AnjyBelle

That would result in a close to invisible mob, 'cause the baddies would then move with lightning speed. So, if a mod lets my character move as fast as the approaching mob in the unmodded game, I'd be content.

Hehe... "ninja'd" would be the correct term, nevertheless

Just out of curiosity: These "fish people" we have to fight are called "Vodjanoy". The same we encountered in "The Witcher (1)". Is it just a messed up translation in German localization? If it is not an error, howcome they are present in a totally different game-world?

@ Tel Prydain Well, call me a "bad player" if it fancies your self-consciousness I admit, I am ways slower than the most, because I really open anything and check every corner. The time for this sums up... "HoF": I never was a great Diablo-player. Heck, I even refused to play the first one, so my experiences are limited to the sequel. I played all the levels up to "hell" or whatever it was called. In IWD I had the first time the opportunity to restart with a "grown up" party in an AD&D-RPG! That was my new experience. To see all these high level spells and high level skills! To see the monk, who was weak during the first 2/3 of my first run finally shine and own the mobs! For me it was fascinating and since then I'd love to see a NWN 2 or a DA:O with a "replay+"-option (I realize, that this is not easy to do for the devs). So, IMO it's not correct to talk "HoF" down to the niveau of many other action (RPG) games, where higher difficulty = insanely strong mobs and nothing more. Swapping characters: Well, when someone does it like you wrote, that would be cheap. But what about the possibility to swap in a special class for a special mob, when both, the current party and the swapped in character have about the same level? Again I think, you want to talk down good game features just to talk them down. But as one pleases.

I can start it normally now, but can't see any changes at all (SP).

ill dig out my old floppies with QEMM on them lol I had the same idea, dug out the floppies and then... no floppy-disk-drive in my current PC.... But to be serious: After the failed start some days ago, when we couldn't launch an installation from retail-DVD because the game "is not released yet" now this. I just wonder, what comes next

AFAIR it was meant as sequel to Baldurs Gate. But then it became a stand-alone title. It was - as far as an AD&D-game could be called this - "action based" (note the word "based"). As example: You could swap characters in and out of your party, which was useful in some fights.

Icewind Dale (IWD) I and II.... hmm... 1) Full party of 6 members 2) Character customization according to the AD&D-rules (e.g. multiclassing) 3) 100+ hours 4) replay+ called "heart of fury", which was an absolutely new game experience 5) No console port 6) Lots of totally different classes (e.g. monk) 7) "PAUSE"-feature during combat So, IMO IWD should be the example, how a really *good* action-based RPG *could* be.

That's what I'm worried about. We buy a high-priced "RPG" and get five hours game-time with *stunning* grafics but close to zero content.

Any info about the mechanics would be very useful. In my game (Katrina) I certainly casted her "heal" LOTS more than I casted "heartseeker". But the latter was maxed after about 70% of the game, while "heal" was far away from mastery in the endgame. Any pointers how to "force" the companions to use certain abilities, so that they can reach mastery at least in one or two? I had Anjaly and was content with her actions, but in all her abilities she remained average.

Well, the game wants to be a A-RPG. For me, RPG means "epic". When DAO came out, my first run counted 80 hours and I have not even entered the capital city! I thought, the old days will return, when RPGs lasted 200+ hours (Wizardry 7, Ultima 7 etc.). Of course I remembered DS I and DS II. For both I needed IIRC ~70 hours or more for my first runs. Alas, DAO seems to be an exception and everything after it returned to the standards of the last years, 15-30 hours and that's it. I finished DS III after about 26 hours and was VERY disappointed about this (for me) ultra short gametime. Nevertheless, I love the game for anything else and hope, there will be plenty of DLC in a near future.

Oh, then I understood something in a totally wrong way. I thought "empowered version" means the stronger attack I have by pressing "Left SHIFT" (PC). Thanks for resolving my error.

