damonors

I haven't pnp'ed in quite a long time, but really, I don't get the love for 2e that people have. I started with 1st edition, and 2nd edition came out and it was somewhat better, but was still really bad for many, many reasons. By the time 3e came out, I was out of pnp'ing, but I bought the books and I was blown away at how much better it was. It changed alot of things, but it still felt like DnD. Going from 1e -> 2e was like going from 5 1/4" floppies to 3 1/2" floppies, while 2e->3e was like going from vhs->dvd. Sure they both were improvements, but one was incremental while another was revolutionary. I won't get into why 2e was so bad, but it boggles the mind that people think it is a better system... But back to 4th edition... when I first heard about this, I went over to enworld and read about it, and I don't really know what to think yet. Yeah, it isn't out, so all the details aren't there, and yeah I don't pnp anymore so it won't affect me (except for computer games), but I'm not sure. I have a couple misgivings, on that it is AWFULLY close to their revision to 3.5 (and you can't tell me they weren't in talking about going a new edition when they were putting out 3.5). Also, they let playtesters give reports to the public about 4e, but only let them say positive things about the system which seems....odd. I know PR is important to control, but that is just.....odd. But what is more offputting is the stylistic changes they are making that seem mostly cosmetic and makes it feel like a different setting and system: adding Dragonborn and Tieflings and core races (oddly), splitting elves between eldarin and elves, having a 'warlord' class (I don't care about the function here, just the name sucks) along with a warlock class, no gnomes or half-orcs, wizards are pretty much evokers, halflings are alot like kender and like to ride on boats, and other things like that. Look, I've read reasons why they made those changes individually, but it seems like the amount of changes to the core feel of DnD is.....odd. Plus, and this is really really strange, in one of the preview books apparently the writers used the overused the word 'cool' to describe everything (I didn't read the books, but this was mentioned by alot of people). Some people were put off by this because it sounded like they were trying to jam 'this is cool!!!" down their throats, and besides thought it didn't sound professional. This caused alot of uproar, and one of the designers thought it would be funny to make a list of appropriate alternatives to the word 'cool' for future description. This not only totally missed the point, but felt a bit condescending and douchey. Plus, the post was forced and not funny. But whatever, I'll only ever see it in passing whenever The 4th Edition Black Hound comes out, unless they come out with a new edition in 4-6 years (which appears likely).

I've been waiting for this. As someone who's played the original PoR and the NWN version, I'm all excited about this for nostalgia reasons. (yes, I also played the ruins of myth drannor, and returned it because it sucked. Luckily my hard drive was spared). My question, though, is how is it in multiplayer? It says it wasn't made for it, but has anyone run into anything that might be a problem for multiplayer? I needs to plays it in mp!

Fixed that. The switch to GFW brought crappiness to it, and my subscription that ends in a few months (after many years of loyal CGW reading) will not be re-newed.

Somehow I talked myself into buying Lionheart when it came out. Yes, I knew from the message boards that it sucked, but I got it anyway. The fascist 'we will not allow pause' during development didn't keep me from it, neither did the 'pause, but no actions' when I got it. Needless to say, there were red flags everywhere, but I just ignored them and bought it. Ugghh, they say that it got worse and less RPing after Barcelona, but Barcelona sucked and lacked in good fun RPing already. I tried, oh how I tried, to have fun with it, but when a full 1/3 of your screen is covered by GUI (unnecesarrily, and this is no joke, I must find a screenshot somewhere), and your damn companion bear is suicidal and......well, there was lots and lots wrong with it. Not to say it was an unhappy ending. It took me less than a week to get sick of it, so I ebayed it and someone in England bought it (I guess it wasn't worldwide then) for more than I paid, give me a profit of about 2 bucks after fees. Oh, for people who are saying NWN or Morrowind and things like that: yeah I know they weren't the greatest games in the world (especially Morrowind), but seriously, have you ever played a bad game before? Bad games aren't dissapointing because they weren't great. No, bad games are BAD. I mean Lionheart bad or PoOR bad. Oh, someone mentioned the ET game for the Atari 2600. I actually beat that game when it came out! Hmmm....offf to Wikipedia to read the legend of the game....

More interview: "We

From the interview: "As far as the leveling goes, NX1 will feature epic levels through level 30." Which, to me, means that there will be a second expansion to get to level 40.

