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Neverwinter Nights for the Community

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  • AtrophiedericAtrophiederic Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 147
    edited February 2018
    @TheAmethystDragon (I don't know if I ever told you these stories, AD ...)
    One time I was on as an assistant DM in Aenea, and I saw there were six or seven players grouped up. Being the nosy type, I went invisible and ported to their location to see what was up. Turns out, they were nearing the climax of their awesome dungeon crawling adventure, deep under an ancient desert tomb. They were knee-deep in baddies, slogging it out with cinder trolls, insane harpy assassins, and other assorted goons. So, me being me, I fired up the creature creator and spawned a kitten beside one of the fighters. As soon as she noticed the little kitty, she dropped everything, stopped fighting her baddies, and started to play with the kitten. Then I felt bad for her party-mates, so I slipped each one of them a cheese sandwich into their inventory.
    Good times were had by all that day.

    Another time, my daughter was on while I was in my DM skin, so I ported to her area and filled it with cats and kittens, at least 50 of the buggers. She was rather surprised and pleased by it, as you can imagine, especially with her being an animal person. But the kittens were so tiny, when she went to click on the ground to move away, she accidentally attacked/one-shot killed a kitten. So all of the cats and kittens immediately went hostile and started attacking her. Her character responded accordingly, and killed all of the cats/kittens. I could hear her pained wailing, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the other end of the house.
    Good times were had that day, too. (My daughter might have a different opinion!)

    @voidofopinion
    I can say from my experiences that having nerd kids is amazingly fun! All four of my kidlets are into games of all sorts (my son, the oldest, is actually training for a League of Legends professional career), and my two oldest have adventured on the same world that I play in. It is a wonderful thing to have that sort of commonality with your children - the conversation options alone are practically endless! (Although I do feel kinda sorry for my wife from time to time - it's almost like she has five kids!)
    MrDamageJuliusBorisovvoidofopinionHunterRayder93
  • DerpCityDerpCity Member, Moderator Posts: 303
    edited February 2018
    @voidofopinion I don't remember how it was like back then other than the fact the wide eyed and stupid child that I was was having a blast. If by "run groups" you mean "get a group of people and run headfirst into battle," then we did that every so often back in the day. I fondly remember the group needing Buddy to blast down enemies with spells only to turn into a bear without buffing and just get annihilated. Nah, my dad didn't ever DM, and there weren't any others, considering that DM was a one time thing. I suppose that's why the server ended up attracting a hack and slash audience rather than the roleplaying one he had wanted (at least according to the book titled "READ THIS" with server "rules" in the first real area, though IIRC he didn't really care who came to play as long as they had fun).

    In truth, he made the server as a way to prove that anyone could make a PW after the mods of one of the servers he used to play on went a little corrupt with power. The server currently has about or over 200 areas and takes an excruciatingly long time to try and open up in the 1.69 toolset, fun fact. The EE toolset opens it up faster it seems, but as I said I dunno if NWNX:EE has a prepackaged version or will even run on Windows XP. It would be a shame to have to walk from the spawn point to the last area you were at, considering some of them take 500 gold to get to since you have to take a boat.

    Also, my minotaur's Greataxe had a glitched Darkfire effect because a cleric who used to play there back int he day stopped playing. It had been something I liked so much that I incorporate the flaming axe into everything I do with him outside the server. I'm sad to report that the axe has stopped burning. I mean, I guess its for the best, he still crits for about 80 damage every other hit.
    MrDamagevoidofopinionJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    @Atrophiederic

    Very supportive father to be encouraging and supportive of one of your kids being a League of Legends Pro.

    When I was a kid we make £1 bets on Street Fighter II. Nowdays kids are making hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single Counterstrike/Dota/LoL/Starcraft match and there are talks of pro gaming coming to the olympics.

    Utterly blows my mind!

    Had I but known I would have studied less in school and played more video games.

    Do you play League with him as well and if so, how hard does he have to carry you?



    ;)

    @DerpCity

    It sounds like you had a ton of fun playing NWN with your father.

    I worry that something similar is going to happen with my server. I am putting a huge emphasis on having a solid loot/encounter/raid backbone but I am also putting in a fantastic amount of time into building living towns and environmental set pieces to roleplay with.

    I guess it really comes down to what the DM Staff and other players enforce as to how the server is perceived. If people are in it for the hack n slash and no one really RP's then it doesnt matter what the original intention was. Just because a fork was meant to spread butter doesnt mean I cant use it as a screwdriver.

