gbear Posted July 4, 2002 Share Posted July 4, 2002 Alright, is anybody else a huge Blizzard fan? I wasn't wild about DIablo II, but after a few hours of Warcraft III, I have to say this game is alot of fun. It's got all the fun stuff from previous games like if you keep klicking on the guys they say the oddest things. My favorite thus far are the grunts who talk like yoda. SO far the only downside is that the campaign appears to force you to play the armies in order. I liked that the story was set up in order in star craft, but you could go out of order to play your favorite race. That said, I played them all anyway, so I guess it's not too bad to have to play them in order. Anyway, I'm having a blast with the game. The graphics are awesome, and the interface is about 10X better than the other real time strategy games that have come out over the past 5 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted July 5, 2002 Share Posted July 5, 2002 Game thread. I haven't got Warcraft III yet. I just finished off dungeon Seige and purchased neverwinter nights. A friend has said Warcraft III was "awesome". To play neverwinter nights I have to get a new video card first... :doh: (one of today's projects). Seems they set it up to only play on top of the line ones. And the Voodoo 3's aren't top of the line anymore. They even put in the readme file that they set it up so neverwinter would NOT work with the Voodoo chipset. But of course you have to buy the game and install it to get to the readme file...... For the record dungeon seige has a couple of features I like better than the Baldur's Gate series (and presumably neverwinter nights). But it's failures more than offset the few "improvements". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbear Posted July 5, 2002 Author Share Posted July 5, 2002 Dungeon siege: liked it That's the game I was playing before I jsut bought Warcraft III. My biggest complaint about Dungeon siege is that it is very easy to get lost. Many of the areas are too dark on the map, so it doesn't help that much to tell you where you have been vs. where you haven't. That said, I love the advancement system, the combat, the music, and the overall ease of using the interface. It kind of struck me as a Diablo meet Baldurs gate, but with better graphics. very cool. Never Winter nights is an odd one. It was hyped for SOOOOO long because it kept getting delayed. Despite that, it came out, and people are saying it's got bugs. That's kind of unfortunate. Personally, I won't buy that one till the winter when I might have access to a cable modem at home. I've heard the online parts of that game are potentially great, but the single player options are simplistic. Let me know if that's true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted July 6, 2002 Share Posted July 6, 2002 I've been dissappointed today. Went to get the new video card. What a load of fun. Best Buy had the Xtasy GeForce Ti 4200 (128mb ) on sale 50 bucks off at $179. My friend the computer guru said it was the best deal. Of course Best Buy didn't have any. NOT one best buy in the entire area had one. Manassas had some stolen and sold out of the rest. the potomac mills Best buy had three stolen and had just sold the last three..... So we went to CompUSA down the street. They had them. But they refused to honor their "will match competitor's price" crapola once they knew Best Buy was sold out. "If they don't have any in stock we won't match." Well, it's supposedly "match the competitor's price" not we will match if they have it in stock. And since they had it on sale, why would anyone go to one where it's NOT on sale unless the others were sold out? So my friend called the best buys in Springfield, Fairfax, Falls church, Sterling, Fredericksburg, Arlington, etc. on his cell phone, and not one had a card in stock. So Comp USA made us pay the full price and refused to honor the match the price policy. Kinda interesting not one Best Buy had one in stock when it was "on sale". So when I put the card in and ran it to see if I could detect a difference between the voodoo and the geforce graphics..... I don't see a difference. Other than now Never Winter nights will play.... but it plays slow. ( I ran Dungeon siege looking for differences and saw none.) Onto neverwinter Nights. I've obviously just got it going this evening. but I can tell you they've #$^%$ it up some. Instead of following the "if it's not broke don't fix it" axiom, they tossed in up in the air in a salad bowl. first: I like creating my own characters and my own party. Developing my OWN characters, not npc's. In the baldurs gate series, you can do that. you go into multiplayer and it lets you creat the entire party if you want. You can't with never winter. You get to control only one of the characters as far as I can make out. yea, you can get "henchmen". but from the one henchmen I had playing around this evening at the beginning of the game, I had limited control of him. I could not equip him with