Nonek

Casket of the Inconcievable. A small and ornate box, such as a rich dowager might store her jewellery within, but there is a certain omnipresent gravity about the humble container. No one can tell what the Casket contains, for no one remembers, but all users will attest to its magnificence and worth. Among the knowing and the wise it is said that the Casket is a repository of memory, thought and even the soul song of its past users. For when an individual stares into the Casket his mind and soul will be drawn within, to experience the most precious captured moments of previous users lives, and to have the sweetest seconds of his own existence drawn into the velvet lined depths as payment. The Casket has lingered in this world for untold ages, and so its memories are as diverse and vast as a thousand minds could hold: From memories as simple as primitive hunters exulting in the fierce success of the hunt, thick fur to clad them against the ice, warm blood and meat to fill their guts, bone to make tools and trinkets and blubber to rub into their aching joints. To devious generals, leaning forward in their saddles to watch their opponents take the bait and with a raised hand order the encirclement, engagement and eradication of a hated enemy, knowing that this day their land is safe, their children secure and their way of life proved superior. All these memories and everything in between lie within the Casket, the few brief scraps of happiness that the lowest beggar clings to, and the heady refined enjoyments that alleviate an Emperors ennui. To stare into the Casket of the Inconcievable is to leave a record of your happiest moments for future generations, and experience anothers joy as if it were your own, thus the Casket is prized and priceless. A glimpse of humanity across the ages, and perhaps the only true immortality that a soul can enjoy, though the Gods would fiercely disagree.

Why do you think that Bioware inspire such rabid obsession, if you don't mind me asking Mr Schu? Their output has always been (to me) fairly middle of the road, and yet the few times i've been on their social network, (to log in the Dragon Age's and purchase Mass Effect 2 dlc's) the disturbing nature of the fanbase has always struck me as rather severe. Is this somewhat analogous to the fan frenzies we see for girl/boy/Bieber bands, that are a "safe" object of idolisation?

I wouldn't mind if engaged in stealthy behaviour we had to stash corpses/the unconscious in darkened or secure areas, add another level to the stealth mechanic. Then again I suppose that if you're engaging in scouting being caught dragging a corpse might be a dangerous situation, especially if you're an Orlan or a skinny elf for whom a couple of hundred pounds of human is a real dead weight. Might add an air of danger and desperation if the bodies of slain guards were always in danger of discovery, and your infiltration had to be conducted in a quick, and dirty fashion. Or mayhap one could use tools such as dust of disappearance, a Ciphers illusions or a bottle of potent alchemists acid to hide/get rid of the evidence. Druids summoning a horde of vermin to devour the bodies, wizards transmuting them into another form. Perhaps even a cannibalistic companion or devouring pet, maybe thieves can call on shadow soul powers to enwrap their victims as they rot/slumber?

Thought their little memorial to the victims of 11/9 was rather classy, stumbling upon that was rather favourably immersion breaking, a nice touch.

I could see some half crazed Cipher babbling about the Bloom in rather nebulous terms, or other aspects of Numenera. I really wouldn't like to see anything as blatant as items or weapons drawing on the lore of either plane however, that fit in BG and IWD because after all they're on the same continent, but the Planescape ones always felt a little anachronous.

Pledged, recently finished a playthrough of Divine Divinity and was very impressed, it's what I personally think Diablo should have evolved into. I also like their mission statement that they're making games which they wish to play rather than courting demographics, seems an eminently sensible position. I do hope they don't go too far on the humour front however, but stay classy and respect their own gameworld.

Thief: The Fog Project. They just don't want any existing fans to buy this at all do they?

Looking at the Gentlemens work i'm left wondering what his rendition of Sigil's Lady of Pain would look like, there seems an almost ethereal quality to his art that in my mind lends itself automatically to the Planescape ambience.

If it is done then i'd prefer it be subtle and hinted at rather than outright stated, such as the various madmens allusions in Spellhold, or the branchings of Ravel that we see in both Icewind Dale games, self referential flourishes rather than blatant brush strokes. That's my personal opinion however.

In terms of Deities and Mortality personally i'd prefer that we remain in the uncomfortable grip of ignorance and doubt, not having the cast iron progression of the D&D planar progression from Prime to Petitioner and such. Having death and the supernatural remain the great unknowns is in my own humble opinion a far more interesting situation than a strictly laid out map of existence, both material and spiritual. Then again this leaves plenty of room available for making other dimensions more than the realms of Gods and Spirits, make them something truly unusual and otherworldly, though perhaps this would more suit the upcoming Numenera's ambience and theme. Just so long as we are not subjected to the dull and blurry re-used levels and assets of something such as the Fade in Dragon Age, an utter waste of a premise that sounds infinitely interesting, an eternally shifting dreamscape where emotions and thoughts trump physicality.

Having thought further on the subject of Planar travel i've got to admit that i'm somewhat ambivalent on the matter, on the one hand we have the obvious arguments for added depth and variety, a touch of the beyond if you will. On the other i'm of the mind that if you make the world of Eternity as deep, rich, interesting and beautiful as the single screenshot we have so far seen, then there will be no need for planar travel. Thanks to past civilisations, magic gone awry, soul energy interacting with the land and what have you we can have very interesting and disparate locales appearing in the game that reinforces the vitality and complexity of the Eternity world. Even without the touch of the supernatural we can have arresting geographical and historical locations, such as the Old Man of Storr and Hoy, the Gordale Scar, the Ring of Brodgar, Maeshowe, Skara Brae, Cheddar Gorge, the White Cliffs of Dover, the Severn Bore, the Lake District etcetera, etcetera, and these are just a small selection from the British Isles.