    So did he hand over his work to you and you are continuing the family legacy or has he inspired you to make your own vision come to life?
    AtrophiedericDerpCityJuliusBorisov
  • DerpCityDerpCity Member, Moderator Posts: 303
    edited February 2018
    @voidofopinion Considering that, like I said, there weren't any DM's on our server, I think I can agree with your analogy if you replace the screwdriver with a +20 flaming vorpal chainsaw (granted none of the server's items went past +2 and nothing had vorpal, but I don't remember much RP there outside of the occasional quip and DM run cutscene. Granted, as I said I was also a kid for most of its lifespan, so my perspective of it was probably skewed).

    I'd like to say he's done a little of both, but I'm honestly too lazy to make my own vision come to life, considering that sloths would have made more progress on that module I said I was making than I have. In a similar vein, for the server I had planned to rework a whole group of areas that were part of a specific island (The island and its corresponding areas were made by an old friend of his, but as it stands currently it doesn't mesh with the rest of the module very well) and I planned on picking up on an another island my dad never actually finished past the first area (an island of the Minotaur with slaves and stuff, home of Grog the Minotaur Weaponsmaster. They got a castle they probably stole from the people they enslaved), but as you can probably tell I haven't gotten to work on any of that either.

    But don't worry, I'm working on my likely hundredth overhaul of the Animal Companions and probably my third overhaul of the Familiars (not that its making any progress either, familiars are weird), so I think my priorities are in proper order. Might even run another tournament for them if I make their Epic Level variants.

    Anyway, I hope your server making goes better than mine. Considering how many items you've had to make so far, I'm certainly hoping you don't just drop it like I do with most of my projects. :wink:
    voidofopinionMrDamageJuliusBorisov
  • MrDamageMrDamage Member Posts: 210

    @TheAmethystDragon (I don't know if I ever told you these stories, AD ...)
    One time I was on as an assistant DM in Aenea, and I saw there were six or seven players grouped up. Being the nosy type, I went invisible and ported to their location to see what was up. Turns out, they were nearing the climax of their awesome dungeon crawling adventure, deep under an ancient desert tomb. They were knee-deep in baddies, slogging it out with cinder trolls, insane harpy assassins, and other assorted goons. So, me being me, I fired up the creature creator and spawned a kitten beside one of the fighters. As soon as she noticed the little kitty, she dropped everything, stopped fighting her baddies, and started to play with the kitten. Then I felt bad for her party-mates, so I slipped each one of them a cheese sandwich into their inventory.
    Good times were had by all that day.

    Another time, my daughter was on while I was in my DM skin, so I ported to her area and filled it with cats and kittens, at least 50 of the buggers. She was rather surprised and pleased by it, as you can imagine, especially with her being an animal person. But the kittens were so tiny, when she went to click on the ground to move away, she accidentally attacked/one-shot killed a kitten. So all of the cats and kittens immediately went hostile and started attacking her. Her character responded accordingly, and killed all of the cats/kittens. I could hear her pained wailing, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the other end of the house.
    Good times were had that day, too. (My daughter might have a different opinion!)

    @voidofopinion
    I can say from my experiences that having nerd kids is amazingly fun! All four of my kidlets are into games of all sorts (my son, the oldest, is actually training for a League of Legends professional career), and my two oldest have adventured on the same world that I play in. It is a wonderful thing to have that sort of commonality with your children - the conversation options alone are practically endless! (Although I do feel kinda sorry for my wife from time to time - it's almost like she has five kids!)

    Good on you! I envy you mate. I have 3, a baby and two teens. I’ve invited my two eldest to play with me many times over the years but they look at the game(even back when it was only like 6 years old) and me then turn their noses up like it’s musty old grandpa that smells of mothballs offering them to go play lawn bowls or something with the other retirees. Oh well. Actually I did get one of them interested in the toolset for a short while. (Like maybe an hour tops) I helped him make a simple mod which he dubbed was going to be the ‘death’ mod. So in a fairly small rural tile set we had a circle of like 8 ancient dragons, backed by illithids/ death slaadi and many other horrors I can’t even remember. This was where you spawned in to receive your resident butt kicking and practically instant death by the locals. Yay...err, fun times. But at least 1 of them was interested for a little bit !!! So these days I come home to my teen playing counter strike/ or the other one, badlands? Getting yelled at for trying to use my own internet because I’m lagging out the death match by pinging his game to 300+ So I wait till everyone’s in bed to maybe stream a show or jump on the net, only to find the boys downloading some enormous update file for his game lol. Luckily, nwn is so easy going on multiplayer I can use my phone as s hotspot, log in for a few hours to a pw and not cop any extra data charges because I’m not allowed to use my own internet lol. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way!
    JuliusBorisovDerpCityAtrophiedericvoidofopinion
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    @DerpCity

    I really enjoyed your Animal Companion Battle Royale!

    A friend of mine did something Similar in Street Fighter IV where he ramped up the AI and had all the characters in a tournament. He would announce the next participants and we would all bet on who the winner would be. It's really interesting to see which AI becomes an unstoppable juggernaut and which AI flail around helplessly.

