Luckmann

There is very little information available about the supposed expansion, so far. About the only thing we've heard is that it's going to be TotSC-like, but even that wasn't entirely clear.

...any über-rapier? D:

I have no doubt most of this is true, but there is no way it'll flop sales-wise. There's people out there that still think FO3 was better than FONV and that Oblivion and Skyrim is the best thing since sliced white bread with the crust cut off by mom. I was so, so incredibly disappointed in Skyrim after Bethesda showed that they had learned nothing from the issues with Oblivion, nor taken a page out of the book of FONV that served mechanics up to them on a silver platter. Survival in a harsh winter landscape? Now that'd just be silly, my good man, mwaha, guffaw mwaha.

I would say C or J, definitely.

I loved them in BG1, but in BG2, they were extremely meh. That said, no, I don't think that there's any word at all on either of those. It certainly doesn't happen in the Backer Beta. It might be moddable, but again it depends on whether they'll externalize the area files or not. Currently it's (to my best understanding based on what others have said) pretty much impossible to muck around with the actual areas, which means you couldn't actually place anything on existing maps, etc.

That'd be damn cool and probably hilarious. We're all doomed, anyway.

It should be noted that "right now", Wall of Fire is bugged, and it only tics once, when someone touches it. Then it doesn't do anything anymore. I'm assuming this is not intentional, though.

That's exactly how they pitched it. Now, it's possible to argue that the game has veered a bit from the original pitches, but the initial pitch was almost ad verbatim what you paraphrased.

Just because you can have an opinion doesn't give you a right to have one. I can go out and stab someone in the face, and there's really nothing you can do about it, but no-one would consider that my right. The only right you have in this scenario is whether or not you buy the game now, later, or never. One could even argue that that isn't really a right either, although I think most civilized countries at least have a legal right to deny purchase.. so I mean.. there's that. I'd probably argue that you have a moral right to be allowed to purchase now or later, and a legal right to the never. But really, now we're just entering the realm of the absurd, my point being that unless you're being wilfully obtuse, you understand what I meant. We really don't have a "right" to anything but bubkis. I'm very often (sometimes quite literally) on the "other side of the fence" in arguments like this, with very strong ideas of right or wrong from a moral standpoint and the letter of the law (if people choose to enforce it, it shouldn't be pick-and-choose), but in this case, I really must say something that's been thrown in my face more than once: Vote with your wallet. That's all it comes down to. Like I just said, I can't even afford the game, yet there is no chance in hell that it'd be reasonable - whether we're arguing economics or moral obligations - to expect, or to even propose, that Obsidian blatantly gives the game away to non-backers. No way, no how. Yes, the game is "paid for", but it's not like the surplus goes straight into the pockets of the developers and then they go home. Yes, in theory, the owner(s) of the company (...how is Obsidian owned, anyway; it's privately owned, right? But is it multiple holders, or just Urquhart?) could give themselves exorbitant paychecks or simply skip ship and leave with all the money, but in all honesty, that's a complete fantasy scenario. We know that won't happen. The additional money will go into new products and hiring new people, or just making sure that they can keep employing the people they have right now. While the Kickstarter model is great, it also comes with the caveat that when you're out of money, you're literally out of money. You get a product out, start cannibalizing the company (or it's savings), or you go bankrupt. It's not really about economics, it's not really about Obsidian's moral right to their own product, and it's certainly not about some legal mumbo-jumbo none of us actually gives a **** about. It's about Obsidian surviving, not even as a company, but as an entity, so that they can keep producing that sweet cocaine we all crave and want in our fast-and-fat luxurious jetset lives. Or, y'know, quality RPG:s for shut-ins or whatever. Edit: Jesus, I mean, c'mon, Obsidian had 135 employees in 2008. I'm not sure what it is now, but I know freakin' grocery stores with more effective manpower than that. There's probably icecream trucks that have wider financial margins than Obsidian has.

Because as of BBv435, it's horrific. Now, it may still change before release (I'm still hoping for some major changes in some things before release; Paladin & Ranger overhauls, Improved Spiritshift and Dueling, etc (yes, I have no hope for them fixing Stealth & Combat Only before release, which are otherwise my pet hatreds) but as of right now, Spiritshift is terrible, absolutely terrible. It's got zero good Talent support, it adds very little as a mechanic, it actively gimps your character in virtually all ways, it doesn't benefit from gear at all, etc, etc. Spiritshift could be really cool, but personally, I would've preferred it if you could just pick up different shifts as you level, with each shift having clear utility and scaling stats that at least made it worthwile to spiritshift at some point. Now it just feels like a shamanistic gimmick, rather than true shapeshifting of the ol' DnD variety (which had other issues, but at least you could switch).

