Baldur's Gate Has anybody ever tried Melirinda's Icewind Dale II mod?

[Lesifoere]

Well, i do think that if someone wrote in five minutes something way better than someone else managed to write through months of despairing effort then the former should have gone through months of despairing effort to do something that really reached the limits of his skill instead of just half-assing something that he can do by means of divine intervention or natural talent instead of merits, regardless of how good the end product of his half-assed effort is. But that's just my personal opinion on the matter.

That's absolutely true, but I've found that this kind of thing may be spontaneous. Sometimes, what you spend five minutes on (or a week) turns out a lot better than something you've been laboring away for three plus years. Part of it has to do with distractions and growth as a writer, and conflicting ideas--what you thought was great three years ago you may not think of as great now. But that's neither here nor there. Point is, effort doesn't always equal result.

At the same time i think turning that dislike of a written work into a vendetta against the guy who wrote it is... I don't know. Devoid of any sense or reason, maybe? As a guy, he tried. As a writer, he failed. And as literature his work sucks donkey balls. Those are three individual, separate things instead of one and the same. "Hate the sin but not the sinner" and all that.

Unfortunate example, because Paolini happens to be a pretentious fuckwad who thinks way too highly of his own shit (something about "I hope to achieve the lyrical beauty between Tolkien and Beowulf") and writes scads of "essays" blowing his own literary horn.

In Merilinda's case--I don't know, she expresses opinions about games and writing and RPGs that are so very, deeply stupid that it's hard not to ridicule her. I'd agree that such ridicule should be separate from assessing her writing/mods, but given how shrill she tends to be on the topics of playing male PCs, I'd say making fun of her opinions is pretty justified.

On the other hand, I also was about to type "Peter Todd," so I get what you mean. But I should also add that I've personally engaged with Melirinda before, whereas I've never had online exchanges with either Howard or Hines, so there's that.

At least we have Ed Greenwood to carry the torch

Just invoking his name makes me twitch. I have (un)fond memories of Greenwood's fans shrieking about how very literary, how very amazing his writing is. Blah blah, the whoooole industry thinks he is great and he keeps getting book contracts, how can he possibly be shit?

 

[Melcar]

So, are we still talking about the mod? I don't want to derail the discussion and all.

 

[Lesifoere]

Well, it'd first require that someone who has played the mod shows up. I played IWD II only once and never installed it again.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I've already made my mind up about it. I don't see anything that would make it any different from her awful NWN2 mod, except that this is "original content do not steal."

 

[Lesifoere]

I find that, in general, the more vehemently someone puts a "THIS IS MINE MINE MINE COPYRIGHTED NO STEALING BITCHES" addendum on their amateur work, usually on the Internet, the less likely it is to be worth stealing/plagiarizing.

 

[Drakron]

Jaemal, a Neutral Good Aasimar Sorcerer Male (A Romantic Option for a Male or Female PC)

You know what? fuck it ... no more guilt about liking to see T&A female armor.

 

[Melcar]

Last time I checked the read me it seemed like a pain in the ass to work with, that is why I never tried it.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Why would I want babbling companions in Icewind Dale?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Installing a mod to replace party creation in Icewind Dale 2 with Bioware style companions kills a huge part of the game's charm. Why anyone would want to play it is beyond me. It's like making a mod for Torment to replace all the diaogue options with simple 1 choice sections and then filling the game up with more combat; a square-peg into the round hole type of deal.

I don't really think it's worthy of praise for trying either. Bioware exists, and they keep cranking out the same sappy stuff. There's no shortage. I don't quite know what would possess anyone to want to turn one of the scant few, "good", party-based, dungeon crawlers of late into a typical Bioware drama fest. Now if it was an attempt at bringing back something that isn't being supplied, like Ultima-style world interactivity and detail, or RoA-style traveling systems (minus the incredibly tedious micromanagement) that was crappilly inserted into another game, I could sympathize. But more of the same shit mainstream developers are churning out? No thanks.

