Wormerine

Ah, a common mistake, that's not actual music, it's pseudo-music. It's close to music, sure, but it's not actual music. But... what is music? Why is Pillars soundtrack even written in archaic tonal system? What year is it, 1817? If Justin Bell won't expand his musical language with some microtones I will demand a refund! Such a sellout.

...did you play ME3? Couple "companions" only role in that game was to be romancable, Also did you read my post? My problem is not with romance itself, but how much it limits who your companions can be - they personal problems, history, age, status. If all/most of them are designed so you can choose to date them, it really limits who they can be. If you create only one or two romancable companions your are bound to disappoint some people. Whatever, it will be what it will be.

Really? I thought that hotkey mechanics in PoE1 was brilliant, although I discovered it on my second playthrough. All you needed to do is mouse over the spell you want and choose a hotkey. Done. And they appear above the main toolbar. Brilliant! I thought that BG way of doing it was more limited and less useful.

That's interesting to me because I am the exact opposite. If a word is too weird, my eyes just slide over it without even bothering to figure out the pronunciation. Then my brain will just make up some "close enough" pronunciation and off I go playing. Happens to me in books too. Oh, absolutely. But I am pretty sure that for the most part, the voiceacting is there to introduce the tricky words. The opening sequence does a bit of that. I don't remember ever thinking: "What is THAT?" I do remember thinking: "Wait, who were they again?" every once in a while.

That's a good performance but I much prefer the orchestral version.

On a contrary. It seems like Josh puts a lot of thought and research into those things. The downside is that at first it is difficult to remember who is who and what is what - on my first play through I would constantly mistake engwithans with Glanfaths. For exaple Tyranny had much more common names (scarlet chorus, Graven Ashe, Dishonored, Verse) which made it easier t remember who is who. However, the tooltip feature should made it easy to refresh who is who. The benefit is that the world is... more interesting. I find fantasy at its best when it creates believable and intriguing worlds. Giving foreign cultures well defined... culture helps in giving them depth. No, the names don't roll out of the tongue but learning foreign names is never easy. While Tolkien has become popular enough that many of its locations/characters became well known, I struggled just the same when I read his works for the first time. So was Dune. So yeah, Pillars might not be the easiest to get into, but it's consistent enough to stay with me after I played it. Smart use of voiceacting meant those foreign names became names and places, not long foreign words I recognise but skim through.

I really like idea. It fits thematically. The only thing to consider against it is that your chanter may that be ver limited by what he finds. There might be a way to buy those though.

Looks good! Animation on NPC makes wonders. Looks much more natural than very still PoE.

ok, so the reason why "romance" in RPG worries me, is not that it is there, but that it seriously limits who your companions are. Yes, romances aren't new. Both Baldur's Gate's and Planescape romance options are really limited. In Planescape you can really only romance Annah. In BG2 you have a choice between 3 women and one man. Moreover, in BG you can't interact with everyone, which limits the possibility of "everyone want to bed Shepard" effect. As RPGs want to allow you to create a wide variety of characters, Devs provide a wider choice of romancible (?) companions to accomodate yours (your) characters... hmmm... preferences. That's cool. But you end up with a cast of companions, who for the most part are attractive, romancable dolls, with maybe one odd ball and one wise man/woman. I liked Durance, I liked Sagani, I liked Grieving Widow. These are characters which don't fit into the "dating sim" design. I liked Jaheira/Viconia/Aerie as well, but since then I saw enough copycats to get bored with those stereotypes. Again, I am not too worried. Obsidian knows what they are doing. They said they don't like jRPG-like dating modern RPGs are using. I am curious what they will do.

