Darkness Over Daggerford

[Jasede]

He wrote a book about a boy that is abused by his parents. Big whoop. Grimsley was abused a lot as a kid and wrote a book with that theme.

(The boy in the book ends up being gay and dies after being raped.)

 

[Badgermaster]

The thing is, they hired some semi-famous English fantasy author for Tortured Hearts 2 as an editor...

And it's still the same.

I noticed the same thing. I put a decent amount of hours into both mods before I finally ran out of steam, and the dialogue was probably the largest reason why. They start out fun, but what starts out as a few minor dialogue issues eventually grinds away at you until you realize you're in a major sandstorm of suck.

1) Poor translation, resulting in a lot of grammatical awkwardness, which sometimes results in the dialogue option you pick having a different meaning than you thought it did.

2) Incessant fourth wall-breaking. TH1 was the worst offender, but it was still a problem in TH2. Too many characters talking about your stats and character class and real-world events, and trying to pass it off as "Ha ha! Kidding! Ignore what I said!". And then the creator putting himself and his buddies and people he hero-worships into the game. Chris Avellone is a character in TH1. Zoltan Gonda is a major NPC in TH2, who, of course, has godlike abilities surpassing everyone else in the game, and who treats you to a lecture about how people who dare to criticise the hard work he puts into his games are subhuman, and are condemned to a certain level of hell, and he created a garden in the game's monastery where you can actually go look through a "portal" to hell and see the people he considers "trolls".

3) What seems at first to be genuine moral choices in the game turns out to be incredibly childish moralistic railroading. If you don't fellate every character you meet with extreme prejudice, odds are they'll get pissed and never speak to you again, and/or attack you, thus breaking nearly every quest in the game. Plus, the main quest just assumes you'll be on an incredibly righteous crusade to rid the world of the horribly cartoonish villains, the "Winblood Clan", who are less 3-dimensional than your average Captain Planet antagonist.

It also suffers from the same problem a lot of other RPGs do, in that you're considered evil if you actually expect to be rewarded for risking your life for various strangers, and are given a lesser exp and item award if you actually ask about compensation.

Also, alignment doesn't matter much, especially in TH2, since there are various shrines where you can donate money to shift your alignment in whatever direction you feel. "I've murdered and eaten 15 children today, so I'm gonna hop on over to the temple and donate 1000 gold so I can be good again."

4) Quests with no logical progression. To complete them, you generally have to carry around hundreds of pounds of what you assume/hope to be plot-related items on the off chance one of them is the random McGuffin some NPC wants, or you have to wander the entire gameworld speaking to every NPC in case he/she is the random person needed to complete some other NPC's quest. Kind of like your typical awful "I'm an NPC who can't wipe my own ass, can you help me?" quest, except that the only toilet paper that works is buried under a rock in a dungeon somewhere on the other side of the continent, and the only person who can use it is a specially wiping-trained monk living in the sewers, and there's no way to discover these things until you accidentally stumble into them while exploring, talking, and collecting obsessively, with the quest active.

5) This isn't a dialogue issue, but - A major component of the eeeeeevil villain clan is their contingent of winged drow.

 

[Jasede]

Winged Drow? I never played that far... thank god. (Welcome to the forums.)

 

[Badgermaster]

Winged Drow? I never played that far... thank god. (Welcome to the forums.)

Thanks.

 

[Lesifoere]

Oho. I only played a bit of Tortured Hearts I, but it looks like my instinct was right.

Zoltan Gonda is a major NPC in TH2, who, of course, has godlike abilities surpassing everyone else in the game, and who treats you to a lecture about how people who dare to criticise the hard work he puts into his games are subhuman, and are condemned to a certain level of hell, and he created a garden in the game's monastery where you can actually go look through a "portal" to hell and see the people he considers "trolls".

Ahahaha, I think someone once threatened to give me that treatment based on my blistering contempt for his shitty module. One of the most retarded, juvenile things ever; clearly this person needs to grow up.

 

[OccupatedVoid]

 

[Saxon1974]

The thing is, they hired some semi-famous English fantasy author for Tortured Hearts 2 as an editor...

And it's still the same.

I noticed the same thing. I put a decent amount of hours into both mods before I finally ran out of steam, and the dialogue was probably the largest reason why. They start out fun, but what starts out as a few minor dialogue issues eventually grinds away at you until you realize you're in a major sandstorm of suck.

1) Poor translation, resulting in a lot of grammatical awkwardness, which sometimes results in the dialogue option you pick having a different meaning than you thought it did.

2) Incessant fourth wall-breaking. TH1 was the worst offender, but it was still a problem in TH2. Too many characters talking about your stats and character class and real-world events, and trying to pass it off as "Ha ha! Kidding! Ignore what I said!". And then the creator putting himself and his buddies and people he hero-worships into the game. Chris Avellone is a character in TH1. Zoltan Gonda is a major NPC in TH2, who, of course, has godlike abilities surpassing everyone else in the game, and who treats you to a lecture about how people who dare to criticise the hard work he puts into his games are subhuman, and are condemned to a certain level of hell, and he created a garden in the game's monastery where you can actually go look through a "portal" to hell and see the people he considers "trolls".

