Sven_

Have only played the (fairly linear) beginning so far and am looking forward for more. Two gripes though: I wish you could turn off / mute the scribbling sound of the ink pen. It's a neat stylistic choice at first, but gets a tad annoying (at least to me) fast. Plus make it less of an added "hassle" and faster to fast forward dialogue. The first click upon initiating a dialogue makes the ink pen write faster. It's only when the pen is finished filling the dialogue that a second click moves dialogue forward / makes it advance. As there's no VO anyway, I'm not going to wait for every dialogue to, er, "finish". And engaging in / advancing dialogue is the name of this game. Can I just else appreciate though how great this is. 20 years ago this game wouldn't have existed and remained a pipe dream. 12-15 years ago it would have been a shoestring indie project from a garage developer at best. Just a decade ago, this would have been a Kickstarter. One that likely wouldn't even have met its funding goals, as it isn't a BG-clone. But here they are to hopefully entertain us. The times, they are a-changin'.

German reviews also encouraging so far. Gamestar actually IS from Bayern (their location is Munich), though, naturally, their editors are from all over the country. Is the (Steam) preorder actually a discount, e.g. will the game be more expensive when it's fully launched? edit: Doesn't matter. Bought.

Logic Artists in recent years had kind of specialized in this kind of thing with their Expeditions series (Conquistador, Viking, the recently release Rome). The latter is the last though, as the studio is no more and the team will focus on NFT games in the future. Expeditions: Rome Developer Logic Artists Closing Down to Make NFT Games | TechRaptor Perhaps it's not that profitable still to make RPGs that aren't strictly fantasy, sci-fi or post apocalyptic -- some people shied away even form OBsidian's own Deadfire due to the strong piratey vibes already present on the game's release art. (I think that's a shame as I'd like to see other scenarios as well, even fictional ones, horror/GOthic kind of stuff has been of very short supply). The upcoming historical project form Sawyer will be made with small staff likely for reason.

Having finished Weird West (liked, will buy story DLC if some come out), I hopped on to Hard West, which is kinda neat. However, I also just bought and installed Elden Ring. Never actually played a From Soft game myself yet, but I like it. I didn't necessarily buy the game for the combat challenge absolutely first and foremost, but because it is a curious AAA experience that dials open worlds back to where they used to come from (early TES, Elite, etc. etc.): You're just put into a world and can actually discover it for yourself, rather than being guided all the way through. That, to me, is the entire point of such an experience to begin with. The sensation of discovery. There's a huge paradoxon here at work anyway how things have (mostly) developed: One the one hand, developers obviously don't trust their players to even find out of their own closet without a helping hand (and their game worlds are being designed around those helping hands, which means even if there's options to turn them off -- it doesn't feel good). On the other -- they're not only making sizable open worlds where potential customers indeed may get some lost in -- but those worlds keep on getting bigger. Whether the game's huge commercial success will influence anything though, I'm rather sceptical. From Software in general is a name associated with a specific kind of experience, almost a meme, and they've made that sort of their own. They had to deliver that again and seemed to have gradually and organically expanded their audience some. I think all the other big kids on the block will keep on doing whatever they did, perhaps with a few more tweaks here and there. Breath Of The Wild apparently also didn't change much, so... I'm certainly not expecting the Next Gen update for the Witcher to suddenly include quests that don't witcher sense themselves or anything. PS: Started yesterday, I'm already level 24 and it's quite fun (surprisingly, even on mouse+keyboard after a few tweaks, plus with a 1050 ti).

Release seems at least good a half year off if not more (going by speculations) -- on the other hand Bethesda/Arkane not releasing anything gameplay so far regarding Redfall, that's another level of "holding back". (Game's supposed to be out this Summer already.) Maybe this is done on the purpose of "surprising" everybody and having them be pumped up just around release, but usually this industry goes differently when building those hype-trains. But then Bethesda always seemed to have trouble selling Arkane games to the public (that live-action trailer of the first Dishonored back then seemed to have worked though).

Sorry for the bump, but is it true that you can only turn off the entire HUD or nothing? I have a pretty strong stance on markers (or witcher senses doing everything but the inevitable combat in between cutscenes) myself, in particular for games that aren't even huge open world spaces you can actually get lost in, but that'd be pretty puzzling/disappointing. So not only would the screen be absolutely cluttered with stuff and no much custom settings, constantly reminding that you're "just playing another video game" (it's as if Looking Glass and their progress towards Thief never existed) -- markers making you blindly follow the line would be tied to that binary UI on/off as well. Gladly at least a few (AAA) devs such as Arkane still get what was trying to be achieved back then, and make most of those things optional -- their level/map design acknowledges this to boot, as rather than having generic potato landscapes, you could actually find your bearings with landmarks / in-game maps, etc. That said, with games such as Breath Of The Wild or Elden Ring reaching to a mainstream, and Kingdom Come Deliverance showing alternatives to the awfully convenient "go here, do that, pick up this, good boy" arrow, maybe we will see viable alternatives again in the future.