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

Don't you guys appreciate love and romance?

 

[Drakron]

Well I suppose the fact we are playing a IE engine game with a party of mutes without any regard to alignment clashes kinda feels odd, also IWD2 have specific class and race dialog so its more evident that IWD (that had a generalist approach).

The issue of trying to add personality to party members comes from "it does not work that way", if we could assign a personality during character generation and characters interact based on the assigned personality it would be one thing, this is plain railroading into taking some NPCs without regard to how IWD2 handles party generation.

 

[Gragt]

Most of what I wanted to write has been done by Lesifoere (I wish I could spend more time on the net and less on menial chores). I wanted to say that I do not consider an effort worthless if you learn from your mistakes in the process, but still no one should expect recognition on the sole fact that they poured sweat and blood on their work. Which is the problem with Melirinda because she believes she does something great.

She may be doing what she and other people want, and that's fine for them, but it's still meaningless drivel. When I say she doesn't have a clue, it's about good writing as hers is bloated and full of clichés. Some exemples from the screenshots of the Bishop romance posted not long ago in the forum:

The golden leaves are ankle-deep, and they rustle as you walk. Bishop leans over and throws a handful at you. His laughter echoes, the crisp sunlight turns his hair redder than you remember ever seeing it. The leaves smell of everything that was in the summer as you roll together, trying to bury one another under them.

This stuff has been done over and over again in prose and poetry, it's adolescent self-indulgence. She probably does not realize it and will continue to output the same kind of crap for years to come, especially with the fellating masses that call her writing great. I think the reason the Codex focuses more on her than other creeps like Tessera is because she made stupid criticism about the creation of rpgs, the storytelling and npc writing, as well as having an unhealthy obsession with romances; all the while acting pretentious while it's clear she has no idea of what good writing is. I'd have less problems with her if she was looking to improve, all great artists had to work to reach their place and keep it, but again it's not the case at all here. Now compare her to Tessera, all he (or she?) did was make nude patches, argue that it made games more mature, plus the whole bitching about the unofficial Bloodlines patches. While also a ridiculous character, they are not in the same league.

While it's true some people on the Codex bitch just for the sake of bitching, not everyone is like that. We still have appearances to uphold though.

As a side-note I wanted to reiterate something I said before: liking and disliking something is not wrong at all as it is entirely subjective, excellence on the other hand should be approached only with objectivity.

Abstract art is not a bad thing, it's when you reach excesses like painting a black dot on a white board or run around dripping paint that it becomes a problem, all the while trying to empower them with meanings they do not have.

There's nothing abstract about geometrical shapes. In fact, it's art as concrete as it can get (read: boring).

And this is as stolid as it can get.

 

[Radisshu]

No, I haven't tried it. I think it may have something to do with the fact that Melirindia is the only person on the internet that truly can manage to successfully troll a reaction out of me. And she's just being herself.

But there are stars in her eyes.

Merilinda should be a reference in a Wiki page about the sucktitude of women in art.

She seems fairly intelligent(though misguided) and is given tools to materialize whatever gaming vision she has, yet she couldn't pull off a decent mod if her life depended on it.

Seems is the key word.

EDIT: Don't blame the women for her talentlessness, though, it's not their fault. I'm fairly sure she'd be equally useless would she be male.

 

[scient]

Is she the person who rants about PST being sexist because you can't play a female lead character?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Installing a mod to replace party creation in Icewind Dale 2 with Bioware style companions kills a huge part of the game's charm. Why anyone would want to play it is beyond me. It's like making a mod for Torment to replace all the diaogue options with simple 1 choice sections and then filling the game up with more combat; a square-peg into the round hole type of deal.

