Spider

Yeah, Pidgin is pretty awesome. I knew there was another one than those I emntioned, just couldn't recall it's name. But Pidgin was it, I used it myself for a long time.

Aren't there messenger software that can run protocols of several different messengers? That way only you have to change, not your friends. Miranda and Trillian comes to mind (don't know if those still exist or work with current versions of the messenger protocol)

Grim Dawn also has a kicstarter up. Can be found here: For those who don't know, it's an open world action rpg, built around the Titan Quest engine. The team (two people) have been working on it themselves for two years and are asking for money to hire more people full time, in order to get the game out sooner and with more polish. They've almost met their funding goal as is with 15 days left to go, so that's good news. Personally this is probably the kickstarter I'm most excited by, even more so than Wasteland 2.

He wasn't talking about Fallout Tactics, he was talking about the console game, that did pretend to be an RPG.

This there is a setting for, you can get a second counter on the abilities telling how much is left before they become available. And if you want them to flash when they go off cooldown. I do agree that visual representation of applied effects leaves a lot to be desired, but I don't think the ones you mention are quite so bad. I don't know if there is a DoT in one of the other trees, but in the Arsenal tree for a Mercenary, rail shot only cares about heat signature, which a target (at high enough level) gets two of each time you fire Tracer Missile (which stacks to max 5). Basically this means you'll always start by firing three tracer missiles at a target, then your other attacks. And while your other attacks are on cooldown you'll keep firing tracer missiles, so the debuff will basically never go away. Ie, you don't really need to keep track of it. It's a bit worse with Unload in that case, since there is a chance for tracer missile to give you a buff that boosts your unloads. But since it also refreshes the cooldown of unload, it's basically just a matter of activating unload whenever it's off coolddown. Smuggler's vital shot I guess maps directly to corrosive dart, if that's the case it's an ability you'll basically only want to use if you're specced into Lethality (on an IA, maybe Dirty Fighting on the smuggler, not sure). If you have that spec, it basically revolves around keeping your dots up, so there it's very annoying. Retaliation I personally never found to be a problem though. Basically if it can be cast (ie the button isn't grayed out), then just cast it. But I think I'm slightly at advantage here, since I am playing as a healer it is far more natural for me to keep my main focus on the health bars and their surroundings rather than further up in the screen, something that has carried over when I play other classes. But I do agree with your major point, as I said. Again, since I play a healer class, I need to keep track of the bookkeeping in a fight. This get's especially bad in a raid environment, because the applied effects icons are so small. I have a HoT effect that wants to be stacked twice on each target, but when I reapply it, it only needs to be cast once if it hasn't run out. But it's very hard for me to see when it's about to run out on anyone except my main target. Also, seeing deuffs and DoTs on party members is extremely hard, and to know whether I can cleanse them or not, that just can't be done. So yeah, a lot needs to be improved in the UI, but they are working on it. The customization is the start of their ui design work, not the end, there will be more to come in the future.

The interface editor in update 1.2 does help a lot though. It's still not perfect (the extremely small buff icons on party members are annoying for instance) but it's a step in the right direction at least.

The female voices are generally better than their male counterparts, from my experience. Only male voice I like is the imperial agent (haven't heard the female version there, but it's supposedly also good).

I've read Abercrombie. The First Law Trilogy was great, Best Served Cold even better. The latest one, The Heroes, is a little weaker, mostly because the character takes a lot longer to develop and come into their own (partly due to there being too many viewpoints). It got a bit better in the second half, when the characters got more developed. So yeah, I like Abercrombie.

I personally wouldn't use LotR as an example of better fantasy, I think those stories are fairly bad. True, the setting is well done, but the stories just aren't. Even so, the story is very character driven. Same goes for Sword of Fire and Ice. If you're telling me those are not compelling characters driving that story, I don't know what to say. I haven't read the other examples on your list, so can't comment on those. I believe that you cannot have great charachters in an epic fantasy if the setting is just an afterthought. That's the only lesson of Tolkien that you cannot avoid. Mind, my opinion is just based on the fantasy books I've read so there could be books out there that proove me wrong off course. A great character is a great character regardless of setting. I have a hard time coming up with examples because good fantasy writers typically strive for an interesting setting as well as good characters. So right now I can't think of any fantasy I've read or seen where the setting is handled as an afterthought. But the best fantasy stories as I said has both. The likes of Elric of Melnibon

This is just so wrong. Characters are always the most important part of any story, regardless of medium or genre. They are what drives the story forward. You can have a story with great characters in a dull setting and have it be good, but you can't have a story with dull characters in an awesome setting be anything but dull. Having both is of course optimal.

