Starwars

Great news. Late September for us Europeans eh? That's earlier than I expected, not very long until release then.

I'm currently giving the NWN2 campaign another go. Refreshing my memory a bit for when MotB is released, and also to test the 1.07 beta patch. It's also to tide me over until the Purgatorio beta gets released. Gave Oblivion another go, and modded it to hell and back. Still can't hold my interest for very long. I had some fun on my first playthrough, but every replay I've done has ended up with me getting extremely bored. Might reinstall STALKER for a bit.

For Cantousent... How was the length of the game to you? Without going into detail, did you feel it was about right? To short, to long? Personally I think the NWN2 OC could've been more focused by shortening it somewhat, and "trimming the fat". How was the sidequests in terms of quantity? Exploration when compared to the NWN2 OC?

Which module is that? I've been reading that plenty of modules have been having all kinds of trouble with the 1.07 beta. I think Nighthowls in Nestlehaven had challenging combat (in fact, I got pwnd quite a lot). Though I also think it had a bit to much combat in certain areas. But it was pretty fun, I liked that mod.

I don't think Rogue has been all that fun in any D&D games I've played, which is to bad since I love the class itself. Though I do think it was more fun in the IE games. If you have NWN1, you might wanna check out a few of the mods that are made especially for rogues. Some of them are pretty good.

I found Baldurs Gate 2 (BG1 as well, but I don't remember which one was released first of BG and Fallout 2) to be more challenging than Fallout 2. Still, both games lie within the challenge level of what I personally would call fun. ToEE as well, though it's obviously a dungeon crawl so focus needed to be on combat.

You're right. Both tracks start off kind of haunting and mellow (both even have soft choir sounds in the background), and then goes into a rythmic, tribal thing. I do like the Planescape music more though (the main themes obviously since I haven't heard all of MotB), I just find that title melody so gorgeous. The MotB theme isn't as catchy, but still really nice. I especially like the beginning and end. I'd have to say Mark Morgan (composer of most the PS:T and Fallout soundtracks) is really underrated, or forgotten when it comes to game soundtracks. They may not have the fullblown orchestra epic sounds, but they're unmatched when it comes to providing the atmosphere for the games. Just listen to Annah's theme from PS:T, or the Brotherhood of Steel music from Fallout 1. It's amazing stuff.

I also think it's probably quite hard to balance difficulty in a D&D game. And perhaps even more so in todays market? The gaming business have gotten larger, and I suppose that games are more expensive to develop nowadays if they want to be part of "the industry" so to speak. I guess they have to try and catch as big part of the audience as they can. But I still think it could be pushed way more than NWN2 OC was. I mean, when I first played Baldurs Gate I had zero experience of D&D. And I very much enjoyed it and the sequel. A little bit of reading manuals and spelldescriptions goes a long way... That said, I certainly don't believe the BG games are perfect, but I must say I think they hit the mark on difficulty. It's easily the most fun "realtime w pause" combat experience I've had (though I've not played the Icewind Dales). And Cantousent, what was the music like (without giving away details)? Rob McGinnis released the main theme on his blog a while back, and I really liked it. Felt quite "tribal" and a bit unusual.

How is The Black Hound coming along btw? Have there been any progress, or have you been to busy with the Alien game?

That's odd, I've noticed no change at all here. Anyways, I'm pretty impressed so far. There's been a few smaller things that I've reported at the Bioware forums (I'm Leinadi over there btw). Overall I quite like the new camera modes, but I did have to fiddle around with them for a while to get all the options right for me. I've always been someone who plays Top-down in NWN2, but now I actually find myself switching to Character mode every now and then just for fun really. Performance is also increased for me, and the game somehow looks a bit sharper. I was able to bump up shadows to medium (full was still a major no), with a few other bells and whistles on that I couldn't enable before. The option for not rendering shadows far away from you turned out to be great for me, but I wish (like someone suggested at the Bioware forums) that it's turned into a slider so we can control how far off the shadows will be rendered. All in all, I'm impressed so far.

That's *very* close to the end Enoch, might as well finish it if you're there. I wonder if the 1.07 beta might be released this week. I wonder how powerful the optimizations will be for my WinXP system. They said in that Warcry chat that they'd spent time on shadow optimizations, hopefully that's true. That's probably the biggest framerate eater in the game in my experience.

And of course, can you like, totally get it on with a character in MotB?

Right, I remember that. I also liked the bit of interaction you get with Mr Warlock, and if you pass a certain check in the dialogue, there is a nice moment for him there.

