Tigranes

....actually, yeah. That was terribly terrible. And I'm exposed to Korean television here.

Why a pity? There's a new hole now that has to be filled. This is Obsidians chance. If only they had an RPG-that-is-not-South-Park in development for this chance.

Doesn't effect my gaming since I haven't played their games in a while, but if it's true it's a pity to see a RPG powerhouse go down.

I forgot to mention that after 48 hours in rice, my wet phone has now returned fully to life. I shall dub it the Ricephone in an ironic act of self-racism. Also, I've now installed my Monkey Island (Steam special edition) on it via Scumm. All hail emulation!

Of course in ear sound will never compare with proper studio headphones or actually good speakers. Etymotic and Sennheiser, esp. depending on how molds fit your ear, can be quite good earphone options. I don't personally know any bluetooth options, sorry, but I just don't see much alternative, since even in bluetooth the headphone itself is often going to be annoying to carry around.

Let's keep it broadly on the topic.

Good to see the AAA / pricing model / etc stuff get discussed more and more, though this particular article seemed to be written while drunk. There's a sensible intro, then a series of quotes, then I don't even know what he's saying at the end. It does present a difficult question for Obsidian. I have to assume that if the company is still serious about its original goal of an AAA RPG maker with its own stable of IPs, then it will already have arranged some next-gen contracts or at least pitches to replace the recently deceased one. It'll be critical for Obsidian to arrange something where they can release an original IP, or at least an IP that plays to their strength, AAA-title around a console release.

Not a bad thing, as I wouldn't trust them to write any new dialogue for existing characters. Having new NPCs is better. Even better would be real enhancements like new encounters and quests, encounter tuning, expanding original quests' options, etc., but instead we have romances and an arena. I understand about contractual and logistical difficulties behind, say, new sprites, but at the end of the day none of those are my problem. It's not my job to say to Beamdog "hey I understand why you can't do this bro". All I care about is what this product offers in comparison to modded BG, and at the moment, unless I really want to play on a tablet or Mac which I don't, it offers crap for $. Finally, if anything in BGEE persuaded me that these guys have the talent and the right design philosophy to make a BG3 I'd like, I'd support them by buying BGEE even though it is an inferior product; but so far, I've seen nothing that says they can design good RPGs.

I want to genuinely open your eyes to a life where you phone lasts at least 2 days under full load, so please check these out: http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ceca/ While I guess these both fall under the category of 'extra battery', they do so in different ways. 1) the Mugen power battery should simply be your primary battery since it has double the battery life of your default battery. 2) the wristband is designed for portability and the ability to charge anything. Caring around another plain phone battery in your pocket is a silly idea, especially if it leaks or explodes. that said, if you do get an extra battery from Mugen power, that DOES leave you your current battery as a spare if super necessary one day. I'm interested in 1/, but I own Sprint's 'special' version of Galaxy II which does not seem to be supported. And there is no way I'm going for 2/, which looks like both a fashion terror and uncomfortable. I'd be carrying the spare battery, if I get one, in my bag or something, though I should look up what's the best method. It has very similar dimensions to the Galaxy III, and feels just fine for me. I can use it with one hand (though typing with the thumb can be onerous, I have small hands) and I definitely prefer the bigger screen.

Now in Arnika, Wizardry 8. Bar a few rash moments resulting in character deaths, it hasn't been that difficult or grindy in Normal thus far. Once you pick a party, the tactical options you can employ in each battle don't seem that expansive, but we'll see as I level up, and make better use of abilities and items. Certainly fun.

With little hearts at the end of every sentence?

It depends on how much you fooled around and levelled up in Normal, but there are, or at least used to be, some interesting difficulty spikes - first halfway through Act 2, then halfway through Act 3. Act 1 is generally tame except perhaps for the highlands areas after the skeleton king.

I can never leave it alone and I use it for music, documents, web, messenger, and it mostly lasts a day, if just. Things are different with videos or games, but I'm not doing much of that at the moment. I may well get a second battery.

I'm certainly for nice speech rather than free speech, under that definition. And, in fact, large chunks of the developed world are, in practice. We only think we can deal with free speech because we've developed mechanisms to shield ourselves from its worst.

