PsychoBlonde

I have yet to meet anyone who beheads themselves 1 out of every 1000 times they swing a sword. Critical and fumble tables like that are just absurdly pointless, they don't add anything to the game other than a ton of paperwork. They are similar to hilarious gag items like the Sphere of Annihilation. Critical hits and critical fumbles only EXIST due to the restrictions in pen-and-paper for modeling extraordinary situations, because people don't want to spend 2 hours after every. single. attack. calculating where you hit, how hard, whether anything vital was damaged, how it was damaged, etc. etc. etc. Those critical fumble and hit tables were a sketchy nod toward "realism". They are neither necessary nor advisable in a computer game because the computer does excel at making precisely those types of calculations at speed and without effort. This is why, in action games, you can chop off enemy limbs, heads, disembowel them, or make their head explode into giblets. The best way to handle crits is to get an item with Heavy Fortification on it and knock off for lunch.

I don't know about leather "armor", but 17th-century cavalry usually wore buff coats made out of leather because many of them could not afford a cuirass. Heck, even modern motorcyclists wear leather to protect their legs. And shoes do prevent some damage, it's why we WEAR them. Try kicking a chair leg some time in bare feet. You're likely to break your toes. With shoes on, it barely even hurts. I wear heavy leather gloves to protect my hands when I'm doing yard work. There are a lot more dangers in combat and travel than somebody hitting you directly. Even minor cuts can become dangerously infected (or, worse, transmit tetanus), and in an age with no antibiotics, this is not a minor problem. Wearing heavier clothing when you're going to be traveling through the wilderness can be a good idea just to avoid various scratches. It also appears that most leather armor is made from cuir boulli that is laid down in plates to make a form of scale or lamellar armor--it is much like a piece of wood in durability in its final form. If all you studied was ancient history, it's not surprising you didn't run across it--this type of armor was used predominately in the 14th through 16th centuries, not during the Roman Empire.

Heh. I can't forget which game it was (maybe Eye of the Beholder or Dark Sun, it was a while ago), but due apparently to some dyslexia or cross-eyed developer issue, EVERYONE in the game was left-handed. I kid you not, the main hand weapon or shield ALWAYS went in the left hand. It was hilarious.

I just recently reinstalled NwN2, and I'm reminded of just how nice the automatic updater was for it and Neverwinter Nights Original Flavor. Please have an updater like this appended to the game if at all possible. Don't make us manually look up and install updates. Also, kudos to Obsidian that it's still possible to automatically update their older games. Gj you guys. U R OSSUM.

I would much rather that you get perks for a new character every time you complete the game, but I like to start new characters.

It's been my experience that something over 50% of combat grunts sound more like something obscene is taking place. I play with headphones but I'd kind of prefer that it doesn't sound like I'm watching a porno to passersby. (DDO is HORRIBLE about this, by the way, the elven chicks sound like they're in the part of the hentai where the tentacle monster appears.)

I don't have an opinion either way--if it's in the game, I'll use it, if it isn't, I won't. The only game I've played that had an actually interesting mechanic for this was, wait for it, DAGGERFALL. No, I'm not kidding. You could buy a horse and a cart (and a ship and a house IIRC), and transfer stuff directly to the cart by going back to the dungeon entrance. It worked for the type of game Daggerfall was, i.e. 95% procedural and also since 95% of the gameplay also took place inside dungeons. Does that mean it'll be a suitable or desirable mechanic for this game? Your guess is as good as mine at this stage.

It'd probably be easier (and better) to have a system where it just randomly rolls every so often to have one, singular companion (or the PC) issue a bark, instead of rolling for EACH companion separately. I will say I like the system for crits in Torment where there'd actually be a special visual involved and not just a bark. Hearing Vhailor grunt "Die!" over the tilting scales was a great one. But that was also more suited to the somewhat surreal nature of Torment.

