Wrath of Dagon

I used to be for a flat tax, but the way we're spending I don't think 15% will raise enough money. Also it's 15% in addition to 7% (really 15%) Social Security collects, too high a burden on the low income. I would say eliminate all deductions and apply 15% and 25% brackets to all income, no exceptions, except exempt the first 20,000 or so for a family of 4, which gives a nice element of progressivity at the low end. Of course you'd still have the Social Security/ Medicare tax in addition, because we just can't afford to do away with it, in fact Medicare tax should be applied to all income as well, not just earned income. A flat tax is actually very powerful, the 15% Social Security tax on the first $100000 per individual accounts for almost half the government revenue.

The same button could be used for standard attack and interact. This way an extra button would be freed up for abilities. It would be better if all ranged/AOE abilities were together, otherwise I keep constantly having to switch stances, hitting the wrong button and forgetting useful abilities in the heat of the battle. This is a problem with Rheinhart, don't know about other characters. Better yet, how about being able to re-map buttons, so you can put your favorite abilities in the same stance/selection?

That was what Jimmy Carter used to say before his ass made a great big thwack being kicked out of office. All we need is some strong leadership. If US made it through the Great Depression and WW2 it can get through this as well. The deficit reduction commission came up with a really good bipartisan plan which would actually help economic growth greatly, there just has to be some political courage to pass it.

More proof that free to play is built upon exploiting insane people: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36336/G..._Nearly_500.php

No such thing as Republic of Texas. Yet.

I had the exact same experience. If she's too tough, you can get Lucas in coop and then when you exit coop you still have him as an AI companion. After I bought him some equipment he pretty much killed her all by himself. Edit:

I said government is a necessary evil, I didn't say abolish it entirely. As far as national infrastructure, obviously it exists, but whether national government was needed to put it in place, I'm not sure. In any case I don't believe it was constitutionally authorized, except as far as it impacts defense. "Necessary evil" isn't the same thing as "evil". And no, there's nothing the government does well, but like I said, sometimes it's the only option.

Critical damage needs to be better explained. Right now I have no idea if the trade offs are worth it.

Define "earn." Is all income or wealth in the absence of "earning" morally suspect? Is all income or wealth generated in the private sector automatically considered "earned"? Yes. What's more "productive"-- a company selling fire insurance policies, or the NYC Fire Department? Both are necessary, I'm not saying government isn't a necessary evil (we have a volunteer fire department here btw). But stuff being cut from the federal government isn't in the category of essential services, which are usually provided by local governments anyway. I said the government produces nothing, not that they don't sometimes pay other people to produce stuff. But when they do it's normally super inefficient, and the only reason to let them do it is because it can't be done through the marketplace. Edit: Anyway, when I said "produce", I meant create wealth. Government is a net consumer and redistributor of wealth, not a producer.

I didn't say it was wasteful, you did. I said it's corrupt, and it's inherently corrupt because it takes money from people who earned it and gives it to people who didn't. Further, unlike private business, the government produces nothing. And when it borrows or collects money, this is money that could be used for productive purposes instead. Yes, in some cases it is a necessary evil, but scaling it back from its excesses is something to be celebrated, not mourned.

You're talking as if that spending isn't taken away from someone else who would've produced more income, jobs, and GDP than a corrupt government program could ever do. To me this is a good first step, at least now people can see that we're not just going down a waterfall without a paddle, so it should stablilize things and improve the economy long term.

Compared to every other Diablo Style ARPG I played there is a lot more of that around too. I'd think you already did fight Rajani? How was the conversation after not player choice? You still have to fight her though, it's all scripted, you only make a choice afterwards. There may be a few points where you do make a decision, but for the most part you just have to fight your way through to solve the quest. Take the Sand People quest in KOTOR, there were multiple options to do it, and you didn't have to fight the Chief at all. There's a similar quest in DS3, but the only solution is combat. That's what I mean by different game structure. As far as talking to NPC's, yes it's there but it's one sided. Mostly you just query them on different topics, there's normally no consequences except on influence. If Anakin meant he wanted more info from the companions, I guess that would've fit, but I don't see anything more extensive without going beyond the scope of what the game was meant to be.

I guess I'll have to get back to you on non-combat quests, I haven't done any yet. Puzzles have been as rudimentary as can be so far, though I don't see why an ARPG can't have puzzles. The main difference to me is precisely the reliance on character interaction and player choice, both for quests and for story, and by that criteria DS3 is definitely an ARPG.

