abaris

To tell the truth - I didn't even notice that there are no portraits. And now that I do know, I don't care very much. There are other issues that seem much more pressing to me.

As far as I know, shields only affect accuracy not recovery. So it's to be expected that recovery was the same. Recovery is influenced by armor.

Don't fall for the achievement stats. If people follow Obsidian's advice to start the game as admin from the folder, there isn't anything logged in the steam client. You get no achievements, which I don't need anyway, and there's no game time record. So, the client is rather blind to what you're doing. And running POE as admin is a must when using the steam version. Otherwise that useless client keeps interfering and causing the weirdest things, with graphical glitches being the most benign. There may be bad statistics, but this one is a useless statistic.

Why ask us? You put 40 to 60 hours into that game, so I would say, you got something for your money. If you're not interested in another playthrough - so what, let it lie.

This http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64555-update-66-double-whammy/?p=1394940 would have looked so much better, although I still consider the main keep too large in that image. In fact, my main problem is with the keep. Raedric's Hold looks believable, given the overall setting of the game. But Caed Nua really looks like a rather large downtroden factory from the late 1800. But ultimately it's a waste to cry over spilled milk. They can't change it for this game, since it would involve to much work for a simple update. But I do hope, if they continue the series, that they do listen to fan suggestions.

I was already in my mid 30ies when the original IE games came out. But back then there was that cultural war between macs and PCs. I had a lot of layout and graphics work to do and so Mac was the logical choice, since most businesses I worked with operated Mac systems and compatibility was kind of an issue in the late 90ies. These games weren't ported to mac systems. You could run them if you installed virtual PC, but that really wasn't fun, since it only used virtual memory, which resulted in a very laggy experience. You could run civilization builders like Pharao, but that was the best, programs like that could manage. Personally I come from the old pen and paper days, which we played during the 80ies. And so my expectation, when it comes to role playing games, may be even higher than others. Story and customization comes before combat in any case. So what the industry forks out under the flag of RPG these days reallly doesn't do. For me it's just cheap console hack and slash with a few shiny graphic elements to attract casuals. So yes, I kind of feel the same. Even more so, since games are a kind of escapism for me. I want to dive into that world and get lost in it to forget the everyday struggle.

That would mean getting rid of the option to keep Raedric in power. But I agree with you on the looks. They really aren't very appealing. They could have taken the Raedric design for Caed Nua. Sadly, the commentary doesn't say anything about the reasons why they designed it the way it is, only about the difficulties of working with the design.

I did on occasion. The first time I didn't. Not because I didn't want to, but because I simply missed a portion of it.

That's exactly what I meant. The game isn't smart enough to remove them permanently, but sends them in spirit. Has anyone checked if they really are bodiless at reappearance or if they're idling in the Great Hall as usual?

T'wasn't easy for me till I learned the ropes. Most of all, I would make a distinction between ranged and melee. Keep ranged in the back and keep them in light armor, so that they get their shots off more frequently. Protect with melee. Eder, giving the right abilities, armor and shield, is pretty good at that. He doesn't have to be a damage dealer. Your ranged characters and spell casters do that just fine. He just has to keep them as safe as possible.

Well, gaming media and gross misuse kinda go hand in hand. Funny, and that might be some real piece of nostalgia, I remember a time when gaming mags didn't automatically overrate so called AAA games. But that was when game development was a competitive market and well before major shareholding corporations started to eat studios alive.

That would be quite the challenge to write a nuanced RPg with black and white alignments. I guess right in the squaring a circle league.

Yeah, I had that Korgrak comment, but not the kitchen one. I assume, you mean restoring the hearth.

Yes, me too. I would say, D:OS solved it pretty well. Vendors were restocking as you levelled and didn't hold on to every junk item you sold to them. That made it really interesting to pay them a visit every now and then. As for the stronghold, I like having it too, but the purpose of some additions just escapes me. Especially the vendors, which brings us again to the restocking issue.

