Thursday, June 26, 2008

4 To Go

The other day at my daughter's gymnastics class, which I don't participate in leaving me a good chunk of time to sit around and do nothing in a building that's not my house, I picked up this magazine they have. One of the things I like about my dentist is that he has Sports Illustrated and ESPN magazine; I'm not a real big sports fan, but it beats the hell out of Ebony or Redbook or the other BS that's at the gymnastics place. But I did check out this Entrepreneur (or something like that) magazine, which had Mark Ecko on the cover. Apparently the dude is a billionaire.

Then it occured to me that I don't have any of his clothes in my wardrobe, which, you'll note from earlier I have about an hour to kill with little to do, got me thinking why I don't, you'd, or perhaps I'd, think I'd like those kind of clothes being a big hip hop fan and all. But I don't really get in to those stupid urban/rapper clothing lines that much. And I figured out why: Most of these rappers look like they raided their grandma's old clothes box.

Seriously, look at these guys. I guess the last thing I want to do is take fashion advice from guys who wear diamond earrings the size of a marble, shiny tennis bracelets, and fur coats (dude, my mom wants a fur coat).

I do want to know how they keep their hats on, but can never keep on their shirts, or some kind of half-shirts like they couldn't decide what goes where even if it looks a little suggestive in a bad way.

Also, here's a hilariously misleading condom ad.

But on to the update:

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Those are two areas I did this week to further the noble house quests. As the title suggests, only 4 more quests to go, then the two final stages of the main quest and that about does it. Getting very close now, and not much to talk about, hence my tirade above and below.

Now, more Baldur's Gate:

Last time, I had just left the prologue on my quest to find out why people are trying to kill me and succeeding in killing Gorion. Turns out this involves a lot of walking and stumbling in to things. Since the only thing I know about so far is a pile of loot to the north I can steal from Gorion's corpse, that's the first stop:

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Then I stumbled into more things, like these guys:

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Meet Xzar and Monteron, two mildly annoying guys. One is near worthless in battle, the other when scripted tries to hide in shadows constantly instead of moving to his waypoint (also, the pathing in this game is terrible, again I'll chalk that up to age because the logarithms used today may not have even existed or been too costly to use). Anyway, didn't know this when I said it's cool to come along, plus a full party is better than nothing.

Anyway, I told them I had to go north to the Friendly Arms Inn to meet some friends instead of going south to Nakresh like they want to. Hopefully, I thought to myself, I will find some sidequests and and a CGI(?) cutscene. And I wasn't disappointed.

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After arriving in town and being nearly murdered again, I found some more friends, Jaheira and Khalid:

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I'm assuming because there is no more space for companions, that I have a full party. That means sidequest time. The first one I found was from what appears to be a completely nude woman who lost her ring.

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Obviously I accepted, as it seems simple enough and I haven't seen a game yet that punishes you for taking quests, often puzzling why a "no" option even exists because you can just ignore them anyway (luckily, many BG quests you just get from talking to a guy...but you can ignore them.) I did that, killed the hobgoblin who had the ring, but his corpse was sort of behind a tree so I didn't notice it and continued north thinking it was up there, where I found a whole new batch of sidequests, including some bandits who you literally scalp, which is kind of nasty.

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I don't know why an innkeeper would want to buy a dead guy's filthy bandit hair, but I don't ask those questions.

A little further north I found a farmer who's son is missing, which I'm supposed to find. After a very brief time looking, I ran into one of these things.

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Notice my party is a little smaller? Yeah, that's because these things can literally explode your guys into a spray of body parts. They don't just regular kill them. It lead to this screen:

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That's my hand melting away.

So after a reload, I did manage to win but lost most of my party again. I just wanted to see if I could do it.

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But, after careful consideration, I decided I'm in the wrong area because these things are a little strong for a level 1 party; even Xzar with his 4 hit points and no offensive damaging spells was having trouble. I think that's why he bothered me to go south to Narakesh. He was punished for it, because I'm evil:

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I made him wear a belt that made him a woman. Then Jaheira started bugging me too about going there, and so did my journal:

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Most of the quests end in "by the way, maybe we should go south to Narakesh?" So I caved in, lacking another gender bending belt.

