Tale

It was a map that created a new game mode that evolved into a genre/subgenre. There's an interesting family tree you could draw up (I've always thought the convergent evolution that lead to Devil May Cry and Tomb Raider to be most interesting), but you don't name the parents after the children.

What was MOBA about Homeworld ? RTS have since grown categories, those that focus on online play(MOBA: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) E.G: StarCraft. Homeworld kind of skirted the line as your units carried over into the next mission but the focus were the battles as opposed to Grand Strategy were most encounters can be autoresolved and the determining factor in success is the campaign map. Basically I want more management, diplomacy and empire building than combat. I've never heard MOBA used that way. I'm familiar with it being the RTS off-shoot to which DOTA, League of Legends, and others belong.

And I spoke too soon. His fever is back up, his urine is dark, and his spleen is enlarged. He might come home tonight, but even if he does, he's going right back in tomorrow. They have ultrasounds scheduled.

If I were a betting man, it'd be The Witcher 3, but I'm not. Dragon Age: Origins is a modern classic for me, but Dragon Age 2 is something of the lazy underachiever of the RPG world. Could have been good, but didn't put forth the effort required, taking its own success as too assured. Both Witcher games are very good. So there is a consistent quality that makes it more reliable than Dragon Age.

It doesn't advertise it, and they would if it did.

Well crap. I was planning to do my first ever run of IWD after I finish BG2:EE. But if IWD:EE is coming out, I might end up waiting. I wonder if they're going to just be finishing old quests and carrying over the BGEE classes. IWD2's going to be interesting if they come to that. That'll be the first time for them using a new ruleset.

Max is probably coming home today, yay. They told me yesterday that his abdomen didn't seem as tender. So that's good news. With less pain and less fever that's a good sign of recovery.

I used to be a big Drizzt fan. I say big but I always saw flaws in it. Chapters would begin with Drizzt narrating some sort of diary and he was annoying for that couple of paragraphs. The actual adventure and stories were fine, but those little introspective pieces just made him stand out as bizarre. At one point, I think it was in the third trilogy, it was around the time of troubles, he ventures to Menzoberranzan and meets a unicorn. Well, he naturally thinks its an avatar for his god Mielikki. A book or two later, everyone starts meeting their gods because the time of troubles starts, the drow in particular, And in the journal entry preface to a chapter Drizzt just flatly rejects all godly avatars. That's not really Lolth, and he was mistaken about the unicorn. No, everyone who follows a god they can see is being foolish, because true gods are unseen. You have to have blind faith. And I sat there for a few minutes wondering why someone in Forgotten Realms was espousing Judeo-Christian philosophy. The series was pretty good up through The Orc King. Pirate King and Ghost King were absolutely dreadful. The first book of Neverwinter actually picked up a bit and removed the bitter taste Ghost King left in my mouth. Second book of Neverwinter is boring and haven't been able to make it through.

Finished Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, onto BGII: EE. Like my recent play of PS:T, that was my first playthrough without cheating. Feels pretty good, but I still say some of the fights are cheap as heck, like the demon fight at the end of ToTSC and the Greater Werewolf fight. I like the idea that fights should be reasonably achievable on the first attempt. It's an immersion/RP perspective, my characters don't have the benefit of learning from reloads, why should I? But they work as trial/error fights and were nonetheless enjoyable. Sarevok was far more manageable than I remembered. I was playing around with fighting him and just sent Khalid into the room. Well, Semaj was cloudkilling his own people, so a confused Khalid managed to kill both him and Tazok by himself. I figured I could do better than that if everyone was in the room. A couple of early cloudkills of my own and Angelo was never seen. Sarevok was badly wounded before he even showed up and with a sensible sacrifice of Khalid, the demi-god was downed before Semaj could TK himself and Tazok.

Worried about my dog. He started throwing up yesterday, took him to the vet, and they say it's a serious case of pancreatitis. He's in lots of pain, on an IV and painkillers, but his fever is down.

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright has finally hit the states! I'm so excited I just can't hide it. Helping to justify my 3DS after most of a year of non-use. I'm also still playing Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. Trying to finish up Baldur's Gate quests before I attack the Iron Throne.

I tried playing Bounty Hunter back in beta. The storyline and player agency were terrible. I quit the moment I was forced to partner with a bounty. He was annoying and deserved death.

I've gone mad with power! Three threads on this subject, good grief. I've merged two of them, hope it doesn't make following the discussion too hard.

Keep it to one thread. It would be a bit unwieldy if everyone creates a new thread just because they want a poll. Then just imagine when they want new polls for different options. Current active thread.

Closing superfluous threads. This is the current longest thread.

We don't need three threads on combat XP. I'm leaving the longest one up.

I think the previous poster's example is bad, but he makes a valid point. If anything, an RPG should be rewarding the player for RP, not asking them to RP to make up for its own design failures.

I think we've broadened our discussion beyond combat XP.

Old thread. In the red corner, we have people who want to stick with the tradition of Infinity Engine games. Over in the blue corner, the wide eyed idealists who want fair XP distribution for all players regardless of playstyle. And apparently there's a few people who lept in and started painting another corner yellow advocating for learn-by-doing. Still have plenty of corners in this ring, it's not a triangle. So give your feedback. But I want a nice clean discussion, no low blows or personal attacks.

Welcome to the limit. New thread up.

Still reading Raising Steam. Honestly I'm a bit disappointed. It's not funny and it's dragging. The conflict is only really starting up about halfway into the book. But on the plus side is that it's charming and optimistic as hell. I also just found out that Peter Watts has some ebooks available on his website. http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm I've heard fantastic things about Blindsight.

That sounds like a does-not-follow issue. Just because the game spends more time on one thing does not mean it should reward that same thing extra. In fact, the argument could easily be turned right the other direction. Because the game spends so much time on something, it should reward the alternatives. Both arguments are just people trying to argue that their way of playing is better and the game should validate them. Vaguely equivalent rewards bypasses that nonsense. "Vaguely" is my way of being weaselly here. Extra resources, opportunity costs, I think a good designer can make a passionate argument for one path providing a boost over another. And I don't think people are going to count every XP point possible. But when we venture into territory where you need a thief to get all the trap/lock XP and you can murder all the Goblins for about double the XP even thought you made peace with the Ogre Mage for its own XP bonus, then that niggles. But it is only a trifle. I'm beginning to question whether it's worth it.

Having random people constantly adding me without any idea why, yeah, that would be great. I simply press "ignore" too... I check what groups or friends we have in common. If they're from here it should be someone. Otherwise I ignore them. I violated this rule recently and ended up getting messaged by a guy with a private profile telling me to add some other guy. I ask him who either of them are and then just get the same exact message copy-pasted back to me. That'll teach me to give people a chance.

Old Thread

That was fast. For those who might be unaware, we implement around a 500 post count limit for threads. So I'm going to close this one down and start up a new one. New Thread.