Tigranes

I assume the transition means they don't have everything quite in place to make announcements, yet. Though I hope they get it all going soon enough. I can't imagine huge delays from the original date, probably a mid-year release. Game retailers never ever have a clue about release dates, BTW. They know nothing.

This is the one game I need to come to the PC. Desperately.

I'm playing Tax Return 2012. It gives you great feedback on your current estimated $ earnings, but the interface is terribad.

Oh, I agree 100% that it's no excuse and any game on PC should have good PC controls, end of. I just didn't see what was so bad about DS3's controls. Unlike other features, it's harder to imagine from another's perspective, though in this case there were enough people pissed with it that it's at least partly legitimate. (Although the dodge = teleport is... uhhhh.) I guess it stands to reason that in my eyes the "**** that's wrong with" Obsidian games were never that big a deal. K2's lack of an ending was probably the worst, but I lived through a lot worse bugs in all sorts of games (e.g. Morrowind), equally flailing camera (e.g. uh.... most 3D games), etc. I mean, if they bothered me so much I wouldn't buy their games all on Day 1. It would be nice if they were gone, but such problems have been part of most RPGs for years, and if I chuck out FNV for its bugs, I'd hardly get any better stabliity on FO3. I guess the most important things about P:E will be: now Obsidian has proven they can make a bugfree game, can they do it with a game that is ambitious and in Obsidian's core style (as opposed to DS3 which was unusually conservative)?

I played it just fine on KB+M and didn't see what the deal was, but I think I have higher tolerance. I mean, I was fine with Gothic... I don't know about this one. I can understand how a company like Obsidian needs to seek major publishers, well funded projects, solid IPs, etc., but in this case will a Disney Star Wars game contract really provide that kind of stability? I really want them to use their talents on a new IP, or at least, a different IP, not another Star Wars game.

Meh. Rivalry isn't as fun if neither of your teams are competing for trophies, really...

Szczesney was excellent today. Now to go out and play some football in the snow wearing my.... Van Persie shirt

Looks good all in all. There seems to be a 3-option walking speed toggle in the action bar that he uses ~9.00 - if I'm not mistaken it seems to be sneak/walk/run or something like. 9:15 shows the enemy ranger with a much much longer perception bar. Hopefully this is the case throughout the game. (One problem is variable player resolution - you don't want low res players finding some enemies see them before they see the enemies...) The atmosphere is great but the UI is really ugly on so many ways. Hope they pretty it up and hope you can turn off things like green glow when selecting, combat in/out screens, etc. Like the cover system taking flanking into account. Dialogue is just passable, but we'll see how it is elsewhere. Don't really see the point of keyword system but no big deal. (Entering in your own is cool, but how often will it work?) Looking forward to it.

Snow is awesome. Conversely, football is still on tomorrow. (Snow football is totally awesome until someone shoots and the ball hits you in the face, and you feel like you've been slapped by a female Barbarian.)

I liked Dreamfall. TLJ was surely superior, but I think I'm not a huge fan of adventure gameplay anyway - I often get stuck a lot and my main joy is in the story and seeing how things unfold. Backed at $20 for now, we'll see up or down as I see more updates.

Heartily disagree. Gothic and Risen have very good melee combat - better than Witcher, and much much better than Elder Scrolls. This is, of course, ruling out Gothic 3 at launch and its famous stunlock bug, and RIsen 2 which was rather poor at that. But TES melee combat is mostly button-mashing, and while TW combat does pretty decent, there is a systematicity and brutality to G2/R1 combat in particular which is unparalleled. It is unique among single-character open world RPGs in that you really have to be on your guard for every battle or face gruesome death, and that there is a small set of tightly interlocking mechanisms you must manipulate to become good at combat. My comment on replayability - I think both TW1 and TW2 provide good replayability on non-combat terms, i.e. story, quests, etc. I played both 3 times. But although you can distribute your points, the scope of character development, and the extent to which it really changes your experience of combat, is much narrower than other RPGs. You're either a swordsman that drinks potions and uses magic, or a swordsman who sort of drinks potions and uses magic but not really, etc. I like TW's potion mechanics and swordfighting but I think it's a system (and character concept) that has inherent limitations, so I hope they create something much more robust after TW3.

