Humanoid

Even with home theatre setups, the quality of upscaling is pretty variable - optimally you'd find which component in the line did the best job, and make sure it and only it is set to do the scaling. It may be the playback device, the receiver, or the TV. But I digress - on pixel density, sure, I can't say I wouldn't take a smaller dot pitch, but with qualifications - I believe a colour photograph is no more than a few hundred dpi. I note that even the vaunted and cleverly marketed retina display is not currently handled by MacOS meaningfully, other than scaling the entire desktop 2x - you can't set the desktop to the screen's full resolution. And yet sharp details are perfectly fine on it. I believe it's a red herring to pursue dpi presently: the issue with older games is not so much the pixels, but the large increase in viewable area, or more accurately, effective viewable area. I do not believe an increase of the kind we've seen over the last decade and a half will ever repeat, since the issue is no longer one of technology, but that of ergonomics. With that in mind, I believe the most important thing needed are fairly simple forward-looking elements - making sure UI elements are not fixed by pixels like the titles of yore, and making sure the game can peg display area to screen size instead of screen resolution. The art itself is not an issue, any reasonable scaler will not degrade the quality. That said, it's unfortunate that the cheaper end of modern displays seem to lack reasonable scaling options - to the point of not even being able to leave the input aspect ratio well enough alone, or even just display the input pixel-for-pixel. This however is a hardware problem, not a game problem.

Wouldn't have been all that profitable for me since there's only two EA games left on GoG that I want and don't already have: Syndicate and Theme Hospital, which haven't been put on sale since they appeared. As it stands, I have 18 of the 26 non-free EA-GoG titles.... Out of all the stuff that was gettableon Origin, I only have ME, ME2, The Sims 3, SimCity 4, and DAO; but even if I could pick any of them up for free right now, the only one I'd really consider is Spore, which I've never tried.

Some time ago I believe there was an issue with the Australian Origin store where a handful of games (about 10) all got marked as being $0. Those 'purchases' were honoured too, so I guess it's precedent of a sort. Though back then, it wasn't any shenanigans to do with discount codes, fake addresses and cookie wiping, it was just a plain pricing error. While I had caught word of the latest problem shortly before it was fixed, the list of products it worked with - bearing in mind the code was specifically written and coded correctly to not work with new release games - was pretty underwhelming, so it's not really a huge deal. The list:

It can occur when your narrative starts to repeat itself, which makes it more of an issue of writing quality than of absolute length. In the same way there are some movies that feel too long at under two hours, yet others that can grip you for four or more hours. So there is a point, but it can, with increasing difficulty, be pushed forward indefinitely. That said, probably best not to watch the entire ~15 hours running time of Berlin Alexanderplatz in one sitting.

Probably easiest to think with a game designer's hat on. What are those hypothetical adventurers doing to have been put into the game? Maybe they have a quest item on them, even if you don't have an official quest to retrieve it. Maybe they're on a quest of their own, which you now know about and can now do in their stead. Or maybe it just turned out they were public enemy number one in a neighbouring region. In any of the above, or any other, cases, the encounter would have links to some future outcome (they may be the beginning of a chain, or you may have blundered into a chain midway through), not just something placed there for the hell of it.

It's just a simple observation of what's missed when the argument of "doing something" needing to inherently be worth XP is made. I certainly don't back it, but it also illustrates the flaw of the argument that balancing doesn't matter in a single-player game. And while it's not a point I had intended, it's interesting to me now to observe that reducing the XP reward for a hypothetical repeat-sneak is sort of double-dipping on the penalty, unless as a parallel, the second kobold you face at level one is worth less than the first.

Just thinking out aloud, I'm picturing a scenario where to get between two different area, you must navigate a tunnel full of foes. There's no real point to the scenario, just that the concept of it amuses me. You sneak through to the other side, 1000xp You kill some or all of them to get to the other side, 1000xp At this point nothing is contentious, what is, and what the topic of this thread is, is whether you can claim both of those XP blocks in the same playthrough. But that discussion has come and gone for me, what mildly amused me is the image of you then sneaking back through the same tunnel to get back to the first area. Now "realistically", this "should" be worth another block of XP, the quantity doesn't matter. Maybe after enough repetitions it'll become like taking candy from a baby and award nothing. But I wonder, would a "traditionalist" who claims that on the basis of realism, you should be rewarded for killing those enemies after they've been bypassed, see anything wrong with the notion of repeated XP rewards for sneaking past those same foes? After all, you're doing/accomplishing something and should be rewarded for it, no?

