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nikolokolus

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Everything posted by nikolokolus

  1. nikolokolus
    Call me crazy, but when I eventually fire up Torment I expect it to look, feel and play differently from Pillars of Eternity ... as if two different companies and teams of developers worked on them to create two games with distinctive art and design styles, coincident with their respective genres (dying Earth and late medieval period respectively). Maybe some people like that Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate and Planescape all looked so "samey." I'm not one of those people.
  2. nikolokolus
    Demonstrating half-baked animations and mechanics seem to do more harm than good because most people "cannot into undermastand" what Alpha state game play actually means. So, I guess that's my way of saying I can wait until the beta.
  3. nikolokolus
    In the universe of things that matter ... this is not one of those things.
  4. nikolokolus
    Definitely. If it gets implemented then I think it needs to be more than just a cosmetic effect. NPCs should react negatively if you walk up to them sword drawn.
  5. nikolokolus
    Who knows, maybe some kind-hearted Pathfinder/Eberron expert will be along shortly, but this sort of feels like the kind of question you'd want to post on a Paizo board.
  6. nikolokolus
    A hearty +1 to every person who thinks that CRPGs have almost universally failed to provide role-playing. So my heretical thoughts: -Nethack is pretty much the height of RPG design for an electronic device. -An RPG with a pre-determined plot isn't really an RPG. -An RPG writer trying to tell a story in a game is probably just a frustrated novelist and 99.9% of them should probably just try to write bad fiction instead. -A (good) live DM, running adventures and dynamic events on a NWN persistent-world, hardcore server, was often about a million times better than any single-player CRPG ever made. Computers are awesome at procedural generation, math and graphics, but they suck at what makes tabletop RPGs so great - they can't wing it, when your players ask if what happens if they cast ray of frost on those wet rocks at the feet of the cyclops, standing next to the edge of that cliff. That said, I still can't stop playing the CRPGs that fake it well.
  7. nikolokolus
    @LadyCrimson I assume you've seen Noah "Spoony" Antwiler's Ultima retrospective (on youtube or his site)? If not, it's a nice catharsis for having had to endure such a crappy ending to a pretty great series. Oh yeah, worst game nominee. Ultima 9 or Might and Magic 9. Equally awful for different reasons, but both wrapped up two beloved series with a resounding fart.
  8. nikolokolus
    I guess that depends on whether or not you think stories in RPGs emerge from play or if they are "told." Certainly it's nice (and probably necessary) to have some kind of end-state in an RPG, but this idea that RPGs needs some grand narrative structure sounds more like an interactive novel than a game. I look at a game like Fallout New Vegas vs. Mass Effect for the kind of contrast I'm talking about. Both lead to a conclusion, but the one in F:NV emerges from player choices, while the ending in ME:3 was strictly what Bioware had decided it would be. I'll happily take the former over the latter, whether it's in a PnP or CRPG environment.
  9. nikolokolus
    For those of you with a lot of website identities, it might be worth checking into something like Lastpass, especially if you find yourself using identical usernames and passwords for multiple sites. Pros: -generate randomized strong passwords unique for each website -multifactor authentication (get a premium account and a yubikey, it's worth it) -plugin integration into all of the major browsers -mobile device support -account analyses and hardening tips -reputable Possible Cons: -cloud storage of sensitive data -Using it without multifactor authentication might leave your account vulnerable? -can be kind of clunky to use when you don't have admin rights to install a plugin I'm not employed by Lastpass or affiliated in any way, but I've been a very happy customer for about a year and I'd recommend it to anybody, particularly if you use the plugin with a multifactor authentication scheme. Food for thought.
  10. nikolokolus
    What's so great about subtitles anyway? If you can't get your point across in three or four words, then hire an editor.
  11. nikolokolus
    A rose by any other name ...
  12. nikolokolus
    One more note: I don't know if those games I listed have translations into other languages (Slovak or Czech?) but S&W, LL, and LotFP all have free pdfs, so you can take a look without making a financial commitment.
