Gromnir

if people can't use tracking 'cause of map size at greater resolutions, then eventhough Gromnir thinks tracking is useless, obsidian should do something to address problem. if interface makes a class feature unuseable, then there is a problem that needs attention. but your other complaints... ain't stuff Gromnir would waste effort addressing. is minor quibbles. HA! Good Fun!

if 'nuff people complain 'bout something it becomes an issue. perhaps there is 'nuff wacky roshanites out there that is bothered by blackness showing where edge of playable area is, but it does make Gromnir wonder 'bout the mentality of the Average Gamer if that is in fact true. HA! Good Fun!

"Why should it even be an issue at all?" it isn't. neither is most of your other "issues." HA! Good Fun!

"i" access for inventory. black space on map is only an issue if you is at edge. *gasp* at the resolution you is playing, of course the mini-map is... mini. hit the "m" button. etc. most of your complaints is so minor as to be non-issues.. or they ain't issues at all. HA! Good Fun!

that is maybe why ps:t were loved by some, and failed with so many others. HA! Good Fun!

it probably is the game, but trying to fix performance issues that vary so much from rig to rig must be a nightmare for obsidian. Gromnir can't play game 'bove 1024x768, but we can increase/decrease textures w/o noticeable change in performance. shadows kill... and that temple room with the indoor snow... that were giving us less than 5 fps. other folks gots complete different problems. is probably not roshan's or Gromnir's hardware, but obsidian can't fix problems that is different for everybody. am not making exuses for 'em, but we can see why it is so difficult to cure problems. roshan's other concerns likes the stuff he coment on with screenie... most of that stuff is either minutae or stuff we wouldn't want changed, but his performance concerns is probably legit... w/o even the possibility of a potential solution. HA! Good Fun!

"When you are in a dungeon you should be able to move around your environment and almost feel the claustrophobia. However the way the camera works it is impossible to move around without rotating up wards and removing the ceiling and general feeling of being in a dungeon. " if you had limited more strategic top-down view in dungeons, Gromnir would have been mighty unhappy. so main problem is a smoothness of response to mouse/keyboard commands regarding camera? hmmm. will have to look at that a little closer. we didn't notice any terrible lags or jerks with camera, but we is getting old and maybe we were just too slow to notice. HA! Good Fun!

everybody "gets" good v. evil. perhaps developers not seem to wanna challenge people too much with a reputation system that woulds allow for a complex faction alignment dynamic, but we wish that somebody would give it a shot... maybe add to a game that already has craptacular good v. evil so that Average Gamer need not be spooked too much by something new. sadly, a d&d game probably ain't gonna be the game in which you see what Gromnir is looking for. sure, d&d alignment not prohibit faction alliances, but once you go through effort of implementing a wotc approved system of good v. evil, you probably not wanna deal with trying to gets something more complex ok'd. HA! Good Fun!

you know, we has seen numerous complaints 'bout the camera pov, but we never really bothered to read 'em 'cause camera seemed to work pretty much the way we wanted it to. we could looks top-down and zoom in and rotate in any direction, and beyond those functions we didn't really need or want nothing else. that being said, there seems to be lots o' people complaining 'bout camera, so we assume that for some folks there is an honest and real prob with camera. anybody wanna attempt to explain camera to Gromnir? we had loads of trouble explaining how persistent poison effects from herzou demons, ghasts and level draining effects from undead critters could require require far more lesser restorations than the druid chick woulds ever have access to cure during an extended battle, so we will understand if nobody can explain to Gromnir what is wrong with nwn2 camera, but if somebody wanna take a shot we would appreciate. thanks in advance. HA! Good Fun!

resurrection and raise dead not equal in D&D. aut0-reurect ain't the 9th level spell, but it is a dman sight better/cheaper than raise dead too. forgetit... am done with this line o' silliness. HA! Good Fun!

