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sweet geek swag posted:That is a lot of self awareness by an author that hadn't previously shown much. IIRC from my modding days, Saerileth and Tsujatha were just characters those two modders made but Yasraena was just one of their DnD characters they wanted to add to Baldur's Gate. There were a number of NPC mods like that, someone's long-running tabletop campaign character adapted as an NPC. Goodness knows Gavin's modder never failed to tell me she played him on the tabletop for twenty years.
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Apr 24, 2023 15:05
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FishMcCool posted:I would kill for a modern Spelljammer crpg. Even throwing a modern engine and economic system over the old Pirates of Realmspace would be neat. With the setting now officially republished for 5e, there may be some hope down the line. I feel like you could just toss a basic larger dialogue setup and a few more systems into a reskinned version of the old Sid Meier's Pirates! and I'd play that game until the end of time. I do not care if it's the 1987 version or the 2004 version TGG fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 18:10
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Pirates! but in space and with more dialogue sounds a lot like Star Control 2, to be honest. And a Spelljammer Star Control game would be awesome, so let's go already 
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Apr 25, 2023 01:51
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So I kinda wanna play Temple of Elemental Evil finally. I've only ever played a little of the first town and never committed to it. I've got Temple+ and CO8 installed. Are there any good character creation walkthroughs? I'm familiar with Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and of course the infinity engine games, but I'm worried that I might make a poo poo character without realizing it. Any tips, or Let's Plays or good Youtube vids?
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Apr 25, 2023 04:16
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chaosapiant posted:So I kinda wanna play Temple of Elemental Evil finally. I've only ever played a little of the first town and never committed to it. I've got Temple+ and CO8 installed. Are there any good character creation walkthroughs? I'm familiar with Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and of course the infinity engine games, but I'm worried that I might make a poo poo character without realizing it. Any tips, or Let's Plays or good Youtube vids? This is gonna sound crazy but it’s immensely useful because ToEE is the magical combination of 3.0 and turn-based grid combat (not rtwp or gridless). The secret to the most effective tank in the game is: -get a human fighter -give them the starting feats exotic weapon proficiency (spiked chain), combat reflexes, and improved trip -have them attack while standing exactly 10’ away from enemies. Then anyone trying to retaliate closes in, provokes an attack of opportunity, and gets tripped, loving up their turn. (You do this with a spiked chain instead of a polearm because it can hit adjacent enemies as well)
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Apr 25, 2023 04:21
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chaosapiant posted:So I kinda wanna play Temple of Elemental Evil finally. I've only ever played a little of the first town and never committed to it. I've got Temple+ and CO8 installed. Are there any good character creation walkthroughs? I'm familiar with Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and of course the infinity engine games, but I'm worried that I might make a poo poo character without realizing it. Any tips, or Let's Plays or good Youtube vids? Make a balanced party, by which I mean one each of the archtype classes and then play around with the other two depending on how you like to play. Can't really go wrong with another melee-type such as a paladin or a barbarian and a sorcerer works too. Reach weapons are very good and use five-foot step a lot because it's incredibly useful. You probably know about this but: https://co8.org/community/forums/guides-and-help-threads.77/ Have fun and ask questions here; lots of people know a lot more than I do about the game.
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Apr 25, 2023 05:41
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I was playing Baldur's Gate one and an NPC came up to me and said "Hey Sexy you wanna see my ditties?" and my wife and daughter looked at me like I was a freak. I told them hey this game came out in 98 it was a different time.
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Apr 25, 2023 18:14
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Yeah and that line was fairly egregious even then. Not a lot of that kind of writing to be found (I guess outside of mods) Unrelated, I'm a fine-lookin' strumpet, ain't I?
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Apr 25, 2023 19:36
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No comment on strumpets (crumpets are another matter), but I realised that if I play this game again I'm probably going to skip BG1 and jump straight to SoD and then on to BG2. Partly it's because BG1 is so familiar and partly due to the big empty design in many places, but mostly it's due to low-level D&D combat. I actually enjoy BG1 plot-wise as I find it to be a well-told story that ramps up naturally from a political goal into a supernatural goal, but combat isn't fun until about level 8.
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Apr 25, 2023 19:48
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Arivia posted:It’s maybe a bit unusual for video game series but that kind of rise and fall in stakes is very common for long tabletop RPG campaigns. It almost feels like BG2 was supposed to have you have amnesia, hence why you spend literally 90% of the game building a base and sorting out the local war
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Apr 25, 2023 20:07
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Shard posted:I was playing Baldur's Gate one and an NPC came up to me and said "Hey Sexy you wanna see my ditties?" and my wife and daughter looked at me like I was a freak. I told them hey this game came out in 98 it was a different time. Just tell them another story about trollops and plug tails.
