kensu

When the Endless Gate cultists managed to open up the Endless Gate, I was kind of disappointed that a scripted sequence didn't start where an inconspicuous NPC from Sagus Cliffs would come in, and throw himself into the portal to close it. :D siiiigh, I miss Icewind Dale.

Well, whaddya know, the bickering companions and not knowing what the resonance chamber does are actually plot points... You live, you learn...

Careful there, you're teetering on the verge of the "non-regenerating, regimented action points" system of Tides of Numenera.

What really bothers me is that the devs were so gung ho about "fixing" this, I remember when I read about it in the dev notes, it was like I was on another planet or something. When they're changing fundamental game mechanics AFTER the game has been released, perhaps they shouldn't be prioritizing "fixing" a gameplay pattern they don't agree with. They can't be bothered to add ammunition to the game, but you can't rest without firewood? What are they going to do next, restrict the places you can save and the number of times you can save to prevent Save Scumming?

I hope they have the guts to do what Elder Scrolls never would, and allow you to put the enchantment on the ammunition instead of the bow/gun. That will allow for different kinds of ammo types which you can switch around depending on the opponent. (of course then you'd have to come up with a way to empty/reload the gun in combat, but they would need that anyone if they added ammunition.) So... Bow/Gun: Accuracy, physical damage (by varying the speed of the projectile, or allowing the firing of multiple projectiles at once) Ammunition: Elemental damage, status effects And how about allowing us to add bayonets to guns in case we get stuck with in-close combat? This would also be something else we could enchant separately.

Where do you get the impression that I'm in favor of limiting resting? What I said was that the devs are dead-set against it, and what I'm suggesting here is to mitigate their draconian approach. Although my approach has its drawbacks, certainly it's preferable to the way it is in PoE or ToN where you simply can't rest whenever you want.

It seems that the developers of both Pillars of Eternity and Tides of Numenera have got a real bug up their ass about people "abusing rest". Personally this has never bothered me, and frankly I'm not sure if it happens because of lack of foresight on the player's part, or poor game design. (I suspect the latter, because I had to do it in Icewind Dale, and I planned all of my battles ahead of time like General MacArthur in that game). So I'll accept that they're going to continue making it difficult for players to do this, but frankly I'm rather dismayed at the dull way they've chosen to do it. ToN only allows you to sleep in certain locations, and then for a price (bastards). PoE requires you to carry around firewood (I guess they didn't get the memo from the forestry service about only using local firewood to prevent giving destructive insect colonies a vector into other forests), and naturally this is the one item you can't keep in the stash, and it has an arbitrary limit. So here is what I suggest they do instead. Allow the player to sleep anywhere, but add realistic penalties for doing so. For instance... - Do not allow them to fall asleep until fatigue is over a certain level. Otherwise they just toss and turn and their fatigue continues to build at a slower rate. (they did this back in Ultima V, 30 years ago!) - Have you ever heard of Exploding Head Syndrome? This is what happens when you fall asleep when you're in a state of anxiety. If you try to sleep in a forgotten corner of the evil overlord's sentinel, you could suffer a minor (but temporary) reduction in mental facilities and alacrity. - If the player sleeps more than a given percentage of a day (for instance if they deplete their fatigue intentionally using booze or something so they can sleep again), they'll end up getting infected bedsores, which they'll need a doctor to treat. - In addition oversleep will lead to grogginess, where mental and agility scores take a hit. In general I prefer an approach where the designer doesn't say: "you can't do this", but instead says: "you can do this, but there's a cost."

Why am I trying to fix the resonance chamber? I gotta be honest, I've forgotten why, assuming I ever even knew. I know I smashed into it when I fell, is that the only reason I'm trying to fix it?

I wonder if the changes weren't to get rid of an "uncanny valley" effect. That video has always bothered me, and I've never been able to figure out why. It was like I was watching a claymation video. The ripples in the water especially feel wrong... Anyone else get a similar vibe?

At least ToN has real NPCs, and not those horrible backer-written non-interactive Mary Sues that Pillars of Eternity had. (Any word on if the sequel is going to have these terrible things?) I bet you that one section of Sagus Cliffs has more real NPCs than the entirety of Pillars of Eternity.

