AW8

So I'm on the quest Skipping Ahead, at the Spire of the Soul-Seers Rooftop where Flaune Elette is being attacked by mercenaries. My objective is to kill them, but doing so doesn't progress the quest. Flaune Elette never acknowledges being saved. There's also a bugged cutscene that plays out when I move near her for the first time (regardless whether the enemies have been killed or not), where the camera pans over, nothing happens, and then returns to normal gameplay. Here is my savegame and log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18KNY4nh95PAyPuF-PBXEKNXWWFoJRTRS/view?usp=sharing Initially I had a completely different bug here that I now can't reproduce: The cutscene played out without problems. After I defeated the mercenaries, a dying enemy had interjection dialogue with Maia. Flaune then ran over to me and progressed the quest, telling me to go to the Vailian headquarters. The dialogue ended with a final Maia interjection. All fine so far. But when dialogue ended and I returned to normal play, my HUD was gone and I was unable to pan the camera. I could open the map with the M key (and pan the camera from here) and reach the inventory, ship etc. menus from there, but I was completely unable to access the ESC menu. I could walk around and loot corpses, but was unable to leave the level as the transition marker wasn't visible. I tried playing the encounter without Maia in the party and got the reproducable 'no progression' bug described at the top instead, but now I wonder whether Maia in the party had anything to do with it as I repeatedly get the 'no progression' bug with her in the party as well. EDIT: I loaded an earlier save (just before teleporting from the Spire to Pahowane) and replayed the rooftop scenario the same way as before to the best of my memory, and everything (the cutscene, the quest progression, the HUD returning after dialogue) worked flawlessly this time. I can't seem to reproduce either of the bugs.

I just had a thought about portraits. Now that the graphical detail of character faces has been improved, and we have several options to customize our character's face, I think it's even more important to include less defined portraits I.e. veiled faces. In the first game I used a portrait of a guy with a pulled-down hood as the discrepancies with my 3D model's face were mostly hidden. So more Nazgûls, niqābs and ninjas in the portraits please.

I was playing the quest "The Bronze Beneath the Lake" and killed the Giantslayers as part of that quest. I then completed Lle a Rhemen and went back to Admeth's Den. Inside Admeth's Den, the Giantslayers are back - as "ghosts". I can interact with them and read their souls like normal backer NPC's. However, when I start combat against the mercenaries inside Admeth's Hall and turn everyone hostile, I cannot target the Giantslayers with attacks, but they can attack me. Furthermore, when they are involved in combat, the cursor gets stuck in attack mode, even after I've successfully targeted a non-ghost mercenary. This makes switching party members only possible by using hotkeys - not that it matters since I'm already locked in a fight against ghosts I cannot target. I guess the Admeth's Den Massacre will have to be postponed.

The Celestial Sapling inn looks absolutely beautiful.

I love all the Sneak Attack conditions.

I love this.

Well done, Harry! Well done!

Hail, PC master race!

Cadegund startled the Wicht!

Is Rocksteady working on Arkham 3? Is Valve working on Episode 3? Probably.

I wouldn't have anything against a Fallout game set outside the US. In fact, I don't understand all the "It wouldn't feel like a real Fallout"-comments. Fallout isn't set in 1950's USA. Fallout is set in a post-nuclear world, and the main theme is new civilizations springing up and fighting for resources because war never changes. Post-war USA was a major influence on the Western world just as it is today, so a game set in non-communist Europe would have pretty much the same style as the other games anyway, if you go with all of the pre-war world being stuck in a retrofuturistic 1950's. It would be a hell of a job to create all the new factions and mutated animals though, so I wouldn't bet on either Bethesda or Obsidian to leave their well-known American ground any time soon. I'm just saying I won't protest if they do. Skyrim isn't Scandinavia, and male Nords have always sounded Scottish before Skyrim. Of all the reasons to complain about Skyrim, that one is just downright silly.

I won't vote because I haven't played nearly enough of those games to meet the requirements for voting. Garrus in Mass Effect really felt like a friend to me. Perhaps it's because the PC and Garrus both are law enforcers, but for some reason he just fits perfectly at Shepard's side. He's one of those party members I gladly play the companion quest for, and not just for the rewards. I just want to help my loyal, badass and somewhat humorous friend. The bottle-shooting scene is pure brilliance. Kreia in KotOR 2 is the best mentor there is. She's a larger-than-life character. It's like having Yoda or Darth Sidious on the ship. I just love all her lessons and the amount of time you can spend talking with her on the Ebon Hawk. Best of all, she helps you out by reaching out telepathically and teaching you new Force Powers as part of the story. She's always present that way and gets a lot of focus. And if you can't stand her, there's almost always a dialogue option to tell her to go space herself. "I have no need for a master... but a servant, yes." Boone in Fallout: New Vegas is great. Jason Marsden surprisingly makes his best role when he barely says a word. I don't think a good companion necessarily have to have a distingushing attribute, but it certainly helps. The other companions give you long sentences, while Boone is low-key and brief. Boone is similar to Garrus in his "job", but with a completely different personality. He's a sad, troubled man with a vengeance. He is interesting and badass. And that is enough to make me want him to tag along. HK-47 from KotOR and KotOR 2 is just irresistable. His ego is larger than the Outer Rim. I just love how he talks about the inferiority of meatbags like the PC, without being insulting and annoying. (Perhaps he's easier to tolerate because he isn't human, and is probably right in what he says.) I just love how he hastily apologizes with obvious insincerity. And the way he talks... "Mockery: 'Am I alright!?'", "Tired answer: Master, I've told you I know nothing about them.", "Speculation: What if whoever creates these droids..." Again with the distinguishing attribute. Perhaps it is the key after all. Anyway, back to the assassin droid in rusty red. The way he makes it clear in KotOR 2, although he doesn't say it out right, that you have no control over him and that him calling you "Master" is just an illusion of control and safety he creates for you so he could kill you easier if the need arises in the future... is simply amazing. All these companions have good voice actors as well. But then, I don't think I've met a single companion character with a noticably bad voice actor.

Great! A prime example of this is KotOR II, where if you go to Nar Shaddaa last, you only get to know a third of the companions in the hectic endgame. Perfect. I'm playing Fallout: New Vegas and I love how Boone gets pissed and threatens to leave when I randomly slaughter NCR citizens (quickloaded afterwards obviously). Anything that makes a companion more like an independent person than a subservient drone is good. Which ties into... An awesome decision. This way, if a companion really asks for a good strangling you can simply tell him to go f69k off when he wonders if he could tag along. There aint much more I can say about this. Sounds promising, intriguing, sounds great. Oh! And another Arcanum video. 65 million years in the making.