Thing is, customers have no "right" to have an "opinion" on the price. The "opinion" is whether or not the game sells, whether or not the customers buys it or not. Generally speaking, if a game is overpriced, it sells less. So although the discussion at this point is purely academic, the question is thus, is PoE worth the price? I'm tremendously poor and right now it's sadly out of my price range, I'm sad to say, but based on what I know of the game, I see no reason why it wouldn't do well at a regular pricing.

It's often warranted, though. RPG gamers are paranoid because the RPG genre have been subverted and straight-up beaten with a crowbar more often than no other.

You know what I'd love? Pillars of Eternity does amazing on the open market. They use that to fund another game. They still go to Kickstarter for additional funding, saying that the game is going to happen either way, but that you can get a good deal on it, and anything else is just gravy for things they want to do or experiment with. And then.. that game isn't Pillars of Eternity 2. Not a sequel. Same mechanics, same engine, evolutionary built upon, growing organically, iteration by iteration. New story, new locale, new settings. Maybe, just maybe the same world. But still not a sequel. Sequel implies continuity. What if we can have a new story, from a new perspective, each and every time? I'd sorta love that.

Since this thread is pretty much dead, the main topic over and done with, I must ask: what's wrong with The Witcher 3? I haven't been keeping up at all; I really liked the first Witcher game, but I never got around to playing The Witcher 2 on account of The Witcher 1 running badly on my rig (constant crashes) and it being pretty much a toaster for many games (also, I never truly finished the first game, which makes it a big no-no for me to continue to The Witcher 2) but I know it was very popular and I have a friend (admittedly a Polish one, so expect chauvinism) that loved it, and won't stop talking about it. So what's up with The Witcher 3? Did they radically change the format or something?

I get the feeling that 50% of the people that do go for Kickstarter deals do it because it's a good deal, not because they realize that it's a risk investment. Admittedly, some projects are lower risk than others, but really, it's an investment. When you back on Kickstarter, you are an investor, not a customer, and you have a loose promise of a product down the line. That's it. I didn't back on Kickstarter, but I'd never whine about the price now, just because others paid for the game, that the game is "paid for" by others. My gripe is in-game loot and DLC, which is something I've always hated, pre-orders, first-day DLC, red boots and whatnot. But that's really beside this issue. Of course they should charge as if they're charging for a full, new game. It is! By this logic, most games are "paid for" by the time they reach the market, just because someone invested in them, usually a Publisher. In this case, the investors are the players, and their reward is the game (and whatever else was in the agreement). It's a genius model, both for customers and for developers, because it gives the customers what they want (the game they collectively paid for) while the surplus goes into the company, allowing them to hire more people or the same people for longer times, to re-invest in development of more games, instead of a publisher that cries for a 600% return on investments. If we can keep a wave like this up, where there's a surplus created for the development of future games, and repeat investments by a dedicated fanbase (customers/investors), it's nothing short of a dream scenario.

You can mod Steam games as much as you want, don't worry about that. Eh.. while arguably true, let's not pretend there hasn't been huge issues with modding Steam games, with few exceptions (Skyrim, etc). Steam Workshop basically exists to circumvent those issues. Especially modding games that aren't specifically intended to be modded can be a bitch. Modding is pretty much always a pain in the ass. I have not had any specific Steam related problems, though. It's mostly an issue with data invalidation and patching. I honestly haven't tinkered with non-cracked Steam games in ages. I also remember some games refusing to work in multiplayer if you've changed the files ever so slightly (DoW2 comes to mind; but it was a long time since I worked on it). It is unlikely to be a big issue in PoE, since PoE will probably not use Steam Workshop, and it doesn't have any multiplayer support anyway, and Obsidian/Paradox does not appear to be the kind of douches to do force-patching. So I realize it's a bit of a moot point, and I fully concede that, but Steam as a platform has definitely been unfriendly to mods in the past, so I wouldn't be so fast to jump the gun on saying that there's no problems.

