Gromnir

sure, 'cause english lit grads know how to write... likes history grads knows how to change history. is only a handful o' noteworthy english bfa and mfa programs we can think of, and the % of gradates from those programs that actually end up publishing anything meaningful is pretty small. an english lit degree is a meaningless footnote on a writer's resume. and bio knows full well that contests is a Huge mistake. bio has hired numerous folks based on submissions o' work based on nwn toolset. is some folks who has shown good level design and programming skills 'nuff that they has been offered jobs. seen any nwn modules include multiple tangential and optional romances? no? romance must be: optional tangential virtually entirely dialogue (3 lines max per response) no more than 6-8 dialogue encounters. ... am not sure kel understands just how complex a task it is to write such a romance. to make such a romance that not feels rushed, juvenile, or trite? good luck. bio will continue to include romances, 'cause they is popular. nevertheless, the current implementation makes marked improvements beyond what we has already seen... problematic. HA! Good Fun!

female writers write romance will merely result in male players being confused and/or bored... and let us see jane austen does a romance arc in a crpg in which she has to keep dialogue responses short (3 lines or less,) and in which her romance must be optional, tangential, and completed in 6-8 encounters. bah. until they does critical path and does right, am gonna stick with 'Ode to a Broadsword' as most suitable kinda crpg romance. HA! Good Fun!

no matter how deft the writer or how clever the storyteller, a half-dozen optional and tangential dialogue encounters will never result in a genuine and compelling romance arc... 'least not for Gromnir. sure, for folks brought up on dawson's creek 'n such, maybe the lightning pace and shallow emotional level approach is gonna satisfy, but for Gromnir... romance ain't tangential. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir's first car were a 78 Cherokee. had big plans for that vehicle. sadly, 'tween paying for gas and insurance and maintenance,, not to mention fact that we had far less free time than we had hoped, few o' our big plans for improvements ever came to fruition. developers, and not only bio developers, is typically 'bout as realistic 'bout their games as Gromnir were 'bout that 78 Cherokee. nwn were gonna be offering unique gameplay for every class and race. nwn toolset were gonna be so easy to use that even your "grandmother" would be able to makes playable modules. were biowarians big fat liars, or simply overly optimistic? over optimistic is our guess. sure, no doubt the developers wanted to make toolset super powerful and super easy, but actually accomplishing were a bit more than they could manage. manage to makes nwn oc a unique gameplay experience depending on class/race choice is sounding nice, and virtually every developer makes such similar claims, but reality never seems to meet expectations. unrealistic optimism? yeah. is not lies, simply lack o' realism... and truth to tell, Gromnir would rather have developers be a little too optimistic as 'posed to being convinced that anything new or difficult is impossible. 'course the recent dialogue wheel crap makes us wonder a bit. shenanigans whereby developers somehow manage to sell a device that allows 'em to get multiple uses out o' a single dialogue response (useful in a game with full vo) is somehow sold to game purchasers as a role-play innovation? gotta applaud bio for having the stones to try such an obvious con... and fact that they pulled off and managed to trick many reviewers and fans is even more extraordinary. the choose your origins stuff: am predicting that this turns out to be little more than the dialogue wheel o' da. is gonna be a feature you sees mentioned in every preview and interview, but am doubting it genuine amounts to anything. romances will continue to be popular, and disappointing at same time. juvenile and rushed. how can you has a tangential and optional romance that goes through entire cycle in matter o' a half-dozen or so optional dialogue encounters? people likes romance. hell, Gromnir likes romance, but romance ain't really suitable fare for a optional side-quest fodder... not if you want to be meaningful. people will continue to get their bio romance fix with da, but don't expect any genuine improvement, no matter how much the biowarians get in touch with their feminine side. as for da darkness... da will be dark, but not too dark. *chuckle* keep in mind that as much as maybe Gromnir wants to see a da world in which lines 'tween good and evil is blurry, and in which the heroes fail, stumble, and sometimes die, many (MANY) da posters and bio fans do not want such a world. when developers first mentioned that they were inspired by new bsg and george r.r. martin when developing da world and story there were as much message board resistance as there were approval. for all o' us that is bored with the simple black v. white fantasy worlds, there is an equal number o' folks that likes it nice and simple and... pleasant. bio, after listening to boardies back 'n forth 'bout what is dark and how much dark da should have, "clarified" by announcing that da would be dark, but not too dark. no doubt we will see orks kicking puppies into traffic at start o' game, but as the hero you will be able to fix all that nasty evilness with 40 hours or less o' gameplay... puppies will be safe by end of game, so don't you fret. sounds like Gromnir is slamming da already? not really. am actually pretty optimistic. looks nice from screenies, and Gromnir is pretty certain that story and gameplay aspects will be enjoyable. da will be another very solid bio release that has extremely broad appeal... which almost necessarily means that it will cheese off the hardcore gamers. *shrug* will wait and see, but much o' the innovative features we has heard 'bout simply won't be all that innovative when actually played. as long as you ain't actually expecting genuine dark, unique gameplay/story for multiple origin choices, and/or a sea change for crpg romances, you won't be disappointed. HA! Good Fun!

