Tigranes

And we're not talking about Steam being wildly successful writ large. We're talking about Steamworks exclusives deals that Steam has been brokering. So we'd have to assume that without those deals Steam would be significantly less successful, to the point that its reputation as a good digital platform decreases, to the point that devs/pubs are less inclined to agree to good sales prices, etc., etc. So I'd call that speculative.

While that may be true; you yourself opened the door to the concept of self interest. Uh... exactly. It's in your self interest to use Steam if you like it. Not so much to defend its profit strategies when it hurts consumer options. It takes some convoluted speculation to take up the position: "Even though I would still have the same access to the same games without Steamworks exclusives, I want Steamworks exclusives to actively detract from other gamers' experiences, and possibly my own should I ever not want to use Steam, because I speculate that in some indirect way it might have made them offer better sale deals."

It's also bad for anybody who for whatever reason does not prefer Steam in the present, and whoever does not prefer Steam in the future. We consumers are narrow-minded by default; one of my major annoyances was the broken Offline Mode, yet many people thought that was trivial because their lifestyles meant they were always online. All it takes is for their circumstances to change, or for Steam to add a new 'feature' that does not jive with their gaming life, for Steam to lose its luster. The above logic is pretty simple. If I don't want to use Steam, then Steam is bad for me. If I want to use Steam, then there's no positive or negative behind Steamworks... until I don't want to use Steam. Compared to that, it's a pretty convoluted reasoning to say "But despite those real & potential negatives I like the exclusives because that might be how Steam is able to give me the sales I want on a lot of different games".

Finally, Mae'Var falls, though confusion still hasn't worn off. Nepenthe and Deraldin, both confused, square up against each other. Nepenthe: BUDDY, YOU WANT A SKEWER UP THE- *hic* YOU WANT A SKEWER? Deraldin: YOU'RE A RIGHT OL' KEBAB, YOU ARE! A quick heal is all that stops Deraldin from revisiting Hades. Deraldin: OH, THAT WAS GOOD! YOU GOT ME RIGHT GOOD, YOU FU- Alright, alright. Eventually we settle down, and proceed to loot Mae'Var with impunity. The Shadow Armour will be a great boon to Manfred, our Imaginary Thief, as he adventures with us throughout the Sword Coast. *sob* We are offered the thieves' stronghold, but decline; our energies shall be directed to the Bardhouse we earnt after the Planar Prison, and the timeless mission of Art. Our reward for the endeavour is- yes, Manfred, it's for you! Isn't it a neat little sword? Oh yes it is! I bet it could lop off a hobgoblin's head just like that! Yes, Manfred! It's called the Short Sword of Back-sta-bbing! Go on, try it now- We level up like there's no tomorrow. After all that, we've technically accrued the 20,000 gold necessary to pursue Irenicus. We won't be doing so yet, of course; we are still not yet experienced enough. No. Of course, this does not stop a mysterious faction from mysteriously working out exactly how much money we have in our purse, then coming to us with a proposition to spend it. It's like targeted advertising to the max. Where there's one, there's the other. Well, there we are. With our reconstituted party we do need to do a few more sidequests, but provided we avoid more permadeaths, we can probably then move on to Chapter 3. I do have next week off from classes and meetings. I'll be working to set up some interviews for research, but hope to do at least one update then. Do vote on: 1. What deadly peril should we flirt with next? A: The Planar Sphere. Iron Golems, demons and an immortal possessed mage should result in some delightful violence. B: Trademeet. Animals, druids, animals, and druids. C: The Unseeing Eye. Pick this if you really want to move up the party queue, I guess. D: Other. 2. When we are ready, how should we chase down Irenicus? A: Ally with Valen's 'mistress'. In the graveyard we shall meet powerful undead and bargain for our own ends. We are sick of messing around with thieves. B: Ally with the Shadow Thieves. Everything's been swell with them so far, and they're not so mad that we just killed half of them. What could go wrong?

