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Gromnir

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Everything posted by Gromnir

  1. eh? sure sounded like YOU were the guy building up the codex. reason you post is to bring truth where there is misinformation, 'cause misinformation can become truth? Gromnir is the guy who said that YOU is the guy giving them far too much legitimacy. codex and other boards has very little inherent legitimacy... and only the occasional Developer post can change that reality. and yeah, you is trying to win. if the other guy is spreading misinformation, you want your truth to prevail, no? is what you said, not Gromnir. don't be afraid to admit that you indulge in a bit o' the adversarial... as a Crusader for truth you better at least be honest with self, no? call it the Marketplace of Ideals or the Adversarial Process or come up with your own spin... not matter. you submit your Truth in hopes that it will win with your silent majority. ... you is kinda wishy-washy for a Crusader type. *shrug* "Also, you cite a bunch of specific examples of people posting things on forums in response to a particular issue or what-have-you. I don't know anything about any of those instances. I didn't work at Interplay or Black Isle. I didn't work at Obsidian when any of these alleged incidents took place, and I don't know anything about them, nor do they have anything to do with me posting" again, "eh?" it got plenty to do with you. if you is gonna put on cape and Crusade for truth, you better recognize that there is things you cannot be truthful 'bout. you work for obsidian, and regardless o' your beliefs, you is unlikely to be stoopid enough or naive enough to ignore common sense. correct all misconceptions? HA! am gonna call bs. our examples is specific obsidan examples, so they got plenty to do with you. you work for obsidan, and you not seem like a complete retard. clearly you understand that you cannot dispel all message board generated or proliferated misconceptions. yeah, your limited awareness o' what has gone on at obsidian in the pat means that you cannot speak to the examples we cite above, but neither should any reasonable adult be surprised that such stuff has occurred. in any event this all complete ignores the original point YOU made. go figure. shouldn't be surprised. folks that complain 'bout logic and hyperbole is often the ones most likely to indulge... 'less you were trying to be ironic with the "I'm not interested in ceding the gaming forums of the world to a cabal of trolls promoting an illogical tyranny of hyperbole." bit. if you were being whimsical and Gromnir took serious, then Gromnir apologizes. regardless, clearly there is reasons for reasonable developers to not get involved in board posting, and to pretend otherwise is curious. oh, and just so you know, the silent majority doesn't spend much time at obsidian or codex... yet another reason why a reasonable developer might not feel like joining in to Fight The Good Fight. your continued contributions will no doubt be appreciated, as is most developer posts. HA! Good Fun!
  2. Didn't help that some of the forum faithful over-reacted to those ranger/dual wield comments and brought the argument over to the wotc boards themselves. That's what you call rabble rousing... josh were pretty cheesed off himself. the tone of his posts regarding wotc involvement regarding iwd2 were not simply informational, eh? to a certain degree the rabble were roused by josh. even so, josh were simply being honest as he saw it. should he apologize for being passionate about game development? *shrug* regardless, we were able to see first hand what happens when a developer's truth is antagonistic to aims o' his employer. furthermore, am not sure that a fan ever has to apologize for making an hones /good faith complaint. can fans go too far? sure. but wouldn't it be hypocritical to berate fans for crusading against misinformation? HA! Good Fun!
