The "S" Word

Hmm. I guess I should just accept the fact that I'm going to be one of those people who sporadically update their blogs. That way I don't have to keep starting entries with words like "hiatus" or "been" or "while" or "cheesecake."

This is largely due to the fact that I don't spend very much time on the 'puter anymore. Well...yeah. I guess I still spend a stupidly ginormous amount of time here than the average person does, but compared to how I used to be...not so much. It is also partly due to the fact that I try not to discuss my life here. This leaves me with surprisingly little to talk about.

As I am horribly sick of writing about video games here (words I never thought I would utter in that order), I think I'll start lifting that ban a bit. This is largely due to the fact that I want to rant about something.

I was on vacation last week. Officially, anyway. Some time ago, my sister and her husband gave birth to two little girls; my nieces. Last week -- my last week of vacation for the year -- was meant to go down to Georgia and visit them. After my last pre-vacation day of work had ended, I headed home to grab my already packed bags and start my journey.

As I walked in the door, the glorious sight of my bathroom ceiling, brown and dripping with water, was presented to me by the physical manifestation of Evil itself. Needless to say, my trip was ruined.

However, I figured that I could use my vacation (which could not be moved or altered at that point) to at least get the damn ceiling fixed while I was home. So, the next day, I called the Association of my condo.

The next two and a half days consisted of me constantly calling my representative at the Association back, usually after she promised she would get back to me. The phone calls consisted of trying to figure out exactly what was causing the ceiling to get wet, what would be required to fix it, and who would be responsible for fixing it.

Also during these two and a half days, my insurance agent let me know that they don't cover ceilings. They only cover floors and walls. However, while they wouldn't pay for the repairs to the ceiling (the expensive part), they would pay for the paint required to repaint the ceiling (the cheap part). The paint for the ceiling that my insurance doesn't cover. That ceiling.

Eventually, it was determined that it couldn't be my responsibility to fix for reasons I won't go into. Now it was down to the Association or the people living above me as far as potential payers for repairs went.

A call was placed to the people above me. They said there was no leak in their bathroom as it had just been renovated. The Association thought the water may have been a result of a small leak in the building's roof, so they sent out a maintenance person to check it out.

The maintenance person, who I'm glad to mention was from a third, outside party hired by our building, took one look at my ceiling and said that there was absolutely, positively no doubt that the water came from the people above me and that it came from their bathtub. He then went into a five minute, completely way-too-detailed explanation for why he had reached this conclusion. I decided the man liked his job too much.

The maintenance person also happened to mention that he had actually been sent to check out both of our units; my and my neigbors'. The neigbors, who assure us nothing is wrong with their bathroom, refused to let him in. They also refused to answer the door the few times I tried to visit them earlier as well. Despite the fact that I could literally hear their voices on the other side of the door.

This was the short version of the story, of course. By this time my vacation was over and completely wasted on a variety of levels. The maintenance person said he would get back in touch with the Association, tell him what he found, and they would get back to me about the next step to take.

Yesterday, after receiving no word from the Association, I called my contact back. She said the maintanence guy had never called her back, so she would call him. She'd give me a call back today, if not yesterday.

She never got back to me. Yesterday or today.

I'm telling this story because I want everyone to learn something from it. A moral, if you will. The moral of this yet unfinished story is quite simple:

People fucking suck.

Despite all of this, though, the past week was a sort of interesting one "life-wise." Sitting around at home all week waiting for people that fucking suck to get in contact with you gives you a lot of time to think about a lot of things. And so I did. I didn't really "realize" anything or have any sort of epiphanies, but it was the first time in a few years that I really sat down and thought about myself and the direction I was heading in life. It was...well, interesting. Like I said.

Especially since it resulted in me deciding to grow a goatee.

Time for the Democrats to Put Up or Shut Up

You know that scene at the end of the first Star Wars trilogy, after the Empire is defeated, where you see all of the planets around the galaxy celebrating? Fireworks going off, people dancing in the streets, confetti being thrown, etc.?

That's what the United States of America looks like today.

And somewhere, an Ewok is using Donald Rumsfeld's head as a drum.

Hesitant Grunt of Approval

Alright, so I've spent more time with Neverwinter Nights 2.

First, I've become convinced that I am the only person in the world having the trouble that I am having with NWN2. Nowhere else have I read anything about people having any major bug troubles with it. I've heard of simple bug troubles, but nothing like what I've come across. Some of the quests don't even freaking work for me. On top of that, the patcher for the game actually has required two seperate patches since I got the game, and it still can't update my game properly (and, at last check, the critical rebuild was STILL not available). When the patching program requires patches before it can work, you should not be releasing your game yet. Just a little thing to remember for the mouth-breathing retards over at Obsidian that deemed the game ready for release. The game still won't completely patch for me. It crashes whenever it gets to 51%.

Second, I have also become convinced that I am the only person in the world not having trouble with the game in terms of performance. I've heard complaint after complaint about people not being able to run this game which "doesn't look very good." I'll be the first to admit that NWN2 is no Oblivion, but if someone could point out exactly what part of NWN2 doesn't look good to me, I'd greatly appreciate it. I suppose it would make sense that the people unable to play the game with high graphics would think the game "un-pretty", but you would think the morons would realize why the game doesn't look good for them. My computer is high-end, but it is definitely in need of a video card upgrade. Despite that, I can run the game at almost full graphical strength with almost zero framerate issues. Why this is so different for my computer is as much of a mystery as the whole bug issue I'm having with it. In my opinion, this all points to more shitty code. Again: thank you, Obsidian.

Third, I have become convinced that, if the fucking game would just fucking work the way it is fucking supposed to, it would be a stunningly good successor to the original NWN. With all of the severe bug problems I have been having, once I just sat down with the game and started playing it (valiantly ignoring the beta "feel" it has) I actually began to have a blast. I still miss the radial menu system, but the KOTOR-ish target system combined with the Quick Spell Menu works pretty good once you get the hang of them. The graphics, again in my opinion, look great, especially magic effects. Just like the original NWN, there is nothing quite as much fun as a magic duel against another magic user (I'm particularly fond of sorcerers, myself). A powerful mage versus another powerful mage is a fantastic display of bright lights, fire, ice, darkness and more until the smoke clears and only one of you is left standing. The storyline for the main campaign, once it gets going (it starts off super-cliche, but gets better later) is surprisingly good and very twisty-turny. Considering how people usually complain about games with complex plots (Final Fantasy Tactics immediately springs to mind as a game with a story that everyone but me hated), I'm surprised I haven't heard more people complaining about it.

The real highlight of the storytelling is the characters that team up with you, though. Not only do they provide side-quests for you as you learn about their past, but they also interact with each other a lot, which makes for a lot of replay value since you can miss entire conversations if your party doesn't consist of certain characters at certain times. It also helps pull you into the plot and make everything, well...just more believable, I suppose. Unlike the previous NWN, where advancing the plot was enough to get your companions to tell you more about themselves, you now have to actually make the characters like you in order to get them to talk openly to you about their past. The decisions you make in the game will affect your "influence" with the characters in your party. Act the part of the "noble knight" too much and you'll lose influence with Neeshka, the rogue tiefling. Accept all the rewards people give you and grab gold whenever, wherever you can and you'll win influence with her. The more influence you have, the more she'll tell you. This, of course, leads to situations where you have to decide who you want to make happy and who you want to piss off. You can't please everyone all of the time, after all. Again, a lot of extra replay value. My only complaint is that there seems to, again, be some coding issues with the influence system. There are some characters I've won a huge amount of influence with, and they still won't even begin talking with me. Mrgh.

Besides this and a multitude of other tweaks to the gameplay of the original (a LOT of which comes from one of the later modules for the first game made by Ossian Studios called "Darkness Over Daggerford"), all in all NWN2 would be a fantastic game if it would JUST. FUCKING. WORK. Unless you, like me, have been absolutely dying to get the sequel to NWN, I would recommend waiting a month or two before picking NWN2 up. If we're all lucky, maybe that will be enough time for Obsidian to get the finger out of their ass and fix their damn game.

In related news: upon hearing of the angst NWN2 has been causing me over the past week, a friend forced me to go and download the demo for Loco Roco on the PSP. If watching a group of tiny, yellow, smiling blobs sing a song while being rolled and thrown around a cardboard cutout world doesn't bring a smile to your face, nothing will.

Holy crap are those li'l bastards cute. XD

Crowbar of Knee-Whacking +1

So...Neverwinter Nights 2. Yeah. Been waiting quite a while for this game.

...

It, er...hasn't even been out for 24 hours yet. Yup. And it's so fucking crippled with bugs that I have to go and download a special file from the Atari web site because even the game's automatic updater won't work. Oh, and did I mention that this file is not actually available yet on the website? It seems like a thing worth mentioning, if I haven't.

On top of that, my number one fear has sadly come to pass: THE BASTARDS GOT RID OF THE RADIAL MENU SYSTEM. The HUD is completely bizarre now and seems to have been changed simply for the sake of changing it, when the previous one was nearly perfect. In fact, the HUD seems to be desperately trying to emulate an MMO-style HUD, which makes me cry. MMOs are really destroying the already failing PC game market.

It also seems like elements of Knights of the Old Republic were, completely at random, injected into various parts of NWN2, resulting in bad.

I'm not saying the game is horrible, necessarily... I've hardly spent enough time with it yet to determine that. What I am saying is that if Bioware trusts Obsidian with a sequal to an awesome game one more time, I will personally go to their home office and break all of their employees' legs with a crowbar. And I will enjoy it.

Man I hope this game gets better once it actually starts working...