Learning to DM via Pen and Paper blogs

Image by Chorazin via FlickrAs I mentioned a few days ago, I'm thinking of starting a small campaign with my nephew and maybe a few other family members.  As I've waited for my 4/e stuff to arrive (darn you super saver shipping!), I've taken to reading a few pen and paper blogs.  Here are a few of my early favorites:

NewbieDM.com
This blog chronicles a DM's early attempts (starting about three years ago) to start playing a DM.  This post includes a host of very helpful advice and information.  I'm particularly excited about his made-at-home tokens and status markers.

Roving Band of Misfits
This seems like a fun, general D&D 4/e blog.  They have a very good podcast as well that I'm now subscribing to.  I much prefer it over some of the other offerings I've tried.  They do some fun crafts, like this cheap beholder miniature.  I'm also really diggin' their Two Page Mini Delves series (I'm linking to the second in the series, which is fairly new).  Since my "campaign" will invariably need to involve the use of very small dungeons and such, these are perfect...and have a nice flourish of creativity that keeps them from being a simple hackfest.

Sly Flourish
This is a site that is specifically dedicated to providing tips for DM's.  He is hawking his books via the site, but his content is very good and very helpful.  I was very happy to find his "Start Here" link, which lists many of his more helpful posts.  His 4/e buyer's guide very helpfully turned out to recommend exactly what I've already purchased, so that was reassuring...and it helped me realize that I will want to get that monster vault at some point, along with some tilesets.  I may buy at least one of the books on his site, as the freely available stuff seems very good.

Dungeons Unlimited
This is a newer site, but it's neat.  Basically, the guy is posting some of his many dungeons that he has created.  They're absolutely lovely, and should be printable for later use should I decide to use them.  I would love to get a hold of the mapping software he uses, though apparently it is no longer downloadable.


That's what I've found so far.  Any others I should be watching closely?

Reviewer's Remorse

Back in the day, I wrote eleven official vault reviews for NWN1 (you can find them in my sidebar).  I ran across one of them today while searching for planescape modules.  It's for FK The Shadow Relic, a bridge module between SoU and HotU, and I wrote the review in summer 2006.

The review is a pretty mixed bag.  It highlights some of the successes of the module.  I still vaguely remember some of its amazing visuals, and a have a huge slant towards planescape stuff.  But it also frustrated the hells out of me at times, and that definitely comes across in the review.

The module at this point has 8 votes.  I just cast the 8th.  I hadn't wanted to vote earlier because I felt like I had already had my say.  It was just the 4th vote the module had received since my review.

Now, the module had been out a year when I reviewed it and had only received four votes.  Clearly it wasn't marketed particularly well, and its vote/download total is abysmal.  And a glance through the comments indicates that it was frustrating to a lot of players.  But there's no way this module shouldn't at least have the 10 votes it needs by now to appear on the top 10 list.

One of the main reasons I got involved in the reviewer's guild was so that I could bring exposure to underappreciated/overlooked modules.  I had at least one success with that: my review of Tiberius's Saleron's Gambit 3 did play at least a small role in getting his modules the attention they deserved.  But the counter to this is a module like this one.  I liked it and tried to hype it, but ultimately the author and his module may have lost an opportunity for more success because of the review.

I think I was largely fair.  But I still feel a sense of regret at the whole affair.  Blah.

Review: Celestial Chronicles, Part I

My vote: 8.5 (Good, qualified recommendation)
Character: included lv. 6 human rogue

It all begins with what you find in this rock.

This is an interesting little module.  It tells the story of a young archaeologist who lives in an ultra-oppressive regime.  While archaeologists aren't exactly known for their rebellious nature in most settings, here, historic knowledge is repressed and guarded by the regime.  This can place a archaeologists in a precarious spot if they "dig too deep."  In this tale, our protagonist uncovers an amazing artifact...but just as she does so, things go horribly wrong.

The story and setting are interesting, and has loads of potential.  I wasn't as excited about the execution of the module.  Most of this adventure takes the form of a linear escape run, where you battle your way through a series of (fairly repetitive) encounters as you flee.  Combat is frequent, but not very challenging.  There is a significant part of this module that uses an entirely different setting, which is a cool twist and I won't spoil it (though I will say it had a certain Ressikan feel to it--if you must know, look it up!).  But even there, you end up traveling on a long, linear path, battling repetitive encounters once again.  There are absolutely some cool moments in this module in which you, as the player, really don't know what is going on (in a good way), and a few characters that are interesting and could be developed a great deal.  The custom music is nice, as are some of the scripted cutscenes.  But overall, I kind of felt a bit lukewarm toward the mod.  I would love to see a more well developed module in the future, however, because the ideas behind the story are terrific.

Planning a 4/e adventure

So I've ordered my DnD stuff and look forward to its arrival next week. And I've gotten parental approval from the nephew's mom, who also was interested in playing. So we're on track for a fun party-of-three adventure (I'll play a third party member, largely as a henchman). My wife is thus far completely uninterested, but that means she can watch our kids during the games. :)

I'm going to start with the Starter Set adventures, as that will help them roll up a first character and learn the most basic game mechanics. It will also give us a basic adventure to help me learn the ropes of a DM. After that, however, I'm getting interested in designing my own adventure.

Or an adaptation of an adventure. While I have an old module idea that I eventually would love to try in pen and paper, it would be fairly involved and perhaps too mature for an 8-year old. So I'm thinking that our first several adventures might be adaptations of NWN modules. Snickersnack!, which I just finished the other night, could be a great opening module, assuming I can recreate the humor of the kobolds (and find a more level-appropriate quest reward). It's simple, short, and fun. And Cave of Songs is another that might translate very well: powerful ideas, but very little required long dialog and a lot of stuff that could be cut or embellished as needed.

I'm getting ahead of myself a bit here--they may try this and hate it--but this should be fun. DMing will no doubt require preparation, but I'd guess the hours requirement is at least an order of magnitude lower than creating an effective NWN module.

Now if only my books would arrive quickly. I'm looking forward to learning the 4th edition rules. I'll roll up one each of a fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric, so I can choose a character to complement my players' choices.

Review: Prophet Prologue - It Cannot Be Denied

My vote: 9 (Very good, deserves a look)
Character: Halfling 4Rog/2Ran from Cave of Songs, did not advance a level.

Halfling Village!

It almost feels wrong to vote on this module, as it's very much just meant to be the opening act in a larger saga.  You begin the module in the Hopping Hobgoblin Inn after waking from a disturbing and vivid dream in which a halfling village is slaughtered.  As you head downstairs, you meet a young halfling adventurer, who is alarmed to hear you describing his own village just a few miles from the inn.  The two of you rush there to find out whether this dream of yours is a premonition...or just a dream.

