alsey

So I've played Deadfire now. Why, Obsidian, why?

I agree the biggest problem is with the VFX. I would be quite happy without all of that but I do think some of the models are too big also. I understand oversizing is somewhat necessary to make things visible: the standard versions of weapons are oversized, no big problem, but there's no reason to then make the magical versions even bigger. Regarding the lash effects, BG1 in 1998 actually handled it very well with a 'lash' effect when the weapon hits rather than all the time. Anyway I don't want to bash this too much because PoE is about as good a game as I have played.

Actually I did like the grey sleeper, quite a lot, but it autobound to the wrong character so I didn't use it.

Have you ever seen a real weapon before? Like maybe in a museum? I like how they look. Pretty straightforward really.

I'm way too control freak to play an RPG coop, and if I wanted pvp I'd play counter strike or something.

BG2 PoE PST

4th option is good. Please for the love of all that is good, don't resurrect the prebuffing thing.

Yeah especially old BG1 or IWD1 version of haste = diablo

The hours of st. rumbalt, ravenwing and godansthunyr come to mind - I don't remember a lot of the names. Also anything with lash or soulbound. I get that there is magic in the setting, but surely [good weapon + magic] is better than [oversized unwieldy weapon + magic],

I suspect I am largely alone in thinking this, but I thought a lot of the unique weapons in PoE had far too exaggerated appearance and looked silly when equipped. I ended up using a lot of standard and fine variants of weapons (although enchanted) because I didn't like the appearance of the unique versions, e.g. I thought the standard version of the great sword looked far better than any others. I guess I just like historically accurate looking gear on my characters? I don't think I used a single soul bound weapon because of this. I just couldn't take it seeing a character walking around with some giant glowing stick that looks more like a toy than a weapon. I absolutely loved the art style in PoE with the exception of this. Anyone else share this view? Any chance of more subtle art for unique weapons in PoE 2?

Live in UK, from Malta. I went for middle Europe option...

I think that what matters to readers/players is the degree to which magic is understood within a fantasy setting. On one extreme you might have the world of a Song of Ice and Fire where magic is very mysterious and few if any characters in the setting understand anything about it. At the other end of the spectrum magic/animancy is scientifically investigated and documented in Eora. They each evoke different kinds of response from the reader/player and each can be used to tell different kinds of story. George Martin wanted magic in his world to be ominous and even frightening; a more medieval attitude to those aspects of the world we don't understand than PoE's very renaissance attitude. The medieval world is the more conventional setting for fantasy but I personally wouldn't confine fantasy so tightly.

I would agree that magic is a defining feature of fantasy, magic being phenomena that don't occur in our world and are not inspired by or extrapolated from our current understanding of it. Using this definition (which I just made up, not claiming that is THE definition of magic), magic is supernatural in that it can't exist in our world but it isn't supernatural in the fantasy world where it is often well established to be existing. To be honest I don't find the word supernatural to be very meaningful because what is supernatural is impossible by definition. In PoE soul/essence manipulation is magic by the above definition. What differentiates it from magic in other fantasy settings is the degree to which scientific practice can be used to learn about it. Even in other settings however, e.g. forgotten realms, wizards acquiring knowledge through magical experiments, i.e. empiricism, is commonplace. What I find interesting about PoE is that souls exist but gods in the conventional sense don't, and souls have a much wider role in religion than just theistic religion.

Like midichlorians? That definitely sucked. I think it worked in PoE for me because souls, and the magic resulting from their manipulation, were set up from the beginning as essentially physical/natural. If that wasn't the case and magic was old school magic magic, would the gods being made by kith using magic instead of soul-tech have made any difference?

It's statistical in that the population of molecules is treated analogously to a statistical sample with various measures of its characteristics. Doctors care about whether their models of dose-response will predict an effect on a patient, economists care about whether their models predict the response of markets to fiscal stimuli and I could go on. In most sciences I can think of prediction from models plays a significant role. I do more or less accept Popper's definition of science and I am aware of the debate within philosophy of science between that position and what I think yours is. It's a mature debate and this thread probably isn't the best place for it. I think it's clear now where we disagree and it's not about the difference between science and philosophy so I'm going to leave it at that. I did like the Wittgenstein reference though .