Gromnir

wait, are you saying 'parents killed by orcs, fueled by burning desire for vengeance' ain't original??? oh well, fortunately i still have 'good drow outcast, hated by those he has sworn to protect' to fall back on... experiment? i think Temple of Elemental Evil proved origin stories could work successfully... is sarcasm, right? toee origins suggest that such stuff is utterly pointless. regardless of origin chosen, 99.9% of game is same for all players, regardless of origin choice. to address an earlier Q directed to Gromnir, da will do different. am betting that regardless of origins, all players will get same basic plot points, but each origin character type will gets some minor deviations in dialogue opportunities. story won't be genuine changed by your origin choice. furthermore, while the orphan-seeking-vengeance origin is different than the other origins offered, it is still gonna have to be close to Bhaalspawn general... 'cause it gotta work for the multitude that wanna play that particular origin and 'cause da will be a rpg that at least pays lip service to the notion o' choice. blunt mode: bioware approach is foolish and ultimate doomed. in an rpg players will demand at least the illusion o' choice and freedom. bioware writers cannot make player's character definite w/o killing an integral aspect o' what makes crpgs attractive to players. at same time, is near impossible to write a compelling story 'bout a vague and ambiguous character that coulds be goodly or evil and sarcastic or serious or... whatever. is an idea that somebody came up with at bio boards a longish time ago, and Gromnir is admitted envious that we not come up with it first. 'stead o' giving origins to player, allow player actions in game to decide eventual villain. a villain can be definite 'cause is written by writers w/o need to make rp viable. start off game with some generic adventure plot and then 2/3 through game you actually gets a 2 or 3 way bifurcation in story. real choice. real change. real reason to replay game other than to see some minor dialogue changes and a couple o' different quests. prediction: da origins, will be a disappointment. da origins won't be as utterly pointless as toee origins, but you is still gonna be "spoon fed" and "funneled" down a single uniform story path wherein you origin choices and differences is no more than minor alterations in flavor. HA! Good Fun!

as much as gamers talk 'bout choice and creativity, the vast majority of us is pretty damned predictable. those nwn pw is a great place to be seeing what kinda characters people play when left up to their own devices. is less than 10 basic character concepts that is repeated ad nauseum by +80% of players. perhaps bioware is spoon-feeding, but their menu were created with genuine forethought. you, the Average Gamer (not mc specific) is unlikely to ever play a character type other than those provided by bio. instead o' giving you one exceedingly vague bhaalspawn, they gives you a handful o' more specific concepts capable o' more focused development. personally Gromnir thinks the experiment is doomed to fail, for a variety o' reasons. even so, the fact that they ain't giving you genuine unique choices is not a flaw or a mistake. is the smart thing to do... and it not prevent creativity of story as a whole neither. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

poop. there is only 12 stories. no, there is only 7 stories... or is it 5? nuts. if you deconstruct or reduce any story far enough you can say that ALL stories is essentially the same. is silly. is nonsense. is an excuse ejaculated by the dull-witted and unimaginative to camouflage their own lack o' creativity. such myopia is why we gets get some grad student hack drawing parallels 'tween lolita and lord of the rings. is nonsense. humbert humbert and frodo is the Same character. *snort* does all fiction have some common elements? sure. all fiction is meant to reveal some kinda truth or find meaning or simply makes observation 'bout the human condition. need a familiar frame o' reference or your work will be incomprehensible, no? so yeah, no matter if you gots aliens from Dralneck 5 or beggars in the streets of london, you is necessarily gonna have characters that is very human facing very human problems. and yeah, you can joseph cambell yourself into stoopidity and convince self that 'cause same plots keep showing up over and over that there is genuine nothing new under the sun. maybe is true for you that everything looks same, but that is only true 'cause you is pretty much drawing your world with nothing other than those same 8 fat crayons you gots in pre-school. ... bah. Gromnir gets riled up when we sees the "nothing new under the sun," crap, 'cause most often it is an excuse used by hacks to defend the paucity o' their own imaginations and the shortcomings in their craftsmanship. HA! Good Fun!