    The best advice I can give in making your module come to life is just to start small and get in the habit of doing a little big every day. When you have this grand master plan it's easy to get lost or to give up hope. But for as long as you are doing a little each day you will continue to make progress and sooner or later inspiration will strike and you will carve out a nice healthy chunk.

    I keep a development journal close at hand where I write down ideas, notes to my future self and where I map out new areas. This way even if I don't open up the toolset I can move my project forward even if it's just a good idea.

    I had a huge breakthrough with my item system last week and I finished up all 2,365 weapons. I now just have the armor to do and all of the misc items will be created on an as needed basis. So now I am utterly pumped and I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are far fewer armor types than weapon types so Im almost at the finish line.

    Right now I am number crunching and working out prevalence of damage/resistance types through spells and feats in an attempt to better balance casters and non-casters via itemization and no matter how I balance the books Clerics simply overwhelm everything. I'm starting to think I will have to modify Negative Energy Protection to work more like Resist Elements if I am to have any semblance equilibrium. Same for any of the Immunity spells.

    --------------------------

    @MrDamage

    I remember the days of being a kid and everyone shouting at me to get off the computer so they could use the phone. Or being booted off constantly because someone was dialing in. Now you are telling me as an old man I would have to do that all over again if I had children?

    ...Kinda glad I have cats.




    ;)
    DerpCityMrDamageAtrophiedericJuliusBorisov
  • AtrophiedericAtrophiederic Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 147

    @Atrophiederic

    Very supportive father to be encouraging and supportive of one of your kids being a League of Legends Pro.

    When I was a kid we make £1 bets on Street Fighter II. Nowdays kids are making hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single Counterstrike/Dota/LoL/Starcraft match and there are talks of pro gaming coming to the olympics.

    Utterly blows my mind!

    Had I but known I would have studied less in school and played more video games.

    Do you play League with him as well and if so, how hard does he have to carry you?



    ;)

    @voidofopinion Oh my heavens no, I don't play with him. I can barely keep up with the action and follow his particular champion, let alone try to figure out the mechanics of it. Some things I am too old for. And he would have to carry me hard, because I would suck. So I'll stick to SWTOR pvp, and getting yelled at for not having my hotkeys mapped properly!

    But it's fun to see him play, and I think more than that, listen to his matches - I didn't realize how much I'd miss his 3 am howls, followed by shouts of "I'm unf-ing killable!" and other non-repeatables. (He spent a semester in college, some three hours away. quietest 5 months of our lives!)
    JuliusBorisovDerpCityvoidofopinion
  • DerpCityDerpCity Member, Moderator Posts: 303
    edited March 2018
    @voidofopinion I'm glad to hear you liked it. I definitely think I'm going to do it, and I think I might even record the fights for the sake of authenticity. I mean yeah its a fight between two AI, but you know, why not? So far I've made all 40 versions of the Badger, Boar, Black Bear (Replacing the Brown bear once again, as it pumping its already high 27 strength makes it a little too strong for my tastes), and the Dire Wolf (who I wish I could replace with something weaker but can't. :disappointed:). Just a thought, but do you know of a good epic feat to replace Devastating Critical for the Black Bear? It has it from levels 24 and beyond, since at that point it has the strength to qualify for it, and in hindsight it may not have been a good idea. Like, at all. I could delay it to a later level, but Devastating Critical is an incredibly powerful feat, especially considering that servers go to the efforts of banning it for its power, and honestly I can't blame them.

    I thank you for the module-making advice. When I stop being lazy and get back to work on my module, I'll try to keep it in mind. :smile:

    I'm glad to hear you're making good progress on your items. As for the number crunching, my probably unpopular opinion of the week is that I don't think trying to balance the system is going to work when the game obviously isn't made with PvP in mind, rather it is made in the "party of four" playstyle. Clerics are far more powerful than the other classes, but they can afford to be more powerful because necessity requires them to take mostly healing or buff spells. Granted, the question becomes "why not just have two clerics in the party in place of a wizard," and that is probably a fair point, considering in most cases a Cleric's buffs and blasting abilities are just as good, if not better, than a Wizard's, on top of having healing. Its a failing of the system, I suppose, that you can't really fix, especially due to all the other perks Clerics get, without a massive overhaul of all the spells. Or perhaps I'm looking too far into this and it would be really simple. You never know. :sweat_smile:

    Also, I never got around to saying it, but thank you for getting me a link to Babylon 5. Its much better than I anticipated. The writing and acting is simply fantastic almost all of the time, with exception to episodes that seem rather... Silly. (The episode with the race that beats itself up over having Green or Purple bands comes to mind...) The show is both incredibly hilarious and horribly dark all at the same time and its been great so far. Once again, thank you.
    JuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    edited March 2018
    @DerpCity

    Man, I should outsource some creatures to you. Between the two of us we will have tens of thousands of creatures and items and no module to play them in... Either that or the single greatest Arena mod in the history of NWN. ;)

    So far I am not trying to balance items so that everything is symmetrical but rather create a state of perfect imbalance. IE: Make everything interesting to play with and give players room to create their own metagame.