The story is good here, with good pacing and execution, and it sets up the next chapter in the saga very well (though naturally there's little sense of closure at the end of this one).  It is a very short adventure, and as such it is very linear.  There was at least one interesting side-quest of sorts that I happened upon involving a fallen druid.  What little combat there is seemed appropriate for the setting, and was never too challenging for my duo of halflings in the game.  I did very much enjoy the halfling henchman's character, and look forward to seeing him develop in future modules.  In the end, it's a fun but short module to play, and leaves you wanting a lot more by the end.  And that's exactly what it's meant to do!

What monster is this?

So actually, this is a spectacled bear that has some sort of skin disease.  Poor thing.

But I swear it looks like something out of D&D.  I can't decide what, though.  Maybe a gnoll?

Baldur's Gate NWN2 module continues

In early 2007, I wrote a post about a group that was trying to recreate the original Baldur's Gate in Neverwinter Nights 2.  They had just released a demo, and it did a great job of recapturing the initial short prologue at Candlekeep.

Well, to my amazement, they are still at it, and may actually be getting close.  Some excerpts from their latest posts.

drechner, the project founder and area builder:

Here's a (not) fun fact: I started this project in November of 2006 and expected it to be done in 2008. Needless to say, that was a gross-underestimate of the work involved! Therefore, never trust me; we're like 3D Realms with DNF, except we have no budget and far less people working on it :p
I only kid (sort of), but on a serious note, we're looking to get this project uploaded on the Vault before Skyrim is released (mid-early November). We could get it done before then, though more than likely it'll be several weeks afterwards, but know that this is our goal. If you're looking for a percentage complete for the game, it's probably somewhere around the 80% mark, though it's a bit difficult to estimate as we have chapters 1-4 completely scripted with chapter 5 partly done already. As for the areas, the only items remaining are the return to Candlekeep interiors, a few interior areas in BG city (which Shallina has been patiently awaiting), and Gullyking/Firewine Bridge areas. Most our systems are in and working already as are some of our art assets (we haven't shown the NPCs yet, but we will). 

Shallina, who appears to be the main scripter:

Drew is making the area then he is sending them to me, I am scripting them and making them functionnal, all the items al ready exist, all the important NPC exist as well, but once I am done, I am making a "build" where everything done works together, wich I send back to Drew so he can polish all the visual of the game and things I had to change.
We can say that now we got a first "Beta Build" beceause all scripted area are now linked and working together as a game.
The project isn't anymore different piece of the remake, but a single "big piece" that is working.
We are at a stage where we could start "a full scale test" and not only "focus test" on specifics parts.
It's one of the best moment of the project where it s becomming a "game" that can be fully played and is no more only  "a work in progress".

I am absolutely in awe of the fact that they are still at it. My hat's off to them. Kudos! And I do hope they are able to finish it.

Roll a D6

Absolutely brilliant.

What should I buy for D&D 4th edition?

I'm thinking about running a very small dungeons & dragons pen and paper thing with my nephew, who is 8.  It would absolutely be an excuse for me to play pen and paper DnD more than anything else, but it also might be a fun way to bond with the kid.  Eventually I can see adding more family members should they become interested.  But it might just be a fun thing for us to do when I visit every month or so.  I'd DM and play a henchman character that would complement whatever he chose to play.

I'm trying to figure out what to buy.  I don't get a lot of traffic these days on this site, but if anyone reading this has some experience I'd be glad to have it.  At this point, my current thought is to buy three things:

DnD 4th Edition Starter Set
My understanding is that this wouldn't get us past level 2 or so, and is made obsolete as soon as you have other stuff.  But it comes with dice, which I don't have, and a nice-looking battle map.  Anyway, I'm torn on whether to get this.  The main selling point to me, beyond being inexpensive for what you get, is that it is supposed to be a very good introduction to the core game mechanics.  That might be very helpful when trying to introduce new players to the game.

Dungeon Master's Kit
From what I've read, this kit includes most of what you really need from the Dungeon Master Guides, plus game pieces and grids.  I do sort of wish we could just do completely abstract fights like I usually did in the past, but apparently the new rules system really needs tokens on a game board.

Heroes of the Fallen Lands
Rather than get the player guides, I've been reading that this book makes a good alternative.  It profiles the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, and is completely compatible with the characters that you make using the starter set.  This would easily get us started.  Later I could add Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, which would let us do Druids, Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks.  But those, I think, are more specialty classes.  The core four classes in the Fallen Lands are really all you need.

Anyway, while I could just get the starter kit at first, I get free shipping if I buy at least one of the other two items.  And being the sort that I am (and having some amazon.com birthday money), I think I'm just going to go for it.  Later, I might like to add the other Heroes book, plus the Monster Vault for more monster options and tokens.

Review: Snickersnack!

My vote: 9.5 (excellent, recommended to anyone)
Character: Human Sorcerer, lv. 1 to lv. 2 in this module.

Kobolds done right.

Snickersnack! is a terrific little module.  You are adventuring in the desert when you come upon a sign advertising the need for an adventurer, and promising great rewards.  What ends up happening, without giving too much away, is that you are working for a tribe of Kobolds on a quest to save one of their kin.  The kobolds are the stars of the module, and are incredibly well-realized.  Each one has a unique name, and most have a specific job or role within the clan.  There are an amazing number of animated sequences, short and long, that make this module delightful and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

What kind of strange contraption is this?

The adventure itself is very short, but is full of great little touches that kept a smile on my face.  Sometimes it was the humor, and sometimes it was just wicked clever-ness.  Also, there are a number of fairly hidden conversations and even at least one quest involving my sorcerer's summoned animal and familiar.  There's not a lot of action (as advertised, it's hack and slash light), but what is there is fine (although not very exciting).

Oldie but a goodie

Review (sort of): Saleron's Gambit I

I replayed Saleron's Gambit I last night. I somehow never finished the series, despite how enthusiastic I was about the first four. Those saved games and my character are no where to be found today, so I'm just replaying through the thing.

Here are my comments that I left on the module page:

Just posting to say I had no trouble playing through this module using NWN 1.68. Had to download the 1.68-compatible CEP 1.52, and then "upgraded" that to CEP 1.53. It's a bit of a runaround, but it works fine.

Also, this was my second time playing through, and the magic is still there. This is such a fun, unique module to play. Somehow, probably because it's so rare to have to do it (I wouldn't want to do it every time), I really enjoyed running around town trying to scrounge up 20 gp so I could buy some gear. Hint: sell your books! And that gear turned out to be studded leather armor and a club! Yikes. When I upgraded to Chain Mail and a Morningstar at the end of the mod I felt positively wealthy...

Beyond that, the townspeople are all very well conceived in that close-minded, small town kind of way. We didn't see a ton of it, but did get to feel something of the depth of the FR setting in some places as well. As before, it's a module recommended to anyone.

