alanschu

Sadly, I don't think this is true. Receiving grant funding is a lot easier depending on what type of buzzwords you have in your proposal. This is according to many friends of mine that are actually researchers at the local university. By the same token, sometimes a scientist is put on the cover of TIME Magazine and universally lauded due to cherry picking his data. Or how the USDA basically kept looking for Doctors until they eventually found one that agreed with their dietary recommendations and then went forward with their food guide with a ton of lobbyist support, while scientists that were opposed were effectively ignored. In the past couple of years I've become exceptionally jaded towards the impartiality of science.

See this is where I get worried. Who is the arbiter of whether or not Obsidian met their obligations? If the game is delayed, does Obsidian need to worry about a rowdy crowd that doesn't have their game yet? When dealing with claims such as "the spirit of the IE games" then what exactly does that mean? (About the only thing forum goers can agree on is that it should probably have an isometric viewpoint) Since cost is strongly correlated to time in game development, are fans going to be understanding if some of the stretch goals have to be cut? Is it okay if it's only a 14 level dungeon? 10 level? 5 level? Or rather, will fans be justified in pursuing some sort of action? (though I doubt they will, at this point I'm mostly just musing).

The impression I get is that Kickstarter will avoid responsibility in the event of disputes: Link. From the Kickstarter FAQ: It is the responsibility of the project creator to fulfill the promises of their project. Kickstarter reviews projects to ensure they do not violate the project guidelines, however Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to complete their project. Are developers legally obligated to complete their project? Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill. My best guess would be that you'd have grounds for a class action lawsuit. Some other concerns: is over funding good? Haunts: The Manse Macabre I'd hate to see the Haunts guys sued or anything. Sometimes crap happens and it sounds like it did for them I'm not either (I don't even live in the US), but I imagine it's a heck of a muddy water territory with projects that are overfunded. Say you ask for $100,000 and you end up getting $10 million!. Even if you need to use a significant chunk of that to deliver rewards, there's no way that that company is giving those awards away at cost. Is this not effectively fulfulling preorders and effectively just a different type of selling? For many people (myself included), I contribute because I'm getting something in return. Kickstarter also requires an applicant's tax information (created via Amazon) in order to create a kickstarter account to start projects. I think it's best to go into Kickstarter with money that you are perfectly okay with never seeing any return from ever again. IMO I understood all the risks with backing something like PE and WL2, and understand that my contribution may never amount to anything material.

Your loss. If you're so closed minded that any system that isn't identical to BG2, there's probably not much that can be done. That the mere fact that someone can get knocked unconscious in a fight is shocking to you, however, invalidates any of your cries for immersion and realism. You're using it as a crutch, without actually using said terms properly. To the point where I am not sure if you even know what the terms mean.

Why is there a liability attached? Is the obligation enforced? How is it monetized? What restrictions are there from stopping someone from raising several million dollars and putting out a hack game that required only a fraction of the cost.

I have always thought it was silly that all the NPC party members don't do a single thing when not in the party. Their lives are 100% stunted, and not a single iota of anything is learned.

Because you have characters that can straight up detect if you are lying, and it also plays into the alignment system.

My volleyball team totally rocked a Ryu, 80s hair band member, Power Ranger, Nathan Drake, and Batgirl.

>.> <.< (It's actually a reasonable timeline for those that have been disappointed with BioWare... lol)

Jade Empire (some of the worst combat system design I've ever had the misfortune to suffer through; the story is also insipid and grossly predictable, it has "BioWare's first xbox port" written all over it) After KOTOR that DOES seem bad! (I've never played JE though). EDIT: As for what made their earlier games fun, I think it's important to note that there's nothing really resembling consensus for what makes the IE games so good (you can see it on the PE forums here)

Game mechanics are nothing special for sure. Though I've learned how to deal with it (mostly by stacking a ton of stamina/health potions for my Paladin). Story itself seems interesting enough, however. Enough for me to play it for a few hours, and to want to play it again tonight. It's a very slow paced game I find (which is neither good nor bad in my eyes).

Took a flyer on the Inquisitor RPG (since it was cheap and I am bored). Downloading now.

XCOM!

