Monte Carlo

^ I agree, the early part of the game and the NPCs aren't anything much to write home about in the early part of the game. You can actually feel the level-building, vanilla 'early days' aspect of the design. Then you get to Neverwinter, the story develops a bit, you get access to more NPCs and stuff like The Trial and it all gets much better. Stick with it. MotB is great, even though I'm not actually a big fan of that type of design. It really puts an original twist on the game, I like the spirit meter though the NPCs are trying a bit too hard to be planescape-y if you get my drift (and there's a bear NPC whose dialogue always reminds me of the end of Anchorman in San Diego zoo!). SoZ is an almost plot-free zone, it's a combat-heavy exploreathon with an interesting overland map thing going on. I enjoy it immensely, have just got into the crafting side of it (which is uber-easy to use) and am making silly magic items for ThE WorST FanTAsy SEttIng EvAr!!! My only disappointment with NWN2 is that the fan mods have dropped off, NWN1 was a worse game but with much better mods. Cheers MC

^ OK, thanks for that. To expand on the whole bard idea, does anybody have any advice on a Bard character for BG2 / ToB for a full run-through, seeing as I've always felt like doing it? Any views on which kit, stats, alignment, complimentary NPCs etc would be welcomed by anyone who's done it. I'm thinking perhaps the evil route because I've never fully completed BG2 that way. Hey, I've played this game so many times I'm happy to SK stats / profs etc if anybody has interesting ideas - am thinking supercharged Skald or Blade melee / backup mage build. Cheers MC

@ Morgoth - what sort of rig are you running that on? It looks very nice, am wondering if you have monster specs on your system.

3E D&D turned the cleric from stand-at-the back healer to potential monster with domains etc. I've got a Grey Orc single-classed cleric, War & Chaos domains, in my SoZ party. He's only level 7 at the moment, so he's just starting to become useful but he's still a handful in combat and is one of the most durable / useful characters. I could probably dump my fighter / blackguard because the cleric is versatile enough to step in, but my Sorc / Pale Master is the weakest character who I am nuturing just to see what happens. A high STR dual-wielding wild elf Rngr / Rog / Assn, all evenly classed (currently 3/3/3), is getting the most kills - mobility + high tumble + sneak attacks + poison =

Hmmm, am having a similar problem occasionally with SoZ at the moment, mainly when entering random wilderness encounters. Wondering if the new patch (which I downloaded a couple of days ago) has some conflicts with SoZ. It's not too annoying, happens about once an hour I just need to hit F12 a lot.

It's a bit difficult, Krezack, because I don't know if all the interface improvements are XP features or are also delivered by patch. Most of the problems you describe are polished off by the time you install MotB / SoZ. The tactical view gives you a nice zoomed-out overhead perspective. Yeah, the AI is a bit dungeon-siege, go into the character AI tab and enable full puppet mode to control them. I tend to turn it on for crowd-control enemies, having made sure my spellcasters don't drop all their best stuff on a kobold. It's no spoiler because he tells you straight off that he wants to be a monk, and that's Khelgar. Personally, he makes a better vanilla, typical dwarf tank warrior, but you might want to get him to go all Bruce Lee for a bit of variety. Cheers MC

I'm sure that was a DaRk HeRoiC FAntaSY processed meat product, totally ground-breaking in the field of sausages and taking meaty snacks to a whole new immersive level, in fact the spiritual heir to the frankfurter and Cumberland sausage.

^ The levelling up system for NPCs is influence-based in a few cases and static in most. It's not like BG2 where you control the whole levelling-up process.

Wals, just Wiki it, it's a distillation of classical liberalism through a 20th century filter. Ayn Rand wasn't a moron. She grew up in Russia during the time of Stalin. Give the lady a break, after all muscular individualism is less of a damaging utopian position to take than that of enforced equality. Cheers MC

^ And to be fair, that's one of the least twinky RDD-using builds I've seen. Looks like fun.

