The state of my (our?) NWN2 depression

Time for another rant. As you can see from my last posts, this blog has more and more drifted away from it's original purpose - being a diary of my building efforts in Neverwinter Nights 2. By now, most of the posts are probably reviews of and rants about other games. So have I completely lost the connection to NWN2? No... I wouldn't say so. I actually think about building every day, and all the games I play on the side are a great source for inspiration. But taking this inspiration and making something out of it, that's the main problem.
I said it before and it still hasn't changed - it's become too much and I have so many ideas I just can't make real use of because I wouldn't know where to start - and the technical hurdles are often too frustrating and making me drop the whole thing before I even really started.

Another thing though that frustrates me is the state of NWN2 and it's community. I often get the impression it's not only me who's depressed and frustrated, it's the community and the game itself. NWN2 has been in a constant state of being half dead, comatose maybe, for the last two years or so. When I look at the multiplayer tabs in Gamespy, there are maybe 5 worlds that share all the remaining player population, and a lot of very promising PWs (often of much better quality) hang there with zero players, maybe 4 on a lucky weekend. Do I really want to add another one to those?

Then there's the custom content scene. The good old NWN Vault is dying slowly too, hardly anything new and exiting anymore, instead it's overrun by Spambots and only sours my mood everytime I browse for something. I often thought the Vault might need a relaunch like the TES/Fallout/DA Nexus sites, they really show how to keep these games alive and interesting. Not to mention the ease of use with their download manager. And I think it's fantastic what modders do with the games, I mean, Skyrim hasn't even it's Creation Kit yet and still you can already turn the game completely upside down.

So, why don't I just follow the crowd and hop over to the TES/Fallout modding crowd? Because yeah... Multiplayer for one. And second, I never saw much on the story side from any Beth games and their modding scene. A lot of eye candy, lots of weapons, locations, etc. etc. But I believe the real storytellers can't be found over there, they stick to games like NWN.
Also, the Beth games never allowed you to make real standalone modules, another thing I would sorely miss. As nice as it is to discover new, community-made locations in Skyrim or New Vegas, I prefer making my own world. Still, I think the most immersive roleplay you can have in a game is not with an AI, but with a real person who enjoys roleplay as much as I do. That's why I believe in multiplayer.

Now for those who never play Neverwinter Nights 2 in multiplayer mode - you might say "join a MMO and be happy", and I'd have to yet again explain why NWN2's multiplayer is so unique. I spare you, the few people who read this are aware of that anyway. But this winter I tried out pretty much every free or free to try MMO I could get my hands on. Lineage 2, Age of Conan, Rift, DDO, you name it. The only effect it has on me is that I appreciate NWN2's unique multiplayer more than ever, and it will probably be the last of this kind. It is, for me, the lone king of multiplayer games.

So, back to NWN2 and it's custom content. As I said above, it saddens me to see NWN2 in this state, because I still think it is a diamond in the rough and has extreme potential, even these days. Everyone goes on and on about how moddable Bethesda games are, and yet NWN2 is even more moddable than any Bethesda game. Where are the multiplayer capabilities of Beth games, where can you make your own PWs, where can you DM a campaign or make the whole world like you want? And all the rest, all the custom content you see popping up for Fallout, Skyrim etc: It just needs someone to do it, NWN2 can do.

Now comes my bitter view back to some really innovative things the community started for NWN2, which showed how capable this game is. If we starts with models and custom content, NWN2 saw great things and I wish people wouldn't have stopped making more of it so early.
Some of the greatest things that never really got used came quite early by the way. YATT is an example. Creating maps with it IS geekish, I admit, but if someone knows how to use it the results are amazing. With terran like that, NWN2 doesn't have to hide behind Oblivion. I don't know of any PW that uses YATT but one that is still in the making (good luck, Cipher!), but I recently decided that if I give Middleforest another chance, I must make more use of it.

RWS is probably the most shining example of making great community content, but yet Hellfire dropped the ball just when things got really exiting. The swimming hak was a masterpiece that's at least useable:



... but the horse riding, although looking as good as done, will remain unseen as it seems.

Or what the hell happened to Qk's Custom animations? He had so much in the pipeline...



I'm still having wet dreams of those commando crawl animations I added to the wishlist.
Animations have always been a huge point for me in NWN2, and when people actually started making new ones I got very excited because I was hoping for a similar thing like in NWN1 (combat animations, romantic suite etc.). Sadly, nothing came out of it. 

