Wormerine

I personally like when expansions expand the base game rather than adding new, short campaign. It does need to be well implemented though. A good example of base game DLC which doesn’t disrupt the flow of the game is Heart of Stone for Witcher3, which nicely fits into the base game and has a story reason to either do the expansion in one go or dip in and out. I certainly don’t like it when games end on cliffhanger in order to make space for DLC (NWN2). And as I like replaying a good RPG new content is always a good excuse to jump back in. I really don’t get why people who didn’t want to replay the whole game had an issue with WM. The automatic save is there, ability to rebalance WM to fit your level is there. Overall it seems like a better option being a content which can be played both by those who beat the game already and newcomers.

Guys at Obsidian from the very beginning of the campaign were very confident that the change to 5 character parties is for the best. Now when the game has been in the oven for a while and encounters are balanced around a party of five I doubt there is anything we can do to change their minds.

But then we won't get the sassy deer hybrid https://youtu.be/uRCrYgtCLPA?t=5m34s

Because they don’t change into animals but, like you nicely described, its were-animal versions. They call it “spirit-form”. I don’t know if it’s because of lore or if they want to distinguish druids from summons, but I like it, nonetheless.

It wasn’t my impression that they are going fo it. Rather than endless backstory and conversation, Josh talked how your actions in the game will influence companions. If you are a religious fanatic or are needlessly cruel to animals Eder will start having issues with it and after a while when he gets annoyed enough, or you do something too outrageous with you he will confront you. What I hope for is a system which will make your relationship with your companions different depending on a character you’re playing and won’t allow you easily “game” the characters. In Dragon Age:O your could be best buddies with everyone because: 1) ability to feed them gifts 2) more importantly they all lived in a bubble. You would talk to Morigan, she would constantly talk about “power” and you would act accordingly. Then you would go to Leliana and be super romantic and then you would go to Alistair and be kind, understanding and seemed like you played mini game with each character (guess what I like!) rather than have them responding to your character. There weren’t a single confrontation in the game between companions in which you had to take sides. Already KOTOR2 did it better as I found it difficult to make everyone happy. Hopefully, Deadfire will bring it to another level. The basic system discriptions sounds promising, I am curious to see how it will turn out.

As a matter of fact there are two “main tabs” combat log represented by crosses sword icons, and conversation log represented by speech bubble icon. The same buttons were implemented in PoE1. Those portraits (and the red button) are additional filter options for the combat log. It is not new. This very same filter (and similar UI) was featured in th first “from directors feed “ update. https://youtu.be/zFSsIEApvKo See 2:35 Those buttons seem to toggle on and off specific characters (not sure if you can filter 2 or more at once). Red button showed all logs with Rotghast in them so I assume that it a filter for all logs regarding enemies in them (I doubt they will make separate buttons for each enemy as that would get messy). I imagine that what Adam is showing off is modified UI. Seems like you can move individual elements of UI around.

That’s not really true. What we know about full companions is: 1) they will have their own story arch. Now this is a big deal and one of the reasons I have been against (I am sort of coming around but not fully yet) to idea of “upgrading” sidekicks. Creating companions you have to create for them a dilemma to solve and tie them to the main story in a way so they will be influenced by what is happening around them. Josh did call it as one of the challenges which makes it so time consuming for writers to write a full companion. Not only they have to create a fun character but they also need to think how will this character develop throughout the game and how your choices or conversations with them will influence them as characters. Sidekicks will be simply fun characters who will agree to join your quest. They might have their own opinions, and banter but they will not develop or change throughout the game. Companions quests do add to that but saying that companions = sidekick + a quest is not true if anything hinted by Obsidian is to be believed. 2) relationship system - this time around companions are supposed to track your behaviour/decisions with various preplanned reactions/story arch directions playing out depending on how much they approve/disapprove your actions. It was confirmed multiple times (ever recently by Josh) that companions will also interact with EACH OTHER positively or negatively. How much of a big deal will it be (just flavour text or possibility of harsher actions - characters trying to kill each other, refusing to be together in a party etc) remains to be seen. Overall, with companions Obsidian advertied system similar to something have have attempted before (companions in KOTOR2 for example) though much more refined, flexible and detailed than ever before. How well it will work, and how complex it will really be in the final game is to be seen but so far it has been described as a rather big deal and one of the flagship features of Deadfire. And important note: relationship system is not the same as romance option. It seems that with some companions, if your behaviour really suits them it will be possible that a romance will happen. But it will not happen with every companion. They are not aiming for a specific amount of romances and the whole thing was described as: “if it makes sense with the character and their story arch we might put it in”.

