Gromnir

josh is also pretty far from being patient and calm... though it seems like he is maturing. a few years ago it were pretty damned easy to gets him to blow his cap. gotta work a little harder nowadays. that being said, josh does interact with community far more than does any other bis/obsidian developer. more important, josh gives feedback that is actually meaningful. lose temper on occasion? fine. adds a little flavor to community goulash... am s'posing that josh gets to be the hungarian paprika. HA! Good Fun!

Not that I exactly care, but isn't it a tad bit early for doom and gloom? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> josh's pre-release piece is the typical kinda advertising/hype-building you always see before games is released, so we ain't gonna get too excited. who knows how josh honestly feels 'bout game? be that as it may, Gromnir gots lots o' reasons to be concerned 'bout nwn2 going backs some 6 months now, shortly before josh took over as lead. is not early... is late. game release is only a few weeks away. if we were gonna predict doom for nwn2 we would have a very small window left during which our harbinger bit would be meaningful, 'cause after game is released... remembers torn? torn were 'posed to be released 'round christmas. in june or july of same year the bis folks did a developer chat thing... claimed that they were still shooting for christmas release. month later we heard that torn were cancelled. am not sure 'bout nwn2. honest. am not sure if it is doomed... but josh is screwed either way. already you gots the hardcore modders complaining that nwn2 is more like nwn 1.5... 'cause improvements in toolset is simply stuff the mod community had already done themselves. everything wrong on nwn2 is gonna be josh's fault, eventhough he has only been Lead Developer for a relative short time... and we is guessing that there is gonna be lots wrong with nwn2. if six months ago they gotta bring in josh to try and fix, and game were originally 'posed to be released in summer, then there were problems which probably shoulda' been addressed before josh came aboard... problems which probably gots bandage treatement as 'posed to honest to goodness fixing. too soon to predict doom? hardly. that being said, we honestly ain't predictiong doom. am simply observing that nwn2 is gonna have flaws and that josh is gonna again be linked to a flawed game. on bright side, nwn2 ain't been cancelled. HA! Good Fun!

josh is screwed. he comes in late to try and salvage a project that obviously were having problems. he not get no chance to makes input when the Big Choices 'bout nwn2 were being made, but he had to be the guy who made sure that the game somebody elses envisoned gots completed by july or september or late october or whatever is new release date for nwn2. screwed. somehow josh gots some terrible luck. torn, fo3, bg3, iwd2, that midway game... all were either cancelled or pretty much hamstrung projects that never hada chance to be anything better than mediocre. add nwn2 to list? am thinking that josh gets screwed no matter what... got some kinda curse on him. josh ever tell a gypsy woman to, "#$%& off!"? joah ever bury his dfead dog in sacred indian burial ground? ever take OPRAH's name in vain? if one of the top kewl factors for nwn2 is special PrCs dresses for role-play barbie, then we is kinda worried. HA! Good Fun!

the goth girl likes a vampire chick... big surprise there, eh? bodhi plays lady macbeth to irenicus' macbeth. neither one got the development they deserved, but bodhi were far more one-dimensional than were irenicus. biowarians and obsidains both make same error over and over and over again. protagonist needs necessary be left underdeveloped so that a wide-range o' players can enjoy. is the villains who can and shoulds get the bulk of development efforts as they is static and completely w/i control o' writers... though kreia had potential even if execution were amateurish and climax wee laughable. oh well. oh, and Gromnir weren't a villain in tob, even if he did fill role of level-boss. HA! Good Fun!

Sarevok was your typical power hungry villain. Rather one dimensional. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> sarevok had an excellent evil laugh... not much else, but a quality evil laugh will take you far. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that the name not help. gnome. go ahead, say, "gnome." is funny. g-nome. nome. is a kooky word, like, "mukluk," or "goulash," or pretty much any australian colloquialism. just picture tight-arsed sawyer saying "gnomes are boss." that not makes you smile? HA! Good Fun!

