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First off, how do you start with a full party?
I heard this is possible but how do you go about it?

Secondly, why start with a full party? If you do, will any of the six characters interact with eachother?</font>

start a multi-player game, and go either tcp/ic, or serial, and there you go. when you start, you will be able to create up to six characters (i do four) and after they are made, just check the little check-mark next to their name to get them highlighted. then go to done. viola, it will be done.

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for your second question, i start with four, because i want experience, so i dont do six. i can also do side quests for npc's with less than six. and secondly, i hate just about every npc in the game. they just get old and worthless after five times or more of playing.

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Answering your second question first - No. If you create an entire party, none of the characters will interact with other. That happens only for "scripted" npcs.

To build an entire party, simply start a new game in mplayer mode and then create each of the characters individually and assign them to your control. You could also start six individual single player games and export each character and then reimport them in a single game.

Some people don't like the choices of npcs offered and thus prefer to build their own parties. They miss out on the potential romances and character interactions but they get a party that is more to their liking.

An alternative is to use a mix of your own characters and the available npcs. That allows you to infill potential gaps in classes offered by the npcs or to try out new kits and classes.

In order to get a more enjoyable experience, save your new MP game and then copy it to your single-player save folder. this will eliminate the neccesity to go through TCP or IPX with each command, improving response speed by about a second on slower machines.

You will unfortunatly get no interactions with your custon NPCs - they have no personality, no pre-set dialogues. the technology to create that stuff on the fly is not available. yet. (i have seen a student attempt at it, and it should be possible to program an acceptable version into a game. the problem is, it takes a lot of time to get it right, and even minor bugs can cause embarrassing errors).

The advantage is that you are no longer limited by what NPCs are available in the game - you can create your own weird and wonderful bunch. (go for 6 sorcerors and win the "cheesiest ever" award). Plus you dont have to put up with irritating voices. except you do, because the voices that are included in the game are not the best ever, IMHO. to get better ones go here .... uh help me out guys.

And if you ever dump a custom NPC he/she dissappears from the game - so you might want to limit yourself to five if you want to get NPC-specific subquests.

I don't totally agree with Morgan about all of the npcs being worthless, but the choices ARE VERY limited. Its just impossible to pre-script enough npcs to make everyone happy. There are no non-evil dwarf fighters, for example, and no monks, barbarians, etc.

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I like the idea of creating three or four custom NPC's! That way, there's still room for interaction and I'll have a group more to my liking.

Thanks everyone! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Come to think of it, I could just as easily use Shadowkeeper and alter the scripted NPC's to my liking.
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Yes, but Shadowkeeper carries a price - the temptation to add in a ring of gaxx or something. Besides, its not as easy to change a class as youd think. you can say minscs a mage, but youd still have to edit his affects and abilities seperatley. and hed still go on about being a ranger and bigger swords, no matter what you did to him.

Also if you get stoned or Entraped you "dump" your guy. Even if you freedom them or stone to flesh 'em, they won't rejoin you("X has nothing to say to you")

Pick less then 6,for the love of god. It doesn't matter if you do 5 or 4 or 3, just don't do 6. Coming from one that knows.

I like to do 4 also because that way u can pick up a romance or if you dont have a paladin, just pick up Keldorn. I ususally make 1 fighter, 1 pala, 2 sorcerer's. That way i pick up Aerie and Anomen for my cleric needs (plus aerie u get an added bonus :D ).

My fighter is currently lvl 26 (exp cap remover [img]smile.gif[/img] ) after playing through 2 1/2 times. I have another lvl 12 sorc i imported after soloing it for a while (that is wayyyy cool ;) ). I like making my own paladin cause then you dont get Keldorns shi**y dex and whatever else he has thats crap. Just save all npc's incase you lose one of your main people (I always forget to press "Q"...)

Happy Gaming! [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img]