One other thing that I didn't note above but wanted to mention...I really liked how Tiberius was able to use the castle interior tileset to such great effect. The second floor of a castle in this module had lost its roof, and using exterior lighting and abundant trees, you really felt like you were up exposed and up in the tree canopy. Kudos.

That said, it's still pretty short, and has little sense of closure (given that it's the first in the series!). I voted 9.5 in 2005, but if I were to vote again, I'd probably drop it down to a 9 or so (very good, deserves a look). But I'm not going to go back and change vote almost six years later. :)

Review: Science Macabre

It might help to see the comments of QSW and Alazander to make full sense of my voting comments. Also, I've added this author's blog, Undead Men Tell Tales, to my blogroll.

My Vote: 9 (Very good, deserves a look)

Character: lv. 1 Human Bard

I largely want to echo the comments of QSW, who said it more eloquently than I will be able to. Science Macabre is a very nice little module, and works great as a showcase for the author's writing skills as he stated. The characters all have their own voice, and their own personalities, which is impressive given the relatively small amount of time you have with them. Kell, in particular, was impressive. Romance interests are very difficult to write convincingly, and almost every attempt I've seen in-module (including almost all of the official Bioware/Obsidian products) typically fall flat. And somehow, in one short conversation, I was completely on board with it. Furthermore, the three choices of response provided for the player during most dialogues allow one to portray a wide variety of characters. The roleplaying is very good here.

Furthermore, as Alazander noted, the setting is extremely interesting. Angels vs. Demons vs. Vampires is wicked cool, and has huge potential. As many others have said, I'd love to see more from the author on this front.

Review: Cave of Songs

My score: 9.5 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone

Character: Began w/ lv. 2 rogue/ranger, ended level 6 (barely)

I'm a sucker for a great story. And that is a big part of what makes Cave of Songs so great. Not only is there a brilliantly creative concept at the heart of the tale, but the execution of that concept is terrific. You begin in a small tavern in a small town near the Grimwood forest, where you hear tales of a mysterious Cave of Songs. Everyone has heard a different story about what can be found there, and the stories only get more interesting as you make your way through Grimwood and into the cave itself. This is one of those stories that I will remember for years, at least in its general essence.

Beyond this, the atmosphere is just terrific. True to its low-level nature, I found myself scared to death throughout most of the module. A halfling rogue/ranger isn't a particularly formidable foe before he gets his AC up a fair bit (and gets weapon finesse), which took until about half-way through the module...and even then, he was basically just adequate. Even by the module's end, my character really couldn't take on some of the tougher baddies in the forest by himself. And by then, the henchman--who was invaluable early on--was starting to lag behind, becoming less useful as we went. Added to that sense of fear was an extremely creative setting, with neat twists on visuals, and good use of sound and music. Finally, the writing was top notch...concise, but provocative and descriptive.

In many ways, I was reminded of Torslunda, which was a classic, relatively short, low-level mod that was published several years after Cave of Songs. Both have a fairly linear but interesting story with sidequests, and are ideal ways to get that low-level experience. I recommend Cave of Songs to anyone.

How I'm going to score NWN1 modules

For NWN2, we have a clear set of voting guidelines, which I played a role in developing. Folks haven't always adhered to those standards--there still has been voting inflation, to be sure--but if you did vote using them you at least had justification for doing so.

With NWN1, however, there are no written guidelines. As such, you pretty much have to judge modules relative to one another. Add over 1100 modules that have received at least 10 votes and you have a recipe for massive voting inflation. There are 60 modules with scores over 9.75. That means that you literally have to vote 10 on each of them or you will lower their score. Yikes.

I'm planning to get back to playing NWN1 modules. But I'd like to use a written set of standards so I can be more consistent in how I evaluate modules. Here's what I'm planning to do:

10.0 - A masterpiece, genuinely groundbreaking

9.75 - Outstanding, a must have

9.5 - Excellent, recommended to anyone

9.0 - Very good, deserves a look

8.5 - Good, qualified recommendation

8.0 - Fair, solid yet unremarkable

7.5 - Some merit, requires improvements

7.0 - Poor execution, potential unrealized.

6.0 - Very little appeal

5.0 - Not recommended to anyone.

I don't love it. I won't use a 9.25, for example, which is silly (then again, I think non-integer scores are silly!). But I think this largely reflects how people have been voting. Very compressed near the top, with larger and larger gaps as you move down. It'll work.

I'd be surprised if I ever give a score below an 8...probably because I'm unlikely to finish such a module. And because there are so many modules to play, I can be pretty picky about which I download. The only exception might be one of the newer modules. Given that the rate of module release is so slow at this point, I am going to try to play and vote on most newer releases, even if they are from one of the old Bioware module design contests. For the most part, though, I'm going to stick with the top rated ones.

Rediscovering the NWN community

I'm continuing to plug away at Cave of Songs, and will post my comments on it once I'm done. They will likely be glowing.

I've also been rooting around trying to figure out what has happened to the community in my time away. Obviously it has contracted substantially. But despite my initial fears, it's not even close to dead. Thanks to VBJ at the largely silent Reviewer's Forums, I learned that the Bioware forums have been relocated to social.bioware.com. So I've created a profile there (wish they still had my old red dragon disciple image), and have started lurking around the nwn1/nwn2 modules forums.

I've also seen that the Neverwinter Nights Podcast is still going strong. I've added them to my iTunes and will give this month's episode a listen soon.

Finally, and most importantly, modules continue to be posted and updated. NWN1, to my surprise, has seen 24 new modules posted in the past year, and 25 modules updated in the past month. NWN2, on the other hand, has 25 new modules in the past year, and 15 modules updated in the past month.

I expected NWN2 to be going a bit better than NWN1, but by those numbers (at least) they're pretty evenly split. In my limited experiences with the two toolsets, I have to say that I liked NWN2's a lot better from a usability standpoint. But at the same time, it's probably the case that I could do a lot more with NWN1's toolset in a short amount of time, mostly because area construction was SO much quicker. This is something that a lot of folks warned us about, and I generally ignored as NWN2 came about. With the incredible flexibility also came incredible time demands, and I am sure that this is part of why NWN2 never saw the sort of incredible number of modules than NWN1 did.

I do see a terrific variety of prefab areas available on the vault, however. And most are far better than anything I could hope put together. I think that if I were ever to try to make another module--and I'm almost certainly not going to try to do this--that would be a resource that I would mine heavily.

That said, there certainly are a lot of modules for NWN2. I sort of missed out on what was probably the peak of them by leaving the community when I did. I don't have either expansion pack, but I see that I can buy the whole kit and kaboodle on Steam for $20. That'd easily be worth it. So, I'm thinking about it. That said, logistically it is much tougher to use the computer that can run nwn2 and not alienate the family than it is to hack away on my little laptop. So I might just play with NWN1 for now.

