Wistrik

Played Half-Life 2 over the weekend and will likely continue tonight until I beat it again. (I stopped when I got into the Nexus in Follow Freeman.) It gets my adrenalin going without being overly difficult to play. My reflexes aren't very good so I play it on Easy and have to reload from time to time, but I still thoroughly enjoy the story, characters, environments, and subsequent immersion. It sort of has forced hirelings, or squad members, but these are only for additional firepower and to draw enemy fire away from you. Their AI is almost as bad as NWN2's so more often than not they end up dying in some stupid fashion, or they get stuck on terrain and fall out of the group. They also have a bad habit of getting in the way in narrow spaces, charging ahead into a deathtrap, and other annoying AI issues. Your control of them is limited to pressing C to tell them where to stand, but they don't always obey and after a set amount of time they resume following you no matter what. On the other hand, the main characters, such as Alyx and Barney, tend to be much smarter in combat, and they don't die unless you're criminally careless. I'm thankful for that because the last thing I need is to have to babysit some weak, yet crucial party member. The scripted sequences add a lot of atmosphere, but they can break if using stealth/sniper tactics, which is my favorite style of play. It's hard to do in a game made for running and gunning, but I do my best. I know there are better games for my style of play, but they don't have HL's story and world. Helicopter gunships are unrealistically hard to take down with a rocket launcher; you can hit their tail rotor, their ****pit, etc., and they'll still take 8+ hits before they drop. I can knock a crewman out of the ****pit with no effect on the gunship. Probably the least realistic vehicle in the game in terms of combat. Some of this stuff can be modified by console commands (there are hundreds of them), which I usually put into an Autoexec.cfg file or a custom CFG file that I exec for every map load. (Some commands won't work in autoexec because the map data overwrites them.) It's great to once again see characters whose lips move properly while speaking, and who also have facial expressions to match their current mood or expressed feelings. Water looks and performs better in HL2 than it does in NWN2. The water maps are a joy to tear around in. This info is old news to some, but I felt like expressing it anyway. This game has definitely paid for itself in terms of the hours of entertainment it has provided me. It's too bad this engine wasn't modified for use with NWN2. It has better graphics, better performance, physics modeling, first person view, swimming, rideable vehicles, damage modeling, realistic face movements (superior animation in general), awesome atmosphere, and so on. Episode One added support for custom HDR and a few other things, and Episode Two will add a bunch more features. The only thing missing is D&D rules, true party support, and additional camera angles, but those things can be added via the SDK if someone's knowledgeable enough. (I'm not, atm.) Imagine using a fireball on a wooden bridge and seeing it catch fire, burn, and break apart as individual timbers snap and fall into the water below. That beats NWN2's black-screen transition by a long shot.

Because both you and your neighbor are subject to the law of the land. The only way you could do that to your neighbor and get away with it is if you also conquered your government and rewrote the law so you could keep his house. Physical strength is not the same as ruling power. One is personal, the other encompasses many people.

As history shows, the right to a body of land belongs to whoever is powerful enough to control it. The native americans were too fragmented from internal bickering and wars between tribes to present a united front against the colonists, and their technology was centuries behind that of the rest of the world, so they lost the land they'd lived on for centuries. Now the right belongs to the countries currently in power: Canada, Mexico and the USA. As to selective service, I've no idea.

Enjoying this e-mail someone sent me... It's supposed to be funny, but it has a dark edge of truth to it. As the years go by, it only gets worse. It's certainly worse than it was in the 1970s, and even 1980s.

Lots of people seem to have driver/hardware issues. When I installed the beta patch all it took was a simple camera sensitivity adjustment and my scrolling works fine. In fact the entire game, from a technical standpoint, works better. Still too slow compared to better looking games, and I'm stuck playing it in old-fashioned 1024x768 until they get the CPU side of the engine more optimized. Not that it would help much though, as the textures don't seem to improve much beyond 1024x768. There are some gameplay issues, but the final edition of the 1.03 patch should take care of a few of them. I'm beginning to think Obsidian should have licensed the HL2 engine and modified it to be an RPG. Then I'd be able to play it at my monitor's native resolution without having to upgrade my hardware.

