^^ I have seen those, I just dont know where a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT fits into that... I assume a GTS is better (has more letters )

10/26/2009 4:09:53 PM

comparing minimum reqs (6600 gt)
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=534&card2=187

recommended (8800 gts)
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=534&card2=475

You meet the min reqs, but you're under the recommended by quite a bit.

10/26/2009 4:17:47 PM

so the game is going to be slow, like your metabolism

10/26/2009 4:18:45 PM

Quote :

"does it really cost that much to get a license from wizards of the coast because I always kind of want to see that DnD logo ya know?"

First, Bioware didn't want to do DnD this time, they wanted their own IP.

Second, Atari owns the video game publishing rights to DnD, Bioware is owned by EA.

EDIT: @JB, it's going to be slow, M versions of cards are much worse than desktop versions of the same series.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 6:00 PM. Reason : 18 thousand]

10/26/2009 5:57:44 PM

Download the character creator from http://social.bioware.com and if you can run this at full blast then this could perhaps give you some indication on how your GPU wll perform. I know that the game will be rendering real-time drawings but this might give you a feel for what to expect.

10/26/2009 6:12:40 PM

I have made a dwarf warrior, human rogue, elf magic thingy.

So I got all the best race/class combos ready

10/26/2009 6:35:02 PM

^^ already did that, and it runs fine, but there doesnt seem to be anything in the creator that would equate with in-game action

10/26/2009 7:20:04 PM

Well I know for me, most of the games that my PC could not run, or runs them at max settings would stutter right in the main screen for me, so if it doesn't do this then maybe you might be OK.

10/26/2009 7:26:23 PM

Quote :

"First, Bioware didn't want to do DnD this time, they wanted their own IP. Second, Atari owns the video game publishing rights to DnD, Bioware is owned by EA. EDIT: @JB, it's going to be slow, M versions of cards are much worse than desktop versions of the same series. [Edited on October 26, 2009 at 6:00 PM. Reason : 18 thousand]"

who gives a fuck what they want

I WANT MY D&D

it's a BIG fucking selling point

10/26/2009 9:45:13 PM

^If they'd gone with DnD for this one, it probably would have been 4th edition.

And 4th edition is shit. Big, really huge shit. So big you can't even flush it down.


Though if they used the same 2nd edition as was in BG2... goddamn would that be phenomenal.

10/26/2009 10:48:42 PM

2nd edition kind of sucked.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 11:11 PM. Reason : at least for video games, 3.5 was so much better]

10/26/2009 11:11:14 PM

Maybe for you. I hated 3.5 for games. Maybe it was just after having used 2e for IWD, BG, and BG2, but a lot of things about it, particularly the base stats not being permanent, weapons proficiencies, and they way saves were done, just felt fundamentally wrong.

For KotOR it was good (having been modified like crazy for star wars), but in IWD2 it was pretty terrible.
...For NPC interaction it wasn't bad, I'd even say it improved that aspect, but I felt like the use of the 3e system absolutely wrecked the combat parts of the game.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 11:24 PM. Reason : .]

10/26/2009 11:18:08 PM

4th edition owns. Combat is way faster, the rules are way better, and it ends up being more fun.

10/26/2009 11:34:07 PM

3.5 simplifies everything, and by simplify I mean make it less pointlessly confusing.

For example, no more negative armor class.

Never played icewind dale 2, The 3.5 in NWN 1 and 2 is waht I'm talking about.

^ Never played 4. In fact I've never played the pnp game, just video games.

10/26/2009 11:36:44 PM

At the risk of turning this thread into a whirldwind of nerding as we argue over which DnD version is best...

4th edition is just made for simple powergaming, with no complexity to the system. You hardly have to put any thought into what you pick, it hardly matters what you do, you just jump in. This might be better from a pick-up-and-play standpoint, but pick-up-and-play has never really been the spirit of dnd... It's always had more of a be-careful-and-think-about-what-you're-doing approach.

Quote :

"In fact I've never played the pnp game, just video games."

Same here. Never played NWN, though. Though I have seen my uncles and some other relatives playing 4e pnp around the time it came out. They didn't really like it either.

