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hmm. the wall is a good example o' where we disagree. in his fight to build an ineffectual wall on the southern border, trump forced a national shutdown which cost the nation billions o' dollars and he subsequent stole money from the dod which woulda' gone to repairing levees and military base housing and schools. trump pushed his wall building aspirations in spite o' Congress not allocating the President funds and senators stood silent as he did so. trump avoided impeachment investigations in a way never considered possible previous to this administration. refuse to provide documents and witness testimony in an impeachment? am knowing impeachment were many months ago, but is weird how quickly many forget the lengths trump went to avoid being investigated. trump used the acting cabinet member nonsense to a degree never considered previous, leading to innumerable changes to fed regulations which is gonna take years to untangle including blatant ignoring the Court's daca decision-- we mentioned the chad wolf silliness previous on this board. oh, and the election bs trump promoted is not gonna end in 2020. every national election has battleground states and republicans now is aware they may delegitimize an election by pointing to a handful o' voting districts as a way to undermine the elections en masse. detroit. milwaukee. philadelphia. atlanta. four cities and a handful o' districts were the margin o' victory for democrats, and 'cause democrats is more likely urban, that sorta situation will continue. republicans is aware democrats cannot reverse the roles in 2024 or 2026 'cause republicans is rural. cannot hold up an election by fighting in four red counties. sending federal troops to portland to stop protests in spite o' fact state legislators and governors rejected fed interference? that were not petty. oh, and making covid-19 a political issue, conflating second amendment with mask wearing while undercutting cdc guidelines (just a few covid-19 issues) led to many unnecessary american deaths. etc. the biggest tragedy o' the trump Presidency is we learned how meaningless is the Courts and Congress and the Constitution is in restraining a President unable to restrain self. to stop a President from doing illegal requires judges and senators to do their jobs, and all too often, US senators, didn't. converse, thank God a handful of republican low-level bureaucrats and district level judges ignored trump and did their jobs. gd has all wrong and he has slept through the last month if he does not realize how a handful o' election officials and judges in georgia, pennsylvania, michigan and arizona saved american democracy... and that ain't hyperbole. "Never was so much owed by so many to so few." churchill were actual exaggerating the battle o' britain situation-- post war investigations reveal the raf and luftwaffe were having relative parity in the air war over england in ww2. by comparison, the current situation pitted trump v. a handful o' judges and bureaucrats whose names we will forget in another week. if those folks hadn't done their jobs, would you have been confident that US senators woulda' finally found their spines? is gonna take a long time to fix what trump broke, if is possible to fix. HA! Good Fun!

Okay, this amused me... A Cyberpunk 2077 character, wearing a tattoo of ... "Ghost in a Shell"

Left to buy a pack of cigarettes, huh... edit: Here you go Malcador, for the 7k.

1.2 patch notes finally out. However I'm way too sleepy to read through them right now so I'll do it during work hours tomorrow instead. :ninja:

Because there are still forum users who post questions'n stuff about PoE and Deadfire every day. Mostly it's about the community in the PoE/Deadfire subforums. It's a great one. The other reason was rectifying SonicMage's nonsense on a daily basis - but he seems to have left some time ago.

My guild was, at its peak, only 10 active members. Died out due to not being able to do anything, which is funny as we can do a lot with 10 people now My server's dead and so is my guild, up until a recent change of UI was nice to see people last online 13 years ago, hah - He said "BRB", and I'm still waiting.

Then he really is a villain because he has been there too long to not know wrong when he sees it. I would much rather he were a coward

I actually think it was more Mitch McConnell was getting exactly what he wanted, so what incentive did he have to do anything different?

Just a tip... for a short while, read the comments to Fox News articles. Sort of gives you an idea what you're up against. It's scary stuff. Those people are convinced it's their god given right to do as they please without thought for their neighbor. Lock downs impinge on *MY* freedom of movement, yell bloody murder and ignore anything remotely looking like social distancing. Masks? Hahaha... masks do *not* protect *me*, filthy liberals should all go to hell for suggesting we should wear masks... and so on. Almost (but not quite) quoted verbatim from the people who voted Trump. Oh, and also, Trump is to thank for the Pfizer vaccine, we should all bow and grovel in the dust before him. After all, he organized for Pfizer to pay all their research (for those who don't know, BioNTech did the research and Pfizer is going to mass produce it, Trump refused to fund the research, so the German government and the EU paid for it). Makes you roll you eyes in disbelief at the disinformation being spread wholesale on Murdoch media.

