Neverwinter Nights Available at GoG.com

A team of 4 players, from different parts of the world ranging from Florida to Sri Lanka, explores an ancient underground fortress in Faerun, the world of Neverwinter Nights.

Atari's Neverwinter Nights has just been made available as a DRM free download for $10 at Good Old Games.

A generation after it's original release NWN remains the most revolutionary cRPG ever made.

The adventure isn't that special. If you're a casual cRPG fan it's worth a play, but it won't rock your world. Baldurs's Gate 1 and 2 are both better cRPG experiences for the RP lightweight (and both are available on GoG). The official campaign is weak at best. The first expansion, Shadows of Undrentide, is MUCH better. In fact, just skip straight to "Shadows" (known in the NWN community as SoU). It's no Baldur's Gate, but at least it gives BG a run for it's money. The original campaign doesn't even try. The last full length module, Hoards of the Underdark (or HotU) is a sequel of SoU and is without doubt the best of the three modules, but it's also epic level. I wouldn't recommend making HotU your first NWN experience.

No. As far as the single player game goes it falls into the "meh" catagory. The graphics are dated, and in the OC the plot is lame, linear, and riddled with painfully 2 dimensional NPC's.

But it's still the best cRPG ever made.

What makes NWN stand apart from any game that came before it is the Aurora Toolset and it's multi-player features.
The toolset is easier to use and more powerful than anything ever released before or since. Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, even Oblivion have toolsets that pale in comparison to NWN. While the sequel, NWN 2, has a toolset that offers a building experience with much better graphics, it offers nothing in terms of improved game play and is much more complicated and time consuming. NWN is also highly modable. It's relatively easy to create and animate 3d models, so fans have fleshed out the game with custom clothing, models, buildings, monsters... you name it. The system is so flexible that it has been used to create d20 modern and even sci-fi modules. NWN is the perfect platform for the amateur game designer. As a result there are literally thousands of fan made modules, and literally hundreds that are actually superior to the official campaign.

Still not convinced? Let's talk multi-player. NWN can be played cooperatively or PvP. The official campaigns can be played co-op, but there are scores of fan made modules designed for MP co-op as well. Now there's nothing new about MP support. Baldur's Gate was an amazing MP experience for the few people who tried it, but compared to NWN it's downright primitive and without the toolset the MP experience in these games was intrinsically limited.

And this brings us to the one thing that sets NWN apart from every other cRPG ever made...

NWN has a Dungeon Master client.

NWN's DM client, in combination with the powerful toolset, relegates every other MP computer game on the market to the status of "Poser". This feature makes real tabletop Pen 'n Paper style role playing available in a thoroughly rendered 3-D environment for the very first time.

NWN still has a very active community. For a complete list of links and resources check out my dedicated Neverwinter Nights page. 

BUY NEVERWINTER NIGHTS RIGHT NOW! It's the best game value you will ever find.

Fine! Raise My F&($ing Taxes!

I for one am fed up with the Republican bullshit in regards to the Bush tax cuts.

Word to Obama:
If the Republicans filibuster just raise my f&($ing taxes. I've had it up to my eyeballs with spoiled rich b$#(%^s f&($ing up the country so they can make a few pennies on the share in the market.

At some point the government has to get real about deficit reduction, and while cutting taxes for the middle class will, I believe, stimulate the economy; cutting taxes for the rich is like throwing $700 billion to Hong Kong.

The middle class is likely to spend their tax savings on paying bills and mortgages and otherwise funneling money back into local economies. I'll grant that. It would be worth trying to keep them in the hopes that it stimulates jobs (and in acknowledgment that, quite frankly, we need the money).

But the Republican contention that cutting taxes for the rich will somehow stimulate the US economy is ludicrous. The rich will invest their tax savings, that's true, but they must take me for some kind of idiot if they think I'm financially illiterate enough to believe they're going to invest it in the US. This just ain't where the money is. If I have a choice between paying higher taxes and getting a handle on the deficit or letting a bunch of Fat Cats throw almost a trillion dollars into creating jobs in China and Brazil over the next ten years I'd just as soon cough up the extra taxes.

No Rest for the Weary

I was hoping with the election over I could take a rest from being PO'd at politicians, but no such luck. It's clear we voted out the bastards to make way for more of the same old crap. This whole earmarking hysteria is just a silly drama for the benefit of the illiterate masses and all it's going to do is increase congressional gridlock. Of course this may very well be the Republican's intent... bring Washington to a grinding halt and then blame Obama for it in 2012.

