alanschu

Well, right now it's just some <deleted> that has me needing to <deleted>. Still in <deleted> but that is pretty much the whole picture at the moment.

I'm playing around with *super secret hush-hush cannot say*.

Yes, so in that regard, you will be able to do more calculations. But I think this discussion is more to do with the technology inside of a processor (i.e. single core).

Hmmm, what happens if he had already played Space Siege (which came free with the Steam Preorder)?

Semantics. AND misrepresentation. The choice to reload imposes a penalty: you get to repeat the segment where you screwed up, until you perform adequately. The choice not to reload has a penalty as well: the game becomes harder from that point on, due to the loss of a companion. Saving at any point doesn't nullify those, but a lack of that feature would undoubtedly make the game less forgiving (if not necessarily more difficult). However, the lack of permadeath doesn't mean there's no penalty for failure. It doesn't mean it's impossible to fail, either. The overall difficulty is lowered, though. Yes I know.

I think this was the case in general.

I think NWN did something like that.

Since you once said something similar to me: Jagged Alliance 2 is not a roleplaying game. Irrelevant. There's still no penalty for failure. You just reload, right? If you're going to toss around that a game without permadeath has "no penalty for failure" then you're going to have to include every game that allows saving. The lack of permadeath is hardly akin to making games impossible to lose at.

No, but some fights are hard. More casual people are more than able to lower the difficulty setting of the game. In fact, I think the easy difficulty setting is even called "Casual."

This is an absurd statement and true of any game that lets you save anywhere. Not really. In a crpg where party members can die, you not only have to win through an encounter, you have to win through keeping everyone alive. Unless you are willing to just write them off and move on. Which is always an option, but not one many are going to take. Plus eventually you'll run out of party members. In a gamer where party members can't die, you no longer have to concern yourself winning and keeping everyone alive, you only have to concern yourself with winning. Combat becomes much easier in that situation, and difficulty becomes less of an issue. That's quite a stretch from "there's no penalty for failing" compared to "not having to worry about party death makes the game less difficult." It is still very possible to fail in Dragon Age. And most games for that matter. There's no penalty for your party members dying in Baldur's Gate. You just reload the game. Just like there's no penalty in Dragon Age when your party wipes out. You just reload the game.

I'm saying I expect even the hardcore to have some challenges in this game. There were definitely fights I needed to "metagame" by dying first in order to figure out some tactics on what to do during the fight. As I got better at the game and learned the abilities and spells, as well as the bestiary, I died less, but on the whole I still found the game pretty challenging on Normal (PC version).

Especially to start the game, I expect even people here will have a hard time with some fights as they learn the system and get used to the fact that combat will be hard (well, maybe less so now that I am warning you). There are some very difficult fights in this game, even in the early portion. And they aren't even all boss fights. Some of the "speedbump" encounters can be pretty challenging if you're caught unaware.

None of us are innocent of this.

This is an absurd statement and true of any game that lets you save anywhere.

I'd consider a 3.5/5 from Ramza a pretty good score for this game. I mean, it's no Jefferson, and he's been on the record numerous times about how games just aren't made for him anymore, and even went as far as inflicting additional penalties to Fallout 3 based purely on his disagreement with the game being called an RPG.

The rest of it was cutoff by the building.

I think depressing is an accurate emotion to illicit, given the circumstances. All I know is that compared to Oblivion, where I fast traveled almost everywhere, I hardly fast traveled in Fallout 3.

Go into it expecting some fun atmosphere and some pretty cool settings.

Ummm, To be clear. I made it through 90% of the game without being in GFWL. I assume you wouldn't need to be logged in for the remaining 10%.

That should say "remaining 10%"

Is the world still overpopulated? I was disappointed in the wasteland games that don't seem so wastelandy. Especially when respawns happen every 30 minutes like in the first STALKER.

I'm going to assume that the remaining 90% of the game did not need me to be logged in, and considering that I had never touched it for the rest of the game, I doubt it's required.

Games for Windows Live merely keeps track of your achievements, and I played through 90% of the game before I even attempted to log in and play the game with it on.

I'm implying that my roommate does that, a LOT. But since you're mentioning things, at least you demonstrated that the ESA numbers are questionable because of their methodology. My roommate goes "I don't believe the numbers because I feel the world is actually different." "Based on what" "The logical constructions I have made in my head." Okay then Even then, I wonder how much of it is the ESA's fault. EG: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174

The fact that most people have moved off to other projects isn't that surprising.