alanschu

This is my take on it. Make it convenient and at a cost that people are okay with, and the transition will happen. Not too dissimilar to things like digital distribution platforms. Could probably argue it's just the next step? Heck steam was effective for combating some of the casual piracy among some of my friends because it was a bit more hassle free to just download and run a game on Steam than to go ISO hunting. I couldn't say how close we are. There's likely a need for pretty intense bandwidth infrastructure (or improvements in compression and delivery) that need to be done though. That said, if it's *just* about sending an image on your screen... it might be mitigated somewhat. But for that to be the case we'd need spectacular latency to mitigate input lag and so forth. I'm not sure it'll happen "soon" (in whatever ambiguity "soon" means though).

GoA, here's a screencap from the challenges as an example of crafting recipe progression.

Re: Story A lot of the early going is just about "surviving as a freelancer after the events of the prologue" Have you reunited yet with Haluk or anything like that (it sounds like you have - but that's where I just got and it feels to me like the main crit path is starting to come into focus - it's possible you just don't like it which is fair too!). The story aspect is different compared to our other games by design as it is a different type of game (we tried to be reasonably open about this, and it's a big reason why we wanted to have a prerelease demo for people to play - I don't want someone to pick up the game if they're looking for a DA or ME type of experience). I'm not sure I grok what you mean by loot is terrible, beyond feeling that the weapon models are too similar. Are you feeling you're not getting decent loot upgrades? Or that they're not interesting? Or that you're not able to do sufficient damage? Loot progression has seemed reasonable enough by my take, but I'm still pretty early in the game (level 11 IIRC). I tend to get a handful of greens every mission though and I don't feel like I'm struggling to get through missions either, so it doesn't feel like loot "sucks" in the sense that I'm not able to be effective in combat, but you're mileage may vary. There's issues with the inscriptions being sometimes oddly matched (all energy gun gets bonus to physical damage) though that was addressed in a patch today. But I'm also early enough that I'm not really worrying yet that much as my gear still tends to be pretty temporary. I have found 2 legendary yellows and 1 blue in my past few missions. Stuff you can craft seems to be based on your own level. You can unlock higher tier recipies by using the weapons and getting kills. I can craft green Sledgehammers (a light machine gun that I dig). Getting the next level recipe looks a fair bit trickier as I'll need to kill Elite level baddies with my sledgehammer. Just checking out the Challenges tab in the journal right now. The load screens for Forge (and just in general) are no arguments here. I've read some have had success putting the game on their SSD, though not everyone is able to do that and we should work on improving it for everyone (I still use a HDD for most of my games)

I haven't played through the narrative itself yet so I'm not sure how long it is. How long did it take you to get through it all? What other stuff did you find missing from the game (lack of content or otherwise)? (I know end game content has been a complaint as seems to be the case for a lot of these games but curious if there was something else)

ROFLMAO! Only wrong in the sense that it is "older gamers." Compared to fresh young pups that are just getting into gaming the last 5 years the context is probably accurate. Only wrong in the sense that it is "older gamers"? That's like saying "Most green bananas are sweeter than yellow ones" - "Wrong" - "Only wrong if sweetness is concerned". I mean that what they consider "older gamers" had a gap that overlooked an even older group of gamers. Perspective of one's audience can be off due to inaccurate assumptions and all (e.g. I often prescribe a pronoun based on one's avatar) and it's not really nefarious; it's just gaps in their assumptions. Someone that is 28 is an "older gamer" compared to Fortnite players of today. And I pick Fortnite specifically because it's one of the first games I've felt an obvious "generational gap" in that This Thing Is Definitely Not For Me But Is Definitely Very For A Demographic I'm Not A Part Of. My wife and I went to a restaurant and when the server asked us what we were up to, we said we were going to go home and play some games and his eyes lit up "Oh you play Fortnite!?" hahaha. The idea, though, that it was "all down hill" from the EA purchase is going to be something some people will definitely not agree with. And if we were able to take a particularly randomized poll of the entire gaming community for BioWare's peak, I wouldn't at all be surprised if it came after EA's purchase of BioWare. With it comes the PC version of the first game, DAO finally being released, and BioWare's best selling games all coming after that period. Of course it's also a bit of an obvious thought, given that gaming itself has grown. EDIT: Even I did it since I bucketed "Fortnite players of today" as being younger players which certainly isn't an entirely accurate generalization hahaha The way I've always looked at it is that a game dev making games that don't interest me anymore is functionally no different than if they had just gone out of business.

