Gromnir

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!

instead of adding character generation/development options, bioware has decided to focus their efforts on stuff like their Innovative dialogue system. am still utter mystified by how successful bioware was in selling their radial dialogue thingie as an innovative advancement. sure, is an innovation from developer pov 'cause it replaces dialogue bifurcation with truncation, but how on earth did biowarians sell their resource saving device as some sorta major feature that would improve gameplay? am understanding that if you got full vo you gotta be creative with dialogues/writing, and making one genuine dialogue response count as 2 or maybe 3 "choices" for the player is slick... but am genuine disappointed that so few gamer review sites or magazines exposed the biowarian con job for what it were. oh well in all seriousness, Gromnir has heard virtual 0 'bout me2 and what is goals and changes... though Gromnir did hear that at least a few biowarians conceded that they would probably do less uncharted world stuff in future me installments. HA! Good Fun!

heya *shrug* am not a particularly sentimental guy. you perhaps wanna hug or something? HA! Good Fun!

the gameplay aspect is getting dialogues from rachnii queen and scietists, as well as fighting them... not only on noveria but on other planets as a result o' military experimentations. dialogues with rachnii queen and with other races 'bout rachnii ain't gameplay? actual fight rachnii also counts as gameplay... 'especially since the places for rachnii attack actually had a point rather than the random seeming spawns that were popular in kotor. as to coduit and rachnii... is reason that the matron benezia were digging around in the rachnii queen brain, no? the mu relay (sp?) were the gateway to ilos and the conduit. even if you not give a darn 'bout rachnii, the player's quest to gain access to conduit is made possible o' the bugs. again, we got loads more info 'bout rachnii from me than we got from kotor 'bout wookies... and while kotor wookies were inexplicably primitive arborial slave fodder, we actual got that Development you so craved in individual jnpcs, no? racchnii eveolve from being simple bugs and mindless attack-bots, to a possible future ally or enemy for mankind and allied species. the convo with queen and various scientists makes obvious that the bugs ain't simple mindless cannon fodder. is a cheap Ender's Game kinda thing? sure, but that is a damn site more development than we gets 'bout kotor wookies or sand people. HA! Good Fun!

eh? we found out all kinds o' stuff 'bout how they develop and what happened post racchni war. we learned that evil military folks were trying to breed 'em into controllable super soldiers. we learned of link between conduit and racchni and how first contact with racchni occurred. heck, we had a far more useful conversation with the racchni queen than with any wookie in kotor. heck, post kashykk, our wookie companion never aded ANYTHING... and his family on kashykk were hardly giving us history/anthropology lessons. kashykk is shakesperean melodrama... but take out all the witty and poetic dialogue and replace with inarticulate grunting. now, based on kotor alone, tell us history of wookies and explain why a bunch o giant orangutans live like ted kaczynski in the woods, but seemingly got access to advanced weapons... and get themselves captured and sold into slavery by some kinda trade consortium regardless o' fact that it requires a jedi and multiple heavily armed companions simply to make a journey to the forest floor. look, we get that bio faced hurdles as well. they couldn't mess with established star wars canon, yet they wanted to recreate star wars... so 'cause slavery o' wookies occurs in episodes 4-6, it lso hd to be in old republic... and 'cause lucas not give some well-defined history o' wookies, but might choose to do so in future, bio could not do so on their own. no doubt it were tough. even so, to say that kotor actually developed history nd culture o' included races more than did me is actully kinda silly. you folks is simply dragging along pre-existing knowledge to fill in the kotor gaps. HA! Good Fun!

you found the wookie interaction more meaningful than geth interaction? lord knows Gromnir learned very little 'bout the people or culture of wookies in kotor. we learned 'bout our wookie companion's family history a bit, but very little 'bout wookies.... and lord only knows why it is meaningful to have to learn 'bout geth from geth, or learn 'bout racchni from racchni. the noveria planet, from gameplay dialogues with various scientists and doing the hotlab stuff and elsewhere, Gromnir discovered a great deal 'bout the racchni... more than kotor gave us 'bout wookies or sand people. we interacted with me species and saw and we were given information 'bout 'em from Many different sources... not just from talking to jnpcs on the normandy... and again, both kotor2 and me fixed the mistake o' having jnpcs initiate stoopid convos at ridiculous times. an ideal solution? no, but so many people complained 'bout what you thinks were a positive that both obsidian and bioware changed where, when and how jnpcs interacted with the pc. please note that Gromnir also felt like he didn't know virtually anything 'bout mass effect taurians or salarian, but again, me were introducing us to a whole new game universe... think they did an ok job o' giving us tedious background stuff.... which kotr didn't do... but did not really have to neither. HA! Good Fun!