  13. nikolokolus
    I didn't mean to imply homebrew, I was talking about rules-lite TSR edition clones like Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry and similar games (Lamentations of the Flame Princess, DCC RPG, etc.) They all have relatively simple rule systems and combat resolution mechanics that can be played without all of the complex stuff you see in D&D 3.x, 4th ed. and the like. Point being, that sometimes it's easier to learn how to run a game when you spend more time worrying about creating great adventure hooks and some memorable locations and characters vs. trying memorize the encyclopedic core rules that you get with Pathfinder and newer editions of D&D. To each their own of course, but the job of game master is tough enough without having to learn whilst also internalizing a crunchy ruleset.
  14. nikolokolus
    I say this as someone who has only ever played in face-to-face games, so I have no idea how difficult it actually is to get into an online game, but I see people advertising for new players and games fairly frequently on google+ and some of the game specific fora that I follow. If you're "rules-flexible" and aren't wedded to a particular system, then I'd strongly encourage you to check out the google+ community pages for any number of RPG games. I'm partial to Old-School Renaissance systems myself (and frankly I think they're a great way to learn how to DM, because they usually encourage improvisation and are usually rules-lite) but I'm sure you'll find any number of D&D, Pathfinder, Runequest, Warhammer, and/or FATE gamers looking to do a google hangout game. I wouldn't worry too much about your "noob" status. As long as you're there to have fun and not be a disruption, most people love it when new blood wants to get into the hobby.
  15. nikolokolus
    If this were a hardcore, swords & sorcery game I think it would be great to have these kinds of armors (and I love Nonek's take on his "Tatoo armor," I've done something sort of similar with my antediluvian based, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, PnP game). For this game? I dunno, it would sort of feel discordant from the art style I've seen so far.
  16. nikolokolus
    Arboreal: root = arbor = latin Boreal: root = boreas = greek
  17. nikolokolus
    Divinity:Original Sin's mod tools are supposedly going to be quite robust and allow for the sort of module creation you're talking about Osvir. I doubt PoE is being built from the ground up to encourage this kind of wholesale modding.
  18. nikolokolus
    Magic is a sort of religion in WoT. That's where all of the supernatural power lies and the very political, and hierarchical, Aes Sedai, wield a power mimicking the clerical authority found in a lot of super-state religions from Earth's antiquity. The notion that gods and religion must be present for a setting to be considered "fantastical" seems awfully thin to me.
  19. nikolokolus
    The Wheel of Time eventually fell flat, because Robert Jordan couldn't stop faffing about with characters and get around to telling a story.
  20. nikolokolus
    Boreal = cold, taiga, coniferous forest, continental climate. Seriously people, you're completely over-thinking this one adjective.
  21. nikolokolus
    In the context of PoE souls exist, and there is in fact a field of study called Animancy dedicated to studing it, also see here for more information about it. Thanks. Then my question becomes: exacly what is a soul? What do you leave behind? Is it really the essence of your being or something different? Do people only wish it was their consciousness that remains behind? Perhaps consciousness is exactly what dies when you perish and what you leave behind is not your essence at all, but something else, something like... In my opinion, the worst thing an author of fantasy can do is to ever explain any mystery fully. Once you provide a strict mechanic for the fantastic, it ceases to be fantastic and becomes science.
  22. nikolokolus
    You're thinking of "arboreal."
  23. nikolokolus
    Man I really tried to like that game, but the merchant stuff in the second act ... ugh. When does that dungeon come into play? Is it at the end of the game?
  24. nikolokolus
    But seriously. Life is too short for bad fiction. There are soooooo many good books out there and so little time. It pains me in "that-middle-part-of-my-chest-where-my-heart-would-be-if-I-had-one" when I hear people talking about reading setting fiction like Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc. Don't get me wrong, when I was 13 or 14 I read my share of horrendous Bob Salvatore tripe, so nobody's perfect.
  25. nikolokolus
    There was definitely something special about that ersatz Conan guy, with the sword and shield, taking on a dragon, that immediately pulled you in and made you want to replicate that moment some how.
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