Gromnir

awesome? which parts were awesome? seemed likes a pretty standard 3-page text-heavy commercial advertisement kinda interview. it were a nice enough advertisement, but am not sure we is gonna hold up as an "awesome" example o' interview. maybe we shows age again. am forgetting how pretty much everything is "awesome" or "extreme" nowadays. HA! Good Fun!

"...had tons of interesting side-quests and a pretty decent character development scheme." ... rrriiiigggghhhhtttt. mostly fed-ex nonsense and a damned shallow and ultimately meaningless character development system. we got pretty far into game 'cause we were playing on recommendation, so is not as if we only played opening village & dungeon levels. were pretty much diabloesque all the way... which is fine. diablo and diablo 2 is the two most popular action-rpg games ever. if you is gonna clone, might as well clone the most successful. even so, fact that there were side-quests not mean they were interesting save to folks expecting very little, and the character building system ain't exactly inspired other developers to recreate in other games 'cause o' streamlined elegance and depth. divine divinity had strengths, but the "interesting side-quests" and the "character development scheme" were not exactly worth noting... save in comparison to some really terrible games. hack n' 1007. HA! Good Fun!

never finished. were a diablo 2 clone and we never could embrace the diabloesque 1007 & level gameplay. never got much into the story, and we clearly recall moments when we were certain that something musta' been lost in translation. even so, for folks who likes to quick level and gather huge quantities o' booty, divine divinity (a finalist for any "Worst Title Evar" contest) were no doubt worthy o' purchase. HA! Good Fun!

zehir is 4e fr god o' poison. a bunch o' gods get purged from 4e fr, but am not understanding why some handful were added. not have the 4e fr book, so... well, at least they got rid of the egyptian gods. that alone makes changes worthwhile. HA! Good Fun!

does we genuine know that? sure, we expect that the rules will be 3.5e for most part, but if you got a 4e god smack-dab in title o' game, perhaps story and setting will have more 4e relevance than some suggest. HA! Good Fun!

how 'bout the fantasy/children story o' a dough kneading doe... working for enough dough to open her own bakery? sorta a horatio alger thing? d'oh. not that all o' those were similes in any event. as we said above with our suggested rule: don't pretend to know more than you do. HA! Good Fun!

just checking. as we said, Gromnir ain't fan o' lindholm... and that ain't specific 'cause o' her predilection for poncey mano y mano romance. HA! Good Fun!

Can of worms, open! that woman has more names than english royalty. in any event, is that one of megan lindholm's poncey homersexual romances? never been a fan o' lindholm/hobbs. HA! Good Fun!

a friend o' ours once noted that the "write what you know" stuff is bs. good fiction is a realized dream that is compelling and entertaining in large part because the stories being told ain't mundane and ain't even possible. the tiny fraction o' knowledge a writer needs to makes a story Feel real 'nuff to get reader to suspend disbelief is hardly worth noting. ... am not a 100% believer o' such a pov. writing from pov o' first hand experience is useful. is details that the casual or weekend participant is unaware o' and so will leave out o' story. a non-hunter writing story 'bout hunting won't necessarily seem fraudulent, but a hunter with considerable experience simply has more genuine material from which to draw and create a believable fantasy/fiction 'bout hunting. am s'posing that romance is similar. Gromnir could write a hunting story and make it believable even to hunters... 'cause we has considerable experience hunting (though not for decades.) but what if we tries to write hunt story from deer pov? luckily there ain't many deer that is complain that we got wrong... but women? ain't never been a deer... or a woman. Gromnir write 'bout being a deer or a woman has gotta be based 'pon 'magination and research rather than personal experience. 'course virtual all Gromnir's editors in past has been women and they has been quite willing to inform us when we has Mary or Jane or Nancy acting in a way that is implausible to women. regardless, Gromnir can go through list o' the greatest love/romance stories in literary history and a large number o' those stories is going to have been written by men. write what you know? is maybe overstating. better rule: don't pretend to know more than you do. sometimes saying less = more. clarification: Gromnir has never worked in a bakery. for all we know, bread is made by bread gnomes who insures that there is fresh baked goods for Gromnir to purchase at 5:00 am. nevertheless, we could write a story 'bout a baker with little fear. no, we ain't gonna pretend that we know every detail o' the baking industry, but a little research would provide some details... 'least nuff so that our character seemed like a baker. Babbitt is a story 'bout a real estate sales person, but very little real estate sales is happening in that book. Rabbit is Rich is a story 'bout an ex-jock owner of a car dealership, and as far as we know, Updike don't own a car dealership... and am sure that he were never part of a state championship high school basketball team. just as Babbitt ain't 'bout real estate sales, and Rabbit ain't 'bout basketball, our baker's story wouldn't be 'bout baking. 'course if we wanted to write a story 'bout baking... HA! Good Fun!