That's essentially my problem, as well. I spoiled myself a few months back and got an Alienware laptop (after spending all day fixing computers, building one is the LAST thing that I want to do when I get home, so I purchase my home systems). I was really looking forward to playing Dragon Age on it. Unfortunately, with a simultaneous release, I am not so sure that I'll actually get it for the PC. It's a minor pain hooking up my laptop to the widescreen, whereas my PS3 is constantly hooked up to it. My wife loves to watch me play RPGs (and RTS games, too; weird), so she prefers me playing games on the PS3 as opposed to the laptop. It's not so much that I have to get it on PS3 (or that I'm being forced to), but the opportunity cost for waiting for the PS3 cost (6 months of extra time on the PC) is much lower now. Have you considered the fact that the controls on PS3 will probably be inferior to the PC. I don't want a console vs PC war here, but the game was clearly designed for the PC in the beginning at least. Also the PC version will probably be cheaper. am assuming from the get-go that the pc controls is superior, but so what? how much is the superior controls worth to Gromnir. $1500? probably not. the longer Gromnir waits to build a new gaming rig, the better the rig will be, 'cause we never spend more than $1500 to build a gaming pc. the relative speed at which pc hardware obsolesces and the current infrequent releases o' genuine pc titles we is interested in playing, means that the longer we manages to wait before building a new rig, the more cost efficient will such an investment be in long run. HA! Good Fun! HA! Good Fun!

linky the full game were pretty darn neato. is kinda like warcraft 3 w/o all the annoying resource management. am gonna dig up and see if we can get to run on our pc. HA! Good Fun!

sadly, this delayed release news actually comes as a bit of a relief to Gromnir. our primary desktop at home is getting a tad long in the tooth, and we were serious considering building a new gaming rig. the thing is, the only pc game we is genuine looking forward to in near future is/was dragon age. felt a bit odd to be spending $1500 for a bunch o' new hardware that would only be needed for 1 game over the course o' the next 6-8 months. am much preferring pc gaming, but there is simply so few exclusive pc releases that interest Gromnir nowadays. soz were the only one we bought in last 8 months. just not worth the effort and expense to build a new rig for one game that will also be release on xbox at same time. HA! Good Fun!

in any event, is loads o' annoying bugs in soz. the shield equip bug is the one that drives us to distraction as we pretty much gotta turn off character ai for any party member that has some special ability like divine might or bardic inspire. sudden realize that your paladin is fighting a bunch of gnolls bare-fisted is a tad irksome. the shield equip thing is supposed addressed in 1.22, but is simply so many silly bugs that one wonders what were the qa protocols for this game. nobody noticed that the doomguide npc couldn't gain spells? yeah, with how stat driven d&d is it is near impossible to catch every mistake, but there were some real obvious stuff that somehow got missed in soz. how on earth could warlock "imbue item" be messed Again? how many more nwn2 releases does obsidian need to get that one right? also, 'cause am not sure if developers noted our comments in the spoiler section, if you export a soz character to use in motb, that exported character does not seem capable o' acquiring the jnpc loyalty feats. (am much more understanding when these kinda bugs go unnoticed.) *shrug* on the positive side, many o' the bugs has been fixed via community workarounds, and few o' the bugs makes soz genuine unplayable, although some o' the intentional included game development choices may make game unplayable for some. curious, am recalling that josh said that buffs ending at map transitions were functionally unfixable for obsidian. there appears to be a community member contributed workaround. am wondering if obsidian is planning on addressing long-term buffs in the patch or whether the fix is still considered more bothersome than the status quo. am not a fan of using fan fixes that may make game unpatchable. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir ain't a modder, so we were extra-disappointed that the obsinaties didn't seem to use 'em. made a joke... maybe not turned-into-a-chicken funny, but at least better than noober funny, eh? am enthusiastic to see what josh does with tools... but we won't feel justified in crying and moaning so much 'cause you ain't doing commercial. tell you what? charge Gromnir $1 for his copy and we can guarantee a genuine take-no-prisoners review. HA! Good Fun!

