Gromnir

what is confusion? we specific mentioned the area effect spells and alan even used one of the correct spells in his non-conforming demo. grobnar don't target casavir... he targets enemies next to casavir. casavir then goes feral. though it seems to happen most often after the iron horn spell which has knockdown effect. alan got wax in ears or something? CASAVIR goes hostile and attacks... is not like Gromnir is targeting him to attack grobnar. figures that he ain't playing hardcore anyways. btw, there appears to be fixed gem chests. is random which gems appear, but for stuff like king's tears and blue diamonds there is almost always 1 such chest per major encounter. we suspect that it is quite possible to find a dozen king's tears in game... or more... though odds is stacked 'gainst you. chap 1 were diamonds, emeralds, fire opals and saphires (never seemed to get a random ruby.) and chap two has been blue diamonds beljuril and king's tears. *chuckle* found out after an unfortunate reload following a stupid party ai blunder that chests that only gots 1 gp or a couple gp is also the gem chests. even so, as a pnp gamer we ain't wedded to notion of creating only the best weapons and armours. a mid-level party can be fully outfitted with +3 shocking or acid dripping adamantine weapons (luckily we ain't found holy weapon formula yet or game would be silly easy.) that is nuts. huge damage potential from such weapons. we outfitted Gromnir, khelagr, shandra and the tiefling chick thus... fought one battle and then reloaded pre-crafting. in a game that is already pretty easy, such a option made game... laughable. oh well. am gonna have to put game aside for the next week or so. and we just checked keen edges again... not working on our non-keen adamantine greatsword. a roll of 17 or 18 should result in a critical threat opportunity, and it doesn't. HA! Good Fun!

wow, what a marvelous solution you comes up with. 'course, for magic using characters how is your solution functional different from puppet mode? in puppet mode characters still tag along, but in combat they does nothing. again, we not mind terribly 'bout having to use puppet mode, but caster ai IS yet another thing that not work in this game. oh, and don't get us started on potions use by joinables. wish that there were some way to address potion use by npcs... potion use specifically. we know that we can keeps npcs from using magic items (though some still uses potions anyways it seems,) but the behavior tabs is a bit... lacking. oh, and for roshan... resolution makes considerable difference. we is down at 1024 and things run better. textures, on the other hand, makes almost 0 difference for us. adjust resolution and turn off shadows makes game playable w/o being optimal, but textures adjustments does 0 for us. HA! Good Fun!

"Are you sure the Paladin wasn't suddenly confused or charmed?" *sigh* sure we is positive. happens All The Time. grobnar casts sound burst or balagarn's iron horn on any enemy he possibly can, regardless of whether or not Gromnir or casavir is standing right next to the enemy in question. casavir then goes rabid and attacks grobnar. all the time. every battle. we can always turn casavir around and makes him stop flattening the gnome, but it is a pain in the arse to have to micromanage that sort of nonsense. is simply easier to go full puppet mode. HA! Good Fun!

they don't work... period. am playing a paladin/cleric w/o improved critical feat for any weapon... and we can reads the rolls as well as anybody else. keen edges and weapon of impact do nothing. HA! Good Fun!