  3. 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. so you win in a verbal battle with the codex? what has you won? many (most?) o' those you has beaten will not recognize your victory... and even if you does emerge clear winner, that won't stop or slow misinformation one bit. avoid codex and you is ceding mythical territory to irrelevant tyrants. why does you care what they say at codex or elsewhere? plug your finger in dike trying to stop/slow your perceived leaks o' misinformation? heck, is arguable that developers arguing with those midget tyrants is what makes 'em relevant. the fact that gaider and josh and others respond to Gromnir is part o' what makes our posts relevant to many. on the other hand, if we were complete ignored or simply laughed away... the real hyperbole may be attributing real power to these boards. a large % game purchasers never read these boards. another % o' game purchasers largely ignore posts not specific related to game features. most of what occurs on these boards is simply noise. developer boards is a relative cheap way to advertise game and let fans do work of building interest in games. and yeah, to a certain degree it is true that misinformation can become fact... but far less than is implied, and very little that is meaningful. fergie, for instance, tried to convince fans that TotL was not released as an apology/bandage for HoW. for sake of argument, let us say that he were telling the truth. what difference? is probable that such is reason that fergie didn't fight very hard to convince fans that TotL weren't an apology/bandage, 'cause in long run what would be difference? those who hated HoW would still hate it. Those who liked HoW would still like it. fergie set record straight 'bought motivation behind TotL development? what is the point in the long run? another example? the biowarians, for whatever reason, insist that Jade Empires were a great commercial success and fulfilled expectations. your own josh sawyer has been somewhat unconvinced by bio claims o' je success. fans seems split on the issue. who is vol or pidesco 'posed to believe? chris priestly and josh sawyers is both posting to dispel misinformation, right? also, am not sure how many times we seen developers post at codex trying to convince fans there that in spite o' the Big Love for fallout, the game weren't a particularly big commercial winner. fo (the original) did moderate well, but the number o' units sold during the all-important first 2 quarters were hardly eye-popping... and the steady sales afterward weren't hardly 'nuff to keep a major developer or publisher in the business o' game making. so what? who cares? convince the regular board posters at game sites that je or fo were a commercial success is meaningful... how? is most potential future purchasers of bio games gonna actual care that je sold well or failed? convince codexians that fo were actually a niche game were meaningful to whom it long run? noise. most o' this is noise. developers posting for entertainment or advertising? yeah, that makes sense. post as some kinda crusade against perceived falsehood? *chuckle* you is gonna be a busy guy if you is honest trying to bring objective truth to the internet. regardless, if you still honest cannot see why a reasonable developer would avoid these boards (the original issue) we cannot help you... perhaps chrisA can. HA! Good Fun! ps also, 'cause it bears repeating, when josh attempted to dispel the misinformation surrounding wotc involvement with iwd2 development, he got muzzled... fast. you is an employee of a game developer. your devotion to truth is a grand thing, just so long as it doesn't hurt obsidian or a publisher or some other influential entity.
  4. I don't see why a Bioware writer wouldn't post on a given forum. I post on RPGCodex all the time. The dude in question is listed in the Mass Effect credits. gaider posts at codex... Lord only knows why. am thinking that maybe it is some sorta understandable (if complete juvenile) impulse to play in the mud. by the same token, how many times has you seen chrisA actually post on this, the obsidian board? (most recent post: Jun 22 2006, 09:52 AM). heck, ask josh what happened when he posted his honest feelings 'bout wotc during iwd2 development... not that we is allowed to talk 'bout that. seriously, ask chrisA why he not post 'round obsidian and perhaps you get some answers, eh? listen to what fans gotta say 'bout games is probable a good thing, but at some point you gotta do what you think is best, regardless o' the often irrational and typically contradictory demands and suggestions o' the fan base. have a genuine constructive discourse 'bout games on game boards is not a high percentage endeavour. also, sadly, the more well-known you becomes, the more likely your board comments is gonna be clumsily dissected: out of context statements show up on so-called news sites and used to "prove" that you or obsidian is the root of all evil, or a bunch o' nincompoops... or whatever. am understanding why some developers might not wanna board post... don't see why you don't. HA! Good Fun! ps forgot to mention tim cain example. tim posted infrequent at troika boards, but when he did he typically came across as either a bit o' a buffoon, or as a complete jerk. perhaps tim were a swell and real smart guy, but his board personality were somewhat lacking. some people has a real difficult time writing their thoughts in relative short board posts. it were in tim's best interest to post as little as possible. is a few developers we has seen over the years that woulda' benefited from posting less... regardless o' how talented they might have been.
  5. never depend on wiki... for anything. wiki definitions is, at best, a tertiary source. wiki sources is not fact checked and they can be authored by virtual any clown with an internet connection. some fat junior college drop-out, sitting in his mom's basement, nursing a big gulp and wearing a sweat stained ac/dc t-shirt, may be the guy you is depending on for accurate information 'bout The Constitution of the United States of America, or the side-effects of Oxycontin? ... am not sure what is level design. seems to have a fluid definition depending on the speaker. that being said, Gromnir rarely sees developers reference aesthetic concerns when discussing level design. example: some folks here has seen Gromnir give josh a hard time... from time to time. HA! one such instance were our rather acerbic and critical posts regarding HoW. a cobbled together game that were little more than a tedious sequence o' s-shaped maps filled with repetitive monster encounters. terrible level design. the wailing virgins and drowned dead looked kewl... and as usual the artwork in most locations were beyond reproach, but when Gromnir criticized level design, and when josh responded to such criticisms, we weren't talking aesthetics. how is gameplay features and encounters organized so as to increase/decrease challenge and or enjoyment? sounds like level design how we seen used most often. that being said, is a bit like distinction 'tween strategy and tactics: is largely illusory and semantic. at some point accumulated tactical concerns become a matter o' strategy... or vice versa. if stale look o' citadel makes encounters makes gameplay more tedious for people, then ain't that level design even though it not seem to fit Gromnir's definition? regardless, am not sure if it is worth fighting over the distinction 'tween what is and is not level design. if speaker and audience both understand the criticism, then what is point in arguing whether or not is actually level design v. art, eh? HA! Good Fun!