I heard it was mediocre, if I remember the reviews correctly. From what I remember reading you couldn't multi-class. How's that for a 3e title? No multi-classing... Those handhelds do have alot of potential for turn based rpg's though. I'd like to see something on the DS. On the pc? Forgetaboutit... No publisher would back one. am so saddened by westgate. if a kinda easy-bake, quick-release sorta scheme could be proven effective using nwn2, then perhaps atari might be willing to support other niche projects. 'stead o' trying to makes a 10-15 hour story-driven game, why Not a d&d tactics game. direct-download and modest development budget? too bad that westgate is running into so many obstacles. am not sure what the issues are with westgate, but is atari gonna back another nwn quick development project that takes years to get to purchasers? HA! Good Fun!

no, Gromnir did not ask you which encounters you liked. like is different than what Gromnir asked. "for the sake o' argument, which soz encounters is josh proud of. is any that you thinks shows off the skill and creativity o' obsidian?" is maybe a subtle difference, but am thinking it is a meaningful difference. Gromnir actually liked a number of soz encounters that we didn't thinks was particularly well-crafted. "overall I think that SoZ added more new gameplay functionality to NWN2 than IWD2 added to IWD." no argument there... save to note that you pretty much left up to future mod makers to actually... actualize? lots of nice tools, which Gromnir has admitted to many times already. story ain't as bad as some seem to claim. too bad the vast majority o' virtual soz geography is forgettable little 2 room caves populated with very violent and uncommunicative monsters o' limited intelligence... and the ubiquitous and repetitive randomn wilderness encounters. am fully willing to complement the tools added... and will do so again. nevertheless, am disappointed that those tools you can be proud of were utilized to produce a relative lackluster adventure. is not that soz is terrible, so much as it feels half-finished. is a beginning an an end, but somehow you left out middle. HA! Good Fun!

am not gonna argue with you how you has referenced crpg humor in past. am not sure if we has ever seen somebody request more neeber, but is possible... so am not gonna suggest that you is stooping to silly straw man nonsense. "And yep, they're all brief. But brief can be good in a lot of cases." sure, but can such stuff be good if they are the only cases? too short and too few and such stuff gets pretty much lost, no? am also really not getting the tempest's fury approval. the slyph? couldn't even interact with the sylph. didn't matter what we said to it. not the least bit dynamic, and is not as if the writing were memorable. as for the challenge o' the combat... *shrug* Gromnir were probably a couple levels higher than you we s'pose 'cause the combat weren't particularly tough, and there clearly weren't anything clever or surprising in the tactics used by opponents. you folks did far more interesting combat scenarios in iwd2 then you did in soz. the chicken bit were done in bg1. good for a chuckle we s'pose. genuine funny stuff that you would put on resume to show off talent of obsidian? really? also, sorry 'bout the skullcrusher stuff, but after partial story #2 we simply clicked through until he stopped giving new material. obviously didn't keep our attention. again, we did hang in there through the first two stories. still, am somewhat suspicious of josh if he suggest that the skullcrusher encounter is something he would include on his resume... genuine pride. at least with skullcrusher there were both combat and dialogue options... no one-trick pony. HA! Good Fun!

from the guy who once noted that he weren't a fan of humor in d&d crpgs... HA! am maybe not seeing how combats in tempests fury were noteworthy, and lord knows there weren't no dialogue opportunities neither. with the exception o' the underdark market, all your examples seems kinda brief an uninspired... and the skullcrusher bit does rely heavily on not necessarily common crpg knowledge to be even moderate entertaining (no offense.) *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

is this a drug reference? Gromnir feels so out of touch with kids nowadays. HA! Good Fun!

