LadyCrimson

I'm not an expert on judging a game engine from playing a game, but I certainly liked what I saw. Also, tho I only have this one game to judge it by, it seems stable. Still the issue of the way one of the lighting/fog or some effect causes those weird soft lines in the background at times but other than that...

Not a bad point. Some of those same ppl I know couldn't give a flying hoot about new graphics/physics. I guess I was wondering (in terms of sales at least) if the fact most aRPG's were, in the past, aimed at the PC market had something to do with it. They don't seem to port over well to consoles (at least not to the original aRPG fans minds) while shooters went there easily. That was my impression from the get-go as well.

Blizzard and most MMO's would like to disagree with you. DS3 just isn't the "popular" form of aRPG's as most think of them, since Ob's went for something a bit different. But I do agree that there doesn't seem to be tons of room for a plethora of Diablo's, say, vs. a plethora of 1st person shooters. I often wonder why that is... 1st person shooters - you run around shooting at stuff. aRPG's - you toss fireballs/whack your sword at stuff. eg, what makes shooter fans keep buying all these new shooters, while aRPG fans just say "I'll wait for D3 to come out", when the formula for either doesn't change that much (I know they change a little/try for new things at times, I'm just saying....). I know so many who won't even try a new aRPG because something in the game isn't like Diablo & it irks them.

It's nothing special, just helps the pocketbook a little mostly. One of the chests in the Foundry, closer to the start then the end. On the other hand, while mucking about with that, a random monster in one of the small 'mobs' I killed to get there dropped the Unique Halo One Eye or something, during one run. Surprised me because the enemy wasn't a boss, mini-boss or anything of that sort.

Hm. Now I'll have to pay more attention to that. Must admit I haven't been very observant with dmg stuff this game. Hasn't been my focus. I can't recall ever seeing any poison effect either, tho...at least nothing on the scope of glowing green gas aura or some such. But then I haven't noticed anything from Lightning either, outside of the graphic effect on the weapon/fist. There's usually too much chaos going on for me to gauge what dmg is causing what during a fight or even hear specific sounds. Only one I notice is Fire, because well, they're on fire.

I've watched my older brother with my niece over the years (who, while able to be independent, is somewhat learning disabled in an unusual fashion, it's complicated) and I came to the conclusion he's one of the best dads there could possibly be. My brother is just....awesome.

In my case, at least, it's probably the later. Just never wanted kids. Can't remember a moment in my entire life where I did. Ppl would tell me I'd change my mind when I grew up, but never happened. The desire to procreate is missing from my genetic makeup or something. The caretaker-mothering instinct is still there a bit tho, else I probably wouldn't go gaga over kittens.

Re-reading Howl's Moving Castle. Which made me watch the movie again too. I love Howl.

Just putting in my own comment about how fun Divine Divinity was to play. :D I'm still playing DS3, altho I haven't been in much of a gaming mood in general the past few days, so not exactly a lot of time spent doing so.

Well everyone is entitled to express themselves....but I'm going to choose to reply to only a specific part: I don't like the Auto-targeting either. The key seems to be that you have to be facing what you want to aim at. So if you're dodging/rolling or teleporting like mad, you can't stop and just hit the attack button...you have to make sure you're facing the enemy you want to hit. The problem with this of course is often something else is between you and what you actually want to attack...During boss fights I guess they tried to mitigate this by making the boss always be the highlighted name, but doesn't always quite work, and you still have to make sure you're facing in the right direction. Short version: just clicking the mouse on a monster does not work if you're facing in the wrong direction.

That's exactly what happened to me, level/end game wise, on Hardcore difficulty. I haven't looked at actual XP numbers but it doesn't seem to me that difficulty does anything to the XP gained. You don't have to grind "a bunch of levels" tho...only a few. And it doesn't take very long as long as you're killing enemies that give you some ok exp, of course. You can't go back to the start area at lvl 25 and get any exp, haha. But leveling is so fast in this game.

I have yet to play an aRPG that didn't have this mechanic in some form or another. Sure Diablo was his own guy, but to get to him you had to break those seals and fight all those minions first. Same thing with Baal. It was the minions that were a pain sometimes, not the boss himself. Darkstone, Torchlight, original DS's games...they all have some variation of huge mobs + boss. So claiming Obsidian "resorting" to this tactic is somehow uncommon or a poor design on their part feels a bit silly to me. I did find Normal too easy in general however. But then I also found FNV too easy even on the hardest difficulty, and that was only after a few hours of playing that game...luckily that game has mods. Companies aren't going to design difficulty around what the hardcore/obsessive/experienced gamer thinks should be really hard for fear of alienating potential masses. I think it's time they did, however, start offering more difficulty level options than "Easy/Normal/Hard". The game player is becoming more savvy and more experienced as a whole (perhaps) and in order to keep replayability the difficulty should be more scalable & customizable. imo.

