AGX-17

I don't think that's particularly blasphemous or controversial. *coughcoughSKYRIMcoughcough* Perfectly? F3's atmosphere was phenomenal, a true achievement, but... Little Lamplight. That sound you just heard was the torpedo I launched hitting your flagship.

You haven't watched much TNG it seems.

That's like an Evangelical Christian conservative walking into a sunday megachurch service held by Pat Robertson and declaring their opposition to gay marriage. Here's a controversial opinion on cRPGs (in the cRPG community, the vast majority of other gamers and essentially all norps don't give any ****s): Turn-based is better than RTwP. RTwP is just a middle ground for the sake of pussies who can't handle RTS gameplay. BAM! Check. Isn't that just a dig at Mass Effect/Bioware? Not that I oppose any digs at ME/Bioware.

It didn't always mean you could quit and come back later, unless you mean literally quitting the game/loading an older save. I don't see any reason why they'd do what you fear, except to goad you into trying to play the game with a different race or sex. Even then, it's typically a given that variations based on chargen choices would be the norm, rather than the exception. You paid $30 extra for information you can get for free on the interbutts? And with more accuracy, at that. Which is ignoring the fact that games have been made in which it is impossible to "see it all in one play through." You can't get porked by Benny in New Vegas if you're playing a male Courier, and you can't seduce Gannon into following you as a female.

There's no middle class in pre-industrial economies, gladiators were not medieval and are no longer alive (and thus cannot currently be "stocky with extra layers of fat.") Even assuming it were true that Roman gladiators were all obese, the only "armor" value fat has is against shallow slashing. If Roman gladiators were equipped with the same armor Roman soldiers were issued (as opposed to panties and maybe a pauldron or helmet,) then they wouldn't be so desperate that they'd resort to relying on becoming as walrus-like as possible to survive. All that said, PoE is a world far beyond that, in which firearms and steel are standard. How fat do you propose a person has to be to stop a musket ball with pure lard? "Big-boned" is an euphemism for "fat."

Sounds like Kevin James. But Kevin James doesn't make people laugh. BUUUURRRRRRN

Why would leveling rate be defined by playtime and not quests completed/experience gained? Different players will do different things at their own pace. Some people might metagame to level as rapidly as possible, others might go deliberately slowly.

Being fat is a rare privilege of those in positions of power or the elite class/es (societal, not gameplay,) in a pre-industrial society. Most simply can't be fat, they don't have the resources to achieve such a state. I don't think you can play through the game as a slovenly nobleman. Even if you could, there should be massive penalties to strength, stamina and health. They'd also need to make the fat characters move at a much slower pace than others and double over wheezing while pleading for the rest of the party not to leave them behind. A fat rogue might be hilarious if you deliberately want a useless rogue so you can laugh as they ineptly try to pick a lock or disarm a trap with their fat sausage fingers. Or try to stealth.

So, apparently a bunch of people (re: nerds) are suddenly bleeding-heart philanthropists because a bunch of video game devs got laid off. I wonder how much they fretted over poverty, disease and strife in the world before. I also wonder how much they will after the former employees of a particular game development studio have moved on and found employment elsewhere, for which they have a high likelihood of success, as their résumés will include "Bioshock Infinite." There should be some "Honest Trailers" for video games, if there isn't already. I bet they'd be funny. So, like, a 5 minute video of a stable focused on a bull's ass as it occasionally defecates as Duke Nukem Forever's trailer, that sort of thing?

You are making the fallacious assumption/assertion that all people born in the 80s and later are hipsters. If you want to whinge about hipsters, whinge about hipsters. I live in the city of Portland, Oregon, where I'm sure the vast majority of non-locals would make these assumptions about today's youth, but I could direct you to large swathes of the city where one would not want to walk alone at night. There are routine drive-by shootings in the neighborhood I grew up in (and where I still reside,) and as someone who has experience in the legal system on the prosecutorial side, I can tell you with certainty that the amount of drinking and violence among today's youth is quite high if you're not focusing your tunnel-vision on sweater-vest wearing hipsters. That's not even mentioning the soldiers who were sent unilaterally into Iraq. Most of them were "generation Y." I don't think any of these old men whinging about how they're a generation of pussies would have the balls to go into a veterans' hospital and tell a 24 year old soldier crippled by an IED that he's a huge **** who needs to man up like the generation that was too young for Vietnam and too old for Iraq, whose great manliness was forged in the fires of Punk, Hair Metal and Reaganomics.

Probably because it would come across as more whiny, given it's obviously a reaction to said confirmation.

Ohhh, I forgot about Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. And Arx Fatalis. Those were pretty bad. Sound in terms of gameplay concept, horribly executed. At the very least Oblivion, for all its flaws and depth-free combat, didn't have realtime classic grid-style inventory management in a game with real-time first person combat.

Are you saying you want all this in PoE? Or are you just referring to games in general? Because they've been making it pretty clear that Pillars is a combat-oriented experience. Well, you sure as **** ain't getting any mithril dragon armor in PoE.