Even without the hi-res texture mod, HL2 is beautiful. I'm only running it at 1680x1050 due to my monitor's size limits, but I managed to get 8xFSAA and 16xAF (with all else at max settings) and still have playable FPS on a 6800GT and a 2Ghz processor. (Yeah I'm taking my time upgrading, now considering a whole new box instead of just internal parts.) This is one of my favorite hallway scenes. You can't see it, but there is steam rising from where the sun's rays are hitting the floor. Also these images are compressed from a 5Mb TGA to a <1Mb JPG (forum attachment limitation) so the quality is a bit lower than what I see in the game. The lack of animation also impedes the overall effect. I wish my gaming area looked like this. Again, you can't see the animated monitors, and liquid in the tanks, which make this scene come alive. Notice that the magnifying glass actually works when you look through it. Even though it's a couple years old, this game has features we'll probably never see in NWN2. HL2 Episode 2 is going to make NWN2 look like a cartoon. Note that if I had the horsepower to run the hi-res texture mod (Cinematic Mod), these screenshots would look even better. Edit: decide to post two more pics. I just restarted the game so haven't yet reached the really nice looking areas yet. Ah, the Citadel. Attic escape route.

No picture to post at the moment, but here's a LINK to a Half Life 2 music video called "I'm still seeing Breen" that's a little over a year old. It was shown on MTV2's video mods segment. Some of you may have seen it. I'm posting the link mostly for those who haven't. I enjoy watching it now and then. It's available in MP4 format or WMV format and you'll probably want broadband to download/view it. Thankfully he made the high quality video at 640x480 instead of in a tiny YouTube type window. Of course, the game looks much better at higher resolutions, but this gives the flavor well enough.

Apparently Jeanette doesn't. I thought my female warlock was going to look special throughout the game. Then I replaced her default armor with something more useful and now she looks like everyone else. So much for originality. Her blasts are too weak to be very useful at level 5. She kills faster with a quarterstaff, which I end up using because the enemies close for melee before she can usually launch a second blast. In a way I feel like I'm playing a Diablo 2 sorceress again, though at least her firebolt can kill in one hit by the time she's level 3. There are times I really miss SSI's awesome turn-based D&D battles. I may go back to playing Half-Life 2 this weekend. I need to play something with FPS greater than 3 at 1680x1050, and with generally nicer graphics. Plus I love racing around in the airboat and dune buggy, though the airboat maps are my favorites. Alyx is probably better looking than most NWN2 characters, and she has better moves. I also like that everyone's mouth moves right. Kudos to the HL2 animators. Not bad for a game that's a few years old now, though Episode 2 will crank things up a few notches when it comes out next year. Fast zombies are scarier than anything I've seen in NWN2. I always get nervous when I hear them scream in the distance, and Ravenholm is awesome to play in with the lights out and the sound cranked.

I agree with your conclusion. Aside from the possibility that you might accidentally offend the one being tributed, you also run the risk of breaking the fourth wall and spoiling immersion for the more serious players. It's a bit like encountering a local news headline in the middle of a good book; sorta spoils the mood. Or to be really tragic, like Christopher Reeve's character in "Somewhere in Time", when he's experiencing the love of his life and is suddenly torn away because of something that literally breaks his fourth wall and ultimately causes his death. I didn't recognize the name "Lanfear" from anywhere, so she was just another crazy werewolf to me. On the other hand, "Kcolssed" in BG was obvious; my first thought on seeing him was "what is this game reviewer doing in my game?" I later removed him with an editor.