    All weapons have a primary damage type. Fire, Elect, Pos, Neg etc.
    All Armor has a primary and secondary resistance along with a major/minor weakness.

    Say you have a sword that deals fire damage.
    Your opponent has Platemail that resists slashing and cold. This means it has a secondary weakness to fire.

    Your attacks lands, the swords slashing damage is reduced by 50% but they also take an additional 25% damage from the fire.

    The system is very much inspired by Pokemon/Persona/Shin Megami Tensei.

    My goal is to create interesting encounters around this system by creating mob encounters where the minions, lieutenants and bosses all have different but complimentary strengths and weaknesses so that combat becomes more than mashing fireball or missile swarm for hundreds of hours while also giving melee classes more variety in damage types to play with as well as provide meaningful choices.

    eg: "I am going to do this raid encounter and I know the raid boss is weak to divine damage but the minions that he is going to summon every 10% of his health lost are have a 75% resist to divine and but are 25% weak to acid.

    Should I take a sword that does divine damage so I can kill the boss asap or do I focus on wiping out the minions? What armor set should I wear? What spells do I focus on learning? Do I double down on one damage type or do I try and split my focus? What if I am in a team and the cleric can do one type of damage, the mage can do another and I just focus on tanking the boss and minions?"

    When coupled with adjusting the 100% immunity to damage type spells it should force players to have to make interesting choices rather than just getting 1 uber weapon, 1 uber suit of armor, buffing up with everything they got and mindlessly clicking targets.

    The overall goal is not to balance D&D but rather make a better video game. Which sounds really egotistical. If I succeed or not, only time will tell.



    ;)
    DerpCitySkipBittmanJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248


    @voidofopinion Oh my heavens no, I don't play with him. I can barely keep up with the action and follow his particular champion, let alone try to figure out the mechanics of it. Some things I am too old for. And he would have to carry me hard, because I would suck. So I'll stick to SWTOR pvp, and getting yelled at for not having my hotkeys mapped properly!

    But it's fun to see him play, and I think more than that, listen to his matches - I didn't realize how much I'd miss his 3 am howls, followed by shouts of "I'm unf-ing killable!" and other non-repeatables. (He spent a semester in college, some three hours away. quietest 5 months of our lives!)

    I am terribly sorry @Atrophiederic I thought I responded to you but it's been a little chaotic in the house over the weekend and I utterly lost track of what I have (and more aptly what I haven't) done.

    May I just say you are in good company at not being able to follow a particular champion. I played LoL for a good year and to tell you the truth, when the 4v4 or 5v5 combats would happen I would completely loose track of my character and everyone elses amidst all the spell effects and adrenaline.

    But shhhhh... Don't tell anyone I ever played with. I somehow convinced them I knew what I was doing.

    Also, I'm happy to hear you are so proactive and supportive of your sons gaming to the point you miss the late night cursing. My mother used to get this glassed look in her eyes and say "Be interesting or stop talking" which probably explains a lot... And the wife is a lot happier I no longer shout into a mic all night long when she has to get up early the next day for work.

    :)

    @DerpCity

    Speaking of things I forgot I had not responded to!

    I'm so happy you're enjoying Babylon 5!

    It does get a bit goofy on occasion (I hate that jack the ripper episode) but that's 90's sci-fi for you. However, the writing, acting, prosthetics, world building and overarching story are amazing. And the CGI holds up quite well in that "dated but stylized" way.

    There are certainly some lows in all departments but much of the time they involve things like Lyta Alexander doing her bad noir psychic act to where you don't know if it's the worst acting you have ever seen or if it's secretly brilliant.

    That being said... The world needs more everything Londo Mollari!

    :D
    DerpCityJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    It has been one wild week over in the void household!

    We have had a birthday, an illness, several celebrations and I haven't slept in 2 days so please do forgive the question of the week coming quite a bit late.

    But here goes!

    -------

    Neverwinter Nights is almost 16 years old and when compared to RPG's such as The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy IV and Divinity The Original Sin 2 it more than shows its age.

    Yet NWN has stood the test of time and is ready to capture the hearts and imaginations of yet another generation of gamers!

    Question of the week:

    What makes you keep coming back for more?