These are some of the most exciting projects, but there have been so much more. There are smaller things like... my small requests (coughs). Or outfits, hell, I'm such a junkie for nice armors! If I had any idea HOW, I'd start right away with wonderful community-made things like this or this. I know it's possible, I know people who know how to use Blender or 3DSMax would convert them within an hour. I tried to use Blender, I know I can import a .nif file from Bethesda and export a .mdb file for NWN2. The steps in between, i.e. translating the outfit to the NWN2 skeleton and making a lower resolution version, are totally beyond me. No biggie for someone who knows what he does, but nope, I'm clueless. And then we have some who do what I'm trying so hard, but have a problem with the community, which saddens me even more. If someone could at least provide a step-by-step... these are some things the Bethesda community did much, much better, I'm afraid.
To sum up, during the past two years NWN2 was a constant rollercoaster between high enthusiasm and, well, huge disappointments. A lot of great stuff never got release, some high hopes were shattered, and the community died out slowly.

At this point I think we have a catch 22 - the modders slowly give up because they think nobody's interested anymore, and the players/users of mods give up because they think the CC Creators have left the field.
If anyone's interested in hearing it, I could make a very long list of very specific requests - from changing the clouds over some models to armors. But I guess I'd have to switch to Skyrim for that. :)

Anyway, at this point I have no idea how the dying community could be revived again, but I wish it would happen because I still see no alternative to NWN2 on the horizon. If some skilled people would give it another whirl, I'm sure NWN2 could be modded upside down just like all the Beth games. I mean, there's no technical reason why the ENBSeries that are so overhyped in Skyrim and other games shouldn't work with NWN2 too, is there? Just needs somebody who knows that stuff to make the adjustments and we'd have an almost new game.
Ack, if I just had the skillz...


Rant over.

Quick advertisement: Steam autumn deals

Just after praising New Vegas again, the game is available for just 4.99 Euros on Steam for the next couple of days, so if you were on the edge of buying it, now's the time. The DLCs come at very reduced prices as well. NWN2 Platinum for 9.99 is a very good deal too, Dragon Age Ultimate Edition for 14.99, and countless other RPGs including Witcher 2, Mass Effect, etc. etc. I assume the prices in $ are as low as the €. Great time to grab those RPGs you always wanted to try out.

Obligatory Skyrim Post

You didn't expect me to forget making a post about the Game of the year 2011, did you? No, certainly not. Although, frankly, why waste any time on it when everyone's talking about it anyway? Well, I will keep the praises short, because everything that has to be said about how gorgeous it is has been covered elsewhere already. Just read the reviews, but actually... you're probably too busy playing the game already.
Fine, let's get the praise over with quickly, of course I have my obligatory screenies to share again. Just, before going into detail, Skyrim looks amazing. Fantastic. Breathtaking. The world design is wonderful.
And it's not (as some who stopped playing games after Oblivion might think) the latest, greatest next-generation graphics we have here. Actually, technically Skyrim is almost a little dated, at least compared to modern shooters. If you played the last two Fallout games the graphics are just the logical evolution from there on, a lot of it looks very familiar. That's not a bad thing at all, it only makes the game run very well even on slightly dated hardware like mine - much better than the Witcher 2, for example, which I had to tune down a lot. My dated comp (4-core 2Ghz Xeon from 2007, ATI 4870 graphics) easily runs it on Ultra, as long as I keep the Antialiasing on 4x - and there's really no reason to push that further up. Anyway - no, Skyrim is not the next Crysis, technically. But the world design is simply breathtaking. Period. And it runs on a wide range of hardware too, hooray! Chances are good you can play it with decent graphics - if you can run NWN2 with nice settings, you can run this.If you can run Fallout 3, you can run this.

And while we're there, let me explain that Fallout 3 thing here quickly for those who never touch anything non-medieval: Fallout 3 and New Vegas are both very very close to Oblivion and Skyrim technically and are the logical evolutionary steps in between the two. If you played one, you will immediately feel familiar in the other, Fallout 3 could simply be called Oblivion in a post-nuclear setting. And both Fallout 3 and New Vegas are great RPGs you really should play unless you're stubbornly demanding your elves and orcs. Hey, you can even use swords!  That just for those who still think the Fallout games are First Person Shooters...

Back to Skyrim and.... Screenie time!

Water in Skyrim - probably the real "next-gen" thing, at least I've never seen better than this. I get teary eyes when I watch those streams and waterfalls. Wonderful!

Forest - probably not the best screenshot, but the forests are... what else, wonderful. 

Climbing snowy mountains... 

Walking into blizzards... 

... and watching the northern lights over some icebergs at night.

Those are just some of the many screens I took, but I'm sure you've seen enough already. The world is incredibly believable (not to use the word "realistic" for a fantasy game), yet still artificial enough not to pass as a cold, hyper-realistic setting like Crysis etc. In one word, atmospheric.

