Leaderboard

"Where did it start? How did it start? These are questions I asked myself when I made this post. The question being “my love of fantasy and fantasy RPG PC games? And why not Sci-fi, why fantasy as my favourite genre?" For me it was the late 1970’s, I was young and don’t remember much but I do remember my dad reading to us Enid Blyton’s “The Magic Faraway Tree” and that’s where it started. I was absolutely enthralled and mesmerized by this idea of a tree and portals that led to incredible and fantastic lands. You never knew what creatures they were going to meet or what place they were going to discover and my love for fantasy only grew from there. In the 1980s I also started collecting comics with Conan being my favourite and to this day I still RP my characters in RPG on Conan’s personality and world views. Basically, Chaotic Good but someone who helps the downtrodden, wanting wealth and never saying NO to a damsel in distress. It was also in the 1980’s where I started playing the very popular and loved Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone books and I was given my first D&D Red Box ruleset with that indelible image of a fighter and dragon and a new world opened up to me. The world of tabletop RPG. I still consider D&D ruleset and the various D&D fantasy worlds my overall favourite because that’s where my journey on RPG really started. Due to Apartheid sanctions, we had limited access to general fantasy paraphernalia and goods, but my dad was an investment banker and he travelled 3-4 times a year to the UK and sometimes the US and he would buy us things we couldn’t get in South Africa. But we were generally behind in IT and the advancement and creation of the PC, and this included Internet access and connectivity speeds. I used to read Dragon magazine and they had these adverts and stories about games called Ultima, Wizardry and Might and Magic and I always wondered “it looks and sounds amazing … imagine an RPG on a computer.” But in the late 1980’s that started ending because Apartheid was ending and suddenly people had PC at their homes and that meant PC gaming was also coming to South Africa. And in 1989 at my uncle’s house was the first time I saw a PC game and it was one of the classic Sierra games, Kings Quest 1. The PC had monochrome graphics and was incredibly basic, but I still was blown away by the concepts and how you needed to type actions to advance the game like “open door” or “push witch into fire “ . It was a life changing experience and my love, enjoyment and passion for PC gaming never ended from that moment like my love of general fantasy. I stopped gaming from 1995-2007 because of RL responsibilities and I was travelling overseas a lot, but I bought my first real gaming machine in 2007 and PC gaming has been an active hobby of mine since then. I play many different genres like action or RTS games, but fantasy RPG are still my preferred choice and it’s because of my childhood connection to the Magic Faraway Tree books. The idea of what waits behind that door, what lives in that ancient temple, what strange beasts await me are still the most exciting design themes of RPG that I treasure and appreciate. And Obsidian has created many games that align with my core expectations of what I want to experience in playing any RPG. These 3 Obsidian games are all in my top 10 of “best RPG of all time “and it’s tough to think of a top 10 or 20 list because there are so many excellent games out there. Lots of competition which is a good thing for gaming. NWN2: MoB: Brilliant D&D setting with an exciting and fascinating narrative that takes you on this epic journey to the Planes with memorable and interesting characters and companions. I love the entire NWN2 series, but this expansion was my favourite with the whole Spirit Eater curse and then the choices you need to make about the Wall of Faithless Fallout:NV: It’s my favourite third person\first person Fallout game outside the first 2 isometric games. I love open world and sandbox games and I like the concept of exploring anywhere you want and F:NV provides that reality. I had the single most appreciated moment in F:NV and that is the most appreciated of any game I have ever played. To get to NV I didn’t go directly and went through small regions and areas of interest, and I remember I reached a point where I was wounded with no ammunition, and I was being chased by brutal and indefatigable Deathclaws. I had a sniper companion who bravely stood his ground and died while I fled. But the Deathclaws continued to pursue me, and it was night and then I went around a corner and saw something … incredible bright lights on the horizon. I had reached NV finally and I was saved. I have never been so relieved in any game to find my destination as that single experience. PoE2: I thought Obsidian created a fun and worthy alternative to standard D&D ruleset and the whole PoE mechanics worked for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the overarching and depth of the narrative, the lore of the game world, the companions were interesting, and I appreciated the whole naval exploration of islands and open world design PoE2 created. So, in closing its easy to support Obsidian and love their games because Obsidian is not just a name of a company, it’s a world-builder and creator of so many games that resonate with me and the mystery and allure of The Magic Faraway Tree from my childhood.

