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The vote came in with 6/10 votes for Old age, gender tied with 5-5 and nihilistic (4/10) and aristocrat (3/10) both leading. As the male aristocrat had a name suggestion and one female aristocrat vote also specified the patrician background, the result ended up: And you may wonder who that other gentleman is... I HAVE A BUTLER!!! Some starting ritual from my Occult skills: First skill check (after putting on coat and hat) : And there are things in the river!

Whoa whoa, physique 4? I think the Obsidian average is better than that! We even had a workout thread for awhile.

They won me over at "aristocrat gets a butler as starting equipment".

The evidence does look quite damning.

I officially won! Who's your daddy Obs Forum?

I'm sure that was earlier in the year, when those new year's resolutions were still going strong

Someone had to go with the "average Obsidianite"... Gets me a free way to regain sanity through...entertainment This was initial character creation, game hung after it so I had to start over, current character is Middle-Aged rather than Adult, everything else remained the same though.

I finally got home and tried this, Waski. Awesome! Thanks! EDIT: ...And I just found Tekehu. I rolled my eyes for the first few minutes he was in my party and I even found myself agreeing with my poor old friend Aloth, the newfound misanthropist. However, after I had a certain experience and a long discussion with Tekehu, I find I sympathize with him quite a bit. Great character. Voice acting is quite well done. No cringeworthy performances so far.

Yeah, there's plenty wrong with the testing methodology. If it drops framerate briefly but fairly frequently there's very little effect on average fps because the drop is short, but quite a large perceived effect from the microstutter. The slow start up is also pretty significant I would say. If you played a 60 hour game in 1 hour sessions it would be an extra 40 minutes load time overall, or about 1% of your time spent waiting unnecessarily.

tl;dr Bottom line, if you have a beefy CPU with a bunch of bored cores (so any CPU with more than 4 cores for Arkham Knight) then Denuvo is likely to have little impact on your average FPS, while it does have a minor but noticeable impact on loading times and very much impacts initial game game startup time. There's also a minor increase in memory usage with Denuvo. No testing has been done with any hardware that has 4 cores or less (like i5 CPUs which are quite common still), as far as I know, and no testing has been done where the impact on the CPU has been measured either (as an alternative to using CPUs with less cores). Long version: Article doesn't list hardware used for testing, that I could find, so I'm going to assume they tested on some top of the line system, which obviously is not representative of what most people actually use. They also don't say anything substantial about testing methodology This makes their conclusions essentially worthless, so we'll have to focus on the linked YouTube video (which had a Reddit thread that was quite interesting and included a lot of details about the testing methodology and its shortcomings, but at least gave us something tangible to work with). Since most current day games are GPU limited, not CPU limited (barring certain strategy games, especially the turn based ones), using top-of-the-line hardware is likely not going to result in a noticeable difference in FPS, so if they don't actually measure CPU load it's hard to tell how much extra work the CPU needs, or does not need, to do (and it obviously will need to do extra work, encryption is not free). Testing on something that's more reasonable (eg. a quad core system) would be interesting to see since most games are incapable of using more than 4 cores (and afaiu Arkham Knight is among those), so a system where Denuvo actually has to share a core with the game would, imho, be a lot more representative and indicative of the effect it has (or doesn't have) than a system where there's a bunch of cores that are doing sod all anyway. The tests in the YouTube video linked from the article video appear to have indicated that while the FPS differences were minor on midrange hardware they were there (which makes sense, given that on-the-fly decryption can't be a "free" operation and will become more detrimental the slower your CPU gets), moreover they indicated a massive decrease in initial game loading times without Denuvo (which isn't taken into account with the benchmark) and minor increases of in-game loading times. It should also be noted that he only ran tests 3 times and let the game "warm up" each time (iow, only the first run for each (Denuvo and non-Denuvo) was from a "cold" boot, while in successive runs data was already cached from prior runs, as indicated by the fact that only the first Denuvo run had the slow game startup). This kind of decreases the value of the results, small sample size and not rebooting between tests isn't ideal, I'd argue. Whether 1-3 fps is significant is debatable, it probably isn't on a high-end system (then again, it might well be more than this on a lower end system), whether the extra CPU cycles amount to anything tangible has, as far as I can tell, been tested by nobody, so far. There also wasn't any testing done with regards FPS stability (people noted on the video that the Denuvo version appeared to microstutter at points, can't say I noticed, but hey), if the Denuvo version results in less stable FPS then an average isn't necessarily going to really tell us much about the actual quality of the gameplay experience. Whether the increased initial loading times (40 or so extra seconds, iirc) are significant is also debatable, and probably up to the individual. I know slow loading games irritate me (hi Destiny 2), but ymmv. The slower in-game loading times might be worrying to people on lower end systems since Arkham Knight streams data while playing, so quick movement around the game world might lead to more issues with Denuvo enabled (like there used to be at the game's release)