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Apr 25, 2023 21:05
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What would they think about the dialogue in New Reno? It really was the 90's, huh.
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Apr 25, 2023 23:05
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chaosapiant posted:So I kinda wanna play Temple of Elemental Evil finally. I've only ever played a little of the first town and never committed to it. I've got Temple+ and CO8 installed. Are there any good character creation walkthroughs? I'm familiar with Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and of course the infinity engine games, but I'm worried that I might make a poo poo character without realizing it. Any tips, or Let's Plays or good Youtube vids? I've yet to play ToEE, but I was re-reading the LP of it on the Archive, and there's a sword you can get in the end games (dunno if it's a greatsword or a bastard-sword; I think the game erroneously labels one as the other) that you get great bonuses on if the wielder is Chaotic Good.
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Apr 26, 2023 00:20
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Max Wilco posted:I've yet to play ToEE, but I was re-reading the LP of it on the Archive, and there's a sword you can get in the end games (dunno if it's a greatsword or a bastard-sword; I think the game erroneously labels one as the other) that you get great bonuses on if the wielder is Chaotic Good. Not necessarily the end game, because you can get it early if you know where it is but it's a bastard sword named Fragarach and I think it is the most overpowered weapon in any game I've played. It's holy and chaotic and if you're not evil it doesn't miss and you get +4 to damage; if you're chaotic or neutral good and the target is evil that goes to +8. It's a chaotic good sword and if the wielder is also chaotic good the sword not only doesn't it miss, it gives you unlimited attacks of opportunity against anyone who attacks you and who is in range and those attacks of opportunity also don't miss. You're a blender at that point.
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Apr 26, 2023 05:56
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JustJeff88 posted:No comment on strumpets (crumpets are another matter), but I realised that if I play this game again I'm probably going to skip BG1 and jump straight to SoD and then on to BG2. Partly it's because BG1 is so familiar and partly due to the big empty design in many places, but mostly it's due to low-level D&D combat. I actually enjoy BG1 plot-wise as I find it to be a well-told story that ramps up naturally from a political goal into a supernatural goal, but combat isn't fun until about level 8. I enjoy BG1's combat as an exercise in metagaming - figuring out the exploitative strategies for punching above your weight and abusing the system to get ahead. From mid-level onwards, combat is consistent and meaty enough that you can enjoy it on its own terms. This is actually why I'm of the same mind as you, though - I enjoy exploiting low-level 2e in BG1, but I start feeling bad about all the degenerate metagaming by the time I get to BG2. I've just gotten into SoA with a Cavalier, and I'm looking at all the 19s I'm rocking from abusing the Manuals and genuinely considering rerolling the character entirely and 'allowing' myself to take a weaker stat spread.
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Apr 26, 2023 19:01
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Shard posted:I was playing Baldur's Gate one and an NPC came up to me and said "Hey Sexy you wanna see my ditties?" and my wife and daughter looked at me like I was a freak. I told them hey this game came out in 98 it was a different time. owned! my son got to that part and texted me "thats funny that theyd make her say that. the 1980s were a different time for our attitudes about sex workers." and I told him it was from 1998 and his reaction was "oh lol"
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Apr 26, 2023 19:13
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wizard2 posted:owned! It's important to remind some folks that 1998 was a long loving time ago lol.
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Apr 26, 2023 19:18
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If I'd had a kid in 1998 it would be old enough to resent me by now
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Apr 26, 2023 19:23
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Zeerust posted:I enjoy BG1's combat as an exercise in metagaming - figuring out the exploitative strategies for punching above your weight and abusing the system to get ahead. From mid-level onwards, combat is consistent and meaty enough that you can enjoy it on its own terms. I genuinely want to thank you for putting into words what I had always thought but could not express. If I do another run, I might just play BG1 but boost everyone to the exp. cap when I first get them so that they can cast more than one bloody spell, actually hit with a physical attack and survive a blow more severe than being slapped with a slice of gouda by your auntie, but won't be overpowered for Dragonspear. I will admit that, in my case, part of the problem is that I try to limit my resting because it's unrealistic to rest every two in-game hours in a dungeon, but the game is clearly not built for that, especially at low levels. I don't mind resting after map transitions in the overworld because those take 8-24 hours and my lads are tired afterward, but in dungeons it just feels like cheating. The 4e game that we never got would work well with limited rests, but 2e absolutely does not.
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Apr 27, 2023 02:07
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I played the first Baldur's Gate this last time explicitly laughing at doing anything efficiently in-universe; I think I was on like day 400 when I finally reached the end of Chapter 5, and I laughed out loud when I realized I had managed to have an entire day pass between "THE ENDGAME IS HAPPENING THIS VERY MINUTE HURRY!!!" and when I bothered to show up to it. Obviously hardly unique to this game but still. Skipping the first game is certainly a choice I can see someone making, but I love the early game nonsense honestly, especially since every time you restart it seems easier than before. It probably helps that I am irrationally enamored with exploring big fog of war maps. I am going to finally try a solo character run for my next playthrough whenever I get to that, which will surely bring a little of "oh right, low level combat does suck" back into my life though
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Apr 27, 2023 05:44
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When you start doing solo no reload runs you know you are in too deep.
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Apr 27, 2023 06:27
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BG 1 is great because you feel a sense of accomplishment. At first running away from everything cause you’re going to take 3 HP damage and die and then slowly becoming a wrecking machine with your party
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Apr 27, 2023 07:46
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I always play these games on Storymode. I dont care about combat at all. I just enjoy the dated graphics and story and voice acting and companions. It feels very snug and nostalgic.
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Apr 27, 2023 16:47
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Flowing Thot posted:When you start doing solo no reload runs you know you are in too deep. My first and only ironman win was with a solo F/M/T and no xp cap. Hector the well endowed was a complete anomaly as I've never come close to reproducing those results despite having played these games since they were released. In short: very fun, do recommend.
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Apr 27, 2023 17:22
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Shard posted:the dated graphics 
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Apr 27, 2023 17:43
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BG is ugly and repetitive at least. IWD:HOW was state of the art until POE came out 14 years later. There is a thread of an argument that it remains state of the art because it was too hard to make POE and POE2. Like goddamn, how did they make that much good looking renders in a couple years?
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Apr 27, 2023 17:55
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Flowing Thot posted:When you start doing solo no reload runs you know you are in too deep. I pretty much only Ironman these days on maxed out scs settings because I'm a broke brain. It's pretty fun. Never been a big fan of soloing though. Gotta have that npc interaction. I always get bored soloing
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Apr 27, 2023 19:25
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zedprime posted:BG is ugly and repetitive at least. What? The landscapes in BG1, where you spend a lot of your time, are gorgeous to look at. poo poo, even the walls of the Friendly Arm Inn look good. BG2 has a lot of attention to small details in their graphics work, just go visit the Temple District. I am honestly having trouble thinking where any of the BG canon games are repetitive with their graphics work. Vichan's LP showed that modders re-use a lot of content, but the actual games themselves? Not that I can think of. It's not like BG games are like the Quake series where everything is a brown-gray hallway after a brown-gray hallway. e: Okay yeah, Mekrath's lair is a re-use of Durlag's Tower from BG1, I guess that's repetitive. Rappaport fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 06:58
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Has anyone here played around in any detail with the Spell Revisions mod? I'm interested in the effort it puts into correcting the objectively busted balance in the spell selection, but at first blush I'm not sure if it pushes the scaling pedal down a little too hard in places.
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Apr 28, 2023 07:35
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Zeerust posted:Has anyone here played around in any detail with the Spell Revisions mod? I'm interested in the effort it puts into correcting the objectively busted balance in the spell selection, but at first blush I'm not sure if it pushes the scaling pedal down a little too hard in places. It's fine, it makes the terrible spells okay and the spells you always use because they are broken not that great.
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Apr 28, 2023 08:08
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Zeerust posted:Has anyone here played around in any detail with the Spell Revisions mod? I'm interested in the effort it puts into correcting the objectively busted balance in the spell selection, but at first blush I'm not sure if it pushes the scaling pedal down a little too hard in places. I used it a fair bit this last Ironman season and yeah it's all right, but it's a bit No Fun Allowed in it's approach. It does make some rather nice changes too, though (like Sleep never stops scaling, though things wake up when you hit them). Also spreads summoning spells out a bit more (so there's at least one summon per spell level). I'd make sure you read up on its changes so you know what you're getting. Of note, I did run into a rather nasty bug where things like Sleep and Charm that wear off when you attack the affected creature would instead always just wear off instantly. I think I had to install the Spell Revisions Revised version instead to fix that.
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Apr 28, 2023 08:48
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Rappaport posted:What? The landscapes in BG1, where you spend a lot of your time, are gorgeous to look at. poo poo, even the walls of the Friendly Arm Inn look good. When I say repetitive I don't mean reuse of the same exact render (although I've looted the same chest sitting in a cave about 4 times now). I mean the trees and bushes in your gorgeous landscapes are copy pasted of the same render with no variability. I mean the textures in the bricks of your good wall are varying little or where it's varying is on a very computed period. I mean many of the marquee dungeons everyone remembers (mines, firewine etc.) are remembered for the wrong reason like that they are infinitely repeating splotches of brown and gray texture. It's ok, it's kind of typical of someone doing software renders in the late 90s short of $Pixar budgets. Some of this is EE or TuTu problems as the view port in original gameplay was fairly tight which served to break things up. IIRC the verbal history, post render touch up is only something they experimented with in BG given time, budget and expectations. By IWD and BG2, post touch up was in full effect and responsible much of the character I remember the games for. While BG2 has maybe more art (Athkatla has staggering detail in each map), I think IWD came out the better with the amount of attention paid on light sources and post render touch up.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:01
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Okay, so some of the trees are the same render, therefore the game is ugly? I just can't follow this chain of logic. A lot of the houses in Baldur's Gate share the same graphics, heck the "house" graphic is generic to Beregost too, but how does this equate to things being ugly?
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Apr 28, 2023 14:10
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Rappaport posted:What? The landscapes in BG1, where you spend a lot of your time, are gorgeous to look at. poo poo, even the walls of the Friendly Arm Inn look good. I love the trees and flowers in BG1. They are so pretty and make me think of fall.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:26
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Rappaport posted:Okay, so some of the trees are the same render, therefore the game is ugly? I just can't follow this chain of logic. A lot of the houses in Baldur's Gate share the same graphics, heck the "house" graphic is generic to Beregost too, but how does this equate to things being ugly? I may also just be an insufferable nerd because I think some of the best improvements in game graphics, prerender or live render, are stuff like tree libraries and procedural texture weathering. IWD, BG2, the PoEs avoid the need for some of this (although maybe used some aspects of them) with a high amount of post render touch up but that's a huge amount of art hours.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:36
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Even for 1999? What was the competition back then? Fallout 2? There's some recycled graphics for you, for sure. And I guess there were some awful 3D games of that era coming out, and whoo boy, ugly doesn't begin to cover that.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:56
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A few direct competitors in 98-99 of good isometric graphics include Age of Empires 2, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Commandos, StarCraft. Oh but they are tile based and use repeats. Yes, repeating sprites from a pool of multiple or with decals breaking up the eye line instead of standing next to the exact same thing. It's the little details missing which means BG is ultimately a small distance from being just as good as these or BG2 and IWD but it was a distance they didn't travel. One of the main nails in the coffin that might betray what I think about the scope of BG vs even BG2 or IWD let alone other games is Resident Evil 2. The same sort of pipeline of BG with prerendered environments with gamespace mapped inside it. It's a tight view and a gem of environmental design. For as hokey as some of the 3d in 98 and 99 was, you still had Unreal which had environments with if not the same amount of believable curvature, a similar sort of level as detail as some of the BG maps and it was able to do it all in real time.
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Apr 28, 2023 16:22
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You reserve the word "ugly", but then you say that this is the anti-thesis to it? I'm not sure the comparison to Age of Empires 2 is apt, either, since as you say that game had a procedural, repetitive map generation system. I'm not familiar with Starcraft (  ) or Roller Coaster Tycoon, but I am assuming those feature procedurally generated maps and graphics as well. Even if we say that Fallout 2 isn't a good comparison for bland, generic gray and repetitive backgrounds in an RPG, the scene was fairly bare outside of that. There was Star Control 2, which certainly had diverse landscapes, but they might still qualify as "ugly".
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Apr 28, 2023 16:45
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Shard posted:I love the trees and flowers in BG1. They are so pretty and make me think of fall. And I am not going to weigh in on the argument about graphics because clearly I am always happy as long as the little drawings look like what they are supposed to be, but this conversation really takes me back to when I first realized just how differently people could feel about what in a game was beyond the pale. This is an actual conversation that was so astounding we still reference it 20 years later when this friend complains about graphics DR. QUAREX: Arcanum is awesome, you have to check this out *loads game* ACTUAL HUMAN FRIEND: Oh is this the dwarves with guns game? Awesome! DR.Q: Here it is, so you start in that zeppelin and-- AHF: Ugh, god, look at that grass. DR.Q: The...grass? AHF: How can you even stand to play games this ugly?
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Apr 28, 2023 16:48
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Starcraft maps are handcrafted out of tiles. BG1's maps all looked nice, it was the interface that was ugly as hell
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