Gromnir

drizzle is the ideal character to exploit fantasy geeks and losers. from the very start, sex and drow were linked... were drawn pretty in modules and in fiend folio and described as decadent and promiscuous. geeks and losers not know much 'bout sex so they is more fascinated by it. drow gots same appeal as does vampires and similar beings. also, drizzle is a comic book super hero. fantasy geeks and losers tends to be fans o' comic books, and drizzle mighta' jumped straight from pages of marvel or dc. sure, drizzle started as a simply a competent drow swordsman, but salvatore quickly changed so that driz would be magic with swords in hand... capable o' acheiving the most improbable victories. most important, driz is beautiful and heroic and shunned by a society simply 'cause he is different... and his original drow brethren shun him 'cause he refused to conform. fantasy geeks and losers amost always feels likes outsiders and so they can empathize with drizzle. the thing is that drizzle still has powerful peoples who know his worth, and he has hot babes who is attracted to him, so drizzle is an outsider who has friends of quality and romance with supermodels? ... poor driz. lucky driz. bah. HA! Good Fun!

now let us be honest. cut 20 hours from a crpg and it ain't gonna simply be the Donkey Kong repetitive barrel jumping that gets thrown aways. also, keeps in mind that cutting repetitious combats and you would still have gotten to level 20... and people woulda' complained 'bout that too. mindless and repetitous activties in a game is hardly limited to crpgs... but crpg developers IS pretty unapologetic 'bout the whole situation. in other games you gets such tedious filler in small doses... crpgs just does more. part o' blame can be laid at feets o' pnp rpg devlopers. heck, d&d and d20 even has some formula worked out from which crs is generated... forms whole basis for granting xps. most combats is not 'posed to be difficult or challenging in d&d, 'cause challenging requires expenditure o' valuable potions and wands and scrolls and magic ammo... not to mention the loss o' hps and possibly playerlives as well. crpgs follow similar formulas... but w/o all the time consuming dice rolling and bathroom breaks, developers adds in stuff to bolster a bit. the only genuine rpgs is mp games with a dm... or mmporpgs. d&d crpgs, for the most part, is squad-basd tactical combat games, with some rp elements thrown into the mix... so maybe compare to strat games. strategy games usually involves a realtive small number of maps or missions which for all intents and purposes functions likes big puzzles. you start off weak and pathetic with a few gunts or space marines or zergs or whatever. maps gets bigger and moe complex, and you gets to slowly access more units... is kinda like leveling. most of the battles you fights in a strategy game is pretty damn repetitious, no? vogel vastly overstates unique nature o' crpgs. in any event, Gromnir would be much in favor of decreasing the number o' barrels we gotta jump... the thing is that we would prefer that the devlopers increase the tactical/strategic challenges of the remaining combat encounters... but reload and rt hinder this somewhat, and the old pnp formula involving X encounters per level is gonna be hard to shakes too. cut 40 down to 20 w/o fundamental change in model would simply gives a game half as long... not result in a game with all the good stuff and none of the pointless barrel jumping. HA! Good Fun!

is nice that you believe so, but we has had such threads censured in past, and reasoning behind such censure is that such threads is spam... a shout out into the void w/o purpose save for hopes that somebody shouts back. sad. you wanna build community? is many constructive opportunities t do so. this is simply mod appoved spam. congrats. HA! Good Fun! We can build a community by kicking you to the curb. Me, myself and I thinks that Grommy got up on the wrong side of the bed today. HA! Good Fun! 'course, none o' your insights change fact that this kinda nonsense is spam. Gromnir not see a need for such crap. the Obsidians has said that this board is no place for such crap. tell us how the "i'm back" drivel is different than prohibited intro and birthday threads... 'cause 'less you come up with something rational and reasonable, wals should be locking/deleting... and he/she surely should not be suggesting that this kinda tripe builds community if it is his/her job to kill it. HA! Good Fun!

is nice that you believe so, but we has had such threads censured in past, and reasoning behind such censure is that such threads is spam... a shout out into the void w/o purpose save for hopes that somebody shouts back. sad. you wanna build community? is many constructive opportunities t do so. this is simply mod appoved spam. congrats. HA! Good Fun!

bad reasoning... bad logic. even if one dismisses Gromnir (for whatever reason,) it not mean that Gromnir is wrong. threads, such as the one in which you is posting, is no different than the "it's my birthday!" or the introduction threads... both o' which has been censured as spam by the Powers that Be... and for good reason. piffle. seems to be some wires crossed at mod central. HA! Good Fun!

odd. we thinks that such piffle proves the opposite. need some kinda validation from a game development message board community? is arguably not as sad as it seems at first blush, but clearly it ain't a mark o' distinction neither. HA! Good Fun!

don't feel bad that Gromnir don't know you, 'cause we don't know who most of these posters is... and am perfectly okie dokie with that. aside: am not sure why peoples announces their comings and goings on these boards. post or don't. you ain't one of those people that bought self flowers on valentines' day, is you? that might explain. HA! Good Fun!

fair enough... have done that once or twice ourself. HA! Good Fun!

