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NWN2: Storm of Zehir is out!


SteveThaiBinh

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Everytime you time you do, you wake up in the same place but you lose your memory, only, sometimes you dont lose your memory...and in the end you fight your own mortality to stay alive. OH MY F****NG GOD!!!

 

That was what made me pick up Torment, what exactly is the issue here?

 

Every story sounds crap in careless 2-sentence summaries, the problem with BG1 is that the story was pretty poor even when told in full. I am glad that I never watched the BG1 opening cinematic until much later (the one with the clunky animations where Sarevok throws some Crusader Knight model down from the roof)... now that was hilariously bad.

 

Gromnir, who knows if BG was meant to be as 'camp' as it was. Probably not to the extent. But it still hit a certain charm, I think.

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Gromnir hated the bg story and the patently ridiculous plan o' sarevok. poison iron IN a mine to create a synthetic shortage? a mine with a James Bond kinda self-destruct mechanism? etc. gotta ignore reason and economics to make sarevok anything other than a whack-job.

 

 

yeah i know BG was ridiculous, poison iron, i mean come on! But imagine this one: you can not really die. Everytime you time you do, you wake up in the same place but you lose your memory, only, sometimes you dont lose your memory...and in the end you fight your own mortality to stay alive. OH MY F****NG GOD!!!

 

seriously, why bring up "reason" in BG or any other tsr product for that matter?

 

 

as Gromnir has noted many times ALL fantasy is arguably silly. a bunch of dumpy little faeries with hairy feet save the world from the Ultimate Evil? am not even gonna get into the ents or the return to the shire portion o' the tolkien books.

 

...

 

within the scope and context o' the forgotten realms, sarevok and sarevok's plan were still stooopid. is why we had a problem with bg and not so much with ps:t. ps:t were often hit and miss. chrisA did a little too much o' the maudlin navel gazing for us NOT to occasional roll our eyes, but within the scope o' the planescape universe, as chrisA presented, an amnesiac immortal weren't too far fetched for Gromnir to suspend disbelief. ps:t, with its factions based 'pon basic philosophical schools o' thought.... and in a universe in which belief could alter reality... *shrug* Gromnir bought into the universe, and let some o' the nonsense slide.

 

take another example. Gromnir loathes when an author slaps down the good v. evil bit in front o' us like a butcher handling a sirloin steak. more often than not a writer o' fantasy simply assumes objective good and evil, and that cheeses of Gromnir to no end... 'cause the tough choices always occur in the grey rather than when there is a clear black and white. even so, if a writer is creating a story in the star wars universe, there has gotta be some Light v. Dark stuff, no? is simply integral to the star wars universe as lucas created to have light & dark.

 

 

with bg we had to assume that every man, woman and child in the forgotten realms was a complete yutz, and that sarevok, the evil mastermind behind a plot to become a god, would devise a rather ridiculous plan to achieve his ends. yeah, sending out increasingly competent assassins rather than doing the job right from start makes sense and is allowable in game context. if the bhaalspawn had encountered adversaries like slythe and kristin when we were level 1, the game would have been very short indeed. gotta make some allowances for game and world, but sarevok were just plain... dumb.

 

HA! Good Fun!

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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look at it another way. irenicus, in bg2, tries to achieve godhood via some sorta wacky plan involving a big tree. ok. am fine with that. is magical. Gromnir got no frame o' reference from which to argue that irenicus plan for godhood were especially bad.

 

sarevok getting godhood 'cause o mass death along sword coast? that part not bother us neither. again, we got zero point o' reference. explain with "its magic." can almost always explain with "its magic."

 

sadly, sarevok's plan were too mundane. governments and peoples do not react to resource shortages as they did in bg. create a iron shortage by poisoning iron in mine? add wacky tazok bandits to mix and criminally stoopid cloak wood mines... is maybe ironic that what killed plausibility o' sarevok's shtick were that it were too mundane. the fact that bg were set in a fantasy world not help dispel stoopidity in such a case.

 

HA! Good Fun!

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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Well.....

 

I guess I can always hope for IWD3....

