Gromnir

1) pnp does not allow sleep-at-will likes some crpgs. perhaps vol didn't realize that a one encounter pvp scenario is pretty pointless in evaluating how fun it is to play mages at low levels. after your mage casts his/her spell, he/she then gets to hide in corner and fire ineffectual crossbow shots for rest of day's adventure. yipee. 2) vol has never met logic give us a Convincing syllogism that explains why wotc would purge gnomes. whim? insanity? spite? a grudge against garden gnomes? as for current thread topic, am gonna make another suggestion: make a memorable villain. obsidian's last two nwn villains sucked something fierce. faceless shadow of self and the character-less king o' shadows were terrible examples o' crpg villaindom. if you gonna have some climactic battle with a UBG (ultimate bad guy) you better damn well give us a climax worthy o' a 20+ hour investment. climax shouldn't be solely 'bout winning some rigged battle that we gotta effectively beat multiple times to overcome (another cheesy developer trick that should be abandoned.) ... *start blunt mode* game developers seemingly waste all kinds o' effort trying to make player/audience identify with the protagonist, a necessarily ambiguous character, but far too often they complete forget that unless player has an emotional connection with the villain, success in overcoming the final/chief obstacle o' the game will be hollow. how long has you folks been making story driven games that you ain't yet figured out something so basic and fundamental to goodly storytelling? make villain sympathetic or terrifying or... whatever, but makes the audience feel something 'bout the villain, or defeat o' that villain will be ANTI-climactic. a villain in a crpg, unlike the protagonist, can be defined and concrete. is no excuse for skimping on character development of UBG. sadly, am gonna guess that obsidian failure in this regard is skills related as 'posed to ignorance. developers tried to build character o' King o' Shadows in nwn2 with the ghostly reminiscences in the mine portion of game and with the crystal dragon dialogues , but did anybody really give a damn 'bout the shadow schmuck? as for the motb "villain"... we liked better when it were called the Transcendent One, but not by much. transcendent were pretty lame as a final villain too. kreia, on the other hand... well, obsidian messed up an otherwise memorable villain by concluding kotor2 in such a forgettable manner. "wtf," should not be audience reaction as game ends and credits roll. maybe this is the game you finally gets villain right? *end blunt mode* am gonna be curious to see what obsidian has done to improve their handling o' the ubg. HA! Good Fun!

none of the changes to fr is any more stoopid than past changes... like death and subsequent resurrection of bane... or addition of spellfire. complain 'bout 4e changes? HA! besides which, that is 4e forgotten realms. as for 4e itself... "The fact that spells and magic have been altered to a point of ridiculous that they're baisclaly nothing more than mere special powers that ALL classes get." ... duh. that were kinda the point. spellcasters has always become more powerful as d&d levels increase. lame at low levels, but tough at high. melee classes, on the other hand, gets increasingly focused and specialized. virtually every 3.5e encounter at higher levels will see non spell casters doing exact same stuff every freaking combat encounter. boring. 4e fixes. now all classes gets powers increases that keeps character viable from level 1 on upwards to... whatever. you missed point. go figure. btw, hardly anybody played gnomes... and elves is popular. sadly, with increase focus on starting attribute scores in 4e, play all the elf archetypes with 1 race would be difficult. ranger and wizard? sorry, but needed two races. again, the change made sense... even if you not like. and again, hardly anybody played gnomes... surprised they survived until now as a playable race. and yeah, 4e 5 category alignment breakdown is silly, but from a game mechanics pov 4e is superior... 'cause while nomenclature is retarded, the role of alignment on gameplay is diminished. alignment from start, way back to 1e, were a mistake. only took 2+ decades to make some real progress. now try to say something 'bout obsidian game or you will get thread locked. suggestion: follow 4e lead and make gnomes monsters in nwn2ex2... all sleestak and gnomes. HA! Good Fun!