I don't really think it's worthy of praise for trying either. Bioware exists, and they keep cranking out the same sappy stuff. There's no shortage. I don't quite know what would possess anyone to want to turn one of the scant few, "good", party-based, dungeon crawlers of late into a typical Bioware drama fest. Now if it was an attempt at bringing back something that isn't being supplied, like Ultima-style world interactivity and detail, or RoA-style traveling systems (minus the incredibly tedious micromanagement) that was crappilly inserted into another game, I could sympathize. But more of the same shit mainstream developers are churning out? No thanks.

You're absolutely right, but here's what I understand of it.

Melirinda once said that Icewind Dale 2 was the best of Infinity Engine games, in her opinion, even though it did not have her standard RPG template. I suppose it was closer to her ideal view of a RPG, and the mods are meant to bring it closer to that.

And yeah, Bioware does keep bringing out that stuff anyway, but Icewind Dale 2 was released in 2002, the same year as NWN, a game which she does not like, hence she had to make do with this.

It's a mistake for a supercore Bioware fanboy to buy a Icewind Dale game in the first place, but if that person is capable of making it conform to his or her tastes, eh, go for it.

It is very much strange, though. There are tons of Bioware style RPGs. Party based dungeon crawlers are a minority. And yet, their singular existence is worth all lament, to so many RPG fans. And those few games must conform to their expectations, even though the market is already saturated with the Bioware dramafest.

 

[Redeye]

Malevich was not pomo even if some of his stuff is a bit too experimental.

Whatever. Those art decliners are one big, unidentifiable mess who alienated the common man from everything beautiful and spawned hideous boxes and "statues" all over the cities.

It's a

fucking a box/polygon


This is very meta.

By that I mean it is a statement about how people have fucked architecture.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

It's postmodernism, and therefore meta as fuck by definition.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

1. I've never read or played anything from Melirinda,

2. She's popular in NWN2 for a reason. Even if it's for reasons that none of you enjoy, it's still having little or no impact at all on the cRPG genre that you guys are justifiably upset about. If someone does something in their own time, for no money that they and thousands of other people enjoy and you attack them for it, it's not justifiable anger. It's just been a total asshole to someone who is actually doing things rather than bitch and whine, that a lot of people happen to enjoy.

Don't play it if you don't want to and have a little decency instead of flaming someone who does not deserve it?

 

[Lesifoere]

How does her stupidity not deserve ridicule? Actually, why are you even here? There's a lot of bitching going around, and that silly ass-backward broad is hardly the only focus.

Is she the person who rants about PST being sexist because you can't play a female lead character?

Yes. She also ranted about how the Witcher was a spit in the face of female gamers because it "forces" you to play a male PC.

 

[Wyrmlord]

1. I've never read or played anything from Melirinda,

2. She's popular in NWN2 for a reason. Even if it's for reasons that none of you enjoy, it's still having little or no impact at all on the cRPG genre that you guys are justifiably upset about. If someone does something in their own time, for no money that they and thousands of other people enjoy and you attack them for it, it's not justifiable anger. It's just been a total asshole to someone who is actually doing things rather than bitch and whine, that a lot of people happen to enjoy.

Don't play it if you don't want to and have a little decency instead of flaming someone who does not deserve it?

I didn't say one negative thing about her.

I just expressed curiosity at the mod. There was a little amusment at its description and some of the portraits, but that's hardly an attack on her work, and that's something I would do for even things I like. Like "Haha, BaK's fake hair and beards look silly."

 

[Jaesun]

Yes. She also ranted about how the Witcher was a spit in the face of female gamers because it "forces" you to play a male PC.

LOL. A game.... based upon a book, that does not allow you to play a female, is a spit in the face of female gamers because it "forces" you to play a male PC? r00fles!

Thankfully there have been no Harry Potter cRPG's. She would NOT be very happy.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

/wince.

Really, there are SO MANY talented women in the industry that you guys don't even know about. I'm here because I'm loud and I like talking to you guys, and I enjoy writing.

