Tigranes

We are told the JEYNE KASSYNDERRR overload is because the intros were recorded separately then pieced together, and that this should only happen at the intro. That drinking game probably gets a bit harder afterwards.

How does a completely random loot with highly variable stats make any sense in that setting ?The reason games like Diablo have random stats on loot is because you can grind bosses forever to find that perfect combination of stats for your style. If there's no grinding in Dungeon Siege it means you're at the mercy of random stats, which can have more effect on the difficulty than desired. You can check out King's Bounty for an example of how that works (completely single player turn-based strategy game with highly randomised loot so sometimes you can never find some of the spells or complete some sets). It adds to the replayability because you will never say "I know where X and Y is let's hit there then use the bonuses to build the Super Optimum Build #1". Each playthrough becomes a bit more dynamic and encourages you to build different types of characters.

Characters stay in their respective campaigns - it's more like single player + co-op. So you don't make a single character and keep grinding him//her across different games and do boss/mob runs, etc - you play through the campaign with friends or strangers, whether from start to finish or in bits and pieces.

I'd wager it's a too-early thing, too.

Should be Europe.

Items clearly change appearance. However, since loot is partly randomised and there are literally thousands of permutations, the visual differentiation occurs by tier. This is obviously hard to tell in the demo, because you'll only get a dozen or so drops. I've seen clearly different looking pieces, though. With helmets, isn't it that Lucas does have a helmet but it's not visible? I couldn't care less but it is a weird choice.

Craft: Bubblegum

I've removed your avatar using my magic powers; try now.

Moved to the right forum; also see the other Duke thread. Did Gearbox really have DNF for two years? I thought less than a year just to get it out the door.

Never did end up playing Civ V. I think my reaction was this - one army per unit and hexagon are great improvements, but in the end, they're improvements that directly run up against, and expose, the fundamental limitations of Civ's army/combat system (which, in a word, is ****). It was going to fix some problems, but in doing so it just shows how screwed up the whole thing is and how totally unrelated it is to actual warfare at any level of abstraction. I think one way to fix it without changing Civ too much is to zoom in a lot more. Because they design a map as if it's the entire planet, everything is ridiculously oversized; what if the scale was more like an entire map is a landmass sized something like France? The landscape is more detailed and you actually see important things like mountain passes, bridges, etc (terrain matters in Civ but almost never), army positioning actually makes sense (instead of 6 unnits surrounding an entire city), and then Civ's core citybuilding mechanic of outlying roads, farms, etc really comes to the fore. ...Oh, wait, Rise of Nations.

Yeah, if you were doing normal swings 7-8 times every time you used an ability, I'd think that your focus would probably come back up fast enough for you to not notice. If you used them more, though, you'd find that you run short. Did you get far enough to level up? The demo lets you go up a couple of levels and choose new abilities to use as well - I remember using one where Lucas throws some sort of ranged 'beam' that slows enemies or something. So he definitely isn't your typical swing your sword all day fighter. I agree the PC controls are pretty annoying at the moment, so that probably meant you weren't able to experiment as much. You might still dislike the game, but at least you'll get to see everything it can do first.

You can always use the defensive stance as well - in that stance, all characters start with an ability that lets them regain health one way or the other. If you were using Lucas just to swing at enemies and not worrying about the 'blue stuff', then you were hardly playing the game, really. I'm not saying that to accuse you of anything, just saying you should probably have another go and make full use of the character and see if it's any better for you. If there were only orbs it would definitely suck, but I found that after a while, they're not even your main source of health or focus - you fight to put your focus back up (blocking or hitting), you use your various abilities and equipment properties to refuel your health, and then, as a bonus, sometimes you get orb drops.

Thanks you two, good learning for me. I've built a PC before but that was years ago and I'm a bit wary of managing SLI/Crossfire or such. I'm probably happy to pay a bit more for peace of mind at this point, since I've often heard of people having various niggles with SLI/Crossfire. I'm currently planning to get one screen, 23-7". At some point I'll get another one, but to multitask rather than to use Eyefinity/etc. (The twin 6950 ratings on those tests are sure droolworthy though.) Although, is it inconceivable that I could add on a second 580 a couple of years into the future? Or would that just not make any sense cost-wise?