We pick up an excellent pair of boots of stealth from Mae'Var's strongbox along with the evidence. This will be immensely useful to our thief. Chilloutman: We ain't got none. I know. You people suck. Renal says we've done the rest of his job, we might as well go and kill Mae'Var too. You'd think he'd send us a little bit of backup, but nooooo. Yes, BBMorti. Drink upon the betrayal, the murder, the intrigue. Drink, and grow strong. We return to Mae'Var's compound, storming it fully buffed. All they will see is a rush of blinding rainbow-coloured men, then death. We cut through the low-level thieves in no time, and confront Mae'Var in his torture-room. Nepenthe: I hope we can loot that leather of his. Chilloutman: I ain't fightin' ya for it. After the mess with Rayic Gethras, we play it safe and sensible. Immediately withdrawing a fair distance, we earn the time to explode a skull trap; the cries from thin air tell us of numerous cloaked assassins. Greater Malison takes hold on them, showing their current position; one up front, two near the cleric. I cast Detect Invisibility, but for some reason, it doesn't reveal the thief. It should have been in the spell range, and I'm not sure what's happened. It costs us dear, however... ...as he backstabs BBMorti for 56 freaking damage. Guys, this is why we need a thief. BBMorti, three minutes after joining the party, receives his first death out of three. Well, that can't let us down. Another detect invisibility reveals the assassins fully; summoning monsters to distract the cleric, we quickly chop them up before Mae'Var arrives via Dimension Door. Mae'Var manages to get off a confusion spell, but by this time, all of his allies are dead. This should be no problem... Even our wild surges are working right. Confused party members wander the room, but do little to stop our progress.

The situation is dire. Rayic Gethras has access to 8th level spells and lower. Bypassing our Minor Globe of Invulnerability, he stuns me, Azure and Chilloutman, and drains Nepenthe. Worst of all, Deraldin is charmed. He's killed about eleven enemies in his entire adventuring career and now he's going to take us out. Off-screen, Nepenthe is also confused; our only hope is he kills Deraldin then starts on the wizard. But just a second after, Gethras comes in and takes Tale out. I genuinely can't say if we'd have survived. It would have been very dependent on luck; Deraldin and Nepenthe could easily have chopped the entire party apart. But this being semi-ironman, we won't accept full party wipe until it actually happens. We start by summoning some monsters, then take flight down the stairs. (Now, it's possible to wait and rest and totally cheese the area transitions. Some mods allow enemies to chase you down the stairs, and I thought SCS did, but apparently not. So in order to not abuse this, we will make sure to only retreat to the below floor as long as the monsters are alive, reasoning that the wizard will be reasonably distracted.) The monsters, of course, don't last very long, especially as Rayic Gethras can cast Death spells. We come back up after a few turns, spread out, then I cast a Wild Surge - Pierce Magic (a sixth level spell, not yet available to us normally). With a stroke of luck, it dispels most of Gethras' buffs. (I think you also see here a Dispel Magic hitting from BBMorti, on the bottom right.) We begin chopping immediately. All within a single turn, Deraldin now unleashes a flame strike... ...and chilloutman lands the final blow with none other than a magic missile. Gethras dead, we proceed to loot his heavily trapped dinner table. Nepenthe: He trapped his own dinner table? What is he, Durlag's cousin? I think so, yes. Gethras and a couple more menial tasks later, we have earnt Edwin's trust, and Mae'Var's, but we still lack the evidence to incriminate Mae'Var in the eyes of the guild. This is, of course, when we find that Edwin too has his own agenda, and is willing to betray Mae'Var to us so that we can betray Mae'Var to Renal so that Renal can punish Mae'Var for betraying him. Politics. Tsk tsk.

Deraldin: Aww, man. He's just an ugly dude in flaming pink. Nepenthe: That is some smokin' leather. For some reason, Mae'Var believes that the best way to integrate new members of the guild and to prove their trustworthiness is to assign them petty thievery missions across the city. What do you want to know, that I can steal things? Fine. Here we are at the Temple of Lathander. BBMorti: Why would they put chairs inside the central circle? How would you get in there? Question not Divine Architecture. BBMorti casts Knock, and Chilloutman grabs the Statuette for Mae'Var. It's a far cry from our good old chest-bashing days. Having fulfilled our first infant-task, we are assigned to the resident mage, who is none other than dear old Edwin. (I feel so sad seeing him here. In every other playthrough, Edwin is a staple in my party; I do Mae'Var straight out of Irenicus' Dungeon for this purpose.) Our next mission is to kill Rayic Gethras, a Cowled Wizard who's ticked off Edwin for some reason or another. Since just about everything ticks Edwin off, I assume this Gethras had the temerity of being a wizard and being alive at the same time. Gethras' mansion is filled with a menagerie of mephits. Clearly, this is the latest in innovative home design for the Athkatlan bourgeoisie. The next floor, golems. We're a long way from De'Arnise Keep now. Instead of attacking us at the same time as the mephits and the golems, Gethras chooses to face us alone, like some supervillain. He will regret trading tactics for drama... ...or not, given he's got enough buffs to fill a bucketful of steroids. Gethras is now temporarily invisible, immune to every spell we can cast, and indeed just about everything else we can do. Invisibility is easy to dispel, and we summon some monster fodder then spread ourselves out. Still, we're all sitting ducks... Oh, wild surge, you are yet again totally freakin' useless.

