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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.

The game theme or the movie KMFDM theme?

Same here. It seems to be stopping and going intermittently :\ I'm also trying to find a good curry recipe online.

IThat doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not like developers test their games solely for reviewers. Developers' interests in making non-buggy games extends beyond reviews. A developer that says "let's go half-assed on this and fix it later" is a pretty ****ty developer. Wouldn't we also have to recognize the constraints that a developer is put under that might hinder a game's performance? I don't see any problems with reviewing patched titles, just so long as you indicate that the title's been patched. It's the version most people should be playing, anyway. Reviewing an old version is reviewing a game few people will play.

Yeah, well, you try being 7 years old and thinking Metallica is just about the darkest thing ever and not being scared by Doom <_<

People who play the original hard-copy version of the game when patches are widely available have no right to bitch about that which they could fix if they actually tried. I'm not shedding any tears over anybody who has a rig capable of running the game but incapable of internet access. CD burners are common. Get a disc with the patch from a friend. Go to the goddamn library. Thank God such people aren't able to come here and moan about their plight.

But any discussion of bugs is irrelevant until the game is patched. So far we haven't heard exactly what this patch does, so we have to assume it's going to fix some if not most of the bugs present that people are complaining about. We can gripe about bugs when nobody's working on them, and the fixes aren't possibly within reach.

Did you actually read the article? Seriously, did you read it? So either they didn't bother to patch or they couldn't. Are you going to make me hold your hand like this every time an article is posted?

The perspective was tight, so enemies would often sneak up on you. IT WAS SCARY ALRIGHT JEEZ

Looks like they didn't get the final version either (that or they didn't bother / weren't able to patch)

Yeah, well, being a counterphobic type 6 with a 4 wing on the enneogram, I can be hardly faulted for ruffling feathers. They don't call us Devil's Advocates for nothing. But getting back on topic, I fully expect to be underwhelmed by the appearance portion of character creation. Damned if I'll care all that much, though. Hooray game!

I can make a mean (yet mild) vegetarian chili. I'm no vegetarian (mmm dead animal flesh) but this is srsly good. 1 onion, thinly sliced 1/2 green bell pepper, diced 2 tablespoons butter or margarine (or vegetable oil, for the pot) 1 clove garlic, minced 2 tablespoons chili powder 1 can of whole tomatoes, crushed 1 can corn 3 cups cooked / canned beans (kidney or black) 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I discourage using strong cheddar) As much brown rice as you please 1/2 cup green onions, chopped (optional) salt / pepper to taste (1) Saute onion and pepper in butter until tender but not brown. (2) Stir in garlic and chili powder. (3) Add tomatoes and beans and season with salt / pepper as much as needed. Simmer 10 minutes, adding the corn about halfway in as to avoid overcooking. (4) Stir in rice (you can also pour the chili over the rice, but I add the rice into the chili to create a mixture) add cheese as desired, stirring to distribute. (5) Serve. Mmmm, I want some right now.