Playing: Cave of songs

Here's an oldie-but-goodie that I missed. My first foray into nwn1 in a half decade is the Cave of Songs. I'm playing this in anticipation of playing through the prophet series by the same Author.

I'm about an hour in, and having a lot of fun. I'm playing a halfling rogue/ranger, and it's already become clear that I am pretty rusty. I barely remembered what the various skills did (almost used parry!!), and simple strategic things like not rushing into rooms full of monsters have been slow to come back to me. Plus, until I can get my character leveled up a bit to have finesse weapons and an extra Dex bonus, he's rather underpowered. I did start him out as a level 2 character as this mod is apparently balanced for multiplayer, and I hope that will be enough.

Character creation was a little problematic. For nwn2, I had my character creator mod. Here, I used Pretty Good Character Creator for xp/gold, but found it necessary to drop 3/4 of the gold it gave me. 2/3 might have been sufficient had I used an in-mod store, but PGCC's store is set too cheap: 100 markup/100 markdown. I've edited PGCC to 150/35 (iirc) now, but couldn't figure out the gold script and so will probably just drop 2/3 of it from now on.

Anyhow, I'm having some good nostalgic fun. Looking forward to more tonight!

I'm installing NWN1 right now.

Don't know if anything will come of it. Probably not. But talking about some fantasy lego board game with my nephew got me thinking about the good 'ole days. I'm going with nwn1, as I'm running on my dinky work laptop, and I don't think it can handle nwn2.

Besides, there's a lot of great stuff on nwn1 that I never got to see....

Eternal Sonata Mini-Review

My first true next-gen jrpg experience unfortunately fell a bit flat.

Reviews of Eternal Sonata for the XBox 360 indicated that it had a excellent story that was uniquely bound to true events from the life of composer Frederik Chopin. Neat concept for a story that did have it moments, but I found the execution to be dreadful. The characters were entirely 1-dimensional, and the writing--especially for the evil king and his cronies--was beyond dreadful. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I need a bit more subtlety in my villains. By the time I lost interest, there were some hints of a plot twist involving a Yoshimo-style betrayal. But it just wasn't enough to keep me going.

The other aspect of the game that was touted by the reviews is the new take on a jrpg combat system. Like the louded (and, in my view, overrated) Tales series, Eternal Sonata's combat system incorporates action elements that many reviewers found to be a breath of fresh air. While the Tales series is essentially a cross between a fighting game and a rpg, Eternal Sonata does incorporate a bit more strategy into its system. There is a neat special attack system, and a cool concept in which enemies and abilities change depending on whether they are in the dark vs. the light.

Unfortunately, at least for my taste, combat was still too twitch-based. In fact, it becomes more and more extreme in this regard as you progress through the game due to their "party level system," which, for me, made the combat progressively less and less enjoyable.

So, my take on it is that Eternal Sonata is a game that had a bunch of cool concepts underlying its design, but was executed with a lackluster story and unenjoyable combat. It does look pretty, but that again just wasn't enough. I give it a 3 out of 5 in recognition that others may enjoy the combat more than I did. Selling it on ebay.

Wii Micro-Reviews

Here are some reflections on titles I've played in the past year. I'll use a 5-star rating system analogous to that used by X-Play.

Mario Kart Wii (*****)

Easily my favorite Wii game, this is a raucous arcade racer with a surprising amount of depth. The tracks are colorful, varied, and each has its own little tricks that you'll need to learn if you're to compete and do well in this game. The single player Grand Prix events are good training, but it's the online play where the game really shines. The item system helps balance the odds and keep poorer players in the race. But they also help better players recover from an accident or an unlucky assault of items. I basically plateaued right around 8000 multiplayer points, and I don't think I can get better unless I get really serious. And that's where I draw the line, as this just doesn't seem like a game that one is supposed to get that serious about. :)

Super Mario Galaxy (****)

As platformers go, this has to be about as good as you'll find. Incredibly imaginative level design with a physics system that is both absurd and intuitive. It was a lot of fun, especially over the first 10 hours or so. The game's downfall, for me, was that despite the creative and highly variable level design, the game started to feel repetitive. You go on a mission, get a star, and then return to your home base. Repeat 60 some-odd times. The return to base was so anticlimactic, and the missions often so easy (to a gamer who's not much of a platformer!) that after the 25th or so star that I acquired, I really didn't feel much desire to continue onward. After all, it's not like anything interesting was going to happen in terms of the story. The level design is the heart of the game, but unfortunately it's also about all the game has going for it. For me, at least, it just wasn't quite enough. Never finished it.

The Sims 2: Castaway (**)

It's a sims game on a deserted island. So, you start with no resources, no friends (except monkeys), etc. In other words, you have to do a fair bit of work before you can even begin to do any activities that make Sims games fun. I gave this game an evening of my time and then stuck it on a shelf. Maybe if I didn't have other games to play, I would have kept going with it. But I did have other games to play. I sold it on ebay a few weeks ago.


Super Paper Mario (****)

Despite the rpg elements, this is mostly just a platformer. And it's a good one, as I actually finished this game. The items make for a nice addition to the platforming action, with healing items to make precision a bit less important and attack items to provide some new ways to kill things. The story is barely tolerable in its absurd cutesiness and predictability, but as a (mostly) 2D platformer this was a lot of fun. Bonus points for nostalgia here--someone who didn't grow up playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES might not have the same reaction.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (****)

This, perhaps like Galaxy, was a great game that just didn't do it for me. It's wonderfully imaginative with absolutely brilliant art and sound design, an engaging combat system that elevantes my adrenaline without being overly twitch-based, and a surprisingly compelling story. The problem, I think, is that it's so focused on puzzles. I like puzzles now and then, but I guess I'm not into platforming- or adventure-style puzzles enough to really enjoy this game. I had a good time playing this game, but I ultimately saw my progress slowed to a tremendous degree simply because it was taking so long to solve some of the puzzles. Toward the end, I found myself playing with my laptop open to a walkthrough. And that was pretty much the end of the line for me--if you're interested, I'm in the monkey dungeon after getting the wind boomerang thing. I might pick this up again, but probably not for a while.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (***)

I thought that the gamecube Fire Emblem game (Path of Radiance) was absolutely brilliant, and played it last Fall on my Wii. Radiant Dawn still has the excellent turn-based combat system, with an interesting mix of classes and characters like we saw in PoR. But in crafting RD, I think the designers tried to get a bit too fancy. First, there are essentially three unrelated stories that take place in the game. As a result, you change party composition often, and don't get the opportunity to become as emotionally attached to your characters via cutscenes and combat as you did in prior games. Similarly, battles almost always include massive numbers of respawning enemies that will flank your team. As a result, I found the battles less immersive than in PoR--they were really just an exercise in trying to predict what the designers would do next. All of this made battles longer, more intense, and less fun than they were in PoR. It's a shame, because I really like this series and was looking forward to playing this game. I'll probably finish it someday, but for now I've put it on the back burner.