"They were tipped in the balance of

"You make it sound like just because Obsidian thinks a certain way it must be true." where did we say that? we did make it sound like we thinks that bucket head would be more likely to believe obsidian than Gromnir. clown. the obsinaties is often wrong, but the appeal to authority crap is strong, and chances are that people will be convinced by josh more readily than Gromnir. is simply human nature. the thing is that with the 3e v. ad&d stuff, the die hards don't listen to anybody. again, 3e has many flaws, but it is so damnably obvious that it is more rational, simple and coherent than ad&d that fact that we is having such an argument beggars the imagination. "Besdies, I doubt every single Obsidian employee believes the exact same thing." actually, Gromnir would be very much surprised if any obsidian developer agreed that ad&d were the more simple, coherent and rational rule system. maybe an art guy... HA! Good Fun!

You keep spewing this garbage like it is a fact. Any proof to back up what you say? Try to answer the question without going off on a tangent or personal insults...If you can. tell you what, go through and dredge up posts by obsidian developers on the matter... maybe you believe them more. regardless, multi-class rules and dual class rules in ad&d make more sense compared to 3e versions? hey, how many hps does a fighter/wizard/thief get at level up anyways? at 11th level, how many hit die does a ad&d pc got? dunno, 'cause it depends on what class he is. why? exceptional strength? huh? reduction o' innumerable weapon types and abandoning of weapon speeds (which virtually nobody used anyways) were more complex in 3e? bab, save throws, level progression relative to cr ratings? the 3e or ad&d versions make more sense... and which were more simple? bah. as we said, you ain't gonna believe Gromnir anyways. were actually sad to watch when the die hards argue with josh on the matter o' ad&d strengths v. 3e, 'cause reason is never part o' the equation. and you deserve to be insulted if you honestly wanna argue coherence, simplicity and rationality o' ad&d over 3e. for chrissakes, as been noted numerous times already, the organic and haphazard development o' ad&d precluded such an outcome... not that such things were goals o' ad&d. tell gygax back in 1982 that ad&d weren't simple, coherent and rational and no doubt he woulda' answered, "So what?" ... argue that simplicity, coherence and rationality is overrated? sure. but argue that ad&d were more rational or coherent than 3e is just plain delusional. *chuckle* take one look at exp progression table in 3e compared to the class specific tables o' ad&d and try to argue with a straight face. HA! Good Fun!

inconsistencies. conflicts. slow leveling. unbalanced. etc. such stuff not bother lifelong fans and hardcore nerd, but it made new d&d pnp fans few and far between. "PS: i should add, in my pnp days, which were not very lengthy, and quite a long time ago, i never played high levels, either. i don't recall getting high enough to even cast 5th level spells until playing on a computer." is arguable that success of baldur's gate actually prolonged life of ad&d, 'cause sales had been in slow decline since mid eighties. d&d were dying a slow death. 3e were not simply a marketing ploy, but rather a desperate attempt wotc to keeps from having to abandon d&d publishing altogether. baldur's gate were the first big d&d crpg success in many years, and it managed to make folks like taks, people who maybe hadn't played d&d in a long time, regain curiosity 'bout d&d. 'course we doubt that most o' the takites went out and bought all the ad&d modules and rules books to sate their newfound curiosity neither. ... 3e were needed to save d&d... and it were initially a success. "simple, streamlined and balanced." became a mantra for wotc folks pre 3e release. ad&d scared off new pnp players in part 'cause it were so seemingly arcane. d&d were fodder for geeks with pocket protectors and no social life. taks could play on a computer where all the number crunching took place in an instant and behind the scenes, but would he and his compatriots really search out opportunities to play in pnp sessions with a bunch o' pimply faced losers? the thing is that while 3e were much more rational, coherent and simple than ad&d when it were first released, it no longer is. each times wotc published a new d&d product they added prestige classes and playable races and weapons and spells and... stuff. after years o' releasing such garbage, 3e had become nearly as convoluted and complex as were ad&d at the time of it's demise. HA! Good Fun!

