Rostere

He hasn't been charged with any crime. No, but that's a formality, it is beside the point. He is wanted for an investigation. However, the way that investigation is being handled is absolutely atrocious and totally connected to the fact that he is only wanted in Sweden for extradition. But we must separate these two matters. Thus the problem is not that he is under investigation, in which he should strive to cooperate with the authorities, but that he wouldn't want to face detention in Sweden, because that means he will be extradited. It's the extradition part which is the questionable, not the investigation.

You, sir, have no soul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_clXvNZ4AI Oh, come on. You know as well as I that those tracks are not representative at all of the IWD1/IWD2 soundtrack. Kuldahar was THE standout track from IWD. But still, it would face stiff competition had it appeared in BG2. IWD 1 and 2 soundtracks were mostly just really boring filler, which makes the Kuldahar track really stand out. The Morrowind song you linked to is definitely great, but I was not referring to Morrowind, and in any case it's also the best track of many, where most of them are boring filler. If every song Soule had written was as melodic as the Morrowind theme I wouldn't complain. Sadly, that is not the case with the IWD/IWD2 soundtrack. The Guild Wars song was also great, frankly I had not heard it before because I don't play **** MMOs. Judging from IWD/IWD2 I would doubt the rest of the Guild Wars soundtrack is as characterful, however.

Hi admins, Uh, I forgot I had apparently paid for this. Can I have "Illuminatus of the Obsidian Order"? Failing that, "Patrician of the Obsidian Order" or "Gentleman of the Obsidian Order"? Apparently the title I previously thought of (Inquisitor) was already occupied. Kind regards, Rostere

How very erotic your sentences are. There's no way you could interpret my sentence as having anything to do with sex... Unless it is a very denigrating description of my ****, in case it isn't even funny at all

Good to see a shining ray of common sense from Sawyer on this matter. Although I do agree somewhat with the haters who yearns back to D&D in that "attributes" should probably be renamed "soul attributes" or something, to distinguish soul might from physical might and so on. That way we would also further integrate the metaphysical part of the PE setting into character creation.

No, I think they should keep it. It needs to be tweaked though.

This thread is great Let's see what page 45 reads for me... "Consider a line of atoms ABAB...AB, with an A-B bond length of (1/2)a." Uh... Ok?

There are really two separate discussions going on in this thread. One is about whether stat names and divisions are nonsensical, and the other about the "no bad builds" dogma and it's intentional and unintentional consequences. Maybe we should separate the discussion into two threads so that it gets easier to follow for the devs? Or rename the thread to "general stat discussion"?

Maybe you're right in that they wanted to avoid Fallout and Arcanum character creation. Theoretically however, it's not impossible to balance a system as I described. In any case Fallout and Arcanum has offered the most interesting options with regards to character creation as I see it, that's more important in my book.

The point was not that these games were better "balanced" in the sense that most point distributions were equally hard to play the game with. The point was that these games provided a genuine character creation system where you the strengths and weaknesses of your character was very pronounced. This made for a lot of replayability and role playing opportunities. In PE the focus seems to be which classes you have in your party. I like the differences between the classes, but I think it is sad that stats make such little difference. Obsidian should really just take the stats pretty much as they are, then have them make double as much impact. Make low stats worse and good stats better. Start the balancing from that point instead. There is a lot of talk about how "all builds are viable" but really, that's hardly surprising if there is no practical difference between them. Yes, I know that would be harder to balance. But really, if the current approach to balancing is to make all bonuses/maluses so small they are practically irrelevant... Yeah, that's not the road interesting games take. There is a need for a slight refocus of priorities.

Yeah, that's how I would do it as well. Although possibly with something more classy than Chivas Regal

Coupling Might to damage in all classes on so on is an interesting approach which might work well. Balancing character stats by just making them all virtually meaningless is something I don't like. A character with max in any stat should be fearsome in that aspect. A character which has dumped some stat should be atrocious in the same aspect. Look to Fallout and Arcanum for inspiration on this. There, and especially in Fallout, stats really do matter. More of that please. There is a reason we backed PE, and it has nothing to do with that PE character creation should be a hand-holding experience.