  6. look at it another way. irenicus, in bg2, tries to achieve godhood via some sorta wacky plan involving a big tree. ok. am fine with that. is magical. Gromnir got no frame o' reference from which to argue that irenicus plan for godhood were especially bad. sarevok getting godhood 'cause o mass death along sword coast? that part not bother us neither. again, we got zero point o' reference. explain with "its magic." can almost always explain with "its magic." sadly, sarevok's plan were too mundane. governments and peoples do not react to resource shortages as they did in bg. create a iron shortage by poisoning iron in mine? add wacky tazok bandits to mix and criminally stoopid cloak wood mines... is maybe ironic that what killed plausibility o' sarevok's shtick were that it were too mundane. the fact that bg were set in a fantasy world not help dispel stoopidity in such a case. HA! Good Fun!
  7. yeah i know BG was ridiculous, poison iron, i mean come on! But imagine this one: you can not really die. Everytime you time you do, you wake up in the same place but you lose your memory, only, sometimes you dont lose your memory...and in the end you fight your own mortality to stay alive. OH MY F****NG GOD!!! seriously, why bring up "reason" in BG or any other tsr product for that matter? as Gromnir has noted many times ALL fantasy is arguably silly. a bunch of dumpy little faeries with hairy feet save the world from the Ultimate Evil? am not even gonna get into the ents or the return to the shire portion o' the tolkien books. ... within the scope and context o' the forgotten realms, sarevok and sarevok's plan were still stooopid. is why we had a problem with bg and not so much with ps:t. ps:t were often hit and miss. chrisA did a little too much o' the maudlin navel gazing for us NOT to occasional roll our eyes, but within the scope o' the planescape universe, as chrisA presented, an amnesiac immortal weren't too far fetched for Gromnir to suspend disbelief. ps:t, with its factions based 'pon basic philosophical schools o' thought.... and in a universe in which belief could alter reality... *shrug* Gromnir bought into the universe, and let some o' the nonsense slide. take another example. Gromnir loathes when an author slaps down the good v. evil bit in front o' us like a butcher handling a sirloin steak. more often than not a writer o' fantasy simply assumes objective good and evil, and that cheeses of Gromnir to no end... 'cause the tough choices always occur in the grey rather than when there is a clear black and white. even so, if a writer is creating a story in the star wars universe, there has gotta be some Light v. Dark stuff, no? is simply integral to the star wars universe as lucas created to have light & dark. with bg we had to assume that every man, woman and child in the forgotten realms was a complete yutz, and that sarevok, the evil mastermind behind a plot to become a god, would devise a rather ridiculous plan to achieve his ends. yeah, sending out increasingly competent assassins rather than doing the job right from start makes sense and is allowable in game context. if the bhaalspawn had encountered adversaries like slythe and kristin when we were level 1, the game would have been very short indeed. gotta make some allowances for game and world, but sarevok were just plain... dumb. HA! Good Fun!
  8. hehe... like dr. evil. taks exactly. honestly am still, to this day, not sure if bg were meant to be humorous/camp and perhaps most of us just not get. fallout, for example, were a game that purposefully jumped back and forth 'tween deadly earnest and over-the-top camp... were part of its charm. bg, on the other hand... bg had its intentional funny moments and funny characters, but we tends to think that the camp were accidental... but you never know. HA! Good Fun!
  9. Gromnir approached last battle different than some. our casters were high enough level: 8/10 cleric/doomguide & an 8/10 wizard/asock, but trek through temple had exhausted most o' their real powerful spells. had some scrolls and potions to do most pre-battle buffing. rather than go all the way to overland map to rest, we tried end battle w/o a full spell compliment. took two tries with our depleted casters... first attempt were focused on taking the hierophant down first. we killed the hierophant, but didn't have enough juice left to take out the herald. died after a considerable long battle, but the battle were hopeless pretty early into it. second attempt were directed at taking out the herald as quick as possible, then use our 1 mass heal spell to get back on feet and finish off the rest o' the snakes. for Gromnir, and his mostly exhausted spell casters, removing the herald first worked much better than our earlier attempt. once the herald went down, it were pretty much smooth sailing for Gromnir.... but getting the herald down weren't easy. 'course our party were designed maybe different than some. our melee combatants were not so much damage machines as they were good at damage and great at making their saving throws. and we had +3 holy weapons and best possible equipment for every member o' our 4-person party. the alhoon mindflayer were very simple for Gromnir, but that again is 'cause o' our party dynamic. with our melee combatants being virtual guaranteed to make a save of any dc less than 30, and a doomguide spamming mass heals supported by a wizard casting maximized disintegrates at the vampire lords... *shrug* our party leader were actually our weak link as often as not. as a dual wielding rogue/swashbuckler/ranger (2/3/x), Gromnir had a ridiculous number o' attacks per round and very good saves. the problem, as with all 2.0-3.5 d&d boss battles at high levels, is that the bosses is immune or resistant to everything... including critical hits. Gromnir's leader only generated fantastic damage with critical hits, and 'cause he were a high int & moderate dex combatant, we often fell victim to bigby spells that required grapple checks rather than offered fort saves or knockdown attempts. HA! Good Fun!