What fight was that Aegeri? The only thing I could wish from the demon dungeon is perhaps some more different consequences or paths as to what demons you choose to help. It's a very interesting (and I think very well written) situation for roleplaying, but unfortunately it all culminates in the same thing (I think?). Granted, I'm not really sure what consequences could be written for the situation either, so there ya go. One of the very best parts of the NWN2 campaign I think.

Definetely agree with that. While I'm not overly fond of dungeon crawls in general, if they are well done and well paced I can find them very enjoyable. Orc Caves and Warehouse was just a test of patience. It's just so mindless. Actually, I find most of Act I of NWN2 to be lacking. The game really picks up at Act II if you ask me, and while some combat areas are still kinda meh, it never gets as frustratingly boring as the Orc Caves and Warehouse (or the graveyeard, but that's optional). Nope, they are seperate from each other. And while I haven't played the NWN2 expansion, Obsidian is saying that it's pretty much a story that you can enjoy without having played NWN2. But I would guess that there are things that reference to the NWN2 campaign (since the expansion is a continuation of that character).

Thanks for the review! Will definetely be picking this up when it gets released. And by that time, I'll have upgraded my computer a bit to (2Gb Ram and a x1950 PRO), yippe! Thanks!

Go go go!

Less WoW, more reviewing!

I haven't looked at it, but from what many people who are currently building modules are saying, it really doesn't seem to be that awful or even hard compared to the first toolset. It seems to take a longer time (due to more possibilities in area building etc) though. I've seen plenty of people post on various forums that they've had no enormous troubles learning the toolset, despite them not having programming backgrounds etc. That said, I'm sure lots of improvements could be made and will be made. But I have no idea really, I'm not a builder.

Yeah, that's actually a great example of how *good* voiceacting can lend personality to a character. If Irenicus didn't have a voice (or was voiced by an annoying actor) then he would've really forgettable. As it stands now, I don't think he's the "villain of villains", but he seems to work very well. I like the sort of impatient feel it gives Irenicus, the no nonsense attitude and the disregard of emotions. It could've easily been a rather bland and faceless villain, but it gives him a certain "status". As for overall best voicework, I think Vampire: Bloodlines holds the crown there. Even though there are not as many interactive NPCs in it, if a game wants to voice every character in the game, Vampire is a great place to look for insipration. Fantastic voicework, and I can't remember a single occasion where I thought "man, this actor sucks". That's a very rare thing in games for me, and even rarer in RPGs.

I recently replayed BG2 for the first time in a few years, and I have to say it's not nearly as good as I remembered it. Good, yes, probably my favourite D&D title still, but not as amazing as I remembered it. Exploring Athkathla is still as great as I remember it, they really had a great atmosphere going on there. You can really feel the 'bustle' of the city (just like in Sigil in PS:T), but really, the areas outside the city aren't exactly all that fun if you ask me. Dialogue options and overall choices are probably the areas where I found it lacking the most compared to what I remembered. In terms of dialogue, I would say that I prefer NWN2 by far actually. I still don't like the realtime w pause combat much, but BG is probably the game(s) that does it the best. Combat is challenging, and you have to think about what you do most of the time. But yeah, I still rank it quite highly on my "favourite RPG list", but didn't feel it was nearly as good as I remembered it. It's really quite a solid game though, especially considering its rather large scope. It feels much tighter than NWN2.

Hooray! Away with you, evil standard medieval fantasy. Thanks for the write-up. And now just where is that review of MotB...?

I would certainly love to see your review. And that interview with George Ziets as well. Btw, what has George Ziets done prior to MotB? Anything major, or is this his "first chance" at something big?

This expansion is one of few games that I'm actually looking forward to at the moment. The main gripe I have with it is that we're moving into Epic levels, which is not something I particularly fancy. But the setting is interesting (finally away from the Sword Coast), the companions seem intriguing and supposedly have a lot of dialogue and the story is said to be more personal and dark. Rob McGinnis latest blog update has an interesting little bit where a community member got to try out the beginning of the expansion for a bit, he seemed impressed which is always nice. While I have no idea about this new "spirit system", it's nice that there will be some form of resting restrictions this time around.

Yeah, what Istima Loke said. A very strange reward (like many things in Torment), but it certainly warmed my heart. Hehe. Torment is filled with those small things that really get to me for some reason. I have to assume it's do with the great writing. Another small quest is that girl you run into at the market in the Lower Ward (I think it's in the Lower Ward anyway). The girl that talks to much, I really enjoyed first becoming her friend, and then hooking her up with the guard. It's the small things.