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Horror movies; Are we sure this is entertaining?
Topic Started: Nov 3 2006, 11:42 PM (480 Views)
Eral
Kopi Luwak
*spoilers*spoilers*spoilers*

There is a DVD on our kitchen bench caused "Hostel". It has Quentin Tarantino's name on it, and Eli someone else. It's a horror film, apparently. The basic premise of the film is that two men get tortured. Mr. FPS says it's based on an actual event. Sort of. The cover shows a man having a drill put in his mouth. He says that's not in the film, kind of disgustedly, I might add. He's going to lend it to his siter, who wants to watch it.
Now obviously, Quentin really enjoys a torture scene, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, but I am wondering whether a whole film on it is exactly healthy.

Intellectually, I understand the thing about enjoying being scared, but, umm, watching torture is fun? :blink: At what point is watching people being cut up with a saw going to be boring? And what comes after that? Snuff films? :unsure:
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
Well after a while people get bored and they don't just want to be scared, they want to be shocked, disgusted, and revolted.

Personally I refer a more psychological approach, but most consumers would rather not have to put their minds to use.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Blood_Raven
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Come burn with me.
I prefered to be scared. I don't like slasher movies, they = lame.

I'm not on much now that NWN2 is in my hands. For those who wonder why I have not been around much.
TheFrozen North forums. Where it's at.
Mood for today: Perfection
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
:o

Have they fixed the AI? Do they still have those terrible henchmen? Can you play as a mage and not get killed by goblins as all your summoned creatures stand around waiting for you to use a weapon? Are the romances and interactions still carefully planned and yet unfinished?
IS IT BETTER THAN NWN1?

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Blood_Raven
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Come burn with me.
To save myself a lot of chat, see what I have posted at our forums.
TheFrozen North forums. Where it's at.
Mood for today: Perfection
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
I've got to Neverwinter and am doing the first quest there.

But Eral, the AI still needs tweaking. The henchman still act brain dead at times. And it is a system hog. Even top-end PCs are struggling with NWN2.

Better than NWN1? Not convinced yet. Probably after many patches though.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
BR, you don't appear to say anything. :unsure: I may have been looking at the wrong thread. I need more info than you dislike people whining. :lol:

The system chewing up is kind of de rigeur: I believe it is a conspiracy with the creators of video cards, myself. The henchmen are still sucky? :o :'( Story? Spell animations? Ridiculously high-powered swords? (I hope so.) I shall go and read some reviews.
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Blood_Raven
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Come burn with me.
Eral
Nov 6 2006, 12:48 AM
BR, you don't appear to say anything. :unsure: I may have been looking at the wrong thread. I need more info than you dislike people whining. :lol:

The system chewing up is kind of de rigeur: I believe it is a conspiracy with the creators of video cards, myself. The henchmen are still sucky? :o :'( Story? Spell animations? Ridiculously high-powered swords? (I hope so.) I shall go and read some reviews.

Reading comphrension -5? :o

Many threads there that discuss it, especially Spoilers.
TheFrozen North forums. Where it's at.
Mood for today: Perfection
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Since this topic is hijacked.

When I say system hog I mean systems that can cope comfortably with TES 4:Oblivion are struggling, which is odd as the graphics aren't as good as Oblivion. Nearly as nice, but not quite.

The story, hmm, I haven't got that far but each area is very small, and generally you only have a straightforward clear cut path to follow. This means that the story is very linear, and so far has been standard fare for a CRPG. Fed ex, rescue, retrieve type quests.

Spell animations, are OK from what I've seen. Nothing that's made me go WOW that is SO KEWL.

The henchman themselves appear to be more fleshed out chracterwise, but you do find that in fights they sometimes don't join the fray or when getting mobbed stand still and take a beating. I've never found spellcasting AI that brilliant and often take over the spellcaster and control them manually.


"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Deekin is back as a merchant when you get to Neverwinter, but they were too tight to give him any voice acting or particularly funny lines which is a shame because I liked him alot. :( :( :(

The female voices aren't very good as they used 1 or maybe 2 women to do ALL the voices.