Being non-profit is irrelevant - in fact, you're explicitly allowed to make for-profit products with Unity Personal under certain conditions. If I understand things correctly, the problem is that content created with Unity Perso (fan mods) is tagged as such by the software, and content created with Unity Pro (Pillars of Eternity) will simply refuse to run it. It would require more than just ignoring the ToS to get around that - cracking this security would be needed. And as far as I know, modding communities usually make sure they stay on the legal side of things, simply as a matter of not having the developers turn against them. At the very least, mod-hosting websites will refuse to host mods created this way. As someone that ported the junkyard power armour from FO3 to FONV, I can confirm that at least the Nexus will have none of that ****, despite the fact that I don't think that the developers could give any less of a ****. So the "legality over morality" approach is definitely a problem when it comes to hosting and spreading mods these days. So while I may agree with Zwiebelchen in principle, in practice Sibakruom is not wrong. It is definitely a problem.

While I think that it's pretty reasonable to have such a rule, I agree with you in thinking it's not intended. There could still be a difference between being prepared or not. Combat-ready neutral NPC:s could not be affected, whilst those that are taken by surprise would be. Or something.

I actually consider "manual install" a huge plus. GOG doesn't do jack **** unless I tell it to. Of that I can always be sure. You can mod Steam games as much as you want, don't worry about that. Eh.. while arguably true, let's not pretend there hasn't been huge issues with modding Steam games, with few exceptions (Skyrim, etc). Steam Workshop basically exists to circumvent those issues. Especially modding games that aren't specifically intended to be modded can be a bitch.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I resent the accusation. Bleak Walkers are not blackguards. We're just.. efficient.

I own... ~30 games on Steam, and I can play every single one of them without an internet connection. Now, maybe I'm just super lucky, and every other game available on Steam requires an internet connection. But... *shrug* I only had to be on the internet and logged in to buy and download them (which is the same with GOG), AND to install them (GOG doesn't require this, but, at the same time, if you've just downloaded a game, why not go ahead and install it real quick?). The only other advantage is that, should you lose your hard drive or something, and both Steam AND the internet have been shut down, you could still use your installer from GOG to re-install the game and never ever patch it (assuming you have the installer backed up somewhere). Which, admittedly, IS an advantage. But, I just wish people would kill the ridiculous Steam rumors. "I heard you have to feed one of your organs to a DEMON every time you play a game on Steam! If you're out of organs, you can't play the game, AND you die! o_o!!!" That's not entirely true, though. Once you've downloaded the game from GOG, it's always yours, always and forever, and you can back it up or copy it a thousand times, uninstall, re-install and beat it with a wrench into submission as often as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. With Steam, you're always at the mercy of Steam. Steam is having trouble? You're boned. Steam closes shop? You're boned. You wanted to have any reasonable degree of control over the game? You're pretty much boned. Steam doesn't even allow you to install games in a folder other than Steam\SteamApps. Yes, once you've downloaded and installed, there's (a sometimes wonky, to say the least) offline mode (for most?) games, but you still need to be online to install, and you can't actually do anything with the game. Nevermind that while GOG is sometimes a day-or-so late with patches (sometimes regrettably more) it at least never forces me to patch, which is just Microsoft Skype level of corporate evil. To me, the way Steam works at least feels like I'm forced to sacrifice an organ to a daemon every time I have to use Steam.

Like Gromnir said, this is a trick question. All of them are terrible. If you desperately want to Spiritshift, just pick what you want.

It is known. *nods*

As it stands, I could easily see the +10 to Accuracy being changed to +20 to Accuracy when wielding only a one-handed weapon, but speaking specifically about the Talent meant to support Dueling, I'm really a fan of the idea to: Up the Graze-to-Hit to 40% (from 20%) Either reducing remaining recovery time every time the wielder manages to deflect a blow, or adding a Hit-to-Graze modifier on incoming attacks. Would have the potential to make Dueling an interesting choice. While we're on the topic, though, I must say that a flat +10% and nothing else from the Two-Handed Weapon Wielder Talent is extremely boring. It works and it arguably works well, but it's really, really dull. Hearth Orlans making good use of Dueling still wouldn't be a good argument for saying that it's fine, though. The mechanics themselves need to be solid and balanced, no matter class or race.

It's 20% in both 392 and 435 at least. I checked, just the other day.