Interiors and caves actually look a little less realistic, they're still good, but here it's easy to see the roots from Bethesda's past games.

What Bethesda really improved is the character creator. One possible reason why I never really got into Oblivion might've been that whatever you did, your character looked ugly as sin. Fallout 3 improved on that, but only Skyrim is really satisfying now. Whatever's still missing the community can and will fix with some mods.

Oblivion: Whatever you did, ugly as sin. Some mods improve that a bit, but it never got really good. Game of the Year or not, other games at the time had much nicer looking characters, even NWN2 could do better (without the face morphing of course). 

Fallout 3: A lot better than Oblivion, but it still took quite a long time to make a decent face - most of the presets are still ugly as sin and require a lot of work. In the end, my characters always looked quite the same because only a few slider positions really looked okay. Some mods help here again. 

Skyrim: just a googled pic, I think one of the presets. A very decent working base, can even be improved. You can make very realistic and good looking characters right out of the box, with upcoming mods I doubt there'll be anything left to be desired anymore.

What else is left to say about the world design? A lot of it is familiar from older Bethesda games but nevertheless great, like the realistic items and loot, the careful design of it, the little physics games. If other companies like Bioware just invested a little percentage of that into their own games (and don't mark everything as "junk" without even using a unique icon), they could improve their games a lot.

Bethesda also improved the NPC behavior quite a bit, their daily routines and reactions to what happens around them is very pleasant to watch (just run a few items over in their home and listen to them complaining). The Witcher is the only game I know that did better on the daily routines, but then again at least Skyrim's NPCs react to stealing in a realistic way and all, something the other game designers constantly forget. In that aspect, Bethesda's games were always well crafted and improve from title to title. Seriously, the world design can't get much better anymore than this. 

Okay, now enough of the praise. "Casa", you ask, "where's the stinker? You always complain about something, don't let me down here!" 

Why of course, I won't let you down. I'll leave the usual bugs and not-so-great UI design to the others.... The real stinker is the notorious bad writing in Bethesda games. And I don't blame Bethesda alone for this, I also blame you. YOU! Yes, that's right. Because wherever I nag about the writing, people don't seem to care - "It's a sandbox game, I don't expect good writing in one" is a typical reply, or "can't expect Bioware quality" or whatever. I reply: Yes, I expect that, especially in such an ambitious game that focuses so much on the detail in it's general world design. And don't tell me it's not possible - that has already be proven wrong. We'll get to that. 

First of, the notorious "Bioware is the holy grail of writing" thing - I disagree. Bioware's stories haven't really improved since Baldur's Gate, and their standard formula is getting quite boring over the time. They still write a lot of dialogue trees, probably more than any other company, right.

Doesn't help with the fact that e.g. Dragon Age 2 was an incredibly boring game. And don't tell me either Mass Effect's or Dragon Age's main plot was anywhere new or exciting. It was just the presentation that made it good. But this is not about the main plot, because as I heard someone say recently - "who cares for the main plot in a Bethesda game? The main point is avoiding it as long as you can so you can explore the world!".

True that, nothing to add, and frankly, the main plot ideas in a Bethesda game were never any worse than Bioware's. No, it's about the small things, the dialogues and persons you meet on your way where Bethesda disappoints so greatly - and sadly, that's exactly the one and only thing that can't be easily fixed by the modding scene.

Now my real problem with Bethesda is that they just don't seem to care, and the best example for this is again companions. No, I don't expect Leliana or Morrigan in a Bethesda game, that's too much to ask for. But Bethesda's games have companions, and their companions have no life, they are simple tools/player slaves without any personality at all. You can give them orders, but you can't even ask them "who are you, what's your story?"
This was already my main problem in Fallout 3 (I never made it far enough in Oblivion to meet a companion, if they even exist), and Skyrim repeats it. Here's the main dialogue from a follower: 

 

And you know what? This is so immersion-breaking for me it ruins my game.  Realism (or say, a believable world) is not only nice landscapes, it's the right balance of everything. Bethesda is not Bioware, that's true, but they don't even care, they don't try at all. 

And frankly, when I see reviews, comments or some youtube videos, I see that the target group of gamers just doesn't care either, and that's what saddens me most. The whole setting and atmosphere of this game is gritty, realistic, mature, but then they take a whole jump back and make the writing for kids who go on an egoistic power trip only. If you watch some youtube clips about Fallout 3 quests, you usually end up with the kiddo explaining a quest over his headset while running around like on pills, in power armor with a huge cannon... target audience. Doesn't care for dialogue, wants to blow stuffs up.

No exaggeration here on the power trip too, because another problem I had in the game, regarding quests, is that I'm yet again not only the saver of the world, but people fall on their knees again too when I come by and want to make me king of their own little world once I helped them. 

