Gromnir

never claimed that early film were entirely free of the burden of the past... but folks were more willing to experiment. sure, their avenues and means were limited, but there were folks trying new stuff, and audiences were experimenting too. films today is 1.5 to 2.5 hours long and tell stories using some relatively established narative styles. weren't so cut & dry in film's infancy. HA! Good Fun!

killing dak'kon seemed to have cured the problem. ... like so many problems in life, a well-timed assassination fixed everything. am still not sure what caused. HA! Good Fun!

just attempted an earlier save. all early saves is fine. even modron cube saves is ok. after defeating evil wizard construct... fubar. am not sure where/when actual problem occured though. were after nordom joins party though. am trying to thiink what spells dak'kon might recently have cast that he had not cast earlier. resting don't help neither. (we thought this might have been like the Submerge the Will bug, but no dice.) will try killing dak'kon and raising. HA! Good Fun!

no cheats HA! Good Fun!

dak'kon cannot hit anything... ever. to hit rolls is looking like the following... attack roll: 17-96= -79 ... am in modron cube. any ideas? HA! Good Fun!

two observations: 1) the "what is art?" crowd angers Gromnir to no end. 2) the fact that games development is in its infancy is hardly a valid excuse for lack of artistic merit. Gromnir don't care what the hell you think is art, but if you cannot recognize art, and if you is not sure that such 'n such piece, movie, book is art, then we does not envy the paucity of your existence. we ain't saying that there is some objective standard of art, but if you not got some standard of your own... if you lacks the capacity to be moved by tragedy or beauty as rendered on canvas or on celluloid, then you might as well be dead. if you lacks the convictions to declare what is and ain't art to you, then you is a coward... and might as well be dead. as to the second point... film, in its infancy, were probably MORE likely to approach beings art than what we sees today. in its infancy film were unbounded by expectations and preconceptions. audiences were willing to pay to see 45 seconds of film showing a a middle-aged okie woman washing her child. try that today and see what happens... no matter how sublime is the moment you captures on film. as josh were pointing out in another thread, there is an accepted crpg narrative style... and in spite of the suggested youth of the medium, there has developed many such norms that has become so widely accepted as to be like unto rules. HA! Good Fun!

sophocles: a view of humanity we wish were true euripides: a view of humanity we wish were false "It is unlikely to change until it can be proven that you don't need to follow past successes formula to be a success... or, someone is brave enough to fund a project that doesn't follow a "winning" formula and is a success. " is the rub of the problem. it costs millions of dollars to make a game that can prove to developers & publishers that a marketable game with an alternative narrative style is possible... millions of dollars which will not be forthcoming until somebody proves that such a game can be made. HA! Good Fun!

if josh wants Gromnir to write a paper/proposal on the viability of alternative narrative styles in popular entertainments, we would be more than happy to do so... present at next game developer conference if you wish... not even have to credit Gromnir. HA! the notion that crpg fans want nothing more than the simple morality tales w/ a traditional heroic protagonist is a firmly entrenched preconception that is understandable in spite of the fact that there has been absolutely 0 attempts at offering anything else. when millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours is at stake, most publishers and developers is predictably less than adventuresome, especially in light of the gaming industry's quarterly report culture. nevertheless, whether it comes as the result of subversive action or open revolution, we expect that change will come, as it always does. HA! Good Fun!

dc went through the killing of superman silliness for a reason... *shrug* is kinda a sad commentary that comic book fans is more discriminating than is forgotten realms fans, but the Death of Superman story arc were adopted by dc 'cause the big blue woner's popularity had waned considerably... were pretty low in point of fact. kill superman were an act of desperation, an attempt to save superman. go figure. eventually the fr fans who likes their drow superhero is gonna get bored just as superman fans did. salvatore maybe give dizzle a drinking or drug problem for a book or two in a lame attempt to give false depth and stave off the slide to dullsville, but eventually it is gonna happen. am actually surprised that fr fans has been willing to swallow salvatore's mindless pap for so long... but we is not surprised that salvatore and wotc has continued to crank out their ridiculous pablum. as long as folks keep paying for it, wotc will keep making it. HA! Good Fun!