My impressions of 3.5 were that it made everything more pointlessly confusing, actually, but this may have just been due to the way in which IWD2's interface was set up that gave me a bad impression. It was near impossible to figure out what to do on my first couple level-ups in that game. As for negative armor class, that's just more of a "as soon as you realize how it works, you know it forever" sort of problem... and it makes the math a little easier, but that's not so much of an issue in a video game that handles all the math for you.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 11:50 PM. Reason : .]

10/26/2009 11:49:22 PM

Quote :

"It's always had more of a be-careful-and-think-about-what-you're-doing approach."

See thats the job of the DM. The idea that you need to be careful about picking the right stats shouldn't be the primary source of difficulty. For sure there need to be limits in how forgiving the rules are, but 2nd edition was a clusterfuck. The primary choices the players should be making should be related to their character's role in the story, not how best to min/max stats to avoid bugs in gameplay mechanics.

10/27/2009 12:06:14 AM

Must have been Icewind Dale.

Another example of pointlessly complicated 2.5 rules was multi-class and dual class. Only humans could dual class and only non-humans can multi-class (or vise versa), and there were serious restrictions and penalties to doing it. It was also made more complicated by some classes having higher xp threshholds than others.

In 3rd, after a certain amount of XP, you gain a level. You can then put that level into any class you meet the requirements for. Simplified.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 12:13 AM. Reason : If you've never played NWN 1 or 2 you've probably never had the true 3e experience]

10/27/2009 12:12:43 AM

^^I agree with a lot of that, but 4e is just way too forgiving for me to think much of it. Watching them play it was like seeing people play WoW on paper... it looked simple to the point of being boring and pointless.

Quote :

"not how best to min/max stats to avoid bugs in gameplay mechanics."

I've always disliked the idea of min/maxing (maxing what you can is fine, but dumping everything out of other stats for the sake of it just seems... I dunno, too cheap. In DnD video games, 9 or 10 was always my bare minimum on any stat, even something like INT for warriors).

Ideally I'd even say that someone should have to put thought into both -- character decisions and gameplay mechanics. "Bugs" in gameplay mechanics are obviously not something people should have to deal with, but IMO they shouldn't be able to ignore the gameplay mechanics almost entirely.

Quote :

"Another example of pointlessly complicated 2.5 rules was multi-class and dual class. Only humans could dual class and only non-humans can multi-class (or vise versa), and there were serious restrictions and penalties to doing it. It was also made more complicated by some classes having higher xp threshholds than others."

Another thing that I actually liked about 2.5 over 3. To me, your initial choices should matter, not be all but overridden or made meaningless by the game mechanics later on. I liked having fixed base stats, I liked having the class you pick at the beginning of the game actually affect the rest of the game (as opposed to being able to never put another level into that first class again, and level a warrior out of someone that started as a mage), I liked having the race you pick matter, and they did a good job of establishing balance between the classes (with the level-up system, though I'd hardly call it complicated when all-but-everything is decided for you on level-up) and the races (every one had some stat modification, resistances, or something, except for half-elves and humans... and choosing between those amounted to "will you want to dual-class or multi-class?").

As for the dual-class/multi-class system itself, it allowed for people to create some awesome combinations within the game system. While, yes, 3e had even more freedom in the combinations that you could create, it felt like it was just worse somehow because of the ease with which you could do it. Making something awesome in 2.5e was a bigger deal because of the restrictions you had to work with; you couldn't just do whatever you want to whatever character you want to. Also, it felt to me like that level of freedom took away most of the individuality from each character -- they were all just generic anythings who could be made to do whatever and who all leveled up at about the same time. Again, I'm sure this impression is also a side-effect of IWD2 characters all being player-created and not having any actual personality (compared to, for example, KotOR or BG npcs).

Yes, it had more restrictions and was more complicated, but I really felt like the complications didn't detract from the game. If everything you get on level-up is fixed anyway (besides weapon proficiencies, thief skills, and sorceror spells), it really doesn't matter at all that everyone is leveling up at different times.