3) What seems at first to be genuine moral choices in the game turns out to be incredibly childish moralistic railroading. If you don't fellate every character you meet with extreme prejudice, odds are they'll get pissed and never speak to you again, and/or attack you, thus breaking nearly every quest in the game. Plus, the main quest just assumes you'll be on an incredibly righteous crusade to rid the world of the horribly cartoonish villains, the "Winblood Clan", who are less 3-dimensional than your average Captain Planet antagonist.

It also suffers from the same problem a lot of other RPGs do, in that you're considered evil if you actually expect to be rewarded for risking your life for various strangers, and are given a lesser exp and item award if you actually ask about compensation.

Also, alignment doesn't matter much, especially in TH2, since there are various shrines where you can donate money to shift your alignment in whatever direction you feel. "I've murdered and eaten 15 children today, so I'm gonna hop on over to the temple and donate 1000 gold so I can be good again."

4) Quests with no logical progression. To complete them, you generally have to carry around hundreds of pounds of what you assume/hope to be plot-related items on the off chance one of them is the random McGuffin some NPC wants, or you have to wander the entire gameworld speaking to every NPC in case he/she is the random person needed to complete some other NPC's quest. Kind of like your typical awful "I'm an NPC who can't wipe my own ass, can you help me?" quest, except that the only toilet paper that works is buried under a rock in a dungeon somewhere on the other side of the continent, and the only person who can use it is a specially wiping-trained monk living in the sewers, and there's no way to discover these things until you accidentally stumble into them while exploring, talking, and collecting obsessively, with the quest active.

5) This isn't a dialogue issue, but - A major component of the eeeeeevil villain clan is their contingent of winged drow.

As far as # 2, I agree I dont like things that break the feel on the game.

# 3 I dont mind so much since I tend to be a good guy in games.

I havent exprienced much of # 1 yet, but then again im not that far into it.

Moral directions and black and white villiains are ok with me, but I can see someone not liking them.

 

[Saxon1974]

Did you all like Darkness over Daggerford? (Those that played it)

I dont really like starting out at level 8, I prefer starting at level 1. It seemed pretty good before my save game got corrupted.

How do you rate the story and writing in it?

 

[Lesifoere]

I played it maybe halfway through. I thought the story and writing were both irredeemable garbage.

 

[Starwars]

Story and writing was kinda mediocre, but it had a nice Baldurs Gatey type of appeal to it. Not the best mod ever, but worth a playthrough I thought.

 

[Badgermaster]

Winged Drow? I never played that far... thank god. (Welcome to the forums.)

Screencap fun.

http://badgermaster.com/wingeddrow.jpg

And, heck, while I'm at it, some other gems:

TH1: Random dialogue

http://badgermaster.com/ballgrab.jpg

http://badgermaster.com/retards.jpg

TH2: Drow Hooker you must sex0r for plot assistance (Still had my saves, so loaded this up and capped the entire dialogue)

http://badgermaster.com/drowho.png

That was where I first got an inkling I was seriously wasting my time with the mod.

Protip: If you get it on with lots of prostitutes during the game, your sex skill goes up, and you will be able to impress DrowHo if it's high enough. As you can see, I was not focused on grinding my hump skills. Or humping my grind skills. Or something.

 

[Badgermaster]

I havent exprienced much of # 1 yet, but then again im not that far into it.

Moral directions and black and white villiains are ok with me, but I can see someone not liking them.

The mods are deceptive in that these problems don't crop up initially... It was only after I'd sunk a significant amount of time into the games (at least 20 hours) that the combined weight of the problems really started to get to me.

I tried to soldier on until the end, to no avail. I eventually had to quit to keep my brain cells from committing mass suicide.

 

[Saxon1974]

I havent exprienced much of # 1 yet, but then again im not that far into it.

Moral directions and black and white villiains are ok with me, but I can see someone not liking them.

The mods are deceptive in that these problems don't crop up initially... It was only after I'd sunk a significant amount of time into the games (at least 20 hours) that the combined weight of the problems really started to get to me.

I tried to solider on until the end, to no avail. I eventually had to quit to keep my brain cells from committing mass suicide.

Ha! Ok, we will see if I feel the same after playing some more....

I don't mind a bit of goofy dialog and typo errors here and there if its means I get a wide open world to explore....but we will see.

 

[SkeleTony]

I enjoyed DoD but did not get extremely far into it before I got sidetracked by other games. Still have my saves though so I will probably go finish it before too long.
Tortured Hearts was installed, I read the readme thing that said something like "If you are not a LARPing fag who hates rules and enjoys sitting in a circle making up stories with wannabe writers and drama class rejects, you will hate this module!"

So I played a very little bit to confirm that the module did in fact seem pretty sucky, and uninstalled. Nothing to turn me off quicker than pretentious 'r0L3pL4Y3rz' who hate Role playing GAMES and want to force their pointless teenage poetry and fan fiction onto the game player while looking down their noses.

 

[buccaroobonzai]

Have any of you played any of these modules?