And the fight inside Duncan's pub between Neeshka, Qara and Khelgar has probably been the best bit of the game so far.

"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
It sounds just like NWN1. :( (Oh, the pain.)

Sorry, BR, I thought you meant read your opinions. I'll go read everyone elses'. :blush:

By the way, that's not a hijack, it's a natural divergence. I'm famous for them. They usually take longer, but there you go. ;D
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
I've read reviews that say the story is good. :huh: I hesitate still.

If only there was a demo. The patch is already available, I note. :lol:
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
The story? Haven't seen that much, in fact I was getting very annoyed by the initial Neverwinter quests.

They've been trying to copy BG2 and it shows, party banters, evil ways of doing quests. But I'm not giving away too much saying that you have 2 choices in Neverwinter, work for the watch (which I did) or work for the thieves.

Now, all I did was fight wave after wave of the same spawn of mage thief, dual-wield thief and multiple sword thief, all of which can deal out huge sneak attacks. Each spawn is around 5 or 6 total.

So me (basic melee) build, and the dwarf fighter engage 2, and the AI will start off with a pretty much unstoppable lightening bolt and web. The rest of thieves mob my rogue and mage, and they get clobbered badly. Pretty much each time. NPCs can't die (I'm playing Hard Core rules), they spring back to 1 hit point when the fight is over. If you let the AI control spellcasters, you will pretty much end up fireballing your own party.
Even trying to run away with spellcasters is not really an option, my main character ended up using potions I didn't want to use up, including my one and only 700gp heal. Grrrrr. :penguin:
(Basically you control one character in your party and the AI controls the rest for you). I have tried changing their behaviour (you can fine tune what you want them to do) but its had little effect. Having them on puppet mode is the only way to manage sadly, but it gets tedious.

The games idea of a HARD fight in these areas is spawning 2 mobs of the group above, but with all the tougher dual-wielders. FANTASTIC.

In the end after dying, and forgetting to save I had to redo one quest again, and tried with me, dwarf and a druid that basically shapechanges and fights that way. I had a much easier time, even with only 3 characters.

Also NEVER buff before entering a building, everything gets removed, how annoying is that? I lost alot of buffs doing that.

And just like NWN1, I've been able to wade through any tough fight with a potion of speed, bull's strength, bear's endurance, barkskin and bless.
By then I had stoneskin as well to deal with the thief boss, and she was dead without too much trouble at all.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Blood_Raven
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Come burn with me.
One problem I have is you can not force attack people. How am I suppose to follow the evil ways of a murderer and pillager?
TheFrozen North forums. Where it's at.
Mood for today: Perfection
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
I read a complaint at the NWN site that the developers have focussed too much on the single campaign, and not on multi-player, when NWN1 was a MP based game, how outrageous that they have ignored their fan base. :rolf: <_< I also read complaints that it is too much BG2. :o :bash:

Why is taking control of your party members tedious? Is it not point click, we all move, pause for battle, fighters go ahead and bash and you tell spellcasters what to do? Why am I hearing about only being able to control one character at a time? :blink: :'(

The AI was the reason I stopped playing the game. I played without henchmen fairly successfully as a fighter, but mages needed the buggers, and it was too frustrating. (Really hated that drinking the frigging potions thing. A fan came up with that as an improvement. :rolf: :4Udrew: ) Can you play without henchmen?

BR, the right to kill helpless civilians is the stock in trade of all good CRPGs. It's an affront that you can't. :o
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Blood_Raven
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Come burn with me.
You should visit the Bioware forums and watch all the cry babies and whiners vent their so called displeasure of the game. Everything from graphics to bugs. :rolleyes:
TheFrozen North forums. Where it's at.
Mood for today: Perfection
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The drama, the passion! I liked the people who accused the graphics-complainers of being un-CRPG, because real CRPGers don't care about graphics. :lol:
The bugs complaints were heart-rending, though. So many people who seem to expect there are no bugs in a shipped game. Can't remember the last time I didn't load up a new game, and go straight to the site for the first patch. :gramps:
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Eral
Nov 9 2006, 01:13 AM
Why is taking control of your party members tedious? Is it not point click, we all move, pause for battle, fighters go ahead and bash and you tell spellcasters what to do? Why am I hearing about only being able to control one character at a time? :blink: :'(

Can you play without henchmen?

