Thats more like it. :thumb:
We are counting on you guys.

First off, I know you guys don't owe us anything. But I have to say I'm kind of disappointed. No one twisted your arms to start this project. No one demanded you pool your creative efforts but you did anyway. And then, you told everyone we could look and play with what you created. Now you can't be bothered because things change? I'm sorry, but you made the promise, not the "viewing audience".

I'm not unsympathetic. My own life is rather hectic, I run my own business after all. That said, I always find a little time, maybe not much, but a little, to do with as I will. If you have so little free time in your life, and this is Not an insult/attack, you need to seriously rethink your lifestyle. That kind of stress will put you in an early grave. If, on the other hand, you're generating unneccessary drama, put that aside for a bit and finish what you started.

Well yes, with great plans comes great responsibility.

Oh my, what would you call me then, if Littiz is the hopeless optimistic..?

So it starts to get down to this, it seems. Which would be most typical, yet very painful in this case.

I am starting to wonder if we should just release what we have and let someone else finish it??? Not a serious question, really, heh.

Like Lucasarts did with KoToR 2?

I wish I could say that I am still gung ho... but I'm not, and my free time has dwindled to almost nothing. Still... I really wish that something would happen to inspire me to just finish this thing. .... Or perhaps some divine intervention to make it finished:)

Divine Interventions are quite rare outside fantasy games, so I'd say the only thing that could help this project out is the will of it's creators. Either way, the team has to deicde sooner or later, because delaying the final part of development starts to destroy the interest in this mod more and more lately.
BG2 and the Infinite Engine are great, but they won't last forever. And while RtW is easily (one of) the most anticipated mod on BG2, interest will fade in years.

Are they going to add robes?
Are they going to add horse-based movement and combat?
Can you own a house? (Daggerfall)
Can you own a ship? (Daggerfall)
Can you participate in the politics? (Daggerfall again...)
Thanks, would appreciate yes/no answers. Be straight to the point.

You should rather ask the developers on their forums for such infos.

I mean it would be fitting since NWN already uses the very same 2-3 member parties like kotor.

Well, IMO you can't control a party of 5 or 6 in kotor style effectively. For battles a top-down isometric view is a lot better. It allows more control and more chellange

You could always rotate/change the camera view.

The developers of NWN2 are taking into consideration the idea of giving you a party a la BG style.

Actually, the one used in kotor 1-2 would be nice.

I'll buy it. I'll buy anything with Forgotten Realms on it.

Demon Stone would be probably a good exception from this rule.

One thing I'd like to have in NWN2 is a duel/swordplay system similar to the one in KoToR - the way the two opposing characters use their blades is quite spectacular, it wouldn't be a great pain to add something like that for NWN2 too (the one used in NWN is too boring IMHO).

I really don't understand why people who speak of BG3 are so obsessed of taking the Bhaalspawn from BG2 in the new game. Think of IWD1 and IWD2, Diablo and Diablo 2, NWN and his expansion HotU, the Elder Scrolls series. Some are very good sequels even if the main character from the first game did not make in the sequel.

Mainly because there is a significant difference between the main characters of these games: while there is no "specific" PC in most of the games you mention, the Bhaalspawn in the BG series is unique, and cannot be replaced with another one. All the other games had "nameless" heroes as PCs, yet BG had *THE* Bhaalspawn as PC.

By ToB the player was too powerful to continue from there, imo. I'd far sooner start from scratch again. Creating new characters is such fun

Exactly.

Truth to be told, the way that Yaga-Shura slowly loses his resistances in the final battle bothers me as well. I don't really see how this could be solved though.

Hmm, weren't we concentrating on the "normal" fights instead of the Asc ones?

No, definitely the Ascension ones. The normal versions are all miserably nerfed.

EDIT: old "Five Revision" topic merged with this new one. Since the new posts get to the top of the list, it won't cause any mess, and additional previous comments/suggestions can be found more easily this way.

Oh, I understand. As for the final abttle of Ascension, we will have to consider it a bit more. One thing I know is that we will leave it for the last, and once we managed to get the other parts work, we might get back to it and add something here and there. It would be fortunate to have some consistency IMO.

I am a capable writer, and would gladly do this part. The only problem is that my english is still far from perfect, so we definitely need someone who can translate/correct the lines I write.
Another option of course is to ask someone to write these for us. I'm positive we could find someone to help out.

then TGM will want to get to that evil kit of his  I hope he'll decide to delay it after these components, despite my past promises

Heh, you can bet I was wondering weather or not you remembered that promise...!

The Armor Revision component is almost sure, too - and it'll raise the gaming experience quite a bit.

Right after I send the details to both of you in mail, I'll upload the plans here as well - in a new thread of course.

Large Scale Battles are fun, unless you have a slow computer. And that's why there are components in WeiDU.

My words exactly, though I admit that we should try to maintain useability for non-NASA computers too.

Note: I've been awake for around thirty consecutive hours and slept thirty hours in the last week - of which 15 consecutive. Insomnia is such a bad thing.

Yet it is so much useful when it comes to modding...!

It was a good idea to start a new thread for this.
I'll browse my PC to see what I've managed to implement back then for all these modifications.

