legion

I'm not that far yet (10 hours or so, unlocked 5 achievements, I think), but I'm having trouble getting any further, in spite of still finding the game enjoyable. I keep getting these damn disc read errors, even though the disc is in pristine condition (ie: not a single smudge, let alone a scratch). It's the only game that's doing it to me too, so I'm not ready to admit my 360 is dying just yet, but it's really frustrating even so.

My desktop, and the fauns therein.

I'm playing Enchanted Arms for the 360 right now, and god damn, is it ever a terribly generic JRPG. I'm enjoying it for some inexplicable reason, though. Jade Empire PC, on the other hand, I can't get into at all. The setting's just falling completely flat for me, which is a shame, since it seems like a really good game in all other respects.

By the time the Dune series got to Chapterhouse, I couldn't help but feel it had lost a lot of the mystique that made the original so thoroughly appealing. Book by book, the story just kept feeling more and more convoluted, without seeming any more interesting for the added complexity. Regardless, I'll probably read the sequel Brian Herbert has planned. The setting's still one of my favourites, after all.

I finished reading the last few chapters of Steven Erikson's The Bonehunters last night. I can't say I enjoyed it quite as much as the previous book in the series, Midnight Tides, but even so, it was still a great read and left me eager to dig into the next installment in the Malazan Book of the Fallen epic due out in April. I've since started reading Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay, but I haven't read nearly enough of it to form a solid opinion about it yet, good or bad.

Jericho. It's not without its fair share of potential, I'll say that much. The last 'Clive Barker' game I played, The Undying, was certainly good, in any case.

I remember seeing that footage a while back and thinking, "damn, that looks awesome. I'd totally buy that." And watching the clip again, I can't help but think, "damn, that looks awesome. I'd totally buy that." Which begs the question, why the hell is this wasting away as some cool looking mock-up concept reel and not being turned into an actual game already? Don't they want my money? And who the hell are they anyway!?

I'd much rather see a good, small scale co-op style game (designed for groups of 2-6 players), decked out with good modding tools and built-in ST / admin functions myself. A MMO could be good too, mind you, but I can't help but feel it'd turn into a total crapfest instead.

And one hell of a pain in the ass problem it is. Here's hoping Obsidian fixes it. I use defensive casting a lot more than power attack, and it likes to pick and choose when to actually activate in combat (which would make immediate feedback about its activation nice, so you don't have to sit and wait till the end of the round to see whether the key stroke registered or not), then toggles off within a few rounds. The activation issues in combat wouldn't even be so bad if the damn thing would just stay on.

There's definitely something going on experience wise as the number of party members changes, but after doing a very limited bit of testing, it's not at all what I expected. In my last play session, after being attacked outside the inn, I quickly decided to run back inside, save, then face the encounter with different party sizes to see if experience was affected at all. First, I went out with just Qara, and the two of us netted 11 xp per kill, which seemed pretty terrible since I'd been getting better xp in all my previous fights. So then, I reloaded and went out with a full complement of companions (6 in all, including myself), and not only did I have a much easier time with the encounter, but the xp per kill was bumped up to 19 as well. More experience, less challenge, same great taste. Strange, no?

While I certainly like the idea of making the most of intra party dialogue / interaction during a single run through of the game, the fact that balance / difficulty will probably go right out the window, coupled with the combat xp penalty a larger party is likely to incur, makes me think it's not really worth it. Better to just play through the OC a few times, decking your party out with a different combo of NPCs each time.

I've been a zombie at work all morning for lack of sleep. The wee hours of the morning have a way of sneaking up on you waaay too quickly with this game. I need to take a sick day, so I can play even more, methinks

LCD (Westinghouse LVM-37w1)

Me too. The game runs beautifully at 1920x1080, in fact, as long as I turn off the water effects. With everything else maxed out, the game still runs really well on my dual core rig, so I'm more than happy. Seems strange that water effects are the only thing that can bring my PC to its knees though. Maybe they were a late addition, and not optimized very well. Who knows.

T(echnical)K(nock)vO(ut)lo, I'd think Clever boxing turn of phrase for the win!

A cameo for the little kobold that could? Indeed. I still say he was a pain in the ass, though. Now if he made a cameo as a pair of enchanted kobold skin shoes instead...

