Starwars

Did you realize that Edér and Aloth are done by the same voice actor? This is *really* not the norm for VO though, especially not in PoE. I mean, I'm replaying the first game at the moment and there is quite a lot of voice repetition, especially with the White March installed. This announcement does absolutely nothing for me, especially if the VO is one the same level as PoE and Tyranny. But hey, maybe we can have a voiced protagonist and dialogue wheel for PoE3. :p

Replaying PoE in preparation for Deadfire. Just completed the first part of the White March. Really love the expansion content, it's great. Also replaying Curse of Monkey Island which is... just an awesome adventure game. Hadn't played it in like forever, such a blast from the past. And the music, my god, the music. It's soo good.

I just hope they won't take it too far. If they hit the same notes as they did when they did use humor in PoE, I'll be happy. Some of the banter is great. Though yeah, I guess the banter is where most of the humor did come from. Zahua was a great character I think. He had comic relief but he... well, he wasn't a comic relief character. There was a great and serious story there as well, but also humor. A bit one-note but still quite funny at times.

Unless the game literally has gamebreaking bugs, the truth is that I can't really give two craps about whether it will be balanced or whatever. I'm just looking forward to a fun game, and Deadfire looks to fit that bill. All the balancing, the endless discussions, the patches that will surely come, is fine and dandy and will be good etc. But I'm just gonna play the game and absorb the experience. And when the game comes out, I'm gonna avoid the "this game sucks", "this game is SJW", "the romances suck", "they sold out", "this is like Dragon Age II", "this developer said that!", "this is this and that" discussions and just play the game and form my own opinion of it. Just like the good ol' days. That's a bit off-topic but yeah... take that internet!

I just tried it a bit for the first time... Hrm, not sure. I like the idea of having a text-based combat system but it seems to take a pretty long time and at the same time lack a real amount of depth/dynamics to it. It feels a bit... half-baked to me. I guess they already tried the wind thing before but it feels like the system is in need of something... more. While at the same time. I didn't find it very interesting on my first tries so I kinda fear for how it will feel when you're on your twentieth battle in the full game. And I was quite looking forward to this system. I hope stuff like crews and equipment will provide enough depth that it will still feel somewhat fresh but I dunno.

I was very happy with the PoE soundtrack, except the battle tracks (not a fan of most battle music in games though) and some of the tracks that felt a bit too close to LOTR for comfort. For Deadfire, I hope there will be more "source music". Music for taverns, the sea shanties etc. The more of that stuff the better. I *loved* the soundtrack for the first Witcher game but I'm not a huge fan of the soundtrack for the other two games, except for the odd track. Will admit that Dwarven stone upon dwarven stone from the second game is one of my favorite tracks from a game ever. Utterly fantastic.

For PoE1, I've done Hard and PotD. It was a bit surprising to me, I didn't expect to enjoy the systems as much as I did that I would actually do PotD runs. My current replay is on Hard though. Tyranny was the opposite for me. I started out on Hard but ended up turning it down to easy because I found the combat to be such a boring slog. I just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I will start with Veteran on Deadfire and see how it feels. I'm not a fan of the direction the combat has taken overall but I'll give it a go and hope it surprises me.

Some of these changes are my my biggest pet peeves with the game and it does not translate into a gameplay loop which I enjoy much unfortunately. Definitely not saying that there was no way to improve upon PoE1 per-rest system but for me it did at least serve to make spellcasters sort of... feel a bit unique. Yes, a lot of people hold on to the spells to be sure but for me it's just worth it, especially when you get into a difficult encounter and you use your Wizard to just unload everything. It's a nice feeling and it serves to make them feel a bit special. Making everything per-encounter reduces the feeling of uniqueness and makes everything feel way more "controlled" the way it's designed. The "strategic" layer of PoE isn't anything to write home about but it is at least one more layer to consider and I find that alone does wonders for how the game unfolds, the way the game plays and the way the game feels. I would've loved to see that expanded, but... alas. Empower is a thing of course.

Wow, didn't realize that was Tuva. I had a bit of a crush on her during some of my teen years when she was doing "Skilda världar", a terrible swedish soap opera back in the 90s.

I did a replay of Silent Hill 2. Was kinda worried as it's one of those special games for me and I was thinking it wouldn't hold up. But I think it still packs a real emotional punch, they really hit upon something special with it. Gameplay isn't anything to write home about but the atmosphere and story are fantastic. Special game!

Not a huge fan of the randomized Empower suggestion. I *love* luck based random things in certain things (Luck in Fallout for example) but I don't think PoE is a great fit for that kind of thing. At least not in terms of the combat.

