Leaderboard

This is not going to end well.

In the recent PC gamer article discussing Avowed they mention a few points... You have an established role as the imperial envoy, but your "personality, appearance, and philosophy and vibe you bring to that role is up to you as a player to decide" You can play as a human or an elf, but not other races It's purely singleplayer—no co-op The world is lightly systemic: think water and lightning interactions, but not the ol' bucket-on-the-head trick You'll have two companions with you at a time, with their own combat specialties and, of course, personalities There are several ability trees to progress through, and you won't be locked to a particular class or playstyle You will level up, but the focus is on unlocking abilities rather than putting points into stats to grow stronger Two of these points stand out to an extreme to me... 1: You can play as a human or an elf, but not other races. I can understand this to a certain degree. The size difference between an Orlan and an Aumauan would make things difficult... But at the same time, no Dwarfs? No Godlikes? You better allow us to specifify Pale elf or I will go through the roof! This seveerely limits roleplay potential and significantly reduces my desire to play the game, I have to be honest, especially godlike as it was one of the most interesting aspects of Eora and not being able to play this is sad. 2: There are several ability trees to progress through, and you won't be locked to a particular class or playstyle I was GENUINELY afraid this would be the case. Lorewise it makes no sense for there not to be a class system, as multiple of the classes in Eora work through the act of lifelong practice. You can't just pick up a grimoire and cast fireball, that isn't how magic works!. HEck you need to be born as a cipher, you can't just learn those skills willynilly! Combined that with the fact that I am so ABSURDLY tired of ability trees. I am sick of them. They limit creativity, they are usually filled with boring filler and deliver no challenge! It is the issue with skyrim that almost everytime I play it I default to sneak + bow, because it is the most OP stuff in the game, why would I not do it here then? Classes also motivates multiple playthroughs and allows more unique interactions in game. IT gives the character... character. ANd it is so dissapointing to see it just being another BORING system of trees. I am GENUINELY dissapointed in these reveals As someone that genuinely adores Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, does this feel like a massive fallout 3 moment (And no, this is not a good thing).

The graphics are the least of my concern.

PoE Gothic

Lots to unpack with all of this. I will start with the easiest one. Cyberpunk: Escape from Dogtown - I look forward to meeting Snake Plissken. Avowed - It looks like Outer Worlds with swords. Gameplay is always 2nd to story with Obsidian, so I'm not worried. Fable - Looks fun. I wish more of the Fable games were playable on the PC. Star Wars - It would be cool if this was basically Privateer in the SW universe. But that is probably not happening. I have no idea what it will be based on that trailer.

Hey Obsidian, if you're reading this, then I implore you to do what Halo Infinite did:

InXile's Definitely Not Bioshock, Why Would You Even Suggest Such A Thing? looks pretty dang good:

Fair enough. There is, of course, a massive difference as well: the invasion of Iraq was never intended to either wipe Iraq off the map or obliterate the Iraqis, whereas this current invasion was intended both to end Ukraine as a country and the Ukrainians as a people (either through assimilation or outright genocide). This isn't to say that there was ever anything glorious about the Iraq campaign, but I certainly wouldn't gloss over this difference, either.

Royal British Legion were doing a charity event and invited the Mercs along. 28+C weather (83 F and above I believe), some hundreds of Scout cubs besides serving armed forces and families, and yes, handling the guys in armour to prevent heatstroke and such. We did have them almost combing the "desert".... And getting prepared for cavalry raids...

Playing Lies of P demo. It's pretty chunky - I am over two hours in, and it is still going. It's pretty good. Not FromSoftware level of great, but good. Combat animation aren't quite as smooth as I would like, and they have a lot of snap attacks (long windups, and very short swings) making attack memorisation necessary. It is very cut&dry with it's animation recovery - I sometimes feel like it prevents me from blocking after an attack for longer than neccessary. Probably the main criticism so far would be enviroment. It's a nice looking game, but at least opening few sections have been very samey. If you would show me a screenshot it is likely I wouldn't be able to tell where it was taken. Game as also been fairly linear - the levels loop around "bonfires" but there isn't many nooks one could explore. Still, quite impressed so far. I killed a man and took his donkey hat.

