Magister Lajciak

...childish notions such as dragons... I wouldn't utter those words on a forum moderated by one. *hides* I don't get the joke I am afraid - which mod is named after a dragon or has a dragon avatar?

On a related note: As I have said, storytelling and dialogue has been Obsidian's huge strength. Storm of Zehir seems to be the first Obsidian game that does not emphasize storytelling and dialogue and places greater stress on exploration - at least that is the impression I get from what we have seen about it so far (that is not to say there will be no story or dialogue, lest somebody interprets my comments that way). It will be interesting to see how that shapes up for Obsidian.

Hmm, I am not going to be in the U.S. during Christmas or just after Christmas, so I will have to make the purchase either before I leave or after I return. I plan on buying it online - I think that's more convenient and cheaper than doing it at a mortar and brick store. Gateway computers seem to offer great value gaming value for money, but I heard bad things about their durability, so I am as yet unconvinced. Plus, they use NVIDIA graphics cards and now I have become fearful of those. Hopefully NVIDIA clears their component pipeline soon, so that they become equally viable to ATI again - I don't have any real company preferences in terms of graphics cards (though I do prefer Inte's Core 2 Duo over AMD's processors - at least until AMD comes up with something better for laptops), but options/competition are good.

How effective is the swashbuckler proving to be in-game?

GDR (East Germany) was DDR in German. I guess there is some similarity: Draconian Digital Rights Management = East German Management (of Rights)

Hard games make for a good challenge! (They must remain passable though...)

I disagree. It is precisely through intertwining the story with the gameplay that Obsidian has pushed the boundary of RPGs in the Mask of the Betrayer, as story is such a vital feature of RPGs. The Spirit Meter mechanic in the Mask of the Betrayer is the perfect example of this - it was innovative, fitted well with the story and provided for very interesting gameplay options that fed back again to an engaging story in a loop. That definitely pushed the boundary of RPG gameplay and in a very positive way. If you exclude the Mask of the Betrayer, however, and concentrate solely on previous titles, than you may have a point, though I never felt particularly bothered by that. That said, I liked the innovation of the MotB so much, that I am somewhat apprehensive that Obsidian might back off further such experiments due to the negative reaction of some posters on the forums to the Spirit Meter mechanic.

Well, I am too lazy to type it out each time, so I use: DDRM = Draconian DRM

Come on now - we play games where we slay dragons and banish demons... most people (at least in my country) would say that this is the province of those under 10 years old, yet we are much older than that and still find it fun and engaging. Although personal preferrences within our gaming hobby differ, the fact that we can suspend disbelief for childish notions such as dragons and magic should make it easy for you to understand why people might find other childish notions interesting even if you don't personally.

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...um=128&sp=0 It's now officially confirmed: Storm of Zehir will not have DDRM! Kudos to Obsidian! Kudos to Atari! Hurray, hurray, hurray! ... Sorry about that - I am just very happy about this!

That's the point I was trying to make. You don't find the setting interesting, but many people find it very interesting, hence they can get riled up over it.

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewt...um=128&sp=0 It's now officially confirmed: Storm of Zehir will not have DDRM! Kudos to Obsidian! Kudos to Atari! Hurray, hurray, hurray! ... Sorry about that - I am just very happy about this!

This provides an explanation... ... to your puzzlement.

Ouch, that forces me to discount NVIDIA... thanks for the warning. I don't know, the article only mentioned HP mobile chipsets so if you're not buying from them you would probably be ok. Well, apparently NVIDIA claims that, but the article seems to have implied that these problems could appear in all chipsets - after all why would NVIDIA only have supplied them to HP? If they had a production line problem these faulty parts would have leaked into the entire lineup.