Bad link is gone... sad story, it was actually a very old account. Looks like someone else got access to it.

So I was one of the people who genuinely enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 even in its near-launch state, and thought that despite its issues, it was one of the best games of the year. Today, I finally started the Phantom Liberty expansion, and I now hate Cyberpunk 2077. Platforming, long linear sequences where you can't save, mandatory boss fights... yeah, it's made pretty much the worst first impression possible. Any pretense of it being an RPG are gone, and it's just moving from set piece to set piece in a completely unreactive way like I imagine Call of Duty does - with the caveat I've never played Call of Duty. It's a complete genre-shift into a genre I outright despise.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is a computer/classic roleplaying game (CRPG), which explores the topics of personal freedom and responsibility, religion, and colonialism. The story takes place in the (fictional, but it is obvious) Deadfire archipelago, where several local and foreign factions stand in uneasy peace, while the protagonist follows a reborn god (who destroyed their very nice castle during his rebirth) to save their soul. The game was unique in many aspects, most importantly, in supporting the player's agency and acknowledging their choices, and some admirable design decisions, such as not rewarding murdering random non-playable characters without an in-character reason (quest) and the critical path (the main story) being of reasonable length. Then, in one of the last updates, the Blackwood Hull, required for it, was moved from the shipyard at the capital, broken into 5 pieces, and these pieces scattered at random places, thus, successfully decreasing the immersion and securing another sale on GOG, which allowed to rollback the update almost painlessly (installing and uninstalling GOG Galaxy while downloading the game twice was not the most positive experience, but it worked). Keeping the 51GB around was less painless, but absolutely worth it. Usually in video games, the final part where the player and/or the party are proficient with the technical aspects of the gameplay systems and have completed most of the story, thus, being invested in both, consists of several hours of story-free battles, which, on one hand, allow to utilise the most powerful equipment and skills the player has. On the other, these long battle sequences are predictable, boring, and do not exactly serve the narrative. In terms of the in-game lore, Ukaizo was the lost birthplace of the local people, the Huana, which also was the final destination of Eothas, whom the player's party was pursuing throughout the story, and the target of the factions vying for the control over the Deadfire archipelago and its resources. Therefore, it would be expected for the island to be mechanically similar to the end-game locations from other CPRGs, including the first Pillars of Eternity (fortunately, as far as I remember, Obsidian did not go overboard there either). The level and narrative design of Ukaizo was impressive in general and in the context of CPRGs - while it featured one avoidable (blessed be the Bounding Boots) token boss battle with a unique foe that had little to no bearing on the story (the Guardian did provide some lore), the encounter with Eothas was never meant to be combat, due to him inhabiting a giant adra (soul-sucking-rock) statue from the practical point of view (granted, a few well-shot explosives could have solved it), and because I wanted to see him taking down the creatures that were much worse than he was, which made travelling to Ukaizo in the first place rather out of character, but the quest journal pointed there and, as a player, I wanted to know the outcomes of my actions. It also was very convenient to replay, considering the number of expansions, with all of them taking place in the story before visiting Ukaizo. Another boss battle at Ukaizo was against a leader (I think there were several for each option) of a non-chosen faction. For some reason, despite me not compromising my moral high ground for any of them, it usually was the Royal Deadfire Company of the Kingdom of Rauatai, with Hazanui Karū as the boss. Possibly, it was because of Atsura, who was definitely not a spy, giving me the opportunity to decrease the number of their employees without negative consequences. The point being is that the presence of this battle highlighted another essential aspect of the story - the relationships with the factions, where each of them was reasonable enough not to be killed on sight, unlike, for example, the Legion in Fallout: New Vegas or the Systems Alliance in Mass Effect (not an Obsidian game, and the damn faction was impossible to leave, while the game itself was extremely pro-military). And, most importantly, there were dialogues with the companions on the way to Eothas, reflecting the bonds built with the party. It also was great that the romantic interest did not lessen or overshadow the friendships with the other party members, while the fact that all of the possible romances were bisexual successfully avoided cis-heteronormativity and made the story more immersive and engaging for the LGBTQ+ gamers. Thus, Ukaizo defied the combat-first (not an unjustified approach, since providing a satisfying and interactive combat system, while still challenging, is significantly easier than satisfying and interactive dialogues) aspect of many CPRGs where the last location is a long mind-numbing gauntlet of battles and the boss, whom you have come to kill anyway, monologuing for an hour - the dialogues with both bosses and Eothas were skippable and/or possible to minimise. I also loved how in PoE1 it was possible to kill Thaos without listening to him, since the information you needed was much more satisfying to take from his corpse. I see Obsidian as one of the best RPG developers whose games I have played. I think it is important to explore the conventions and subvert the expectations of the genre in order to make more unique and memorable art, while supporting it being sustainable (system requirements and development costs), accessible (fully rebindable controls and saving at will), inclusive, and DRM-free, because video games are both art and a product and it is crucial to acknowledge and support both of these aspects.