Nice response, witty intellengent and really addressing issues and getting your point across... *ahem* actually, this were one of vol's better posts. no "r00fles" or "lulz" and Gromnir were able to decipher vol intent. were the vol response insightful? nope. even so, we thinks that if vol keeps his posts to single word responses, the entrie obsidian board community would benefit... so try not to discourage the little guy. btw, am not a fan of all 4e changes, but in light of espoused goals, the changes made make sense. oh, and to keep on-topic... get rid of yuan-ti and replace with sleestak... 'cause retro is trendy again. HA! Good Fun!

zounds! D&D alignment was always illogical, but at least it was symmetrical. actually, is symmetrical if you use the REAL names for 4e alignments. please recall that 4e is for the new generation o' gamer. good... to the extreme! good unaligned evil evil... to the extreme! see? is perfect symmetry. most changes to 4e is actually pretty reasonable, but keeping alignment, 'specially in the current form, is just plain silly. HA! Good Fun!

is almost fixed... but is possibly even more silly and arbitrary. alignment as a game mechanic has been marginalized. however, the alignments is even more baffling 'cause o' need to embrace previous d&d edition nomenclature. lawful good good chaotic evil evil unaligned from what little we has seen of the 4e rules, there is far less o' the spell and powers related to alignments. detections of _______ and protections from ________, etc has been largely exorcised from 4e. nevertheless, d&d nerds seems unable to complete abandon basic alignment labels. the above 5 categories is the new alignments for 4e. why? dunno. HA! Good Fun!

have asked this question a few times. is our understanding that the camera is wonky if you play in the over-the-shoulder pov. as Gromnir almost invariably uses overhead/tactical, we never have noticed issues. HA! Good Fun!

am kinda ambivalent 'bout dinosaurs. our fascination with dinosaurs were based on fact that they were Real. monsters once roamed the earth. in a fantasy game in which we gots dragons and elves and stuff, dinosaurs is a bit less special... is just another non-magical creature... check the bab, ac, hps and damage per attack. triceratops is different than a rhino? large herbivores with a trample and gore attack... trike is simply bigger, so what is point? am a fan of dinosaurs, but in a fantasy game with dragons n' such, they seems almost mundane... which is a shame. HA! Good Fun!

Well actually, they are. At least in my campaign (Ghostwalk setting)... They make good enemies, being strong and intelligent, having natural access to psionics (depending on the rules you use) etc. would like to point out that the ghostwalk campaign produced one product. had some nice notions, (and some bad) and yuan-ti and orcus cults were key antagonists, but you & ghostwalk is proving our point... is not common. Alright, that's true, there's only the setting - but there's no need for more, because it serves as major inspiration for unexpected twists in the storyline (as does Heroes of Horror) and not as 1:1 base Still, the Y-T were one of the few races updated in the Expanded Psionics Handbook (which produced no further offspring either, unfortunate exception is that abomination called Complete Psionics), and they meant something to all the players in my group. Otoh, the may all have played BIS/Obs games... You see, I don't really have a point to defend here In my opinion, they are not overdone in the sense that they are not a usual sight in fantasy games, whereas elves, dwarves (however much attention they deserve), orcs, goblins, undead are much more frequent and, honestly, kind of boring in their "pure" fashion. Unless some twists are added to these races, they are the overdone friends and foes of fantasy games. I for one welcome their role (whatever it exactly will be) in SoZ. is nothing necessarily wrong with yuan-ti. obviously if samm likes 'em, that is more than enough reason to use 'em in a campaign run by samm. if the obsidian folks like yuan-ti that much, then they should use yuan-ti. personal, Gromnir ain't a huge sleestak fan. cold-blooded snake people? sure, they makes a pretty good long-term d&d foe. unlike sand's suggestion o' mindflayers, yuan-ti is not -posed to be alien and incomprehensible... hate that kinda thing. alien is cheap. is one reason why we avoids cthulu stuff is 'cause "alien" is such an annoying motivation. as noted above in a previous post, we can see many reasons to use the snakes people in a crpg, but they typically have a b-movie cheese factor to 'em. ooohhh! spooky snake people. ack. maybe Gromnir is simply offended by obvious. snakes=bad. natural primate fear o' snakes coupled with all the heavy religious stuff and the dorky freudian dream interp shtick... *shrug* Thoth-Amon and the Stygians o' Howard's works were probably the only snake/serpent focused fantasy stuff we has been able to appreciate... if only 'cause Thoth-Amon is one o' the kewler villains we has ever encountered. worst thing 'bout yuan-ti in an obsidian game is that we weren't real impressed with the way they got used in previous bis games. the side-jaunt to chult in iwd2 were kinda lame and felt almost tacked-on... and we weren't a fan o' dragon's eye portion o' iwd neither. if the yuan-ti stuff in previous works had been super-groovy, then maybe we would have more positive anticipation, but reverse is true. in other words, and to put it bluntly: do it better this time. HA! Good Fun!