meanwhile, in the US, the next big hurdle will be convincing anti-vaxxers to submit to getting their shots and the inevitable lawsuits which will spawn and spread near as quick as covid-19. keep in mind that while compulsory vaccinations is current okie dokie 'ccording to US law, am suspecting there will be numerous challenges to jacobson (and roe v. wade by the way) and those challenges is gonna pit conservative v. liberal and conservative v. conservative. in fact, liberals and conservatives is gonna realize all too quick how their political distinctions do not mesh seamless with legal arguments. have mentioned on this board previous the case o' buck v. bell buck v. bell were cited by the jacobson court as basis for the legitimacy o' mandatory vaccinations. in a bit o' legal irony which will no doubt be lost on many, the primary argument antivaxxers is gonna embrace to advance their claim that they cannot be forced to submit to compulsory vaccinations will be the so-called right o' bodily integrity which is at the heart of roe v. wade. bodily integrity is not an absolute right as an individual may be forced to submit to a blood-alcohol test, but forced to unwilling endure 9-months o' gestation is too much for the Constitution to bear... at least that is the law as o' 11/24/2020. vaccinations is not a simple blood draw but is instead injecting a foreign substance into the human body, and while the chances o' harm resulting from covid-19 vaccinations will be low, those chances won't be zero and the potential harms will not be understood fully for some time to come. e.g. is doubtful many pregnant women were part o' the covid-19 vaccination candidate safety trials, and in the past there has been vaccinations which has had unexpected and harmful effects on unborn children. so, not like forced pregnancy, but not like blood-alcohol tests. as such, the new SCOTUS majority's first opportunity to neuter roe v. wade will likely arrive as the result o' antivaxxers fighting against compulsory vaccinations. so, IF you want roe v. wade to survive this iteration o' SCOTUS, you is necessarily gonna need be rooting for the antivaxxers? is actual only an extreme small number o' religious faiths in the US which reject vaccinations, but there will be a few first amendment challenges to vaccinations as well. the vaccine legal battles in the US is gonna get ugly and is gonna confuse many. (in this space, pretend as if we added your favorite "celebrate good times" meme or kool & the gang reference) HA! Good Fun!

I came here shortly after Alpha Protocols release, cheering for a sequel. Still am I've stayed over the years because I enjoy what people here have to say, I love hearing points of view from other countries and backgrounds, and as such I've grown quite fond of people here over the years.

"federal agencies" is a bit misleading but only by a small degree. example: the CBO is a federal agency, but is not executive branch. Congress and the Judiciary include w/i the scope o' their authority federal agencies, although the number o' such agencies and the personnel beholden to Congress and Courts is miniscule compared to executive branch agencies. that said, am suspecting almost nobody read our article link. powers o' the President: "The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. "He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. "The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session." doesn't sound particular powerful, does it? the other powers o' the President is legislative in origin and scope or they is resulting simple from the fact the President is the most visible member o' the national government. is also worth nothing that as often as not in US history, POTUS has not been the leader o' the political party to which the President belongs. POTUS is not a head o' state in any legal sense, but when the leader o' the dominant political party holds the office o' the President and a complicit Congress and Judiciary enables the chief executive at every turn, then the result is a functional head of state. however, is not the office itself which provides the powers o' a head of state. HA! Good Fun!

Short-form: was playing Kotor2 and lurking the forums a while. Eventually registered and started posting. Been here off and on ever since. Edit: I was on the very old BG1 boards (with the threaded style posts) but I didn't really follow all the moves from there, outside of lurking occasionally, and I used another nickname anyway etc... It was busy and fast-paced, and felt more casually social in some ways, in those early days (the WoT shenanigans back then...). There were days I felt like I practically lived here. I was a mod off and on a couple different times until I finally deduced I'd much rather be an ordinary forum peon instead - I was also absent for long periods two or three times. These days sometimes I only lurk, sometimes I post a lot, sometimes I'm not very involved at all, but I always check in at some point. As to why I'm still hanging around - some of the very long-timers may be gone but there are still some around, as well as plenty of "newer old-timers" that have become part of the community that I find fun and interesting and it's always nice to hear from/see now and then. I tend to get most of my gaming news from here (and a couple other forums). I like that some people at least vaguely "know my name." I'm also old, and places like Steam forums etc. don't fit me very well, so I don't tend to travel very far outside of here and a few other places. So basically ... it's comfortable, like your favorite t-shirt. Or like hanging out in the backyard while talking over the fence with familiar neighbors.

