Wistrik

I'd rather have the whole world united, or at least figure out a way to travel to Faerun, one way. (I'd become Elminster's apprentice.)

Not in the case of Black Isle's games, since they licensed Bioware's engine and modified it, rather extensively in some cases (PS:T, IWD2). That's my understanding anyway. The floating text performance issue doesn't exist in Bioware's version of the engine for Baldur's Gate II, and Black Isle was the last group to have their hands on the IE's code.

From my international music tastes comes... Natacha Atlas. Leysh Nat'arak Mon Amie La Rose C'est La Vie (for Jean Michel Jarre)

I guess it depends on the player; I can almost always spot the difference in writing style. The thing that caused me to finally ditch the mod was when NPCs started referring to Lilarcor as "Larry". It sounded like something out of 20th century Earth, not Faerun. Ah, but now you're referring to the BG2 banter pack, as that talking sword was found in BG2, not BG1. I crossed games in mid-thought, pardon me. It's too bad Black Isle was disbanded so soon after IWD2's release; there are a number of engine bugs that are a bit aggravating. And on my computer any floating text (text displayed in translucent boxes over the game world) severely reduces performance, something screen full of spell casters can't even do. Even the smallest bit of floating text does this.

Dragon Age HL2: EP2 Black Mesa's Source version of HL1

A Core2 Duo with integrated 8800GTX would be something I'd consider, but not this.

Interesting, more content for one of my favorite adventure game series. Online-only content is okay, so long as they allow me to pay with something other than a CC, which I no longer use. I can't get online-only content from Bioware because they seem to require CC. So I wait for retail release, or I don't get it at all. Episodic content doesn't bother me too much because typically there are game engine improvements along the way, and it gives me time to do other things (like upgrade my computer) between releases.

Agreed, I'm going to have to acquire that game.

The last four... Jon Irenicus... Mazzy... ( ) Valygar... (heh) Viconia... (dark-elven Anna Nichol Smith?) These may or may not have been around the fan sites before, but I haven't seen most of them (just Imoen). I found these with Near Infinity after installing the demo for kicks. Talk about old engine version. Has BG1's annoyances, such as non-pausing inventory, magic resistance stops beneficial magic too, and so on. I found out you can run it in a window by adding FullScreen=0 to the ini, and it will run in 1024x768 but the interface doesn't adjust very well (the GUI is messed up, but the game window looks great). Mostly I installed it to see what hidden resources might be there that were later removed for official release.

Baldur's Gate 2 Demo portraits in progress; the player was limited to the BG1 portraits while playing, but these are in the data files. Imoen's portrait was done, but had a dark patch of skin around the right eye; Jaheira's portrait was done; Minsc used his BG1 portrait; and Yoshimo used Montaron's portrait. Anomen... Cernd... Edwin... (heh) Imoen... (dark patch removed by the time of official release)

Poor guy. I had a habit of searching for NPCs to talk to, and it paid off. Rarely did I waste a trip. After the first game most of the replayability was gone, except to see how quickly one could finish the game (fewest turns) and to find the ultimate party. After all, the Exotic arms and armor were always in the same spot, and there was no quest/level check to prevent you from getting them early in the game. All that was needed was to acquire a ship and then sail to the island and start digging. Ultima IV fixed that; one had to be a full avatar in order to gain access to the mystic arms and armor. I really enjoyed the underworld in Ultima 5. It gave me the feeling of being trapped and alone (I soloed most of the game), so it was always a great feeling to finally return to the surface. Blink spells made underworld travel a breeze.

NWN's OC. It's been about a year since I last played the original NWN, so I figured I'd install it again and experience it on my new monitor. It looks nice at 1680x1050, but the short-range clipping plane really becomes apparent when I can see so much. It's like clear vision for 100 feet, with 'fog' for the next 200 feet, even on a clear sunny day. Bioware apparently broke something in the latest patch, as Shadows don't attack me, ever. All other enemy types do, though. It's great soloing once again, without party members being forced onto me with their petty problems and attitudes. And performance is of course not an issue with this older game. Ignoring the fog and limited polygons used in rendering characters and objects, the game looks almost as good as NWN2 close up. I'm looking forward to replaying HotU later.

I'm surprised PS:T wasn't in that compilation, as it is the only Infinity Engine game missing.

I guess it depends on the player; I can almost always spot the difference in writing style. The thing that caused me to finally ditch the mod was when NPCs started referring to Lilarcor as "Larry". It sounded like something out of 20th century Earth, not Faerun.

Added a few NPCs I'd forgotten. That leaves Alora, Eldoth, Kagain, Shar-teel, Skie, and Yeslick as NPCs that didn't make it into BG2 one way or another.

