TGI...Monday?

I love short weeks.

It's like it's already Wednesday.

And I'm leaving early tomorrow and Wednesday, so it's even shorter.

Wheee! ('Wii!' for you Nintendo fans.)

TGI...Monday?

I love short weeks.

It's like it's already Wednesday.

And I'm leaving early tomorrow and Wednesday, so it's even shorter.

Wheee! ('Wii!' for you Nintendo fans.)

TGI...Monday?

I love short weeks.

It's like it's already Wednesday.

And I'm leaving early tomorrow and Wednesday, so it's even shorter.

Wheee! ('Wii!' for you Nintendo fans.)

More Nights in which it is Never Winter...

So, I picked up Neverwinter Nights 2 yesterday. I went ahead and grabbed the slightly upgraded version. The book of art is nifty, but having one DVD instead of a half dozen CDs was the real motivation there. There's no good reason to ship anything on multiple CDs anymore. DVD-ROM drives have been standard equipment for five years now. If you don't have one, spend the $28 and upgrade already.

The first thing it did after installation was run the update tool, which proceeded to download 85MB of updates. The game only takes 5.5GB of disk space, and if you're on a modem, forget updating, ever (unlike CD-ROMs, I won't pick on modem users as there are a lot of places you still can't get anything else).

The interface is not as bad as I was expecting. Except for the annoying inability to stack multiple items in the Quick Slots, key assignments and gameplay are fairly close to the original.

I did find a way to crash to desktop. Reliably. I dropped a .bic file from the Localvault directory in my NWN install (yes, I still play NWN/SoU/HoTU) to the NWN2 Localvault and attempted to import it. Wham! Instant crash. I tried it a few more times with different NWN chars, just to verify. Even merely having them in NWN2's Localvault will cause it to crash if you view the import list (but not right away, it won't crash then until it tries to load a module after you've viewed the list of chars that can potentially be imported). This is annoying. I'd like to use my NWN chars, thanks. BG2/ToB imported from BG/ToSC; NWN2 is an update from 3.0 rules to 3.5, but it should have the capability to convert chars to the newer ruleset. You can't tell me there isn't a way to upconvert existing pen and paper chars for long running campaigns. I preferred the radial menus, but right clicking (and holding until the context menu pops up where it's not an immediate response) isn't terrible. Just different. Needlessly, IMNSHO.

Performance wise, I haven't had any issues. It's running on my P4 3.0Ghz/800Mhz w/HT, 2GB RAM, and Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB graphics adapter without any stuttering or drops in framerate even in heavily populated scenes. I let it pick the graphics settings and a lot of the bells and whistles are either at very low or off settings, but that's exactly what I'd expect for a brand new game on a 3.5 year old GPU.

Camera wise, I've got the camera centered on the current active char with free motion, and it behaves exactly like NWN in that mode, so I leave it there. The only thing the original did different was make walls semi-transparent when necessary and overhead bits of architecture disappeared when you walked under them instead of blocking your view. I slew the camera around a lot.

The NPC AI is dumb, but only slightly dumber than the ones in BG, IWD, BG2, IWD2, and NWN (I'd actually say it's just dumb in different ways than some of the others), so I turn it mostly off (it's not allowed to cast spells or use items, but it is allowed to engage in melee and protect me) and handle spellcasting and using items just like I did in BG[2] and IWD[2]. You couldn't control your NPC buddy in NWN, so you just hoped they didn't do anything incredibly stupid. Usually, they would. I only grabbed an NPC henchmen in the first one at very specific points, for specific tasks. Mostly, they were just annoying ways to end up carryng their corpse to a healer to be resurrected.

I'm only at Fort Locke currently, so story wise I'm still pretty near the beginning, but it's what I expected so far. I'm doing side quests with a vengeance since I'm playing a Dark Elven Ranger w/Dual Weild focus. Lots of racial bennies, but level requirements are higher, so where my party was at 4th level back in town, I was still only at second, just to give you an idea.