Unless I'm completely confusing my philosophers, and I don't believe I am, Spinoza was a neutral monist pantheist, i.e. he believed everything is a part of god whom is a being of infinite attributes including mind and body (in opposition to Descartes' dualism). As a derivation thereof, he believed humans (as a part of the one reality that is god) had no freewill except to understand why things occurred as they did, and so everything occured out of necessity. Ravenskya's father's religious views are a classical Clockwork Universe and thus Deism. you really gotta read the entire thread before responding. maybe scroll up a page. HA! Good Fun!

"There is no way to back religion other than with unfounded ideology." the same is true of all the best things in life... like romantic love and honor and free will n' liberty. the reality o' romantic love is far less meaningful and important than is the simple choice to believe in romantic love. prove love to Gromnir. go ahead, we dare you. you can prove sexual attraction and need to procreate, but modern notions o' romantic love is different. old timey poets and toubadours maybe pulled a fast one on mankind, got us to believe that there were something pure and noble 'bout messy carnal desires? good for them.. good for Gromnir. what you call delusion, others will call faith. maybe God is a delusion, but that really ain't all that important at the end of the day... 'least not from Gromnir's perspective. is Gromnir a better person and is Gromnir's life better because of his belief and faith in love or liberty? probably. so why should belief in God be any different? *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

That's my Dad's take on the world, not mine. But apparently Ben Franklin and a few others thought the same way. It's got a name, I just don't know what it is. The thinking is that God created the world and now he sits back and watches like and experiment, and one day he will be done with it and the end will come. I don't believe it, but my Dad had to suffer through Catholic school where he was beaten by nuns and such, so the fact that he believes in God at all makes me feel a little better. that is deism in a nutshell... the old clockmaker hypothesis. HA! Good Fun!

"someone who believes in God but doesn't believe that God pays any attention to the world. That he made it and left it to see what it would do... something like that." were the quote you responded to. whether you believe or not, the pantheist notions o' Spinoza seems to come pretty darn close to the mark of what were quoted. HA! Good Fun!

A deist, maybe? Other than that...wow. Very deep and at the same time touching. Very true, too. Props to ya. "i believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." -Einstein HA! Good Fun!

up until very recent, Gromnir were convinced that all anime were some sorta Japanese mind-numbing technique meant to pacify her native population, a technique which were largely (and thankfully) unable to overcome cultural barriers... save for in the case of angst-ridden western teens who need also be in a drugged stupor for their brains to be properly prepared for anime's brain zorking effects. when we were at Cal, some o' our asian roomates were impressed/horrified by our knowledge o' classic movies and our appreciation for Kurosawa, so they offered to show us the Greatest Movie Ever Made: akira. ... movie ends and our roomates look to Gromnir for some feedback... "what is with you guys and your f*&^#@&* fascination with godzilla?" *shrug* +80% of anime is simply some variation of pinocchio or godzilla... on acid. and the other stuff, likes flcl, is just plain retarded... for the most part. however, not too long ago we did see Grave of the Fireflies, and grudgingly had to admit that it were a damn fine piece o' storytelling. so we checked out some other anime, and we gotta admit that Spirited Away were an excellent bit of children's animation... better than anything we had seen from disney in years. Cowboy Bebop is the only anime series we has been able to watch in its entirety, and it actually had a handful of ok-to-pretty-good episodes (though we wanna hunt don't and beat to unconciousness the guy responsible for Samurai 7.) so, ok, anime ain't complete crap... but most of it is. HA! Good Fun!

the numbers of persons who actually play nwn mp is relative small. those issues that is vital to junai will never be a factor for the overwhelming majority of nwn2 purchasers. HA! Good Fun!

spellcaster ai is... unfathomable. our favorite example were watching as the elf tart woulds try to cast flamer's weapon as an Offensive spell. thankfully those zombie warriors weren't carrying weapons at the time... or maybe they were straight. am not sure. regardless, spellcasters will do some stoopid stuff made all that much worse by fact that their ai seems tied to normal mode. is no fear of using AoE spells. sadly, while Gromnir is resigned to babysit joinable spellcasters, we really hates micromanaging bards... 'cause they gots spells and bardsongs and inspirations, and it seems as if making 'em useful is requirng lots of effort. on the highest difficulty enemies do 200x damage, which seems fair considering fact that pc and party members gets max hps. that being said, some of the bad guy critical hits becomes rather extreme. HA! Good Fun!

some good news: Quote: Posted 01/12/07 23:39 (GMT) by Rob McGinnis The release notes are just a repost of Nathaniel's list. The fix for the Win2k issue will be in the final release of the 1.04 patch. Until that time, you Win2k users can download the .dll file from Microsoft's website, I am told. ----------------------------------- 1. 1.05 is in early process 2. Hide & Invis is intended for 1.05 3. Manyshot should be fixed in 1.04 4. Rapidshot should be fixed in 1.04 5. Practiced Spellcaster should be fixed in 1.04 6. Looping cutscene in Tavorick's manor intended for 1.04 final 7. Quick slots emptying on transition or cutscene should be fixed 1.04 I will try to answer some patch questions here. Check back with this post for updates. ... now, among other things, we still need Grobnar sending party mates into rage spiral fixed... and last time we checked, joinables continue to use potions even if we use ai to disable item use. furthermore, we notice that sometimes the crossroads keep special missions inexplicably discontinue advancing. at what point does special missions stop? is it a time thing or % complete thing or a chapter thing? HA! Good Fun!