So basically the Innkeepers married with children?

I like the somewhat chittering background ambience, but the melody in this is mostly absent, intentional to foster an air of wary unpleasantness?

One form of crafting that i'm not against is the art of the Fletcher, from what we know of the Yeomanry of England almost every archer had a working knowledge of that craft, and could easily find feathers, clothyard shafts and make his own glue from scavenged natural elements. The only sticking point I can see is the arrowheads, pile, broadhead and what have you, for which the services of a smith will be needed if he chooses to use them. Could be a nice camp activity for the Longbowman character, trimming and checking his fletching, picking out and straightening wooden shafts over the fire, stirring a little pot of glue etcetera, etcetera. Edit: Have enemy archers also carrying such components, and they should be easily scavenged from the corpses. At higher levels of the skill you could inscribe runes of finding and wounding into the arrowheads or even use rare baneful metals and composite materials.

Finished Mask of the Betrayer, as usual after such a roller coaster ride i'm left feeling a little saddened, I really wanted to join Kaelyn and tear down that damned Wall. If there's an unambigious statement of evil in the D&D setting that is it, a judge of affiliation not deeds, designed to keep the denizens of the multiverse blindly enslaved to false gods. I at least ensured that she has a decent epilogue, but the ending I recieved rang hollow while that structure still stands. Ah well it probably no longer exists in the fourth edition, and we've got the worlds of Eternity and Numenera to task us with such moral quagmires in the future.

Had to laugh at one comment I saw on this DLC, "In space no one can hear you vomit." I'm assuming the writer didn't enjoy it. Funny but a little too harsh I think.

I've got to say i'm also somewhat trepidatious of what streamlining would take place if another Kain game was made, seeing as most major developer see the need to cater every game to single cellular life in their aim for as broad a market as possible, but I still hold on to that terrible and bitter illusion that is hope.

Personally I can't see why they'd make another game about the cliched karate kicking supermodel when they are sitting on the narrative brilliance that is the Legacy of Kain series, labyrinthine plots, shakespearian prose and self motivated independent characters surely trump another round of shooting more waves of incompetent mooks.

As I pointed out earlier however it's Imoen who springs you from Irenicus' prison at the beginning of the game, thus making you the damsel in distress and your later rescue more a matter of payback. I agree with Malcador however this is largely mountain out of molehill piffle.

Then again the vast majority of the populace in Thedas would be slaves to the agrarian feudal monarchy, peasants and serfs etcetera, whose working and living conditions are far more harsh than the mages living conditions. So would the mages really want to live amongst their brethren, worked to exhaustion, bound to the lords lands, and judged as chattel to be sold with the land they work. It certainly wouldn't be freedom, just a harsher and more exhausting form of slavery.

Fair point sir.

To be honest I find Biowares handling of women to a little reprehensible, none of them are able to resolve their own difficulties, they're incompetent in anything but slaughter, they're so stupid they wear shirts into combat in a sea side city where they would suffer from hypothermia within a half hour, they're morally vacuous and will not leave the protagonist whatever actions he takes, they come and go at his bidding for years at a time placing their lives on the line at his say so, and they sell their favours for trinkets like common street walkers. Basically they're slaves. I found this to be utterly sickening in Dragon Age 2 and the missus was also a little perturbed by it, the courtship quest of the incompetent guardswoman was especially galling, a grown widow woman who cannot even approach a man openly but once again needs the protagonists shepherding, utterly absurd. Bioware needs to really step up in this department. It spoiled my enjoyment of the game to the point where I had to jettison every character from my party, though in fairness the males were not handled much more successfully and were equally risible, and I winced every time they'd be forcefully reinserted into my presence.

Technicolour bear god or spectral schizophrenic soul devourer, decisions, decisions.

So Britain, Spain and France all claimed them long before Argentina, seems like the best thing to do in that case is leave the matter in the islanders own hands as the recent vote has just done. As you say it's a shame the Argentinian occupiers didn't get the right to decide their own fate then, so why deny the occupants that right now?

Watching the tropes versus women video and I was left with a rather poor impression, this comment seems to sum it up: Dry as dust pointless rehash of games history for the first ten minutes, badly needs editing and some direction. On podium preaching towards the last few minutes, rather clumsily handled, very condescending. Needs better subject matter than a couple of childs games. Drop the ridiculous earrings. Needs better diction from the presenter they've hired, sounds a little whiny, might try a trained actress with recieved pronunciation. Needs the issue examined from all sides not just a female feminist one, either by an objective opinion or an opposing argument, otherwise the few points she makes are just preaching. The man playing as Damsel in Distress is merely swept aside, but anyone familiar with gaming will recall being rescued repeatedly by women friends such as: Kreia, Deoinarra, Annah of the Shadows, Ravel Puzzlewell, Flemeth, Morrigan, Imoen, Bastila Shan, Mona Sax, Victoria from Thief, Triss Merigold, Saskia, Philippa Eilheart and I could go on. Bloated and needs more bullet points, emphasising key arguments along the way. In summation i'm not very impressed, this issue needs a better more concise spokeperson and far higher production values and editing, i'm at a loss as to where the kickstarter money has been utilised. Edit: Oh and I notice the young lady said crap at one point, resorting to profanity on a subject is not the way, cut that out of the script.