Triple - A Foxy Lad

i think i just have trouble seeing this as news. discounting bankruptcy, flogging business typically case of 'when' rather than 'if'. like i know people who have dug in their heels, not sold up and bottom-fed well into their 60s. yeah, theyve kept the lights on, so their business is "viable", but fk me, its not a life id choose for myself. even if obs could limp on forever, it dont mean they should. if deadfire didnt sell enough to keep all the devs on their books and obs chose to sell up rather than cut back then thats a fair decision. a few peeps will get cut loose bcs that always happens, sadly, but hopefully it will turn out better than studio collapsing to half its current size bcs they cant afford to retain a team between projects. Also there was huge culling of small indie companies about... 4-5 years ago if memory serves? and it was bcs of over-saturation. think that might be happening now. at first was kinda just obs with poe but now owlcat, larian and inxile all competing for similar space - and uve got a couple more indie projects springing up like realms beyond. ye ye ye i appreciate larian, in particular, have been about for a while, but their visibilitys leapt in recent years. also there is nature of crpg crowd, many folk eager for opportunity to throw company under bus provided u can get ur fix elsewhere. before it was like, if u wanted to stick knife into obs, ur entire genre could vanish - but now its like u can punish who u want cos someone else is carrying flag.

Im obv speculating, but my gut tells me it could be something as simple as: owners arent getting any younger. they want to cash out and spend their 50s in a lower gear watching their kids grow up - furnished with a big lump sum of money that will see them nicely through to retirement in 10 yrs time. i work at a big firm thats done its fair share of acquisitions. one of the former owners of a company they bought is living the life o'reilly. hes chilling out in a cushy role that he negotiated as part of his terms for selling. i dont know how happy he was prior to selling his firm, but hes deffo happy now.

almost there, but i think ur off by a gnats wing, at least wrt where i live. "what can i do u for" is closer to: "what can i arrest u for", "what can i punish u for", "what can i charge u with" or "what can i grass u for". Its jokingly threatening someone via *authority*, not criminality. basically: "do you in" = direct threat of harm. "do you for" = threat of arrest or similar. eg. "do you for theft." "do you for muder" "do you for assault" like part of the reason i say it all the time is bcs im a security guard. the phrase is almost never received as an actual threat, just a common joke. u could argue that its flirtatious in some situations bcs it implies the addressee's been 'naughty' (oo er missus) but that meanings only there if the addressee wants to pick it up and run with it. u can get away with using it generally and not worry about sounding fresh. Edit: the flirtatious aspect is certainly congruent with Xoti's attention-seeking horndog act.

ye the health/stamina mechanic was a terrific idea they should have stood by. feel that legit could have become a new standard given enough time. sawyer went on record saying he liked the system. rip. this tbh. im nurturing a theory atm that many people use games as a therapeutic process and a lot of the anger stems from the therapeutic process no longer working - which can have as much to do with the player changing as much as the game. also whether a game works as therapy might not have anything to do with its quality. but this is just a notion i currently have, not a thesis i can adequately defend, so feel free to think im full of ****. throne of bhaal shifts the focus back to the bhaalspawn etc. bg2 was a fun pulpy fantasy romp that traded in raw enthusiasm - and it had writers and designers good enough to convey such. peeps who have notion that it was a profound storytelling experience miss the mark tbh, and undersell the games primary strength - that its a joyful, creative, messy experience not a deep one. i honestly feel that bg2's gleeful kitchen-sink approach is the best argument anyone's ever made for the forgotten realms as a setting. PoE's vibe and goals are just way too different to be comparable. Irenicus was a good laugh, and a great pantomime villain - voice actor did a sterling job selling him - but obs have never been fans of such. thaos is prob the closest we'll get from them, unless they set up rymrgand as an antagonist. prior to that, i think ud have to go all the way back to the black isle days and the master from FO1 for a similar vibe. irenicus just... isnt what obs do. lol, i enjoy a bit of fatalism as well. if u havent played it, fam, u should try Icewind Dale 2. It's just one big ****-off unavoidable tragedy. (periodic reminder that peeps really got their bitch on about the imoen as plot device thing) like ye, i bought into it, but i have an imoen t'ing. point is bg2s approach earned dectrators as well. think its just one of those squares u cant rightly circle. am of opinion such energy - trying to establish unattainable balance between freedom and momentum - would be better spent elsewhere. Like im playing kingmaker atm and it has time limits and stuff. im forvever like 'uve given me this big map where i could traipse around killing owlbears forever and u want me to rush? fk off.' i quite liked the fact that in deadfire i could fk about in my trusty ship 'the leng' and do random **** bcs eothas had all the time in the world and wanted an audience for his prattling. he was happy, i was happy. the other ships in the deadfire werent happy, but fk them. ye, but issue is, kotor2 is about as wordy as these things get and all those words came at great expense to almost everything else. it wouldve been nice to have kotor2 dialogue coupled with deadfire mechanics and factions but that wouldve been like having two servings of both cake and ice cream. like bioware got away with that sort of thing for years bcs money and trimming down their games to core experiences. the one game where they successfully ticked all the boxes - (dating sim / open-ish world / actual combat system) was DA:O. and that took a bazillion years of development. at one point we all thought it was vaporware. is telling that when they tried to reintroduce exploration elements and do everything again (andromeda) they fell flat on their face. i know DA:I was less of an apparent train wreck but i was extremely not a fan of how that game played. think i might have liked andromeda more, lol. also i dont think obs - or at least sawyer - are keen on the bioware approach anyhoo. tyranny had the seeds of it, but that game obv had to pay the piper elsewhere. Ye, i commented elsewhere that this was the problem, not the actual quality of script. to quote myself, i feel they shouldve had u talking with berath alone as sole contact for ur quest - at most, have physical avatars for eothas, berath and rymrgand. i think rymrgand was the best thing to come from the devs chosen approach. he comes off as truly powerful, inhuman and terrifying. even the other gods are lowkey scared of him. if theyre planning to set him up as a major antagonist - or problem at least - i think they may be onto a winner. they might have screwed up a bit with the round table thing, but ill be more disappointed if they dont take advantage of the opportunities thrown up from it. ye sorry this is all a bit scattered. maybe i should have put my head in here sooner. good discussion all round imo. i felt unable to contribute at first bcs im not doing my 'completionist' run until at least forbidden sanctum.

