Gromnir

your reasoning is disjointed and erratic and incomprehensible... random. sure, once you hit on a conclusion you will stick with it regardless of resistance, but the almost alien rationales we seen you use to backs up your position is disquieting. vis contradicts self every 10 seconds, but vol is simply

too bad you is getting an answer to the wrong question. looks at the two previews linked. one says 40 other says at least 30. these preview guys is getting these numbers from somewhere. if no estimate can be given, then why did fergie give 20, and why does obsidian keeps giving out estimates to reporters? was 20 the mistake? maybe 40 were... or 30. they get another preview that say 10 and future one that says 50 and obsidian will be able to comes back after game release and simply say, see, we were right. pretty much gotta be with a range like that. lead designer tells us that some areas of game had to be cut... but gameplay hours has seemingly doubled. go figure. and again, if no gameplay hours is possible to estimate, then why is the damned developers continuing to give out estimates to reporters? maybe we hear from josh that nobody at obsidian gave out the new estimates... which means that either the reporters is liars, or they got their numbers from atari... in which case the only estimate we still got from obsidian is the fergie estimate. HA! Good Fun!

if fergie says he doesn't really know how many hours nwn2 gots and he pulled "20" out of thin air then he looks silly, but issue dies... for now. fergie could also claim that the guy at codex is a liar, and that he never said no 20 hours... but if it turns out that the codexian weren't full o' crap... is a number of options for fergie. come clean and admit that he were talking out his arse when he gave estimate might be a bruise to his ego for a second, but we would respect him more than we does now. oh, and for the record, being the suspicious kinda fella we is, we does note that shortly after we seen a good 'mount of feedback here and at bio suggesting that 40 hour would be much preferred for nwn2 as 'posed to 20, we now suddenly sees a preview from gamespy that says 40... or maybe you thinks gamespy reporter pulled 40 number out of thin air too? HA! Good Fun!

btw, is not like Gromnir needs fergie to tell us how many playable hours nwn2 gots. josh told us that fergie were talking out his arse when he came up with 20 hours... noted that fergie not had 'nuff info to makes a reliable guestimate... pointed out that nobody at this point gots power to make a reliable estimate. fine. we accept that. problem is that we still not know why fergie made his 20 hour estimate... or if he even did... and he ain't trying to clarify at all. fact is that we gots a german magazine article we cannot read... and we gots a german guy telling us what fergie said in that german magazine article. 20 hours. 1) 2 weeks ago fergie says 20. disturbing # of people is ok with that, but many complain. 2) josh informs us all that fergie cannot have made an educated guess 'bout hours of gameplay and many of you is mollified 'cause that mean that maybe you gets more than 20 hours, right? 3) now you sees in some preview that the guestimate is 40 hours and more of you is happy 'cause 40 hours sure sounds better than 20... but you seems to forget that josh were just telling you how improbable a current guestimate of playable hours at this point is. 4) Gromnir begins to thinks that many of you people is on drugs. 5 minutes of time for somebody to clarify. oh, and vol, leave the job of trying to get eldar or Gromnir brought up on harassment charges to the da... 'cause you not know what in the hell you is talking 'bout... as is par for course. heck you admit that you is full of crap often nuff... maybe you tell fergie that doing so ain't so hard, then maybe we gets a response. HA! Good Fun!

and yet you is telling Gromnir and eldar and others that we should just accept silence as our answer. bah. am not gonna act as if you is reasonable... is wasted effort. HA! Good Fun!

"If Mr. U wants to give you answers he will. Asking questions over, and over can go from being an intelligent potential consumer to harassing." anybody recall krazy? his dual-wield nonsense drove most of us a little nuts... but Gromnir were right there with him up to and until he actually GOT an asnwer. krazy only went too far when he refused to accept the answer he got... but we applaud him for pushing for a response. HA! Good Fun!

if Gromnir is over-reacting it is 'cause we sees a void left by the folks we thinks should be reacting. am frankly disgusted that so many who we know does care 'bout this is just so damned complacent 'bout it. is why we keeps getting shorter games and buggier games: 'cause we lets the publishers and developers get away with it. one thing that guts under our skin is when folks simply accept what they has been told or what they has been given. sure, when nwn2 comes out and it is short or buggy lots of you will complain, but it will be too late... 'cause you will have already bought game and proved to obsidian and atari that your post purchase complaints is just so much noisome wind... leave nothing but stench behind. now is when you got a chance to get some meaningful answers that could leads you to making an informed choice. don't simply wait til game is released to complain... 'cause you lost any real power at that point. HA! Good Fun!

btw, no matter how silly and a$$inine a rumor may be, fergie or somebody else would answer as soon as 'nuff folks got angry 'bout it. nuf coverage in mags and online sites and on message boards and fergie inevitably shows up to respond. am just not sure why you jokers is letting him get away with this crap. if you honestly thinks 20 hours is an okie dokie new standard for a sp crpg, then fine... sit back and enjoy. but if 20 hours bothers you we don't knows why you wouldn't be banging on doors and sending emals and posting on boards. fergie only stirs when people makes a big 'nuf stink. is unfortunate but true. HA! Good Fun!

