Tigranes

It's not 'gamebreaking' in the way that hard crashes are, but in any case, releasing a new expansion means there's going to be bugs going around the system anew. Anyway, gamebreaking or not, inevitable or not, bugs suck. It costs a lot of money to keep patching a game, which is why it often cannot be done indefinitely, but hopefully they're able to push a couple more out.

I really liked how the game offers 3 options, and if you try to be the typical hedge-your-bets oh-it's-complicated, Devil says screw that, give me an answer. Sure, in a world without dialogue trees you could just go on and on about what you saw, but I think it delivers the point nicely: ultimately, life isn't about giving excuses or talking nuance until the sun sets, it's about making a choice knowing that the situation is always complicated and that something gets lost with either choice. (And that's also the case with Zahua, where there are many reasons for you to argue 'but hey maybe we can still...' - but the point is that you don't let go of the past because everything has truly been concluded, you let go precisely because there's still regrets left.) Anyway, I chose no, because I didn't really consider it to be about judging Harmke, I considered it to be about Devil and her quest. Sometimes we obsess so much about who is to blame and how exactly they should be punished - whether it be celebrities, politicians, people in stories, or those close to us - that we forget what we become in that vindictive process.

I'm nearly done with a 3.02 POTD playthrough using Zahua, Maneha and Devil, and I haven't really seen a seismic change from the respective classes in the pre-White March days in this regard. I'm not sure why it's a problem that the monk's unarmed attack deals zero damage to a few enemies like Ice Blights. That's what an immunity is. Anyway, a monk built for dual unarmed is very competent dual-wielding weapons. So he's not standing around uselessly, and there aren't very many crush-immune enemies. It is basically just like a Globe of Invulnerability or an enemy immune to non-magical damage in D&D. The party - and hell, even the monk alone - has to adapt, but it's not impossible. That said, I agree that the shouts were never particularly exciting. Engagement/space management generally has been much improved, but I've found that sometimes WM battles turn into a huge mess with some enemies literally running around in circles chasing each other.

Bruce, you smooth talker.

I'm sure it was just my brain short-circuiting. My point is that Eora's society, as a whole, would be shaken greatly by such a revelation, and it would result in social unrest - even if the majority of people ultimately retain their faith in the pantheon. It is highly unlikely to argue that everyone would shrug and say oh well, I never cared anyway I just obey for the powers. If POE2 tackled the aftermath, that's exactly what makes the revelation interesting: learning about the gods' secret in itself is, eh. What is striking is how this then causes ripples - people trying to say gods aren't real and make their own gods or move to bring down the religious authorities, people trying to rationalise the new information nin different ways causing a schism within the religion and creating different sects, and of course people still remember the Waidwen business. It's not unreasonable to expect that, having just experienced what increasingly seems like the real death of a God, and learning on top of that the artificial birth of the Gods, people might then move to broker deals with Gods to kill other ones, and start to contravene the existing rules governing the status quo (the rules that prevented Gods from killing each other in the first place), etc.

Sorry it wasnt clear what you suggesting, thats why I asked whats your ideal Romance implementation because I have the feeling you are going to say " I dont like Romance " I know you are experienced in gaming and past history on this topic normally reveals the vast number of old school gamers dont like Romance Extensive dedication of writing resources, well integrated into the setting / plot / characterisation, makes sense for the romance to bloom in that situation, isn't just a 'push couple buttons and have super shallow beautiful women with far too big breasts croon over you like both of you left your brains behind', and isn't just 'solve these 3 dialogue puzzles to get SEXXXX'? None of the stupid "pick the obviously right option between calling her an idiot and saying I care about you long time"? None of the offensively stupid "give gifts, get sex" (Dragon Age: Origins)? None of the hilariously bad sex scenes (Mass Effects, Dragon Ages, etc)? You'd think that's just common sense, but somehow it's not. I'll give you an example that's not so black and white: Final Fantasy VIII / IX / X. I'm not particularly thrilled about the romances in those titles. I find, for example, the male in VIII and X supremely annoying, and the female in IX and X kind of dull. Yet the fact that I am more or less forced to play one half of this romantic relationship throughout the entire game does not really annoy me, because it is clear that the romance is central to who these characters are and how they are changing, that is, the story and themes of the game as a whole. Their relationship proceeds in many small encounters with many different kinds of interactions, instead of "hi i like your hair" "oh um um *blush*" "sex time!". So even when I find the love interest character unattractive, and the romance is unavoidable and takes hours and hours, it is actually easier to appreciate the romance as part of the story, or even to look past it and enjoy the rest of the story. This is easier for me because I don't really enter into the idea that I am the PC. I'm playing to enjoy a story, and variously to empathise with the predicament of different characters. So it would be just fine, as a straight male, to play a character who is written all the way, for example, as a bisexual, a lesbian, whatever, and to experience different aspects of romantic struggles that character faces. What is not fine is the typical fare of putrid, patronising walking boobs lifted straight out of bad porn crooning over the player and asking me to fantasise - sexually and/or romantically - about my equivalent of topless prince come hither on a majestic horse. So, the point is, as I already said in very clear terms: just like Pillars should have not done a stronghold when it could not dedicate resources to do it properly, games should not do romances unless they can really do an extensive and well written one.

Wait, are you being ironic with that? Because it would obviously be a game changer for hundreds of millions of people. I'm being dumb, but I can't tell because of your last sentence. That's just you, clearly as someone who doesn't believe, just assuming what you think is the only sensible reason for someone to believe.

That's true, there seem to be only a few things that trigger based on miss - the rogue has a talent for retaliation, I think the barbarian had something? It would be interesting to have talents/properties that are very good and fire on a full miss, encouraging you to build towards a higher threshold of defences.