weapons, armor, tell him what to do, etc. he followed after me (way too far behind I might add), and when we ran into a room of monsters, he attacked where he wanted. You can give him commands such as "follow", 'attack my target", "defend me", attack nearest"., but that's what I observed.... Oh, he left on his own. I had no say whether he'd stay or go. Weak. Very, very weak. Second; character creation. Any race can play any class now. You can have dwarven or half-orc paladins. or mages. Etc. Each character class has a set number of points assigned to it. I.e. a ranger gets 27 points to assign to your characters attributes. A palidin or fighter gets 30. As your stats get higher, it will take 2 or 3 points to advance just one. For example it will take two points to increase stregnth from 14 to 15. and 3 to advance from 16 to 17 in a class. So there really is no longer random rolls, and no chance of getting a "good character". To get a "great" stat like 17 or 18, you have to take one or two bad stats. I had once rolled up a legitimate 18, 18, 18, 18 17 15 mage in baldur's gate .......converted him to a fighter/mage. (Legit stats - NO cheating involved.) You cannot start out as a 'fighter/mage" or any other dual classes. when you advance, you get to choose what class you advance in. You can stick to "ranger" class, or you can choose to advance as mage class..... It's totally a differnent set of rules from Baldur's gate. They apparently removed the subclasses. No kensai's, no wizard slayers, no assassins..... The thing which i detest most though is not being allowed to create my own party. I don't like using npc's. it's going to be playable but I don't see it as being an improvement on BG2. Actually the game play seems to be a more complicated version of dungeon seige..... And dungeon seige blows because of of it being designed for multiplayer. they put in two maps and released a third for dungeon seige. only one map is playable as single player. If they had put in an overmap and also let you backtrack to stores, etc. in dungeon seige (without having to retrace EVERY single step you have taken), it'd of helped emmensely. But they made it linear. To get from point g back to point a, you have to go from point g to point f to point e to point d.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted July 6, 2002 Share Posted July 6, 2002 Oh, I've got Warcraft III from a friend now, also. Gonna be giving it a try too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PCS Posted July 6, 2002 Share Posted July 6, 2002 Ah. A game thread. we need more of these. Here's what they're saying about Warcraft III over at Gamespy. http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/july02/warcraft3/ In a nutshell. It's all good. played some Starcraft a few years ago and found it fun. Blizzard does have an awsome rep in the gamie world. Rats. I said I wasn't going to get another system just to use as a gaming platform. However, considering the good things being said about Warcraft III, the future release of DOOM III, GI Combat and Combat Mission II, I think I'm in trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted July 8, 2002 Share Posted July 8, 2002 The thing about Neverwinter Nights is that it really wasn't designed to run as a solo adventure. At least that was never meant to be it's big selling point. Ideally, you create a character and then jump into a player-designed/run adventure with other real people's characters and play them in real time. So there really is no need for one player to run an entire party. BG, on the other hand, was designed to run as a single-player game, which makes more party/NPC control more important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted July 9, 2002 Share Posted July 9, 2002 Sad thing is, That's where all of 'em are going to end up. Designed for multi-player and forget the single player options.... And it's poor programming because your cutting yourself out of a market. Some people don't play online. Or maybe do not have access to play online. Your cutting out customers by designing it to be online gaming. What's irritating me the most in playing it, is having extremely limited control over the "henchman". The idiot, no matter what order it's under, automatically attacks on sight. So instead of standing back waiting for me to initiate contact, it attacks. And of course when it attacks the one we can see, 5 or 6 more run out making it a 2 on 6 brawl. The only order it doesn't attack on is "stand your ground". And like I said it doesn't attack at all then.... To get it to attack, you have to initiate a conversation with it, while being stabbed or clubbed, and order it to attack. STUPID design. I can't even imagine playing a magic user in single player..... no hit points, limited spell ablity in the beginning and no fighter to go hand to hand for you while you cast spells or use ranged weapons. Oh, a new rule. My cleric henchman can use crossbows..... wonder if they can use swords and axes now also..