"Grom, Fergie owes us boardies nothing." owes? am not sure 'bout "owes" but any consumer with half a brain should ask questions 'bout a potential purchase... and the reasonable consumer expects to get answers too. ask questions 'bout fergies love life is unreasonable and offensive, but you try to tell us again that it is arrogant to ask questions of fergie 'bout his product and we call bs. if fergie didn't wanna make gameplay hours an issue, he shouldn't have told the gosh darned germans what approx hours were... and if germans got fergie wrong, then fergie can easily explain. oh, and it ain't like the same question were NOT asked by Gromnir on the nwn2 board... so you can go cram that one up your tuckus. am gonna ask everywhere, 'cause fergie ain't responded yet. if we were in socal we would stop by the obsidian offices and ask for a response. HA! Good Fun!

it not matter which is more accurate. the thing is that the estimate from the German rag were attributed directly to fergie. 2x translated? yeah, that makes suspect... so why did fergie not simply say that the Germans or the guy who translated from German got it wrong? obvious reason is that the translation were accurate, and fergie did not wanna confirm that they were accurate... which is kinda chicken$h!7, no? any gameplay hours estimates we get at this point is gonna be suspect... if we take josh comments to be true. however, if the Big Herring, aka: uncle fergie, aka: feargus urquhart, gives an estimate of 20 hours and then refuses to confirm or deny... well, that is wrong. at best it is inconsiderate of him to not at least have one of his many toadies clarify. 5 minutes of somebody's day to clarify is asking too much? at worst fergie is being a duplicitous jerk. cowardly b00b is probably falling somewhere in between the two extremes. some folks wanna believe the 40 hour estimate more than the 20, and you is finding excuses for doing so. good for you.

Actually, my family and I (we're Oneida, of the Haudenoshonee) prefer "Oneida" first and foremost, and then "American Indian". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> we have always been Oglala, but bout a decade ago our cousins told us that we were being offensive if we used the Native American term. Indians were more appropriate. *&$# 'em. we get so tired seeing folks fight over the little crap 'cause they thinks they can win those battles... and then lets all the important stuff be forgotten. infant mortality and malnutrition is still higher on the rez where Gromnir grew up than it is in many 3rd world countries and these jerks is wasting spleen on Native American v. Indian? we say, "*&$# 'em," and we not apologize. also, we will note that the term genocide is appropriate when describing what occurred to many Indian peoples and that even if every recognizable Indian nation/tribe were given its land back there would still be a great deal of land in North America leftover. HA! Good Fun! ps am not saying *&$# you to deg personally. am saying it to our sanctimonious relatives.

Well, Mike Tyson would technically be assaulting a member of the public with a deadly weapon if he only used his bare hands: it depends on the context. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> deadly weapon can, for purposes of the statute, also include an attack by multiple assailants. and why on earth would you wanna use this as an example to bash America? you want us to find any number of examples of euros acting like jackarses? how long you think it would take us to find a few euro examples? bah. HA! Good Fun!

2 quick comments... 1) point of the thread were not to get advice. don't get Gromnir wrong, we not mind advice, but for a campaign to run 8 months we gotta be doing something right. am not trying to fix at this point. our number 1 goal is for players to enjoy the experience, and they is. fact that they went and did things far different than we expected is irksome to us, but is not really a problem. 2) "To get player's to make moral decisions, you need to:" as far as we is concerned, there never is and never should be a reason to Make players do what we want 'em to. am not gonna specific reward the rights and wrong moral choices. is maybe the way other folks GM, but not Gromnir. we set up the rules and the setting and we tries to give players stuff to do, but we do not dictate to them overtly or through carrot & stick routine what it is we wants them to do. we got expectations, and that helps us better prepare for what players will want to do next week or month, but we never try to make'em do stuff. am just simply surprised at the direction the players chose... considering our rather alarming lack o' subtlety. btw, eldar's advice, other than the Divine intervention stuff (no Gods to muddy our campaign with Transcendent Morality,) is stuff that were built into the campaign from start. we had clear and definite practical reasons for the players to wanna makes the brain battery moral questions their primary focus. the whole undead stuff were one such method we used. in a d20 kinda world with traditional undead but no clerics, and given that undead is such a terrible foe for mind zorking psychics, makes undead a real and serious problem for our players. the growing undead threat and the use o' brain batteries were linked. we were giving the players an obvious kinda Big Threat to contend with. also, our resistance movement (more like sympathetic terrorists,) afforded all kinds o' potential for players to meets npcs and situations that we thought would makes 'em question The System. heck, we even had our players eventually discover that a sub-race of degenerate humans had survived the seeming destruction of their race. illithids in Gromnir's campaign is not bred from humans, but is, in point of fact, a remnant of a cult o' humans that managed to survive their race's apocalypse. those brain eating monsters is what is left of humanity (though we gots a couple baba yaga and merlin kinda characters in our world who is rumored to possibly actually be human as well.) see, the thing is that the players were really having fun with the world we created and they were enjoying using the brain batteries and brain powers far more than they were interested in getting involved in a Big Picture campaign... which is fine for them, but Gromnir obviously miscalculated. our players happily harvest from kills and preserve tissue and when they is in towns or cities they restock their supply o' batteries or even buy slave stock from which they can makes their own bats, now that their appropriate craftsmanship and profession skills is high 'nuff to be doing so. our greedy players would prefer to perform the gruesome brain harvesting themselves if it is meaning they can save a few brass coins by so doing. did far more work than we had to with detailed setting and npc backgrounds n' such. were simply wondering if other gms had had a similar experience... players go all Lord o' the Flys on 'em... or simply act in a completely unexpected manner. has never really been something we had to deal with in the past. HA! Good Fun!

