Drowsy Emperor

Can someone opine on Tyranny? Is it worth the hassle if I hope for a good story, characters or simply something unique out of my RPG experience. Bear in mind I played most of the genre's offerings since 1998.

Kim played it pretty well. These moves make it a bit more difficult for the US to escalate tensions. South Korea's acceptance of the 'game' also signify a willingness to buck the trend of hostility that Trump and other US administrations turned into a ritual. Since war is truly out of the equation for all but the most rabid Washington hawks, I foresee a gradual defrosting of relations on the NK-SK side, and eventually perhaps even a resolution of sorts between the two countries. Kim's comments must be perceived in the context of praise for a 'hostile and different' culture (from the POV of official propaganda on both sides). In that sense, it's not the actual point of discussion that matters, but the act itself. As for Saudi Arabia, they're de facto Israel's 'best friend' in the Middle East region on account of several overlapping interests - mostly the Shia push in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. This is more a recognition of the reality on the ground than an actual policy shift, which has been in force for a while now. This is how you got the alleged (and likely true, based on the enduring ISIS+Rebel pocked on the Israeli-Syria border) situation of ISIS fighters receiving treatment in Israeli hospitals. The new prince seems to be preoccupied with changing the appearance of the monarchy, but in reality he's the representative of its conservative power base, so expecting any changes from him that are not 'fluff' is wishful thinking at best.

I started Tyranny but I suspect I won't see it through to the end.

Is that not the case with Endless Space 2? Or even Pillars? In Civ there are many scenarios and in any particular scenario there is an optimal way to progress to a goal. Yes, but both Endless Space and PoE make up for it with lore and flavor. Civ is just Civ. Which was my original point in response to the sentiment that "Story and atmosphere are for casuls" Civ is Civ but Alpha Centauri is Alpha Centauri, and it has more flavor than most games let alone the strategy genre, where it stomps all over almost everything ever released. And it's a Civ game

I can honestly say I didn't perceive Torment's combat as a flaw. It's been a long time since I played the game though, but I don't remember it being oppressive, mostly because there wasn't too much of it. What was there wasn't particularly memorable, but it kind of seemed to function as a break between all the questing and talking, rather than the usual, reverse situation, in which talking is a break to a string of fighting. But, I was unfamiliar with the setting, and not well versed in ADnD at the time so the creatures, (like the psy rats in the sewers) were kinda fascinating, and it was a bit challenging as well (when you don't know the rules).

The combat roll of Witcher 2. Geralt, part mutant, part Sonic.

So they'd do a great job, but only if they improved first on the only important thing a Wuxia game would be about :D (just kidding)

Holy ****, I just saw that a remake for Shadow of the Collossus was released. Normally graphical upgrades don't impress me but this is ridiculously well done:

Baldur's Gate II was about pure adventure. It went like this 'We will deliver a huge world to you, full of content and interesting stories, a good plot to follow, a memorable villain and a horde of companions from which to choose from (almost everyone can make at least one party of characters they like) - and you do whatever you want with it'. Chances were, wherever you went in the game, something interesting would happen - from a talking sword in a sewer to a bizzarre metal ball superimposed on a city or to negotiating with your own spell summons (the Wish Djinni). By deliberately subverting what was possible, or likely to happen, based on one's experience with previous games (which, even the original Baldur's Gate included, seem rather pathetic by comparison - to say nothing of things like the first person dungeon crawls rampant before BG1), the world seems even larger and wondrous than it was, and it is pretty damn impressive even today. Not everything was perfect, but everything was either the best at the time or very nearly so. Most importantly, its elements were in balance. There was a lot of everything, but never too much of any one thing: text, combat, music, story etc. Subsequent games like KOTOR, NWN, Dragon Age, ME felt limited in size, possibilities or imagination. Or they took themselves too seriously (PoE, ME, Dragon Age) without having the intellectual or dramatic depth to back that up. Or they got lost in their own lore (Dragon Age, PoE).