Ultima II - maybe 10% through it; couldn't get into it; too many different elements thrown together Ultima VI - played about 50% through it then stopped due to lack of interest Ultima VII (both parts) - got about 25%-50% through each of the parts Dreamfall - made it to Arcadia then NWN2 came out; too many distractions That's about it, out of the hundred or so games I've played over the decades. Never got used to the gargoyle race's introduction in the Ultima series (felt like a hack job to me; something thrown in to keep the game alive), and the fact that Britannia went from being a large world to being not much bigger than a big town from Ultima 5, due to map scale unification without first scaling the world map accordingly. Instead of taking game days to walk across Britannia, one could now do it in a matter of game minutes. Ultima VIII was a little nicer, despite the plot and arcade mechanics, since it wasn't based in shrinky-dink Britannia. Ultima IX kept the tiny world map but I still managed to finish it several times. I'll get back to Dreamfall one of these days. It's a fun game.

I like fantasy and sci-fi genres, and I especially enjoy games that successfully combine elements of both. I voted fantasy because I tend to prefer those worlds and the simpler lifestyle that is portrayed. Might have something to do with my interest in history, especially ancient history.

At least 12 joinable BG NPCs made it into BG2, if only by mention. Imoen Jaheira Minsc Dynaheir - Khalid - Ajantis - Xzar - Montaron - Coran - Safana - Tiax - Quayle -

If you want to play stock BG1 with non-tutu mods, I recommend Echon's Fields of the Dead mod for vanilla BG1. It brings the game closer to pnp rules, improves monster AI, adds a new area north of the farms outside Baldur's Gate, adds new spells, and a host of other things. He's considering making his mod tutu-compatible, but that likely won't happen for awhile. Tutu's a good mod, and it'll be even better once the BG1 fixpack is mature. The idea is to install the fixpack on vanilla BG1, to fix the hundreds of mostly minor bugs in the game's data, then run the tutu converter. The result will be an overall better experience while running BG1Tutu.

Of the presidents that governed during my lifetime, I'd have to say Ronald Reagan was one of the better presidents. He brought dignity to the office, assisted in ending the Cold War, and so on. He wasn't perfect, but no president ever has been.

It doesn't make sense that Trials is not on those special editions. I have my copy burned on a CD so I don't have to download it again. I agree, having re-installed it last night in the form of the Ultimate Collection. By the way, Planet Baldur's Gate still carries all patches and info for IE games, though you'll have to put up with Fileplanet for downloading (get the patches for Bioware's games from Bioware instead.) Planet Baldur's Gate says you don't need to patch the games if you have the Ultimate Collections. That's incorrect; only Baldur's Gate Original Saga ships with the latest version. (I can't speak for the super collections available from the UK site.) Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn isn't shipped fully patched, and neither is Throne of Bhaal (the latest patch is on the ToB CD, however). The same applies to IWD (IWD is fully patched, but HoW isn't) and IWD2. You can only get Heart of Winter updated to version 1.41 using patches. You have to install Trials of the Luremaster if you want to get patched to version 1.42; the patch was bundled with the additional content. Here's what's fixed in 1.42: It's not much, but I like having my games fully patched, so I always install Trials even though I don't always play through the extra content.

Yes, but Ultima was the first (afaik) to implement it in a 3D game.

Aasimar paladin using Light spell. Reminds me of same-named spell in Ultima IX, which did the exact same thing.

An area-wide spawning of characters would be preferable to having them appear as you get near the spawn point. That way you could still have their numbers/equipment scale for challenge, but they'd also be around for spells like Detect Evil to work properly. Having them spawn once for the remainder of the game is sufficient, in my opinion. NWN2 doesn't seem to implement respawning, but it does appear to use multiple triggers for a single spawn (haven't looked with the toolset), so you can for example fight the same group (again) just by entering a room via a different hallway. On the other hand, you can enter an apparently empty room, park your party, and have creatures spawn right on top of the party as you approach the room from another hallway. A one-time area-wide spawn would eliminate all such oddities.

I like fantasy RPGs, but I do have some gripes against modern CRPGs: - Excessive use of "go fetch" quests. (NWN's OC for example) - Maze-like maps (IWD2 for example) - (Re-)Spawns vs. pre-placed actors (most games) - Forced parties (NWN2) I don't mind the occasional "go fetch" quest, especially if it makes sense. I don't mind maze-like maps that are truly mazes, such as the one in Baldur's Gate, but those "let's see how many rooms and halls we can squeeze into this area" maps are annoyingly tedious (lots of the same). I can understand spawns being used in older games because a typical computer couldn't handle the load of having all the actors preplaced, but that's not really a valid excuse today. Why include one of the detection spells if the player can't detect anyone who hasn't spawned yet? And I despise respawns because they ruin the feeling of accomplishment. When I take the time to clear out an area, I don't want to see a pack of monsters appear out of thin air (as a respawn rather than a magically-aided ambush) as I'm getting ready to leave. Not even rabbits repopulate that fast. Forced parties is something I can understand in a very linear game, but the nonsense of forcing evil characters into a party consisting of good characters has got to stop. I don't associate with such people in my personal life, and I certainly don't want them in my virtual party. Maybe it's a funny joke to developers, but I'm not laughing.