Pop

What I'm hearing here is that losing his soul would make him apathetic towards things. If we assume that he can compare memories, and find out that having a soul is good, and there's one out there for the taking, then it makes sense that he would kidnap the Bhaalspawn. I had always assumed (from the way the thing was written) was not that Irenicus and Bodhi had no souls, it was that they lacked their elf essence which made them immortal. They were aging rapidly, and becoming senile. The Bhaalspawn represented a chance to get their youth back and exact punishment on the Seldarine. So they exhibited the Bhaalspawn to many tortures for that reason.

I don't know about all of that. You've never hated someone so much and then you forget why you hated them but you still do? It's sentiment, it's illogical, but if he lost his soul he'd still have his vitriolic sentiment (that of being betrayed and abandoned) and that would be enough.

Since the "What are you reading?" thread seems to be dead, I'll recommend The Road by Cormac McCarthy. For those of you that like post-apoc fiction, this is a devastating and frightening read. It's about the travels of a father and son, the son born after the nuclear holocaust, and their struggles to survive. A big question of the book is whether surviving is even worth it. It's really, really good.

I don

Funny that. I'm having the same problem with Diablo, and Deus Ex, and System Shock 2. I think it's something with XP. I never used to encounter this.

Not even the Sith are cold-hearted enough to harm such a fuzzy jedi.

I have a friend that wants to play BG2 with the original NPC portraits from the first game (original Imoen, Jaheira, etc.) is there a mod out there that makes that possible? Or can you do that easily through coding... or what? He refuses to play it without it (he likes the original game, and he's unnerved by the updates) and I want to live vicariously through my friend who's playing the game for the first time.

I'm surprised nobody's gone off and mentioned that Sephiroth guy yet, as far as "good villains" go. I've heard "best villain evar" thrown around with him quite a bit. Then again, I always found FF to be lame-o.

Indeed. It's down now, but it showed the Jack guy (I don't watch the show, but if you're part of any forum on the internet there's a little enclave of Lost-watchers) on a table, knocked out, with a little girl sitting next to him. Pink shirt (I think) and blonde hair. It apparently wasn't on the show, but was on their official site. Could be red herring. *edit - Here we are, found it. The official line seems to be that it was part of a hallucination sequence that got cut, and "accidentally" got loaded onto the site. but do you believe it?

Anybody catch picture #33 on the site? It's so fun to watch people get jerked around by these guys. They get away with murder.

Melisa (or whats her name) was a good villain in ToB, but so soon after BG2 people just 'overrun' the expansion without even noticing anything from the game. <_< <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I thought it would've been better had they not made it blaringly obvious from her do-goodery that she was pulling the strings all along. Other than that, yeah, I agree. I thought Balthazar had a lot of potential, but they didn't flesh him out enough. *edit - Dammit people, why don't you just come right out and spoil it for the n00bs?

but can they make computers that think in heuristics instead of algorithms? I think not! Go humans!

That might be part of it for me as well. Plus I did play BG about 5 times more than I did BG2.... so maybe that colors my perceptions a bit. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I thought you had said that earlier mebbe I was wrong on that count. solly. And perhaps I'm being a bit simplistic. Ambition and hubris are certainly common traits among villains, as it tends to make them bigger threats, but it's not required. A powerful assassin might not want to take over or destroy the world, but he's certainly committed to killing off the PCs, and that's a bit to deal with by itself. Or you could have a Mononoke-style situation, in which there isn't a clear villain, but rather powerful entities and ideas on a crash course, with neither of them being inherently evil. It's certainly easier to make a Bond villain, though

That's a good question :| In FR, I believe Cyric had an ability that could mask his followers' connection to him, but other than that, I don't think you can trace it through magic. All deities had to give spell power to their followers through Mystra's weave, so I don't know if you could trace a spell back to them or back to Mystra. On the other hand, I thought that all clerics couldn't cast spells without a holy symbol of their deity.

Sarevok was your typical power hungry villain. Rather one dimensional. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What, opposed to those villains that aren't power hungry? The ones that sit in a cottage and brew tea and you have to stop from doing absolutely-****ing-nothing? New guidelines, plz. I liked Irenicus. He's a classic example of hubris. Got too ambitious, paid for it, couldn't accept it, lost his humanity (or elfity) and became something entirely different and more base than what he was originally. Sarevok, so far as I could tell, was always a Bond villain. I didn't think the story of his upbringing served any purpose but to create an excuse for him to have lots of power early on. I found the ToB "I could have had your life and not been a monster" storyline to be a tad underwhelming. Sarevok sat all too well in his villainy to create much sympathy with me. They're all well-done and fleshed out in comparison to, say, Mehrunes Dagon, but I found the general quality of the villains in 2 to be better than those of 1. Maybe I'm like Darque (?), and biased because of the order in which I played the games, but it makes sense to me, at least.

Cool. The grey parts of his beard look a bit airbrushed, but overall a quality piece. Well done.

Sweet black jesus, this is amazing...

Meh, I can handle an iredeemably evil character, so long as they're interesting. Say, Hannibal Lecter before he got Freudianized, or, uh, I don't know, Darth Vader. Whatever.

Well, they're not talking about this "Lich Queen". Perhaps that's the . And I agree that Lorne does not sound like a good character.

Sweet, I've always wanted to play a monk from first level up :D I don't know why I didn't know about this before.

I don't know what you all are talking about. I thought Aribeth was probably the only good thing about the NWN OC. The only good thing. I rather liked the way HotU wrapped things up, really. I'm willing to play through the actual game and milk the CNPCs before I make any judgements on them. Saying any of them are actually stupid, as opposed to simply appearing so, would be irrational and premature. So I'm remaining optimistic.

Stay on topic WTFOMG The Outsiders feels like a Lifetime movie to me now (that's a bad thing). No street toughs, no matter how soulful, find an interest in how poetry applies to their lives. No. It doesn't happen. Most people say Battlestar Galactica is soooo good. The Wire too. Haven't seen either, personally. I watch the Shield, which starts off kinda lame and then gets better over time. Last 2 seasons pwn. For my lulz I watch the Daily Show, the Colbert Report and the Venture Brothers. I have all my new music imported from a guy I know in Canada, now and then I'll find something on my own. Recently I'm listening to a lot of Mew and Vitalic. Gamewise, cRPGs. Deus Ex, BG2, Fallouts, Vampire and KOTOR. Use Oblivion like garlic, with discretion. As for books, read State of Denial. <3 Bob Woodward. I'm also a sucker for Stephen King's short novels.

Hmmm ... *contemplates playing BG2 with a Paladin ... * <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I really can't stress how great that Dungeon-Be-Gone mod is. As soon as you get out of your cell a little dude pops up who will whisk you to the exit of the dungeon, picking up all the XP and gear you would have got from trudging through it yourself. So if you ever think "I'd rather just start out in Athkatla," you should probably pick it up. Pocket Plane hosts it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Spot on. I've run through that dungeon way too many times. It looks pretty cool on its face, but does anybody have confirmation the BG1tutu is cool? Having played the second game before the first one (yes, yes, blasphemy, I know) I found having only the core classes to be... lacking in flair On that note, one has to start a new game in order to utilize newly installed mods, correct?

Yeah, as much as I detest the idea of prophecy as cliche, the whole "your town is attacked and now you must leave" is also a pretty significant fantasy cliche.