Nonek

Well i'm very sad to hear that such an old firm is closing and people are losing their jobs, but I have to question their business practises, almost everything they announced about SCL was a slap in the face to D&D players, to the extent that they had the fearsome Eye Tyrant level scaled to the player. They alienated their potential audience with almost every facet of their game, and I can't see what audience they were pursuing, D&D is a niche interest and Kickstarter and Beamdog have both shown that those interested in it are more than willing to spend money. Why spurn that huge market? I hope that some lessons have been learned going forward, I would hate to see more firms throwing everything away chasing an imaginary audience.

Well all immersion is subjective so opinions may vary, but here are mine: A first person view does not immerse me in my character, I never see the individual so it is not so close to me as an isometric view or even better a third person view. I am divorced from the character, whereas if I see and control them all the time I am continually affirmed in my connection with the character. Using text and illustrations can stretch and stoke the imagination far more easily than an hour long cutscene, and it is far cheaper and brutally effective, if done correctly. Some parts of Torment or Betrayal at krondor were utterly evocative and emotional, and merely crafted by fine prose. However I am in agreement with you about Poe, it fails to immerse me, in fact the game was a slog to get through rather than a pleasure I looked back upon with fondness and a regret that it had ended. Why is this? I think there are two reasons for me personally: One is the dissonance between the narrative, setting, art design and the gameplay. For instance the games asks questions about how knowledge of souls would affect a society, it has an art style that is as beautiful as its inspiration and benefits from the verisimilitude it cleaves to, it has a well considered setting where civilisations are more well thought out and more organic than what we see in many other games. Then we have the gameplay which is the standard fare of grinding combat, collecting pointless tat in an unexplained infinite stash, selling this and collecting more quests to farm, the stats which are balanced but are utterly illogical and unintuitive, the drab itemisation and a quest that never really resolves exactly why i'm bothering with it, I have no motivation. I get the feeling that the devs couldn't be bothered to create a system that fit with their art style, setting and prose, they just handwaved it away. *SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 2 AND THE ENDGAME BEGIN HERE, PLEASE SKIP IF NOT DESIROUS OF VIEWING* The second reason for me is the lack of a creative spark: How chapter 2 is resolved for instance, the exact same problem as the NWN2 trial raises its head again and I am rendered into an observer rather than a player, all the work i've done is cast away and this is irksome in the extreme, expecially when faced for a second time. In fact what is even more frustrating is that the trial in NWN2 was a better experience, with much coming into play and so much participation allowed. Then we have the method by which we defeat the demigod whom we are facing for vague reasons, what options are we given? Are they as varied as what we recieved in Fallout when dealing with the Master, are they as varied as the choices one can exercise when facing Kerghan the Terrible in the Void? No you have a bossfight. After New Vegas and Alpha Protocol I expected more than just another combat in a long line of them, how come developers are not thinking beyond this tiresome bossfight addiction? *SPOILERS END* Sorry to unload such negative waves but this is truthful criticism, and I would not back a Poe 2 based on my experience in the first game, there were just too many issues and too much handwaved away. The game was a tiresome slog for me, and needed to make up its mind whether it was going to try and grab my attention through a massive amount of detail and reactivity like say an Ultima or Deus Ex or whether it was going to focus on core aspects and make them enthralling like a Diablo, BG2 or Grim Dawn, the trying both and failing to achieve them did not satisfy me as I was neither enjoying the gameplay or becoming immersed in the setting. All this said I did recognise in my recent playthrough of the second part of the White March that the team were aware of the game weak spots and trying to rectify them, but I still will have to wait and see for a Poe 2 whether it is Kickstarted or not. Edit: The soundtrack must be mentioned of course as a positive as well, fantastic work by Mr Bell.

Considering the prices our antipodean cousins are charged every game should come with frankincense, gold and myrrh borne by three wise men, though I realise the latter may be harder to acquire than the former.

2k games now available on the site with a sale of some of the better ones, one can now purchase the first Freedom Force and not just the sequel.

They weren't unicorns, they were just d**kheads. Edit: Sorry couldn't resist.

So when did it find the RPG Codex? I was recently watching the same spectacle up at the Ladybower Dam in the Peak District, it is fascinating.

My first thought would be to take out multiple life assurance policies, but that's biased towards who I am now, as a twenty year old I would do things differently: Firstly I would grab the individual who gave me the note, threaten them with pain of violence and torture, demand more life and an antidote, and work my way up to the mass murderer who is behind all of this. Even if I was given an antidote I would still crush the skull of the sick freak responsible for killing so many youngsters, this would be a necessary and goodly task whatever the outcome. Hopefully this would end this sick practise, however even if it did not and my family was punished I would say that I was correct in my actions, this murderous practise should be opposed and given no quarter.

