~Di

Okay, I lied. This is just to clarify a couple of points since we obviously aren't communicating well, and I don't want to just remain silent when you have made new statements that obscure or twist my original meanings, even though I know you didn't do so in a rude or malicious way. Miscommunication, I'm sure. As many other posters have pointed out, BG didn't establish CRPGs. Fallout preceeded BG and Fallout was preceded by the goldbox games, among others. Hell, the chronology of CRPGs on wikipedia stretches back to 74 (something which surprised even me). Again, your response to my comment ignores that said comment was in response to a comment of yours. The statement you quoted from me was in response to your allegation that: So I pointed out that the BG series was BioWare's first major success, therefore they had that success before having anything to "capitalize on". In other words, your allegation that they were only successful by capitalizing off something that they had created made no sense to me. Yes, I know Fallout came first. There were old-time crpgs, but they were few and far between. In the 90's, there weren't many developers doing crpgs because fans weren't buying them. Even Fallout was a nitch game with few but adoring fans until the success of BG brought hundreds of thousands of gamers into the crpg fold (myself included), where these new gamers learned of Fallout via word-of-mouth, extending its shelf-life by years and firmly establishing it as a classic... and a valuable franchise. These paragraphs are a bunch of words that say nothing about my initial comment. I still say that it's one thing to criticize the work produced by an individual or a company; it's quite another to stand on one's hind legs and arrogantly proclaim that an individual or company is incapable of producing anything different. You are not in a position to know what these people are capable of; you are only in a position to know what they have produced (that you have had access to) and to judge what you have seen based upon your own taste and opinion. You may write a novel-length essay to refute that, but the fact remains that it is not something that can be refuted. You cannot know what others are capable of, especially not a whole bunch of people whom you have never even met. You conveniently left out your other two quotes, probably because you couldn't figure out a way to spin them. If you truly do not dislike BioWare as a company and don't want to be misunderstood by others, you should probably refrain from making statements like these on a public forum: "I think Bio would love to make Bioshock-kinda money, they just don't have what it takes to deliver something that novel." and "Ultimately, I doubt DA will be much different than previous Bio games, not because they're afraid to try something different but because they lack the know-how." You are entitled not to like BioWare, but at least be honest about it rather than talking out of both sides of your mouth, then doing the denial tapdance when you are called on it! Now this is just wrong. You cannot possibly believe that KOTOR was just BG all over again. That's just silly. JE was hardly a BG clone, and from what I hear of Mass Effect, there's no conceivable way it could be even remotely considered as the same kind of game, i.e. BG, all over again. I must confess, I honestly don't understand where you're coming from. I presume you'd say the same about me, lol! Anyway, just wanted to set the record straight on the above points.

That makes no sense at all. What on earth are you trying to say here?

BTW, there aren't really antibiotics in cleaning solutions. I think the word you're looking for here is antiseptic or antibacterial. Most antibacterial products contain the active ingrediant of chlorine bleach or plain old rubbing alcohol. There's no way I'm going to stop disinfecting my cutting board after dismembering a raw chicken! We wouldn't have to wait for the bacteria to evolve, since we'd probably die of salmonella poisoning first. The advice about taking antibiotics is spot on. When one really needs them to fight a serious infection, the entire dose must be taken as prescribed even if one is feeling better after a few days. Misuse of these drugs, both over-use and under-use, has been documented as at least a participating cause of these new, frightening superbugs.

