oneda

When I started the game I crashed to desktop every third or fourth time I loaded a save game (or exited/entered the map) in gilded veil. It was very annoying and if I would have had to spend much much more time in that area I might have stopped as the load times were insane too. So I would wait for like 60 - 120 seconds for nothing each time. But after I left the area things got much, much better, I hardly ever crashed. Only very rarely. The load times got better too. But now I cannot play at all. Not because im frustrated or anything - which I am - but because its technically impossible. Im in the cult lair below Dryford village, standing in front of the door which leads to the boss battle. I don't mind hard battles - I play on setting hard - but this fight usually starts with 2 of my casters instadying and the entire party not moving. But that's another story. What matters though is that this fight is not that easy. I will have to play it a few times and try some strategies. That is impossible though as the game crashes almost every single time I load that area. I have to load it around 5 - 8 times - which takes roughly 3 - 5 minutes each time - to get the game to load properly at least once. Then my group gets smashed and I have to load again. I tried it a for 2 days and was hoping patch 1.03 would help those nonstop crashes, but it didnt change anything. Sadly I gave up now. I loved the game but if I seriously see one more crash I might kill somebody so i just stopped. I have to tell you that this game is bugged badly. It is unplayable, litereally unplayable in this state. I have so many games on my pc and this kind of machine gun crash I have never seen. This cult lair is damned. I cannot leave it and I cannot finish the fight. I would have to load it about 100 times to have the chance to fight the battle about 10 times and figure out how to win. That would be hours or days work. (

Haha. Nah...if u dont like her then u dont like her. No shame in that!

It's just that you go through a lot with her and she is a long time (from bg1) companion. More so, she is torn between her duties as a harper on the one hand and her loyalty towards the mc on the other hand. Her voice acting is really good and reflects the pain of losing her husband, as well as her initial insecurities and diplomatically phrased doubts concerning the mc's true motives and intentions. She is constantly testing you. Probing if you are worthy of her, only to then doubt herself. She is drawn towards the mc but feels guilty for those feelings. Always trying to find a reason to not show her feelings. All of this makes her very human and likeable. At least where I am concerned. She is often sad while still retaining some humerous qualtities. Overall she is a very contemplative character, sometimes bordering on exaggerated self-doubt. She demands a lot of others and yet even more of herself. Ultimately, while she keeps struggling to find her place and role in the world, she is the one friend you would want by your side when other allies might abandon you. She is not the overly sexy type of woman that you would instantly fall in love with. She is a convincing warrior though, all the while remaining very feminine. And I'm not sure if I understood correctly. But if you really haven't played Bg2 then I can only tell you to install Bg2 + ToB right now and play one of the best rpgs ever. It plays, imho, in a completley other league than its predecessor, leaving BG1 far behind in terms of: Atmosphere, story, plot, gameplay, mechanics, level design, complexity and overall "in-the-game" feeling. It is only rivaled or surpassed by Planescape: Torment. It also presents one of the most iconic and convincing villains in video games, second only to the all powerful, tormented, twisted, godlike entity Shodan.

But...but...I thought we'd have a fight to the death now?? How disappointing.

Cold hearted messed up wench. She was already hitting on me 20 minutes into BG2, considering what just happened and found out in irenicus' dungeon, that's way too soon. Totally messed up crazy in the head. Had to dump her from the party for her own good... Hm, I played the game a lot of times and never did I have the impression that Jaheira was "hitting" on me early on. She initially starts commenting on the friendship (if you are of good allignment and keep her in the party) toward the main character and shows general sympathies. But that hardly qualifies as open or agressive sexual advances. Not once did I have such an impression. And no cold hearted person would react so strongly after the death of the partner or defend a friend so fiercely even when said friendship is attacked by her very own ppl. She then shows where her true loyalty lies. Ultimatley shes a moral person rather than somebody following her faith blindly. If her voice acting or actions don't suit you then that is another story and personal preference. But she is definitely and without a doubt not cold hearted.

All of this makes me also think about the whole resting system. I know that many ppl dislike resting but I have to say I got so used to the system in the infinity games that I believe I would miss such a feature. The whole idea that you only have a certain amount of spells before you need to rest has grown a lot on me over the years. Sometimes I realized I spent my spells too freely, only to realize that the area was heavily populated and whenever I try to rest I get caught by patrols. I like that. It forces the player to conserve a party's strength, gives combat yet another dimension. Has this been mentioned already? I really hope we will have to rest our parties like in the oldschool games. I would miss it a lot.

The characters don't show any movement when idle apart from some very weak breathing movement or something? So it's clear they are far from the final version. But already I like how they look. The art style is perfect in my opinion and this is only a pre pre pre pre pre version. So far I love it.

Hey Obsidian, I really liked that video. That was just cool. And I love how you go for a more realistic style like in the infinity engine games or diablo 1 and 2. Not this cartnooish warcraft style that apparently most rpgs nowadays go for. Really cool. And the Atmosphere and background music was just awesome. Please just follow this direction. I love it.