Yeah, Dark Messiah shows even when your entire game isn't all that great, it can be bloody fun just buy incorporating environment interaction. I suppose to go through with it properly, it really changes it a lot of things - asset management, level design, etc. If you just added it into TW2 the way it is now, it'd be pretty limited - mainly throwing people off high places (which you could do with Aard anyway, I had great fun with that in Vergen).

Of course I'm not American so it may be difficult for me to see it in the same way, GD, but I recall you've consistently mentioned this for years as your major personal problem with Obama. To me, Obama is actually the one that speaks normally and matter-of-factly about his country and countrymen. It's been the various other presidents and/or candidates that won't shut up with the stupid flag-waving crap about how America is super-duper-amazing. Now, it's 100% right that presidents should believe America rocks, and in many ways, America does rock. Still. I'm fully behind that. But to me the flag-waving is always excessive (i.e. excessive so constantly that the excess is now normal), and sometimes gets in the way of seeing the issues properly. A good president should always start from the basic position that his country rocks and is worth fighting for, but equally ready to speak about where the country is not doing well or needs to take a frank assessment of itself and change. I think this especially comes up in comparison to other countries' presidents - Obama actually still comes out as a stronger defender of America than many other world leaders are of their own countries. Unless we're assuming that Obama, being the US president, should be more arrogant and bullish... Add to this that Obama was coming on the back of the Bush administration, and then hit the GFC, which was always going to be a time for more sober re-assessing, and I really think he's been quite sensible. I don't have the knowledge to judge his specific policies across the board, but I've never felt that he was bending over for anyone, just not thrusting hsi crotch out like some of the others. I mean, look at the whole thing about him bowing to greet certain world leaders. What is he, Alexander the Great? Are we in the middle ages where emperors get in bitchfights with each other about honorifics? If there was an instance where Obama has clearly let his respect for other nations undermine his defense of American interests/values, I'd be interested to know.

You can buy a digital download copy on Game.co.uk or similar places, and you'll be able to download it on the 17th of June. Of course, with the crap we call Steam, it might still prevent you from registering and playing the game until the 22nd if you're in the US.

The advantage Runic Games had is that their entire business strategy was always about Torchlight 1 building up to Torchlight 2 (and then to the big MMO, if they're still going for that). If they had to do that with an existing franchise or something, I imagine Torchlight 1 would have got a LOT of flack. I liked it but it was a very limited game.

Use ESC -> Help in the demo to see the exact explanation for those qualities (and Agility as well). From memory, retribution is a damage return stat - enemy hits you, enemy gets damaged.

My sympathies, Blank. I'm still here and willing when you're comfortable with going through.

Nevertheless, please do not link to or quote impressions/information from the leak - we will err on the side of caution here.

I'm sorry I can't help more - I'm just a community mod and am not privy to any info the developers themselves might have. Funnily enough, though, you appear to have solved a problem other people have had - how to do a KB/M + Controller local co-op on the PC! I suspect it will be a lot more sensible in the full version as to these options.

Please remember that we can't link to or quote impressions or thoughts from people who are playing the full game already - since they are most likely stealing the game, and it is rather silly to encourage or implicitly accept piracy on the developer's own forum. This will, of course, change in about two and a half days. I realise sometimes people get games early legitimately (retailers breaking dates, etc), but at the moment... As for how important that information is, that is up to you to judge. Myself, I've seen so many games where at release you get a huge torrent of impressions, both laughably positive and negative, and find that it takes people a couple of weeks to give the game a proper go and get some proper impressions (unless they've ragequit, in which case, how valuable is that opinion?).

I'm a tech moron, but perhaps it has to do with VSync? (Which... can we turn it off in the demo? I don't think we can?)

From the very start I always thought talk about DNF is more interesting than the actual game, which was always going to fall short. Not that I thought DN3D was that special, once its time had passed. Interested to hear if anybody's really taken to it though.

*shrug* the OP is perfectly right though. Judge for yourself.