  10. can't post at bioware, so we will make some observations in this place... mainly concerning some odd bugs we has run across. bug 1) the conyberry meeting in which jon wright monologues for a bit after which there is a yuan-ti attack can result in a strange bug. if you save game after battle but before leaving conyberry tavern... then reload the saved game, the yuan-ti will respawn. good: for the nutters who love infinite exp bugs you can garner 1900 exp each and every time you do the save, reload, kill yaun-ti cycle. bad: if your party is injured, having to fight 7 or 8 yuan-ti holy guardians just to make it out o' the conyberry tavern. bug 2) am not sure where, when or why this happens, but sometimes (very very rarely) when we transition from a location to the overland map, our character dies. can be perfect healthy in port last, and then transition to overland and all party members is dead. game over. huh? played a bit o' motb wit soz loaded and the insta-death transition happened a couple o' times in the span o' 2 hours of gameplay. bug 3) speaking o' motb... after finishing soz, we took our level 18 character into motb for a short time. am not getting companion loyalty feats. safiya, kaelyn, okku and gann is getting their feats as normal, but not Gromnir's character. perhaps we has too many history feats already? not sure. not an additional bug, but the oft mentioned shield equip bug also appears occurs with motb characters, so am guessing that the motb companions has the upgraded ai. after a fight we noticed dove armed with a bare fist and shield, having unequipped her mace o' disruption. bug 4) have only seen this mentioned once, but the random special encounters, like the party polymorphed into chickens n' such, disappears from our game. it seems that any such encounter that moves also disappears. stuff like the wood elf, drow kinslayer and strange gnomes does not disappear. possibly unrelated observation, but will bring up anyway. the disappearing special encounters quirk only began after we traded out our sorcerer for a wizard character. am not sure why this would make a difference, but that is following the change in our 4 man party, we noticed this quirk. thankfully many o' the bugs is fixable via the console. npcs with missing feats and caravans that won't finish upgrading... the community has done a nice job coming up with work-arounds. HA! Good Fun!
  11. vol, for a change, is correct. bg dialogue were pretty... thin. the developers went almost to extreme o' camp by including all the stereotypical fantasy characters who responded with brief and expected dialogues that did little to build character or story.... but 'cause everything were so by-the-book traditional fantasy, players filled in the gaps. for chrissakes, sarevok's Villain Laugh made us chuckle the first time we heard it 'cause it were campy extreme. is nothing wrong with people like for bg. am always believing that much of the approval of bg is kinda based 'pon nostalgia rather than reality, but even so, there is clearly a segment o' folks that want just the bare-bones and traditional fantasy shtick that doesn't necessarily get in the way of their "exploration." am not sure if such stuff can be said to qualify as good or better dialogue/story, but clearly some folks prefer that the game developers stay out of their way. HA! Good Fun!
  12. "I think there might be some undetected sarcasm going on here." one hopes you is right... but sadly Gromnir is accustomed to encountering the BG Defense League whenever we suggest that perhaps bg were a flawed game. scroll up a few posts for an example. the xp cap thing were a drag for many. weren't really a shortcoming o' the durlag tower encounter though. nevertheless, am in agreement that bio dropped the ball with the TotSC level cap.... 'course the same flaw existed in bg. how many of us were at level cap BEFORE entering baldur's gate city? if we is discussing why people liked/disliked durlag's compared to stuff in bg core game, it may be tough to cite the TotSC level cap with a straight face. Gromnir hated the bg story and the patently ridiculous plan o' sarevok. poison iron IN a mine to create a synthetic shortage? a mine with a James Bond kinda self-destruct mechanism? etc. gotta ignore reason and economics to make sarevok anything other than a whack-job. nevertheless, we did see that many people enjoyed the BG story. personally we found the durlag story ever-so-slightly more compelling than the bg fare, but we concede that the general weight o' feedback were not mentioning story as the reason people preferred the durlag's tower encounter. that being said, please keep in mind that durlag's were simply an encounter within TotSC. were there a bg encounter that had a better individual story development? firewine bridge? the gnoll fortress? again. gotta compare apples. difficulty is one o' those issues that must drive developers nuts. no matter how hard developers make a game, there will be folks that claim it were too easy. no matter how easy the developers make the game, some will complain that game were too hard. am not sure how to honest measure toughness factor based on board feedback, 'cause Gromnir cannot recall any crpg released by bio or obsidian/black isle or bethesda or numerous others that did not elicit considerable complaints of "too easy" AND "too hard." regardless, am willing to recognize that approval for durlag's were not universal. HA! Good Fun!