I originally played TW1 on a terrible computer at 6-8fps, and the combat was excruciating. Of course, before that, I had played Gothic 3 on the same fps, which was worse since every time you died it would take about 4 minutes to reload, whereas for TW1 it only took 2. Truly, poverty is a miserable thing. *sniff* I liked pretty much everything about TW1 and TW2; they are well made games, have their own unique character, and do a lot of RPGy things very well. The only complaint is that the nature of Geralt limits replayability because you're more or less the same witcher every time in terms of combat gameplay. I don't really expect TW3 will change that much, but it's a Day 1 for me nevertheless.

TrueNeutral rushes over and casts Dispel Magic, which thankfully works on the wild surge Polymorph. I lose all my buffs, but it will have to do. I get to Lower Resistance straight away, but the dragon is more aggressive than the last time. Well-aimed breath attacks take out the fire elemental as well as Azure; Azure dies his second death. Still, we get about half his health down. Now we try something we forgot to use last time. Remember that in Irenicus' Dungeon we picked out several wands, all of them with only one charge each. Not enough, but we also picked up an extra Lightning Wand with 8 charges... Excellent. With 3 Lower Resistance in him, the wand does decent and reliable damage; together with Gorth's bolts, we should only need 5 turns or so to bring him down now. I swear he can hear me talk. Gorth dies his final death. While he avoided permadeath, it was his third. This isn't good. Our only hope now is in the wand; as we fire our 5th (out of the dragon is Near Death. TrueNeutral still lives in werewolf form, but can't stand up to melee combat for long. Nepenthe is behind the dragon in this shot. Ah, there you are, Nepenthe. Nepenthe dies his second death. Now it really is a race against time. If you look carefully you see TrueNeutral dies his final death. Again, it's not permadeath, but his third anyway. Only I live, but only 2 charges on the lightning wand remain - plus my other one-shot wands, but I don't know if they will do much. In fact, those wands were carried by Pidesco... We have a plan. I run quickly over to Pidesco's corpse, where the wands survived the cold breath blasting. We pick up the Wand of Monster Summoning with one charge. Three Ogres. They'll probably last about 3 turns, max. Hopefully that is enough... ...and it is. With my final charge on the lightning wand, Thax'll'ssillyia falls, even as you see the ogres slide away unconscious to the corner of the room. The dragon has fallen; but we have lost fully half of our party permanently. Now, beyond in the next area, the Shadow Lord awaits. Well that went... about as well as I expected. I think I did the best I could with the resources at my disposal. The dragon's targeting is a lot more dynamic with SCS, and the moment Tale nips in to cast a spell it tries to kill him. There were a couple of reloads inbetween where Tale died pretty much in the first or second turn, which was annoying. Since we had found all our wands 'in nature' and did not recharge them through merchants, our victory remains pretty cheese-free. However, we'll see a major shuffle next update. Gorth, TrueNeutral and Pidesco are done; we shall see entering on their behalf Deraldin (Cleric), Chilloutman (Blade) and BBMorti (Fighter/Illusionist). The queue will now have Oner, Enoch, Bester, Serrano. Turns out the party composition doesn't change too much, but now battling the Shadow Lord might become just as deadly. Nepenthe and Azure, of course, are themselves on their last lives now. Next update we'll do Shadow Lord, then try and go somewhere easy - probably Mae'Var - to get the new members up to speed.

I'm not so sure about that. Gah! I don't think you died there, Tale. I don't think that was the end. But... I remember it! I'm remembering it right now! No, Tale. It is not up to you to read your dream. I'm the psychoanalyst, remember? Well, what does it all mean? The dragon, Tale. It is your father. Your visions manifest your repressed desire to vanquish him. To take his power as yours. To stand proud upon his broken corpse. And the dark, cavernous room that is the site of your battle. It is no more than a representation of the mother, to be precise, your repressed memory of your own birth. Thus when you entered through the narrow corridor- Uh. You're freaking me out. Fine. I'm just saying, you've still got a shot at this. I thought this was an overwrought commentary on how games that try and rationalise gamey mechanics are terrible and annoying. You believe what you need to believe, Tale. Me, I believe what I believe. (Remember our semi-ironman rules: due to the hardcoded BG rules that protagonist death is game over, we are free to reload. I'm not sure if TrueNeutral would have been able to take it down on its own though. My suspicion is it had 15 or less HP, but he might not have been able to deal any damage. So, let's try again...) ...and we're back. For consistency's sake, we'll use roughly the same tactics. Again we surround, breach, smash. This time though, I will use my wild surges early, hopefully conjuring up some useful fodder... ...or, you know, doom the entire party from the very first turn. While I sit useless, Pidesco moves in aggressively. He gets his second debuff (Spell Thrust) off, but vanishes in a puff of cold breath. It was his third death; Pidesco dies his final death.

