Sir Cedric

I am just about to finish IWD II. I have had the game forever (the day it came out), but have never got past Kuldahar for one reason or another. I decided to pursue it to the end a couple of weeks ago. The Severed Hand seems to be pretty well done after a SLOW chapter 5 trek through Dragon Eye. Goodness, I wish they would finish up that whole Icewind Gate project, but it looks like it has been abadoned. I really, really like the interface and the 3rd edition ruleset from IWD II and would like to play BG2 that way. I don't have any idea what I am gonna do after finishing IWD II. I don't see any games that appeal to me currently and it is a long trip to NWN2. I might try Oblivion if they release it soon, but I was disgusted with Morrowind.

Well perhaps I'll see if I can find one of these games, I came in kind of late to RPG's with Might and Magic 4 being my first. Either way, I still think Fallout 3 needs to be a little more than what I have read so far for Oblivion. We'll see. Now to find a copy of Ultima VII. :">

Fallout is not exactly filled with though-provoking characters, either. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Looking back at Fallout with the recent RPG's that have come out, this is perhaps a true statement. By today's standards the characters were relatively shallow and one trick ponies. This is especially true if you compare it to PS:T, however I personally was impressed at the TIME it came out by personalities such as Harold, The Lieutanant, the Master, Set, Killian, and so on because prior to that, in the RPG's I had played the only thing to do was recklessly slaughter everything. Fallout is remembered as a thought provoking RPG with interesting characters because in 1998 everything was pretty shallow and it stood over the RPG's of the day. IMHO. Now of course nostalgia does play a part in my rememberences, but from a generalized standpoint, the only way to have a successor to Fallout is for memorable characters by today's standards to be involved. That means they should build on RPG's like KOTOR, PS:T, and such and Fallout 3 should have this same level of character interaction. Above all it should interest me in the NPC's it throws my way. I should feel either hate or love for the characters I come across, passionate in one form or another, in order to be a spiritual successor to FO and FO2. This is something I have never experienced in a Bethesda game and as such, I fear what their Fallout 3 may be. Of course, I will ultimately reserve judgement until I see what they can do, but having read the design docs for Van Buren, there is nothing that will keep me from being somewhat disapointed that BIS or Obsidian didn't get a chance to release that Fallout 3.

I just hope Bethesda at least tries to maintain the spirit of the setting, and don't put a thousand cliff racers in. Personally, after reading some of the design documents that are posted on No Mutants Allowed for the BIS Van Buren project (their version of Fallout 3 prior to the suicide of Interplay), I am mad that it did not get released. It seems like they had a pretty decent story, some awesome characters and if they could have capitalized on the stuff I was reading in their design docs, the game would have been a pretty awesome follow up to FO and FO2. That was also why a particular April Fool's joke hurt a little, because I really thought BIS was going to do FO3 justice, and then the joke was Bethesda had hired Obsidian to finish it. Totally cruel. I have played both Daggerfall and Morrowind for more than a few hours, but I never finished or replayed the games because they can't seem to make good, thought provoking passionate characters. Quite frankly without memorable characters I don't think FO3 will work and I hope they are putting significant resources towards those story related, emotion provoking zots and not all of them towards "l33t" loot, swanky graphics, and actiony combat. I don't exactly have my hopes up though, seeing their past work. YMMV.

I think perhaps you are correct. I went back and checked the link I was given in my e-mail, along with the one that was posted earlier and the ID number in the link are different. I suspect that they only count each ID once, and as such unless you receive an e-mail it may not do any good to answer the survey at the link provided. I don't know this for sure, but it looks that way from my standpoint. That being said, I think I'll hold on to my ID so my opinion doesn't get trumped by others. :D If this Neilsen is the same as the one that does TV shows I suspect they look for a broad random sample, and unless you are solicited directly they may ignore you. I know I never could figure out how to be a Nielsen family when I looked into it for TV, I suspect this survey may be similar (I was sick of all my shows being canceled, but they don't like volunteers as it messes up there data I guess) It is good to see LucasArts take at least a modicum of interest though.

