|
They're smarter than us.
Maybe but god likes us more! We don't have an emotional hell every 28 days. Women have to sit on public toilet seats EVERY time they feel the call. Ewwww!
I once tracked a deer I had shot for 1/2 of a mile over the course of an hour......anything that can bleed for more than 4 days and not die is just ungodly tough! Watch yourself and always remember........oh damn, I forgot what I was gonna say.FH (Shame I forgot, that was probably the MOST inciteful and inspired bit of advice ever to be spouted by a human. Oh, well.)
|
Women have to sit on public toilet seats EVERY time they feel the call. Ewwww!
It's not what you think though. The lunatic who sprays all over the seat in the men's room to anonymously show his general contempt for his fellow man, the bizarre displays of mysophilia, the weird holes in the walls of stalls,...women don't do these things in their bathrooms.
They don't carry sharpys in their back pockets, in case they might be inspired to poetry. I think in a lot of ways they're more evolved.
Director of Narrative
|
Women have to sit on public toilet seats EVERY time they feel the call. Ewwww!It's not what you think though. The lunatic who sprays all over the seat in the men's room to anonymously show his general contempt for his fellow man, the bizarre displays of mysophilia, the weird holes in the walls of stalls,...women don't do these things in their bathrooms.
They don't carry sharpys in their back pockets, in case they might be inspired to poetry. I think in a lot of ways they're more evolved.
As a manager of a 24hr restaurant for 10 years, I have to correct this. Women DO write as much graffiti as men. I'm still undecided as to who's graffiti is worse, but some of the stuff in the women's room is just as bad, although both are innane. Something else to keep in mind is the difficulty in washing eyeliner or lipstick off of a wall.
|
|
As a manager of a 24hr restaurant for 10 years, I have to correct this. Women DO write as much graffiti as men. I'm still undecided as to who's graffiti is worse, but some of the stuff in the women's room is just as bad, although both are innane. Something else to keep in mind is the difficulty in washing eyeliner or lipstick off of a wall.
I wonder if the ones who do that then re-use the lipstick on themselves....then go out to the general public and begin kissing on someone.....I wonder how many women's bathroom stalls I have kissed by proxy.....ew.
FH (like totally grossed out, for sure, like Oh My gawd!)*goes to boil his lips....again*
|
|
So women graffiti? Interesting. I love learning new things every day.Ahh, the glorious things that you learn cleaning bathrooms in a diner on the weekend after bar rush.
Hehehe...I learned a few things cleaning out the bat'room at McDonald's too. Things...best left unmentioned; things I wish I could get an operation on my brain to help me forget.
|
|
Hehehe...I learned a few things cleaning out the bat'room at McDonald's too. Things...best left unmentioned; things I wish I could get an operation on my brain to help me forget.So women graffiti? Interesting. I love learning new things every day.Ahh, the glorious things that you learn cleaning bathrooms in a diner on the weekend after bar rush.
"Clean him out."
FH
Yeah. We've been living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo blow, that we don't even know what this war is about.Oh, please. Don't let these shakes go on...
And I'm young enough to look at
And far too old to seeAll the scars are on the inside
I'm not sure if theres anything left of me
I do all my posting in the mornings, EST. There's less traffic on the site, so it's not bad. If I try to get on the messageboards late in the afternoon on my work computer (which is admittedly slow), it can take 15 minutes or more for the page to load. Usually I click on a page, and then work on something else for a while, and come back when the page loads.
I tend to find myself here at 4 in the morning as well - but that is hardly a solution.
Argh! Must Vent!
g~% d&#n this game can be so frustrating sometimes. My endlessly annoying 6th level PCs just took down my BBEG Young Red Dragon in 1 round. It was cheesebuild city - I mean I knew the players had some major cheese builds but this was insane. 179 HPs and it can't live for two rounds. Its just crazy. Admittedly I had a pretty crazy cheesebuild Dragon too...in fact I think they would have been dying right, left, and centre if it could have lasted into its third round (second lingering Breath would have started taking PCs down). I'm not even exactly sure what I want. I mean I want the players to be able to get all the cool feats and neat races etc. but somehow, along the way, combats went from averaging 4 rounds or so with a BBEG to being nearly completely decided in 2 at most. Either the monster wipes the floor with you or you wipe the floor with the monster.
Sigh. I guess I should not complain to much as my players had fun and I'm hardly blameless. My first 'adventure' was some huge Dungeon and 30 Sessions in of course my players are power gaming. 90% of the time they kill monsters. Still its not even the powergaming that bothers me so much - its that the players and the monsters are becoming eggshells with sledgehammers.
Always annoying, that. Probably teaching you to suck eggs, but work out what your PCs tactics are, and deliberately counter them. Slightly unfair, but if they are that tough they need to know that not every encounter will be easy. Restricted access (a bridge with guards, flight, up a cliff) to the target makes things tricky as not all of them are mobile, especially the fighter types. And BBEG with good ranged attacks are probably a must (though the dragon would have had that).
In addition, as a combat prolonger, there is nothing like a meatshield screen around the BBEG. In our last encounter, I had two meatshields: four mohrgs, and a defence-spec'ed cleric, before they got to the lich, all in the same encounter. ...
I agree and will tend to follow this. Its not only PC's after all that can take feats from Players Handbook II. I'll start swapping around all the monster feats as a matter of course.