Pretty keen to play this but having a problem where the game will freeze up for several seconds in some areas. Happens often enough that it really disrupts the experience so I'm gonna hold off for now. Seeing it reported all over the place so it seems it's a thing that's happening to a lot of people. Hopefully they can get it fixed somehow. Have tried a bunch of user fixes but none of them have worked. Apparently upgrading to Win10 from Win7 have worked for some people but not about to do that just to play this. FPS is really smooth otherwise so it's a bit annoying. Anyways, glad the game seems to be enjoyable, glad I backed it all those years ago.

Making my way through Dishonored 2 which I picked up at the STEAM sale. Must say that I'm really enjoying it so far. The story is pretty meh but the level design is awesome. Very fun to play.

I just finished a replay of Dungeon Siege III. I really enjoyed it I must say, it's been a while since I played it. It's a bit of a shame that it was judged so harshly by many, but that is always the fate of games who change up the formula from their predecessors. I never liked the first two games in the series so I don't have any connection to them really. But the gameplay is rather fun. Some of the encounters get a bit repetitive and slow but it all feels smooth, the abilities are fun to use and the 4 different characters are great. The story is also rather good, especially for an action-heavy game. Choices are well implemented. It feels like the lore developed in the game deserved to be explored in a "real" RPG. This goes for the use of their Onyx engine too. I mean... this game looks freaking gorgeous to me. The lighting is spectacular and the art direction is great. The audio is *really* good. And it all feels so smooth, and with no loading times. It's really a shame that Obsidian never could follow up on all of that. All in all Dungeon Siege III isn't what I'd call excellent but it's a pretty damn fun game to play and severely underrated all in all. I enjoyed replaying it a lot.

Having some Talisker whisky. A favorite of mine.

So weird... and what's even weirder is that I was actually listening to Can Can music and I paused it to watch that video, haha.

I am loving the fact that they are including an overland map, and with random encounters included, I think it will do wonders for the game and its exploration. I don't know that I'm all that crazy about the pre-plopped little loot boxes here and there on the map though. I guess it's another thing to fill it up a bit but I just think it feels a bit weird to have them there and have the character "vacuum" the loot up. I liked in SoZ that loot popped up dynamically and based on what skills you had on your overland map leader. Now, that type of thing is probably out of scope for Deadfire, which is fine, but I do hope they can make it all feel a bit more dynamic for the final game. But yeah, the exploration system is one of the things that I'm the most hyped about for the full game.

What I really liked about the health/endurance in PoE was that you took "long-term" damage even if you play the encounters well. Now, this long-term strategizing isn't anything *hard* to manage but I feel it created a rather nice layer of... well, even if you're good at the game, being in combat still takes its toll on your people, it's fatiguing, it will "grind you down". I love the feel of that. For me, aside from all the strictly mechanical reasons to do so, it makes resting kinda "make sense" in the game-world. That's a reason why I really disliked that they got rid of the fatigue debuff if you kept going for a long time without resting. Not because it makes the game hard, oh no. But it's a tiny little thing that makes the game-world feel a bit more logical, a bit more real for me. I hate the idea that, if you play really well in Deadfire, you can just keep going and going and going. Now, on a first playthrough, of course you will get knocked out every now and then, but again... for me a lot of it has to do with the feel of it. The fact that you could technically have a party that all end combat with 1 hitpoint left and everyone will be right as rain after combat. Will that happen? No, of course not. But just knowing that, mechanically speaking, it's perfectly possible makes it all feel a bit more static to me, and more boring. It's the same thing with almost everything being turned to per-encounter. It makes the game feel controlled, instead of "breathing" a bit if that makes sense. With a system more focused on per-rest stuff, you could possibly run into a really hard encounter after spending a lot of your resources before and get owned. Or, if you had saved up, you could run into a hard encounter and be ready to unleash everything you had. I love that. And I really dislike how per-encounter systems allows the designer to perfectly tune encounters. For some people that's a great plus (and I obviously understand the upside of it), but I just feel it makes the game feel static and too tightly controlled. I love it when a game can swing wildly up and down. Now, I don't think the Deadfire system is horrible at all. The empower mechanic feels a bit weird to me for example, but it is undoubtedly useful. The injury system feels rather unelegant atm with its 25% "cuts" but with some tweaking I think it can work pretty well. Certainly better than Tyranny's which I felt was incredibly boring in terms of its combat. But yeah, I am disappointed that they moved away from some of the ideas in PoE. Personally I would've loved to see them try to expand *more* on the per-rest stuff, introduce more long-term strategizing and "management". But, it is what it is. But yeah, I do hope they will continue to tweak it.

I wouldn't say it feels like Tyranny but it has moved in that direction a bit. Way more focus on per-encounter stuff, smaller party size, injuries being the long-term health resource. It's an easy point of reference.

I agree with this. It feels a bit weird that taking the fruit seems to be the "trigger" for the quest.