well, no, it ain't natural selection. is unnatural selection. there is a gap which 3rd world countries cannot close w/o help. takes lots of money, resources and time to go from being a resource producer to a capital producer. western nations went through the industrial revolution a long time ago. study the transition of england from being a wool producer to a textile producer. were a very complex process but far less complex than would a similar transition would be today. the enclosure acts and rise of mercantilism ain't nothing compared to complexities of modern world economies. where is sub-saharn africa gonna get the money to makes the shift from resource to capital production? make process even more difficult when you got drought and war constantly sucking away what little money you got. feed starving children and protect boarders, or develop an infrastructure capable of supporting a capital production economy? not matter how smart or able the people in sub-saharan Africa is. is just no way they can close the gap w/o help. is completely unnatural. HA! Good Fun!

2 reasons for hating drizzle... 1) drizzle is superman the drow ranger is a superhero with superhero powers. super speed and balance and super skill, and he is wise and a shining beacon of goodness in spite of having been shown so little goodness in his life. ack. sew a big gawdy "D" on the front of his tunic/shirt and take the hood of his cape and you could drop him into any comic book. 2) drizzle exploits losers drizzle has so much beauty inside, but he is misunderstood by most of the world. the beautiful misunderstood loner crap is so damned insulting... and so damned effective. all the geeks and nerdlings who reads escapist fantasy to avoid their own inability to successfully enjoy mainstream society is given a hero they can easily identify with. bah. HA! Good Fun!

one wonders if tig notices how much he/she had to qualify in his/her last post. oh sure, ps:t is so obviously unique compared to kotor... but when you start actually trying to explain its uniqueness you notice that it ain't. essentially it gots MORE of certain crpg aspects that tig likes. great. unfortunately, Gromnir already noted that what kotor does is give those things that tig likes in ps:t and gives LESS... and made more money. kotor has shorter dialogues and less dialogues, and it intersperses dialogues with more combat more often. it keeps the themes and characters and the quality of dialogues, but it gives less... on purpose... which is Gromnir's whole freaking point. typical complaints re ps:t: too much dialogue. too grim. reads like a book. sucky combat. where are the elves? i hate tno, why can't i play a character i created? etc. so yeah, ps:t and kotor is similar

"as to other aspects, you keep ignoring all the stuff that we noted as being same/similar... which is fine. is your prerogative to say "no it isn't" every time we says "yes it is." makes debate kinda pointless though." again, your approach leaves us at a bit of an impasse. we can note similarities in plots and characters and themes and yeah, even in approach to dialogues, but if you simply disagree then there just ain't anywhere to be going with a debate. *shrug* some hardcore fans of ps:t see qualities in it that other folks do not... and Gromnir just cannot fight that. HA! Good Fun!

ps:t and kotor combat gots similarities: they both is horrible. as to other aspects, you keep ignoring all the stuff that we noted as being same/similar... which is fine. is your prerogative to say "no it isn't" every time we says "yes it is." makes debate kinda pointless though. HA! Good Fun! "Melissan's entire dialogue database was over-the-top, etc, doesn't mean that every IE game evar was the same with different reception." why is it that folks gotta beat the crap out of the scarecrow to try and make a point?

I didn't understand what you were trying to say. I've had groin pulls that were more fun than KotOR combats, but otherwise you're right. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> as crazy as it sounds, the fact that josh and Gromnir hated kotor combats did not keep many gamers from enjoying seeing and hearing star wars lightsabres and blasters battles. lord knows that we cannot explain why so many folks liked kotor combat, but there it is. HA! Good Fun!

galaxies is also a crpg, though it is a mmorpg. however we does recognize that while there has been loads of star wars games made, there has only been a couple of single player star wars crpgs made... regardless as to how hades or Gromnir would rate them. HA! Good Fun!

much like d&d forgotten realms, there has been good crpgs made in star wars, and bad games made in star wars. am not a fan of star wars or fr, but am recognizing that a talented and creative bunch of developers can find or create something of value in settings that Gromnir is nt a fan of. *shrug* people like fr and star wars, and games is getting too damned short nowadays for a developer to honestly create a genuinely new world that can really capture the 'magination of the average gamer anyway. if a player isn't imagining himself into your game before he plays it , then you, the developer, is probably doomed. as short as they is, and as they needs include a substantial 'mount of gameplay that ain't gonna reinforce story and worldbuilding efforts, crpgs is gonna be more likely to stick to tolkienesque archetypes and to established settings. HA! Good Fun!

