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In NWN2, the AI has a number of problems, so letting it go can be difficult. On the other hand, the nature of the combat makes round-by-round management a chore. Hey, new smilies. More like jew smilies, amirite?

What.

I didn't find the gnome to be as grating as I thought he would be. In fact, there wasn't a joinable that I came to hate this time around. But I have to admit, I thought that Khelgar would have dual-classed, instead of completely switching out classes. I suppose it makes more sense from a game perspective, as a fighter12/monk6 would be pretty weak. But it still seems odd. In fact, I don't know how simple training would elevate anybody to 3rd level, let alone 11th or 12th, in the case of Shandra, who had never fought before. I beat the game as a drow monk, all upstanding-like. Started out as LN, ended as LG.

HOORAY I bestow this award upon myself, and anybody else awesome enough to have completed the game. Now all we have to do is sit around and wait for expansions. And mods. AND new official projects. If there is indeed a Vamp game in the works, that would be glorious, because the more time passes the more I appreciate how great Bloodlines was.

So at least we can be assured of another game from Obsidian. Maybe two. Not that it wasn't obvious before, but you know. It's still nice.

So you've never encountered a good RPG romance? I thought parts of the BG2 romances were really good.

The ironic thing is, campaign finance laws drafted with noble intentions in mind made this possible, or at least made it more common. Parties and candidates realized they didn't have to be accountable for what they wanted to say or do. Sure, it's reprehensible. But is it illegal? And if it isn't, are we prepared to make it illegal? How would you word that law so as to not cross the first amendment?

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You know, I'm not honestly sure how long I've really sunk into the game. Seeing as how I don't have a job, I'd probably clocked in about 6-8 hours a day in since Wednesday, which puts my grand total around 30-40 hours, and I'm probably 2-3 hours from the end, in my estimation (I could be wrong, of course) In other news,

Editors - Fingers in the Factories Boards of Canada - Aquarius Boyd Rice - Black Light District Nine Inch Nails - Only (Richard X)

Stupid fear auras <_<

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I'm wondering how I'm going to get write 60 stand-alone paragraphs and a 3-page essay in 24 hours. I'll be fine. Also, weighing the merits of capital punishment, now that Saddam is to be hanged. He certainly earned it, but hell, hanging just seems backwards. Not only is it "inhumane" by some standards, but if it's a public execution will turn this quasi-murder into a spectacle. Ignoring the spectacle of the trial, of course. No way he could've gotten off.

About that second one there. You'll be able to rebuild it eventually. Keep playing and sooner or later you'll be given the option. Back to the first one though: My quest to improve me keep shall have to wait till morning-*notices the time*-er, later morning, because my mouse batteries just died on me and I don't have any more AAA handy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is anybody else Also,

Bug: Party AI has ceased to exist. . They just stand there until I tell them to do something, and once they're done with that, they start standing around like slack-jawed idiots again. This wouldn't be such a problem if you could select more than one guy at a time, and they actually moved when the others do. I have to select each individual and tell them to run. Behavior tabs don't seem to do anything. Reloading seems to just retroactively spread the bug to old games <_< I'm at a loss here. It's a really significant pain in the ass when there are very large and very strong enemies around. So far what I'm getting from NWN2 is the student driver treatment. The game gains momentum, then comes to a complete screeching halt, then starts up again. I can't say it's not immensely frustrating. It makes the game really hard to get into, and I like getting into my games.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ooooh, bad times If the bug isn't being fixed by reloading, that's going to put a serious dent in their review overall. Nobody likes game whiplash.

Sounds like there might be a triggered dialogue that's not functioning. That happened to me (as I hadn't saved in 1 1/2 hours, this was pretty bad) you're going to have to go back through the fight from an earlier save.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've been campaigning for this for like 8 years. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Didn't they do that with ToEE? Not wholly the same, but they had different prologues depending on the party's base alignment.

My game is dead until a fix is released for this exit point bug I'm having. Reloading the game from the beginning of the encounter doesn't work, and neither does restarting the game or my system. Until then I'm going to have to start a new game, go through the 14 hours or so of gameplay I've gotten through in my original, and hope the same thing doesn't happen again Or I could just sit and wait. It was getting really good, too <_< this is like one of those ****ty cliffhanger TV finales you have to wait another season to conclude.

Got a gamecrashing bug, or rather, a gamestopping bug. I guess it's kind of a spoiler, so I'll tag it. Another thing I noticed is the relative lack of indoor environments in the towns. The only buildings you can enter are the important ones. Hell, in Highcliff (that's the name of the town, right?) there's supposed to be an inn and a tavern, but there's no indoor environments in the town at all except for a house you fight thieves in. The person you're supposed to find in the tavern isn't actually in the tavern, but outside the tavern, drinking from an imaginary tap. All the shopkeepers have kiosks, the only merchant with his own building is Sand. It makes all the buildings seem like big solid rocks, instead of buildings.

More / better autosaves would be more convenient, but I usually just enact a Fallout policy: quicksave every 3 minutes. Hard save before big fights, or during big fights if you happen to luck out and kick lots of ass. My biggest problem is the camera, bu that's not much of a problem, I can deal. I was having some trouble with the interface at first, but I got it figured out. The second problem I have is that the dungeons are loooooooooong. If I'm going to run through this game multiple times (and I will), this is going to get real old, real fast. Other things that annoy me: I'm a drow, but nobody's scared or repulsed by me, which seems odd. Most people don't seem to even notice. For being what's commonly a savage murdering monster, an awful lot of people are willing to place a lot of faith in me at first meeting. It feels like a hole in an otherwise immersive RP experience. Other than that, I was being a bit harsh in my initial assessment of the game. The story branching is apparent and well-implemented. I'm certainly enjoying the game as it goes through the Neverwinter portion.

Maybe my computer's a little more powerful than I thought, because my game has had no engine problems whatsoever. I've got a mid-range processor and graphics card, and I've got the textures on high on the mid resolutions and it's running like a well-oiled machine. Maybe it's all the RAM I have, or something. I've got to be honest, this game isn't grabbing me like I thought it would Don't get me wrong, it's turning out well, but it's not the incredible, flawless experience that BG gave me. I suppose it's unfair to compare this game to BG, but that's how it is so far. I think it may be because some parts of the game are really reminding me of IWD2, which in my opinion was the least effective of the BIS/Bioware FR games That having been said, I've still got 35+ hours to get through the main drag of the game, and pretty soon the endless swamp scenery will have to change, once I hit Neverwinter. The arbirtrariness of the tutorial characters and the dully conventional beginning of the game will fade from memory, or be involved in some more compelling way later on. It hasn't knocked my socks off just yet. But on the other hand, I haven't encountered the gnomish bard yet, which I am almost certainly going to intensely dislike.

Black screen lasted about 30 seconds for me. Pretty standard. My main problem is that I think the mini-map is a little screwed up. There isn't actually a map there (maybe there's not supposed to be terrain?) but the map nodes are there, except they're all in a straight line across the mini-map apparently there's only one dimension to it. Odd.

My computer's running it pretty well. The only problem I have thus far is that the combat isn't really all that compelling.