    ;)
    DerpCityJuliusBorisov
  • JFKJFK Member Posts: 214
    Hmm. I find it impossible to keep coming back, because I suppose I never really leave. Is that sad? :)

    -JFK
    AtrophiedericZwerkulesvoidofopinionJuliusBorisov
  • AtrophiedericAtrophiederic Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 147
    @JFK - why would that be sad? It's a great game, it always has been, and I see no signs of that changing anytime soon!
    ZwerkulesJFKvoidofopinionJuliusBorisov
  • JFKJFK Member Posts: 214
    @Atrophiederic true enough. I've been with NWN since before it was released, and things wax and wane of course. Right now, they are waxing quite nicely. :)

    -JFK
    AtrophiedericvoidofopinionJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    edited March 2018
    tgx said:


    To be perfectly honest? Every now and then I get the urge to replay ADwR. It's that single, definite set of modules that retains my interest in NWN. Only that. I haven't even played more than a handful of other modules. I have my fix, and then I'm off again, until being reminded of the story again, then I come back.

    Right now, I am thinking of writing a module myself though. I'm not sure how far I'll get in it, but my interest will first and foremost be story. And I guess roleplay.

    I always find myself on the side of "Building something" rather than "Playing something" when it comes to NWN so I am utterly out of a loop when it comes to the best user made modules but I just looked up A Dance with Rogues it sounds incredible!

    I'm kinda sad it's taken 12 years for it to get on my radar but I know of it now so thank you!
    Zwerkules said:

    What makes you keep coming back for more?

    Everything that makes NWN what it is.

    And everything that NWN isn't. ;)
    JFK said:

    Hmm. I find it impossible to keep coming back, because I suppose I never really leave. Is that sad? :)

    -JFK

    I think that simply means you found your jam.

    Besides, if you keep on leaving and coming back then you miss so much content and it is nigh impossible to catch up. Think of the poor people who have a decade to catch up on!

    AtrophiedericDerpCityJuliusBorisov
  • MrDamageMrDamage Member Posts: 210



    Question of the week:

    What makes you keep coming back for more?


    ;)

    You had me worried there Void. I look forward to the question of the week haha! I’ve just had a really strange vision lol, of me lying on a couch as a hopeless nwn Addict and you sitting in a big chair with a pipe in a psych ward asking me questions about my vice to try to better understand the mind of this growing group of mad people!
    This is an interesting one. Nwn for me has become like a favourite old pair of shoes I can put on and go for a play.

    The way the game looks and plays due to its underlying mechanics do it for me. The incredible modability of the game which basically means you can make it anything you want is also a collosal plus IMO
    I mean for example, I’m currently working on a kill Phill mod which involves cows shooting fireballs from their backsides. This is not only possible in nwn, but the amount of different ways it can be done is also limited only by the imagination. What other game can do this?
    I can make a completely unique character build with completely stat modded and appearance modded gear by me to my taste and wants and go play. This is awesome! The game uses a widely known rule set as a benchmark which enables everybody to kind of be on the same page and reference back to when strange situations arise.
    I also enjoy both receiving and providing support on the friendly non caustic forums.
    Go NWN !


    AtrophiedericDerpCityJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    MrDamage said:

    You had me worried there Void. I look forward to the question of the week haha! I’ve just had a really strange vision lol, of me lying on a couch as a hopeless nwn Addict and you sitting in a big chair with a pipe in a psych ward asking me questions about my vice to try to better understand the mind of this growing group of mad people!
    This is an interesting one. Nwn for me has become like a favourite old pair of shoes I can put on and go for a play.

    The way the game looks and plays due to its underlying mechanics do it for me. The incredible modability of the game which basically means you can make it anything you want is also a collosal plus IMO
    I mean for example, I’m currently working on a kill Phill mod which involves cows shooting fireballs from their backsides. This is not only possible in nwn, but the amount of different ways it can be done is also limited only by the imagination. What other game can do this?
    I can make a completely unique character build with completely stat modded and appearance modded gear by me to my taste and wants and go play. This is awesome! The game uses a widely known rule set as a benchmark which enables everybody to kind of be on the same page and reference back to when strange situations arise.

    I also enjoy both receiving and providing support on the friendly non caustic forums.
    Go NWN !

    I very much agree about the longevity modablility brings. I mean, people are still making maps and mods for the original Unreal Tournament and UT2004 has a staggeringly large player community because of it.

    Your Kill Phil (Part 1 & 2?) mod sounds both way more amusing and way more going to finish and be playable than the idea I had rolling around in my skull!

    I can't wait to see!

    Also, I hope you don't mind but you inspired me into poorly photoshopped action!


    DerpCityMrDamageAtrophiedericJuliusBorisov
  • DerpCityDerpCity Member, Moderator Posts: 303
    Part of the reason I keep coming back to NWN is because it is the ultimate casual experience, at least for me.

