Tagaziel

Would explain Prosper. Partially.

Oooh, you must've loved Gothic and Gothic II.

Still images narrated by Christopher Lee.

B-movie... That was the expression I was looking for!

So a generic BOOGA WOOGA EAT YOUR FACE MONSTER? No thanks. They're supposed to be an intelligent race with their own society, not MONSTARS THAT EAT YO FACE.

WW2? I assume you mean Witcher 2 and there is no happy ending in that game. Just degrees of ****ing up the world, with any happiness being derived from the player's own interpretation. That's life. You can only do so much to make people happy. Hard choices should be the only kind of choices available for large quests that change the world. Inevitably, someone will suffer as a result of your actions. Obsidian captured it quite well with Fallout: New Vegas. You can orchestrate events to create a least horrible scenario, but there is no way to save everyone or make them happy.

In response to the OP, I wouldn't say the system in Germany is perfect either. I'm a freelancer, working for a Canadian company. The average monthly payment I'm expected to provide is on the order of 150 Euro per month, just for myself. Which is insane, as that's one fifth of my paycheck on a good month and a half on a bad month. It's not particularly responsible to live with minimal health coverage, but I have no other choice. This year I had to go to a German doctor to get my thyroid checked out for potential cancer. I didn't manage to get it done during my stay in Poland, so I figured I might as well do it in Germany and draw on that minimal health coverage. Turns out, after paying the insurer 1,800 Euro over two years, I still have to pay for diagnostics out of my pocket. 120 Euro down the drain, in the name of "equal treatment" as the lady told me over the e-mail. I'm pretty sure they'd use the same excuse (it not being a life-saving measure) to deny paying for emergency treatment because I didn't die.

Super happy endings should be in... But only limited to the smaller sidequests, where you affect just one person or two. Like resolving the differences between two lovers, or saving a gal from bandits/a lad from human traffickers. But for bigger quests? Supa-happy-kawaii-and-**** endings should be nigh impossible to get, simply because of the way the world works. Large, world-altering quests should never have happy resolutions, just shades of grey and different degrees of ****ing up. Say, if you're dealing with slavers that provide the workforce necessary to prop up a larger realm, then killing them off would help the lands they raid, but implode the economy of the realm and impoverish hundreds. Or when you're dealing with a high level political assassination and track down the assassin to the poorer parts of town. Do you reveal the fact the poor folk sheltered the assassin, leading to a crackdown and exile of the people? Do you side with the assassin and destabilize the city, screwing up the balance of power in the region? Or do you just kill him and let the city resolve its differences, leading to instability, unrest, and rioting? These are just the broad strokes and two simple examples, but I'd really prefer for large quests that influence events in the world to present agonizing, hard choices.

Absolutely love the update. The secret police of Defiance Bay sounds particularly interesting, I hope there will be an opportunity to get to know them better and understand their methods, maybe even go cave in some dissident skulls. Ciphers sound much more interesting than I thought. Love the vithrack design, though I have a minor nitpick: the spider shape on the belt, in my opinion, detracts from the design. It's a case of restating the obvious, plus, I'm not sure why the spiderfolk would use a generic wood spider for their symbol. Something more alien, a particular design pattern that is widespread throughout their culture or a symbol alien to all other races and human perception would fit better, in my opinion. As it stands, it's awesome, but the spiderman logo is just, well, a spiderman logo.

They should name it ∞. And then never speak the name, but make a ∞ symbol instead.

Good for you. Now if you don't mind, I'll keep enjoying all those great games I have on Steam, without wasting a decade on lashing the Hellespont.

"They" didn't take away your ability. You voluntarily surrendered it by purchasing a Steam-based title. It's your fault, not the corp's.

It's Prosper. You can never tell, since he considers himself a misunderstood genius, persecuted whenever someone asks for results to go with all that smoke and mirrors.

Uncle Joe would beg to differ.

If my understanding of game logic is correct, the game only checks if you have a Bronze Sphere item, not if you have the Bronze Sphere Pharod dropped.

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Blog:News/J.E._Sawyer_on_Real_World_Knowledge_and_Game_Design J.E.S. videoblogs, I spend an hour transcribing him. Call me a fanboy and I'll agree.

That's a pretty good cosplay of her novel appearance. I wager you'll get your wish. Unless all the magical plastic surgery got accidentally reversed.

Planescape: Torment has seven potential followers with five slots and it never felt particularly stingy with them.

I'm slowly getting addicted to Faster Than Light. Invading ships with the Basilisk and setting them on fire never gets old.

I find the whole "Steam is/is not DRM" discussion pointless. It's semantics, with the position tied to the person's opinion of Steam. Since there's already a non-Steam option, the point is moot. This EULA harkens back to ye olde days before digital distribution. It's been pretty much the industry standard for decades, just as ignoring it is standard practice among gamers. I think Valve removed that obligation with one of the license updates, once they realized that with millions of users with a hundred or so games each that'd mean bankrupting their family up to and including grandchildren.

You are my hero.

Best post in the thread. I don't mind degradation. It motivates players to visit towns more often, curbs currency bloat (any reasonably competent player can become the next Rockefeller in any RPG game, since so few of them have money sinks), and generally makes sense. If you go through a dungeon, emerging out the other side in sparkling-clean armor and perfectly sharpened swords is pretty jarring.

It depends on who does the looting. If you defeated the enemy fair and square, it's considered spoils of war (as it has always been). If you are just coming in as a scavenger to grab stuff of the dead, you're a looter. Basically, it all depends on how you got your loot. Robbing the freshly dead was a perfectly normal element of warfare.

Fo' sho, cracka'.

Also. Can CD Projekt just cut the crap and state that Cirilla is coming back?