Starwars

You can use it on spirit essences, and I think you get a better 'spirit crafting feat'. I never got into it though so I can't tell you the effects. I agree about Kaelyn. I'm not usually a fan of "goody" characters, but I thought Kaelyn was extremely likeable. And yes, her voice-actress did a great job and definetely made her feel quite unique as far as characters go. The other character I wasn't sure of from before the game release was Gann, there was always that fear that he would turn out to be annoying whining "emo character". But he was quite funny and witty and not so much "oh woe is me". I really enjoyed all the characters in the game, for various reasons. Obsidian did a great job on them.

Don't get your hopes up. That said, it's one of my beefs with the story. Not that we can't take the wall down or beat up Kelemvor, as I think that would be to 'out of line' even for our epic characters. But it feels like the story is going there (perhaps mostly due to Kaelyn and her mission). It's been pointed out a bunch of times already, but it'd be nice to either have an ending where an assault on the wall actually happens, but where the PC fails horribly. Or to have a much lengthier conversation with Kelemvor, where possibly he could show off that there is no way we could challenge him in his own realm. He does state this ("you're not powerful enough, not yet"), and he also mentions that he could basically teleport you off this plane if he wanted. Thing is, with the build-up, I just feel like there should've been *more* to that event. It feels a bit like getting a hand in your face and someone saying "sorry mate". I never actually particularly noticed that the ending battles/areas in the City are rather empty, I was just really caught up in the story at that moment to tell the truth. It is true though. More than anything though, I would've wanted battles that were much harder. Kelemvors dudes are just not that challenging which is a bit of a shame. I love the ending area where you battle Akachi though. The music just works very well there I think, the tribal percussion thing is great for that encounter. And I have no complaints about the actual ending sequences themselves, I think they are really great. I got the 'optimal' good ending on my first playthrough, and I really liked it. When I played my evil character, I missed out on the optimal evil ending though (a shame because I hear it's deliciously evil). I think you have to devour Myrkul yourself in order to get that.

Yeah, that was my fav part of the game. I gotta say that Myrkul was voiced beautifully, kinda unique thing going on there. I love it when you have Kaelyn with you, there's some really nice dialogue from Myrkul there. Very nicely written that whole bit, and of course, the whole area and music just makes it more memorable. Loved that little bit of dialogue where Myrkul says that Kaelyn was "severed like a gangrenous hand". Great stuff.

*If* this turns out to be true, I have a feeling my /facepalming against Bioware will become even worse than it currently is.

Brian Mitsoda was the guy who did writing for Vampire: Bloodlines right? That game had some great writing as well.

Llyranor,

What benefits do I get?

Well, I ended up pretty much renaming all the files (since I'm weird like that), and there were a few that I couldn't place (most of them have obvious names). I'll post my 'tracklist' here, maybe someone can use that to pick out the tracks in the NWN2 folder. I'll also probably break the page. 1. Mask of the Betrayer theme 2. Opening Lobby 3. Barrow 4. Barrow - Combat 5. Barrow2 6. Barrow2 - Combat 7. Imaskari Ruins 8. Mulsantir Gate 9. Mulsantir 10. Mulsantir - Combat 11. The Veil Theatre 12. Mulsantir - Shadow Plane 13. The Veil Theatre - Shadow Plane 14. Mulsantir Combat - Shadow Plane 15. Approaching the Spirit Army 16. Battle with the Spirit Army 17. The Sloop Tavern 18. Temple of Kelemvor 19. Myrkuls Vault 20. Myrkuls Vault - Combat 21. The Wells of Lurue 22. The Wells of Lurue - Combat 23. The Wells of Lurue - Dreamscape 24. Janiks House 25. Anyas Dreamscape 26. The Lake of Tears Garrison 27. Ashenwood 28. Ashenwood - Combat 29. The Beast of Malar Cave 30. The Burning Grove 31. Imilvale 32. Imilvale - Combat 33. Dreamscape 34. Lakeshore 35. Lakeshore - Combat 36. Lakeshore - Shadow Plane 37. Lakeshore Combat - Shadow Plane 38. The Skein 39. Gudbughach (not sure what this one is, maybe for the hag) 40. The Slumbering Coven 41. The Slumbering Coven - Combat 42. The Slumbering Coven - Dreamscape 43. The Thaymount 44. The Red Wizard Academy 45. The Red Wizard Academy - Combat 46. The Headmistress Quarters 47. The Astral Plane 48. The Founders Sanctum 49. The Fugue Plane - Combat 50. Eternitys End 51. Eternitys End - Kelemvors Temple 52. Crossroad Keep - Dreamscape 53. West Harbor - Dreamscape 54. Dreamscape - Combat 55. Final Battle with Akachi 56. Akachi Defeated 57. Ending - Good 58. Ending - Evil 59. Credits There are a few of them where I'm not certain, but that's the best I could do.