Entered a nearby settlement as Pigman™ only to be greeted by the local sheriff to f**k off you pigface, or else... Waited till night, sneaked into town, got to my objective, broke into her house by smashing through the window, knocked her over, skinned her alive and ate her. Aside of Bloodlines' Nosferatu clan, there's nothing quite like playing Pigman™.

I'm itching to finally continue as Pigman now anyway though. I think I may stop using the rifle for the moment. There aren't many abilities that are exclusive to the characters sadly, but the 4 freshly introduced for Pigman encourage a more offensive style of play than what I did before anyways. Whilst this game may not be perfect in any way, I have a feeling it may become as underappreciated as Prey was before (or Creative Assembly's Alien Isolation). Outside a very few exceptions, appreciating the actual key strenghts and core ideas of these kind of games sadly seem to be an aquired taste. I think they may have further limited their audience by switching to the more isometric gameplay -- something I was sceptical of at first myself upon the announcement. It's probably certainly not was most (including me) would have expected when the director of games such as Arx Fatalis, Dishonored or Prey announced a new game. Personally I like this change in pace meanwhile, as it brings the overall feel closer towards several classic CRPG experiences of the 90s, a lot of which overhead/isometric view (the Fallout-y style travel map does the rest).

Personally I actually agreed to the deal -- the job that followed I finished in true Thief style, I think the first time in the game I ever went someplace without getting spotted neither going in nor out. But also later found that in true genre style, it wasn't a necessity, and that there were alternatives, such as the one you mentioned. I staid up all night, pretty much because of the game. Hasn't happened in a while. While they should fine-tune AI as well as camera post-release, there also seems one glaring balancing oversight (which I've first seen brought up by somebody else). Dishonored had its mana pool you needed to activate abilities. Here it's simple action points. In both cases, to a degree, they auto-regenerate (which also meant in Dishonored, that you could "blink" as often as you wanted.) The maximum action points pool is 20. The auto-regeneration fills it up to 5 again, over the course of about 15 seconds. To regain full action points, you need a potion (or sleep). For most abilities, this is naturally a bit of the burden it should be. 15 seconds would be a lot if you're say engaged directly in combat and thus had to wait until the points have recovered. HOwever, not so for instance the rifle's "sentry silencer" ability. Activating it costs 5 AP. Your next shot will not merely be silenced, but cause significantly bonus damage to an enemy. Rifles have decent range. Basically, it's a bit of a sniper thing. Coupled with hiding someplace or camping on a roof, this means time is never much of a factor. You can just camp in your hiding spot and wait for the action point pool to rise up to 5 AP again, and spam this quite powerul ability. Taking out entire enemy camps easily one by one. In their official feature request boards, I've already raised this. If you agree please upvote. On/off option for auto-regenerating action points - Weird West (featureupvote.com)

Re: Weird West. I'm done with the bounty hunter. After you're done, the game gives you a review of how you handled the major story beats -- and what gets carried over for the rest of the game. Really interesting. Pighead next (and this starts really WEIRD). Really quite like this game.

As for the camera, I've immediately turned it off that the camera automatically zooms out (and thus changes) cam view when you pull a weapon. I've also only just now noticed that "weapon pulling" can be either a TOGGLE or a HOLD function. Default it is a toggle, that is on PC you right-click to draw a weapon, you right click to put it away (two clicks required). I've now changed this to the HOLD function. This is just one click: You right click and your character draws the weapon, you release the button and he/she/it(in case of pigman ) puts it away. This feels a lot more fluid to me not merely because of the lesser clicks, but also because when a weapon is DRAWN, you cannot rotate the camera anymore (which is oft useful, as during the dynamic and very fast paced combat, enemies may go "out of sight"). The mouse exclusively controls aiming when a weapn is drawn. So this is also a more fluid way to switch in between those to me.