I was literally bullied into the leadership of three guilds already, simply because Bethesda apparently didn't expect anyone NOT wanting to lead a guild. I promised my soul to 3 different factions too, simply because I had no choice, and my afterlife won't be pleasant when the werewolves want me here, the Nightingales there, the dragonborns... etc. etc. 

Now, the most ridiculous idea Bethesda had was the introduction of in game wedding. This is so sad it's almost funny again. Don't get me wrong, this is not about romances or such - Bioware's romance plots are famous and probably the reason half of their audience still loves them. But what Bethesda did is... sad? I don't know how to put it, let me just explain quickly how it works. You see the above dialogue pic with a follower. Now, if you want a "romance" in game you have to acquire a certain amulet and wear it, which adds another dialogue option:

To which she replies... "I won't lie, I am. And you?" ...

To which she replies: "It's settled then, you and me." Expect a kiss or something? Ha, no no, new quest:

Isn't that romantic? Hand me a tissue... well, the explanation is simple. This is not for the romantic souls among us, it's for the powerplayers who like extras: If your spouse is a shop owner (or opens one), you get extra coins once a day. They cook a meal for you once per day that increases stats (sexism anyone?). Resting in the house you share adds a stat bonus too. Did you expect something like a nice dialogue or a kiss? Well, this is a Bethesda game, go to Bioware, you fool!

In general, during the quests, the story is streamlined like a shooter and often makes no sense at all, I mean, at least give me the option to say "no" sometimes, or let me explain that they can't have my sould because it was promised to someone else already...? What I hate most is not that Bethesda's writing is not up to Bioware's, it's that they don't even give it a try at all. And that's probably because YOU didn't ask for it, but go by the rule "if I want to explore, I play Bethesda, if I want story I play Bioware". 

That there's room in between the two has already been proven by Fallout New Vegas, a Bethesda game. That's what makes this story so sad. Yes, the actual developer was Obsidian, using Bethesda's base, and that makes the huge difference. It's still generally regarded as a Bethesda game though, after all it's their logo most present on the box. 

I already said it in my Fallout NV post back last December - the combination of those two studios would be ideal and Bethsda should for Christ's sake just buy Obsidian and let them do their writing. Obsidian is the notorious "We are excellent writers but have no clue about artwork" candidate who will probably go bankrupt after the next Alpha Protocol disaster, and Bethesda is the one with breathtaking game design but no clue about writing. 

The problem is the gamers: Everyone complained about Obsidian's bad looking games, but nobody complains about Berthesda's non-existant skill in writing. 

Anyway, what Obsidian made of the Fallout 3 base is easy to find out on youtube. And just for the record, Fallout 3 companions were exactly the same as in the Skyrim companion pic above. 

Now here's as an example the dialogue with Veronica, one of the followers in New Vegas (btw, you Dragon Age 2 nuts, that's Felicia Day too, before Bioware decided to hype her for a mediocre DLC):

Notice something? Like, she talks about herself? Notice the amount of dialogue options you get? Should I continue with the whole questline each follower brings with them and that they never get tired to comment on a situation and are generally available for some small talk? Now, they might not be a Morrigan or a Leliana, and I don't even expect half as much from Bethesda as I expect from Obsidian. But hey, a little bit of life just for immersion? Because what Bethesda does with their companions is honestly an insult to roleplaying. And it completely ruins my immersion and throws me far out of the game. And yeah, it's sad that so few people agree. And it's sad that Obsidian brought the whole Bethesda series of RPGs a huge step forward in that aspect, and Skyrim jumps all the way back again. 

Now, there might be hope... at least it can be assumed that Skyrim was already long in the making when Fallout NV came out, it was simply too late and that Bethesda's next RPG might actually be inspired more by Obsidian's writing. For Skyrim there's no hope, maybe for a DLC, and knowing the modding community for Bethesda games I know one thing that they'll never improve is story and dialogues. As sad as it is this is not the NWN modding scene that cares a bit more about things like that. One hope remains, another future cooperation with Obsidian that again gives us (or me) the best from both worlds.

Anyway, even with the huge disappointment on the story side, Skyrim's sure Game of the Year and a must buy. It could just have been even better - if anyone cared.

.. and another laptop post

No, this is not turning into a hardware blog now, no worries. I don't want to show off my gadgets either, not that the thing up there is one. It's again NWN2 related, trust me. :)

So, what about that lappy up there? Well, it's a cheapo laptop, Europeans will know what Lidl is (a supermarket) and what kind of hardware is sold there. I didn't buy that thing either, my dad did. Unfortunately, my dad passed away early last month and left me with the burden of all his stuff (no sympathies needed, we hadn't much contact, although I'm not exactly happy about the sudden loss).