    I find it hard to get back into playing RTS's like Starcraft II, where unit control is a heavy influence and requires a lot of skill and precision to do effectively. I don't have the effort or competitive spirit to get good at League of Legends (If I'm Blitzcrank, I'm either missing all my pulls or landing them, and the latter usually concerns me). Combo-focused fighting games aren't my cup of tea most of the time (though I definitely enjoyed playing Skullgirls with a friend when they gifted it to me, and messing around with the Mugen Engine was pretty fun).

    However, I do heavily enjoy strategy games in the vein of Dungeon Keeper, where you're focusing more on amassing and maintaining a large and well thought out army and keeping it alive via spells rather than telling your units to do separate things all at once. Most RPG maps on SCII are very casual and have the heroes function in a similar vein to the "four spells + one passive" approach League of Legends takes, though in a PvE environment (and typically without the jerks). And I personally prefer Super Smash Brothers over combo fighters, where there are less button and directional input required at a time to perform specials and combos, and where movement and air play (at least in my limited perspective) is much more emphasized. I don't mean

    Neverwinter Nights falls under the second category in most scenarios, in my eyes, because a lot of input isn't really required of the player in most situations or isn't very complex. Perhaps its different once you take PvP into account, but that's not how I play the game. Playing a martial class amounts to a lot of watching your guy swing at another guy with juicy sound effects, the occasional voice clip, and good animations that make it fun to watch. Once you get knockdown/disarm/etc, then your experience has the added bonus of pressing the appropriate F-key and clicking the enemy when required, or changing combat modes if you need more AC or more damage, or activating Barbarian Rage when needed. A divine caster is usually as effective as a martial character at the former with the added requirement that they need to prebuff, but also can cast powerful offensive spells, most of which being either AoE and Instadeath, and all spells usually require a F-key and clicking the enemy if your concentration is good enough to cast the spell in combat. Arcane casters are loaded with summons, powerful buffs, and even more powerful offensive spells than a Cleric, meaning the only thing necessary to stay alive is to stay out of sight and make sure you don't blast your great wall of pets (I can't wait for when they add the ability to have multiple summons at once). The most skill is needed to play classes or builds that don't fit into the above categories or have some other glaring weakness; for example, Rogues, Archers, and Bards typically need to reposition frequently to take advantage of their innate skills (Positioning for sneak attacks and to not die / kiting to abuse their range advantage / enter a position they can support their allies best).

    I don't mean to say neither NWN or any of the other games I've mentioned are devoid of any skill, but the skill requirement to enjoy them isn't as high as the games in the first real paragraph (especially considering most of NWN's mechanics are tempered by complete random chance, which is basically the end-all be-all of whether or not you live or die). This, in my opinion, is a good thing. Successfully applying your skills can be very rewarding if you've been working on them for a long time, but there's a point for me where it stops becoming more enjoyable, and even winning isn't that big of a deal if I had fun in my failures.

    This is just one of my reasons, but this post is really long now because I don't know how to condense ideas into short responses. Besides, lots of my reasons for sticking with it have been said by others already, and I'm typing this while really tired, so I should probably stop at this point.
    MrDamageAtrophiedericJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    @DerpCity

    NWN is a truly fantastic zone out game. Whether its spending hundreds of hours in the toolset or a mod, it is so easy to open up NWN and loose all sense of time. There are very few games that you can pick up for just a quick play and suddenly years have passed before your eyes.

    :)
    DerpCityAtrophiedericJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    Happy Tuesday one and all!

    It seems like so soon after the last question but I promise you it is a new week and so a new question of the week! Bye bye old question... we hardly knew thee!

    Onward and upward with this weeks questions!

    Who did you most enjoy saving the world from!

    Do you like the dark and terrifying? The sympathetic villain? Or perhaps the hidden, insidious evil that always quietly menaces from the edges of the map!

    Who are your favorite video game villains and why?

    :)
    JuliusBorisovAtrophiedericMrDamage
  • Dark_AnsemDark_Ansem Member Posts: 992
    edited March 2018

    Happy Tuesday one and all!

    It seems like so soon after the last question but I promise you it is a new week and so a new question of the week! Bye bye old question... we hardly knew thee!

    Onward and upward with this weeks questions!

    Who did you most enjoy saving the world from!

    Do you like the dark and terrifying? The sympathetic villain? Or perhaps the hidden, insidious evil that always quietly menaces from the edges of the map!

    Who are your favorite video game villains and why?

