WorstUsernameEver

But that's about the only bright thing I see in it. Point is.. it seems credible. It's either a (former?) dev post or has been posted by someone who has some very strong (bad) feelings against Obsidian.. or a troll. But somehow, I don't think a troll would actually work so much about a troll post, or even inform himself about how development works, unless he already knows. It is anonymous, it fits with the informations we have about the development cycle of the game etc... Granted, even if it's true, you can feel the bias of the poster, against Chris Parker (who knows? he may have something to say about this), against SEGA and against the project itself (after all, if you work undirected for a long time, when feeling the other canceled project is strongest, you may very well end up hating the game you're working on), and (as I've already repeated so much that I think people should already pretty much know at this point)... I'll reserve my judgment for when I play the game (as it should be).

This will be probably an incoherent rambling, but meh, I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. If anyone of you is familiar with the World of Darkness, this is kind of.. a mix of both, with less emo-ness and more outright silliness. Simply put, there are a few pillars I worked on when I designed (such a big word for a couple of badly organized lines written part on PC and part on paper... I honestly just like mimicking developers' way of writing for once X

http://supportwiki.steampowered.com/wiki/Steam_Refund_Policy As with most software products, we will not offer refunds for purchases made online as outlined in the software license - please review Section 4 of the Steam Subscriber Agreement for more information. We can make an exception for pre-ordered games if the request is received prior to the release date. Considering you have already played the game, if I'm getting it right, looks like there's no refund for you. Sorry =/

Oh I've plenty of NPCs like that. Part of the philosophy of this campaign, is that even random NPCs should provide entertainment and be memorable, so usually I try to give them a character trait on the fly and emphasize through either body language, change of voice tone, speech patterns etc. Granted, I may have overdone it, but so far it seems the approach has been appreciated by my players. Next post will be the setting, this time I promise (and after writing that I'll finally catch up with you Warhammer sort-of-blog-thread, promise ).

Lol. I'll try writing up something comprehensible about the setting. Even if I can't change it anymore, it's still nice to hear a couple of comments about how bad and unoriginal it is (and surprisingly, the familiarity/originality balanced worked pretty well so far ). Also looks like another player is going to join for the next session.

If it's another Dungeon Siege I hope it's moddable.. maybe they can do a Ultima IX remake this time, correcting all the game's flaws?

Can't say I blame you. Can't say I blame you at all, and being a bit Obsidian fanboy-ish it's painful for me to say this.

Not exactly J.E's finest hour, that was his writing yes ? Mostly remembered as that annoying NPC with lengthy dialouge who would appear before several major battles. Much of the nuisance I think comes with having both a predictable 'surprise' and a linear game. Maybe Melissan could have worked if she wasn't so front and center, always providing an explanation. I don't think J.E. has ever been involved with the Baldur's Gate saga, unless we want to count the canceled The Black Hound.

Thanks Whipporwill that's interesting. Any word about the economy outside the city itself? I have to decide where to set the cover-up facility devoted to.. well, technically the production of a magical drug.. sounds silly and technically it's silly, but somehow it worked in the context of the setting.

I'd just like to say... I've joined No Mutants Allowed forums to write a post about Alpha Protocol. Life is strange indeed.

Apparently no word on a patch, sorry Gromnir, at least as far as I know =/ I almost feel like Bioware has sneakily outsourced this expansion to Obsidian, considering how buggy it is.

... Seems like my suspicions about bad management have been confirmed. Great to hear that at least the other projects will come out well, bad to see that Avellone's writing has been a bit wasted on this unpolished (going by the reviews and comments) game. Still, I'll give a more appropriate judgment when I finally play the game, hope I still can have a lot of fun even with all the flaws (then again, considering I had a lot of fun with Vampire : Bloodlines it's a good possibility).

While I don't think AP is a rip-off of ME, you must admit that Obsidian COULD have been inspired by some design choices after Mass Effect came out. To be honest, it's not like Black Isle didn't do that before. Planescape Torment was based on the Infinity Engine, it used the same ruleset etc.. granted, it was a D&D license, but are we sure PS:T would have came out like that without Baldur's Gate?

^ http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=54971 There appears to be a solution to the mouse problem (look in the last posts, Alvin Nelson's reply). Hope it helps.

1) Have you forced any setting like AA or AF through the drivers interface? 2) Have you overclocked your card? While it doesn't sound (from your description) or look like it, there is still a possibility that is a graphical artifact derived from over-heating. Of course, if other games don't give you problems, it probably isn't the case.

Morgoth, do you think it's feasible to survive boss fights relying on pistols and gadgets/grenade/whatever ? I'm not sure if I want to put points in assault rifle too...

To be honest I don't remember any DA:O bashing at all. Here's one example. Oh yeah, I remember it. They still give it an 8 in the end for some reason though, and that's one thing that stuck with a lot of people. They don't seem so afraid of giving Alpha Protocol bad scores.

To be honest I don't remember any DA:O bashing at all.

Mmh.. I hope I'm recalling correctly but I remember someone else correcting a similar problem by redoing the activation problem. Unfortunately I still haven't got the game, so for now I'm afraid I won't be of much more help, sorry.

If BG2 were made in the present day, I bet there'd be a gratuitous threesome with Viconia thrown in for good measure. R00fles! Bioware still was at the beginning of their shining romance career, cut them some slack...

I'm pretty sure you won't answer this, but how do you feel about the reception Alpha Protocol received so far? I don't remember if you actually worked on it or not, though. I worked on the CQC/martial arts system. It is interesting that the response is so varied. Different reviewers obviously focus on different things, but I don't think I've seen anything that's an unreasonable critique. From J.E. Sawyer Formspring's thingy. Also, since it was me asking the question : thanks Josh, you surprised me with your honesty.

Oner.. you know that he was the last user to post in that thread, right?

European reviewers seem to fixate less on technical issues & look more at the overall package. It was the same story with games like Risen & Divinity II. The spread wasn't quite as big with Risen & Divinity II as far as I remember though.

I'm wondering if that's simply because americans are more used to spy flick and television series... Also a 2.0, no matter how incompetent is the reviewer, is basically an enormous stain on the game and developer's reputation. I really wouldn't like being in Obsidian's shoes. Granted, they're nice guys, but again, considering the number of devs and the polish of their game, I'm wondering if they shouldn't start reducing the number of projects and teams. Two teams working on two different projects seems like the limit for this developer, and instead they're always working on no less than three projects, not to mention they have to devote at least a little team to patching the games they've published. Ambition is fine, but remember what happened to Icarus...