Thanks. I'm already aware of much of what he says, but there were a few tidbits I hadn't yet turned my attention to. His claim that running the AMD executable didn't improve performance was correct only since 1.03 beta. Previous to the patch I got about 20% better FPS by running that EXE instead of the default. I agree with him about soft shadows. I took a look around my house and decided most shadows have a very distinct outline, so I turned it off. His AA screenshots weren't very demonstrative. Closeups of the party characters or other objects would have shown more detail. Bloom alone doesn't help much, as that's what I used prior to the patch. Now with 4xAA NPC outlines look much smoother, which is a plus when I'm stuck (for now) running this hog at 1024x768 on a 21" screen. Water effects only help if you're studying the water closely, which I never feel like doing for some reason. I don't know why, but this game's graphics just don't do it for me the way NWN's graphics did. Maybe it's because the range of colors in most areas tends to be very small. Inside Daeghun's house there is a lot of brown/gray, outside there's lots of green/tan. Nothing really contrasts like real life.

BG2 didn't in Win98SE, which was the last time I tried to take a screenshot with the printscreen key. I had to copy the file from the Clipboard into Paintshop Pro.

I'm aware of the "around" part, but he also says they're trapped by the debris. This would seem to contradict the later statement that they're nowhere to be found, though as I posted there are possible ways they could have escaped. If so this wasn't elaborated on. Ah, I've managed to have Sand and Grobnar stick with me the last two games since I get along well with them, so I've missed that experience entirely. That is odd indeed. For some reason I don't see her ever leaving me so I'd never notice that bit. Maybe at some point they intended her to leave like Bishop can do, which would prevent you killing her. I didn't either, but it might be because she was in my savegame from 1.02. Did you try making a new game and meeting her to see if the tail was there? It's certainly visible in the toolset. I made a new game last night but was too tired to leave Daeghun's house so that's where I stopped.

What is illogical is you putting others down simply because you disagree with them. I'm free to post my feelings here just as you obviously are, though at least I make an effort to refrain from personal attacks. If Obsidian was completely honest, they'd provide a balanced view. I know that's not acceptable business ethics, but that doesn't mean I have to accept, condone, or defend it. I deliberately avoid jobs that would have me misleading potential customers. (Sales positions do this a lot; anything to get the sale.)

Umm... Obsidian isn't in the business of "reporting." They're in the business of selling games. No company in the entertainment business links to negative reviews on their official site. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I know that, but anyone who parades information on their front page is reporting, one way or another. You don't have to wear a name tag and carry a recording device to be a reporter. I'm also familiar with how businesses operate, much the same as old empires (Egypt for one) operated. That's why I read reviews and tend to only pay half a mind to what a developer puts on their front page. Sure it's positive, but it's only half of the story.

Not surprisingly, Obsidian doesn't post negative reviews on the front page. So much for candid reporting. At least RR admitted there are those who dislike aspects of the game. Some DLAN interview observations, with my highlights underlined. (This must be an old interview since Patch 2 wasn't even out yet.) They must've played with different NPCs because I have no control over what classes I can have my NPCs become unless I first complete their quest, and to this day only Khelgar (to my knowledge) has opportunity to change classes. The influence system fails if you try avoiding the NPC altogether, thus accumulating no influence points good or bad, so the contrived dialogs at the end behave as if you've mistreated them. Well, excuse me for trying to form my own party and keep it consistent. Does RR play many CRPGs? I guess the cheesy knockdown ability of Reavers constitutes "real power" for some, along with the MINHP1 immunity system. After playing a child of Bhaal in BG2 and having epic levels in HotU, I haven't seen much that I consider all that powerful in NWN2. Target enemy until dead, rinse and repeat. The King of Shadows is about on par with ToB's Amelyssan the Blackhearted. New boss, old battle. I beat him again last night and had the unmistakable feeling of deja vu... (end game spoiler) Real power was given to me in HotU, where I confronted Mephistopheles and commanded him to die after invoking his truename. Game Over. You're not very powerful if you have to resort to mundane things like combat. Edit: moved from Forumite Impressions (forgot where I was). Was going to add to Reviews thread but it's closed, so I followed Metadigital's lead and put it here.

