Wormerine

eh, Since you haven't backed at that level already I'd say wait for release. You can always watch let's plays on youtube and comment in here. If you were a beta guy you'd already know that I might not be a beta guy but I am "let's make irresponsible life decisions" guy. Backer beta being downloaded. Too much hype. Let's make the purchase worth it.

Yeah I feel you. Polish prices were getting a bit better since they introduced polish currency in GOG and its coming to steam as well. How the game will be priced remains to be seen. Tyranny was much cheaper for me, if I remember that right.

For me they said “tomorrow” today at 2am so it’s all fine.

I am kinda backpedaling from that. Current system might work just fine. We will see how people will react to the beta. Sadly, I won’t be testing it myself.

I am pretty sure Josh said somewhere at some point you will only get injuries by getting knocked out. People should be able to confirm it tomorrow.

I agree, but I don't think you'll be incurring injuries from every fight. I forget the conditions, I think if you hit 0 endurance, and maybe certain attacks give them. So you still have the ability to "hang in there." Personally I think they are already solving the rest issues outside of the new health system, but I guess they think this new form better conveys their intentions. *shrugs* Also keep in mind that with limited “per encounter” spells spamming healing might not be possible or be a heavy trade off. We will see how it will go.

eh, Since you haven't backed at that level already I'd say wait for release. You can always watch let's plays on youtube and comment in here. If you were a beta guy you'd already know that I am still in a process of self discovering.

Does that mean that camping supplies are gone, and you can rest whenever you want but that way you will be burning through good stuff really quickly? Do you need to have food for everyone in order to rest therefore you might be in a situation where you can’t rest as you don’t have enough food?

I am not so sure. Back during FIG campaign during on of Q&A Josh confirmed that you will be able to change your imported character’s class and appearance - after all you are back to lvl. 1 and visuals are completely new so they can’t import your characters look. They were considering allowing you to change your character completely (race, sex) and said if that it will happen that it will be explained within lore. Personally I would just prefer to ignore it, instead of every familiar NPC saying: “weren’t you a human male before?”

Obviously buy the addon. Get yourself some sweet sweet beta action then, like I did for the Pillars beta, play it for less than an hour :-D yeah, that’s my worry. I buy into those early access stuff, and after one,playthrough I wait for final product anyway without contributing to the testing. It’s not like I will minmax various builds to find out overpowered/underpowered builds.

uhhh to buy $20 beta addon or not to buy...

Required disc space tends to be bigger than actual install size. Whenever it’s true in every case, I don’t know, but frommmy experience it is usually a case.

To be fair they did say they are aiming for the same requirements.

I don’t mind 2d prerendered background but it is limiting for devs. I do find rotatable camera in top down games frustrating but as Josh mentioned there is nothing stopping devs from making isometric view with 3D assets. Starcraft2 and Civ5 are good examples of 3D isometric games. Nice thing about prerendered is that it doesn’t tax your computer that much. But for anything above my crappy laptop moving to 3D should open new possibilities. What is easier from dev point of view however - I have no idea.

Yay! New subrace "confirmed": green gremlin orlans. /jk They shapeshift if they eat food after midnight.

Nah, I guess it depends what you like. I replayed Fallout1 couple months ago and its as good as I remember it being. However, I never found Fallout games to be immersive or got emotionally invested in them. For me fallout is about creating character, and approaching problems in various ways and it is still very much in the game and still on of the best implimentations of "freedom" in RPG i have seen (of course Fallout2 more so.) Its also a smaller game than I remember it being.

Yes, but I have a feeling they are not going that way. Cetainly there won't be any powerful spells (like "Wish") with "per encounter" mechanic, as that would mean they would be unlimited outside combat. But one of the things I would love to see in PoE is consistency and usefulness of skills and spells in all branches of gameplay. When game uses multiple gameplay mechanics there needs to be something to tie them together, otherwise game feels disjointed. For a long time I couldn't figure out why none of Arkham clones were that satisfying and I came to conclusion that it was due to gadget/skill design. Arkham uses fewer skills/gadget but they come into play with all branches of gameplay - combat, stealth, exploration, puzzle solving. Thanks to that game feels unified and consistant and all aspects of gameplay get expanded on throughout the game. PoE1 was good but division between various gameplay branches (combat, expoloration, NPC interaction, scriprted interactions) felt seperate. I would really like to see those mechanics overlap more and translate character's skills into different scenarios.

I do see interactivity (and therefore certain amount of freedom) as an important part of an RPG. I am a big fan of narrative, more linear games, but I prefer my RPGs to be more open. If you provide a character for me I am completely fine with experiencing the story and world through their eyes. If you ask me to come up with the character I want to be able to decide how he/she will interact with the world.

Yes, I found Tyranny's approach to story and choices impressive but unsatisfying (similar to Witcher 2). I much prefer multiple smaller choices throughout the entire game with their own repercussions than couple world changing big choices. In both games commitement to making your choices impact the world were impressive but in the end felt underwhelming. Tyranny's opening act is spectacular but the rest of the game you don't get to make interesting choices but rather see results of the first act choice. That is not too entertaining to me. As an extension of that thought I did notice I enjoy RPGs without defined villain more. I get the need for a "hook" and a defined antagonists like Thaos, Darth Malak or Irenicus do restrict your story and purpose. "Pick your antagonist" while you play is much more interesting idea. I get that creating a motivation which your custom created character will follow is a tricky thing to do over and over again. But flexible finale is much more interesting than multiple ending slides. If you make multiple endings "choose your ending" button is not very fun. Original Deus Ex managed to make last level of the game engaging making you go through different objectives depending on what faction you wanted to ally with. "press the button you want" from Human Revolution or PoE feels contrived.

Out of curiosity: is it pure in game time or are you one of those people who leave the game running for hours in the background?

Hmmmm I thought Witcher3 did a great job balancing urgency vs exploration. Yes, you were looking for Ciri but there never was a push for hurrying. Leads were vague, sidequests were paced via lvl system making sure you never were away from main plot for too long. Bigger sidequests would come back later on becoming relevant to the main story. Smaller quests would flesh out the world giving you a better idea of people around you. Gwent was silly but as it was a 4th wall breaking joke I treated it more like a break for myself rather than something Geralt is actually doing. Even Heart of Stone found a really good way of involving player in major sidestory while not taking player away from main game like White March did. Still Witcher3 is a very directed and limited experience, but I did like small details like that you could start a quests from multiple points. The proper starting point was usually message board, but you could just talk to quest giver, stumble upon monster tracks or monster itself and quests would adjust. There is nothing more frustrating than finding an empty cave (or perma locked doors) only to be sent back there 10 minutes later after talking to quest giver.

Yes, Dragonfall was better then PoE. In fact the writing was on a much higher level, I'm not sure Deadfire will even reach it. I disagree. I did enjoy Dragonfall a lot but I found it too much on rails for my taste and it was a pulpy story is really silly world. Characters, world and gameplay of PoE are much more engaging to me. Dragonfall was also a sequel, and original Shadowrun was a big disappointment as it was more of a point&click than an RPG. Bloated Hong Kong didn’t manage to engage me either. Dragonfall is absolutely worth a playthrough but it’s so limiting it loses its appeal very quickly. UI is terrible.

Sure, but there is also world building and thematic consistency. PoE while has side stories they all explore similar themes and add to overall experience. While sometime stand alone adventures world well (BG2) often they can feel like they don't fit the game or main story.