Maybe the dragon has berryphobia. We're running out of time. Gorth is caught and permakilled in the shadow breath; this is serious, since he is our msot reliable damage-dealer with his +2 bolts. At least his resistance is now low enough that magic missiles can hit most of the time. We can stop him casting any spell between myself and Pidesco... ... I mean, between myself and myself. Yeah. (It says Tale, but it obviously can't be, or it would be game over as he is the protagonist. The breath attack caught both, and now Tale has lost some levels, while Pidesco is permakilled.) I finally succeed in summoning a skeleton warrior (seen center of screen behind dragon) with a wild surge, at least. Azure falls not long after. It's just now me, and TrueNeutral, who was level-drained to Level 2 and has been hiding all this time. The dragon is heavily injured, but the skeleton warrior won't last long by itself, and I'm in dire need of meatbags. TrueNeutral transforms into werewolf form and rushes headlong into the fray... ...then has to flee again after nearly getting killed. He drowns himself in potions while I nip in and out with magic missiles and flame arrows. The dragon is Near Death, and has been for the last couple of attacks. I suspect a couple more and he will fall. Oh, fine. Who thought making magic resistance work by ranges rather than absolute thresholds was a good idea anyway? Then disaster. The dragon casually tosses a Chromatic Orb my way, and... wild mages being about as tough as a sack of marshmallows, I fail the save. Critically. I guess we all died there. That was the end of our adventure. Our dreams, our hopes...

25. Dragonfight Click Here For Table of Contents By popular demand, we fight Dragon. Nepenthe: Yet another strike against democratic decision-making. We plaster ourselves with buffs like an insecure teenage Paris Hilton before a date. The main problem is that many buffs run out before we've finished buffing. We time it carefully to summon monsters, protect from horror & haste, give stoneskin and mirror images to the mages, and finish up with three Negative Plane Protection spread out across the melee fighters. The dragon's negative energy breath can drain 4+ levels per hit, meaning a couple of those and the characters risk permadeath. We have a clear strategy. Since the breath attack has a cone-shaped AOE, we immediately bull-rush and surround the dragon, minimising the possible impact. It also means that by watching when the dragon pivots, we can know who he is targeting - e.g. if it's me, I can retreat out of line of sight (since it can probably one-hit kill.) The dragon casts Protection from Magical Weapons, but Pidesco immediately breaches it to open combat. Meanwhile, I've memorised 3 Lower Resistance spells; they stack, and are critical to this battle. While Gorth and the melee fighters pack a punch, they likely won't survive long enough to take down the dragon on its own; we need at least some offensive spells to get through its resistance. The only problem is that Negative Plane Protection only lasts a few turns. TrueNeutral's runs out first, and he takes some level drain to the face. He evacuates to hide in a corner, useless and near death. Unfortunately, that means the end of Nepenthe, this time by standard damage. It's a race against time; each time we lose a party member, our ability to deal damage lessens. Thax'll'ssillyia is about halfway down. We need some more fodder to prolong our survival, but we've used up all of our spells. You know what that means.... Gorth: Wild Surge? Yes, wild surge.

I like it, but $25 for a copy, and $30 planned release price seems quite steep. Might watch the updates.

Thanks. I've been looking for a decent roguelike (or roguelike-like) for Android...

In the East Coast, at least, it's really hard to find over the counter juices that aren't basically fruit-flavoured Coke (and usually, made by Coca-Cola). Water is definitely the way to go. I get Coke hankerings at odd times and will never get off coffee, but really, water is the best by far.

Well, that seems to be a majority for Dragonfight. We will see if that was such a great idea... In terms of brute force Thax isn't as tough as Firkraag, and certainly easier to take down; the game changer is her breath attack, which I think is enhanced somehow in SCS. I'll have to check what cleric pool spells TrueNeutral (as a Shapeshifter druid) has at his disposal, but I doubt we can equip everyone with Negative Plane Protection, and more importantly, Cold Protection to prevent permadeath upon hit. My usual strategy is to set up summons and thieves, have all the fighters line up surrounding the dragon (so they aren't all caught by one breath blast), and then start off with a Breach / Lower Resistance combo, follow that with another Lower Resistance and maybe Greater Malison, etc. The pre-hasted fighters are still the main source of damage, though. Tricky thing with this party is that Nepenthe is really the only tank; Azure is still pretty useless at the moment even if I have him wield the Flail of Ages. He'll have to be backed up in damage by TrueNeutral in werewolf form & Gorth with his best enchanted arrows, but that means we can't actually heal anyone during the fight, only drink potions. So we have to bring him down within 10 rounds, max, or he'll start chunking everyone. Oh, and once this is done: Mae'Var. We should have done it earlier, but depending on how many party members don't make it, it might still be a challenge...