Doubt that'll happen as it isn't as marketable. As a side bar about prcs, it is very interesting to see on the NWN2 boards what people thing need 'fixing' with each prestige class (in those Rob started threads). Inevitably they are "they need more power" type things. It is super uber 1337 inflation. BUT....please please please let the prestige classes be something that you can't get with class combinations. No Eldritch knight, arcane trickster, divine champion etc. that are absolutely unnecessary. Give us something that, you know, actually gives us something. And what the [he]ck are the new base classes?

Alas, but no. I had a wondeful time playing the "fantasy byzantium" part of agceep in eu2, but nothing like it yet. There is a mod to allow for the "Byzantine Empire", but nothing like the eu2 one. About Italy, it is damn annoying. I am playing as Venice and had pretty much all of Italy (no ferrara for another 100 years unfortunately), beauracracy national idea, high centralization and it took a LOOOOOOOOOONG time to form Italy. It is random, but the Prestige hits from the Papal states events sucked. One time I got it twice *simultaneously*!!! I had to release Rome via the event (if I did as 'release vassal' it would have given them 2 more provinces), but I had to declare war to get them to vassalize. Rome was a nice province.

Ohhhhhh snap! Oh no you di'nt! Truth can give a nast sting... On a side note, isn't it about time we stop using the word manhours for people that make computer games? Sure, it is almost entirely males that work on them, but men? Geekhours or nerdhours seems more appropriate. Do know that I say this with all love and kindness. I scored 'major geek' on the Geek Test

To put that amount of time spent on a new class that adds pretty much nothing almost amounts to incompetance (sp?). I am not attacking anyone personally, but seriously, who thought this would be a good idea to spend time on? [rhetorical question, please no answers especially since they are not too hard to figure out]. I won't fawn with giddy reverence and say "that wouldn't have happened if Sawyer was around from the begininning", but... As with the patches*, if there was an expansion**, who would be the head designer/decider for such issues? *see on topic! **yeah, like there is any doubt

Sorry if this derails the thread too much, but it IS about UMD, and any future patches have to take into account how easy it is to abuse (maybe across the board increasing the skill check for it? See! Patch related!). Take all this with the grain of salt that I usually play bards or thief/mages, so my characters are all UMD maxed, but can use lots of stuff anyway. Try using class-only clothes (especially monks), evil- or good-only equipment, or class-only items/weapons. Add that onto scrolls and wand usage. How much cash does a wand take? I haven't crafted any, but what, you need a bone wand and a wand crafting feat? Give [again, I'll leave names out] that feat and you'll have all the evocation spells you ever need and won't need her at all. You can fail? That has never happened to me, but I try not to overuse scrolls except in big battles or tough battles [will leave out examples]. In chapter three with a 19th level bard. My high charisma bard with maxed UMD and CHA buffing equipment has been able to use pretty much anything I've come across during the entire game. You get levels fast and furious in chapter 2 and 3. (wait, can't remember if I am in chapter 3 or 4. My character just had steamy hot cybersex, what chapter is that in?) True, very true. Withe 3 and 3.5, fighter are less boring, and in NWN2 they can knockdown, power attack, different archery things (variously patched, but I am not an expert), parry well, use expertise, etc etc etc. Not the bag of tricks that a wizard, cleric or bard has, but still lots of stuff. Plus, they can use almost any weapon effectively, and an armor. So all martial loot is available to them. But I think the point was that while fighters tend to seem boring and all, the warlock is nothing more than a spellcaster with all the interesting stuff and variety taken out of it. Taking a fighter has a boringness to it implied, but taking a 'spellcaster' that is boring? So, to make sure that it is obvious I am talking about the patch: Would any future patch change UMD skill check?

Seems like an odd decision. Warlocks get UMD? Another odd decision, but I know nothing about t3h r000lz version of the warlock. Of course, maybe they can patch the UMD as cross class for warlock? Seems like a fair compromise (since umd is forbidden(!) for the other classes, I think). Joshy, how many man/woman-hours do you think the Warlock took in implementation?

