AGX-17

Eh... ....Indy pukes.

He's already done with his work on Wasteland 2. And P:E isn't due out for over at least a year.

Sawyer's already established rather definitively that the Grimoire Bash is a legitimate melee attack, potentially more powerful than any sword or mace.

Check food merchant and bartender in Torment. Check on food and armor in Morrowind. Is a religion centered text which has nothing to do with how lore is represented in games today. It's a book with purpose. Codex purpose is usually to tell player about the game. DA:O codex is an example on how it should not be done. Your strawman here is that because there is lore associated with a good or item, the good itself is therefore lore in and of itself. If you pick up a tunic with no description in a game, it's not lore. A description of things you couldn't possibly know simply by looking at an object without supernatural/4th wall breaking information doesn't by proxy make any/every object you see "lore." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lore Being told a story about something is lore, buying "Bread" whose description is "Bread" doesn't make "Bread" lore. If you want to be pestilentially technical (as you obviously do,) anything you are taught is lore. The object itself, however, is not lore. It is an object. Being taught by your parents that a rock is a rock can technically be called lore. The rock itself is not lore. The passing on of knowledge that the object or substance is known as "rock" can count as lore. Even if you have been taught what an object is, what its history is, etc., the object itself is not lore unless you want to be even more insufferable and claim that the definition of "lore" is not what the definition of "lore" is simply to suit your own purposes and cheat at winning a debate.

Which doesn't conflict with my assertion in any way. Tech is inferior to primitive/fantasy means in Arcanum, whereas in theory it should be effectively equal but with different tactics and its own balance of strengths and weaknesses compared to the rock-banging primitive side of the coin.

....So you're saying that if your skill goes up it becomes easier? How is this different from nearly every other pickpocketing mechanic in games? It's not really a "game" if "low skill" means you have to run X distance away to be successful. You're just throwing away all possibility that an NPC could be perceptive and/or dextrous and catch you in the act in the first place. The player honestly shouldn't be able to even see what's in the inventory of someone they're pickpocketing. How can you rummage through someone's entire inventory without them noticing all their belongings jostling around and the guy squatting right next to them? Why would they stop so you can check their inventory? Politeness? Picking a pocket in reality is about making off with a wallet or some cash or other small goods. It's opportunism, not strategically planned heavy equipment transit logistics. Aside from that, it's not picking a pocket if you grab the enchanted greatsword off of some brute warrior's back and make a run for it. And he's going to notice and give chase. You might as well just attack people in the streets and steal their stuff when they're unconscious/dead.

That sounds boring. Walking back and forth between the major cities? That just sounds like a repeatable grinding quest. And the player is supposed to be the center of some world/cosmos-changing event by chance. This game isn't going to be Skyrim. The only source of experience in P:E is by completing quests. You will receive zero experience for every combat encounter unless victory in that encounter is the end of a quest.

I sure as **** hope not. There should be an alternative with no furries or MSPaint sonic the hedgehog versions of X character from Y intellectual property, or MSPaint sonic the hedgehog Mary Sue versions of the "artist." There's a now classic "game" in which you search for your own name, or the name of a favored fictional character or even real person of note with the suffix "the hedgehog." If you don't get any results, you win the game. If you do, you just get mad. There are plenty of genuinely good artists on DA, like the woman who did those TF2 comics and having her fanart design of the Announcer become the official design, but for every one of those there are eight under-age/machild Sonic the Hedgehog fanatics/furry fetishists. Yes, the sonic freaks/furries are definitively deviants, but they're what makes the site a cesspit rather than a showcase for aspiring artists. I don't think any animation studios are really going to be impressed by a given individual's intimate knowledge of animal phalli and their ability to depict them in cartoon form. If I were aspiring to a career as a professional artist (as in working for companies, not as in a professional artist who makes art which may be exhibited in galleries or museums and derive their income from sales of that artwork,) I wouldn't want to be linked to that site in any way. Just imagine the job interview.

I agree with this, aside from the character creation backgrounds. I'm curious, why do you feel this way? Arcanum may do some things wrong, but it does things that are great. It fools you into thinking tech is equally viable to magic and fantasy melee combat when in fact the mechanics are not and tech/guns/etc. are inferior to magic and swords. That's my big beef with Arcanum. Unrelated to that post, about to go on a tirade on Auxilius' mention of Throwing: throwing knives or whatever is not a viable combat option given the setting, anyway. It's always been perplexing to me how many RPGs have a throwing skill when the last time that was useful in military operations was in the ancient/classical era, and even then either civilized or barbarian forces just threw their pilae, javelins, spears or axe/s at the start of a battle to weaken the defenses of the enemy's front and then proceeded in standard infantry fashion. Thrown spears or javelins are paleolithic weapon systems. A steampunk setting has no real justification for a throwing skill. No soldier has been trained specifically to throw things in hundreds of years. Throwing hand grenades is not an acceptable defense, either, because throwing skills in RPGs typically focus on sideshow tricks like throwing knives.

