Humanoid

I fully accept the position that backing a game proposal on Kickstarter is not economically rational. But economically rational behaviour is what led us to the lamentable, creatively bankrupt, blockbuster-oriented current state of the gaming industry. Therefore I will embrace and celebrate the irrational amongst us - I paraphrase, but the saying goes "a reasonable man adapts to the world; an unreasonable man adapts the world to suit him - it is therefore upon unreasonable men that change depends on."

Wouldn't even need to change the character graphics for the gender switch!

Apparently the Enhanced Edition is activated now - but there may be an issue with a corrupted patch pre-download which can be manually rectified with replacing parts 1 and 2 from the following: http://en.thewitcher.com/ee_manual reference: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/installer_corrupt/page1

A walled garden within a walled garden. *explodes*

^ Given the budgetary limitations though, I'd rather not see an attempt to create a completely new set of gameplay mechanics which aren't guaranteed to be used again for future projects. Would much rather see the use of mostly established nuts and bolts under the hood and focus the effort on content creation. Question then is what balanced and proven game system can be had for zero-to-minimal cost?

Just because I can do something on a harder difficulty, doesn't mean there's any extra enjoyment to be gained from it. Prime example is DAO's first Ogre in the tower in Ostagar. Just about everyone employed the run around in circles while shooting it strategy, and so did I on the first time around. Wasn't compelling gameplay in any way shape or form though. So next time through I set the game to easy right from the beginning to bypass the tedium.

Which is just another example of ME3 paying for ME2's sins. Biting off more than they can chew and so forth.

Those Heroes Chronicles standalone campaigns based on HoMM3 were such cynical cash-ins, but having skipped them initially, I'm rather happy with them being available on GoG. No matter how questionably written, HoMM campaigns do enough to keep me in.

Voting for which concept gets first dibs is open. Early numbers showing that the Moebius one easily ahead - one imagines because of the Gabriel Knight comparisons.

To fix ME3's plot, the first thing one should do is fix ME2's plot. Seriously, partial reboot up to the end of ME1, but with ME3's gameplay format would be the cleanest way to do it.

Inspired by the Kickstarter discussion thread, MOO2, for the first time in about 7-8 years. Getting crushed on average difficulty a number of times, could only win (and easily at that) with the overpowered Creative perk. Never was particularly good at it, mind, and I remember the reason not loving it as much as I could is one primary annoyance, building bloat. Just so many uninteresting things to build by the lategame that it becomes a chore.

Got to admit I know nothing about the original but what interests me about that picture isn't what's in the foreground - it's that it looks like a city with its skyscrapers mostly intact. That, and how lush the greenery is.

Of course, and that's my expectation - but it's not like there's a whole raft of alternatives out there, hence it's always worth at least tracking the development status of anything out there in the genre.

If I had to choose between two story concepts with no context, one being a summary of DAO and the other of DA2, I'd choose the latter every time. I am an anti-epic storytelling gamer and choose the tighter, more personal narrative every time. Even at the most cliched level - either a game with a quest for vengeance versus a quest for saving the world - revenge wins out for me as the narrative driver a hundred times out of a hundred. The top two reasons I loathe DAO are narrative then combat. The top two reasons I didn't even try DA2 combat then level design.

I support "story mode" 100% - provided the non-combat bits of the game are strong enough to support that style of gameplay. The issue then with that original developer suggestion was because in the context of Mass Effect, it would lead to long stretches of non-interactive or minimally interactive cutscenes. And this is the image I think people are getting in the various criticisms in the last dozen or so posts with regards to that proposal. I maintain it would be a tremendous boon provided the game was developed from the ground up with that idea in mind, it just requires a broadening of scope in what people believe an RPG to be. And for context, my favourite CRPG of all time is still Ultima 7. How did I play the combat? I hit the 'C' button, all my companions would run off and squish any nearby hostiles, and I'd collect the loot. And I had a blast playing like that. On the flipside, I don't enjoy dungeon crawlers at all, hence my disillusionment at Skyrim and complete non-interest in the recent talk about Grimrock. "Legends" like Eye of the Beholder do absolutely nothing for me. My dream remains a CRPG set in a generally non-hostile world where non-combat solutions are the norm, and the combat is generally considered the side-option.

My list would just a whole bunch of ex-Origin/Bullfrog/Microprose properties - such as Strike Commander F-19/117A Stealth Fighter Privateer Crusader System Shock Syndicate Populous Pirates! Theme Park/Hospital Dungeon Keeper Darklands Transport Tycoon Covert Action Master of Orion Masters of Magic Machiavelli: The Prince Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix Jane's Longbow ...you get the idea. And a few outside that: Flashback Giants: Citizen Kabuto Betrayal at Krondor Arx Fatalis The Last Express Interstate '76 and some of the non-Core Sim-something games.

My trinket-grubbing self is a bit disappointed that the new $150 tier goodies are mutually exclusive - either pick a T-shirt, or a poster+coin+extra boxed copy of the game. Sticking with the original offering which was the latter but still, could have just thrown the shirt in.

That's why D&D armour doesn't come in L, XL and XXL.

Any changes worth doing a second trial weekend for? Or is it primarily affecting the max level players?

I wouldn't mind if looting any armor was just handwaved away. At most just have "scrap leather," "scrap steel plates," etc lootable from dead foes as appropriate - and *all* wearable armor needs to be crafted for one character and one character only (I'd say by a smith, unless they add professions to the player characters which I prefer they didn't) - from generic materials like that or from rare loot like monster hides.

Some laptops are built for more abuse than others - for the purpose I'd personally pick up a Lenovo X130 - it's just a ruggedised version of the popular X121 ultraportable (weighs a bit more naturally).

I for one like the implied focus on iOS. Not because I want to play it - I don't own a smartphone or tablet - but purely as a market tester. I have no intention of replaying BG2 on any platform - I'm burnt out on micromanagement of large parties - and have no desire to play BG1 (which I've never played) either. Instead I just watch in the hope of any potential success of a non-twitch RPG spurring other developers to explore this avenue for new games. It's the same principle in which I was happy to see Broken Sword 2 rereleased despite no new content (graphical and interface improvements only) - it was another step in the path that lead to Revolution now working on three brand new 2D adventure games.

In my aborted playthroughs of DAO (had no motivation to ever finish it), all the game did was make me loathe the nation of Ferelden and I'd like nothing better to raze it to the ground. Moving to any other locale, whether previously defined or not, would be therefore a guaranteed improvement. Not like dodgy French accents are any worse than dodgy ****ney accents - or German or Russian or Kiwi accents, whichever they choose to employ. Soft-reboot the series essentially, the setting is, at the moment, worth negative currency in my book and if it succeeds it will be despite it being a Dragon Age game, not because of it.

More elegant possibly would be having to choose companions in the first place instead of everyone of a given class getting the identical set of 5 cloned companions. Not a fan of that whole mechanic in general but I can see the design reasoning for it, allows a lot of shortcuts in balancing content. Would I prefer everything be soloable lone wolf style? Sure, but it's a hard thing to do.

I wouldn't say "most games" personally - cutscene incompetence is pretty pervasive in the genre. I'm not silly or cruel enough to go find a link to TV tropes of course. But at any rate, as much as I hear bad things about the plot in ME3, I, having recently attempted and failed miserably to get back into ME2, can't help but wonder how much of it is due to the rose tinted glasses viewing the previous instalment. ME2 had mostly ludicrous storytelling and I'm finding the gameplay nowhere as good as I remember it. Hopefully my cynicism after that dismal experience will make the final instalment a relatively pleasant surprise.