so Gromnir has been playing fora little while now, and while we is enjoying game there is a number of things that bug us to no end. inventory management is terrible... on multiple levels. got 4/5 member party. each party member gots lots of inventory slots, so that ain't problem. nope. problems is multiple. first issue is that we ain't given a safe place to store loot. after chapter 1 ends a bunch o' places is no longer reachable... and the inn... changes. we had bunches o' stuff stored in blacksmith table at inn. crap. reload. ok. why not put everything in a more remote place less likely to change... like maybe that swamp inn? that disappeared too? crap. reload. also, to change party members (and their inventories) one must exit inn. we now gotta take bishop with us on a mission? well casavir has some gear that would be good for him, and khelghar, and that druid tart. crap. enter/exit. every time Gromnir gets new party member or wants to craft we gets stuck spending a half hour switching out members and their 1007, 'cause we can't trust barrels. dr and armour bonuses is... screwy. bracers o' defense should not stack with magical plate. the best magical bracers gives you an armour bonus of +8... which is what plate armour gives. is complete different from ENHANCEMENT bonus. and who the hell comes up with nwn dr anyways? could spend an hour going on 'bout how nwn 2 dr and pnp dr is different, but we suspect that this is some sorta balance thing the developers came up with. neither keen or wepon of impact spells seem to work... and whenever sand casts dismissal the dc critters have to overcome is 1. huh? no doubt other spells is screwed too, but those is the ones we noticed right off the bat. ai for party spellcasters is terrible. the funny thing is that if one of those wacky spellcasters hits the paladin npc with an area effect spell, then the paladin goes hostile and attacks spellcaster. we was willing to have a spellcaster drop a fireball in the middle of our party or on self, but having npcs turn hostile on each other makes it difficult to endure. oh, and the druid chick will cast flame weapon just as soon as she runs out of higher level offensive spells. you catch that? we said OFFENSIVE. she likes to cast flame weapon on enemies. lucky for us most ghasts and zombies couldn't make use of her mistake. we use puppet mode now. auto resurrection sucks. yeah, we get that like kotor the lives of joinable npcs is required to advance plot. unfortunately, this is d&d. obsidian did so much to improve the tactical sophistication of game, and then they hamstring their own efforts with auto-resurect. the game is pretty clunky... but with shadows complete off we can run it with medium or high textures okie dokie. game doesn't like shadows... or trees.. or water. crafting w/o xp costs is ridiculous. can outfit entie party with some serious hardcore weapons and stat boosters early in game. we played around with stuff a bit and were shocked. am gonna skip using until second run through game. as far as we can tell, play a wizard or cleric or fighter not make much difference. game options not open up based on class or race. some of the talky skills may offer slightly different results, but class and race seem pointless. please keeps in mind that Gromnir likes game, but there is things busted with it. we will mention some of the good stuff after we is finished. oh well, back to the holiday festivities. we needed a break from all that "celebrating." HA! Good Fun!

Sweet. More insults. So not only do you insult me by labelling the group of which I was a member, you start to make comments about how you hope I haven't taken the SATs yet. But I understand, I'm sure that any beef a Jewish person had with Hitler was unfounded, because Hitler was just making generalized, sweeping statements about Jewish people. He wasn't picking on that one specific Jew. I think being in character has started to affect you. Hopefully you haven't taken the SATs yet. Regarding the people that don't get hung up about game length, I don't know any one of them that said they wouldn't prefer 40 hours of awesome compared to 20 hours of awesome. It's just that if they only get 20 hours of awesome, they don't necessarily get their panties in a bunch, because they'd rather have 20 hours of awesome, than 40 hours of boredom. I figured it was obvious (since it was stated in that thread, as well as this one), but I guess not. HA! Good fun! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> you really is chanelling vol recently. you say your beef is that we specific insulted you. Gromnir points out that we did not insult you specific. you then invoke hitler. ... bad cess mate. in any event, we not feel at all bad if you thinks that you is one of the "clowns" we identified earlier, but you seem either confused by simple vocabulary, or you ain't all that clear 'bout why you were so insulted by our generalization. regardless, your espoused rationale is clearly lacking in merit... but that shouldn't be no surprise as your espoused stand on hours o' gameplay seems a little weak too. in any case, hitler references is always amusing on a message board, and we will gladly insult you personally for stooping to such nonsense. feel better? and yeah, if you makes a big deal that hours o' gameplay not matter, then you looks pretty silly when you go all weak in the knees 'cause of +40 hours o' gameplay in nwn2 sure, you may always prefer more hours rather than less, but once you try to convince Gromnir and others that hours is largely incidental if quality is good, then you has already told us all we need to know. more important is fact that you has also told developers that small hours is okie dokie. give up right to complain 'bout few hours makes your joy at bigger hours seem eithr false or silly. was stuff cut from nwn2? sure it was. am not saying that nwn2 is whole and complete as initially envisioned, but pulisher/developer specific noted that one of the delays were to add length. some of you people seem to be trying real hard to pick and choose which developer/publisher quotes you wanna believe. as for the tsl restoration project... we was looking forward to it last year, but by now we has lost interest. is just to remote. HA! Good Fun!

we got no doubt that game had content cut along the way. don't know how many times Groimnir heard that stuff were cut... which is why we were concerned. that being said, there were comments following one of the delays that claimed that the reason for doing so were to add content. were those comments made simply to allay fears, or is it the case that nothing got returned to nwn2 following fergie's ill-timed commets? as for alan... we hope he ain't taken sat yet. specify v. generalize? if Gromnir made a comment that specifically insulted him by means o' a generalization it would be pretty impressive of us. also, the contingent of folks who claim that: 1) it doesn't matter how long a game is as long as it is good. should not likewise be able to crow 'bout 2) look how great it is that obsidian managed +40 hours. you folks gotta make up your minds. you look like silly fan boys if you tell obsidian and atari that no matter what they does it is ok. HA! Good Fun!