Correction. I did not say that the boundaries between crpgs and fps are blurring; I said that there are people like myself who know the difference between a crpg and a fps that touts itself as a crpg. Glueing feathers on a pig and calling it a rooster doesn't make it one. Then how do you account for the immense success of the BG series in the first place? There was nothing previously to "capitalize on", and when the BG series came out it was clearly innovative... not to mention wildly popular. I believe that the BG series is responsible for establishing the entire sub-genre of crpgs. I've already said that I agree there is a thirst for dark, gritty, games with themes and stories I personally find unpleasant. I just don't have to like 'em, and for a fps to get my gaming dollar it has to offer me more than the opportunity to choose between slaughtering little girls or saving them, or running around Chernoble trying to beat other scroungers to the goodies. I've already said I liked Torment and Fallout, but comparing a couple of decade-old games... undisputed classics!... with The Witcher seems a stretch to me. And I have explained in detail why I choose not to purchase The Witcher even though I had initially considered it, so I'm getting the idea that you are not really reading my posts, rather skimming them for sound bytes you can argue with! Could have fooled me. You said, "I think Bio would love to make Bioshock-kinda money, they just don't have what it takes to deliver something that novel." You also said, "Ultimately, I doubt DA will be much different than previous Bio games, not because they're afraid to try something different but because they lack the know-how." You also added, "The writers at Bio are hedgehogs, not foxes." That isn't a criticism of what BioWare has produced; You said quite clearly that you didn't believe they were capable of producing anything else, which is something you are not in a position to know... unless you have access to the personnel records, work histories and resumes of everyone in their company. And it certainly would make the reader of those words presume that you do not care much for BioWare. It sure as hell did make KOTOR a darker game overall. Good God, man, you made your wookie murder his best friend just for sport... and that was after you had personally slaughtered most of the rest of your crew! You don't think that's a bit on the dark and distasteful side? I do. Anyway, I've repeatedly said that I haven't played Bioshock, so I haven't called the game itself distasteful. There are themes and premises I find distasteful, like the GTA series. Again, I don't like the premise I've read about Bioshock, and I don't like first-person shooters wearing feathers and crowing about being a crpg. Nor do I like the premise of slaughtering little girls, even though I'm aware one can choose not to slaughter the little girls, but if a game's premise makes me shudder, I'm moving on. Bioshock is not my cuppa on many levels. However, most would agree that it's got a rather dark story and a rather dark theme (unless folks on various game forums are making that up), so I don't know why you're so vehemently trying to prove that it isn't. Do you own stock in their company or something? Probably no sense continuing this discussion since I honestly don't think you're really reading my replies in depth... or maybe I just can't explain myself well enough to be clearly understood. It's been an interesting discussion though, and I thank you.

How many units did Bioshock actually sell? I think it would have to be pretty impressive to beat the combined number of BG 1 and BG 2, which I've heard is 4-5 million units. Sure, over a period of years Bioshock and many other games may beat those figures... I imagine a lot of fps's have already beaten them. The fps genre is massive, much larger than the crpg nitch. Thing is, I happen to think there are a lot of gamers like me, gamers who define stark differences between rpg's and fps's, although some developers seem determined to blur those lines by assigning the rpg to a fps. I suspect Bioshock is such a game; I suspect STALKER is such a game; I know that Dues Ex (one of my all-time favorites) was such a game. The ability to add limited changes to a character does not an rpg make, in my view. Most fps's, I suspect, have much larger sales than most crpgs. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Frankly BioWare is one of the largest crpg developers in the business, and has a huge fan base for its games, games you seem to lump in the "happy shiny" category. If what I like in a game is so rare (and I like BioWare games), then BioWare would have a very small fan base of that tiny, tiny minority like me. The very fact that their fan base is as large as it is tends to prove my point. And I know for a fact that there are a lot of gamers who don't take the evil route in crpgs because they find it distasteful to do evil things, so I doubt that makes me some kind of anomoly. I'm curious why you are fighting so hard to prove that I am. I do agree with you that consoles are taking over the gaming market. I saw this coming a decade ago; even had some heated discussions with Gaider and other BioWare and Black Isles developers who assured me that PC gaming would never die. Fair enough, it's not dead yet. But it's on a respirator, with the best games being snapped up by Microsoft and Sony as exclusives. That doesn't surprise me, but it does disappoint me. For various reasons, I'm not a console person... and on principle it annoys me that one must invest hundreds of bucks every couple of years to buy the spiffy new console version (which of course will not play games from the previous version) just to use the latest productions. I suspect BioWare has enough talent to make any kind of game it wants to make. Just because you might not like the kind of games they do make doesn't really put you in a position to judge their abilities; it only puts you in a position to judge their products based on your personal gaming tastes. And I ask you again, did you follow the Dark Side in KOTOR? If so, I don't see how you could keep harping that BioWare is unable to create a dark theme.

After reading this article, I want to run out and get an X-Box to play this clearly pornographic and morals-dessicating game. What?... He lied on every point? Mass Effect is simply a well-made, story-driven, sci-fi role playing game with a few seconds of romance to culminate hours of dedicated wooing? Er... I can't make my PC with a size 40-DD and hump everything that moves? Well... damn. Cancel my X-box order immediately. *sigh* I hate election years...