There are changes that will affect the early game, but the significant ones are late game. I think most of the nice early game changes are tied to legacy (ie you need to have leveled one character through act 1 to benefit from them)

So big patch today. New operation, new flashpoint, major class changes, major crew skill changes.Looking forward to the new content, that's for sure.

Give me back the detached camera and zoom levels from DA:O and I'll have a look at DA3. Also, better combat design (as in stop using the same trick in Every.Single.Fight). Companion Customization doesn't matter that much, but a story with stronger C&C is always nice. But if the gameplay doesn't improve, none of those matter. (Since I never finished DA2, I didn't mind the story that much. I kinda liked the structure of it, at least they were trying to do something different). Als, I don't think I would have minded the repeating areas so much, if they weren't implemented so poorly. For instance, if you artificially remove parts of the dungeon, don't make the mini map still show those parts as accessible. That just screams laziness to me.

They did say they wanted exisiting mods to work with it though, so hopefully that won't be an issue (of course they won't work on the ipad anyway most likely, but that's another issue entirely)

I'll most likely get this for the ipad. It just seems like it's a perfect fit for that. And it has been a long time since I played BG. But I am worried that it'll be a bit dull if I can't get the mods I like. They did mention a new difficulty level though, so my one hope is that they basically incorporate SCS into the game by default as a difficulty option. That'd probably be enough for me to be happy.

So to me the article is saying if they reach 2.1 million, inXile will bring in MCA and use Obsidian tools. That's it. So even if MCA works on WL2, it won't stop Obsidian from doing their own Kickstarter. Even if MCA, in his role as creative director, was spearheading the initiative, it doesn't mean he'll be the one who'll lead it later on. I'm guessing his role has him to a lot of initial work on most titles. Depending on the project, it could be given to Sawyer as well. So yeah, I think this is good news for sure. Certainly makes me considering upping my pledge.

I'm interested, but not sure I'm looking forward to it. If it'll be of what DAII offered, I think I'll pass. If it's more like Origins then I'll probably get it.

This is true, however those quests are completely optional. If you go through the game not doing a single group quest, you'll still hit 50 before the end (at least if you do all bonus series quests). They're more a bonus for those times where you can get a group together. Also, if you're a couple of levels above you can typically solo 2-mans and do 4-mans with two people. If you have no crowd control this may not be true, but most classes do. Mobs do spawn like that, but there are patrolling ones in some places. Mostly in the heroic areas though (there they are always present), but in some cases elsewhere as well. tougher animals typically spawn by themselves and move around a little bit. Yes, that is annoying. It's also present in basically every bio game with voice acting ever made (or maybe not DA, honestly can't recall). It's a cost saving measure, but at least in Star Wars it follows how the movies work. They certainly could work on their timing though, having to wait a couple of seconds after the VO ends until the next one starts is just bad form. It can be helped a little by pressing space when the pause comes. It makes the flow a little better. Or you can just hit space when you're done reading, which is typically before they're done speaking (in my case anyway).

Those things are a tad easier in TOR though (at least compared to what you mkae it out to be, haven't played WoW so can't say). Levelling is fairly fast, and more significantly, not boring. You can reach level 50 fairly fast if you have the time. And it certainly won't take 6 months unless you have very little time to play. End game content (as in raids) only requires 8 people to do and you can't have more than 16. So if you've joined a guild or have enough friends who play, coordinating those isn't that hard. Anyway, patch notes for 1.2 hit the test server on friday. They're shaking things up a bit balance wise (and adding more content, yay!). Everyone seems to think their class is now unplayable, except maybe marauders. So interesting times are ahead.

Alpha protocol was more polarizing, that's for sure. If you liked what it had to offer, you really liked the game. If you didn't, then it's flaws were pretty huge. DSIII wasmore solid, but not spectacular. Good combat mechanics (better on console than PC I imagine, but still good on PC), ok story and characters. It did what it set out to do well. So it selling 820k in it's first month is no surprise.

Day 1 purchase for sure if that's what it is.

Except this has been done all of two times afaik. Well, three if you count Space Siege (I'm so not counting Space Siege).Vampire Bloodlines and Mass Effect 2. I like the system myself, but it's not by any means a RPG standard.

Yeah, iPhone would be a nightmare, but iPad could be fine. Battleheart is a good example of that.

I think it's more that Obsidian got a bad reputation from NWN2 and Kotor2 and since they have that reputation people are more actively looking at bugs as part of the review. Skyrim was certainly buggier than NV for me, including one game breaking bug. That being said, I wouldn't describe Skyrim as a buggy game exactly.