I mean what I said, no more and no less. Bruce, your take on it seems to have very little to do with what I said, and I don't consider the Codex or 'Promancers' or whatever particularly relevant... or interesting.

Everyone in the Pillars world is a believer in the gods and their creation myths. It's like someone standing up in a room in ancient Egypt and crying out that Osiris isn't real, or that Osiris was actually created by some old Assyrian dudes.

It's not really about anybody being 'against' romances, it's about how hard it is to do a video game romance that isn't utterly crap excuse for awful animated porn scenes and twelve year old fantasies. You have to decide whether to make a romance more central and dedicate a lot of time into making it good, settling for a stupid and boring love you long time romance like in most games, or just leaving it out. It's a decision similar to whether to insert a new game mode, an additional city or a new theme in your plot.

You can probably kill almost everybody, with the exception of: Especially if you kill them after you are done with them. And in the above's case, There may be some weird characters that just can't even be attacked because of their characteristics, e.g.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62420848/poe-areas.txt

That would be a full length game inside a full length game, all of which would be developed on a budget several times smaller than other major RPGs. They should never have promised so many levels for Od Nua. It is clear that on release, POE would have benefited from the same content applied to fewer maps, which would have allowed them to actually have some choice & consequences and richly packed areas.

Both Thaos and Iovara are pretty ridiculous if your concern about stories is that people behave in ways that we expect real life people to. Of course, that renders a whole lot of great literary works nonsensical as well. I tend to see any fictional character as an embodiment of a theme, an argument, a question. I don't need to worry about what Iovara did for fun for a thousand years or why she hasn't gone utterly insane. But sure, the whole "thousands of years" schtick is always silly. Who stays worked up about anything for that long?

If we consider the well known variants like the Ancient Greco-Roman pantheons, the very meaning of divinity, what a God expected of its faithful, how people thought of 'morals' in terms of God, etc., etc. was very, very different. Single god vs. many gods is not really the point of differentiation. What you're implicitly referring to is the Judeo-Christian tradition, really. And yes, that's what POE takes off in a lot of ways too, since for most people in Western modernity now it is very difficult to imagine a different kind of religion.

If you ask a hundred people they're going to have pretty different evaluations of what was a 'memorable moment'. The Irenicus cutscene outside his dungeon is fantastic, I personally don't consider the rest special (especially the Sarevok fight, meh). That said, sure, compared to something like the Myrkul conversation in MOTB, which is an incredible moment, POE I think (1) has a more understated and nuanced tone throughout, and doesn't really go for a lot of melodramatic moments. The text adventures, for example, are fabulous, and some of them have delightful illustrations. They're not 'memorable' in the same way, but that doesn't matter if they have their own qualities. (2) Thaos is a weak character and can't really deliver moments very well.

You mean when you load the game, they are already hostile? But the game should only have autosaved when you first enter the shop, if you alt-F4'd during combat? Not sure if there are any console commands to reset hostile state changes...

It's probably a minor bug. If you killed Raedric there's nothing to do until later on in the game. Don't worry about it.

It's not a bug, you need to input the commands correctly. AreaTransition AR_0601_Stronghold_Exterior North1 would work. (You might need to iroll20s first.) The game also automatically backs up a separate save before you enter the pit, so you will always have a save for White March unless you deliberately deleted it.

You know you can't go there because the way is blocked, where you meet Hiravias. Play the main quest, finish Act 2. (You have to meet the Duc of Defiance Bay.)

The black hound has nothing to do with the bhaalspawn and doesn't start at high levels.

I don't entirely disagree, but it's simply unrealistic to argue that Obsidian actively chose not to make the kind of games that they began the studio in order to make, as if they would really prefer to work on South Park and Armoured Warfare. You make it sound like they could have made a new IP full-blown MOTB with a publisher any time they wanted, and they chose to make it a NWN2 sequel because... it... uh, I don't know? I mean, I basically agree the individual points, but the way you put the pieces together seems to stretch unnecessarily towards some kind of "Feargus lost his heart" script. Ultimately, though, however much of it was outside Obsidian's hands or was down to their choices, Obsidian certainly misstepped in the Onyx era - as I said last post - and failed to produce solid foundations, e.g. their own IP that appeals to publishers as a profitable venture and establishes Obsidian as reliable in that aspect while showing fans there's something great there too. Hopefully POE will kick on, but we all know that's different.

What might be happening is: You charm an enemy. Charmed Enemy fights other enemies, all other enemies fight Charmed Enemy. Meaning, after a couple seconds, combat ends, because technically you're not in combat anymore. The game thinks it's just two factions fighting each other, just like what happens when you, say, lure a group of bandits into a group of trolls and they start killing each other. Of course, the moment combat ends, the effect you placed on them wears off - and then, presto, combat starts again. This is what happens to me a few times, and it's easier to tell if you have autopause on combat start. It's technically not a bug, though I think it should be fixed. The easy solution right now is keep fighting them, instead of letting the charmed guy do it all alone.

You'll get a thousand different answers from a thousand different players on this one, but I think one thing most people will agree on is that wizards are pretty amazing. You find Durance super useful. You also don't like his particular character. It's not the end of the world and no, not everyone else in the world feels that way. If you drop him your party's not going to be utter crud, and if you keep him you don't have to talk to him. How would you solve the problem, anyway? Write another priest? Then devs would have to write another wizard for those who don't like Aloth but also refuse to use custom adventure companions and also think wizards are irreplaceable. And ciphers. And... I mean, if you think priests > * and Durance < *, I understand, that's how it is for you and I respect that. I just think it's not a catastrophe here and you have options available to you.