Near the end of my first game I noticed, that some of my Katrina's abilities are "mastered". However, I can't find information about the benefits I should get from a mastered ability such as "heartseeker" etc. Someone here knows more?

If you mean "released" = "released by OBSIDIAN", then that would be nice. Would be nice, when someone official could confirm this.

When I purchased the retail version I didn't realize, that STEAM is involved. I buy real existing DVDs instead of a download for a reason, e.g. to have patches available when they are released by the publisher. Most of us here know, what I mean: DVD-owners can patch, while STEAM-customers (and those of other download-sites) wait partially for WEEKS until the respective version for them is ready. But now even DVD-owners seem to suffer the same fate. How will it be handled with DS III? Can we download and apply the patches from OBSIDIAN directly or have we got to wait, until STEAM bothers to make it available?

Provided that a a game allows mods, the first mods are mostly camera-tweaks - and this since modding started. Interesting enough: One of the patches of NWN 1 included a camera tweak, too, after the community-made camera-mod has become very popular. I really don't know anything about programming and stuff, but in my amateur's view it's like this: If a modder can make a *good* camera, then it can't be too hard for a professional game developer to do it as well. Question: Why do they bother us with unacceptable cameras again and again?

When I played Diablo II and later DS I and II I noticed that, of course. The "save points" in Diablo and the DS-games would be the teleporters, which spare the player to walk all the way back. My question remains: What is the idea of a dev to make stuff like this? Just because of the fact, that Diablo had this "throwing back to town"-system, does not mean, that ist is good. IMO it makes these games just repetitive and "adds" to game-time in a negative way. Who did ever consider these "save-points" as "fun" or "challenge"? @ Metamag Interesting. I don't have Lucas yet, so I couldn't know. Thanks for the advice!

This!

Starting with that rifle-girl, I'm meanwhile in the eastern woods with Anjali. As it seems, DS III has nothing at all in common with the predecessors DS I and DS II. But that's not necessarily bad. Some questions, though: Increasing skills and stats In the former DS-games any character became better in a specific skill, when he used it again and again. E.g. fighting with sword raised close combat and (among others) strength, using nature magic (nm) raised nm-skill and (among others) intelligence. Of course I see, that the characters are somewhat bound to their classes and are not able to use the stuff of their companions, wherefore a "multiclassed" character cannot exist and thus, it would make limited sense to increase their original skills with every use. Nevertheless, using rifles COULD raise agility or using magic COULD raise will. Am I correct, when I say that there is nothing like this happening in DS III? Primarily attributes Am I correct, when I see a) Agility and attack for the rifle-girl b) Attack and will for Anjali c) Attack for the fighter d) Will for the old mage as main attributes? For the following questions I ask humbly, not to see it as "flame" or "whine". I'm really interested to know about possible advantages, which I failed to see during the last 21 years of gaming. 1) WASD A desktop-PC has arrow keys and a num-pad. Why are devs STILL clinging to this odd WASD-thing? 2) Save-points In 1997 I started Final Fantasy VII, knowing, that it was a console-port. So I was not surprised by the strange way I had to map my keys (note: Key mapping WAS possible!). I thought, for consoles it might be impossible to let the player save at any time. So much more I was surprised, when I left the first town and travelled through open land: I could save whenever and wherever, except during a fight. This way I learnt, that save points - respectively the denial of arbitrary saves - are deliberate measures of the devs to make a game "more challenging". Question for the more adult PC-gamers: Is it really "more challenging" or is it rather a way to make game-time artificially longer? Question for people knowing about coding and programming: Is it really so much more work to implement a "normal" save-feature into a console-port? Thanks in advance for your replies

It's really hard to understand such descisions. Either I make something right or I don't make it at all. When they want to have the PC-community as customers they REALLY should make PC-games with at least the most common features. But perhaps I'm just an ignorant. Could it be, that the implementation of a save-feature into a console-portation requires really so much additional work?