Gromnir

Correct me if i'm wrong but didn't Temple of Elemental Evil do just this. Also you might wish to investigate the Ultima series, their use of reagents was quite well implemented, though a lot of work. Yup. ToEE does it for certain spells with a cost component, and item creation costs experience and gold as well. It works well too. it worked poorly in toee. item creation cost is hardly unique to toee, as that is actual kinda the norm in crpgs, but in toee, the spell casting cost were implemented in an extreme limited and irrational manner. some spells had d&d rule book costs, others did not have any costs and sometimes it were perplexing to try and figure they why behind the distinction. example: from a practical perspective, identify spell became useless as the 100 gold component cost to cast were the same cost for vendors to identify. no alchemy skill, so potions needed be identity by the silly spell or vendor. craft magic wands ability most lucrative use became crafting wands of identify 'cause identify were borked. and hey, if you really wanted to know that scather were scather, you could save, cast and reload. toee did d&d combat well, but we sure wouldn't use spell component costs as one of its strong points. HA! Good Fun!

we mentioned already that the ultimate antagonist is less than memorable and that the end is terrible. lead-up to some kinda titanic battle in the forgotten realms universe "underworld" only to find that your battle is kinda pointless and what you Really gotta do is fight your Id or some-such silly nonsense. that should be enough. regardless, the sleep mechanic were poorly implemented and added nothing save a minor annoyance factor to the game... unless you is perhaps newish to D&D and didnt know how to build an unstoppable juggernaut character, in which case the skein portion o' the game could very well be frustrating to the point o' utter stupidity. speaking o' skien, motb manages to include the only truly disappointing ravel incarnation in an obsidian/black isle game, but that very well could be chrisA's fault. only six companions, and 2 gets no real development. so, with only 4 we shoulda' gotten best efforts, yes? no. development o' companions were staying right at the surface-- what you saw is exactly what you got. with the exception o' the bald girl, all characters were little more than their hook. the bald girl, on the other hand, were boring. perhaps game were too short to develop a clone companion that coulds somehow grow beyond the founder's plans for her. or maybe not. we didn't care either way, and that is a flaw. etc. ultimately, motb had some intriguing pieces that just didn't fit together particularly well and the big picture formed by those individual pieces were kinda disappointing. however, we will concede that as much as we loathe pen & paper d&d at high/epic levels, motb did a good (not great) job o' handling level 30 d&d gameplay... other than aforementioned spirit-eater/sleep mechanic. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir you are horribly and egregiously wrong about Ziets, he is a very talented writer and very creative ...and he knows how to write meaningful Romance you could be correct that he is a talented writer, but we don't know 'pon which to base that-- surely not motb. am honestly uncertain what he did for fo:nv, but we don't recall meaningful romance in that game, so we doubt you is using that game as a reference. am admitting that we is likely not giving zeits his due, but am not certain what work of his deserves greater Gromnir consideration. HA! Good Fun!

zeits... zeits... that is the guy who did motb right? the game with the ultimate antagonist nobody recalls, and a typical-for-obsidian horrible conclusion? he contributed to fo:nv, yes? am not certain what his contribution actually was, but fo:nv were an ok game... kinda. *shrug* maybe he runs a charity for the homeless, or is a virtuoso juggler... first man to climb everest with a live poodle in tow? am not getting the fascination with zeits, but perhaps he gots qualities beyond game development of which we ain't aware. HA! Good Fun!

Great year, which is why General Joe Colton, the original G.I. Joe, uses that number to access one of many secret weapon caches. the original g.i. joe were... nobody. in 1963, hasbro comes up with g.i. joe doll as a boy's version o' mattel's barbie. the term "GI" as a generic term for american soldier had actual started as early as world war 1 and were kinda an accident as at the time much American equipment were stamped G.I. for galvanized iron and somehow that evolves organically into a general term for Government Issue. the thing is, G.I. Joe doesn't enter public consciousness 'til after a 1945 movie, "The Story of G.I Joe," staring Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith. as it happens, there were no soldier named Joe in that movie. and now you know... and knowing is half the battle. not that you wanted to know, or is made better by knowing. HA! Good Fun!

