Wistrik

True! Everything from a eunich to, uh, someone with a medical condition and lots of swelling.

Hah, Hugo looks awesome as Smith. It'd be great if I could make a character that looked like him, and had his soundset. Battle cry: "Do you hear that? That's the sound of inevitability. That's the sound of your death." For extra grins, there could be a Mr. Anderson somewhere in the game. Edit: he could have sunglasses as an accessory, and if a creature knocked them sideways on his face (or damaged his tie), he could go into berserk mode and kick the living snot out of them.

I spent a lot of time last night trying to create a good looking female character. Wow, talk about limited options. I thought male characters were a challenge. Some appear to be victims of failed plastic surgery. I'd be seeking lawsuits if someone messed my face up like that. The horrid ring of pinkish red around the eyes makes some of the faces complete write-offs in my view. Do the artists use drugs and drink all night and then look into mirrors while designing models? I ended up using the last (or second to last) face. It has darker eye sockets but no pink-red shading. Also has nicer lips and a somewhat prettier cheekbone structure. It's the face right after the super ugly face toward the end of the list. Hair is another thing. Most of the designs feature a pony tail, but with this game's ridiculous clipping issues, I wanted to avoid that ugliness. The only hairstyle that matches Elanee's (which I like) also comes with a flower accessory that can't be disabled. Go figure. (Flowers in a Warlock's hair haha.) Thus I ended up settling on a version with short hair. Oh well. There's no body style selection, except what's provided by race. Yeah I noticed this when I first got the game, but with male characters it's not that big a deal. It'd be nice to have everything from skinny spellcasters to hulking barbarians, along with height variations. For women it'd also be nice to have various breast sizes. My focus is on realism and the ability to accurately portray the character I have in mind. Often I try to portray myself or my friends in games, now that we have 3D models, but so far it's not possible in NWN2. I'm not going to ditch NWN2 because of this limitation, but I am disappointed. Hopefully someone in the modding community will address this issue. I don't see Obsidian doing anything about it unless they hire different modelers. (Heck, Half-Life 2's women look better in general.) Despite the rant, I manage. While it's disappointing that I can't create a character with the appearance I want, the NPCs tend to be decent looking. (Odd how that worked out.)

Argh @ alignments. I'm always LG by habit and background, so I have a very hard time playing any other alignment. Yet I wanted to create a Warlock last night. Chaotic? Hah! I'd fail so many times and end up losing the ability to level up. So I went into classes.2DA and got rid of the alignment restrictions. Now I can play a LG warlock and not worry about trying to be something I'm not as far as alignment goes.

Thanks for the link Maria. I'm already updated on Java thanks to using Near Infinity for several years. I'll see how this TLK editor works tonight. Too bad Obsidian didn't include one in their toolset, or at least provide the option to right-click on a strref in a 2DA file and be able to view/edit the string in a separate dialog box.

Some of the female soundsets are rather manly, which I suppose is better than a male soundest sounding somewhat feminine (eg. John Cleese as Mrs. Bigbottom). I usually use the Sultry soundset for casters because it sounds like it's from a woman, it's not mentioning weapons or actions done by weapons, and because I have a habit of making the best looking gal I can (a challenge with the limited hair/head selections) and giving her the Flirt background feat. (I know very few women who don't flirt in one fashion or another.)

Now that we have decent computers, video cards, and 3D modeling software, I expect realistic models, not comic book models where the details are merely painted onto the skin. If I can find a decent 3D modeler that'll allow me to modify/create NWN2 models, I may begin a project of making more realistic models. Cost is no object, so maybe something like Maya would work. I'm a newbie at 3D modeling, but I learn fast so it wouldn't take long, and I love 3D.

My attempt at a female warlock character. Tried to make her look like a friend of mine. The character is more buff, but otherwise built the same. My friend has long hair, but long hair in this game clips unrealistically so I went with short hair, plus the long hair that looks somewhat like hers has a flower in it, which really doesn't fit with the whole warlock theme. It's also odd that this class is the only one that shows any skin beyond that of, say, an Amish dress. Of course, it's all painted comic-book style.

Wow, those Oblivion pics are way better than NWN2's scenery shots.

Not surprised, I've always found they miss at least 100 things that I find on my first playthrough. And I miss stuff too, so that makes their error even greater.

I never said anything about publishing my changes. I've been modifying (modding) games since the 80s without a hitch, due to not letting the stuff leave my computer. Edit: bad sentence form.

If your context menu delay is set to the default, it'll take awhile for the context menu to display when you right-click on a character. That can make you think it's not working. You can change the context menu delay in the Options area, and with the beta patch, your change will actually be saved. (It wasn't before.)

