Wintersong

The system doesn't work because you munchkin your way? Much like we could do (rerolling for hours if needed) in IE games? Resolve adds to Will defense. Only for that, it's not a dump stat. Also adds concentration that it may be interesting if you plan to do some casting in hot zones. Perception can be sweet with high dexterity in ranged anti-magic-joes... if I understood well the interruption part. Melee can also get good use of it? I don't really know skills of each class so well as to be able to really judge Intellect. Constitution gives more life. As in every other game. ¬.¬ Keep it to a minimum and see what happens to the wizard when a stone beetle burrows it way to him. Might isn't Strength and is no mandatory. Obviously, decent values are interesting be it for damage and/or healing. But you don't really need to max it unless you want a super specialist. Dexterity is more of the same. And all that not considering the little extra stuff that the stats have. Not saying that some tweaking shouldn't be done to them but them being a failure? No. I don't feel like it's the case.

This is an argument in a vacuum. We're talking about BG2. A game that loaded fighters up with enough magic gear to turn them into unique terrors even compared to mages It's more like this: Fighter level 10 - "look at me swinging my weapon while mirror imaged!" Fighter level 11 - Look at me making swarms of Undead instantly explode while swinging Daystar!" Fighter level 12- Look at me summoning a phase spider to help me as I swing my sword Fighter level 13- Look at me stunning opponents, and casting lightning bolts at them as I swing my Katana!" Fighter Level 18- Look at me insta-killing Trolls and Giants with Crom Faeyr, while making beholders kill themselves with my cloak, as I turn invisible and haste myself with my ring while everything is true sighted with a spell I just cast from the Book of infinite spells... Fighter level 21 - "look at me Greater whirl winding this guy!" etc. Oh, look! I'm like a Barbie! I need tons of complements to shine. Curious how skills by items add nothing to micro but having skills by class is "murder". Just saying.

Look. We are talking about RPG game that involves playing not 1 character but whole party of characters. So, some of them could be 'boring' from mechanics standpoint, yes. But overall, as you manage party, you will have whole bunch of abilities. Oh, sorry. Wasn't the argument that fighters shouldn't have abilities because then magic isn't special and they were good enough as they were according to AD&D rules (of the game)? Of course there is a party. Having played many AD&D cRPG games and run tabletop campaings for years, I surely know how it works. And of course that those super fighters that some people claim here wouldn't be such without epic items and super magical buffs. And without thieves you need other ways to deal with traps. And without clerics you need other ways to deal with injuries (amd undead). And low level wizard by himself is only asking for trouble. Teamwork isn't a justification for lazy design and braindead classes (and as much as I still like AD&D, it's faaaaaar from being balanced). I'm quite sure that I have heard more than once that fighters in AD&D are the newbie players' class amd wizards the veterans'. Must be because of something. The player that used to play fighters in my games surely celebrated switching to D&D 3rd edition. I wonder why. But here were are talking about how giving the fighters abilities makes the game more casual, less strategic, makes magic less special... and that swinging a sword (or other weapon) with some external magical buffing should be enough to have interesting fighters. I liked my fighters in BG and the other games. But not for being the most entertaining class, that's for sure. Chuck Norris as a regular fighter in BG would be limited to regular punches and kicks because otherwise, magic is less special. The micromanagent side of the argument could have a point though. But you don't neuter a whole class so a sector of the players get less micro (and only micro the classes they are used to / like).

No one cares about the AD&D system at it's core. This is about the IE games, and the IE games made fighters plenty useful in the end. Exactly. I wonder if the people who keep claiming that fighters are intrinsically underpowered in AD&D based games, have ever played BG2 and looked at the kill stats of their party members at the end of each chapter. At least in my experience, the main melee fighter would consistently get by far the most kills throughout all stages of the game. Whereas wizards found increasingly powerful spells (and got more spell levels and spells per day) as the game progressed, warriors found increasingly powerful weapons and armor which they could use very effectively. Fighter Level 1: "Look at me swinging my sword!" Fighter Level 5: "Look at me swinging my sword!" Fighter Level 10. "Look at me swinging my sword!" etc Yeah, braindead gameplay as indicator of power. AD&D fighters are not weaklings... unless you compared them to wizards. Enemies with high magic resistance are there so the wizards are not always the stars. And fighters are totally boring too, which is the most important part.