With DAO they weren't trying to make an action RPG, the problem is their RPG elements weren't implemented well, so all you're left with is a bunch of filler combat where real RPG content should've been, so it plays like a bad action RPG. With DS3, Obsidian obviously set out to make an action RPG, so they never planned to put all the usual content you'd expect from an RPG. I'm not sure extended companion interactions would've fit here, or else they might as well have made a full RPG. Not that I'm against full RPG's, I just don't think that's what they were going for. Edit: May be we're using the term ARPG with different meanings. I mean a game with primary emphasis on loot and combat, not that it has "actiony" combat. New Vegas for example also has "action" combat, but I wouldn't call it an ARPG.

Eh, I disagree. Obsidian put their spin on the franchise, which was more emphasis on story and character, and less on hack & slash and loot. Just look at the complaints from DS1 & 2 fans that the game was changed significantly from the previous two installments, primarily about how there's less emphasis on combat and loot, and more story and deeper characters. So in that respect, it should be compared to games like KOTOR, NWN, Dragon Age, etc. because that's the sort of thing they were going for. Combat and loot are constant, so I don't see how there's less emphasis. Sure, they did add writing and characters, it wouldn't be an Obsidian game otherwise, but the structure is still quite different from the games you mentioned. Normal RPG quests involve lots of character interaction, in DS3 there's almost none, and what there is usually doesn't affect anything. It's always been called an action RPG, so I don't see how you can say that's not what they were going for. You could legitimately compare it to DAO, except DAO has a lot more pointless blather, and really tedious combat through repetitive boring levels. It's unbelievable to me how much DS3 is better than DAO, and obviously on a much smaller budget too.

I was referring less about the actual DA2 quality of interaction (though I actually enjoyed it), than I was about that kind of thing, where you have the opportunity to talk to, learn about, and even undertake a quest or two for those companions. IMO, they feel a lot more fleshed out the more you get a chance to have dialogue with them. DS3 was good in the way it integrated the companions into dialogue in various scenes, but it fell short, IMO, when it came to actually giving you a chance to get to know them better. I also think the game was screaming for a personal sidequest for each companion. One of my favorite parts of an old Obsidian game was the party interaction in KOTOR II. Learning about those traveling with you, expanding on the lore around them and their backgrounds, ranks up there among my favorite features from that game. That's one area where I think DS3 dropped the ball. It didn't drop the ball, it's an action RPG, not an RPG like KOTOR. The emphasis is on combat and loot, not character interaction and quests. Btw, another thing I'd like is to have the mini-map be a different color for the paths you've already visited, otherwise it's impossible to explore areas with lots of interconnecting paths and know if you already explored there or not.

Having lots of fun with DS3, hard to put it down. I'd say the third best Obsidian game.

The marketplace didn't think there was a crisis in mortgage securities either until the whole thing collapsed. I'd say financing 40% of your budget through borrowing with no end in sight is a crisis, and that's even before social security and medicare turn to deficits instead of surpluses. Well... and this is silly... we wouldn't be in this position if the same people pushing us towards a default hadn't blocked moves to try to raise revenue via tax increases on the top 3% Why don't we increase taxes on you instead? Why do people always assume someone else needs to pay for them?

The marketplace didn't think there was a crisis in mortgage securities either until the whole thing collapsed. I'd say financing 40% of your budget through borrowing with no end in sight is a crisis, and that's even before social security and medicare turn to deficits instead of surpluses.

If Westerners had any brains, they wouldn't be self-destructing, would they?

What else is in the genre?

Being self-contained allows you to pick any character for your party, instead of being limited to whoever best complements you, which is important when your party is only 2. So there are pros and cons to it.

Same in Oblivion. Really? I never saw one, you seemed to be able to go anywhere. Edit: Unless you mean the guards, but those weren't exactly enemies unless you wanted them to be.

I think it'll still scale, just the level of the area is set when you first visit it and won't level up later. I kind of liked that, although I played on normal and it was still painful sometimes. But it did make you reconsider your tactics and think about how you could improve your stats and equipment to do better (damn willowisps!)

I'd like the camera to have three settings, right now it doesn't zoom out enough and feels claustraphobic until you get used to it. It's especially a problem in coop because you're tethered to each other and it makes it hard to take out spread out ranged enemies. I'd also like an arrow showing the facing at the character base. Sometimes it's hard to tell where you're facing in the heat of the battle.