Logan

I did a lot of work with the NWN1 toolset but never published anything, I did some of my own scripting though and made some scripts that I thought were nice, ones that spawned monsters randomly or had general random results, most of the boss fights would spawn random text over their heads, saying things like "I'll kill you" and so on. I thought it was a nice touch. Then I got NWN2 and I had to upgrade my video card to a BFG 7950 GT OC, all the sudden I could not use the NWN1 toolset and I could not play NWN1, it locked up. So I basically lost all my scripting (yeah I know I can get it back, I'm just lazy) Then I was out of work for a coupls months and I built 80% of keep on the borderlands in NWN2 toolset as an exercise to learn the tools and to finally publish a module (I always wanted to for NWN1 but could never finish the project, sound familiar anyone?), anyway then life came along and module building went away (I had a baby boy) I had some nice features in Boarderlands, lots of companions and I uncoupled XP from the PC, so no leveling up of all characters at the same time, I also made death permanent for companions and tried to keep magic limited, although it is hard to do that and be fair to all player types. What I want to do is build a mod with the new overland map and try to just paste in community modules to create a super-mod where you could access a bunch of different mods with the SOZ party system, problem is that you would probably have to do some work on the community mods to get them to work right with the party system, and you might piss off some builders by taking their work. Better yet would be to get a bunch of community members to build small mods for different levels and paste them into a overland map, just get everybody to use the same mod template and naming cconventions and agree on loot (I prefer low loot, where you really appreciate the good stuff you do get and it doesnt seem like you can get a +1 to +3 of anything at some Kmart of magic)

first off, get the bounty hunter heavy fighter in the cotez system! the original game is best playing through the storyline, and you can avoid moving the plot as long as you like, you just don't gain levels again until the story moves forward, but this is a good idea. Trade for a while with a freighter, build up a bunch of money, then you don't have to worry about running missions for money the rest of the game. If you want to play multiplayer, go to the Discovery Mod http://www.discoveryfl.com/ lots of new ships, new equipment and tons of new systems, jumpholes ect, fully open play, lots of players who are dedicated role play. You are encouraged to join a faction a role play. the discovery mod and community is really a lot of fun, I burned out after ~60hrs of play, but I don't really have the time for games anymore, anyway

Hmmm. lot of BIS/Osidian titles here, can't say I'm that surprised me BG2 expansion -Throne of Bhaal (I get tired of super high level D&D, too many spells and uber items with abilities, you spend half the time trying to organize the inventory and all the different options for attack, better off playing a straight fighter, also funny when the random villager has +4 items....) IWD2 -By the time I got to the underdark I could not remeber the plot anymore, did not know why I was playing -actually liked the forest maze though NWN2 -Can't remember if I finished or not, stopped somewhere near the end, also getting uber-level fatigue and I hate forced NPCs in party. campaign was just too long, I did not care about the story at all after a while NWN2 MOTB -don't understand the hype, pretty dull + uber levels I finished KOTOR2 -but like Gromnir wish that I had not Call of Cthulu -don't like shooters X3 reunion -too intimidted by the complexity Mass Effect -Just bought it but did not even install, was having way too much fun playing the Discovery Freelancer Mod online, after reading up I don't know if it is my cup of tea One last unfinished "game" I spent many hours building mods on NWN yet never finished one of them, the best one had like 20hrs gameplay when I abandoned it, right now am trying to finish a NWN2 mod (How did Obsidian manage to make mod building at least 5x harder than in NWN1?) that I started in Febuary 2007 and abandoned in May 2007, it is ~85% done.

