Gromnir

finished. ... am gonna break our observations into segments... mostly 'cause we don't have time for a single long review. the jnpcs weren't near as compelling for Gromnir as others here seem to find 'em, but we liked the story overall (so don't thinks we is slamming motb based on this initial brief reflection re:jnpcs.) gann womanized 'cause he had abandonment issues (*groan*) and dove were seeing world black and white just likes her eyes made things seem... as passionless as the god she had once been devoted to. yeah, the wall is a great injustice and you led a crusade to topple, but there were no convert's fire and passion from dove. disappointed. anything else from those two? red wizard's most compelling aspect were the whole Founder shtick, but she had little more personality than did kaji. she were just kinda... there. okku were kewl, but he didin't exactly grow or become more than he seemed. were a big and loyal talking bear... made a promise to help stop spirit eater curse and you had his devotion just so long as you continued to be seemingly fighting the hunger and searching for cure. kreia, as flawed as she were, kicked the snot out of all of the motb jnpcs. kreia were complex and had depth. sure, am betting that somebody could give a pretty good one sentence distillation o' kreia, but such a synopsis would not have been able to describe her character accurately. you knew from start that there were more to kreia... one motivation to keeps playing kotor2 were to find out what exactly the "more" were. dove and gann? 20 minutes after we meet 'em we knows pretty much what made 'em tick... and the predictable discovery weren't worth the 20 minute wait. now we does thinks that the gameplay aspect o' character interactions were handled well in motb. not only were social skills useful and character generation choices meaningful, the feat awards for continued dedication to jnpcs did keeps Gromnir interested in those jnpcs. that being said, our interest were pretty mercenary and practical: boost our influence and gets a new goodie. thankfully those rewards were not available w/o some considerable interaction, so even though we weren't a huge fan o' how the jnpcs were written, we admits that we were adequately encouraged to delve due in large part to the rewards that had direct gameplay effect. 1 conversation with the eyeless kotor2 freak whose dialogue were a Frankenstein amalgam of a thousand forgotten fortune cookie phrases, and we need never have to deal with her again... 'least not from a pure gameplay pragmatic pov. contrast with dove in motb. how long it take to get to devoted status and gets ultimate menagerie upgrade? more than a few gameplay hours. good reward for time/effort spent on conversations and a nice carrot for those who bother to boost social skills. each o' the motb npcs had a neat gimmick. a good gimmick can go a long way. bio's greatest jnpc success came from gimmicks. bg1 minsc? had a couple o' catch phrases and a rodent. hk-47? 1-trick pony with the meat bag bit. maybe obsidian got wise and followed suit... discovered that the gimmick is more important than the character? dunno... hope that isn't the case. didn't go the one-o'-many route, so got no feedback. ... dunno. from all the positive stuff we heard from boardies hereabouts, we were expecting something impressive from the jnpcs... but we simply never saw anything unusual from 'em. sure, their gimmicks were not so standard and stock, but the characters themselves were... predictable. somewhat disappointed with jnpcs... but not with the game. will spew forth more vitriol and praise later. HA! Good Fun!

this happened to Gromnir in nwn2, but it only happened in one place. after one of those qara battles outside the pub in nwn city we would get a similar overflow issue. however, were only an issue on that particular map... went elsewhere and no overflow. even so, that map were forever screwed. HA! Good Fun!

"This is kinda my point." still not seeing the point... or maybe you is missing ours. yeah, clearly once you have 0 or no craving eternal rest is "best", but from a practical standpoint, is only best 'cause it saves you some time. use suppress a handful o' times and your craving is minimized, and from that point you gets a net gain with rest/supress. sit somewheres with okku and some spirits and play around with suppress. even if your crave is high it only takes a couple o' suppressions to reduce to a point where you is getting a net gain... and as you can sleep as often as you wish... again, all you is really saving yourself is some time. suppress is best for getting craving down. eternal rest is best for keeping spirit meter up. btw, if you didn't bother to read the descriptor for eternal rest when it became available, we gots little sympathy for you... though given how few folks seems to be using eternal rest you does not appear to be alone. maybe obsidian shoulda' assumed that players gots a short attention span and would not read full descriptions of all new feats acquired. is a lesson they should be fully aware of by now. HA! Good Fun!