Well actually, they are. At least in my campaign (Ghostwalk setting)... They make good enemies, being strong and intelligent, having natural access to psionics (depending on the rules you use) etc. would like to point out that the ghostwalk campaign produced one product. had some nice notions, (and some bad) and yuan-ti and orcus cults were key antagonists, but you & ghostwalk is proving our point... is not common. "No such thing. I want to make Yuan-Ti: The Game." am not doubting that. am maybe slightly disturbed by it, but am not doubting. HA! Good Fun!

probably seems to newc as if Gromnir is chasing tail but our only mistake is wasting effort trying to keeps you from doing so... follow some joker running 'round in circles is bound to make it appear to the myopic that we is similarly deranged. "but the similarities go further. for instance, they were both earnest, all-mission, no-sense-of-humour types. " fall from grace cracked wise with the skull on occasion... really didn't come across as humorless or all-mission to Gromnir... in part 'cause there simply weren't enough development. superficial and obvious. am s'posing that is good enough but doesn't seem fair... not that we would expect anything else. "Were they in NWN2? How 'bout MOTB? They certainly weren't in KOTOR2. WOW! REALLY over doing them yuanti at Obsidian. L0L" vol being vol. kotor2? you honestly use kotor2? ... as there were not yuan-ti in motb and nwn2, Gromnir were thinking that it were a josh thing... 'cause josh were not so much part of design on those games. now we got another d&d game that gots yuan-ti and josh says he ain't behind the yuan-ti in it. is not a common or traditional d&d foe, but is gonna have now have been major players in most of obsidian's/bis' offerings. is sorta strange. again, ain't simply IN game, but is integral. HA! Good Fun!

"i much preferred the chick with the armour and the wings, despite the fact that she was basically a celestial version of Falls From Grace." is numerous things we would dispute in newc post, but curiously we don't feel likes going 'round in circles at the moment. instead we gots a serious & legit query that is truthful and honest devoid o' any sort o' ulterior purpose. having seen the criticism o' motb bird-girl = fall from grace... we don't get it. the similarities is purely at superficial level and got pretty much 0 to do with actual character development. winged chick cleric. is where similarities really do stop. ps:t fall from grace pretty much got 0 character development other than the metaphor o' the Mystery o' Woman crap. ooh, she has a diary Gromnir cannot open. *groan* motb bird-girl, whether you like her or not, were given motivations and background and... character. personally, Gromnir were not a huge fan o' the motb jnpcs (joinable npcs) 'cause they were all 'bout a single hook. flat. is ok to start development o' a fantasy character in such a way, but there has gotta be... more. complex characters not necessarily equal better characters, but is not as if the dialogue were insightful or compelling neither. the womanizing hagspawn has mommy issues? kept waiting for something more, and it never arrived. 'course, to be fair, with a relative short game, how much could Gromnir expect, eh? too much character growth spaced out over a half-dozen or so meaningful dialogue encounters might seems a bit artificial and forced. in any event, am honest curious why it seems as if some folks has embraced the bird-girl=fall from grace pov... or is it simply the obvious and superficial similarities? HA! Good Fun! ps yuan-ti is kinda overdone in the obsidian games, but am understanding useful addition from a game development approach. shape-changers is always useful... 'cause can use human avatars to represent yuan-ti as well as using genuine snaky stuff. yuan-ti is also, unlike the typical Horde of _______, yuan-ti has got the cold-blodded schtick; is planners rather than raving maniacs. dragons hoard gold? why? who cares, that is simply what they do, no? yuan-ti is serpents with rational motivations... unlike so many other d&d foes. even so, given the vast range o' potential critters, is somewhat disappointing to see yet another obsidian/bis yuan-ti thing. if we gets a yxunomei clone, am gonna be feeling a bit cheated.

josh seems to have a preoccupation with snakes/yuan-ti. religious iconography aside, am wondering what freud would say. HA! Good Fun!

