xzar_monty

Ok, thanks! Yes, I also noticed that priests' damaging spells tend to be themed around fire. This becomes very apparent once you meet those creatures who are actually healed by fire spells and you have to come up with alternatives. It's not so easy with a priest. I understand why people might be moved to pity him, but I found his combination of dishonesty and cowardice just too much for me. I certainly didn't want to kill him, but I didn't want him in my party, either. Which, by the way, can simply be good design: if an NPC provokes emotions like that in me, it often tells of good writing. Similarly, in BG2, I found Anomen quite irritating (good writing!) but I was still able to tolerate him long enough to produce a change in him, and I found Edwin's arrogance so annoying (again, good writing) that I kicked him out of my group quite quickly, even if he is clearly the best wizard in the game.

Heck. What makes it the most interesting? The reason I ask is because in both of my playthroughs, I was quite stern with Vatnir who seemed to be a very dishonest coward. I didn't like that at all -- and I didn't want to take someone like him with me. So, Vatnir is the only NPC/sidekick I've never had with me, even for a moment. All the others I can talk about, but not Vatnir. The only thing I made a beeline for on my second playthrough, btw, was that excellent two-handed weapon that you can simply pick up from the map (and has something to do with storm and lightning, later on. I'm 100% you know what I'm talking about.)

Quite. But to describe a lich as an "immortal undead" is like describing the Canadian rock band Rush as a "three-man trio". A person whose job is to write material for an official website should know that the qualifier is tautological.

Fair point! I didn't find an email address (which is no surprise), nor a feedback form.

Ha. I just checked some of the "Mythic paths" on the official WotR website. I must say Owlcat still leaves quite a lot to be desired when it comes to having a good grasp of the language and writing stuff that makes sense. First two spots: in the Mythic paths, the lich is described as "An immortal undead, a master of necromancy..." and so on. Anyone ever heard of a mortal undead? And the "Swarm that walks" is described as "An all-devouring monstrocity", which is nice, I suppose. Not a monstrovillage or a monstrotown, then. Maybe the folks at Owlcat could learn to spell. Btw, yes I am going to buy the game. But still.

Did you play P:K? I'm just curious because I'd like to know what you thought of the companions in that game. I mean, every single one of them was an over-the-top bunch of cliches. Cheesy as can be. Amiri, the female barbarian was probably the worst (for me anyway), as the butch stuff was just... so poor. For me, every single companion in both in PoE and Deadfire was a lot more believable and easier to relate to than any companion in P:K. Tristian had a bit of an internal struggle going on, which was good, but Owlcat went way over the top with his naivety and the image of good-goodiness. Anyway, I finished and enjoyed P:K, so that's there, too.

Thanks for these. I'll do some checking out now. @Sarex: Disco Elysium is precisely what I'd be looking for, you're quite right there. It's excellent, but the problem is I've already played it (of course you couldn't know that).

Hey, a question to all of you: I'm the kind of player who's into Deadfire-type games mainly for the story. CRPG happens to be my main genre, but as we all know, there's not much available now, particularly in the fantasy RTWP niche. So, if I were to try branching out a little, forgetting the fantasy and the RTWP but keeping hold of the main idea that "I love a game with a good story", is there anything (hopefully recent) out there that you'd think I might enjoy? Recommendations welcome and appreciated.

Not even close to either, I'd wager. Hey, does any one of you have an idea about the reasons for this recent move from RtwP to turn-based? Is the whole thing based on the success of D:OS2, or is there something else behind it, too? I'm really curious, because in my view, turn-based combat is a mightily poor idea(*) in CRPGs like these. But clearly there's a demand for it, since they added the option to Deadfire after its release... Heck, it's such a poor idea that that alone keeps me away BG3, as it's turn-based only.

Fair point, and thanks. Indeed, the dungeon crawl DLC in P:K was not interesting at all, and if there's anything like that intended for the next one (I'll check the DLCs out in just a moment), I won't get that one.

I totally agree with this. From what I've seen, it looks like another D:OS iteration set in a different fantasy world. I can understand why this is so: D:OS2 was a resounding success, so it's reasonable to continue in that vein. But that also means it doesn't look like BG at all. It would be nice if I liked both BG and D:OS in the same way I like both BG and PoE, but that's just not so. D:OS is uninteresting to me. Shame, really.

Yeah, if it doesn't then fair enough. As I said, it's a matter of taste. Here's an analogy: there's a successful game called The Football Manager. Some years ago, they introduced a 3D engine to the game, in addition to its traditional 2D. So, previously, as a football (soccer) manager you'd been able to watch the actual matches only in 2D with your players represented by stylized circles, but now you were also able to watch them in 3D. And for me, and quite a few others, this was an awful change: the 3D engine is an attempt at a realistic portrayal of a match, but it's so unrealistic that it's actually a lot worse than the crude 2D view. The sprites look nothing like the real-world players they are meant to represent, their movement is clumsy, and so on. I get a similar feeling with these close-up scenes. The artificiality of the bodies and their movements is so obvious that it feels immersion-breaking for me.

