Rhomal

> I think it would be a matriarchal society, the males would be the homemakers and the women the strong warriors (kinda like Lions). Aside from that...not really sure. It'd probably FIT for them to be a more primitive race...hrm, maybe tree dwellings in the forest? Dunno. I like that idea. Base them off the social setup of the african great cats. I agree a female based society. The females are the warriors(hunters) and child rearing. The males do the other half of child rearing and 'homemakers' as you put it. How do you see religion on such a society? I am torn on making them have a strong religious system or make them more or less atheists. The great cats to sleep/eat in trees. So it would make sense at least part of the buildings would be in the trees. > It should be said though, that there's enough barbarian races as is. I think the Drow should have a more advanced civilization, but that's just me. Aside from the desert human barbarion tribes lothayron does not have much in the way if major barbarion presense. And IMO its a bit more 'realistic' (that R word again.. heh) that their society would devolve after being forced under ground. It also gives them real motivation to be *issed off at the surface elves. Thats one thing I dont really see/get with FR drow. They have cities that rival most of the surface nations and have a decent level of quality of life. So what are they all bent out of shape over still? They are prob doing better in the underdark then they would be on the surface. Hence, I see that as a very weak argument why they are still upset at the surface.

As a former catholic while I did not agree with many of his stances (and one of the reasons I left the church) such as birth control, abortion and sex before marriage I do agree with those above. Those political differences aside he did some amazing work and did what he felt was best for the world. My only issue with him as a person was his either ignorance or mostly ignoring the church child abuse issues here in the US.

Sin City was stylish, well acted, well written (as far as it could be taking the source material into account) and kept you on the edge of your seat. The CGI was excellent. If there ever was a way to capture the feel of a noir comic to film this was it. Masterpeice in every sense of the word. As for the violence issue, the comics are violent because this world is. Its not violence for violents sake, it because thats the world these chars live in. And sometimes there is no rhyme or reason for violence it just happens. But in this films case while somewhat violent it wasnt done mostly with reason IMO.

Exitium? Oh yes, I remember Exitium from the old BIS forum, always behaving like a pompous, self-important ar*e ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Agreed. He really thinks hes someone special by the way he seems to put down everyone else down and insult them in 'news' postings. Issue with his self esteem if I was to take a educated guess.

It's just a joke. Don't throw a huge fit. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Seems I am now a "Idiot" http://www.nwn2news.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=50

Now this I like. I have always liked the idea of using a feline race as a major element in a setting such as this. My only concern would be will nwn2 allow such? (if not as a PC even if just an NPC race of models). I am not sure bit I have a feeling we wont even get a humanoid feline NPC race. But that aside, just for kicks, lets toss some ideas around. How do you envision such a race on this setting? what kind of society? religion? etc?

Attention? Please.. like I dont get enough of that already... In fact more so then I'd perfer. The fact is there was no feedback given that I found specificly useful. 'Its not ground breaking orginial' (which wasnt my goal) does not really help me in any measurable way. Nor does saying 'its like setting x', of course it has elemetns of this or that. As does most other fantasy. Neither feedback is very enlightening or helpful when you state the obvious. Now if someone was to say 'well you could take aspect x of the dwarves you've written and add element y, that would be cool.' Now THAT has substance and something one could sink their teeth into from a feedback standpoint. As of now, I havent seen anything of note except general comments that could almost be applied to any setting/work.

I suppose I should add.. the idea of a no over riding theme was mostly inspired from the setting of Harn. I really respected the fact it was just a lot of detail and background but no over reaching plot/theme. It was like a can of play dough. it all ready to be used, you just have to mold it how you'd like. I took the same mins set with lothayron.

> Ah but the issue ends up why? Because I wanted my own world with the themes and setting I envisioned. No other setting quite has IMO the mix of low magic and classic middle ages feel. Again the fantasy formula isnt broke. Thus I see no need to do something to radiaclly different to it for no other sake, then breaking the mold. The mold works which I beleive most of us agree with. So its a matter of views, degrees and personal preference. Thats my take anyways. I appreciate all the feedback If anyone has idea for the various elements i'd be happy to hear.

So much to reply too.. hehe.. here we go > Low magic... *cough* I

Really? I find that quite interesting. I say that because I GREATLY dislike the fr setting and was aiming to develop the anti-fr. For example the low magic.. None the less I would appreciate it if you peeps could point out exactly how it is in your opinion like the FR. I would be very interested understanding that. The sources & inspiration I took for it was LotR (of course), the movies excalibur and legend, and ancient history (specificly the roman empire and its period, middle ages middle east, and dark/middle ages british isles.

