Cantousent

Sorry, my Kuwn friend, but things can always get worse.

Actually, I thought your original point was pretty much clear and concise without a tldr. Anyhow, I would rather see romances between NPCs rather than the PC. EDIT: three letters made all the difference.

Rat bastard! :Cant's rueful grin icon: I actually looked up 'Jubilex bathroom cleaner.' Of course, I've been indulging, so maybe I can only blame myself. As my half-orc friend sometimes says (and sometimes not) nomenclature means something. Sometimes, there is something in a name. which is why we have naming algorithms for various games.

matchstick has 5 in a row... but yeah, I have to admit I also laughed out loud at the 7 consontants is a row comment. For a while, it seemed like a lot of exotic names required a ' or ten in the name, like Ca'Nt'to'us'''sent or something. lol Weird stuff. I don't see that as much any more.

Some Russian characters have odd names anyway, like Porfiry. ...But that's pretty funny, my Kuniklos friend. Not a Drizzt fan myself. ...Or any drow.

haha I *like* IWD, ya wretch!

I'm going to tag team you with Ganrich and post again. :Cant's broad grin icon: The bottom line, Losse, is that when you finally finish PS:T, the only thing you'll be able to say to yourself is... "that was your *first* wish."

There's no reason to believe there will be no banter or substantial interaction. I personally don't place BG2 at the top for NPC interaction. I place PS:T at the top. BG2 had romances, but it is, no matter how you cut it, *one* of the IE games. For many of us, at least going by the community here, PS:T is the primary reason for supporting the game. For many, once again going by posts I've read here, IWD is the draw. I don't doubt that BG2 is the first love of many of the community. I greatly enjoyed BG2 also, but romances don't figure in to that esteem. Frankly, they really weren't all that big of a part of the games. NPC banter was a big part of the game, yes, but NPC banter need not, and has never as far as I've seen, been confined to romance. ...And IWD 1 and 2 didn't even have intraparty banter.

Oh, come on! I played through the beta on normal and part of it on hard and I can't think of any race (or class for that matter) that isn't viable. Now, I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the godlike look. ...And I tend to think racial abilities are all pretty bunk. ...But for roleplaying purposes, I think they're all workable.

I just couldn't get into another run of Fear 2. Not very diligently, but I have been playing a bit o' Torchlight. Not exactly hall of fame material, but I'm liking it.

I haven't been following the updates as well as I should, but ToN is not supposed to be a 'sequel' to PS:T. It is its own story. However, you should try PS:T because it's an awesome game. Some of the gameplay can be a bit wonky, and the graphics are dated to be sure, but it's still in my top three and, depending on when you ask, my personal favorite.

Okay... I can believe you're not dying or having a stroke.

Ironically, considering some of the exchanges I read above about this subject, I think I've heard that dropping LSD helps with migraines. I don't know if that's true and I'm certainly not advocating breaking the law. Sorry about the migraines, Red.

You can't lie without intent. You can, however, be wrong. This is a condition to which I have accustomed myself. Anyhow, the point should be the game and folks' views on that, not on each other. We can't sing Kumbaya around a campfire if we're calling each other liars and whatnot. It seems clear that there is no universal agreement on anything about this game. ...Or any game. Any part of a game. If we had a universal agreement moment, I would know then and there I'd entered Twilight Zone territory. ...But, yeah, try to bash the game and not each other. On the other hand, you can praise both the game and each other in equal measure.

The last time I saw the game, I thought it had impressive graphics, but not jump out of my seat graphics. I loved the music and I enjoyed the combat. However, I have *seen* screenies and concept art that's stunning.

Hey guys, rather than merge Kordanor's post into this one, which would put him a few posts back, I'm going to quote him here with his contribution to our band of first run characters. Enjoy!

I'll lock it for now, Kor and when I get home I'll merge it into the other thread if you want.

I'm not a hairy person but I do sometimes shave hair around my ears, I have also in the past had hair removed from my private parts, it really works but I can do that shaving myself Here is the thing, most men generally prefer a women that is clean shaven. So why wouldn't you think women would prefer that themselves from a man? Societal conventions, probably, BigVC. I wouldn't mind shaving my chest, and I've got a lot of chest hair. Sadly, it's the opposite for me. I think it looks silly when my chest is shaved. It would make it easier to see how my muscles are developing without the damned hair, though. Of course, being too preoccupied with your own body is probably not necessarily healthy either. <.<

Fell on my walk yesterday and tore a hole in my back pocket and ripped the leather in my wallet. I was little worried about brain damage, having landed on my butt, but no concussion or anything. A little sore and I didn't lift weights yesterday.

Damn, Woldan, that thing is a monster! I'd hate to have to wrassle with it. Pretty, though.

I was wondering when the Romance thread was so active what happened to the heated combat XP debate. Well, if we haven't found the universally accepted solution in the first few thousand pages, I'm sure we'll get there in the next few. lol For me, I wish we didn't have the lock/trap xp, but I think it's too easy to get into an uproar over the xp system. We have these huge debates as if the manner of earning xp is the only thing that matters. I mean, it does matter, but even in terms of gameplay I think combat systems and abilities etc. are more important.

