Quote from: SosthenesTrue dat, but I always assumed that that's just about pure licensing synergy. Hey, we (Hasbro) need a share of that Mmmrpghargh market, don't we have some good stuff for that already in our portfolio?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that WotC still mostly mis-manages itself, with the occasional pointy-haired boss influence from the Hasbro suits. If there's a grand plan, it either doesn't work or really isn't that grand...

Well, I think in the case of DDO, it was probably pushed more by Atari than WotC.  I'm sure Wizards/Hasbro saw it as potentially decent advertising for their own property, and also potential licensing revenue, sure, but Atari is going fucking broke right now.

NWN is their #1 title and has been for some time.  The damn thing has sold like gangbusters thanks the massive modding and online community that developed around it.  

So my guess is they pushed DDO, as well as an early release for NWN2, because they figured D&D was their hot ticket.

Only DDO was repetitive crap and butchered so as to barely resemble D&D, and NWN2, while a fun game, fucked up by making the toolset too complicated and the game itself notoriously hard to run.

Yeah, D&D CRPGS suffer from engine bloat. We haven't even mentioned the atrocious ToEE...

Personally, I'd really like to see a Torment-like game set in Eberron, using something like the KOTOR engine. So it would have large adventure elements, which can be filled nicely with noir elements. Bonus points would be given for including either Ron Pearlman or Mark Hamill

Quote from: SosthenesYeah, D&D CRPGS suffer from engine bloat. We haven't even mentioned the atrocious ToEE...

Personally, I'd really like to see a Torment-like game set in Eberron, using something like the KOTOR engine. So it would have large adventure elements, which can be filled nicely with noir elements. Bonus points would be given for including either Ron Pearlman or Mark Hamill

TOEE had a glorious engine.  The problem was it was attached to a horrible, horrible game.  If only Troika hadn't died and that engine with it, I think a really great game could've been evolved from that.

I've seldom encountered such a bug-ridden game. Whether the bugs came from the engine or the game scripting I don't know. Looked a little bit rushed to me, especially for a game where half the design work is already done.

Quote from: SosthenesI've seldom encountered such a bug-ridden game. Whether the bugs came from the engine or the game scripting I don't know. Looked a little bit rushed to me, especially for a game where half the design work is already done.

After all three patches, the game actually runs incredibly smoothly.

The only problem is it's one of the most shitfuckingly hard CRPGs ever made, and you'll be lucky to survive the moathouse, let alone get any further in the game.  It was designed by probably the worst killer DM ever.

Plus the town stuff is incredibly awful, in part because the dialogue is uniformly dire in the extreme.

Okay, maybe I'll give it another try. I think I bought it 5 months after it came out and they had one patch (not helping much) and were about to release the second. So we're up to three now? Any thoughts about the "co8" mods?

Quote from: SosthenesOkay, maybe I'll give it another try. I think I bought it 5 months after it came out and they had one patch (not helping much) and were about to release the second. So we're up to three now? Any thoughts about the "co8" mods?

Version 3.0, yeah.  Fileplanet or Filefront or any of the other big game file hosts should have them all.

I didn't try any of the mods, because there aren't really many out there, and because after wiping an ungodly number of times just on that first moathouse place, I got fed up, uninstalled the game, and deleted the disk image I had to clear space for games that didn't piss me off.

Quote from: J ArcaneI didn't try any of the mods, because there aren't really many out there, and because after wiping an ungodly number of times just on that first moathouse place, I got fed up, uninstalled the game, and deleted the disk image I had to clear space for games that didn't piss me off.

Yeah, that first battle in the moathouse is an exercise in frustration.  I mean, how many times can you really repeatedly fireball a low-level group of adventurers before it gets old?

I eventually decided to cheat in character generation.  IIRC, if you switched character generation methods, you could use your point-buy for stats on top of your rolled stats.

I wanted to love that game because it was so faithful to 3.5...  Ended up getting kinda bored.

-O

The only FR game I've played is Demon Stone on the PS2. The graphics were lovely but the gameplay was more restrictive than Pac Man. There was literally one path that you could follow throughout, and I ended up selling it on in disgust.

A pity, really, as the visuals were so close to the published 3.5 material that it really felt like I was adventuring in the Realms, albeit with the worst GM imaginable.

I loved TOEE.

...for awhile.  I didn't have much trouble with the moathouse after the first TPK, because I did what any CRPG vet would do...  I went and cleared out the town's talky quests, fetch quests, and so forth first, and did wandering encounters to level up.  Then I went back.

TOEE had a glorious engine, I concur.  I'd love to see that engine used again for 3.5 D&D games.  I just want to, you know, see them finished.

Even with all three patches and the Co8 fan patches (which I think are completely necessary, since they fix more bugs and allow you to break the level cap...  more on that shortly), the game was horribly bug-ridden.  Certain abilities and feats just plain didn't work.  My rogue was unable to pick special abilities when it came time, instead getting a mysterious "Skill Mastery" feat automatically that didn't allow selection of what skill I'd mastered, or even indicate what it was.  The interface work was often atrocious.  There's a serious lack of in-game help and documentation for the very rules-heavy 3.5.  Want to know what a particular spell does mechanically by selecting it?  Tough noogies.

Anyway, I managed to play through all the way to the bottom and ended up in this ass-tastic fight where the high priest summons an honest-to-gods DEMIGOD to wipe the floor with your party.  I'm serious.  A demi-god.  And the game has a level-cap for your party of 10th level, no higher.  So you've got a 10th level party fighting a demi-god and all of its cronies, and that's not even the end fight of the game.  Fuck that noise.  I only managed to win that one by playing through the fight about twenty times with my level-cap-removed party of about 15th level, and ganking the guy who summons the demi-god in a single round.  Seriously, you let him last any longer and you're toast.

And then I deleted the fucking game because a scripting bug stopped me from doing the node quests (and continuing the game any further).

What a piece of shit.  Such great potential, pissed all away.

wow--i was considering picking up a cheap copy, but that sounds like a fucking trainwreck!  life it too short for bad games

Quote from: beeberwow--i was considering picking up a cheap copy, but that sounds like a fucking trainwreck!  life it too short for bad games

Yes it is.  I may be all gung-ho about trying new things, but one thing I am not gung-ho about is pushing through a game that sucks.

I'm late to this thread (as usual), but I'll throw a couple coppers in the pile:

I personally like the Eberron setting very much, although I'm not as big a fan of the novels -- just not my style of fiction, I guess. Judging by the replies thus far, I think you can safely say that you know quite a few people who like the setting, UmaSama.

I have not played D&D Online, but only because it's an MMORPG and I refuse to play subscription-based games. That said, if you look back at RPGs set in the Realms, some were good, some were astounding, and some sucked. Ultimately how good they were depended more on game design and story than the setting itself, IMO.