In AD&D, fighters were crap except early game. Wizards were totally broken once they started to level up. Worst offender? Learning how to alter the fabric of the universe to do stuff life fireballs, creating magic items, granting wishes... is apparently as easy as to learn how to swing the sword a few extra times. True story. Giving martial classes active abilities/maneuvers is good. To pretend to send them back to the pure meatshield that can only offer weapon specialization and armor proficiencies... And that they don't add strategy/tactics (we should remove spells from magic users to add more strategy/tactics in combat!!!)... or immersion... or that it's a way to "casualize"... If you don't think that magic is special despite being able to cast fireballs, heal people and stuff like that just because figthers can have skills that allow them to prone enemies or rogues can use finishing strikes... At least the thread is not "More like DA2, please"?

I butcher them into spanish spelling and be done with them. Familiarity with them comes with use. They are new, therefore confusing. Once you get used, it's ok.

You can get it as an 25 dollar addon. If I remember correctly the offer ends on friday the 22th of August (the day after tomorrow!) Not really sure if buying the addon is worth the effort and money. Don't get me wrong, despite the bugs, I love this BG feeling in the beta and wish there was lots more content. I love the character models (some more than other but still) and the little details. I like the combat (despite bugs and sometimes having trouble knowing what's going on and where). Only crashed once (trying to load a game) and seems to work fine (full screen or windowed). But we are talking about a small section of the game, non related to the main quests, that leads you from level 5 to 8 (or so I read, still stuck at 5), buggy... And I must say that I don't know what else can we expect from this beta before the game releases. I expect some patching to the current beta but will we see some extra areas at some point? Is it just this and no more till release? I mention it because some people may find that to be a serious issue and would prefer not to pay for it if this area is all you get. If that information is somewhere, I have missed it but would be good to know. In my case, I don't mind as it was part of a digital bundle. But someone who just bought the game and then paid 25 for the beta... I'd understand some frustration there.