a quick read makes me think you are mis-interpreting what they are talking about... not a monopolistic provider, but a standard platform with (potentially) multiple providers. this is not unheard of. taks That is consumer's wish If the thingie would be realy open platform with lot of providers it could be good, but from Corporate point of view the biggest cash flows in your pocket, when you are the only provider of said service and there is still one thing in the article... That would mean, from that day on, all games would be handled like MMO's are handled now... All they need to do is make imaginary cut through your cable (disable your account) and you and your awesome console are screwed the illuminati's killed jfk and big foot is really a govt. created super soldier project test critter that has occasionally gotten loose. ... what, Gromnir thought we were sharing crack pot conspiracy theories in this thread? HA! Good Fun!

is obsidian folks who originally made comparisson between iwd and soz, no? soz is gonna be like iwd, no? regardless, point were that those who claims that iwd were some big budget project that got loads o' resources, while iwd were just an expansion, may be exaggerating a tad. both were relative quick productions with smaller budgets and staffings. similarities 'tween aims of games and design philosophy & such? 'course not. is two very different games. btw, soz sucks and iwd did not. also ... ok, am genuine not a hater of soz, but other than the world map (which needs some serious tweaking btw) am wondering what were obsidan's goals for soz. functionality were added to the toolset, but what 'bout the rest o' the game? HoW were very brief and disappointed most everybody. were that the overriding goal: don't screw up like we did with HoW. dunno, for the sake o' argument, which soz encounters is josh proud of. is any that you thinks shows off the skill and creativity o' obsidian? am sure that there is a couple. maybe Gromnir is being too harsh, but it sure seemed like a vast majority of soz encounters were very brief and extreme straightforward combat encounters in which the combat weren't particular noteworthy neither. sure, some battles were tougher than others, but that were more a function o' relative power as 'posed to clever tactics or unique settings. iwd2 were a different game, but for all its problems, targos alone offered more opportunities to impress Gromnir than maybe all of soz... which is a shame given all the increased functionality you added to soz. HA! Good Fun!

perhaps the obsidian folks could chime in on this one. iwd were largely an experiment kinda project. it took less than 1 year to build iwd (10 months?) and a significant number o' developers on the project were rookies. the goal were to release before diablo 2... a goal which were missed. even so, one reason fergie kept returning to the iwd well were that it were not only their best seller, but it were relative cheap and fast to make. given how much more expensive it is to make games nowadays, Gromnir would hardly be surprised if iwd were having a smaller budget than did soz... and it wouldn't shock us to discover that comparable man hours went into both projects regardless o' fact that soz were only an expansion. when toee were released and troika cried foul that atari had made unreasonable demands regarding development, there were a couple iwd developers that noted that Their game were developed faster and under less enviable operating conditions. is maybe some misconceptions floating 'round regarding iwd. HA! Good Fun!

I heard it was mediocre, if I remember the reviews correctly. the reviews Gromnir saw said that it were complete $%. HA! Good Fun!

am doubting you is gonna get such a thing. troika pooped in the pool when they unloaded toee on an unsuspecting gaming world, and atari didn't enjoy cleaning up the mess. is unlikely that atari does a major tb d&d game any time soon. yeah, tb ain't what killed toee any more than the planescape setting is what killed ps:t, but am betting the corporate suit types is not a discriminating bunch... if it sounds like toee, then chances are atari folks is gonna kill regardless. but a direct digital mini-release of scale on par with westgate? dunno. Gromnir ain't an atari suit. can you sell idea that there is enough hardcore d&d combat fans out there? back when bg2 were being developed, some biowarians lamented the notion that bg2 had to have a mp aspect. diablo had mp and diablo 2 were gonna have mp... so bg2 had to have mp, right? why? 'cause the suits knew that a crpg had to have mp to be a big seller. am honest curious how these games get pitched. Gromnir knows movies gets pitched. am also familiar with the publishing route for first time authors. even so, we got no genuine clue how ideas for game becomes a game development. who is in position to sell a d&d tactics game to atari, and how does they go about doing so? HA! Good Fun!