... that is... idiotic. game is too easy and you ain't enjoying as much 'cause of things like auto-ressurect and insta-sleep (which ain't d&d rules btw.) however, there is a feature included in game that can makes game combats more difficult, but you refuse to use on moral grounds? ... poolofpoo thinks game is hard at whatever setting he/she gots it at. pool is not alone. obsidian has to be dm for poo and vol and spider and Gromnir. ... we knew a guy who wouldn't take his tb meds. he was sure he gots tb on a plane trip to seattle, and he wanted the airline to admit that he got tb on their plane... but he wouldn't take his meds 'cause that would be "letting that $%#@ing airline off the hook!" forget it. you peoples is nuts. HA! Good Fun! ps we get that is sucks that you gotta play game on normal or hardcore for some signifficant period of time 'fore you realize combats is too easy, but once it is clear that game is to easy at whatever setting you got it at, and there is 'nother more difficult setting available... forget it. forgetitforgetitforgetit... am not gonna chase you folks down the rabbit hole.

that is why developers add difficulty settings am not sure what setting most of you is playing this thing at, but with aut0-resurect we had to move slider up to the highest setting, at which point the enemies does 200% damage. poison effects (likes noxious clouds of some critters) and level drain makes such battles 'gainst those boosted enemies more than a little diffficult. if you complain 'bout difficulty and never bother to adjust difficulty slider, then we gots little compassion. yeah, iwd2 difficulty slider were a joke, so don't even bring that nonsense up as reason not to use difficulty to tailor. nwn2 slider does make game increasingly more difficult w/o increases in xp awards and such. if you note that game is too easy, but not factor in auto-ressurect and insta-sleep as good reasons to adjust slider, then we is left somewhat baffled... and if you still claims that at most difficut setting the game were a breeze, then we is gonna probably continue to disbelieve. HA! Good Fun!

spider seems a bit confused. poison not incubate. poison effects in nwn2 can (and does) do con damage and strength damage and other stuff, and they does so immediate. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

poison can do more than constitution damage, and cure disease during battle is not always so easy to pull off... nwn2 disease incubation periods seems to take rounds rather than hours or days. more than once we seen disease incubate while battle were still continuing. poison, disease and level drain is all a real pain for Gromnir, though level drain is worstest. elanee, the only priest available til more than mid-way through game, is a druid, not a cleric. as such she cannot cast full restoration. she gots access to lesser restoration and neutralize poison and cure disease, but those are all 3rd level spells... same level as call lightning. do you honestly load elanee up with cure disease, lesser restoration, and neutralize poison if you not know you is gonna need those spells? reload. btw, death ward is a 5th level druid spell. clerics get at 4th level. oh, and these boards ain't quite same as bio boards... yet. not really. 1 "sour-grapes" thread as they call it at bio... just 1. threads here get closed when they becomes flamefests, but derek french and chris priestly simply close such threads at bio as soon as they get started. in any event, auto-ressurect seriously nerfs game. whatever rationalizations roshan or spider wants to use, if you were playing bg1 or iwd2 or bg2 and half you party gots killed during battle, chances are you would reload and no doubt you would thinks battle had been tough. maybe you thinks that such death and raise from death rules is too burdensome for crpgs, but such rules does factor into CR and basic notions of relative difficulty of battles. take out such things and you gimps CRs. HA! Good Fun!

"Even if dire charm didnt wear off after the succubi died, it did wear of eventually, and the game didnt end when you were only left with only dire charmed characters. So the solution was always to simply let you dire charmed characters kill your uncharmed characters, and then wait till the dire charm wore off and all your characters resurrected." last thing. this kinda stuff is maybe the difference 'tween what Gromnir considers difficult and roshan's/spider's notions. if we lost party member(s) during a fight, then it werren't easy. auto-resurect made painless, but fight were not easy from our pov. sure, we had on highest difficulty setting, but based on our reading there not be much difference'tween hardcore and highest, not really. lose a party member in a d&d game is not an easy fight. we lost party memebers in the warehouse battle and the second warehous battle with githyanki and blade golem... as well as a half dozen or so other battles... more frequent deaths as game progressed. if you had been playing bg1, or any other d&d game you woulda' been replaying those battles numerous times, and they woulda' seemed hard 'cause of replays. oh, and 'cause we didn't craft, and we almost never used gith or warlock 'less we had to, the end portion o' gam,e were ridiculous... 'cause equipment makes the character. gith and warlock were pretty much butt naked after keep battles, and there were no opportunity to re-equip party before endgame section... and we weren't gonna replay whole keeps battles again just to re-equip. also, restoration AFTER a battle not so much help during battle. is the debilitating effects of poison, disease, life drain DURING battle that makes more difficult. gonna have to wait til after 5:00pm to get more from Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

tough to read your post... but we notice where you claim we take some quote of yours out of context... 'course you editied in the "gameplay" bit after Gromnir were already in the process of responding to your post. *shrug* HA! Good Fun! edit: ah, you fixed... we will respond later. disagree with you on just 'bout everything though. go figure. will note quickly that we don't see how you can divorce critical path and story aspects as a whole with a game like bg2.

