Tale

You shouldn't trust it. Which is the point of science, so you don't have the trust the mind alone. Reasoning without process and verification was a very crappy way to learn.

Doesn't Unfinished Swan release today? Yay.

I'm waiting for Tropes vs. Manufactured Sapience

Aloth looks as tall as the rest of the group.

Yeah, that was quite annoying. After the first time, I never played Dead Money without a mod removing the collar explosion. I'm currently taking a short break from New Vegas (still on Dead Money) and playing Blackwell Deception. Another person that owns these games! How are they? Trying to figure out their priority in my queue.

You wot mate? Team Fortress 2 817.3 hrs on record Of course TF2 makes more money than Mass Effect 3. TF2 has been out for years longer. And the active multiplayer base is likely larger. Valve makes science knows how much money off key sales, which are, yes, a lottery system. They're probably the single largest source of income.

Because lottery systems generate more money than explicit sales. They create addiction behaviors even when people don't get what they want. They sell those booster packs instead using Bioware points, which are sold with real money.

It's been mentioned, but if you lose too many of the stock companions, just create your own at the adventurer's guild. They won't have the personality of the pre-written companions, but that would be a consequence of making your followers too unhappy. If the companions are all just happy and homogeneous they won't have much personality to begin with. There's a wide gulf between "just don't have them kill each other" and "happy and homogeneous." The consequence of followers being unhappy is that they should act differently from happy followers. Otherwise it turns into the sociopathic trying to please everyone playstyle that ends up dominating these games. Players spend more time trying to make everyone like them than actually characterizing themselves. The content can still react without being penalizing. Alpha Protocol did this well.

The reasonable thing to do is to ignore the thread if it bothers you so much. Other people do want to discuss it.

Different. Not worse or better, different. I say this as a guy that hates the ending to Mass Effect 3, so I think that would be pretty bad just in new ways. It still ignores the player's choices, one of the endings leaves absolutely no resolution, it brings in the question of "if mass effect and using dark energy is causing the heat death of the galaxy, why are the Reapers spreading around mass effect technology?" The ending of that is still the Reapers asking Shepard whether he wants to win or not instead of Shepard taking the reigns and just winning. But hey, it doesn't require godkid (to be fair, godkid isn't even required by the existant ending) or the Crucible.

I'm trying to play Divine Divinity, too. The thing is that I hate Diablo so I don't know how long I can put up with it to get to the "more." Just remembered that I have Mysteries of Westgate installed and should be playing that to round out my Neverwinter Nights 2 binge.

I don't want the 90s back. I want to take a different path off the 90s than was taken. The popular form of RPGs after the 90s followed a path through Neverwinter Nights to KOTOR and I think much of what we look at today can be traced to KOTOR. Cinematics, smaller parties, voice acting. That is no more the natural endpoint of all change than the idea that all hominid forms eventually become human. If we look at the legacy of advanture games, we see the birth of survival horror and the path to Resident Evil 6. But we also the birth of action adventure games in the vein of Devil May Cry. (I've never been clear on the earlier Soul Reaver/Tomb Raider branch and where that split off) But we also see cinematic narrative games like Walking Dead and Quantic Dream's works. We see alternate paths such as Telltale's 3D adventures, retro titles like the Wadjet series, and even alternate branchings of survival horror in the Penumbra and Amnesia series. The fact that Amnesia isn't a retread of Alone in the Dark 1 doesn't mean it's at risk of being Resident Evil 6. You even see the warning signs back in Penumbra where you can kill the dogs, but they steppedback in sequels because they weren't aiming for the same path Resident Evil took. Games can still change without assuming the worst.

might i ask about what you're writing? One is a story about a Halfing Paladin, followed by a critical re-examination of the previous story suggesting that it is actually a popular myth combining several stories and exaggerations. Another is a story about an otherwise insignificant military officer with a backstabbing addiction. Or maybe he just hates both the people he was hired to spy on and the people he was hired to spy for. Today I'm thinking I'll write about fantasy thieves. I'm thinking a thief with a conscience. In which he steals from a little old lady, feels really bad about it, returns it, and begs to be jailed.

I don't have any hard answers for you. But you can try to contact Obsidian for answers at info@obsidian.net. I've heard that it's kind of swamped at the moment and may take some time for response. Paypal will continue to be open for a little while, but I don't know how much longer.

Means to an end? An adventuring party isn't a birthday party. They join up to do something, not just hang out. As long as the greater objective overrides the objections, they deal with it.

There seems to have been a misunderstanding.

I like the idea when there's a large cast of companions. Then you can replace them. But with only 8? If they come to blows, let it not be to the death. Can't afford the attrition.

This thread seems to be more about Dragon Age and Bioware than Project Eternity. There's room for that discussion over in Computer and Console, indeed a few threads go that way from time to time, but it's not really constructive here.

Aside from work, writing. I've been writing for the past three days, played almost no games. Nothing serious, just trying to improve.

"Success" simply shouldn't be a concept relevant to choice. Choice is about character expression, not challenge. And there's no real justification for limiting roleplaying possibilities in a roleplaying game. Outcomes of choices should represent various concepts and work with the player to create an interesting story. To work with the player, as opposed to against him, you kind of have to acknowlege his interests and compromise with them for your wishes for the story. Not just writer fiat him into the mud. Choices don't lead to failure. They are arbitrated to fail. You can't say a conman respecting aspiring cons is against realism. An inability to find a way out is either trying ultra hard to create the corner case where it is difficult or not trying much at all to find an alternative. There is no inherent outcome to any rational scenario, there are ranges of possibilities to draw from. Sorry if I'm being a bit aggressive here.

Roleplaying isn't meant to be a challenge. I don't even know how to make sense of that concept. You can't say someone is roleplaying "wrong." Your idea of "sensible action" is just your personal roleplaying preference. "Detours and failure" work absolutely fine so long as they still contribute to the goals. They just do it indirectly. The conman respects you, you still failed, and he gives you another path. Or maybe he points you to another path that you can work through ("I've got a friend who can help you out"). He doesn't try to force you to roleplay a different character before he lets you through. It's like low-int dialogue. Low-intelligence dialogue isn't "sensible actions." It's stupid, it's silly. It is its own path, because it's not failure.

You don't have to repeat yourself anyway. It is okay if someone doesn't understand you. I say this not as a moderator, but as a guy who has seen way too many forums and posts. It is okay to just say your piece and move on. We don't need to agree. We don't need to compromise. We don't need to understand. There is not a single thread anywhere else on this forum where everyone is on the same page or sees eye-to-eye. It's just nice to express your opinion, get what understandings you can, then just kind of move on. There are too many people with too many variable interests to even play at consensus.

Being dragged through the mud isn't another path. Because it's not contributing to your goals. For being dragged through the mud to contribute to the goals of the player, that would be indeed contrived. The question is "why are you trying to con the conman?" And how does this result help you get there? If it doesn't, then it's simply the game insulting you for trying.

Not a big fan of the idea. Yeah, it sounds great, until you realize that an RPG is cooperative between DM/designer and the player, not competitive. Choice based failure ends up coming across as the designer making value judgements on your roleplaying style. Saying "play my way or the game is going to suck for you." It's a kick in the shins to player agency. All choices should be validated in some way, and I don't consider it really validated unless its validated along the same lines as why the player chose it. But I leave wiggle room for partial validation. Like if you try to con a more experience conman. Okay, so you fail, but maybe the conman could respect your attempt and give you something of value.

Yes, you can. The globals could do it or you could message one of us rank & file and we'll pass it along.