Who is to say PST is terribly designed. The form of RPG's and DnD adventures is not set in stone. Just because its generic incarnation is a pure dungeon crawl, a la Icewind Dale, this does not mean any one given campaign has to have even a single instance of combat. The relevance of the underlying system, the loot, frequency of encounters, necessity of min-maxing etc. - none of these are necessarily more important than the story or the characters. PST had all these trappings, but it was about something else, and it did that well - so you can't say it was badly designed. It merely focused on other things. The game's principal fault was its verbosity - but that was something you went along with or you didn't. Its other 'issue' if you could call it that, stemmed from preconceived expectations of what a DnD game should be like, fueling arguments that it's 'bad as a game'. For me, Icewind Dale was 'bad' as a game, in the sense that it delivered no emotional or intellectual hooks to compel me to play. With a bunch of blank slate characters, I played it merely for the gameplay and the visuals, but never appreciated it beyond that. Despite that, I recognize that it did the things it focused on very well, and in that respect, it's a well designed game.

I finished the game yesterday and I don't remember any of the PoE music, even after 50+ hours of gameplay. *shrug*

Make sure to tackle the White Marches ASAP. This part of the game was completely ruined for me because I walked in with a level 13-14 party and steamrolled everything, even on Upscaled Hard difficulty.

PoE also does itself a disservice by demystifying its own world too much. By the time the game is done the PC has all but resolved several world spanning mysteries - the Engwithians, the gods (no less, eh), the Legacy etc. It's as if the world was just waiting for the PC to turn over every rock and break down every metaphysical question that runs it. Sometimes ancient civilizations should remain just that. If Conan stopped to explain the background of every den he ever raided we'd have called him Conan the Historian.

I finished Pillars of Eternity. On the whole, the game was enjoyable. It has two critical errors that become very prominent later on: 1. Overleveling. My last 5-10 hours with the game were ruined because I had a maxed out party and nothing, even upscaled and on Hard difficulty, had any chance whatsoever. I eventually grew frustrated and just skipped White Marches 2 and the Temple of Hylea, bee-lining straight for the end boss. I know that WM2 is where some of the harder encounters are but I simply lost interest. From party level 14 and onward, any challenge in the game collapsed. The economy was broken, I had 160,000 gold, could buy up anything even though I needed nothing. XP and Loot supply need to be controlled better!! 2. Verbosity. There are different ways to introduce a player to the game world. I always felt that casual, easygoing revelations were best. For example, Baldur's Gate never stops being a relatively simple to follow and easy to relate to fantasy tale. The PC communicates with the world in terms that don't require any knowledge of the Forgotten Realms whatsoever, and when they do, it's slim and quickly explained. Pillars of Eternity takes a tome of it's own lore and repeatedly slams it over the player's head. Through never ending dialogue trees it will pulverize Dyrwood, the Saint's War, Eothas, the gods, the soul, Waiwaden's legacy, animancy, Thaos, the political arrangements of various groups, Engwithians, and a host of other things into the player whether he wants to participate or not. We forgave this sin to Torment, because it was extraordinarily good in many ways. PoE is what it looks like when it's less good. After a while the endless verbosity becomes intolerably overbearing. Good epic fantasy stories (usually) aren't about made up lore, they're about basic human emotions, situations, tragedies, comedies and what have you. Shadow of the Collossus's story could fit onto 2 pages of text and it couldn't care less that you would have to assume or fill in the gaps for yourself. The Mouse Guard comics turn mice, weasels and foxes into tales more grand than many of the fat books fantasy authors write. This method, 's not good. That's like, my opinion, man.

Except that's not how it went. Bioware was not a small company before EA bought them. After being bought they made Mass Effect, which was extremely successful series. So was Dragon Age. I never liked either but they're undeniably a step up from KOTOR and Jade Empire, or at the very least, on par. Bioware had a good run under EA. After that it simply failed to repeat the successes it had before, some of which can be leveled at the publisher, but the mistakes of the latter period are consistent enough to not just be the result of tight schedules and pushiness. DA3 is the proof. The game was relatively well received and mostly successful, but it was actually a sign that they were out of truly good ideas and what innovation there was went in a rather poor direction. Andromeda drove that point home. They banked on an idea that was technologically unfeasible (as it turned out) and mismanaged the rest. EA shares some of the blame, but really, it was Bioware's mess.