That's a bit of a narrow minded perspective. Watch Rammstein live shows. Sure, they make good music, but they are also so much more than that. They are as much performers as they are musicions. Similarly with games, they can be about combat or whatever, but they also can be much more than that. And my point wasn't that "attractiveness" of a companion is somehow more important than anything else, but rather that it is weird to judge people for wanting a companion that is attractive. Games, and RPGs in particular, are wish fulfillments, and romantic/sexual fantasies are no less valid than any other. As I have stated I have nothing against a good romance. I am not against an ttractive performer or good showmanship even if it is not what might be mainly interested in. I am happy to be proved wrong and relationship system Deadfire might ensure that romances aren't coming of of blue. Yes, games can be wishfullfilments and powerful/sex fantasy but they can be so much more. They can be good stories. With interesting characters and thought provoking ideas. If obsidian wishes to add romances to the game as they believe it will improve the story they are telling I am all for it. But when someone says "all those interesting female characters aren't hot enough for me. I am not interested in a female character I don't want to bang" I raise my eyebrow. Sure, everyone has their taste and look for different things in games and it's fine. But I liked PoE and I wouldn't want Deadfire to turn into cruise ship full of romances and broken hearts drama. Because I liked Pallegina, and I liked Sagani. Making them look like porn starts and them trying to sleep with my character isn't something I particularly want. I never like Ashley from Mass Effect but at least she looked like a human being before the doll face plastic surgery she got between ME2 and 3.

I find this kind of attitude peculiar. It's one thing to say you don't want romances to be shallow, as they often tend to be in Bioware games, but another to be so sex-negative. What's wrong with wanting a visually pleasing female character? I doubt that if a woman made similar request about male characters, you'd say the same to her. But if a man asks it, then it somehow becomes morally wrong. As if it is a sin to even mention the words woman and sexuality in the same sentence. Also, how exactly is pointing out the demographics that are beyond our control a "self-fulfilling prophecy"? Well, if a woman's criticism of a video game characters is that they are not sexually attractive for her... I probably wouldn't be interested in her opinion much. Its like going out off a movie and someone says: "I wish the actors were cuter." Or leaving a concert and complaining that musicians weren't attractive. I just don't get that. In movies I expect good acting, from musicians good music making. From RPG characters I want them to be useful in combat, and interesting to interact with/talk to. I don't think eneyone is against a good romance, but you don't see those often in games. Similarly, I don't mind my actors/muscians being attractive as long as they do what they do well. If they can't act/play but they work because people can drool on posters than I have an issue with it.

Money is one thing but time is another. I am sure Dimitri and Josh have other things on their mind and defining all possible godlike, their theme, connection to Gods, gameplay mechanic and writing them intro the story is quite a bit of work. I am sure they would like to have more races/variants but the variety is already there an it would take time and manpower which could be invested elsewhere. It is not a case of how much you could add but how much you should add.

I don't believe it has been mentioned. You might want to keep an eye for another Q&A and ask about it.

What is "Starcraft2 unique mission types"? I know the game, but haven't played it so I don't know what you're talking about. By mentioning Starcraft2 I meant to reference unique gameplay mechanics you have mention ("evacuating a village before town gets burned down"). It might be a weird reference but it made sense in my head as SC2 and warcraft3 are the games which did manage to play around with established game mechanics to create unique game modes for missions (protect friendly base, move forward through the map and avoid fire of nova, capture points, destroy village before you enemy does etc. Etc). I can't think of any large RPG which would pull it off (or not be badly made). From what I understand designing engine flexible enough to create those unique scenarios takes a lot of time (not to mention polishing scenarios themselves). I imagine that's why Crysis system from Torment was rather shallow and underused. I can think of one instance when it was effectively used.

As he is refering to "Crisis" system in Torment I don't he does. PoE is a real time game though so I don't see how timed sneaking would utilize combat mechanic. While those ideas sound fine they would require some super extra work - special custom AI, heavy scripting, new mechanics. I doubt engine supports it. I am afraid that in such a big game its tough to create those special encounters (therefore rather poor quality of everything in Torment.) Games like Witcher3, PoE, Baldurs Gate tend to develop limited set of gameplay mechanics. Baldur's Gate used dialogue trees to create quests (tracking down killer, riddles etc.), Witcher 3 had very basic investigation mechanic, which it used for multiple story purposes. I hope PoE will make a much better use of scripted interactions. But I am afraid Starcraft2 unique mission types would be beyond engine and funds of this project.

