Ultima 7 Serpent Isle also had a trial in it that I thought was pretty interesting.
Is the schedule posted anywhere?
Umm… sorry, but he totally is talking about a videogame. He mentions checking the game log for why his über spells aren’t having an effect on the dragons (the black dragon sequence starts at 1:21:37). Not that he doesn’t still play pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons but that advertised bit confused me when it turned out to not be about PnP DnD.
Oh, right. Well, uh, well, you’ll have to wait for the director’s cut of this podcast for the PnP talk. It’ll be out on Blu-Ray this holiday season.
Mr. Gopher, there is not a schedule posted. I have a list of folks in rough chronological order and I tend to set it up with the next person on the list a week or so in advance. If you’ve ever sent me a PM, you are on that list. And if you haven’t sent me a PM and you want to do a podcast with me, please send me a PM!
-TomNWN1 had the disc copy protection removed with the 1.69 patch. Did NWN2 go the same route? I have the whole game but don’t want to carry my discs around between my home system and my laptop.
My copy came with an old video card and still requires the disk in the drive after the latest patch. Maybe once I install the expansions it will go away, but not so far.
Loved all the theater talk. I’ve been curious about Tom’s acting background (in a fan way, not a creepy stalker way) for a while now and you guys kinda touched on that. Enjoyed you guys just discussing different elements of theater.
Bought a copy of “Legwork” too. Unlike you gentleman, I am still a young man and have many other young friends. We are always on the look out for cheap, well written plays to consider for production locally.
Yes, I believe the most recent patch removed the disc protection.
Which I thought was awesome until I found out that moving the camera causes the game to crash on my windows 7 system. Guess I’m waiting until Good Old Games releases a version for windows 9 or whatever.
Nice podcast. I feel bad for Dean now though – he’s spent all this time preventing his students from googling him by not putting his last name on QT3, and now it’s plastered all over QT3. Are you worried about that?
Cool, thanks. You are indeed correct. No copy protection needed. Granted, all the textures in the area I made in the toolset to mess around disappeared, but I managed to avoid the moving camera crashes in game.
This made me want to play NWN2. I played NWN1 and both expansions, but never picked up the sequel for some reason. I wish it were on Steam, but it’s not. I really, really prefer to not have to have a disc in the drive. Does anyone know for sure if, say, Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold on Amazon really does patch to not require the disc?
And I notice this doesn’t include Storm of Zehir for some reason. Skippable?
Edit: Disc question answered in last post. Oops. Consider this just whining that it’s not on Steam. Except for the Zehir question.
The podcast definitely made me want to play NWN1. It’s the only Bioware RPG that I haven’t made it through.
I seem to remember my first playthrough of NWN1 turned me off because of some UI weirdnesses. After so recently playing Baldur’s Gate II, I was thrown by the sudden 3D engine, and my ability to rotate the camera. I found it frustrating that I couldn’t position the camera in a single place that worked…I always seemed to have the camera stuck behind a building or something and had to look at my character through some weird translucent wall.
I also missed the party dynamic.
But maybe I’ll give it another try, once I’ve cleared out a few of the backlogs ;). How does it date?
I feel like NWN1 holds up decently on some levels. I always thought the engine did an adequate job translating the basic feel of a D&D paper and pencil game. So I’m content with that and not looking for the latest whiz bang graphics. Having said that, the opening part of NWN is pretty weak (seems to be Bioware’s method, just slog through the first part and we promise it will get better). If you can hang in there until chapter 2, the official campaign improves significantly and keeps getting better through the 2 expansions.
Nah. They’ve all gone away for the summer already, and the googling usually happens in September when they get to school, or October when I have all the freshmen for the first time.
It was worst when my Steam name got out and a bunch of kids friended me. At first the kept me alive in L4D, but then I’d be in the middle of shooting zombies and somebody would pop in to ask me a question about what classes to take next semester. “I’m playing games now. Come see me in my office tomorrow.”
Oh, one other thing-- my Critical Studies class posts all their work to a blog, so you can see exactly what games I’ve subjected them to. The first few pages of entries are rules for boardgames they’ve designed for their final project, but there are 25 student analyses to The Path there, and if you go before all of The Path stuff, you’ll find links to a whole bunch of indie games and reactions from the students, and, in the comments, my reactions to their reactions.
looks at blog
There’s an All Your Base Are Belong To Us board game? Now I’ve seen everything. I hope the creators of Zero Wing get a chuckle every time the see this stuff.
Those are boardgames the students made themselves.
The assignment: A group of five people choose three weird things from many I have available (a backscratcher, a Sebulba action figure, dice, cards, Play-dough, etc.) and make a board game. They can make their own board, and they can use all, some, or none of the things they’ve chosen, but they can’t use anything more. They can have up to ten rules (cue long discussion of just what exactly a rule is). The game must be for 2-5 players and complete in under an hour. Go!
Then a few days later, the groups exchange games and play. Then each group writes up an analysis of the game they played.
Then we repeat it the next week once each group has iterated based on the comments from last week.
I wish I could play leaft 4 dead with my professors… :(
Dean, I must say, I’m a bit aghast that you’ve got Brian Moriarty in your department and you characterized him merely as some guy who worked on some Infocom stuff. I mean, where’s the love for Loom, one of the classic graphic adventures from the early days of the LucasArts (then LucasFilm Games) golden era?
Overall, an excellent podcast so far, and I’m only just beginning the section on NWN 2.
He admits he took the job, in part, in order to be called Professor Moriarty (and then he lets out an evil laugh.)
I dunno, it’s different when you work everyday with someone. He does have great stories about bumming around Skywalker Ranch, and the games from that era that were canceled (and he still has all the material for), but they’re his stories.
If you’re interested in him, he’s got a great website that collects his various GDC talks. He gave his “Who Buried Paul?” talk this year and it really kicked ass. He spent a couple of years making planetarium shows, so one of his talks is totally scripted, included recorded portions, so it’s more of a spoken word performance than your standard powerpoint presentation.
Ooh, that sounds neat. I’d been wondering what he’s been up to.
And, while I have you here (and as a complete aside), did you ever change that hideous shag carpeting in your new domicile?