I saw that that other "bought last" thread was closed and I couldn't find a new one. I have been drinking so my inability to find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I bought the new Xpac for LOTRO, Minas Morgul.

*Sorry, mates this will be a long-winded rant* Deadfire is truly incredible. I can’t recommend it until I finish because… well on principle, I never recommend a game I haven’t finished. However, this is truly shaping up to be Obsidian’s chef d'oeuvre. At this point, having visited four areas of Neketaka, I’m convinced that this effort will be on par with Fallout: New Vegas, which makes two Obsidian games in my top five. That’s simple astounding. Moreover, I’ve had the game for over a year and a half but only recently started playing. I’d started a game on release but for some reason I wasn’t interested so I stopped playing after I ended up on the ship in the first five minutes or so. Now, I can’t let it go. Anyhow, that’s my testimonial. Here are specifics. The empire building in ship form is a nice break from kingdom building. I haven’t done much of it, but I’ve like it. I just hope it doesn’t become sheer tedium. I’m looking at you, Pathfinder: Kingmaker! So far so good and I have my fingers crossed. Edér is one of the best companions of any CRPG. His voice acting is spot on. The writing is clever, witty, and succeeds at making Edér a truly sympathetic and likeable character. So much better than the over the top and often grammatically incorrect Kreia from KotOR 2. Don’t get me wrong. I make grammatical errors all the time. That’s why I’d be an extremely poor NPC. Well, maybe as a pathetic comedy figure, but probably not even that. The NPCs overall are simply wonderful. I like the interparty banter. I like the fact that the dialogue isn’t mind-numbingly long and wandering. Hell, I have four NPCs and an… NPCesque kind of dwarf I sent back to the ship. The party is a gratifying combination of new and old faces. Arkemyr’s mansion is just brilliant! I had a few options for how to get into the place. I ended up finding a way in by accident, snuck around until I found a way to finish everything without fighting anyone, got what I wanted and left. These days, I don’t pilfer everything in sight, so I had to leave all that great loot behind, including at least one epic weapon, but it was fun times. I did pick all the locks and take a look to see what I was missing. All I took out of the place was a robe, for obvious reasons, and the tablet I needed for the greater good of the Huana. The Old City is very well done. I stayed down too long so the lift left. I found a way out, but it did entail having to engage in unwanted combat. There’s still a big bad beasty down there I’m going to come back to see when I’m a couple levels higher. Maybe nine or ten. I don’t know if I could have beat it, but it looked like too much work. I guess I’ll truncate this rambling rant about the game and just jot down a list. Pros: Playable NPCs are great A lot of info and lore packed into short and easy to read bites Interactable NPCs names’ show when I TAB Floating flavor text is fun, sometimes witty, and economically conveys information Island exploration (only a couple so far, but fun) Pacing is good Brought back good ol’ Eothas A bunch of other stuff, but I’m tired now Cons: In terms of things that irk me, probably only two I wish that dialogue scrolled so I could read it during the conversation. I need to keep experimenting and see if there’s some way to do that because, while it’s great to have it in the log, I often want to reference preceding lines of conversation while I’m in the middle of it. I was irked at having to fight my way out of the Old City because I’m afraid it impacted my rep with one of the factions significantly. On the other hand, Dudenheim up top warned me that lift wouldn’t be there for long. …And I could have loaded a save, but I firmly believe in living with the consequences of my actions. In that case, maybe this belongs in the pro section also.