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And here I am at level 2:

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12 comments:

Jclef said...

I love your PC's name.

Anonymous said...

(1) It looks like you're having some graphical glitches. You should probably turn 3d acceleration OFF, since recent cards don't play well with the ancient code.

(2) You can improve pathfinding by increasing the number of search nodes in the config. Up it to 64K or so.

(3) In the BG games NPCs get "chunked" whenever they take some big hit that would take them to some substantial amount below simple death. Also when petrified and then damaged. You can raise non-chunked party members at temples...

dirtywick said...

Yeah I figured out what the temples do finally. I wish you could ressurect your character though. I died today because my character died even though everyone else was alive.

I don't know where to make those changes. There's a few graphics options in the menus but none of them get rid of the glitches and there's nothing about pathfinding, and I don't know where the game is actualy stored with GameTap because it doesn't appear to be on my computer at all.

BG2 is better though. I tried it briefly and decided I wanted to play 1 first.

Josh said...

In the BG series, if I recall correctly, your characters only get chunked if a substantial amount of damage kills them (in BG2 Iron Golems almost always do this to you) and if you're playing under the standard ruleset rules. You can lower the difficulty, and they wont explode unless they're petrified and someone attacks them.

Also in BG2, Keldorn often gets screwed up with his convos, and Jaheira's romance often breaks (ie. if she gets imprisoned by a demilich, she'll get pissed at you for forcing her out of the party). Demiliches are one of those monsters you learn to absolutely despise in BG2. Cheap Imprisonment spamming bastards.

Anonymous said...

It's not in the menus. It's in the separate configuration utility. Is Gametap hiding that too?

dirtywick said...

Yeah, I think so. I really don't even know if the game is stored on my computer or downloaded to a storage place on their site and accessed remotely.

Because I poked around in all the usual places and can't find any BG resources or an .exe or anything like that.


Yeah Josh I just turned it on and played, so whatever difficulty that is. It's a little more fun to me to figure things out as I go.

Jazhara7 said...

Ah, yes HipHop. I don't mind the music, as long as I don't have to hear it. But I often laugh at the people who do, *especially* because they often aspire to becoming famous with their music like the people who already are famous because of that. That's alright, but the thing that really cracks me up is how naive they really are, thinking that, living in a small town in the German countryside where nothing really exciting happens except maybe that a cow falls over suddenly out of boredom (which is really rare actually), you are a gangster just because you wear the clothes and try to make similar "music".

Speaking of the clothes. Don't they also wear the baggy pants? One of my class members used to wear them (I don't think he was into hip hop, though, he just liked the pants. Other groups also wear them too, as far as I know.). Since he was *always* the last in the class room, coming late at least a minute every time [meaning the door was already closed, so everyone noticed him coming in], our German teacher (who, as a side note, also referred to that student
s pants as "Post bags", because they were so large) always commented that that was because the pants must be slowing the student down.

Oh, and speaking of the pants. I recently saw someone comment on those baggy pants with the words "So, if they're gangsters, I suppose they're only doing the kind of crime that doesn't require a fast escape. :P "


As for how the hats stay on? I have a theory that they have discovered a product from Japanese clothing culture for themselves: Socks Glue which is something used by Japanese school girls to keep up the so called loose socks which, as you can see, can be rather long (the ones I linked to are 120 cms long, though there's also *slihghtly* shorter variants available, like 70 cms long.

Anyway, I think those Hip hop guys use socks glue to glue their hats on in those silly positions. And it makes me grin thinking of one of those gangsters ordering sock glue from the home of Hello Kitty. XD


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Now, for Baldur's Gate.

Have you also met the guy at the cliff to the north west, which I think can be found in that screen? I can't remember what exactly he wanted to do (I *think* it was jump).