This is actually inaccurate. The evidence is all on the low-carb side. The studies are all on the low-fat side, studies which produce results like "on a diet of 1200 calories per day for 2 months, an average weight loss of 1.3 pounds was realized". No, that's not a joke. Heck, you know what Weight Watchers considers to be "success"? Losing like 5% of your desired weight and keeping it off for six months. Whereas, when you talk to people who do low-carb diets, you hear endless stories of "I lost 25 lbs the first month with no hunger" (which is not unusual--weight loss slows dramatically after that) or "I'm off my diabetes medication". If you talk to doctors who used to prescribe low-fat and now prescribe low-carb, you here testimony like "I now actually expect people to be able to improve their health" instead of "I'm resigned to prescribing more and more medication as their health spirals downward". Now, the fact that low-carb is a better diet does NOT mean that there aren't people who haven't lost a significant amount of weight or improved their health via low-fat diets or other means. These people always exist, and if they can benefit, good for them. The thing about low-carbing is it works even for people who CAN'T lose weight any other way. I have met a few, very few people who didn't have at least some weight-loss success (meaning, 20+ lbs, not 2 or 3) by low carbing (and some who later regained some of the weight they lost), but even so they usually realize other health improvements. Some people do have metabolic problems that even the most severe carbohydrate restriction can't resolve--they're going to get stuck with 20, 30, 40 lbs that they can't get rid of. I expect to be one of these people, in fact--when you've got 250+ lbs to lose it's unrealistic to expect all of it to come off, although some people do manage. Gary Taubes is working with the Nutrition Science Initiative in order to get proper studies done in order to better establish the actual causal relationships that drive fat accumulation. One of the big problems with low-carbing is that there's little authoritative advice, so if you're going to do it, you pretty much have to perform a lengthy N=1 experiment on yourself. I do expect, however, in the next 10 years as these studies complete, we'll have a much more in-depth and accurate picture of what additional factors aside from the general glucose metabolism system can drive and interfere with metabolism, and even the people who experience little gain from low-carb will have good alternatives. But that's how it stands--low fat/exercise only works for a tiny proportion of the population, and usually only if they undergo extreme deprivation. Low carb works for a HUGE proportion of the population with no deprivation, and with a tiny proportion leftover who clearly have something else nobody yet understands going on. The fact that there are 1000 low fat diet books and 2 or 3 low-carb ones doesn't mean that they're all equally valid.

All of those terms apply equally to Shaquille O'Neil btw, and he ain't fat. I prefer "Bulge-alicious" or "Well-padded". :D I just wish I could bounce like Poe in Kung-Fu Panda. I would NEVER use ANY other form of locomotion.

Smart and unwise, too. Yes, this can be a lot of fun. I also get a laugh out of Damien Sandow of WWE fame, he's such a delightfully over-the-top caricature of an intellectual snob. Sand from NwN2 was great, too.

You like characters wearing purple armor?

Just a note--in a recent research study, the researchers had a large group of overweight women between the ages of 40 and 60 "do cardio" (as in, an hour a day, 5 days a week) for a YEAR. Average weight loss: 4 lbs. Yeah. That's HUGE. /sarcasm "Doing cardio" is not going to make you thinner. It only works for people who are genetically predisposed to burn off excess calories via exercise. For people who are predisposed to turn calories into fat it will simply make you ravenous and exhausted. The predisposition to pack on weight is SO STRONG that obese mice (who share this same genetic predisposition) will *starve to death* with their fat tissue still untouched, having cannibalized all of their muscle and organs first. If you are fat, the problem isn't that you eat too much or exercise too little. The problem is that your body is keyed to turn calories into fat. Losing weight means doing something that causes your body to consume fat instead of storing it. That doesn't make it necessarily any easier--every fat individual has a slightly different metabolic and genetic makeup, so you have to find what works for you through a process of experimentation, trial and error. In general the necessary first step is to eliminate most carbohydrates from the diet, because carbohydrates trigger your body to produce the fat-storing hormone insulin in quantity. However, reducing your insulin levels via a low carbohydrate diet, while a positive step, is not always sufficient for everyone. Some people must go so far as to enter what's known as "nutritional ketosis", taking in under 50g (and sometimes as extreme as under 20g) of carbohydrates per day so that the muscles and brain primarily fuel themselves from ketones which are metabolized from fat by the liver. Wheat elimination seems to play an important role for many people. Modern wheat is not the same as the ancient Einkorn variety grown in Biblical times--the modern crop contains insanely high levels of many chemicals apart from and above the gluten that so damages full celiacs. The wheat we eat now actually acts as an appetite-stimulating opiate while spiking blood glucose levels (and thus spiking insulin production and fat storage) worse than pure sugar. Other negative aspects of wheat involve destruction of the digestive tract, both allowing harmful toxins to enter the bloodstream AND preventing the digestion and uptake of vital nutrients. This causes many people to experience problems as diverse as arthritis, acne, autoimmune diseases, chronic gas, diarrhea and constipation, mental "fog", and even the onset or worsening of schizophrenia in particularly sensitive individuals. It is a perfect storm of body-destroying anti-nutrition. And most people consider it the ultimate diet staple. But, by all means, continue dishing out your worthless advice backed up by no science whatsoever. I'm sure every fat person dreams of losing 4 whole pounds after a year of terrible effort and grinding exhaustion. Or, if you're interested in losing weight in a way that actually works with your body chemistry instead of attempting to pretend that you have a skinny person's metabolism, you could try eliminating wheat and drastically reducing your carbohydrate intake. This has the added benefit that it can result in reduction or even elimination of acne, arthritis, gastrointestinal upsets, acid reflux, nutritional deficiencies, leg edema and neuropathy, water retention, diabetes, mental "fog" or other symptoms of mental illness including depression, anxiety, and even schizophrenia. And that's only the smallest part of the list. I've done all of that over the past year and a half. To date, I have eliminated the following medical problems: joint pain, crippling leg edema and water retention, chronic constipation, nutritional deficiencies, sleep problems, chronic tiredness, depression, and anxiety. Oh, and I've lost 100 lbs. Still got a goodly ways to go, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Don't take my word for it, though, look online and there are plenty of resources about low carbohydrate diets and wheat elimination and how to tune them to your particular metabolic needs. And, as far as "fat-ism" in the game goes--I don't mind jokes about fat people as long as they aren't mean-spirited and clearly revealing a total lack of basic comprehension. Being fat isn't, in itself, bad for you, it's a symptom of an underlying metabolic condition. I'd appreciate the opportunity to play characters of varying sizes and builds even though they're going to be TINY--this, at least, is a cosmetic difference you'll be able to SEE. I like what they did in SW:TOR, my housemate currently has a pudgy Jedi character he named F'Albert, and we both just find this hilarious. Yes, our taste in humor is a little bizarre--he's also made a sun elf earth-wizard character in another game that was based (in looks and personality) on Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. I liked the body slider in NwN2, but it only made you wider so you looked like a normal person instead of the (to me) weirdly attenuated super-model build you get in most games. I have yet to meet someone that bony who displays serious athleticism or muscle tone. All the strong people I know (and I know quite a few since I got involved in this low carb and strength training business) have some meat on them. It's HAWT.