Still Dragons are hard to work in with mooks. The dragon has to get close enough to use its breath weapon and should usually be able to close enough to get it's claw/claw/bite routine off.
I also realize that much of that venting is grief disguised as anger. I have not lost a Dragon since 1st editions pathetic versions. I've had them fight to draws with a PC party and even on one occasion had a Dragon give up a single bauble from its Hoard (a quest item the PCs needed) when it had killed off two players but was badly wounded but in 15 years I never lost a Dragon – until a week ago.
I spent two days reviewing that combat over and over in my head trying to figure out how I could be so stupid that I managed to loose the thing. Especially in one round. If I had a few more rounds it would have at least given a good showing of itself by killing off one or more PCs. I could have lived with that as I don't allow resurrections - so some of the players would have paid a high price for that victory.
Part of my problem was that the PCs got to the BBEG after so many sessions. By this point there where 6 cheesebuilt 7th level characters against a CR 7 Young Red Dragon. So the deck was badly stacked against it. Still maybe if I had just taken Quicken Mage Armour instead of hover...damn no that won't work Quicken is not a Supernatural ability or Spell Like Ability but an actual spell. Hmm - I needed a way to get the Dragons AC up at least 4 points really quick. If its AC had been 25+ they would have begun to miss a lot more often.
Any way I better stop - I already lost two days obsessing about this Dragon...but the next Dragon they see will be a lot bigger that's for sure - I ain't letting these monstrous PCs slaughter any more babies...
-The Gneech It's a pity you aren't in my game. It's all robbing temples and ignoring plot points. All the Macguffins and dark lords are in the background being dealt with by more... er...upstanding heroes, while my PCs are hustling for their next bit of coin. Here's a summary of last game:
Me: A great octopoid monster erupts from the ground while the mad priest rants about the coming of the great lord from beyond. People are running everywhere screaming as buildings collapse. You even see Captain Argo's airship lurching into the air, obviously deciding this town is done for. What do you do?
The PCs: Er... lets jump in that flying pirate ship and get the *&%# out of dodge! Plus that captain dude thought we were cool when Raveness beat him in that drinking contest last night. Maybe we can join the crew?
It's fun, but sometimes I feel like I'm in a Knights of the Dinner Table strip. Not because of the hack and slash, but because of the shady morals of the PCs.
Lol - you should do a write up of that campaign. Sounds like it would make great reading even if it's driving the DM crazy.
My solution to this was to make sure all the really cool builds and feats from BOED where included but nothing comparable from nuetral alignments was available (and I don't allow evil PCs). I found that the players started tilting from predominantly nuetral to mostly good alignments to get access to the better feats. Just be careful with BOED. That book can be really unbalancing.
|
|
Part of my problem was that the PCs got to the BBEG after so many sessions. By this point there where 6 cheesebuilt 7th level characters against a CR 7 Young Red Dragon. So the deck was badly stacked against it. Still maybe if I had just taken Quicken Mage Armour instead of hover...damn no that won't work Quicken is not a Supernatural ability or Spell Like Ability but an actual spell. Hmm - I needed a way to get the Dragons AC up at least 4 points really quick. If its AC had been 25+ they would have begun to miss a lot more often.
Well, if you assume that a CR 7 challenges four 7th level characters, then six would not be much challenged. If it works the same way for PCs as for challenges, an extra 50% of PCs would make the appropriate CR for them to be 8 (i.e. 4 orcs is EL 4, six is EL 5 per the rules). I also think the EL/CR system is built around attrition, so a challenge of the same EL as four PCs should not cause them to break into a sweat too much - a series of them, on the other hand, might.
So your poor dragon was just too low a level challenge for them. As a rule of thumb for climactic encounters, I tend to make the EL at least two or more points higher than the party average level. If we run with my assumption that the appropriate "baseline" EL for your party is 8, I would make the BBEG encounter in the region of 10+. I do this to make it a serious challenge, so that their characters will have to sweat a bit, and it makes a a tough tactical challenge that will be memorable. If you have a look at Lords of Madness, the opening chapter suggests something like this for "horrific" campaigns, as opposed to "herioc" campaigns where the ELs are in the region of the average party level.
It is obviously potentially lethal for the PCs to do this, but I haven't lost anyone yet (much) on my campaign (though I tend to be slightly biased in the PC's favour, or forget some key points in the heat of the moment that could benefit the baddies). You also need to be a bit careful that you don't choose spells or abilities that will wipe out the PCs. (I once had a party fight a balor, and deliberately didn't use its Blasphemy spell-like ability as it would have simply ended the combat in one stroke. This was a random encounter so it seemed reasonable to restrict the balor's abilities to avoid killing the campaign there and then.)
In the example I gave in the previous post, the average PC level was about 10.5, and the two final encounters were EL 14 and EL 15 (without time to recuperate in between). They coped, but it took them to the edge. I also find it is easier in some ways to create the encounters, since you need fewer of them. However, advancement is rapid under this approach, as adding 2 to the EL doubles the xp reward, and so on.
|
Ok time for another rant. Has anyone here ever had that one player that whenever he or she shows up the game just goes into slow motion. I have a player that thankfully doesnt make it to all my games. Everytime he shows up, he double thinks everything and questions the orders of the party leader until the game slows to a crawl cause they cant figure out where a good camping spot may be. I never knew that LN monks were so anal about everything. If it wasnt for the fact that I love my books, I would have already tried beating myself to death with them.