That didn't stop you from 100% agreeing before. it is unlikely you get a developer to admit such stuff anymore. josh got himself in trouble on a couple occasions by being too vocal. one time, during iwd2 development, josh publicly suggested that monte cook's ranger were better than wotc's but he observed than in spite o' rule zero (am oversimplifying as josh had a long list o' reasons and rationale... including fact that monte cook were the guy who designed the official wotc ranger) wotc wouldn't let him use monte cook's ranger in iwd2. immediate after the poop storm hit, all josh's posts on the matter were deleted, and fergie stated that josh made no such claims in spite o' the fact that all the posters here saw and read josh's posts. it were sad, funny, and almost surreal. see, fergie realized that someday obsidian might needs work with wotc or bioware or whomever, and were bad to make an arse of self... even if you were being truthful... and mostly right. in a similar situation, there were more than a few post toee apologists posting here, at atari boards, and at rpgcodex. troika blamed failure of toee on everybody but self. Gromnir and others noted that black isle made iwd in less time than troika got to make toee and it ain't like atari forced troika into the schedule that were agreed to. unlike toee, iwd were made with an engine that were not developed in-house and for at least a few black isle developers on the project, iwd were their first game. were other handicaps noted, but for some reason, the engine thing kept annoying the Legion of Cain-- fans o' troika suggested that getting to use the ie engine were making things easier for black isle. and this is the point at which a black isle developer couldn't hold back no more. the developer seemed almost angry at suggestion that black isle folks had it easier making iwd, and so he described just how difficult it were to work with the ie engine. black isle built a better game in less time than did troika. but again, cain is working for obsidian nowadays, so am doubting we sees a rehash o' that developer's fiery denunciation. is a handful o' posters who will recall such events, but when developers is open and honest and angry, it is typical a mistake-- ain't gonna see such unless they forget themselves in the heat of the moment. lord knows you ain't gonna get them to repeat their mistakes public-like... unless you can kinda goad 'em into it. HA! Good Fun!

Please! I played through whole PST unpatched and it was fine. The game became a bit slower after a few HOURS of playing, so you just had to save, quit and load it back up. But to call it an "epic bug"? You're bending the facts to accommodate your viewpoints. *chuckle* so, the anecdotal experience o' bester trumps feedback from the boards back when ps:t were released? HA! you do realize that more than you alone played ps:t, correct? we said "for many people." if you were one of the lucky folks who could play ps:t unpatched, good for you, but don't assume that your experience represents the experiences of all/most/or even many players. "well, when i played game X..." as a response to observations 'bout a game being buggy. is ... cute. HA! Good Fun! I know a lot of people who played it and they were fine too. But ok, if you think it was unplayable, then you should easily be able to get me some proof on the internet, because people already posted on forums at that time. Back your claims with topics of tons of people claiming it's unplayable. I was on many different forums at that time and people were discussing many things, but never technical problems. hyperbole gets you nowhere. we said "many." though, if you genuine wants to use "tons" we would happily defer as that is probable a smaller amount. figure an average o' 150 lbs per player... so, evidence o' 26 people... +/- 1 or 2? that should be easy enough. heck, more than a couple people on this board has observed that they had significant tech issues with ps:t. as you is no doubt aware, the original ps:t fora is gone. josh sawyer were the board monkey at the time, but we doubt he chimes in to admit that ps:t were buggy and unplayable for many. this were fun though... we typed "technical problems bugs planescape" and gots loads o stuff. were some folks complaining on nma of all places 'bout the one-of-many bug we forgot about. patch 1.1 notes mention a game stopper we forgot: inability to get out of ravel's maze. *chuckle* appropriate. is endless loops in sensory orbs. gamespot retrospective, which is otherwise glowing, mentions the terrible memory leak which slowed game to a crawl. etc. so, even without access to original interplay boards, you gotta be willful obtuse to pretend that ps:t weren't a buggy game... buggy enough to stop some folks from playing/finishing. HA! Good Fun!

multiple endings is neither difficult nor unique. by definition, is nothing that comes after the end. therefore, one need not be concerned with bifurcations or continuity in creating such endings. wanna make an end wherein the hero dies unexpectedly 3 yrs down the road? on way back from 7-11 after buying a dr. pepper big gulp, the protagonist finds self caught in a seeming spontaneous and epic dragon v. nun battle and ends up a pointless casualty-- is never determined whether cause of death is 3rd degree burns, or strangulation with rosary beads... or diabetic stoke from all the sugar in the big gulp. make small changes to scenario to add to ending total. depending on important choices in game, the nun in question were either a catholic or buddhist nun-- important difference. has one ending wherein protagonist lives happily ever after w/o suffering nun homicide. for male protagonist in happy-ever-after, wherein he romanced with a female companion, the joyous couple have children... which would be different than same-sex happily ever after 'cause no kids would be included in that ending. one ending has protagonist ruling tyrannically over some fief til he gets murdered in sleep by a chambermaid who were terrorized once too often. another ending has saintly protagonist helping the poor of calcutta, only to be murdered in sleep by a homeless man who wanted the hero's shoes. etc. depending on how minor the differences is in the 40 endings, we see nothing nothing significant in such a number save that once again bio gets to be misleading. HA! Good Fun!