Well, anyway, that lappy up there was his and it's as good as new since he obviously had no clue how to use it. It's recent enough to be not complete junk too, something like 2008 or so. Well, my first thought was, I don't need it. I already have a lubberlee lappy (see last post) and a big comp for all my stuff, so... sell? It's not worth much, I almost considered giving it away as a gift.
Then it occurred to me... when I was working on Middleforest, wasn't one of my big worries about running a PW having to get a dedicated server? One powerful enough to run the server application, but still with a low power consumption that you can hide away in a corner and forget about? My initial thought was getting a used Mac Mini, but even a used one costs money I usually don't have lying around. So... here's the solution, my new Middleforest dedicated server! Say Hi server! 

I already wiped the HD and installed a fresh NWN2, now I'm in the geekish process of reinstalling MySQL and NWNX2. All nothing compared to the router issues I'll have again, I'm sure. Anyway, this takes away a big burden from my past building plans, and I can leave a server up and running for test purposes now while building or playing elsewhere.

I'm still wondering about the specs though and would be interested in what other people with PW experience have used as a minimum server machine for NWN2. This lappy features a Pentium Dual Core T3200  processor at 2.00 Ghz (actually an entry-level Core 2 Duo Merom with no level 3 cache), which I figured should be enough for a server (my thought was that any dual core would do). 2GB RAM might or might not be sufficient (maybe someone has insights?), the HD runs at 5400rpm like most laptop HDs, not sure if this will affect performance. I doubt I'll ever see 20, maybe not even 10 regular players at once, so I doubt I'll need MMO specs. Anyway, if someone has NWN2 server experience or some tips, they'll be welcome.

RIP SJ

Just reinstalled NWN2 on my beloved little Apple lappy (in Bootcamp, ha!) when I heard the bad news, so yeah, this is NWN2 related.
Goodbye, mister Jobs... thanks for having given me this bedwarmer that still runs my favorite game, and uh...my trusty old iPod. And all that other stuff I used or had to use, including the Microsoft "inventions". ;)
Having used your computers for 14 years and staying updated on any hardware news (even if I couldn't care less about all those gadgets you introduced lately) there was no way around you and it's hard not to be a little sad to see you pass. Even if often I could've sent a bag full of dog turds to your company and many times promised only to build Windows Peecees anymore. Even if I couldn't care less about iPhones as long as they don't run NWN2. Rest in peace old chap. 

A late look at Dragon Age 2, part 1: Gameplay, first impressions

Another month without opening the toolset has passed, and I still can't be bothered. All ideas I had for Middleforest during the past months are so different from what I've done last year that I could as well start building from scratch. But I can't find the energy to do anything NWN2-related lately, not even playing.

Instead I decided to finally give Dragon Age 2 a go. Prices for it fell rapidly and it has now reached the sweet spot where it might not be a complete waste of money anymore (EA seems to think different, they still want €54.99 for it in their Origin store... well, the box is available for below €20 nowadays). Same as with Mass Effect 2 for me really, I didn't expect much from it (still more than from DA2 though), but when it fell below 20 Euros I considered it a fair deal.

So, after all the heat around it's release and my hate-driven review of the demo, has anything changed? Well, for those who don't like my long ramblings and want a short answer... no, not much, my expectations were mostly met. But, I have to admit there were some surprises, even good things, and at one or two points I was even wrong. They won't change much of the conclusion I'm afraid, but maybe they are still noteworthy. Anyway, expect a long, chaotic rant again - even though I made 3 letter-sized pages of notes I'm just blabbering away now. Let's start again with the first impressions and the beginning of the game.

The game and the first bad impression starts, of course, with our default Mr/Ms. Hawke.
Have I already mentioned I hate Hawke? And I mean, really everything about Hawke. For me this person stands for Bioware Mass-Effecting everything, for bad taste and bad name choices, for heroes I can't identify with, bad art design (why the f... would I smear a red dash in my face every morning? It does not look cool, really not!) , bad marketing, I could go on and on. Good, fine, we know all that already, so let's get our medieval Shepard going.

So, we find ourselves in the demo again, been there already. But now I must really ask, why does the character creation come after this intro? That Varric exaggerated the breast size in his story, that joke I got by now (it's not that funny really), but using the same excuse for giving me the default Bioware appearance of Hawke in this first part of the game is a bit far off, don't you think? Anyway, knowing myself and that I probably get bored of a male character after level 3 and start over, I chose a female rogue right away.  Shortly after the intro finally the character creation (isn't that the best part of any RPG really?) and I create some Jeanne-D'Arc-style redhead using the new hairstyles I actually like a lot. In fact, I ended up with a Hawke I consider quite an improvement over Dragon Age Origin's looks when it comes to realism, a small positive surprise.