On a different note my 15 year old step-son has found that he loves my D&D games. He has recently gotten together a group of his friends and now I run a game for them every Saturday. Who knew that even after my Grandmother burnt my first set of books on Pat Robertson's say so, that I would be playing a game with my son and his friends. Just goes to show how roleplaying brings together alot of people from all sorts of backgrounds.
Gah!!
I've never posted to this thread, but there has to be a first time for everything.
I have foolishly allowed a player to run a non campaign character for a few months now. What a disaster! He WAS running an artificer from the Eberron (sp?) books in my beautiful Greyhawk campaign.
Leaving his dirty boot prints everywhere...
Today another player points out to me that nearly half of his character is bogus and illegal even for my very liberal rules!!
Gah!!
A quick call to the Wizards hotline showed me that many of the things about his character I did not bother to research were WAY OFF the mark and worked together only because the player WANTED them too. Man that burns me up! Why do I need be a surveillance camera looking over their shoulders?? Why can't they just play non complex characters that don't require 4
#@%&*^$% suppliment books to create??
Sigh...
Needed to get that one off my chest.
-Roth
|
|
Gah!!
I've never posted to this thread, but there has to be a first time for everything.
I have foolishly allowed a player to run a non campaign character for a few months now. What a disaster! He WAS running an artificer from the Eberron (sp?) books in my beautiful Greyhawk campaign.
Leaving his dirty boot prints everywhere...
Today another player points out to me that nearly half of his character is bogus and illegal even for my very liberal rules!!
Gah!!
A quick call to the Wizards hotline showed me that many of the things about his character I did not bother to research were WAY OFF the mark and worked together only because the player WANTED them too. Man that burns me up! Why do I need be a surveillance camera looking over their shoulders?? Why can't they just play non complex characters that don't require 4
#@%&*^$% suppliment books to create??Sigh...
Needed to get that one off my chest.
-Roth
You should kick him out. He knew what he was doing and was relying on your lack of knowledge to let him get away with cheating at a game of pretend. He is a scum and should be banned from playing in any game you run. Someone who intentionally deceives the DM and the group is not someone to be trusted. Ever. He will do it again in another form whether it is with a certain weapon's properties, a combo of feats, skills, whatever. He will do it again and doesn't deserve a second chance at your table.
I don't usually chime in on a rant but this one started boiling the blood. It is one thing to optimize your character but to out-right lie about class mechanics is a slimy thing to do. Boot him.FH
Yep; once a cheat, always a cheat. I don't know if it's because they tend to be stupid or arrogent, but cheaters never seem to learn anything after being caught.
Thanks for the advice guys, he certainly won't be making any non-camapign characters again. In part I blame it on these video games nowadays that WANT you to cheat instead of playing the game straight. I feel it builds a philosophy into these kids that if they don't "uber"size their character then they won't have fun.
I can say from experience that the best characters I ever played were some of the weakest as far as stats and powers. It forces you to use your imagination to get things done. I think the next campan I run will be with a point buy system. In fact I think I'll start a thread on that.
Thanks again guys :-)
_Roth
|
|
Here's my rant.
Every year around December, everybody acts like come January 1st, the world is going to end and unless they get all this crucial bullcrappage done, they can't get into heaven on January 1st when the world ends.
That's why I hate Christmastime.
And everybody calls me a Grinch!
Hey, man. He just wanted to be left alone, on his mountain.
|
|
Here's my rant.
Every year around December, everybody acts like come January 1st, the world is going to end and unless they get all this crucial bullcrappage done, they can't get into heaven on January 1st when the world ends.
That's why I hate Christmastime.
And everybody calls me a Grinch!
Hey, man. He just wanted to be left alone, on his mountain.
My wife calls my metaphorical mountain "The Dome". Everyone who knows me knows not pop-in on me. I have nothing but angst towards people who knock on my door without me having prior knowledge of thier arrival (at least an hour or two). There is one exception to the rule.......Girl Scouts hawking cookies. They are always welcome. I also like to let people know that they are inconveniencing me anytime I must leave The Dome. Keeps them from trying to get me to come to ridiculous events like work parties, soccer game (who cares if your little Billy can kick a freakin' ball, so can my little girl but I didn't leverage you into coming to some pathetic display of why trying to get 4 yr olds to play soccer is like trying to herd cats), or other nonsense. I believe I have gain a bit of wisdom and, in my vast experience, I have found that people generally suck. It is good to assume that they suck because, even if it doesn't show up right away, it will show up sometime. There are exceptions (can't really think of many right now but I will give the benefit of doubt) but don't count on anyone to be that exception. I married a wonderful, beautiful, smart woman. She is amazing most of the time. BUT! When she is not amazing....she sucks! She knows it. She apologizes for it sometimes (Sorry I snapped at you. I mistook your meaning etc.). You need to try to surround yourself with people who have the lowest percentage of suck. The others stay outside The Dome. The Dome is very effective if employed properly. It is too expensive to buy an island, for me anyway, but if you can afford it Someone will want to intrude on you to enjoy your little slice of paradise. And probably complain that your water pressure isn't as strong as thiers at home or some other nonsense.