I've been playing Tides of Numenera since the official release date (I actually bought it back when it was in open beta, but stopped playing when I got the message box that said: "this area is unimplemented, please distribute your tides" or somesuch.) As I've been reading some of the reviews and comments I notice how many people mention that Planescape:Torment finally has a spiritual successor, it seems that no one remembers Mask Of The Betrayer. So, what do you think, which one did you prefer? I'm only about ten hours in, but I have to be honest, I liked Mask of The Betrayer better. The deluge of text in ToN is really killing the mood, I liked how MotB started out with you stuck in the bottom of a dungeon, no idea how you got there, and stuck on your own, eventually the bald Red Wizard joins you and gives you some clues as to what's going on, but for those first few minutes you're on your own and have to figure out what's going on. ToN on the other hand, starts with two bickering companions. Back when I played this in beta I was certain that they were going to get rid of one of the companions (possibly choose which one finds you randomly) so there will be less hand-holding and you get a chance to explore on your own and start to figure things out; but no, they left it exactly like it was, which was a horrible decision on their part. By the time I was about to exit the reef, I choose to part ways with both of them and figure things out on my own. It's funny that the designers were slavishly trying to copy Torment but completely missed out on the fact that your only companion in the mortuary was Morte, who already knew you and was very careful not to flood you with information because he's learned the hard way that there's no point in asking you about things you don't remember. Anyone else want to throw their 2¢ in?

Hey Obsidian, the Lensman books went out of copyright last year. *hint* *hint*. I wanna play as a Palainian; especially since my favorite part of Skyrim was casting a chaos spell and watching the enemy turn on each other.

The thing is I don't think that inXile and Obsidian did the return to Isometric game as some sort of nostalgic trip. The simple fact is that the more complex 3D engines require a lot of time and resources to make a game. Therefore abandoning other perspectives was a very bad idea, and they're trying to rectify it. If you want to make cheaper and "smaller" games (I think Van Buren was actually larger than New Vegas) you need to be able to work with something simpler.

Who owns the rights to Wizardry right now? It would be real fun to do something similar to Wasteland 2 where we get the leading lights of the series (Woodhead, Bradley, Brathwaite) back together for another game. Considering that Wizards of the Coast doesn't seem to have a problem with making money off previous editions anymore, I'd like to see a game which contains a perfect implementation of the 1st Edition ruleset, including stuff like potion effect mixing, and all that weird **** from Unearthed Arcana. (Not to mention the Bard being essentially a superhero). I wonder how you'd implement all those different types of insanity, though...

I'm hoping Dwarves will get reactivated at some point. It was like the WRPG equivalent of Kingdom Hearts.

It doesn't have skill trees that look like constellations, does it?

Does Fallout 4 have skill ratings increase with ease? That's one thing that's bothered me from the original game, you can only increase them at level up, irrespective of how often they're used.

Did you get burned by Jade Empire too? :D

Just to be that guy (and because I'd love it), I'll say that they're making The Black Hound with Beamdog.

Well, just remember, Boston is were Cheers is set. :D Did they work in a reference to that, by the way?

Sandstorms? In Massachusetts? WTF? Despite the fact that Bethesda Studios is located in Maryland, it makes me wonder if they don't know much about New England. Even accepting a nuclear war and global warmimg, there's no way that New England is an effing desert, it would've been reclaimed by forest a long time ago. And wouldn't that have made an interesting game?

I was honestly thinking that I would get it if it was 10$ or less, because that's how much the old Infinity Engine games for on GOG. Call me crazy, but doesn't 15$ sound rather steep for what they're offering? I mean, it isn't exactly Mask of The Betrayer...

A couple of ways that would immensely improve playability. - Obviously, a way to label the map with multicolored pins, as we were able to do in the later Infinity Engine games. Also an optional "Auto-pin" option which puts a pin identifying a location after you visit it. (before you scoff, remember, P:T did this) - Ability to move up and down a level on the map screen. For instance when looking at the world map, you should be allowed to view the local map of a location by either right-clicking on it, or adding a third option to the travel dialog (so: Travel Here, View, Cancel). These maps would only be available after you visited the location, of course. This would be especially useful in cases like Twin Elms and Defiance Bay where you have a city split up into three or more zones, and it's hard to keep track of which locations are in each slice of the location. By being able to go down to the local map (with your labels!) from the world map.

Did they ever introduce the "real" magic system? I started playing it the day it came out, and was rather disappointed that the only magic in the game was the special attacks your characters had. There were rumors that there was going to be an event, where the Mage's Guild (or whatever preceded it) actually made the breakthrough which leads to the creation of the different schools of magic, and real spells (and probably a Mage class) would be added to the game. I very much doubt there would've been a spellmaker though (though that does sound similar to what Shroud of the Avatar is doing with player-created content).

Lulz?