algroth

Josh on the matter of humour and tone in the game: It's worth keeping in mind that lightness of touch and humour doesn't mean things will be "goofy". It's doubtful there'll be any "I'm a wabbit" shenanigans in Deadfire, and humour will likely be in the way of sarcastic interjections and the likes opposite to designing characters according to a comedy routine/sketch or something.

Hey! I used that thing and took it very seriously. Did it result in a serious disappointment?

"Where have you gone, my son, my son? Gone to rot in the sun, the sun? Please come back, my son, my son... KILL THEM ALL, ONE BY ONE BY ONE!!"

I noticed yesterday that the requirements were since updated and now the required space is 35GB.

Generally speaking I feel the traditional portraits work better for their overall aesthetic of Deadfire given the setting and the very organic feel the UI is going for and so on. In comparison I don't feel the CG models are neither high quality enough nor look organic enough to be a decent match to the rest of the aesthetic. In games the likes of Wasteland or Planescape: Torment, the UI was going for a pretty different feel and the setting could also justify a more modern-feel approach to the character portraits, but I don't feel that approach would fit Deadfire in particular, or has really fit most previous traditional fantasy RPG settings that have attempted the same. That said, I haven't played Divinity: Original Sin so I can't comment on that.

Alfred Hitch**** is deemed too indecent for this forum.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AccidentalWesAnderson/ This sub is amusing.

Exactly. All that answer comes down to is.... okay... well they still exist, and they still have power, and they still answer prayers (hell you have talked to most of them at this point), so does this knowledge even matter to you? Does it actually make them "less godly", did gods come before them, and if so, where are they? That revelation doesn't actually change anything for your character, but it forces your character to decide what it all means to them. As I said, the story is about personal discovery, coming to terms with your past, and deciding your actual place in the world. Not the gods, not Thaos, not Iovara, and certainly not all the Animancy subplots. On the contrary, it changes everything for your character. He's finally able to find out about his past, he's finally able to settle the matters that have been worrying him and close the issue that had caused his Awakening. Even by the sheer structure of the story this revelation represents a pretty definite conclusion. All this time we needed to find out what occured back then and what was disturbing us so, and we do actually reach to that revelation in rather stark and unambiguous fashion (all delivered in pretty clunky and expositional fashion, I will add) and ultimately recover our peace of mind. I don't disagree that this answer opens up plenty of questions, however, but I think it's impossible not to see how what we've learned thoroughly tints the aformentioned questions, or settles much for our character and several of the thematic threads throughout the game. The questions of how to live our lives from a moral or practical standpoint aren't answered of course but they are nevertheless radically reformulated as the knowledge of the gods' origins cement the independence of kith's progress and morality from what is dictated by divine laws and worship. The culture in the setting at the time of the first game's ending may not yet know of it, but this and what we do with the gods is an ongoing affair, since the saga isn't yet over. But we are definitely not acting on a story where we've been given no answers at this point, and I just don't think the answers that we've been given are mere dressing or as trivial and throwaway as you guys are making it out to be. There is way too much evidence elsewhere throughout the entire game, even down to the choice of setting itself and distinct parallels it has with Western history, and to the sheer importance that is given to this revelation through the narrative structure and so on, to assume this is little more than some extremely elaborate red herring.

Great work! Would I suggest maybe recovering the red banner on her armour?

I would argue you are completely mistaken.The plot of eternity is about the mystery behind your past life, trying to find out what your past self wanted to know, and discovering how to deal with the personal trauma of that past. The "main plot" is actually a very personal story about self discovery and what you believe. The animancy issues are a back drop. Your character could revile animancy, respect it, or not care about it one way or the other. It is a focal point of the sub story surrounding the factions of Defiance Bay, and the dyrwood on the whole, it is not a focal point of your personal story. Most of this subplot really just boils down to learning about your "enemy" and his motivations. The climax about the gods being man made is nothing but a foil to serve as your pasts life question, and the answer is that in reality, it wasn't relevant. As I recall the games own writing implies that once you discover what you do, you can't even remember why it troubled your past life so much. And that is because the truth is, the revelation of the gods isn't what troubled your past life, it was your role in the conflict between Iovara and Thaos that caused your troubles. Your past life could not come to terms with whether he made the right choice or not. Basically if Thaos and Iovara were two sides of the same coin, your character represented the person who called heads or tails. This. The main theme isn't "Oh **** gods aren't real religion is a lie. In this moment I am euphoric." it's the question of what to do when there are no answers. The issue is that we've been given an answer.

