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https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/divinity-will-be-turn-based-with-a-new-ruleset/ TB it seems.

I could see them simplifying the name if they're making turn-based RPGs their signature and just soft-reboot the naming scheme. The name Divinity: Original Sin is a bit of a mouthful otherwise. But it's also fully possible that gameplay might resemble Divinity 2 (third person new Witcher-like), or less likely, Divine Divinity (isometric Diablo-like). I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's got no chance of resembling Dragon Commander.

BG3 doesn't split XP, you're on the same levelling curve whether solo or with a party of six and XP is synced such that any party member with less XP than your main character will be brought up to match them. Note this doesn't work in the reverse, so it's possible to get companions that are higher level than the player character (though this is only really likely to be seen when speedrunning). For the most part, it also attempts to prevent double-dipping on XP, in that if you kill an enemy after talking your way past them, they won't award any kill XP. Yeah, this catches out a few people and is a bit of a silly outcome. I think it's an engine limitation - enemies can't go through zone transitions so the ones outside can never reinforce the ones inside and vice versa. That limitation also means the optimal solution is to fast travel out from the indoor area so you can engage the outdoor ones from a safer distance. (It's also a bit dumb that two of the leaders can be assassinated properly with the camp remaining neutral, but one just sets an unavoidable faction-wide aggro flag) Speaking of engine limitations, the text-only "books" in the game are a pretty glaring one. The system doesn't support graphics so even if you're looking at a map or a drawing, you just get text saying stuff like "this is a map showing an X nearby". The D:OS engine has done good service over the years and has seen some nice upgrades, but it's time for Larian to move on.

Hmm, I might concede on Giths as I don't think you can avoid fighting them if you do all of the content there. Goblins though - is great. In fact the Goblin camp is one bit of BG3 that I love without hesitation and if all of the game was of that quality it would be 10/10 game for me. It's organic, it offers narratively sound objectives that can be completed in a multitude ways utilizing a neat combination of scripted and systemic options. If you decide to obliterate the whole camp, that can be tedious but that's a very specific, systemic outcome - you decided to fight essencially a city of neutral NPCs, so you do just that. There are so many neat things you can do to affect that combat encounter - tip off Minthara about the location of the Grove, but then help defend the Grove, getting a pretty great big battle and massively reducing camp's forces. Poison the drink at the party to make the outside battle easier. Sabotage war drums so enemies you are fighting now can't easily call for help from the rest of the room. Plenty of opportunities to silently dispatch smaller packs of enemies before engaging everyone else. There are so many ways of dealing with the camp, thoughout my hours of Early Access it was one part of the run I was always actively looking forward to. It seems I was always able to find a fresh way to express how my NPC would deal with that situation. Even my palladin coldly fighting through the whole camp out of principle - it's tedious, but fitting the character and an act.

The game tailormade for the memory crisis: Foolish Mortals. 90 rating on Metacritic, 97% user recommendation on Steam, 20 bucks price tag, 2GB RAM required, 8GB disk space and more heart put into it than you could possibly count. Initially, I wanted to relive Christmas 1998. Spent that on solving Grim Fandango three days straight. However, after this introduction, I wasn't able to wait any longer. They said there was a treasure on the island, its location known only to the dead. I could see it in my dreams. How was I supposed to know that in order to find it... I'd have to die too.

Sure, use the unwinnable drug "war" to justify an eternal state of emergency. Just what the POTUS wants.

Fentanyl is a WMD now.

Sure, it's more like 1 hit, lose health, get stunned, clip into boss/trap, lose more health, get hit again, die.

Since investigation and inquiry is one of the functions of Congress, one wonders whether the DoJ should have been placed under the legislative branch (but allow the President to select the leader)?

I’ve had better luck using firmer, less juicy apples for apple slaw - things like Granny Smith, Pink Lady, or even Braeburn. They hold up a lot better to a fine julienne and don’t turn watery as fast, especially when you’re not hand-cutting. Also, if the julienne tool is doing most of the work (no judgment - I’m in the same boat), sometimes switching to a sharp Y-style peeler for thin strips instead of true matchsticks helps keep the texture lighter and more consistent. I’ve been using something along the lines of this one https://www.allpointsfps.com/75932-6-one-half-in-y-peeler-winco/ . Lately, and it’s been surprisingly useful for slaw-style cuts without crushing softer fruit. As for the kids and pulled pork - I’ve noticed the same thing. A lot of pre-teens seem to prefer simpler, cleaner flavors and textures, while pulled pork (especially if it’s smoky or sauced) reads as “too much” for them. More for the adults, I guess.

Tempted to buy/try "Date Everything!" since it's designed by VA Ray Chase (he co-founded SassyChapGames with Robbie Daymond and Max Mittleman) and voiced by a plethora of VA's/actors, but the game itself - not sure I'd like it. I have liked, say, some otome's if they have a good/fun story but this comedy (?) dating sim looks a bit too absurd or overwhelming (100 dateables seems too many) for me. Although perhaps the silly would be the charm. But I wishlisted it - maybe I'll be in the mood for silly one late night. So for the moment I still stick with an hour or two of more Teddy's Heaven shop-keeping once in a while as a midnight-chaser. Although in a couple weeks I'll probably try 7 Days, 2.5. Maybe. Jars are apparently (mostly) back, which I don't care about - but other things they've changed, I might.