No it doesn’t. Those buttons are for filtering log messages regarding specific characters. I believe the red one filters messages about enemie(s).

While I would like to see new people who would tag along with expansions I am slowly getting around creating existing sidekicks into full fleshed companions, assuming of course, the expansions will work in similar fashion to White March and not be standalone. The problem with making full companions with expansion is that they need to retroactively fit with the whole game. It is not impossible but it is tricky to do if expansion takes place later in the game. So what I would like to see is one of the sidekicks becoming full companions AND one new sidekick being added with expansion.

You can get used to many things. I always find 3D view and rotatable camera in topdown games annoying. While I understand that making game isometrics brings a set of design challenges I feel it works much better for players side. NWN2 camera was special though.

Uhh I hope not. I never managed to get into Bloodlines. A more classy steampunk victorian style might be more tempting but I would hope for something less magical.

They probably defined Ydwin as cypher/Rogue to give you a choice. My character is cypher, and I dont want another one in my party. That way I can make her a Rogue or multiclass her with one of the classes being a rogue. It was probably the class which made those most sense for her.

hmm.... no trash items? What about Xaurip's spears? PoE had A LOT of trash items but with stash they were easy to seperate from stuff you wanted to keep.

Mmmmm... now you are really making me want to give it a go. And I promised myself to be more responsible with money... ahh well, still have D:OS1 to beat, so I have some time to regain self control.

I believe the thread was opened before the FIG campaign has finished. If we would reatch 5.000.000 Ydwin would become full companion and new sidekick would be added. The thread was create to share ideas for this misterious sidekick. I have no idea why would someone dabble in necromancy to revive this thread.

Well, not really: Josh twitter: these sidekicks are, in order from the first tweet: konstanten, ydwin, rekke, and fessina. bonteru and radora are dust in the wind. #rip It seems like theses are new characters. Whenever they have anything in common with first draft remains to be seen. Well, not really:

The anime chick, turned goth vampire Ydwin.

Nah I don't want it changed. I want to know what she did to earn that name:-).

:-D more colourful/playful = "dumbed down"? That's an odd logic. It is dumbed down from what? Original Divinity? The first game was rather silly.

he is a dwarf Yea, he shoulda have a big !@#$off beard. That's racist.

Now, comparing both side by side the new portrait is much more similar to original concept than I thought at first. The tone seems much different. The early draft looks playful, cheerful the new portraits looks "older". I like all the new portraits a lot. Good stuff.

What we know sidekicks won't have are following things: 1) relationship system 2) their own story arc I see no reason to suspect that they won't be well implemented into the game. It totally could happen, and I imagine I will much prefer to keep fully fleshed companions around, at least on my first playthrough, but i do expect them to be closer to some of BG2 characters rather than silent BG1.

2017 has been a super strong year for RPG so far, especially if you have a PS4: Nier:Automata Nioh Persona 5 Horizon Zero Dawn Zelda:Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wuii exclusive) Out of that list, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is pretty much the #1 game of all time now, Persona 5 was called a GOTY candidate and Horizon Zero Dawn was said to be the new The Witcher 3 at release. I see no rpg in there These games have a very different target group and, except Persona maybe, they are popular genres. I don't think The Witcher 3 is a RPG, but the people who gave it RPG GOTY and called it the best RPG ever sure did... What a single person think is or not a RPG is totally meaningless when it comes to attribute games awards. People put Assassin's Creed on lists of best stealth games, even though it doesn't have functional stealth mechanic. It's not an RPG either even though you have an upgrade system. Hell, I wouldn't call Diablo an RPG. It's mechanics draw from RPGs but there is no roleplayig in it. Like in any other genre what RPG is can be defined. Many games adopted individual elements of RPGs but it hardly makes them RPGs. Witcher 3 is an odd case as it certainly has many RPGs roots. I heard it described as a roleplaying game where you can role play one character. And before you argue that it could be said about any game Witcher games encourage roleplay, while other games define characters outside players influence. Is witcher the best RPG of all time? Nah, but it's one of the best games I ever player. I would say just like "rogue-like" the term RPG is often misused by people who are familiar with games which use some of the elements of the genre, but are not familiar with genre itself.

I got kickstarter achievement even though I didn't back it via kickstarter...

2017 has been a super strong year for RPG so far, especially if you have a PS4: Nier:Automata Nioh Persona 5 Horizon Zero Dawn Zelda:Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wuii exclusive) Out of that list, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is pretty much the #1 game of all time now, Persona 5 was called a GOTY candidate and Horizon Zero Dawn was said to be the new The Witcher 3 at release. :D There is only one RPG on that list and its jRPG.