I was checking out IGN most anticipated games of 2006 and saw that Elder Scrolls IV made every list and usually near the top of the list, which made me wonder if Elder Scrolls III, Morrowwind was any good. (IGN link here) So tell me what you think? Is it worth getting/playing? Should I just wait for NWN2 and DA? Games I've played and enjoyed. BG1,2 ect, IWD, PST, KOTOR1+2, NWN (yes, the OC sucked) I usually like to stick to D&D but I'm open to a new fantasy system. thanks,

Right now I am playing the freelancer Evolutions mod from pathfinder studios, it changes the following... Ship speeds vary by class, possibly also by vessel. Additional mountable equipment (all in several degrees of power and cost), including scanner, sheil capacitor, main power source, power booster, armor, different sheilds that vary in regeneration rate and type of protection. Enemy ships sheild regenerate and use nanbots. Enemy AI is better, light fighters are really hard to hit!! New systems added, new planets added, new jumpholes. New ships, every one I've seen is freelancer themed. see here http://www.pathfinderstudios.com/

I understand there are older games like WC and privateer in this genre (I have not played them) Are there any newer games or games in production? I could'nt really find much.

Dialog is bad, so bad that I kinda like it. As for ship selection, there are mods that take care of this, tho I have'nt played them yet.

Agreed, the game makes you fight constantly, so trade and exploration are constantly interuppted by combat. It's fun to go find some hidden wrecks, but it's not fun to fight 4-5 battles against a slew of enemies just because you flew across the map.

I just got Freelancer about a week ago and have been playing non-stop. The space exploration, combat, and trade system are really cool, plus you can upgrade your ship with different sheilds, thrusters, missles, and laser combos. It is a bit like playing a D&D game except that you outfit your ship instead of your character. The universe is huge and I find the game fairly to very challenging. With more than 40hrs play time I've only seen about 1/2 the systems. That's because the combat is fairly time consuming and random attacks occur too frequently. Anyhow, I was thinking that if you mixed together the best elements of Freelancer with the best elements of KOTOR you would have one of the greatest space games of all time. Freelancer has almost limitless free exploration. BTW, freelancer has excellent cut-scenes during the SP campaign, you can also play MP online without a storyline and several excellent mods add many more ships (star wars, star trek, as well as generic or freelancer themed) as well as more complex sheilding and thruster systems (instead of sheild and thruster you have capacitor, power source, regenerator, ect...) Anybody here play or played freelancer? What did you think?

I got a little interested in this game and was checking out the forum over there, it urns out that they released a demo in late march that was a buggy mess. The developers have been bug fixing and have a list of fixes completed since the demo release. It seems they are pushing back the release to have a higher quality product. Sounds like either sound development or good publisher decision making. In any case, this is one few soon to be released games that I might buy. With the action-oriented combat it sounds a little like Jade Empire but in a classic fantasy/D&D setting with probably a weaker story than JE, too bad I can't play JE, my gaming is limited to the PC. Anyone else interesteed in Dungeon Lords?

I often felt like I shouldn't be designing games for the BG audience because I loathed the NPCs in BG/BG2/TotSC so much. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I could never stand the BG NPCs, I just used the multiplayer workaround to create my own party. No matter how I tried I could not get into them, same with NWN. KOTOR1 on the other hand had great NPCs.

On this board there are some people that claim KOTOR2's story was lacking, that they did not know what was going on or that The story made no sense. On the other hand, many hardcore players say the story was deeper and more engaging than KOTOR1. IMO, since KOTOR2 required you to talk with your companions to undrstand the story, many people have been left in the dark. It is possible to play through the game and barely understand the point of the story. Many previews said that you would require several play-through's to get the full story from all your companions. Did obsisdian make mistake in KOTOR2's complex story? Are some forum posters complaints misplaced? or right on since Obsidian developed such an obtuse storyline? Maybe the subtleties of KOTOR2 will be appreciated with time... but only if a patch comes out soon dammit!!