Rayman Raving Rabbids (****)

Sort of like Super Mario Galaxy, this is one of the more creative games I've played. While essentially a long series of mini-games, the art and sound design are so brilliantly inventive (and funny) that it stays fresh in game after game. The on-rails plunger-shooting is the best part of the game, but most of the other games are a riot to play in short doses as well. My only real complaint about the game is that, despite being a collection of mini-games, it just isn't a very good party game. Most of the games (except the shooting and dancing games) can only be played by one person at a time. For this reason, we usually bust out Super Monkey Ball instead of Rayman when people are over, despite the fact that Rayman's a much more enjoyable game. Trading off the controller with my wife during the single player campaign, however, has proven to be much more enjoyable.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (***)

More than a year ago, I wrote up a full review of this game here. But the short story is that the single player game seems outrageously hard and unfun, and so the multiplayer party games is where it's at. And of the 50 or so party games, I'd estimate that at least 5 are broken beyond all repair, and another 10 are extremely not fun despite working "properly." But the other 30 work well enough, and 10 or so are extremely enjoyable. Most seem to be best-suited for 2 players, but many will allow four players to play at once. The bird flying game continues to be my personal favorite--best use of the wii-mote I've seen to date. Seriously. Overall, it's a good game to have for a party, but if you're like most of us and don't have Wii parties every weekend, you're unlikely to get much use out of this game.

Trauma Center: New Blood (***)

Neat idea here and good execution. The graphics are beautiful, clear, and are stylized to a degree that they don't bring any kind of grossness factor (to me at least). And the Wii-pointer controls are extremely well done, with a more responsive cursor than any other game I've seen thus far. The story is also engaging, with good tension provided by good ER-style voice acting. I'm not the most skilled of twitchy-type gamers, however, and I found the game to be virtually impossible to continue by about the 15th or 20th mission. The multiplayer offers the opportunity for a really neat experience with a friend on the couch and the possibility to complete the more challenging surgeries. But for it to work well in the more complicated surgeries, you'll need a partner who is as dedicated to learning to do these pretend procedures as you are. I can imagine that there are couples out there who are practiced enough that surgeries become an unspoken and well-coordinated dance--it'd be fun to watch in person. But for most of us, one party is likely to just get stuck on epinephrine duty, and that gets old fast.

Dr. Mario (***)

I'm torn about only giving this one three stars, because to be honest, this, along with Mario Kart, is the game that my wife and I have enjoyed the most. There's not much new in this version compared to prior versions. There is a new dragging-based virus buster game, but we didn't find that very fun. Basically, we just start up a traditional game and play in flash mode, which makes for shorter and more frantic games (you only have to kill 3 specific viruses, rather than clear the whole board). What makes it work so well is that we're pretty evenly matched, and with the quick games that flash mode permits, we can tear through 8 or so games in just 20 minutes. Nice way to close out a night before going to bed. Ultimately, though, while it's very good at what it does, it's "just Dr. Mario"--this is the same game that has been available for years on Nintendo consoles.

Final Fantasy Chronicles: My Life as King (**)

This game has potential and was fun for the first 5 hours or so. Graphics are nice (though rather unvaried in the stand-alone release), and the concept is interesting. But the game has a striking lack of depth, which becomes clear pretty early on. The result is that after you've built one of each of the main types of structures, and started on your way to building a productive town, the game basically succumbs to being nothing but a grind. Send out your adventurers, get your gold and mana (or whatever it's called), and ultimately build something else. I guess there's some sort of story, but I didn't last long enough to develop it much. Much has been made about the necessity of buying downloadable content, but I honestly don't think that would help much--new outfits and building types still wouldn't result in there being any kind of genuine strategy associated with this title.

---

Well, that's it for the Wii. Looking up, it seems as though I actually have gotten a fair bit of gaming in over this past year. But of all of those games, I only completed ... well, I'd probably say that I've only really "completed" Mario Kart. And even then, there are a few mirror races that I haven't finished yet, as I usually just play multiplayer. My gaming sessions these days tend to be short, and so with little sense of progress in titles I seem to lose interest. ...


I think it's also the case that I've been playing out of genre for the past year. My love is and always will be in rpg's, and that's where I intend to return now that I have the xbox...

What I've been up to...

Been a while...

Looks like the last time I posted was January. A lot's happened since then. Finished my Ph.D. this summer and got a great job at a small college in Central Pennsylvania. I'm currently in my first semester here, and I'm really enjoying it. It's been a LOT of work, but teaching has long been my main professional interest and I'm very happy to have the opportunity to focus so heavily on it.

In order to get all of that accomplished--the Ph.D. finale was particularly demanding (exhausting?), especially while also teaching adjunct in the evenings--I largely had to drop all of my hobbies and put all my focus on RealLife(tm). And so I haven't really been doing much gaming this year, at least compared to prior years.

What little time I have had for gaming has mostly been devoted to playing Wii titles. But recently, I decided to give myself a belated graduation present and bought an Xbox 360. With that decision, I've pretty much decided to convert entirely over to console gaming. Several reasons for this:

1. Most of the games that I've been wanting to play--Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Fable 2, Final Fantasy, etc--are designed with a console in mind. I think only Dragon Age is clearly a PC game that is on my "looks interesting" list, and even then there's the possibility of a console version (how that will work, I have no idea) being released sometime in the future.

2. I get to play on our "big" 37" LCD in the living room. And I get to sit on my couch.

3. Consoles are cheap! And they're so much more powerful than they used to be, with a lot more crossover between PC and console titles. Today, I could buy all three of the console systems ($250 Wii, $400 PS3, $300 Xbox360 = $950) and still pay less than I would to buy a new PC rig. And they have a comparable lifespan. And I probably won't buy all three systems, at least not at the PS3's current price tag.

4. Along those lines, my job provides a laptop for my use. Ditto for my wife's job. Which means that the home PC is now strictly a gaming machine. $1200 (my typical machine cost) is just too much to pay for a gaming rig,

5. I don't have to worry about hardware compatibility any more. And I don't have to worry as much about updating drivers and maintaining my rig's condition. Games are designed specifically for the hardware I'm running. Now that I'm in console-land, I think this is a bigger deal than I realized when I was primarily into computers. Crashes are RARE.

6. It turns out that I really like racing games. And racing games on consoles are better, I think.

7. You can sell used versions of your game much more easily. I recently sold a bunch of gamecube games on ebay, and got $15-25 for each. In some cases, I got more than I paid for them, which is insane.

Anyway, that's enough for now. As I think about it, I have a lot of other things to talk about... reflections on (the few) games I've played this year, the reason I bought an xbox instead of a ps3, thoughts about the recent spat of releases, etc. But that'll have to wait for another day. :)

P.S. How is it possible that Mysteries of Westgate still has not been released?!?

FRWCC lives on! ... Just not with me.

I posted this on the vault page for the FRW Character Creator, but I thought I'd post it here as well:

I wanted to thank everyone for their continued enthusiasm and kind words about this module! I've had a great time interacting with everyone and putting this utility mod together, and I'm very proud of how it has turned out to this point.

As you could probably guess from the lack of updates, however, my interests have strayed away from NWN2 for a while now. This module was always intended to be an actively updated "support" module for modules in the Forgotten Realms Weave group, as well as a Berliad-proof way to level up your characters and not have them overpowered for most modules on the Vault. So letting this module just fade away was not something I wanted to see happen.

Therefore, I have decided to turn over full control of this module to another member of the Forgotten Realms Weave, ladydesire. I know she has some great ideas about further additions to this module, especially on the scripting side (which is an area in which I have zero expertise!!), so I'm sure it's in good hands.

Best of luck to ladydesire, and thanks again to everyone for your support and continued interest in this module!
-Berliad

I also wanted to thank everyone for continuing to pop by this blog every once in a while, and for leaving all those wonderful comments in my previous post. I really do appreciate it. Honestly, I do feel like I've abandoned a lot of friends in leaving the community, and I feel bad about it. My life has just become very busy (writing dissertation, applying for jobs, teaching as an adjunct faculty member, spending time with the kiddo, etc), and my interests have strayed away from NWN2. I may, someday, return to this community in some fashion or another, though my guess is that it won't be at quite the same level of involvement.

In the meantime, I will say that I've been continuing to actively follow and blog about baseball (if you look at the blogs for the Cinci Reds, you could probably figure out which one is mine). I've also been playing several games on the Wii when time permits. Personal faves include Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (gamecube version, haven't played Wii version yet), Guitar Hero III, Trauma Center: New Blood, and Raymond Raving Rabbids. Super Paper Mario was also fun.

I may post some reviews of these and other games on this site from time to time if the muse strikes me. I can see this blog eventually transforming into a more general interest gaming blog in the future. But for the time being, I just don't have the time to maintain two blogs at this point...and baseball has always been my deepest love. :)
-B

Mysteries of Westgate

I wanted to send out congrats to Alazander, Hugie, Challseus, Tiberius209, Maerduin, and everyone else from Ossian about the recent announcement of their upcoming module, Mysteries of Westgate! It sounds like it's going to be nothing short of spectacular, and I'm looking forward to seeing materials from it. It must be incredibly gratifying for individuals in that company to finally have been able to produce something that will actually result in a cash return...especially in light of the premium module debacle of '06.

Also have to say that I much prefer the "adventure pack" descriptor to the term "premium module." :)

....

As for me.. Well, what can I say? I just haven't had much time or interest to devote to anything NWN2 related for a while now, except for a fairly brief return last month. This includes a complete lack of progress, very unfortunately, on my Vault review of Ryam Baco's module, which is pretty poor form on my part--first time I've ever really sat on a review, and I'm feeling like a pretty bad person for it.

I don't have the NWN2 expansion pack yet, and I'm honestly not really feeling the urge to get it. I'm excited to hear about some of the modules that have come out lately, and are coming out soon, but at the same time I'm not feeling much motivation to get out there and play them. Hopefully things will improve in a few weeks when the World Series ends (I'm rootin' for the Rockies, in case you're interested...After '04, Boston is now just another rich team from the northeast). But at the same time, I don't have a ton of free time, and I want to spend it doing things that I'm excited about. Lately, that's mostly been baseball, as well as a few Wii/Gamecube games (recently picked up Tales of Symponia used...not sure if I like it yet...story seems intriguing and the art is nice, but it might require too much twichiness to be enjoyable).

Anyway, I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find myself back in the den playing NWN2 modules sometime in the next few weeks. But at the same time, it also wouldn't surprise me for it to be a while before I pick it up again. We'll see.

Thanks for visiting. I will try to continue to keep this space active, whether I'm posting about NWN2 or otherwise.

Maximus reports on his trip

Maximus has posted a report of his trip over to Obsidian a week or so back to check out Mask of the Betrayer. He also links to one by the tileset gurus at Robinson's Workshop, though I haven't had a chance to read that one just yet.

Interestingly, Rogue Dao studios also had a chance to demo their upcoming module at this meeting. I've long been a fanboy of the Planescape setting, and from Maximus's description, and everything else I'd seen from it, it really sounds amazing. I'm actually much more excited about playing their module than the actual expansion campaign... In fact, I'd probably be willing to hold off on purchasing the explansion to see if I could snag the expansion as a Christmas gift, except that Rogue Dao's module will require the expansion!

Night Howls in Nestlehaven

Below are my comments on Nestlehaven. It's clearly among the best modules yet produced for the Vault. If the sequel can fulfill the promise of this first effort, we could be in store for something very, very special. It's exciting to see content like this coming out for NWN2--it shows much of the tremendous power of this modding engine while living up to the rich history of story and setting than we have in the NWN community. It most certainly falls into the "must have" category of NWN2 mods, and I've only said that about one or two other modules...

My Vote: 9 - Outstanding, A Must Have
Character: lv. 9 human neutral good cleric from Keep on the Borderlands, advanced to lv. 13
Module Version Played: jul20a6

Night Howls in Nestlehaven borders on groundbreaking, at least for the still-young NWN2 modding community. The crowning accomplishment of this module is the realization of Nestlehaven as a living and breathing town. Jackyo123's Nestlehaven has a rich history dominated by two ruling families, the Boroldi (who wear blue) and the Bellerose (who wear red). The two families are evenly matched and have an arrangement to share power within the city. But it is an imperfect arrangement between two very proud houses, and the result is a history of tension that periodically boils over into genuine feuds. Now is one of those times, and the player character is invited by Nestlehaven's constable to help solve the mystery behind a series of gruesome murders that nearly have the ruling families at each others' throats.

The Capulet vs. Montague-esque split between the families dominates almost every aspect of the town of Nestlehaven. Most residents are allied with one of the two families, and they wear their affiliations on their sleeve--literally--by wearing their family's colors. In fact, in what I thought was a masterful stroke by the author, the citizens go so far as to paint the roofs of their homes to match the colors of their chosen families. The result is a town that feels divided, yet at the same time, tied together by their richly intertwined history.