    :)

    Not in order of preference
    1. Magus (Chrono Trigger): because he turns to villanious hero and is basically a Vegeta with MAGICK! Also, do your stuff right and you end up seeing a lot more of him;
    2. Dracula (Castlevania): ah, the good old Prince of Darkness. I grew up with the classics so this had to be on the list;
    3. Long John Silver: I blame not only the book and the Disney movie, but also the terrible 1985 game and every game that was inspired by it, like Monkey Island;
    4. The Overlord, from Overlord series: because you are him;
    5. Illidan (Warcraft): not a real villain, at least after the Frozen Throne: I was captivated by his trademark quote "Lordship of the world was never my purpose, only the power, only the magic";
    6. Mephistopheles (Hordes of the Underdark): malicious, awesome voice, devious and cunning, and ,aster of timely betrayal, what's not to like?
    7. Ganon (Zelda): because he's implacable and has made pigs fearsome;
    8. Sorceress Ultimecia (FFVIII): my real first introduction to RPG villains, I'm still debating the plot - I still prefer her controlling Edea;
    9. Sephiroth (FFVII): despite the obvious mommy issues, it's hard not to like him with scenes such as burning nibelheim;
    10. Xehanort and his emanations (Kingdom Hearts): he's basically the Palpatine of the videogame Star Wars saga. Only with keyblades in place of lightsabers;
    11. Lavos (Chrono Trigger): because it is one of the rare examples of an animal with a purely instinctual destructive behaviour, rather than malice - at least, until you play the remake and the sequel but, by then, it has turned into something completely different;
    12. The Transcendent One: death incarnate fighting for survival. WOW. I don't need to say anything more;
    13. Kreia (The Sith Lords): NO SPOILERS
    14. The Elder God (Legacy of Kain): again, NO SPOILERS
    Post edited by Dark_Ansem on
    AtrophiedericJuliusBorisovMrDamagevoidofopinion
  • AtrophiedericAtrophiederic Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 147
    I'd have to say, my favorite villain-type so far is Darth Malgus from The Old Republic. Because, you know, he's got the voice and he's got the chops to back it up! Jedi-killing machine, y'all!
    JuliusBorisovMrDamagevoidofopinion
  • MrDamageMrDamage Member Posts: 210
    Awesome question Void, but really hard to answer! If only you had included movies and stories, but rules are rules!
    I'm cheating abit here but
    1/ Umbrella corporation-resident evil.

    I haven't actually played that game I must admit, but have seen the movies and that is one awesome plot and baddie. The earlier films always left me wondering, yeah how in the hell could the Umbrella corp of built all those facilities in the few days that the epidemic roasted the planet,
    ...then you find out it was them that actually released the virus to reshape the world under their control so they had prepared by building everything before hand. Just....wow. I really enjoy a great blindsiding plot of epic proportions such as this one.


    2/ Halo- more a lifeform then a baddie, 'The flood'.

    A bio mass assimilating affliction that has the ability to tap into brains and stuff. Huge bio mass growths with living humanoid hosts/ trapped and protruding from within, just terrifying.

    3/ Army men RTS- Colonel Blintz of the Tan.

    An excellent tactician lol. Ok, I just mentioned it cause I really like that game!
    JuliusBorisovDerpCityAtrophiedericvoidofopinion
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Oh, the community magazine had an issue about villains:

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65181/wild-surge-issue-4-the-villains-issue
    DerpCityMrDamageAtrophiedericvoidofopinion
  • DerpCityDerpCity Member, Moderator Posts: 303
    edited March 2018
    Honestly, Pokemon villains have been horribly dark (at least compared to the fact they're in kids games) ever since the 4th generation (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum), and it makes it so much better when you beat them. Pokemon spoilers below.
    Cyrus is a man nearly devoid of any emotion, and he plans on capturing the legendary pokemon of time and space (Who, when they fight each other in the anime, literally start ripping apart reality at its seams and apparently the legendary of time's mere heartbeat keeps time flowing) to destroy the universes and make a new one devoid of all emotion. Fun fact, in Platinum the only reason he fails is because the third member of the godly trio (who was banished to another world for its violence) comes in, forces him into its universe that completely defies physics and logic, and frees the other two legendaries.

    Ghetsis is a manipulative behind the scenes leader of a group of Pokemon rights extremists who raised his son, named N for some reason, to be their literal king, who can also talk to Pokemon for some reason. N is an incredibly great villain because he isn't one. He genuinely believes that his goals are righteous, and by the end of his final battle with you he comes to terms with the fact he was wrong, at least in his scope, and had been horribly confused by what your Pokemon had been telling them. Then Ghetsis basically comes in, lpretty much calls him worthless, claims he will become the true ruler of the world, wrecks your team with overpowered Pokemon if you aren't careful (keep in mind you have the legendary on your team at this point), etc etc. He loses, obviously, but in the second game of this generation, he is literally the only villain in Pokemon to try to kill you on screen by having the third legendary of the trio try to impale you with a ring of ice spikes, and you're only saved by N's sudden appearance.