I haven't tried print screen in the toolset yet, but if it doesn't dump the images anywhere in the two NWN2 folders then the tip above should do it. (Print screen dumps the image onto the Clipboard so it can be pasted into an application. I used it for getting screenshots of BG2.) Edit: was playing with the toolset last night and found out most humanoid NPC models have skivvies, but they're not used by default. (Sylphs are naked under their attire but you'll never notice that in-game.) It appears this decision was made some time before the game shipped, as the skivvies don't mesh well with the NPCs' necks, and their head/body are two different colors. By default all characters have some sort of 'cloth' appearance. I also noticed why Elanee wasn't allowed to display a hat or helmet; her hair is so 'big' that it clips through every help I equipped her with in the toolset. Doh. So much for one object affecting another realistically. (Helms flatten hair, etc.)

In my first game I let him become a monk. In my second game I kept him as a fighter and specialized in warhammers so he could use the Ironfist equipment to better effect. As a monk he did slightly less damage but rarely got hurt. As a fighter he did more damage but had to be healed once in awhile.

The Commands you can give to NPCs have a higher priority* than the AI (Behavior) settings each may have, and this is what is being reset (to Stand Ground) sometimes when you reconfigure your party at various places. Unfortunately Stand Ground seems to turn off AI. In other games, like Age of Empires 2, Stand Ground meant don't move from that position, but attack anyone who is within range. Why the devs didn't do this for NWN2 is beyond me. Then again, developers these days never seem to think things through completely. Follow Me would work better if the NPCs could detect nearby enemies faster. As it is, they'll run up to the player character and stand around for up to a full round before engaging anyone in combat. (This weakness in the AI also appears when NPCs attack a target that has already fallen in death earlier in the round.) *This means your NPCs will follow your Command by using the Behavior you defined for them, except in the case of Stand Ground which seems to incorrectly disable their AI altogether. Edit: many small changes, too early in the morning, headache, etc.

I didn't mean to annoy anyone with my observations. Hopefully in the years to come a fully configurable creature model system will be in every 3D game, because it's a lot of fun to create a character that looks like me or someone I know, and then play them in a game. I could see playing a berserker who looked a bit like Conan, or a monk who looks like Bruce Li, just for fun. It's probably too early now, but I'm hoping someone like Havok (for example) will put out a licenseable library just for this purpose so that no more will game companies have an excuse not to have fully configurable character models in their 3D games. I've heard MMOs have good character generation systems, both from reading articles and from personal experiences of people I know locally. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled topics.

