Spider

Not to be rude, but isn't it a bit futile to speculate after the cover of the magazine in question has been posted in the thread?

Not much new there, but they did reveal the new base class to be Favored Soul. At least I haven't seen that before. Anyone with more D&D experience who care to comment on that one? Is it good, is it fun? Personally I like the idea. I have much love for sorcerers, and the idea to have a cleric that goes by similar rules is very appealing to me. I hope one of the companions has that class (my first playthrough of the expansion will be with the same character as I played in the original campaign, so no cleric for me).

I'm sure they can. Truth be told, it'll probably be harder for us to find replacements. We're kinda picky. At least it's only for three years...

Stop your whining. Half my playgroup is moving to South Korea in three months, including out most experienced and willing GM. At least you guys are on the same continent.

Having migrated for a while to a computer that can actually run Stalker on high settings, I've got to say it looks amazing. So that together with Fear would be my favorites. Oblivion is nice, but the terrain soup at far distances and the horrible, HORRIBLE character faces brings it down a lot.

My playgroup is using the storytelling system almost exclusively. It suits our style of playing almost flawlessly (although we do have some issues with how healing works in the latest iteration, but that is rarely an issue). We even use it for other setting than the ones WW produce. It's flexible enough to work in pretty much any setting as long as you change some of the skills.

Fair enough. As far as internal consistency goes, that is very important. I wasn't really thinking about the fact that duergar were encountered later on as well.

I'm not a huge fan of D&D in general and FR in particular. So exactly what abilities duergar have or don't really couldn't matter less to me, hence I wrote the way I did. You're right though, the right call is to replace the duergar with goblins. But what if that option isn't available? What if we only get to chose between duergar with or without their abilities? Canon should never supersede fun (although when I care about canon, adherence to it typically equals fun). The main point still stands, let us learn to swim before throwing us off in the deep end. And while a lot of the players on this board certainly know how to swim in regards to D&D crpgs, a lot of people (including those who played the first game) don't. I basically think the game had the right difficulty up until Neverwinter. But from that point on, it certainly would have benefited from tougher opponents (and tougher opponents is not the same as more opponents, the warehouse level is considered one of the most difficult ones due to all the respawning, but that makes it tedious not challenging). In the end, what I want is difficulty sliders that actually make the game more challenging, through improved AI and such, rather than just beefing up hit points. Again, opponents with more hit points that are still stupid adds tedium, not challenge.

While I generally agree that the difficulty of NWN2 was kinda low, I hardly think it's a good thing to make the first encounters you have in a game be extremely difficult. Some time to adjust to the rules, interface et al is preferable. So leaving the beginning duergar as is (or replacing them with goblins or whatever) is probably the right call. I mean as much as I enjoy getting my ass kicked by Improved Illyich whenever I'm playing BG2 these days (which is rare, but it does happen), had that been the default difficulty of the game, I probably never would have made it past the first dungeon before giving up on it in despair. A bit of an extreme example, I know, but given how much experience counts for in these games I think enlarged, invisible duergar would have a similar effect on newcomers. Having only played Gothic 3, and on a computer that wasn't exactly happy about it, I can't say their approach is all that excellent either. The beginning was incredibly difficult, any creature that could go hostile would kill you if you made even a single misstep. Although once you got used to the controls and had your character level up a little, it quickly turned around and became very simple instead. At the point I was when I stopped playing, any fight with fewer than 5 opponents was fairly simple. Unless there were archers involved, that could change things around a bit (but usually not). I think Stalker was ok in the beginning. Difficult as hell, but still entertaining. It also got a bit to easy in the end (I haven't finished it yet, but I'm close) but it's still a decent challenge (playing on Veteran, by the way). So had NWN2 been something like that, I would have been happy with the difficulty. But it wasn't.

Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with getting two DDR667 and running them in Dual Channel? Shouldn't that be the best option?