Thats why I always walk around with pocket sand.

Looks really cheesy. I love it. Note to self, if you are ever attacked by a rhino, just throw sand in it's face.

Click on my link, it's completely safe.

I hope you're talking about a game!

Quick answer: why not? It is a breath of fresh air besides the usual builds, and in a party you can overtake debonaire drawbacks (cowardice) easily, and with others "charmes" you can charme some enemies without giving them body inspiration. I think debonaire pro is a fair little good because when you hit a charmes enemy it turns in "not charmed" and you have no more convertions, but as you say, you can land a big damage spell on it Anyway, Priest is a powerful class alone and also combined with other classes, so you can't worry. Storm of Holy Fire is a great spell, only it is enough for a Priest, what a Priest lacks is non-fire AoE spells. If you wanna more AoE spell with other damage type you can take Berath for corrode (and you get SoT for free) or Rymrgand (with a mod of course), if you wanna more fire damage then Magran... but why Wael? For RPG purpose? I think Debonaire is already good in defense without Mirrored Image or Llengrath's Displaced Image, I'd go for other subclass as I said before

Since this is a "history" post, I'll start with the oldest stuff first and work my way towards the current time, here and now on the Obsidian boards I often deny having owned a gaming console and that is technically correct. But... long unrelated story, I grew up with relatives who were "junkies" (heroin addicts) and they would often rob stores and homes for things to sell for mere pittances at times to finance their addiction. One day, the oldest showed up at my parents place (my mother, for reasons, had become their legal guardian) with a Pong gaming console they had stolen somewhere and no fence would take it off their hands. The original Pong console was among my first video gaming experience in the mid 70's. It was my parents though, not mine. (I would have loved to put an image of the console here, but I honestly do not remember what it looked like 50 years ago) Other sources of video gaming at the time was the arcade machines a various convenience stores and grill bars. Some were electronic, some were part mechanical, part electronic. I particularly remember a "Duck Hunt" game, where several layers of glass were used to create the sense of depth and a single glass plate was used to reflect a flying duck from a TV screen hidden out of sight. The shotgun was mounted to a stick that was effectively a big joystick. No fancy electronics at all. Other places had more modern games like Galaxy Invaders... I spent a fortune in coins on those machines. Jump forwards almost a decade, 1983 I was convinced I was going to end up studying biology after high school... until my dad came home with three page advertising pamphlet for the Commodore 64. It was so colourful and impressive looking. It used an elephant to symbolize the humongous memory it had (even though only 38k turned out to be available to the user in the end). I managed to raise the money for my machine of dreams as well as the associated tape recorder and two games. A game on tape called "Beach Head" and a cartridge called "International Soccer". First two games I ever bought with my own money. Never mind that programming the C64 got me hooked on software development and an impromptu career change, the games changed my life too, spending much of my free time playing games on the old "Bread Box" (Danish nick name for the C64). US Gold was a major publisher int he 80's and the football game? It took almost 10 years before a better game of its kind came out. Another decade later I raised the money for a Commodore Amiga 4000 and a hard drive. Gaming now became almost an art form. Bear in mind, in the early 90's, the Amiga completely outperformed contemporary desktop PC's, with the latters CGA graphics and built in tweeter for sound. Never mind the operating system, where MS only caught up with Windows 8 or thereabouts. But the games... sooo many, soo good. On the C64, I developed a love for strategy games and role playing games. SSI gold games, the Ultimas etc. were not just nostalgia, they were state of the art as each individual title came out. So many strategy games too, it was like paradise for a gamer like me. The Amiga added better graphics and real music to many titles. And they just kept coming for the next decade. This is where I almost get to the