Moral of this little tale.....People Suck!
FH (The Dome, copywrite 1989. The Dome is a registered trademark of The False One LTD.)
P.S. I know I suck too. And knowing is half the battle.
|
|
That's a big thing for me. I hate it when I'm planning on being home alone for an evening or something and then all the sudden something comes up and I actually have to interact with people instead. That's not right. Schedule that a week in advance so I don't look forward to an evening of doing nothing and then get disappointed.
|
|
I knew a guy who purposely had the crappiest, most uncomfortable livingroom furniture for the explicit purpose of subliminally making people NOT want to come over to his house and hang out.
He liked me, though, because I know who the Amazing Randy is.
And also, I figured out what the furniture was for, and told him he was an absolute genius. I wasn't sucking up, I meant it.
Here's my rant.
Every year around December, everybody acts like come January 1st, the world is going to end and unless they get all this crucial bullcrappage done, they can't get into heaven on January 1st when the world ends.
That's why I hate Christmastime.
And everybody calls me a Grinch!
Hey, man. He just wanted to be left alone, on his mountain.
Do you mean: "I hate fourth quarter earnings reports?"
As ever,
ACE
I hate halflings. I really hate them.
OK, that's it :)
|
|
Here's my rant.
Every year around December, everybody acts like come January 1st, the world is going to end and unless they get all this crucial bullcrappage done, they can't get into heaven on January 1st when the world ends.
That's why I hate Christmastime.
And everybody calls me a Grinch!
Hey, man. He just wanted to be left alone, on his mountain.Do you mean: "I hate fourth quarter earnings reports?"
As ever,
ACE
Naah, work's sweet. I feel like I just went up a level in my "expert: technologist" class, and although we're busy as all getout (I work in healthcare and it's the end of the year insurance deductible crunch) it's all cool running. I bring mad game to the table, and I funnel any and all egotism into energy for positive action.
It's just coming home, there's all this crap to do, people to send cards to, material bullcrap to buy, and extra errands/chores/etc ad nauseum. Where's the fun? It's holiday time for goshsake!!!
I just became aware of this thread, so here's my rant:
I hate the Tome of Battle!!! I wish I never bought it!
It's like a dream come true for my group's only powergamer/min-maxer/whatever, who before was content to play cracked out, unbelievable character builds that always had three levels of swashbuckler and two levels of fighter or some random s#$^ or retarded warlocks with no interesting explanation for their power at all. Now all he plays are warblades and gets to add a bunch of d6s to his damage rolls all day long AND get all sorts of unfair (to the other players) things like the ability to ignore hardness and damage reduction! Tome of Battle sounded really cool so I ordered it, but I never really used it I suggested it to one of my players (not the powergamer). So now I'm just realizing that it's really, grossly overpowered compared to pretty much everything else. The warblade always one-ups anything the other characters in the party can do, and can do it all day.
Did I mention I hate powergamers? Thankfully, I usually only have one in my group, but, man, he always gets on my nerves. He's always trying to find some combination that makes the most powerful character but is impossible to explain in the confines of role-playing. And, the worst part is he doesn't ever try to make his character interesting. It's always a blank, boring character that's sole purpose is to kill enemies. He also always questions me on rules and such, even though I've been playing the longest and his assertions always are proven false. But it eats up a lot of time when we have to pause and look up some f!@#ing rule just to prove him wrong. He also seems to roll really high on his ability scores ALL THE TIME, which is why I switched over to point-buy (THANK PELOR)
... and I'm through... for now, at least
Power gaming, elitist, loot whoring MMO gamers need to have all of their characters stripped of their gear, their cash and other other in-game assets negated, then sent to the toughest area in game in their skivvies and a wiggly stick.
Rawr. >:(
|
|
Power gaming, elitist, loot whoring MMO gamers need to have all of their characters stripped of their gear, their cash and other other in-game assets negated, then sent to the toughest area in game in their skivvies and a wiggly stick.
Rawr. >:(
(lol) that reminds me of a friend of mine. There was a Baldur's Gate game for PS2 a few years back; he played through the game as a dwarf monk in a diaperlike loincloth.
|
|
(lol) that reminds me of a friend of mine. There was a Baldur's Gate game for PS2 a few years back; he played through the game as a dwarf monk in a diaperlike loincloth.Power gaming, elitist, loot whoring MMO gamers need to have all of their characters stripped of their gear, their cash and other other in-game assets negated, then sent to the toughest area in game in their skivvies and a wiggly stick.
Rawr. >:(
I should sue Balder's Gate for using my likeness without permission.
Speaking of video games, this is for NWN2 players: Anyone else feel that the game portrays the githyanki more like the githzeri? Other than the silver sword bit, and the nod towards the Astral Plane, they really seem to have the races mixed up. These "githyanki" are obsessed with laws and order and crap, even having monks. Any MM will tell you that the githyanki are a bunch of CE planar pirates and bandits who hang out with red dragons sometimes. Not here, though. Nope, they've got LN BLADELINGS for minions.
Good lord, Bioware, gith it right!
Speaking of video games, this is for NWN2 players: Anyone else feel that the game portrays the githyanki more like the githzeri? Other than the silver sword bit, and the nod towards the Astral Plane, they really seem to have the races mixed up. These "githyanki" are obsessed with laws and order and crap, even having monks. Any MM will tell you that the githyanki are a bunch of CE planar pirates and bandits who hang out with red dragons sometimes. Not here, though. Nope, they've got LN BLADELINGS for minions.
