Holding Pattern.

Dear snow, thanks for that four hour drive yesterday. Nothing like leaving work early, at 2pm, and finally getting home at 6pm. That was awesome…

On to a happy topic, gaming, I find myself in somewhat of a standstill. Currently I play EVE, WoW, and a bit of Puzzle Quest and online Poker. I have PotBS on my computer, but little draw to play it. NWN2 MotB is there, but I’m waiting for the 9000 series of graphics cards to come out from Nvidia before I return to that game. Same delay issue for getting The Witcher, or returning to LoTRO. I’m a bit burned out on Civilization 4, done with EQ2, done with Sword of the New World. Mythos is still there, but I just never find myself loading it up, and when I do, I find after about 30 minutes I’m done with it once again. Due to the 180 many people are pulling with Tabula Rasa, my interest has been raised, but I think I’ll wait a bit more before jumping in. Some people report boredom setting in after level 15ish. I have little interest in Hellgate:London, not sure why, but it just does not seem that appealing right now. Still waiting for WAR, and maybe AoC.

I think that about covers it. I know I’ll be playing Fire Emblem after Christmas on the Wii, but who knows for how long. I only play WoW about 5 hours a week, and EVE 4-10 depending on what’s going on. Basically I’m waiting for something to come along and really grab me, to make me look forward to loading it up regularly and being entertained each time. Hopefully WAR is that game, but with all the crazy stuff happening in the gaming world, I’m not betting the farm on that one. Anyone else find themselves jumping from game to game is small spurts, just stuck in a holding pattern?

NWN2 finished, final thoughts.

I finally finished the original campaign in Neverwinter Nights 2, and overall the game was well worth the time. The game had some very challenging spots, a great story, and enough twists and surprises to make it worthwhile to finish. The ending was unfortunately somewhat of a letdown, wrapping what was an overall complex story up too quickly, without enough detail.

The highlight for me was a sequence of events near the end, in which you must defend your castle against an undead siege. The first set piece sees you defending the walls from siege towers, each one spewing undead on to your walls. Your main character, along with two others, get assigned six NPC fighters, making the battle a bit more epic, with each side filling the screen. The siege continues inside the walls, as undead try to push their way through the gate. Playing a Paladin really paid off here, with his numerous bonuses, especially ‘turn undead’, which often stunned multiple targets. The final ‘stage’ of the siege has you fighting a large shadow beast, one which killed me the first time around. I had to replay the previous two parts since I forgot to save, but soon enough stage three came around and down went the shadow.

The one downside to having such a high level (18-20) party towards the end is that each spell caster usually unleashes screen-filling spells during most fights, resulting in a huge hit to FPS and your general ability to follow what is happening on the screen. Throw in giant summons, like a greater earth elemental, and certain fights were nearly impossible to control. Worst of all was the final encounter, as the last enemy was huge, with lots of spells and effects all around. I can only imaging how this will get worse in the expansion, when you START with high level characters that only get more epic.

Overall though, I highly recommend Neverwinter Nights 2 to anyone looking for a good solo RPG. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but as long as you have the hardware, it’s very enjoyable.

Up next, I have my eye on Fire Emblem, Radiant Dawn for the Wii. I loved the GBA Fire Emblem, and the Wii needs some love, plus going from the computer to a console is always a good change, as each platform has it’s norms that you don’t realize until you make the switch. I was leaning towards picking up “The Witcher” for the PC, but I think I’ll wait for a few patches, and the new Nvidia cards to come out before giving that one a shot.

Gameplay vs crashing, when to call it quits?

If a game is giving you technical difficulties, be it low FPS, distortion, texture errors, freezing or crashing, at what point do you just get fed up and quit?

That’s my current dilemma with NWN2, as I’m deep into chapter 3 of the original campaign, loving the gameplay and story. The problem is the technical difficulties have increased, at times making the game unplayable as shortly as 15 minutes after a restart. At other times, randomly, I can get a good hour or so in without noticing anything funny happening. The game itself is a blast, and would rate very high in my top games if it ran without a single issue.

So at what point do the technical issues become so great that they overwhelm a great game and make you quit? I’m already resigned to waiting on a new graphics card before I start the MotB expansion campaign, even though I currently have a card that should be more than capable (7900GTX). I’m hoping that it’s just something random with NWN2 and my card, and that a new one will make all the issues go away.

I quit LoTRO a while back because of similar issues, even though at the time the gameplay was still very enjoyable. Quitting LoTRO was a bit easier because I knew I would go back, and I knew that when I do go back, it will be a better game than I left it thanks to all the content updates and patches.