I wouldn't suggest playing the music tracks in a media player. There have been reports of that mucking up the files, and the game not being able to play them after that. I'd suggest heading over to the Vault, finding the ole utility (was released for NWN1 I think) that convers .BMU into MP3s and vice versa. I did that with the MotB soundtrack (even tried to place the tracks in chronological order, as best as I could remember them from the game at least ). It's a great soundtrack, great mix of ambient and more "melodic" stuff. The percussion for the battle with the Faceless Man is totally appropiate. EDIT: My first playthrough was using a Bard, and I only brought Gann, Safiya and Kaelyn with me. Playing it like that I thought parts of the game were a really decent challenge. Especially when it turned out that I had Safiya come with me near the ending. It took me a few tries to bring down the Faceless man especially due to the nature of that fight. Hymn of Requiem is great though, be sure to get that.

I'm happy that one of the Ossian guys posted on the Bioware forums that this would be "meatier" so to speak than the NWN1 premium mods. I tried most of them out (can't remember which one I'm missing at the moment), and the only one that I felt was truly worth buying was Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, and even there I lost interest somewhere in the middle.. Some of the others were all-right, but at the same time there are plenty of user-made mods that really wees all over them. These guys also made Darkness over Daggerford which I think was gonna be a premium module at first. I liked this mod, but I think it lacked the true 'oomph' so to speak. It did most things well, but it didn't really stand out in my mind (and just like with Wyvern Crown, I ended up just losing interest after a while). It's pretty likely I'll pay up for this though, as long as it isn't to expensive and is not completely the opposite of what I want in a RPG. Hopefully it'll be good.

I can't remember details at the moment, but if you don't stop Rammaq (as in kill him), in the ending Kaelyn and her siblings get ambushed by him. Her siblings are killed in the battle, and only Kaelyn lives. She is essentially a broken woman after that. Maybe someone can elaborate a bit more. That happened to me on my first playthrough, and I was rather sad about that. I usually don't like the goody-goody characters to much, but I really liked Kaelyn.

To tell the truth, I would love for more RPGs to be shorter. A bit longer than MotB perhaps, if it means more replayability and polish. I find most RPGs to be far to long in the sense that there are often sections in the game that bore the hell out of me. The NWN2 OC is a prime example of this, I really think it would've been better had a few sections been cut out of the game. Fallout 1 was very good for me in that way because it's really not a long game by any means. But there's also not much content that feels 'filler'. The only thing I can think of is the Thieves Guild which really felt tacked on. Whereas Fallout 2 is a lot longer, but have several parts that I just dread replaying (many of the 'dungeons' and a few of the cities are just bleh). My other favourite RPGs suffer from this as well. PS:T for example has the prison combat (where you find Trias), and while one might think that it doesn't affect the awesomeness of the game in the end, stuff like that really sours the experience for me. That's not to say that I dislike long RPGs in general. But I would rather take a shorter, more focused and polished RPG than a longer and less focused one. I think that's part of why I view MotB so fondly now, because there is really no section of the game where I loathe the idea of replaying it.

I think you have to get them the wagon regardless before sending them off to be eaten. Had no idea that you could send Anya off as well, that's great. I'm not one who normally enjoys evil playthroughs, but I must say that I really enjoyed the evil path in MotB. One-of-Many, like Tigranes said, is not as powerful as Okku, but I really enjoyed its utterly evil nature. It was funny how you could gain influence with both OOM and Kaelyn if you succeed your Bluff checks with Kaelyn. And I loved the sort of idea that you have this 'pet' around. Making it devour the Sleeper made me giggle with glee, and I loved the turn of events if you let it devour Myrkul. I also liked the mention of him in the ending (if you succeed the influence check I suppose) where it travelled with you and made people feel generally uneasy around my character. That said, I would've *loved* it if you could discover more on the backgrounds of the different personalities. Okku was perhaps the companion that was intially the least appealing to me. But I really enjoyed having him along as well, and the voiceactor (and the little effect on his voice I suppose) felt very appropiate. Though I wish he were a bit less powerful for balance reasons (it makes sense since he is what he is, but still...). Speaking of voices, I really enjoyed most of the acting in the game. There was not a single point (and there were many in the OC) where I thought "this actor stinks". Myrkul was a bit "what the hell" when you first hear him, but it's really fitting somehow and unique. That was my favourite part of the game. The narrator is also great.

