06-02-2003 22:29									#31
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: at least updates for MOM and MOO1&2 for better graphics and advanced OS compatibility.

I doubt the source code is still available. It's usually thrown away if can't be exploited commercially anymore.

Closed source = Evil

	06-02-2003 22:54									#32
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by jscott991 Neverwinter Nights was no where near finished when released. Need I remind of you of the XP bug? The fact you couldn't complete the Host Tower chapter about 50% of the time because the battle on top would not start?

And they spent 5 years and gobs of people making it. The Aurora engine isn't even new, they used it in MDK2. NWN is a joke. Bioware rakes in the cash anyway.

quote: If you wanted Diablo 3 or Dungeon Siege 2, you were largely satisfied.

No, Diablo has at least interactive combat.

	06-02-2003 23:36									#33
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I didn't realize true DnD involved one player character walking around slaying dragons by themselves. I didn't realize true DnD was a non-party experience. Interesting. To think, I always thought DnD was about semi-realistic, party-based roleplaying. I guess I was wrong.

Perhaps I'll boot up NWN and slay the most powerful Red Dragon in the land with just my fighter again. I guess that's true DnD.

	06-02-2003 23:42									#34
	Increase Your PM Length

When we're on the subject... check out Greyhawk: Temple of Elemental Evil.

http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=31
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/385/385133p1.html

	07-02-2003 00:05									#35
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Any single PC can, when sufficiently powerful, defeat all monsters less powerful than themselves. NWN was designed primarily as a multiplayer experience and works best like that. It was given a SP element by popular demand and many players derive entertainment using it like that. Don't pretend that NWN is a non-party experience though. Even SP you had pets and henchmen should you choose to employ them.

	07-02-2003 00:11									#36
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Speaking of which, I just came back to Earth after a five-hour nonstop NWN session with my pals at work.

My team won! Wizards rule, sorceres drool, or somesuch...

NWN MP is insane fun. Doing it at work w/ the Man as DM is even better

	07-02-2003 00:27									#37
	Support Apolyton

A henchman and a badger do not constitute a party. Especially given the atrocious state of henchmen AI in NWN. Its not even fair to BG and IWD to use the word party in the same sentence as NWN.

NWN was a dumbed down version of Diablo. It hacked and slashed the 3E DnD rules into bits and pieces and threw what was left into the game. The modding community might, by now, have made some things to make it interesting, but the game as released by Bioware and the game concept (one PC running around saving the world all by himself, with only a drone to help him) is not DnD and its barely roleplaying.

quote: Originally posted by Grumbold Any single PC can, when sufficiently powerful, defeat all monsters less powerful than themselves. NWN was designed primarily as a multiplayer experience and works best like that. It was given a SP element by popular demand and many players derive entertainment using it like that. Don't pretend that NWN is a non-party experience though. Even SP you had pets and henchmen should you choose to employ them.

	07-02-2003 02:54									#38
	Increase the size of your Attachments

What have I done?

	07-02-2003 03:02									#39
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Funnily, Bioware sure takes the time to hype the nwn single player in their press releases.

http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info...leases/nwngold/

"for the first time ever, a true translation of the D&D® ‘Dungeon Master’ to electronic entertainment."

Right.

Why release a full-worthy game when the modders will do it for you and you get to charge?

	07-02-2003 03:13									#40
	Increase Your PM Length

See, Osweld. This is what happens when you mention a great social game to people who are zealots enough not to have any friends - there'll be whining to high heaven about how the SP experiece is worse that the Quake XVII fraggin they're used to.

DnD isn't a SP experince. Whudavthunkit, eh?

	07-02-2003 05:33									#41
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Couldn't agree more. Amazingly you're expected to play D&D with friends. Those who can't find any try to tear apart the attached SP module because it only allows you to play one main character. It has just as much roleplaying as BG and IWD where their idea of roleplay is to try and get your main character to lay another member of the party or talk about their pet rodent every 23 seconds while obeying every command of the player like automatons. Thank god in multiplayer mode other players actually *gasp* do what they feel like instead of what the hivemind orders them to.

	07-02-2003 05:50									#42
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by jscott991 If they truly were fiddling around with MP bugs, then they are going to regret this decision, as they should.

I definitely disagree, if they did do an intensive job of cleaning up the bugs and polishing it up it will go a long way to making Quicksilver the ONLY COMPANY in the industry that doesn't program shoddy products.