Just a small correction, but petrification is one of the effects of Prismatic Spray, and the only one triggering in the non-1.03b version of the game. Petrification, though, does go away similarly to death. I learned this when Neeshka failed a Will save vs. confusion, attacked Sand, and Sand hit her with Prismatic Spray. It's happened a couple of other times since then. The petrification effect seems to last longer than death, though I might have been kept in combat for a while and not known it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> good to know. we never seen a baddie use any disitegrate or prismatic spray effects, so we assumed they were not in oc bag of baddie weapons. though it is kinda lame that petrification wears off, just as does death. btw, we would post more at bio regarding nwn2, but derek french and the mods there seems to have decided that people who simply wanna complain 'bout game bugginess or performance must needs do so in a specific thread. get locked otherwise. got nothing 'gainst lockage when a guy wants to spam board with "I HATE OBSIDIAN!" posts, but lock any thread started to complain 'bout game is somehow more than a little disturbing to Gromnir. am hopeful that obsidian not take a similar approach in this place. you can complain, but all complaints must be type-written and deposited in the round file next to josh's desk? that would be unfortunate. HA! Good Fun!

ps keep in mind that auto-resurrect also meant that some of the most horrible weapons of enemies were not available to the baddies in nwn2. no disintegrate or petrification effects 'cause those gots a duration that lasts beyond death. no wonder we not see no beholders. HA! Good Fun!

please point out the low level spell that makes you simultaneous immune to disease, poison and level drain? in any event, the great thing 'bout free crafting is that you can switch those items in your equipment slots to suit needs. fight undead? put amulet of health in slot. fight dragons? put in natural armour amulet. am not sure why you thinks that you needs keep in one amulet for always and ever. crafting gives us more opportiunities to tailor equipment. and there were more than just 2 tough fights in game...'less you used crafting. the entire end dungeon area were a pain in our arse, because of stoopid inventory issues and inability to rest. 'course if we had all the best possible equip it might have been easy. and succubi were not that easy the first time we encounterd. gotta reload and memorize 'nuff protection from evil spells to protect whole party form dire charm. got pretty easy afterwards, but the stoneskin scenario pretty much applies to a number of other potential enemies as well. and you far overstate the level 9 scenario. your party gets wiped out and chances are you never make it back to a temple... and even if you do get there you has had to spend loads of gold and time and resources to gets your party cleric raised so that he/she can then raise rest of party. ... in any event, you is kinda kooky. crafting ain't busted 'cause game is already too easy insofar as combats is concerned, but you is also in favor of auto ressurect, which cheapens pains of combat. but by same token you don't play the games for story anand character interaction. ... is simply a time filler or something? am agreeing that iwd had better story than bg1. is arguable 'bout bg2, but we thinks you overstate for effect. iwd had advantage of being one story rather than many and so it maybe seemed a little more cohesive. bg2 story were not simply critial path. there were all those sidequests and joinable npcs as well. so, sarevok were better because he were cliche and 1 dimensional? we thinks you again try too hard to make a point. irenicus needed more background development, but he were more than an evil laugh echoing from a suit of armour. sarevok/bg1 were actually kinda campy, but maybe you dig camp. btw, in nwn2 you not have to be good to make a holy weapon. hell you not even have to be evil to take evil domain. gith chick can make holy weapons, but again, you is kinda missing the point on this one as elanee is available much earlier and can also makes holy weapons. HA! Good Fun!