Don't ask me; I just work here. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> play a gnome straight and it is gonna seem nutty anyway. play a gnome fighter all grim and serious? sure, you can do that, but chances are that people not take you serious. play a gnome mage steeped in dark powers and it kinda comes off like you is trying too hard to be different. gnomes is comical. other than elves, gnomes is the least likely choice for Gromnir to rp in a pnp session... though we almost always gots at least one in a crpg party. d&d gnomes got some nice benefits. other races? a halfling paladin? sure, makes sense as long as you not go over-the top with it. heck, we has had lots o' fun with the halfling barbarians too. half-elves? depends. the slightly too-pretty loner on the edge o' human and elf society? lame. even so, is lots o' different half-elf characters that works. half-orc and dwarf and humans all gots wide variation, but somehow gnomes just seems silly to Gromnir. is not that we don't like gnomes... is just that they is inherently silly, and Gromnir tends to be more subtle (or at least less cliche) with our comical characters. play the assassin gnome who acts the clown but is really a diabolical power broker? still comes off as goofy. HA! Good Fun!

they is printing money. ever wonder why even the crappiest movie in the world gets a dvd release? is very similar principle. a small group o' biowarians ports je to pc and cost to bio is relatively small. suggestion: if you is considering the purchase of this thing for any reason, wait until after first patch. you has already waited a lllllooooonnnnngggggg time for release of this title, so why not wait for a stable release, a release that will no doubt be considerably less than $50 by time of first patch? no more posts for Gromnir in this thread... no matter what. HA! Good Fun!

shoulda' been obvious to developers that dialogues in games gots more in common with dramatic works and comic books than does the scribblings w/i short stories and novels. games likes ps:t and kotor further support this notion when we sees just how much difference voice-acting can makes or breaks a character. *shrug* games is largely visual media... gotta approach as such. am not sure we is far 'nuff long from an art/technical standpoint to really has crpg characters become virtual actors, but the priciple seems sound. HA! Good Fun!

hardly. we has pointed out a bunch o' times now that josh did a very good job of dismantling your je sales house of cards in previous threads, but you ignored. alan seems to thinks that even a clear and admission on the part o' bio or microsoft would not convince you of your error. maybe he is right. we hold out some slim hope that your wacky factor might give out and allows you to see reason given such evidence, but heck, we has seen that you were certain that bio lied to you 'bout working on a pc je... though you not see a delayed port of je as evidence of relatively poor console sales for je. go figure. *shrug* you is impervious to reason. we could go through the same stuff josh did, but it would be pointless, and as we noted earlier, we ain't concerned that vol is obtuse 'cause that is one of those foundation principles thats we can all count 'pon. nope, our concern, as we noted earlier in thread is that BIO might have entered the vol zone too. HA! Good Fun!

prove that microsoft isn't planning on making je2? HA! anybody wanna tell vol what is wrong with that question? HA! Good Fun!

for chrissakes vol, we DID find bunches of current articles hypothesizing 'bout a je sequel. if microsoft had announced a sequel, then why on earth would people be coming up with volesque theories trying to support the existence o' a je sequel? once je sequel were a fact there would be no more need for theories. "What that link proves is that that MS though JE was anything BUT a failure, and have every intention of having a JE2. Read the question, and answer AGAIN. Please." links to josh posts on the subject is full of proofs that you didn't like. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

you is just jealous that we ain't bashing you instead. like we said before, you IS a glutton. am joking... somewhat. HA! Good Fun!

oh come now. that is hardly an announcement o' a sequel. microsoft is in contact with bio regarding the possibility of a sequel... somehow that became a sequel in vol mind? no wonder you gets so tweaked. yeah, microsoft wants fans to think they got a robust 360 lineup, but if you take anything else away from that little snippet... we do agree on the "game over" bit. HA! Good Fun!

we did a search, and we saw all kinds of rumours, but nothing more concrete than wet tissue paper. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jade+...el+announcement thanks anyways. no microsoft announcement. closest thing we got is that bio is dedicated to the ip. HA! Good Fun!