Much of the first half of the module has the player exploring the streets and buildings of Nestlehaven, which feel alive thanks to a tremendous amount of detail. Commoners, many of which are customized well beyond the level we typically see in modules, move about the city muttering their opinions about current events. Many, if not most, buildings are enterable despite being unrelated to any of the various main quests and side quests (as an aside, while my character felt right at home in this mod, I think it would actually be best played as a chaotic mercenary-type, rather than a do-gooder, so that one would feel liberated to explore/plunder all the various private residences that one can explore). And there are wonderful variety of interesting minor encounters, both violent and pleasant, that one can experience while one explores the town. There are only a few modules for NWN1 that were able to create such a palpably alive city for you to explore...and they often were among my favorite modules, including Cormyrean Nights, Threat of Dreams, and Almraiven, among others. And there's nothing else like it available for NWN2, official campaign included.

All that praise actually leads to my primary critique of the module. While the setting of Nestlehaven is fabulous, and sets up a wonderful opportunity for political intrigue and espionage, it ultimately felt a bit tangential to the main storyline. In fact, while the first half of the module will have you exploring the many interesting locals within the city, most of the second half of the module has you either fighting baddies in the surrounding forests or trudging through the many dungeons underneath Nestlehaven fighting all manner of demons and undead. The only time one has a serious encounter with the leadership of one of the ruling families is during a bizarre mandatory fetch quest, which felt a bit tacked-on. Furthermore, what starts as a very open-ended module becomes almost railroaded in its linearity near the end. The main story itself isn't bad by any means, and is generally well-executed, but it seemed a bit generic...especially when laid in contrast to the potential richness of the feud between the two ancient houses. It's not the case that main story has nothing to do with the families. It's just that it feels like more could be done to take advantage of the fabulous potential conflict that the author created.

There is a LOT of fighting in this module. It's not really repetitive, because the author does a brilliant job of creating customized enemies--not just his customized and creative monsters, but even the various "thugs" and "guards" that you'll meet have individualized equipment, looks, and character descriptions, with few duplicate individuals to be found. However, I thought that most of the encounters "felt" like boss battles, often with 6-7 foes that one has to cope with at once...and this resulted in my party spending a bit more time in combat than I found enjoyable, especially during the last hour or two of gameplay. Furthermore, many of the actual boss battles felt a bit anticlimactic, probably because of the elaborate fights against the various squads of minions.

Fortunately, my party of 5 was always up to the task. I found combat to be well-balanced for my lv. 9 cleric, though I did play on normal difficulty most of the time to offset her low level. Blasting away with lightning and fireballs without friendly fire may be cheesy, but it makes combat a lot more fun for me--and makes fights go by a lot quicker. There were only one or two times when it probably made the combat easier than the author intended.

Critiques aside, this is a fantastic module. And as first modding efforts go, this is among the most impressive I've ever seen. The attention to detail here is mind boggling, the setting is fabulously realized, and I can't wait to see what happens in the sequel. After all, this is just the first chapter in the story, and the author clearly has a plan for where this is going. Many of the encounters in this mod, for example--especially those with the ruling families--clearly foreshadow more interesting encounters and plot development still to come. I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks for the great module!

Back in the Saddle...

Tonight I finally got back in game! I needed a bit of a break, and my gaming time has been filled with Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, Super Paper Mario, and a healthy dose of Out of the Park Baseball '07. They all offer something different...but like I always do, I'm finally back to playing Neverwinter mods! :)

Anyway, I spent a good couple of hours with Nestlehaven tonight. I think I'm finally approaching the end of this module. It's strange--jackyo's module is among the best I've played for NWN2, and is ranked the highest of any NWN2 module by public voting. And yet it was while playing it that I decided I needed my break! :) I don't think that reflects on the module, actually, but more was a chance bit of timing--I'm prone to the impulsive and compulsive whims, and when the Wii bug hit, there was no resisting it until I got my fill. It also didn't help that we had relatives visiting for a week, and they stay in the computer room...

The good news is that there are a ton of new modules out to play! Here's my rough gaming schedule as of right now:

1. Finish Night Howls in Nestlehaven ~2 hrs left(?)
2. A Corpse, A Vote by Christian Mayr (I may take the Vault review of this one if it's still unclaimed) ~ 3 hrs
3. The Zelbross Affair by seryn ~4 hrs
4. Pool of Radiance Remastered 2 by Markus "Wayne" Schlegel ~6 hrs
5. Dark Avenger by Wyrin ~3 hrs
6. Tomoachan by Enoa4 ~4 hrs
7. Moonshadows, Ch. 1 by Hugie ~10 hrs
8. Conan Chronicles by John McA ~4 hrs
9. Tears of Ilmarid 1 by Hohiro Kurita ~4 hrs
10. Corruption of Kiahoro by human_male ~12 hrs

And then we'll see. :) That alone is ~40 hours of gameplay. Who knows when I'll work in Mask of the Betrayer! And there's still the matter of updating the character creator at some point as well.

As I've been saying for years, so many mods, so little time! But this fortunately means that I'll have lots to write about here in the future. Thanks for hanging in there folks--I've finally got my urge to play back, so I should start being able to produce some of the content I used to be able to do on a more regular basis.

Update: I forgot about Pool of Radiance 2! That's actually a pretty high priority one for me, so I stuck it just ahead of some of the most recent releases.

MOTB / Subtlety of Thay

In what was a surprise announcement to me (at least), Maximus posted tonight--after what apparently was a special Obsidian event for key community members--that Mask of the Betrayer has gone gold! Ship date in the US is scheduled for October 9th, which is less than a month away! I really had no idea that it was so close at hand. It really is pretty cool that Obsidian allowed folks like Maximus to get the word out prior to the official announcement.

With Mask comes a host of new monster models and other toolset goodies that should be a real boon for our community, which continues to churn out excellent-looking modules--including Enoa4's recent release of Tomoachan, and Hugie's soon to be released first chapter of Moonshadows!

--------

Also, in what was a freaking massive oversight, I neglected to highlight the induction of dirtywick's Subtlety of Thay into the Hall of Fame. SoT is among the top three or so modules available for NWN2, so he deserves all the kudos in the world for his induction. Here's an excerpt from my comments about his module:

Subtlety of Thay is a tremendous module that is easily among the top two or three mods I've played thus far for NWN2. It has a wonderful story. What begins as a simple fetch and retrieve quest becomes a problem of epic consequence, ultimately causing one's character to play a pivotal role in a conflict between two nations. That might sound a bit generic, but the details of what happens are very creative and engaging. There are a variety of interesting and well-developed characters that are deftly interwoven into the story as you progress through the module. Several of them become companions, at least for a time, and there is a great deal of well-done banter between party members, as well as between the PC and these NPC's. The plot is executed very well, with excellent pacing and good justification for almost everything that happens. The story is generally linear, especially once you get past the initial quest. That said, I almost never found that it felt railroaded, because the need for an urgent course of action was always justified by the story.