"I think I was more just defensive because he referred to me specifically as a "full o' crap clown."" never happened. never referre to you specific. we spoke of a general group of fools who claimed that a 20 hour game would be okie dokie... folks who now gots the juice to commend game and developers for being +40. you think you is part of that group? a few months ago many of you were saying that it not really matter how long game were, but it were simply quality that mattered... now there is special kudos for hitting/breaking 40? pick a side. oh, and yeah, if game had been released in july or mid-october we would have thought game were doomed. the POINT is that atari did the unexpected thing... they did the right thing. they listened to complaints and they considered long-term ramifications of releasing a short and buggy game... and unlike toee and other titles, they did not rush to release. yes, you were pipe-dream optimistic if you thought game woulda' been good if it had been released when announced, and pretty much nobody thought atari were gonna change release date. a couple of developers even noted that a change in release date were implausible. oh, and Gromnir is not patting self on back. am just 1 poster. we represent 1 potential purchase... and not even that as it turns out as we gots game for free. am honestly surprised that somebody at obsidian lobbied hard 'nuff and that somebody at atari listened to complaints and considered the potential future complaintws if game had been released in condition so many of you noted you was being satisfied with getting. again, you can point out dev estimates from e3, but we can brings up that reason given for delay were to expand gameplay and length. HA! Good Fun!

am not really a sweets guy. a nice end cut of prime rib on the other hand... *shrug* am just not sure what is the motivation of some folks in this thread. why is there such resistance to notion that with additional 3-4 months obsidian might have fixed some problems with game, one problem which were anemic length? again, when atari pushed back release it were stated that one reason for doing so were to lengthen. keeps telling selves that july release woulda' been a bit buggier but just as long if it makes you all feel better, but doing so means that you has gained nothing from this learning experience. HA! Good Fun!

vol is being vol... again. where we say that crap were simply added in to boost hours? the stuff you see in game were no doubt meant to be in game for a lllloooonnnnngggg time. is when game got close to the JULY release date, and lead got shipped off to Kanada, that stuff were having to be cut. stuff you see in game is what were 'posed to be in game. try not to be a yutz. HA! Good Fun!

fergie is also the guy most likely to be aware that an anemic estimate would be likely to hurt sales... 'less you is trying to tell us that he is a moron or something. did fergie know actual hours? unlikely, but he had some reason to guess that it were small... and fergie is also damn familiar with what happens when hours is overestimated by large degree. again. when nwn2 were delayed past the 3rd q release, it were ostensibly to be adding gameplay

"Except that the comments from the actual developers (that you didn't want believe) shortly after the cuts were still talking about a long game experience." actually, there were more than a few developers who said the opposite... public & private, but you heard what you wanted to. some qa guy makes a bold claim 'bout hours which nobody from obsidian joined in to support. next thing you know the game gets delayed a few months ostensibly to add more content. *chuckle* oh, and fergie is the president o' obsidian... if you weren't aware o' that fact. no doubt you assume that he is just an ignorant boob who spouts off w/o any reasons for speakings and guessings. as game got closer to completion, stuff had to be cut... maybe more than they wished to cut. that is nothing new. difference is that this time atari relented. after negative feedback and a surprising show o' good sense, atari allows release to be pushed back... to add content back into game. heck, when it were announced that game were being delayed the reason given were to be adding gameplay. why you not wanna believe those comments? HA! Good Fun!

you is looking at it the wrong way alan. stuff was cut. the stuff that were cut no doubt found its way back into nwn2 when it were realized that cutting so as to make july or october deadlines were stoopid. is no reason to be particularly impressed, 'cause no doubt the stuff that were added were stuff that were originally meant to be in game in first place... simply didn't have time or wherewithal to implement 'til folks complained. "Speaking for myself, my argument was that game length is not as important when the game is high quality. I repeatedly cited Metal Gear Solid, which I found to be an excellent game, but which has a short length" metal gear ain't a crpg. is apples v. oranges... and we s'pose you know that. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind that the game were delayed... a couple of times. one reason given for a delay were to be adding some additional content. we got no doubt that it were complaints 'bout anemic hours (and the subsequent realization by developers and publishers in the 11th freaking hour that the Average Gamer wouldn't be happy with a brief oc) that gots nwn2 fleshed out from what we were originally given as estimates. given a substantial delay following these may estimates to add content, we expect that all estimates should probably gets benefit of a +5-10, at least. we ain't played yet, but sounds like hours is okie dokie... but you full-o'-crap clowns who kept telling us that "15-20 hours would be ok" should be thanking Gromnir and the other complainers right 'bout now... or not. HA! Good Fun!

