Felonious

Anyone here tried it yet? I'm wondering if it holds up to the classic Shadow Keeper and Dale Keeper of the IE games.

I found that my biggest problem with the Hobbit movies were the sheer amount of changes that Peter Jackson made to the source material. In the LotR movies, it's understood that they had to leave out certain persons/details or else it would have taken a half-dozen movies to cover it all correctly; in the Hobbit movies, that shouldn't be a problem, as the source material itself required ample "padding" in order to stretch it out to 3 movies, yet Jackson makes unnecessary and on occassion what seems like rushed changes all the same that actually take away from the Hobbit experience. Beorn could have been much more fleshed out as a character and was a far more important part of the final Battle than the 15 seconds he was given in the movie and that's just one example. I loved the LotR movies; I was disappointed thoroughly by the Hobbit movies.

Joyeux Noel, mes amis

Oblivion; I found myself bored to tears in mere hours. The Neverwinter Nights original campaign ranks just as horrid. I've avoided Lionheart due to the terrible reviews.

Not to nit-pick, but I am curious as to your opinion on how a game could accomplish retaining the ability to be engaging without being fun; if said game isn't enjoyable, are you still going to play it? A game like Spec-Ops the line, or Papers, please, is decidedly unfun. they are bleak, dystopian, and confronting.Yet these games are engaging because of it. Games as a medium for art are beginning to grow up. But if you look at a different medium, Film, you can clearly see that a film does not have to be fun to be engaging. Some films are downright horrifying. You have thrillers, tragedies, film-noire, horror, you have films in which you see people suffer the way through, and it doesn't put a smile on your face. Yet many of these films are decidedly engaging. We need to move away from the childish notion that games are just for children, are just a means of entertainment and that fun is the only way to engage the player. Luckily the medium is, slowly but steadily, growing up. No, you don't need something to be fun to be engaging. Why does something have to put a smile on my face or be childish to be "fun"? Perhaps we are defining "fun" differently and, in that, lies the problem. To me, fun means enjoyable; perhaps it carries a quite different definition for you. If I don't enjoy something, I don't find it fun, therefore I am not going to continue with it. Perhaps we are just debating semantics, a misunderstanding of our positions in this conversation.

Not to nit-pick, but I am curious as to your opinion on how a game could accomplish retaining the ability to be engaging without being fun; if said game isn't enjoyable, are you still going to play it?

Not to stray off-topic, but does this Board have a problem with "Trolls"? Compared to other Message Boards that I have frequented over the years, the Obsidian boards actually seem rather tame.

I am truly envious, Beta access would be marvelous!

I truly enjoyed the Icewind Dale portraits, although I would not be opposed to the more realistic-looking Baldur's Gate/Shadows of Amn portrait types.

It's more like my limited intelligence can't cope with the butchered English, I simply don't bother trying to decipher it, especially when all I expect to find is straw man arguments against mote points. In other words, I just don't have the time to bother with posting counter arguments against someone who so blatantly doesn't believe in anything I believe in. There frankly isn't even anywhere to get started—there are no valid arguments to counter. I read one post of his, saw through it, and simply didn't bother. I also wouldn't be surprised if Felonious is a "clever" secondary (or tenth) account of Gromnir's. It's exactly what I would do if I was attempting the same. While I can assure you that I am, in fact, not a Gromnir alternate account and am more than capable of formulation and iteration of my own thoughts and opinions, I do share his opinion that too much time and resources devoted to the recreation of realism in a fantasy setting can cause other areas in such a setting to suffer due to said resources not being allocated to greater areas of need. Why does agreeing with him seemingly bother you people soo much? Ignore his posts if you do not wish to deal with him, instead of continuing to feed him more ammunition.

I see. I apologize if my query caused an issue.

Do BioWare employees frequent this forum?

I believe you are oversimplifying his stance; from what I decipher from Gromnir's posts, he feels that Mr. Sawyer attempts to impart too much reality into his fantasy world development, to the point where the infinitesimal details of realism can absorb creative resources which could have been better served being utilized in other areas. Do not let your anger at his style of posting, baiting as it may be, blind you to the fact that he does carry some knowledge and a valid point of view into this discussion.

So what I am led to understand from the latest sway in this thread is that it's best to ignore Gromnir, even though he makes some very valid points, due to his in character posting style and penchant for a bit of embellishment, I would imagine for entertainment purposes? Sound logic. I truly hope that this thread is simply an aberration and the rest of this Board is far less close-minded. Pity.

I always treated it more like "mages don't use physical weaponry due to their ineptitude with such things, as they spend their time training in their own arts". Looking a tit from that point of view made the restriction easier to put up with.

While I don't agree with the above poster's take in referring to Mr. Sawyer as simply "wrong", I do agree that attempting to add too much realism to games can do more damage than it does good; there is little need to delve into intricate details in order to maintain the illusion of realism in a fantasy setting.

I joined these boards. Hello.

Agree totally. And, as with most games these days, a mod is bound to be released to bypass/remove the cap regardless, hence everyone is happy.

For Bioware games, I would have to say that the Baldur's Gate series has the best companions; if we are adding Black Isle Studios/Obsidian Entertainment games in the equation with them, then my vote would be for Planescape: Torment.

I must agree, my experiences with the unfortunate differences between what Bioware games promise compared to what they deliver has made me quite skeptical, to say the least, with any of their future releases.

Is this truly a problem here? I understand that there are and should be limits to the abuse that people can get away with just because it is an internet message board, but you also do not want to curtail simple expression, a la the Bioware Social Network.