interaction? yeah, but morgoth were talking 'bout history and culture 'n such. you learn much 'bout wookie culture from your wookie companion... or during entire stay on kashykk? HA! heck, add in geth, sovereign and that plant thingie in me and you got far more meaningful interaction with alien species in me than in kotor. kotor mostly assumed you knew history and background... me not have that luxury and didn't take such shortcuts. "Everything you learned about the Quarians you learned from Tali's tales or from the Codex, there was no related gameplay." patently untrue. the history of geth and quarian were inextricably intertwined. our encounters with and regarding geth were also informative about quarians. byw, our initial encounter with tali were on the citadel after which we got some considerable info regarding the geth and the flotilla 'n such. HA! Good Fun!

kotor gave you some interaction with the fisheads, but what other race did you get similar interaction? not the sand people or wookies. by the same token, you did get a good deal o' history from me regarding the rachni and the krogan, asari and protheans. heck, Gromnir learned far more 'bout quarians from me than we did 'bout wookies or the tentacle head (mission vao) people in kotor. me were starting from scratch with most o' the alien races where as kotor assumed that player had some pre-existing knowledge. HA! Good Fun!

not only were the me characters more human than the cookie cutter kotor incarnations (which were largely intentional in kotor, but still irksome) the fact that they rare spoke off the normandy were an advantage. a common complaint following kotor were that the jnpcs seemingly chose worst possible times to initiate inappropriate dialogues. no doubt this is the reason why kotor 2 and me both moved most dialogues to the stronghold/ships... aluminum falcon or normandy or whatever. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure what the link is 'tween national socialism and Gromnir's accusation that Mackland were Crusading for Truth? is tough to pin that on Gromnir. nevertheless, the notion that Gromnir did spinning is silly. "I'm not interested in ceding the gaming forums of the world to a cabal of trolls promoting an illogical tyranny of hyperbole. "Misinformation unchallenged becomes information." mackland expressed disbelief that a fellow developer would avoid internet board posting, and supplied the aforementioned as his own raison for posting... then went and accused Gromnir of hyperbole. ... HA! wacky stuff. is amusing that mk would accuse us o' spin following our previous encounter... not that Gromnir can take credit. Di were genuine the one who pretty much gutted you, though that weren't her intent, and you did set yourself up to be filleted. thanks for the continued laughs. am willing to keep this 'bout kotor if anybody else wishes to do so. vol likes mass effect. vol likes pie. don't expect a great deal of insight from vol regarding why me is a good game. heck, don't expect a great deal of insight from Gromnir on why me is a good game as it were merely a moderate enjoyable game for us. am not sure why kotor should be the measuring stick for me, but if kotor is the measure, then we thinks me bears up admirably. as mentioned already, both me and kotor has weak combat and the character building choices seems to have little impact on gameplay. even so, both games is story-driven to a great degree, so if you like kotor story and hate me story, then chances are you thinks kotor is a better game, regardless o' things like level design and combat n' such. Gromnir thought kotor story were clever, with an intentional re imagining o' the story arc from the original 3 star wars movies. seems like an obvious approach for a writer/developer to take with a star wars game, but only in retrospect. me story were traditional epic fare, but unlike wrath, we thinks that the characters were not only more developed in me than in kotor, but they were more human as well... regardless of their race. plot is always gonna be silly in epic fantasy fare, so it not surprise Gromnir that me plot seemed hard to swallow, 'cause that is the norm. if you empathize with characters (villains and heroes,) then shortcomings in plot become negligible. me characters weren't compelling enough for us to complete forget plot shortcomings, but Gromnir thought bioware did no worse in me than in kotor with basic story elements. biggest difference 'tween kotor and me: kotor were a star wars game and me was not. HA! Good Fun!

"In what layer of the Abyss did we sit down and have a discussion about legitimizing why I post at the codex and elsewhere? I explained why I post at various game forums. I could not possibly care less whether you think my reasons are legitimate." am not sure 'bout layers of the abyss, but a few posts ago you opined reasons for posting at the codex and elsewhere... after questioning why another developer would not. maybe you not like the turn o' phrase, but we gots denotative and connotative accuracy. bah... am trying to reason with a guy who used burke quote on combating Evil to show that he weren't giving too much credit to codex? perhaps you is vol's alt? as an aside, Gromnir has always been curious 'bout the d&d notion o' The Abyss having infinite layers... or at least, many layers. strictly speaking, ain't the Abyss an endless pit... or alternatively, a metaphysical/allegorical void that nevertheless inspires nightmares and births chaos? tangible levels existing in the abyss seems almost antithetical to original notions and definitions. HA! Good Fun!