Also Zeetha and Lucrezia Mongfish. And Mama Gitkha.

I would really, really like it if it's possible to play the PC very much in the theme of either Granny Weatherwax or Sam Vimes. It disappoints me sometimes that the PC's potential personality seems to get so little attention. Yes, I know, they don't want to force it down our throats, but if its one option of four that hardly sounds like forcing. You can have 2 bland options and 2 personality-filled options. They don't have to be the same personality all the time, either--if you're trying for a given personality, that's when you pick the bland ones. I really enjoy all the characters from Girl Genius and would like to see characters in that line.

They meant to type "Arcanum" and wound up with "Call of Duty". This is why you shouldn't spill kool-aid on your keyboard and then attempt to make a survey.

I really enjoyed Planescape: Torment, but I'd rather have the character customization and exploration of BG1 and 2. Actually, I'd really like to have the characters from BG2 and the exploration from BG1. MAKE IT SO.

Ugh, don't remind me, DDO recently added tail attacks for the new dragons in the epic content. Nothing turns a powerful character into a chump like having a dragon one-shot kill you WITH ITS ASS.

You had fewer possible party members in NwN, and mine would usually wander off because I couldn't control them directly. At least that way, I didn't have to listen to them all the time.

Although this does assume that magic is accessible and reliable. If only certain strong-souled people can do magic (particularly if they're snooty about sharing), the rest of the population is going to want a replacement that doesn't involve coping with the moods of some primadonna spellcasting twit. Magic may even DRIVE technological innovation if the 99% are constantly trying to solve the eternal "nothing can hurt a mage but another mage" problem.

Mass production of interchangeable gun parts was invented by Colt, I believe (and even then, he made claims about it before he had the process working, the history is pretty amusing). Prior to that, guns were like anything else--each one was custom made by a single craftsman, and if it broke, you'd need another craftsman to fix it. Colt's system of being able to swap out one part for another on the spot is part of what made his product so successful.