I’m trying to finish up NWN2 because I’m deep into the story (which is great) and if I stop now I’ll likely forget most of it when I come back. So my decision, in terms of NWN2, is made, I’ll just tough it out. How many of you have ever had something similar, where you wanted to love a game, but technical issues forced you to quit and move on to something else, either for the time being or permanently?

Halloween and Bioware, but not related.

Just a quick note about NWN2: Make sure to complete the Blade Golem quest in the original campaign, the dialog from Grobnar (the gnome bard) is priceless. Really good stuff, well worth the bit of effort it takes to track the pieces down.

So the big news going around is that Bioware has (not) announced their new MMO, which will be star wars based. I’m not sure how I feel about that, not being the world’s biggest star wars fan. I never played KoTOR, or SWG, so I’m not an expert on how exactly star wars games play out, other than knowing they get panned whenever they release one for a console. I do play EVE, which is space based, and I enjoy that greatly, so I’m not completely against a space based MMO. Although I doubt Bioware’s game will be purely ship based like EVE, it will be interesting to see the mix between character and ship based content. But considering the game won’t be out for some time, and the fact we don’t even have a name or a single screen shot, we will have plenty of time to break the details down in the future.

Moving on, here is my breakdown of Halloween. When you are young, it’s a great day because you get a ton of candy and get to dress up as your favorite cartoon character, running from one scary house to the other. Then you hit that age were you are way too cool to dress up, too old to collect candy, and you just don’t really care for Halloween. And then you hit college, and Halloween becomes that magic day were girls are allowed to dress in lingerie in public and no one objects (but actually, would males object if that was a daily occurrence?), one of the great ‘excuse to party’ days for four years. And finally, the last stage of Halloween, the eerie stage where you are too old to dress up but no one told you, and you get dragged out by your wife to some goofy party wearing one of those awful ‘adult’ costumes. Oh and then you die, which in Halloween terms, means you resemble a decoration… odd.

NWN2 praise, EQ2 bashing.

NWN2 is awesome. So fanboi-ish, I know, but I’m really having a great time with the game, issues and all.

***Minor Spoiler Alert***

I finally made it to the keep, and so far so good. I was not able to do more than see the options it presents, but they seem very deep. I’m curious to see how the keep plays into the story going forward, whether it takes a central role or is merely a side-quest type option. So far the hints have been that it will play a major part in some upcoming battle/event, hopefully that does indeed happen.

I also really like that you see a very natural progression with your character. In the somewhat typical plot of ‘small farm town boy/girl to uber-god’ progression, NWN2 handles it well. For instance, you start gaining respect in the city by cleaning up the slum that is the docks district, which in turns gives you the opportunity to work in the merchant district. Proving yourself there gets you the chance to be noticed by the ‘higher ups’ of the city. You become a squire for a good reason, and that leads you to do some important things for the city of Neverwinter, which in turn puts you in good standing with the King, making further rewards seem logical. Perhaps not earth-shattering stuff, but clearly a lot of time was spent on the story and getting it right, and I think it really shows.

***Spoiler over***

If anyone can explain to me why alt-tabbing to get the FPS back up to 25-35ish from 10, and also fixing weapon glow and spell effect graphic errors works, please please do. My only guess is it has something to do with resetting the memory, either the RAM itself or maybe the graphics card memory. If that IS the case, does that mean something might be off with my memory, or is it simply an issue with NWN2? Overall though it’s a somewhat trivial annoyance, as alt-tabbing is quick, NWN2 pauses itself when you do it, and I generally don’t have to do it more than once every 20-30 minutes. Still, if I could get it fixed, that would be a nice.

As for the currently neglected game, EQ2, I have set a personal goal of level 30, at which point if the game is still ‘eh’ to me, I plan on quitting. I want to give EQ2 a fair shot, and I think level 30 is more than enough time. So far two things bother me about the game, the graphics and the combat.

To me the style of the graphics is somewhat poor, especially the character and mob models. The skeleton NPC model really reminds me of the mid-90s in terms of style/quality. Now maybe it has some really complex details and such, but at a glance, its very meh. Same goes for a lot of the other mobs, the wolves, snakes, etc. Not exactly terrible, but nothing even close to special. The armor and weapon graphics are nice, with some good detail in the armor, but sadly coming from WoW and LoTRO, they don’t compare. Now I know that might not be fair, considering LoTRO is a newer game, but still the comparison is there. Above all else though, the game runs poorly for what it is. Nothing that I see on screen justifies the game running so poorly on my system, and being so inept in tuning it down. WoW, imo, looks better, and never drops below 60 FPS for me, even in a 40 person raid with spell effects going off. EQ2 choked up in a major city, and that was without the screen being full of characters. I can’t imagine how far you would have to drop the graphics to make a raid even close to playable. And speaking of dropping the graphics down, the game looks like complete trash on the lower settings, yet still gives my older comp fits in certain spots. I swear at the lowest setting you could mistake an EQ2 screen shot for Meridian 59, its that bad.