"Same with the setting of Sigil, and how it was executed. Maybe it wasn't popular, but it was one of the reasons for why PS:T became so critically acclaimed. " ... who cares about critical acclaim? in the grand scheme of game development, all the accolades mean nothing if people do not buy your game. sounds like you is a fan of planescape setting. great. unfortunately, many people was turned off by the setting... period. is not really a debatable point. there is this perception of ps:t that doesn't really match reality. the writing of ps:t was, at times, fantastic. the story as a whole was pretty average, but various encounters and characters were/are unmatched. example: ravel, in all her incarnations, was absolutely incredible... and is still unique as far as complexity and depth o' character in a crpg goes. unfortunately much of ps:t were simply coming 'cross as narcissistic bellybutton contemplation and childishly oversimplified philosophizing. kotr managed to explore many of the same themes and characters w/o all the pretension and hackneyed writing. *chuckle* the funny thing is that what some ps:t fans laud in their favorite game, they despised in kotor2. some of the same kinda crappy over-the-top and lugubrious dialogues showed up in kotor2 and such stuff made people wince. no doubt some of the bis/obsidian developers were surprised by the different reception their fantastic writing got. and yeah, we is selective in noting the parallels

wait what <{POST_SNAPBACK}> josh ain't a slow guy, so we thinks he is playing dumb for effect. ps:t had some really terrible writing in places, and a setting that did not appeal to mot gamers, and individual dialogues that were too long and there were not enough combat. however, those things that ps:t fans claimed that were so great, including the highly developed character interaction, were things that kotor managed to do as well... and kotor were succesful. like it or not, bioware essentially remade ps:t in a more popular setting and simply added more appealing combats and shorter individual dialogues... and they made lots of money doing it. HA! Good Fun!

kinda funny that fergie is more concerned with rpg codex opinions than your or Gromnir's, eh? HA! Good Fun!

given: ps:t was a commercial failure is some clowns that will argue this, but they is just doing the denial thing to a ridiculous degree. however, looks at kotor and compare to ps:t and see just how many similarities the games had... including lame combat. similarities in character development and havings a single identifiable protagonist and similarities of themes and even the dammed amnesia thing. kotor were successful or no? would kotor have been less successful if the combat had been improved or the rule-system were made more robust? maybe, but we ain't convinced. ps:t + good combat = commercial failure bs the bis developers and the ps:t fans has been lying to themselves and making excuses for years. HA! Good Fun!

plano should take a look at what the biowarians claim to be doing for da. in any event, while we recognize that multiple potential antagonists got resource costs (though you seems to be confused as to where the cost would be,) such an approach would also result in a considerable savings of resources that would otherwise be devoted to achieving the impossible twin aim of making a compelling protagonist character/story & maximization of player freedom. developers waste so much effort on antagonistic goals related to protagonist development. is kinda insane really. HA! Good Fun!

in pnp we needs just 'nuff strength and coordination to be able to lift and toss a handful of dice. while a single-player crpg is NOT pnp gaming and should not treated as identical, we choose to believe that arcade control combat ain't necessary to be making games fun. yeah, we know that a true melding of squad-based tactical combat aspects from a game like ja2 and the character interaction and story development of a game like ps:t is probably too much to ask for... but that is what we is asking for. ... regardless, a crpg that tests the manual dexterity of our character is ok, but one that tests Gromnir's physical attributes is... annoying. am too old and grumpy for such things. HA! Good Fun!

I thought we were only nominating people we could have in our party. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> sure don't seem that way from a number of the lists put forth... and keep in mind that the "npc" term applies to joinables and non-joinables alike. HA! Good Fun!

rare is it that Gromnir is genuinely surprised when reading message boards for games... but for not a single person on the Obsidian boards to be advocating ravel puzzlewell is disturbing and unexpected. oh well. HA! Good Fun!