Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Storm of Zehir first impressions

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
34,585
Location
Cell S-004
MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests said:
Vaarna_Aarne said:
Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests said:
Volourn said:
Thankfully, VD is likely a better developer than his current taste in games suggest. FO3, and now SOZ. GET THE FUCK OUT! Seriously, there's no way a LEGIT and TRUE role-playing or dungeon crawling fan can like SOZ. The game is plain, old fashion SOZZY. Then again, SOZ is as horrible as POR2 and people here have actually had the gall to support that game too.

Damn morons.

His walkthru opinions on SoZ don't suggest he likes the game, to me.
Redding is teh hart?

Just read VD's second post.

As you can see, in most cases you get a lot of dialogue skill checks. Instead of unlocking meaningful options, they unlock meaningless options. Truly revolutionary. Think of Baldur's Gate dialogues with tons of meaningless things to say, but with skillchecks. If you want to chit-chat with people, you better have some skills. Better than nothing, but...

...........
...........
there! All gone, sir!
R I goos boee?
And later on...

Dialogues.... love 'em. The writing is silly at times and sometimes all those skill lines compete with Fallout 3, but there is a LOT of them. You have lines for every occasion: stats, alignment, skills. If you want to role-play a personality, Storms of Zehir raises the bar. The only drawback is if you want to talk tough, invest into Intimidate. If you want to sound like a reasonable guy - into Diplomacy.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
Hmmmm, either Zecorian's Demesne was hugely overrated, or my party was overpowered as hell or I was just tremendously lucky.

I died only once, because I made a rush to assess the overall situation and got kind of raepd. Next time, I pretty much steamrolled through the enemies:

First, I let my spirit shaman cast all his defensive spells. After that, I used some careful pulling to get vampires follow me into the starting staircase, and well... they both died in a single sunburst. After that, I went for Zecorian, who was, well, helpless against my massive armed assault. Although my ranger got stunned on the spot, the fighter kept hacking the shit out of the illithid with his greataxe, while the spirit shaman was using some generic offensive spells and the warlock was spamming 'devour magic' to strip him of any defenses.
 

LeStryfe79

President Spartacus
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
7,503
Location
Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Maybe it was just my party, but I found the final temple and One of Many to be harder than that undead tower. I kept my party EL low until those last three encounters and was level 22 without grinding at the end. That Mind Flayer WAS overrated. On the other hand, I actually lost the final battle on my first try (I was drunk as fuck and tried to win in puppet mode) I'm glad I did everything before the final battle though, since continuing on would have been anticlimactic.

I gotta say that micro managing an entire 3rd Edition party nearly wore me the fuck out. That damn rum is making me stupid!
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2006
Messages
5,933
Location
Scotland
How the fuck did you get to level 22? I'm level 16 and heading for the final temple, and I've done every quest apart from the adventurer's guild ones I didn't meet the requirements for (all but two of them).
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
4,338
Location
Bureaukratistan
You can grind a lot, and sacrificing those party members helps a lot. I also got to level 22 and had two cohorts with me, too, since the final fight gave me some trouble. Also, I'm not sure about this, but I recall the exp awards from random encounters decreasing as you level up, so it's worthwhile to grind first, then do quests which have a static exp award.

Zecorian wasn't really hard at that point, but the end fight still took a lot of micromanagement and AI exploitation.
 

AlanC9

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 12, 2003
Messages
505
Imbecile said:
I didn't feel any particular motivation to level up, because I could just pick a level 18 party.

So unless a game prevents you from loading in a high-level character, levelling is pointless?
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
Well, I don't agree that being able to pick a level 18 party takes away the incentive to level up. But the dull content and the need to grind for EXP certainly do.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
Plus, SOZ is SOZZY. That removes all motivation to play it despite the awesome Aurora character and combat systems.
 

dolio

Scholar
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Messages
294
There's no need to grind for experience. I snuck past most overland map encounters for the entire game (except at the very end, where I intentionally fought about 5 encounters just to push me over the edge of one level before entering the final temple), and I finished just fine.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"where I intentionally fought about 5 encounters just to push me over the edge of one level"

Sound slike grinding and sounds like you suck at role-playing.
 

dolio

Scholar
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Messages
294
Yeah, gee, "grinding" for maybe 10 minutes at the very end of the game totally ruins the whole thing.
 

LeStryfe79

President Spartacus
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
7,503
Location
Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
In 3.5 D&D, you get more experience by facing monsters that are higher level than you. I stayed around Lv5 for samarach, and lv 12 for the Swordcoast. Although I technically did no grinding, I did do those bounty quests, which are pretty close. I also sacrificed that old elf woman to OoM. I really didn't like her. Beyond the bounty hunting and protecting my caravans, I did very few random battles. Having a Bard can Really help against higher level opponents. So yeah, when I got to the 2nd part of Samarach, I finished leveling up and was almost Lv 22.
 

WholesaleGenocide

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 17, 2008
Messages
383
I doubt I'll be saying anything that hasn't already been said, but I found Storm of Zehir to be 100% shit. I played it for about a day (6 hours total, maybe?) before quitting. It sucks for the following reasons:

1. The loading times make me want to off myself each and every time I experience them. They're so ridiculously common because of random encounters and the fact that dungeons are so pathetically tiny that it's almost not worth going into them because you know you'll be faced with another fucking loading screen.
2. NWN2 engine. Looks like shit as usual, and the way they did the text makes it, in my opinion, even worse.
3. Tries to be a harken back to the days of old in terms of rpgs, but just sucks.
 

Qwinn

Scholar
Joined
Dec 15, 2008
Messages
666
Barely started. Here's my findings so far:

1) The loading times are indeed pretty insane, from the very beginning of the game. I suspect I'll be putting off the rest of my game until a patch fixes that issue. It really is unreasonable as it stands. We're talking as much as 40-60 seconds sometimes. And my system can handle Fallout 3 in high detail.

2) Otherwise, I like what I've seen. The voicing I've encountered so far is good, attention to detail seems adequate, and I like the high level of stat and skill checks. The multi-player dialogue options are a great innovation that I seriously hope becomes a standard. I'm very much looking forward to the "merchant caravan trading empire", and hope that is handled with some depth.

Qwinn
 

racofer

Thread Incliner
Joined
Apr 5, 2008
Messages
25,577
Location
Your ignore list.
The aurora engine (and all it's derivations) suck for big outdoor areas as the witcher already showed us, no wonder the load times are so atrocious.

I just don't understand why nobody can't use the blizzard's approach to isometric gaming. In D2 they used a 2d engine with a few special effects for people with 3d cards (specially the marvelous 3dfx ones, since d2 is probably the last game to support glide). Now in D3 blizzard is doing something similar (although it's a complete 3d engine). But instead of focusing on stupid shadows and shader and whatnot, their primary focus is on artistic design and special effects. I can only dream about how wonderful a D&D game would look like on blizzard's isometric engines where art design would be mandatory again like the old IE games.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"The aurora engine (and all it's derivations) suck for big outdoor areas as"

No.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom