Wormerine

Well, no, if Obsidian believes that party of five will work better than party of 6 or 7 or 12 they should cap at 5. Because they are game designers. Their job is to design the game so it is fun to play. It is their responsibility to come up with rules which organize and benefit the experience. You can challenge yourself and go solo, but it is clear for anyone who plays the game that it is not what you are supposed to do. Like no mind control/heavy plasma run in XCOM. Giving you a higher companion cap and expect you to play with 5 to have a good experience would be a silly idea.

. I liked Durance, I liked Sagani, I liked Grieving Widow. These are characters which don't fit into the "dating sim" design. I'm not sure what you mean with "dating sim" design, but I think Sagani could have been a good fit for a romance. It could have been an interesting scenario where Sagani would have been torn between her family and her feelings for the PC. It wouldn't necessarily have been a "happily ever after" romance, but a very interesting and fulfilling romance none the less. What I'd like more from romances in RPGs is to make them a bit less railroaded. Just like a boss can be difficult to defeat in a game, completing a romance should/could be difficult to achieve too. I think it would both make them more interesting and more satisfactory too (cause it's not just about clicking on the heart symbol seven times during the span of a 30 hour game or whatever). I do like the position Noah Caldwell-Gervais takes on the way romances are handled in Baldur's Gate II from his own video on the series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjWWuUDtSaE he speaks about it around the 1:12:00 mark): basically he points out that one of the interesting things about romancing, say, Viconia or Aerie is that there is a chance to fail at both, because both characters have their specific traits and personalities which you cannot just win over by being 'nice' or rushing to the end result. You can kill off a romance with Aerie if you take things too fast, for example, whereas with Viconia the romance comes not from being agreeable to her whims and ideas but actually challenging them and basically showing you have a spine. One of my biggest pet peeves about future RPGs, be it BioWare or else, which so frequently rely on a numeric "loyalty" value is that romance is immediately associated with that value, and in turn it just feels flat and unrealistic, devoid of any of the character or dynamics a real/interesting relationship would have. Romance is achieved by gaming the system more frequently than not and the end result is some sexy pretend with a videogame character instead of anything approaching an actual relationship, that would ideally require dialogue between two parts that know what they, individually, want. Incidentally this is also why I dislike the idea in Deadfire of having likes and dislikes written down in the journal for each character, because it essentially acts as motivation for gaming your way into being friendly with every companion *despite* what your character would normally say or pick. An attentive player should be able to guess what these are intuitively, and the game should be trying to hide as best it can the 'immediate'/numeric effect our choices have on companion behaviour, so as to make it more about roleplaying and less about 'relationship optimization' or however you wish to call it. Here I will defend the possible benefits of Deadfire system. The problem Dragon Age Origins had was that every companions existed in its own bubble. They would occasionally react to your decisions but for the most part your relations with them happened in conversations in the camp. You would be a different character for each one of them and game rewarded you for this lack of consistency. If Deadfire will track your overall behaviour and decisions, which then will lead to individual conversations then we might be up to something.

Indeed, but no matter what ending she got she had rough couple of years. We will see how much she changed since PoE1 but she might be less composed than she once was.

How curious. As someone who played BG2 before BG1 my impression was the opposite. )

To add to that, on the toolbar we see cropped versions of the portraits. While Eder looks weird to me there I do like his full portrait: https://www.instagram.com/p/BXWMDL4lwwv/?hl=en&taken-by=jesawyer1975 Might be the same case with others.

Here is my take on it: I love the new characters, not so much the returning ones. To be honest, my main problem is that I really liked old portraits. I will wait until the release. It is possible that the new portraits will match the returning characters once we interact with them in the new setting instead of pasting new faces on old relationships. I don't see anything objectively wrong with them.

Haha... I am afraid it is less the case of learning but having EAs funding for it. While PoE is very successful as far as the crowdfunding independent titles go, it will never reach the expensive look of AAA games. Still, a fair trade for not having your soul sucked dry.

Several reasons. Guitar is a very quiet instrument. It takes projection and rich sound to contribute/break through a thick sound of an orchestra. Nowadays, there are ways to ampliphy guitar, but classical music tends to rely on natural acoustics. Narciso Yepes managed to popularise guitar quite a bit, thanks to inventing 10 string guitar and being amazing guitarist. My personal opinion though - I don't see what guitar brings to the table what other instruments don't. Unless composer writes specifically for a guitarist he will find it easier to use other instruments. Lute was a popular instrument in renesaince as it allowed to create harmonic (chord) background for singers and some amount of polyphony (multiple equally Important melodic lines at the same time). However as we get to baroque harpsichords and organs became much more flexible instruments for writing complex music, while string instruments (violin, viola, cello) made for a better melodic instruments than a guitar allowing to perform both plucked and sustained notes. More importantly, guitar is a very Spanish instrument and development of classical music was happening mainly in Central Europe. There was little reason for composers in Vienna to use guitar for their music. A lot of later stuff was written on their foundations. You see a lot of references to guitar (Ravel's strings often are to imitate sound of guitar) but as an instrument itself it has not been widely used for centuries.

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. You completely dropped the ball. You should have said, "But.... what is love!? Baby don't hurt me! Baby don't hurt me. no more!" Aren't music and love one and the same?

Does it suffer the same fate as the first? No, "combat" in TToN actually managed to be worse than in PS:T. Ouch.. if it's even more horrid than the first then I'm glad I skipped out. The problem it has is that it's turn based. It's shallow and unengaging, but turn based part makes it really dull and clunky. Recent patch they released was to speed things it, but I didn't give it a shot. Luckily for the most part, you can avoid crisis system.

. I liked Durance, I liked Sagani, I liked Grieving Widow. These are characters which don't fit into the "dating sim" design. I'm not sure what you mean with "dating sim" design, but I think Sagani could have been a good fit for a romance. It could have been an interesting scenario where Sagani would have been torn between her family and her feelings for the PC. It wouldn't necessarily have been a "happily ever after" romance, but a very interesting and fulfilling romance none the less. What I'd like more from romances in RPGs is to make them a bit less railroaded. Just like a boss can be difficult to defeat in a game, completing a romance should/could be difficult to achieve too. I think it would both make them more interesting and more satisfactory too (cause it's not just about clicking on the heart symbol seven times during the span of a 30 hour game or whatever). Now, that's a really good point and an interesting idea.

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.