Still not finished with the beta but some random thoughts. -To start with, it feels a lot more polished than the PoE1 beta which bodes well overall. -Graphically it's really nice and feels more alive overall. The change in tone is welcome. -The world map will be a great addition to the game. -Some of the added usability is just really nice. For example, the possibility of tweaking where your fireball will end up. Especially with the increased casting times. -All the stealth stuff is a lot better. From just stealthing, to the ability to pickpocket, to setting up traps... all that stuff is great and very welcome. -Combat encounters feel a lot better. I do feel that if you bump up the difficulty to Hard, then some encounters feel a bit... well, like they're too many enemies really. It feels like it's "swarming" or clustering the map a bit too much. But yeah, they feel a lot more individual and interesting. -I like the switching of consuming food to the resting UI. -I am not a fan at all of the transparent dialogue UI (or the fact that I just can't scroll the conversation without clicking the thing). Much prefer the old, solid style. -Combat still feels chaotic to me. I'm someone who always uses the slow mode, even in Tyranny (which feels a lot slower overall). just to get a clearer sense of what's going on, who's moving where etc. I have a hard time getting a smooth playing experience in this. And I don't understand the logic of removing the slow mode, even if the game is slowed down overall. I mean, it's a pretty nice option to have is it. Even for people who typically play faster, it would never hurt to have the option to slow things down more if things get really chaotic right? -The penetration mechanic feels *really* important in this which can make for... well, rather frustrating moments sometimes. Haven't played with it enough yet and it's something that may feel a bit hard to get a grasp of since you're getting dropped into an area with just basic gear and stuff. -Re-structuring of per-rest to per-encounter and all the stuff that "comes with it" has been a net negative for me. Just "feels-wise", I'm much more on the side of having to at least think about the long-term using of spells and abilities. Now it's just the Empower thing which... feels like a boring thing to manage honestly. Definitely not saying that PoE handled it perfectly, oh no, but it's an area where I feel Deadfire has just moved in the opposite direction of where I would want it personally. -Similarily, not a fan of the removal of health/endurance in favor of the injuries. I liked that, even if you didn't die in PoE1, your health still went down as you went on and took damage. It felt like a logical "spiral" to me and also kinda enforced the feeling of putting up a camp and resting. The injuries in Deadfire feel rather... stark in how your character can barely survive an encounter but still come out completely fresh. But if you took 1 more HP in that encounter and got knocked out, then it's probably resting time. I guess I like the feeling of "attrition" (not the right word I think, but...) in PoE. I've always disliked the feeling of having your "full arsenal" at the ready again as soon as you complete an encounter like we see in Deadfire (except the Empower mechanic). -As much as I love the world map, as well as the encounters on it (I hope there will be encounters that just pop up as well and are not "plopped" on the world map), I think the looting on it feels a bit lackluster and just... well, it feels like vacuuming the map. In Storm of Zehir, looting on the world map felt pretty cool because things popped up depending on your skills and stuff so it was always a surprise and stuff was going on constantly. In short I hope the world map will feel a bit more dynamic and "exciting" all in all.

Had to try the Deadfire beta obviously. Many improvements, but unfortunately I have to say that I think that the combat changes has mostly been negative for me. In PoE, I was pretty surprised to see that I found the realtime w pause system actually fun, even though it got rather messy a lot of the time. But I am not enjoying the Deadfire combat as it is now. Especially the change to per-encounter for pretty much everything except the empower thing... just not what I want to see in this game. It's moving in the opposite direction of what I would want it to sadly. However, still early on and I haven't delved too deep into it all, and it's still a beta obviously so. We'll see how things develop. Other than that, I'm not quite sure what I want to play. I'll probably start up some CKII again now that the latest DLC is out.

Agree with the transparent dialogue box. Really prefer the old style with the solid box as well as the ability to scroll the dialogue.

I paused quite a lot in PoE1 (and Tyranny) as well, despite using slow mode most of the time. I can pause all the time but I still have a hard time processing what actually happens between the pauses. The slow mode plus pausing made for a smooth playing experience for me. So far, playing the Deadfire beta feels frantic as hell. Different strokes I guess but yeah...

I've played all my hours after the PoE1 beta in slow mode, and this does indeed feel too fast. I wouldn't mind if they'd kept these modes, it was a great thing to have. Same here. Most of the combat encounters in PoE (and Tyranny for that matter) for me was spent in slow mode, unless it was just cleaning up trash mobs. I have a very hard time with the default combat speed right now, especially if it's an encounter that is slightly complex. I really hope they'll be able to add a slow mode, it's really impacting my enjoyment of the combat at the moment. The sum of my experience in PoE vs the Deadfire backer beta is currently that I find the combat to be *more* chaotic and hard to read because it's lacking a more relaxed pace. And the intent was to make the combat clearer and easier to manage.