most common response = dumbest response then what makes one rule system superior? your silly response can apply to any rule system, no matter how bass ackwards, self-contradictory and staid. what makes a role-play game fun will always, first and foremost, be the persons you is playing the game with. not matter how good or bad the rules is if the people sitting at the table with you is a bunch o' stiffs or dorks. bad rules can be ignored by playing with quality folks, and reverse is likewise true. nevertheless, the "use your ****ing imagination" shtick is tired and... stoopid. give'em back the bucket-head icon. HA! Good Fun!

"From the ashes is the good news: 6E D&D will be a game played using 15mm metal minis using stripped-down rules in small samizdat-style booklets full of random tables. They'll call it Chainmail." yeah, and then people can play an elf again the way it were 'posed to be played. choose elf. roll stats. ... were pretty much the end o' character generation in mc's ye good olde days. "elf" were both race and class and that choice were the only one you got to make... 'cause rolled stats were left up to chance and there were no feats or skills or any such other stuff. mc's elf looked like bobs elf. bob's elf looked and played same as phil's elf. phil's elf... original d&d were a squad-based tactical combat game... and the tactical combat were pretty sketchy. nevertheless, it were the first... and for a while it were the only such game. so, the good news is that original stripped down d&d rules (which probably resulted in as much errata as actual rules) is dead and will never rear its ugly head again. maybe mc longs for the good old days when he could drive his model t down to the local speak-easy for some bathtub gin? too bad. the good old days rarely is all that good... save in nostalgic recollection. HA! Good Fun!

whatever the strengths of original d&d versions, rationality were not high on list. heck, multi-classing and dual-classing rules alone were 'nuff to make one wonder what thy gygax brothers were smoking. d&d, the original rules, were contained in a collection o' very small soft cover booklets... rules bore more similarity to what would become d&d basic rules in later years. 'course between the time o' d&d release and ad&d release, we had lots o' role-players fixing d&d. by the time that ad&d were released, the d&d that were being played by folks at gencon tournaments bore little resemblance to the printed rules. ad&d were, more or less, a codification o' the most common and most popular house rules that were being used by players anyways. a mish-mash o' dragon magazine articles, and tourney house rules and some general wackiness thrown in to boot. 3e and 4e, on the other hand, were developed in a coherent fashion with emphasis on guiding principles. sure, clearly some stuff in 3e were busted... like ranger class and prestige classes and grapple, but overall, the rules in 3e were rational... 'least compared to earlier editions... which is to be expected considering how different were the development approach. to be blunt, only the most deluded ad&d fanboi would try to argue in favor of 2e or ad&d rationality compared to 3e or 4e. is simply untenable. 'course rationality may not be you primary concern, and it probably shouldn't be. ultimately is 'bout having fun, eh? even so, ad&d rationality? *snort* HA! Good Fun!

"If you're right (and I don't think you are) and alignment wasn't a good system..." it were a terrible system that served no purpose... but sadly the system had teeth. no group o' people could ever agree where the lines 'tween and twixt good/neutral/evil or the law/neutral/chaos actually were 'posed to be, but being good or chaotic had real impact on game mechanics. that is bad rules. "We're not sure what we want, so we'll nerf it until it doesn't influence anything" good. insofar as alignment is concerned, Gromnir is in favor o' exorcising it complete, so fact that it has been "nerfed" into impotence is a step in the right direction. so why did wotc keep the stoopid labels? we got no idea... but fact that the labels no longer have a game mechanics application is a damned good move in the right direction. btw, as for what wotc has done to d&d... 3e and 4e are much better systems than were the original d&d, ad&d, or 2e. original d&d were never played by anybody we ever met. ad&d represented the formalization o' the most commonly used house rules that made d&d actually playable. 'course those house rules were voluminous and contradictory, which is to be expected considering their organic evolution. hundreds and thousands o' bandages and patches to fix original d&d flaws and gaps? 2e were nothing more than ad&d with some few additional bandages and patches. is 3e and 4e flawed? sure they is, but both systems is far more coherent and rational than earlier editions o' d&d. HA! Good Fun!