no doubt you is correct... but if an appropriate cost v. benefit model for manhours had been in place for nwn2, you might not have a job at obsidian as lead... so be thankful for the ineptitude of those not so easily forgotten. HA! Good Fun!

no new news will be heard for 8 months... thread will be forgotten. then some new bit o' news will appear and we can start all over again. sure as heck no need for a sticky. HA! Good Fun!

to be fair, it is the new stuff that peoples thinks is kewl... new prestige classes and new classes and new 10075 and spells n' such. simply fix all the basic stuff might makes serious d&d fans happy, and would probably please the hardcore crpg fan, but new stuff is what gets folks all giddy. go back and see just how many people on this board were looking forward to playing warlocks. were more than a few... surely more than were complaining 'bout how terrible the cleric domains from nwn1 were. oh well. HA! Good Fun!

fact that umd becomes more powerful at high levels counters the fact that warlock abilities/invocations is most powerful (relative speaking) at low and mid levels. compared to other casters, the unlimited castings at low and mid-levels is pretty powerful up until 'bout 10th or 12th level. 'course by that point mages now gots loads o' spells and they is doing considerable damage with those spells... and that is almost the eaxct point at which umd becomes very valuable. keeps warlocks ahead of curve throughout game. 2 no-brainer feats we seen for warlocks in nwn2: 1) skill focus umd 2) shield proficiency ('cause a small +5 mithril shield o' fortification is nothing to sneeze at,) scroll dcs is rough... but those 3 extra ranks makes a big difference. scroll dcs ain't really proportional. start tough, but not get exponential more difficult as one might expect. as for wand costs... *shrug* is a matter o' perspective. how much does that chime of opening cost from merchant? is pretty expensive. a wand with 50 charges of knock is far cheaper. by 12th level is probably not hard to have wands for most useful mage spells (self-buffing stuff that not have a dc involved,) though absence of mirror image is making less useful. heck, for nwn2 we would reccommend having casavir and bishop taking craft wand feat if you plays a warlock...holy avenger, bless weapon, remove blindness, restoration, death ward, cremove disease, bakskin.... etc. is excellent wand spells for nwn2. in any event, is 'nuff class and race specific items to make umd worthwhile. HA! Good Fun! ps dc for scrolls is 25 + spell level of scroll... if game is hardcore or tougher. so, breakdown typical warlock w/ skill focus umd at 12th level wizards is casting level 6 spells at 12th level. for warlock to cast 6th level spell from a scroll at 12th level requires beating a dc o' 31 15 - ranks in umd at level 12 6 - 18 or 19 charisma boosted to at least 22 4 - deceive item feat 3 -skill focus umd +28 umd at level 12? is not a gimme, but gets easier from there 'cause you goes up 1 rank per level and will gets even greater charisma mods and wizard only gets new spell levels every odd level.

"I like being a bit stingy with gear and magical items" is one reason why Gromnir not play base 3.5 d&d rules. item creation feats and requirements as they appear in books makes so that even if you is stingy, players can makes their own 10075... and they can makes some pretty powerful stuff. a d&d world with item creation as per rules is almost always gonna be monty haul if players want it to be. HA! Good Fun!

"I think it's the dullest base class in NWN2." given the lack of an xp penalty for crafting, not to mention the huge 'mount of gold a party can aquire, umd coupled with warlock invocations makes 'em boring & powerful. dc for 9th level scrolls is 34 or somesuch? am always forgetting new scroll dc for 3.5. regardless, with high charisma and free umd feat, warlock is bestest umd character in game... and interesting takes a backseat to power every single time... which you shoulds know by now. iwd2 kits? is somewhat lucky that most folks not seem to realize just how useful umd can be, or warlocks might be more popular... and as we agree that they is pretty boring, Gromnir not wanna see 'em become more popular. HA! Good Fun!

1 domain spell per spell level. that means ONLY one domain spell per spell level. 1 use of holy smite per day is nice, but nowhere near as useful as is, for example, simply adding call lightning (which is busted BIG time in nwn1 and nwn2,) and chain lightning to your cleric's spell list. is understandable why obsidian not give 9 spells per domain, 'cause that would be wacky busted, but am not sure how they come up with the spells/powers that they did... and am not sure why they not spend a little more time reworking domains to be more like d&d... or less. after all, if you ain't gonna do like d&d, then why not does better? all the talk of brand new engine for nwn2 makes us laugh... 'cause there ain't no way in hell that you makes all new engine for nwn2 and simply does same as nwn1 for domains. developers gots some weird definition for what they means by new engine. and does josh comment mean that there is more stuff gonna be fixed in 1.04 than is listed by nathan? anything noted by Gromnir as busted? HA! Good Fun!