If the reason behind its removal was the fact that its implementation was a pain in the ass for PWs, I'd have thought it would've been to everyone's advantage for Obsidian to simply leave it in for the singleplayer game, then allow PW admins to script out Timestop on their servers on a case by case basis. Isn't that even possible on NWN servers now? Scripting out certain spells / feats?

Timestop is quite the uber spell. I rather enjoyed it in NWN. Too bad it won't be making the transition to NWN2. I guess Obsidian decided it was a little too uber. As if there actually is such a thing. Too uber... shyeah

Excellent! Good news, indeed. Thanks for the info, karka.

Does anyone know whether the game will be available as a separate retail package? I know it's currently a Gametap exclusive, but I'm hoping that's only for a (very) limited introductory period. I'm not particularly enamored with Gametap's extended rental system (ie: you only have access to your games so long as you maintain your gametap subscription). I'd rather buy S&M outright, be it as a boxed game or a download. In any case, from the videos I've seen so far, the new voices will take a while to get used to, but one way or another, I can't say no to a good graphic adventure game sporting a wacky sense of humour.

The warlock is certainly gimped a little bit by their even more limited selection of invocations than in PnP, and their inability to trade feats for more invocations, but honestly, a wide range of varied spells was never really their ace in the hole anyway. Their saving grace is their ability to cast the few spell-like powers they do know again and again (and again and again (and again and again... )). I really agree that the manual falls on its face when it comes to providing the nitty gritty details about... well, a whole hell of a lot of things, invocations included. In the case of Eldritch Chain, however, from what I can remember of the script (plus, dev feedback), the first target in the chain will suffer the base eldritch blast damage (modified by whatever essence is currently envoked), then any subsequent targets in the chain will take half of that base damage. Also, the chain will keep jumping to new targets within its line of fire until one of the targets either dodges the ranged tough attack or resists the blast (assuming the blast essence invoked allows for SR), at which point the chain is broken. The base eldritch blast damage is untyped (meaning no elemental resistance applies, nor do saves, but it is subject to SR, however), and the magnitude varied from 1D6 to 9D6 depending on caster level. The Eldritch Essences can add further damage or effects to that base damage and very often change its damage type (fire for Brimstone and acid for Vitriolic, for example). The DC for SR is modified by the invoked Eldritch Essences and Blast Shapes, as well, so an unmodified Eldritch Blast will only have an effective spell level of 1, but if you throw on a dark level essence or blast shape, the effective spell level jumps to 8. The fact that the vitriolic essence bypasses SR entirely makes it seem like one of the better essences to me, since it allows for no saves, no SR and is acid typed damage (which continues for a few rounds after the initial blast). EDIT: A better explanation than my ramblings above would be this thread on the Bio boards. The full script based details for all the invocations, and how Eldritch Essences and Blast Shapes modify the base Eldritch Blast, can be found there.

Good news from where I'm sitting, assuming it turns out that there's any truth to the rumour at least. The PC's still my preferred gaming platform, so I'm glad there's a chance I might be able to enjoy ME there. Here's hoping Bio doesn't just throw together a half-assed port for the PC version, though.

Yeah, the way they've revamped Word of Changing looks to be tasty indeed. Not sure if specific shape info would be considered a spoiler (seeing as the manual doesn't make it clear), but...

The class hardly fails, but I definitely agree that the +4 to UMD checks hardly makes up for the lack of imbue. Also solely lacking is the ability to trade feats for additional invocations, as well as spell-like ability metamagic feat equilavents. A few invocations were also gimped, like Wall of (less than) Perilous Flame. Regardless, I still plan on playing a warlock, since it's the roleplaying decision I've made for my evil character, and I'm sticking to it.

Even at 1920x1080 with the game detail set to High (the highest default setting... might be able to get better texture detail by fiddling with custom settings, but I haven't tried yet), the graphics really aren't that impressive. I'd call a lot of the visual pretty generic and uninspired, by and large, and while I don't know the details about what the engine is capable of, it feels like a step in the wrong direction from Oblivion. I keep hoping that the gameplay / story will pull me in instead of relying on lush visuals to keep me going, but it hasn't happened yet, and reports of severe balance issues continuing right on through the higher levels is quickly dashing my hopes on that front as well. Maybe Gothic 3 just isn't for me. Who knows.