I think you're picking out of context sentences without understanding the full scope of what I'm saying. Probably I'm not expressing myself well. I did say: "I wasn't just referring to those games, BTW; they just happen to be the most recent releases that popped to mind. I find the entire concept of the GTA series to be... well... pretty gross and horrific. Their popularity is, IMHO, rather depressing." I thought that would clarify that I wasn't just picking on those three games, but what I consider to be a sub-genre of its own, that in which an unrelenting bleak universe is touted as a selling point and marketing as "reality". I haven't played those three games, nor any of the GTA series. My decisions on whether a game will be to my taste or not comes from the game's own websight, what they stress about the story and the purpose; from detailed on-line reviews; and from forums discussing each game in depth. I don't object to The Witcher because the main character is a social outcast. In fact, I've asked a lot of questions about it and it was one of the games I was considering dispute the juvenile use of females as purely sex objectss. I decided against it for two reasons: It's too much of a resource hog, and it really was constructed as a strictly a "guy game." No reason for me to buy games that I am fairly certainly will annoy me with blatant sexism and locker-room humor. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, if one isn't bothered by such things!) One's choice of games is in the end strictly personal. No two people will always agree. Of course the tone and theme of a game is important to each of us in those choices. At the end of the day I want to feel as if I've had fun, and have not been vicariously engaged in activities that make me feel... well, icky.

If it's true that all the kids want to play so-called 'dark' games like Witcher, Bioshock and STALKER, then it's only natural that Bio should make a so-called 'dark' game to compete. Perhaps so, but I don't have to be pleased by it. I wasn't just referring to those games, BTW; they just happen to be the most recent releases that popped to mind. I find the entire concept of the GTA series to be... well... pretty gross and horrific. Their popularity is, IMHO, rather depressing. Two separate sentences in my statement, although I can see have you might have combined them. There has always been a touch of gratuitous sex in crpgs. Heck, brothels were a staple of crpgs from BG 1 on. In Fallout 2 and Arcanum, among others, you could even buy yourself a few minutes of bliss, and female players could trade sex to complete certain missions. Silly to be sure, and definitely geared to the horny adolescent players. I understand that in Witcher it has evolved to the point that the main character can nail anything with a pulse, and get trading cards to prove his sexual prowess! Of course all such escapades are optional in these games. At least so far. Thus, I can basically avoid things that I find purile and not particularly fun. Most of those older games also had a sense of humor about themselves, a tongue-in-cheek kind of parody that did not take itself too seriously. It seems... from what I've heard and read about many recent games... that they are taking themselves much more seriously and touting their content as "realistic!" Er... realistic on which planet, I wonder. Torment was about as bleak as I could tolerate, with NO ripping off his own flesh and writhing in agony. The brilliance of Torment was that the crux of the entire story made NO's suffering acts of atonement instead of masochism or sadism, which permeates some games. As you point out, crpgs have always had lots of killing. That's what adventurers do... they kill monsters and bandits and bad guys, hopefully to make life better for those they run across rather than making life worse. Of course, I've never followed the "evil" paths in the earlier games, and really can't understand the appeal of murdering innocents, slaughtering the helpless ... or forcing one of my devoted followers to butcher his best friend to honor a blood vow for my own dispicable enjoyment. This kind of thing really makes my skin crawl. I also avoid vampire games as well, since the idea of spending hours biting necks and keeping my fangs tidy does not sound like jolly good fun to me. So far the games I personally have chosen allow distasteful cruelty to be optional... but yeah, it kinda bugs me that it's so popular to be brutal, vicious and evil, even in a computer game. Not my cuppa. When games evolve to the point where the entire story revolves around brutality and selfishness without the option to redeem oneself or give anything positive to an otherwise bleak universe, then that's not the game for me. Period. From what I've heard of following the dark path in KOTOR, I'd said Gaider and company have proven they can do unrelently evil quite well. Thus far Bio games have also offered options for those who want to feel good about their impact upon the game world. If DA allows the same options, then I'll be fine with it. BTW, I don't consider "dark" to be "morally complex", unless you define "morally complex" as a game where all your choices are between two evils, and no matter what choices you make your impact upon the game world will be overwhelmingly negative and bleak.

I've been dying to find a Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga partner. Do you have a PS3? I presume this is rhetorical sarcasm, although I honestly don't see anything in my post that deserved it.

I've been looking forward to this game for years. However, I don't much like the sound of unrelenting bleakness that they are stressing. Unlike folks who enjoy what I call "unpleasantly gritty misery and mayhem" games, I like to feel happy and satisfied when I finish a game, not utterly depressed and in need of a shower to wash off the taint. Bio is one of my favorite developers, so I'll no doubt buy this game on faith alone.