Also, you shouldn't put off going to Nashkel for too long, because if you do, the two groups will say "Frak you! I'm going there on my own. See you never." And the "See you never" means that you will never see them again (except in Baldur's Gate 2, maybe, but only maybe. But not in Baldur's Gate 1 again). The NPCs want to get their own stuff done, so don't ignore their concerns too long. They will warn one, maybe two times, after that they will leave.

One thing you should always do is look closely at every item. A ring or a glove might look no different from a regular item, but it might be important for a sidequest. It happened at least twice to me that I had to backtrack because I had sold off a ring or a necklace that looked no different from a regular item of that type, but had the name "Illira's necklace", for example. Gah! Why couldn't they make the things unsellable?!

Also, if you haven't done so already, *DON'T* give away the golden pantaloons from the Friendly Arm Inn. They'll be useful later (much later. As in, the next game. But hey, they will be useful.).

If you have trouble finding stuff, you can use the Highlight button to make the things glow (actually they get a cyan coloured outline). Sure, it isn't too effective when its night, because the outline gets overlapped with the night lighting too, but it helps a huge lot because the outline shows through obstacles, like buildings and trees.

I don't remember the exact key, but it's somewhere on the left. Most D&D games seem to have this. In NWN 2 it's the "Y" key (or in your case it's probably the "Z" key, because I have a German keyboard, which means those are switched). I think in Baldur's Gate it was the Tab key, or maybe "Ctrl".


Also, unless you're completely opposed to it, I highly encourage you to explore the wilderness areas in the game very thoroughly. There's something to find in each of them, and often it's quite hilarious. However, keep in mind that unlike recent games, Baldur's Gate doesn't coddle you when it comes to encounters. If you step off the beaten path, you'll be sure to come across both appropriate enemies, as well as ones that are way beyond your abilities at the time, depending on where you are. THIS thread over at the Bioware forums in the "Storm of Zehir" discussion section has several references to this, and I'm starting to believe some of us RPG players have a masochistic streak. And seriously, I am looking forward to having that freedom as well as the danger of getting my whole party in one go again in a game. ^_^ (As a side note, the thread starter apparently also made the mistake of venturing into Ankheg country way too early in the game. So don't worry, you're not the only one.).

Oh, and keep on to those Bandit scalps. There's a milita woman (I think it was a woman) in one of the Inns in Beregost who'll give you money for every Banit scalp you bring her. I don't remember if her price for them was more or equal to that an innkeeper would give you, but it's definitely not lower.

And yes, getting game over when your own character dies is a bit crass. But for once they have a good excuse for having the thing work that way.

And I am sorely tempted to send you a physical copy of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 plus expansions...if only it wasn't for the fact that I am Germany, and have only one English copy of the games myself.
:(


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EC said...

Your BG diary is a good read. I hope you carry through for a while.

Anonymous said...

"living in a small town in the German countryside where nothing really exciting happens except maybe that a cow falls over suddenly out of boredom (which is really rare actually)"

What, you don't tip them?

Jazhara7 said...

"What, you don't tip them?"


ZE GERMAN COW IZ A STEADFAST CREATURE. IT VILL NOT BE OVERTHROWN! HAIL ZE GERMAN BOVINE!


*grins*

Seriously though? I don't know. I haven't seen a cow out at feed in my area *ever*. And I've lived here all of the 21 years of my life. Actually, I've never seen a cow anywhere at all even inside a stable in this area - of course I haven't been in too many stables, so that doesn't have to mean there are no cows somewhere around here.

The only thing we have around here is asparagus, which doesn't really lend itself well to being tipped what with being rather springy. I guess you could tip the people cutting the asparagus if you're really desperate, though I think they might have a few words to say about that if you do. :P



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dirtywick said...

Asparagus is pretty disgusting.

I was in Germany for a brief time a few years back. The food is actually pretty good. There was this Turkish Gyro stand I ate at like daily. They put like curry or something on the lamb, good stuff.

Then again, when I tried to order a brat (like this: http://www.johnsonville.com/home/products/brats/original-bratwurst.html#) I got a big hotdog, which was pretty disappointing.

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