    Lysandre is a rich scientist dude who looks like an obvious villain by his mere design and isn't really interesting until you realize he unlocked an ancient weapon that is going to kill off about 90% of the world's population and kill all pokemon. Depending on the game you're playing, he's either fueling it off of the Pokemon of Life or the Pokemon of Death. I don't know if it changes, but if he's using the Pokemon of Death his grunts prevent you from entering an area because "you're too young to see whats going on over here," and IIRC another one nearly can't stand listening to it. Considering the place is a burial ground for pokemon, and the legendary pokemon of death kills everything within a miles radius when to takes its recurrent nap, I'm going to say everything over in that area is being used to power the weapon and is dying horribly. Jeez. Also, the only way of escaping this fate is to be super important and intelligent and stuff or join his evil team, Team Flare. The only way to do that is to pay 5 million Poke (which is basically Yen I guess). Lysandre's reason for killing everyone is partially because he hates how greedy people are. What a hypocrite.

    Outside of ya boi Guzma, who is hands down my favorite villain in the series due to how funny and hard as hell he is to fight, but on the "villain" scale he is nowhere near as terrifying as Lusamine. Lusamine is kind of similar to Ghetsis in that she runs a seemingly innocent organization (Team Aether, running an artificially made island to protect endangered Pokemon), but her goals are to bring back the Ultra Beasts. They're basically legendary Pokemon... but like, they aren't? They're weird, and its literally the point of them that they are. In the game, you realize she's a little too fascinated with them when one breaks through to your world and you have to fight it, in which she says she wants to protect it. Later, you find out she's the mother of one of your best friends in the game, who was protecting the game's legendary (a little nebula little guy named Cosmog, who she calls Nebby) from her. Unfortunately, when you go to confront Lusamine, not only did she hire Guzma to beat up your if you're not careful (Ah, yes, thank you for 1 shotting my water type with a water type move and not even needing to critical hit me with a move that crits a lot, yeah THANKS), but then she not only takes Nebby away from her daughter, who IIRC she disowned in the previous scene, but reveals she has a collection of cryogenically frozen Pokemon that she calls her babies and actually succeeds in nearly draining Nebby to an inch of its life and unleash the Ultra Beasts upon the world. By the way, the Ultra Beasts, in ages past, required literally 5 legendaries to stop them from destroying pretty much the world, and the UB's are not just individual pokemon, but entire species. Its implied that one of them literally ate someone, and in the post game someone from the third generation games fell out of an Ultra Wormhole without their memory and was conscripted to the government with the sole purpose of luring it out and risk getting eaten so they can stop it. Its a kids game, right?
    Basically, I love villains who are dark in settings that shouldn't be dark. Actually, now that I think about it, there's a lot of dark moments in Pokemon. Huh.
    Post edited by DerpCity on
    MrDamageAtrophiedericvoidofopinionJuliusBorisov
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    edited March 2018
    @Dark_Ansem

    Thank you for sharing that huge list o' bad guys! Some extremely awesome picks and people I had forgotten about.

    Kreia is an especially dark horse that you don't see mentioned enough!

    It's also funny you should mention Sorceress Ultimecia as I just picked up Final Fantasy VIII on the Vita and have been playing the heck out of that again. I havent played it since it first came out and despite owning the updated edition on Steam I just seem to find more time for JRPG's on mobile platforms.

    :)

    _________

    @Atrophiederic

    Another fantastic KotOR bad guy!

    I should really replay that series as well. No one tells you that the great thing about growing old and losing ones memory is that you get to experience so many great games and movies all over again.

    _________

    @MrDamage

    I find Umbrella in the films is actually a lot more coherent and pointedly evil than in the games. The video game universe of Resident Evil is this madness network of retcons, alternate storylines, official rewrites, unofficial rewrites and a knotty tangle of thread even Capcom can't unravel at this point.

    Fun games to play and there are some really great lore summary's on YouTube if you find yourself with a couple of hours spare one dark night.

    Also, I havent seen anyone mention Army Men in over a decade!

    _________

    @JuliusBorisov

    Wild Surge is always a fun read!

    Thanks for the great link!

    _________

    @DerpCity

    Pokemon in general is pretty dark. A post apocalyptic dog fighting simulator where at one point the main bad guy attempts to commit Pokégenocide. Not to mention a whole bunch of those adorable creatures would be proper nightmare fuel if they existed in the real world. Heck, proper nightmare fuel in the Pokéworld.
    JuliusBorisovDerpCityMrDamage
  • Dark_AnsemDark_Ansem Member Posts: 992
    edited March 2018
    @voidofopinion then I'm glad I didn't spoil it for you. Well not much anyway, if you've played Dissidia.
    JuliusBorisovvoidofopinion
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