The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Chris Avellone is better than you
Posts
*Atton is pretty obvious with his backstory, as are the Disciple and Visas. If you didn't know, it's strongly hinted in the game that Kreia is Arren Kae, Handmaiden's mother. I can't remember Mira's story offhand, so I don't know what's going on with her. Bao Dur kind of never had his story written down or something. To the best of my knowledge, there's pretty much nothing about him that didn't make it into the final game, which is strange due to the number of unanswered questions about him.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Sweet Christmas, August did you even read the book? It's not steve.
I know. I love KOTOR II. But it still trivialised the act of becoming a Jedi; what could have been a stunning and touching climax for each character's arc was reduced to - hey, listen, can you hear the force? Cool. Okay, now you can force push dudes.
I'm not necessarily saying this is really Obsidian's fault. They were on a terrifying rollercoaster of a schedule and plotting each character that deeply would have been overly ambitious. But still, it feels like a flaw, it feels like something was missing from those moments.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Both of you faggots, knock that shit off.
??? But isn't the 'mentor turns on you' the plot of almost every movie that the mentor figure doesn't just up and die half way through?
Long story short Chris Avellone didn't right the novel, it was fail and therefore doesn't exist.
Upon hearing that I could, I was filled with rage.
What?!
Are you saying Bioware games have terrible cliches? How dare you.
Should I just accept this and play it? Assuming I can find it on half.com or wherever is it possible to run on xp?
edit: I see it is on gametap. Should I take this to mean it will run?
Reminds me, I need to install Mask of the Betrayer... and, um, actually finish NWN2.
This is why when I went back to re-play it to completion (having aborted several playthroughs 5 or 6 hours in previously), I used a character editor to bump my characters stats to ridiculous levels and dual wielded a sword that was in the code for what I can only assume was just play testing. (Something along the lines of the "Destructificator" or some such, had a +20 bonus along with pluses to str and con and ac, made blowing through the dungeons a snap)
Lawsuit coming your way if I get it.
So do I have to remain a member of gametap to keep playing the game? Or once I download can I play it always?
It tends to take me awhile to finish/play games and since I already own a lot of the stuff on Gametap, 60-120 dollars for a game seems a bit much. (Although, half.com and amazon have it going for 60 on its own.)
Vanilla NWN2 I thought was pretty awful.
NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer I thought was pretty awesome.
I can't really think of that wide a disparity between the main title and the expansion with any other game.
KOTOR2 had some neat writing and some terrible gameplay. Flurry + Speed + 2 blades = kill everyone in 1 attack, for the whole game.
Unless you're talking about the old America Online MMO, in which case no, I never played it.
The original NWNs expansions were almost as poor as the original NWNs campaign.
Either one, take your pick.
No.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I actually really like parts of the campaign (like the whole trial), but on a gameplay level, it's just so horribly bloated and poorly executed that I get a headache from playing the goddamn thing. They should've cut, like, 10 hours of dungeon crawling; it would've greatly improved the game. And I like dungeon crawling, too.
Onward to Mask of the Betrayer. Finally.
Yes.
In fact, while Chris is a very good writer, I have often felt what is keeping Obsidian from hitting it big time is that they don't write stories and dialogue that fits well in a game. I found NWN2 to be, dare I say it, a bit too wordy and focusing too much on the meta stuff outside of the gameplay.
I know where they come from, their history as a company both there and elsewhere, so they certainly have the talent.
But I mean I think Jason Jones said it best when he said stories in games are not there to be told, they are there to facilitate the experience. Which I why I have always felt that BioWare do such a good job in that respect. To put it simply, the experience, a culmination of story, gameplay and narrative coming together, outweighs the one that Obsidian deliver. They focus too much on story I think which is both good and bad.
Kotor 2 (ignoring technical issues due to the rush job at the end) was less accomplished than Kotor 1. The planets were less interesting, (essentially a gradient of indoor space stations) and the characters were still just the same archetypes. Only now there is less adventure and more talking. The plot of Kotor 1 facilitated the game. You had to go to specific planets to find maps to win the day. It was simple but had depth.
Kotot 2 has, honestly, a forgettable plot with a predictable twist and a bad ending (again, ignoring the issues and looking at it on potential).
The character interactions were vastly improved, the party dynamic also inspired. But as a whole inferior I feel.
Similar dispersions I cast at NWN2. For want of a better word, too 'wordy'.
I think all signs point to their new game being a better mix.
I greatly enjoyed Underdark, actually. The characters were far more interesting and the plot much better paced.
Undrentide was fun when I played it co-op with a bunch of friends, but I doubt I'd ever go through it single-player.
What is this?
Obsidian are underrated as writers, overrated as game developers.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Debatable.
And by debatable, I mean just plain wrong.
I'm inclined to agree with the rest of his post though.
Hahaha I think it's funny that almost all this stuff could be leveled at Mass Effected except the story bit.
To be fair, there is no singular definition of what a game experience is. Every game offers a unique experience based on how its pieces interact with each other, and as such every game must be evaluated based on the core experience it intends to provide. Playing Ninja Gaiden is a completely separate experience and intention of experience than playing Counter-Strike, which is a completely separate experience and intention than playing Shadow of the Colossus, which is a completely separate experience and intention than playing Rez, and so on. All are fantastic games, and all have difference balances among narrative, gameplay, challenge, atmosphere, and thematic intentions. I would argue that when a game tries to excel at each individual piece of the overall experience that it weakens the core, thematic experience that resonates with the player. That's a large part of my issue with Mass Effect (mostly the 360 version). It tries to excel at everything without all its legs moving towards the same end. You can ask yourself "what is the experience of Mass Effect?" and come up with a lot of answers based on which piece of the experience you are considering. It's a linear narrative, but the majority of the content is non-linear, story-irrelevant exploration that honestly makes little sense in context. It builds a relatively believable, realistic universe, then asks you to suspend your disbelief for the addendum "...but only you can save it!" The majority of the replay value is in exploring different classes, and experimenting with different skills in combat, with only nominal impact upon the narrative half of the game. It gives the player a TPS interface, yet it's nearly unplayable without heavy auto-aim assistance and it breaks most of the logic and tactics that make a shooter work. It's a good game, but it's scattered in its intention. Then you can ask yourself, say, "what is the experience of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?" and everything pretty much comes down to "the zone is an oppressive fucking place" from the mechanics and interface to the world design and story.
The experience of KotOR II is its story, and it embraces it fully. The game mechanics do reflect the universe in which the story takes place, and the dichotomy between the laws of that universe and what the player is told by Kreia is the heart of the story. It's cohesive in a subtle way that kind of gets lost beneath all the broken bits.
Game didn't have a twist. At all. In fact, at the end (the broken one) it went out of its way to point out that it didn't have a twist. You even have an option in the dialogue to point it out earlier in the game, to which Kreia responds by pulling some BS about labels out of her ass. I'd almost be willing to say that if you thought it was a twist, you missed the point of the story entirely.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
It was an okay game and all, but seriously?
It wasn't very well written. It got to a point where I would vomit out my ass if I heard some asshole say "Echo in the force" without explaining what that's supposed to actually fucking mean.
I'm inclined to agree with this part, but they're both extraordinarily awesome. It's just a matter of style and taste at that point, they don't write anything near the same stuff.