Yeah, and I didn't contradict it. My point was merely that it's foolish to put any real stock in reviews at all. Not only game reviews, but all product reviews. If it's about a car, it's the same thing. The journalist gets to drive a fancy motor for a period of time for free. Do you think, he's going to destroy the image of the company providing it? If he did, next time he won't be on the list. And that's exactly the same with games. If there are negative reviews, apart from ad money being a concern, magazines reporting badly won't get invited to get an early sneak peak at the next game. They won't get early copies, but everyone playing ball will. So it's hurting their own business if they can't report while every oher hack does get the opportunity. That's why you hardly find any bad reviews about AAA titles. A look at metacritic and the disconnect between gamers and magazines becomes abundantly clear in many instances. And lastly, there's this thing called advertorials. Outright paid articles that give themselves the appearance of being legit. That's hard to spot for the average reader, since they don't know about the wording used in PR and the assumed psychology behind them. When I read a particularly friendly article about a certain company in a paper or a magazine, my alarm bells go off, since I know the inner workings of the business.

You know, I never thought about it although it's rather obvious. Another question to ask would be if the game is smart enough to remove them for good or if they return anyway. You always get the same trio as far as I can tell.

You are aware that this isn't based on the D&D ruleset? So good and evil don't figure into this kind of game. And personally I'm rather glad about it that usually we don't get these black and white alignments anymore. Grey is the color of reality when it comes to good vs evil.

I bought a few since I never got around playing them when they were new and they're dead cheap anyway. Plan on giving them a try, but didn't get around to do it so far. The graphics got in the way. I really didn't remember how bad they were just some 15 years ago.

The problem has many aspects. The most important one being that there are very few independent companies with enough funds to develop a major game. Most companies have been bought or gone down the drain within the last decade. The result are big shareholder monstrosities with empty suits at their helm that could just as well sell toilet paper as they sell games. They're not invested in what they produce, only in the revenue they create to rake in the next annual bonus. So we got games that are produced with the sole intent to be sold to as many people as possible with the least possible effort. Consoles are the ideal medium for that kind of approach since they have a clearly defined hardware structure. Tagged on multiplayer offers the possibility to rake in an additional dime with microtransactions. PC comes only as an afterthought. Ports are made shoddily and have to cope with a system that is already stripped down to suit the limited options the console controllers offer.

As far as I am concerned, most if not all reviews by magazines and game sites are worthless. You can still learn something from reading them by looking at the authors preferences. If they happen to coincide with your own and the review is positive, it's probably a game for you. Personally I rather look at reviews by the gamer community and actual ingame videos to make my own judgment. In most cases, this has proven to be the right approach for me, since working for a special interest magazine myself I know first hand how ad money influences stories.

Do you know of any (recent) game where the story was not average off the stock material? Shadowrun: Dragonfall had a perfectly serviceable story. Yeah, but that's more of a murder mystery than a real RPG. Although it has strong RPG elements it doesn't have real side quests and party management to the extent of a real RPG. You're thinking of Dead Man's Switch. Dragonfall is a completely different campaign (which surpasses its predecessor in every possible way and is probably the best CRPG since Alpha Protocol). You're right. I was talking about Shadowrun returns.

@ Zwiebelchen, since I don't need to quote any particular point of your post. Just a general observation. We're entering quite treacherous territory there. The territory of writing themselves into a corner. A perfect example would be DAII (which I never played, but read a lot about) where you can play a mage and cast magic without anyone noticing in a city where this is basically outlawed and under the best or circumstances frowned upon. Another one would be Skyrim, where being Dragonborn has absolutely no cosequence besides you being able to shout. If you introduce something major, you better make it work inside the game environment. And a few text tablets simply don't do for a character going insane by being possessed by past selves. Either you make it so, that the changes are gradual and don't influence your gameplay - as they did. Or you have to have the guts to put some restraints on the player to drive the point of the story home.

Believe me, if you can do nothing but defend the stronghold for three real time hours straight, the fun part kind of wears off.

As long as Feargus Urquhart is at the helm, I doubt that will happen. He's a PC man through and through. Btw, there nothing wrong with social agendas as long as the fit nicely into the narrative. POE has it's fair share of them.

Do you know of any (recent) game where the story was not average off the stock material? Shadowrun: Dragonfall had a perfectly serviceable story. At the very least, it managed to avoid Ass Pulling a radical thematic shift in the last... roughly 10 percent of the story, which is more than what could be said for Pillars. Yeah, but that's more of a murder mystery than a real RPG. Although it has strong RPG elements it doesn't have real side quests and party management to the extent of a real RPG.