To me, IWD was like "pearls for the swine", such a GREAT athmosphere and mood ... They could have done sooooooo many things out of that ... so many underlying themes ... it was just great ... and then only combat. Yuck.
No one will argue about it being fundamentally a dungeon crawler, but it seemed like you were trying to claim it didn't have a plot/story at all, which is not the case.
Because you didn't seem to be grasping it, that's why... and yes, I was reading your words just fine.
Your opinion is completely subjective, just like mine, and I have no problem with it. What I do have a problem with however, is when someone tries to take something that is subjective, and state it as a fact.
See, now that wasn't so hard....
To me, IWD was like "pearls for the swine", such a GREAT athmosphere and mood ... They could have done sooooooo many things out of that ... so many underlying themes ... it was just great ... and then only combat. Yuck.
If you look, I actually said that it didn't have a "real" story. Not that it didn't have any story, merely that the story was just a token effort.
I stand by the view that it had nothing else. Story? No.
Anyway, what was it I was supposed to read the manual for? You still haven't explained.
I think you'll find it's you who haven't been grasping the fact that I have been grasping it. Probably because you haven't been reading things properly .
What opinions have I stated as fact? I've stated that IWD has no real story. No real plot, characterisation, original world building, dialogues, choices & consequences etc, but that it is an extremely polished implementation of D&D combat and general art & music assets. None of which seems to be meeting with much disagreement.
Not sure where I've stated my opinions as the definitive facts, even though frankly I think you should all recognise that my opinions really are always right.
There is mod called Icewind Dale NPCs which somwhat manages to offset IWD´s "Less talk, more fight!"
stance by giving a player 5 NPCs who chat and comment along the ride, similarly to BG2´s ones.
Its character are rather plain, down-to-earth, no Mary Sues so they don´t disturb the flow, just make the playthrough more lively. I can only recommend it.
In fact, existence of this mod was the only reason why I finally decided to give IWD a try
Variety is the spice of life.