 Then comes the attributes and skill trees and.. well. I'm not really sure about it. First off, the classes are a lot more limited than before, and that's a really really bad thing. Why the hell can't a warrior use a bow anymore? Where are the crossbows anyway? Why can't a rogue use a shield? Right... because Bioware has a very clear idea on how these classes should play and don't want you, the player, to experiment. Fine, moving on. The skill trees might be considered an improvement by some, but I kinda liked the old system as well and don't think it's a real improvement, it's just different. What I miss terribly though is rogue skills, conversation skills, the usual Roleplay skills that are probably not of any interest in an action game anymore. WTF happened to lockpick, traps etc? Oh, just raise your Cunning attributes... really.... fascinating.

No, during the first 15 minutes you learn pretty much everything about DA2's new direction, which is clearly, undeniably streamlined action. It's what I expected, yes, and I still hate it, but maybe I'll also find some positive things? First off, I installed that Highres-Texture patch immediately and must say it does make an impressive difference to the very shabby Demo. Impressive does not mean I stare at the screen in awe and drool t the graphics, but at least the game looks much better now. With this patch, the difference between DA2 and Origins is really clear to see and this patch is a must for everyone who cares a bit about atmosphere, really. Why (and if) it requires a graphics card with 1GB memory while other games get the same thing done on much older cards I cannot say, but you definitely don't need DirectX11 to see it. My card doesn't support it.

The next thing is something I only discovered after a little while... how the look of your family depends on your customization of Hawke. Now that's a neat detail! If you look up at the pic, you can see I ended up with a short-haired sister, and if my Hawke was tanned or black, my family would match that look too. Also, the facial structure changes depending on your choices etc. Why they invested that much into realism here and ditched it totally again at other points in the game is beyond me, but at least this little detail I really like.

Anyway, a small detail, but the big first and lasting impression is the really bad general art design. I know I'm repeating myself, but some things can't be said often enough. I really really wonder who the target audience of this game is, because everything I see is all but a "gritty, mature RPG". Origins was neither, but DA 2 makes it worse, last but not least by taking a few of the more interesting characters from Origins and ruining them completely.

Next, of course, the combat animations. "button-awesome" might have that tiny little advantage that your character really react on click, instead of thinking for the long while that usually decides between life and death. But this... this is just cheesy, come on Bioware. Mages might enjoy their characters moving a little more, but how my rogue flies over the battlefield is just not funny anymore. This is for hyperactive kids and as mature as Ronald McDonald, really.

Or how about weapon design? Origins wasn't a prime example of good weapon design already, but this really isn't funny anymore. I'm feeling like playing some Free2Play kiddie JRPG, but clearly not a mature game. At the latest when Fenris with his two-handers comes into play it's time to hit your forehead on the desk, but my rogue daggers are already bad enough. Most of the time in the game I had to search for weapons that don't look totally ridiculous on my character. The standard daggers were okay, I never got to use any unique weapons because I simply couldn't stand their look.
So, for you, Bioware (I know you're not listening, but anyway). Look at the pic below, there's a a really cool badass sword from a mature RPG, and a really cool badass sword from a kiddie game. Where does Dragon Age 2 fit in?

I know this is a matter of taste and artistic style, but in a serious, mature game I expect one, in a kiddie hack&slay game the other version. And now I present you Bioware's own version of the most badass sword in the game!

 Nuff said.

At least, and I'm thankful for that, you hid some items for us elderly players deeply, and after I found some normal looking daggers (actually swords, look at the size) and an actually really good looking armor, I was seeing things a little bit milder for the next.. well, one or two levels until the stuff got so old and outdated I couldn't survive with it anymore.

Which brings me to the topic of loot... partly a technical, partly an artistic matter. Technical side: Stuff outdates so fast that unique weapons are really not worth keeping or upgrading anymore. That cool thing you found in the deeproads an hour ago is useless junk now. And speaking of junk... you know, before calling every loot that isn't equipable "Junk", just leave it out right away. This is such an immersion killer, I'd rather have no loot at all than an item with a trashcan icon. Give me coins right away.
You know, I hate excessive looting, but in some of the better games it can be really fun to find out what loot is useful and what not. Maybe it has some secret meaning? Maybe it's a gift? This is one of those "minigames" in a good RPG, think of the flowers or shawls in the Witcher for example that you first toss away as junk until you realize you can finally get a nice lass to do you a favor, or such.
And please, the meaningless gifts that are marked as plot items for companion X right away... I actually liked to see the different reactions by different companions in Origins and finding out who likes what most. I know, that's details you might not care about, but it gives the game dept.