Huh? "Anti-immigrant types"? Are you seriously lumping anyone who wants the border secured against illegals as anti-immigrant? There is a world of difference between being prejudiced against anyone who wasn't born in one's own country and simply wanting immigration laws enforced. Good lord, I know hundreds of people who have immigrated here, legally, and from just about every country on the planet. I even sponsored the citizenship of a Filipina woman whom I hired as an accountant when I was a finance director. I'm trying not to be overly sensitive here, but even vague implications that anyone who wants the borders secured is some kind of bigot chaps my hide.

No, I haven't. In fact, I've been a bit ambivalent about whether or not to try it. Reviews are rather mixed, and I've heard that it's definitely a "guy" game, since women in the game world are only there to insult or have sex with. That would annoy me. Also, I've heard there were performance issues. Some say that it really requires 2 gig of RAM (I only have 1 gig), has horrendous loading times, impossible frame rates, etc. You have any problems like that? Oh, FYI if you do try JE... "Leaping Tiger", baby! The best martial arts style by far!

I had always thought it was a simple fight game... kind of like "arena wars" or something. Fair enough, there's a lot of fighting... martial arts (choose a style!), weapon (sword or staff), and even magic if you like it (fire or ice). I found the fighting actually fun as I learned to roll away, block, do backflips, etc. You don't have an inventory as such, so you don't run around looking for armor or spiffy weapons or pawnable stuff, so it's not particularly Diabloest at all. It is quite linear, though, and the reason is because it tells a very deep and (for me) engrossing story. I hadn't expected that, nor had I expected the plot twist that made me spit coffee on my keyboard! You also take on a motley crew of companions (you can only take one at a time, but can switch on the fly) with interesting backstories and personalities. All in all, I thought it great fun. The combat was more fun for me than combat usually is (although the flying mini-games made me nuts!), the companions were a hoot, and the story really sucked me in, since for me a great story is the key to a really enjoyable RPG. Obviously, not everyone liked JE... but I did. Edit: just saw your last post. Yep, lots of dialogue, lots of choices on whether to be good (Open Palm), not-so-good (Closed Fist), treat your companions kindly or not, romances if you want, the usual fun stuff. Bright and colorful, fun Chinese-style music, an Easter Egg place where you can earn more of your "skills". No real blood and guts all over the monitor, but a fun romp all the same. (That's not to say there weren't some gut-wrenching scenes and personal loss in the story; there was plenty of emotional impact)

I've seen more than one game shelved after years of development... and so have you. Supporting one's old games is hardly evidence of what form their new games will take, which should be obvious. As of now, DA is the only PC game on Bio's schedule (I don't count the MMO, of course). The last PC games BioWare developed were NWN1 and KOTOR, both of which are many years old... and of course, KOTOR was concurrently released on XBox as well. Of Bio's latest offerings, Jade Empire was console, ported to PC a year after its XBox release, Mass Effect, which is an XBox exclusive and according to BioWare there are no plans to ever port it to PC, and on the drawing board is a Sonic role playing game for the Nintendo DS. The article that started this thread states that its information states that Jade Empire 2 will be an XBox exclusive as well. I'd say that information taken in total pretty much enscounces Bioware as fairly serious console developer. I'm not happy about that since BioWare is still my favorite developer, but facts are facts. Jade Empire was a terrific game, and if by some chance JE2 ends up on the shelves with a PC version, I'll snap it up in a heartbeat. I don't know squat about the accuracy of Chinese history as portreyed in the game, nor do I particularly care. It was delightful fun to play. That's enough for me!

I absolutely loved Jade Empire, much to my own surprised. I am disappointed... but not totally surprised... that if this rumor is true, Jade Empire 2 will be XBox only. BioWare has been inching that way for years, and with Mass Effect has totally enscounced itself as a console developer with PC as a distant afterthought... if at all. The one RPG for the PC that BioWare has been working on for what, five years now?, is Dragon Age... which has neither a publisher or a release estimate. I've seen too many wonderful games on the cusp of completion totally shelved over the years, and when I read that EA had bought Bio out, my first thought was that it sealed the last nail in Dragon Age's coffin. Hope I'm wrong. That happened once...