ROFLMAO! Only wrong in the sense that it is "older gamers." Compared to fresh young pups that are just getting into gaming the last 5 years the context is probably accurate. This forum (at least when I was active here) leaned towards even OLDER gamers so for many long time here it was BG2 (and for some, KOTOR) that they felt was our peak. Unsurprisingly those that loved ME Trilogy (or even the first 3 DA games) don't care much for a game like BG2. You probably get KOTOR overlapping the most which would probably make sense given when it was released relative to the others. It's also reflective of what people liked about our games. For example, for a lot of people it was BG1/2's tactical combat aspect was what they loved. Unsurprisingly not much since then has made those people happy. I still had people on the old BSN that said they stuck around being a voice for a return ala "BG3" (or whatever spiritual successor as licensing was probably an issue). For myself it was the narrative and specifically companions which I loved, which I think were more ubiquitous across the breadth of BioWare games (subjective preferences aside). It meant BG1 was cool but not really my cup of tea (especially as someone that hated low level AD&D), though BG2 pulled me in heavily. We also have people that literally didn't play one second of single player of ME3, but hundreds of hours of the multiplayer.

I feel compelled to post: I like Fight On from FF7 (I think mostly due to nostalgia now, but it just fit so well with the boss fights). This track is probably a key cog for the scene that converted me back to a PC gamer back in 1999. I think Bloodlines had some catchy ones that seemed to fit the scene so well. There's something about that has some tracks that I for no particular reason! And while many may feel it reminds them too much of something they didn't enjoy, is a great piece IMO. Came across this and it's interesting how much of this is still true to me today :D Also Arkham Bridge B-)

Nooo... I has an identity crisis! Good to see you again Allan and good to hear you not running around with a bullseye painted on you I don't generally share what people on my friends lists do I still remember the time I accidentally called Deraldin Deladrin! And I screwed up Gfted1 by calling him G1fted! D: And I totally took Kaiserslautern from German Div 3 to Champions League Champions! Suck it Bayern!

Anthem

I can try to check. Edit: for what it's worth, social media tells me he is still there. I still have him on my steam friend list, so I know he's online, alive and kicking every now and then. and for the record, Baldurs Gate 1+2 were Biowares best ever games! I'm still around. Time flies and I'm about to complete my 10th year at BioWare - the past few I've been more of a QA programmer than a QA analyst which I enjoy and I get to flex my programming education a bit more. Gorth can probably corroborate that I play an awful lot of strategy games (oh Paradox Studios...) lately. And Football Manager. Because evidently I like spreadsheets! Also recently got married and in general life has been pretty good I think! As for our imminent doom, I mean it's part of the ebb and flow I find of a lot of game development studios? People that are still waiting for Baldur's Gate 3 will think it's been all downhill since then. For some KOTOR was the peak. Others the ME Trilogy. And for still others it's the DA games. Even DA2! Just depends on what it is specifically you're looking for in a game I think? I see similar arguments for studios like Bethesda, Blizzard, or even Obsidian! Daggerfall was the best... or Morrowind... or Skyrim. I loved Doom, but Quake never grabbed me. Commander Keen games were meh while Duke 3D was amazing. Oh the time I spent into Warcraft and Starcraft games, but I suspect far more enjoy Overwatch. And I'm pretty sure Diablo 3 is most popular Diablo, even if a hefty amount wholly prefer Diablo 2 over anything else. Obsidian's highlight for me is Fallout: New Vegas, but I also really enjoyed Alpha Protocol (flawed diamond it was) and wasn't really pulled into Pillars of Eternity but Tyranny had me binge two playthroughs of it pretty much back to back. I'm certainly not impartial but definitely not hoping that we get shuttered. I'm not overly concerned in any case and Anthem's launch not causing me any sort of dread or worry for whatever it's worth. But hey, 15 year veterans of Blizzard felt the same. It could happen... I suppose we shall see. Though I'm enjoying it because my current work has been really interesting and doing loads of Python/C#/C++ work in and around the game code which feels pretty cool. Anyhoo, thanks Pidesco for the link. They had mentioned that a few old timers like G1fted (whom I foolishly mistook for Gorth for a moment... too many floating skull/head avatars!!!) and just wanted to chime in for any that were curious. Cheers. Allan