Good lord, Bioware, gith it right!
Beyond that, though, what are your thoughts on the single player game? I'm dying to play NWN2, but once I get out of college other things kind of take priority before getting a new computer and video games. It looks really good to me, but I haven't actually played the darn thing.
Oh, the game is very enjoyable. The mechanical discrepancies between pen and paper and the video game are numerous and can be frustrating to someone who really knows the true D&D rules well, but if you can get past that, it's a lot of fun. The story is very engaging and fairly "classic" to D&D, not like in the first NWN (pre-expansions), there's quite a bit of character interaction and even some development, and you can have up to three additional party members at a time, giving you the classic four-person party. Actually, far enough into the game, you do get a bonus fifth party member, which is nice.
There's a fairly advanced crafting system within the game, though I've yet to make a character that utilizes it. The roleplaying is pretty good, even for single player. It's still easiest to play NG or LG, like in the old ones, but that's what D&D "heroes" are supposed to do, anyway. There are certain options that make playing an evil character viable, but not nearly as easy.
It can be buggy at times, but that's to be expected considering the nature of the beast, and it's MUCH better than the first one before some early patches came out (spellcasters wouldn't cast spells, creatures were given powerful spell-like abilities, like cone of cold, that the game designer didn't give them, etc.).
Overall, I highly recommend this game. It's fun for anyone, and is a good way to get a D&D "fix" if you don't currently have a group to play with.
Was that promotional enough for you? :)
Oh, the game is very enjoyable. The mechanical discrepancies between pen and paper and the video game are numerous and can be frustrating to someone who really knows the true D&D rules well, but if you can get past that, it's a lot of fun. The story is very engaging and fairly "classic" to D&D, not like in the first NWN (pre-expansions), there's quite a bit of character interaction and even some development, and you can have up to three additional party members at a time, giving you the classic four-person party. Actually, far enough into the game, you do get a bonus fifth party member, which is nice.
There's a fairly advanced crafting system within the game, though I've yet to make a character that utilizes it. The roleplaying is pretty good, even for single player. It's still easiest to play NG or LG, like in the old ones, but that's what D&D "heroes" are supposed to do, anyway. There are certain options that make playing an evil character viable, but not nearly as easy.
It can be buggy at times, but that's to be expected considering the nature of the beast, and it's MUCH better than the first one before some early patches came out (spellcasters wouldn't cast spells, creatures were given powerful spell-like abilities, like cone of cold, that the game designer didn't give them, etc.).
Overall, I highly recommend this game. It's fun for anyone, and is a good way to get a D&D "fix" if you don't currently have a group to play with.
Was that promotional enough for you? :)
I must say I am a bit disappointed in the package as gestalt. No DM client? An arcane and counterintuitive toolset (I know I will get dissenters on that one), Frenzied Berserkers who have deathless rage, mixed up extraplanar creatures, villains straight out of the Star Wars universe (ala KotOR and KotOR II)... A stronghold to micromanage? Having to download a file for walkmeshes every time you play a new mod online? I was really enjoying this game at first, and I am not giving up on it completely, but I don't know. I enjoyed it mostly because of the D&D fix it gave me, but I have yet to see many people playing it online, which is where the original shone.
One of my pet peeves is endless cutscenes that dump you out into a hard combat so that you have to reload and sit through an hour of cutscenes again. I feel like if I wanted to watch poorly acted, badly written D&D I would rent the steaming pile that was the 1st D&D movie. Or Mazes and Monsters with Tom Hanks (bet he wishes every copy of that movie was destroyed). The slow loading times make even the fast travel seem like a slow boat to Chult, and the AI takes so much tweaking I might as well be raising another child. Ouch, I am getting a little testy. Sorry.
I stopped playing KotOR II for this very reason, and in the end it may have killed NWN2 for me (jury's still out). I agree with the whole Gith thing. I had high hopes for NWN2 but I think I will be returning to the original for a while. At least I can use the toolset and I can mostly get over the poor translation of the rules for the excellent MP experience. I think the game could be much more enjoyable if I had about a gig more RAM and hadn't been royally swindled into buying an FX 6200 vid card that amounts to a 256 MB toaster pastry as far as modern games are concerned.
"Oh sure.. this one will play all the new games, its 256MB after all"
"You sure?"
"Oh yeah, I would buy one myself if I could afford it"
"You Sure?
"Yeah, didn't I just say that?"
"I don't want to pay $ 180 bucks for an obsolete card, I would rather pay a little more if you can reccomend something with staying power"
"No, this is the card you want"
As if it mattered. OK. Done with my bitterness. Anyone into some original NWN see my post over in the Gamer Connection thread, and we'll get some hackata-hackata RP goodness going online!
I don't think the voice acting is that bad, myself. It's far from award winning, but when was the last time you saw a game deliver dialog like that? For roleplaying games, it does it pretty well.
I also gave up on the toolset in the last one, and while I had high hopes for this NWN, I must also say that the toolset has intimidated me away. I assume that if one is trained in that sort of thing that it's a pure joy to work with or some such, but for someone without training in that area, actually making your own modules is a pipe dream, it seems.
