Wormerine

Necrooooooo! Ahhh, good old times.

As far as I am aware, yes. Oh, I also am not a big fan of 4. That might the hotter take. Never could get into it, I tried many times. Well, yeah. At this point JE2 would be an unfinished live service. But Action RPGs have progressed a long time since JE times. I would love a good action-kungfu RPG. In my hot take, monthly fee wasn't a complaint - it was a reason people keep playing them.

That's true. Therefore, RTwP RPGs should mimic stat/roll based Turn-Based design. If playing in real time doesn't allow to engage with game systems, then it shouldn't be real time. I like RTwP RPGs but they should be turn based, or have a rulset designed to be consumed in real time. HAHAHAHA! No. I don't like any of them (didn't play Inquisition), but it's short and forgettable, so... maybe? Well, Deadfire nailed it. Unless, you are still following your moral compas, rather then your character's, in which case sure: you will always feel one of the sides is better then the other. Though as to examples you mentioned: yeah, successful in making "good" sides look bad, not succesful in justifying how "bad" sides could be considered not evil. Yes... RTS have high difficulty floor, and strategical competency can only be tested between euually matched opponent. In most cases it comes down to greater dexterity in managing macro. Still fun. Too bad W3:Ref is a pooper. Wouldn't mind diving into it - never tasted Multiplayer side of it. Problem, would end up getting wiped for the next 3 months before getting bored. As StarWars games? No. As RPGs? Yes. Now my turn: Beyond Good&Evil lays groundwork for future titles (like Arkham games) but is itself pretty crap - weak gameplay, annoying characters, lack of charm and coherent story. Pillars of Eternity would be a better games if they were designed to be turn based. Divinity: Original Sin 1&2 are horrible games when you play them by yourself. Civilization 6 improves on Civ5. Epic Store is not the worst Digital Gaming Store on the market. MMORPGs are bad games, played by people who don't want to admit that they got duped into paying every month for a crap game. Vampires: Bloodlines is an a-ok RPG. It's fine. Wouldn't recommend it. From all Bioware games, the one that deserves a good sequel is Jade Empire. Fallout 1 is better then Fallout 2.

[shrug] On my part, it's speculation of someone who has little knowledge of what happens to make this appear on my monitor. It is not impossible, that PoEs use old kind of technology, for which Unity is simply not built to effectively handle. Whenever the problem lies in approach itself (using high definition chunks of 2nd backgrounds) or in not investing enough in engine that would support this approach I have no idea. PoEs have loading issue, there is no doubt about it. Deadfire improved a lot in that regard, so it is not impossible that it could be improved even further with some smart engine tweaking. Considering how little space, let's say, Witcher3 takes I am not sure it is true. Another thing which comes to mind is, that a 3d game might use a mix of high and low texture and streams in more details as we get closer to things - even so many objects don't have high quality textures.

Doesn't a problem lie in loading and streaming high definition 2d images, as opposed to reading data and generating it into on screen graphics an a go? Outerworlds is full 3d and "maps" are generated - while majority Deadfire's maps are high definition pre-rendered images with effects simulated on top of it (lighting etc.).

I dunno. I wouldn't say that it doesn't matter - I do remember how my character looked like, and it was tied to my roleplaying, even if his face wasn't visible during gameplay. It does seem like a lot of commitment. Couple ignorant guesses of someone with no knowledge of how games work: 1) As it is only visible in menus, and doesn't interact with systems within the main game, most of the workload was on the art team, which would finish working earlier then rest of the team, therefore making space for creation of this feature? 2) benefits this game already, and lays groundwork for potential sequel with Third-Person Camera option?

I did beat all challenges in SSS on upscaled Veteran with my completly noob character and party, and PotD with my 2nd, more thought out character. It was certainly a challenge, but not as extreme as OP suggest. I, for one, am yet to beat half of the Megabosses, though mostly, as I can't be bothered to repeat them more then 3 times with how poorly my laptop runs Deadfire. HPs to tend to be more inflated in DLCs but that works with per-encounter skill design. I don't remember it to be a problem in RTwP, but found it quite tedious in turn based.

Ah! Excellent. I was wondering what happened to it. DR1 had a lot of potential, but was hamstrung by limitations and clunkiness of it's planning phase tools. Hopefully the sequel will address that.

For everyone clambering for a shred of hope: Wizards of the Coast’s new studio, with ex-Bioware folks working on new IP SF RPG https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/01/31/wizards-of-the-coasts-new-studio-is-making-a-sci-fi-rpg-with-ex-bioware-devs/

I didn't find Jim's video very informative, so here is another one:

Alien Isolation was my second favourite Alien property after errr... Alien.

What I said should be treated with a grain of salt. Tried to find the exact quote yesterday, but can't locate it. I am pretty sure it was mentioned that WM didn't pay off financially, but can't guarantee that this information is accurate, and not my misinterpretation of something that was said.

I would be curious to learn how well DLCs for Deadfire sold as well, compared to base game. If I remember well WM didn't return on the investment. I think it was mentioned when discussing why DLC model for Deadfire changed to smaller, individual adventures. I don't have the source, though.