I am not exactly sure, it just came in my e-mail this morning. I always register the games I purchase when I get them out of the box. I can only guess that this is how I got the email. I filled it out hoping to give the developer of KOTOR III enough time to polish the game, as every chance I got, I made a comment about KOTOR II's awesome potential, but distinct lack of polish and obvious fact it was rushed out the door for Christmas. I don't expect it to do any good with the money grubbing publisher type, but it never hurts to try.

I just recieved and filled out a third party survey on KOTOR II. Apparantly LucasArts has hired a third party, Nielsen Interactive Entertainment, to ask gamers to tell us what they think about Knights Of The Old Republic II. The survey was OK, but some of the questions weren't as explicit as I liked. I did enjoy the first 20 hours or so of the game, but the obvious lack of polish was adding up through the game, with the ending a complete disaster in my mind. But the survey asks about my entire experience, so I couldn't help but give them fairly good marks. However there are several "tell it in your own words" sections, and I used that opportunity to intelligently explain where and why I was dissapointed. I was just curious as to how many of you may have received this same survey, and your thoughts on it. I wonder what the results of such a thing will be? Hopefully, it will show LucasArts to allow time for polish on their games, even if the game may have to be pushed a couple of months. Overall I think Obsidian did a good job, but the game could have cooked a little longer, cause those last few bites just about ruined the good taste of the cake.

The only way I was able to get any of the CEP stuff into HOTU, was to open the expansion module within the toolset and add the CEP hackpaks and .tlk file. Of course Bioware does NOT recommend this because it messes up any possible patches. I would definitely suggest backing up your originial modules before any playing with them. Even then I still didn't get a perfect transition with my CEP stuff, but that just may be because I have just started looking at how to mod stuff. Just taking the CEP stuff into the HOTU module without adjusting in with the toolset leaves you with a bodiless character!

I definitely agree with Darque. I hardly ever know what day it is anyway, and I came across this news story which was awesome. Lord knows I am so starved for a good RPG, that I jump at every opportunity. To find out later, that someone decided to play an April fools joke, on a day that isn't April 1 and you might see where some will believe. It is somewhat like the mirage in the desert. A thirsty man runs towards the oasis, and it is only when he starts drinking sand that her realizes his mistake. But then the next oasis he sees, he does the same thing. I am thirsty for some Fallout goodness, and got suckered by a mirage. I'll probably jump for the next false alarm as well. :">

Yeah...Its especially crappy since today isn't even April Fools, or I might have caught it. Oh well, back to lurking. I was really excited there for a second. Everything I read on Van Buren showed that there was a significant amount of work placed into it, and I was just glad that the developers were gonna get a chance to finally let us play it. Damn shame is all.

Just saw this on No Mutants Allowed and thought I would post it here to get some discussion started. "March 31, 2005 (Rockville, MD) -- Bethesda Softworks

I really liked BG2 because it reached a balance of good combat, and good roleplaying. I have played all the IE games, and they each have their good points. As others have said here, it is really what kind of experience you want. Does anybody know if the mod (Icewind Gate, I believe) ever got to a playable state? I would love to play through BG2 again for memories sake, but do it with the much improved IWD2 3rd edition rules.

I agree completely with your first post. In fact if you read the other two posts I have made this year, your post was almost word for word my own opinion. With that said, I think they could have formed a compromise between rote history and an empty background for the player to choose. This could be done similar to the Jedi trial and the joining of Revan in the Korriban tomb. Use a flashback movie to set up the events that ultimately led to using the "magic widget" at Malachor V, and then let the character make the choice of WHY he did what he did. The main advantage is that I now know what exactly my motivation was for nuking the planet. As it is now, I am unsure as to whether I did it because it was a last ditch effort to win the war, or if it was Revan's plans all along. (KOTOR I led me to believe Revan's tactics and brilliance won the war, not Bau-Dor's Deus Ex Machina. I am unsure what to think now) Using this compromise between history and choice, when I finally get to Malchor V at the end, the big reveal would be more poignant. I would see, first hand, the effects of the "choice" I made at the beginning and it would tie me emotionally to the place. After that, the ending can simply be the denounment that it is. I have now come full circle to face the effects of the choice I made in the Mandolorian Wars.