Everyone associated with the game will have a glowing project to place in their work portfolio, the customers will be shocked that a game can actually work straight out of the box. In fact the only side that doesn't gain a benefit is Infrogrames who is world renown for producing low quality product so one game is going to make a dent in their reputation much.

	07-02-2003 06:35									#43
	Remove this text

Pen and Paper DnD is a social experience. DnD computer games that take over 100 hours to complete are not usually.

But, I have played NWN, BGII, IWD, and IWD2 through as both single and multiplayer experiences. NWN's XP bug, its strange game crashes (for God's sake don't rest or be anywhere near a door when the game is saving), and its completely unimaginative campaign (I'm sorry, wasn't the game supposed to be set in the Forgotten Realms, because that's nothing like the FR the books present) make it the biggest disappointment in RPG's since Undermountain nearly killed the genre years ago.

Bioware sold the BG audience out to capitalize on the popularity of Diablo and Dungeon Siege. I wouldn't have any problem with that, except that they claimed they were making a 3E DnD product. There's about as much 3E Dnd in NWN as there will be in MOO3.

	07-02-2003 16:39									#44
	Inflate your Upload Space

Sorry you didn't like the SP module added to a multiplayer product but you're overexaggerating its problems. NWN is the closest anyone has come to 3e D&D so far. I expect people to do a lot better in the future but IWD2 and PoR2 were poorer implementations of the ruleset.

Bioware were not attempting to please the BG or DS single player audience but the 3e D&D audience. Thats why you can log on, find a server (or set up your own) and play a 4 hour module with longstanding friends or complete strangers. A great boon for people like me whose old D&D cronies are now scattered over 600 miles. The construction toolset is fantastic and the beautiful worlds that budding DM's are creating with it are too. You're missing a lot if you sweep the game aside based on one SP module that was too short and too easy for hardcore BG fans.

	07-02-2003 22:55									#45
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

More NWN fun.

TOEE will be more faithful to 3e D&D than Bioware ever could. Just can't be without that neutered real-time, eh?

	07-02-2003 23:43									#46
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Frankly, Grumbold, I sweep NWN aside because the XP formula is too screwed up to make a playable game. I know a few hardcore DnD modders managed to put the real XP system into the game, but it seemed more trouble than it was worth. DnD, for me, is about character progression and advancement as much as about interacting with friends or NPC's, and NWN completely botches the awarding of XP.

I do find it interesting that you think NWN did a good job implementing the 3E rules. I've read most of the 3E DnD and FR products that have been released and, frankly, Bioware's product really doesn't bear that much more of a resemblance to 3E than Dungeon Siege does. Superficially, it uses the same terms and stats as 3E, but it doesn't come close to properly applying those stats and rules in the way 3E intended.

I am though willing to concede that I am a huge of fan of BG2 and, to a lesser extent, IWD. Multiplayer is a fun but fleeting diversion compared to single player and Bioware's abandonment of the single player audience and, really, their betrayal of them based on the marketing of NWN deeply effects my perception of the game.

	07-02-2003 23:48									#47
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: DnD, for me, is about character progression and advancement as much as about interacting with friends or NPC's

I agree. One of the reasons I love RPG games so much is for that. I love paper DnD but have trouble getting everyone assembled every time we play. Plus, I can fight forty battles an hour on PC instead of one battle in an hour and a half on paper.

	08-02-2003 04:40									#48
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Patches are always needed.

At least to make post release play-balance of races, ships, abilities.
To ensure that nothing is broken or overpowered
(like it's done with games such as Starcraft)

	08-02-2003 04:43									#49
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I would be shocked if MOO3 didn't get patched at some point. I've never been involved in a project that did not have a projected patch-like idea in mind. Most projects these days actually have a resolution of 'patch', and go in planning on releasing patch X on this day.

That being said, I'll also be surprised if there are many balance-type changes in the game. There aren't any overreachingly huge deals in the tech tree or in the race picks that makes the game broken, like they did in Moo2. It is a much more strategic game, in that sense.

	08-02-2003 04:49									#50
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Of coure, but nobody is prefect.

Something can't be noticed easily with just no more then 30-50 playtesters.

But, when it goes in public with more then 10,000s of players playing it, there is much better chance to find exploit, overpowered ability or AI weakness.