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbear Posted July 9, 2002 Author Share Posted July 9, 2002 Forgetting the single player is foolish. Not too many people have DSL or cable in their homes, and a 56k modem isn't fast enough to play most of these games online. I wonder at the wisdom of games designed solely for online usage if the game is $40-$50 and DSL or cable is $40 a month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted July 9, 2002 Share Posted July 9, 2002 I'm not sure why this is a big deal. NWN has been marketed as an online version of D&D since the earliest stagest of it's development. So I don't know why anyone is shocked and dismayed it doesn't hold up to top-flight solo games. Shrug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbear Posted July 9, 2002 Author Share Posted July 9, 2002 What has also surprised me is the number of complaints about errors when trying to develop areas. Evidently, it's had some saveing issues. For as long as it has been in the works, I would think they would have made it's chief selling point, internet play, flawless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted July 9, 2002 Share Posted July 9, 2002 That is unfortunate. However, there already is a patch out, and I have yet to encounter any bugs. I am really looking forward to WC3 though. Havent had a chance to buy it yet, but I was a big fan of the first two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted July 10, 2002 Share Posted July 10, 2002 You are lucky on the bug issue. About 80 % of the time I exit the game it bombs the computer forcing me to turn it off to reboot. And it's been patched. As for complaints, most people knew they were pushing the online capability. But most figured they would also leave the single player mode up there in the 9.0/9.5 rating instead of bombing it down to the 6.0/7.0 rating it deserves. Especially after all the delays in putting it out. The plot/programming is really, really obvious. I knew Desther (the helmite) was the bad guy posing as a good guy almost immediately. Actually gbear, the game was $60. Can't pass up bumping up those prices..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted July 17, 2002 Share Posted July 17, 2002 The single player mode is not great. It's not as good as Baldur's Gate. As for some of the complaints here, one thing to be said is this is played by D&D rules. Just Version 3 instead of Version 2 as was BG. The excitement with this game though is the multiplayer portion. You can't have a true game of D&D with you controlling four characters and playing the computer. You need a DM and you need friends who are creating areas and you need to go play together as groups. D&D is, by definition, a multiplayer game. I'd have bought it even if it didn't have a solo adventure. The solo adventure, to me, is just to make sure you know how to play a character when the game gets real and live with friends on line. If you want a solo game, get CIVIII, which remains immensely playable and fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted July 19, 2002 Share Posted July 19, 2002 Montilar, Just so you know, buy yourself the proper die set, and make your own rolls and if you are going to be "honest" about those rolls, you can always edit a certain .ini file in the game and set your stats as you feel you rolled them. So, while the game assigns specific attributes, the fact is, you can tweak them if you are a true gamer and play it honest. Or, hell, even if you just want to cheat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted July 19, 2002 Share Posted July 19, 2002 The solo adventure, to me, is just to make sure you know how to play a character when the game gets real and live with friends on line That's right. And let me just say that the world-builder is absolutely amazing. I tinkered around with it for a few hours last night and it is SO easy to put together professional-level adventures it should be illegal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Punani2 Posted July 20, 2002 Share Posted July 20, 2002 Originally posted by Montilar Game thread. I haven't got Warcraft III yet. I just finished off dungeon Seige and purchased neverwinter nights. A friend has said Warcraft III was "awesome". To play neverwinter nights I have to get a new video card first... :doh: (one of today's projects). Seems they set it up to only play on top of the line ones. And the Voodoo 3's aren't top of the line anymore. They even put in the readme file that they set it up so neverwinter would NOT work with the Voodoo chipset. But of course you have to buy the game and install it to get to the readme file...... For the record dungeon seige has a couple of features I like better than the Baldur's Gate series (and presumably neverwinter nights). But it's failures more than offset the few "improvements". Holy Sh*t Dude!! You still have a Voodoo 3? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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