would love to see a D&D tactics kinda thing wherein the illusion o' role-play is ignored in favor o' genuine hardcore combat. sure, the d&d classes ain't necessarily balanced for that sorta thing, but even so, Gromnir likes the squad-based tactical combat games, and at it's core, the d&d rules is combat focused rules for squad-level combat scenarios. use some sorta development model similar to the westgate thingie... w/o needing 3 years to finally get release. atari pays a small indie developer to put together a combat focused release utilizing current nwn engine... do direct download... or whatever. is something Gromnir would pay for. advertise as being for serious hardcore combat focused players, so not have to worry 'bout trying to please people that wanted romances or character development or story. smaller budget means you can produce for niche audience and not lose money. HA! Good Fun!

"is SoZ as good as IWD?" is not a matter o' "good as." developers, and others made comparisons between and betwixt soz and iwd. comparison were made... leaving Gromnir to wonder what were the similarities. as for story of iwd v. soz... iwd story had advantage o' being integral to every location in game. sure, dragon's eye were tedious at times, but step forward in dragon's eye were steps forward in advancing iwd story as a whole. soz, for all the functionality the engine provides for possibility o' storytelling and dialogue, seemed to purposefully allow story to be tangential for most o' game. Gromnir has compared soz to bg, but that ain't really fair. compare bg, up to and including completion o' cloakwood mines, and soz. is more accurate. is some small set piece encounters that advance story while allowing players to delve into that bizarre realm o' crpg "exploration." is nothing wrong with soz approach to story as it allows players to revael story at own pace. soz approach works well enough in soz. as we has said before, soz story ain't bad, but it were seemingly s'posed to be little more than a very thin raison detre. is no soz characters or moments that is gonna endure in your imagination beyond end o' game, save for maybe some difficult combat encounters. iwd story actually had some intriguing characters and some okie dokie dialogue... just not any dialogues that players could contribute to. *shrug* is different games... and that were Gromnir's point. is not so much good v. bad, as apples and oranges. am not seeing much basis for comparisons. HA! Good Fun!

btw, one oft seen criticism of soz that Gromnir does not subscribe to is that soz story is terrible. soz story is not fantabulous, but it ain't horrible neither. soz is story lite, and there is no particularly compelling characters... which means that the story is gonna be forgettable in long run. nevertheless, you can follow story at own pace, and even though no character in the game is particularly well-crafted or developed, many is amusing or intriguing to at least a minimal degree. ... the story fits the game... which is a kinda criticism we s'pose, but am not meaning it that way. HA! Good Fun!

ps is obsidian EVAR gonna patch the game? HA! Good Fun!