"You're saying something that's just plain incorrect, and I'm attempting to set the record straight. Your preferences about how the game should be are neither here nor there." I honestly don't see it the way you do, PJ. I don't have time to engage in a fifty page argument on this issue, but as it seems to me, you took this statement from my post "Yeah, if anything, I would rather the gods were more abstract. I would rather that the character worship the gods who don't have such overt impact on the world. After all, expecting tuna when you open a tin isn't faith. It's a reasonable expectation[.]" and went after it with vigor. Fair enough. However, my desire that everything need not be absolutely cut and dried is already answered in the affirmative. After all, look at what... well... *you* said. "I don't think you need to worry. Again, the character creation doesn't even let you specify which god you follow unless you're a priest, and the reputation/disposition system is independent of it. The rep/disp mechanics do affect priests and paladins, but that's IMO entirely as it should be." First you argue that my desire that things not be so cut and dried is against the spirit of the game because it's set in the renascence. Cool. Then you point out that even most modern people don't share my views. Alright. Does that mean the Renascence historical setting doesn't count anymore? ...And, why did the 'Enlightenment' (so called) occur? Could it be because enough people, certainly not the majority, but enough people were interested in cause and effect and developed these ideas? Unless that concept sprang out of thin air at Day One of the Enlightenment, we have to assume there was someone who was thinking about it. I don't want to take over the thread, but I'll point out just two things and then yield the floor. First is, from what I've heard in this thread, *my* character will be able to have the views I've espoused because there is enough room to doubt the gods. Not that these beings with godlike powers exist, of course, but the nature of these gods and how they fit into the universe. Yes, I imagine your view of society in the game is correct, but my interest will remain in my character and how he interacts with the game world. Second, it's just plain silly to say what 'people' believed as if it were some monolithic truth that no one doubted. Sure there are trends and basic assumptions, but people still lived their lives. They might have believed that the gods caused thunder by heaving bowling balls in heaven, but the gods didn't actually come down to their farm with an army of demons and destroy it. People lived day to day and part of that life was giving lip service to the gods. The fact is that they often paid such lip service with varying degrees of genuine fear battling with some disbelief. Getting back to the Renascence theme that figured prominently in some of your posts, there weren't even 'gods' per se in areas where we Westerners say the Renascence occurred. There was Christianity that still had room for people to believe in some decidedly mystical and magical things. Hell, why attack my ideas of faith based on other religions? Plenty of modern western Christians believe that dead family members are 'guardian angels' and the like. Earlier in European history, at least the areas about which I know enough to discuss, the big name 'gods' were less important to folks' day to day lives than the hearth gods or goddesses. I don't know if the game has hearth gods in it or not, but the angle of attack that dictates my views about how faith should be treated in the game based on what people did in either the Renascence or ancient times or modern times or whatever time period is convenient for you just doesn't work for me. Okay, if you got through the wall of text and want to take a shot at me, fair enough. A good healthy heated debate helps keep things fresh. I'll give you the last word and to show that there aren't any hard feelings for whatever harsh words you may have, we'll sacrifice a goat together (and give the bad parts to the gods and eat the good parts ourselves of course) and then light some incense and maybe chant Kumbaya together. :Cant's pagan grin icon:

Well, I did get a kick out of the 'caveman' line. Still, I don't want to make this personal. I actually tend to agree with a lot of PJ's points most of the time. So, I tell you what. I'm going to go pass out somewhere, hopefully in bed, and you guys can score points off me while I'm gone. ...And if they're good, I'll even laugh at them myself. Ironically, I'm heartened by what PJ said to Emer, and Diogenes said generally, there is no actual *need* for a diety. So, some people will attribute natural phenomenon to divine activity, which seems reasonable considering the time period in question. ...But some won't and will not need to do so. Of course, here I am arguing for the medieval atheist perspective due to my decidedly modern Catholic motives. <.<

I don't know whether I *expect* a reaction at my last two paragraphs. I got one, even if it's simple dismissal. Fair enough. You point out that the game follows historical precedent by saying, "h, because this one is explicitly modeled on a particular period of history on Earth? The Obs devs said it's "early Colonial, Renaissance, minus the printing press." So, there are clear cases of children born without souls during the Renascence? There are mages and ciphers? This isn't some tertiary issue I bring up as a sidetrack issue. The idea of faith and souls is already fundamentally different in a world where divinity is already proven in ways that it has never been proven in our history. Faith was always an assumption where proof could not be solidly given. In PoE, faith isn't an assumption of the intellectually lazy. It is establish by empirical observation. I don't know how *you* will react, but I'm merely stating my preferences for the game. Apparently, according to at least a couple of people, faith is something more complicated than I had thought and certainly more complicated than what you depict already. ...And, while I agree that prevalent views of simplistic reciprocity might be predominant in PoE, which is probably appropriate, there should be no reason to think that either my character or the circles in which he moves represent such a view. Even if we take all your other arguments as established, I'm still going to argue for what I see as a better way.

Who cares when something became meaningful to my modern self playing a game? First of all, there were skeptics in every society from the beginning of time. There were ancients who themselves questioned the credulity of other ancients taking divinity for granted. I am an advocate for my tastes. Also, why is the prejudice that the game follows what would be ancient traditions on earth? Is this not another universe? I don't understand why my particular preference would be confined by what you see as a "small and rarified circle" in our historical world. Speaking of history, there were no souls that directly translated into modern events. Our players are not the ignorant masses in European society who envisioned Columbus falling off the edge of a flat world. Our character may be. They may also be the people who knew that hundreds of years earlier the ancient Greeks determined the circumference of our planet. I'm altogether at a loss as to why I should take the argument that you can come up with some examples from historical earth (and ignore other examples) as a reason to change what I want in a game.