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random n00b

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  1. The secret agent in Syriana was a fat middle aged man who ultimately failed to achieve anything except perhaps a small amount of personal salvation.
    But please Obsidian, please do something about the look of Thorton. He looks like a French croissant-baker rather than some agent. He needs a tougher face.
    I don't see the problem with an undercover agent having a plain, unremarkable appearance. After all, plain looks are hard to remember looks.

     

    Right. Nobody would believe that somebody looking like this could be a kick ass operative, right? He's more like the friendly neighbor type you always see mowing the lawn and stuff.

     

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    Bourne is ok, but Bond is kinda over-doing it.

  2. That wasn't by choice, actually. I believe the devs were forced into the silliness because WoTC wasn't happy with allowing you to kill Drizzt and have him remain dead foreva, and for you to keep his stuff. Thus, Harpell implies that he has simply revived Drizzt, and having recovered the loot, Drizzt will continue on as before, no harm done to the canon.

     

    I don't know why they didn't have to do that in BG1, but yeah. That's the price of using these characters, you can't kill Elminster either, can you?

    Well, that would explain it. It's still retarded since the scope of the game (ToB) is potentially way more disrupting on FR canon than just killing Mr. Stu. What's the point of allowing you to kill Drizzt, only to have him 100% unaffected by the encounter a few game days later?

     

    Let's not forget that in the SoA portion of the game, you can kill FAR more impressive spellcasters than this Harpell person, in the shape of Kangaxx the freaking demi-lich, and the Twisted Rune. Casters don't get any more powerful than that. Unless I'm mistaken, the latter are part of the FR lore too, but there seems to be no problem with killing them.

     

    I could have lived with Elminster or even this Harpell dude dropping in and tele'ing Drizzt and his pals out at the last minute. But really, standing there with a blank stare in my face while the man walks up to me merrily, takes away my loot, and proceeds to imprison me is stupid design in the scale of Malak of KotOR fame. And all to appease the raving tides of fanboys. Meh.

     

     

    No. You get to keep his stuff in BG1.
    Thanks, I wasn't sure about this, since my latest BG1 playthroughs have been with BGT.
  3. In BG1 I don't know. In BG2 it's "Malchor Harpell", whoever that is. Refuse to give up Drizzie's loot and he cutscene-imprisons you. He does have an Imoen's Belt so you can't chop him to bits before he can say a word, either.

     

    Great design, right there.

  4. He can only be hit on a natural 20 as his AC is -17 or some equally ridiculous value. He also has 98% (gotta love AD&D rules) magic res, which makes targeting him with spells kinda pointless. He can be killed, but it's stupidly tedious and it's a fight that can't be won without cheese.

     

    You are NOT meant to be able to overpower him by that point, though. But the way they did it is probably the worst I can think of, short of giving him an "Imoen's Belt" type item...

     

    It's fun to cheat in a Sarevok and have them go at it, tho.

  5. Ah, I think I see where you're coming from. But I always had the impression that the disciple is too... soft to be creepy that way. I admit, I haven't played female that much, but his attitude always struck me as more of childish admiration (what with the PC being his teacher and all) than romantic obsession. I found Atton WAY more creepy.

     

    And, let me get this straight. You don't want to hurt his feelings by telling him to GTFO, but a bit of telekinetic throat massaging is a-ok?

     

    Umm... :ninja10:

  6. Hope you did it because the military life attracts you, rather than out of some sense of duty. Otherwise you may not be able to cope with the unbelievable amount of BS you'll have to deal with. Being in the military can be an extremely rewarding experience... or the absolute opposite.

     

    At any rate, good luck man.

  7. I prefer BGT myself over TuTu, but I reckon it leads more towards "mod" than true conversion since it adds some new bits (especially in the transition from BG1 to BG2), but all for the sake of continuity.

     

    And yeah, get the BG2 fix pack. It's a must, really. The BG2 tweak pack has some interesting components as well, but that may not be your cup of tea if you are going purist. The shapeshifter rebalance alone makes it worth downloading and makes Cernd actually useful.

     

    NPCs I went for efficiency in BG1 since they are mostly lacking in the personality department (BG1NPC somewhat fixes this, *hint* *hint*). In BG2 it depends on what mods I have installed and the alignment of <CHARNAME>.