Im from the west midlands. i use it myself. ive heard it used a bit farther to the north in leicestershire, derbyshire etc. cant speak for farther south.

double post. why am i so bad at this (looks for delete button)

ye, we do. dont know if we got it from america or vice versa.

But considering that Skaen is Woedica's lapdog and you can't have a god of the oppressed without oppressors, then I guess hypocrisy is in his portfolio as well. He's Steerpike from Gormenghast imo. also dont see "hypocrisy" here myself, just the dialectic.

Its a reasonably common joke used by service workers here in the uk. I wouldnt be surprised if it was used in other english speaking countries - or had originated from elsewhere.

thanks gromnir. couple of nuggets of wisdom dropped there i hadnt considered. chiefly the domains and lv 16 being the sweet spot. half-orc + calistra sounds like a really fun combo to me both mechanically and rp so im proper up for that. even alchemist fits. like if ur gonna be a true follower of calistra and get most out of life, why not pump urself full of drugs. might have to bypass monk sadly cos of lawful alignment restriction. chaos all the way lads. have to say that big strapping hedonistic half orc woman way more my thing than is decent. im rolling this beauty up now.

Welp, I just realized that I need this game in my life. Off to Steam! go for it. i hope ur very happy together.

Lol. Blizzard hardsell the fk out of every ip as if it were a religion. They go out of their way to encourage the emotional dependence of folk who were likely a bit cracked in the first place. I feel that playing any blizzard game now is profoundly exhausting for an outsider. they assume the average player is as enamoured with each ip as the blizzcult and blizzard themselves. Theres one hell of a case study to be conducted here. Junkies turning on the dealer. Congregation burning the preacher.

Ur take is pretty much mine. As ive said prior, kingmaker has built in audience of pathfinder devotees invested in success of first big crpg succeeding. It also sells a v clear power fantasy with easily understandable tropes. U have pretty angelic pretty boy tristian to kiss and marry and stuff. U have angry tomboy valerie who needs a man to fix her. Also a pair of depraved bisexuals for bisexual depravity. (Theres something a little bit off about making the queer romance options chaotic and hypersexual while the straight companions are er... straightlaced but ill bang that drum another time) Im really enjoying it and would buy this type of game forever but - like u say - id be sad if it crowded out more ambitious stuff like deadfire.

Ah yes, they even did that dumb thing in Mass Effect 2 where they tried explaining it by blowing you up and re-building you at the start. Or was it to explain a slightly different look from the editor? Anyway it was really dumb and I'm glad they didn't really delve into it for ME3, it just happened. Much better. I really enjoyed that contrivance. Thought it was a fantastic way to wipe the slate clean and cut shepard loose from their old life. Playing some borderline-undead construction was also a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the reactions of ur old team to u coming back from the dead. Alternately sad and heartwarming as it should be. For me the death/resurrection thing was a masterstroke. One of the things that put me2 over the top.

Ye and not as eloquent as dammed river metaphor imo. soon as josh posted that it made perfect sense.

Im just thinking. How the fk did sawyer talk himself out of including the dammed river explanation ingame? Its a fairly quick and elegant way of explaining the situation and game would have benefited greatly from it. Think this instance of editing way too closely and second guessing urself too much. I guess sawyer wouldnt be sawyer if he wasnt inclined to do such, but eh. Feel this example of a worthwile tendency becoming counter-productive. As for peeps not being happy with the gods and putting it down to writing quality i feel we're missing a couple of major things. Like what are the big changes from poe1-2 godwise? 1. Gods now talk to each other instead of just u. 2. Gods now have physical appearances. Feel issues peeps had with gods in deadfire wouldve been solved by not making those two design changes. At most, seeing berath, eothas and rymrgand wouldve been fine. We didnt have to see the rest. We shouldnt have been able to see wael anyhoo, lol. Putting it down to nebulous notion of writing quality not constructive imo. Execution by narrative designers less of an issue than concept. Communication with gods shouldve been like poe1, one-on-one with no illustration to maintain mystery. Id have replaced those big round table cutscenes where u get summoned via chime. Instead id have had ur soul being drawn back to the starting area with the pallid knight. beraths the entity thats enlisted u. Makes sense for berath to be ur contact amongst the gods. Id bet money that this wouldve been more effective. It would have been cheaper as well cos less work for artists and narrative designers. Also wouldve taken up less time in game and it wouldve allowed the watcher to develop a deeper relationship with just berath - really flesh out that god as a character. But eh instead of taking easy route, obs have to try too hard. Thats my armchair assessment as someone whos never done crpg narrative design anyhoo.