I guess the best way to summarize my feelings on it is that the importance of initial character creation really simplified the rest of the decisions you had to make later throughout the game (though understandably, character creation could be hell on someone coming into the system for the first time after never having seen it before).

Quote :

"n 3rd, after a certain amount of XP, you gain a level. You can then put that level into any class you meet the requirements for. Simplified."

Another thing I didn't like at all in 3e, actually. Again, maybe it was just IWD, but when given the option, I had not any fucking clue as to what the mechanics of doing that would be. Perhaps I was just expecting more complexity, or maybe I was still expecting your initial class to actually matter (for anything besides appearance), but I was expecting doing that to have some explicit penalties, or explicit benefits, or have some effect beyond just adding a level of x class. It was never explained at all (again, maybe just a problem of IWD).


This really all just comes down to personal preference between us, though. And our impressions from having played/not played various games. Also, I feel as though we should end this discussion as per the post below.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 12:38 AM. Reason : vv you tell 'em, Jaybee.]

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 12:41 AM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 12:15:26 AM

ok for real, I know IWD and BG are closely related to DnD, but alot of this conversation needs to be directed here: http://brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=568785

10/27/2009 12:16:24 AM

1st and 2nd edition in the house.


anything beyond 2 is corny shit. Every god damn possible event has a check or a roll or a feat. Made for people with no imagination.

10/27/2009 12:32:07 AM

Now, it's just a cinematic, but this is by far the best one Bioware has ever put together for a game.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/sacred-ashes-dragon-age/57552

10/27/2009 9:24:34 AM

oh lord this just turned into a DnD thread

10/27/2009 9:25:07 AM

without reading all the nerd stuff (more for time than content)

it's all about some 2nd edition

10/27/2009 10:34:53 AM

I've never played any DND-related game except for NWN - I struggled with the whole game mechanic. My pcs would either stand still while they get attacked or they would charge any creature that came within half-a-mile of the party.

Friends tried introducing me to pen-and-paper 2.5 and 3.5 but I couldn't stand it. So ridiculously complicated; I was totally willing to play a pen-and-paper rpg, but I couldn't enjoy those games. It just reinforced my belief that DND was for chronic losers. 4e eventually grabbed me with the reasonably simple mechanics, shoving me head-first into the deep end of the nerd pool.

10/27/2009 11:04:14 AM

^

well, you've missed out

the baldur's gate and baldur's gate like stuff (I still need to completely play planescape... it's like a must do) is really awesome but will seem dated

and the SSI gold box stuff, which is cool and classic, will seem even more dated (like relic)

sucks for you

... wow and you're 27 so you could of totally played all the stuff I've mentioned

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 11:10 AM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 11:10:09 AM

I'm just a late bloomer OK?

10/27/2009 11:14:35 AM

you could still rock the baldur's gate stuff and have fun if you wanted

the "stuff" mentioned that i know of is

baldur's gate and expansion

baldur's gate 2 and expansion

Ice Wind Dale

Ice Wind Dale 2 (didn't even really know about this one)

and Planescape: Torment (generally considered one of the greatest video games of all time)

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 11:18 AM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 11:17:49 AM

dorks... only role I play is that of a pussy getter

10/27/2009 11:57:59 AM

you have to roll to make sure your charisma is high enough

10/27/2009 12:14:58 PM

baldurs gate 2 prolly ranks #1 on MY all-time games played list. i've beaten that game like 5 times. i fuckin love it

10/27/2009 1:21:45 PM

in the age of the internet... where everyone plays video games

where we are nearly 2 generations past the introductions of DnD

where everyone loves tolkien

where harry potter is the most popular book series of recent time

what do you think you're saying?

I want you to point towards the girls who don't love some harry potter or fucking VAMPIRES

the viewpoint that this stuff is only for the unlaid is so fucking irrelevant it's laughable

...

now magical girl anime...

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 1:30 PM. Reason : right you're joking]

10/27/2009 1:28:07 PM

I revel in the fact that I get laid on the steady while spending half my saturdays playing make-believe with dwarves and elves.