That's nice. What does this have to do with the thread again? Regarding DLC content, I suspect the open world exploration element to sailing through the archipelago and bumping into stuff along the way is bound to make it easier to add new DLC content into this map - I feel it's probably fairly easy to add an island or group of islands to an ever-expanding chain of them if there is demand for more content still. Here's hoping the DLCs are as "beefy" as the White March DLCs were at least, but if they are more bite-sized (as the price tag may suggest) I hope we might still get to see a meatier expansion later as well.

I liked Wengra myself, though I can agree that the VO in Pillars was somewhat spotty. Still, for the most part I enjoyed the major performances, barring a few here or there like the GM or Maneha. Re: Critical Role, I'd add another vote to non-plussed about the announcement (especially considering Matt Mercer's been confirmed in the sequel for a while now), but generally I don't recognize many voice actor names and to those more in the know it could be a pretty major revelation. I would like to see who else might be starring in the game however.

I would argue you are completely mistaken.The plot of eternity is about the mystery behind your past life, trying to find out what your past self wanted to know, and discovering how to deal with the personal trauma of that past. The "main plot" is actually a very personal story about self discovery and what you believe. The animancy issues are a back drop. Your character could revile animancy, respect it, or not care about it one way or the other. It is a focal point of the sub story surrounding the factions of Defiance Bay, and the dyrwood on the whole, it is not a focal point of your personal story. Most of this subplot really just boils down to learning about your "enemy" and his motivations. The climax about the gods being man made is nothing but a foil to serve as your pasts life question, and the answer is that in reality, it wasn't relevant. As I recall the games own writing implies that once you discover what you do, you can't even remember why it troubled your past life so much. And that is because the truth is, the revelation of the gods isn't what troubled your past life, it was your role in the conflict between Iovara and Thaos that caused your troubles. Your past life could not come to terms with whether he made the right choice or not. Basically if Thaos and Iovara were two sides of the same coin, your character represented the person who called heads or tails. I agree that's what the plot (or part of it) is, but the plot acts as a vehicle to explore themes and the theme of the game, right down to its choice of setting as a Renaissant world, is to do with this historical transition. The plot acts as a way to bridge this widespread cultural change with a more personal journey and transformation and so on, but the themes I think are still clearly related to a much greater scale than the protagonist's inner conflict. Obviously there is no absolute right or wrong when speaking of themes so it could just be that we have different readings of the game, but I feel every aspect to the story, the setting and so on corroborates the above. Shamelessly plugging my review again, in it I go into a fair bit of depth about my interpretation of the game and the thematic exploration and so on, check it out if it interests you and you haven't yet, Karkarov!

Dunno, he seems pretty happy to me... In all seriousness I'd feel the same argument could be used with regards to the likes of Pinochet, Videla, Papa Doc and so on, who would also defend their cause as a form of prevention (in their case against communism and so on), and whom I feel no one would defend as altruistic. I can agree with the second point.