As the Shade Lord falls, the forest magically returns to daylight. Guess we won't need to clean up, then. BB-Up. We do some clean-up. We take the mimic's blood back to the weird old wizard, allowing him to complete his toy. Award-winning writing, right there. Such a pity the scene could not come to life with rapid, migraine-inducing cinematic cutting and edgy camera angles. The golem falls at our hands in about four seconds, raising the question of whether it would have been a useful invention even if it didn't go berserk. The wizard decides this means he must now give his daughter away to the random suitor outside his door who didn't even come in and help. Yeah, I don't know how that works out, either. Dude, it's a level. Up. Most importantly, we report our heroic deeds and ask for reward. The portly minister looks warily at our crew, perhaps wondering why it looks so different from two days ago, but says nothing. A hundred gold. Really? For killing a dragon and saving all of you from death you're paying me a hundred gold? When your inn charges sixteen gold pieces a night? I could kill you all. At least you kids are growing, so fast. I didn't really talk about our loot haul from the Shade Lord and Dragon. Immediately useful is the Reflection Shield that is to arrows like lightsabres are to energy blasters. The dragon's haul, parts of the Crom Faeyr and dragon scales, will require some forging work to be useful. (That reminds me, I forgot to do that... next update.) Returning to Athkatla, we're ready to take a less risky job while our kids get used to the hard life. No dragons, no forgotten dungeons. Local investigative work for the thieves guild should fit the bill. Can't imagine what would go wrong with that. Remember, foreplay is critical to winning good adventurer contracts. THe situation is simple enough. Mae'Var is clearly getting too big in the head for Renal Bloodscalp, so external intervention is needed. We are the externals. Deraldin: Think Mae'Var's a lady? A hot, smokin lady in thief's leather? Nepenthe: I could go for some smokin' ladies.

Obviously, their combat debut happens to be the Shade Lord, who you can barely see here to the upper right of the statue. We've buffed like mad for this, investing Negative Plane Protection on Nepenthe and Azure as they will go toe-to-toe with the Lord. The Shade Lord begins by making himself immune to all spells below 5th level, i.e. all of our spells, and magical weapons, i.e. all of our weapons. Wonderful. There is also Shadow Patrick casting a spell, the former companion of Mazzy, and the Shadow Altar which periodically summons some pesky shadows. Since we can't do much about the Shade Lord until the buffs wear off we quickly dispose of the altar, then pounce on Shadow Patrick. Unfortunately, Negative Plane Protection doesn't last that long, and Nepenthe gets chunked when the Lord rolls 20. Deraldin: Buddy! Nepenthe: I... it just wasn't meant to be, buddy. It just- Deraldin: BUDDY! Deraldin, as a cleric, can finally use the Wand of Flamestrike we had found earlier; it burns Shadow Patrick to a crisp. And now comes the annoying part. The Shade Lord's buffs still haven't worn off, and we are helpless as he pulls out some nasty special abilities. Still, everyone surviving are in relatively good shape, and we should stand a chance- -or, you know, he could cast Chromatic Orb on me, and I could fail my save. Again. (Remember that as the protagonist, Tale's death means game over, but we will try again, given we were far, far from a party wipe.) Let's try that again. We start off same as before, though now we've remembered to summon our Air Elemental. I trot off out of the Shade Lord's sight to avoid another embarrassment. All enemies are dead save the Shade Lord, who casts Globe of Blades and Improved Invisibility. We quickly dispel, then try an AOE spell which will not be nullified by his protections: Web. A wild surge, and a Nishruu is born. It doesn't do much, but continues to distract the Shade Lord as it flits in and out of webbed status. And finally, I think at least 20 turns later, his protections wear off. It's a smash and grab. He still has many powerful spells, however, and we need to get him down quickly. Azure: Even my long, sharp, rigid daggers cannot penetrate his hard shell! Alright, well, since we're out of time... Fireball. Nepenthe: Dude! I could have died! I know.

26. Athkatla: The Buddy Movie Click Here For Table of Contents Our first dragon-kill. A great achievement, but at the cost of fully half our party. Is it really worth it, I wonder? To have my comrades fall again and again, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies, unfulfilled XP, just to further my own goals for power and vengeance? Probably, yes. We decide to recruit some replacement meatbags. Given that we are in an underground dragon's lair deep in a dark, undead-infested forest in the rural regions of the Shadow Coast, adventurers are everywhere. Deraldin: I'm back! I'M BAAAACK! Nepenthe: Deraldin! Where've you been, buddy? Deraldin: Don't you remember? Nepenthe: Well, I remember you joined the party with me all the way back in Nashkel, and that we were intended to fill the Two Guy Buddies Who Lust After Women But Never Get Any And Instead Have Not So Subtle Homoerotic Undertones gap in the party. Deraldin: That's right, buddy. And we'd have done a great job, except some bloody spiders bit me off whole back in Durlag's Tower. Teleport + Poison Attack is such an OP build. Nepenthe: Well I'm glad you're back, buddy. No doubt you'll be slaying monsters and rescuing our party from trouble like the good ol' days. Why, yes, the good old days when Deraldin laid low ten whole enemies in the blink of an eye. That is, sixty-two days and nineteen worthless hours. Welcome back, buddy. Deraldin: Good to be here. We also welcome Chilloutman the Bard, only our second member in the profession since Rosbjerg. Rosbjerg has the honour of being the first member to be killed in the adventure, laid low by the fearsome Chromatic Orb. Finally there is BBMorti. (Since you don't have a portrait, we're going to have some unreasonably gargantuan mammaries. This will drive my ad revenue sky-high.) While they are all about as competent as I was back in Irenicus' Dungeon, they will have to play some catch-up to ensure they don't get picked off like flies.

Like the concept, specifics pending. It's a sensible mechanic, it's intuitive to players whilst playing, it inherently transforms combat mechanics, and can be manipulated by advanced players for tactical complexity. This will need to be met by good, solid movement controls & characters that don't 'glide', though using IE-style 2D/3D already makes that easier. Imagine having this mechanic in Aurora Engine variants, it would be a nightmare. I imagine Engagement will be clearly marked with an icon in the player portrait and/or simple graphics on the sprites, reducing accidental move-aways. If they implement Engagement range for longer-range weapons and give polearms some ability to 'rope in' nearby opponents into engagement that would also be a good RTwP way of simulating what Age of Decadence does in this regard (where, as it's turn-based, walking to tiles adjacent to a melee character risks getting hit and pushed back for your trouble).

I'll just concur with alanschu rather than repeat everything: And in the end, I'm not a developer, I'm a consumer. I'm willing to go pretty far to understand support what is good for developers like Obsidian, but it makes no sense for me to actively argue against my own interests, and the current Steamworks trend is without question bad for the consumer. For all of you that love Steam, getting rid of Steamworks-exclusive deals would not harm you in any way. So I don't know why you'd actively defend Steam taking away choice from other consumers.

How... do you have blood coming out your backside? Maybe that should take precedence over the other stuff... unless the health insurance business screws that up? Writing a short paper, trying to wrap it up before it gets to 3am.

"a move which reduces all gamers' options without giving them anything positive" Cutting deals where Steamworks DRM is applied to all versions of a game, making Steam a requirement if you want to play the game, is a move which has no positive benefits. Whether Steam as a whole is positive or not has no relevance. Obviously, they do it because it's part of a long term strategy to make sure Steam has a virtual monopoly on PC gaming and that all PC gaming business goes through Steam, making it a cash cow for years to come. That's very smart of them. Except I don't work for Steam. I'm a consumer. I'm interested in getting good service, and having options to choose where I get service. Steam is actively working to reduce those options. Therefore, I don't like them, and I'll criticise them. Why should I applaud their smart money-making when it doesn't benefit me?

Why would blaming devs/publishers make more sense than blaming Valve? Valve is the one that set the rules of the game that the devs/publishers had to follow to stay afloat. Valve, as a successful forerunner, to a much larger extent could set its own rules of the game. It chose to exercise that freedom in a way that sensibly furthers their profit margins (great), but also makes a move which reduces all gamers' options without giving them anything positive. It's simple enough.