Everybody here is aping this theme, LA forced the game on Obsidian, yet nobody knows anything. Perhaps, Obsidian was saying to LA, "don't worry everything is under control. We got it.". Blame the publisher is alright, but we really have no idea what sort of communications and contract agreements occured between LA and Obsidian. Scapegoat LA if you want, maybe it's the truth, maybe not. In any case they are responsible for releasing the game, and ultimately responsible for it's quality and content. However, Obsidian, with it's nascent reputation on the line, should have made a greater effort to make sure KOTOR2 was good.

Volo... "Afterall, it's the only D&D game to allow you play exactly like in pnp with a DM." So Basically you disagree with Volo's use the words "you" and "exactly", since you correctly assumed this sentence addresses "your" experiences as to whether NWN is "exactly" like PnP D&D for you. Seems a little nitpicky to me Bishop. I just assumed he meant the only game where you can play with a DM. Besides NWN not reproducing your experiences exactly, can you play as a DM? What other games can you do this in?

I never played games before BG, except Ultima II, III, + V, So I can't judge POR or others. I say BG. The pace, combat, and RP were all excellent. I've been trying to reproduce the BG experience for 6 years, only BG2 came close. Planescape is not really D&D for me, it's a different setting and the game lacked in combat, which is a major feature of D&D. If the vote was best RPG I could understand, as it is I am disappointed with PST's ascendance.

You don't need to talk with anyone else, the plot is advanced by dealing with either the ithorians or Cerka Corp, they will eventually get you off Telos station and onto the planet surface. Bring the blaster to the merchant if you want additional items and darkside questing.

This is funny, on one hand you have the dissenters, on the other, the appeasers. I wonder who are democrats and republicans in this thread and in the case of foriegners, conservatives or liberals? Are the liberals appeasers? or the conservatives? who is the voice of dissent. KOTOR2 is a good game but it has its flaws -too rapid level advancement -way, way too easy combat -incomplete or incoherent storyline -overall lack of focus in game advancement -combat again, did everyone else experience that if you gave commands to a charactrer then switched characters, the player would run off an do some random attack first? I even tried wiping the cammand queue and the player would still attack some random enemy before obeying the next command? I want a patch for this! Its the only reason I'm reading this thread.

I nominate this as the best post in this thread

My Radeon 9600 pro, 128MB sapphire did not have any obvious problems besides ~20-30 random crashes in an entire play-through. I also had most of the options maxed out and the intermediate res. setting, higher res never seems to work with my monitor, an 18" HP LCD, that prefers to run at 1280x1024. (I think I played at that res.) Anyhow, I usually get lucky as far as video settings, I therefore have not upgraded my drivers in some time -I'm afraid if I do the games might run worse.

I just finished the other night. Finishing made it ....eh. Seriously though, there is a lot to like about KOTOR2, the dialog, skills system, and ranged combat is much improved. However, combat was seriously meek. Usually I play games solo to both increase the challenge and to avoid cumbersome NPCs. However, so much of KOTOR2's story is wrapped up in the NPCs that you either have to or should bring them along. For those of you that like the game, do you enjoy the combat? I started a second game when my first was 2/3 way done and tried using just blaster pistols and going solo more. It was a tiny bit more challenging, I do have to say that the replay value was great, even when playing the same sex and making mostly light side choices (even when I try to play dark side I have a hard time choosing the evil path).

So the difficulty modes affect your character's ability to move? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No you dolt, in order to complete the area T3 had to detonate a door, his demolitions skill was too low in HARD difficulty mode, since I had never level-uped T3 the demolition skill was pre-set, yet too low to proceed in HARD difficulty. I was therefore stuck, could not go on. Game over -unless the difficulty level is set to NORMAL.

I had a 9600 Pro. Worked perfectly in NWN and KOTOR. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Me too, I've always had Radeon cards, no problems until KOTOR2, just some random game crashes, about 1 every hour or two. I have a 9600 pro right now. I might consider a nVidia card but I have a Shuttle mini-PC, some video cards are too large or generate too much heat. Anyway, I've always used ATI cards and did not have any problems, until KOTOR2. I have'nt upgraded my drivers in a while, I wonder if it would fix my problems or make them worse?