Thanks for the review. I enjoyed the quirkiness of the original game, but find Larian's take on the vanilla fantasy genre a bit staid. What bemuses me is the balancing issue - how on earth did that get past QA? Thank goodness for early adopters like you - I find myself buying games months after release now, 'cuz that means there'll be a patch to put right the release-version right. For example, I'm only just starting to consider buying Empire: Total War (if they've disabled the Steam-only nonsense and only then). Are there joinable NPCs, by the way?

Party size is four, PC + 3 NPCs. I don't really play monks, although you can develop one of the NPCs into a monk if you choose. I did this on my last NWN2 game and was underwhelmed with his effectiveness, but it's likely that I wasn't using him to his full potential. There's also a warlock NPC - I found their blast powers a bit samey after a while Again, I'm not a massive spellcaster-class player either but in SoZ I have a sorcerer / pale master in the party and although not overly powerful she is a fun character build (focus on Necromancy, naturally). I've played NWN2 as, IIRC, a Ftr / Rog and a Ftr / Blackguard - enjoyed the Blackguard the most, a thoroughly fun and powerful character build although of course you'll be playing an evil character. Cheers MC

BTW, does anybody have a definitive release date for DA? Has it been pushed back to November (as I read somewhere). Cheers MC

BG2 again, Ftr / Thf with a pretty vanilla party (Nalia, Valygar, Minsc, Jaheira), the objective is to crack on and rescue Imoen ASAP and see how a small 12th - 13th level party fares in the Underdark. SoZ, re-started again with comedy evil party (led by a Lawful Evil, ruggedly handsome Ftr/Blackguard and comprising elven Rog / Rngr / Assn, Chaotic Evil pale master, actually that should be mistress and a Grey Orc cleric of some crazy CN god of plunder - how cool is a god of plunder I ask you?) It's good fun. Cheers MC

And there, you see, is the rub. Because I'm the polar opposite, I find combat compelling and think it should be central to gameplay considerations. I'd rather have excellent, crunchy tactical combat than uber-complex NPCs (beginning to see why Torment was my idea of, well, torment?). Of course, there's nothing wrong with either preference unless you are a games designer, where you will try to accommodate both camps. I'm pretty easily assauged by difficulty sliders and options - there's no reason why Maria can't have her all-party-die mechanic and I can have main character dies and it's all over mechanic. Losing a key NPC can make a game even more rewarding. I know it sounds obtuse, but it can be. The first time I played BG2-ToB and fought Demogorgon I lost Minsc. Minsc by this time was my primary melee character, had bags of experience and was a pivotal part of my party. But he perma-died, gibbed by the arch-demon. His portrait disappeared forever. I'd won the battle, though, and wow it was tough. I thought about it decided to accept the loss and carry on. It made the game more challenging, I had to develop a new NPC to fit that role and so on. It made the battle more meaningful, and the overall game more immersive. I accept that I'm in a minority there, but it shows how we all look at gameplay mechanics very differently. Cheers MC

If Bioware are trying this then more power to them and I'll happily eat a whole crow pie with crow-flavoured gravy if they do. Remember, though, we are told (ad nauseum) that choices, actions, multiple endings, re-playability (etc) are not as important anymore. Why? 'Cuz the mythical Joe Gamer will only play the game once, will in all probability never actually finish it yet will feel cheated that he didn't actually get to see everything in it. I don't buy this argument, but hey, I don't work in the marketing department of a major computer entertainment company. So if Bio are swimming against the Tsunami of alleged gamer attention-deficit then maybe I'm being too harsh on them. I don't think so, but we'll see. Cheers MC

Chris Priestly's comments are quite revealing, Bio is obviously out to save the gamer from himself. Then again, remember the original Dungeon Siege, the world's first game that doubled as a screensaver? They clearly realised that gamers in fact wanted a game that demanded the same input as watching a fish-tank. Even NWN2, if you leave the 'AI' on, will do a pretty similar trick, dumping every decent spell on that incalcitrant goblin archer that had the temerity to lurk about at the back. I'm guessing Dragon Age's AI will be similar. TBH, the industry / customer insistence on 3D perspective that you can zoom out of doesn't help, I know isometric is dead but that view at least gives you some appreciation of what's going on. The Total War series engine is the only game I've ever played where the engine allows you to appreciate toe-to-toe closeness to truly tactical apprecation of the battle. If you can do it with thousands of troops why can't you do it with a party of six and a couple of monsters?