 

Grommy, Volo, it's nice to see that youse guys are still just as contrary as ever...

 

;):):woot:

"For The Love Of Carnage And Discord, I Bring Annihilation And Cheap Beer!" - Mad Dwarf

 

"Watch that howling1. His sig used to eat cities." - Synaesthesia

 

"Beat me with a wet noodle huh? " - Feargus Urquhart

 

"the term "Board Troll" ain't a thing ta be proud o', lads" - Sargallath Abraxium

 

"The line between comedy and tragedy is pretty thin in these parts." - Overseer

 

" Grrr... ...Argh." - Darque

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*shock* howling1!

 

ObTopic - I can't say I do a lot of meta-thinking in most RPG games; I roll with what it gives me. Yeah Severok's plan is stupid, but it was what the game gave me so I worked with it. But I think Irenicus, in general, worked better as a villain.

 

Still haven't played much on SoZ; I've been sidetracked...

Edited by Amentep

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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the fact that bg were set in a fantasy world not help dispel stoopidity in such a case.

nor can it dispel the group hallucination we're all experiencing right now... yeah, howling1, right. that crazy dwarf is a myth and we all know it.

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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the fact that bg were set in a fantasy world not help dispel stoopidity in such a case.

nor can it dispel the group hallucination we're all experiencing right now... yeah, howling1, right. that crazy dwarf is a myth and we all know it.

 

taks

 

 

I do so love being used as a myth to frighten n00bs...

 

EVIL DWARVEN LAUGHTER !!!

"For The Love Of Carnage And Discord, I Bring Annihilation And Cheap Beer!" - Mad Dwarf

 

"Watch that howling1. His sig used to eat cities." - Synaesthesia

 

"Beat me with a wet noodle huh? " - Feargus Urquhart

 

"the term "Board Troll" ain't a thing ta be proud o', lads" - Sargallath Abraxium

 

"The line between comedy and tragedy is pretty thin in these parts." - Overseer

 

" Grrr... ...Argh." - Darque

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Installed and updating. So, did it exceed all expectations or just 75% of them?

"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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There are some modifications out there expanding the race / class list that really spice up SoZ, for me anyway. Modder Kaedrin made massive PrC / feat additions from the PnP game, beyond a new base class, the thug (basically a lightly armored fighter trading feats for sneak attack progression, great for rogue/fighter builds) I think Tale was hemming and hawing ages ago about sneak attack damage not being applied to eldritch blasts and I believe this mod addresses that.

 

There's a mod combining that with another massive mod adding dozens upon dozens of subraces / new races (goblins! lizardfolk! etc.!), but it will only work if you tinker with the code, apparently. I eagerly await somebody upping a version that actually works out of the box.

 

I'm going through NWN2 OC (much better than I remember!) with Kaedrin's mod and it's interesting. I don't know when I'll get back to SoZ and its endless procession of loading screens. Probably when the combined mod gets hammered out.

Edited by Pop
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I think Tale was hemming and hawing ages ago about sneak attack damage not being applied to eldritch blasts and I believe this mod addresses that.

There's several mods. Most of them are bloated with other crap I don't want.

"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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Golly...

 

Did I scare Grommy & Volo off ???

 

Me Bad...

"For The Love Of Carnage And Discord, I Bring Annihilation And Cheap Beer!" - Mad Dwarf

 

"Watch that howling1. His sig used to eat cities." - Synaesthesia

 

"Beat me with a wet noodle huh? " - Feargus Urquhart

 

"the term "Board Troll" ain't a thing ta be proud o', lads" - Sargallath Abraxium

 

"The line between comedy and tragedy is pretty thin in these parts." - Overseer

 

" Grrr... ...Argh." - Darque

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heya

 

*shrug*

 

am not a particularly sentimental guy. you perhaps wanna hug or something?

 

HA! Good Fun!

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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"No, no you don't."

 

Actually, I do. Only times I usually step in is when someoen trolls me like Howling did or people feel the need to bash a game I like in a thread it has nothing to do with.

DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250.

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"Yes you do indeed get off posting in threads like this magical Volo!"