I'm really interested in cleric domains and why the remained the same. It seems that it couldn't be hard to make them the way they are supposed to, but it was obviously a low priority. How warlocks would even be made a medium priority is beyond me, but the time spent on them could have been spent on making cleric domains and a whole slew of other things. I still don't understand the purpose or allure of warlocks, and I refuse to have [spoiler-free name guy] in my party. So, my question is, if Sawyer was lead the whole time, would he have put good better best implementation of domains on a higher priority? I know he mentioned a while ago that he didn't see the point in warlocks (that decision was with Ferret as lead), and without warlocks comes more resources for development. Anyway, back to non-cleric part of the patch: I haven't installed it yet, but can you put voice commands and emotes/behaviors/whatever in the quickbar yet? What about custom text macros? I used these ALL the time when I was multiplayering with friends on NWN1.

Didn't the "3.5 dnd" mod (or whatever it is called) put a thing to customize cleric domains? Let me see.... Oh, god, I'll have to search around later. The thread on the bioware boards said there are undocumented changes including adding practiced spellcaster and fixing archery stuff. What the heck is practiced spellcaster an what was wrong with archery? EDIT: Looked up the thread on the bioboard, and I think they just added spells for every level for clerics. Not quite the same. The other message board It's in that link somewhere

Shhhhh, don't go throwing around True Names like that! Next you'll tell us that Sawyer's True Name is Bishop.

More of a monologue than a dialogue, I suppose, but it's the most colorful thing I have on hand. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> While colorful, it mostly is about shades of brown.

Zaxis and Grobnar, 2 annoying bards for different reasons. Zaxis was badly badly badly voice acted. Just horrible. Grobnar, on the other hand, is annoying precisely because the voice actor did a great job. Grobnar isn't always annoying, but there are many times where I just want to strangle that annoying gnome (like whenever he does his 'battle cry'). When he was [being vague to avoid spoilers] pretending to play an instrument, but really whistling, I wanted to stab him in the throat and say 'pretend to play now'. You can't get under someone's skin like that if you suck as a voice actor. Luckily for me, I play a bard and usually never have him. He uses his bard songs when I tell him not too (bad AI, bad bad!), which is annoying for a total other reason.

I never installed Darklands on my new computer, and after about 3 years I think I may not play it again (combat and dungeon exploration are a pain), but I still love the game. So, as I am playing NWN2, I realize that the system they have may make a pretty good Darklands remake. The overland map (no actual travel and season change though) would fit, and the cities could be majorly expanded from the original game. I'm sure you can script much of the stuff in it like staying at the inn and working. Skill set is another issue that'll have to be worked out. Can you modify the skillz in the game by adding, subtracting, or augmenting the exhisting ones? Can you add feats? Can you change or add classes? There would have to be some finagling (sp?) with the class system, of course. Now, I have no building experience or desire (wayyyy too much to do in real life so I must concentrate solely on playing), but I am sure there are people out there who would take up the challenge. I hope. I know Sawyer is a big Darklands fan, and he worked on NWN2, so maybe the idea is already floating around. Does this sound fun? Do-able? Totally radical kewl?

I bought Lionheart when it first came out. I was jonesing for some SPECIAL action and it had a neato premise. I should have read the reviews first. Barcelona is not really good to begin with. It is ok, but nothing to really buy a game for. The combat was horrible, the interface covered half the screen, and it really really was not that fun. Granted, I didn't get past Barcelona, and I thought it was total crap. I can only imagine what I would have thought if I kept playing. BUT....it is a happy story. I played it for like a week or two and decided it was total crap and didn't want it, so I put it up on ebay. A guy in England bought it for 5 bucks more than what I payed for it (it wasn't released there yet). So, no, the game is not worth it for 8 euros. Even as a limited edition. Even if it came with 8 euros. Even if it came with a copy of Darklands (well, maybe then). Don't get it.

= caps lock I re-bought the game (I sold it after I bought when it first came out). GOTY edition is/was on clearance at Target for $13, I couldn't say no!

Ack, you are right. Dam grammer werds. I guess I was 0wnzd I meant that alignment is descriptive (rather than proscriptive) in a way that certain spells and effects will know what to work on.

Exactly. Only a loose descripter*. I guess I should say something like: t3h win! (is it discriptor or descripter?)

Uhhhh, there is a completed demo floating around? Where could we get our hands on it?

If I remember it correctly, JE was lead designer in charge of gameplay/r00lz/mechanics and Avellone was lead designer in charge of story. Double lead designers. Then SKR cam along and took over for Avellone, who wasn't working on it really that long when the Mass Exodus occurred. I also remember him mentioning VB will have lots of returning frost darts....

An IWD2 thread! [insert snarky reference to many returning frost darts]