Gromnir

our wording is changing? no it ain't. the vast majority complained that they not get 'nuff levels... period. people complained 'bout the levelling... period. you ascribe some specific meaning to our words that ain't there maybe. 7 were too few. people rarely went into huge detail when they complained... didn't note how many hours they played or how often they leveled in 10 hour periods o' time... they simply complained. there were complaints 'bout the cap being set too low for such a large/long game. there were also a recognizable group that complained that getting to level 4 or 5 were quick, but that getting from 5 to 7 were interminable. however, the vast majority o' folks complaining 'bout levels just ranted 'bout how 7 weren't 'nuff. HA! Good Fun!

you got an odd memory. sure, the hardcore players complained that they hit cap way too early, but complaints that there weren't 'nuff levels were near universal. HA! Good Fun!

if you disagree with wording you is missing the point. Gromnir ain't stating preferences... am just pointing out what happened. is not really a mater of opinion. people did complain 'bout lack o' levels in bg1. whatever you thinks folks REAL problem with bg1 levels aside, we is telling you what folks did complain 'bout. Co6 boards were full of such complaints. weekly. daily. hourly. levels is not important to Gromnir. a handful of levels in a 40+ hour game is okie dokie. that not change what were the complaints. oh, and the vast majority of folks did complain 'bout largely empty wilderness maps. revisionist history is popular... but you is getting the real story from Gromnir... likes it or not. HA! Good Fun!

is lots of assumptions made in the link above that not seem to match Gromnir's recollections. just one example: old skool bg1 had something like 7 levels, and folks is now ascribing kewlness to this fact. *shrug* one o' the most common complaints on the boards following bg1 were (along with people groaning 'bout largely unused and uninteresting wilderness maps that seemed to contain not much more than a couple bandit encounters and maybe a fed-ex quest,) the snail's pace o' levelling. the bis and bio developers listened and when iwd and bg2 were made, those games offered almost 2x as many levels... levels for a party o' 6 as did bg. now, when nwn gots made by bio they had choices to make 'bout levels. as the folks at bio were not retarded, they wasn't gonna do something so stoopid as to implement level progression similar to bg... 'cause that were something that the overwhelming majority o' folks were 'gainst. the bio developers also recognized that in nwn you would only be leveling a single character... not six. 6 characters that you got to level 'bout 5 times apiece (rarely got joinable npcs who were 1st level,) resulted in 'bout 30 level opportunities in bg. ... no doubt some folks is starting to see problem faced by developers of such games as nwn and kotor and kotor2. regardless, old skool kewl slow levelling were never kewl. it were a mistake that the developers tried to fix. HA! Good Fun!

playing jrpgs... ever eat ice cream too fast... get brain freeze sensation? playing jrpgs is a bit like having brain freeze for 20+ hours. stings at first... you wanna keep saying wtf over and over and over... but then you just kinda gets numb to the whole experience. is folks that actually enjoy such stuff... same as some peoples enjoy having sensitive body parts pierced. go figure. personally we avoid jrpgs... and as such the ps2 is not a console we would want for rpg entertainment. HA! Good Fun!

aesthetics of the box not concern us much, but the ps3 looks too much like our bose home theatre system... which does not appeal to our sense o' aesthetics neither. furthermore, japanese rpgs tend to be a bit... immature? got wacky stories and silly characters. *shrug* if current trends hold true, most o' the rpgs available for the ps3 will be japanese. crpgs and strategy games is what we play most. don't like shooters much. any news on whether they is finally gonna try to make some strategy games for the consoles? no? as such, the ps3 don't seem like something we will get much use out of... at least not for gaming.

am recognizing the irony. however, we thinks we has proved, on a number o' occasions, that Gromnir can write if he so desires... and even so, speaking as Gromnir we still does a better job o' communicating than many hereabouts. maybe that is the real irony. don't accept a passing grade in english 1a as evidence that you can write. heck, even an a or b in such a class is hardly meaningful. don't be passive 'bout your education. if a teacher or prof gots office hours, go see 'em and get personal attention... and if your prof is a crappy teacher, then find one that IS competent and ask for help. even in the publish or perish atmosphere o' typical universities, most profs want to teach... and finding a student who wants to learn, as 'posed to one who simply wants a good grade, is something that most profs get all giddy

Gromnir's advice: learn how to write. is good advice for almost every job worth having. at some point you is gonna have to write memos or reports or maybe just emails.... and if 'pon entering the job market you already know how to write, you will be a step ahead of 80% of your contemporaries. when Gromnir went to university, we were more than a little surprised by the number of folks in our classes who could not write... and we was going to possibly the best public university in the country. how did these folks who were 4.0 students in high school get to Cal w/o knowing how to write? some of 'em, like Gromnir, were athletes, bust as for the rest... mystary. you know, there is a reason why an essay has been added to the sat. *shrug* problem is worse now than it were 15+ years ago. we sees folks coming out of university and law schools all the time, and it seems like writing skills is decreasing every year. learn how to write. HA! Good Fun!

You couldn't be more wrong. Tolkien took most of his ideas (particularly lifeforms) from various mythologies, as most fantasy authors tend to do. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ... http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book...ary&va=sardonic *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

'cause it were tolkien who came up with dragons and elves and orcs and trolls 'n such. george lucas made american graffiti... a pretty innovative movie in terms of narrative style. and keep in mind that george lucas funded Empire... $30 million of his own money so that he could do his way, and most folks seems to think that Empire turned out ok. star wars were a pretty clever movie... took traditional hero myth and set it in space... and space movies were not all that profitable at the time... is why fox were willing to sell lucas the merchandising rights for star wars. can lucas write? no. his dialogues, in particular, is awkward and tends to be overwrought. oddly 'nuff, lucas admits that he cannot write. even more odd is fact that in spite of lucas' acknowledged shortcoming, he continues to write. am not a particularly enthusiastic star wars fan, but lucas deserves more credit than some gives him. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/featur...jul/fritzhaber/ science w/o morals... is a recipe for tragedy. HA! Good Fun!

creating a cartoon or comic book simply to sell toys is not meaning that the comic or cartoon needs be horrible... but sometimes it seems that way. HA! Good Fun!

