sorophx

this is insulting! Diablo fans like BG: Dark Alliance II, not NWN. it's good to hear BioWare took notes from Obsidian (NWN2 and AP have been a big influence on the DA2 team apparently)

the LP thread at Codex has already gone out of control, every post begins with words "this game is shiit"

I don't remember the difference between hur- and gen- but I did see a screeny of an Emissary, who looked a bit different, could've been a Genlock

Awakening wasn't about the quests, it was about Bio telling a story I think DA2 had been conceived as Awakening Expanded from the very beginning. with the small amount of time to develop it, and all. the only thing that is really confusing to me is that "best Choice & Consequence in CRPG history" crap in various reviews. are the quests really that big? they define the rest of the game? judging by the LPs - no, the don't...

Volo's getting old

there's also the Deep Roads

BioWare's future is looking mighty grim. I also read that BioWare's employees were notified about the deal with EA only after Bio had been bought. the owners' position on these things is disturbing.

as far as I know, there's a lot of stuff you can only give to the main character, which doesn't make any sense in my opinion. why would they restrict loot to Hawke? also, is it true that you can switch between night and day whenever you want?

sounds like a joke, it's like calling every subsequent title "best game of the decade for now" all the way to 2021 not sure what he means by vitality though

I'd say that's a good thing.

the game also tends to crash while saving, corrupting the file and the one you were trying to overwrite (if you're like me and don't like to keep more than 5 saves). first time this has happened to me, I was making my way to second-to-last fight in the game. and I didn't have a back-up save from the last chapter. so I deleted the game in frustration.

hah, which reminds me. there are quests that you pick up on accident. you find an item in a location, and the quest-log points you in the direction of the needed NPC, you bring him the item and that's it! no dialogue at all, IIRC oh, Tale got to it first. well, there you go. no idea why they included it in the game... XP? stupid BioWare

BG2 had very good side-quests. good design, good dialogue, good stories. DA2's quests are just as good?

I like the free camera in both NWN and NWN2, very useful. oh and NWN still has the save corruption bug

seems like Awakening is the best game of the three at least it has some funny characters, some nice boss fights, and is short

that could be the case. which only makes the whole thing look even more pathetic instead of actually making enemies tough to kill, they made them weaker but more in numbers. (I think I saw a screenie with 20+ mobs swarming on the party, could be a bug that released all the waves at once or a case of really bad level design, though); it sounds like a total grindfest. the fights should be interesting. and in DA2, it sounds as if the fights are endurance tests, "survive three waves of similar goons > restore energy > run two blocks > survive another three waves". that isn't what I'd expected from a triple-A title

hmm, when I first heard about the whole "framed narrative" and "10 years worth of story" thing, I thought to myself, "wow, I wonder if they'll do it like Persona 3 (or was it 4?) did." it would've been interesting to play a "sandbox" western computer role-playing game, where the box isn't the world but the time frame. so far it seems nothing like that though

so far from what I've seen, I gather, the combat isn't at all different from DAO. but a lot of people say the encounters are absolute crap. something about the enemies spawning on top of your party instead of actually waiting. which is rather annoying and removes a lot of tactical elements from combat as far as I can see. what's more, they seem to be spawning in waves now. you defeat one, another group drops (?) from the ceiling/air on your head, and then another after that. is this Bio's idea of a more sophisticated combat system? pah-leeease can't comment on the story, but judging by others' impressions the quest design is awful, and Kirkwall gives out a strong JRPG vibe

start with 3 then

oh. god. it's awful... her face... his voice... it just doesn't work, Bio!

ok... there's been a development, that can put a halt on this LP. yesterday I found out that the whole line of laptops, one of which I'm a proud owner of (HP Pavillion tx2500), has a serious design flaw that practically makes it only a matter of time before the machine fries. the motherboard (or chipset) manufacturer made a mistake when calculating the maximum temperatures the board can withstand. as a result, the overall durability is a lot lower than it should be. one of the engineers made a wrong entry in the documents and the hardware was designed that way. how in hell it made it past the QA tests I have no idea. but on average these laptops don't live more than a year and a half. it's a well-known issue, but HP won't admit because nobody wants to have to call back the whole shipment. they keep blaming nVidia and motherboard manufacturer (some Chinese firm). the good news is my laptop is still alive and kicking. but since it's 3 years old, every time I turn it on there's a pretty big chance of it frying. I have two possibilities; keep going as if I didn't know about it and wait for it to die eventually, then send it over to a service center to have them replace the northbridge/southbridge/whichever goes first. will cost me from 50 to 500 bucks. or I could stop using it and try to modify the cooling system. what does it have to do with this LP? well, Volo's character is in there, and I don't have a third machine currently to replace my HP with. so either I keep going and risk my machine, keep going without Volo (which is even worse), or just stop for now. I'm still waiting for an expert to reply on my chances of saving the laptop, but don't be surprised if I'm not updating this LP. I do have another LP in the works. I could start it in the meantime... oh, we'll see.

I still think you shouldn't get HoMM 3, because it looks awful. most people here have good memories about that one, so do I, I've played it for years. but right after I bought HoMM 5 I couldn't bear 3's graphics any more. 3 is a very solid game, but only install it if you can look past the outdated graphics. believe me, 5 is mostly the same in multiplayer

that's a Russian-made game, right? boy, for a 2009 title it sure looks like crap in videos...

5, because it's exactly like 3 only looks nice on my new PC. the campaign is a killer, though. very hard for an untrained gamer, which is either because the design sucks or because it's just great. I didn't dig too deep. but of course nobody cares about campaigns, because Heroes always was about hot-seat also, try Kingdoms while you're waiting, http://mightandmagicheroeskingdoms.ubi.com/en/ - it's free, has a two-week tutorial mode that lets you get acquainted with the game's mechanics, and it runs in the browser.

it's a matter of principle