  13. you know, a statement like that doesn't really mean anything. 0 development of joinable npcs beyond the character record sheet? well, that made the game more accessible. individual encounters and quests is small, undeveloped, and largely dull? well, that too made bg more accessible. "more accessible" sounds like a lame excuse that can be used to explain away loads o' shortcomings. ... pretty much the only point we might accede to is that the cursory implementation o' d&d rulez in bg did indeed makes it more accessible to the general gamer. a person NOT familiar with d&d who picked up bg could still play game w/o feeling like they was missing 90% of the game. play a bg fighter? virtually your only options is how to spend weapon proficiency points... and there were so few weapon categories available that such choosing were pretty much impossible to break. as we noted already, based on player feedback at the bg boards, it were obvious that folks (almost w/o exception) liked Durlag's Tower better than they liked any single location in bg. inclusion o' Durlag's tower made BG less accessible? sure seemed as if folks wanted More Durlag kinda encounters. well shucks, but that necessarily means that developers must gives you LESS handful-o'-kobolds-in-a-cave encounters, no? sorry, but ns comments, w/o further explanation, sounds like little more than a lame all-purpose response to explain away developer shortfalls. am suspecting that main reason bg were a kinda rudimentary/fat crayon example o' d&d crpgs is 'cause the biowarians really didn't know what they were doing. were bio's first crpg after all, and there had been no successful d&d releases for a few years... so ain't as if bio could steal ideas from other games and developers. diablo were the only example o' a popular crpg released in a goodly time, so is probably not surprising that bg seemingly took inspiration from blizzard developers. HA! Good Fun!
  14. perhaps you is correct. after all, is probable unfair to soz. bg strengths, such as they is, only is apparent when compared to the complete absence o' quality d&d games released in the mid to late 1990s. make bg today with improved graphics, but everything else same in bg, and it would get slammed by critics and ignored by fans. virtually no joinable npc interaction? big maps filled with an ugly amount o' almost random seeming encounters? shallow character development options. the few Big encounters in bg were actual pretty small. cloakwood mines maybe is biggest single insular and discreet bg location, with a surface and 3 sizable dungeon levels... and the dungeon levels were all pretty lame with little more than some linked rooms filled with adversaries intent on doing you harm. bg is bigger than soz, so it gots more of what sucks in soz, but the games is very similar. bg and soz has very much in common... from a gameplay pov. HA! Good Fun!
  15. am not sure if we agree that iwd2 combats and dialogues got loads in common with soz. most combats in soz is very small set pieces on tiny maps... lots o' repetition ad nauseum. iwd2, for all its flaws, did present different tactical challenges... though far to often the developers relied on mob tactics to achieve requisite challenge (iwd2 hook horrors and barbarian attacks, in particular, come to mind.) also, am curious if you is being ironic 'bout party dialogues. nevertheless, iwd 1 and 2 is both worth playing. of the ie games, iwd2 did best with the character generation and rules stuff. iwd2 story were kinda... thin. nevertheless, targos were an amazing beginning town for a low level party... possibly the best such locale in any d&d game we can mention. good characters and challenges combined for worthy tutorial fodder for those unfamiliar with d&d and ie games, while at the same time targos were a compelling locale for those who not need the tutorial filler typical in such locations. ghost in the inn, and the cat lady is good stuff, and the fast travel options made even the fed-ex stuff seems less tedious. am not sure anybody has ever done a low-level d&d town better than obsidian/black isle did with targos. iwd1 were the most underrated o' the ie games... it somehow got the bg-lite label from critics and fans. the severed hand and dorn's deep were fantastic crpg locales, on par with anything in bg2, and the artwork and music were beyond reproach. heck, Gromnir, who largely ignores game music, appreciated iwd score. story in iwd were straight forward, but well-crafted with intriguing characters and plausible motivations... and even a genuine hero, which is actually rare in a crpg. also, the storybook intro used in iwd, coupled with winchester's narration, may also be our favorite game intro... regardless of genre. no super fancy intro movie sequence in iwd... just good art, some well written copy, and excellent voice acting. HA! Good Fun!