a leak? all you gots is a leak? how many rumors we has seen in these parts 'bout kotor3 and bg3 over the years? nevertheless, you believe the je rumor. why? 'cause it supports your silly theory of je commercial success? HA! oh, that is rich. you gonna have to do better than that. and if you ain't gonna listen to josh, who clearly knows more than does Gromnir 'bout what kinda sales is needed to makes a developer and publisher happy, then we know you ain't gonna listen to Gromnir yet again. bio lies and josh lies and everybody lies to vol... but he believes rumors of a leak... that is fantastic, honest. HA! Good Fun!

show us. we recall microsoft saying that they were considering the possibility, but we never seen a presser from them announcing je2. you might be right, and we will happily admit if you is, but Gromnir never saw no presser... and games don't get announced on the sly. oh, and bio said multiple times that they had no current plans to makes je for pc... and at the time it were probably true. but after je clearly failed to make money on console, no doubt alternate avenues were considered. fact that after bio said no je pc we now gots je pc should be further evidence for you that je were not a great seller for xbox. of course if you thinks bio lied about je pc development, then why would you believe 'em 'bout good sales of je? wacky. oh, and if alan can get rob to discuss what his impressions o' biowarian commerce with boards we would be grateful. HA! Good Fun!

"If JE's performance was sooooooooooo dissapointing to BIO why would they waste their time on a port?" 'cause they already did the work... is kinda like releasing a movie on dvd. the development costs has already been spent. also, as you noted, the je2 bit sounds like nothing, don't it? bio ain't working on it and there ain't no expansion. bio claims to have ip rights to je so unless bio is working on it... regardless, vol will believe what he wishes to... no matter how he is shown to be wrong. HA! Good Fun!

"After seeing this thread alone (and the numerous other JE units sold threads), it's not surprising that Bioware would instantly shut down any thread regarding the topic. Not much use seems to come out of them." oh sure, is no question that je threads that somehow gets side-tracked onto sales becomes pretty darn useless, but if uselessness were the prime requisite for thread life at bio, they woulds needs a team of 12 mods working 24/7 to clean up the mess o' pointless topics and posts. there is some truth to the suggestion that the boards is so polarized that finding useful criticism and intriguing new ideas is not likely, but that has always been the case. truth to tell, the most annoying portion of the bio boards is the nwn2 boards in which you gots the bis/obsidian developers doing the interacting with fans, so take that for what it is worth. dunno... Gromnir has been following the boards for a long time now and we cannot help but feels that there has been a shift in the developer attitude. once were that you could banter back n' forth with rob or bob or dave or drew or any number o' other guys and you would gets useful feedback and you could see that the developers seriously considered your ideas... but now? perhaps bio hired too many jackarses who once were bio fans. one would think that such guys would be the best folks to be interacting with on boards, but the reverse seems to be true. maybe Gromnir is right and biowarians is certain in their choices and not so much bother with fan input. maybe Gromnir is seeing some flaw that just ain't there. maybe. HA! Good Fun!