So, I just finished my first POTD-upscaled run, and have unlocked 53/55 achieves. Now I'm planning my next run to hoover up the last 2 achieves. I don't think solo is my thing, as I enjoy the playing with multiple builds and seeing how they work together, but perhaps I'll impose a 3-person party limit. Maybe I'll also take some of the god challenges. I was a bit surprised by just how dark the finale was for Xoti (I had followed the dark-path with her during her quests). When talking to the party shortly before confronting Eothas: And it gets darker from there. To Eothas she says: Yikes. I think I turned her from LG to CE. Yeah, I've played and completed PF:WoTR (and abandoned PF:KM in the final act). I didn't enjoy it as much as Deadfire TBH even though there is a lot in it to like. In theory I liked the build variety, which makes Deadfire's 121 different single and multi-class combinations look small in comparison, but whereas in Deadfire all combinations are more or less viable (though not optimal), in PF it's easy to create a non-viable build without knowing what you're doing. Nearly all my characters ended up with 17 or 18 levels in one core class, and just a few dips into other classes for some of their excellent low-level benefits, which TBH doesn't strike as interesting as having 2 major classes like in Deadfire (something that doesn't really work in PF). Fortunately I know enough about D&D 3.5 edition to not be totally baffled by PF. From a QoL perspective, I prefer Deadfire's system of having all abilities available again at the beginning of each combat (a move away from D&D's and PF's system of getting spells back only on resting that I applaud from a gameplay perspective), and I'm not a fan of casting dozens of buff spells pre-combat, preferring Deadfire's system of going into each fight unbuffed. And yeah, the balance was all over the place in PF (esp. KM). But mainly it was the unnecessary filler content that I didn't like having to do (stronghold management in PF: KM and the army battles in PF: WOTR). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed PF: WoTR (and PF:KM to a lesser extent), but I only played it once, whereas I've now played Deadfire 3 times. There are a few CRPGs I haven't yet tried that I probably should. I haven't played T:ToN. I bought Tyranny but it doesn't grip me (I think it's the lack of classes that puts me off it). I'm hoping that Broken Roads will be good (and hopefully RTwP). I would be excited about BG3 if it was RTwP rather than turn based. I should probably try Black Geyser too. I should check it out. It looks interesting but I'm not sure it is quite my cup of tea.

Hi there, 1st basic information: 1. Platform (Xbox Console, PC Game Pass, PC Steam). PC 1: Windows 11 Grounded PC Windows Store Version > hosting the game PC 2: Windows 10 Grounded PC Windows Store Version > joining the game 2. Multiplayer or Single Player Game (if multiplayer, can you tell us how many players in total in the game, and their platforms if known) Mulitplayer, 2 Players, LAN 1 Gbit/s at the same table 3. Description of issue. Me as I am hosting the game experience no issues. But my daughter loses connection very often with the error that the connection has been lost and she should check her internet connection (which of course is a joke because everything with our internet connection is just right). Then it happens all the time that she can't pick up things or place building parts at all. Sometimes she stands in front of me but on her PC she is 10 feet away. The issue where she isn't able to pick up or place anything happens mostly right a minute after we restarted the game and it stay without any change. 4. Last thing you did in the game before the issue occurred, if applicable. All these issues happen randomly but often and the pick-up-bug stays at it is. After release the game is in a much worser shape than before 2 years. Because multiplayer is the main part of the game one can call this release an absolute desaster. Please fix this asap. Thank you very much.

