WorstUsernameEver

I kinda hated how it was done in Chapter 1 to be honest, it felt incredibly heavy-handed to the point where it didn't feel believable anymore: it was a town made *exclusively* of complete ****. I think it was executed to much greater effect in Chapter 4, with the Vodyanoi, etc. There is definitely a dark side to the village, but it's not *all* there is to it. Also, Chapter 2 was the best part of the game for me.. it had some really messy translations and awkward sections, but the quest design and the strength of the underlying themes, writing, atmosphere and plot threads overcame that. Nothing like that in the sequel unfortunately I still think The Witcher 2 is by far the better game of the two by the way, I just hope that they go and take a good look at some things that worked in the original title and bring them back for the inevitable The Witcher 3: The Whoreson and the Ploughing Mutant.

Not sure if I'm the most indicated to answer! But I suspect perception was put in skills rather than stats for game balance reasons rather than any other kind of rationale, since stats and skills work in fundamentally different ways in Wasteland (although you can use both for checks, which makes certain skills super-useless, like clone tech). As for Fallout: New Vegas, I'd say it had a pretty decent character system in theory, but it was kinda marred by the abundance of skill points, relative uselessness of weapon skills and stats were really mostly useless. They kinda got around it in dialogue, but the system in itself was very forgiving. Although, uh, I'm just a dude, so I'm not sure how much you care about my replies (Chris doesn't interact too much on the forums so it's more likely that he'd answer to these questions on the blog or via mail if they were intended for him).

Maybe one day we'll have an official topic for Chris' blog posts? Anyway, I thought this deserved its own topic since he's written on how a broad, detailed skill selection/character creation can enhance the role-playing experience of a player, which goes pretty much in the face of the modern trend of simplified character systems (Obsidian is following suit with that by the way, so it's kinda doubly interesting). Link: http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-164-wasteland-1-and-that-old-school-skill-set-symphony/

Well, the forest in chapter 1 comes close. Also.. I might be a weird guy, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the swamps in the original Witcher, it had quite a few interesting critters. In general, I kinda miss the dark satire and thematic poignancy of the original title, although the actual writing in the second game is much better and discarded a lot of the (I'd have to guess unintentional) most unfortunate subtext in favor of better dialogue, more nuanced characters and a more intricate and political plot.

Interesting (and charmingly dorky) stuff. I took a much more utilitarian approach to my first playthrough of Wasteland to be honest. I've never really approached videogames this way, I'd more often than not end up too constrained by the dialogue and choices given to me by the developers to enjoy this playstyle. I guess that's why it's possible with the original Wasteland though, since you have to fill so many gaps by yourself and your dialogue options just give vague description of what your character is going to say ("Buy" "sell" etc.) What I'm more interested in, though, is the skill system. Wasteland had undoubtedly some problems with it: it offers too many unbalanced/useless skills and often doesn't explain itself about the intended progression (esp. combat skills are p. bad with that). However, I felt it was mitigated by the fact that you'd really only be picking one point in most of them and they'd grow organically with usage, which I feel is one of the best compromises between learn-by-use and point-based systems I've seen in my gaming "career". Not so sure I enjoy rolling stats though, it's a system that I never particularly enjoyed in pen and paper, and even less in videogames where I'd just end up rerolling until I got optimal stats. Then again, that just might be because I was rolling my characters with an utilitarian approach, rather than with the idea of roleplaying them (and they still all ended up dead so I had to roll another party while Jackie slowly tracked back with their corpses to the ranger HQ).

To be honest I'm not really sure how you can do a box art that communicates "THIS IS A SERIOUS GAME WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION!!!"... Cartman alone in an action hero pose with an elaborate and slick logo art? Honestly, the only thing that looks bad to me in the box art shown there is the font used for the subtitle. Rest conveys the tone pretty well.

C'mon, you're smarter than that, don't do the provoking game! You know fairly well that what for you is a waste of resources is golden to other people (not necessarily just Codex grognards either).

That's not what Gorth had said though. Regardless, I accept the apology, thread can move on talking about piracy.

And this makes a sweeping, evidently racist comment okay? No, tell you what, it doesn't. It's an insult to my family in the first place, so, yeah, I'll take it personally.

Why is a moderator on this forum openly racist? Is Obsidian aware of who they are using to represent their products?

"before defecting to casual and social games."

Ehrm.. what has that to do with the game box? Have we already seen the intro to South Park and I missed it? Truth is, developer logos on the box are not that common. Check other THQ games. Check other Bethesda games.

Like F:NV?

By the way, the overview lists couch co-op.

Actual info will be good to have.

It's a pity the art direction in Risen 2 is so schizophrenic. Both models and environments look good when taken in their own right but they just don't look good when put together, since the environments are too realistic and make the cartoonish character models stick out. Also, Piranha Bytes still hasn't learned how to do animation but they have added a slow mo camera. Why guys, why? Game is still a lot of fun despite all the clunky stuff and weird design decisions, I'm almost done with Tacarigua and the questing has been pure Piranha Bytes, hidden solutions, the locations organically come together with the quests, etc. Exploration has been really good so far, although more climbing and swimming would have helped.

Is it just me or have they cut half the article? I remember opening it earlier and reading something about a Q&A and communication relationships between artists and programmers being not good (contextless, so it wasn't clear if it was a comment on Obsidian's work environment, the industry in general, or what else). Did I imagine that?

They obviously have more resources than a single-player team, but whether those resources necessarily translate into a lot more work done on the world when they have to focus on a lot more stuff compared to the single-player titles.. well... Besides, I'm sure they can easily do all of Tamriel, the problem is whether they will manage to keep a balance between a sense of scale and density. We'll see.

Daggerfall was set in High Rock and Hammerfell, so two regions I guess? It didn't include all Tamriel. "All you need is more time and more resources" Well.. thanks, I guess.

Uhm, Daggerfall focused on one region? Arena had all the regions, but frankly I prefer the kind of density and detail you can put in a small section of the world.

Everyone knew about it already. Still has more info than the Dawnguard announcement

Lots of fixes and a bunch of system changes prompted by user feedback. There's a changelong on their forums: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2664.0.html Obviously the most important change is that they now have an awesome button.

Anyway, the character can easily be changed into some fantasy equivalent, an undead ghoul or something along those lines.

Been playing it a couple of hours so far. I'm enjoying it but I'm not sure if I like the design shift to some more standard RPG mechanics, fast travel, normal equipment, etc. Combat sucks too, but eh, Piranha Bytes.

I'm confused.. wasn't this supposed to be a Fallout game? Am I not privy to the joke?