Moving on in the art design, let me show you a few random faces from the endless Hall of Shame:

Is this... an... artistical choice, really? To create such freaks? And what have you done to pretty much everyone's eyes anyway? Replaced with candy? And don't get me wrong, I don't mean the new appearance of elves per se - I'm fine with what you did there, make them less "cute human" and more like a really different species. As long as they look like in that pic below and not like those Playmobil figures up there.... *headdesk*

Oh, oh, oh.... and... what the hell is this?

Yes, that's your low-poly default NPC that simply shouldn't be in this game at all. Really not. Origins didn't have those, do you call that an improvement?

As you can see, I'm getting into a rage again when it comes to Bioware's "artistic choices". But seriously, until now I must've missed that part that makes this game "mature" in it's art design. Oh wait, wait, I got it...

Don't worry about Hawke there, it's just a little scratch and she still kicked those Qunari asses.

Then of course there's the matter of the legendary waves.
Now, the initial idea is not so bad because it can, potentially, add a lot of surprises and variation to combat. Not that I like combat that much, I usually play for the story and combat is an annoyance between the cutscenes. But there can be interesting combat, and Origins had some interesting and very challenging combat scenes at times.... between the tedious long hacking through miles and miles of darkspawn of course.
But as interesting as the potential of waves might be, as poor is the execution. Laidlaw and Co. stated multiple times that they wanted to improve combat because one fan somewhere long ago called Origins' combat boring. Now the improvement is the most tedious clickfest I've had in a long time, maybe comparable to the horribly boring combat in Venetica. It wasn't fun, it was even much more less fun than in Origins because I always knew exactly the next parachutes would come for sure. And boy were they immersion-killing.

 Finally, to end this first post about the... what could I call it, main problems, first impressions, overarching issues... the Copy&Paste areas.

Now, when I first read about them I had no idea how bad it actually was, that there was really absolutely no variation at all, that you visited the exact(!) same place a dozen of times and were told "hey, you're wrong, you're in a totally different place now".
Mister Laidlaw said at the Bioware forums that every individual cave or house would take away resources from writing or whatever, but... call me stupid, maybe I'm a n00b to game design and I really only played in NWN2's toolset for a longer time (I tried Bethesda's Eden-thingy briefly and only looked at DA's toolset long enough to figure I hate it), but.... aren't interiors still tilesets, kinda? Can't you click a few tunnels together? How long does it take me to make a simple interior for NWN2? An hour? If it's not that easy, how hard can it be to change at least the lighting, drop a few placeables to change the look, whatever? But reusing the exact same area... There's no excuse. It only proves, just like a lot of other things in DA2, that whatever Bioware says they had NOT enough time, or were lazy as hell. And they can't sell me on the argument that a simple cave would've taken too much effort. Clicking together a basic cave from your existing tiles or prefabs is the easiest thing, and if it's not, then your game base has serious issues and you should consider a new Engine or whatever.

Enough nerdrage. In the next part I'll look at the story, companions and all that and see if I can dig out some of the nicer details. But one thing before I go - a proof that Dragon Age can look quite okay at times. The few exteriors aren't so bad. They have decent texturing, a sky that outshines Origins easily and I would've liked to see that quality standard throughout the game really.

Casa update and a quick look on the Dungeon Siege III demo

Hi there, long time no see!

I guess I owe the few people who read this a little apology again for the silence. But when I check other blogs, I think I'm not the only one who's sometimes thrown out of the loop by reality.

Middleforest has been a little silent lately, especially since last winter. As fruitless as my toolset work was my custom content work too, and on Blender I completely gave up, call it a burnout if you wish, because it was. In real life I was completely burnt out too, which is nothing new. But it got worse and worse since last winter, so I took a little vacation, or should I say, it was suggested to me to take some time off out of town, which I did. Why am I telling you people this? Well, I think I'm not the only one in this rather nerdy circle who's been "under the weather" quite a lot, and I know how much it takes to admit that you need to be taken out, nursed and pampered for a while. Even though I panicked at first at the thought, it was good and I'd do it again anytime. The first week out there was the best week I had in the last two years, which means a lot, and in the end I came back with a lot of positive thoughts and insights - like, apparently you have to go to a place like that to finally meet people as normal as you. Anyway, that much about my long silence. And if you ever thought about doing something similar and have doubts - just do it, it's good.

Anyway, nobody there told me that gaming is bad, isn't that great? I even spoke about my favorite Dammendrech character once and it was quite interesting, I never got an odd look. The task is just finding a good balance between the hobby and real life, and not fleeing into some dreams all the time because you can't face reality anymore. And one thing I promised myself for the first week back home was playing my games until I fall from my chair.