Iselmyr was the dominant personality all along and shes only pretending to be aloth to fk with u. aloths actual dormant personality is that of an attention seeking rent boy who gets naked whenever hes drunk. Thats the real reason iselmyr took charge to keep him from utter destruction. In poe3 the original aloth emerges and he brings eora to its knees by enlisting all living creatures in a bacchanalian cult. At the end u have the options to stop him, join him, or take over from him. Microsoft give obs the money to render detailed cutscenes, game sells half a billion copies. Everyone is er... satisfied.

Masterpieces only happen by mistake imo - most of them are flawed to **** one way or another but they transcend by virtue of nailing one aspect or whole being greater than sum of its parts. I dont think trying to create them is a great idea. Perfect is the enemy of the good etc. Also no one agrees on what masterpiece is. I personally dont feel Larian have made anything remotely in that category, tho i enjoy most of their games well enough. I stan Mass Effect 2. I legit feel thats one of biowares god tier efforts, but not 1 and 3. and what sets it apart is the feeling of isolation and dissolution, not any particular design decision. As for the nwn series, think only mask of the betrayer warrants that title. Think u could make an argument for the psychedelic lunacy of hordes of the underdark as well, if only because it commits so hard to being epic level its hard not to bask in its enthusiasm. Also poe leans heavily towards 'anti-resolution' for want of a better word. If u want any kinda catharsis, u have to apply ur own reading or play something else. As for the companions and romances etc. I love that stuff. Ive wasted a small fortune on visual novels and so forth. Ive written romance in my spare time. However its not what i play obs games for. I dont mind them having a crack at it, but ive ignored all of the romance options in deadfire so far. I grow attached to my companions in rpgs cos they share the road with me. Anything they do or say is secondary to that. In bg I was mega attached to imoen (ye ye i suck and im part of the problem. Stone me if ye want) simply bcs she was the only person from candlekeep - and ur childhood - who gave up their life to stand by you. She couldve eaten kittens and talked utter gibberish after that for all i cared. The character concept and backstory was all i needed from that game.

Fear unity just sucks in general for this from what ive experienced. unless ur playing with ssd hard drives and lots of up to date, hi-speed ram, suffering might be the only recourse. Kingmakers even worse for this tho i doubt thats any comfort.

aw my adorable damaged tsun tsun pallegina. so passionate yet so unavailable. *wistful sigh*.

selling out by itself means fk all tbh. it just means the owners had an exit strategy and theyve executed it. these things get drawn up way in advance, and any investors coming on board will want to know what it is. this is prob just mission accomplished as far as urquhart etc are concerned, provided their terms were beneficial enough. like no one wants to be running to stand still for over 20 years when u can take the money and have an easier life. also, maybe i have emotional problems but i laughed for a whole day at the diablo mobile phone thing. u turn ur company into a weird cult of folk who willingly pay that much money for news of their pinata simulator. sow wind, reap whirlwind etc. a pox on all their houses.

this x 10000 lmao. im depraved enough that i actually found it kinda hot.

Noooooo, i love the goofy digitised actors and animations. dont take them away from me. lmao

Ah, my apologies. dril is a mainstay on weird twitter. he normally gets posted as a response to macho, self-aggrandising, paranoid nonsense. the account does a great job of sending up that mindset. so its not a defence, no. ur assumptions correct. they didnt. also in mass effect, shepard and friends start at lv 1 each time if u want another modern point of comparison. i feel thats fair if ur a soldier bcs ur effectiviness is tied to current conditioning, but its a harder sell for engineers and biotics. i normally rationalise lvl progression in crpgs as a measure of how ur current conditioning matches ur current situation. if u want to get deeper into this rabbit hole, potency should go up and down depending on how in the zone u are. it shouldnt only go up. there are rules in pathfinder and dnd for ageing but... meh. i think the concept of 'levels' is best off being dismissed as a mechanical necessity and not thought about any further. just in case it needs stating, this isnt me making an argument for not having levels, levelling up is fun.

lol ok. i dont want to get too carried away, but ill post this. if u know ur gamebook stuff, u might appreciate it. if its not clear, its a hardback omnibus of the first two Lone Wolf books. also, Steve Jackson was a sadistic devil, wasnt he? i respected his determination to push the form at least. like 'creature of havoc' was borderline unplayable, but deffo an achievement of some stripe. i never survived 'house of hell' either. did manage to stumble through 'appointment with fear' somehow.