Finally beat the game for the second time. This time I cheated my influence with those I didn't travel with (as much as possible) just to see possible outcomes. Bishop turned on me even with more than 20 influence, but I was able to reason with him at the end so he abandoned Garius as well and left the scene. Neeshka was still taken when we entered the Vale, but later I convinced her (again with 20+ influence) to stay with us. Qara, with 20+ influence, still sided with Garius, and died quickly thereafter. Perhaps her CN alignment is to blame, but she's got to be the least reasonable character in the game. Oh well, no loss as her body decorated the fortress floor. Such a waste of writing on that character. Because she had two rings and some bracers (I didn't trust her), Garius didn't seem to think she needed better equipment. She now qualifies as my most hated NPC, though Bishop remains a close second. I managed to get the construct working this time. (Nobody told me it had to do with the OTHER pool of water in the goblin caves. Thanks to Spider all the same, you steered me in the right direction.) Fortunately I chanced a third trip to Ember to re-check the goblin caves, and sure enough, found the liquid this time. Got 1000 quick XP and a new buddy. Used my various crafting skills to improve its armor, weapon damage, and overall power. The game said the construct got bigger when I improved its runes, but it didn't actually change size on the screen. Also, Garius didn't try to turn the construct away from me. A scaling glitch causes the construct to render full size in the Character screen, so you can't see his upper body. It should scale him back to fit in the window. Everyone else behaved the same as last game. I also managed to reach (without cheating, as I wanted to see how high I could get legitimately) 35 influence with Elanee. I had 25 by the time the siege started, and our night together scored me another 10 points. I'm not big on gratuitous sex in computer games, and on this matter I preferred Nathyrra's confession of love in HotU. Elanee never quite got to that point, though she sort of inferred it. I guess the devs were trying to give the young boys something to thrill about. I found it slightly amusing, and for a moment wished I was with Nathyrra in Cania once again. The end narration is a tad conflicting. First he says everyone was sealed in the fortress of shadow by all the falling stone. Then he later says "who knows where the Shard Bearer might be" and implies a few times that they got away somehow. Personally I find it hard to believe that a level 20 Sand couldn't have teleported us out of that mess, but that's how it is with forced plots. For that matter, it could also happen that Ammon's 'ties' with the lower planes could have swept us all to that place. As the narrator said though, that's a tale for nother time. I certainly hope there's an expansion that continues the story. It could be like HotU and feature epic levels, which would allow the same characters to advance as the story unfolds. Time will tell. The party got so much XP that our experience reached the point where we would have been level 21, then wrapped the XP bar back to the start and continued showing our accrued XP. That comes from accomplishing more quests than I had the first time through. It doesn't surprise me though, as BG2:ToB is the only CRPG (expansion) I've played where I didn't manage to reach/exceed the experience cap on a single play-through (with a full party). I think I had all history feats there are for playing the good-aligned side of the story. I'm tempted to play a female warlock for a third session, to experience dialogs as a female character and to try out the warlock class to get my own impressions, but I'd like to wait for the final version of the 1.03 patch first. I also want to start making an area with the toolset, and it's hard to do that while playing the game. By the way, I played from Arvahn to the endgame with the beta patch, and had no issues that I didn't already have with patch 1.02. A few things were different, but none of my quests were broken or anything odd like that. Performance was noticeably better in a few areas that had been rather sluggish before. Indoor areas with lots of objects still bog down though, which is probably due to my aging video card. Targeting was a little more picky and based on camera angle, but this is something Obsidian is aware of and plans to fix for the complete 1.03 patch.

I suppose it's a good thing that you have a computer to channel your urges into ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Misread as usual. I did say I was thinking realistically, and that bit of anatomy does contribute toward the appearance of female characters, like it or not. Of course the teenage and 20something group probably has other motives. Edit: I did try to post a mature observation of the character generation system with my thoughts. Leave it to you folks to focus on one particular portion. Perhaps you ought to reflect on your own thoughts before judging mine.

Yeah I was doing some reading in that regard as well. Still, if I like the game enough, I can figure out the data formats and write my own editor easily enough. I've done it before, but I have to really like the game to put that much effort into it.

There are a few ways (and combinations of ways) NWN2 could end up 'dead' in my eyes... - Obsidian stops supporting NWN2 before Bioware stops supporting NWN. - The toolset/engine proves inadequate for creating the campaign I want to implement. - Dragon Age is released; surpasses NWN2 in every way; and has an excellent toolset. (I can live with a derived ruleset.) My first point addresses my concern with there not being much content in the OC as far as models, textures, and so on. NWN's expansions added more and more content, and I'm hoping Obsidian will follow suit with NWN2. Or perhaps someone will figure out how to import NWN textures into NWN2, since many of NWN's textures were nice looking when zoomed in. The second point is closely related to the first point in that I can only build varied maps if I have a decent pool of resources to work with. Currently the pool is very limited, though some players are starting to produce things (like winter textures.) The final point is typical of my expectations for a paid developer (I'm often disappointed). Still, if DA's story takes me back to the days of the better Ultimas, and it has a toolset, then I'll be moving completely into DA for modding.

WotC is a member of the Arcane Brotherhood and should not be trusted entirely. (j/k) Regardless of the core rulebooks, NWN2 is featured in a Forgotten Realms setting, so all relevant options are viable.

Seems to be time to split this into another thread for FPS physics and whatnot. This is a game picture thread after all.