Now that I'm here that's a little bit harder than I thought, I can't decide which one to play first! So what I did was starting with something easy, grabbing the Dungeon Siege III demo on Steam and have a look what Obsidian did this time. And I must say, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm not going to review it, just some quick notes on my first impression really.

So, Dungeon Siege III is of course not the latest great AAA title, neither were the first and second part. I only played the first part once, around the same time I discovered Neverwinter Nights 1. And while NWN1 was the much better game with a more interesting story, Dungeon Siege was still a fun casual RPG that was actually nicer looking in many parts. I also liked the lack of load screens...

Anyway, Obsidian making the third part meant to me "oh, it must look shitty and run like crap, but maybe it has a story now!". I can't really compare the games anymore since DS1 was too long ago, but that much stuck. In a review I've found a few weeks ago the usual Obsidian failures were mentioned again: Aging graphics, robot-like animations, horrible controls. Nothing surprising. Anyway, demo time.

Firing it up, it actually doesn't look so bad at all, and the first positive thing I noticed was that a simple assistant for gamma correction was actually forced on me, which was quite good because it helped the atmosphere later a lot. And of course I immediately raised the graphics options to as pretty as possible.

First thing you notice when playing the game is that you can't create a character. Sad, but at least you can choose from a few, which is already more than a Geralt (no customization at all) or a Hawke (looks only). The demo includes two characters, a male warrior and that female fire chick... guess which one I choose.

Now, that character looks actually... okay. You don't have the wonderful customization of a Dragon Age and it looks a little bit dated, more like Neverwinter Nights 2 actually than a 2011 game, but.... it's not ugly, I can live with the lack of realism. Then comes the intro and the first thought of course is "oh, hello Dragon Age". But, it's actually, and here we have a debut for Obsidian, a really good looking intro, rip-off or not.

So, has Obsidian maybe worked on the art department? Some new artists maybe, even though they had to fire employees lately? Good move, after the horrible New Vegas intro it was time to ring some changes! And furthermore, it was an intro I actually listened to - in most games I actually forget it the second it was told.

What comes next is a quick tutorial on how to move and do stuff while you run to your first objective. One word.... clunky. This is truly a console game, moving is no fun and hitting number keys for special moves extremely unfriendly to PC users. But: The game runs smooth! How can it be? It runs as smooth as Dragon Age! Not even my graphics card's fan going crazy like in a 5yr old NWN2! And what can I say... the graphics aren't half as horrible as I thought. No, it looks just "classic". No hyper-realistic, high-resolution textures and polygons up the limit, but the game does not look shabby at all. It reminds me positively of the old Dungeon Siege game which were simply nice looking without being fancy. And this is where I need to give Obsidian many cudos now: They actually managed to do some good area design! Yes it's simple, yes it's dated, but so was Dragon Age 2, an AAA title. And what can I say, this game is just much better looking. Because believe it or not, Obsidian got the atmosphere right!
Yes, I fell from faith too, but I really like the darkness, the autumn colors, the simple but efffective placeables. The game might look like from 2006, but at least it looks good. See...

Early in the demo you have to fight your way through a burning house. I say, this looks nice!

 I really liked these candles too.

A forest road. Warm autum colors, nice tree shadows, and trees that remind me of the Neverwinter Nights 1 forest tileset - you know, where you never see the trees in a whole. I still miss that badly in NWN2

A lake in the forest, texturing is simple but effective, again reminding me of the old Dungeon Siege in comparison with NWN1

A village, not fancy but atmospheric enough. NPCs actually move around and even sweep the floor. Not as nicely looking as in the Witcher and often cloned too, but... again better than the NPCs in a certain AAA game released not long ago.

Last but not least, some more mechanical stuff. Bioware set a standard with the dialogue wheel now and everyone has to do it, but, again, I think Dungeon Siege III makes it a little better and not as idiot-proof as Dragon Age with it's stupid icons. I can live with this.

The dialogues are very static, instead of making horrible animations like usual, Obsidian wisely decided to better not even try it, so these guys don't emote at all and there's nothing like a real cutscene with camera turns. Not good, but in Obsidian's case better than ruining the whole thing with embarrassing emotes. It's okay, guys, you've learned. :)

Okay, that much on the atmosphere, and that's why I even bother to talk about Dungeon Siege III. We all know this is an Action RPG that is mainly about looting and killing hordes of stuff, and it's also really a console game frustrating to play on a PC without a game controller. But, in Obsidian's favor I just have to say that I can see some big improvements here: The general atmosphere is well done, the game ran incredibly smooth and, who knows, maybe even Dungeon Siege got an interesting story now, because that's what Obsidian can do.

Might buy it someday once it's cheap. :)