A few things. a. A agp or pci express video card will always be better then onboard video (unless were are talking laptops). Also only the high end onboard video does not used shared memory. b. I bet your $200. flat panel has around a 25ms repsonse time. What that means is in any high action gaming your going to see noticable ghosting on screen. For a gaming flat screen you need a 12ms at worst for no visable ghosting. c. AMD XP and AMD64 have superior gaming performance over the pentium line. d. hyperthreading/dual cpus only matter if the software takes advantage of it. 99% of games do not. hope this clarifies

And happy Ostra to all the Pagans out there as well (After all you christians did steal this holiday from us )

Years ago I came up with my own custom fantasy setting which is currently named Lothayron. Over the years with the help of some kind folks who have contributed it has grown to a fairly robust setting. It is a low magic world. I have recently gotten the urge to revisit it and do some more development work with it. I would appreciate getting some feedback on it, suggestions, constructive critisism and the like. http://www.nwn2news.net/modules/wfsection/....php?category=3 I appreciate your time. p.s. I should add, I suppose I took the idea of a theme of no theme from the setting of Harn. That to a drgree was a influence on my world as well.

irc.nwn2news.net be happy to host your room if you'd like

> The only reason why an OC was even included was fans of the Bg series (including myself) bugged them about it. Over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. BIO's biggest mistake on NWN was listening to the whiners like me. Specifics aside why it was included (which is realy moot at this point) the point is it was by most peoples assesment sub-par. > So, instead of getting a perfect toolset, we got a great toolset that coula been better and an OC that while I and many others enjoyed was not as good as BIo can do as evidenced by their previous work and their work sense including HOTU. That's the reason why the OC gets so much flak. Not becuase it sucks outright. It's just that after the Bgs eries; people expected God's Gift To Single Player Games. Heck, even in this very thread, Hades finanly admitted it was (abysmally) average which is what I've been saying all along. On this level I agree mostly. I beleive BG did set a bar very high (either out of dumb luck or raw skill). So high in fact they had little chance of succeeding wth NWN1 on a critical acclaim level. > As for experienced devs doing a better job. i just don't know. Afterall, when Troika was formed, they had some of the most experfienced game devlopers ever most notbaly Tim Cain whose been in the business for nearly 20 years and they still screwed up their company. Personally, and I am sure the FO fans will harp on me for this, Tim Cain IMO is a one hit wonder. Nothing moved me to buy any of his games after FO. Do I think hes a skilled dev? Yes. Do I think hes up their with say Sid who produces hit after hit after hit? No. If the law of averages ever came into effect were someone of moderate ability produces something of higher caliber then they normally could do Tim and Fallout would be the poster child for that IMO. With that said, a moderat skilled dev like cain <> good business man and vise versa > "I beleive -now- if Bioware did nwn1, it would be x3 better then their initial attempt. As they now have the collective expereince and skill to IMO pull it off much more successfully." > Of course they would. It be silly to think otherwise. Afterall, NWN has been out for nearly three years so BIO has lots of feedbakc on what NWN did both right and wrong. This is (obviously) why NWN2 should be better than NWN1 - Obsidian has all that info. Then again, I thought the same for KOTOR2 and I was wrong. <> But, i'm sure Obsidian learned from their mistakles with KOTOR2 and Feargu's comments about needing an internal QA illustrates that they have. That's a good thing. Indeed.. every start up goes though growing pains. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt IMO on the first release. After that IMO their get out of jail free card is used up. > All true. Of course, as Drakron mentions, BIO did have other games. Their story guys were also working on BG2, TOB, and even KOTOR. Remember, NWN was basiclaly being planned even as BIO was developing BG1. It wans't like their story guys were playing tiddlywinks; theyw ere likely working on BG2 and other games. So this reaffirms my opinion they more or less bit off more then they could chew with NWN1. I think when you get to the core of the issue, thats it. They had a. too much on their plate and b. didnt have the collective skill as of yet to pull such a massive project off 100%. > Ahh.. But, NWN is a quality game. Very few if non quality games get successful expansions otherwise. Nor would Obsidian be working on NWN2 if NWN1 wasn't a quality enough game to warrant a sequel. I am talking specifics, the OC. Generally speaking yes it is. I have said several times myself, as a WHOLE its a excellent game. But if you start talking about specific parts some are vastly better then others. That was what I was refering to. > Realistic? I dunno. Afterall, accoridng to them their graphics will be the Best Ever tm, their Story will be the Best Ever tm. , the Toolset will be the Best ever tm. That doesn't sem to be relaistic in a 2 year span even with an alreayd made engine. That said, I figure NWN2 will be a greta game; but I doubt the OC will be as good as the best games in the business. The overall package will kick behinds though. Now your putting words in their mouth. The ONLY quotes I have seeing saying factually we will be amazed is the new FX engine. They has said they HOPED we will be floored and the like with the new OC and I do not recall one dev posting about how great the toolset will be. In passing they may have said 'yes, its going to be better' or such. But thats expected. I tave talked to a few devs in the irc room, and that all seem quite confidant that have the right amount of time to get what they want done. So I have no issue giving them the benefit of the doubt if they are secure in the timeframe. In the end if they cough up a hair ball then they will certainly suffer the repercussions. But its really IMO to early to make a firm call on if they have enough time or not. We can go around and around all day about this but until we get the game in our hands and see the polish (or lack of) its just speculation by some ppl on the forums who never brought a game to market. My 2 coppers

