Rant Land/Random Opinion Land

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It seems like a good time to try this again. Rant. I love a good rant. By rant I do not necessarily mean negative. Those little thoughts that float to the top of your mind while your playing or whatever. Off topic unappreciated but not completely unwelcome.

-I wish the monk in BG2 would have a ki blast. I would have the monk able to perform a piercing, blunt, and slashing type of ki attack. Just a small thought, or perhaps DBZ fandom showing through.

-I take petty revenge on kobolds in BG2 for the anger, grief,(casualties) they suffer onto me in BG1.

 

I wish they'd set it up so that you could be dual wielding weapons and still have a [two-handed] missile weapon ready in a quick slot. It's not like it's gameplay based (you can just go in and mess about with your inventory anyway, and the game stays paused). I can't see why it should be easier to put a halberd away than a couple of swords. On that note, how DO you put a halberd away? Or a spear, for that matter? How can you be carrying 5 of them around at once?

I rarely use missle weapons because I have most of my party dual-wielding, and can't be stuffed moving it all around so I can get a shot off with my bow while running into battle. If only you could quickslot them while dual-wielding...

 

Haha! I just thought of how it'd look!
My dwarf is standing in the middle of the Slums trying to press Carsomyr, The Wave, Crom Faeyr, Blackrazor down into his little backpack

 

Stop hurling fireballs at those poor goblins. They should have a chance to fight, no ?

 

no way! you should always fireball the bloody things! is so funny seeing the little black piles of charred gobbo, with some cash sitting on top of it...

 

I concur: orcs, goblins, kobolds, hoblgoblins and any other easily killable humanoids should be instantly fireballed on site. Its fun, and efficient.

The other alternative I've found extremely satisfying is spraying a group of said humanoids down with a cone of cold. As opposed to blackened little bodies, there's the freezup followed by the oh-so-satisfying shattering of their bodies. That's fun too.

I agree with Argyle that you should be able to dual wield and have a missle weapon in the quickslot. And it is extremely woeful that you can't even have a throwable/melee weapon as dually wielded weapon.

 

What would be cool would be if you could dual-wield missile weapons. Two throwing axes, hand crossbows whatever, a la John Woo gunfights.

 

Since we already see kung-fu in forgotten realms what is wrong with sumo wrestling. I want sumo wrestlers!!! Crushing abilities and twarting abilities. Extra HP.

 

Well Nobleman, that makes me think of something that did bother me in the game:

The onscreen character models, wouldn't it have been nice to be able to choose different body shapes/hairstyles etc...

Not every adventurer is cut out of wood, some should be fat/skinny whatever.

Nobleman should have been able to have a fat monk, and call it a Sumo Wrestler damnit! And I wanted my Druid Avenger to have a green mohawk!

 

I was *very* disappointed in how non-customizable the paperdolls and action sprites were. Once I wanted a guy with a shaved head. Impossible. I wanted a black man. I had to fudge the game to get him (unless I wanted him to look like Valygar's ridiculous paperdoll). I wanted a guy with a beard. I gave up. CRPG's from ten years ago had better graphics customizibility than BG2, it's sad.

 

I've thought of that too. Doesn't bother me much though.

Kobolds shall be ruthlessly slaughtered, preferably with a nasty evocation spell. Or maybe Nobleman the Sumo-wrestler could sit on them... Show them no mercy!

 

Mohawk? Why didn't I think of that. We should have Amrican-Indian style too. They should be a class that could have minor innate spellabilities. Like summon spirits and endure pain. Calm boby. Get in touch with spirits etc. Kinda like a druid.

I want Eskimoe-style too. They should be resistant to cold attacks. Have a very high fatigue level. Have bonusses to Con. And get special weapon bonus to spears.

Now We are at it, I want aboriginal-style too. They should have running abilities and hunting skills. They should have resistance Vs fire. And have control animal skills.

On the fly I agree with the paperdoll. There could be so many simple improvements that would mean a lot. In my opinion this should have been seen by the playtesters. A really important staff in Computergames. No kidding. They are the ones who suck.

EDITED HERE: Actually I think its borderline rasism that Bioware has only implemented Kong-fu style in the Forgotten realms.

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited September 20, 2001).]

 

You know, I thought it was kind of a good thing way way back when when D&D got off the "race as profession" thing. You know, how there were mages, fighters, thieves, elves, and dwarves? Like being a dwarf was enough of a job, you couldn't possibly handle also being a thief or a cleric?

Well, it would be even worse if we started getting into "You can be a fighter, mage, thief, or American Indian."

Cernd is an American Indian, and his profession is "druid". That's just fine the way it is.

Now if I could just get Bioware to put in some more realistic non-Caucasian skin and hair tones for the paperdolls and sprites, I'd be happy...

 

Can't you see I am painting a joke as dark as a summernight near equator?

I hate the monk. I find it hilarious to have kob-fu masters running around besides a knight and a cleric ala king Richard time. I find it hilarious to have a Bruce Lee wannabe kick the guts out of a Dragon.

But I guess I am meant to suffer, when hearing how great a monk is.

 

The body size thing was done in Jagged Alliance 2. You could either be normal or big. When wearing camo makeup, the big guys looked like the Incredible Hulk. It was pretty cool.

The problem with implementing something like that in BG2 is that all of the art would have to be done for multiple body sizes. If you supported two body sizes you would need twice as much art for the avatars. There are a lot of different things that a person can wear in this game.

I may be showing my age here, but there was a time when there were no paper dolls in games. Your avatar looked the same no matter what you wore. I thought it was great when games started adding the features that they now have.

 

Yeah, but don't worry about it, its not that serious, we were only talking about things we liked, or would liked to have seen, no big deal.

 

I understand. There are lots of things that could have been different or taken further that would have improved the experience.

This is a good place to bring this kind of thing up. Hopefully gaming companies consider the opinions of gamers when developing future products.

 

I understand that the animations take time to code, but different colors for the animations would be trivial to do. It would also be pretty easy to add basic variations such as heads with short hair, long hair, no hair, and a beard. And the paperdolls could be *much* more customizable since they don't have to move at all.

Yeah, a lot of games had nothing at all in this department. Like "Ultima". You got to be a blond man, that was it. And a lot of games had only portraits, no sprites at all. But "Pool of Radiance" and that line had sprites whose colors and details you could control. I'm sure Bioware could handle it.

Far from serious, but t'would be a nice improvement in the next game they do. (-:

 

That would be Neverwinter Nights. If I've understood things correctly, your character will be very customizable in that game.

 

Try Final Fantasy. The main character you GET, is the main character you PLAY. NO storyline choice. NO customizability. LINEAR!!!