TrueNeutral is tasked with healing the man, but he too is paralysed, and the spell fizzles just before firing. We attract the shades' attentions with arrows and flails. The only way to save Gorth is to make all the opponents redirect their attack; to do so, we have to attack them all. I run over; major AOE spells are out of the question, but a well placed Aganazzar's Scorcher to the right of Gorth should take two, maybe three, of the shades off him. Or, you know, the beam is a bit wider than I thought... Gorth dies his second death. He has one remaining. A quick revival & rest later, we're back on track. Our next obstacle is a lake of lava, with several caches of treasure in the centre. Nepenthe: Me again, right? You've got to earn your keep somehow. There's the somehow. Nepenthe:Look, I'm sick of this. Why can't someone else do this for a change? Fine, fine. Well you've taken care of all the lava, I can take that stone tower-container thing at the back- Ah. This is why you're on trap duty. We find the ghost of Amuana, restoring to her coffin the bones we found earlier. Our reward is a wardstone that allows us to remain unnoticed by the Shadow Dragon. Pidesco: You mean, our reward is finding out there is a Shadow Dragon. That too. Little of the ruins remain now. Obviously, we can spell Amaunator to get across in safety. A shadow tries to trick us by bartering, but we aren't fooled. (Seriously, why would the undead lock up a shadow? Really isn't a great plan.) In the cache, we find but a second scroll of Disintegrate! Alright, this isn't funny anymore. Disintegrate-less, and blessed with not a single level-up this update, we now approach the end of our quest. Beyond lies the chamber of the Shadow Dragon, then the undead lord responsible for the disappearances. We possess a wardstone so that the Shadow Dragon will not notice us, but of course, that goes out the window if we attack it. So, Obsidianites, my question is an easy one. Dragonfight?

There's nothing to be done but follow the map to the dark forest. We find the wolf den, and a lone... TrueNeutral: A werewolf! Anath tells us of a light crystal, part of the equipment for the original purpose of the temple: the worship of the Sun God, Amaunator. Presumably, his followers all deserted him because at some point everyone started praying to Amanuator instead. TrueNeutral: Look, it's a werewolf! Like me! Gorth: You're not a werewolf, you're a shapeshifter. TrueNeutral: I've... I've never met another werewolf before. I... I feel like we've known each other forever. I... TrueNeutral: *swoon* We follow Anath. She kindly tells us how to kill all the shadows, then is promptly killed by the shadows. TrueNeutral: Nooooo! TrueNeutral: *sniff* I'll... I'll never forget you. The shadows prove easy enough to dispatch. Inside the temple ruins, however, there are slightly more challenging opponents; the lumbering skeleton warriors are joined by not only disposable shadows, but slightly tougher shade wolves and shadow fiends. I break out the big guns by...entangling Nepenthe. We rescue Mazzy. Asked how we can trust her, she answers that she has never lied. Yeah, that doesn't quite cut it, you know. Our object here is to find and reassemble the symbol of the Sun God, which helps us lower the barriers towards the cause of the evil. (I suppose I should be mortified that I can actually remember the rituals exactly. There are three rituals, and the dialogue options are 2-3-1, 3-1-1, and 1-3-2. Yep.) Ambush on a narrow bridge overlooking a bottomless chasm? Yeah, should really have seen that coming. The poor navigation actually creates some problems for us. Nepenthe blocks the path on one end, but shadow fiends swarm from behind, and they are capable of paralysing enemies. We'd Turn Undead, but of course, all our useless clerics keep dying. Gorth: I'm dying!