Yeah I'm not far in, but some camera and AI issues aside, this is pretty much my kinda game. Speaking Desperados 3, the art style in some ways reminds me of that too (coupled with Telltale's Walking Dead). It's pretty pleasant to look at. Just like in Prey, I went a bit experimental though, and may (or may not) have already spoiled myself a plot twist by killing a (major) at least early game NPC (and from the reaction to that). This was by accident, as I only wanted to test how the game kept track of killing NPCs, but happened upon this specific NPC. Still pretty cool that the game allowed me to do that, rather than scripting it so that you couldn't touch this NPC until it served its function in the plot. In Prey I had used the gloo gun to build a gigantic staircase to a place where I wasn't necessarily supposed to go that early, which kind of gave away what the entire situation was all about. But it's all still pretty early. Naturally, what I like the most is that the game world isn't but a set piece for plot, but fairly interactive. There's even neat touches recognized, such when you put a bucket outside when it's raining, it's slowly filling up with whater (which gives HP when drinking it). I also had to chuckle upon noticing that when you kill somebody, vultures will show up to nibble on the body. They've already announced that they plan to release free stuff in the coming weeks (and also fully on expansions of kinds, naturally to be paid for).

Thinking about picking up Colantonio's Weird West, which was just released today. Due to it being heavy on choice and consequence, and different experience based on the (albeit predetermined) characters you get to play throughout, it's already been compared to classic Fallout, New Vegas and even Bloodlines by various outlets. One section of the game has you playing a character cursed with a pig head -- which means people react "accordingly" (memories of playing a Nosferatu in Bloodlines). That is, on top of Arkane Studio games, naturally, what with Colantonio being their founder. His last title there was Prey -- if you ask me, whilst never specifically marketed as such, that was more of an RPG than many selfproclaimed RPG in like the last 10, 15 years (in particular in the AAA space). And I'm still not even halfway finished with Wrath Of The Righteous. edit: Bought it. Couldn't resist. Also like to support that guy, he's got the right vision for games.

I'd only just noticed that thanks to your post (even though I was aware of the game ever since their Kickstarter campaign). Still really curious about the exploration though. I don't like to spoil myself, so only watched bits of video on YouTube. But there seems lots of wilderness, which also reminded me lots of BG1 (in a, for me, good way).

I've seen a lot of BG1 comparisons already, and combined with some of the gameplay I watched, I wonder whether exploration is at least party some like this (or Kingdom Come Deliverance). Sort of tired of game worlds as amusement parks or movie set pieces, as it makes everything feel gamey and predictable (you KNOW that once you find a shack in a forest in a "modern" game, that hut will contain an NPC, quest or loot even before entering it, as else nobody would have placed it there, let alone created the art assets). Not concerned about the low/er budget, personally. I think it's rather impressive (and hopeful) that even very tiny teams can create finished games like this -- the staff for the original BG1 was well over 30 at the start, and 50-60 once the game had shipped. I'd take a "hit" in production values any time over the vice versa, in particular in an age where AAA RPG development means increasingly streamlining games this much they play just like any action/adventure or looter shooter on the market in an attempt to fit in and attract ever wider audiences, and often times, quests solving themselves outside of inevitable combat.

Imagine if the movie industry were like this. Imagine if they abandoned ship immediately after the first so-so received project. Imagine they'd never made another Alien after Alien³ -- okay, bad example (even though I went to both Resurrection and Covenant back in their days, and got some enjoyment out of them). Personally I also wouldn't mind as much a change of formula. The "kickstarter renaissance" is truly the reason why I've come back to playing RPGs on a larger scale again. As in the never ending quest to reach ever larger audiences, every reasonably sized RPG dev still left on the block seemed to be more occupied in creating action/interactive movie kind of experiences coupled with barebones character progression systems (Bioware et all) and/or open world games with similar (Bethsoft et all). Well okay, and there is/was Germany's Piranha Bytes, still being busy trying to remake Gothic over and over. However, I've also always held the opinion that the truly next BG won't quite 100% look like it. If a ~25 years old game is your gold standard, you may never surpass it. Deadfire already was a tad less traditional, however in a format in which shipping a hundred thousand copies was considered a success back then already. If that wouldn't have been the case, most of BIS games would have never been made (or even gotten a sequel), as outside of BG1+2, none of these isometric rtwp games were million + sellers. That's not to say I don't enjoy the isometric party-based rtwp formula. Not at all. Else I wouldn't have bought the new Pathfinder last year. However, if there isn't a similar way to conclude a "Watcher's trilogy" teased by the end of Deadfire: There's likely more ways to keep the spirit of those games intact without necessarily copying that formula down to a T. Tactical combat doesn't need to be presented isometric. Nor do branching quests and storylines aiming to somewhat replicate the freedom of a tabletop campaign. Nor do complex and powerful character systems full of player choice and customization. Partys have also been done in numerous ways already in formative years. Take a look at New Vegas -- to me to this day the only AA/A RPG past Troika's demise I've played that actually stays true to the 90s roots, or rather, what studios such as Origin/BIS/ later on Troika et all tried to accomplish. And succeeded in doing so. It's basically oldschool Fallout, just being played from a different perspective (unsure about the Outer Worlds yet, as sources I trust and gameplay I've watched paint is as a game not nearly quite as bright). Unfortunately, despite its strong sales, it's never seen much imitators, let alone Bethesda actually taking lessons from its design (rather, they try to expand their audience even more by now clearly aiming at the FPS crowd also).