May Eostre grant all here fitness, fatness and fertility, praise the world reborn.

I have to admit that when this began to preach Scientology dogma I gave a rather large guffaw.

Planescape: Torment managed to implement a walk/run toggle sixteen plus years ago, surely now it should be par for the course?

Doesn't have much with how the world is regarded, the word terra is a feminine noun, so terratus is not a valid form in Latin. The point I was trying to make was that maybe it is a masculine noun in their worlds version of Latin, hence Terratus.

It's probably Alpha Protocol that allows me a fair degree of hope that the "evil" path may be well implemented, Michael Thorton Inc. is probably the most satisfying ending one can achieve. Though I think it's a pity that Mr Avellone is absent as his particular brand of twisted creativity always appeals, though I think Mr Travis Stout was equally far out, has that gentleman left as well? Still Mr Fenstermaker's Beyond the Beef and Vault 11 were both fantastically ambiguous.

Too bad terra is feminine. Do we know that the Earth is regarded as feminine in the world of Tyranny? If so then yes the designers have made a mistake and should have used Terrata, however i'm quite sure the designers are aware of the language they are aping, and have performed a modicum of basic research. If not then i'll be a little disappointed after the sterling work done in Poe on this front. Edit: Extremely pleased to hear about the Bronze/Iron age setting, less pleased to hear about the anime nature of combat, though Homer ocassionally had his heroes performing ridiculous feats of martial aptitude. I'm not sure how these two things will mesh, if we have an extremely well grounded and internally consistent world, and then in combat are using idiotic movesets like in God of War, Devil May Cry and such, then there may arise a dissonance between the two. Poe suffers from this in my opinion, to its detriment.

Well the voice actor is David Warner by the sounds of it, which makes your supposition astute in my estimation.

I have to admit that the only thing I took away from the demonstration following the intro cutscene was that they should have used some players who knew what they were doing, rather than a blindfolded Gibbon. Edit: No offense to Gibbons of course.

Right, well this one called for a quick perusal of my reference literature: As far as I can tell the Latin suffix -tus mimics the English suffix -ed in most ways, so with that in mind Terra as Earth would with the -tus suffix become Earthed, an Earth that is current? For instance a common use that we all know would be Manus, hand, becoming having a hand when made into Manuatus. Perfect Participles, verbs, nouns, and all of the boring stuff i've left out as they serve to confuse more than illuminate i've found, I often get lost myself when using them. Edit: Romanes eunt domus. Edit#2: I really should find something better to do with my time.

Earth that is, would that be the translation in Latin? That would be Terra, as Bartimaeus said. Terratus sounds like something a twelve year old would come up with, thinking it's the coolest thing ever, because he knows a word in Latin. Though, maybe I'm being a little to harsh. I would have thought that the -tus ending would imply a state of being, Terra being simply Earth. Though I must admit my Latin lessons are now four decades or more old and purposely repressed, the teacher was a stern veteran who liked to punish mispronunciation with a rap across the knuckle from his cane, stung somewhat. Edit: I still get itchy fingers when hearing Latin, from BGs garbled spell words to Kains Vae Victus. Edit#2: Then again it might well have a dual meaning and derive from Terror linguistically to reflect the state of the gameworld, though that's probably overthinking it somewhat.

I'm getting terrible flashbacks to Oblivion... Might it be something similar to a Chanter's proclamations in Poe? Words of Power arranged to varying effect.

Earth that is, would that be the translation in Latin?

Teknoman2 said: "the best phrase to know i as many languages as you can is "i dont know" here's some examples (spelling may be wrong is some) non lo so - italian (not sure about this one) no intiendo -spanish ich weis nicht - german wakara nai - japanese je ne sais pas - french" Haven't the foggiest old boy - English. Edit: Sometimes the quoting system on this board is positively frightful, Volourn may have had the right idea all along.

Gawkers rumoured latest owner can afford almost anything. That said a shrewd investor does not back a loss making company for long, unless it is being used for another purpose that is maybe appealing to friends or associates. Edit: I hope Mr Hogan makes a large donation to an anti racism campaign, and of course that Kotaku folds, making an undeniable great day for the incline of journalism.

Started tinkering with Grim Dawn, this is a lot more to my taste than Titan Quest. Trying to create a Witch Hunter type of chap and it's very enjoyable, i'm also interested in the world and narrative surprisingly enough.

Pour Homme, Pour Femme, Pour Braaaiiiiiinnnnssss.

Well there goes the weekend.

Some might say that a game called Tyranny naturally belongs on Steam because of their business practises, I however couldn't possibly comment.