"If I may make a suggestion, Gromnir... Why don't you drop your silly bias against me and actually discuss either the game or my design ideas. That would be more productive and interesting." have argued with you numerous times before, and as we ain't seen anything noteworthy or new in your recent glut o' internet interviews, am not seeing no need to revisit. after all, why delve dissect and parse second-hand vd when we had a chance to discuss with you firs hand previous... and that rarely held our attention for very long. already has gotten the Gaming World according to vd... albeit in smaller doses (and with more profanity.) so, once you got a genuine game to discuss, then maybe there will be a new twist. "aoD was noted by RPG Vault, PC Gamer UK, GameBanshee, PC Powerplay" wow. it were "noted," eh? how long would it take us to discuss game based on what were noted in these recognizable sources? as for some french rag and CRPG.ru (crpg... russia?) Gromnir is admittedly provincial, so you not have to inform us when aod becomes the most anticipated game in greenland or lithuania neither. but observe that it were aod that were "noted," not vd. Gromnir pointed out that your notoriety were limited to codex. without codex you is an unknown quantity on a little heard o' game. ... again, anybody who wanted to got a chance to argue with you at codex. were never that entertaining, so we rarely indulged for more than a few posts. nevertheless, back then we got unvarnished vd pov... so what could possibly be benefit o' reflecting 'pon a vd interview at this time? but don't take personal, is not like we would be more likely to wanna read interviews with st. p, spazmo or exitum neither. and if you not see why it is tacky to link to articles unsolicited, then we cannot help you. once your game is released, then maybe we gets new perspective. in the unlikely event we plays it, we will then see if vd words match vd product. ideals so rarely survive even a glancing blow form reality. will be moderate entertaining to see how vd's notions translate into a playable game. is no bias 'gainst you vd. have always been pretty fair and impartial. am simply wondering what you has done since codex that warrants multiple interviews... admittedly interviews from/by folks who knows you form your codex days. is maybe your clumsy attempt to generate hype 'bout your game? kinda ironic considering how you railed 'gainst bethesda and bio in past for such nonsense. HA! Good Fun!

I used to be a regular reader, however . Not so much these days, though... oddly enough, I stopped going regularly once I'd signed up you really didn't help vd with the admission. vd's notoriety is pretty much limited to the codex. and regardless, it is more than a little gauche to be posting links to one's own interviews, as vd has done. *chuckle* with the way the internet works, we suspect that far more people will see interviews, mistakenly thinking vd is already somebody of note, than will ever play the game is contributing to. HA! Good Fun!

"Drawing parallels between SecuROM and the HIV virus only serves to cheapen both." *chuckle* am guessing you ain't a big fan of orwell. and there ain't no way to cheapen the securom panic. by your standard, maybe we gave it a little dignity it didn't deserve... 'course that requires a complete disregard o' basic reading skillz. well, you add a wonderfully trite slippery slope argument on top o' a misrepresentation of a Gromnir post. some things never change. HA! Good Fun!