Amen, brother. Maybe we need a 'Most Overrated' things in popular culture thread.

Ayn Rand is obviously the poster girl for Libertarians, many of whom haven't actually read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead (for the record I've read the first, struggled with the second). Many libertarians also wouldn't have a clue about Objectivism or how it might (or might not) fit into mainstream libertarianism. I'm a 'small l' libertarian (i.e. small state = groovy, not so sure about legalizing crack and heavy automatic weapons). Many libertarians would naturally riposte that I was therefore not really a libertarian, just an unwitting pupper of the state living a facsimile of freedom.... Rand's importance is symbolic - her work is a paen to self-reliance and the soul-sapping nature of statism. The message is harsh, but I don't know if anyone's noticed but life often is. So don't take her literally, like a lot of visionaries much of what she says is confusing waffle, but in there is a kernel of truth, albeit uncomfortable for some. Especially the feckless, the authoritarian and the idle. Cheers MC

Thing is, I really like sandbox games but hate Oblivion too. A lot. Why? I mean, the gameworld is pretty. The graphics are nice. I can join things and make stuff and jump a lot to enhance my stats. Because it's dull. Dull and humourless and machine-like. I feel like I'm taking part in some radical early 80's Czech animation film that is in fact a simile for the grinding pointlessness of living in a totalitarian regime. Any videogame that makes you feel like this cannot be good.

The Wild Geese. It's brilliant, my dad took me to see it at The Odeon, Leicester Square, when it was released. Thrillingly, there was a diaroma of jeeps and army trucks from the riverbed-bomber scene with large-scale model vehicles around the top of the cinema. I watched it again because I heard how Guy Ritchie is doing a re-make. Am wondering how on earth he's going to pull it off, but wish him well. I mean, the original has Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger. Nowadays that would be like getting Russell Crowe, Daniel Craig, Hugh Grant and Sean Bean to agree to be in the same movie. Ain't gonna happen. TWG is like a Brit version of The Dirty Dozen, it's a sort of macho totem that you f**k with at your peril. Cheers MC

^ Huh? It will quite legitimately be on the internet apres-release anyway. Strangely, it's the shiny toys and trinkets that draw me to collector's editions. In-game stuff will (a) be released for free and (b) surpassed by fan-created content. How long do people think it will take for the first half-decent, meaningful* mod to be released? I reckon 24 hours. Cheers MC * Not like 'this is a lovely hat for CHARNAME'

I am a Wes Wiemer's Tactics veteran, I can't actually play without it nowadays even if I do leave all the phat lewt those random evil parties leave behind! I've tried to segue the most complimentary elements of SCSII and Tactics, will post results / apparent conflicts. Blucher's mod rocks, beware Vista users (even with UAC switched off it really didn't like me putting stuff in the override - I had to do it a different way as opposed to simple copy-and-paste). I have Imoen in Chateau Irenicus as an 11th level thief (I Shadowkeeper in the level I'd finish BG1 / TotSC at) and Ilyich's mob are suffering much trap and backstab carnage as a result, as opposed to dual-class Imoens, er, Acid Arrow and Web spells Am toying with a Cavalier, one of the most munchkin kits is the game and lots of fun. However, I can now dual-class a Barbarian to a Thief (hey, thanks G3 Tweaks!) so I'm considering that too for the improved thief quests from Avenger's and Quest packs. I've always wanted to finish BG2 with a Bard, though, am thinking about trying one out in Irenicus' dungeon to see if I like it. Cheers MC

Even translated into

SoZ, am trying out my first Eldritch Knight and Red Dragon Disiciple twink builds. BG2, naturally, still making my modded build so haven't chosen a character yet. Maybe it's nostalgia, but after the over-kill of choice in NWN2 / 3.5E I find the ludicrously restrictive AD&D 2E strangely comforting. Weird. Cheers MC