I think the main issue was like most said, Iovara was used largely as a story dump, and Obisidian did a maybe too good a job of razzle dazzling the player with the gods are not real stuff. It was very easy to get stuck on that and not actually look at the real difference and cause of conflict between those two characters. Where I disagree with is that I don't believe the "gods are not real" reveal to be merely razzle dazzle as you make it out to be, but rather be absolutely critical to the overall discourse and themes explored throughout the game. I mean, this is also the "truth" (in a most general and ambiguous sense) we've been building up from the very start of the game, that caused the Watcher to awaken and has essentially guided him through the rest of the story. The whole game is about the shift from a theocentric society into an anthropocentric one, hence the conflict between animancy and superstition, hence the main antagonistic force being one that is deliberately looking to mislead, hide and act against progress, hence why the main crippling and stagnating element to the setting is a curse that prevents a new generation from being born (hence also prevents innovation and progress and so on, that are always inherently tied with "new blood") which is also largely perceived as divine punishment. The revelation that the gods were created by kith ties into all this as a final statement that inverts the relationship of power between the two, thus allowing kith to forge a path independent of their deities' impositions and so on. And mind, I don't think it's a bad twist either - but ultimately it's just very poorly executed as far as I'm concerned, it is handled in a fashion that is sermonizing instead of suggestive and which railroads the protagonist too much into accepting all this at face value, regardless of character motivations and beliefs, setting, or proof. I also agree that trust in the will or "nature" of kith is a central point to the conflict between Iovara and Thaos, but I would still refrain from calling Thaos altrustic. I think the people who could have been argued as altrustic could have been the Engwithans instead, who made the sacrifice to create the gods and saw the need of doing so in order to prevent the chaos and hopelessness that they thought would otherwise arise. But Thaos has been enjoying way too many benefits of this deal to be called altruistic, he's hardly the one throwing himself at the Engwithan machines to power up his goddess nor is he really looking to spread this power across the pantheon but specifically make his patron a power amidst even the gods themselves. He might excuse his actions by saying they are all for the "greater good" but this greater good is one that is deeply and suspiciously convenient for him and his goddess.

http://zaumstudio.com/ Disco Elysium, formerly known as No Truce With the Furies (I kinda enjoyed the previous title, but still looks interesting).

Another master is gone. R.I.P. Cecil Taylor

R.I.P. Isao Takahata

I would really like to know in which way he disagrees with Obsidian, NwN2 certainly had its problems but I'm pretty sure that anyone consider it a better game than the first one. In my experience people usually view the campaign as better but the editor as worse (I don't know if this applies to a majority but it has applied to a majority of the opinions I've read/heard/seen). I guess it could be argued that Neverwinter Nights 2 placed more emphasis on the campaign over the editor and that could be a fundamental disagreement he could have with regards to the original. All the same I agree that Neverwinter Nights 2 is much, much better.

What the **** does "anarcho-tyranny state" even mean? Are you guys just mashing random political-sounding words in the hopes you land on something dire-sounding enough to scare the impressionable into listening? Stop selling your communist-capitalist monarchic propaganda, for Karl's sake! Edit: So the term was coined by a white nationalist columnist back in the 90s. Figures.

The spoiler is for POE1 not 2. The spoiler he meant to share was for POE1. The one he blurted out and hastily tried to cover with redirection was for POE2.

I feel it's been a bit less of a problem with each new playthrough for me, but mostly I think Pillars does have a tendency to overexpose, and that's where I see the editorial pass being needed. Amidst some particular moments that remain in my mind are most of what relates to the Grieving Mother, the meeting with the Skaenite priest where he gives us the full villain's monologue about what he plans to do with the girl he's just brainwashed, Lady Webb, and our meeting with Iovara. All the same I do feel like it's less of a problem in it than in the likes of Tyranny for example (seriously, how many times do we have to hear about how much the Disfavored and Scarlet Chorus hate one another?).