  16. after playing +50% o' soz, we highly recommend that obsidian developers play me. a common complaint following me release were the seemingly pointless galaxy map explorations. bio developers agreed that in future they would give more quality quests rather than simple more numbers o' little worlds with little encounters. soz plays like me galaxy map exploration... w/o the critical path quests. good idea or bad idea: take stuff likes noveria and feros out o' me and just let players explore galaxy map. bad idea, no? nevertheless, that seems to be what obsidian developers did with soz. obsidian took what were wrong with me (pointless seeming galaxy map explorations) and built an entire game on the mistake. HA! Good Fun! btw, so we not sound complete negative 'bout soz, the flowers in the openpalm bazaar really looked neato. honest. am not kidding 'bout the flowers. the little hanging lamps, exotic birds, and clothes on characters in the openpalm bazaar were all aesthetically pleasing... but particularly the flowers. liera's trick were also pretty fantastic with all the little details included. were genuine impressed with appearance o' new areas of soz. may be a tired engine that obsidan used, but they does make some pretty keen looking stuff with the aged engine.
  17. some o' the things people will focus their displeasure on is an unending source o' confusion to Gromnir. am recalling that after nwn were released, one poster complained 'bout the lack o' "pretty" shoes. with all the things wrong in nwn, this poster were most distressed 'bout the lack o' basic clothing options, particularly shoes. ... such concerns is no less valid than Gromnir's, but give us an hour to come up with all the possible complaints concerning nwn and we would never have guessed that the dearth o' pretty shoes would be a genuine concern. likewise, the inability to switch music back to motb would not have been one o' our top 100 predicted complaints. btw, am glad that we waited to play soz. it appears that many bugs has been addressed by the community with custom patches and work-arounds. perhaps somebody will even address the music "issue." HA! Good Fun!
  18. have just arrived in sword coast. will offer up some impressions o' soz based on a goodly number of gameplay hours. soz reminds Gromnir o' bg, but not in a good way. the original bg became tedious for Gromnir 'cause it were a seemingly endless procession o' relative brief and uninteresting encounters. durlag's tower were the best part o' bg, but that were included afterward in an expansion. does soz have a durlag's tower? if not soz is truly a throwback game that failed to advance 'pon games of a decade ago. much as with bg, the cohorts is little more than a stat sheet... but that is ok 'cause we weren't expecting anything more. however, am admittedly a bit surprised that the static encounters is so... small. a tiny cave filled with fire newts. a " mine" or crypt where-in a half-dozen undead attack. is this all there is? ... perspective: after bg2 were released there were this vocal faction o' board posters that decried the absence o a sense o' exploration such as were present in bg. Gromnir were amused, 'cause we recall that one o' the most common complaints regarding bg were the tedium. everybody liked Durlag's Tower 'cause it fixed bg's biggest shortcoming: lack o' depth. bg2 gave players a large number o' sorta mini-durlag's, which is just one reason why bg2 is typically considered the superior bg game. still, it were amusing to see posts from folks complaining 'bout lack o' all those small and uninteresting encounters that were ubiquitous in bg, 'cause the bg2 developers had purposefully cut that crap out of bg2 in response to bg1 feedback. is as if soz developers not pay attention to last decade o' d&d crpg development. go back and make a game similar to bg, but w/o recognizing or implementing many o' the improvements added post bg. have heard many times that soz were 'sposed to hearken back to iwd, but where is dorn's deep or the severed hand? (dragon's eye sucked, so we will not mention as a positive) given how robust the character generation feature has become with nwn2, creating a party o' four has great appeal for the d&d geek in Gromnir, but so far, the character generation has been the best part o' soz... 'cause there just ain't much else. so, where is the iwd in soz? our party leader is a human rogue(2)/swashbuckler(3)/ranger(x) who started out with a 16 int and now has an 18 int... which means we got loads o' skill points. am always uncovering stuff on the overland map, and with high move silent skill we is able to pretty much pick and choose which random monster encounters we wish to submit to. 