You were meeting arms dealers in these clubs ? It is certainly not an easy language to learn, well or perhaps I don't have the knack for it. But there are a lot of resources out there.

Keep in mind that items' effects in PoE didn't stack. So +4 was the max you could get if it was in that Ring since it would have suppressed all other INT buffs from items (except weapons). Thus I think the items in Deadfire are actually better/more impactful than in PoE on average and also if I look at Stuff like Scordeo's Edge and whatnot. Also Gwyn's Band of Union came pretty late. Don't understand the question 100%, but I can say that the Ring of Thorns gives you +50 to all defenses while Prone or Stunned, it has the same enchantment as Little Savior (small shield), Blaidh Golan (hide armor), one version of Garodh's Chorus (helmet) and Ilfan Byrngar's Solace (medium shield): Preservation. Only difference between shields and the rest is that shields are weapons and effects from weapons stack with everything, meaning that Preservation for a shield will stack with Preservation from another item (ring or helm or armor). The "empty" shield in the wiki actually means all defenses, not only deflection. Deflection is a shield with a little thingy:

Vaporum https://www.gog.com/game/vaporum Vaporum: Lockdown (both steampunk) https://www.gog.com/game/vaporum_lockdown Grimrock 2 (dunno if you played this too or not) https://www.gog.com/game/legend_of_grimrock_2 Operencia: Stolen Sun (fantasy) https://www.gog.com/game/operencia_the_stolen_sun_explorers_edition StarCrawlers (scifi) https://www.gog.com/game/starcrawlers I played Vaporum and Starcrawlers, and enjoyed them both. Vaporum I enjoyed more, but I had a lot of fun with Starcrawlers too. I do not know of any more modern dungeoncrawlers, so if anyone konws some and they are available on GOG, feel free to recommend me something as well.

I'd love to do that. Hardly the hobo life, RV's these days are super swank. I am pretty sure once the kids are out of the house and self-sufficient, my wife and I will downsize to a condo or something small, and my wife and I will buy a Sprinter Van to travel in for a chunk of the year. I think I have her no board with this. I've been enjoying my new Instacart profession. It's a pretty fun side hustle. This week has been profitable with all the Thanksgiving shopping trips needed.

I'd suspect most countries could make the 'simple' vaccines like Sputnik or the Oxford one. In the end they just need big fermenters (as you'd use for brewing, pretty much) and a bunch of purification steps. Probably too much work for a one off unless you had to, but if you had to you could do it. In a medical emergency/ pandemic you can go the Compulsory Licence route and just make a vaccine as an emergency measure. That would apply here as all the vaccines will be in limited supply for some time and despite the rhetoric poor countries will not be anywhere near first in line. (Kind of lol, Russia announces their vaccine's results and we get a bunch of skeptics trotted out by British State Propaganda saying how it's been rushed and is difficult to store and we can't trust the results as they haven't been published. They're all rushed, it's as difficult to store as the Oxford one- which it's nearly identical to, since they're both based on existing Cold vaccines- and none of the results were published when the others got hyped (don't think any are officially published even yet))

Have Russian friends, was bored.

I have been working on my retirement planning the past few weeks. Right now the way I figure I plan to retire in five years. 2026 I will be pension eligible at my new job. It would be at the minimum level so we’re not talking a great deal of money but a revenue stream is a revenue stream. I did game out one scenario where I sell everything I own. All my real estate holdings including my home. I buy a small RV and hit the road. Live in national park campgrounds, state park campgrounds waffle House parking lots and just go total gypsy. Just roam the country in my last year‘s. It’s actually doable. And the upshot is I would pay almost nothing in taxes if I did this. That appeals to me greatly LOL! But, don’t know if the life of a hobo is for me. I love my house and the land it sits on

Started lurking at boards.blackisle.com because I enjoyed BG2 and was interested in how the development of IWD2 was going. Signed up a few months later. Half my life later, I'm still here mostly because of muscle memory.