Hello! I guess you knew that when you use the Dire Talon (sabre) and enchant it with Wurm Call you will have a 20% chance on crit to summon 3 wurms? Did you also know that if those wurms die they will leave a body hat only disappears after combat ends - unlike the summons that you gain from your abilities (that includes summons from items that give you an active summoning ability like a Whale of a Wand's Fantastic Friends - they will disappear on being killed and leave no body)? I surely didn't. But those wurms' bodies will stay. And wurms are beats... That means that you can consume the body with Flesh Communion. All Corpse Eaters: This can help your Corpse Eater to use their Flesh Communion in every fight - you "only" need to crit often enough and then get a wurm killed. You can do so yourself by attacking it with the weapon itself (there's a chance that you crit and summon another bunch of wurms and so on - there's no hard cap on how many wurms can be on the screen) or by using some friendly-fire spell like Shadowflame or whatever. If you crit a lot (hello Swift Flurry/HBD) you can summon a lot of wurms - and some might end up dead even without your interference because they are just weak. The bodies will be there until combat ends. So nothing speaks against piling up some wurm bodies for later in the fight. Of course this doesn't have to be done by one and the same character. You just need somebody in the party who will crit a lot with Dire Talon in order to prepare a rather monothematic Corpse Eater buffet. I then also tried it with Hel Beckoning (summon Hel Imp on killing spirit) - and this also leaves the body of the imp when he gets killed. But alas: it doesn't work for Flesh Communion. I forgot that Imps are not wilders - they are primordials. And since Flesh Communion only works in kith, wilder and beasts... Off to Essence Interrupter you say? Right! It works, too: If you crit and then kill any enemy and let's say a Xaurip gets summoned (and then killed) - you can consume its body. Same with Ogre Pirates. Unfortunately there's several summons with Essence Interrupter that are neither wilder nor beast (oozes, guls etc.) - so it's not very reliable. Also some of the summons take some time to kill compared to the very weak wurms that Dire Talon gives you. And some summons don't leave a body when killed - like the Boars wouldn't do that for me for example. But still... it can work. I didn't find another suitable item for this interaction - maybe you know one. Anyway - with this you can make the Corpse Eater better in long fights that usually don't have "food" for him. Bringing your own targets for deliverering crits will make it easier (for example Many Lives Skeletons). Don't know yet if it's worth it though - or if it's too fiddly. We'll see...

It’s been a thousand days since our last drop of Avowed information. Let’s see if we can break that streak!

I agree. I was disappointed to learn that this is shaping up to be The Outer Worlds, but fantasy. Hopefully they can avoid the issues that plagued that title.

Fae Tactics. Finally managed to beat the Stone Gardens without killing any of the gorgon sisters. Didn't get the loot out of the chest, but getting the good ending for the fight has been the hardest thing so far in the game, so not going to try this again just for some loot.

We should get more info on Star Wars tomorrow.

I'm basing this solely on the fact that virtually all Ubisoft games are essentially the same. With that in mind, I'm expecting Far Cry: Star Wars, but who knows?

That sounds like a positive rather than a negative to me, assuming that by "scale" they mean the size of the game world. I've been a vocal proponent of smaller worlds. This ties in to your concern with Starfield's size and the potential for a lot of it to be empty and/or filled with dull and generic "content". I've written this before, some of the best open worlds ever created are some of the smallest. Ryu Ga Gotoku is the gold standard for making open worlds IMHO and they make some of the smallest. Not much to go on for South of Midnight, but I love the art style, so there's that:

Apparently Phantom Liberty revamps the whole game, plus a new ending. Don't know how much of it will come as a free patch to the game though, or if it will at all.

I thought what was said during the Starfield showcase sounded great, but I take anything The Todd & Co. say with a large quantity of grains of salt. I've been hating on Bethesda for quite a while, I was hating on them long before it was fashionable to do so. That said, I would love nothing more than for them to knock it out of the park with Starfield. I would be thrilled if Bethesda became the company that made Morrowind again. I'm not holding my breath but color me very cautiously optimistic. As an aside, flightstick support is probably too much to ask for, isn't it?

Yeah, not a fan. Something feels off about it, even if you compare it to something like Outer Worlds. Still some time till 2024 so hopefully stuff like lighting etc is still being worked on. Even looking at Baldur's Gate3 Early Access a single pass can make a difference.

Cyberpunk Expansion preorder is up, and with it claimable free CP Goodies pack.

Lionhead went full WOKE with Fable Pre-ordered

For yet more cinematics and no idea of actual gameplay...

Much much more important than Fable or Avowed, though, my mother****er Ichiban Kasuga is back! And it looks like he's in... Miami(?) Somewhere in the US, anyway. Hopefully my girl Saeko Mukoda managed to make her way over to The States as well.

I've never had any attachment to the Fable series, so my hype level is minimal, but that was a nice trailer, I'll give it that.

Trickster/Soul Blade is pretty good. Mirrored Image and Borrowed Instinct stack for deflection, and you still get tons of damage bonuses from soul whip, sneak attack, and death blows. Obviously won't have the same DPS as streetfighter but the trade-off for better survivability is worth it IMO.

