AeonsLegend

If it is solely first person then we don't need character creation either.

You make some good points and therein lies also the difficulty with effective romantic integration in your game. If you choose to let the player decide what romance he/she will pursue then you dive into the whole gender diversity discussion where you would want every possible option to be pursuable. I find that really annoying because this means that every character is bi-sexual and that makes no sense. Sexual orientation is not a choice, it belongs to the person. And having specific orientation also has certain characteristics in personality, albeit more for some than others. Also, I feel that different sexual orientation as a whole is now forced into any type of medium even if it has no relevance to the type of medium. All of a sudden I need to have a gay person express his feelings to me because the game needs to be catered to gay people as well. Trust me, in my professional carreer that has now lasted for over 22 years I have never ever encountered this and I work with men all the time, including gay men. In a professional environment sexual orientation is not something that is a topic. There should be respect for those people 100%. On the topic of romance being important to our lives, yes of course. That's why 99% of the songs are love song and a lot of movies include any type of romance. I'm not against a love story, I'm against random romance in a video game. So either implement it and do it well and that means you have to put some extra work into it, or don't do it at all. Like I said I rather have a prescripted romance than a random one that is there through dialogue options. Sure, it will probably be a heterosexual one because most people are heterosexual, but at least it is enjoyable. You cannot make everyone happy with these games and some people will always be offended by any type of portrayal. I feel that should not impact a designers choice. I remember watching the show Orphan Black where the character Felix Dawkins is obviously gay (portrayed by Jordan Gavaris who is heterosexual) had some form of backlash from people being offended by the character. I really liked his character because he was a lot of fun to watch. Complaints ranged from "stereotyping" to "he should be played by a gay person". You see movies and games always work on stereotypes or exagerration, but you never hear people complain about the big buff dude that is total bad ass all the time. That's because he doesn't represent a group even though there are many similarities with actual people. With any type of character that has a specific gender issue or sexual orientation seen as minority they feel that anyone displaying that in a movie is a representation. They are wrong to see it that way, but it always happens. And nowadays people feel that these complaints need to be heard and acted upon. It's all downhill from there. I should also note that the games I mentioned like Dragon's Dogma, Mass Effect and such have a very low amount of women playing. This is about 15%. In 2016 it was reported by the "Entertainment Software Association" that 41% of video gamers is female. While that statement is correct it does not specify which type of video game has a certain type of player. More in depth studies show that women mostly play phone puzzle games or simulation games on their phone. This is also reflected by the amount of women playing the above games. So taking into account what type of players you have I would suggest the development company to focus their efforts on delivering quality for their main demographic over diversity. Now I'm not saying you should ignore the 15% of women that play and you should also not ignore diversity whether it is character diversity or diversity in sexual orientation. I do say that if you venture there you should take extra steps to make it work and not put it in there because "reasons". A lot of the games I played just threw it in there. In that case I rather not have romance at all.

There's a difference between a game that contains a love story and a game that has romance options. When tailored into the game such as Final Fantasy VIII it works. When you get accosted with dialogue options to screw each and every squad mate in your team it becomes rediculous. The thing is, romance options in video games are never ever tied into the story. They are a separate system where you usually build up affinity through either dialogue options or a gifting system or whatever and then end up with the option to engage in a relationship. Although some people enjoy this it has absolutely no relevance to the game and story itself. This is what makes it especially weak and sometimes even annoying. Especially if you're bothered in conversation by a person of an indesirable sex. Sometimes romance is especially hard to avoid as well. I remember playing Mass Effect 1 and I went around the ship to talk to my crew members. I just was nice to everyone and when Liara came aboard I saw some options to date her so I was like, ok let's do that. And she said: Yea but you're already dating Kaidan. I'm like: wait whut?? I am? No I'm not. Screw that guy. I don't even like him. I was so glad I got the option to get him to guard the bomb and blow up, which turns into my default choice now whenever I replay the game, just as a statement. In Mass Effect 2 it was even worse, because it was far mroe obvious. Whenever my character talked to Jacob Taylor she always balanced herself on his table in a provocative manner and 3 of the 4 dialogue options would be something like: "Should I take off my pants now or...?". Whenever I now play Mass Effect 2 I never talk to Jacob anymore unless I get to do his personal mission and that's it. Romance options are usually poorly implemented. Check out Final Fantasy X which combined a love story with options and screwed it up. You get the option to choose for Rikku, Yuna and Lulu in several conversation options. This results in the character riding a motorbike or something later in the game with that particular character. But the game still has a love story between Tidus and Yuna. That's just messed up in my oppinion. Either have a meaningful love story (likely with predefined characters) or implement romance and make it part of the story. Even though the romancing in Dragon's Dogma was incredibly flawed (especially in earlier patches where you would automatically romance the person you talked to the most such as the guy that runs the inn) it actually does make it part of the story. I would like to see more of that and not just go through a bunch of dialogue options only to see my characters have fake sex without showing any specific body parts. There's also a lack of gender specific appriciation for your character. I mean a gay person would automatically know I wasn't gay, but in video games NPC's are oblivious to my personality altogether. I am not offended by gay people mind you, but I am not interested in a gay relationship myself. It is the same the other way around. There is no way to express your preference in a game unless you actually get the option to tell the other person to back off. It is so unnatural. Of course in certain cases it would be hard to read, but in some cases it would be very easy to read. Do I think romance in video games adds something to the game itself? No, I don't. If it is implemented well, it can be fun. But it is mostly implemented so poorly that it becomes annoying.