Now, let us keep on topic.

Here are a few additional ideas for the revision of the Five. These aren't really technical changes like most of the ideas listed above, they are meant to make these battles at least a bit more interesting. Note that some of them might have been listed above, I just cannot remember everything..!


1.: Illasera & the Black Reavers

- as discussed before (and mentioned in the quotes above), Illasera's unique bow will be changed, and will become equipable after you defeat her. You can read the description and stats of the bow itself above.
- you will meet with two of the Black Reavers in the Forests of Tethyr in the SoA part of the game, in the area where you can access Suldanesselar from. This meeting will happen at the point where you try to return to the elvel city with the Rhynn Lanthorn. They will recognize you (since they are already looking for you in that area) and have comments and maybe a few hints on the things to come, but nothing more than that - they'll teleport away without any combat.
- I plan to modify the non-improved version of the Illasera battle, where you fight her as a moronic mid-level mage. While this highly nerfed alteration was still necessary to make this encounter beatable by solo characters (starting in ToB), it was far too easy - and had nothing to do with the "Fallen-Ranger" concept. I think her nerfed solo-version should be changed to the Archer version as well, and should receive some of the abilities of the improved version (like Ethereal and her Black Bow). The most significant change from the improved counterpart of this encounter is that only 1 or two Black Reavers would appear (likely the dual-wielding warrior and the mage), the Orog and the half-eleven cleric would be dropped. Also, the stats and AI of these opponents (including Illasera) would be slightly reduced as well, to make this battle beatable. All the other changes we listed in the posts above would be included into thsi version as well though.


2.: Yaga-Shura

- instead of the greatly increases spawning rate of enemy troops, we should add a Fire Giant cleric to Yaga-Shura's party when he returns to join the combat. This opponent should mainly concentrate on summoning Fire Elementals, using the spells like the high-level Elemental Summoning (this modified version would always summon 2 Greater Fire Elementals) and all the lesser forms of it. This doesn't mean that the original spawning rate of his army won't be slightly increased, but not that much as it was intended first.


3.: Abazigal

- if we can somehow use the required resources, we could change the 4 lesser Wyrms in that battle to Half-Dragons. This naturally means that we should use the Bestial Animations mod as a prerequisite.


4.: Balthazar

- there would be a third option when you meet him in his sanctuary at the end. Instead of attacking him with your party or persuading him to join you at the Throne of Blood, you could have the option to fight him one-on-one with your main character (PC). He is an honorable fighter, and has nothing against your companions - it would offer most interesting tactical and roleplaying options to fight him in a duel. If the PC would choose this option, the other party members would be turned to non-controllable (like in the dream sequance for example) and couldn't affect the battle in any ways. Of course, the same would apply to Balthazar's personal apprentices as well. All these characters would be removed from the area until the battle's duration. Balthazar would initiate a banter when first beaten to Near Death (before he would use his Second Wind HLA), and the PC would have a last opportunity to persuade him into joining forces against Amelissan. Of course, evil players wouldn't be able to accomplish this. After this conversation, the battle would either end (as if he would have agreed to help you from the start), or he would activate his Second Wind, and this time the battle would only end when one of you dies.



Comments?

Err... forcing all those 300 Mb of stuff isn't so nice both to the HD, the performance (for the bloated override) and the dial-up users, you know...

You're right, lets forget it then.

Awesome, but... who is gonna write the dialogue for that?

We don't need THAT many dialogues, and there are plenty of talented writers here at FW... also, we can do the basics ourselves easily.

Also, keep in mind that what you are asking for (interjecting inside a dialogue introduced by a mod) is something very difficult, since you don't know which state/response is the one you're interested in, as that is installation-dependant...

Yep, that would be the harder part of it. :closedeyes:

Yep, we will return to this topic once we manage to get Armor Revisions up and running.

We'll get to it anyway, it shouldn't be that long to do, with some careful choices...

Actually, the Paladin kit part won't be that easy (if doable at all) because of the Fallen status...
either way, let us get back to topic.

Truth to be told, my main problem with those Wyrms (Small Dragons???) is that they are completely cheating, and mostly non-pnp creatures. Replacing them with Half-Dragons (humanoid Dragons) would solve this problem from the start, since we could assign powers for them much more easily and correctly. Also, since Abazigal is a halfbreed himself, it would make sense to have a few others like him around.

I'm still waiting for some answers for this question:

I don't know how this could be restricted to those cases where the character suffers these penalties, and remove it's effects when the character drops the armor. In other words, it would be most unfortunate if a fighter with multiple picks of this ability would actually receive BONUSES to his movement rate while fighting unarmored...

I don't know if you folks are still looking at HLA's for fighter/mages or not, but I think a reasonable way to allow them to cast in heavy armor is to follow the rules G3 implemented for arcane spellcasting in armor and then add a High Level ability to reduce the casting penalty. I'd be in favor of an ability that reduced the casting penalty by 10 or 15%, selectable 3-5 times.

That was the_bigg's idea as well in the "Armor Revisions" thread here in this forum.
As I said back then, a considerable idea, we might even implement it if we can reach a concensus.