Tamerlane

PoE has matchlock rifles, a weapon used in the 15th and 16th centuries. This is the same timeframe as a lot of other fantasy staples - gothic plate, formal jousting tournaments, the printing press (notably absent in PoE, though), and travel across/exploration of the sea. It's no more inherently "modern" than a suit of plate armor.

Which is a problem how? It punishes more intelligent solutions to quests by not giving the player nice items, so players won't tend to want to go for the non-combative option. - Secondly, because the sort of player who enjoys finding nonviolent solutions to problems will usually not get into fights that often, so he won't need combat gear and consumables that much. You have to be careful not to pigeonhole. The sort of player who enjoys finding nonviolent solutions to some problems and violent solutions to other problems shouldn't end up crappy at both for having the audacity of mixing up their approach based on the situation. I remember AP; everybody maxed sneak and kept shooting people from the shadows. I don't think I ever maxed out sneak in Alpha Protocol. Regardless, I was referring to how it handled overall style and choice, not specific builds (which were undoubtedly unbalanced as hell - hello, chain shot).

Because they have a specific stated goal of trying not to incentivise one way over another. Think Alpha Protocol's "different, not better", albeit likely to a less extreme degree. Which... basically means malolis probably shouldn't worry about that, I guess?

Pretty common for modern RPGs. We're talking about very math-y systems with a ton of variables, so it really shouldn't surprise anyone. Dragon Age had it, Neverwinter Nights 2 had it, Dungeons of Dredmor had it, New Vegas had it (and Josh Sawyer made his own personal, unofficial balance mod)... I don't think The Witcher ever had any balance changes in its patches, though The Witcher 2 did have its equivalent to jsawyer.esp. It's never as drastic as Blizzard's "nerf the popular thing into submission" style, so there's no real harm to it.

Dadgummit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVjf5CccAwY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiDo1YA0zck Good thing everybody ever decided to upload that specific video.

It's less subtle than what you traditionally see, but I've always wanted this sort of bard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brh9onPbGfo Sonic damage best damage.

Pictured: 18/00 strength.

That's Xzar, dude.

Operating with the understanding that you're trying to make all attributes valuable for all classes, I would assume: Power/Might: Damage Constitution: Health, stamina, maybe carrying capacity? Dexterity: Attack speed Perception: Accuracy Intellect: Critical damage Resolve: I would have no natural guess for this, but duration and AoE seems cool, I guess Don't think anything would ever be simultaneously perfect for Mah Immersion and actually being fun, but... eh, whatever.

I took from Sawyer's statement that he expected people to play with a mix of premade and custom companions because he figured it would be a common personal preference, not because of a large number of companions being restricted based on your actions.

Generally speaking, amateur athletes do not play for professional teams. In this analogy, Obsidian would be the professional team.

Isn't... isn't that how it works presently?

It does seem odd to me, splitting health and stamina into two different stats like this, and I do like the notion of tying strength to attack rate more than health total. Maybe it'll work out best when we actually get the chance to play it, but for now, merely looking at it and hearing about it, I can't shake the notion that it's... off somehow.

Quest completion.

I wouldn't call it exactly like 3.5. Ability scores are meant to be more universally applicable and consistent in their use, defences are heavily influenced by 4e and Next, and classes gain flat bonuses to skills rather than use favoured/cross-class skills.

Um. Sensuki likes turn-based games? Just not the new Xcom.

**** it, make PoE full-on real time only, no pausing. Practice your reaver drops and sair micro or get the **** out, casuals.

Very neat. I'm curious about one thing, though. While we obviously know only a limited amount about the classes and have no real experience, the information revealed so far makes "high intellect, high resolve" (high intellect to reinforce their role as damage dealers, high resolve to improve the duration of their status effect-y stuff) seem like the basic, archetypical, ur-rogue build. Intellect and resolve also feed into willpower (the new name for psyche, I guess), which I believe is naturally the weakest defence on the rogue. Is this intentional design that we can expect to see with other classes, or did it arise organically as something you won't specifically attempt to recreate? Or is my assessment of rogues and stats misinformed in the first place?

Think it's a skuldr:

Marco Largo LaGrande Hell on Sea or Land The Good News: He's Dead The Bad News: He Bred

Fair enough but I was just pointing out that other than the narrator I doubt there was any "professional" VA in BG for example. Half of Bethesda's voice work is even now Dudes from Accounting. Well, we saw how well that worked for the ending slides of NWN2 (though to be fair, Brian Mitsoda sounded a lot less out of place in VTMB).

1: Professional doesn't equal famous person. Professional literally means "person that is paid to do things". And yes, you should have professionals working for you, because what are you, some sort of scab? 2: Trying to organize a bunch of random nerds from around the world would be a nightmarish prospect, and you would have to pay someone to waste their time herding all those cats. All those terrible, stupid cats with no actual obligations to the project and with no real organization or direction and oh god no no no no no no no 3: No no no no no no no no no no no no 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ

Yeah, even setting aside the pervasive ugliness of the "violent madman" archetype, it's just so god damn lazy. It's right up there with "They were mind controlled the whole time!" (looking at you, Bioware and Blizzard) and "Eh, orcs are just evil, I guess?" in terms of zero-****ing-effort writing. Why is this villain doing what they're doing? Is he trying to assassinate the queen so that he can get someone more easily manipulated on the throne? Is she trying to open up that portal to hell to retrieve the soul of a loved one? Are they forcing their prisoners into barbaric fights to to the death in an effort to impress their even crueler masters? Nah bro, they just crazy. Don't worry about it. There was probably some tentacle-faced monster involved at some point. Those are popular, right?

Weedlord Sephiroth Do'Urden420 (original character; do not steal) or I want my money back, Obsidian. For real, though, I agree about the necromancy/healing connection being interesting but never exploited. What is a resurrection spell but a really expensive zombie maker?