Don't let facts get in the way of your trolling Gromnir. As I said, this has nothing to do with BIS. oh well, if you said it, it must be true. say it again and maybe it will stick, right? but this is getting mighty repetitive. "Also, the fact is Nepenthe said (unsubstantiated and pure speculation) that the coding was a disaster that miraculously worked." again, black isle made similar observations about the ie, so while nep did not support, the claim that his observations is unsubstantiated is making you look silly. you try to imagine-away the fact that bis made same/similar observations as nep... which is why bis IS relevant no matter how many times you do the little kid routine: pre-adolescent screaming "no it isn't" over and over as if volume and sheer stubbornness will make truth. well, say something new. please. HA! Good Fun!

Please! I played through whole PST unpatched and it was fine. The game became a bit slower after a few HOURS of playing, so you just had to save, quit and load it back up. But to call it an "epic bug"? You're bending the facts to accommodate your viewpoints. *chuckle* so, the anecdotal experience o' bester trumps feedback from the boards back when ps:t were released? HA! you do realize that more than you alone played ps:t, correct? we said "for many people." if you were one of the lucky folks who could play ps:t unpatched, good for you, but don't assume that your experience represents the experiences of all/most/or even many players. "well, when i played game X..." as a response to observations 'bout a game being buggy. is ... cute. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir. I'll see if I can make this as simple as possible for even a 5 year old can understand. Overhaul has some of the original Bio developers of the original game. You also claimed Bio "knew how and why things worked". Overhaul had access to the original code, despite not having access to the original art assets. Overhaul having the original game, the original code, and some of the original developers are now 'enhancing the original game'. What we have with the EE's is something different to the original game and in a lot of ways not for the better. Overhaul introduced new bugs to the original game when they tried to enhance it. This has nothing to do with BIS. Never has, never will. But keep trying to introduce those red herrings if it makes you feel better. If for some reason Obsidian decides to do an enhanced edition of PST and the IWD games, having some of the original developers from those games already working at Obsidian, then your analogy may apply. That would be the level playing field. Since Obsidian are not enhancing these games (PST/IWD), then for you to talk about BIS is just a fail attempt at trolling. Thanks for highlighting to the forum your selective and ridiculous trolling analogies. guess we gotta make simple enough so you can understand... seemingly more simple than 5 year old. bis had access to the biowarians when they was making the ie games, and that didnt help em either, did it? so, as 'posed to having access to the guys who actually built the ie engines at the times they was made, you got a handful o' ex-biowarians who often were only tangential related to code, trying to makes the windows 98 era ie engine run smooth in windows 7. gosh, what could possibly go wrong? regardless, and 'cause you keep seeming to miss the freaking point, black isle guys claimed that ie were terrible to work with. "You've never done any programming I see. Coding disasters don't just miraculously work. That's an insult to the programmers and other people who worked on the games. It also implies that the programmers didn't know what they were doing at the time with their coding" those were YOUR comments. we noted that black isle folks, while hardly the ignorant rubes you wish to paint nep as, used the ie-is-a-confusing-mess argument over and over and overandoverandoverandover. so, even if ie worked, if it were a mess and illogical and tough to work with as the Black Isle folks have suggested, then we suspect that a handful o' biowarians trying to bootstrap ie into windows 7 functionality over a decade later may be reaping some o' the problems that were sown by bioware sooooo long ago. is no red herrings save for your ignorance... which is, ironiclay what you tried to claim were nep's problem. the mere fact that baldur's gate worked (after many patches btw,) doesn't in any way diminish the likelihood that the original ie were a funky mess and that overhaul is fighting time and bioware's legacy in trying to make it playable on new operating systems. ... is funny that Gromnir is the one being called the troll and hiro is claiming red herring. is like he dont even read his own posts. HA! Good Fun! ps am not saying that overhaul/beamdog/whomever has an excuse. trent oster and others took on the job o' fixing and updating the ie. maybe they weren't up to the job, but they shoulda' know the scope o' the task better than most others. the original bgee were unplayable for us. whether or not the original ie were borked is complete irrelevant to us as a purchaser. we paid for a working game and didn't get one til many months later.