Volly, you will get an explanation of Safiyas behaviour later on. It's a solid explanation, but all in all something I missed in MotB is the ruthlessness of the Red Wizards. You sort of touch upon it later on, but I always wanted (prior to the expansion I mean) a plot where you were heavily involved with the machinations of Thay, and where you got to see the cruelty (slavery and all that). I also thought combat was rather fun for the most part when playing my Bard, and using Safiya, Gann and Kaelyn. But if you put either of the more melee oriented characters in the party the game unfortunately gets rather easy for the most part. I suspect that might be the case for a PC who plays a melee oriented character as well. I usually stick with more skill-based characters since I think those are the most fun.

Right now JE Sawyer is reading this thread, thinking quietly to himself: "those bastards just got an expansion pack, and they already want another one" /facepalm

It would also make sense since Obsidian seemed to want to include a variety of different places for modders to toy around with. MotB is really varied in terms of where you go, it's almost silly (though it's actually awesome) when one views it in the the context of how long it takes to complete the game. Chult would likely provide yet more good resources for modders.

Many of the tooltips in the original NWN2 OC hinted towards MotB (the whole bit about Rashemen, Woodman and Okku, hagspawns etc). While there's not as much in MotB, there's one bit (which has no relation to MotB, just like the Rashemen references in the OC have no relation to the OC itself) about the Chult area. Maybe a hint towards an upcoming expansion, maybe not. I'm not crazy about epic levels though, and I would prefer a new adventure (not the Knight Captains story) and have Obsidian focus more on "filling up" the current levels. Still, MotB was a blast for me so I will be thankful if a new expansion would turn out to be as good (epic levels or not).

It's pretty amusing how you can get large amounts of influence with One-of-Many (and Kaelyn to for that matter) by Bluffing/Lieing Kaelyn in her conversations. I feel kinda bad about it since Kaelyn is my favourite character, but hey... I'm playing an evil Warlock. One-of-Many is pretty funny to bring along, pretty much evil incarnate. Highlight was allowing it to devour the Sleeper, and how happy it became when I devoured the Woodman. It was also satisfying to see that one witch (the one that is always really rude to you) break off from her two friends side after threatening to devour the witches and pretty much all of Rashemen. Bahahaha. I'm usually not one for evil playthroughs, but I'm enjoying MotBs so far.

Xard,

I've started to warm to the influence system as how it was implemented in Mask of the Betrayer. While I still think lots could be done to improve it, it's starting to feel much more natural. Though I can't say I've ever reloaded when I get an influence down. Come on, there are players who will reload at anything... Quest didn't turn out in an optimal way? Reload! I don't think that's a reason to remove the system. Anyways, try MotB if you haven't. It most definetely feels "complete" and solid. I don't see what game of Obsidians that have been "under-ambitious" though.

You can have both Kaelyn and One-of-Many in the party as far as I know. As far as I understand you can gain influence with One-of-Many if you lie a lot to Kaelyn. Okku and One-of-Many are mutually exclusive though. I've found all the companions worthwhile so far, they're all interesting in their own right. I'm currently doing an evil replay with One-of-Many, and it's appropiately disgusting.

Oh yeah, I definetely agree with that. It was driving me mad. Other spells that got erased was Safiyas "Stone Body" which she loved to cast. Also, is it just me or do sound effects vary a lot in volume? I notice this now that I'm playing a Warlock when I use Eldritch Doom. Even though I turn the sound effect volume down a lot, occasionally (most the time it seems to follow the volume set in the options) it will be really loud. Same goes for stuff like, er... The tentacle thing (can't remember the name at the moment).

The handling of armor is reminiscant of how Age of Decadence will handle it as well (if I'm understanding it correctly at least). It seems like a logical and good system to me. BTW, what kind of work did you do on MotB? Were you heavily involved in it? I really enjoyed it anyhow, and I feel it's the best Obsidian has had to offer yet. It's very good.

I'm currently replaying the game with a more evil approach, there are some rather nice bits for an evil PC. One-of-Many is certainly quite a unique character, haha. Disgusting and creepy. I wish there was a way to get to know more of the different "personalities" within it. Sending the Shou people to the Hill trible was also deliciously evil.

Yeah, I guess epic is the key-word here.