Sven_

With Obsidian I knew -- with inXile I was under the impression that they had massively scaled down prior to going Kickstarter and were being "burnt" prior, similar to Larian (who equally grew much larger again post ca. D:OS2). Naturally, California is also a pretty tough area for an independent studio likely. Will be interesting to see how Owlcat fares in the long run. However, I'm puzzled that inXile immediately jumped back to AAA -- when it's the space in between AAA games and Kickstarter / indies is what's pretty much unoccupied. I used to put it that way: The (Western) RPG genre is pretty much split in two. On the one end of the spectrum you've got barely a handful of developers (most of them the few who survived the 2000s RPG crash) who are ever growing, targeting ever larger audiences to the degree that their games oft play very similar to Assassin's Creed or any other action blockbuster game on the market. On the other end, there's the Kickstarters and indies, oft doing either Dungeon Crawlers, BG- or Fallout-lookalikes. BG3 may bridge a few gaps with its blockbuster-style presenation, and there's also a few companies such as Piranha Bytes, still busy trying to reclaim their Gothic heydays. But generally: Where's the in betweens? Even the kind of games Bioware succesfully used to make whilst transitioning from Baldur's Gate to eventually Mass Effect, they're basically gone. E.g. NWN, Kotor, DA: Origins.

Finished Pentiment on Saturday, cozy and refreshing an experience (I'd like more "traditional" games to take a few cues off it, RPGs included, such as the focus on a single settlement/location and how time and possibly your actions impact that over the course of things). Unsure if that is a sign of things to come though. This was a project apparently 30 years in the making in some form or other. And somebody (Sawyer) pushing really hard for it for years and years. Initially I was also puzzled why inXile a) went back to a big publisher in MS and b) doing triple A games. Their crowdfunding success/es and Wasteland comeback was all about doing things independently, and on budgets that didn't dictate huge sales numbers just to barely break even. Don't know what's changed since. But overall, yeah, it's definitely good that bigger studios / publishers aren't exclusively tied to crowdpleasers anymore. In particular in the RPG space and similar. The exodus of much of the Western (PC) RPG industry around the 2000s is still felt. Including the rift it's caused in between a (very few) devs getting bigger and bigger and their games increasingly catering to action/adventure crowds -- and the indie/crowdfunding scene. There's a huge space in between that's not much being catered to anymore. Speaking of that space in between, A D&D Gothic-style game done right could be great. Or Ultima Underworld, or... wait, that was what Descent To Undermountain was supposed to be back then, right?

After having finished Pentient, I just bought Solasta for a bit of change in pace. Initially I wanted to go with something a tad more experimental. One or two melee characters alongside a group of "expert archers". No natural casters. I once played through Icewind Dale I think entirelly with a group of casters exclusively. Not an expert with D&D5eish, I'm wondering which class would make that archer. Fighters could. Rangers could, with the added bonus of gaining a few useful spells (plus at level 11, apparently getting a bonus range attack, need to recheck. Then again, not sure how much you level up in Solasta's main campaign). Rogues could -- even coupled with a sneak attack bonus which can be quite easily triggered.

TDPs (and actual energy consumption) ever going up, unlike with CPUs Sizes ever increasing, unlike with CPUs. Heat...... Prices... At this rate, I'm going to keep using my 4GB 1050ti until either it stops starting up. Or until an ~8GB card comes out assembled from "leftover parts" no doubt and sold at a reasonable price. Luckily I barely play any AAA blockbuster games pushing hardware anymore as there's this paradox that with each generation, it needs more and more people (and higher budgets) to do just that. Higher budgets == lower risk games. (Plus, there's barely any PC exclusives actually pushing PC hardware to their limit anyway... there's only so much gain from increasing details and resolutions for game experiences that else would be fundamentally the same game as on a console. Heck, even enthusiast YT channels have started publishing how going "ultra details" would be just "dumb"). In a sense Nvidia and Co. have found a way to sell ice to eskimos truly. (And that's not a dig at enthusiasts -- it's that the mainstream has accepted what's happened on the GPU market in the past ~10 years).

Finished. This was an "experience". If you're unsure, save this one for the holidays, thank me later. Nassau-Saarbrücken DLC next?

I stopped playing this about a year ago (bought it upon release). Was I think about halfway through chapter 2. Played exclusively TB, mind, which contributed to my experience. If there's one thing I'd change about Owlcat games is that they really really love their combat. None of WOTR was as bad as late-chapter Kingmaker. But I can still picture them going over all of their maps once finished, seeing empty spots, and placing paste&copy mobs there. Less (but more unique) would be so much more, it's unfunny. If their games had stats like the IE games or POE had, collecting the number of enemies slain, their numbers wouldn't be merely through the roof. They would be through the sky. (Nothing may ever come close to MM6 in that regard though). Will still continue playing at some point, mind. Enjoyed Kingmaker too (and enjoyed its initially more grounded narrative, WOTR is a power fantasy from the very start).

Pentiment wouldn't have been possible without Game Pass, says Obsidian's Josh Sawyer | Eurogamer.net

I wonder what the expectations are on the commercial end of things. This is clearly a passion project. E.g. del Toro doing "At The Mountains Of Madness" for realz (though that's probably a bit too "mainstreamish" a comparison, considering that Lovecraft is a fairly established fictional writer -- but you get the idea). But for all the accessibility in terms of mechanics, this is as almost as anti-mainstream as you can get, even within the adventure/CRPG niche: - 16th century Holy Roman Empire - no action, boobs'n'monsters - main character is a scholar of the finer arts - woodcut printing instread of raytracing (un-state of the arts!) Ok, there's murder going on, just like in Freddy VS Jason. But it's all steeped into 16th century Central European politics, religion and life of the not-so-party. And this seems to show in the low number of Steam reviews already. It may be a miracle that this was actually green-lit though, so that's already a huge success (except for upper management, perhaps). German media outlets from outside the gaming bubble start picking up on it anyways. "Pentiment": Adventure-Game im mittelalterlichen Bayern | BR24 BR.de, fittingly, is part of the "Bayrischer Rundfunk".

I've actually been getting used to it by now. There's also a few neat touches in the audio conveying emotion and character, so... But you could likely make it optional comparably easily. I really like the game's audio design. Not sure if whether that was in parts a budget choice -- but that there's no permanent soundtrack makes the game world feel pretty "naturalistic" despite the stylized art. The ambient sound is pretty good in general.

Two things I'd like (RPG) developers to take from this: - games don't need to have quests travelling the world, hell, there and back again. There's huge promise in the concept of having finite sets of characters, as well as locations. And showing how they grow and change throughout the day, the months, the years. In particular in games about player choice. 1990s instant classic "Day Of The Tentacle" was all about showing the same location and "changing" it throughout the ages. I'm actually reminded of "The Last Express" though, a game set solely aboard the legendary Orient Express. It involes a unique art style, mystery, murder and a historical setting as well. Albeit mixed with "real-time" events, giving the illusion of living NPCs moving through the train as you move as well (to lessen frustration, the game has a feature that allows to go back in time in case you've screwed up or missed something). The Last Express' sense of place is still pretty unique today, despite being released in 1997. - historical scenarios can work. That's nothing new, but there's only so many elves, zombies, space ships, power armors and more recently cyberpunk gear you can deal with before growing tired. (Admittedly, in a CRPG setting, even zombies could be somewhat fresh again -- see Dead State a couple years ago, but that's another topic entirelly. )

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.