Gromnir

looks like the major complaint is related to the $10 worth o' cartel coins folks get if they bought the expansion w/i the last month. subscribers who purchased many months ago is rage spiraling 'cause their $10 purchase gets them an in-game title but no coins. "Khan!" am thinking we mentioned our thoughts regarding cartel earlier, so no need to heap more scorn and derision 'pon ea and bio's little scheme/scam. HA! Good Fun!

gorth is kidding 'bout powertech, no? our dps powertech owns huttball. not a scoring threat, but while powertech is not our favorite pve class, it is buzzsaw in pvp. huttball is one o' our favorite maps for powertech 'cause we use grapple to max effect. sentinel don't do much damage in a fireptrap, eh? even if you can't grapple ballholder, you can pull off the ballholder's teammates. grapple is huge for powertech. also, powertech is EZ. other classes gots relative complex rotations, but not powertech. you got multiple ways to break stuns, but even so, such stuns don't ruin your rotation 'cause you don't really need a rotation. keep target on fire and hit with rail shots. when folks inevitable try to get away, pull e'm back with grapple for a little more pain. most o' the time we chase healers making them dead. is actual fun. HA! Good Fun!

When your build isn't "suited" for Huttball, it sucks drawing it randomly 3 times in a row. If I could pick and chose, it's entirely possibly I would revisit it with a toon with a better skill set for that particular game. Alas, random map allocation puts a stop to that (at the moment at least). ...and as I recently discovered, you don't need a mod station for armour mods. 6 months of cursing and swearing at the piss poor fleet design putting mod stations and supply stores at opposite ends for nothing. Tried something new today. Got invited into an "ops" group (in quotation marks because we didn't do ops). Was fun being up to 13 people taking on some of the other world bosses (as in those you can't really solo, Belsavis, Section X etc.). Nobody seemed to mind the noob tank learning how to work in a larger group either. am trying to think o' a build that is bad for huttball. sure, there is some builds that got an advantage, but am having difficulty thinking o' a bad build. dps scoundrels/operatives is less fun for us 'cause you is more often looking for kill opportunities, and trying to stop seemingly unstoppable tanks. pug ops groups can be frustrating. world boss is not time consuming, but genuine ops is. in some nightmarish runs, we have spent literally hours and +100k creds in repair bills to not even finish. some guild is a few bodies short and invite. we join only to find out that lead sets to mater loot and distributes drops to guildies first. "hey, you got your comms, so what are you complaining about?" the only reason we (infrequent) consider joining a guild is 'cause o' pug op suckage. HA! Good Fun!

huttball is, in our opinion, the best map. every other wz has potential of leaving a player sitting on a cap'd turret/door/beacon/ whatever... functionally doing nothing. too slow in calling for help, and that 1 guy can gets your objective lost. huttball is different. everybody is involved at all times. everybody should be involved at all times. ... downside is that there is classes that is particular suited for huttball. guardians/juggs, for example, can get across 1/2 of field in nothing flat. leap-to-enemy+force push+leap-to-ally is a dangerous combo, particularly for a hybrid tankish pvp build that is gonna be unstoppable once he/she is close to goal. is also one o' those maps wherein if other team is in vent/mumble/teamspeak, and you ain't, you is at incredible disadvantage. nevertheless, while we frequent hate huttball matches, we thinks they is probable best designed. HA! Good Fun!

no doubt bio will finally cave to the Average Gamer desires and simply makes all characters elves. add 2 sliders: girth & height. that way if you is some kinda 5% freak, you can makes a short and buff elf instead o' going through all that dwarf nonsense. make'em all pretty and give'em pointy ears. call it a day. HA! Good Fun!

we haven't played a numenera session yet. have read rules and we has some minor quibbles, and a faq or errata is looking like a necessity, but am otherwise impressed. effort/edge doesnt feel intuitive, but no doubt after we plays a few sessions, we become comfortable. HA! Good Fun!

if you hadn't told us she were dwarven, we wouldn't have guessed. sure, she looks like she gots good and healthy child-bearing hips, but otherwise she is looking rather identical to our notion o' "human." now, the nosferatu next to her, on the other hand, seems rather casual and unconcerned 'bout being in direct sunlight. how curious. HA! Good Fun!