So far, despite some minor annoyances and one HUGE one, I'm having fun. There's no excuse for not being able to put dual items in a single quick slot. This really fucks me up when I switch from a bow to dual longswords in melee. I have to pause, open inventory, grab the item, unpause, and manually dump the second sword into my off hand. If I could specify where a weapon equiped, I could live with having to hit two buttons to switch off, but no, it'll always dump a single sword into my primary hand. It's a major point of half the ranger class characters out there. Bastards.

More Nights in which it is Never Winter...

So, I picked up Neverwinter Nights 2 yesterday. I went ahead and grabbed the slightly upgraded version. The book of art is nifty, but having one DVD instead of a half dozen CDs was the real motivation there. There's no good reason to ship anything on multiple CDs anymore. DVD-ROM drives have been standard equipment for five years now. If you don't have one, spend the $28 and upgrade already.

The first thing it did after installation was run the update tool, which proceeded to download 85MB of updates. The game only takes 5.5GB of disk space, and if you're on a modem, forget updating, ever (unlike CD-ROMs, I won't pick on modem users as there are a lot of places you still can't get anything else).

The interface is not as bad as I was expecting. Except for the annoying inability to stack multiple items in the Quick Slots, key assignments and gameplay are fairly close to the original.

I did find a way to crash to desktop. Reliably. I dropped a .bic file from the Localvault directory in my NWN install (yes, I still play NWN/SoU/HoTU) to the NWN2 Localvault and attempted to import it. Wham! Instant crash. I tried it a few more times with different NWN chars, just to verify. Even merely having them in NWN2's Localvault will cause it to crash if you view the import list (but not right away, it won't crash then until it tries to load a module after you've viewed the list of chars that can potentially be imported). This is annoying. I'd like to use my NWN chars, thanks. BG2/ToB imported from BG/ToSC; NWN2 is an update from 3.0 rules to 3.5, but it should have the capability to convert chars to the newer ruleset. You can't tell me there isn't a way to upconvert existing pen and paper chars for long running campaigns. I preferred the radial menus, but right clicking (and holding until the context menu pops up where it's not an immediate response) isn't terrible. Just different. Needlessly, IMNSHO.

Performance wise, I haven't had any issues. It's running on my P4 3.0Ghz/800Mhz w/HT, 2GB RAM, and Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB graphics adapter without any stuttering or drops in framerate even in heavily populated scenes. I let it pick the graphics settings and a lot of the bells and whistles are either at very low or off settings, but that's exactly what I'd expect for a brand new game on a 3.5 year old GPU.

Camera wise, I've got the camera centered on the current active char with free motion, and it behaves exactly like NWN in that mode, so I leave it there. The only thing the original did different was make walls semi-transparent when necessary and overhead bits of architecture disappeared when you walked under them instead of blocking your view. I slew the camera around a lot.

The NPC AI is dumb, but only slightly dumber than the ones in BG, IWD, BG2, IWD2, and NWN (I'd actually say it's just dumb in different ways than some of the others), so I turn it mostly off (it's not allowed to cast spells or use items, but it is allowed to engage in melee and protect me) and handle spellcasting and using items just like I did in BG[2] and IWD[2]. You couldn't control your NPC buddy in NWN, so you just hoped they didn't do anything incredibly stupid. Usually, they would. I only grabbed an NPC henchmen in the first one at very specific points, for specific tasks. Mostly, they were just annoying ways to end up carryng their corpse to a healer to be resurrected.

I'm only at Fort Locke currently, so story wise I'm still pretty near the beginning, but it's what I expected so far. I'm doing side quests with a vengeance since I'm playing a Dark Elven Ranger w/Dual Weild focus. Lots of racial bennies, but level requirements are higher, so where my party was at 4th level back in town, I was still only at second, just to give you an idea.

So far, despite some minor annoyances and one HUGE one, I'm having fun. There's no excuse for not being able to put dual items in a single quick slot. This really fucks me up when I switch from a bow to dual longswords in melee. I have to pause, open inventory, grab the item, unpause, and manually dump the second sword into my off hand. If I could specify where a weapon equiped, I could live with having to hit two buttons to switch off, but no, it'll always dump a single sword into my primary hand. It's a major point of half the ranger class characters out there. Bastards.