is nothing wrong with wrath opinions, but is simply too difficult for many of us to find common ground to even begin a debate. talk with the bio writers and they will concede some o' the shortcomings in various kotor characters and quests... and is surprising how often they actually agree with the weight o' fan feedback. is not as if the biowarians is oblivious to the shortcomings. likewise, the developers admit to shortcomings with me. ... is maybe telling that Gromnir can have a discussion with the actual developers 'bout shortcomings of me and kotor in which we can agree on many points, but we find no such common ground with wrath... which don't make wrath wrong, but is simply bizarre. take a whopper from burger king and a big mac from mcdonalds. most people is gonna have a preference, and nobody is wrong in their preference. the thing is that virtual all folks is gonna be arguing as between and betwixt relative fast food items. has some guy claim that actually consuming a big mac is akin to eating broken glass, whilst eating a whopper is to experience culinary nirvana... HA! Good Fun!

damn straight Gromnir "gamed" the spirit meter. am not sure how many times we had to "trudge" back to the vault... not many. the key is getting your craving down to virtual zero... which we did with 1 trip to vault and some rest-rinse-repeat action. got craving to 0 after first trip back to vault, which we did immediately after we figured out the mechanics behind the spirit meter. otherwise, we coulda "gamed" even more tedious doing even more suppress & sleep repeats in some other locale. Gromnir experimented with this approach... sleeping near the spirit sinks (locations with static non-combat spirit encounters) in ashenwood or at the lakeshore. turns out that the vault were actually a more time efficient scenario as travel 'cross considerable distances happens in game time and not real time. btw, the alignment hit for supress were, for most characters, a non-factor. the only players who got "hit' were folks who had to maintain a non-lawful alignment. so, for most players, suppress, even as original implemented, had 0 cost at all. Gromnir never played a druid or barbarian character in motb, but we were one o' the folks that questioned the enormous cumulative law injection that suppress resulted in conferring 'pon a character. do every chaotic option in game, but you suppress enough times and you still end up extreme lawful? doesn't make sense, does it. Conan, as the kinda Prototype for barbarian types, were weak-willed? do suppress enough times and that means the barbarian forgets how to surrender to rage? makes even less sense why druids suffer... though Gromnir feels that anybody playing a druid (or bard) deserves whatever misfortune comes their way. how is suppress a lawful action... even given the silly alignment rules o' the d&d universe? bah. spirit meter were flawed, easily circumvented, and added little to gameplay as far as we could tell. HA! Good Fun! ps if after figuring out how the spirit meter worked, and how easily circumvented it were, Gromnir had known how to turn spirit meter off, we surely woulda' done so. am not one o' those nutters that has some kinda weird notion 'bout legit v. non-legit gameplay. re-roll 200+ times to get an uber bg2 character? is not our cup-o' tea, but we surely not see as any more legit than manual change o' stats.

our apologies. honest. will try to edit with spoiler feature momentarily. please note that Gromnir cannot edit the portion o' aristes post copied from Gromnir's again, our apologies for punting the pooch on this one.

So, Carth was a very damaged human being, anything against portraying that in a game? The problem with Kaiden is he's so underdeveloped, he tells you his sob story (which is pretty dumb btw) and that's it. over-the-top is rarely a positive... 'less you is going for camp value. carth were over-the-top. carth were developed by gaider to please female gamers... he got lots o' feedback from lady s' site during development. ... personally, if Gromnir were a woman we would be mighty offended by carth and how gaider/bioware viewed the feminine gender. the terrible thing is that most o' the estrogen feedback regarding carth were positive. sure, we heard the "whiner" complaints frequent enough, but carth were, for the most part, well received by women gamers. *shudder* HA! Good Fun!

the spirit meter were annoying. Gromnir goes to vault o' myrkul and applied a cycle o' eternal rest and suppres and actual rest to get our craving reduced to nil. those shadow o' the void thingies in the urns were a bit like vending machine dispensers as far as Gromnir were concerned... 'cept that Gromnir actually were getting paid with a brilliant spirit essence. whenever our spirit meter got to genuine debilitating, we would simply go back to vault and "free" the spirit o' a shadow o' the void. Gromnir had to rest a couple o' times in the skien til we figured out how to get to the hag, but suppress seemed to be effective enough for the duration... were the only time during game in which we had to endure even some sorta minor spirit meter penalty. is odd, but we thinks we woulda' appreciated the spirit meter more if it were more annoying, rather than less. spirit meter, as included in game, were not genuine adding another level o' gameplay 'cause it were relative easy to overcome... if you had the patience to hike back to dead god's vault over and over. *shrug* no doubt the developers always face a difficult choice with such features: make hard enough to be a challenge, but easy 'nuff that only an unavoidable fraction o' the purchasers will suffer actual frustration. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna suggest that carth were the "degenerate" form o' kaiden. the archetype upon which both is built is tediously familiar, but carth... carth were kinda extreme with the mood swings. Gromnir kept wishing for a dialogue option that would allow us to force feed carth lithium. carth were not our favorite kotor jnpc... woulda preferred kaiden. HA! Good Fun!

to: manmonkeyhybrid is obvious you not understand "hyperbole." quote burke on evil as legitimizing why you post at codex and elsewhere... but at same time saying that GROMNIR is the one inflating importance o' codex? ... alternate quote