The most difficult part would be reading more than ten entries without pouring molten lead into my eye sockets. to be fair, that might be appropriate payback for what Gromnir had to endure reading much of iwd:how dialogues... and some of iwd2. (admittedley, after we suffered through middle portions o' iwd2 we found we disliked it less than we had originally believed.) romance is the reason why for to be saving the world or killing the monster... is typically the raison detre for being heroic in the first place. is not the subject matter o' some lightspeed tacked on optional sub-quest made incidental by design. HA! Good Fun!

first of all, Gromnir specifically said that the da board community were divided regarding dark v. traditional. never said that there were some kinda majority desire for pleasant. regardless, developers, in an attempt to mollify those with concerns said that da would be dark, but not too dark... is actually more proper in quotes, "dark, but not too dark." as for why there has to be 6-8 dialogue encounters (is a different thing than 6-8 3-line dialogues) well, that too should be obvious. after bg2 people complained that they finished game before finishing romances. peoples also complained 'bout untimely interjections. am about to fight shadow dragon and jaheira suddenly wanna share her feelings? so now bio and obsidian does their dialogue encounters following main plot points. by the time you has a joinable npc become part o' group there will probably only be 6-8 main plot points remaining... 'specially if you has loads of side-quest opportunities. "BG2 was the 1st attempt at serious romances. And they were far more than 3 line dialogues" sure they was. individual dialogue responses were no more than 3 lines in length. the dialogues could go back and forth a bit during each such encounter, but how much can such a dialogue advance a romance w/o seeming cheesy? has always been the problem with a crpg romance 'cause you gotta advance through entire arc in a handful o' dialogue encounters that is optional and tangential to critical path. make those individual encounters too lengthy and peoples will be alternately bored or unable to suspend disbelief. Gone with the Wind were hundereds o' pages long... and less than half were dialogue (and Gromnir hated it.) Pride and Prejudice weren't as long as Gone with the Wind, but try to squeeze into kotor or je or even bg2. Romeo & Juliet were mostly dialogue, but the romance were hardly tangential. Gromnir is actually a big fan of The Graduate, a screenplay written by two men... loads of dialogue. chicks loved the movie & novel, The Notebook.... written by a guy btw. never saw or read it. how many pages? with movies and lit you can use narration or montage to advance a story many years or even decades. one reason why Citizen Kane is famous is 'cause of the way it used the montage to advance story. in a matter o' a minute and a half o' screen time we sees Kane go from happy newlywed to henpecked husband. can't do that in a crpg 'cause player gotta be in control... no montage to advance romance. literature or movies... name a tangential romance, one that had little impact 'pon what were going on with main plot, that were an all-time favorite. is some short stories, that is... short, but integral. however, even if we makes analogous, such short stories is never virtual all dialogue, and they rarely involve the boy-meets-girl step... romantic figures is already involved. crpg romances, being optional, starts with boy-meets-girl. is not as easy as you folks wanna make it. "The real issue when it comes to romances is the desire to write them. Not just because you "need" to include it as a feature, but because you BELIEVE in it as something that adds to the story and the life of the characters IG." what a load of crap. maybe click your heals together three times and wish upon a star while you is at it. yes, no doubt if the biowarians simply opened themselves up to love, their crpg romances would blossom likes a field of poppies in april. *snort* HA! Good Fun!

"Yes Bio/Obs is smarter than poor kelverin..." probably. "But there writing and design does not show it. " actually, much of biowarian writing and design is pretty good. question is what is wrong with romances. even folks who like the biowarian romances sees room for improvement. maybe kel wanna suggest that all biowarian design and writing is sub-par? *chuckle* is many people who would disagree, and sales alone shows that while bio quality is arguable, their success is fact. "get better writers" "write better romances." is not useful suggestions. is not suggestions that recognize the problems inherent in developing crpg romance. and no, Gromnir not have all the answers, but at least we can identify some o' the obstacles. step 1: identify the problem. they not teach critical thinking, analysis and problem solving in schools no more? HA! Good Fun!

"English Literature interns was just an example, closet authors, would be novelists....whoever is hungry and cheap laughing.gif Getting a writing credit might be one hell of a starting point for one's career, and a selling point for any gaming company trying to land a "up and coming" new writer/novelist, Lets be honest a Jane Austen type comes around every how many years?" clearly you ain't getting the point. no doubt you thinks current bio crpg writers is simply random folks that were discovered working at local gas stations and laundromats? never occurred to the biowarians to hire folks with a writing resume. *snort* the biowarians currently look for folks who can write, but not only is crpg writing vast different than traditional writing, but the folks who is genuine talented writers is unlikely to make crpg writing their 1st choice... or second choice... or third... sure, hold a contest and hire some english lit interns... HA! but of course, even if you get a good crop o' writer talent, the method o' implementing romances in a bio crpg makes "better romances" very difficult. tangent? should be obvious, but a romance that is optional cannot have too great an impact on the critical path story. whatever changes must necessarily be slight. actually, the 3 line bit is giving gamers all the credit they is due. after bg, bio adopted what were described by a developer as a 3-line rule... 'cause gamers started clicking past dialogues that were more than 3 lines. obsidian/bis seems to have followed suit, following the commercial failure o' ps:t. "I'll go a step further and say it should be more, don't know how many relationships you have been in, but it take a hell of a lot more work that that." great... too bad that won't happen under current scheme. again, is limitations 'cause this is a crpg. npc side-quests is limited in scope and the more of em you got, the less involved they is probably gonna be. what is you gonna remove to add considerably more to romances? how you gonna keep tangential? am all for doing more, but... and again, Gromnir is not arguing that romances ain't popular. romances will continue to be popular. bio will continue doing 'em. what folks not seem to get is that the romances will always be relative juvenile, rushed and unfulfilled simply 'cause o' the way they is implemented. biowarians won't be too bothered by that 'cause as much as people like kel complain 'bout current state, biowarians sees that current scheme is popular enough. kel and dr tells bio to do better. HA! hire english interns and hold contests? sure. HA! Good Fun!

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!