Except for the first few bosses (the first time I played) I haven't found HC terribly difficult. Which isn't to say I don't sometimes take a lot of damage, or never ever die, and it's not to say I'm personally really fast. Still takes me a long time on boss fights because I must spend more than half the fight-time teleporting/dodging instead of attacking. Average time tends to be 5-6 mins. for me on HC (2nd playthrough, it was longer on the 1st). I find it interesting that there aren't more boss-fight videos of DS on YT. Hardly any. Which is either a bad sign re: interest, or a sign that it's difficult to get a video where you look cool/uber/fast. I actually agree with Greylord w/the notion that it's likely many players who buy the game may find the boss fights (first playthru) pretty difficult on Normal. Especially if they were hoping for a click-Diablo type combat game (the dodging etc. on PC can have a bad adjustment period). One has to remember that a lot of people who like to come on gaming forums to discuss the ins and outs and stats of games tend to be ... more hardcore, or more experienced w/difficulty mechanics/varied controls, or just plain stubborn, etc ... than the average, perhaps. Maybe. At any rate, imo games are generally designed to be difficult the first time or two through it. I rarely encounter a game that remains combat-difficult with several replays. By then you're yawning & if combat is the only feature you like about a game, you tend to move on. I didn't stick w/Diablo2 for 4 years because of combat (it was item hunting). And yeah, I've been finding it fun to just kill stuff in one area until they give hardly any exp. before moving on. My pocketbook is a lot fatter & it's been nice to experiment w/some things because of it. I even found one regenerating chest (it respawns upon save reload). Which is probably a mistake, but I'm exploiting it while it's there. haha

This reminds me of Diablo1, where certain ppl spent a long time figuring out all the math for the spell & attribute effects....good times. I'd guess Sannom is probably closest....judging from the numbers on the items anyway. I rarely (yet) see Ice as a very high stat (2,3,6, etc) per individual item, while Doom can be very high (I've seen 127 at least). Lightning seems to have moderately high possible number, Fire maybe a little less so...not sure about Poison, haven't paid much attention to that, but seems like it's usually lower Fire/Lightning. Bloodletting is typically fairly low too - not as low as Ice but pretty low stat.

-Rajani was free to go -left Heart of N alone but destroyed it/freed the ghost after the fight. -Kept mansion for Legion -Left the Krug in jail -Sided with the Baron in the land dispute -Helped Cyclops -Dapper Gent w/the Legion -Spared Jane/she had to make amends (not w/the Queen) -Sided w/the Queen morally that the trap in the mines seemed dishonorable. (but in RL sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do) ....I'm sure there were at least a few other minor influence/mini-decisions made but can't think of them offhand.

One of the few times I've seen attacks from a different level "plane". (Reinhart on bridge & goblin on ground below - poor giant had to take the stairs) I like the cutscene art. Especially with subtitles off. My personal fave shot of the cutscene confronting Mr. God.

I don't have an answer, but semi-related, I was playing a couple days ago and found myself idly wondering if there were any resistance factors in the game. If there are, they must be hidden, because none of the skills/items seem to reference any. Anyway, outside of a resistance concept, the only thing I can think of offhand as a possible answer to your question is...that it might be that poison as a whole does less damage per second than the others, so heavy damage over 9 seconds is actually about an equal total damage as, say, moderate lightning over 6 seconds. Meaning they'd be about the same. Dunno tho...just a guess possibility.

My brain can't focus today. Rubber ball in a rubber room. As a consequence, I got zero done - and that includes the gameplaying. It was a gorgeous day tho! A nice temp for me...not too hot, not at all chilly. Laid out in the yard staring at the blue sky and wondering if somewhere out there, a being on another planet was watching back. Figuratively speaking. Then I said ... "nah" and went back inside.

.... I'd agree with that. When I say I'm not interested in Facebook, I mean exactly that. I'm not interested in Facebook. I have nothing against online "social mediums". I've been using them forever, from IRC to BB's to the current forum stages and Twitter and yakking to ppl in online games. Facebook just has nothing I want or would use. Not my kind of social medium...no need for it and I'm not going to sign up for it just to try and cultivate a need for it.

I don't get the new game+ thing. Or rather, I do, but then they'd have to make another difficulty for people who started on HC, or force people to start on Normal first (like Diablo does). Not that I'd mind another difficulty. Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding what people want new game+ for? ....anyway, the keybinding thing, I'm stoked for that, thanks much.

Oh, that's right...prairie dogs. I did do that too. It's been a long time. DS1 was the game, I think, that started me on the habit of never selling/tossing starting gear, because you never know when it might have a use. haha

I've bought two games on Steam. That's it. I'm still an old fogey who forgets I not only have to download the game, I have to download the manual. Not that most manuals are very good to begin with most of the time these days. (edit: and I've bought PC games on disc that come with no manual at all, eg, you have to go download it...sigh). So yeah, I just forget and then I get into the game and never think "gee I'm missing a function, wonder what it is", I just keep playing. Besides, most times I get the control functions by going into the key-rebinding screen and seeing what they all do that way...but, ooops.

Hehe...haven't played him but when I got him as companion late game, where you could use all the points at once, I gave him all the awesome gear I'd been saving and took him with me for a short while. I barely had to do anything, even as AI he killed everything for me. It was actually kinda boring, so I switched back to Lucas as comp.. He's definitely the chr. I'm using for my 3rd run.

You can turn the mini-map off (on PC anyway) by hitting the Tab key a couple times. And the bread crumb trail is only there if you press a certain key, so I never saw it. Didn't even know it existed until I read it here.

Re:armor looks - imagine how I feel, when playing Fire Anjali. She never changes. Except if you zoom in close, sometimes you can see that the arm band she wore on one hand was different. Human Anjali, armor didn't change constantly, but I still think it changes a lot more than, say, Lucas. But some of the differences are very subtle. The overall armor look may not change, but if you zoom in tiny details might alter. I like Anjali's final armor, except for the helmet. I didn't buy one because ... well, I don't like helmets.