The Hex Coda
Honor Amongst Thieves
Tales of Arterra 1 & 2
Almraiven

What did you think about them?

A little synopsis of each:

The Hex Coda: Unique setting and story. A hybrid Eberron like setting where magic devices substitute for modern technology in a world at a similarly developed state as our own. Deals with issues of perosnal freedoms and time travel.

Honor Amongst Thieves. Unique RPG in that you go undercover to join a thieves guild to ascertain information for a client. It is purely a thief/rogue module with all quests pertaining to the guild and you're mission. One of the most fun modules ever played.

Tales of Arterra 1 & 2, very Baldur's Gate inspried mods, if you're fans of those you should like these mods as well.

Almraiven: A grand urban mystery adventure, definitely worth playing, nuff said for now.

 

[Starwars]

Never tried the Hex Coda for some reason, heard it's good.

Honor Among Thieves was a great module, but I must admit I thought it started out extremely slow and I nearly dropped it. It does get better as it goes on.

Tales of Arterra. Can't remember much of these except that I really enjoyed them. Should get around to replaying them someday.

Almraiven, definetely my favourite NWN1 mod. Just great stuff even though it doesn't have the usual Codexy stuff like choices & consequences, or even many dialogue options. It's just extremely well-done, and oozing atmosphere. Sequel is currently in beta.

 

[Saxon1974]

I haven't played any of those either, but I might have to give them a shot.

I tend to only play those with gameplay longer than 15 hours or so, just doesn't seem worth it investing time into a 5 hour mod.

 

[Badgermaster]

Have any of you played any of these modules?

The Hex Coda
Honor Amongst Thieves
Tales of Arterra 1 & 2
Almraiven

What did you think about them?

A little synopsis of each:

The Hex Coda: Unique setting and story. A hybrid Eberron like setting where magic devices substitute for modern technology in a world at a similarly developed state as our own. Deals with issues of perosnal freedoms and time travel.

Honor Amongst Thieves. Unique RPG in that you go undercover to join a thieves guild to ascertain information for a client. It is purely a thief/rogue module with all quests pertaining to the guild and you're mission. One of the most fun modules ever played.

Tales of Arterra 1 & 2, very Baldur's Gate inspried mods, if you're fans of those you should like these mods as well.

Almraiven: A grand urban mystery adventure, definitely worth playing, nuff said for now.

I have not, but I'll add them to my list of ones to check out.

 

[Saxon1974]

Well I have been playing Tortured Hearts for a while and Im still having big fun with it. A few odd dialog moments but I can deal with that.

The thing that is driving me crazy is controlling your companions. There AI is horrible and you cant really control them at all once the battle starts.

With my mage, I tell him before the fight to avoid combat and everytime he just runs right up to an enemy and gets himself killed.

Is there a way in this to control them a little better? I can't find a setting to torn off AI and control them manually. I dont remember it being this hard in the NWN OC.

This mod is hard I will give it that, very few easy battles.

 

[Badgermaster]

Well I have been playing Tortured Hearts for a while and Im still having big fun with it. A few odd dialog moments but I can deal with that.

The thing that is driving me crazy is controlling your companions. There AI is horrible and you cant really control them at all once the battle starts.

With my mage, I tell him before the fight to avoid combat and everytime he just runs right up to an enemy and gets himself killed.

Is there a way in this to control them a little better? I can't find a setting to torn off AI and control them manually. I dont remember it being this hard in the NWN OC.

This mod is hard I will give it that, very few easy battles.

I avoided all companions in it, so I don't know if there's a way to keep them from being stupid.

I will agree that the fights were definitely challenging, at first. Once my rogue became good enough with sneak attacks and laying traps, though, the challenge mostly disappeared.

Serious frustration at the myriad flaws didn't fully set in for me until I reached level 16.

 

[Saxon1974]

Well I have been playing Tortured Hearts for a while and Im still having big fun with it. A few odd dialog moments but I can deal with that.

The thing that is driving me crazy is controlling your companions. There AI is horrible and you cant really control them at all once the battle starts.

With my mage, I tell him before the fight to avoid combat and everytime he just runs right up to an enemy and gets himself killed.

Is there a way in this to control them a little better? I can't find a setting to torn off AI and control them manually. I dont remember it being this hard in the NWN OC.

This mod is hard I will give it that, very few easy battles.

I avoided all companions in it, so I don't know if there's a way to keep them from being stupid.

I will agree that the fights were definitely challenging, at first. Once my rogue became good enough with sneak attacks and laying traps, though, the challenge mostly disappeared.

Serious frustration at the myriad flaws didn't fully set in for me until I reached level 16.

Im only at level 4 now, so we will see what happens. Not sure how many hours I have played, probably 10 to 15 at this point.

I think I should have played a rogue, in the early areas there are lots of traps and locks I cannot get open and i haven't been able to find a rogue to join me.

 

[Saxon1974]

Im starting to agree with those that said Tortured Hearts is pretty tough without the online hints.

The part with the Bear cave for example is hella hard. If I didn't look at the online hints I would have kept trying to fight my way through all the bears.

Being hard is a good thing though, but just a few parts of this are a bit too hard it seems.