My comment to Drak was on a totally unrelated topic. He apparently is not aware of the influence publishers have over start-up developers. Hence my comment. The first part, unlike the second, I wasnt trying to be sarcastic. I feel he is ignorant (ie uneducated) on the topic. As far as the 5 yrs issue, I am well aware the OC wasnt in development in 5 yrs. But if you know anything about game development you know its not a linear progression. You dont all work on the FX engine, then all work on the sound system, then all work on the toolset then all work on the OC... The team is dymanic, different people work on different aspects of a game. The toolset guy does not take away from the story guy does not take away from the FX guy. Thus yes, 5 years is more then enough time to get a quality game out the door. But at that time Bioware did not have the collective experience to do such a massive project justice and things slipped and suffered. Just the fact they tacked on the OC at the end of the dev cycle from all indications I have seen shows me at least there was some planning issues with the project. More time was needed IMO for it. In the hands of a, at the time, a more expereinced dev house I feel nwn1 would have been a much better game. I also beleive aiming for ultra low h/w was a poor decesion as well. Something I am glad to see Obsidian is correcting in my eyes. I beleive -now- if Bioware did nwn1, it would be x3 better then their initial attempt. As they now have the collective expereince and skill to IMO pull it off much more successfully. The reason I am confidant in Obsidian is the fact of the massive amount of expereince of the team, the fact they dont have to re-invent every wheel and they have realistic goals IMO. Thus 2 yrs I feel is a fair amount of time.

Keep in mind, they are not building the majority from scratch. They have a code base to start with. The only re-inventing of the wheel is the graphics engine and toolset, the rest they are just modifiying. That in itself saves a lot of time IMO. My 2 coppers

I more or less agree. Bioware had FIVE years on nwn1. How much more time did they need? They have 2 yrs for nwn 2. Which I feel is reasonable for what they want to get done.

Frankly, I think: a. Your totally ignorant on the topic. b. Your talking out of your arse. My 2 coppers

Atari acually made the decesion to move the forums. When your paying the bills you can 'request' things like that. heh..

Indeed. Nutty Boo as seen here: http://www.nwn2news.net/modules/xcgal/thumbnails.php?album=9 Started as a joke by one of my reporters Thapthim. In one of his dev news postings shortly after nwn2 was announced, he make a joke about a Squirell that was planted inside the OE offices by us at nwn 2 news to 'ferret' out information. Well the developers read that on the site and started making remarks about Nutty Boo in a few of their postings.. and he took a life of his own there after. Been a ongoing inside joke since with ferret, the kommander and frankk..

Neverwinter Nights 2 News is very pround to announce a exclusive interview with Lead NWN 2 Developer Ferret! But it only gets better! We will be interviewing most of the NWN 2 developers on a bi-weekly (more or less, may vary depending on their work load) schedule! So this will be a on going, exclusive feature from NWN 2 News just for you NWN 2 fans! The interviews will consist of their background, their views on the gaming industry, their likes/dislikes and I even managed to throw a little bit about NWN 2 in there as well. The full text can be found in the article section here: http://www.nwn2news.net/modules/wfsection/....php?category=1 Enjoy!

When talking a sequal, you look at the first game as a indication, you do polling of likely buyers, you compaire it to similar games sales wise. How do you think Bioware (for one example) came to the conclusion another expansion for nwn1 wouldnt bring the returns needed vs production cost? Its what all publishers do to weigh the pros and cons of developing a game. All I am saying is the data availiable I am aware of is the first game sales wise. And its sadly not good. If he knows of some other data that a publisher would look at then by all means point it out. But like it or not thats all a publisher is going to base their decesion on. Will it make a reasonable return for my investment. If the data present says no its very doubful a publisher will move forward.

Whatever he touches seems to turn to gold. He certainly has a sharp mind for great game concepts. I too would like to see it a little less cartoony, art wise, but otherwise the gameplay and concept seem to be a excellent idea. I will wait a bit farther in development though before I make a call..