Don't need many studies for the obvious. People learn this stuff in tech school. Microwaves cook from the inside out, though surface burns may appear due to the pattern of waves traveling around in the cooking chamber. The infant's high temperature reflected that fact. A convection oven may have raised his temperature a little bit, but most of the damage would have been external. The body regulates temperature quite well so in order to be raised to a deadly level, heat would have to be generated internally. Microwaves certainly do that, and quickly. Radar also uses microwaves, which is why it can be lethal (and stupid) to place yourself in front of the transmitter while it's energized. This is mostly a concern on navy ships and land based installations; police radar is very weak in comparison. Edit: Wikipedia has more detailed info, especially under the Uses heading: Microwaves

The Biography is a string reference index into DIALOG.TLK. I just copied the one for the human (8163 I believe), which talks about growing up in West Harbor. The toolset apparently won't let us edit TLK strings unless we're working on a module, so just editing 2DA files is apparently not enough. (I could find no way to edit strings.) There's another racial type reference located in Appearances.2DA, but I'm not sure what it's for. Just to be safe I set it to my new racial type entries, but it had no visible effect that I could see. I think creating new feat lists is as simple as saving a feat list that's close to what you want, renaming it outside the toolset, and then referring to it in racialtypes/racialsubtypes. Might have to reload the toolset though since it doesn't recognize new/deleted 2DA files dynamically. Or it didn't for me last night. Anyway, same principle would probably work for color settings. Since Erinyes and Succubus weren't intended as player characters, they have simpler/different color attributes. I didn't do much in the way of modding with NWN, so most of this stuff is new to me. I'll figure it out soon enough though.

I don't like the forced characters because they disrupt the party. In other games I've played (which don't include KotoR/2 thank goodness), if a character had to tag along for a quest, he was added to the party. He didn't replace someone in the party. Baldur's Gate 2 provided many opportunities to have NPCs join for a quest, but you were given the ability to tell them to go on ahead and meet you, so that you weren't forced to rearrange the party. If I was a level 1 character all through the game who had no authority except over his personal equipment, then I could see having characters forced into my company. In NWN2 I become one of the Nine, a Knight Captain, and lord of Crossroad Keep, and still I have no say in who's in my party half the time. Sure it's usually only one character making a nuisance of themselves, but that's enough to get on my nerves, given this is the first game I've played that breaks with the old, preferred tradition. I was able to solo NWN's OC a few times, and it was a blast. No such luck with NWN2's OC, so there goes half my fun. So there it is. Most of you appear to disagree with me, but that doesn't change how I feel. The OC is carved in stone so all I can do it hope future expansions will be more considerate of the player. Regardless, I'm getting used to the toolset so I'll have my own modules before long, and will be able to kiss the OC goodbye. (Unless I go off the deep end and modify it in a big way; I do enjoy most of it's other elements.)

There are goblins in the Ogre Mage's hideout in Arvahl, complete with shamen. The little goblin who leads his fellows into the trapped doorway is also a spellcaster.

Yep, I just noticed it was fixed in her blueprint file in the toolset (she's listed under Companions). She's been relegated to the Inn in my game so I hadn't noticed yet since installing the beta patch. I'll have to have a look tomorrow when I have a chance to play.

*fires a prismatic ray at Pop* Developers are always promising new and better, and then you get to watch the options drop off one by one as ship date approaches. I'll give them credit though, at least they aren't afraid to think big. Someday it'll happen.

I once played BG2 online with a gal in Quebec. Some of you might remember a Julia from the Black Isle forums in the later days, about a year before the move to Interplay. No idea what she's up to now, but probably still finding time for games.

He's in a little room next to the kitchen in the wing opposite the library. The Lizard Shaman completely heals himself a few times. I lost count while I was busy attacking him. He uses the "min_hp1" cheat to prevent his own death, and a script triggers his dialog when it decides he's taken enough punishment.

It's funny when guys assume you don't have a significant other just because you want that particular bit of realism in your character models. Perhaps they are the ones who need to get out more. I just happen to appreciate details. The jiggly in NWN was a bit hard to see, Dark Raven, due to the plate armor both women wore. I guess being a guy biased my eyes to notice such a thing, even with peripheral vision. Ah well, nothing wrong with admiring the female form. I'd have to see a psychiatrist if such a thing did nothing for me.

You know, monster/creature blueprints use the racial 2DA files, so overwriting the 2DA entries will affect some creatures in the game. Probably not their appearance, but their lables, descriptions, and what weapons work best against them, for example. Also, Erinyes as a player character lack wings, which are provided via a blueprint (UTC) file. So the only way I can see getting the whole deal is to have an Erinyes party member who is not the main character. Same for succubi and other special creatures. So I've decided not to bother trying for extra player character races, since I can't, at the moment, get the full deal. Erinyes look like BDSM human women without wings and glowing eye effects to distinguish them. At any rate, it was fun seeing Daeghun asking his erinyes daughter if she was dressed. It'd be nice if the toolset let us create our own races/subraces; these things never seem to be complete enough.

Admittedly, I miss that feature of NWN, even though it was only active on Aribeth and the drow queen. It was realistic and reminded me that armor wasn't painted onto the character like it is in NWN2. I hope someone with resources is capable of restoring similar functionality (the actual wearing of clothes over skin) in a future mod, but I'm not sure it's possible without breaking the EULA.

Second game, no errors with Guyven not appearing in the keep in Act 2. Must be good fortune. In Ember revisted, I always talk to him before completing Nya's quest, and before leaving the town via the well or some other option. Perhaps doing it in some other order causes the glitch.