Hmm, I guess I might have to adjust my expectations then. I would have thought 3 years could be a realistic life-cycle for a gaming laptop if I am not too demanding as to how well the games should run at the end of this period, but I guess that might not be the case.

since i don't follow laptop developments as closely as i do desktop developments i can't comment on most of this. however, i can comment on #4: doubtful. at least, in order to answer the question with a yes you have to assume some pretty rigid requirements on "all future games ... to be released during the next three years" that may not hold. first, from my experience, i only get about 18-24 months out of a processor/graphics card solution on a desktop, though admittedly i never buy high-end. i tend to stick to the upper-middle road, stuff that was new less than a year ago and has come down in price drastically. buying high-end probably would only add 6 months or so to my expectation but would cost twice as much, so i don't do it. next, even with my system that's only a year old (and has an 8800 GTS 320 MB, OC'd) and 4 GB of mammaries with a core2 duo, i'm starting to notice stutter in games if i crank up the game features (in particular, i noticed this with the new witcher). i can only imagine that within the next three years, gaming technology will improve (er, get more complex) further burdening systems and resulting in reduced performance. laptop performance rarely seems to rival that of desktop and i would argue that my mid-level desktop compares favorably to high-end laptops (though i am not qualified to make such statements, it's just a hunch based on what i do know). that said, if you aren't going for mobility, i'd go with the larger screen, particularly since it's cheaper. otherwise, i can't comment on how they compare one bit. is the vista ultimate 64-bit? Yes, desktop systems are definitely more powerful than notebook ones, and besides, these graphics cards are not the top end mobile graphics cards either - more like higher-level mainstream cards. You are probably right that it won't really be able to run "all future games... released during the next three years", so I guess I have to qualify that somewhat: 1) I have read some recent statements (from Epic, I believe) that graphics in games have pretty much topped out for some time, so improvements in this area are going to be much slower than hitherto. 2) I am excluding shooters and racing games from the games that need to be run in three years - these two types of games are generally graphically the most demanding. 3) When I say that games should be able to run, I don't necessarily mean that they need to run well. It is enough that in three years I can actually load them and play them on say 1024x768 (I doubt most will support an even lower resolution by then) with low detail.

Ouch, that forces me to discount NVIDIA... thanks for the warning.

Star Wars would not be Star Wars without hooded robes!

By Bethy you mean the developers of Fallout, right? No, Bethy is not an abbreviation for Black Isle - what would make you think that? Well, I initially misunderstood and thought - who/what is Bethy, but then realized what she meant. In any case, she is correct - Fallout 3 will not use DDRM.

Hmm, thanks for the benchmarks. Apparently, the Radeon 3650 is slightly better, but essentially in the same category as GeForce 9500 GS.

That's an expansion, still stuck on the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. That's why I asked the question. NWN 2 engine does not preclude polish, though it might or might not hamper improvements in stability - I am not a programmer so I wouldn't know. It might also probably impede production values - at least in terms of graphics, as the engine is not new any more. Still, I am looking forward to Storm of Zehir greatly and in fact hope for even more expansions after it!

Having named your perception of Obsidian's games weaknesses, it would be interesting to hear what you think are their greatest strengths. I would say that story and dialogue are the two areas where Obsidian's games truly shine.

Thanks for posting this. It is nice to see an assessment directly from a dev. Well, since we are talking about core mechanics here, it is worth noting that all your games so far have been based on the d20 ruleset. KOTOR was based on d20 Star Wars ruleset and NWN2 OC plus MotB have been based on the D&D ruleset. Considering the success of this ruleset in the PnP world, one can hardly say that the core mechanics are not fun. And the new mechanics you added to (such as the Spirit Meter) were great fun too (though it is true that I saw a significant number of posts on NWN2 forums that didn't appreciate it - hopefully this will not discourage you from trying more things along those lines in the future). It is true that what works in PnP might not work in CRPGs, but I have certainly not had a problem with your games in this regard. On the other hand, perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean by core mechanics... perhaps you mean something else? Nothing really sprung at me as horribly visually unappealing in your games, but you are right that characters did not visually stand out (say due to attractiveness). Yeah, I guess there is room for improvement in this regard. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you here at least to begin with. Stability problems are particularly important, but the other two matter too. I have indeed experienced technical difficulties with games such as NWN 2 - they were not insurmountable, but it would have been better had they not been there of course. I think MotB, however, made great strides in overcoming not just the technical problem, but also the issue of polish. I think this kind of progression with the associated initial difficulties is understandable. Regardless of the experience of the individual developers Obsidian was a new studio and needed to build a reputation as well as clout (financial and otherwise) and add more employees to be able to devote the time and resourcs necessary for polish, production values, etcetera. Good to hear that! When you speak of the next two titles, does that include the Storm of Zehir?

By Bethy you mean the developers of Fallout, right?

Sounds good to me - and I agree that MotB seems to have been pretty successful in this regard.