More Nights in which it is Never Winter...

So, I picked up Neverwinter Nights 2 yesterday. I went ahead and grabbed the slightly upgraded version. The book of art is nifty, but having one DVD instead of a half dozen CDs was the real motivation there. There's no good reason to ship anything on multiple CDs anymore. DVD-ROM drives have been standard equipment for five years now. If you don't have one, spend the $28 and upgrade already.

The first thing it did after installation was run the update tool, which proceeded to download 85MB of updates. The game only takes 5.5GB of disk space, and if you're on a modem, forget updating, ever (unlike CD-ROMs, I won't pick on modem users as there are a lot of places you still can't get anything else).

The interface is not as bad as I was expecting. Except for the annoying inability to stack multiple items in the Quick Slots, key assignments and gameplay are fairly close to the original.

I did find a way to crash to desktop. Reliably. I dropped a .bic file from the Localvault directory in my NWN install (yes, I still play NWN/SoU/HoTU) to the NWN2 Localvault and attempted to import it. Wham! Instant crash. I tried it a few more times with different NWN chars, just to verify. Even merely having them in NWN2's Localvault will cause it to crash if you view the import list (but not right away, it won't crash then until it tries to load a module after you've viewed the list of chars that can potentially be imported). This is annoying. I'd like to use my NWN chars, thanks. BG2/ToB imported from BG/ToSC; NWN2 is an update from 3.0 rules to 3.5, but it should have the capability to convert chars to the newer ruleset. You can't tell me there isn't a way to upconvert existing pen and paper chars for long running campaigns. I preferred the radial menus, but right clicking (and holding until the context menu pops up where it's not an immediate response) isn't terrible. Just different. Needlessly, IMNSHO.

Performance wise, I haven't had any issues. It's running on my P4 3.0Ghz/800Mhz w/HT, 2GB RAM, and Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB graphics adapter without any stuttering or drops in framerate even in heavily populated scenes. I let it pick the graphics settings and a lot of the bells and whistles are either at very low or off settings, but that's exactly what I'd expect for a brand new game on a 3.5 year old GPU.

Camera wise, I've got the camera centered on the current active char with free motion, and it behaves exactly like NWN in that mode, so I leave it there. The only thing the original did different was make walls semi-transparent when necessary and overhead bits of architecture disappeared when you walked under them instead of blocking your view. I slew the camera around a lot.

The NPC AI is dumb, but only slightly dumber than the ones in BG, IWD, BG2, IWD2, and NWN (I'd actually say it's just dumb in different ways than some of the others), so I turn it mostly off (it's not allowed to cast spells or use items, but it is allowed to engage in melee and protect me) and handle spellcasting and using items just like I did in BG[2] and IWD[2]. You couldn't control your NPC buddy in NWN, so you just hoped they didn't do anything incredibly stupid. Usually, they would. I only grabbed an NPC henchmen in the first one at very specific points, for specific tasks. Mostly, they were just annoying ways to end up carryng their corpse to a healer to be resurrected.

I'm only at Fort Locke currently, so story wise I'm still pretty near the beginning, but it's what I expected so far. I'm doing side quests with a vengeance since I'm playing a Dark Elven Ranger w/Dual Weild focus. Lots of racial bennies, but level requirements are higher, so where my party was at 4th level back in town, I was still only at second, just to give you an idea.

So far, despite some minor annoyances and one HUGE one, I'm having fun. There's no excuse for not being able to put dual items in a single quick slot. This really fucks me up when I switch from a bow to dual longswords in melee. I have to pause, open inventory, grab the item, unpause, and manually dump the second sword into my off hand. If I could specify where a weapon equiped, I could live with having to hit two buttons to switch off, but no, it'll always dump a single sword into my primary hand. It's a major point of half the ranger class characters out there. Bastards.