Found him and it was excellent. :D RIP Mike

If you feel your life is increasingly difficult because of your status as a man, then that is your prerogative and I'm not here to convince you otherwise. Yes, I do think that men face less institutionalized issues and that most of them manifest from men. You asked why it was transmisogyny and I attempted to explain as best I could based on the limited knowledge I have now. If you feel you're better versed on the topic and that the entirety of my post is invalid because of those 8 words then so be it. Cheers.

Transmisogyny is simply the intersectional focus that transgender women tend to, in general, face increased hardship by virtue of being a transgender woman compared to transgender men. Some examples of this can be seen with whom trans exclusive radical feminists target (overwhelmingly male to female trans people compared to female to male). I believe transgender women are also more likely to be murdered and encounter sexual violence, but admittedly I'm still very new to this. I'm still getting over my own transphobia, which typically manifested from a discomfort from the reality that I probably would also freak out if I slept with a woman and she was transgender. Though I think I'm getting better in this regard and it's something for myself to work on. (I want to make the clarification that I do not think that someone must be an -ist or -phobe to do -ist or -phobic things. On this board I once casually used the term "Jap" to describe Japanese people which is a racist slur, and once I accepted that that mistake didn't make me a racist but just a human it was a lot easier for me to accept that type of critique and to respond more appropriately). It relates back to the idea/concept of systemic/institutionalized discrimination. I don't feel misandry is really a thing because while any individual can be a jerk towards a man for being a man, I don't really face wide spread challenges based on being a man. That's not to say there aren't issues that apply to men, but just that those that I do find tend to come from other men (and the supposed accepted ways that a man should behave and the shame for having particular events happen to you, for example). My two cents. In any case I don't see the censorship issue here, especially since trans awareness and sensitivity is still in its infancy meaning even if it wasn't noticed prerelease, doesn't mean Obsidian cannot take the feedback and say "Oh we didn't fully appreciate this." It's complicated because some transgender individuals won't care, while some do. Not really my place to say they should or should not be offended. Undoubtedly there's other contributions that were refused because Obsidian didn't feel they were appropriate.

Was curious to see what the reaction to this would be here. If you believe the contributors should have had carte blanche to write whatever they want with no oversight from Obsidian, then that's fine. It's a position we disagree on. I suspect they didn't let people write anything they wanted and that the submissions were vetted, so I'd need to know what Obsidian did in those cases, because I suspect it was probably a mistake. I'm not seeing the censorship issue since it's not relevant to the content of the game. If it's unfair because of the kickstarter contribution, then they could let the person submit something else in its place. This isn't like depictions of rape in FONV (which I feel Obsidian did well and disagree with the critique levied against FONV for those reasons) which is part of the narrative that Obsidian wishes to create, created specifically by Obsidian. It's also possible they didn't realize it was a mistake until pointed out, and of their own free will agree that it's not something they want. Similar to when I used "gay" as slang for "stupid" until I had a few people point out to me that they really didn't like that. Rather than continue be an ****, I opted to stop using the term. (The same thing happened on this forum when I ignorantly used the term "Jap" actually). And yes, the game is successful so it's going to get a wider range of perspectives on something like this. I also think Obsidian's track record is pretty decent for this sort of stuff, even if not every feminist perspective would agree. (The game is aces and I'm off to return to playing it now)

It's seen all the time. Often on this board too. Often the words being used are just slightly different. It's almost a daily occurrence on the BioWare Forums for there to be a heated discussion over the term "RPG" because to some, referring to anything that doesn't fit their strictly defined view of what an "RPG" is threatens that vision. If RPGs are popular, but popular in the wake of something like Fallout 3 or Skyrim, then those that want more Fallout 1/2 or Baldur's Gate 2 have now become marginalized. Devs will make RPGs not "for them" but "for those other people" instead. I agree that those labels are fluid, but then I also respond to the disagreements I have with people that use the term in ways I find confusing in entirely different ways (it typically involves less hate than some people).