Steam has become a lot more reliable and robust a programme, which makes it easier for me to rationalise the fact that I use it a fair bit now. But really, I know the real reason - Steam used its position as market leader to broker Steamworks exclusive deals for several high profile games, and as they predicted, I caved, because I wanted to play New Vegas and I didn't want to pirate. Now, there's nothing wrong with Steam being a market leader, especially since it has done that by offering good services to many people (which didn't include me, but that's fine). But the plain fact is that they are using that clout to make Steam less and less of a free choice and more of a default option.* Whether you judge that as 'bad' or 'good', laudable business strategy or distasteful, is up to you. What is not in question is that they are pursuing an effective strategy for effective (though not absolute) monopolisation of the sector. If Steam didn't embark on this strategy of making games Steam-exclusive (that is, Steamworks DRM on all copies, even boxed), then the argument that "more options are good for the consumer, don't use it if you don't like it" would be perfectly valid. But they did, so Steam actually reduces options for the consumer in that sense. I don't see how that is a good thing for anyone. If you loved Steam, then you could have bought every game on Steam even if it wasn't exclusive, and I could have got it somewhere else. I am not going to rage incessantly about them, because of course, if they were that baby-eatingly-terrible I would have just refused to play games like New Vegas. But they remain a distasteful outfit to me and I hope opportunities (other than piracy) arise to avoid buying anything from them. *No, "but nobody's forcing you to use Steam / play Steam exclusives / play games" is not a useful argument. Of course they're not forcing me, this isn't a life or death issue. That doesn't make everything OK, so it's a totally pointless rebuttal.

The better part of research, i.e. looking at 1930's toy mail order catalogues: "What a treat to be able to wash your Dolly's clothes! You can have washdays whenever you wish - and can keep all your Dollies looking 'spick-and-span!' This set has bright green and white enameled wash tub, wooden wash bench, 11 in. wash board, clothes reel giving 4 ft. of line, 12 clothes pins in little muslin bag, woven clothes basket 11 1/2x 7 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. with handles, ironing board with folding stand, and clever little nickel plated 'Sunny Suzie' iron, 4 x 2 1/4 in. $1.98." Good deal.

The start of TW1 is the castle where you get attacked, no? I imagine you've played zero/little beyond that tutorial area. I'd say that heavily cinematic area makes little of an impression, and the colour, texture and character of the game (as well as the C&C) happens when you get to the pastoral town and start doing the quests there. If you are committed to giving it a proper go, then do so until there. But then, if NWN2's turgid start was sufficient to get you going, I'm not sure what's happening...

We haven't done anything to him, he'll probably wander round at some point again. Not at all relatedly, I haven't seen Krezack around either... Started the day with various meetings from 12-5 then came home and had to take a nap, which happens about twice a year for me. Must be getting old.

At least you are suggesting that they keep picking it back up Hi Melk I like Bioware and despite all this "Bioware Bashing" I guarantee you that almost every person on these forums who claims to dislike Bioware and that there games are sub-par will play Dragon Age 3 when its released. Mark my words Not me My last Bio game was Jade Empire, and I am proud about it And I am also proud that I own every single PC Bio game, expansion pack and DLC up to Jade Empire, all were excellent games, even thought hey were not all my cup of tea... After they sold out to EA, I just found another companies which provides me with high quality products. Thankfully there is enough companies which offer quality gameplay, instead of idea of broadening the audience... Yeah, it's a convenient argument that since everyone plays it the criticisms are at least partially invalid. But the fact is, (1) it doesn't invalidate the criticism, it just questions the person's use of his/her own spare time; (2) it's not true. I haven't played Mass Effect or DA2 beyond half-hour stints and I don't regret it. Trying to choose between CK2, Path of Exile, Grimoire Demo and BG2 each night and then realising I have no time anyway.

Grimoire link is on my desktop. IT CALLS ME.

Until we forget how to defend, again. 1-3 and tie over.

Crusader Kings II - Legacy of Rome is now 1.25$, and The Republic is 2.50$. Worth picking up at that price. (Steam, sadly)

Video LPs are always boring, but hope Chris has fun with the game. Also hope he actually gets far enough to show the really fun stuff, e.g. the Siamese Twins, Appleby/Bates, Gentleman's Club, the Emporium & Stillwater Giant...

BG2, I'm starting to think SCS mage prebuffs overdo it a little bit. Rayic Gethras starts off with Spell Deflection + Globe of Invulnerability (which means you can't breach him unless you have 7th level spells, maybe 6th if I remember wrong) and also has Mantle / Prot. Magic Weapon buffs - i.e. guaranteed at least 10 turns of near invulnerability from which to throw spells like Domination, Power Word: Stun, etc. It was pretty damn tough beating him down, though I suppose it makes sense a lone Cowled Wizard in his own abode would be so prepared. Yes, update coming soon.