I was referring more to the prose than the dialogue. I think it talks a lot while not saying very much in certain places, and often becomes more bloated than flowery (Ironically a common criticism of Pillars I've seen, though Pillars' prose is far more straightforward). But this can be a very subjective thing. By contrast, Annah's romance is quite understated, and even Deionarra's declarations of love and borderline obsession suit the story well. Those trappings are still a massive part of the game and they perform quite poorly. If a system is in a game and you're better off minimizing your engagement with it, it's a bad system. Basically every part of PST but the dialogue and the atmosphere is mediocre to bad. I'd also criticize the story elements to be honest. It's a game, not a novel. The fact that there's not really any reason to play as anything but a max Wis/ high Int/ high Cha character unless you want to miss the vast majority of the plot is a huge flaw in an interactive medium. All that said, don't get me wrong, I loved the game. It's just a very flawed gem, not the pinnacle of what a story driven game could or should be. I don't think we've reached that point yet. It's still a young medium. That said I'd argue that Mask of the Betrayer and possibly even KOTOR 2 (patched, of course) do what PST did as well or better. Y'know, I really hate the "it's a game, not a novel" argument that is occasionally levied against Planescape: Torment, it's as if we were to ignore the sheer amount of choice and interactivity offered by these same branching dialogues that so often prompt these accusations - let alone the other elements that open up for interactions, or the input into the overall experience given by the audiovisual design which is all on point for its setting and intended mood and aesthetic. That a game becomes a "novel" because it employs dialogue extensively is frankly a fairly facile statement when the dialogue or prose is handled the way it is in this particular example. Now I do get what you're saying though, inasmuch as it's true that there's one particular playstyle that undoubtedly yields a better experience than any other variant. Which is why I reckon that the weak combat system and dungeon design is a relevant problem and not something that is irrelevant to the game or the likes. Were these handled better, they could have offered that alternative playstyle even if the pacifist playthrough still remained the "ideal" one. I will also say that I personally find the "bloatedness" of Torment's writing to be fairly overstated too. I think the text is quite often notably essential, and the cases where the game does seem to add details or interactions that don't concern the Nameless One's story in the least are few and far between. For all its amount of text I feel the game reads and feels quite naturally, like it's hardly seeking to extend its word-count the way some later Torment-inspired titles do. All the same, if you prefer KOTOR 2 or Mask of the Betrayer to it I won't really argue otherwise as they're certainly worth the mention too.

It's certainly not oppressive, I just think it's pretty plain and boring, like you can sleepwalk through most of it. It's true that it offers a breathing room between long strings of dialogue and I'd much rather it be there than not, but that along with "it's never frustrating" is really as positive as I can go about it. I mean, I think the spiders *alone* in Baldur's Gate offered more diversity in challenge than the entire roster of enemies in Torment - which is a shame when you consider that, as you well say, the concept behind several of the monsters in Torment is pretty interesting.

Who is to say PST is terribly designed. The form of RPG's and DnD adventures is not set in stone. Just because its generic incarnation is a pure dungeon crawl, a la Icewind Dale, this does not mean any one given campaign has to have even a single instance of combat. The relevance of the underlying system, the loot, frequency of encounters, necessity of min-maxing etc. - none of these are necessarily more important than the story or the characters. PST had all these trappings, but it was about something else, and it did that well - so you can't say it was badly designed. It merely focused on other things. The game's principal fault was its verbosity - but that was something you went along with or you didn't. Its other 'issue' if you could call it that, stemmed from preconceived expectations of what a DnD game should be like, fueling arguments that it's 'bad as a game'. For me, Icewind Dale was 'bad' as a game, in the sense that it delivered no emotional or intellectual hooks to compel me to play. With a bunch of blank slate characters, I played it merely for the gameplay and the visuals, but never appreciated it beyond that. Despite that, I recognize that it did the things it focused on very well, and in that respect, it's a well designed game. I think *aspects* of Torment can be accused of being terribly designed. The UI is clunky, the dungeon and encounter design feels perfunctory and in turn combat feels very dull and monotonous. The game certainly aims to be something quite different to a dungeon-crawler and clearly combat and dungeon-crawling is secondary to its experience, yet these aspects are still a part of the overall experience even if we were to stick to the critical path, and it's fair to call the game out on these shortcomings. But as for what it aims for, and how the dialogues, setting, narrative and so on are designed, it certainly does a stellar job in all these aspects. Personally I also feel one of its strengths is that the game never feels like it's being verbose for the sheer sake of verbosity, contrary to some of the later games inspired by Torment which either could have used an additional editor's pass or outright seemed to take pride in their word-count (Pillars among them, despite loving its lore and so on).