Humanoid

Suspect I would have pledged the same either way. Generally speaking though, I prefer turn-based for a solo character game, but RTwP for a large party-based game (which this will mostly be), so I lean towards this preference in this context. It's not that I mind turn based combat with a large number of actors, but it's more in the realm of a tactical combat game than an RPG, where combat is one of the things I care least about.

Lenovo X230t - convertible tablet variant of the best notebook in the world. Of course that's a fully fledged PC running Windows with all the pros and cons that entails, and a price tag to match. Don't know much about Android tablets. Asus Transformer Prime I guess would come into consideration on the strength of its keyboard option - good to have when looking for someone who's not quite sure what they want.

This discussion is kind of going on in three threads in three different subforums at once. D: Ahem. Anyway, a compromise I could take is that the so-called 'wilderness' areas would not be, strictly speaking, untamed wilderness. Sparse areas are perfectly reasonable, but there ought to be a reason why that area is broadly of interest in the first place. At the simplest level, it would be simple proximity to a major area of interest. Perhaps it's an area that for a non-obvious reason, the local nobility has a curiously disproportionate interest in hunting in. Or perhaps the opposite, what would appear to be prime grazing land, yet no farmer has made any attempt to claim it. Somewhere where relatively mundane old archaeological knick-knacks have been occasionally dug up by locals. A UFO sighting in the area. I suppose I would describe it as starting from the BG2 design rather than BG1, but then expanding on it. The abandoned temple where the black dragon is for example, has a largeish outdoor area. Keep the darkest, "obvious quest area" on that map, as a separate wilderness area adjacent you can have a number of options for creating a fairly sparse map with some related, even if only tangentially, points of interest. Remains of an old dwelling where some of the servants may have lived. Auxilliary worship sites. A place where looters may have withdrawn to some time ago.

Logistically though, I'd assume they'd have to compromise a bit to leave in a hook for the expansion (assuming the events of the expansion take place subsequent to those of the main game, which for a full expansion is far more likely than it is for contemporary DLC). That's before even getting into possible sequels. So I don't imagine there'll be complete freedom, like having the PC disappear to wander around searching for the other end of the world. I don't envy them the job of finding a workable compromise - something which gives satisying closure without painting themselves into a corner. An example I guess - selecting the new councillor at the conclusion of Mass Effect. Viewed in isolation, the initial reaction would be "cool, I get a hand in the future direction of the gameworld." But I think most probably by the time writing for the sequel had begun, the writers may well have been regretting the move to put that decision in the original game. It didn't harm that game in itself, but on the other hand, neither was there really any specific reason that would favour doing it - any gain would be far dwarfed by the potential future issues.

I flat out did not enjoy BG (so I better end this post quick before the pitchforks come out), so I prefer to abstract my treks over areas-of-non-interest to the overworld map. If there's a function to arbitrarily stop and any point and see what's there (a big fat nothing, as per Fallout) then fine, but it will be rightly ignored. Fully explorable wilderness areas have the paradoxical quality of potentially making the gameworld feel *smaller*. Or for realistic scales, feel like painting the Great Wall with an artist's paintbrush (as per the post above).

On-topic post! Kickstarter 500k threshold has been crossed so the backers on that side can be counted as officially committed (they can still withdraw their pledges individually of course), and added to the main counter, the project as a whole is less than $150k away from meeting the overall $2m target so the slightly uncomfortable status of meeting one goal but not the other shouldn't last for very much longer. Looks like some additions to the various tiers are also pending, a T-shirt seems inevitable now at the very least.

Geralt sort of had an ulterior motive for playing the father figure. *nudge nudge* I certainly wouldn't have done it out of altruism.... I also observe that due to this thread, I now have had that George Michael song in my head for the past hour or so.

Humans I always name manually, I have a couple of fairly rigidly defined characters I tend to reuse, plus I also have a pool of about half a dozen full names that I choose from, depending on the character's intended personality. I have to admit that for most of them, the names first saw air in The Sims and how they're played in RPGs tends to derive from their personality in that game.... What I'd like to see actually is a 3-part name construction: Last name, nickname and given names, and in addition, have it selectable which of the three fields you will primarily be referred to by. In some contexts the non-nominated one might be used, e.g. a town official may always use your last name. As the non-human races I tend to stick to the random name generator, unless the setting is one where them having human type names is something that's established. Exceptions for comic relief characters of course.

Think it went up as part of the big Mac + Cyberpunk announcement, yeah. Needless to say, I picked it up (and Twinsen's Adventure for no sensible reason, skipped Postal and already own the other two sale titles). 141 now, woo.

They should bring back those old-school hintbooks where you had to colour in the blank sections with a magic marker to show the hidden text! P.S. Is it the right time to admit I haven't ever finished, or even halfway finished this game?

Might and Magic 7 not only had spears wieldable with a shield (or other small offhand weapon) given enough skill, but they were the best weapon for any min-maxing warrior to have.