The Turks will probably complete their invasion/conquest of the island. The northern half having been invaded and occupied by Turkey in 1974.

You want the first one? The first Steam preorder bonus for Infinite is a free copy of Bioshock, which I already have, so I have one to gift.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/indiana-tomb-raider.php

I've never heard a single good thing about Heavy Rain. I've heard people say it could have been good if it had a different/not-horribly awful writer. But that doesn't really count as positive feedback.

I am always interested in whether people like Gaider and McComb really like each other. There must be loads of professional rivalry and even on a personal level I'm sure all these writers want to be known by the fans as the "best Fantasy RPG writer ever". They all are so talented but sometimes I assume there style gets dictated to by a Publisher? Who would accuse Gaider of being the best fantasy RPG writer ever? Anyway, as a backer of the game, I'm wondering who here hasn't kicked and is man or woman enough to get us MCA before the Kickstarter ends. That's not necessarily true, their last major product was published by Bethesda.

Posting real Fine Art in a "fine art" thread. OH SNAP Anyone notice a difference between Russian fine art (the second and third images,) and Russian propaganda? Gustav Klimt's Lady With a Fan Valentin Serov's The Girl With Peaches Ivan Aivazovsky's The Ninth Wave Part of Ai Weiwei's Study of Perspective Series (Red Square, Moscow) Don't know who the douchebag benedictevans is, putting his watermark on Ai Weiwei's work. Part of Ai Weiwei's Study of Perspective Series (White House, Washington D.C.) A video game company's forum with a user who never posts about video games. It's a brilliant coup.

XCOM. I wish turn-based combat wasn't so maligned by cRPG fans. Reloading every time a squaddie gets killed. I refuse to accept anything but perfection (maybe because of too much Super Robot Wars.) Loving it, anyway. Learned the hard way there's no auto-save or option to restart a scenario/stage. Well, whatever, I've got an American named Guile, a Russian named Zangief and a female sniper nicknamed "Wolf." Also pre-loading Bioshock Infinite now. Imagine that.

Considering that isn't a word in the English language, I'm going to assume you meant "snippets." Anyway, there is no codex in NV (strictly speaking, there is no codex in any video game unless it's a hefty tome of religious scripture or ancient literature,) when you refer to murals and cave paintings you're referring to unwritten narratives, not "codex entries." But yes, the best way to expand upon a game world is to do it in game, not through UI-accessed menus. Codices. I don't see how clothes and food are "lore." Besides, there's no legitimate argument against the world's history in text. The Bible and ancient classics from Hellenic Greece and Rome to Han Dynasty China were preserved by being written down. There are still Han-era administrative records in existence, that's how serious the Han people have always been about bureaucracy. You can't say it's unrealistic, unbelievable, immersion-breaking or what-have-you when real people have been keeping tax and census records from 2000 years ago, in addition to classic literature, scripture, theater and poetry.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Plays a lot better than the original (downright terrible combat at times, cheap combat encounters abound, like jumping down from a ledge with no gun, zooms to one Taken out far in front of you and three are right behind you out of camera view, even if you avoid them, you haven't got enough stamina to sprint to the light/checkpoint you're supposed to sprint to, and there's a generator you can't possibly activate with 4+ enemies chasing you placed as a deliberate cheap trap by the devs to get you killed, that sort of thing.) Obviously the scares are few and far between as a result, but the story and style are much more creative than the original game. Also currently downloading X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Yes, free because of Bioshock Infinite preorder.

That's... not really analogous.

Pretty much everything in Skyrim is in books. It's entirely optional save for one or two quests, and even then all you typically need to do is "activate" the book. You never have to read any of it regardless of where it's inserted. Nobody's forcing you to click on a codex menu in any Bioware game, either. Anyway, like Sensuki suggested, vagaries and mystery are better than detailed biographies of every daedric prince.

It's called a reboot. They had already started it in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, they continued with Heroes of Might & Magic 5. You don't need 'reasons' to do it. I never played the game, but seeing others play HoMM 4, I really thought the brand was in need of some re-focusing, with some factions that had no real them or identity to them. Olivier Ledroit brought a coherent visual look, Nival brought back some of the gameplay before the fourth game, etc. The "reason" is that the devs of DM and HoMM5 had no connection to New World Computing or the original devs of the M&M franchise. Heroes 3 was the pinnacle of the series. Not without flaws, but 4 was a huuuuuge step in the wrong direction, a massive drop in quality compared to 3. 5 is just mediocrity incarnate.

Yes, at 9:26:53, both AM and PM.