ps please keep in mind that spirit meter ain't a major annoyance for Gromnir. is a minor irritant... a gnat. is as if obsidian had added weighty gold and made it so that unretrieved loot disappears after a short time. such a thing really woulds accomplishes very little save that Gromnir would avoid resting and we would occasionally feels like we were in a rush to get back to town... which is what we is facing now with motb. a minor annoyance that not enhance gameplay. am nowhere near as irritated as is Di or gorgon. our annoyance is as a gnat, no more than a gnat. HA! Good Fun!

cop out? am not sure we would view as a cop out as suppression gets you to same end result... but less efficient. Gromnir can go outside town gate and get fat okami and do the rest & suppression cycle til we gets our spirit meter up to 100%. net gain after each use o' suppression following rest is minimal, but is still a gain. if our starting spirit meter is at 60% it is gonna take us some goodly number o' rest/suppress cycles to get to 100%. is mindless and and stoopid and for folks who has alignment concerns it can ruin game. on the other hand, eternal rest gets us to 100% much faster and gives us a spirit essence... though we ain't used crafting yet, so am not sure how useful gaining a brilliant spirit essence for a void wraith really is. more important, for folks who not want excessive law points (would be willing to concede that 1 lawful point per every 2 or 3 suppress attempts would seem more appropriate than 2 for every 1,) eternal rest is a much less painful option than devour spirit. for Gromnir, who not have alignment concerns, the only real difference 'tween suppress and eternal rest is that eternal rest is less mind numbing tedium. 1 void wraith released to eternal rest and Gromnir is good to go. that being said, if Gromnir were playing a druid we might feel Compelled to use eternal rest. 5 minutes o' rest/suppress can get us as many lawful points as is otherwise available through dialogues n' such following 10 hours o' gameplay. busted. the mechanic is busted in multiple ways. spirit meter does encourage Gromnir to sleep infrequent, and if that is goal then it is a success. 'course the mechanic also encourages us to turn off caster ai and fully micromanage 'em, 'cause left to own devices that chick from the first star trek movie who managed to sneak into our party is gonna deplete all her good spells in first couple o' encounters... and blue boy will spam a group o' spirit rats with multiple uses o' storm o' vengeance if we let him. 'cause o' retarded ai Gromnir had to take away almost all are effect spells from our caster npcs, but with spirit meter we gotta keep even a closer watch on casters lest we be reduced to watching our casters gets to some big battle with no spells memorized save for burning hands or entangle. so far our biggest concerns has been bug related. transitions between some areas tends to lead to ctd if kaji is summoned or if we has too many spell effects active. what is name of that little girl who invites you to her village o' evil ape carnivore shapeshifters? gots one o' those silly apostrophes in her name. regardless, we wished that we had killed her, 'cause now she is appearing right next to one o' the shadow portals on the shadow side... and we gots no more undead respawns in shadow plane. is no problem now, but am hopeful that it don't break our game later. any number o' spell and item attributes is stacking wrong. etc. 'course we broke our own rule and bought previous to patch release, so we got nobody to blame but Gromnir... and obsidian. am enjoying, but the spirit meter is kinda half-baked and there is more than a few bugs we have had to face. spirit-meter does reduce resting... which is good and needed to keeps wizards from casting meteor swarms and maxed greater missile swarms at will, but am thinking that the mechanic is both too easy to exploit, and potentially too harsh for alignment restricted classes. HA! Good Fun!