First: combat focused/heavy game means that there is lots of combat. You may be able to solve some by peaceful means and such, but combat is the main way to solve stuff in general. It doesn't mean that you should be given exp as reward. It's an option that developers can give you if they design the game in that way. They could just lock levels and only give you new ones as you complete milestones in the main quest. Or have no levels for classes and have the skills to improve by use. Possible systems are many. Second: combat fun should be its own reward (if you play a combat heavy game whith a combat system you hate... uff) but there is also the associated loot. Sometimes it may be worthless, other times it will be jackpot. You are getting a reward from combat. That it's not enough in your eyes, a whole different story. For the record, if it really matters, I love combat. My prefered classes in any D&D edition that I have played are figthers and rogues (not pickpocketing ones but locksmith with some scout/swashbuckling). The developers could decide to grant exp for completely exploring a map. Does it mean that they should? Or for speaking with every NPC in each map? For clearing a whole map of monsters? The game is designed around doing quests. Go from A to Z. Along the way do quests to unlock stuff and you can even do side trips to B, K and U. If it's well designed in its encounters/quests, every area should give you enough material rewards for your efforts while feeding you enough xps through quests. And still have wiggle room to go wild an explore just because. To murder just because. It doesn't have the flexibility of a tabletop game, so hard limits must be set but still... If it's well done, the only real difference you should notice between getting xps on the spot of murdering some life and having to wait for quest completion, would be timing. Nothing else. Instead of "Ding!" on the bloody spot where you gutted the Ogre, you are getting it on the village. Loot should be about the same, time invested similar too. If a quest requires you to go to a beetle infested forest, a cave full of spiders and then an ogre, the experience from completing that quest should account for all the challenges that you can expect from it. It doesn't matter if you explore the whole map or not. It doesn't matter if you carved a bloody way to the ogre or if you just sneaked your way to him. What matters is that you get to the ogre, solve the situation somehow and them go back to tell the tale. The experience you receive should be approximate to that of getting xps for killing stuff. Except that a "xp for target" system would have that quest give less xps to balance the fact that you are getting xps in the field. For the very few that expect to be able to grind random monsters to reach max level and then face the final dude... yeah, system sucks. Wrong game too. For the camp of every challehenge should give me some kind of reward and loot is not enough*, I think that the only real issue are optional monsters. This is a combat heavy game. So its a quest heavy game. But even if you decide to explore without quests (nothing wrong with that), areas should be rewarding in any case. That Random Wolf #3748 that is hanging out with Random Wolf #2789 and Random Great Wolf #895, is just one of the challenges on getting to whatever rewards may be in the area (secret stash, new NPC... or just getting fame as "Wolf Killer"). Direct rewards are not the ultimate rewards. The game should reward you to conver for your expenses while adventuring and still getting some extra (unless you do stupid stuff). Basic DMing. So if your concern is that of resources wasted on random stuff, the system should account for them somehow. If it doesn't then yeah, there is a problem. I do believe that special situations/encounters could call for xp. If you find a map with a dragon that has no relation whatsoever to any quest, defeating it may justify some xps on the basis of it being a rare powerful being (unless they are cannon fodder in PoE). That in addition to possible treasure they may have. But those would be exceptions. Random Wolf #957890 and Random Wolf #283930? Nope. Just wolf pelts. But hey, if they add xp on killing, just make sure that xp of the critters drops slowly towards 0 the more of them you kill and/or you level up. Experience is about learning new stuff. Getting new insight about things. Killing Random Wolf #84029234 surely doesn't provide as much insight as the first random wolf (you may also be overflowing the market with wolf pelts). For extrapolating the current, limited and buggy beta system experience to the whole game... Really? We got a fragment (not near the beginning!) of the whole game. A fragment that bugs out and may lead to lose stuff, like quests. We may be able to judge somehow the combat. Not so much, yet, the exp system. For the record too: I don't hate wolves. I do hate when they drop stuff like money, weapons, armors... * because some monsters may not have it or it may be crappy

You don't have Hit Points. Or whichever term any RPG describes health with in an abstract way that doesn't reflect the reality of being injured with nasty weapons. D&D4E did a nice explanation of their abstraction and their relation to healing surges. As far as I'm concerned, heal on level up is not an issue. Specially when... About level up, if this was tabletop: training or bust. Find the proper mentor and/or proper place to evaluate what you have learnt during your adventures. While on the field, too busy to focus on new abilities and conditions might not be the best (Player: "I want to learn swimming"; DM: "Ooook. Did you notice that we are in the desert and that you have never practiced swimming before, right?"). But this is not tabletop. Considering that people in general complains about stuff like items having weight, inventory tetris,... level up anywhere seems ok. Settling for it requiring same conditions as camping, would be adecuate.

I have created a Nature Godlike Paladin. Started the game and checked everybody's gear. Everything seemed ok. Leveled up my character, saved and decided to load to check if any item was lost in the process. The cleric had lost the shield in her secondary slot. Quite game. Create a ranger elf. I check gear and try one level up. Everything is ok. I do all the level ups and check again. Everything all right. Save the game and load to check. Cleric's shield in secondary slot... missing.

The slots seem few. The stash does help though.

I'd prefer the game to ask me which language I want. But the switch in game is really easy so no problem.

For me it's a tradition to set pause on enemy seen. Had to disable the inefficient weapon one though. When the rogue only has daggers/bow and the beetle is the enemy, too many pauses too quick... >.< Said by someone who manually pauses a lot to micromanage the gang.

I don't know if it will be delayed or not. But I want to trust Obsidian to do the right thing and delay the release if the game really needs it. This time, they cannot blame buggy release on publisher's testers plus imposed deadline. I love them but a messy buggy release this time... That said, I expect some bugs on release, unfortunately and as in every other game released these days. Hopefully, they will be few and minor. The only bug that really annoys me is the items dissapearing one. A total party destroyer. My character lost two sabres and a mace. The dwarf lost the shield, the Orlan the Night Runner armor... Even with the respawning loot from the Orlan in the inn (when it doesn't dissapear when you pick the items!!), totally annoying bug. Welcome to the beta, we got fun 'n' games...