I imagine the most that would happen is that they add one of those scaling goals for any amount above $3.5m, a'la the dungeon levels, instead of having fixed binary goals.

I had sort of already decided on how much to pledge even before reading any part of the reward structure - instead it was more or less decided based on how much I wanted the game in comparison to the previous games I had pledged for. So my manner of thinking was, "Hmm, I've pledged $100 to Moebius and Broken Sword, and $150 to Wasteland 2. I'd like a new Obsidian game a lot more than the former two, and a little more than the latter one, so I'll go in about $200." Alas when I opened up the Kickstarter page for the first time, there was no $200 tier, so I waited a bit to decide based on the information going out, whether to lowball it or highball it. Ended up with the $250 mark ($280 shipped). With present information at hand I'd value the game at the low-300s, so I may add on a couple physical trinkets - but I can't stretch for $500, especially as I've just found out a couple days ago that I've cracked the frame of my road bike and will have to buy a new one. I've actually got half a mind to, instead of doing any addons to my pledge, open another account at Kickstarter and make a separate pledge for $65, because I'd rather have a second boxed copy than say, a couple of T-shirts. (The rational - well, comparatively more rational - part of me says that even if I could pledge $500, I'd be better off doing in as two separate contributions instead of going for the $500 tier ....ahhh, that's the silly accountant side of me that I always try to repress)

The point is that you may find the combat approach to be the most enjoyable one. ....just as the stealth junkies play the stealthy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them. ....just as the speech junkies play the speechy way because it's the most enjoyable way for them. If no one finds the combat solution to be the most enjoyable, then the problem is entirely nothing to do with the XP system, but because the combat mechanics turned out to be unfun and should be redesigned.

Aside, would just like to note that we've just passed Double Fine's final Kickstarter-only figure: $3,337,163, over $3,336,371.

No live count as such, one of the project guys will semi-regularly post a manual update in the Kickstarter comments - check the filtered comments here: http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/obsidian/comments

Assuming the Adventurer's Hall works how I imagine it would, it also provides a further measure of insurance against the perils of perma-death - the other being the claim that the game will be at least somewhat balanced with less-than-maximum party sizes. Not sure if it's been answered, but would be interesting to see if the player character is expendable - does the game continue with the rest of the party as if nothing happened? Do you get teleported to the Hall and made to create a new character? Outright game over screen?

Not the advice you want I'm sure (and it does feel kind of weird posting it on a game developer's forums, but I'm talking local context), it may be your dream but do some research on whether those dreams you may have match the reality of the industry, particularly in Australia. There was a big thing relatively recently about the working conditions and subsequent implosion at the studio that developed LA Noire, and talking with friends about it (yeah, usual friend of a friend type information), that kind of situation is closer to being the norm than it is to being an exception. My impression is that it's a bloody meat-grinder out there.

I remember there was an exploit where you could confront the skinner guy over and over for infinite XP. Horribly inefficient of course since it was probably something like 1k XP per dialogue.

As mentioned, the threshold is $1000AUD, and anything above that is a triple-whammy: you are charged the 10% GST, import duty (varies based on what the goods are classified as) and a processing fee of $40-60 depending on import method and declaration method. I've never 'legitimately' had to go through the process, but there was one time where I imported a bike worth about $800, which was mistakenly tagged as over the threshold because it came in two separate boxes: one for the frame and one for the wheels. Each box had the same copy of the invoice so customs added up the values and tried to charge me based on a calculated value of $1600 (GST+processing fee, as complete bikes attract an import duty of 0%). Got it sorted by forwarding the original invoice to their mailbox and didn't have to pay anything. You can use services like "viaddress.com" for receiving goods in USA and then from there ship to europe. When you ship you can declare any value for the goods.... wow! is this legit? It's not legit to declare a value lower than the actual value of the contents. You'll only run into problems if your package gets inspected. I do not agree, onece the material is in my home (viaddress home) I can ship it everywhere in the world and if I decide that it value is 5, 10, 15, 20 dollars it's up to me and to no one else. Regards Completely depends on the policy of the country it's being sent to. Over here in Australia, customs can and will inspect packages and value imports at "reasonable" market rate if it's apparent that the value has been underdeclared. If lucky, that's all they'll do, but worse can happen. It'd probably flag future imports to the same address as being suspicious too.

A third big city, obviously. And a greenlight for Tim to start his own Kickstarter drive for a massive, multiple volume, hardcover cooking encyclopaedia.