I will immediately have to lower the music volume bar in-game. There's nothing wrong with the track in an of itself but listening to those 'tense' sounds for hours on end, and for every Xaurip barfight, would drive me crazy.

I'm so happy that Baldur's Gate "made them" and probably played no small part in steering them toward eventually developing the Witcher.

For me the setting was okay. It felt like a mix between Forgotten Realms and some aspects of Arcanum, but nothing distinctive enough to make me want to revisit it. PoE aimed to hit the same target reached by Baldur's Gate and it succeeded, but there is only so far you can go on generic high fantasy. The pirate theme would not be my first choice for a sequel, but I'll give it a fair chance. PoE's music was likewise reminescent of Baldur's Gate 1, but not particularly memorable. The combat music had the same issues BG1 had. All in all, as glad as I was to be swept back to childhood with some nostalgia, I'll be happy to move on to something else.

I initially wanted to go with a Rogue/Ranger combo, but a lot of the Ranger's skills seem focused on the companion (as opposed to the ranged abilities I was looking for) and the others are quite similar to the Rogue. It may be that the combination of the Companion's Sneak Attack bonus, with the Rogue's Sneak Attack and affliction creating abilities, adds up to a ton of damage but I don't see a strict benefit of going Ranger/Rogue if the PC is to be the primary damage dealer, based on what has been revealed so far. Also it adds the condition that the companion is alive and attacking an afflicted target, which I think is harder to satisfy at higher levels. In PoE at least, the companion seems to be more of a distraction and fodder. It does deal a lot of damage if things are going your way, but on the front lines against the bosses, in my party it's usually the first to die.

Hm, but isn't the principal problem of the arquebus, being slow to begin with. The modal seems to imply an even slower rate of fire. They were pretty agonizing in PoE, without quickswitch abuse.

The only romance that I ever felt was done right was with Jaheira in Baldur's Gate 2. The rest weren't really romances as I understand them (mutual attraction of mature adults), what with the companion's almost compulsive attachment to the Nameless One in Tormet, or were kind of a joke (Viconia) or... questionable... (Aerie). Subsequently, all the Obisidian romances were more or less a total rehash of the Torment approach "PC is a black hole of the universe, sucking everything up like an existential vaccum cleaner" (KOTOR 2, Mask of the Betrayer) and Bioware romances developed toward this horrible 'curing' of other people's 'issues' (often abandonment/daddy issues) and being rewarded with their affection in return. What I found repulsive about the Bioware approach was the implied sleaziness of 'being a shoulder to cry on' and being rewarded with sex in the long run (even with Jaheira). This was not the intention of the writers, but that's how it came off. I believe that this is the result of something rampant in the media - equating 'issues' with 'depth of character', where shorthand for writing a 'good character' is making them 'really, reallly ****ed up'. So everyone's been: raped, abandoned, abused, had family members killed, ousted from their home - making one of literature's great examples of a 'hard life', Ana Karenina look like a spoiled, entitled, brat. The result is that game characters loaded with all this 'tragedy' lose emotional impact. Oh, your family was killed? Get in line, there, behind the man with the bat ears. The resolution, I think, is to steer clear of emotional extremes, unless one is extremely confident that they have something worth saying in that regard. Romances and tragedies are all well and good, but like humor, when they fall flat, they bring the overall experience down with them.

PIstol and Blunderbuss are can now be dual wielded? They must have bumped down the damage, otherwise that would be ridiculous.

DoW2 wasn't exactly a straight up RTS either.

You can always play Firewarrior ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I'm not 100% on how multiclass mechanics work but Cipher/Rogue sounds like the most potent ranged combination to me because of Soul Whip and Sneak Attack...