Melirinda is a problem for me as a designer and as a female gamer. If guys had as much disdain for playing a game that forced you to play the opposite sex as she does, I'd find that abhorrent. Sure, that's not an entirely fair setup, as mostly when you play as a female you're out there as a hypersexualized figure (which you might also argue is a "symptom of the audience" but I would argue if you look at the percentage of gamers you'd find 40% of them are female but that's also somewhat beside the point) - but all the same her perspective really troubles me. If you're playing a game - even if you're playing an RPG - isn't it possible to do the cheesy Molyneux-ism and PLAY A ROLE? Like - instead of crafting our own character, putting yourself in the shoes of another and looking at life through their eyes? If you can't bring yourself to do that in a game - how do you read BOOKS? How do you accept perspectives that aren't your own creation? How do you LEARN? (hurr hurr hurr Annie we don't play games to LEARN hurr hurr - but follow me here)

I understand the desire for seeing relationships within games. It is a HUGE challenge to create that, and I know that I do deserve the flak SoZ has gotten about lack of depth. The fact is that I didn't have a lot of time to do a FUCKLOAD of writing, and in that sort of situation it's very broad strokes. The thing about relationships is that both in terms of writing them and in maintaining them IN REAL LIFE, what they take is time and a goddamn TON of it. I really don't know of a game I've played that made a super-compelling real relationship. This is not to say I haven't run into characters to whom I've had an attachment (which makes it all the more understandable to me when people crave that attachment and that - sense of a character coming to life for you), it's that real CONVINCING relationships haven't - I haven't seen one in a game so far. Something that charts a real friendship, or attraction, or even a breakup with awkward and defensive dialogue. Who wants to roleplay a real fight? But you have something to fight for. You have an ATTACHMENT.

Anyhow. While I can understand her motivations, her takes on certain topics and the militance of her stance I think is... I hesitate to use the word damaging, but possibly what I mean is somewhere in there. The idea of wanting more interaction between characters and being able to play as female characters - feeling like the industry is paying more attention to the women gamers out there - but refusing to play games simply because they only feature a male protagonist is close-minded, I think.

...I admit, I don't really want to play The Witcher because the extent of interaction with women in it seems to be "Hi Gerhalt I would like to jump on your penis now" - that just seems dumb, even more dumb than it is sexist. I think wanting good character interaction is something that ANY player - regardless of gender or, you know, whether or not you're Melirinda - is not unreasonable to want or even - to a certain degree - expect.

 

[1eyedking]

What the...? 40% of gamers are female?

Where the hell are they at? The Sims?

...I admit, I don't really want to play The Witcher because the extent of interaction with women in it seems to be "Hi Gerhalt I would like to jump on your penis now" - that just seems dumb, even more dumb than it is sexist. I think wanting good character interaction is something that ANY player - regardless of gender or, you know, whether or not you're Melirinda - is not unreasonable to want or even - to a certain degree - expect.

Oh, so you being a sterile, disease-free sex legend should make sexually-repressed women want to have deep and thoughtful conversations with you? Give me a fucking break! If anything, it's Geralt the one being discriminated as some sort of walking penis.

Also, did you miss the whole Triss thing? Her being self-conscious of her femininity, intelligent, sophisticated and manipulating Geralt to her own (sexual and non-sexual) needs? Shani being a learned medic? While I'm not saying The Witcher isn't sexist, the game goes beyond shallow sexism and explores lust as a driving, present force in a medieval setting.

Did, for example, NWN2's OC or MotB achieve any of that? Flashy 'romances' with druids and bald mages whose lust for sex is non-existent in a world filled with piercings and bikini chainmails? Fucking shallow, if you ask me. At least The Witcher is self-aware and throws in sex cards for a laugh.

 

[dragonfk]

What the...? 40% of gamers are female?

Where the hell are they at? The Sims?

No, they moved on. To modding romances in to OUR cRPGs.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

there are an awful a lot of fan fictions in RPG style and other genre games. a lot of them have a female protagonist. And are in the romance category