can joinable npcs do crafting too? am curious 'cause we is deciding whether or not to play cleric or bard and we ain't sure how much we wants to devote skills/feats to crafting. w/o xp costs it seems kinda bad balance, but what does Gromnir know. oh, and thanks. HA! Good Fun!

have not played nwn2... yet. however, we gots Qs for some of you that has played. we perused manual and we can't figure nothing 'bout crafting. anybody can tell Gromnir 'bout item crafting in nwn2? can any party member craft, or only pc? is there xp costs for crafting? is like toee crafting, or complete different? also, am really disliking warpriests in d&d... poor balance. pretty much all the advantages of being a fighter/cleric plus some special powhaz... and no loss of turning level. however, after reading manual we not see if warpriests have their turning level increase. any answer? we gots a friend with an okie dokie pc similar to Gromnir's: 6800 gs 256mb pci, athlon 3800+ x2... though he got an asus mb and we is using msi now, and he gots dual raptor's hd's in a raid config, and we gots a seagate that ain't near as crappy as josh seems to think it is. 1 gig crucial ballistix. that being said, when our friend loads up 1st time, nwn2 reccomends min settings, which our friend ignores. friend says this game is a hog and he gets weird lags and warping effects, and he cannot turn up graphic settings much beyond min. am kinda holding off for the time being, but we can't believe that nwn2 is so badly built that you needs a super computer to get graphics that looks better than nwn1. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

in this, if nothing else, Gromnir and josh agree. that being said, the Average Gamer seems to like'em, so in spite of fact that they comes off like banal teen soap opera, developers of crpgs is stuck with 'em. might as well do best you can. we not mind romance. in point o' fact, Gromnir is a big fan o' romance as thematic fodder... but a tangential side-quest romance in a crpg is always gonna be too undeveloped to be fulfilling for Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

vol is nutty. most peoples simply dismiss anything vol says as nonsense. this is unfortunate 'cause guys like vol and vis and krazy and others all has their moments when they makes a useful observation... gotta sift wheat from chaff. that being said, Gromnir not been at nwn/bio boards too much, so we not got an idea of how things is going over in that place., however, Gromnir did predict a kinda initial meltdown after release. the regular nwn2 posters is a relatively obnoxious group (nothing wrong with that,) who seems to pretend that only the opinions of hardcore modders count (which is a terrible notion.) regular nwnw2 posters not think anybody but themselves count. *chuckle* we slapped 'em around a couple of times, but it didn't really take. you takes a ridiculously homogenized and snobbish group and then open floodagtes one 'em and you can expect... fun. HA! Good Fun!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've been campaigning for this for like 8 years. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Didn't they do that with ToEE? Not wholly the same, but they had different prologues depending on the party's base alignment. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> the toee version were terrible. the da version... don't know. a while back Gromnir complained 'bout the whole bass ackwards approach to having a half dozen or more Archetypes chooseable by pc. we pointed out that if they were done like toee then they were useless. if fleshed out so as to make real difference, then you end up writing huge 'mounts of extra dialogues and differing encounters for a pc that still gonna end up being kinda vague and underdeveloped. biowarians did respond that their archetypes were gonna be far different than toee wasted prologues.... but they never really did clarify for Gromnir how far to other end of spectrum were they gonna go. see, the biowarians paid much attention to nwn and how peoples actually played that game. go to any of the larger PWs and looks at how people is playing. alfa, one of the big'un PWs, even had a kinda character bank wherein each character had a viewable small bio entry. is probable that they no longer use such a thing at alfa, but when they did it were... illuminating. with 1000 people coming up with 1000 d&d characters you might expect some signifficant variation... 'specially when you consider that alfa were trying to recruits Role-Players (whatever the hell that means, but there were the inference that they were trying to weed out the lamer gamer.) as hard as it were to believe, they asked Gromnir to be their application reviewer. we turned down the job mainly 'cause we woulda' gone nuts if we had to read literally hundreds of crappy ranger-who-was-orphaned-and-raised-by-elves bios. see, we all says we want more choice... more gameplay choices and more character generation choices, but fact of the matter is that 80% of peoples who played nwn characters coulds have their characters fall neatly within one of maybe 8 basic and fantasy archetypes. make bhallspawn or revan vague 'nuff so that everybody can use? is tough to make such a character if the story is about that character. bhaalspawn that can be greedy or compassionate or martial or magical or sarcastic or grim is needing to be vague. go ahead and try to write a compelling story focused on such a ill-formed protagonist. we dares you to try. bio figures they makes easier by recognizing that you clowns not really got much 'magination... 'least not as a group. the Average Gamer is likely to wanna play one of a handful o' recognizable archetypes, so bio aims to use that fact in DA. honestly, we think it is a terrible idea. DA archetypes is still gonna be vague, and we not see how you can create 6 or 8 completely different possible protagonists in one game... not if such protagonists is genuine unique... and if they ain't, then why bother? that being said, the biowarians has made pretty clear that they is going for something more integral and involved than were toee approach... we simply do not know how much more. HA! Good Fun!