  8. I am still pretty confused. So then, "artistic value" = creativity and imagination?

     

    Well, that would explain then why I can't seem to appreciate contemporary art. I value technique better myself.

     

    By that logic, I can see how Fallout would be more artistically worthy than BG. What with them creating a whole new (and possessed of a rather unique flavor too) setting, ruleset and all. But then Deus Ex wouldn't rate too high artistically, since it's a rehash of many sci-fi and fiction topics, and it's not that great or innovative visually either. It had a solid story and interesting hybrid mechanics, but that's about it. So what gives?

     

    Also, it's a good thing that somebody made the separation from "artistic value" and "entertainment value". Following the former reasoning, I am not going to dispute the artistic value of PST, despite the fact that that I personally hated it for its execution and dumped it less than four hours into the game. But then, I fail to understand why artistic value as has been defined seems to rank so high for some people (both players and developers) when it is obviously not a requirement for entertaining (I will henceforth use "fun" for convenience) games. That is assuming the purpose of games is entertainment and as a passtime and not a means of self-aggrandizement - for developers by setting themselves apart from the art-lacking, aimed-at-the-masses games, and for fans seeking to put themselves above the rest by being able to appreciate the magnificence of the Emperor's new suit.

     

    I much prefer a reasonably bug-free game with solid mechanics and internal coherence, than one that leaves me gasping at its imaginative world and interface design, and whose gameplay is hampered by bugs and awkward and/or tedious mechanics. Throw in a good (not necessarily innovative) story, and it's a winner for me. Yup, I'm that simple.

     

    edited for... coherence

  9. Knife is horrendously effective in tight corridors. If the enemies don't have an ample amount of shotguns, you are destined to win.
    Um, OK. The knife is useful maybe against lone enemies that don't use shotguns, but that's about it. A squad of AK74-armed soldiers can do a number on you if you aren't careful at that point in the game, IIRC. I remember sweating quite a bit to clear that outpost, and I did it by drawing them out and hiding in the bushes, then picking them off one by one. Maybe I was playing a higher diff, I don't remember.

     

     

    Also those quotes are many ingame hours apart and STALKER stops being in any way difficult midgame and then picks up again later.
    Less than a day apart. And yeah, once you get a hold of the fatter ARs and armor suits (I never used exoskeletons, myself), your life gets quite a bit easier. But then, why would you be using the knife?

     

     

    No. No, no, no. I don't suck. I'm fairly confident that's not it... :shifty:

  10. tl;dr (yet) but that weaker Vampire game (uhh, Redemption?) was released with similar editor year or so before NWN1
    Not sure but I think Redemption's go at it was more a DM client than a true editor. AFAIK you couldn't make your own scripts or maps.

     

     

    edit: For me MotB was best title released in long years. Absolutely brilliant stuff all around, above all writing wise (best since KotOR 2 and Bloodlines).

     

    My problem with Bioware is that they seem to lack any sort of artistic ambition

    While their games certainly are entertaining, they do lack any kind of insightful writing (heh, most games do that anyway) or take major, like Xard put it, artistic risks.
    As someone with ZERO artistic sensitivity, I would appreciate it if you could actually explain what you mean by "artistic value", as it's something that's being brought up repeatedly in the thread and I fully fail to grasp. I'm not being facetious here, btw. I would really like to know. Pretty maps and music? Innovative interaction mechanics? What?
  11. I admit I haven't played Mass Effect or Jade Empire. I look forward to them though.
    What do you mean you look forward to them? JE has been out for PC for some time now... But yeah, I'm getting ME ASAP. From what I've seen and read here, looks like my kind of game. :teehee:

     

    As for BIO... I don't think there's any other company that has produced nearly so many games I have liked. I don't know if their games are *that* good, but I sure have spent more hours than I can count playing them...

  12. I'm not sure I want to see robo suits in other instances than NPCs moving boxes around. The approach they took in AvP2 made combat suits feel pretty out of place and didn't really add anything to the game. It also gave the player a sense of "safety" that went against the feeling of dread present in the rest of the Marine parts of the game. And as has been said before, the whole wrestling match business between Ripley and the queen was the worst part of Aliens, hands down.

     

     

    People around here really like to argue.
    With the lack of news on the game, there's not much else to do... :rolleyes:
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