Humanoid

You just need to listen to more 70s rock.

If someone is labelled Obsidian VIP, it's generally a former moderator.

GreenManGaming has just issued a new 20% code, which in itself is unremarkable, but unlike the previous one that just expired, this one works with Stick of Truth, which happens to be at a reduced price of $45 already. So it comes out to $36, which I imagine is the cheapest it's been. For convenience: PLOCVS-G2T5YX-DATY6M (P.S. I think a 'good game deals' thread might be a good thing to maintain around here since this doesn't really qualify as news.)

Goat Simulator, on the other hand, is being released on April 1st.

Yeah, sort of that, but also a large part due to them only really existing at the periphery of my awareness - not owning the platform they are native to. I'd give the example of the various generic rom-coms that get released each year, it's very easy to get them confused.

So who's the Ed Wood of games?

Looks like some outlets are using the terms publisher and distributor almost interchangeably in their reports, which is adding to the confusion here.

There's probably some nervousness due to the experience of CDPR and Namco-Bandai regarding The Witcher 2, what a farce that was. In that light, having someone jump in early and answer questions clearly and concisely is just what was needed - even when the answer is "we don't know yet". Too often other developers just respond with conspicuous silence.

It's based solely on the name, since I know nothing about the content of either game. I mean the commonality itself isn't that great, but for me it's just a combination of a negating prefix plus some random word. I also used to get Company of Heroes mixed up with Medal of Honor, up until the point I played the former.

There's still only so much disposable income and only so much disposable leisure time. But in acknowledging that, the restriction on both being videogame companies is fairly arbitrary, Obsidian and Bioware are about as much competitors as Obsidian and the local cinema, or Bioware and the weekend football match.

I always get Gears of War mixed up with Gods of War. I also mix up Uncharted with Infamous for some reason.

Hmm, only it actually is a good argument. ... no? Please, learn from Volourn how to formulate a counterpoint, then come back. You mean, pick any random two options of bold, italic and underline and apply it to the whole post?

I wouldn't see the page count from the front page, alas.

The most important question seems to have been missed: will there be a Paradox logo on the backer game boxes?

Dammit I get all antsy whenever anyone posts in this thread in the hope it's something new.

Totally stealing Tepid's template. Shattered Steel: 0 MDK 2: 0 Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood: 0 Baldur's Gate: 0.1 Tales of the Sword Coast: 0 Baldur's Gate 2: 1 Throne of Bhaal: 1 Neverwinter Nights: 0.5 Shadows of Undrentide: 0 Hordes of the Underdark: 0 Knights of the Old Republic: 1 The Old Republic: 0.8 (of one class) Jade Empire: 0 Mass Effect: 2 Mass Effect 2: 1.5 Mass Effect 3: 0.2 Mass Effect Galaxy: 0 Dragon Age Origins: 0.5 Dragon Age 2: 0

Maybe this reason has broader appeal: each of my future PCs might cost me $100 less without Windows.

I'd probably have minded the ME2 Cerberus issue a lot more, and used it as an example of bad writing, had I played the series in correct order. But I actually started with ME2 before backtracking, so the ridiculousness of the whole thing became somewhat lost on me. Sure, I still got the feeling of 'this is dumb' in hindsight, but it'd never match up to how it'd feel if I were properly invested in the plot development. As such, my memory of ME2 is probably a fair bit better than it 'deserves'. (And on the non-writing front, it also means the complaints about the radically revamped combat mechanics were lost on me) I attempted ME3 last and loathed it, and it was nothing to do with its ending (which I find now serves as scapegoat of sorts masking the problems with the rest of the game, right to the beginning). Maybe in hindsight I should have started with ME3 and worked my way backwards.

A 25% off title amongst a list of 50-75% titles though, which is a shame. The current GOG sale is a bit of a flop in general. Actually it apparently was possible to get Deponia 3 and other high-value titles like Aarklash, Amnesia, Memoria, etc in the first few hours of the Pot-of-gold sale, but it's apparent now that it's not so much random in that there are a limited quantity of each title available, and the allocation of said titles has been exhausted very quickly indeed. Picking a random title now picks from a very shallow pool of cheap titles, probably the ones the publisher agreed to have unlimited quantities available for $2.

It was originally a mod for EU, the beta version is the EW-compatible (and expanded featurewise) version - the description isn't updated for the beta.

The Long War mod (look under the optional files section) for EW is now in beta and is quite playable. It revamps the game thoroughly - even more thoroughly than Enemy Within did. So if you want more XCOM, it's the perfect solution. Some of the stuff they've changed I'm amazed is even possible within the engine - e.g. eight classes, three choices of ability for each promotion, panic being a fine-grained 100-point scale and with the ability to take back countries who have left (but also new ways to lose countries), giving interceptors experience and promotions, and aliens having research and promotions of their own. The most notable thing strategically is that soldiers get fatigued after missions, forcing you to maintain a larger roster with multiple squads to rotate in and out. And despite all the fancy new toys and abilities you get - heck, you get six soldiers from the very first mission and two item slots always - it's clearly harder than the original balance.

It's one of those fundamental disconnects between how people grow in real life and how people grow in games. There's no reason to believe, in-universe, that if you meet someone really good at what they can do, you too can be that good by just training a bit (cue Rocky training montage). After all, you've grown from barely being able to kill rats to being able to easily slaughter terrifying monsters over the course of a few months, if not weeks, so it's not an unjustified belief on the character perhaps that their trajectory will continue upwards in the same manner. It's not the fact that you've beaten Sarevok, but the knowledge that you've been able to increase your own ability by orders of magnitude quite easily. Sure, the goal is quite far away in absolute terms, but if today I can jump one metre high, then tomorrow I'm able to jump 10m high, then finding in a week I can jump 100m high, then there's every reason to believe with a bit more time I can jump 1000m high. It's ridiculous by any reasonable standard, but such is the setting, and not just in a metagame sense since it's clear the power gain is quite literal in-universe. But yeah, I prefer my power curves to be quite a bit shallower.

Proper mech sims use a HOTAS setup!

Yeah, it's not fantastic how it's set up in BG2, which is why I assign it a somewhat secondary motivation, and it's an artifact of the fantasy setting where power is manifested in a very tangible way. It's much easier to recreate the same scenario in a more contemporary or modern setting and have it be at least somewhat believable. Y'know, Irenicus as Hyman Roth rather than (Bizarro-)Superman. Unfortunately this isn't the blasphemy thread where I can more satisfyingly rail against the notion of supermen.

Don't mind the act of flying myself, but I hate the whole airport business and ticketing schemes. Air travel should be no more complicated than train travel: rock up to the station, buy a ticket to X destination from the booth, then when the next plane arrives, take all your stuff in and relax.