-1 to Gromnir's con score. burst appendix. *grumble* is curious to consider that if such a thing had happened to Gromnir 100 years ago, we probably would be dead. as it is, we just feels slightly embarrassed for not having gone to the hospital sooner... when the pain first started. oh well. HA! Good Fun!

some writers not care what readers think... not matter if audience "gets it," or not. to such writers, what the author intended ain't near as important as whether or not the reader(s) was moved by the work... for whatever reason. other writers will burst blood vessels as they read reviews or listen to feedback... listen to folks who completely misunderstood or got bass ackwards. drives 'em nuts. one hopes that chris a is a relatively relaxed writer. people wonder why Gromnir is such a jerk to developers... never seems satisfied or content. "What is your problem?" is a question a number o' bis developers and bio developers and troika developers has asked or wanted to ask us over the years. *shrug* is chris a's fault we seems like such a curmudgeon. blame him. development of ravel in ps:t convinced Gromnir that crpgs were a medium that could support moments o' artistic virtue

you know, people also talks 'bout how they completed kotor in 12 hours or some similar figure. Gromnir tooks 40+ hours to play kotor, and is not like we got arthritis or is a quadriplegic that gotta use our mouth and a long straw to prod the controller... am not sure how folks can complain

talking 'bout Gromnir or vol? as we said, vol brain and his fingers not seem to work in synch. occasionally he starts arguing a point w/o thinking... but folks like yourself, who has been around these boards, is already well aware o' that. find inconsistencies with vol posts is not hard. however, when vol is asked his opinion o' nwn, what score he would award, he is consistent: 75%. he notes many flaws. he complains 'bout many nwn shortcomings. catch vol in a seeming contradiction is somewhat meaningless. people argue with him more to see him say silly stuff than they does to actually make a point or discover his opinion. folks know what vol means, but they focus on what he says just to see him dissolve into apoplexy. *shrug* still think it is unfair. HA! Good Fun!

vol can be a bit of a maniac sometimes... fingers get to typing ahead o' the old synaptic responses, but we does feel for the guy in one respect: vol has stated 'least a thousand times that he woulda' given nwn a 75% or some such. is always his contention that nwn were an ambitious project that had many flaws... but weren't near as bad as some folks pretended. he also noted that unlike so many other games he had played, nwn had considerable longevity. regardless, how vol gets tagged as town fool 'cause of his nwn fanboism seems manifestly unfair to Gromnir. he makes himself such an easy target that we not know why folks would continually harp on his mindless nwn support... considering he ain't never revealed such a flaw. HA! Good Fun!

d&d 3e ability scores: all 9s... 'cept in strength. get a 17 in strength. am freaky mutant strong. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

works the other way too. some people is complaining 'bout a game they ain't never played. "how could ign possibly rate it 9.9? no doubt they were paid off..." or some such similar nonsense. we almost always ignore the numbers. w/o context the numbers is worse than meaningless ... and most of the times they is still meaningless. we recall a desslock review of a bis d&d game... complained 'bout how bis folks invented spells and critters n' such rather than sticking with established stuff. this got one bis developer hopping mad. the developer pointed out that pretty much every noteworthy d&d adventure module had introduced new monsters and spells and magic items. regardless, desslock identified an aspect of game and discussed why he thought it were a weakness... he were thorough. Just

our favorite game were ps:t, but ps:t were busted. Had great story, but were lacking in so many other areas. bg2 were the best d&d game

you got a point? HA! Good Fun!

there is very few things we liked better 'bout bg than iwd. were not a big fan of some of the donkey kong levels in dragon's eye, and a little less linearity woulda' been nice... and fergie went a little nuts with some o' his 1007, but for the most part, iwd were a far better product. better music. better art. better writing. etc. however, we does think that iwd helped kill bis. iwd were a short development by a largely inexperienced team... and it were very successful. set up expectations that bis could produce similar products... get interplay more bang for less buck. also, when it came time to try and save bis bacon, iwd2 were the project fergie put forward. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

am not sure why vis is worked up. were a joke. would have been a better joke if tt and exit weren't so clumsy, but it were clearly a joke. is not even likes the subject matter were offensive... which, given the oddities of the codex peoples, is something we should try 'n reinforce. none of the childish pr0n or profanity one might otherwise expect. is no making fun of the disabled or retarded. no bigotry or hate or anything remotely offensive. were just a joke. were obvious and banal, but it were still just a joke. maybe you not think joke were funny. okie dokie. is a valid response. but to be angered by codexian attempt at humor is

"You're making fun of our writing skill? You, of all people? Please take a good look at yourself in the mirror. " as you still don't seem to get, we do on purpose. if Gromnir were trying to fool people into believing that a press release were genuine, we would not post so broken as exit. we got intent. exit were doing his best. "If we managed to piss off both Gromnir The Retarded and Visceris The Other Retard, then it was time well spent. Have fun!" confused. what on earth makes you think that Gromnir were pissed off? we said that it were silly and obvious. "could not take serious. would not be angered. were just silly and kinda banal. " sure sounds like we were pissed off, no? ... am never sure if tt and exit is as stoopid as they act or if is some intentional obtuseness. HA! Good Fun!

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