Well, other tiny cozy forums and boards I used to lurk on gradually died off one by one, so I dusted off my old abandoned account, read around and decided I liked it here.

16 here, but if you count BIS and Interplay 21ish.

Well, it's somewhat easier to stand on principle when you are absolutely sure your stand won't actually change anything.

I just realized I'm posting here for 11 years already. Dang long time.

we disagree. william barr and trump has made a very dangerous fringe theory o' Presidential authority mainstream. trump refused cooperation with any and all Congressional oversight and the doj, 'ccording to barr, cannot stop the President. as such, impeachment is the ONLY meaningful option for Congress. had to impeach. precedent woulda' been devastating if the house failed to impeach. and keep in mind that your observations 'bout the inevitability o' a failed conviction is predicated on the absence o' testimony and documents which woulda' been available if only a couple more senators had agreed such were warranted. trump is a lousy witness. look up a couple o' his depositions from past lawsuits. a parade o' damning witnesses, supported by documentary evidence and then trump predictable imploding woulda' made conviction a real possibility even if it were not a certainty. 'course again, the norm o' having a President comply with impeachment investigations were erased. impeachment were s'posed to be different. as for head of state stuff, is quaint how a few people believe legal and dictionary definitions is infinite elastic and may be stretched and molded to support any argument. oh sure, lack o' a particular nation having an office which could fit the requirements o' a head o' state shouldn't prevent an individual from nevertheless imagining such into existence. be creative. HA! Good Fun!

I mostly agree - but it didn't meet the developer's bar which they may have set too high. And it also is off the subject which was "why did it sell so badly" an not "what is considered to be bad sales numbers". I'm fairly sure there are more than a few players who went that route and that such stories contributed to the sales drop. But is it a major answer to the question why Deadfire sold a forth (or even fifth?) of the copies that PoE sold at release (or not too far from it - don't know the numbers now)? And why it sold incredibly less than D:OS II and even less (I believe) than Pathfinder:Kingmaker which should have experienced the same (but didn't)? I don't know... I just don't believe that +750K players waited until all patches were done and then all forgot about the game. Imo something led to a collective disregard of Deadfire. This "something" might be a collection of things. Smaller things like disappointment in PoE, forgetting while waiting for all DLCs/patches, Bugsidian reputation etc.. Bigger thngs like the "Pirates" theme while that was rather stale after all the Pirates otC movies and maybe has no appeal to most CRPG players, bad marketing, saturated Infinity-Engine nostalgia, no multiplayer support and so on.

And I'm suggesting that people murdering other people, in some cases, simply for fun and trophies, shouldn't go unpunished and those responsible should be held accountable, even if they belong to the so called "good guys". What made it even worse was that the government actively tried to cover it up and silence the press investigating the cases (and calling foul on the official version: nothing wrong, all good here) Edit: In Germany, they had a problem too with special forces, the KSK started to show a worrying trend as they began exhibiting some distinctly neo-nazi traits. They simply disbanded the unit. Sometimes a group can be too rotten to be salvaged. They didn't take to the streets and yell "defund the KSK", they simply disbanded it. End of story. That's one way of dealing with leadership problems in a force. https://www.dw.com/en/ksk-german-special-forces-company-dissolved-due-to-far-right-concerns/a-54386661

You know, one thing I never really understood - America has such a thing for going against dictators in other (primarily middle eastern, hurr durr) countries, but everytime I hear about what the american president is apparently able to do, I'm wondering if he isn't a dictator himself. Reminds me of when the world was all QQ about Erdogan getting himself more power, all the while the american president can just swing his duck around in whatever ways he likes and apparently nobody can do anything against it. Feels kinda hypocritical to me.

Well, people have unrealistic expectations. Breaking even in game development means you've paid off 50-100 highly skilled people working full time for 3 years to make art. That's a success.