A new Kotor type game might be interesting. Let's see - "maybe" 2030? I'll be, what, 63ish (or 62ish?)? By then I might even have built a new PC! Most of those trailers do nothing for me, as usual. All I do anymore is look at the $20-$40 indie/small dev types where I feel I can still find games with gameplay mechanics I actually like. I'm beginning to loosen my notion of wanting to wait/how long to wait re: early-access. If it's cheap enough, screw it. I'll go back to the "if I initially get 30-50+ hrs out of it, good enough" mentality.

Heh, this was it for me too as I'm playing a paladin. My problem was that I first went inside the temple(?) structure and did away with the leaders, but didn't realize the goblins outside would then all become hostile. So when I exited the temple, I immediately ran into a horde of hostile goblins and an ogre. No opportunity then to do any of those other things (poison, war drums, etc.). I won the fight without any casualties on my side, but it was a painful slog.

This is good to know. Thanks. As for burning churches and butchering peasants, I'll take a hard pass on that. I play RPGs specifically so I can be the good hero who punishes the bad guys. It is literally impossible for me to kill innocents, even though I know they're just 1's and 0's.

It's the only good thing about the game, if one likes the 3(.5)E ruleset: ToEE combat is quite the faithful implementation of the tabletop combat system. The writing's also an absolute highlight. I very much recommend trying the opening vignettes for the neutral and chaotic evil parties, they might just be the best way to start off with an evil party in a game ever made. Because nothing tells you how EVUL your group is like burning churches for no reason or casually butchering peasants.

May I ask how would you define trashmobs? I would as repetitive encounters that offer little or no tactical variety that seem to exist to pad out the experience. I would say Pillars of Eternity had quite a few of them, Pillars2 not so much if at all, Kingmaker was drowning in them. Combat variety is BG3 is crazy good. There is plenty of encounters that have unique type of an enemy that will never appear in another part of the title. I do think it is slightly undermined by combat's poor balancing - so if one found an overpowered approach it will probably play the same no matter how one will approach the encounter. But no I don't think the game has too much combat, and it definitely isn't repetitive. Though I know you don't like combat to begin with, so it might not matter either way to you

I like this conversation. A number of people who dislike things I dislike, dislike things about BG3 I would be bound to dislike, were I to play it. So I guess I can skip it.

At first I just couldn't get past the 20+ years old look of the game, and especially how the UIs look and function, but then I learned that it uses 3.5e rules, so I've now added it to my Steam wishlist. For some reason I was certain it was a 2e game.

Sadly, there isn't much of anything for me in these latest reveals from the Game Awards. Oh, well. Another year waiting on a good game for me. At least Solasta II is looking good, and I'll eventually get around to trying Avowed.

@Theonlygarby, @Hawke64, I agree with you both on BG3. I'm not as negative on some of the issues, and so I'm able to handle playing the game, but your critiques are spot on for me. The painful battles are especially surprising, because I was told repeatedly by the TB fanatics on the Larian forum that the battles are few and not trash mob battles like in a RTwP game. Well, they lied as far as I'm concerned. Trash mob battles are aplenty in BG3, and I'm able to get through them without driving myself crazy only because I'm playing with a party of six and on a mix of low and normal difficulty settings. The UIs are horrible. The hotbar practically useless. Party movement a huge pain. And yes, the story is everywhere.

Have our annual survey on employee satisfaction. What I would like to say But said I would recommend people work here

Exactly Also doable. Fighter was just an example with some explanation why it would work especially well with scrolls (and potions), which to me seemed to have been the main focus of the original question. Paladin is good for soloing for several reasons, but not particularly effective with scrolls (but also not bad due to okay base Acc + Zealous Focus).

Didn't try this solo, but Scordeo's Trophy on a Bloodmage/Ranger is pretty cool in general imo: The enchantment "Opening Barrage" reduces recovery universally (also for spells etc.). With Driving Flight and Gunner as well as the Pistol modal "Rushed Reload" you can stack a lot of those recovery bonuses quickly - and with Wall of Draining you can keep all of them going on forever, which leads to very short recovery and reloading times. You can then spam all sorts of spells with very short recovery time, shoot with little reloading time (there's a cap on reloading time though, at some point it won't get reduced further). Combine with Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and you can not only shoot and cast very quickly but also run very fast and not get engaged (immunity to engagement). Being able to kite enemies is very useful in a solo run. A Bloodmage can use Healing Hands (the gloves) in combination with Wall of Draining (the Minor Lay on Hands' healing stays forever) and Blood Sacrifice - and thus you don't have to worry about the self damage of Blood Sacrifice and Alacrity too much. All those Wall of Draining shenanigans in combination with Bloodmage make a solo run more easy anyways. There's also the Essential Phantom (summons are always nice for a solo run) which gets an exact copy of all your gear, including the pistol. The phantom stacks Opening Barrage, too - so it shoots faster and faster the longer it stays. However, it neither has Driving Flight nor the Rushed Reload modal and it cannot use Wall of Draining. But it gets the +12 accuracy for single weapon usage, so its accuracy is very good (for a summon).

Original Sin are just spin-offs in the end. The main line is Divine Divinity -> Divinity 2: Ego Draconis/Flames of Vengeance -> Divinity 3? Beyond Divinity never happened.