"Finally some info! Well, except Volourn will still claim there's been lots of info on the public boards that are just as good as official press releases!!1" and vol would be right... for once. is nothing new to Gromnir in that release save the stuff 'bout being able to actually jump on a large critter... and chances are that that ain't news to frequent visitors at the DA board. the biowarians spend lots of time answering questions on the DA boards. mostly the bio guys is repeating self ad nauseum (and as Gromnir gots a sensitive digestion we avoids such gut-churning piffle,) but fact is that vol is correct... this time. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

that was Gromnir's experience. some folks really want to hate nwn, as if there ain't 'nuff good reasons to hate nwn, but even the bio haters gets tired 'bout complaining of limited party-size and subpar writing. camera views? Camera Views! nwn sucks, so their camera views must suck too. bioware and their freaking worthless camera views. i hate bioware. they ruined nwn with their limited camera view options. whatever. as long as they got topdown and we can unlock and move camera 'round while game is paused we will be satisfied. the other "options" all seemed pretty worthless and largely unnecessary. HA! Good Fun!

as a show of solidarity for those victims of the notoriously cruel and sharp dane wit, Gromnir is gonna quit purchasing danish products until they get their act together. for the foreseeable future, Gromnir will no longer be purchasing his canned hams and container ships from denmark. is a difficult sacrifice we make, but we does so in the name of justice. HA! Good Fun!

the ie games even made EASIER than vol suggests. there were specific included formations in the ie games that had the leader positioned in middle or back... so when you gots whole party chosen and then clicks on friendly or neutral npc to initiate dialogues, your team leader (charming & intelligent mage or clever bard,) would be doing the speaking. however, there were some ie game encounters that would simply choose the most fore-front member of party to be initiating dialogue with... which were annoying on some level, but also did make a kinda sense as well. HA! Good Fun!

at least if this crap were clever or new... though we admit that getting this same kinda codexian response that we has seen maybe for the thousandth time is reassuring on some level. oh and 'cause staying on-topic is rule #1... in nwn2 we expect you will very easily be able to have an intelligent & charismatic mage. if we 'members correct, the point-buy pool has gotten pretty darn deep in nwn2. gonna have to wear your water wings. HA! Good Fun! ps is always sad to see that some clown gots irritated 'nuff to make some off-topic criticism of Gromnir posting style w/o taking an opportunity to be at least original or insightful with the insults. is just no excuse for being so lazy.

1) sargy didn't start out posting as he does now... so maybe you can convince him to abandons his gibberish if you is persuasive. 2) you got +3,800 posts on a gosh darn crpg development board... so if we offend your delicate sensibilities with excess geekiness or nerdiness, then perhaps you got some self-loathing issues you might wanna address in counseling. 3) apologies go out to board community... our extended absence has allowed middle-class socialist norski nincompoops to be putting on airs, and that sorta nonsense should be confined to codex or websites dedicated to winter biathlon. oh, and try to stay on-topic. includes something/anything 'bout isue being debated or you is gonna get thread killed... yutz. btw, Gromnir was unaware tht josh could find enjoyment in any crpg that screwed up d&d rules minutiae... or is it simply non-bis/obsidian games that screws up such details that is driving josh nuts? HA! Good Fun!