 

No, I only 'get off' (who actually speaks like that?) to HOT women. Games just don't do it for me. Sorry.

DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250.

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I only 'get off' to HOT women.

Who actually speaks like that?!

"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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heya

 

*shrug*

 

am not a particularly sentimental guy. you perhaps wanna hug or something?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Naaaw Grommy, no hugs necessary. I just like messing with you two guys.

 

BTW & Back on topic, I tend to agree with you Grommy in that Storm Of Zehir is not a good stand alone expansion.

 

Would have been better as a starting chapter in a new game. Oh well, F. U. or whoever responsible still has lot to learn...

"For The Love Of Carnage And Discord, I Bring Annihilation And Cheap Beer!" - Mad Dwarf

 

"Watch that howling1. His sig used to eat cities." - Synaesthesia

 

"Beat me with a wet noodle huh? " - Feargus Urquhart

 

"the term "Board Troll" ain't a thing ta be proud o', lads" - Sargallath Abraxium

 

"The line between comedy and tragedy is pretty thin in these parts." - Overseer

 

" Grrr... ...Argh." - Darque

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"Yes you do indeed get off posting in threads like this magical Volo!"

 

No, I only 'get off' (who actually speaks like that?) to HOT women. Games just don't do it for me. Sorry.

 

Volo *AND* a Hot Woman ?!?!? -_-

 

In the resulting fistfight, my money's on the hot woman...

 

Just kidding Volo, just kidding... :)

Edited by howling1

"For The Love Of Carnage And Discord, I Bring Annihilation And Cheap Beer!" - Mad Dwarf

 

"Watch that howling1. His sig used to eat cities." - Synaesthesia

 

"Beat me with a wet noodle huh? " - Feargus Urquhart

 

"the term "Board Troll" ain't a thing ta be proud o', lads" - Sargallath Abraxium

 

"The line between comedy and tragedy is pretty thin in these parts." - Overseer

 

" Grrr... ...Argh." - Darque

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"In the resulting fistfight, my money's on the hot woman..."

 

Mine too as I wouldn't want to damage the 'goods'... :x

 

P.S. Yeah, I'm a pig. But, in my defense, I'm also a male... So, it should go without saying...

 

P.S. SOZ is just plain SOZZY. MOTB 4 THA W!

DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250.

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Okay, so as usual I get the game later than everybody else and nobody wants to talk about it, but I DONT CARE *huff puff*

 

Only played for about a couple of hours, half of that spent getting a party. I have a human fighter (weaponmaster-to-be), a gray orc favoured soul (doomguide-to-be), a halfling rogue/swashbuckler and a yuan-ti sorcerer (possibly red dragon disciple-to-be, however weird that is). Obviously I just wanted a balanced fun party while trying out the new things. Didn't fancy Hellfire Warlock as I never liked playing with Warlocks, anyway. Just wasn't much fun. They're all evil-ish/neutral and I will probably go that route, which is unusual since I usually do the 'Good' route first.

 

Haven't done much at all; just crash-landed, visited Samargol, came back to the crash site. I love the look of the place, and they got the jungle feel done real well. If the voice acting was as good as it was in, say, Mask, it would have been a really immersive feeling - but Volo seems to have trouble reading some of his lines, Sa'sani is similarly a bit flat, and some of the lines for the Samargol guards are terrible. Hassle us not = Steel be with you = *cry*.

 

Overland map looks nice and feels nice, but we'll see about the apparently high encounter rates and the tedium of loading. Loading is pretty quick at the moment, though.

 

Is it just me or have some textures, including the faces, gone through subtle upgrades?

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Just make sure your Overland Map leader is skilled enough and you won't have much trouble with random encounters.

 

Not sure about faces. I know they included some new textures though, some of which look really great. They also added some new interior texture/tile swap things which look quite awesome.

Overall I think they made SoZ look quite good because they pushed the lighting a bit more. Everything is a bit more vibrant and colorful.

Listen to my home-made recordings (some original songs, some not): http://www.youtube.c...low=grid&view=0

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