point... (skipping a list featuring literally a decade and hundreds of Amiga games here) Some of the newer PC games in the late 1990’s looked interesting and I could run them on a PC Emulator. One title in particular stunned with its atmosphere (because I'm a child of the Cold War and the end of the worlds was always present), the demo for a game called "Fallout" had me completely hooked. I bought the full game and... it didn't want to run on my PC emulator (even though the official demo did). Life as a PC gamer Building myself a PC, my first gaming experiences on it was Interplay’s Fallout. More games followed and Fallout together with the first Tomb Raider were my standout memories from the late 90's. Then I ran into a game from the now established Black Isle Studio called Baldurs Gate 2 (yes, I missed the first one) and I spent the next 12 months, day and night playing the heck out of that game, to the detriment of the rest of my life pretty much. Fallout 2 happened, I ended up buying Baldurs Gate 1 too, completing it a few times, nothing like the time I invested in BG2 though. Still, I took note of the name Bioware as well as Black Isle. That thing called Obsidian I was active on the internet too at the time, but I had little interest in this thing called "Forums" (some newfangled sofware that was probably going to die out in a year or two, so why bother?). Usenet was where things happened and many discussion groups (especially the alt groups like alt.games.interplay) were completely unmoderated. Calling it the wild west is being nice to it. Usenet died the slow death of entropy and forums stayed. By the time I had convinced myself to join the Interplay forums, Interplay de facto folded. At least, it ceased to exist as the Interplay I knew. That's when I heard about this "successor company" called Obsidian Entertainment which had plans for opening up a forum. Still not the fastest tool in the shed, it took me a fortnight to sign up. Despite being somewhat of a troll at times and getting into fistfights at times, I ended up as a moderator. Much to my own surprise honestly. I suppose the thinking at the time was something along the lines of using a troll to catch a troll. The discussion subject at the time was "Project Delaware", resulting on all sorts of crazy speculations and wishful thinking (and doom saying). Knights of the Old Republic 2 arrived and... good game with awful ending is the best way I can summarize it. An understatement of course, as the ending was completely missing for various reason... Neverwinter Nights 2 followed and was slightly less buggy the Kotor2 had been, but not flawless. The DLC's however... Mask of the Betrayer in particular brings back fond memories of a game I might not otherwise remember. The Sequel Maker Obsidian was developing a reputation of making buggy sequels to Bioware games that were all 132% perfect... at least if you were to believe the most critical voices. Of course, there is a lot more to how such thing happen, but gamers are a weird bunch, often prone to tunnel vision and confirmation bias, congregating towards echo chambers. Especially when it comes to likes and dislikes of games. Fallout New Vegas managed the impossible, convince a lot of people that Obsidian could actually make great games, that weren't necessarily direct sequels to existing games. It is probably also the only Obsidian game I feel like coming back to again and again, despite it's age. I know Outer Worlds offers a lot corporate humour and a feeling of living in dystopia, but something about the post nuclear setting just strikes a nerve because of my age (growing up during the cold war, expecting the end of the world every day). Playing through scenarios where humanity survives said war feels good I suppose? Still here Obsidian is no longer known in the business as the "buggy sequel" maker, but as a world builder, story creator and the maker of interesting characters. Like Obsidian, I’m still here. Still enjoying video games 40+ years later, still having a preference for crpg's and turn based strategy games. There are many more Obsidian games I could mention (take a look at the forum!) and would have loved to spend time on, but those are the ones that stuck out for me... -Gorth

lol Bruce, you glorious bastard! I have a feeling we'll be laughing together soon. I read your post and I thought, "this is sweet." We will meet sometime, brother. If not in this life, then in the next. I hope Valley of Fire, only without the Deathclaws.