re: sarevok. ok, sarevok's seeming assumption that he would become a god if he were cause of mass death in region seems a bit... wacky. heck, the events of Throne of Bhall seems to suggest that sarevok's plan were a pretty bad way to makes himself the winner in the Child o' Bhall sweepstakes, but putting that aside for a second... what were point of artificial iron shortage again? sarevok gots his bandits raiding the sword coast for iron. they raid for iron 'cause of iron shortage caused by "tainted mines"... which were 'bout the most stoopid and unwieldy way to creates economic and military havoc on sword coast we could ever come up with. mines is dangerous already, so why not simply cause collapse of nashkel (and presumably other) mines. end up with same effect w/o leaving evidence and easy opportunity for uncovering tangled plot. but instead sarevok opts to hire an army of kobolds to run 'round corrupting individual ore deposits with evil green fluids? huh? in any event, the bandit raids were accomplishing similar results w/o wacky plot nonsense. bandits raiding major trade routes is somehow better if they is raiding for iron in particular? bio guys can come up with any one of a dozen reasons to be increasing bandit activity in region north of amn, but somehow james ohlen says to self that if they got iron throne, then somehow iron shortage makes sense? can go further if you want, but again, if you begin to looks at sarevok plan for even a moment or two you see just how insane it is. as to crafting and where we were going... we weren't really going nowhere, other than to point out just how powerful such crafting is. in a game already made easier than it needed to be 'cause of auto-ressurect, the ability to makes artifact-level weapons at relatively low levels w/o a corresponding xp hit makes game that much more of a cake walk. we avoided crafting in nwn2, but much as crafting in kotor 2 seemed more than a little unbalanced, so too does nwn2 crafting. HA! Good Fun!

"Yeah, but if we're only looking at the hard stats they really don't make that much difference. The best you can get in the way of weapons is a Cold Iron +5 weapon with two types of elemental damage tacked on (or one plus holy, although then you need to be a cleric yourself I think, unless Elanee has Bless?" you is joking, right? a succubi casts stoneskin and given goofy nwn2 dr rules you is stuck bashing her til stoneskin comes down.. that is unless you gots your nifty holy adamantine weapon, which hits everything and pretty much bypasses every kind of dr in the game. see, the cold iron that works so well 'gainst demons don't do nothing 'gainst stoneskin. what were the best greatsword in game? the golem blade were a +3 weapon that did additional slash damage and massive criticals, and that were found real close to end of game. you honestly think that such a weapon compares to a +5 holy silver greatsword with vampiric regeneration... or a +5 holy admantine weapon? you is kidding, no? could make our uber weapon much earlier too. +5 fortified mithril plate? there were such armour in game available? add +5 enchantment to an umber hulk tower shield? amulet of health makes wearer immune to level drain, poison, disease... and requires a 5th level caster. wow. some of the most devistating and common attack forms in nwn2, and you can gives multiple party members complete immunity. we thinks we found one of those in game, but we can make multiple if we so desire. wands is overlooked. craft wand to make for any 4th level or lower spell, right? any character with umd can use a wand. neeshka and ammon jerro and possibly your pc sudden becomes pretty damn effective buffers. and at high levels there still ain't no comparison 'tween found stuff and made. those +8 stat boosters not only get you extra spells for casters, but they improve your dc... which if you ain't figured out by now is pretty darn important. find any +8 stat boosting items in game? how many? a cleric with a belt of cloud giant strength and a peripat of wisdom +8? you found that stuff in game? outfit MULTIPLE party members with those items. and please do not overlook fact that you can make items that fit your characters. casavir were set up fromstart to wield a warhammer... so we could make whatever warhammer we wished for him. best warhammer in game were only usable by dwarves. tough luck for casavir, and tough luck for people who turned khelgar into a monk, eh? second best warhammer we found were that lost empire thing. pretty crappy compared to what we could make if we had wished to. instead we had casavir wielding the waking dragon falchion near end of game... monkey gripped. hardly optimal. btw, holy attribute requires cure critical wounds, which elanee gets pretty early.... and gith chick can cast. have elanee do armours and weapons, sand do wondrous items, and you can make most good stuff possible... early. "Computer games and PnP are not the same." exactly. THIS computer game took a serious strategic and tactical consideration present in pnp and OTHER d&d crpgs and complete nerfed it. oh, and not only were sarevok's plan complete rubish if you thinks 'bout it for even a moment (start with creating an iron shortage by tainting ore IN mines... another mine with a james bond self-destruct mechanism, etc) but he were so damned typical and uninspired that even the biowarians admit that he were pretty much a hole-punch baddie. he did have a good evil laugh though... so if you is impressed by such. irenicus at least had a story that should have been developed more, but compared to sarevok? sarevok were no different than any other bg1 npc: cliche and undeveloped. but sarevok shortcomings were just one item 'mongst the multitude. gonna honestly compare the deluge of bg1 fed-ex quest to stuff avialable in bg2? joinable npc interaction were comprable? character generation choices and in-game quest choices were in favor o' bg1? True Fans. what are you gonna do? HA! Good Fun!