Except that you could do pretty much the same things with both of them. The big exception, of course, being Teleport. Hence why I usually played a mage type, cause doodling across the map in slow motion made me nauseous after a while. The major problem with having both magic and technology is that in games magic is basically another type of technology. So if they can stack while magic generally can't stack with itself, now you've got one particular area with twice the bonus. Granted, if magic generally does stack with itself, there's no mechanical problem, and it all becomes an aesthetic choice. That being said, I'd like it if actually magical firearms are pretty rare or even nonexistent. From the lore they've mentioned technology and magic have very different levels of advancement in different areas, so it may be much like Thedas where the cultures with firearms are also the cultures with the least magical development. It doesn't really make sense that you'd see a lot of magic and gunpowder weapons from the same source. Early gunpowder weapons are hideously unreliable. Magic is generally a lot more reliable. So if you can enchant a wand to throw fireballs why in the world would you waste time and effort farting around with a bunch of chemicals that may blow up in your face. The main difference may be one of scalability--it's a lot easier to make TONS of gunpowder than it is to produce TONS of magic. In which case you'd undoubtedly see explosives being used for large-scale tasks like blowing up bridges or boulders.

I replayed Dragon Age 2 not long ago, and it was really amazing to me how the combat sounds. Not because of the explosions etc., but because your companions WON'T SHUT UP. It's especially bad because I was playing a blood mage, so the average combat sounded like this: Hawke: Need . . . mana! Aveline: You're not getting past-- Varric: How many you-- Hawke: I can't keep this up! Varric: We're keeping-- Sebastian: Maker I'm-- Hawke: Need . . . Enemy: RRRG-- Aveline: You-- Sebastian: . . . good! Hawke: . . . mana! You can't tell WHAT's going on, and the chances of you actually hearing something useful like "I'm getting hit!" is basically nil. I loved the combat taunts and battle cries from Baldur's Gate, sure. But please use them responsibly. Don't have every companion in the party attempt to shout their battle cry simultaneously throughout the entire combat. There are sure to be PLENTY of fights, everybody will get their chance even if the only time a battle cry is issued is right at the start of combat. Even this may be too often to prevent undue repetition. And if you're going to have companions bitch about getting hurt and so forth, please try to keep in mind that we have health meters FOR A REASON and keep this to a minimum.

It is easier to destroy than to create. I've gotten used to instant-death stuff in DDO, and it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it used to because they actually do a decent job of balancing the fooking things. It's not like 2nd edition AD&D where there were about 15 spells that all insta-killed and your chances of avoiding them were not so good. DDO has straightforward ways of avoiding insta-death: death ward and deathblock items prevent them flat out. However, there are plenty of other effects in the game that can do so much damage they can kill you in one shot on a failed save. You learn to use mitigation and to DODGE THE STUPID THINGS. The only thing that's still problematic is the beholder antimagic cone combined with negative levels. Death ward goes away (antimagic!) and deathblock doesn't stop negative levels. But there aren't that many beholders in the game, and they're more of a tactical issue than a *monster* per se. They don't fill quests with dozens of them, so you know they're coming and you can use your own instant-death, stun, etc. abilities to cancel them out quickly. Plus, every good RPG should have the opportunity for moments like Aerie disintegrating the dragon. :D

Or that heats metal to 10,000 degrees. These spells wouldn't be against wizards who wear armor, though, they'd apply against EVERYBODY who wears heavier armor. Which is as it should be. You don't need to give casters a special penalty for wearing armor in order to encourage them toward robes. For instance, my Arcane Warrior in Dragon Age wore the Reaper's Vestments (robes) even though she could wear armor because with them she could get a 62 armor rating whereas wearing actual armor left her 12 points shy of that. No joke. What you do is make it so that the benefits of heavy armor apply more to melee classes than to casters, and the detriments don't hurt most melee types too much but DO hurt casters. How to do this? Lots of ways. Here's one: armor reduces your ability to avoid being tripped or knocked down and it takes you substantially longer to get back up again after you've been tripped. Presumably the fightery classes will have the mighty strength or dexterity to avoid getting tripped, but a caster wearing heavy armor and getting up in melee will spend most of their time flat on their ass, defenseless and unable to contribute to the fight. Here's another: heavier armor reduces your ability to dodge attacks, and most of the attacks that will be directed at range are the type you can dodge better than are absorbed by armor. Anything short of full plate armor won't protect you much against arrows or crossbow bolts. Here's a third: certain damage types do MORE damage if you're wearing heavier armor. Lightning bolt, anyone? Or they could make it that someone wearing heavier armor takes a lot more damage but absorbs the bolt so it doesn't continue on its path. This would be a great thing for fightery types with lots of health/stamina, but your caster may want to avoid this situation like the plague. Here's a fourth: all the really awesome suits that increase your spell abilities are robes. Sure, you can wear armor, but all you're getting out of it is a slightly higher AC, while the other dude who's NOT wearing armor is doing half again as much damage AND regaining mana every time he gets hit.