While I am trying to avoid significant spoilers for the game, Avowed seems to be more combat-heavy and less flexible in terms of the story (e.g. all companions are mandatory). I would hope Avowed to be closer to immersive sims, considering the first-person camera perspective, with their detailed level design and multiple ways to resolve quests, and Pillars of Eternity II, which supported the player's agency in terms of narrative and consistently high-quality writing, but I am unsure at the moment how it is going to be. In terms of sustainability, the lower system requirements, the better (<20GB storage space, <4GB VRAM would be ideal), which is even less likely to happen. Still, it is an Obsidian game and I am looking forward to it. I also hope to be able to purchase it on GOG on release (highly unlikely) to prevent any updates that can significantly worsen my experience.

I don't think Wildrhymer offers much that can't be done by a singleclass chanter or a ranger multiclassed with something else. Sure-handed Ila makes you shoot VERY fast with guns (an all gun/crossbow team with this chant is very strong) but there's nothing preventing you from running it on another chanter in your party. As a high level SC chanter in general you are mostly choosing between opening a fight with an empowered Eld Nary (use Sasha's Singing Scimitar for infinite empower points) which will end most smaller fights instantly by itself. If there's a particularly durable single target you generally summon weapons for sustained damage output. The dragon looks cool but is a bit less useful in high level fights where enemies like fampyrs can just teleport past the dragon and go straight for you; it's extremely slow and clunky and isn't that great against enemies that are smart enough to switch targets.

Elden Ring is perfectly playable and comfortable with keyboard and mouse (5-button mice are supported; no idea how the gamepad users shoot bows or turn the camera during boss battles with larger foes), but I would suggest to start with Dark Souls: Remaster. ER has significantly faster (and worse) combat, while the location and world design is poorer and there are a lot of the same bosses (which was less irritating in DS2). Another note on the bosses specifically, the experience was rather unpleasant solo (long attack combos with delayed hits), while the NPC summons (Ashes) altered the usual combat style quite a lot. --- Started Cookie Cutter. It seems to be a cyberpunk Metroidvania. Not sure about the animations and the narrator NPC, but the cartoonish artstyle is good and the controls are rebindable, though I was not able to change Esc from "Do you want to close the game?". After reaching the first boss, I was repeatedly killed within 10 seconds after the combat started.

Season 2 of Earth Final Conflict, half of the fun is trying to catch what parts of Toronto were being used. The show's writing is great where Zo'or will announce something and Sandoval will helpfully explain Zo'or's ulterior motives

Then I didn't miss anything. Oh yes, the new season is here. Let's see what we have: - Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells: sounds like that PF:WotR mod - No Longer Allowed In Another World: even Isekais are tired of isekais - Quality Assurance in Another World: there is already an "Isekai Pharmacist", "Isekai Baker", "Jobless Isekai"... what is next, "Isekai Babysitter"? Oh, never mind.

Jeez I just saw that Phantom Liberty slander. The addon is amazing and I'd say in total I like it more than the main game. Good quests, good verticality in the level design, interesting characters, nice visuals. The criticized linear sequences are just the intro chapter, after that you're in the usual open world and can do whatever.

's an authentic BruceVC post all right.

As topic is: "What are you palying right now" ... At the moment I'm playing PoE 1. Before that I played a little bit Fallout 3. Before that - Dragin Age Origins.