Of course it should nevr be nothign drastic.

P.S.
Remember unpatched MOO3 Plasma Cannons (they very very powerful)?

	08-02-2003 05:20									#51
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by jscott991 Frankly, Grumbold, I sweep NWN aside because the XP formula is too screwed up to make a playable game.

Please explain what you mean by this. You kill a monster, you get Xp. Unless you use the level 1 pet exploit you get a consistent amount of Xp. The amount you get is set at a level that ensures good progression in a computer game where you can kill 5 monsters in the time it would take a PnP team to get their dice out. If they followed the official WoTC 3e guide then after 400 fights of an appropriate challenge rating your character would be lvl 20 and it would be time to roll up another one. The only mods I saw in the making were ones determined to make it harder to get Xp, not easier.

All modifications to the basic 3e ruleset were as sanctioned by WoTC. Trying to get a PnP game into a CRPG some items are going to have to bend.

	08-02-2003 06:12									#52
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I feel they'll do a patch as well. I just hope they don't break more things than they fix.

	08-02-2003 13:16									#53
	Remove this text

It seems to me the commercial game patches are getting worse and worse since the publishers subject them to massive QA. They now take forever to reach the public (which is the only place where bugs are *really* found), so the developers hardly get more than one patch out before they abandon the project.

That's one of the many reasons why I hope the traditional publishers will die quickly and be replaced by pure broadband network distribution a la Steam. Then any game can get an online bug control system and time-effective patching (and by eliminating the expendable middlemen with a high salary, we get all that at a much cheaper price too )

	08-02-2003 15:52									#54
	Re: Layoffs = No Future Patches? Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by gunnergoz With the apparent imminent layoffs of the development team, can we assume that there will be no future patches and upgrades to the game? I'll be highly distressed about this if it is the case. I'd been counting upon some "massaging" of the basic game by the development team, perhaps a patch or two with a few tweaks and upgrades...maybe even an add-on disk like the one to Alpha Centauri, that added so much to that game. Cripes, I hate bean-counters and land-sharks (lawyers).

It's too bad they don't start working on MOO4. I've been laid off twice and I know it's no fun.

	16-02-2003 18:39									#55
	Suffering from ads?

The early computer game didnot really have that many bugs in then compare to today games. The first computer game I play was Wizardry 1 which only needed 128 k of memony and IBM DOS.

I like BG 1 and 2 and IWD 1 and 2. I also play p&p roleplaying games than as DM I do make change in the rules. I allow all my player to have than XP pool to help then
pay for makeing magic idems without loseing levels.

	17-02-2003 06:03									#56
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Yesteryear's games were also not nearly as complex.

Consider, games used to come out on floppy disks maybe totaling 5 megs. Now they come in multiple CDs totalling over a gig at times.

As complexity goes up, bugs are bound to go up as well.

	17-02-2003 11:57									#57
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Complexity does not equal size.

You get tons of videos, CGIs and voice acting of questionable quality today, but that doesn't make the games more complex. In fact it makes them less complex, because time and money that flows into eye- and earcandy is not available for developing relevant content.

	18-02-2003 03:45									#58
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by darcy Complexity does not equal size. You get tons of videos, CGIs and voice acting of questionable quality today, but that doesn't make the games more complex. In fact it makes them less complex, because time and money that flows into eye- and earcandy is not available for developing relevant content.

Exactly.

	18-02-2003 08:10									#59
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by darcy Complexity does not equal size. You get tons of videos, CGIs and voice acting of questionable quality today, but that doesn't make the games more complex. In fact it makes them less complex, because time and money that flows into eye- and earcandy is not available for developing relevant content.

Ask yourself this.

Let us take 2 games, say Dune 2 and C&C Generals, both comming from the same lineage of the now defunct Westwood studios.

Compare the AI in Dune 2 and then in the most recent C&C Generals. Which is more complex?

Compare the physics engine of Dune 2 and compare it to Generals.

Compare the number and complexity of calls made to graphical drivers in Dune 2 and Generals.

Actually compare any 2 games. Simcity and SC4000.

Warcraft and Warcraft 3.

Hell even Moo and Moo3.

You really have no idea what your talking about when say complexity of the code has gone down from yesteryear.

Let me guess, you haven't even coded a single line in your life have you....

	18-02-2003 08:58									#60
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Well said Corentor.