So far, it has happened only once to me but it was to my figther and cleric NPCs in the same combat. I started everybody in ranged attacks and ordered to switch to melee when shortly after the cultist died. I could see that they had switched weapons but could not select them in any way or more them. As said, save and reload to fix it.

To a point it sounds like playing a MMORPG, where instead of doing the quests, you just grind your way up. Which considering how many quests are done in MMORPGs, I cannot blame players for it (I do like grinding too sometimes). If the game is well designed, you should get enough exp to complete the game just by doing the main line of quests. And I guess that those are mandatory to trigger different areas/stuff/final_dudeboss. Is "your own thing" just level-ups? Because if you don't go to an area just to explore it or to do a quest in it, why else go there? It's true that you may want to explore an area searching for "treasure", "epic shoopeker" or who knows what. Then, dealing with "wildlife" is the previous step to enjoying such reward. If the area has no quests in it (rare), in any case it should contain "valuables" worth the effort of going there and dealing with whatever is there (exp or not). Our main reason to explore should be tangible stuff and not exp. I think that it's ok that "random" encounters not offer nothing but loot. That should be their only reason of existence. Optionals, more of the same. Unless you are collecting wolf pelts or roleplay a wolf hater, willingly jumping into a random wolf encounter doesn't make much sense. Unless you just do it for the fun of playing a combat!!! Or maybe failed to sneak... Don't get me wrong. I like leveling up. It sucks when an RPG system puts the nice goodies up in the high levels and one cannot wait to reach them to finally have a functional character as one wants it to be. And leveling up also gives a sense of progression (which games like Oblivion send to hell by scaling up stuff). If you hit max level in a game and there are still areas to explore, do you stop exploring because you gain no exp from the monsters? Or stop doing quests? ------ Even D&D says how exp can be given in different ways and killing stuff is just one... which can be optional. Beating an encounter is the basic way. A trap? You can get exp by disarming it... or by finding a way to bypass it. Sleeping ogre at the door? Exp for killing it or just by sneaking without waking him up. Even it's mentioned as an alternative to only give exp for quest completed (taking into account all the encounters in it, of course). Makes sense? Yes, it does. Allocating exps in the monsters, only incentivates unnecesary violence. As much as special treasure tables for them. So if you just want loot, it'll be always be there is some form. And focusing the exp in the quests, makes you focus on which should be really important. Killing stuff is important in games like Torchlight or Diablo (and the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!11!1!!!1) and while games like this or BG are combat centric, they are not ARPGs and don't need to emulate them. No one forbids you to have fun killing non quest monsters, it only encourages you to do it just for fun. ----- My first character talks with dude outside village. Talks with woman inside village. Kills woman to save time. Talks with man outside village. Kills man because of stuff said. Gets loot from both but no exp. My next character talks with dude outside the village. Talks with woman inside the village. Cooperates with her. Talks with man outside village. Kills man. Gets loot only from the dude and also get almost enough exp to go from level 5 to 6. Fair? I see no problem there.

? One of the in game options (main menu or while playing) lets you change to any of the langauges from the game.