Yes. You can probably make that a yes for any third person action (adventure/rpg) game with soulslike in its description. Unless you're religiously opposed to gamepads I really recommend finding out whether you like the hand and finger breaking PS-style controllers or the proper ones, and picking one up you like. Some of them can be a bit pricey, but there's plenty of good ones that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

while i agree that animated weapons are more generally useful, i wouldn't take the other comments to mean that dragons aren't worth using, or that picking dragons is bad. i've said it before on these forums, but the dragon summon is so tanky, that it can literally facetank the megabosses for you. this is not an exaggeration. against dorudugan, hauane o whe, and belranga, the dragon will literally just be my tank and only when belranga starts getting really fast do i have to worry about uptime. (for this reason, do not pick up dragons on a beckoner; shortening the duration and nerfing the heatlh removes the main benefit of a dragon summon). like boeroer suggests, the size is an asset: against dorudugan i can avoid dorudugan's vacuum attack by just standing behind my dragon - the dragon is wide enough that it body-blocks me from getting sucked into range of dorudugan. (auranic is a whole other kind of fight so the specific nature of the summon isn't so important.) Plus, as a SC you can always get both animated weapons and dragons if you want. though honestly, however versatile animated weapons are, a dragon still does fine in most situations - spamming tail sweep as soon as the dragon appears will single-handedly end many trash mobs. at this point we're trying to differentiate between S-tier and A++-tier - they're both still really good.

Playing any Souls game without a gamepad is just madness.

Fascinating! The Famous Five books were the first books I started reading for myself, as opposed to having my father or grandfather read them to me. Prolly when I was four or five years old.

A latest state of Russian economy from the quote of the head of Russian Central Bank, or whatever is the equivalent name of Russian FED

Quiz: Can you guess who finds things to do other than the work they are supposed to do? (Answer at the end of post) The thing I like best about Necromunda: Hired Gun, other than that AA charm that AAA for all their production value so often fail to have, is a tiny detail: When sentries first spot you, in many games they will go through variations of "Who's there?" "I think I heard something..." "Is somebody there?" "What are you doing here?" "You are not supposed to be here!" "Intruder!" In Necromunda: Hired Gun it is "He's here!" or "She's here!" Showing that they know who you are and know that you were the imminent threat to them. It is a tiny line, but it does more to tie my character into the mission fighting generic mooks than most games with fancy writers. Quiz Answer: melkathi

Huh, so you're saying it was true to the novel.

Nice reading Bruce! I don't know the specific book, but Enid Blytons "The Famous Five" books were something I loved, growing up. The four kids and their dog going on all kinds of adventures, helping a young mind escaping the limitations of the physical world and go to various places of the imagination. Had the very same "red" D&D basic rule book too Good to see, that circumstances didn't completely block your access to things that interested you

An old show came to mind, Earth Final Conflict. Shamelessly filmed in Toronto, started off ok, but wow did it go off rails. Anyone else, ever watch that?

The Boys has jumped the shark quite a lot and honestly I'm fine with it, silly camp is good and should be done more instead of the hyperseiousness that is just boring as ****. The other part of the episode, well one of the other parts, hit a bit close to home and left me feeling pretty bummed because I could very well be in a similar position as Hughie was soon. The V52 expo was completely on point though, "it's been a year since my last film, so time for a reboot" is much less satricitical than it should be.

I am (re)watching Babylon 5 since I got the Bluray port. Story remains amazing ... the port not so much :?

Thank you for the answer Kvellen. Unfortunately, it did not work for me, as it only made savegames from before the patch appear (which were all the way back into Act 2). However, out of frustration, I decided to delve into the savegame files to see what I could find, and I believe I've found the solution: Go to your Pillars of Eternity 1 Saved Game directory. (C:\Users\"username"\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity) Open the "gamecomplete.savegame" file in WinRAR. Look for the file "saveinfo.xml" in the archive and open it in Notepad. Find the following string and simply change value="3" to value="2": Save "saveinfo.xml" in the archive, and then select "Yes" when WinRAR asks if you wish to update it in the archive. The completed Pillars of Eternity 1 save file should now appear when you are prompted to import a save into Deadfire, regardless of which patch the game was completed on. Hope this helps others who are in the same boat.

William A. Anders Flew the first manned mission to orbit the moon. You may also recognize this photo (called Earthrise) which he took during that mission:

Great story Gorthfuscious. Such an interesting journey and you have been around since the early days so you have seen things progress and advance to the level of gaming from where we are now

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/embracer-owned-studio-piranha-bytes-has-been-shut-down RIP Piranha Bytes