There seems to be a general trend in games towards making ever more "subtle" and boring music for games. I suspect the real reason is that some people really just don't like music. Michael Hoenig's music for BG1 and BG2 was very impressive and emotional, a polar opposite to Jeremy Soule's music, which except for a few tunes was very bland and forgettable. That first time you get to Friendly Arms Inn in BG1 is truly a musical knockout punch which leaves you completely stunned. It captures the feeling perfectly and it's a song you won't forget, even if you only hear it once. The last ten years I've played more IWD2 than any of the Baldur's Gate games, yet the music doesn't stick in any way like the BG and BG2 music did. IWD1 music is marginally better in my opinion. I find it astounding that a talent like Hoenig is not composing for every game beneath the sun, while people like Jeremy Soule seems to do so. Oh well. At least Paradox, which Obsidian recently announced a partnership with, still belong to the school of making exciting music: This one could almost be straight out of BG2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0aSQH_RZKQ But yeah, that's just commenting on game music in general.

I read that as "Donbass" first...

From what I've seen, there sure seem to be an awful lot of attribute points lying around at start.

This is my greatest worry about the game. Usually "no bad builds" means "only bland builds". I want to be able to make characters which are really impaired in various ways during character creation. Additionally, I want to be forced to make them impaired in some way if I make them great at something.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Whatever you do Obsidian: Don't make the game too easy. Make an "easy" mode for the noobs, that should be it.

It's because those are American news sources, and likely conservative ones as well. Of course they are saying that America is "weak and indecisive". Of course they give air time whenever they can find a foreigner who thinks that. You know, I know for sure I've been hearing that all the time from Americans themselves, and never from anybody else. In reality, you have gone from overbearing to pretty much ideally concerned, considering the circumstances. But people never say anything when all is good. People are only interested in complaining when things are bad. The entire world is interconnected, you know. For good or bad. If the US had not entered or taken a stance in WW2 they would likely have been left in a situation where Nazi Germany had nukes, but not the US, an entire Europe occupied by Nazism and Fascism, Russia a puppet state or a no-man's land, and a similar mess in Asia. This would not mean a bright future for a liberal US, I can tell you that. It's better to amputate before you get gangrene, better to put the fire out when it's small. It's all about finding the right balance. Balance in all things, like they say. It's not about being a "isolationist" or an "interventionist", it's about finding the right balance between the two, considering the current circumstances.

I hope they are not reading these forums then, let's not give them any ideas! Still, it's actions that matters, not "real objectives". I'm sure there are powerful lobby groups sitting in DC, gnawing their fingernails in frustration that the public won't support their latest inane plot to squander public funds for their gain. Let's just keep this current political climate up, and let's not forget how awful things can be. Of course Obama is not a genius or a saint, but he is a lot better on foreign politics than many alternatives.

Finally under Obama America has gone back to being heroes, well, it was long overdue. 50 or 60 years of mostly idiotic interventions had to lead to somewhere. I guess they felt the need to spend that WW2 karma capital somewhere. In order to keep things that way: Stick to drones and airstrikes and military advisers. Don't ever target populated areas. Keep it that way and I'm sure you can ride this wave of popularity to the end.

That's funny you know, narrow-mindedness and racism (in the guise of nationalism) is pretty much the reason people don't like Russia. It took me a lot of parsing to understand this sentence was not referring to Russia. Nevertheless, you do realize you are on the forums of an American company and that NWN - which is in your nickname on this forums - is an American product? Maybe you should take a step back, things are not as black or white, or as homogeneous, as you think they are. Give some respect where it's due. But wouldn't the future be even better if EVERYONE could get together? Now that we are discussing crackpot fantasies? I can see why you wouldn't want to tie yourself up with the US, but why do so with Russia instead? Hush, don't give away our plan! He doesn't know the secret handshake!

Personally I don't know whether Assange is guilty or not, but the way the case has been handled is clearly an utter farce. They want him for extradition, that is all... You know, it's hard to take you seriously when you are trolling so hard... You better just stay quiet when you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

Uh, OK...

Whenever I want to get a good laugh, I go to news.google.com and type in "gop" in the search field.