old skool = good skool? why? in any event, soz don't really hearken back to the better old school modules that Gromnir recollects, and it really not remind us o' iwd... which were the comparison that the developers made more often than not previous to soz release. soz, for the most part, is filled with underdeveloped encounters. maybe why some people thinks that soz reminds 'em of old school d&d is 'cause they were crappy role-players or had a horrible dm. play the A or S series o' tsr pre-2nd edition modules strictly according to the basic framework provided by printed material? is gonna be a pretty spartan experience. is virtual 0 dialogue in those old modules, and unlike current wotc modules, individual encounters were pretty much left to dm's discretion. Gromnir heard the "old school" stuff from fans when toee were released by troika. is funny too, 'cause previous to toee release Gromnir had lamented the use o' toee as source material... we noted that the old toee super-module kinda sucked. troika fans responded that o' course troika would do more than simply give a black letter xerox copy o' toee. like any competent dm, troika would no doubt build 'pon the framework o' the old tsr module. there is no bad d&d modules if you have a good dm, right? (though am gonna argue that tomb o' horrors is a crap arse module regardless o' the dm running the adventure.) before toee release we heard from troika fans that "of course toee will be developed beyond the barebones pnp module." after the release o' toee we heard same folks defending troika... noting that troika simply followed the toee blueprint. what a crock. is new fans defending obsidaina, but is same crock. soz ain't like iwd... not by a long shot. where is the severed hand or dorn's deep or even the black wolf temple/vale o' shadows? 'stead we get http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddale/wal...sthavencave.php what a load. soz puts some very interesting (if buggy) tools into the hands o' module makers... but the demo module we got from obsidian is pretty lackluster. a vast majority o' soz encounters is the kinda crap we sees in bad releases over at nwnvault: adventures filled with numerous brief, combat-heavy encounters. am recalling a tedious debate we had at codex regarding soz. one codexian fan o' soz gave us an example o' the superior encounters found on the sword coast map portion o' soz: a two room cabin filled with dire animals and a malarite druid who attacks you w/o any possible dialogue options were the example put forward by the codexian as representing superior obsidian design. ... huh? Gromnir were never a fan o' bg. lots o' random seeming encounters and poorly designed "dungeons" dot an otherwise enormous world map. even the bio developers has noted that much o' the great story stuff in bg were simply imagined by fans... 'cause the developers left pretty damn sparse. that being said, there IS people who genuine enjoy the sorta by-the-book and developer-lite approach that bio took in bg. is not particularly imaginative or innovative, but if you want lots o' combat/1007/exp opportunities, soz and bg provides 'em in spades. heck, both obsidian and bioware has gone "old skool" with release o' me and soz... the only difference being that mass effect did throw in some larger set pieces. regardless, soz ain't old school d&d so much as it is old school crpg... relative speaking. old school d&d required a dm to build 'pon the basic module framework. compare old ravenloft module to the new return to ravenloft. virtual every encounter in the New product has a 2 page write-up that describes possible combat and dialogue resolutions and appropriate dcs 'n such. sure, the dm can still ignore, and players is still likely to color outside the lines, making the printed material largely useless, but there is a reason why old module is 32 pages and the new version is more than 200 pages. soz is old school in the sense that the obsidian developers left sparse and largely underdeveloped... which is a valid approach in a pnp game, but in a crpg in which the developer IS the dm/gm... still, soz coulda' been a good game if there were at least one encounter on both samarach and sword coast map that really gots developed... but there weren't such an encounter. world maps were filled with lots o' small encounters that never felt genuine fulfilling... 'less your only real aim were to level and 1007. HA! Good Fun!

"Also doesn't help that I forgot some obscure bit of 3.5ed D&D again and realised Favoured Souls don't get Turn Undead, and so can't become a Doomguide. Well that was just stupid, so I cheated in Extra Turning. Now I have a doomguide who can't... turn undead. aiee.gif " you know, when Gromnir saw your grey orc favored soul/doomguide we were considering asking, "why?" sure, am seeing why it could make sense to go assimar favored soul/doomguide with a level o' cleric thrown into the mix... boost charisma and increase wisdom as little as is deemed useful. use the gazillion turn attempts for divine might and divine shield 'n such instead o' turning. couldn't figure out why you would do so with a grey orc. shoulda' asked. the console is your friend. go to any tavern and re-register your party. dump the grey orc favored soul and add a grey orc cleric... then cheat in enough exp to equal the rest o' your party. turning ain't necessary in game, but it is the equivalent o' free exp. a cleric/doomguide with 12+ class levels will pretty much insta kill any undead encounter. you gets a dozen turn attempts per day? is a good enough reason to never bypass a wight encounter. feels like cheese though. "Of course, I haven't been to the Coast yet. Maybe it's much better there." the improvement in sword coast is marginal at best. there is a couple multi-room encounter locations, but they is still rare, and even the multi-room locations is basic straightforward hack 'n slash. soz is half-baked. overland map is a nice addition, but developers really underdeveloped the rest of the game. what a shame. HA! Good Fun!

developers is sometimes more insightful and honest once they lose cool. HA! Good Fun!