"No, they got it completely wrong. If they had removed it entirely, I'd have been upset, but I could've accepted it. If they'd have clarified the mess they made in 3e, then that would've been better. Instead, they nerfed it so it has not meaning, but left it in anyway. How is that right? It's so useless it could be ignored, but so hosed it cannot be. Like most of 4e, it's the worst of all worlds." gonna disagree... big time. the mistake with 4e alignment is its bare naked existence, and the somewhat retarded (as in regressive) nomenclature. why use old descriptors from 1e quadrant alignment system if you no longer has a quadrant system? baffling. also, alignment in 4e, just as in all previous editions, serves no useful purpose. nevertheless, 4e makes a big step in right direction by diminishing role o' alignment. now keep in mind that Gromnir has still only taken the most cursory look at alignment as it appears in the 4e core books, so if something changes or we missed something, feel free to correct us, but our understanding is that alignment in 4e is simply window dressing. if a giant dire wereplatypus attacks your party does it matter whether it is categorized as a monomtreme? no? is no specific actual rules that deal with egg laying mammals, so categorization as such not matter. same goes for alignment in 4e. your chaotic evil cleric not get special spells/powhaz that limit healing surges, and there ain't no silly detection o' _______ spells neither. the obvious 4e move woulda' been to simply forgo mention o' alignment altogether. nevertheless, given how long alignment has been part o' d&d, we is willing to dismiss the busted labels as kinda likes scars... sure, the wounds is healed, but as long as scar remains you is never gonna forget the injury. d&d no longer is wounded by alignment, but we still gots some ugly scars. HA! Good Fun!

"The greater importance of horses now is in tune with the increased focus on trading. After all something needs to pull the trade wagons and a lack of them would be weird. " how many games has you played in past in which you was carrying enough gold, armour and weapons to kill the budweiser clydesdale's? regardless, the weird thing would be having adventurers dealing with the more mundane aspects o' trade. hire folks to do such stuff? yeah. finance trade ships or merchants? yeah. beyond that? would all happen behind the scenes. the city in bg2 were some big trade hub, but Gromnir weren't shocked by lack o' wagons n' horses. HA! Good Fun!

why would obsidian waste effort on such a thing? oblivion horses only useful purpose were to speed overland travel, but nwn2 exp2 uses an overland map for movement. put horses in simply to say they got horses? why? HA! Good Fun!

mechwarrior 3 gave Gromnir's computer fits. slow down and crashes. gave up. no doubt it were a problem on Gromnir's end with config or some such, but we just didn't feel like working so hard to plays. on the bright side, mechwarrior 4 ran slick as goose poop on Gromnir's rig. as for taks comments re gothic and gothic 2, Gromnir is embarrassed to admit that we finished gothic. it were slow death playing, but we fell into the grind and simply gritted it out until we finished. gothic 2... some folks convinced Gromnir that problems o' gothic were fixed in gothic 2, so we bought. am no longer taking game advice from those folks. btw, am understanding the issues with kotor and kotor 2. Gromnir has observed on more than one occasion that kotor gameplay is pretty shallow and repetitive. kotor were seemingly developed to makes combats look and sound like star wars combats... but depth o' gameplay were secondary to capturing the "feel" o' star wars. personally, we ended up liking the games, but not 'cause o' compelling gameplay. HA! Good Fun! ps am wishing that Gromnir hadn't finished kotor 2. as with most obsidian/bis developed games, kotor2 were almost ruined by a terrible conclusion. leave out final planet/map/whatever might be a better approach for obsidian as they got a habit o' flubbing such stuff.

arcanum jade empire divine divinity dungeon siege oblivion warcraft 3 gothic 2 the above games were not finished 'cause 'pon reaching a certain point we realized that the only reason we were still playing is 'cause o' some fatalist notion 'bout completing what we had started, regardless o' the pain or boredom. temple of elemental evil mechwarrior 3 did not finish 'cause technical issues were too distracting to allow us to continue. HA! Good Fun!