couple points... am recalling that early screenies had folks complaining 'bout da2 environment being dull and brown and sparse... very similar to your complaints. were based on the starting/tutorial area. were hardly indicative of game entirety. *shrug* is kinda silly to assume entire game looks like what you see in some small bits pre-released. we didn't think that the da2 joinable npcs were particularly poor developed/written, and most know we is a stickler for such. characters were given back-stories which were developed to a good degree. characters had personalities fleshed-out and were given motivations and opportunities to grow. that being said, bio does has a strange formula for making their characters dramatic: add equal parts o' personal trauma and abject stupidity, then throw in some lugubrious dialogue. you know, one reason we ain't a fan o' horror movies is 'cause they only seem to work if at least a few characters is shout-at-the-screen stupid. heard a noise coming from the basement, perhaps we should investigate. shucks, the lights seemed to not be working. oh well, the psycho axe wielding psycho that killed 8 of our friends and is after us couldn't possibly be in the basement. gonna investigate. da2 joinable npcs frequent had bouts o' similar stupidity that drove us nuts. humor, whedon or otherwise, is a good thing. could no doubt blame shakespeare for doing similar. take most serious shakespeare tragedy or history and you will find some humor in it. am recalling some elmore leonard interview we read wherein he were mentioning influences and authors he admired. Hemingway gets noted, with one proviso: Hemingway didn't do humor enough. our initial reaction were rejection o' leonard's criticism, but we thinks he got a point. a clean, well-lighted place don't need humor, but am thinking that Some larger works benefit from inclusion o' some moments o' mirth or levity. is a tough read when is nothing but a slow steady crawl through increasing darkness and filth. bioware is making entertainment, not a Joseph Conrad novel, so levity is probably good. is nothing MacGuffin 'bout templar-mage conflict. is not a behind-the-scenes plot element that is ultimately o' negligible importance. also, Gromnir am not a fan o' Epic conflicts, but not because the preclude human interactions and motivations of most characters. typical love, hate, greed, jealousy, fear motivations is just as viable in epic. the thing is, in a crpg wherein you gots a villain whom you is eventually gonna have an opportunity to fight, you has a real problem constructing somebody that dont seem... ridiculous. da1 and da2 is heavy focused on combat and combat abilities, so is no way you compete do different an reinvent the wheel. game focused so much on combat is gonna have a possible combat resolution. gotta have an opportunity to confront some UBG (ultimate bad guy) at some point. no abstraction works satisfactory. the thing is that we is genuine daunted by the task o' developing a satisfactory UBG in a crpg. if your villain sux, your story is handicapped severely... and crpg villain almost necessarily need to be disappointing. romances is popular. bio makes entertainment for folks who pays money. catering to audience is what they DO. that should be kinda axiomatic. as much as we personally loathe crpg romances, we is not expecting bio to drop them as they is popular, particularly with female gamers who comprise an ever growing portion o' gamer demographic. do better? sure, we is all in favor o' improving romances, but only way we see to do that is to make 'em integral... which would, ironically, make us hate them more. romance is Not fodder for a tangential and optional side-quest. you wanna do a full romance arc in a handful o' brief and optional dialogues that is insular from main plot? nuts. wanna make moving romance that is brief w/o seeming puerile? write poetry. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure how you googled and missed. ps:t portraits of nameless one and party npcs were dynamic. black isle folks already did what you is asking for back in 1999, and many o' those folks is working on pe. HA! Good Fun!

actually, the price dropped precipitously. furthermore, at a competitive price we could sell 4-6 in 20 minutes. takes much longer to sell now as demand is not as high. Gromnir is NOT gonna sit staring at gtn to optimize when to sell. am now making less per mat. HA! Good Fun! is not a large difference, but as a seller, the old scheme were better for us. is no doubt better now for buyers... but we ain't a buyer

side-note: we preferred previous crit dynamic. we gots multiple toons that can makes nano-infused stims and we were making ~30k creds per stim before the change-- might version seemed to be in highest demand. sadly, market kinda flooded afterwards. anything that is decreasing the time we spend doing mindless daily runs for credits is a good thing. HA! Good Fun!

*groan* you is so not getting it. tell woman that she gets gimped in a FANTASY GAME 'cause God/The Universe chose to make her sex weaker in reality is hardly a good idea. the fact that real-world women is not as strong as men (on average) is precise why they not wanna see a Game-- a game in which they gets to play a role impossible in real world-- impose a similar penalty on them. this is a matter o' empathy and psychology, not physiology. troika made matter worse by being rude to women who complained. HA! Good Fun!

or you coulda' just said, do portraits like ps:t. saves on digital trees or something. HA! Good Fun!

already noted: the scars were added after boardies complained that bg2 portraits should be more "dark" and "gritty." simply adding scars, piercings and peculiar hair accessories struck Gromnir as mockery of board request, but the interplay fora populace seemed to like sass' improvements. HA! Good Fun!

vol is as wacky as a bag full o' wet cats, but being impervious to reason does not mean a person is incorrect. vol as "only one making any sense"? HA! that is ridiculous. still, we concede that he ain't necessarily wrong just 'cause he is embracing an alternate reality that none o' the rest o' us will ever experience... thankfully. HA! Good Fun!