"Calling it "panic" is kind of condescending, in my view, and discounts the fact that the concern was a legitimate one to a heck of a lot of people." condescending? maybe. but the concerns weren't really legit. scroll back up and see what cg said 'bout impact on Di. even the military folks were unlikely to install and then not turn on computer again for such a considerable time that they would get fuzzed by securom, but the folks who know created a fear 'mongst those who don't. is the fear that were real, not the reasons for the fear. "Anyway, Bioware doesnt seem to know what it really does besides what EA tells them; and I really wouldnt be surprised if EA tried to sneak in some malware that infects my machine." see, this is the kinda thing that results in proliferation o' resistance. people has anecdotal kinda 8th-hand knowledge that their friend's girlfriend's sister in-law's uncle had problems with an installation that included securom... and 'course EA is probably hiding some additional malicious programs as well. bastards. if Di turns on her computer plays game and connect to internet 'bout once a week, chances are almost zero that she would ever run afoul o' securom. yeah, the folks that wanna resell ME in the near future may have issues, and casual pirates has concerns, but few others has concerns that is grounded, realistic and immediate. replay 3 years from now? honestly, if cracks is available within weeks for most popular games, how likely is it that securom is gonna remain an issue 3 years from now for those who wants to reload on a different computer? bio gave in. great. giving in not mean that the concerns were legit, merely that biowarians were believing that wide-spread internet word o' mouth might harm sales... or some other reason. some o' the bio folks made panic worse by lying, which raised suspicions of folks further. after all, why would biowarians lie if they got naught to hide, eh? clumsy. biowarians handled badly, and they probably not expect that the rabble rousers would be able to generate a kinda mob mentality so quick. clumsy. even so, for the vast majority o' purchasers, including Di, securom would never have been an issue. look, Gromnir is an over-the-top libertarian when it comes to free speech and other fundamental rights. am not a fan o' big brother or paternalism, but this... this were nothing. go to a football game and get searched and have hand stamped with ink would be far more bothersome, invasive and evident. *shrug* Gromnir has lots o' venom and rage saved up to spew at The Man, and as we has noted already, we has been banned by bioware from their boards. you think we would pass up a legit chance to flame their collective butt's if we thought that Right were on our side? this were nothing, 'til some folks successful created a panic. yeah, a panic. Di and Gromnir is old enough to recall the start of the AIDS culture and how much disinformation were spread back in the 80s and even the 90s. lack o' credible sources and non-education leads to panics created by some well-meaning and overzealous folks and some some malicious bastards too. no doubt part f the reason Di were concerned 'bout securom is 'cause every time she tried to get clarification, she got new and different information. who should she believe? if you can't be certain of any information, then why not ere on side of caution, eh? same mentality. different scale. most panics is a result of misinformation and fear. this securom panic is no different... but thankfully far more banal than the aids stuff. HA! Good Fun!

1) is nice to see that bio listens to fan base 2) is sad that a small handful o' knowledgeable folks managed to create a panic 'mongst less sophisticated gamers. 3) Gromnir will repost our thoughts regarding ME on monday... for those that were interested. HA! Good Fun!

"Grommy: I don't think I'm brainless." nope, you ain't. but gamers, as a group, seems pretty damned brainless. Gromnir were referencing the mass o' gamers that continues to buy games from developers/publishers on day 1 of release... even if those developers/publishers has a track record of buggy games. and that is only a single example o' gamer stoopidity. gamers don't act likes the reasonably educated individuals that they is 'posed to be. junkies. often the behavior exhibited by gamers towards their game habit is more akin to addiction than it is reasonable consumer behavior. regardless, mk takes a couple Gromnir comments and strings 'em together wrong in a sloppy attempt to make a point. Di reads Gromnir response and gets wrong impression. you ain't brainless, but game developers and publishers know that gamers act pretty much brainless when it comes to purchases of games. HA! Good Fun!

Pretty. ****ing. Ironic. not at all. Gromnir not lump himself in with the general mass o' brainless gamer. you ASSumed... and that ain't the least bit ironic or surprising. HA! Good Fun!

recommendation: never buy pc software on day 1 of release. has nothing to do with securom, but is simple reasonable precaution and good sense. motb were the first game we purchased pre- first patch release since our nightmare with nwn, and we only did so after 'bout 2 weeks o' hearing that motb were pretty darn stable for most people. securom shouldn't be your concern... but is good sense to skip a day 1 purchase regardless. HA! Good Fun!