The first thesis to test is that of Evil Monsters . Madulf and his pack try and explain that their own kin are disappearing, too. To be honest, I'm not sure why any sensible person would choose to believe them here. There are no clues to vindicate them other than their own claim, and we don't have any good way of monitoring them or checking facts. The pragmatic thing to do is kill them all. So we do. The nearby cave yields a mimic jumping out a chest. This would be the mimic blood the Wizard wanted for his golem. We now move closer to the second and third theses. Merella, the ranger, had lived alone in a large home far from any other inhabitants - which strikes me as rather imprudent, but I suppose it's easier to say that now animals have eviscerated her and carried off her remains. "Hey, there are some wolves around. So, uh, just in case I'm brutally killed, here's a map! Not that I'll think of moving out of my isolated and defenseless home, you know." It seems another party had got this far, and had too ventured into the wolf den. Azure: Maybe they had a better dagger I can lift off their cold, dead bodies. Finally, while we're here, we stop by Valygar's home. He had cunningly hidden himself in a gigantic house at the top of a hill overlooking the village, and posted a guard who would ask everyone passing by, "YOU'RE LOOKING FOR VALYGAR, AREN'T YOU? YEAH, I'M ASKING BECAUSE THERE'S A MASSIVE BOUNTY ON HIS HEAD." (From what I remember, Valygar's stupidity is confirmed by the fact that you then enter his home and he's there. With Unfinished Business, though, he quickly flees in response to your searching; we will need to return to Athklatla for clues to his whereabouts.) We return to the town Minister and report our findings. Surely ogre-killing is worth a reward on its own? The Minister takes seven hours to retrive our reward, and now says there are more disappearances. Nepenthe: A filthy capitalist trick to deny us of our rightful payment. Indeed.

Indeed, the merchant offers a one-time opportunity to partake of his goods before he wanders off. He has several rarely-found scrolls in the repertoire, but we can only afford one: quite possibly my single favourite spell, if only for the visual effect. You don't know power until you can fire giant green balls that turn your enemies into dust. Die. En route to Umar Hills we come upon another random encounter. By now, however, we are more powerful, and our saving throws & HP are sufficient to give us a turn or two to work our magic. Chaos + Emotion... ...chunky time. Finally, we are in the remote village of Umar Hills. The nomenclature is derived entirely from the witch that spells their impending doom, and the terrain feature. It's like they're asking to be wiped out horribly, horribly. Immediately we are presented with three possible reasons for the disappearances: (1) monsters, (2) wolves, (3) Umar. Nepenthe: They should realise that none of those are the real reasons for their current plight. Why are they forced to eke out this pathetic rural existence, continually at the mercy of the elements? It is none other than the bourgeoisie, and it is their false consciousness that prevents their emancipation- Pidesco: Was he always like this? Gorth: Back when he joined us in the Sword Coast all he wanted was boobs and alcohol. Pidesco: And he's gotten any since? Gorth: Nope. Pidesco: Ah. The local inn yields another chattermouth, though the authority of his tales are undermined by his snarky stable-boy. More talk. If you think about it, 'bleedin' banana' is a terrifying thing to call a man. Well, armed with our Three Theses, we must now explore the surrounding areas. We come upon a Cowled Wizard who doesn't know much, preoccupied with building a Stone Golem. TrueNeutral: Uh... he does know that there are a lot of stone golems around the realms, right? Gorth: We killed a couple in De'Arnise Keep. Nothing special. TrueNeutral: Poor guy.

24. Miss Me? Click Here for Table of Contents When I left off, we were to decide whether to travel to the Umar Hills and investigate the disappearances - or, well, travel to the Umar Hills and apprehend the rogue Valygar. (Clearly, it didn't occur to us to do both.) The decision paralysed us. Literally. (Sorry for the long break. Mainly, I was reading linguistic anthropology. I'm sure you don't want to know more.) On the way out, we encounter a bunch of generic individuals attempting to burn a drow. Nepenthe: But... look at her arms. She's not tied down, or anything. What's she doing? Gorth: Shhh. Sprites are expensive. Nepenthe: Hmph. What you really expect to see is a dramatic close-up. Shaky camera, loud music, a discrete cleavage shot, the works. Save me, Nepenthe! Save me! Nepenthe:Press X to save me now, or forever lose thy karma! The angry mob didn't count on the fact that we just bought a magic user license. TrueNeutral: But... Call Lightning is a divine spell. I could cast that anyway. True, but now I can cast Stoneskin and bask in my invulnerability while you lot take care of the business. The Good Deed of the Month done, we shall depart the city of Athkatla once again. On the way, we spot a merchant in distress; but we shan't allow him to be accosted. Pidesco: I thought you were done with this helping people business. What happened to the cause of Evil profiteering? You mean, I'm protecting the filthy, profit-loving capitalist who refuses to pay the working man for his labours? Pidesco: Ah.