It's an interpersonal relationship system, of which some relationships can involve an romantic bend to it. But romances wholesale as a mechanic are not and have never been confirmed. As far as I am concerted "romance" has been hinted at but not confirmed. From what I understand it is possible that in some extreme cases, if it feels right when writing characters some might start loving y u. Of course, love is a wide term and doesn't need to refer to romatic love, though I do believe that was the intended meaning.

That... sounds quite uncomfortable actually.

While unltra slowmo might look cooler I can only think of possible disadvantages. I didn't play early builds but if the amount of speed options was removed I imagine it was for readability sake. If the decided that not all speeds are useful, they removed unwanted ones. So you have a pause, if you really want to stop and analyse situation, slow mo for combat if you wan to have more time to react, regular for easier fight/casual exploring and fast forward for quickly gettting from one place to another. If I remember well from streams this system will be streamlines even further. As fast forward isn't useful during the combat, and slowmo during exploration in Deadfire you will have a simple on/off switch - changing between normal and slow/fast depending if its combat or exploration. I remember them mentioning it, but the UI shown on the E3 demo still has old fashioned slow&fast toggles so maybe they came back around.

Could happen only if its a plot point, systemically...nope. Ship is essential for navigation, even getting it seriously damaged/hindering its speed too much may not be an option. Also I expect the crew will be too hard to get killed in dangerous situations since they won't be generic NPCs. I'm hoping for occasional sea creature sightings around the ship while cruising; whales, dolphins, sharks etc. Wonder how big is the visible ocean around the ship... Aye, but the possibility of getting shipwrecked makes adventuring at sea much more dramatic. Otherwise you're just tourists. Besides, it's an opportunity to strip the party of their gear and have them start over. What you seem to crave for is a proper sea adventure... and I don't blame you. I still hope do get Sid Meier's Pirates!! one of these days. However, as the world navigation system was compared by Devs to fallout world maps, I wouldn't expect too much. Yes, it would be cool to have proper ship fights, wrecking and buying new ships, trading, loosing and recruiting crew but those ideas fundamentally conflict with established gameplay of PoE. I am curious what "crew management" will do, but I expect it will fit with what you do on shoremore, than actual sailing.

I think she is supposed to rest her hands on a hilt of her weapon... except the weapon is on her back?

Scratch that. We had that back in Dragon Age and I did not enjoy it. PoE was really good in avoiding all that crap, for the most part. The characters aren't models to be gawked at and the game is not a dating sim. Just no. Also that about "mostly male base"? That's a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one. Yes, please don't Mass Effect3 Eora.

The combat is okay. I agree it's unique but I made sure to make a point in my review that it isn't rewarding or satisfying like Bastion's combat. It's more on the lenient side of things, closer to Transistor in that regard. The thing that grabbed me was the character development and the choice and consequences. This ultimately should surprise all fans of Supergiant. As a long time fan of theirs who's been with them thrighout their journey since the beginning, I think Pyre is a worthy addition and their best work as far as story goes but as experimental as their games are, I don't believe they've found their sweetspot just yet. Things could be a bit better. So far I find Pyre's gameplay the most engaging, when compared to previous Supergiant works. It might change as I am just couple hours in, but there is decisionmaking there, which hasn't been present in their previous titles. Bastion had certainly the best flow. The gameplay was mindless fun, but it was so well intertwined with narrative that it didn't matter (I am usually not a fun of hack&slash - Diablo and Torchlight bores me quite a bit). I felt the whole stop time mechanic and need to switch your skills around really hurt the pacing of Transistor. Pyre is quite enjoyable so far, though it feels more like an interactive book than a game outside of the Rites. Also finally got around to playing ineXile's Bard's Tale. Quite fun actually. Reminds me of Bastion a lot.

That is true. I usually really dislike vampires but Darkest Dungeon's interpretation with the bloodsuckers is really cool. PoE has strong callbacks to D&D so dragons are somewhat expected but I do hope for other epic monster fights.

It's possible they have raised prices a bit now when campaign is over. It's a common thing to do. Sorry to hear that.

I much rather fight a dragon, than ride it. Riding it is just humiliating. Combat is honourable.