nikolokolus
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Posts posted by nikolokolus
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Presumably every copy of PE that gets sold via Steam or GOG will be nearly 100% pure profit for Obsidian. There will definitely be pirates, but just judging off of CD Projeckt's sales figures vs. piracy figures for DRM free Witcher 2 there were about 5 million legit sales compared to about 4.5 million pirated copies circulated (Can't remember the source, might have been Total Biscuit?). So are those pirated copies really lost sales? Maybe some of them, but chances are that the pirates would have never purchased the game regardless of its DRM state. But maybe because they released a DRM free copy of the game, that lead people to purchase that otherwise would have been offended or put off by the presence of DRM. I know that's how I felt about Ubisoft when they had their draconian version of DRM that they only recently changed, and I refuse to purchase EA games because of Origin (and a number of other reasons) I don't pirate their games either, but many people do out of spite for publishers that push invasive forms of DRM and sometimes people reward companies for treating customers with respect.
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My god. This thread ... talk about elevating pedantry to a near art-form.
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The archetypal D&D ranger that Gary Gygax developed is modeled directly off of Aragorn from the LotR books by Tolkien. He wasn't some tree hugging nature worshiper.
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Why does a ranger have to be a "forest protector." Seems awfully reductive to assume that they are only associated with the woods. A "hunter" on the other hand tells me one thing, these people hunt animals.
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I'm guessing the world of Eternity has wild dogs and vultures right? Corpses do disappear after time ... but maybe they should leave behind some moldering bones?
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There's already 2 different playthroughs. They're only done during certain intervals since he's also quite a busy man.
I hear you, but they mention in last update that there will be another part of his playthourgh in next one (read this), not that I want to rush anything or so...
Bear in mind GDC is going on this week and PAX was the week before. As Obsidian's creative lead, I'm guessing his PR duties outstrip his Arcanum LP diversion for backers.
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I love the idea of those baroque plates being used for skill checks in-game, or to convey some sort of interaction with the environment that would otherwise be a simple feedback message in the conversation box ... or some kind of psuedo cut-scene.
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If it's a silly shooter or action game like Diablo, TF2 or Left for Dead, especially in a competitive or co-op environment then I don't have a problem with getting little virtual participation ribbons, because the fun of those games isn't the story, it's the competition itself.
But achievements in a RPG always serve to take me out of the game and put me in some meta-game state.
Just make the game reactive enough and interesting enough that there are multiple ways of overcoming most objectives and we'll get to read about all of the clever things people did on the forum and that will be enough of an "achievement" for me.
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As a few other people have stated, an allusion to some connection would be fine, but I don't want to see overt connections. It should at most be something, when encountered, that makes the astute player pause, scratch their head and mutter to themselves, "wait ... what was that?" with no proof of the crossover ever existing.
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I'm definitely no fan of DRM and maybe I'm naive' but I look at Steam as more of a "service" then some onerous 3 headed dog guarding the gates of Hell. It's really never gotten in my way in the 7 years or so I've used it. Compare that to my experiences with EA's Origin (uninstalled and will never use again) or Ubisofts' old implementation of Uplay and there's just no comparison. I also like GOG.com quite a bit too and the 20 or so games in my library can attest to that.
In any case, there's no right or wrong answer here only preferences, and the fact that users have a choice with the way P:E will be delivered is all that really matters. Do what you like.
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No news yet. based on the last estimate from Darren Monahan it should be up pretty damned soon. But you're guess is as good as mine.
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I have very fond memories of HoMM 2 and 3 and MM6 and MM7 and I played some of the later titles like MM8 (meh) and MM9 (gack!) but didn't get into the later HoMM games because of the poor reviews.
All that said, there isn't a chance in hell Ubisoft is making a party based, first-person blobber with MMX; if I had to guess I'd think a free-2-play MMO, loaded with microtransactions and facebook tie-ins will be the way they go.
I'd like to be optimistic, but this franchise has lost its way since the hey day of NWC, no reason to believe that's going to change now.
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Finally picked up Arcanum a month or so ago from GOG.com and have been slowly working my way through that. I think I must have stopped and restarted 6 times now because I'm never quite happy with the way my character turns out because of some choice or another I make. Definitely one of those RTFM kinds of games.
Beyond that, I've got a fledgling replay of Torment underway inspired by the Torment: Numenera kickstarter, but I know that if I get into it, I'll never finish Arcanum.
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Like others have mentioned NWN2's main campaign ranges anywhere from bland to awful depending on your tolerance for generic fantasy tropes. It's better than NWN1's terrible OC, but that's not saying much. Storm of Zehir introduces some interesting new gameplay for the series (full party building, overland map, more an interesting dialogue system) but I had no interest in role-playing a pseudo merchant which the game sort of forces you to do. The star here is Mask of the Betrayer.