we were gonna write a viscous denunciation o' d&d 2e character generation and progressions. the thing is, we knows of at least a couple folks at obsidian who is even less fans o' d&d 2e than is Gromnir. so, no point for us to do the knacker's work on this particular horse as chances o' pe character development or progression resembling d&d 2e in any meaningful way is approaching nil. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure what "less forgiving to females" means in the present context. is worth noting that before bg2 were released, bioware made available the new bg2 npc portraits as done by mike sass. am thinking it were sass, but we might be wrong. initial reaction from boardies were not kind. original minsc, in particular, were drawing ire. portrait of minsc had this big open-mouthed smile that were making him looks far too similar to a special olympics winner for some posters. too much with the pastel and bright color palette. too Not jason manley (iwd had recently been released). too cartoony and not "dark" and/or "gritty." am thinking that perhaps as a bit o' gentle mockery o' the board critics, sass re-tools most o' the bg2 potraits in very minor ways-- give'em scars, piercings and and additional stuff in their hair. minsc were only portrait that got a significant alteration. kinda reminded us o' josh's revised iwd2 kit suggestions in that instead o' boardies getting the joke, most seemed to like the improvements. regardless, if "less forgiving" is in reference to bg2 portraits looking as if characters had seen hard times, then that were a specific change as result o' board input. HA! Good Fun!

another bad of arcanum: gender stat difference. females got -1 str and +1 end. this clear misguided choice alienated a goodly number o' female gamers. troika developer arrogant response to female gamers who complained further alienated women. such a small thing, but am understanding why some women not wanted to be bound by developer's notions o' realism in a fantasy game. HA! Good Fun!

when these kinda vanity appeals arise, we ask self: what would we want the developers to drop from the game to make ____________ possible? is not a hard zero-sum analysis, but if somebody is devoting resources so that players might see and interact with their trinkets, baubles and trophies, it means they can't be working on something more substantive. am clear not the target for this however. for instance, we is complete baffled by the appeal o' xbox achievements. nevertheless, pretty much every game xbox game gots achievements and the players who seek to gather. collect and display treasure, we suspect is having similar appeal... or maybe not. am guessing folks like to sees some in-game validation that looks kewl. ... clear we don't understand the appeal, but we recognize that such player desires, while alien to us, is real and powerful. am just not sure what should be sacrificed to actualize. HA! Good Fun!

*shudder* the japanese anime/manga aesthetic gives us the heebie-jeebies. creepy looking lemurs is what your idealized imoen looks like to us. HA! Good Fun!

being a bad-guy hero hardly decreases scale of epic. even fo:nv has your choices determining the fate of new vegas and altering the power balance 'tween cal republic, caesar's legions and odo from star trek. fallout? not epic? what you do decides if master and his mutant army succeed or fail. bg? bg2, heck, even planescape the writers has you saving towns in outlands that a cheesed-off angel wants dragged into a "hell," and ps:t sold poorly, so try to distinguish is an epic fail in any case. *shrug* am not thinking epic is needed, but developers appear to disagree with you. HA! Good Fun! ps please note that observing that you can play protagonist as a bad guy is actual reinforcing our observation 'bout need to make such a protagonist vague. character needs to be written so he/she can be all things to all people... which is a stoopid way to try and write a compelling protagonist.

writers o' crpgs has got a conundrum. there is seeming universal belief that players want to be doing epic. players want to be heroes who save cities and nations and more. right or wrong, this belief is a given. this leads to issue we broached earlier 'bout villains-- 'cause villains gotta be as epic as the heroes. why should epic heroes and villains be a problem? 'cause regardless o' scope o' story, you is trying to get player emotionally invested. a hero fighting to save folks, or benefit self? such motivations is not all that deep or profound, but most folks can "get" those kinda motivation. but what about villains? how you write an epic villain that folks not see as campy or over-the-top? perhaps villain wanna take over the world or achieve immortality? perhaps villain is angry with god/gods for some slight? is no natural common ground most of us has with such characters, so they very frequently is seeming fake. our hero, while easier to understand, is written vague so that wide-range o' people can make their own. bob wants to play hero as prototypical champion o' justice. joe wants to play as a kinda good-natured rogue who is in the hero biz for girls and gold. writer of crpg writes game hero so both players is only marginally dissatisfied-- call it a win. the crpg story is borked a bit from the very start. you force writer to has a vague protagonist and a villain with whom nobody will naturally empathize w/o considerable development, and chances are you won't get opportunity to develop the villain much as we is talking 'bout a game and not a novel. gosh, why is crpg writing typical bad? HA! Good Fun!

I hope they try to do that to Lanfear. dave said she were somewhat humorless 'bout her inclusion. being charged $1k might just result in a teutonic rage spiral o' epic proportions... or a hizzy fit. HA! Good Fun!

game is functionally over for us after you confront jedi masters on dantooine... is all downhill after that. ultimate resolution with kreia is handled no better than nihilus. is a crying shame too as first 2/3 of kotor2 is still our favorite game from obsidian, and we not even like particularly star wars. HA! Good Fun! ps am admitting that we liked first 2 star wars movies and didn't hate the third. other star wars stuff? not so much.

darth nihilus is horrible. is the faceless terror kinda villain, but developers were using poor judgement in giving him a face and a voice like something from an evil peanuts cartoon. no real dread, and his threat is only abstract. step onto bridge of dying ship. whack him with lighsabres a few times. nihilus is dead. thus ends threat to the galaxy. you wanna create a sauron kidna threat? then at least learn from manner in which tolkien used such a villain. HA! Good Fun!