Starwars

Be prepared to find many things lying around in strange places like dirt mounds in the middle of the city. I wish some of that had been done differently, but at the same time it's so silly that I can't help but find it amusing. Hope you guys will enjoy the game as much as I did though!

That's really strange. It's possible that it's a faulty disc (hey, stranger things have happened). But what I'd do is send a PM to Rob McGinnis. If it's a bug or something he'll jot it down to be fixed, and maybe he could give you some advice on what to do in the meantime.

I've never played a Monk, so I can't give advice on that. But I played through MotB as a (rather hastily put together) pure Bard, and I didn't have a very strong focus on melee skills. I made it through just fine, though certain parts of the game are tough (absolutely not impossible though). I doubt a Monk would have any problems regarding the "power" of the class. You might want to look into the new prestige class called Sacred Fist though. Like I said, don't really have any experience with Monks or their related classes, but as I understand it it's kinda like spell-slinging Monk.

I agree as well.

Not done. I asked him about in some thread (maybe it was the MotB one) a few months back, and he said he was making progress slowly. He had gotten a few area creators on board the project though.

I didn't find MotB to be as heavy on traps nor locks as the OC, which is just as well IMO with the death system (though the resting restrictions does make the traps feel a bit more like something to be avoided though). I think the homonculus managed to spot most traps. There were a few (and indeed, my Bard got pretty pwnd by it) that he didn't manage to spot though. I suspect his spot is pretty much good enough to find almost all traps, except the really high level ones. He's also kinda funny to talk to, wish he had more to say, hehe.

A Halfling or Halfling disguised a Gnome? Anyways, it's very short. That's all I'll say.

You'll get something that can open locks and disarm traps, but not something to provide the sneak attack goodness.

There are also, just like in NWN2, a fair number of Lore checks. Though I don't think they really affect the outcome of conversations. There are also a few instances where after solving a quest, I would get the message "XP granted for solving blablabla peacefully." I hope the XP granted is balanced towards how much XP the character would get if you decided to slay everything.

I built a character very quickly for the expansion (a pure Bard), so I can't tell you my exact Wisdom score unfortunately, but it was definetely not uberhigh (perhaps there would be even more if I had a really high score). I would guess it was 11 at default, and perhaps a few bonuses from equipment. But definetely not "uber". Wisdom seemed to be used the most out of the main stats. From what I remember, I saw Intelligence as well. There was also a Charisma check with Gann for my female character which I thought was kinda nice. That's just the off top of my head, I can't recall how many there were. Wisdom was definetely the most frequent though. I don't think it's like in PS:T though where Wisdom was really "key" to the story. There were a few really nice dialogue options using Wisdom in MotB, but I don't think it's as important to experience everything as it was in PS:T. Someone peeked at the campaign in the toolset (I think over at the Codex) and he said that there were a few Cleric deity checks as well. Can't really comment on the dialogue skills. I'd have to say that I think it was about equal with NWN2, but don't quote me on that. Most of my playing was late nights, and I can't really remember all that well to be honest.

There are a fair amount of dialogue options from Wisdom as well that I noticed.

Finished the game earlier today. I am very happy with how it turned out. Combat difficulty varies, but for the very most part I think it's a lot of fun. Definetely more rewarding than the NWN2 OC. Story was actually extremely good. While I prefer Planescape: Torment, this is really one of the best stories I've seen in a RPG. A great mix of pursuing your own personal goals and solving your own problems, and getting involved in something that truly feels epic (and I usually hate how that word is tossed around when describing games). I am very impressed, the Obsidian guys did a fabulous job on this expansion, they really "got it right" this time around. Thanks a lot, and I'd love to see more expansions with the quality of MotB.

I'll only wish Chris a happy birthday if it turns out he did a great job on MotB.

Definetely agree with that. Though I don't think stuff like that will be all over the conversations, but I really hope there will be a few more situations like that. Just found my second companion.

I've been playing for a few hours now. So far, I'm definetely a lot more impressed than I was a few hours into the OC. Beginning area was easy in terms of combat. The next encounter I had after went up in difficulty in a rather extreme way I thought. Was owned there, but kicked butt on the second try. I'm not a D&D nut, but I'm pretty familiar with it, and I think the battles so far have been quite fun and they feel much more rewarding than in the OC. I think the people who don't care about reading up on the rules/mechanics will have quite a hard time with this game. Other than that, the story seems intriguing but it hasn't really taken off in my game yet. The areas I've seen so far (especially the city) looks a lot more inspired than the OC I think. The Shadow Plane looks pretty cool as well. The music that plays there kinda reminds me of the main theme to Bram Stokers Dracula if anyone remembers that. The influence system for the companions looks pretty elaborate. At one point I said something that made me lose influence with my companion, but got a follow-up Diplomacy option (that explained my intent on my first comment) which I passed, and got the lost influence back. A nice touch there I think. A small but neat thing is that the tips on the loading screens are related to the place you're in, and also (partially it seems) whatever you happen to be doing in the story at the time. Pretty cool. Looking good so far. Gonna play more soon.

Well, I just installed my copy. Created a new character (gonna go pure bard for my first playthrough I think), saved my game and went and made some coffee. I'm ready!

It's not "official" yet. Obsidian first releases the unofficial version (which they deem playable), and then the official version (that can be downloaded via the updater). I think this is due to a big bug that appeared in a final version of an earlier patch.

As I understand it, the 1.07 patch was cancelled or reformed into 1.10 since it proved to be difficult to "merge" the NWN2 and MotB systems. MotB uses 1.10 (I've no idea why they skipped a few numbers, but that's the way it goes), and when you install MotB you'll be updated to 1.10. Dunno the technical details. So yeah, the patch after 1.06 is 1.10.

As far as I understand it, "official" release dates in the EU are on fridays, but many stores send out the games early to ensure that the customer has it on the actual release date. So most sites I've seen (here in Sweden) has 28th September (Friday) as the release date. I'm not sure if the store I'm gonna pick the game up at will actually start selling it today. But since my friend works there I can cheat a bit.

Hell yeah, will be picking up my copy at the gamestore a bit later today. Just called a friend of mine who works there and he confirmed they've got it. Looks like a bunch of people on the Bioware boards have gotten their copy as well.

I don't know if it's even remotely related to KOTOR2, but all my .mod files from NWN1 mods show up with the mpg icons and wants the vid program to play them etc. They still work just fine when loading them in the game though.

Some people have posted on the Bioware forums that they've gotten messages that their copies are in the mail. So could even be that a few people recieve their copies tomorrow depending on how fast the mail will be.

I'm surprised Dead or Alive hasn't come up in this topic yet. I tried to watch it in a "this film is so bad it's great" kind of way, but it just completely sucked. And the chicks weren't even that hot. That's a must-see.

Thanks for the little write-up (again). It's fun to hear about some of the people at Obsidian that one normally doesn't hear about.

My favourite is an anime (well, Manga first I think) called Hunter X Hunter. It's a really long series though, and one of those where you start to feel "gee, they should just wrap this up". The main series is excellent though, and the OAVs after are still quite good. I think it's still ongoing, but supposedly the artist who draws the Manga has some form of disease, so he can't always draw or something. There's also another one that I like a lot, but I can't remember the name at the moment. Fushu-something I think. A *very* slow-paced and beautiful anime. Felt very unique, and I liked it a lot.