I don't think even that would change his mind. Why do you have the impression that Bioware is unwilling to accept criticism? I haven't really frequented the BioBoards for quite some time, so I'm a bit curious about that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> there has always been some crazies who post at the bio boards. bio is successful, so they get lots of fans and some % just gotta be a little kooky, no? also, the biowarians actually interact with posters to a much greater degree than does other developers, so those folks who is simply posting to gets attention tends to find their way to bio boards. is understandable that the biowarians coulds frequently get frustrated by seemingly ridiculous suggestions or nutty posters. ... even so, we started to see a much higher % of threads getting locked seemingly for no other reason than 'cause a poster were disagreeing with a biowarian. recall krazy? he were an unmitigated arse... but sometimes he managed to have a good idea. the old bioware attitude were such that they considered krazy suggestions even though they knew that 90% of his suggestions were simply flame bait. heck, there is a clown named geo over at the bio boards that we disagrees with most times, but occasionally he manages to makes a point... gotta happen eventually, no? the thing is that whereas in the past the biowarians were willing to wade through the nonsense to get at those rare nuggets, now they simply ignore some folks or some topics. sure, the biowarians may post responses, but they don't really seem to take suggestions as serious as they once did. again, is not simply that some posters is dismissed, but some topics is as well. yeah, after almost a decade of board rehashing of some topics we imagine that some o' the love has gone outta bio's relationship with their boards. seems like the same/different folks is making same arguments we were seeing in late 90s. biowarians may be bored, but they seems to have given up on some topics regarding quest design and storytelling and any number o' other aspects o' game design. oh, and 'cause we has mentioned je... just try to mention je sales in a bio board thread. gets locked faster than pr0n. once it were that as long as you were following rules and on-topic, pretty much anything were fair game at bio boards. sargy and some other jokers never could figure that out, but it were true. is reason Gromnir almost never got locked even when we were being adversarial. bio boards has changed. is still better than any other developer boards, but still we sees that the biowarians seem to Know, where as before they were trying to Learn. oh, and we can understand the gut-level urge to disagree with vol simply 'cause he is vol, but that is bad reason, even if it is statistically practical. HA! Good Fun!

there IS a somewhat curious anti-bio bias element on these boards. some people ain't agreeing with Gromnir or disagreeing with vol... they just thinks that bio sux. am thinking that Gromnir and vol both lose some % to that crowd. HA! Good Fun!

HA! one does wonder what it would take for vol to admit that je were not the seller that the developer and publisher hoped for... short of an admission from the publisher or developer? am recalling how for years we had fergie trying to play edward norton's "illusionist" role every time the question of bg:da or ps:t sales were broached. were kinda commical to watch. heck, who would honestly expect a publisher or developer to admit that a game did not come anywhere near sales projections? again, Gromnir's concern is that the biowarians is as deluded as is vol... that they might actually believe their own fables and bedtime stories 'bout je success. they has become less and less willing to takes criticism over the past couple years and we fears that they may have reached that point where they no longer believes they need take constructive criticism. sure, they still cruise the boards for opinions 'bout content, but they does seem to be less likely to question basic assumptions 'bout game design. HA! Good Fun!

vis eventually claims that all bio games is crap, but he is such a game junky that he can't help himself when opportunity to buy game presents self. honestly, vis probably didn't likes je all that much, but just as some folks can't help but buy a game on day 1 o' release, vis cannot help but buy games... period. vis is a glutton... and more than a little wacky. vol is just plain wacky. HA! Good Fun!

getting silly. what is josh's interest? how does he benefit if je sold better than he suggested? also, while Gromnir has never claimed that je bombed, microsoft obviously already has for all practical purposes announced that je sales were underwhelming, or they woulda' pushed to gets a sequel or expansion released. 'course we has no idea what you could mean 'bout microsoft blaming bio. microsoft were simply the publisher. their mistake, if they made one, were agreeing to be publishing the game in the first place. heck, bio screwed themselves on this one as they is far less likely to gets freedom from publishers in future... publishers will wanna be more meddlesome 'cause bio games is no longer viewed as relatively sure commodities. and yeah, Gromnir is willing to have reasonable discourse far more than is vol. vol simply locks legs like an old mule and refuses to budge come hell or highwater. we can see how form your perspective Gromnir actions might seem similar, but we is atleast willing to discuss rational and reasonable, whereas vis and vol is completely impervious to any sorta evidence or facts that might makes a vol belief less tenable. vol will believe what he wishes to believe... regardless of any evidence to contrary. the mindlessness he wields like a weapon is just one reason the biowarians temporarily banned him. HA! Good Fun!

actually, even the aforementioned Gaider has noted that Gromnir has conceded more than a couple of points over the years. am willing to change pov if somebody gots better data and better theories. vol is just... wacky. HA! Good Fun!