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Fallout 3 had its moments. I thought the world building was "interesting" (although not very believable) almost like a giant amusement park with different sub-theme parks contained within. However,its story was pure crap; bland railroaded plot with a clear "bad" side and a "good" side, with barely any true choices and consequences.
FO:NV on the other hand I thought did a really good job of recreating the desolation and feeling of loneliness that the real Mojave inspires ... this was good for verisimilitude, but sometimes felt a little empty and "samey" from a gameplay perspective. From a simulation angle it got a lot right, but maybe it should have sacrificed some of that "realism" for some good old fashioned variation and creative license? Mostly this is just a niggle.As for the story, character writing and faction design, I thought it did a fantastic job of creating people with believable motives, lots of gray area and meaningful choices and consequences.
Whatever though, tastes differ. The proof for me is looking at my Steam statistics for both games. 65 hours for FO:3 and 456 hours in FO:NV
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That's weird, I've heard a few developers rail against the vertical slice, most notably Ron Gilbert on his Grumpy Gamer blog. It certainly resonated with me as being a clumsy and inefficient concept when applied to a game. I'm curious to hear the counterargument, I suppose it can get everyone on the same page while exposing issues early on but it still strikes me as a weird idea.
I guess everybody has an opinion. Personally I can think of a couple of reasons why it might be a good idea, but then again I'm not a games designer, so maybe my gut instinct - generating a proof of concept and setting a tone/style for the rest of the game - is wrong?
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Maybe this game will turn out great, but the pitch just raised more questions for me than it answered about how this is all supposed to work out. At some point I've seen the words "microtransactions," "taxes," "PvP," and "Persistence" thrown around. Something that evokes the image of a F2P MMO ... but supposedly it's not an MMO?
Loved Ultima 1-7 back in the day, but I tried UO and hated it and most people remember how U8 and U9 turned out, so I have mixed feelings about Garriot's vision for what makes a good RPG, especially since his later stuff falls down for me compared to his earlier stuff.
I don't feel like I can back this (especially since I'm throwing $75 bucks at Torment) but I guess I'll keep an eye on it and see how things progress - It looks like it will probably reach its funding goal.
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So nobody else played Tunnels of Doom on TI-99 4/A?
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I just wanted to log in and say I think Colin McComb et. al. are going to do a helluva job. Really looking forward to some good RPGs after years of wandering the proverbial desert.
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I like the notion of making warriors master of the battlefield by giving them some ability to control space, but the devil's in the details as they say -- looking forward to seeing how it works out.
But the grimoire slam thing ... I don't like this much at all. If you want to give wizards a "push" cantrip or some other low level spell that can buffet an opponent to break engagement, then that's fine, but the idea of slamming an unwieldy tome of magic around the battlefield -- a rare and precious item in a world without a printing press -- just seems kind of "derpy" to me.
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I'll speak for myself. I use Steam and I don't really care about its particular implentation of DRM. I also buy games from GOG.com, but as long as a company isn't implementing something crappy like limited activations, or system crippling malware (starforce was pretty nasty back in the day) then I'm happy to use something like Steam with its very limited DRM footprint.
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If Obsidian weren't providing a DRM-free alternative then I'd be all for the OP's suggestion. As it stands there will be a DRM free solution for people that demand such things and for those that don't care much about Steam being on and like its features already, then Steam seems like a good way to go, particularly if they like the cloud based saves, achievements and what not.
I suppose with more than a year to go before release people have to have something to argue and talk about, so this thread makes perfect sense.
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I completely understand why people like Iron Man mode. it's not really for me though. I rarely have a lot of time to put into a game, and losing a lot of progress because I wasn't paying attention because I was tired doesn't appeal to me.
What does that word mean in a game though? There are no lasting consequences for success or failure in a game where animated pixels move about a screen according to mouse movements and key presses. Not judging your preferences, just thinking "out loud" about the concept of "progress"
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I've always been a sucker for magical weapons/items in stories that come with some nasty negative side-effects, especially the more powerful they get (i.e. Elric's Stormbringer, the Eye and Hand of Vecna, etc.).
I think it's also better to skip with the whole "+n thingamabob" item name for lower level "magical" items; I think it's better to use words like "masterwork" or the name of a particular smith or region -- Toledo swords, Damascus Steel, etc. -- to give a non-artifact special item flavor
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What is most importan part of characters (npc, party members etc)
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
I don't much care for the poll options.
For me, whether it's literature or in games, I want my characters to be three dimensional; believable motives, believable reactions, depth. Stats, looks and all of that other crap really doesn't mean anything to me if the character fails the verisimilitude test.