'course, we cannot imagine how frustrating the overland map would be w/o a considerable move silent or hide skill. the overland map literally swarms with monsters. instead o' rewarding the player who has a high hide or sneak skill, the developers seem to be trying to punish those who do not. you don't wanna have a sneaky party member? fine, then you gotta take the ranger cohort into your party and make her your leader... otherwise be prepared for monster spam. is bad game design that functional forces a particular kinda gameplay on a player. haven't made much use o' crafting. within the first hour o' gameplay we had created two sets o' full plate armour. kewl... points well spent, right? then, at level 9 or so, we made a couple o' +1 weapons with thundering quality. that has been all. with the exception o' weapons with potential multiple elemental damage quality, we can't make particularly powerful stuff, and as we ain't needed more powerful stuff to beat encounters on the samarach map, we choose to save our quid. is refreshing that at level 11 we is still using the hideously ugly +1 armour we stole from the ranger cohort, but so far we just ain't gotten much use out of points spent on crafting skills, or crafting feats. the bounty bag... sucks. am told that rare items is useful in crafting, so we would like to retain some portion o' collected... stuff. unfortunately, anything that goes into the bounty bag must necessarily be sold in bulk. got 12 will-o-wisp essences in bounty bag and wanna sell 6? tough cookies. is all or nothing for the selling o' stuff in bounty bag, and as we got no idea how many such essences we will need for crafting latter... *sigh* has resulted ina bizarre bit o' behavior in which we has various party members, not in possession o' the bounty bag, carry bits and pieces o' killed critters. is... inefficient and unnecessary. and speaking o' bounties, how often does boars and stag beetles drop parts? Gromnir literal spent two hours and killed dozens o' boars, and we managed to collect a grand total of 5 boar tusks. am a slow learner, but we stopped trying to collect bounties following that 2 hours o' nonsense. so far we haven't got too much story from soz, but that is okie dokie. the main motivation to continue playing soz seems to be a diabloesque 1007 & level kinda thing, but that ain't all bad. soz story is shallow, but not terrible bad. doesn't distract from gameplay, and can be explored at our own speed. am gonna continue playing 'cause the 1007 & level shtick IS enough to keep us entertained. am genuine curious to see how well our party turns out when it reaches levels such as 12 and 15. am also curious to see how the trading feature is implemented. even so, am wondering what the soz developers were thinking as they built their game. the overland map musta' been crazy-difficult to implement, 'cause there simply ain't much else there so far. we weren't expecting mulsantir and thaymount and the skien kinda size and depth to show up as encounters on the overland map, but Sherman set the way-back machine to the late 1990s, and we is getting bg-style kobolds-in-a-cave kinda encounters. am hopeful that eventually we gets at least one or two more complex locations, otherwise... what a waste. HA! Good Fun!
  19. is 5 things we like 'bout nw9 as kinda a spice class... add flavor to a good fighter build. 1) give to a fighter type and it boosts will saves. nw9 gets will and fort saves. 2) the bab progression is high, so we not lose any melee efficacy. 3) the nw9 auras, on paper, is better than paladin auras. +3 save bonus and +2 deflection is nice for the guy standing next to the nw9. (btw, in nw2 we noticed that nw9 aura were bugged... for some inexplicable reason allies were getting a damage boost as well... but it were wonky and we could never figure out the numbers.) 4) spot and listen is class skills. not sound likes much? high level rogue types with sneaky attacks and hide-in-plain sight can be a nightmare. save up some skill points and then boost spot or listen to the max. levels the playing field a bit. 5) our f/wm builds is created to gets some ridiculous damage potential. am not one o' those guys that boost str to 20 at level 1 for max hitting power, but our earth gensai does start with an 18 strength and a falchion. at level 13 we is having weapon specialization, a 21 str, and am having a x3 crit on the falchion with a range o' 13-20. now, considering a 5th level nw9 can gets max damage on ALL melee attacks for 3 rounds... *shrug* but likes you noted, is all a matter o' personal preference. example: virtually every power build for mages includes red wizard levels... but we just can't do it. the notion o' playing a red wizard offends our delicate sensibilities. go figure. HA! Good Fun!
  20. yup, is no reason to take wm post level 7... explains why we were gonna add levels o' nw9 at the back end o' our hypothetical f/wm. am assuming our party finishes finish at around level 18, which means we gets maybe 4 or 5 levels after going 6 fighter and 7 wm. nw9 looks good... and am pretty sure we can't swing the feats needed for frenzied berserker. though am still toying with the traditional fighter/pal/dc mix for smiting, divine mighting, and unbeatable saves. btw, loaded up and started playing a bit last night. in first battle we confront some relative low level critters including a goblinoid wielding a great axe. with one crit hit our ranger/rogue were reduced to negative 11 hps... which made us happy 'bout the implementation o' the new death rules. our first trip through iwd2's fell wood were sans wilderness lore, so we had to do bread crumb routine.... drop a bolt at bad exits and an arrow at good ones. made it through fell wood, but not much further. is not a bad game, but we just got bored. replayed through to conclusion (finally) late last year or early this year. really weren't a bad game if you could slog through some o' the tedious portions. HA! Good Fun!