Because politicians, capitalism and racism. Simple, really. A righteous capitalist crusade to civilize the inferior yellow races of Asia, misled by the vile communists, to spread the one true religion of capitalism appealed to the "silent majority." The entire cold war was an exercise in the US engaging in anti-democratic covert operations around the world. Democratically elected governments that were leftist were overthrown by US backed fascist coups left and right for 30-40 odd years. Hell, it was like that long before then. The US overthrew the democratically elected government of Honduras at one point so that it could be used as a corporate banana plantation colony by Dole. I do not think Reagan himself was involved, but like the Iran-Contra affair, i think that there were suspect members of his cabinet that had potential to do so. From what i could gather about his personality, he did put to too much trust on the people within his administration. He supported the Contras openly. Selling weapons to Iran is secondary to the fact that the US, and Reagan, prolonged a vicious civil war in Nicaragua, with at least tens of thousands of human deaths involved. I know the man was a dimwit, but regardless, he was a True Believer in the Hayekian/Randian worldview. He's the one who shredded benefits for the mentally ill and Vietnam veterans, putting them out on the street with little/no resources, in a country that now hated them for actions they had no control over. Ronald Reagan was still the man at the top, and he had a lot of Nicaraguan blood on his hands when he died. I doubt he lost a wink of sleep over it, too. Alzheimer's or not. Fun fact: Ronald Reagan is still the most hated, vilified person in Nicaragua to this day.

Psshhhhh, inXile. Pssshhhh. They don't have MCA. Besides, elements and magic are more in the realm of the gameplay mechanics/design, it's true that the writers will have input on that area, but it's still up to the higher level game designers to actually determine the mechanics and what ultimately comes out of their ideas on magic or elements. It's being helmed by Sawyer so I don't see any problems in that realm of design. Avellone, so far as I know, is just working on writing. So far as I know. Also, I needed to say this: OP, the idea of real-world chemical elements in a fantasy magic game about souls is just absurd. Absolutely ludicrous. Absoludicrous (© Seanbaby.) There's no "magic" in physics and cosmology unless you're using figurative speech about a personal interest and fascination. Actually they do....that's what makes Cyphers unique....didn't you read the updates when the stretch goal adding the cyphers was made? Mind control or at least heavy mind influence is their thing. Ciphers have nothing to do with the absurdity of having real-world modern chemistry and physics in a fantasy world of magic and souls. What are you even talking about? Uh, why is it absurd? That's an honest question. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out why a game with equipment presumably synthesized through processes dependent on crudely realized chemical reactions shouldn't have real-world chemical elements in it, especially if their properties are adapted to the game's universe. Those elements are in most fantasy universes, after all; I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure iron (swords, shields, etc.) and gold (coins) are on the real periodic table that exists in real life, right? Why shouldn't more interesting things be done with those elements than sticking their names on a weapon to denote how powerful it is? What valid, logical reason is there not to at least explore that idea? For that matter, I admit I haven't been here very long, but every post of yours I've seen has been one putting another person down for suggesting an idea. Do you have any of your own ideas to offer, or are you just here to put people down? Because the latter isn't exactly helpful, you know. :? Because chemistry is not magic. Physics is not magic. You can't wave your arms around or chant some magic words and summon a hydrogen fusion reaction. The real world is comprised of cause-and-effect relationships, magic and hard science cannot coexist in a fictional world with any degree of believability, because magical thinking involves no causal relationship between two things. Science has proven time and time again that superstition and magical thinking are simply fallacious. You can't have a fantasy world about souls and magic be believable if you simultaneously give that world the same physics as reality and the people in it modern knowledge of atomic physics and quantum mechanics. If real-world physics apply, then magic cannot exist. There's only so much disbelief that can be suspended. Now, I'm sure one uneducated in the ways of physics, chemistry and biology are perfectly fine with the idea of a Magnesium school of magic, but those of us who have an inkling of how our universe is actually ordered and works can't tolerate that level of absurdity. I don't care what your ignorance of every post I've ever made causes you to think of me. It's called critical thinking. Look it up sometime. It's extremely valuable, and something which the majority of people seem to lack. Just because an idea is had doesn't make it good, appropriate or viable. If you want an echo-chamber of people who sit around telling each other all the worst ideas are super great, go hang out on the Nexus sites' forums.

Sure but why would you have to bother accounting for something like that? I suppose you can just do an "average gear level" comparison then. You just ignored my point. If you have a high level party and deliberately equip low-end/low level gear, and the enemy's judgement is based on gear as the OP said, they would still make the pointless, futile attack the OP was complaining about. Actually they have logical thought up to a point, of course not the same as humans. In games, we see every animal as mindless beast which attacks player as soon as sees him. In reality, every animal has different level of intelligence and habit. Some animals tend to stay away from groups, some animals hunt grouped animals with their packs, some animals stay away from bigger animals, some animals don't care the size... Intelligence and reason are not identical. There are very few animals capable of logical thought (Ravens are the most prominent ones that immediately come to mind, there is ample evidence/documentation of them solving problems and creating original tools and strategies to that end without engaging in trial & error or being taught, but you're ignoring the fact that none of the animals that have been theorized to be capable of such thought are typical or even ever enemies in fantasy RPGs, and if/when they are, it simply shows that developers give zero ****s about real animal cognition so this is an exercise in futility.) And the second part, you're just regurgitating what I already said about the variance in behavior depending on species as if I didn't say it and you're making a brilliant counter-argument.