we gots hijacked by our players

seemingly moments ago you were complaining 'bout 20 hours and how you weren't gonna buy til bargain bin prices for nwn2 were making reasonable. personal opinion is that we am still gonna wait for bargain bin. HA! Good Fun!

listening to fergie we could not help but wonder if he were the nerd that ricky manning jr. recently beat up at a LA area denny's. http://www.suntimes.com/output/bears/cst-spt-bear24.html linky for you non-sports fans. HA! Good Fun!

I only get games if I can get the CD Pass. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> maybe you can burn the game onto a cd? am having dsl at home. one wonders just how long it would take to download that game. might consider if we coulds manage to use our office connection for the inevitable interminable download process. problem is we cannot let anybody from office know we is downloading games at work. download pr0n would be more acceptable than would be downloading games. HA! Good Fun!

nwn2 sucks. you know how we know? 'cause we saw a child in a screenshot. children will continue to be unkillable 'cause certain euro countries has some laws 'bout such things, and 'cause atari probably don't want a MA rating here in the States even if they could release such a game in europe. and as we all know from having followed the codexians, a game with unkillable children is NOT a real crpg. therefore, as is proved by means o' simple logic, nwn2 must suck. is a shame really, 'cause we actually prefer many of the nwn2 screenies to stuff we seen from oblivion. no nightmarish faces alone is a vast improvement over bethesda

... huh? "GB: If Jade Empire sells well for the Xbox, is there anything that would necessarily restrict you from porting the game to the PC? If there would ever be a PC version of the game, are there any particular features you'd like to tweak or enhance given the opportunity to take advantage of more powerful PCs? "Ray: We haven

then you should know better than to follow their lead. you ain't destined to save nobody. you ain't got no special power. you ain't no child of prophecy. you is some poor dumb bastard who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and now people wanna kill you. if you die, does world collapse? sure don't sound that way. again, is no different than the witness scenario we gave above, and nobody would call that a Chosen One story. am not saying that nwn2 cannot be turned into Chosen One with elements noted, but it ain't based on what is in that preview. HA! Good Fun!

the definition of Chosen One is getting a little strained. you ain't a child o' prophecy and we ain't sure if you got special powers and you ain't being called 'pon to save the world/galaxy from some kinda unstoppable dark force. you is some poor slob that is worth more to some people dead than alive... is not Chosen One. say that your character witnessed some crime at start of game, and now some folks is after your arse... want you dead, whether you plan on testifying or not. would that scenario make you the Chosen One? you spend game trying to either find some way to appease the bad guys or makes yourself too valuable to kill or some such other option. sound much different than nwn2? just 'cause the clowns at codex yells Chosen One with scorn not mean you gotta parrot their stoopidity. btw, we ain't saying we likes the nwn2 story hook, but is not really Chosen One from what we got. HA! Good Fun!

ok, let us get focus back a little. regardless of what levels you thinks is best, is there an appropriate rate of leveling in a d&d crpg, and does size of your party somehow alter that rate? HA! good Fun!

low and high levels is both extremes. we can talk 'bout how kewl it is to has lethal combat that has you on edge for every roll of dice, but who wants to be the guy who gets killed by the goblin with the pointy stick... and then have to sit out the rest of the gaming session. sure, such stuff can happens at any level, but it happens LOTS at low levels. at high levels... well, the opposite is the case. dice mean almost nothing. the results of combats is predestined. you got right equipment and correct spells for an encounter? yeah? then there ain't no mystery who is gonna prevail. 4-12... seems like the sweet spot for d&d rules. HA! Good Fun!

"I almost always feel as if the only point of the early game is to get the characters enough levels to be viable in the mid to late game." the first 3 levels of D&D is lethal. 'less you got some mechanic likes in ps:t wherein resurection and dying is somehow part of ordinary gameplay. you typically gotta cheat to keeps a low-level party alive. a single critical from a goblin with a bone knife will kills almost any 1st or 2nd level mage. and criticals is not all that uncommon. is ways to deal with low levels, but d&d, played straight and 'ccording to the book makes first 3 levels mighty tough on players... and the dms trying to keep 'em alive. HA! Good Fun!