J.E. Sawyer

What will happen to Jefferson? It is... ... a mystery!

Man, it's like they liked having the Gamecube called the Kidcube. If they wanted a more masculine name they could have called it the Nintendo Fairy Unicorn Princess.

Even if you had read all 30+, you still wouldn't have a good idea of how long NWN2's campaign is going to be.

I have no idea. I don't really "do" financial planning. I blow most of my money on my house in Wisconsin, my car, and my motorcycle. WOOOOOO! I may be a Wal-Mart greeter in 2036.

You've got to admit that attitude about consoles is very prevalent on these boards even from people who have little to no experience with consoles. It's not much better in the console community, actually. Xbox vs. PS2 vs. GameCube was a laugh riot. "LOL GAMECUBE MORE LIKE KIDCUBE AND THE REVOLUTION CONTROLLER SHOULD BE A RATTLE BECAUSE NINTENDOS ARE FOR BABIES!"

Disappointing paying customers hurts us more. I'd rather someone hear bad things about our game and not buy it than buy it and get angry because they feel they were misled.

Sure, but after HoW, I can't see the point to a developer ever giving external estimates on game length. If you estimate low, you disappoint people before the game is even out. If you estimate high, you disappoint people after the game comes out. In both cases, it's complete guesswork. Obviously, given HoW and IWD2, the BIS krew (including me) proved they were incapable of accurately gauging game length. I don't think Obsidian is really any better in that regard.

Feargus has played through the tutorial and part of Act 1. He has less knowledge of how long it takes to play through the game than I do, which is also pretty low. I certainly have an idea of how long it's taken progression testers to go through the game, but that can't be used as a metric at all. First of all, progression testers play the game over and over again, so their speed of progression is usually far greater than that of an enduser. The second problem is that they're constantly encountering and writing up bugs, which has an unknown effect on extending the perceived length of their run-throughs. The end result is that using QA playthroughs as a guide only really becomes valuable toward the last two weeks of testing. And at that point, it can only really tell you sprinting speeds.

No I don't. I didn't have any idea how long IWD2 was until I played it. I was floored by how long it took me. If it comes out and the game actually takes most people 60 hours to beat, will you buy it before the bargain bin?

Don't let that stop you. It doesn't stop anyone else around here!

Wow on your first playthrough you beat IWD2 faster than QA sprinters who had worked on it for months. Somehow, I think you're exaggerating. My first playthrough of IWD2 took 80+ hours and I was the lead designer. It was rare in the extreme that I had to reload for any battle and I knew how all of the puzzled worked. And Feargus' initial estimates for IWD2 were 30-40 hours. Even if you are, in fact, the most amazing CRPG player ever, those who finished IWD2 typically clocked far more than 30-40 hours on it. So basically you don't care what the actual player-stated length of the game is on release, you're going to base your purchase on what the head of the company (who, like me, hasn't played through the game from beginning to end) says months prior to release?

Many console games defy your characterization of them all as being shallow/short. I would say that the trend toward shorter games has more to do with the fact that the gaming demographic is older now. A lot of people in their late 20s and early 30s simply don't have the time (or don't want to make the time) to become embroiled in 60+ hour games.

Why don't you wait until the game comes out and people can tell you how long it actually takes to play through the OC? Feargus also estimated 30-40 hours on IWD2, and it took most people more than twice that long to finish it (whether it was a good 80 hours or not).

The length of NWN2 (whatever its true hours wind up being) has very recently been modified based on what is an acceptable level of quality for Obsidian. That is, we want to make certain that every area that goes into the finished game has a high level of quality from art and design and that every area has a healthy amount of testing. And we are very aware of how gamers received the end of KotOR2.

The only non-jokey figures I'll give about game length prior to release will be based on my own experience. I haven't played through NWN2 legitimately from start to finish, so I won't give any estimation at all, nor comment on the veracity of Feargus' estimation.

Ahahahahaha. HELL NO.

What are you talking about?

I offered up unpleasant information that no one else was eager to offer up, on a game I've been the lead of for a grand total of two months.

There already is one in P&P with the subtitle "Dead Horse: The Beating".

No stacking rules. Why do people use direct numerical comparisons between editions? It doesn't really make sense because the power of any given thing in an edition can only be measured relative to other things in that edition. If all 3E characters did five times as much damage as their 2nd Ed. counterparts and clerics got d10 for hit dice, the 3E cleric's hit die is inferior to the 2nd Ed. character's because the character statistically is going to die much more quickly in its edition. Yes, the 3E cleric has higher numbers all around than the 2nd Ed. cleric. All classes do. The fact remains that due to 3E's (wise) stacking rules, 3E clerics cannot buff to anywhere near the extent that 2nd Ed. clerics and speciality priests could.

There's a big difference between "a game" and "Neverwinter Nights 2". I only became the lead on NWN2 about a month ago, and the current course for domains is unlikely to change much. And, as always, you should know that my opinion on what should be done has very little to do with the written rules. EDIT: By the way, Gromnir, I decided that "J.E." was a legitimate way to abbreviate my first and middle name because of J.E. Freeman, the actor who played Eddie Dane in Miller's Crossing.

I would try to keep the base domains but modify many of them so they were actually worthwhile. "Good" and "Evil" effectively have worthless bonus powers. I'd replace any domain spells that weren't possible in in the game with spells that were possible in the game... and which fit the domain concept. Obviously I'd ignore any domains that weren't required for the deities the game supported. If it were a game like NWN, I'd allow DMs to create server files that defined deities and the domains from which they could select.

Yes.

Correct. For as much fun as I had playing my Holy Strategist, she was ridiculously overpowered.

Half of the 2nd Ed. FR specialty priests would wipe the floor with their 3E FR cleric counterparts, domains and all.