Australia generally has a problem with a toxic "macho" culture. Whether it being in the sports teams (bullying and sexual abuse are major issues), binge drinking among young males to a long list of war crimes committed recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mostly killing pow's or just gunning down civilians as a matter of convenience and in some cases to get new recruits "blooded". Yeah, no kidding. Something is definitely rotten down under. Btw, this is the story that the right wing government under Scott Morrison tried to stop from being known by raiding the independent news channels, detaining journalist and seizing their computers. Sounds familiar? Yeah, welcome to the old boys club. Just like the church covering their pedophile priests and making sure they don't get prosecuted. (as an aside, the Vatican paid millions of dollars to the Scott Morrison government to get their pedophile cardinal (George Pell) out of jail and put on a plane to the Vatican, covid and travel restrictions be damned). The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has released findings from a four-year inquiry into misconduct by its forces. It said 19 current or ex-special forces soldiers should be investigated by police over killings of "prisoners, farmers or civilians" in 2009-13. The ADF blamed crimes on an unchecked "warrior culture" among some soldiers. The inquiry - conducted by Maj Gen Justice Paul Brereton - conducted interviews with more than 400 witnesses. It also found evidence that: Junior soldiers were told to get their first kill by shooting prisoners, in a practice known as "blooding" Weapons and other items were planted near Afghan bodies to cover up crimes An additional two incidents could constitute a war crime of "cruel treatment" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54996581

Dragon Quest is just widely popular and known in Japan, so that might be it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest#Cultural_impact There's even a live-action comedy drama that's basically a Dragon Quest spoof. Can absolutely recommend it, even if you've never played any Dragon Quest games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yūsha_Yoshihiko

What do you call a gathering of covidiots? A covfefe.

Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary? Yell yeah! Interesting strategy using people that are actually qualified for their jobs. Wonder what Biden's end game is here?

My favorite Moon Logic puzzle was in Dragon Sphere. For those that don't know, it's a game set in a medieval high fantasy setting. At one point in the game you encounter a door you walk through. It teleports you into a room where you're instantly burned to a cinder. A reload later you're trying to figure out how to get past the door. It's the only door left, no matter where else you go, it's clearly the only way forward. So, what to do?

Agh! Got my modern day military thriller characters all mixed up.

Sierra was infamous for pulling supreme **** moves in their games, and I say that as a huge fan of the company. Sierra was my childhood. Maybe unwinnable states and ludicrous moon logic were a way of artificially inflating game length? (As well as the hint line thing) These days, developers inflate game length through pointless collect-a-thons and generic copy/paste quests. *glares in Ubisoft's direction*

I was glad to see unwinnable states cease being a thing in adventure games, I guess Sierra did that out of elitism or just wanting you to call their hint line. PQ3 had the worst one I encountered, not really unwinnable maybe, but if you don't snoop on your partner she ends up killing you - if you do then some IA commando somersaults in and guns her down.

It does seem that the people that hang out here have remarkably similar tastes in gaming, which is infinitely more helpful than trying to sit through Steam reviews for a decent idea on a game. Despite that common bond, it certainly isn't an echo chamber in WoT.

Some people check the news while having their breakfast. I browse these forums. The general gaming forum is fun and I get most of my gaming news from there... it's sort of a curated news site commentated by people I know not to be bots, hype bandwagoneers or 12-year olds. And I enjoy reading random stuff here in WoT -- learned a lot over the years. It's nowhere near as hectic as other online communities, but it's not dead by any means. Obs being one of the few -if not the only- devs whose games I've consistently enjoyed over the years is another reason, obviously, though I don't really participate in the new subforums because of my policy of waiting 6-12 months from release before playing new games.

To post a bit more on topic: I think I came back after Sarge posted in one of our BIS/Interplay diaspora forums that tarna had died. My account still worked, so I logged on to pay my respects. Stuck around, unlike way back when. Why? That's a good question. I was on the verge of saying because all the other places died off, but that would come out wrong. It's not like I'm here because this is a leftover and there's no place else to return to (although Gorth inadvertently killed off the Winterwind forums with a post I think Josan misunderstood a bit in a rather emotional moment). It felt a bit like going home for the first time in years. Like all the other threads of this kind this one made me browse through files that I've kept for 15+ years. Like tarna's MtG card, from a time when he ran his own forum (tarna's Coffee Shop) and was active at Ashford City. 'Twas tarna talking about Andy (the quote on the card, I mean), one of the more persistent trolls of our age, in a thread long, long gone now where he claimed that Viet Nam is actually spelled Veit Nam and everyone's just getting it wrong all the time. Funny, I remember that thread clearly as if it happened yesterday, but I can't for the life of me remember what Andy's full user name was. It wasn't just Andy, I think. Or was it? Does anyone of you know? Guess TNO was right. Time does indeed lay waste to all things.

Got banned from everywhere else.