Oh, crud. mea culpa

That bus driver analogy for brexit really is stupid. Passengers on a bus vote to go to London, with the minority voting to go to Edinburgh. Those that vote to go to Edinburgh spend the entire time whining about how the bus driver is constantly going in the wrong direction and shouting and throwing stuff at the driver, and when the question is asked whether to take the M1 or M6 to go to London they constantly vote to go north instead, all the time insisting they're reflecting the real will of the people. And of course the motorway authority really wants them to go to Edinburgh as well, so actually they can't use the motorway and have to use diversions instead, and- amazing coincidence, surely- the diversions always send them back towards Edinburgh. The original driver worked for the motorway authority, drove the bus into a cul de sac he couldn't back out of then ran off to hide like the most pathetic of spineless pathetic insult to the wormiest worm cowards (and was literally a porcine necrophiliac, lest we forget), only emerging to snipe at his successor drivers despite being the absolute cause of the whole mess and there was absolutely nothing realistically the successor drivers could do to rescue the situation. But of course it would all be solved by another vote, which would surely get the Right Result this time and we'd be eating deep fried pizza with Glenmorangie chaser at the Fringe Festival a few hours later as the motorway system mysteriously clears up. And, of course, no more pesky votes ever on how to get to Edinburgh so we can avoid all the pesky idiots voting to go there via Milton Keynes.

What do you mean by 'you people'? Ours is gas, and about 13 years old, and is a massive tank. I think there is a new permit system in California, but we are renters, so I am letting our landlord handle all that with the plumber. Sounds like they will install it Sunday.

The crazies in the bank will be a pain regardless.

And I made a RPG protagonist, only old lady instead of young dude because grannies are sorely underrepresented in video games. Though I'm having doubts about first playthrough with frail schmoozer. Maybe I should reroll as some sort of dumb brute?

Bought some DLC for EU4. Decided to be part of the problem.

Sony and Marvel strike new deal to keep Spider-Man in the MCU

No, it probably means one of the devs that is working on Encased RPG used to work at Larian and another dev used to work at Iron Tower. Anyway, this looks like every single crowdfunded RPG. It could be good, I hope it is. I don't touch early access, I have no intentions of paying to beta test somebody's game. As far as I'm concerned, Encased RPG is not out yet. I guess the nice thing about early access is that there are plenty of impatient suckers devoted enthusiasts out there that will buy this unfinished game and play it now, so by the time this game comes out for realsies, 3 years from now, or whatever, there will be plenty of data out there with which I can make an informed purchasing decision.

"To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN! " Maybe this should be in the funny things thread. HAHA, OH WOW, etc, etc.

Yes, Shootist and Harley's damage bonus work with any ranged attack, spells included. The accuracy bonus works only for weapons. You should look on your character accuracy/damage with Scordeo equiped, not on the weapon's description. PS. The Sky Dragon Wurm pet gives accuracy against all distant enemies (works with spells too), but the damage bonus affects only ranged weapons.

Awwww, it looks so pretty and I am so torn between "Wanna NAO!" and "Never play a RPG before patch 1.0 at least"

bought last The Outer Worlds thinking it was the only way to play at launch, but then the next day Playstation moved up pre-orders from 30 June to 25 October, so, technically bought that last; double dip, take that Microsoft -- wait, a fool and their what ...

@Kaylon @Boeroer Turns out Harley's damage bonus applies to every single damaging spell I have on this Druid: Insect Swarm, Maggots, Plague, Relentless, Nature's Terror, and Venombloom. The bonus shows up right in the tooltip. They also get +5 accuracy from Acina's Tricorn. Funny enough, I don't see the damage bonus listed on Scordeo's Trophy. Can you confirm that it actually effects ranged weapons like it says? I also don't see the +3 to accuracy anywhere (neither spells nor weapons).

Every conversation with you ends the same way. Its freaky. Whats the old saying..."Talk to long to a donkey, and the donkey talks back to you." ~ Nietzsche's brother, probably. Experience is valuable.

Or Pillars of Empire, the New Microbsidian game. I would pick the Rautai, they are a powerful Gunpowder Civ. Have you ever dream of wololoing with a Cipher Rush ?

At least you made it 2-3 post before soiling the thread so I can call that a win for everyone.

The dain bramage is fo'real. Honestly, do you make it though any conversation, internet or real life, without going full maroon. "People cant wipe their own bottom without instruction and handholding, but in the matter of electing government officials they should be trusted". Ok man.

