Just another quiet day here. Trying to stay off the leg and watched a bunch of Hogan's Heroes episodes. :-)

Edit: What has your 'mental shift' shifted to? ;)

I'm sorry you're still in pain. Will continue to hope that it backs off so you don't have to deal with doctors about it.

Good show. Used to watch it when it came on the local station quite a while back.
Trying to finish off my marathon of American Horror Story. Not sure what to watch after that.
Probably either Sherlock or Twin Peaks. Might've considered the X Files, but 9 seasons is a hell of a time sink, and since Icewind doesn't play nice with multitasking, I'll need to shut other stuff down and focus on it fully.

Not quite sure, honestly. It's in progress, I'll have to see how it pans out. ;)

Good night everyone!

I'm going to sleep now. *hugs and waves*

Good night EIT, sleep well.

What about this Forgotten Realms expansion in IWD? Is it worth playing? Can I use the same party I used in the main game?

Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster are both worth playing, in my opinion.
Yes, you can bring your original crew to do those expansions.

Guess the perilous adventures of Brother Furious and his gang will be longer then. They'll probably be leveled up a lot by the time I get to the expansions too.

They'll need to be. The adventures are geared towards higher-level parties. A standard level 1 group would get killed roughly ten seconds into their first combat.

So would I have to export my characters after I finish the main game? (sorry for all these questions :/)

Don't be. =)

There's a person you meet who will talk about your team going across a sea of ice with them on a quest.
That's the start of Heart of Winter. You can do it in the middle of your main Icewind run, or you can export your crew to do the expansions after the main game is complete.
In a Heart of Winter town, there's a questgiver who you can follow to start Trials of the Luremaster.

When I played, I ran through the main game completely, then went on to the expansions, but from what I'm reading, the only requirement is that your party's at 9th level. For multi or dual class characters, if you have a combination of levels that adds up to 9 or more, you're allowed to.
It'll be up to you whether you want to do the expansions mid-main game or not.

My apologies, need to go for now. Massive storm, need to shut down.
I'll dig up more on that. Reading something about how if you do a certain thing in Heart of Winter before doing Trials that you get locked out of that expansion. Need to find more info.

Best of luck to you.

And hey look, 1500 page milestone in this thread!

So I wish Ghostwriter and Carrion were on for my "post-Drox" followup but here goes after a mixed night of gaming (this might be a long one ;) ) ...

I solved a few of my problems - in games like this I almost always go with a "Large" galaxy but here I decided to start with Tiny to get my feet wet. This was a bad idea that contributed to a lot of my hectic playtime. I actually reset my game and played with fewer races in a larger galaxy to give me a bit more breathing space. I also dumped a bunch of money into improving relations between the races in order to keep them from going to war, and to keep me from losing reputation by helping one or the other. It worked well... but I promptly lost due to an "Economic Loss" - I think I died too many times. Also, a few people mentioned a means to lower the reputation erosion - I couldn't find it. Oh well.

I lost again for the same reason. So I tried to be aggressive, pick a race to side with and wipe out the other races. That didn't work either. I don't know if I'm really bad at the game, or I fail to adapt to changing circumstances, or it's just too random. I feel like the game pushes me to areas I'm not ready to encounter, but if I don't go there I'm damned to have an overpowered race I've yet to meet go to war with me. Or maybe I do go there, do well and am forced to either war with a race (which often ends up with warring against multiple races) or war with my recent allies.

I can tell there is a lot of choice and consequence in the game, but often it comes off as the game forcing me to make bad choices, or face random consequences. It's frustrating to have races that I haven't even found yet, be able to destroy my diplomatic progress on other races - and I have no recourse other than to enter territory that mops the floor with me in an attempt to find them. This might seem a bit nonsensical if you haven't played the game, but imagine that a "level" you haven't yet reached and don't know where it is, that is able to erase and / or reverse all your progress on previous levels. And that level is awfully hard to get by - even if the one right before it isn't too bad at all. I can see a lot of fun in the game, but it comes off as frustrating and arbitrary.

It plays a bit like a roguelike (which I like) but mixed with some of the worst grinding aspects of an MMO. Right now I'm at the point where I like a lot of what the game could offer, but am frustrated by some of the negative aspects. Torn, I think is the word.

Good day / evening, anyone who is reading, I hope that all is well in your world.

Sorry to hear that you aren't feeling well, Crow - I continue to extol the virtues of ginger for nausea, it really works.

What kind of storm was that? Sounds ominous, desert storms are usually spectacular, although often you don't get much rain with the sound and fury - alternatively you get flash floods. Hope you are ok.

More pics from the cliffs, amazing a difference a day makes; it was cloudy and a little stormy yesterday, unlike the bright sunshine and blue skies of a few days earlier. I prefer the cloudy days, soon there will be only sunshine and blue skies and sea, not a cloud in the sky. for months on end.
But it's beautiful there in all weathers - and the fishermen who make their way down those dangerous cliffs don't seem to mind the wind and rain. But anyone who climbs those cliffs regularly is crazy anyway. ;-)

Hope you feel better very soon. Sleep would help? But sleep is not your friend, it seems.


Editing to say - Wow this thread is coming up to 30000 posts. I can't go by pages, as I have mine set to show a lot of posts per page, more than the default, but the post numbers are always the same, I think. That's a lot of posts for a thread - lots of +1's to you, Crow, I hope!

Time for me to go. Take care, everyone.

Moin everyone *hugs and waves*

How are you all doing today?