I like that we tried to tell a more personal story. Though some feel that Hawke is too passive and as a result the story kind of falls flat for them. Act 3 is the weakest of the acts IMO though. And yes, the Varric scene with his brother was great. Part of the plan was to do stuff like that a bit more, particularly at the start of each Act, but I guess some internal feedback was that it was a bit too spoilerish (it'd often show what was happening at the end of the act) and started to get a bit old. My internal joke was that Varric should have rick-rolled the fan base, and cut to Cassandra looking at him unimpressed, but alas not everyone agrees with my awesome ideas We were raked over the coals for the level reuse (for good reason), as well as just variation in the setting (many people grew tired of Kirkwall).

Okay. I hope you didn't try to one on one the Arishok

Agreed. What part of the main plot are you at?

Isabela and Varric make for a great combo for party banters. Aveline is a great third too IMO (my favourite group right there)

This is a plus! Although, is the world really that relevant? Haha. I remember the guys that made Shadowgate made a variety of different settings, one of my favourites being Deja Vu!

I remember getting a superb cloak of reflection from some of the fishy dudes.

I love the original, but the innate difficulty of a remake is that I hesitate to pick up something (especially a puzzle game) that I've already played.

Hmmm, that shouldn't fry the HDD unless the head actually touches the platter (which it should never ever ever do). I've heard that the powering up of a HDD is actually a particularly stressful part of its usage.

Fry a HDD? :S Sucks that it's hanging for you

I'm getting on your case for the absurd title of this thread, not for linking CinemaBlend. Sure you don't need to come across as not biased, but your title is frankly just wrong. I came into this thread with the immediate belief that Blizzard is doing stuff that Zynga does (which isn't true based on anything you referenced... they are hiring people. You're just seeing what you want to see because you see two companies that you hate), and that Blizzard is banning Diablo 3 players for no other reason than because they are playing on Linux. Which isn't true either. Want to create an accurate thread title, try: "Blizzard is recruiting Zynga employees, and is wrongly banning Linux users due to false positives in their cheat detection software" I loathe Zynga, and actually find it hilarious that their Market Capitalization is less than the value of their assets (which is typically considered the lower bound of the value of a public company). But as much as we may hate Zynga, they are people that have had some level of experience with actually releasing finished (no matter how crappy you or I may think they are) products in a social space.

In my experience Blizzard is pretty careful about sending links.

Doh, I wish I had seen it was a CinemaBlend link as I tend to not like their articles and the idea of giving them ad revenue of any kind pains me. As for Blizzard, the letters to Zynga is a complete nothing. People with experience making games are getting laid off, and Blizzard is hiring. It seems like a sensible thing for a recruiter to do. It has nothing to with seeking to "emulate Zynga." The Diablo III stuff is more interesting. Originally I thought that the bans were happening simply because people were Linux users, which is an indictment both of Krezack as well as Cinema Blend for their headlines. The unfortunate thing about the Linux users is they admit they have no proof, so for me I step back and go "Is this any different than a Windows user getting falliciously caught cheating in their game?" The issue is more "at what point can a game developer unilaterally decide that the gamer broke the TOS enough to permanently exclude a gamer from using the game. It can happen with Valve and VAC and stuff like that as well. I'm curious if the account was somehow compromised. I likely have a bias to thinking this, because my friend did have an account that was compromised back in 2007, as he wasn't allowed to login to World of Warcraft due to illegal activity. When he commented that he hadn't been playing the game since 2004, Blizzard basically said that the issue was closed and he had no further recourse (this is the **** move). Though he still went out and bought another copy of WoW (and made more secure passwords), he was left up **** creek because his account was banned. My account was once compromised, though I was able to report it when it happened and Blizzard fully restored my account. This was in 2010 though, so I don't know what sort of differences they made in their policy, but in my friend's case he was SOL, whereas for me they basically said "We believe you, here's everything restored." (I actually benefitted greatly since they even restored the wealth acquired by the hacker, so I 1000+ more gold than when I stopped playing!) Although, my account was never explicitly banned for any reason, which may affect their willingness to cooperate. Of course, I clicked on the follow up link on CinemaBlend before realizing it was CinemaBlend, so after reading that article my desires to punch the writer in the face certainly reached typical CinemaBlend levels.