Arcane Scholar

The main feature in this week's update at Rob McGinnis's NWN2 blog is a feature on the arcane scholar prestige class. Here's the lowdown on the requirements/features of this class:

Requirements

• Skills: Spellcraft 8 ranks.
• Feats: Empower Spell, Skill Focus (Concentration), and Skill Focus (Spellcraft).
• Spellcasting: Able to cast 3rd-level arcane spells.

Class Features

• Hit Die: d4.
• Base Attack Bonus: Low.
• High Saves: Will.
• Weapon Proficiencies: Arcane Scholars gain no weapon proficiencies.
• Armor Proficiencies: Arcane Scholars gain no armor proficiencies.
• Skill Points: 2 + Int Modifier.
• Class Skills: Appraise, Concentration, Craft Alchemy, Diplomacy, Lore, Search and Spellcraft.
• Spells Per Day/Spells Known: When a new Arcane Scholar level is gained, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as though he had gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class gave him access to 3rd-level arcane spells. If the character has more than one applicable arcane spellcasting class, he must pick one to improve.
• Bonus Metamagic Feats: At 1st level, the Arcane Scholar gains the Maximize Spell feat. At 5th level, he gains the Quicken Spell feat.
• Spell Knowledge: At 2nd Level, the Arcane Scholar and any party members gain a +1 bonus to their saves versus spells. This bonus increases to +2 at 8th level.
• Improved Empower Spell: At 3rd level, the Arcane Scholar becomes especially adept at empowering spells. Empowered spells now only use a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.
• Improved Maximize Spell: At 7th level, the Arcane Scholar becomes especially adept at maximizing spells. Maximized spells now only use up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.
• Improved Quicken Spell: At 10th level, the Arcane Scholar becomes especially adept at quickening spells. Quickened spells now only use up a spell slot three levels higher than the spell's actual level.

All I can say is wow. There's usually some sort of disadvantage that goes along with becoming a particular prestige class rather than keeping your "pure" class, but I'm not really seeing one here aside from the requirement of taking those skill focus feats. And the payoff is huge. "Free" maximize and quicken feats at level one make up for the "lost" skill focus feats, but the improved empower, maximize, and quicken spells are an enormous advantage--especially for blaster sorcerers. I'm sure this will be a popular prestige class, probably more so in the long run than the Red Wizard of Thay.

(Portrait by wyldcat)

1.07 Patch Preview - Premonition

The big item of significance in Rob McGinnis's post this week at the official NWN2 blog are the patch notes for 1.07. This is the first "named" patch, and it will be interesting to see if that's a new trend that we see moving forward. If nothing else, the time delay in getting this one out the door justifies treating it in a special manner. Since 1.03, the patch by which all others must be judged, Obsidian has been operating on an approximate 2 month timetable for its patch releases. Nevertheless, it looks like 1.07 is going to come closer to three months since the release of the 1.06 patch.

I usually avoid doing this before the actual release. But things have been a bit slow around my house lately in terms of nwn2 activities (or gaming activities, period--everything else is busy!!), here are some of the highlights of the upcoming 1.07 patch, at least from my perspective:

Character Mode and Strategy Mode – In advance of the release of the Mask of the Betrayer expansion pack this September, we’ve included one of the major new revisions we’ve made to the camera and control modes. Now, the four camera modes (Top Down, Chase, Driving and Free Camera) have been consolidated into two modes that are more configurable and clearer to use than the old modes – Character Mode and Strategy Mode.

This was something none of us really expected to see until the release of Mask. But given how much grief Obsidian took with regards to its camera systems in the initial release, it makes sense to roll this out early and work through any issues before the expansion is actually subjected to evaluation by review magazines.

Overall, this feature seems more like a streamlining of the options for less experienced gamers than a real change in feature set--I have a feeling that my experiences in game will feel absolutely identical to my current camera scheme (Top Down view). But I do like that there are additional customization features available, which might let me optimize things a bit better. I'm also hopeful that some of the "jumpiness" of the camera near some placeables -- especially walls a buildings -- will be less of an issue with the new camera. But I won't hold my breath.

* Marquee/Multi-Selection Revamp – Marquee and Multi-selection have been dramatically improved to make controlling a full party much easier. You can see the new improvements to Marquee and Multi-selection in the new Strategy Mode.

I'll be interested to see what happens with the multi-selection stuff. I'm pretty happy with just having my companions follow my selected character. But it might be nice to occasionally have a party control style that is closer to that from the Infinity games.

* Party AI On/Off Button – There is now a button on the main game UI, next to the rest button, that will toggle the entire party’s AI on or off.

This sounds like a great little feature. Every so often, especially when setting up for a big fight, or sometimes even during big fights, I have to "disable" AI by telling everyone to stand their ground so that I can set people where I want them. My hopes is that this will make this process a bit easier. Not a big deal, but it could be something I use every five hours or so when playing.

* Bronze Dragon - New Creature! The Bronze Dragon creature has been added to the Toolset, so expect him to show up in new community content as well as Mask of the Betrayer.

This isn't new, as we've already seen screenies of this beastie--and I still think the mantra about there not being enough dragons is way overblown given our ability to tint the models we already have--but I'm always a fan of new monsters being added to the toolset.

* A Creature Appearance Wizard has been added. This will allow you to change the appearance of spawned creatures and creature blueprints, including race, gender, armor and armor attachments. This feature can be accessed by right clicking on a creature or blueprint entry. NOTE: This feature is currently in Beta, and there are plans to improve its functionality.

This is a big deal, and patches a major hole in the default toolset. It is true that Grinning Fool's plugin was a fine alternative, but there was no excuse for this not existing in the stock toolset from the get-go. I'll be interested to see how many features it currently has, and how their development of it goes over the next several patches.

* A new custom skydome system has been added to the toolset, allowing users to replace the NWN2 skies with skydomes of their own creating.

Skydomes were mentioned in a previous news posting, but again this should be a great feature that really improves what modders can do with the exterior areas.

* The distance a DM can zoom out has been greatly increased.

I'm not into multiplayer, so it's hard for me to know how much the DM improvements really extend the DM client. But this one is interesting, because one thing I often would like to do is zoom out further as a player. I realize this might make me take a fps hit, but I'm hopeful that I'll nevertheless have that option with the new cameras.

* Pasting encounter triggers with spawn points no longer crashes the Toolset.

This sounds like one of the bugs that I know several builders have had trouble with--not just the crashes, but the resulting corruption. I'm hopeful that this will solve that particular problem. Toolset crashing and module corruption continues to be perhaps the biggest problem with Neverwinter Nights 2.

Overall, this is one of the meatier patches we've had since 1.03. I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl once it's released...assuming that life has slowed down a bit by then!!