You can use services like "viaddress.com" for receiving goods in USA and then from there ship to europe. When you ship you can declare any value for the goods.... wow! is this legit? how much would you pay for one package? I'm sure there are a LOT of backers that are not in US and would like to use something like this if it's legal and solves the customs issue. If Obsidian could look into this... it would make possible for a LOT of backers to raise their pledges a bit more. You misunderstand the concept slightly - it's something you alone set up, for the sender it makes no difference in what they do. You sign up for an account at a mail forwarder (like the aforementioned viaddress, or one of many others such as shipito, comgateway and hopshopgo), they provide you with an address, which will be their warehouse in the US (ideally in a state where sales tax won't be charged) and receive the delivery on your behalf. As far as Obsidian are concerned, that's where you live. The forwarding company then sticks that in another box and sends it off to your real address for the cost of shipping (weight and volume based) plus their cut. If you take this route, remember to take off the shipping part of your pledge from Kickstarter. Generally I only use a forwarding service to get around delivery restrictions - many stores won't ship certain items, or indeed anything at all to Australia. But it's very rare to find the case where the forwarding will come out cheaper than the original vendor's shipping charge. EDIT: Motivations to import in other countries vary of course - Australia has a very generous limit of $1000AUD before any tax/duty/charges are applied to imports. For those Brits who've never imported outside the EU before, my understanding is that the corresponding threshold is a mere 15GBP (40GBP for gifts). For any import valued at 15.01GBP and above, you're hit with VAT, plus a flat 8 quid admin fee. Above 135GBP and customs duties are also charged, though I don't know the detail or the rate - this may or may not be an issue for those pledging at at $250 tier and above depending on how the shipment value is stated.

I'm not so sure about the belief that Bioware can still do good characters: it feels more to me like a case of some aspects of their writing had fallen off earlier than others, and character writing was just one of the later parts to fall away. It's the difference, to me, between ME2 and ME3 - the stupidity of the overall plotting only increased marginally, but the character writing fell off a cliff: it's not an anomaly, just the natural progression of the decline. Usual disclaimer that I didn't finish through ME3, opinions etc, but my view remains that ME3's faults are much more pervasive than usually claimed. Poor start, poor middle, poor ending.

I can see fixing two dates (or one) as deadlines for various aspects of the drive. The feature-lock date, and the physical goods deadline date (since they have to deal with nailing down order volume for the various doodads). By all means though, there should be no problem with continuing to take money for the digital tiers, provided it's made clear that this cash goes in the bank as pure pre-orders, not as project funding. For what it's worth, Double Fine are still taking money, but only at the base level: stuff like T-shirts had been mailed out some time ago now.

Recommending gamer oriented graphics card is easy nowadays: Mainstream: 7850 Performance: 7950 There can be some arguments made for cards above that level, but not in terms of good value. Below the standard recommendations are the 77x0 cards, but the 2GB variants are wasteful. This is all based on US pricing though, which goes from about $100-120 for the 77x0; $160-180 for the 7850, $300-320 for the 7950, and $400+ for anything above. If you can stretch for it, try for a 7850, it's a massive gain over anything below it, both and stock speed and even more once overclocked (which it excels at).

Have a play with Anandtech's GPU comparison tool: http://www.anandtech...bench/GPU12/372 Any context as to why these three are your only options? (Especially since you imply it's not a price thing) EDIT: What I'm particularly not grasping is why you're specifically going after the custom 2GB variants of what are entry level gaming cards. Each of those cards normally comes with 1GB of RAM, which is just as well since they're not really powerful enough to drive the resolutions and AA-settings that 2GB would allow.

In terms of efficiency though, I find paper much much faster and more accessible (all I need to do is look down), so I'll probably always take that route. No reason not to support an ingame function of course though, but I observe that it should, to at least try to match the convenience of paper, be accessible anytime - whether you're in a menu, doing a minigame, in combat, or whatever.

Nitpick: that "back us" banner at the centre-top of the forum really needs a transparency channel.

I think the way DA:O handled it correctly - in terms of execution but not in the way of it being the only path forward - a battle you're designed to lose, but can win with sufficient luck/effort/cheese. Talking about that big battle with the general which is meant to end up with you being imprisoned I think, but no personal experience since I quit before reaching it. Short point is that it shouldn't, in my view, end with a game over screen. EDIT: Another example - the final Behemoth mission in Wing Commander 3.