That's because nothing significant happened in the gameplay. Nothing is revealed. They talked to some mundane characters and had some fights. The first 20 minutes of Mass Effect were far more interesting. If I do play this game I hope it has a story to tell that takes me on an epic journey. I tire of games that have you run around with fetch quests and walls of texts that add nothing to the story. That stuff only really works if you have a combat system that takes the cake. But if it's just a shooter then meh. It'd have to be at least as fun to play as ME: Andromeda. Sure the writing and such was pretty awful and the fact that they raped ME canon was also a let down, but the game was fun to play when you got to the shooting part. I don't care for illusion of choice in conversations if that takes precedence over an actual interesting story. Yes I am able to choose to kill person X or solve a quest in ways ABC, but if I travel through a boring world, have no meaningful interaction with it or have no epic journey then I don't care. I rather have a truly good story and go through it in a linear way, than play an open world game where the world is more important than what is going on in it.

Based on the Game Informer gameplay footage we've seen, IMO, the writing is MUCH better than New Vegas. Not very difficult. People go on about how New Vegas was some incredible game with amazing story. New Vegas sold like crap and was hated on when it came out by everyone. Then a small group that loved it and had a loud voice kept the flame of illusion alive on the internet and now people seem to think this game is amazing. It's really nothing special. I myself prefer FO3 and FO4, because they are more fun and have more engaging NPC's. New Vegas was kind of boring and had almost no story until the end of the game. Anyways I don't understand why people keep comparing this game to Fallout. There was an obvious reference to the Fallout 4 game start in the trailer, but that's where it ends. It's more like they're putting some easter eggs in there from a franchise they love. The game itself is nothing like Fallout.

Scrum doesn't use the term deliverables. That's from a waterfall project style because deliverables are pre defined.

Hm, that's strange. I've never noticed that before. If all fails then he should move to Port Maje if you finish the main quest there and get your boat.

Yea, but any huge muscle dude will still die to a shiv in the gut by that same peasant. Which actually is something funny, because people that work on farms are generally much stronger and fit than other people because of the manual labour they do. So a peasant is actually a really silly comparison. You should have said monk or cleric. Oh, but wait, those are OP in rpgs. /case

Just as immersion breaking as npc's that get killed in 1 hit. I mean how do they venture outside the city gates? I can't take any game that has "statgrowth" serious in this regard. You gotta roleplay your way through because most things don't make sense in RPGs. "I'm level 30, so when I hit you with my sword and you don't defend yourself I instagib you. When you hit me with the same sword and I do not defend myself I just shrug it off because of my hitpoints." I was just playing Far Cry new dawn and was trying to take down a bear with my level 1 assault rifle. I emptied 4 clips onto the motherfker and he wasn't even down a third of his hitpoints. Logic!

I didn't notice this.

Or maybe you know, you need help.

Good to know

I have the same issue. I have to give a movement command for it to go away. Sometimes have to accept a disengagement attack as a result.

Kind of ambivalent on this one. I think they wanted to display the combat system AND the town and there wasn't really any way they could do that combo I guess while solving the quests the way any normal person would. I do think it makes it kind of silly and shows 0 depth of story telling. Which perhaps guys you're expecting too much from in this game.

