you are. 4p online co-op is the main selling feature for me here, and it sells it masterfully.

Alright, I've got the game today. We played some 4p online co-op on Legendary. The first mission was ok, but I found much too easy compared to the previous games on the same diff. It didn't help that respawning made it so easy to rambo around. After a break, I then replayed the level with my brother (who hadn't been in the previous session), and it was much more enjoyable this time around, namely because the game was much more challenging for 2p and we weren't abusing the respawning. We found the Iron Skull, which allows you to disable respawning optionally. We then had another 4p session, with my brother guesting in. With no respawns. The challenge is when any player dies, the game reloads to the latest checkpoint, especially with 4 players. The second level took us about 2 hrs to finish, and I can't even count the number of times we've had to reload, many of those due to TKing. The game provides a good balance in terms of allowing you to play tactically (on a difficult setting, anyway), yet still relying quite a bit on reflexes. Great stuff, everything I expected and more. I can't wait to find more skulls to activate - some of them seem to be pretty cool in terms of enhancing the difficulty.