"I'd have a number of mechanisms" mc said lots more than this, so it may seem unfair that we lift one phrase out, but lifted bit illustrates the big difference 'tween Gromnir pov and mc's. quest xp is simple and results in all players getting equal xp regardless o' their character build or the manner in which they choose to solve quests and play game. 1 simple and elegant solution. mc, on the other hand, would have developers apply a number o' mechanisms to attempt to achieve largely the same end. the more complex and numerous the mechanisms, the more likely they is to break.... is virtually axiomatic. Gromnir, being a dull person with limited imagination and having a preference for elegant simplicity, would much prefer the straightforward and less complicated approach, so that developers can then spend time and efforts on adding meaningful content to game. HA! Good Fun!

RuneQuest had two main ways of increasing skills: Training (yep, you could buy an extra +10% in broadsword attack if you had the time and money) Experience (you noted down the skills you'd used in the session, then did an inverted d100 check to see if you improved by a 5% increment - it got progressively tougher the higher the skill level) It worked pretty well. in a pnp game, a gm can tailor the campaign so that each player has appropriate & proportional opportunities to increase skills. in a crpg, the developer gotta account for any and all potential players. is a daunting task. typically there is gonna be far more combat encounters in a standard crpg than there will be thiefy opportunities, or diplomatic opportunities, or... whatever. so how does developer balance? is easier to write lots o' multi-tiered dialogue heavy encounters that gives opportunities to use social skillz... or throw in a few monster respawns so that players can battle and gain 1007? so why do it? why goes through effort o' trying to balance and keep proportional? quest based xp awards avoids all the nasty complications. kill 1000 monsters or kill 1 and you still get same xp points. use diplomacy or thiefy or some unforeseen approach that the developer hadn't considered? no worries, 'cause regardless o' your approach you is gonna get fixed xp for completion o' tasks. simple is not always best, but simple is often a time-saver. developer saves big 'mount o' time by using simple quest-based awards... means they gots more time to be spending on other aspects o' game. crpgs is not same as pnp. must keeps that fundamental difference in mind as one contemplates relative strengths o' different approaches. HA! Good Fun!

each class needs necessarily possess some unique attribute or ability that is unique. such a notion goes 'gainst the general concept o' freedom o' player customization. if open and free customization ain't a goal, then no big loss. have a small handful o' classes ain't necessary a bad thing, but the da approach shows the stoopidity o' some o' the class approaches. why 3 classes? da is gonna have some kinda skills customization open to all classes, so what is point o' the rogue class? d&d 4e, for all its weirdness, recognizes that previous thiefy/rogue concepts were busted... so made their 4e rogue a "striker." 4e rogue ain't simply a gimped combatant with sneak attack and extra skill points. anybody can choose skills, but what genuine distinguishes 4e classes is combat viability. da warriors does combat with weapons. da spell casters use magic. da rogue does... what? is a pointless class. has high/low intelligence, or some other factor, determines capacity of warriors or spell casters to acquire non-combat skillz, and simply flush rogue. is an antiquated rpg convention that serves no genuine purpose... save for fact that it fulfills expectations. btw, the thing that is most wrong with prestige classes and kits is balance. some 2e kits is woefully unbalanced. more kits you get and the greater the balance is likely to be busted. prestige classes is even worse 'cause o' the multi-class combinations. is impossible for any game designer to anticipate every combination o' classes and prestige classes. what is the most popular prestige classes and kits? the ultra-powerful. anecdote: when iwd2 were in early development, and it looked like it were still 2nd edition, josh offered up some possible kit choices. you peoples HATED 'em. the overwhelming negative feedback were amusing. so josh offers up some alternatives... but most o' the board clowns didn't realize that his new suggestions were tongue-in-cheek munchkin bait. fans really liked the kewl newer kits. people wants kits and prestige classes with Awesome Deathmaster Powhaz. oh, and as an aside, prestige classes, with sill prerequisites which usually ain't any kinda a burden, simply results in greater uniformity as 'posed to greater diversity. bob's red wizard is likely to look very much like tim's red wizard. freedom o' customization creates its own problems, so often hard defined and limited classes is an easier and often more elegant approach. that being said, schizophrenic developers often tries to achieve freedom and multiple, specialized and unique classes... which leads to a whole host o' problems. HA! Good Fun!