How can you justify this ?

Double Tap only affects vessels though. "Very" early is an exaggeration, but early enough. It is a strong single target ranged weapon and the best arquebus in terms of auto-dps. But there might be builds and situations where you would be better off with let's say Dragon's Dowry. Most classes only have so much resources and somtimes you get more bang for your buck with Dragon's Dowry than with the Red Hand. Also when you shoot from stealth the double shoot is no advantage since stealth gives you a 85% reload bonus. That means your second shot from Dragon's Dowry comes nearly as fast as the second shot from Red Hand - so if you are an Assassin-Sniper (see Glimmer Man build) the Red Hand is not your best pick. Then there's war bows like St. Omaku's Mercy or Veilpiercer which can out-dps the Red Hand with the correct enchantments and build. Even Essence Interrupter and Amiina's Legacy can do that due to their lashes - which the Red Hand doesn't have. But special attacks will have less impact because of the lower base damage. The Red Hand is a good mix of high auto-dps and great impact with abilities. That's what makes it very appealing in my opinion. And of course that it's a death sentence for most vessels. What makes reloading weapons especially appealing to me is the better reactivity due to the cancelable reload process. The mega bosses of all ranged weaponary are Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole and Watershaper's Focus - if we talk about dps potential, usefulness outside of pure dps and what they can do in the right hands and with the right tactics. Kalakoth's Minor Blights, too. Minor Blights for example is the only AoE ranged weapon that will apply Assassinate to all AoE targets - because it's the only AoE ranged weapon which hits its initial target and all AoE targets at the same time (other than mortars and rods which have a short delay).

Been a while, but I've been busy building stuff (surprise!) My humble abode: By night: I've sort of slowed down working on it (which was mostly decorating the inside and removing some of the leftover T1 stuff) because it, errr, kinda starts to break the server (collision won't properly load, stuff like that). Inside: As I've never lived in the jungle before I started looking for a good spot there, which I found, at least for a humbly sized vacation home. The building to the left, in the back is the actual house, to the right (with the gate) is the Derketo temple, and the main plaza with a well, and the housing for my, errr, employees, as well as basement access. Some more environment shots: It's Lemurian architecture, so lots of bling, especially with torches at night (rather hard to capture in a screenshot) There's a pretty sizeable cellar underneath that has most of the crafting stations (except for the blacksmith/smelter) Eventually shoe-horned in a wheel of pain (which there really isn't room for), but I might just build something nearby just to house a Map room and that Wheel of pain without having to expand this in rather ugly ways. Mod-wise this uses: Lemurian Architect (didn't see that one coming, did you? ) Glass Constructions and more (for the marble floors) Pythagoras Support Beams (to be able to have the giant maproom without having to pollute it with pillars in really inconvenient spots) Limestone Buildings, a Greek server mod (the light touches on the desert base; like the white inner circles on the towers and the main stairs) LBPROE - No NPC camps edition (because building without is just a royal pain) EDIT: poor Kush-ites, getting censored...

Indeed. First I thought the logic was that you have to go away a bit - but it just always works no matter what. At least with True Love's Kiss and all of the Rogue's DoTs (Gouging Strike and so on). I did not try Druid's or Wizard's DoT spells, Brand Enemy etc. I mean it's cool - but on the other hand it's "only" 10% - so not gamebreakingly good.

Not companions, but if you want the most talkative party you should bring along also Modwyr, Concelhaut and Nemnok (use Berath's Blessings to unlock Eder's pet slot).

My immersion

Bring Edér, Serafen and Tekēhu (with Xoti if you like her - she is easy to romance). Those are the companions who talk the most. And most of it is funny and/or entertaining. Also those are the companions you can get very early. Besides Aloth who becomes accessible right after Edér. Tekēhu's Druid subclass is very good actually and can substitute a Wizard and can be a good healer at the same time.

Also, the gods are not well balanced people. They are ideals taken to extremes, and have difficulty even understanding things unless you explain it to them in the terms of their own portfolios. Like scorpions crossing a river, it is their nature to sting.