"Edit: Oh, and if I want to rest then I'm gonna rest, dammit! I'm far too pretty to have bags under my cute little elven eyes." ah, there is the problem. in the skein you can use suppress, but if you rest every few minutes you will have problems. Gromnir were willing to hold off on rest and alternatively we weren't too concerned to see our spirit meter drop down into the 50s and 40s for a while... the penalties weren't too harsh and is not like they is permanent. even so, as the spirit meter is so easily managed, the mechanic becomes a somewhat tedious exercise rather than something that adds to gameplay. were only intriguing before Gromnir played game and had to deal with the reality. would have been much more compelling w/o respawn of undead and if neutral spirits weren't so easy to find... 'course then you risk frustration. no frustration for Gromnir... were mildly annoyed as we "tromp back" as did Di in a seemingly mindless abasement before the alter o' gameplay necessity. sidenote: getting 2 points to lawful for every use o' suppress IS wacked. every fat guy who manages to drive past a taco bell w/o ordering 12 tacos (and a diet coke) becomes significant more lawful? even if the argument is that suppress is lawful, the amount o' points is clearly disproportionate compared to other point awards offered in game. and soul/spirit eating as anything other than evil? not get that pov. much as Gromnir views rape as a crime w/o any possible defense, so is an attack on spirit/soul. a violation o' the very essence o' a being? torture and rape is in similar category. 'course if you not believe that there is anything special 'bout soul/spirit, then we can see a different pov... but that ain't an option in this game as we gots devils bartering for souls and can see first hand that soul is real and immortal. no atheist option allowed. in any event, Gromnir has run into some bugs and we got some concerns, but so far we has enjoyed. will give a more complete review in a few days, after have finished. and okku looks like a porcine version o' okami... can't help but wonder if real reason okku looks so colorful is 'cause he ate okami. HA! Good Fun!

normally waiting for the first patch is our plan before any game purchase... but not this time. caved. only recent did we get to the spirit meter. quick observation... doesn't anybody else use eternal rest? does not shift us more to lawful. gives us spirit essence. with halfway powerful undead available by plundering any offering urn in dead god's vault, or sleeping in vault, we get a huge boost to spirit meter... far better than supress. used supress a half dozen times to reduce craving. ... for us the annoyance o' the spirit meter is 'cause it is so easily overcome... is simply a pointless gameplay requirement that we must deal with before and after every long quest. step 1) go to dead god's vault (cause a bug in our game has ended respawn o' undead in shadow town... hope this don't break game later.) step 2) plunder an offering urn and gets a void wraith battle. step 3) use eternal rest on void wraith and get brilliant spirit essence and a big boost to spirit meter w/o a rise in craving... step 4) repeat steps 2 and 3 til reach 100% spirit meter. step 5) go questing. *shrug* is simply a diversion from actual gameplay. used supress a handful o' times to reduce craving or if no undead is available. no more need for supress. HA! Good Fun!

eta on the patch? HA! Good Fun!

Funny that you'd say that, because from where I'm standing, most anime seems to take after Akira, NGE, any of the cutesy series (Steel Angel Kurumi?), Ninja Scrolls, or an amalgamation of the 4, pretty closely. Elfin Lied, for example, which was all the rage not too long ago, contained huge bleeding chunks of the first 3. The series that I do like, Cowboy Bebop or Trigun, for example, aren't short on overwrought melodrama themselves but make up for it by not being totally stone-faced serious about the stupid bull**** they contain, ala Lied. But anyway, that's off-topic. Pinocchio and Godzilla. viewed broad, virtually all anime goes into these categories... akira was an anime version o' Godzilla with those aforementioned wacky Fantastic elements vd likes so much thrown into the mix. banish all anime that depends on pinocchio and godzilla, and gets rid of any anime with a Buffy character, and there would be very little anime. again, basic themes and characters is all familiar, but the writers of anime plots is all trying so damned hard to come up with some unique twist or spin. different. is akira little more than Godzilla? no, but technically the plot is different. 'course a whole 'nother category o' anime is the non-fantastic real life genre that got 0 fantastic elements... but watching those makes Gromnir's brain hurt. either the japanese are seriously f'd up, or we is missing something. regardless, there ain't nothing wrong with doing old stories and familiar plots. yeah, different done well is nice, but different, in and of itself, is hardly a positive. HA! Good Fun!

btw, Gromnir only got through the first couple paragraphs o' vd's review. his starting point were too alien. different has no intrinsic value. the reason why Star Wars were so succesful is precise because it followed the formula that vd seems to loathe. maybe vd is a big anime fan, 'cause goal o' anime seems to be making plot as Unique as possible. the thing is that the anime character interactions and plot devices is all formulaic, but the plot itself is almost always bizzare, no? motb is an expansion that starts off with epic characters in the FR setting... so obviously we ain't gonna get the typical fantasy origin. is that a good thing? *chuckle* no. no points from Gromnir simply 'cause motb chose to go with epic wackiness. maybe vd makes some good observations later in review, but given his starting point and the potential for spoilers, we simply could not bring self to read further. regardless, it is nice to see that vd likes motb... for whatever reasons. baby steps for vd. HA! Good Fun!