"Wait, what? The comment said Di will not buy on May 28. Also, the fears are not 'largely unfounded' caused by 'alarmists', I have no idea how you come up with that. The problems are real: what is at dispute is the consequences of these very real problems/issues. Maybe I'm misunderstanding." no, you got right, and we looked at it wrong... though lord only knows why she would pass on purchase at this point. alarmist nonsense creating false panic. btw, to Di, priestly is a bit of a fibber. he will mislead and flat out lie on occasion. is not uncommon for developer board monkeys to do so, but he is kinda clumsy and obvious 'bout it. don't rely solely on priestly... or derek french. is the 2 bio guys we would distrust if they told us water is wet. when the furor dies down, pm one of the other bio guys and they will probably help you out. HA! Good Fun!

see above "It requires a check every ten days and starts trying to check with the securom servers at -5 days. So you have a 5 day window. As long as yiu are connected to your ISP at some point during those five days when you run the game it shouldn't be a problem, dial up or not." cg pretty much summed up what virtual all legit purchasers will have to contend with. is onerous indeed. HA! Good Fun!

Did you post reactions/capsule review? If you've a link handy, I'd appreciate. will check... got the old heave-ho from priestly, so am not sure if we can go back into our account to check for old posts. if you honestly is curious, and Gromnir cannot find link, we can reconstruct and post here at obsidian. "Gromnir keeps repeating arguments that have been dealt with already for some curious reason, but most strikingly, I am not sure why he disregards the possibility of a number of people who might have considered buying the game, but now will not, because of this move." mostly 'cause we thinks that such argument is full o' crap. for chrissakes, gamers is the same people who complain 'bout buggy games and then continue to buy games on day 1 of release from same developers and publishers. most such Serious gamer complaints is mere noise. what is worse? buggy games that not work for months after purchasee? or the unlikely outcome that nobody will develop a workaround 3 years removed... or the diminished capacity to resell? am gonna call bs "I know I'm not going to run out on May 28 and buy the damned thing, that's for sure." Di, at least, is honest. her fears may be largely unfounded (resulting from a handful of alarmists trying to cause panic,) but like so many others with fears (legit and otherwise) virtually all who were planning to buy before will still go out and buy on may 28. HA! Good Fun!

... making sure you get us in both threads... just in case? HA! Good Fun!

is a good experiment. will be interesting to see just how many people don't buy specific 'cause of securom issues. am knowing that Gromnir didn't buy space rangers ii 'cause of starforce, but securom don't bother us a bit as it not really impact us. maybe is like the codexians or vis/sand... piss and moan 'bout bio games, but play'em anyways? is this similar? got a bunch o' folks crying 'bout it, right up until and after they purchase? or maybe is just the pirates who complain... 'cause they gotta wait a week for a crack? no doubt publisher/developer has some expectations 'bout sales. if the numbers of actual sales is much less, then maybe you is right and cheesed off consumers forgoes purchase... or maybe consumers is all just a bunch o' pantie wastes, and they goes ahead and buys in spite of securom. *shrug* Gromnir played on xbox and am not gonna buy a pc version o' game for some minor additions to content. am only curious to see how this impacts future. "Customers looking to resell games (as I often do) weeks or months after purchasing products will be affected by activation caps. I've experienced similar problems when considering the sale of legitimately purchased software. So while resales are a long-term consideration, this is not a far-flung future. Anti-piracy technology sometimes restricts 2nd-hand market opportunities; this is real not hypothetical." nevertheless, how much is this a genuine concern? is you honestly gonna pass on purchase of a game because you may not be able to resell afterwards? seems highly unlikely. these is disposable income luxury items. try to sell us on the frugality angel seems... disingenuous. the replay argument seems equally unsubstantiated. again, the only people affected by long-term replay ability is the fans who Loved the freaking game.... bah. if you is simply repeating their specious arguments w/o judgment, then so be it, but otherwise, am not seeing a genuine serious concern worth noting. securom is not like the starforce situation whereby many complaints were voiced 'bout crashing os and similar nightmare scenarios. no resell? HA! no replay ability 3 years removed? HA! the number of potential legit buyers these concerns could possibly dissuade from an actual purchase has gotta be near as infinitesimal as we originally suggested. is people making such arguments anyways? sure they are, but is mostly sound and fury. HA! Good Fun!