Marx and Engels both came from wealth. Marx personally shunned it and lived in poverty, Engels used it to support their cause (as well as Marx, at times.) Most hero of justice type players would probably like to imagine themselves as a wise and benevolent ruler whose patriarchal guidance is necessary to keep their ignorant peasants living peaceful, happy lives of dawn-to-dusk labor tied to the land. Considering "class struggle" is used almost exclusively by right-leaning politicians in the U.S. as a childish retort to/attempt to distract from any social problems that arise out of the economic system, I think it's something with value. At the same time, the equivalent historical period and the fantasy setting are sufficient to deter almost all players from thinking about the ramifications and problems of class that exist today. It wasn't a perception of cheap land; that demands some grander scale of economic organization, development and a labor force unbound to the land on which they were born (i.e. capitalism.) Most people who were colonists were paid to go there in the employ of members of the ruling class. Once colonies had been established, it was indentured servitude/slavery time. Class exists without land ownership, and class conflict exists wherever there is more than one class.

Call me crazy, but I think the genetic/spiritual influence of a godly bloodline is likely going to dominate the relevant influence of a mortal parent. If gods were equal to "mortals" there would be no differentiation, would there?

Ladies are what move units, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN HA. HA. HA. SO VERY FUNNY. I wouldn't have a problem with it. It's not like males can engage in parthenogenesis. Genetic diversity takes a backseat when simple survival is an issue. Spermatozoa are just highly-mobile ova. You're not much of a god if you can't create some sort of spawn spontaneously. DOHOHOHO

If ever one could derive base pleasure from video games, it would be the announcement that the pestilence of video game romances would not be sullying PoE. Depends on how much alcohol is in your bloodstream, honestly. It's not like you'll still taste the vomit in your mouth when you're more concerned with the hangover.

It probably says a lot about me that I've descended into a state of self-loathing for: a. Not noticing "rpg games" and b. Not calling out the redundancy of "rpg games." Not even touching the grammar of the whole title because I'll probably engage in self-flagellation as a result. Believe me, a backside shredded by whipping is not a fun thing.

I don't suppose there's any way to use this on ME3 DLC, is there? Indirectly, you have to buy the bioware points from origin first using the love promo code, then use those to buy the ME3 dlc. Assuming you can stomach the act of associating "love" and "EA Origin" in your brain long enough to complete the shameful act. ZIIIIIIIIING

So has Russia's ocular assassination attempt on Bob Costas succeeded yet? If there aren't women in spandex catsuits or leotards to broadcast it really isn't newsworthy. The 18-49 male demographic is the most coveted, after all.

65,000,000MYA these were the sexiest *****es around.

You just described all of the qualities necessary for success in the wonderful world of capitalism. Incidentially, Machiavelli wasn't actually serious about The Prince, it was satire. It was simply recognition of aspects of human behavior/personality that have their roots in the ancient fundaments of social behavior. Frankly, everyone who interacts with others on the internet has, at some point, been guilty of "trolling" on the internet, the internet by its very nature lends itself to such behavior. None of us are innocent. I am not Christ, nor are any of you. I'm an atheist, but still, the simile is valid.

I thought this was going to be a thread where we all said "I've never bought anything on Origin." Guess that makes me the fool, here. A game that practically brought down the state of Rhode Island (yes, worthless state that could fit 10x into a typical county west of the Mississippi, I know, that's a whole other can of worms,) and you thought there was DLC for it?* Scratch that, West of the Hudson River. RHODE ISLAND YOU ARE NOT EVEN A STATE, YOU'RE D.C. BUT WITH REPRESENTATION AND 1000% MORE POLITICAL CLOUT BECAUSE YOUR POPULATION IS ALMOST ENTIRELY WHITE INSTEAD OF ENTIRELY BLACK. I vote that Rhode Island be assimilated as a county of Connecticut. I've hiked distances larger than the diameter of Rhode Island without even leaving a county in Oregon. Ok, maybe I'm getting off track with the "Rhode Island doesn't deserve two ****ing senators" thing, but still... Rhode Island doesn't deserve two ****ing senators. That is infinitely more financially beneficial than games bought on Origin.

*My summary of the post. That female Hawke is actually quite remarkably close to the in-game default. Aside from that, butterfaces. Who doesn't? If Monte manages to look at a chainmail bikini and not feel that cosplay is a good thing, then I don't know what to say. Dressing down, more like. Well, thank you Japan, for your insidious love of portmanteaus. Their comedy is almost entirely rooted in surreal absurdity and puns.

I think you've never worked in an office environment before. That is correct. Neither have I worked for a video game developer either. I'm sure they're just sitting around going "ehhhhh, we could put this in but I'd rather kick up my feet and do nothing!" I haven't worked for every game developer that exists, but most fall pretty solidly under the category of "office environment." It's not really unique to office environs to have employees who don't pull their weight and try to take credit for the labor of others. I'm sure every work environment of sufficient size suffers from the same problem. It's not any different from group work in school, honestly. There are always people who do minimum/no work and try to take credit for other peoples' labor. That's just a shining facet of the gemstone that is human nature. There are actual academic studies that found that the amount of time spent slacking/looking at porn/playing angry birds in office space is quite significant. The cube farm is not conducive to human ingenuity. Also, I'm playing video games all the time, so this is totally 100% on-topic.