as for epic strangeness... yeah, d&d epic is tough to do. there is an established kinda power hierarchy in the fr setting, so once Gromnir's character hits epic, mundane interactions becomes almost comical. there is many aspects o' the planescape universe that Gromnir disliked, but the kinda environment that sigil made available were ideal for epic. that filthy bunch-backed bum in the alley who seems to be having a heated and decidedly one-sided conversation with a bent soup spoon, could very possibly be the physical repository of the spirits of the 12 Witches of Dis who came ever so close to dethroning Dispater... or some other such nonsense. that guy selling sticky buns out of a cart wouldn't last long if he went to pieces every time some Balor complained 'bout his prices. and heck, the guy who knows the Secret of the Planes might be a very ordinary shipwright who spends all his time working on a boat in spite of fact that sigil gots no bodies o' water. his neighbors thinks he is crazy, and maybe he is, but he got no special powers or magic abilities per se, but he is The Guy. everybody in sigil realizes that the next person they meet could be The Guy. ... and having the Lady o' Pain (as silly a construct as she is,) helps keeps excessive behaviors in check. poo would get mazed so fast his head would spin. epic is difficult to make... reasonable. try to shoehorn into the FR setting you makes even more unlikely that it will be reasonable. Gromnir will be curious to see just how well obsidian did at trying to make acceptable, but Gromnir realizes that allowances gotta be made given the setting and the levels. HA! Good Fun!

any word on when a patch might be forthcoming? sounds as if motb is pretty stable, but is more than a few o' those data entry bugs likes warlocks not able to choose item creation feats and issues with warpriests not getting correct caster level... and many more. not expect all such stuff to be fixed in a patch, but those things is irksome and Gromnir not wanna play til obsidian takes their first crack at fixing. as for codex... *shrug* obsidian reference ain't an homage as much as it is a joke, but Gromnir does enjoy codex in small doses. codex is fine as long as you realize that they is a joke site... kinda like the onion. 'course all the regulars and admins not seem to be in on the joke, which makes joke better. am suspecting that the obsidians get the joke. HA! Good Fun!

imbue item don't work... not at the moment. you need the appropriate item creation feats to make magic widgets with warlock imbue ability... but somehow the obsidian developers made item creation feats not selectable for warlocks... am blaming eldar. what were he doing during all that playtesting? HA! Good Fun!

scale issues didn't bother us too much. stopped playing oblivion when Gromnir realized that beyond leveling our character and gathering more 1007, there did not seem likes any real motivation to continue playing. compelling story? no. fun combat? nope. intriguing puzzles? nope. no doubt some other folks liked the oblivion story, combat and lock picking mini-game, but am embarrassed to admit that it took us 'bout 15 hours to finally figure out that it weren't Gromnir's cop o' kool-aid. HA! Good Fun!

"i'd be willing to bet most hard sciences types such as i am would as well." ain't that the truth. HA! Good Fun!

logic, more often than not, is a blade w/o a handle. in any event, it feels strange being no more than an observer in one of these threads... almost surreal. HA! Good Fun!

"EA wouldn't have gotten exclusivity rights if they didn't think a huge number of people would either start buying EA's games instead of the competition's games or keep buying EA's games instead of switching to the competition's games." actually, the most obvious reason for doing so is 'cause if ea didn't do so, somebody else probably would have. to put in a way that the locals can better understand, just as d&d franchise gots more value when sold exclusive to game devlopers, so does NFL. is also a far more efficient and streamlined relationship from NFL pov. only gotta deal with a single developer. the ea deal with NFL is the norm rather than the exception. does such exclusivity waterdown the motivation for a developer to build a better mouse trap? yeah. hell yeah. nevertheless, the NFL is the folks who is selling their name and is upt to them to decide what is best for the NFL. is hardly as if ea can muscle the NFL around. btw, am not having any opinion on whether this deal will result in games better or worse than what Gromnir is currently seeing from bioware. our only contribution to thread thus far has been to note that ea's Reputation, insofar as employee satisfaction is concerned, is something less than stellar. not need happy employees to makes games, but... HA! Good Fun!