Apparently, the guy who did the sci-fi review is the same guy who did the first (now removed) 1up review. His name is Matt Peckham and as far as I can tell, he mostly seems to dislike NWN2 for actually being a D&D game, which it claims to be, and not an Oblivion clone. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> thanks for the info. we didn't even bother looking at the reviewer's name. that being said, the current 1-up review ain't much better than the original. mr. green seemed to think that nwn2 were a pretty nice game, but found so unplayable 'cause of bugs... which makes us wonder if he played the original nwn. now THAT were a game with some serious stability issues. nwn were the last game we bought day 1, and for good reason(s.) didn't stop green and cgw from making nwn an editor's choice selection. HA! Good Fun!

we play crpgs. vol may not be aware of this, but more than a few crpgs has been d&d. duh. also, when Gromnir first started playing pnp rpgs, d&d were the only option. then came along games like tunnels and trolls and numerous pretenders. since the early days o' role-play we has played champions and rolemaster and gurps and a dozen other systems you probably not even familiar with. also, vol may not be aware o' this, but pnp is a group activity. not being a fan of d&d hardly prevents Gromnir from enjoying the occasional d&d rp session. as we has stated once or twice before, with role-play the rules is always secondary. our best gaming group ever were actually played with tunnels and trolls, which were a terrible system. we give far too much time and consideration to vol's recent comments. blather on if you must, but please try to raise level o' your nonsense so Gromnir and others not have to endure such silliness. 'least throw in a joke or two so we get some entertainment value from having to endure vol's brain farts come-to-life in post form. am thanksing you in advance for the future consideration. HA! Good Fun!

"The engine used in BG2 is vastly superior, but from a design perspective it's debatable which is the better game. I play both roughly once per year using the BG2 engine (tutu) and for me both are roughly the same in quality, but for different reasons." am gonna have to disagree with you here. bg 1 were nowhere near the game bg2 were. story and character development and settings and critters and everything else in bg2 were simply... better, but this is an old argument, and the True Fans will never be able to see clear with the glory o' bg blinding 'em. and as any serious pnp d&d player, at mid to higher levels, the equipment Makes the character. is one of the flaws of d&d. oh, and surviving a fight and win a fight is not the same thing, not in a party based game. in pnp if you survive at cost of have all your party mates wiped out and most potions/scrolls used, then you lost the battle for all intents and purposes. if cost of victory is too high, then you lost. "Oblivion may not be good, from a rules perspective, but at least its not something I've played thirty times already. And, like I said, D&D ain't real good either in a crpg setting either, so its not like we are comparing genius to idiocy" lord knows we ain't a defender of the wotc faith. Gromnir is not a fan of d&d and the way it has evolved recently. that being said, change for its own sake don't impress us neither. HA! Good Fun!

btw, while it has become popular to hate d&d of late, it is patently obvious to Gromnir that to come up with the ruleset for oblivion, the bethesda guys guys didn't get much help from seasoned rpg game developers. if Gromnir were 13 again, and we wanted to build our first rules system and we wanted to make it real kewl with lots of "boss" powers and freedom and "stuff," well then, we might have been able to come up with oblivion rules... if we were drunk at the time. is so many balance concerns and counter-intuitve results that we cannot figure out how anybody could sneer at d&d but welcome oblivion's attempt. d&d is broken in many ways, but it sure as hell ain't any worse than oblivion's wacky rules. reviewers who congratulate bethesda's efforts, but criticize obsidian for using tired old d&d shoulds be ashamed of selves. Gromnir is no big fan of d&d, but je and oblivion didn't exactly come up with a better mousetrap by any stretch o' the imagination. HA! Good Fun!