Late-game Kingmaker was a pain in that regard, and it wasn't merely the infamouse House. Luckily the end battle plus the decisions made up for that, but generally it's the area I have the least fondest memories of in Kingmaker. Encounter design doesn't seem to be Owlcat's forte in general, though there are a few highlights. If I hadn't enjoyed Kingmaker, I wouldn't have picked up WOTR though, as some of that seems to be their inherently design philosphy, at least the fairly heavy focus on combat in general. Would really love in-game stats the Pillars and IE games do them, I'd bet compared to Deadfire the amount of enemies you kill is through the roof all throughout. Like WOTR so far (chapter 2 also). The army management so far seems simple enough whilst not playing itself completely, seems they've trimmed it all down significantly based on Kingmaker feedback. Massive kudos again for taking obvious inspiration of the Realms Of Arkania games when it comes to traveling/camping. They just have to introduce a more Conan-style music for the next time . (and to think they took it all out for the third in the trilogy back then in particular because US players complained about the thing being too tedious... and that was 1996, when computer games hadn't even made the crossover to mainstream audiences yet) I thought something similar would never come back (the Expedition series takes obvious inspiration here also).

Do you think they are self-publishing now because Desperados 3 was considered a disappointment? Couldn't find anything anywhere, except on the German GameStar magazine (an interview behind a Paywall). DLC starts nice enough (just finished Part 1), I like that they did new voice-overs as well, even for the guards. The ending was a little tricky, I actually hid on a roof and engaged in a shootout from there rather than being sneaky.

Man, I'm through now and this game kept on giving until the very end. It's DLC time but the season pass seems to be on discount everywhere except key shops I'm not sure about -- I really want to support this game/dev by buying the season pass at a regular price. I'm actually thinking about buying it twice then, once on Steam and once on Gog.

The game's on sale right now. On Epic you apparently get a 10 bucks voucher if you take the free game.... season pass on sale too. For me this has been the gaming highlight of the year, I'm in the last mission now. Really curious what they're up to next, but then I've got Shadow Tactics yet to play as well.

Thanks I'll watch some of that speedrunner, though it likely will make me feel like the total newb I kinda am. I'm now in New Orleans, which is pretty nice. The initial optionally detective work could have been even a bit beefy/longer. Speaking of which, that's an area where I think the genre could be expanded upon, adventure/RPG elements such as dialogue choices proper, investigation puzzles and stuff. Maybe it could then even appeal to a broader audience. Stealth tactics as such is a very specific thing (not that there's anything bad about that). Man this game is nice. The German retail (regular release) also comes packed as if it were a book, with a small art booklet inside. Well worth the buy.

Nice game -- the (German?) retail also comes with a nice package, almost book-like, including a small artbook. I didn't play much of neither Commandos nor Desparados back in the day.. as such I'm stuck in mission 6 already. Speaking of which, those missions are great in size. As of Mimimi's next project, they've received 2 million Euros in funding from the German government already.

The enemies are buffed quite a wee bit, but outright cheating would mean the dice are rigged, which they aren't.

What did they say and where?

Well, that's basically a confirmation of that it's not dead -- yet. Still far from a confirmation of an actual game ever happening, mind. In the meantime, there'll be Black Geyser, which looks suspiciously Pillars-like. Will be interesting how well Wrath Of The Righteous does too. If the latter becomes a hit rather than being hit by the "sequels sell worse syndrome", that may trigger the business side of things at Obs too. Currently I personally view this as slightly higher a chance as the chance of Alien:Isolation 2 ever happening. The first was equally clearly a passion project with many fans of the IP involved, and they've been toying with the idea of a sequel on the occasion, but the game just about broke even sales-wise (and didn't meet Sega's expectations). At least the team hasn't been disbanded, unlike Isolation's. Chances might be higher if the option was assessed of scaling things back a bit where possible (smaller project on a smaller budget) -- again, none of the BIS-developed Infinity Engine games ever broke sales records as far as we know and still made their money.