Multiple replies here Volo "Just because the game wasn't perfect; doesn't mean it was rushed." I should clarify that by "rushed" a don't just mean the time schedule. I also mean the design philosophy. Both you and Ellester claim that I point to minor bugs and that other games are buggy. It is not just the bugs, it is the feeling of a *complete* game, polished. Sure you can point to the NWN OC, but NWN has so far been an anomoly in terms of Bioware "failures". Anyway, Obsidian and others have moved away from a BG style game with slow level advancement and immersive environment for fast levels up, lots of loot, repetitive-XP raising battles and poor playtesting. Sometimes these trade-offs were caused by a short development cycle other times by design descions. In either case, I think that game quality suffers, and over-optimistic development cycles, rush jobs, are at fault. Also, it is true that bugs are random, and every person has a different experience. I played through BG2, NWN, and KOTOR on release, pre-patch without any game-stoppers and without any obvious problems. Maybe the numbers did not always add up, but not that I noticed. I also played IWD and KOTOR2 on release, both contained serious bugs. ToEE on release, I don't need to tell you guys about it, yet I played the entire game without any game stoppers and without patch go figure, it was still a buggy PoS. Ellester "The funny thing is that what is what you feel unfinished happen to be some icons and a bug. Yes they used BG icons and so what? They also used the same spells effects that were in BG and a lot of other crap ... heck I guess they decided it was pointless to waste time on then and moved on to make the game unique content. Everything that was unique in IWD was done, they did not used BG unique weapons icons for IWD." Why do some in BG style and others in IWD style? It screwed with the game's style. Same with spell effects, it doesn't matter if they half-assed it because of design choice or time constraints. It's just not polished. You know, I enjoyed IWD. But it did have it's weaknesses that were not just a matter of design choices. Sargy "...IWD was marketed as an' "ol'-fashioned Dungeon Crawl"; expecting it to be BG was a lack o' research on yer part, not a lack o' anythin' on BIS' part..." Yeah, I was on the BIS boards during IWD's development, I knew what was going on. As I remeber you showed up sometime after that on the new BIS boards posting with some ordinary name like Mike or something, same style though -unmistakeable. I've been on the BIS boards the whole time, Bishop/Red Queen boards, and so on. I knew what BIS was saying about IWD, like I said above, it was a good game, but comparatively uninspired. I don't play a whole lot of games, the games I've played I'll list below BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2 (partial), PsT, KOTOR, NWN, ToEE, KOTOR2 (partial) BG, BG2, PsT, and KOTOR are great games IWD, KOTOR2, and NWN modules are good games ToEE, IWD2, and the NWN OC are poor games. I might give IWD2 the good rating but I've never found the motivation to finish it. So from my perspective BIS/Obsidian made 1 great game, 2 good games, and 1 poor game while Bio made 3 great games and 1 good/poor game that sold very well. I think the design philosophy, the rush job, is a major factor.

I guess... Sure the development cycle was not as short as HoW, IWD2, or KOTOR2. But portions of the game felt unfinished. I listed some examples above, if you disagree then argue your point. I'll admit that I was dissapointed in the boring endless battles of IWD, I'd expected BG without the plot focusing on one main character, ie full party selection. Less disneyesque Bioware crap and a more mature BIS style, ala planescape. IWD was fine, but the overwhelming focus on combat with some uninspiring level design left it wanting.

I just atarted a game of IWD2 two weeks ago, I had never finished it and wanted to give it a go. I found the battles up to the Sharblah bridge to be very difficult. I'm only playing with 4 chars and 2 are dual class, which is much weaker in 3rd Ed. I was pretty impressed with the graphics and dialog, then I left Targos and the endless battles became a bit tedious. My last battle was with the barbarian tribe on the way to the monestary, that was pretty tough. The farthest I've made it previously is to the begining of Dragon's Eye.