... you made claims suggesting that nep were ignorant. Gromnir noted that the black isle folks were not only running into problems with their enhancement efforts, but they blamed some o' their difficulties on bioware's engines. is the black isle folks also ignorant? is not trolling to wish for a level playing field where bio and obsidian and overhaul all get treated same. in point o' fact, we would consider the person who is trying to be selective critical (as 'posed to fair) to be the troll. so, congratulations on illustrating that point for us. HA! Good Fun!

And what do the BIS developers need to explain with PST and the IWD games? Do they not work? And BIS were not enhancing already established games. kidding right? for many people, ps:t were unplayable for a LONG time after release. the memory-leak were something that were problematic for folks in every single ie game made by black isle, but ps:t were epic in this respect. heck, much o' obsidian/black isle's reputation for releasing buggy games were blamed on bio as their game catalog were, for a time, almost entirely ie and aurora games. 'course obsidian has now released a bunch o' near unplayable bug hunts that had no bio connection, so that excuse is gone, yes? regardless. you gotta very short memory if you don't recall the multitudes o' folks complaining 'bout unplayable ps:t, iwd, and iwd2. oh, and yes, the black isle folks were indeed enhancing the ie engine with every release. seriously. HA! Good Fun!

You've never done any programming I see. Coding disasters don't just miraculously work. That's an insult to the programmers and other people who worked on the games. It also implies that the programmers didn't know what they were doing at the time with their coding (coding disaster as you put it), but hey. it somehow how miraculously worked. Must be special programming magic. Also, as a few have pointed out, they have some of the original team members working on the EE's. You should have a minimum base line (original game) and work up from there. At the moment, the EE's don't even meet the base line in various ways due to introduced bugs. well, to be fair, if we take hiro post as TRUTH, then obsidian/black isle folks has some explaining to do. more than once the black isle developers observed just how difficult it were to work with the infinity engine. bio knew how and why things worked, but obsidian were not part o' the engine building process. the thing that bothered us is that black isle folks were still using that excuse while working 'pon iwd2. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

While I generally share your criticism of style over substance, I don't think the art direction is necessarily a good example. After all: (pic here) Yup. Leave it to us Europeans to produce something so obscenely ornate that ends up being caricaturesque. (though I suppose a valid complaint is about the taste of anyone who draws inspiration from that... ) edit: Also, because why the hell not: (pic here) "Yo dawg, I heard you like sceptres, so we put a sceptre in your sceptre so you can rule while you rule..." am having a friend that collects crosier. he is particular interested in religious staves, but he gots some basic-to-ornate shepherd stuff too. am guessing that some guys tending flocks with a lot o' time on their hands gots pretty darn good at wood-carving. is not our thing, but many o' the sticks in his collection is beautiful. regardless, all one needs do is type "crosier" into a search engine and look at images. if this were the straw that broke nonek, we can't help but chuckle, 'cause the weird walking stick/staff that bio's maleficent wields is pretty tame. that being said, am recalling post nwn complaints. one stuck with us 'cause o' how irate the poster were-- she were livid in her condemnation o' bio and their obviously myopic design philosophy. developers were clear incompetent. after all, bio's lack o' footwear selection were bordering on criminal. didn't matter what you put into boot/shoe slot as your chestpiece determined footwear appearance. ... shoes. she were serious that the failure that busted nwn beyond repair were shoes. staff or shoe don't matter-- there will always be folks who sees things so different that any kind o' meeting o' the minds is impossible. HA! Good Fun!

that is our biggest complaint regarding bioware. am not certain if they realize that their pre-release claims has become comical. HA! Good Fun!

drop fenris and we is in sync. fenris were... cartoony. a super-powered slave who were tortured by former master so that now he is all morose and grumbly-- just needs a hug from a good woman to... *shudder.* am also thinking we liked merrill for what she coulda' been more than what she was. HA! Good Fun!