As soon as my gaming budy visits we will fire up one of the D:OS. First 10 hours of D:OS is the best coop time I ever had.

Baldur's Gate 3 tease. More.on 02.27? https://twitter.com/baldursgate3/status/1217964674156810240?s=20

Mechanically it is very very basic, though. That's also it's downfall, I think. Disco Elysium is only as good as it's writing, and while the first half of the game is impressive when it comes to content and reactivity, it takes a drastic dive to the worse once player leaves an opening area. It is the freshest and most interesting RPG I played in a while. Does that make it the best?

I don't think OW really needed much. Playing close to the chest, is releasing a game with save import not working correctly and before a serious balance pass is made. Releasing a game with a stable 1.0, patching in some minor issues, and then announcing how one will sell new content for the game is the preferable way of doing things.

Epic will continue throwing their weight around throughout the 2020 - at least the part I like of giving game for free every week. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/01/14/epic-games-store-will-continue-free-game-giveaways-all-2020/ Still, Fortnite seems to bring in majority of the income.

I do wonder what strategy they will have for DLCs. Considering there is a pack of people who wait for the game to be released outside EPIC, I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to spend more time on a bigger expansion, and release it together with multi-store release. That said, console release isn't affected by it at all, so a more common smaller/quicker DLCs might still make complete sense.

Marketing for Tyranny was abysmal. As someone who followed Obsidian, PoEs, and Tyranny specifically, I had little to no idea what Tyranny is (aside from borrowing PoE engine) and what I did know, turned out to be untrue. Little to no surprise there, that the game didn't find it's audience.

Yes, I know. The first time I had a "pleasure" of interacting with a DLC was Dragon Age. I paid about 10 quid for each DLC pack during the sale (for ME2 and ME3), though considering the base game was being sold for 3 quid it still seemed like extortion - for an almost 10 years old games, I would hope to be able to buy one package. Still, it is not something I am butthurt about. Not being able to refund the DLCs with the game is just a noob trap - I assume an average player like me will buy entire package to start with. Oh well, I am in the process of modding ME3 so it's less vomit inducing. ME1 has a better presentation then ME3, not to mention the gameplay limitations (can't even holster my weapon now????). I feel sorry for the folks who worked on that game. Moving from ME1&ME2 to ME3 feels like teenage fanfiction. I forgot about everyone getting significant breast enlargement surgery before the Reaper attack. Oh, and space being used for everything you can imagine, making Shepard to exactly not what you want him to at any given time.

So I finally broke, installed Origin and bought overpriced Mass Effect 2 DLCs for my steam version of ME2. As I was there, I also finally bought ME3 and it's DLCs (I played my friend's copy on launch). Two things. For everyone complaining about Epic Store (they are not wrong): so far I had far worse experience with Origin - I even had to reinstall the bloody thing, to get the DLCs download properly. Point 2 - now I know why DLCs are so overpirced. ME3 is even more garbage, then I remember so I wanted to refund it, but EA doesn't offer the refunds for DLCs, which were a far more expensive part of the purchase. Shame one me. Get lost EA. Back to ignoring you for another 10 years.

I never have defined my character as skillfully as OP (I hate writing my own bio, having to do the same for my character would be just as grueling). However, I do find it necessary to define who my character is (past, personality, personal believes and goals) to enjoy most Obsidian RPGs. That was the main hurdle I had to overcome when moving from Bioware games to Obsidian's. Never played or really knew about table-top RPGs at the time, so creating your character, outsided gameplay stats was an abstract concept for me. Something I complained about was that I didn't have a character I would care about - while was invested in the conflict of Bhaalspawn, hero of Jade Empire or KOTOR, or Shephard, I found it difficult at first to care about blankslates of KOTOR2, NWN2. By the time I played Fallout: New Vegas, I read more about roleplaying, and decided to do a bit of an experiment, and defined my character before starting the game - and found the experience to be immensely engaging and satisfying. PoEs are probably first games I really tried very hard to roleplay, though it is still challenging for me not to metagame (for example I killed Llengrath in PoE1 because I didn't want to miss on the hardest fight in the game, even though reaching a mutual deal, was what my character would be more willing to pursue). When playing Outer Worlds I never felt a need to define who my character is, and I think that is one of the main reasons why it felt more like Bioware RPG, then Obsidian's - most decisions I made were based on what I personally believed was a better choice, rather then being based on my character viewpoint. Being able most of the time to find the morally superior middle ground only reinforced that playstyle.

Or a Tyranny MMO.

Those didn't work for me. Gameplay is far to simple to engage. No amount of effects will make pressing forward with occasional jump excited to me. If one wants an effective escape sequence, then one needs more complex platforming to be able to throw something against the player. See, for example the excape from the tree sequence from Ori and the Blind Forest. In TR those are just noice to me, with no imaginative imput. Is this the right place to use Ludonarrative disonance? I think so. TRs are full of it. From the opening where Lara is lost, and by herself, but player is handholded throughout majority of the game, to death threatning situations, which are solved by mindlessly pressing forward with occasional unresponsivenes to your imput when Lara's scripted stumbles happen.