As for the combat, while again not awful, it just does not do much for me. It’s not exactly slow, but it feels somewhat unresponsive and automated. I generally get the feeling that if I can’t beat a mob, I have no chance, and if I can beat a mob, I will always do so. It’s not like I can pull off the perfect combo of skills and that will be enough to take a tougher mob down, and that feels wrong. Hopefully this changes further in, but at level 20 now that is how it goes.

I think I really want to like EQ2 because of how highly so many people talk about it, and how supposedly after WoW it does so many things right. IMO, right now, the game is not even in the same league as WoW, or even LoTRO. Again I don’t want to jump the gun here and condemn it, hence the level 30 goal, so hopefully things pick up and EQ2 shows me why it should be in the same sentence as WoW and others.

Mythos beta, and more NWN2

Ah what a weekend. Redsox in the world series, Patriots 7-0 and blowing everyone out, BC ranked #2 in the country, the Celtics season about to start with the new big three, and the Bruins… well I think the Bruins have started playing, rumor has it hockey is back on. It’s a great time to be a sports fan in the New England area. Everyone jump on the bandwagon!

Back to a topic most readers here actually care about, it’s been an interesting weekend of gaming. I played a little Mythos thanks to Bildo, and I must say it’s not half bad. The graphics are very decent, although nothing groundbreaking, the sounds is on point, and overall the gameplay is good in a ‘break your mouse from clicking’ way. It’s nothing earth shattering, but it’s a decent Diablo clone. If I have one grip with it, and this might be improved in time, is that the game is limited in your character choices, with only three races and three classes. I found myself wishing for the distinct variety that Diablo provided, but like I said, hopefully they expand on that and add some more choices. The item balance also might need some work, as I had a few drops that were WAY above my current gear at the time, and when I got them they made the next few levels trivial. While it’s really nice to see that uber item drop, it does ruin the next hour or so in terms of challenge. Bottom line though, the game is certainly worth trying if you are a Diablo fan looking for some quick action, and from what I saw its bug free and runs very well, no graphic errors or lag.

In NWN2 news, I’m currently a few hours into act 2 in the original campaign and really loving it. Without spoiling anything here (I hope), I really have to say the trial part was great. It featured tons of interesting dialog choices, twists and turns, and some really great voice acting. A very unique experience in gaming that was very enjoyable. The story itself has really picked up, and the quests are well written and full of tough choices. The game makes it very easy to role play a good guy (like my Paladin), a neutral keep everything balanced character, or a more evil ‘in it for me’ type, both in terms of dialog choices and actual ways to complete quests. What I have found most interesting is that I am really enjoying sticking to my character, and trying to always be lawful and good, even if sometimes those choices don’t seem like the ‘best’ way to solve a problem. It puts the party into some tougher situations, and perhaps does not always lead to the greatest rewards, but it adds a great deal of immersion seeing realistic reactions from the game world when you always try to play it straight. It also makes me want to go back and play an evil character just to see how the different choices effect the overall game. For anyone reading this who has not given this game a try, I HIGHLY recommend it. Even though it has some technical issues, the gameplay and story more than make up for this.

Group work.

When I think of Dungeons and Dragons, one of the first things that come to mind is a group of players sitting around a table and adventuring together. From its very foundation D&D is designed to be a group activity. Each class serves a very specific role, and is fairly limited to it. Rogues pick locks and disarm traps, clerics heal, fighters fight, mages cast spells. When taken outside of that base roll, the classes don’t do so well. Rogues have a difficult time fighting alone, as do clerics, and mages are extremely weak once something survives that first burst of damage from a spell.

With that kind of base, one would think D&D would be the perfect system for an MMO, which are all about interacting with others, right? Well as most people know, Dungeons and Dragons Online is overall a disappointment, while games like Neverwinter Nights shine. Why is it that a system designed to be played by multiple people works so well in a single player game and fails in the massive field?