In any event, any talk about deficit reduction that's not accompanied by a determination to increase taxes and cut defense, social security, and medicare spending is just more of the same old political BS.

Shame on us all for buying into it.

Weird Weekend

I have an awesome little dog. A pekingese. I didn't actually kill him,
but I gave it a couple good tries. While I was taking him out he ran
full tilt head first into a trailer hitch. Knocked him right on his
fuzzy but. Then a much larger dog tried to eat him. Picked him up by the
scruff of the neck and shook him like a rag doll.

Oh... and tonight I stepped on him. With shoes on.

Poor little guy. He may be a poofy little girly dog, but he's the toughest little bugger I ever met. He never so much as let out a yelp.

Oh, and tonight I doped my wife up with a heavily spiked peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Yup. Weird weekend.

Nothing Like a Three Ring Election for a Great Show!

I'm loving this election.

I'm kinda enjoying watching the Democrats wading around in all the wild promises they couldn't keep, and the smug feeling of superiority that comes with knowing full well that it takes a heck of a lot longer than two years to turn around an economic disaster like the one we're crawling out of; A disaster brought about, by the way, by eight years of faux conservatism. It's also kinda fun watching full grown men running around screaming like a bunch of school girls in a pantie raid. Here's a news flash for you, ladies. The stimulus package worked. The recession is over. Businesses are growing again. They're just not sharing the money with you. If this surprises you go stand in the "stupid corner" and face the wall.

Here's another news flash for you Panicky Nancys out there: unemployment is always the last metric to improve after a recession. Deal with it. What the hell do you want the government to do about it? It's not the governments place to create jobs. That's what the private sector is for. The private sector has stabilized. In fact they're sitting on HUGE surpluses. They're just not hiring. In fact they're still firing. That's the way this game goes. Am I the only person alive old enough to remember that last time this happened? When all our manufacturing and engineering jobs got shipped to Mexico back in the 90's and we all wound up in the service industry? What can I say. It sucks to be us. But crying and voting in a bunch of corporate whores isn't going to change the situation.

And this brings me to the best part of this whole cluster %$#@: Watching the Grand Ol' Party implode.

That's right... The real clown show has come from the Republicans this session. They've strayed so far from real conservatism in the name of sucking big-money corporate ding-dong that they got their asses handed to them by a bunch of idiots running around screaming "CONSTITUTION! CONSTITUTION!"

Now this might have been a good thing if any of them had bothered to actually read the Constitution. Kinda makes a guy wonder what the heck were these clowns studied in high school instead.

Anyway... Congratulations, GOP. You chased away all the "RINOs" just in time for a party split to scoop up the radicals and sully the entire parties reputation by forcing the you to field illiterate nut-cases like Paladino and O'Donnell. Real smooth. "Republican Strategist" has officially become a contradiction in terms. Of course the lobbyists are adapting nicely. They know full well these upstarts will be all too eager to wrap their lips around their cash engorged hot corporate willies when re-election time rolls around. ;)

Now I'd like to make a comment about conservatism that's going to piss off a lot of people, but it needs to be said... If you haven't read the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution all the way through at least twice YOU'RE NOT A REAL CONSERVATIVE! You're just a chest thumping drone, and very likely a chump for the same special interests you're waving your fists and railing against.

The Conservative's Required Reading List:
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

There. That wasn't so hard was it? By the way... If you're really serious about understanding the conservative principles of our founding fathers a quick look at the Articles of Confederation wouldn't kill you either.

Two-Faced Bastard Brigade Strikes Again: Congress Smacks Down Small Business

For all their talk about how important we are to the economic recovery congress has once again smacked small business owners across the face, especially in regards to hiring/retaining employees. The new law, appended quietly into the health care reform bill and having abso-frigging-lutely nothing to do with health care, requires small business owners to declare all purchases over $600 to the IRS on a separate form called a 1099 MISC. The idea is that they can use this information to bust your vendors for shorting their taxes by under-reporting sales. Everything a small business buys costs more than $600 a year. This is going to make our already ridiculously long tax packages into damned novels.

Did I join the IRS at some point and miss it? What the hell good is a tax cut if you're just going to take it out of my hide in administrative costs twice over? And did I mention that I have a business to run? I can't do that when I'm filling out bloody paperwork for the IR bloody S all freakin' day long. The greedy bastards are already taking up too much of my workday with their incessant money grubbing.

If the IRS really wants me to function as a tax enforcement officer they can just give me a badge and pay me to do it, otherwise would somebody remind these lazy schmucks that it's their job to catch tax cheats, not mine.