We are a country of immigrants. *Legal* immigrants. Unless we can track our roots back to Native Americans, we are all born of immigrants. Now fair enough, legal immigration used to be simply arriving, announcing that we were here, then going about the business of making a living in our new home. However, there's a huge difference between legal and illegal immigration, and only those who have seen the immense local problems wrought by a massive influx of illegals (of any racial group) seem able to fully grasp the difference. Every nation has immigration rules and regulations for the very simple reason that it's in every nation's best interest to know who is in the country and where they are. It's simply a proven fact that the US economy cannot absorb anyone and everyone who wishes to be here at any given time. No country can. I don't understand why the US, which has always been a beacon to immigration from all over the world, is suddenly dissed because it cannot support up to 20 million (and growing at over a million a year) in illegals who in order to survive must steal social security numbers, identities, and undercut wages with unscrupulous employers... who, by the way, are not being punished as the law says they must be punished for knowingly hiring illegals... when it is the citizens and legal immigrants who bear the brunt of misery caused by the theft and sale of their personal information to illegals. As for allowing illegals to serve in the military, no way. Anyone here legally should have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. Illegals, however, do not even have the right to be here, and I certainly take a dim view of using poor and desperate people as cannon fodder by dangling the carrot of legalization in front of them. It's not only immoral, but it seems unconstitutional to me... "we'll ignore our federal laws as long as you are the right age and able bodied enough to die for us. If you're too young, too old or too weak, it's deportion for you!" I mean, come on. I want the borders to be secured... really secured... and I want legal immigration quotas for Mexico and Central America to be massively increased. Only when our borders are controlled and we know who is in our country and why they are here will we be able to control our own security and economy.

I'm going to come out of my WOT self-imposed retirement to comment on this story... and comment on some comments on this story. First, girls are not more emotionally unstable than boys. Teenagers of both genders are, however, more emotionally unstable than non-teenagers. This is a biological fact, folks. Second, the speculation about genetics and parenting is both insulting and ludicrous, and no doubt was made by someone who has never raised a child to adulthood. Come back and talk to us again when you have. Women are like that, dude. I'll presume that sexist piece of pap was meant as a joke, but in case it wasn't I'd like to point out that four times as many males commit suicide as females, with both white males and white females at the top of the suicide list. statistics here Now to those who are blaming the grieving parents for being responsible for their child's death because they were overprotective or whatever, bollocks. Utter bollocks. Anyone who has raised teenagers knows that any one of them can go from the top of the world to life is over based on incidents most adults would consider minor annoyances... and y'know what? It's not the parent's fault; it's not normally even the adolescent's fault. It's nature's fault, a combination of frightening and bewildering hormones clashing with a concurrent biological need to assert individuality and leave the nest at a time when their brains aren't even finished developing. Gfted1, I know how much you adore your little girl; however, after she reaches puberty, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. The good news is that she'll outgrow it in a few years, and be your precious daddy's girl for the rest of her life... but trust me, there will be some adolescent years that will leave you in emotional tatters. Now, as for the dirt-bag neighbor (who knew this girl, and knew of her ADD problems), I agree he should be held accountable for what he did. I mean, lord. Adult men go to jail for pretending to be teenagers in order to woe little girls over the internet, and since the girl in question considered this non-existent boy to be her "boyfriend", there was no doubt romantic talk involved. So we have an adult conspiring to present a fraudulent personality and romance and 13 year old child, and when she is completely enamored... trusts him... he begins a vicious public assault on her. Any parent knows how important peer acceptance is to an adolescent... thousands of teenagers each year commit suicide because of bullying and harassment and estrangement from their peer group. When that kind of vicious crap is instigated by a grown-up, we suddenly give the guy a pass, blaming not only the victim (who was a child, dammit! but the grieving parents as well. These parents did everything right. They monitored her closely, made every attempt to supervise activities that experience has repeatedly shown can be dangerous to young people. Yet their very diligence is now being used by some here as the reason their child died? ...While basically shrugging off the deliberately malicious act that precipitated her death as no big deal? That's just wrong. Just wrong.

LOL, not really. Once I gave the Spirit Meter a lengthy and fair chance, I decided it had to die, then searched out a handy way to kill it. After that, the game was great fun! I looked at it as what Obsidian had always said it was, a way to keep people from resting after every battle, thus forcing them to soldier on without easy access to healing and combat spells. Cripes, as if having a control-freak husband isn't enough!! Now my character was heavily magic-dependent, but she could still swing a mean greatsword. I cannot imagine running this game, Spirit meter in tact, with a pure wizard. I can just imagine limping toward Gulkrash at the end of the skein and having nothing left to fight her with other than stabbing her in the nose with a tiny dagger. (Yes, yes, I know all you mega-gamers out there have already beaten MOTB solo, naked and with your legs tied together, but I'm not that advanced!) The Spirit Meter "design feature" just wasn't my cuppa, that's all. Still, I really loved most everything else about MOTB, and can't wait to start my next campaign!