So is the omission of Beyond Divinity from any discussion here meant to imply that it's best ignored? Sort of like the Invisible War of the series?

Triples (typically 53/39/30) have kinda fallen out of fashion in favour of compacts (50/34) for partly that reason, the 34 tooth ring is usually low enough for inexperienced climbers while still being able to retain the mechanical simplicity of two chainrings instead of three. Dynamos are pretty much something that won't be accepted nowadays due to the increased friction. Electronic shifting has recently been introduced for high end componentry, but not in the way you set out - it simply uses a battery-powered motor to shift the chain instead of the traditional method of cables pulling it from cog to cog.

If the shipping destination is changed to Australia, it becomes available - looks like it applies to all Wilier brand bikes. Guessing what's happened is that the shop no longer has the rights to sell them in the UK, oddly enough.

Browsing bikes in the $1500-2000 region right now and have a few candidates. Just doing a quick straw poll for aesthetic purposes (though options on other aspects welcome of course) amongst you lot for my own nefarious interests (and because I am an easily influenced sheep). http://www.wiggle.co...xp-athena-2012/ http://www.wiggle.co...rion-1105b-105/ http://www.wiggle.co...5-8avio-athena/ http://www.wiggle.co...e-ultegra-2012/ Mirror mirror on the wall, which is the fairest of them all?

In the the latest instalment, I vaguely remember seeing a weird variant of the cutscene weapon problem. Whereas previously it'd be a simple matter of it switching weapons automatically, it seems ME3 has a thing where you're, for example, holding an assault rifle but the game uses the animation set for the pistol. Guessing it's an issue caused by all weapons being optional now?

That doesn't count and you know it! Unless he's working on the unannounced Dragon Age Xtreme Beach Volleyball spinoff. Oh wow, even the acronym matches.

The maze-like layout extended throughout pretty much the whole game. The Kings' headquarters, oh god....

This is the point ought to I admit I never played BG and slink away. But sounds about right - someone who's a real danger and not just an annoying insect that bothers you while the warriors and mages do the real work.

Would dearly love for a throwing weapons character to be viable, not as something you use a few times while foes close in, but as a primary weapon. Ideally it'd be viable for a solo game too, without having to rely on your big hulks in the front to keep enemies off you, but it didn't really work in previous games and I can see the difficulty in balancing it - not a must-have. Actually that raises a point, will stealth (and detection in general) be handled "realistically" (as in Thief or even DX), or will the AI actors see you immediately after performing a hostile action - e.g. if I take someone in a group down with a throwing knife sneak attack, will the other enemies beeline towards me, or will they just go on alert and start searching? Second issue/question would be about hit chance modifiers for distance. I don't think the IE games had them? Fallout did of course. In terms of personal use, I want to use a pistol as a backup weapon for melee range, but such a use would probably be contingent on them being just about 100% accurate at point blank. EDIT: Also, while more generally directed and therefore not a combat issue per se: variable movement speeds. Yes or no? Can I build a character that can reliably outrun foes and flee a battle? Hopefully more than just the metagamish approach of just trying to race the enemy to the edge of the map.

I prefer eliminating the concept of demons (and angels) because I think manifesting either good or evil as an entity cheapens the ideals and actions of the various "normal" characters in a story. Especially in settings with ideas like having fallible gods, it doesn't really make sense for there to be entities that are completely divorced from that notion: that all the participants, no matter how mundane or exalted, are complex composites of beliefs and attitudes. What I want to see is (not literally of course) that if you asked a magic mirror on the wall: "who is the evillest of them all?", that the answer would be a human. And if you asked it: "who is the goodest of them all?", the answer would be a human.

...and if there really is a God, it will be necessary to abolish him! - Bakunin, via DOUG the Eagle I wonder what on kind of scale the power the gods of this setting can muster. Can they actively smite people or do they need to go through their agents/clergy? It is possible to antagonise and earn the emnity of a god without dooming oneself? I neither expect nor desire any sort of high-powered god-killing campaign from the game, at least not until later instalments, but it'd be interesting to be set against one, or indeed many of them. EDIT: I was a bit confused about the DA3 thing, until I remembered you're meant to be playing an Inquisitor, so I wouldn't expect to be an atheist Inquisitor (Nobody expects the atheist inquisition! and all that). DAO allowed from the outset, at least in the Noble origin, to declare yourself a heathen unbeliever, which was nice.

For people who backed the Broken Sword Kickstarter, they've bringing up their accounts management system progressively right now, and I like how they're doing it - an integrated page which has your pledge balance, ability to allocate that balance, T-shirt design and size selection, and PayPal topups all in the same system. Quite elegantly done and I'd be pleased to see Eternity be managed in a similar fashion instead of a plain survey sent out. (And since Obsidian backed the project, they can see themselves to better facilitate stealing it )

Maybe a hose clamp could hold you over? If only my frame didn't have a weirdly shaped silly proprietary seatpost collar (not even a clamp really) it may even have been repairable, but alas. Lesson learned I guess, less fancy tubing next time.