I bought, played, and completed PoE2 for the first time this year and want to contribute my experience to the pile. I'm going to try and keep this as short as possible. I grew up on IE games. I still distinctly remember just how much new content and quality of life Tales of the Sword Coast added to the original BG. I remember playing and completing BG2 on launch, followed by the expansion when it launched, and couldn't help but feel like I might of missed an even better experience by not waiting until the full package was complete. Fast forward a decade or so-- I was nostalgia baited by PoE1 and downloaded Steam for the first time just to experience the glorious return to a golden age of Western RPGs... and was initially met with disappointment. Worldbuilding: great. Story: suitable. Characters: mostly great. Mechanics: new yet familiar, great. BUT, difficulty/gameplay: despite playing on the second hardest setting, auto attack left clicking was practically the most efficient way to body everything with few exceptions (ghost fiesta at Caed Nua, Vampyrs immediately come to mind). That is, until I hit the Adra Dragon, where my party couldn't even land a hit without stacked buffs and then still practically got 1-shot by almost every attack, because it turned out my characters were VERY sub-optimal yet it didn't really matter until that point. It also didn't help that the hunter blunderbuss bug got fixed right before I hit that content (thought it was intended, dumb in hindsight), and then I discovered that some of the talents on my Rogue MC were completely non-functional. MC was effectively bricked since respec didn't exist yet. I resigned to help the dragon even though it was OOC, only to get defiled by the last boss for all the same reasons. In retrospect, I could have salvaged the playthrough by lowering the difficulty and abusing even more consumables, but instead I stopped out of frustration when I saw there was already DLC announced with balance patches on the way. I felt like I just playtested a beta and decided I'd return at a later time with a clear head to a more polished game. Except I had pretty much forgotten about PoE until I saw a TV commercial for Deadfire years later. Oh sick, pirates? Looks so much better, cool setting, awesome giant statue now ambulatory, can't wait to try it in two or three years when all the kinks are ironed out. Fast forward to 2020. Got the White March DLC, replayed PoE1 on same difficulty and had an infinitely better time with the changed battle system, difficulty adjustments, and added quality of life features. 9/10, would highly recommend. I wish this was the experience I had on launch. Later, played Deadfire after grabbing the complete DLC package on sale. Not perfect, but great experience, and would also highly recommend. Completed first playthrough on PotD and I believe experienced just about everything the way it was intended. But imagine my lack of surprise upon reading the initial launch impressions of Deadfire: bugs, difficulty problems, more bugs, awkward ship battles, bugs, scuffed main story, where's the load screen kraken? No doubt I would of had an equally lackluster experience playing launch day Deadfire as I did with launch day PoE. I've read most of the two low sales threads on this forum and I hardly saw this issue brought up at all. I didn't care that PoE wasn't BG, or that the main story was lacking in places, or that pirates and beaches are a far cry from classic D&D... actually the whole LARPing in Nassau vibe of Deadfire is so fresh and unique that I have a hard time believing that actually contributed to a significant dent in sales. My lack of interest in buying Deadfire on launch was to avoid emotionally investing in an incomplete work-in-progress for 30+ hours. I realize that the 'incomplete-on-launch' game is an issue that generally plagues the modern AAA scene, but this isn't the same situation as some company tweaking their fad multiplayer game that'll be casually booted up for 6-12 months. PoE and Deadfire are games most players will only finish once, if at all, and both launched with glaring issues. Yeah, they were patched up, but how long did that even take? Certainly those first impression reactions gave potential buyers something to reconsider. I'm not even sure this is a studio issue. It might be a genre problem in an age where developer support can only improve games in the long run. Imagine reading a 500 page novel, just to flip the next page from 380 to... 250? And the book magically expanded to 650 pages with new chapters inexplicably added to the start, middle, and end. What a design nightmare. When Pillars of Skyrim drops on PC in the year 20XX, I'm waiting til 20XX +2 or 3 before I purchase and I highly doubt I'm alone in this demographic. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Well, that would be the point, really. Having Obsidian design an open world fantasy RPG that doesn't jettison every other system and all semblance of game design, for the sake of the open world. Getting combat akin to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, for instance, would be a good start. Also, I thought Skyrim was already the shallow version of Skyrim.

Avellone seems like such a b I t c h Dude seems angry at everyone. Any time I hear a statement from him, it's so whiney and putting other people down.