Yeah, just on a slight detour. I'm just one of those people who likes to see possibilities rather than problems. At least when there is no evidence either way. What the developers have told us about Bioshock is that it's going to be fairly free form (exploration wise), that there won't be any experience points, but a genetical upgrade system and that while going through the game guns blazing is one way to progress, it isn't the only way. So based on that, my hopes could come true, at least the first part. The reactive world could still be a pipe dream, but I'd rather be hopeful than cynical. I tend to be cynical enough in regards to other matters as it is. (for instance, I was kinda cynical in regards to Stalker, although that was more I never thought it'd see the light of day in a playable fashion. That turned out to be a fantastic game, armor degradation notwithstanding)

If Bioshock offers up similar gameplay as in Stalker, with an enhanced character upgrade system (it will be similar, I just hope there's more variety in how it works), a way to play stealthily that actually matters and some more options on how to progress through the game (ie sneak past the big boss rather than kill it etc) that could very well be the best shooter of all time. If they throw in a world that react to your actions in meaningful ways, it could be very well be one of the best games.

About the same time as JE was brought on to NWN2, at least that's when I heard about it. (although at that point no one had any comments and Metadigital actively denied it was the case)

There are a few, but typically not the ones that pushes your computer enough to warrant the change.

Now, that is a description of Masks that makes my mouth water.

Actually he said character, not characters. As in the similarities with Torment is that the driving force of it will be the main character. With the difference being that you're trying to save yourself rather than get to know yourself. And then he went on to say that the game is more focused on fun combat than relationships with NPCs. See where I'm coming from? But the thing is that Torment was all about your relationship with the NPCs. It was largely through interacting with them that you got to know who you were. As for why he'd compare the new expansion to Torment? To build expectations. Torment has a lot of goodwill associated with it. But the impression I got from the interview was not that MotB would be that similar. I would love to be wrong of course. And even if I'm not it doesn't mean MotB will be a bad game. Not many games are terribly similar to Torment after all, doesn't mean they're all bad.

OK, I'm sold. LONG LIVE PST! If only the full quote would have kept it up. Here is the next part: So it's like Torment, only it's not. Especially the last part. A focus on combat vs a focus on character relationships sounds like being worlds apart to me. Mask will hopefully turn out to be a good expansion none the less.

Hence why I started with "can handle the traffic" a statement which includes bandwidth requirements. Of course, here we have no such idiotic contraptions. I can up and download as much as I like how often I like. So I could certainly host a website (and do, but only for testing purposes) if it weren't for me having dynamic IP. It's a rare thing that my IP changes (typically when I disconnect in favor of my laptop), but it does happen.

Depends on whether or not his internet connection can handle the traffic or if he needs to upgrade. All the software required has open source alternatives (alternatives may be a bad word given that they are actually the most common), so there really is no cost associated with it. So as long as the connection is good enough and you've got static IP, it should be cheaper (although hosting is dirt cheap as well).

It depends a bit on your computer and how low you are willing to lower the graphical standards. The biggest problem with the game is that it's a resource hog without measure. So with a lesser computer there is a lot of stuttering and similar. And the graphics are a bit meh. However, a better computer will (probably) get at least better graphics and probably better performance as well. Other bugs are mostly annoying more than actually game breaking. Skills that can't be learned and stuff like that. Some of that may even have been fixed in the first patch. Some random crashes here and there. But to me, the poor optimization (and thus horrible performance) is what desperately needs fixing. On my computer it looks like a game released 4 years ago, but plays about as bad as Oblivion with high settings.

Although he is still only an animator. It's not like he gives out the artist designs or anything. He'll get instructions from above and it's those who need to know what they're doing. I'm not even sure I think the artistic lead needs to have played the old games, the ideas behind it can easily be gained from old concept art and screenshots. It's certainly a bonus, but not a necessity. The only ones I think should definitely have played the old games are the designers.

Most of the designers seem to have. It's the artist who haven't been as far as I can tell. Maybe it's not graphically appealing enough for them?

I'd take that as well. I'm not picky as long as the game is good, although non-tolkienesque fantasy is currently more interesting to me. So sure, bring on the original concepts.

Given that he is an animator, I think only one question was really relevant to his position anyway, and that one was actually somewhat reassuring. This response and what I've seen from other artists on the project seems to indicate that they are at least trying to get the retro sci-fi style down.

I'm pretty sure it'd have to be Obsidian/Activision. And it'd be Vampire the Requiem, not Masquerade, these days. But yes, give Brian Mitsoda free reigns on a WoD game and it could turn out amazing. Given how good his Bloodlines stuff was, I am now very excited to learn more about Project Georgia (where he is creative lead).