I don't see New Vegas, but I hope it's better than that.

Eothas plan was to change the relationship between Gods and kith - he doesn’t quite know what will happen but believes that kith will find a way to move forward. There are quite a few elements in Eothas’ words and actions which act as a reflection of Thaos. They stand on opposing sides (freedom/control, enlightenment/ignorance) but they do some pretty horrific things to push their agendas... or do they? Why would lives matter if their soul will be reborn again? The soul is reborn, but the memories are removed. So the person and the body it inhabited ceases to exist. I call that killing. Besides Eothas actually intends to end the cycle, so those souls aren't even reborn. And then what Eothas is doing isn't a plan. He just feels that man should be released from the cycle and then blunders through that without knowing how to do it or what the results may be. And freedom isn't a word I would choose in this context. I mean what is freedom? Can the people currently choose their own lives and destiny? Do whatever they wish? Yes they can. They just don't control what happens after they die. That doesn't change when Eothas succeeds. So what is this freedom thing he's aiming for? It doesn't exist. No, Eothas aims to destroy the Gods because he feels they impact kith lives too much. Thing is, the one who impacted the lives of kith the most and in a most horrible way is Eothas himself. Eothas is an idiot child.

Well one might say it would allow for new souls to enter the world and not rehashed ones. Eothas tried this before and then we got the Hollowborn crisis. Maybe by destroying the wheel he thinks he can restore the original way of things. I dunno. Seems like he didn't know, but was "sure" we would survive and find a way. Sounds like a total dumbass plan to me. In all his benevolence, Eothas is just another crazy psychopath trying to shape the world into what hé wants. He doesn't even care how many people he has to kill to get what he wants. God of light my ass. He is evil and he doesn't even realize it. Kind of Ironic.

She disobeyed her orders because she thought this would benefit the Republic. In the long run. That's the part lacking in her peraonality in poe2. She is loyal to the Republic 100 percent, sure. But loyalty and obedience are two different things. I got the exiled ending so her change in poe2 makes sense. After a hard time she decides listening to you is bad idea and won't risk doing it ever again. Don't know how other endings play out. The main issue is that she doesn't blame herself, but blames you for the repercusions of her decision to disobey orders. Thinking about it, she felt her decision to disobey was the correct ones and she accepted anything the Republics would do. It was their decision to take her from the order. Why not blame them? It's an incredible sign of weakness on her part to blame the people around her for her own misfortune.

could you do this drag and drop in combat? because that would affect game balance. if you could use any arbitrary consumable from your inventory, that is much more powerful than only being allowed to use 4-6 consumables. quickslots are a constraint. In BG/BG2, quickslots were a convenience (moreso in traditional BG where opening the inventory didn't pause the game), since the only reason you would need to put an item in a quickslot was if it was not a self-buff (e.g. targeted or a summoning item). Yea but BG didn't have items that lasted for that long. It also didn't have scripted interactions that could be affected by potions or drugs. I think PoE has far too many consumables and most of them stack now in PoEII, makes my character end game with 30 in every stat kinda lame.

The game isn't out yet. but according to Obsidian it will run on a GeForce GTX 770. Recommended is GeForce GTX 970 4GB. So you're most likely going to be fine.

What potions? Also, didn't you just give the definition of half-assing something? lol Half assing what?

Nice necro :D

To limit the things they needed to create they limited use of items through slots and not through inventory. I think it was a solid choice. Is it kind of a hassle when you want to use multiple items, yes. Is it something I can live with? Yes. I hardly ever use consumables however so it doesn't bother me as much I guess. I found it kind of silly in PoE to go: oh you guys are pretty strong, but here's a few potions to make you completely invulnerable.

The sequel will only be on console. Probably a Nintendo exclusive.

More powah, of course. Or if you ever get one of those fancy 144 monitors and want the high fps to go with it. O just want overhead so you don't have to worry about games that drop by 20 in combat, or whatever. ...not that you'd really need a 20xx for that. I only take 1ms screens so the high refresh screens are a no go, because those high refresh screens have higher response times. Stuck with 60Mhz. But if I do get a new card I will invest in it. Right now I can play every game I own on max settings and still keep 60 fps in almost every area so I don't really need to get anything new for now. Perhaps at the end of the year, or perhaps when Cyberpunk 2077 comes out. We will see after I get the game. Money is not an issue, but if I do spend it I want it to be relevant.