Also, I haven't tried it in multiplayer. I've had bad experiences trying to interact with people in things like WoW, so I guess I operate under the subconscious misperception that all multiplayer people are jerks. I know it's not fair, sorry.
Anyway, like I said, remember how frustrating the original was when it first came out? Give this one some time, and by the first expansion, I'm sure it will be just golden.
Oh, and here's a boon in my book- no epics! I hope they stay out, too. They're just not necessary in this game.
Just curious: I never played KotOR, what elements of NWN2 are from that? Perhaps Bioware is doing something similar to Final Fantasy, where characters like Sid (Cid?) and chocobos are in every game?
EDIT- And I'm sorry you're playing it on a slow computer. I was fortunate enough to upgrade immediately prior to getting the game, so my system has no trouble with it. Although, the game does still run slow during some complicated combat sequences, but that's just a limit with the programming, me thinks. And yes, the load times are still slow, even with a good system. Again, limits of the game.
Well, I realize that my perception is definitely colored by my system, and I am more than willing to give it a further chance, being basically the only game in town in a way. I think I needed to let off steam about it because I really enjoyed the original NWN, and got literally hundreds of hours of game-time out of it, and this one leaves a little to be desired. While this one is an almost near perfect melange of BG's party control and tactics (almost turn-based in it's own clumsily elegant way) and NWN's more visual engine and potential for customization, NWN1 seemed to be made for and by D&D players, while NWN2 seems to be following a sad (IMO) trend towards designing games for the console generation.
For instance, I loved Morrowind, but found Oblivion to be lacking in the same way. It was made for console gamers. Specifically those willing to shell out a few hundred bucks for a specific system. Oblivion isn't really a true RPG. It was basically an action game with RP elements. There have been very few truly good RPG's for the computer in recent years. In my opinion, the first NWN was basically the last. While RPG elements become more and more common in other games (RTS's, CIV's, Shooters) the true RPG has gone by the wayside.
I am not claiming that the original campaign for NWN2 was all that great. Far from it. It was slapped together to meet deadlines and placate the public. Nobody was going to pay 50-60 bucks for a DM client and MP game with no campaign. But you got a working DM client out of the box, and I was able to start playing multiplayer the day I finished the SP campaign, hopping on a server and actually playing D&D with people like me. Serious RP'ers, longtime PnP'ers and freaks and geeks of all orders and magnitudes. I was fortunate enough to find a guild (the late lamented Silver Star of Faerun/TexasNWN) and meet people with similar interests and motivations that worked together to create what amounts to vast works of art. Some of them actually became friends of mine in real life, friendships which in some cases continue on til today.
I found the toolset slow at first, but completely intuitive and a tremendous gift to the gaming community. I myself created mods which provided dozens of people 100's of hours of entertainment, and I contributed to various PW projects and works of others with complete openess and cooperation. I played the works of other gamers who created wonderful stories and tense combat situations. I RP'ed in character and discussed the game out of character for hours online, as DM, Player and eventually as leader of my guild (no mean feat for someone of my Charismatic ability *wink*) however briefly.
I don't mean to use this opportunity for discussion to be a fanboi, soapbox or wax nostalgic about days of yore, although I have done all three. I mean to set up the poignant differences between the two installments of a franchise I had high hopes for, (much as my now dashed hopes for the Jets *grrrrr*) and have passionately and misguidedly defended often. I do recognize the flaws in the original, but I prefer to dwell on the value it gave me. For $120 dollars (all three expansions seperately, on release)I got over 1000 hours of playtime, at the least, over four years. I am not a math guy but that seems like a good value. Better than shelling out ten bucks to see "My Super Ex-Girlfriend", which I did not.
The new one seems wooden. Like KotOR I and II, the combats feel samey and predictable, the cutscenes for every dialogue tiresome and patience-grinding. It is easy to stretch out a game to 100 hours when you spend half that time in conversation or cutscenes. In KotOR you spent so little time actually exploring, and exploration was a poor term for it at that. Basically you get railroaded, and where I am from, that's called bad DM'ing. The same is true of NWN2 with it's areas with only one door- the one you need to go to to complete your current quest, although arguably the same was true of the deplorable SP campaign from 1, to some degree. I don't get the sense of enchantment from using the toolset as I did with NWN 1, nor does it feel, ironically, to be capable of producing as wide a range of environments and settings as the first one. This is all opinion of course, I have heard effective arguments from the other side as well.
As far as elements from KotOR, the combat animations, some of the creature meshes, the villains that look like they are straight out of Star Wars, the packs of storm-trooping Bladelings, the whole "seduction of evil" angle. The list goes on, and I love Star Wars. I even truly enjoyed the first Knights, but the second was a bit pedantic for a video game and I feel similarly about NWN 2. I recognize that I am letting the grumpy Zero speak again, but I figure better here (in a ranting thread) than at the office, the dinner table or during a funeral.
I can still find enjoyment in NWN1, and while I find the party based tactical combat of 2 to be a vast improvement, overall the game is not as good at scratching the roleplaying itch. In the mod Ascent to Kol Guath, I got to DM at least four different groups through their journey from 1-20 without ever being in the same room. I got to know their characters better than most of my PnP characters. Drarry West, Flerjj Bhruen, Nigela, DeGruff D'all Mohayre (don't ask), Gemerald -every player who humored my amateurish efforts at mod-making and helped hone my skill- this one's for you. Thanks for making a great game even better.