I've bought neither. Sorry.

No, he's expecting that kickstarter will lose its luster & pulling power and cease to be a beacon of hope for all fans of good old RPGs. Obviously.

This is no attempt at making one, this is an incompetent effort at reselling an old experience, packaged into an inferior form than what any mod user can enjoy. They're doing pretty much everything wrong, except beg that they can't make BG3 if we don't buy this useless crap. They're sure as hell doing their best to convince me that their version of BG3 wouldn't be missed if it never happened. If you want it on your iPad or whatever, go ahead, but I think I'll stick with the superior experience offered by modded BG on the computer. Meanwhile, if I want to monetarily support people trying to make good RPGs, there are plenty of ways I can pay $ to people that actually are making such RPGs, and people who have proven they are talented at doing so, neither of which is the case for Beamdog. I paid full price for Risen 2, Divinity 2, Obsidian RPGs, I funded Wasteland 2 and Dead State...

Oh, the argument's been made. A lot.

I have yet to find any good RPGs. The ones they make mobiles are always way too simple and boring, while good old classics like Heroes III or Fallout can be emulated, but usually theres the interface issue. If FFT can be played on Android, though, there's nothing better. It's not really anything similar to Final Fantasy, just a long campaign of challenging, tactical, turn based battles with highly customisable characters. In fact, Labadal, how do you run it on android? My Galaxy 2 would love to have it.

I'm gearing up to try Wizardry 8 for the very first time, and also on the cards is Might and Magic VI. I remember seeing W8 in stores and coming so close to buying several times. I was into Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate at the time, though, and something about the 'first person' view seemed uncomfortable. (At that time I could only afford one game every 6 months or so.) It's actually continued to this day, maybe a generational thing where I started with isometric games like IE games, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires. Morrowind was the entry, Arx Fatalis took a bit of getting used to, and even now Realms of Arkania is burning a hole in my hard drive (though that's much more to do with how difficult survival is than the perspective). Anyway, hopefully I can get into this and then Ultima Underworld and several other games open up. Tips / memories anyone?

Looks useless, as expected. A romance character, two characters, an arena. That's pretty much a medium-size mod, probably with better production quality but nothing else to distinguish. Engine and gameplay improvements look same as or far below what you can get with mods. *shrug*

So what is their identity then? I had assumed the hacking attacks were lulzy at best. I assume you're not into conspiracies, but I could imagine, perhaps, something like a loose demographic of strongly discriminatory gamers of age 30+?

I think it's notable how we take these quick shortcuts to distance ourselves and say I don't really care, or I don't really belong to the community/culture though I partake of some/many of its fruits, or none of the issues really matter, etc. We don't do it just with games (for one thing, if you look at this particular issue from the lens of social discrimination as a whole, it has very little to do with how important gaming is to your life), we do it with all sorts of things, because if we cared or felt responsible about every single one it would drive us crazy. Which is why we make decisions on what to invest in and bracket out the rest. Which is fine - but then, why the negativity? Am I or Morgoth a direct causal factor in juveniles calling everything on Earth gay in Call of Duty? No, duh. I might feel I have better things to do than care and rail about that and sign online petitions. But if I'm not, the least I can do is just recognise it's there, instead of trying to rationalise how that activist stuff never works anyway, or how I'm not really a part of it, or how it's not really a problem, how someone's being a nanny, etc.

Sadly, day one DLCs suck and platform exclusives suck even more, but they seem to have firmly stabilised as an industry norm. Whatever Obsidian might have wanted (which we don't know), I doubt there's much that can be done, though talking about how much it sucks can't hurt.

Today my phone dropped onto the wet bathroom floor, and proceeded to pick up several tiny droplets of water. It is now cooling off in a bowl of rice, awaiting the Moment of Truth in which it shall return triumphant, return permanently crippled, or not return at all. I think the monthly $7 I've been paying will cover even water damage, but of course, I probably wouldn't get a replacement until I'm back in the States. *shakes fist* Edit: Oh, and funnily enough, at one point we did blast girl group music over the DMZ as some kind of... I don't even know if they were aiming for seduction or demoralisation.