in no particular order, the following is jobs Gromnir would not wish 'pon our worstest enemy... if we had enemies. 1) picking cotton in mississippi in 1800s... assuming you is black 2) hospice caregiver... watching over dying people who gots 0 hope is soul numbing 3) sweatshop employee in se asia... making shoes for kathy lee gives you life span similar to second lieutenant in russian army on ww2 eastern front, w/o advantage of the possibility of taking down some krauts before you die. 4) grad student... 'cause it is the only kinda legalized slavery left in USA post civil war amendments 5) game development for ea... is similar to grad student, but sans perk of a degree waiting for all those andy dufresnes crawling through their personal 1/4 mile o' $%#*. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

any word on when new patch will be ready? is maybe hard to believe, but it seems that warlock imbue item we keeps asking 'bout is bugged... and sand were wrong. the crafting feats ain't available for warlocks. warlocks got imbue item, but they can't take the requisite crafting feats. sounds like game is relative stable, but is some bugs... and Gromnir has stopped reading the bio motb board as the damned thread titles is full o' spoilers and there ain't a separate spoiler section. HA! Good Fun!

... dunno, but this seems pretty typical. game ships today and is actually available at gamestops and ebs tomorrow. walmarts and best buys (not in so-cal or texas) often get a day later. this ain't a title likes halo 3... release ain't an event. so game trickles into retailers at whatever speed the retailer desires. got nothing to do with obsidian, and little to do with atari, and for pc crpgs this is typical. *shrug* 'course as Gromnir always waits for patch #1 to buy, this is all moot anyway. not gonna be a slave to the junkie mentality. HA! Good Fun!

noticed a mistake... were not a summoned boar that went hostile. what happens is a Dominated boar went hostile following the cut scene... and were invulnerable from that point. as for the familiar issue... Gromnir never would have noticed. first thing we did following 1.10 patching were to turn off npc special abilities. ... ok, 'pon reflection, Second thing we did were to turn off jnpc special abilities, 'cause the first thing we had to do is figure out why the default camera were wrong. took 'bout 15 minutes to get things back where we had 'em pre-patch. no biggie, but the new default seems counter-intuitive. HA! Good Fun!

as i recall, he has described himself as a short, stocky, american indian, if that adds to your visualization. taks an ambulatory fire hydrant... short, red and solid. but no, Gromnir does not "HA! Good Fun!" with clients or judges... and only rarely with other attorneys. am slightly embarrassed to admit that we occasionally does take advantage o' the physical intimidation factor we got going for us. most white collar folks not know how to react to scary minorities with big pipes and a bad attitude. as for responding to mk... *shrug* is it worth continuing at this point? more would be kinda like kicking a crippled dog.... but should we feel bad for having crippled the dog in the first place? nope. ... pop's initial query 'bout some source for all the new changes... 2 places we seen... http://nwvault.ign.com/faq/ and lurchman's site at: http://www.thieves-guild.net/ both gots pretty good faqs for most of new stuff. HA! Good Fun!

oh, and btw, is absence of crafting feats for warlocks post 1.10 an accident or intentional? HA! Good Fun!

following the 1.10 patch we had a problem shortly after first encounter with the druid tart. cut scene occurs in mere after discovery o' some dead wolves. cut scene ends and the druid tart's currently summoned dire boar went hostile... but now it were indestructable. game difficulty were set at hardcore. HA! Good Fun!

ah yes, the game... still have one lingering question that for some reason we not see answered at bio or on this board: how does warlock imbue item work in motb? post 1.10 warlocks can't take item creation feats in nwn2... which makes a kinda sense. would be pointLESS to take item creation feats in nwn2 w/o available imbue item ability. even so, we ain't seen anybody give an accurate description o' how warlock imbue works in motb. at the nwn vault there were a description o' wizard crafting in motb that stated that caster level requirements had been removed from the motb casting equation. so how does that work for warlock? all you need is item creation feat (maybe) and a high enough umd? seems a tad bit broken, but am still curious. btw, in pnp warlock crafting works as follows: 1) gotta have warlock imbue item ability 2) gotta have the appropriate item creation feat... wannna make a sword, then you need craft arms 3) need requisite min caster level, where warlock level = caster level 4) need high enough umd skill level to mimic the spell(s) that would otherwise need be cast on the intended magical widget 5) time, materials, xp penalty, etc. HA! Good Fun!