pain in the arse to set up. it did not add enough for me to get excited about it. taks There's a new version out called easytutu thats really easy to set up, you just choose where you have BG2 and BG1 and where you want to intall tutu and it does the rest. Also you can uninstall BG1 after you've installed Tutu. IMO the higher resolutions alone are worth it, but getting highlight, better weapon proficiences and with mods ammo and potion cases and gem bags it really makes BG1 a better experience. Also there's a mod called Sword Coast Stratagems that makes the game a bit more challenging, but unlike Tactics it doesn't cheat, it's just scripting and moving some encounters around. It's almost like a new game. sidenote: Gromnir tried sword coast strategems a while back and had problems... probably dowloaded into wrong file or something. still have the file, but not loaded and the readme is kinda wonky. you know if this thing should be extracted to tutu file or override? might try bg in future. should probably simply download new version o' strategems... *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

the great thing 'bout a crpg over a pnp rpg is that all the numbers crunching in a crpg takes place instantaneous. bizarre flanking rules and grapples and seemingly endless modifiers can be dealt with by a game engine in the fraction o' a second. what becomes tedious and unwieldy in a pnp rpg can go largely unnoticed in a crpg. am doubting that bio goes for any sorta genuine complexity. their general design philosophy embraces a notion o' maximized accessibility. a highly complex combat system, even if the rulez is being accounted for behind the scenes, is probably considered too hardcore for bio. keep rules relative simple to understand is what Gromnir foresees. that being said, simple & streamlined is not a bad thing. rulez o' chess is very simple, but clearly there is great opportunity for complex strategy in such a game. am expecting da to be broken. pretty much any new rpg rule system is broken when first released. d&d 3e got considerable play-testing 'fore release and it managed to have some rather curious broken rules that called for an almost instant errata release. da gots not only new rules, but unlike pnp rules that can be changed with a released pdf, change game engine is tougher... which is probably another reason to keeps simple. hopefully game is enjoyable 'nuff that they gets opportunity to fine-tune... 'cause initial release is gonna be kinda the first opportunity to beta test rules & game engine with large scale genuine playing. HA! Good Fun!

They can call them "gambits" instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XII#Battle_system is considerably after Gromnir first suggested at Bio, but as long as is in game, Gromnir satisfied. independently inspired... even got the American football reference? well, such an approach makes sense, so is not too unrealistic that somebody would come up independent-like. anybody that has played ff xii can tell us how goodly/badly it works in that game? HA! Good Fun!

there ain't a dm on the planet that would ever allow you to re-roll for literally hundreds o' times. is no different than using infinite xp glitches or limitless gold exploits. am seeing the smiley in taks post... but am always baffled by the peoples who sees some distinction 'tween shadowkeeper and 4 hours o' re-rolling. only difference Gromnir can see is that 'stead o' playing bg2 for 4 hours, you mindless hit re-roll for 4 hours. ... maybe Gromnir is too rational, but this kinda imaginary difference 'tween shadowkeeper and a thousand rerolls smacks o' wacky self-delusion... or temporarey insanity. then again, if game is more fun for you 'cause o' the self-delusion, then game IS more fun. do whatever makes more fun. still seem wacky-nutty to Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

pocket plane group gots all kinda mods... including h4x0rz kinda stuff... why re-roll when you can simply give appropriate stats to a character? 2 minutes v. hours? never understood the re-roll thing when so many mod programs is available. HA! Good Fun! quick check results: is something called gate keeper and shadow keeper mods. lets you quick and easy gives whatever stats, spells, equip, etc. to your bg or bg2 character. re-roll til get acceptable numbers, or simply cut to chase and build as desired? is some kooky people who seem to enjoy the re-roll process... but Gromnir thinks those people is broken in the head.