Private servers. Quite a few of the major MMOs have been/are pirated. Because sooner or later it's going to break and detect a legitimate buyer as a pirate. DRM doesn't bother pirates in the slightest, it only bothers actual customers. You should ask CD Project Red about that, they have some experience in that area... (which is what caused their change in stance towards DRM and gave rise to GOG). I used to be in that position, alas BioWare is well past two missteps by now. What I wanted to say, was that if a game impresses me than this sentiment will last for a time. There are quite a few games which were disappointing. When I read that Dragon Age two was dumbed down, less complex, and more mainstream than Dragon Age which was already much less deep and complex than lets say Baldur's Gate I wasn't interested anymore and didn't try it out at all. Even though Dragon Age was good, it lacked what made those infinity games special. Smaller parties, just a few spells, no real character creation. No multiclassing, no....well theres so much that most modern rpgs miss. Star Wars the Old Republic wasn't my cup of tea either, as it felt too much like they were trying to create yet another Warcraft Clone, instead of creating lets say a new Jedi Knight game or something as cool as Kotor. More and more bioware seemed to focus on mainstream which was just sad. Apparently the masses which produce the highest amount of income favor simple games, less complex and mainstream games. The casual gamer, representitive of those masses, is the spoiled child nowadays. To his or her taste most games are tailored. To a point where the difference between genres of e.g. rpg and shooter aren't visible anymore. So one can't even blame the publishers. Why shouldn't they use this to their advantage. I enjoyed the complex character creation in Baldur's Gate 2 or Icewind Dale for example. That I could seriously damage my party if I allocated stats and skills ineffectively. That I would have to read threads (or the manual) to understand what stats are important for certain classes and how they should be played to be most effective. I enjoyed rolling again and again to get good stats. And I loved to play with multiclassing or dualclassing as it could create a whole new set of sub- or mixclasses. And that is only one part of more complex rpgs. And since those games have been dead (until now) I completly stopped playing rpgs for quite a while now. Years even. Modern rpgs I mean. Or what is sold as an rpg nowadays. But recent developments show that some very talented developers do indeed wish to go back to more involing games. Like Obsidian or the Star Citizen team. Forgot the name. Contacting the fans of those seemingly dead genres directly via features such as kickstater is a great development and yet again allows independent developers to transport their very own vision 100 % wihout having big publishers guiding their very moves. It was those small teams that invented all of the genres we know in the first place. Because they were playing around with what they enjoyed unhindered by any boundaries besides the available technology. Being creative in a field one enjoys is the ultimate way of realizing an idea in lets say a game, or book or movie or what not. Only then can the entire potential of an artist or a group of artists be unleashed. Which in turn is a requirement for inspiring and awesome games. So yeah, back to topic, from this point of view there were many many missteps. There were several times in the last 5 years where I had managed to safe a couple hundred euros and wanted to upgrade my pc. And even as the years passed by and an upgrade seemed more and more plausible, there didn't seem to be enough awesome games out their to justify my upgrade. There were some good games like dragon age or bioshock, mass effect, half life 2 or left 4 dead, which I enjoyed. But they were few and far between. Even though I am a passionate player I realized an upgrade would be a wate of money. The only games which really caught my interest over the last 12 months were for example Project Eternity, Bioshock Infinite, Star Citizen and a few others. If you ask me the last 10 years have been a dark age when it comes to sophisticated, deep and complex games. Games like farmville are on the rise though. Haha!

Ewww! I don't understand you Jaheira lovers... She never really attracted me, but I suppose it could have something to do with voice actress. Maybe in English version she is the hottest one, but in my language Viconia was always clear choice. I had ear boner every time she opened her perfect evil mouth Haha, yeah. Viconia had a sexy voice, but I could never see myself dating her or something cause she was simply to warped. Jaheira was just cool. Not the über-sexy type of woman but she had personality and was funny too. Seeing her trying to come to terms with her duties and her loyalty towards the main character makes her hard to forget. And yes, the English voice acting was very good. But ever since I went to the us as an exchange student in the 11th grade I started to watch movies in English and play games in English. German dubbing is good, but nothing can ever reach the original voice of actors. Once I realized how much better movies are in their original language I now would never watch a cool movie that was dubbed. But that's another story. YOu gotta love Jaheira man. How can you not love her. Play the game now and give her some love...