I've already conceded that it makes sense, because the curse of spirit-eating is the core of the entire story. I loved the story. I just found dealing with the spirit meter to be annoying enough and tedious enough that it broke my immersion in the story itself. Ditto on the BioWare forums. I rarely venture an opinion over there, because no matter what is said somebody will take umbrage. Anyway, I gave the Spirit Meter a go for several hours, and think I had a pretty good handle on it. Thing is, it still just annoyed the heck out of me. It was quite doable (except for one particular maze-like area where death is imminent unless one has been through the game once, and can fly through the level at warp speed)... but doable doesn't mean that it wasn't tedious and decidedly unfun. For me, anyway. It does. But my mind was always churning with whether I dared travel, or whether I dared talk to someone I may end up fighting with a depleted meter, or whether I could wait for dark so I could use a portal and hunt for spirits... and my mind doesn't like so danged much multi-tasking during it's "enjoyment" activities. I'm blonde, after all. Eh, everyone enjoys different things. I personally dislike rushed or urgent quests... Fallout 1 made me leap out of my seat screaming NOOOOOOO... but I know a lot of other people like the adrenaline rush of sweat pouring into their eyes. I like the story element best, and want to savor the moments of seeing every inch of real estate and chat with every chattable character in the game. I didn't like watching my death thermometer or feeling panic that I might go to an area where I wouldn't be able to recharge myself. For me, it wasn't fun. *shrug*

I pretty much agree with Grommy that it was a diversion from gameplay... and for me, a diversion for immersing myself in what was the most intriguing RPG story I've run across in a long time. Actually, I did use Eternal Rest, but my problem was having to tromp back and forth to keep my meter up. And trust me, there are places in this game where you are unable to leave and there are NOT enough spirits to keep your juices flowing, if you know what I mean. I simply got sick and tired of the diversion and the annoyance of spending more time watching that meter than having a long exploratory conversation with interesting peeps I'd met. So I got rid of the annoyance and thoroughly enjoyed the game!! Edit: Oh, and if I want to rest then I'm gonna rest, dammit! I'm far too pretty to have bags under my cute little elven eyes.

Well, Flopsy and I finished the game. (Thanks to Rob McGinnis for directing me to a user-made mod that allows me to turn off auto-summoning of familiars). Overall, great companions, interesting story, a worthy expansion! I loved Gann, Safiya and Okku. The Dove, well, she was sweet enough but too narrow-minded and driven. It was difficult to be pragmatic and keep the feathered one happy. Still, I was saddened by her fate. I'll have to study the posts in here to give her a happier ending next time. On the downside, words cannot express my hatred of the damned Spirit Meter. I understand its necessity, since the entire game was centered around it... but damn. If it wasn't for the cheat code that let me ignore that utter and complete annoyance, I probably wouldn't have finished the game, because there was no way my lawful good character was going to run around sucking up souls... and then end up hooked like a junkie on heroine to boot! That was sadistic designing, pure and simple. *shudder* Evil characters were probably in their glory, but good characters... let's just say that using Suppress isn't all it's cracked up to be. Either way, I spent more time running around looking for spirits to suppress than I did actually immersing myself in the story and playing the game. Phooey on it. Still a big thumbs up for me (thanks to that beloved cheat code), and I'm ready to start a new campaign, starting fresh with a brand new run-through of NWN2... I love that game. So, Obsidian, you are 3-for-3 with me! The Sith Lords, NWN2, and now MOTB... all utterly terrific games, and high on my all-time favorite list!!

Okay, here's the scoop. Trial and error discovered that the familiar would not summon UNTIL I gave up control of my PC to take control of a companion. When I did that, the "Scaled Spellcasting" Behavior kicked in, and summoned the familiar. Now I could have turned off all spellcasting capabilities in the Behavior Menu, but that means that if I take control of another companion during a battle, my PC won't have access to use any of her magic. So I did a DebugMode "removefeat 303" and got rid of my Summon Familiar feat. (I wondered why I lost hp's every time that danged rabbit died!!) End of mystery... but I never, ever had this familiar automatically generated during the NWN2 OC. I don't know what has changed, familiar-wise, in MOTB but obviously I don't care for it! I shall not broach this topic again. Honest. Really. Like, I'm outta here!

Quiet you! I don't need any help making myself look bad. I'm quite the expert at that!