  21. rdd is very useful for level 30 non-caster builds. there is a cap on bab, so fact that rdd gets medium bab progression not hurt in long run. good saves, and stat boosts, plus some nice immunities to boot... but you gotta stick it out for all 10 levels to get immunities. am not a fan o' rdd with non-epic builds or casters... but perhaps we ain't lookig at it right. HA! Good Fun!.
  22. And why would I do that? All you are doing is conveniently using that Moderator tag to pigeonhole me and then take pot shots - not unlike what you're doing with Josh. Please. All I am saying is that, in my opinion, your argument is needless and nitpicky. Josh ridicules those who don't like twitchy? Please, that's more sensitive than [insert non-PC stereotype here]. where we mention your mod tag? if we were gonna blame mod status we would mention it. there is always a tendency of the Faithful to defend the developers. you is a glassy-eyed fanboi? probably, 'cause you sure as hell ain't just saying we is needless nitpicky. spin-doctoring (which, in the spirit o' Inigo Montoya, don't mean what you seem to think it means,) and some other inaccurate descriptors has been thrown our way by tig, in defense o' a guy who seemed to try and go out of his way to insult a large % of people who played fo3... and a significant portion o' historic crpg fans. heck, is lucky that Gromnir responded to josh and not some o' the codexians or others. *shrug* actually, if not for the tag we woulda assumed you were a brit, 'cause those guys loves to mindless defend the monarchy, eh? HA! Good Fun!
  23. "The point is that monkeyhopping on Josh's back for how he plays FO3 (a game already built in such a way) and extricating some elaborate state-of-the-industry out of it lacks logic and sense" did anybody do such a thing? only criticism made by Gromnir were directed at josh personal, as a developer... no state-of-the industry stuff from us. please review: josh decreed that those poor fools using vats to gets head shots were not playing legit. what? really? oddly 'nuff, although Gromnir much prefers turn-based gameplay, we typically found non-vats fo3 combat to be more efficacious, so josh's condemnation not touch us personally. the knockdown effect of a victory rifle, coupled with spam shots from a scopped .44 for anthing that did manage to get close, proved to be our mo for last 2/3 of game. even so, we feels some concern and consternation that a developer o' crpgs would have such a contemptuous attitude o' the way many chose to play fo3. those who use vats weren't doing legit? am understanding why tig wants to stick up for an obsidian developer, and loyalty to the hosts is admirable enough quality, but in this case we thinks that your characterization o' "the point" and your loyalty is both misplaced an unfounded. josh is the guy who spat a little ridicule in the direction o' those folks who not likes twitchy gameplay, and you is defending. bad cess. HA! Good Fun!
  24. "If you beat Throne of Bhaal with the Ascension mod, that requires some planning. Building a character to make consistent VATS head shots in F3 doesn't really compare." building a fo3 character to take advantage of knockdown effects, sans vats, also not take planning. virtually every game has design flaws. you has made 'nuff d&d games to realize that by now. more complex a game rules gets, the more loopholes you is gonna necessarily provide. regardless, play vats or sans vats not = Legitimacy. a crpg developer who not seem to get that a crpg should rely on character stats rather than player skillz should be a little bit embarrassed, but perhaps you feels you is beyond reproach. too bad. as noted already, single head shots against still targets is hardly the extent of the game... as overpowered as such stuff can be in fo3, it ain't the sure-fire one-trick pony josh suggests it is, but regardless, josh's distinguishing game between legit and __________ is clearly contrary to spirit o' crpg genre. btw, if only a total n00b cannot make such shots as josh Decrees legitimate, then how can they BE legit? if any yutz can do, then what really distinguishes from vats? you really ain't making sense. HA! Good Fun!
  25. sure didn't seem that way to Gromnir. without sniper perk and some points in small guns we failed at vats head shots for most of first 1/3 of game.... which is why we tended to go manual, 'cause we could spam a heck of a lot more shots outside o' vats than in it. after correct perks and point distributions, then the head shot thing changed, but not for early portion. regardless, you may have issues with how bethesda implements vats, but to suggest that manual dex way is the Legit way is, at the very least, arrogant, and disheartening... a disturbing pov from a crpg developer. HA! Good Fun!
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