I actually really wanted to make a thread just about Eothas. Eothas is really interesting to me. When I played the first PoE, I loved the kind, optimistic, forgiving, redemption type of mythology around Eothas. Compared to most of the other gods, he seemed to genuinely care about kith and ethics in general. When I slowly realized that he had actually died in a permanent sense, and things like the Council of Stars hit that home (his symbol was basically gone when the others lit up), it was a gut punch. So seeing him actually in Pillars of Eternity II was awesome, and seeing what he was actually like moreso. Because he is a kind, benevolent god that cares about the kith and right and wrong, but he's also kind of a twisted, more messed up and human version of what you'd assume and expect. He recognizes the pain and damage he causes, and the serious risk that he's dooming all of life, but he's still 100% ready to accept the sacrifice of unwilling participants for what he thinks is everyone's (eventual) benefit. I liked Eothas the most because while what he's doing is ****ed up, the actions are understandable and believable and his character isn't a bad person (you could argue a good person), but is absolutely doing bad things to try and fix something else. There are elements of his story that remind me of when a main character makes a "difficult choice" that kills a lot of people for the seeming sake of a greater good. Super cool character, I loved the writing for him, and I'm really glad we actually got to see him in the series.

Bunch of Leaden Key followers was angered by fact that there is a god which wasn't pathetic engwithan AI.

Liked Wael. Because Wael gotta Wael. Disliked Woedica. She reminds me of a crabby great-aunt that insisted she single-handedly supported the family back when and demands you obey her out of gratitude. When in reality, she did #$%^-all and just made everything up.

role-playing aside, this is definitely the best take to have. the engwithans were nothing more than a society so obsessed with their own self-importance that they collectively **** themselves when they realized the universe wasn't guided by any divine hands. and instead of maturing and dealing with this new anxiety they literally committed genocide to establish a more comfortable engwithan order. and then proceded to commit even more atrocities for the next 2000 years.

So that would make him still represent the futility of rebellion, as it implies power corrupts, with the self mutlilation and sacrifice of other symbolising that? I wouldn't necessarily say that, but it's a reasonable interpretation. He definitely seems to be the most extreme of the gods, but as "the ideal" of rebellion and revolutions that's about what should be expected. As for my take on your interpretation: He simply aids people rebelling against their hated overlords. Nowhere does it state the need for those overlords to actually be evil or corrupted: It could just as well be religious extremists rebelling against their peaceful secular government, to name a random example. Rebellion defines him: the why, how, when, who, etc. doesn't factor into it. EDIT: Come to think of it though, in a way, it's just as futile as Galawain's "strength becomes weakness becomes strength"; or Abydon's "steady progress while knowing your place"; or even Wael's "knowledge comes through mystery and revelation": none lead anywhere when you'd follow them blindly, and only serve to keep the Engwithan status quo intact.... Well then. Screw the Engwithans, I guess.

Where's the "they all suck" option? I guess my favourite is Eothas, because his plan shafts the rest of the petty children, but all the rest of them can go fcuk themselves.

Skaen did not get flanderized, he was deliberataly designed this way. Engwithians wanted kith to be submissive, so they created hierarchy among the gods with Woedica as the queen. But I guess they aniticipated that people would still want to rebel, so they gave them the most twisted god of rebellion imaginable. Skaen does not help his followers change the status quo, he only grants violent revenge (including collateral damage) at a cost of great pain and death. Nobody, except the most desperate, would make that deal. Skaen is the closest god slaves and abused have to identify with and he's so repulsive, no same person would worship him. So they just accept their place in the world. That makes Skaen hands down the most interesting god in Eora's pantheon. Unless I'm missing something and he's just an edgy schemer. That however would be extremely disappointing. I agree with this. Skaen has always confused me as I'd also be inclined to like a god of rebellion. Yet he seems to be Woedica's lapdog, which made me assume the "today my master chokes on his own whip" mantra was more about punishing rebels than actually helping them. He's really into sacrificing friends for personal gain too. So all in all, he seems to be all about inflicting pain and suffering upon self and others while actually maintaining the existing power systems more than anything else, or maybe to demonstrate that resistance is futile. OTOH I might be totally wrong. The way i see Skaen, he needs Woedica because he's the god of quiet resentment and rebellion: without a clear established order to oppose, scheme against, and tear down, he's nothing. Not to mention Woedica's plot in PoE1 involved regaining control from the gods that took it from her, in other words: Overthrowing an established order she deeply hates. Sounds perfectly up Skaen's alley to me. This is also why he's said to abandon his followers who achieve their goals or higher status: he stands for rebellion and hate, so the moment said followers no longer have overlords to rebel against/hate, he no longer has any reason to support them. As i interpret him, he'd just as easily aid slaves from rising up against their masters, as he would aid those former masters from overhtrowing their former slaves a few months later: so long as there's hate and resentment aimed towards an established order, he'll be there. I'd also say calling him evil misses his point, and that of the Pillars gods in general. They're stated to have been created from ideals, which usually transcend the idea of good and evil: so long as you follow the dictates of a god's core belief/ideal, it'll be "good" from his/her point of view, and opposing it will always be "evil" from their point of view. It's a sense of morality, but a far cry from the one we're familiar with.