Also, developers, and probably more so publishers, are responsible for a large percentage of pirates themselves. Chances are exceptionally high, that, if you are a consument that rarely follows gaming magazines, reviews, etc., you bought games that did not only fail to deliver promised features or game content but that don't work at all for days or even weeks. The latest example would be diablo 3 or Sim City for example. For a long period of time players simply couldn't play the game. The common excuse reads as follows " We did not expect so many players on our servers". Which redicules the ginormous financial resources that are poured into marketing and advertisment. And that is only the tip of the iceberg. Some studios and publishers plain and simply lied to the community, look at Aliens Colonial Marines. Demos and videos showed a completly different program than the one finally released to paying customers who bought the game precisely because of those previously showcased demos or videos. A gamer that is caught pirating will face more or less serious consequences. Most studios that are caught "cheating" the customer...well, they don't have to worry about anything but annoyed customers that might avoid future programs of said company. This is not a fair situation. It happened to me a couple of times even though i considered myself to be more critical than the average player. Now, I am very hesitant and cautious concerning any game. This could be adressed by national or even a global monitoring agency that consists of specialists and gamers who know how to compare promises, demos and merketing videos to the actual gold edition of the game. If a game doesn't meet certain standards than the publisher will have to either adress those issues, lower the price significantly, or mark the game's boxes with a note, commenting on the unfinished status of the game. This agency would need real authority. I cannot blame pirates that have been cheated multiple times in such a way who then stop paying for games alltogeher. It is not right, but it is totally understandable. So, as I already mentioned, the best way to adress piracy is to discourage it by being fair and ensuring high quality and continous support. If I pay for a game and the servers are down one day a week, then to me that would be acceptable in the initial phase. Anything more is simply criminal behavior as no excuse apart from nuclear world war excuses dead servers when somebody paid 50 euros and cannot play the game 4 days after its release. A product has to be delivered if paid with money. Otherwise it is thievery and the consument must be compensated by the initial prize + another 50 or 100 euros to adress the time and effort that went into buying the game, the return of the game, the installation, the planning of spending an afternoon or night with friends in the game. It may sound hard but the same happens to pirates. So far nothing of consequence happens to studios and publishers that ripp of costumers. Quality on the other hand creates loyal customers. Looking Glass studios and later Irrational Games impressed me with games like system shock 2 or bioshock. Ever since system shock 2 I occasionally checked the internet for anything related to the team around Ken Levine. One awesome game awakene a long lasting curiosity. Two or three high quality games ensure a customer who will buy almost anything else released by that group. Just the mere mention of somebody creating an oldschool rpg in the spirit of the infinity engine games completly spelled me, as those games were of exeptionlly high quality, setting milestones for the entire genre. My level of caution is reduced to a minimum, while my willingness to follow and purchase the final product are very high. If a developer tells the community "Guys and girls, we know you have been waiting a long time, but we realized the game simply doesnt meet our high standards. We need another 18 months. Then that is perfectly ok. I even welcome this. Ever since I played Baldur's Gate 2, which was my first infinity engine game, the names Bioware and Black Isle studios are firmly stuck in my mind and when talking about games and developers I always mentioned those names in favorable ways. Even one or two missteps cannot alter that. A high quality game will create a fan that will spread the word about it for decades. This is worth 10000000000000000000 more than the most sophisticated anti piracy system. To any developer I would say: Take your time, take as much as you need, take three times as much time as initially planned if you have to. In the long run it will have a gigantic effect on future games and the willingness of consuments to spend money on the program and to actively advertise the company and the game. I know you didnt want to talk too much about this general stuff, cdx, but I had to say it!

I also have to say that by now I am very very critical concerning promises and plans for games in general. There has been an endless flood of uninspired and bad games over the last 10 years. Look at games like hellgate london, aliens colonial marines just to name a few. The list is endless. I love good games but it could be that at some point there simply aren't any more high quality games or so far in between that buying up to date hardware is not necessary anymore because there are just no more good games.

Yeah, well...anything but not just disappearing corpses or really really bad effects like in doom 3. Actually in the infinity engine games, iirc, the corpses would stay for quite a while. And at some later point, after you left and returned, they were gone. That would be acceptable to me. Throw in a few ravens or wolves here and there occasionally. Just protect the immersion level. If corpses do have to disappear due to hundres of monsters you hopefully have to slay and computers will fold eventually then they have to be taken away by the grim reaper or some angels or evil spirits.

I need at least one girl as hot as Jaheira or I won't play the game.

I know what you mean . Frickin Diablo 3, why did I buy it... Anyway. This is why this suggestion is not about DRM. It does not employ any kind or DRM, it is light on development resources and it would make buyers / backers feel good (DRM makes buyers feel bad). It makes the purchase of a game key easy and reminds people that it's worth buying a key (or suggest buying a gift). This is all it does. Yup, I remember what being a student feels like. Don't worry it is just a temporary condition . Tough luck about that state, though. Any people I know who studied in Germany did so for free. It is great that you intend to support the game once it's out and spread the word . Obsidian will need that, we are their marketing team, too. Yeah...what people fought and died for hundreds of years ago, access to higher education for everybody, no matter if royalty, a farmer, rich, poor, male or female, black or white, was obviously no factor for the stupid conservative government in lower saxony. Of course, now the government changed and theyr getting rid of that ****. Naturally, I got totally screwd by it. I chose the wrong time to study.