Oh, I remember that game. When the going gets tough, Thorin sits down and sings about gold... Some years after that, there was also a Lord of the Rings text adventure game; or The Fellowship of the Ring game, to be more precise. I started playing it with great expectations but very quickly found out that it was terrible. It was also very buggy, and this was at a time when I hardly knew what bugs were, or that they could even exist. Man, that game was not a good experience! The same company also came out with a game called Shadows of Mordor, or something like that, but I hardly even tried that one. But I did remain fond of text adventure games for some time. The Pawn, The Guild of Thieves... I wonder if anyone anywhere remembers those titles, from (I think) Magnetic Scrolls. They were pretty good, for their period.

There are other real differences between the invasion of Iraq and Ukraine. The US and its allies spent months trying to motivate and justify the invasion in the UN, they never once said " we dont want to invade Iraq " Russia built up its troops on the border and claimed " its just a training exercise, EVERYONE knows you cant trust US\Western intelligence. " https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/19/russian-military-build-up-continues-despite-moscows-promises-of-a-drawdown-00010372 So like everything else in this war it was just more Russian lies and doublespeak because they were expecting a quick and decisive victory

Cyberknights released a new trailer: It looks better than I was expecting.

I don't know, I don't recall encountering it in FS. But even if they did have arcane dampener, arcane Knight will defense is so high it will never hit. I was only hit twice whole game with a hierophant (one with sigilmaster auranic) and I dumped resolve completely, in addition to lacking the paladin's faith bonus. In the build linked the stats are 8/15/7/14/13/18. Personally I'd go human over fire godlike unless you're using BPM, since you fight bloodied. This way could dump PER a bit. Also I might dump might for some more INT but even with this stat spread you have 240ish will in combat, nothing but auranic can hit and he'll mostly miss and graze (though the cleansing obelisk will hit if you don't take it out with other party members). But even if you're hit, with 35 resolve you recover very fast, especially since you're more likely to be grazed than hit. Crusaders aren't horrible, and for party runs if you have even one solid character they're good enough, but there are many better tanks. Not just arcane knights but votaries too (and sages). FF/SG would probably be my tank of choice. They have more armor (3 to 5 more depending on gear and wounds), more health, and heal themselves passively just spamming FF. They are quite indestructible, solo or party, and are trivial to script. Also do solid damage and enfeeblement is very valuable debuff as constitution affliction is rarely resisted and even more rarely immune. Crusaders have slightly better deflection if you use conqueror stance but it generally doesn't even matter if you get hit because it's always a grazing underpen for -80% damage where damage is easily healed just by attacking. And crusaders have armored grace, but keep in mind a robed arcane knight will have just as much armor. I've even run FF/SG naked solo (because abydon) and they do perfectly fine due to how fast they self-heal. Also crusaders have slightly more engagement but it's easy to get 5 to 7 engagement with any class, and if you really think you need more there's tactical meld for +3, assuming you have a cipher.

Hyper realistic graphics are pest, which needs to die!

The multiplayer needs to be fixed! 15 minutes to every game I get kicked out! Constantly having to re do things, game keeps freezing and lagging, playing multiplayer or just single, Please just fix the issues the game is perfect other than these issues

You know when you accidentally make something you didn't mean to, or when you make multiple copies of one thing? Precious resources down the drain. To fix this, let's get an item recycler! Put craftable items in, wait a few minutes, and out come the raw materials. However, you can't use items that have been duplicated with the Super Duper or uncraftable items such as the Pinch Whacker.

I wonder how people in the city react when they catch me inside their homes, going through their drawers and cupboards?

Interest level falling. And for the inverse of that, interest level high: Reminds me of Sunless Sea.

https://www.pcgamer.com/avowed-rpg-obsidian-preview-magic-interview/ https://www.pcgamer.com/avowed-open-world-skyrim-rpg-size/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/06/11/obsidians-avowed-is-coming-in-2024/ You have an established role as the imperial envoy, but your "personality, appearance, and philosophy and vibe you bring to that role is up to you as a player to decide" You can play as a human or an elf, but not other races It's purely singleplayer—no co-op The world is lightly systemic: think water and lightning interactions, but not the ol' bucket-on-the-head trick You'll have two companions with you at a time, with their own combat specialties and, of course, personalities There are several ability trees to progress through, and you won't be locked to a particular class or playstyle You will level up, but the focus is on unlocking abilities rather than putting points into stats to grow stronger Avowed went from a 'very interested' to 'nah'.

Pre-ordered