Skaen did not get flanderized, he was deliberataly designed this way. Engwithians wanted kith to be submissive, so they created hierarchy among the gods with Woedica as the queen. But I guess they aniticipated that people would still want to rebel, so they gave them the most twisted god of rebellion imaginable. Skaen does not help his followers change the status quo, he only grants violent revenge (including collateral damage) at a cost of great pain and death. Nobody, except the most desperate, would make that deal. Skaen is the closest god slaves and abused have to identify with and he's so repulsive, no same person would worship him. So they just accept their place in the world. That makes Skaen hands down the most interesting god in Eora's pantheon. Unless I'm missing something and he's just an edgy schemer. That however would be extremely disappointing. I agree with this. Skaen has always confused me as I'd also be inclined to like a god of rebellion. Yet he seems to be Woedica's lapdog, which made me assume the "today my master chokes on his own whip" mantra was more about punishing rebels than actually helping them. He's really into sacrificing friends for personal gain too. So all in all, he seems to be all about inflicting pain and suffering upon self and others while actually maintaining the existing power systems more than anything else, or maybe to demonstrate that resistance is futile. OTOH I might be totally wrong.

^ As evidenced by the fact that when a dragon slaughters her devotees in PoE 1, she can go all "lol dun care she's a mom too".

Mighty Nemnok, the one true god. All hail!

Hi, there! I've made a mod that overwrites audio files. Alas, the override/ folder cannot be used for this and the original files themselves have to be overwritten. The files you're looking for will be in PillarsOfEternityII_Data\StreamingAssets\Audio\Windows\Voices\English(US) Here's how I modified the files: Step 0) Back up the files Step 1) Download Divinity Sound Converter Step 2) Place the .wem files in the converter's root folder, run the divinity_converter.exe. The .ogg's files will end up in NUMBERED or NON-NUMBERED Step 3) Modify the files as you see fit, using Audacity or something. Step 4) Download Audiokinetic Wwise Step 5) Create a new project in Wwise Step 6) In "Project Explorer" in the top-left, go to the ShareSets tab, then expand the Conversion Settings -> Default Work Unit folders Step 7) Double-click Default Conversion Settings, change Format to Vorbis and set Quality to 6. Then, you may close that window Step Go back to Audio in Project Explorer and click Actor-Mixer Hierarchy -> Default Work Unit Step 9) On the bar on the top-left, Click Project... -> Import Audio Files. Change the "Audio file destination" folder to an appropriate folder for the converted files to be placed, then click "Add Files". Highlight which files you want to convert Step 10) Click Project... -> Convert All Audio Files. Tick everything if it isn't already, then hit OK Step 11) Your files will end up in the ProjectName/.cache folder. You may have to go through a few folders before you find them. Step 12) Now, here's the annoying bit. By default, Wwise appends strings on the end of the file names for some reason. I've found a .bat script to rename them en masse to the correct names. Using the code I've pasted below, open Notepad, paste the code in, and save it as "rename.bat". Then move it to the folder with all the .wem files you just made and run it. Step 13) Copy and paste all of your modified files over to the game's files and it will overwrite them all rename.bat setlocal enabledelayedexpansion for %%i in (*.wem) do ( set ffName="%%i" ren "!ffName!" "!ffName:~0,-14!.wem" ) Hope this helps!