'cause you could go ahead and play world of tanks instead? *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

I dunno, currently playing DA2 and having a harder time making good decisions. I mean, when the dude wants me to help him gather obvious gunpowder, I can make the good decision of not doing it or the bad decision of helping him, but the end result is the same. Pretty sure you can make some fairly bad decisions in Awakening, too? If both decisions lead to the same result, it's not much of a decision. If helping Anders led to the Chantry blowing up, and not helping him meant it didn't blow, it would be a rather meaningful one. I'm fine with 'helping a terrorist make an explosive device' being a bad decision for PCs who want to attempt a peaceful resolution. It's not some bizarre gotcha situation, is it? Likewise, pissing off the magistrate by murdering his son probably should have had negative consequences. Bad as in evil young grasshopper, bad as in evil BioWare lets you make a ton of evil decisions. Why would I ask for evil decisions in BioWare games when I can already slit the throats of bound qunari because they follow a different religion than I do? am still not certain what mc intends with "bad," especially in this context. is many folks who suggest that choosing evil in bio games does result in bad for the player. for years we heard complaints that choose evil gets bad/worse rewards. conversely, we has heard same from people playing good. we know what Gromnir would intend by saying "bad," though we wouldn't. similarly, we suspect we know what mc is driving at, but as Gromnir has had a similar debate with gaider on multiple occasions, we will ask for clarification-- use your words. or don't. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2261752.stm am not knowing why a russian knock-off of world of tanks makes us thinks o' tanya grotter... and obsidian gets to contribute to the next grotter. how cute. HA! Good Fun!

for Gromnir, priority travel would be having far less significance than possible access to fleet gen chat-- perhaps this issue has already been addressed, but we only saw little swtor trailer and not the more detailed info drops at various fan sites. also, our biggest questions is regarding legacy bank. with exception o' bank, strongholds appear to be little more than an additional cartel coin sink. HA! Good Fun!

... am wondering if you is aiming for irony. ... is pointless, but we will try. a sane person would recognize that your volish blanket dismissal o' any and all bio critics in this thread makes your dismay at being cast as a misguided defender o' biowarian honor less than convincing. to stay on-topic, we woulds petition bio to include a quirky jester character in their next game... maybe a jan jansen with turrets syndrome and an inexplicable penchant for non-sequitur. unfortunately, as bio aims for full voice-over, a catchphrase of "lulz" wouldn't work. bruce and chis would want the jester to be romancable, but we finds such a notion repellent... for multiple reasons. HA! Good Fun!

as you are clearly insane, the fact that you could criticize bio and defend them in same breath is not surprising. oh, and your oft repeated weak sauce o' pointing out that you only gives the nwn sp game a score in 70s is hardly convincing neither. not change fact that you is one suggesting that if folks don't like bio or thinks they make games inferior to bio, the reason for their butthurt is 6. more volism from vol. shocking. HA! Good Fun!

Because you hate everything Star Wars stands for? another possibility: first three movies and original kotor already occupied the shallow end o' the thematic pool. no doubt lucas faced a similar quandary when developing 2nd trilogy-- how does one follow up a story that didn't ask any complex questions that remained unanswered? kotor were successful in part 'cause, following the prequel movies, folks were longing for the nostalgia o' episodes 4-6. bioware gave folks nostalgia by the bucket-- recreated characters, story-lines and themes o' episodes 4-6 and altered setting to a few thousands years previous. gamers were hungry for a star wars crpg, and giving them the stuff that worked in the beloved trilogy were a good idea. unfortunately, crafting a kotor sequel left obsidian in same situation lucas were finding himself when developing phantom menace. *shrug* as an aside, up to point where you confront 3 jedi masters on dantooine (sp?), we would argue that kotor 2 were a superior game to kotor in virtual all meaningful ways. sadly, obsidian frequent has difficulty ending games-- pulling all the threads back together so as to have a satisfying conclusion that is both surprising And inevitable is a skill obsidian lacks. regardless, we thinks mc's query ain't near as perplexing as she were thinking. HA! Good Fun!

is something we rare mention, but in the present situation it is worth noting that bioware did not put Gromnir in their game because we rabidly defended problematic aspects of their games. quite the contrary. bg1 were, in our estimation, an extreme flawed game, and we shared our opinions on the matter with bioware ad nauseum. things has changed a bit at the bio boards, but while vol and others may suggest that critics o' bio is just butthurt, bioware is/was far more accepting (and even appreciative) of criticism than those misguided fans who believes it is their duty to defend biowarian honor. HA! Good Fun!