I would offer the same toast to NWN2, but I haven't found anyone online, or for that matter, many finished original mods. The online community is now overrun by WoW, Guildwars, DDO style monomaniacs who don't really understand the concept of a gaming community. I for one, am extra glad I have a weekly PnP game these days, and might be better off just using my computer as I mostly do these days: to prep for my weekly session with the guys. It's plenty fast for that, and nobody can tell me they pwn'ed me while I am typing up a statblock, whatever pwn means.
|
Hey cool, the rant thread is back. It seemed to be dead for a while there.
So I need to rant...hmmm, let's see...OK - the Eagles fans I work with are some of the most rude, obnoxious SOBs in the history of sports fans. Sometimes I'd love to be able to cast something like Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, just to humiliate them. ARRRGGGHHHH!
My rant.
I hate the book of exalted deeds, I hate the eberron campaign setting, I hate psionics, I hate playing late into the night with only half of the group still interested/awake and the other half rivited and reluctant to quit, I hate almost all the new weapons and armor from supplements, I hate races and monsters that are nothing but a cool monster completely stripped down so it is weak enough to play as a standard race, and I hate dark chocolate with a vengance.
I'm a paladin with a choice. I can torture the evil sorcerer into tellling me how to stop the device that will destroy the city, or I could keep my purity and let the device detonate. The right thing to do is commit the evil deed and torture the info out of him. Not according to the book of exhalted friggin deeds. According to them a paladin would not be able to sacrifice his own purity and the right thing to do is pray or some bull crap. Oh and poisons are evil, and using evil means to kill evil creatures is not justifiable. But poisons that only affect evil creatures are OK. Why should evil clerics get all the undead, lets make it "good" to make "good" undead so that good is as awesome as evil.
Hmmm..... how can we make a new campaign setting for a fantasy game..... Oh I know! lets completely mimic everything in the real world, make it glow, and say that it's powered by magic! Yippee! Oh and don't forget the half-constructs, half-dopplegangers, and half-lycanthropes! DRAGONS ARE COOL lets make the world a dragon, and people draw dragons on themselves, and we need a ton of dragon gods, and dragon worshippers, and dragon spells and armor and weapons and everything will either look like a dragon, be a dragon, or will turn into a dragon in a few levels.
I want a mana system, not this strange spell per day stuff. After all there are no video games out there that can teach me how to use it. So I'll ressurect some of the old psionics stuff, completely change it, and create a new set of spells. All I have to do is change the names and no one...
That was one of the greatest rants I've seen for awhile, viscerel and well dictated!
Well done sir, well done.
P.s it certainly made me chuckle too
|
|
Hey cool, the rant thread is back. It seemed to be dead for a while there.
So I need to rant...hmmm, let's see...OK - the Eagles fans I work with are some of the most rude, obnoxious SOBs in the history of sports fans. Sometimes I'd love to be able to cast something like Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, just to humiliate them. ARRRGGGHHHH!
Don't worry, Philly teams have a long history of getting hopes up and then failing miserably when it is important. They will all be crying about some bad calls or "if such and such wasn't hurt" or whatever other excuse they can come up with besides that they suck.
I am still riding high over Detroit beating Dallas the other week! Take that you evil cow-herders!FH
|
|
Dude. I rooted for the Cowboys my entire life up until Jerry Jones fired Jimmy Johnson immediately after winning...how many Super Bowls?
Now that I live in Dallas, can't care one whit about them. As soon as Jerry Jones goes away, maybe then.
Somebody came up to me in September talking about "T. O." I said, "who?" He said, "Terrell Owens. He's a Cowboy now."
I said, "are you serious? What'd they do that for? That's the twonk that played for the Eagles, right?"
Go Gators!!!
A lot of appropriately rant-y stuff.
The Paizo system won't let me reply to the part of your post with it, but the thought of someone getting up and ranting about NWN vs. NWN2 at a funeral brought a chuckle to my lips.
Is it bad to want to get a tattoo from a movie? I want the anchor with "Jacquline" crossed out under it and replaced with "DEEP SEARCH" like in Life Aquatic. So that people can ask me what happened to Jacquline and I can respond that she didn't really love me. Yeah, that does sound kind of lame. I should use one of my own ex-girlfriends. And the name of my own submarine.
I absolutely hate it when someone is talking on a cell phone while in line at the grocery store/record store/bookstore/whatever. I want to club them in imitation of the brave men and women that tromped up north to club baby seals for fun and profit.
My D&D group back home is rapidly disintegrating and it makes me super bummed. These last two years of D&D were some of the best I've played: 3-4 players that I got along with well, could joke around with easily and were genuinely into the game. A group that was really positive about my attempts at writing adventures and actually made an entire session with almost no combat and heavy roleplaying and investigation into one of the most fun and hilarious evenings I've had, proving that I don't really need to drink to have fun, like many of my contemporaries believe.
A gender challenged female half-orc barbarian with a faux high pitched voice and ditzy attitude; with a 20 strength and rhinestone studded greataxe proved to me that one does not need a stack of supplemental books and prestige classes to make a great and truly memorable character. And I have these guys to thank for that.