To clarify, I meant that the people that work for Obsidian for the most part came from Black Isle prior to the Interplay debacle, and those were some of the games that the "movers" of Obsidian worked on. The company is new, but the developers themselves have a pretty extensive RPG resume. Sorry about the confusion. I read your previous post and I think you are right about why things spiralled out of control, but I still feel unfulfilled. I really think one of the developers should post a story synopsis or something, because I have more questions now having played the game then I did prior to owning it. Having mysteries is good for a game, but it assumed that I knew my past. Due to the influence system, I couldn't find out my past without using one of the "perfect" influence walkthroughs. I don't have the will to go through the game again using a meta-game "influence" cheat sheet to get the full story, so I remain unfulfilled. The flashback thing seemed obvious to me, since we are talking about war, and TV has just about ingrained into our society that war means trauma and flashbacks. Maybe Obsidian didn't want to use such an obvious device, but they should have dome something to illuminate my past better.

I too want to chime in here. I finished TSL yesterday afternoon, and after the anti-climax, I decided to sleep on my impressions before my own rambling. I tend to agree with everyone that up until the Jedi Council on Dantooine, everything was done pretty well. I think the problem I ran into, was the fact that while they kept promising me that, when I get all the masters together, they would explain all. So I kept my questions until the council, and played along. Imagine my annoyance when I get to the council, a full light side jedi, and they not only don't explain anything but decide that I am too dangerous and need to cut from the force again! It is a downhill run from there. I have thought about it overnight, and I think the crux of the problem was the fact that I was NOT an amnesiac. Several times during the story, things would come out that I had done something pretty freaking bad back on Malachor V, and that is why I chose to cut myself off from the force. Well that's all well and good, but I could never find out what the frack I did! If I had amnesia the designers would have felt obligated to tell me what it was. It wasn't till the silly remote running around Malachor V that I learned it was some "magic" device that simply destroys planets (I think). Why did I nuke an entire planet? I think from a game mechanics standpoint they should have taken the premise they had and carried it one step further. Like our wars in Vietnam and the Gulf, particularly traumatic battles tend to stick in the mind of the participant and flashbacks have been documented to occur to the participants of these wars. If whatever I did was so bad that I cut myself off from the force why am I not having these flashbacks! The designer could use these cutscenes to tell me what is going on! Why did I nuke Malachor? What device did Bao-dur make? What was the scenario that pushed my decision? What was the aftermath? What was Revan's part in it? I need to know these answers to be interested in returning to the place later. I need to know these answers for my investment in my character! The other problem I had was with the whole Revan, Darth Traya thing. I, like several other posters here, never got anything more out of my favorite character from KOTOR HK-47 then "I seem to have suffered a bout of selective memory problems". What happened to Revan? I got the impression that he was on Malachor, but why did then he run to the outer rim? Why was I supposed to follow? Why do I have the Ebon Hawk? Why did he have to leave everyone behind? I ran through the whole quest of getting HK up and running to find out these questions, and then the seemingly arbitrary influence system keeps me from having the other half of the story complete. (I think the influence system sounds nice, but for major arc issues for the story, the characters should talk. The influence system should only be in effect for character flavor. In this respect Atton was well done, but Kreia, HK-47, T3, and Bao-dur were not. The story is not effected if I don't know that Atton used to be a Jedi Hunter, but it sure the frack is, if I don't know what happened in my own past!) The true travesty of this whole thing, in my mind, is that I know the folks at Obsidian can do better than this. I have played all of their games, from PST to Icewind Dale 1& 2, Fallout, Baldur's Gate. I personally know the main designer is more capable from his past work with New Reno in Fallout 2 and with the entirety of PST. What went wrong with TSL? Is there someplace where the design documents are posted, so I can atleast get the story of the game I just finished playing? (Cause I don't feel like playing another 3 unfulfilled times to try and eek out the answers I missed in my first game, if they even exist) I appreciate that we have a forum where we can discuss our experiences, and I hope that the developers are reading this thread. It really is an articulate bunch of folk in here.

Light side for me. It took everything I had just to be able to finish the dark side of KOTOR, just because the dark side path was based on common thugery. Perhaps if things are a little more gray this time around I might find myself walking the dark path. The dark side definitely had the cool force powers. (Is there no such thing as smiting evil for goodness, or righteous anger in Star Wars. I would love to see some kind of offensive light side powers. Something similar to Sunray from D&D or something.)