I think PART of the reason DDO failed was that is forced players to group, which works well when you have a set group of friends that meet and play, but does not work that well when you log online and group with random people. The problem is that everyone plays differently; you have people who just rush through everything for the end reward grouping with those that like to take their time and explore. Either the rush player gets bored, or the quest is ruined for the explorer, but one way or the other a player is left upset with the game and the system. When you take the game offline, and let one player control the entire party, you allow them to play at their own pace without interference, maximizing the enjoyment a player gets.

Vanguard, NWN and EQ2. Plus more FPS talk!

Some quick FoH forum reading about Vanguard reveals that a good amount of people are still not all that happy with the game, while Darren over at Common Sense Gamer reports that the latest VG patch has increased his performance notably. As FoH points out, more devs from the original team have been let go, and a Plantside developer has been promoted to the top spot. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but if nothing else it should make watching VG development more interesting. Still waiting on that free trail…

In some random act of godly intervention, NWN2 decided to run at 60+ FPS last night. Yea, about 30 FPS more than it usually runs at. I just don’t get it, I really don’t. I was honestly afraid to turn it off, knowing that the next time I launch it, it will be back to 30, or maybe drop to 10 or so. The workings of that engine continue to boggle the mind.

Speaking of FPS, the gf and I played a bit of EQ2 last night, and entered Neriak for the first time. And likely the last time. Walking near the crafting area reduced the game to a slideshow for me, and resulted in the gf plummeting to her death more than once thanks to a broken slideshow on her comp. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy all the other zones in the game without having to return to Neriak, as it really was dreadful. We are moving on to Nektulos forest, which I THINK is the next zone we should be in at level 19, correct?

Just work with me here, please…

If there is one thing I hate about playing games on a computer vs a console, it’s the constant graphic tweaking and fiddling. On a console, when you put a game in, that’s it. It’s already configured exactly how the developer intended, and everything works. The frame rate stays consistent, the graphics don’t bug out, and you don’t get overheating at the most random times. At least 99% of the time, hi xbox360.

With a computer, even when you pull the latest 5 grand plus high-end monster out of its box, the first game you play might run at 5 FPS when you are looking at a wall with everything turned down, or you might get 60 FPS on a mid-range system on a brand new game with everything maxed. It’s all over the place, and with little rhyme or reason. Worse still, you can spend the next few days downloading drivers, patches, work around who knows whats, and in the end make things worse.

Granted some games work much better than others, but it’s become routine to install a new game and the first thing you do is check for patches. And more often than not, you find one; fixing things that make you wonder how the game ever got out the door in the first place.

This little rant is thanks to Neverwinter Nights 2, a wonderful game that is STILL plagued with technical issues a year after release and one expansion under its belt. For one, it has some type of memory leak, becoming unplayable after more than an hour straight. This is easily fixed with a restart, but non-the-less it’s a pain. Even worse are the random graphic abnormalities, from polygon tearing to spell effects becoming giant pixels. This is most annoying because it happens at random, so you might be 30 minutes into a play session, having a great time, and all of a sudden your fireball spell goes from a gorgeous eruption of flame to giant orange pixels of crap. Nothing says emersion like your web spell grinding your game to a slideshow and blanking the screen in a white blob of nothing.

What’s a shame is that NWN2 really is a great game, a true RPG experience with great characters and an engaging story. If it ran without a hitch, it would be a true joy to play, but sadly it remains in love/hate status due exclusively to its technical issues. I would love to give Obsidian credit for continuing to support the game and trying to resolve its issues, but after a year of patches, the issues continue, and that is somewhat unacceptable.

More offline gaming goodness.

I had somewhat of a quiet weekend, dominated by watching sports. The good news is the Pats are 6-0 and by far the most dominant team in the NFL. The not so good news is the Sox lost on Saturday in a game they really should have won.

As for gaming, I played a good bit of Neverwinter Nights 2, getting my character to level 9 and working my way through the main campaign. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are some advantages to playing a single player game after being almost MMO exclusive for so long, and I realized another advantage over the weekend; the ability to play the game at your own pace, and not really worrying about how your character stacks up to others. In an MMO your character is constantly compared to others, be it gear, your spec, or your class/race choice. Offline, you are free to create whatever silly combination you want, and at no point will anyone tell you that you made a mistake and created a gimped character. This aspect has made NWN2 more enjoyable for me, as I no longer worry about maxing out my party and using every item to it absolute max. I load it up, go talk to some NPCs, and quest lag free in the world Bioware and Obsidian have crafted. It’s almost like a vacation from my normal gaming routine, and I’m enjoying it.