Yes, if it only worked that way it would be great. I can't really explain it any other way than it doesn't and it its very tedious. BTW you can only control one of your characters at a time, as they become the "leader", and the rest are controlled by the computer and end up doing dumb things unless you put them in puppet or near puppet mode so you have to do alot of the work. If it gets ironed out in a patch with better AIs and stuff I can see it being really good so fingers crossed for that.

And if you fancy playing solo you can do that, but I think you'll get mobbed far too easily. Don't forget you get diminishing returns for being higher level thanks to the CR system in 3.5ed rules. I remember doing this in SoU and found I was only at ever at most 1 level ahead of a 2 member party, and by then end I was still only level 12 (and I used level squatting to try and boost XP rewards)

Just like NWN1 really, warrior types by far have a much easier experience at lower levels. And they've really nerfed summons for NWN2 in that they don't last very long at all. They've removed the panther familiar as well :(

I have now found a paladin, and with 3 meleers and a shapeshifted druid we are just cruising through the game. Because the warrior AI is good enough (I only leave healing potions in the inventory) I don't mind letting them do their own thing, so I can focus on controlling the druid spellcasting when needed. At higher level I might try the sorceror (who has a very retarded spell selection, pretty much all damaging evocation spells) as at least I'd get to pick the remaining spells.

Funny thing is I am actually really enjoying the game (well apart from the thieves). Each NPC has been given a nice fleshed out personal quest, and it seems I'm finally starting to get into the proper part of the game.

So far my game has been relatively bug free, quests have worked as they should (afaik) and I've only had to reload once when a minor cutscene didn't work.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
Well thanks for all the info. I'm glad they've fixed up the flat story lines for henchmen: finding their quest items lying about in barrels was reeeeeeeeally disappointing. However, the news that party controls are still the same conglomeration of horrors fills me with despair. Why? Why did they do it to us again? *sobs bitterly*

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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Well, after you get to around level 8 the game actually starts if you catch my drift. Its got that I want to see what's next factor which is a big plus.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised about how you recruit one NPC, even if it is a little unrealistic how they can become level 10+ in a second. :o

One real drag with this game is that alot of the levels are fighting the same group of foes, over and over. Really detracts from the experience when you see the same monsters over and over again. They don't even bother mixing up the creature types.

A really feel like saying something about the music, as there aren't new many new ones for NWN2, its mostly the of the NWN1 ones recycled. It feels odd listening to the HotU Underdark theme in an open area.

Sadly this and the graphics, really do point to a rush job, and I know you mentioned not caring about graphics Eral, but in a sense they do matter if you are going to use relatively high-end system requirements. Never mind the ongoing developments in 3d graphics.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
I think graphics are really important: we do want to look at pretty games, and I was amazed that people suggested it doesn't matter. (Like, since when??) The fact that the game requires high-end machines but then doesn't show the reason, is not good advertising. When I finally was able to play Oblivion at highest resolution (for about half an hour before my game collapsed in stress exhaustion) I could see why it has such ridiculous requirements. (Confirmed in my view about the conspiracy, though.) Bioware is not doing anyone any favours by not giving the game time. Players will wait, and the companies will make more money with a good game.
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Looking at the IE series, no-one is going to say the graphics are what sold those games - it was all about the story.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
I loved those graphics. Absolutely nothing wrong with them. ;D
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
I'm getting into the crafting in NWN2, which they do lay on with a trowel, but unlike NWN1 these skills actually help you rather than being a sideline/online thing.

Most of the NPCs come with crafting skill points so you don't have to bother with them yourself if you don't want to. But you do have to give them the right feats, which I overlooked.

But I just made a Belt of Stone Giant Strength (+6 Str), which is pretty cool.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
You are just trying to tempt me. :lol: May I say, it's working. I warn you though, in the event I do succumb, when I start moaning and bitching about the AI you will regret that you ever changed my mind. ;D
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