what_else!

Theurgist, Because one does not exclude the other. I believe both characters (players) should have the freedom of choice to work their way throughout the game by doing one or the other or both methods (killing or infiltrating). What I'm proposing, is to allow someone to do BOTH and get a higher reward for spending the time to work his way across the game in such depth. Don't punish those players for the sake of balance.

Vorad and Infinitron, Shouldn't magic be "epic"? I believe thats what magic is all about. Take for example the character of Elminster of the Forgotten Realms, a true Arch Mage of epic proportions, who really makes a difference and defines what magic is all about. In games like PoE, we loose that luster. I think we define "blanace" in a different way, because the overpower of magic IS balance. A lame magic is truly something unbalanced. How many times, in pen and paper games, have you gone against an evil mage (living or undead) in his high tower of magic? Lots of times. So in PoE you suggest that we change that to... an evil ranger living in his evil treehouse? It just doesn't cut it. Magic has lost its magic

Fenixp, I understand the reasoning to make the life of developers easier, but I do believe such a decision has a negative effect overal. Mainly because RPG games are actually based heavily on experience points and one way to get them is by the overkill slaughter of anything alive and/or dead (and anything in between). This is important to understand because a high level character implies that he has been adventuring to reach his XP status, instead of just talking around the game. XP during battle is like an award! Your friend who avoided fights, should not be able to reach a similar high level by skimming around the edges of the game. At least as per traditional rules. As a result, you end up with a fighter of high level who hasn't really done much fighting? I think it is unreasonable. Anyway, just my opinion. I do appreciate that PoE tries to do some things in a different way.

I know I haven't filled it yet, but the "??" makes the game look like its broken or buggy. We usualy see this in broken javascript websites for example. Idealy a dash "-" or an empty page with a warning text would have been more communicative. The "??" makes me think of bored/overworked developers, I'm sure a designer would prefer something more elegant, no offense to the developers

Interesting question. Historically speaking, based on works by AD&D and mythical writers, magic has always been more powerful (or overkill) and more impressive (its magical after all) than mundane real life. In previous RPG games (pen & paper, or computer games), magic was balanced with a weak physical trait of the magic user, especially in low class levels. We can see such an example from the AD&D pen & paper version of Dragonlance and the character Raistlin, who is a total “basket case” for about most of his life, up until his magic becomes powerful. In computer games, magic plays a vital role in the graphical effects that immerse and impress the player. Unfortunately, PoE fails in this aspect. It fails to impress because magic is too limited and uninteresting, there are not enough magic user variations, the characters are not powerful enough in later levels and the spells are quite unremarkable for what we call “magic”. I believe, that they should have been “magical”, like in other games (Baldurs Gate and/or Neverwinter Nights for example). The balance (or unbalance) in PoE falls mostly to meele users.

I've been playing PoE for some time now and I'd like to post my thoughts, so others may offer their opinion. The first thing I noticed, is that "magic" in general is very dispappointing. For someone who played "Dungeon Master" in the 80's and later "Eye of the Beholder" series and other RPG games, the PoE really makes me feel like the makers of the game dislike magic or for some reason decided to "down play" magic in this game a bit too much. That was my greatest disappointment. Next, I realized that no matter how great are my battles, no matter how many hours I spend over and over the same battle to finish it in the coolest way possible, I get no XP at the end of it. Which is rather sad and the game looses something of its essense. Note that I'm playing with the latest patched version and the game has been around for quite a while. You'd expect that most bugs would have been ironed out. Still, the game is rather buggy, it crashed a couple of times, some moster descriptions come up with "??" instead of real numeric values and there are lots of graphics issues (like the robe a character is wearing, stays "floating" when the character is prone, or doesn't stick to his back on large persons, etc). Anyway, ignoring the complete and utter destruction of proper magic in the game and the bugs, the game plays (with a non-magic character of course) like a true RPG game. Great improvement in character interaction, lots of interesting features like the documenting of the journal with the quests and side-quests. I also like a challenge and PoE allows me to play in Hard mode, which is ideal for me. I tried the Path of the Damned, which offered an even greater challenge, but I got quite disappointed with the lack of XP, so it really made no sense to continue in this mode, so I switched to Hard. Anyway, overall I like the game, but if I was aware of the lack of proper magic, then I would never have gotten it. Total deal-breaker. I'd appreciate what others think.. Thank you.

Apparently, the PC DVD is Windows and Steam only. It is also impossible to exchange a Steam key for a GOG key, because "the money" went to one organisation and not the other. The only real solution, is to return the game for a refund and buy it instead from GOG directly. I'm against Steam, because some time ago I did some debug work on their client and I was very disappointed to find some unsettling results. It downloaded all sorts of information from my computer and it stayed running all the time, while at the same time transferring all sorts of encrypted data. Not exactly transparent on what it was doing, so better safe than sorry.

Thank you for the information, I've contacted Paradox via their contact form.

Since I haven't used my key with Steam, would it be possible to replace it with a GOG.com key? Is there someone from obsidian I can talk to about this? Thank you.

Ah, I see! I'll look around as well. Thank you! *edit* Well, someone at obsidian must have rushed a bit. The DVD definitely does not support Linux (even if the DVD box says so), it is Steam for Windows only. The solution given in the Wasteland 2 forums, is to use install Steam and use the serial "key" printed inside the DVD case to download the Linux version of the game. Since Steam does not work properly on my CentOS Linux, this is something I can't do at the moment. Anyone knows if the serial "key" works with the GOG.com as well? Maybe I can download the game from there?

I understand that a lot of people are playing this game under Linux, they probably installed a downloadable digital edition, because I still can't find a solution on the PC DVD. The box clearly mentions Linux but the DVD only has a Windows setup.exe installer. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Oh, I forgot to mention that the dvd box clearly states "Linux Minimum System Requirements" at the back, with the little table of spec. It mentions Ubuntu under "OS". In case its of any help, here are the files in the root directory of the dvd: 291651_depotcache_1.csd 291651_depotcache_1.csm 291651_depotcache_2.csd 291651_depotcache_2.csm 291651_depotcache_3.csd 291651_depotcache_3.csm 291651_depotcache_4.csd 291651_depotcache_4.csm 291651_depotcache_5.csd 291651_depotcache_5.csm 291651_depotcache_6.csd 291651_depotcache_6.csm 291651_depotcache_7.csd 291651_depotcache_7.csm 291652_depotcache_1.csd 291652_depotcache_1.csm autorun.inf icon.ico resources Setup.exe setup.ini sku.sis splash.tga SteamRetailInstaller.dmg SteamService.exe Any ideas please?

Having read the website about PoE supporting Linux, I went and bought the PC DVD at my local store (it just sounded faster to walk 10 min than to wait 10 hours of download). But, the DVD only has a "setup.exe" for Windows and no Linux related installation script. Does that mean that the Linux game is only a downloadable thing and I should return the game? or is there some installation script that I can download from somewhere? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!