10/27/2009 1:38:07 PM

calm down bitches, I was just fucking with you

10/27/2009 1:47:09 PM

I wish they'd release the game already, just so we'd actually have some reason to go back to talking about how awesome it is/will be.

Also, I completely share this sentiment:

Quote :

"baldurs gate 2 prolly ranks #1 on MY all-time games played list. i've beaten that game like 5 times. i fuckin love it"

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 2:51 PM. Reason : somebody post another trailer]

10/27/2009 2:51:21 PM

Nastoute attacks!

10/27/2009 3:19:06 PM

Do the rest of us a favor when this game comes out and don't post everything you find, even with your spoiler tags

Because I know some of you will play for 80+ hours in the first week alone, while the majority of us will sneak in an hour here and an hour there over the course of the next month or so

10/27/2009 3:25:30 PM

Quote :

"LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Quote :

"LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Quote :

"LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Quote :

"LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Never played baldurs gate 2. I think I played the first one for a bit. Stopped playing for some reason. Was probably counter strike.

10/27/2009 9:55:31 PM

^Ironically enough, lightning bolt actually sucks a big dick in BG. It was crazy situational -- you use it in a small room or hallway and it bounces all over the place and slays half your party along with the enemy, but if you use it in a wide open area it never bounces off of anything. Besides that it takes up a spell slot you could be using for fireball.

Chain lightning, on the other hand, was awesome.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 10:00 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 9:57:27 PM

I'm pretty sure the guys in that video weren't playing DnD

No wizard has that many lightning bolts memorized.

10/27/2009 10:13:25 PM

Edwin totally could have.

Dude had mad spell slots.

v that's actually been my plan since the beginning after seeing that screenshot.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 10:25 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 10:15:21 PM

Something I just found out, only the PC version will allow you to zoom out and play with the view shown in that screenshot I posted in the OP. I was probably already getting it for the PC, but that pretty much guarantees it.

10/27/2009 10:24:33 PM

I'll probably play 95% of the game in close view.

This is the reason I'm getting it for PC

http://dragonage.bioware.com/toolset/

10/27/2009 10:38:30 PM

Oh shit, they made a complete level editor?

Damn I want this even more now. It also means the modding community is going to be FUCKING HUGE, which is a good sign given the relatively sophisticated modding community of BG2.


Pointless edit: Would you ever have guessed that I originally intended on never posting in this thread and essentially just get most of my information from the first moments of gameplay? Yeah, that totally didn't happen and now you people have gotten me all hyped.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 10:44 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 10:41:30 PM

^ It's clear now that you've never played NWN if you are praising the BG2 modding community

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 10:44 PM. Reason : NWN had mods that were higher quality than the main campaign.]

10/27/2009 10:44:39 PM

^Yeah BG2 had those too. Never been a big fan of modding so I never really used them, but the effort put in was pretty impressive... entire new sets of characters, new plots, some guys even made an entire new romance sub-plot that was somehow so well-written and well-developed that it managed to earn a decent amount of critical praise (despite being just a mod).



[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 10:51 PM. Reason : the conclusion here is that older Bioware games tend to have insanely good modders.]

10/27/2009 10:49:23 PM

Well BG2 had some good "in-campaign" mods, but the game made mods like I'm describing impossible, since the world was a drawn image file.

NWN had a level editor like DA will have, so modders created entirely new and lengthy campaigns. It's really not at all comparable with BG mods.

There were also thousands of mods for NWN.

10/27/2009 10:56:28 PM

The days are getting slower and slower the closer we come to release. HYPE!

10/29/2009 9:35:51 AM

I have requested off of work on Friday so I can spend extra time with it...wondering if pulling an all nighter juiced up on Monster will effect my game play experience..

10/29/2009 10:58:53 AM

Crap, I'm running out of time. I've got to hurry up and finish the game I'm working on before my preorder comes in!!!

10/29/2009 1:37:11 PM

Quote :

"Do the rest of us a favor when this game comes out and don't post everything you find, even with your spoiler tags Because I know some of you will play for 80+ hours in the first week alone, while the majority of us will sneak in an hour here and an hour there over the course of the next month or so "

10/29/2009 2:23:42 PM