Monte Carlo

Cipher is a hobby-horse class of the designers, hip, setting-specific and utterly over-indulged. It's like a dungeon master's favourite NPC, the one that never dies and pops up everywhere while the players roll their eyes.

At least they aren't as bad as ToEE's ports.

^ Yes, we need to create a new identity for the asset, lest the enemy blow his legend.

I kind of like the OPs ongoing attempt to keep his trolling alive, and I also adore the Bio-baiting avatar, but I think it's running out of steam. The good news is the OP clearly has a knack for this game, I think he's moving into solid B minus territory. Personally, I'd like to develop his mad skills further before infiltrating him onto the BSN as an asset, ready to detonate at a time of our choosing. Think a sort of emo, politically-correct Manchurian Candidate.

This is a solid 'C' but I'd have made a few more posts on the account first to make it less obvious.

There needs to be a 'Path of the not-really-damned, in fact quite blessed' mode where you start the game with a QA testers sword-of-slaying. Seriously, why not?

I've got a spare XXXXXXXXXXL tee-shirt if you want one.

And make them... slip and fall? Have you ever seen bird coated in oil fly? Edit: Eldoth overload. NVM

I got an email too. For some reason they are sending me two tee-shirts, which I seem to have paid for as well. Never mind, am sure a spare will come in handy eventually.

In retrospect, allowing JES to design a game like this is like asking Ingmar Bergman to direct a re-boot of Raiders of the Lost Ark. BG2 PoE

Irony alert. What does Josh like? I'm certainly finding PoEs systems more puzzling than anything in the mad-as-a-box-of-frogs 2nd Ed AD&D.

Because of course a circle-jerk love-in will really help this game realise it's (not inconsiderable) potential.

This is a turn-based game shoe-horned into a RTwP game, and herein lie the problems. The cluttered battlefield only makes it worse (I zoom in and although I like the effects I struggle to see who is where, the avatars can be quite samey). I wanted a more BG-esque experience like Sensuki, and like some other posters find PoE unnecessarily complicated. It feels like I'm playing an IE game modded by a masochistic hardcore grog. Which I though would be fun, but it isn't. The engagement and armour penalty mechanics are utterly, utterly dreadful. All systems can be gamed. It's up to you whether to game the system or not. And the truth of the matter is sometimes you might and usually you won't. Like others have said, the fun (for me, anyhow) of the IE games is the slightly cheesy combat which still has some fun tactical options and resource concerns underpinning it. You can play an IE game with a small party... summon monsters and pelt your enemy with missiles or chug invis potions and backstab or tank, or drop cloudkills and run around kiting. It's sometimes cheesy but it's usually fun. Fun is so subjective, but enough people loved the IE games for me to take a punt on I'm not the only person who loved over-the-top gonzo IE combat. None of this is possible in PoE. You have to follow a proscribed stratagem of tanks, support and DPS. The only choice is how many of each you use. Now the more I play the less I dislike it. At the moment I'm teetering on occasionally enjoying it the more powerful I get. But it isn't a patch, for me, on BG2 at a comparable level. On a glass half-full note, though, PoE has bags of promise and I'm sure with patching and tweaking by the developers it will get better.

And I suspect it's working as intended.

I'm not great at class-building like this, so I'm glad there are other people that are Thanks for sharing. I've got a gimped human barbarian with a two-handed sword. He sucks but I'm a bit surprised, seeing as apparently you couldn't make a bad character in this game...

Toggle resting mechanics on / off. Simple. It's a SP game. FONV has hardcore survival mode for folks who dig that, it isn't forced on everyone. Or maybe a mode where if you leave a dungeon for 'X' amount of hours it re-stocks with monsters, maybe less than before maybe more. It's another roll of the dice.

It's the Obsidian house-style. They don't do humour much, and if they do it's very low-key.

I gave an exceptionally reasoned argument. It wasn't whiny. I'm not 'rationalizing my discrimination' either, as I don't personally have an issue with trans people. That doesn't mean I think any group has a magic right not to be offended, or that material some people might find offensive needs bludgeoning with the sensitivity cudgel. That you can't see how it's perfectly reasonable to hold both positions is your problem, not mine.

I used that bald fighter dude in so many games of BG2 it ain't even funny.

Curiosity killed the cat. Step back from DA2. For the love of all that's holy.

Once you outlaw exaggeration, hyperbole and the fantastic on the grounds that someone, somewhere might be (or indeed is) offended then you are on a slippery slope indeed.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with "your opinion isn't valid because whiney busllhit", maybe your opinions just a load of self-serving ****ery and nobody likes it. Wow, did I move your cheese?

Wow the spoiler cops are out in force.

evensong, with respect, you've swallowed the Marxist 'cultural hypodermic' theory of media hook, line and sinker. I've read my Gramsci and Frankfurt School. I don't buy into the idea that person 'a' writing one thing is an inexorable journey towards person 'b' doing something bad. It might but it isn't a given. You see one thing, I see another. Was it Mark Twain who said censoring objectionable material is like outlawing steak because babies can't eat it?

I think Stronghold elements should be introduced only if they are a part of main story. Funnily enough, I like the stronghold because it's not part of the main story arc. It's like taking time out and doing fun stuff. It might break some people's im-mer-shun but personally I find it refreshing.