This is, of course, a matter of opinion, but here's why I don't think it looks impressive at all: there are far too many close-up shots. I find them immersion-breaking, because you can see how unnatural everyone's expressions and face movements are. Also, they are not in sync with whatever they're saying. So, in wanting to make things look more immersive and/or "realistic", this approach actually breaks immersion for me. The old BG2 graphics are dated, of course, but there's nothing immersion-breaking in them -- they leave an awful lot for your imagination, which is precisely what the close-up scenes in BG3 don't do. (I'm also one of those people who are almost never interested in movies based on books, as books tend to be so much better, for somewhat similar reasons.) But, as I said, this is a matter of opinion. BG3 is going down a road that I find completely uninteresting, but even though that's a bit sad, it's also fine -- I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, the game being like that.

Turn-based only, very poor-looking dialogues, uninteresting graphics. I wouldn't say depressing (that was someone else), but it certainly doesn't look like it's anywhere near BG2 in quality. (The first point, turn-based only, is enough to put me off the game. BG2 was so good that it's interesting to watch the development and reception of BG3, such as it is at the moment, but actually playing... no.)

This is interesting indeed. But for me, it also means a significant delay until I'll start playing. Given the bugs the previous game had, it seems reasonable to wait until all three DLCs are out and only then start the game. Which is perfectly fine.

There was once a discussion about which pain was worse, giving birth or kidney stones. After some back and forth, an attempt was made to find a person who had experienced both. Once she was found, she said kidney stones were worse. Experiences and circumstances differ, of course, so that's not a definite answer. In any case, kidney stones, as a painful experience, is seriously up there with the worst of them. Glad you're over it now.

As far as I can tell, the class/race specific options are both interesting and just minor flavour. So the dichotomy of your question is wrongly put. Every once in a while, your class or race may provide you with an option not everyone has. That is interesting, but it's just minor flavour.

One sad fact about translation is that it's very hard to do well, so there are too many bad translations around. One thing that might interest cRPG people is that the first Swedish translation of LotR is reputedly quite poor. Tolkien knew Swedish and was able to correspond with the Swedish translator, who has apparently a very haughty fellow. It didn't end well. Some of this correspondence has been printed in Tolkien's Letters. For years, the Swedes had to do with a very poor translation of the Ring trilogy, but it has subsequently been re-translated. (I haven't read either translation, as my Swedish is not very good at all.)

"Krankenwagen" is a nice example of a compound word -- which English doesn't use all that much. (Languages where you can build your own compound words essentially have an infinite vocabulary, if you count each compound word as a separate word.) One particularly interesting feature of the English language is the fact that no matter what language nouns come from, many adjectives referring to those same nouns come from Latin (or at least a totally different language). Think about it. We have teeth, but things relating to teeth are dental. We've got skin, but skin problems are dermal. We've got fingers and toes, and things referring to both of them are carpopedal. And so on, for quite some time. Some of these adjectives are really quite rare, not the kinds of things that 99% of native speakers know at all. For example, if something resembles or pertains to a peac o c k, it's pavonine. You don't see that word very often. [Edit: ha! had to put some spaces in that bird word, apparently it's very naughty!]

English has a large vocabulary partly because of its manifold roots. Think of globe / sphere / ball. They all mean essentially the same thing. One comes from Latin, one from Greek and one from Old English / French / whatever. Note that they only mean essentially the same thing. Context matters. I.e. you wouldn't call Earth a ball, and the thing you hit in tennis is not a sphere (well it is, but you don't call it that).

I seem to recall that there's also a difference in ship speeds: on Normal (or whatever it's called), the Defiant's default sails can outrun all ships in the archipelago (so you're effectively safe from everyone, if you want to be), but this is not true on the higher difficulties.

Here's a short and simple example of how and why feelings shouldn't be used as a judge. I think D:OS2 is essentially rubbish. I quit playing it after a couple of hours. However, my feelings don't matter at all, because the fact that I purchased the game means that I contributed to its success. My purchase matters, not my feelings. So, the important question is why so many potential buyers did not purchase Deadfire in the first place. How they feel about the game matters a lot less.

Where would your analysis be? As for BG3, turn-based combat is enough to put me off it completely. Also, the interface doesn't look inviting, and the way the dialogue is handled simply looks poor to me (too much like D:OS2, which also wasn't enjoyable at all). I'm not even going to give it a go.

Do you ever play on story mode? Just curious. I tend to like combat, if there's not too much of it, but my main interest is in the other aspects of the game. So if a particular battle seems like a nuisance to me, I'm prepared to switch to story mode (in Deadfire, I did this with the final battle in The Forgotten Sanctum, and in Pathfinger: Kingmaker I played the whole last chapter on story mode because of the absurd encounters).

Oh yes, most definitely. That's why I wanted him to clarify his post. Of course, it may be yet another case where someone can't tell the difference between personal opinions/feelings and critical analysis. But it may not. Let's hope he can clear things up.