But this is the last year of college for all of us, which means real life will deliver its final crushing blow to our little fraternal group of geeks. One guy going to Virginia for counter terrorism training, another going to Washington D.C. for grad school, and myself and my other friend that goes to my school staying up here trying to figure out what to do with our BFAs. It will never be like this again, as far as I can see.
New rant that just occurred to me after reading the "Characters that deserve death" thread and discussions of the service industry therein. I used to (crossing my fingers, hoping that "used to" remains permanent) pull summer jobs at the Goodwill thrift store in Western CT. I was a Material Handler, which meant that I collected donations, grouped them together for sorting, loaded the truck with the really bad stuff at the end of the night, took out the trash, etc. I'll say this: though I've had my share of crummy bosses at the job in the past, I've never worked with nicer people in my life. Most of the people I worked with at Goodwill gave 110% at a lousy, thankless job. There were a lot of times where I was proud to work there, because I really did feel like I was doing something good.
But when that job was bad, it was terrible. Though Goodwill takes quite a few items, there is a definite list of things we cannot take, such as: washers/driers, soiled or ripped furniture, mattresses and bedding of any kind, and various other things. This is because 1) even as a charity, Goodwill still has to pay for anything that it throws out and 2) some things are safety issues in the store itself and Goodwill cannot afford to be sued. So, part of my job was to politely refuse some of these items when someone wanted to drop them off. Even some things that weren't as cut and dry, like old televisions and out of date computers, had to be turned down. Nobody likes hearing that their donation isn't wanted; it's understandable. But most people still took it with grace after being informed of the reasoning behind the respective refusal. Not so with some folks.
I've honestly been sworn at by a woman with a headboard that she wished to donate (couldn't accept it because of sanitary reasons, as expressed to us by our bosses), who then drove around to the other side of the building and dumped the darn thing while I was busy with another car. Heavy kitchen sinks have been dumped outside during pouring rain, which I would then have to shove onto the truck because our bosses didn't want to get in trouble and have it seen on camera (saving money on garbage, don'tcha know?). I don't think it's asking much of folks to ask people to take a good long look at what they want to donate before even getting it into the car (which is why most people with furniture would get pissed at me for refusing). It's not hard to imagine that maybe, just maybe, the less fortunate would rather not purchase a sofa repeatedly stained in an unidentifiable manner that cost me 1d4/1d8 sanity points just to examine. "Am I ashamed of being seen with this, for reasons beyond the ugliness of its pattern", is a good question to ask. If the answer is yes, citing animal hair, stains or rips, the dump is a better location.
It really did make me feel great to argue with people in brand new SUVs and minivans as to why the less fortunate really do not want a soiled mattress. And it's always eye-opening to see rich suburbanites come to our store bargain hunting, rather than the one in a more urban location, because ours didn't have so many "scary black people".
Coming in first thing in the morning on a Saturday to move previously mentioned soiled mattress (dropped off while we were closed) onto the truck for disposal was a great way of starting my weekend, and I will cherish the memory. Once, one of my bosses was out back by the trash compactor and a man in a pick-up truck just drove up (attempting to skip the line at the donation center) and dropped off two garbage bags, saying,"Here's my trash!" And it was; he donated trash to us. Lawn clippings, mostly. That man wasn't only a hero; he was a patriot.
My favorite was when I hit my head on a woman's open trunk. This happens fairly often because I'm a tall guy and I don't always remember to stand up slowly after grabbing a cardboard box from a trunk. "Oh! You aren't going to sue me, are you?", she asked, completely serious. "Are you okay?" would have been the preferred response, ma'am, but thank you for playing.
Just the sight of moving vans and tag sales make me cringe after working there. Ultimately, 75% of the people that donated goods to me at Goodwill were very nice and glad that I was there to assist with heavy lifting. But I'm honestly still galled by the fact that there are people that are lazy and/or callous enough to force a charity to pay to get rid of their trash for them after being told that we would not accept it expressly for that reason. Complaining about loading it into the car isn't much rationale, since calling the store would have provided the criteria used to evaluate said item so that the donor could look at it themselves and make the decision of whether or not it was worth bringing in. But all anyone would think of is the stupid yellow tax rebate slip. Shout out to the couple that came in every day and filled one out for $3500 after unloading a pick-up truck full of garage junk, holiday crud and two bags of clothing. The recommended amount for write-offs is 10% of the original price of each item; this means that we should have been able to get something like $35,000 for each day's donation. What generous people! I truly hope that they enjoyed their audit when they passed those in to the IRS.
Also, never assume that your friendly Goodwill employee is A) an ex-con B) mentally handicapped or emotionally unstable or C) too dumb for McDonald's. They do take on community service folks, but I've worked alongside college graduates that hoped to be social workers as well as folks with nothing more than a GED, and everything in between. It really doesn't feel good to be talked down to by a complete stranger (as anyone that's held a job knows), especially when your original goal in the job was to provide affordable amenities to those in dire need of such.
Four summers there was a real test of endurance for me, but it was a job I could come back to and rely on when I was off of school and they were always willing to have me on the team. Beyond the donors from heck and the executive level bs, I'm glad that I had a chance to work with a lot of top-knotch folks from a lot of different backgrounds. And it taught me to be very, very courteous to anyone that tends a cash register, waits tables or acts as a porter, since I was always grateful when people acted as such to me while I was working.