Overall first impression and using some abstraction: I'm playing Baldur's Gate. It's a beta and all that (more noticeable when you forget that Steam installs the game by spanish by deafult... leading to lots of "NCP_Dude" and blanks in important windows/conversations). So I'll ignore the beta thing by, naively?, assuming that Obsidian is going to adress everything that there is to adress (items disapearing when moved from an NPC in my party to my PC, invisible female Orlan heads, floating weapons in the 3D character portrait, female characters being portrayed as male in character creation, items with wrong/placeholder icons...). The game in the videos looked good but wen you play it... I truly feel amazed at how good it looks. So far I have only been in the village and the under dugeon (sloooooow player here) but so far, everything looks good. So do characters. They look great even if they are not super duper next of the next gen. I spent quite a lot of time just checking the different races/classes and their origin areas and it was awesome to have them with different looks and starting gear. I love that. I'm worried about the portraits. Altough I love them, they are very limited, much like BG and company. Human males get 3 (4 if you use the dwarf one). Which is more than other races can say. And some of the portraits don't match anything in the character creator. It's not a big issue by itself but I do certainly like that the portrait and the character have some resemblance. In BG it was about colours but here, with 3D... makes me wish to take a screenshot of the character and use that as portrait (if that functionality is added), even if it will clash with the NPC's portraits (I could take screenshoot of them and do a quick swap). Conversations are good too. So much to read! And while I played it in spanish (before switching to old good english), very well translated. Not sure if it has any real effect that some NPCs of my party run to talk instead of allowing my PC to do it. The UI, bugs/glitches aside, lacks functionalities that would make life more comfortable. Or maybe I missed how to use them. In shops I cannot see the item details (more importantly, weapons) unless I try to buy them or use the ? button. Missing weapon/armor comparisons when hovering the mouse over one of them in my inventory. In general, that kind of stuff. Combat feels good but being a newbie, still need more learning about it. Like... Why does my PC with two lances (default gear) hit so few times? (7 times) Is because of distance to enemy? For dual wielding? Bad luck? Because everybody else has like 20+ hits after killing inn girl and bridge dudes!!! For now, sticking to easy mode and slowy figure stuff out. One of the things that I like more about the combat, specially compared to AD&D, is that fighters DO stuff in battle. Real stuff. No more "Sack of HPs that (awesomely) swings a sword from time to time". I have never been fond of magic (vancian = meh, between other things) but so far, I'm not disliking the magic. Cleric actually seems interesting. If on release I end playing a pure magic user, it would be a first ever (in cRPGs) so I hope that it happens. Really nice touch that I can hover my mouse over the combat attack descriptions and see the data there. Stealth: love the circles. I killed the bridge guys and their boars (lots!!) so funny thing that when I enterd a shop and tried to exist, it seemed like that game frozed in the Loading screen (all black one). I could see that my cursor changed depending on the screen position and I could even open the C, I or ESC menus (lacking background though). Puzzling until I just hit SPACE and discovered that my option to pause the game due to character death was causing it because of 12 "Auto-Paused: Character Death (Boar Companion)". Those custom companions are truly expensive!!! Manged to sell tons of loot to afford a level 4 one (a paladin) but she, while nice and armed with a gun, is quite weak compared to the other NPCs (that arleady supposed to be badly equipped). Still, really nice option. Not sure if I'll use it on release unless there is some glaring hole in the party's tactical composition. In a disordered and uncomplete way, that's my first impression. So far, if we ignore the beta stuff (which should be fixed/solved/improved!), everything is awesome. Best $138 spent ever... so far. Keep the guard up, keep working hard and let's aim for a non-bug-feast release, ok? "I'm a bark string! Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark."

Let me solve the problem for you: Pillars of Eternity is translated to castilian. End of story. Also, having more population speaking a variant language doesn't mean that there are the same number of actual real gamers that will purchase it. And even if there are, let's be honest, since when do developers care about "non cool" countries? No offense meant on my part, but if you are not in certain areas and you are a gamer, you are screwed to the point that Australian game pricing seems a joke. Ideally, we should get both. Maybe when Obsidian gets bazillions of dollars a la Blizzard, they don't have to chose language variants over totally new languages. Meanwhile, learning castillian should be far easier than other totally different languages. Lucky us that Obsidian has english as option. I watched cartoons in latin american spanish as a kid. I had no issues understanding them but I certainly prefer castilian (beign spaniard...). The real bigger issue can be vocabulary. At least based in my experience teaching castillian to a bolivian girlfriend. When a braid is a shoelace... who cares about some little grammar differences? But yeah, from an economic point of view it could be seen as silly to have this double translation (instead of taking those resources for a different new language!!!). Like having to translate Doctor Who from british english to american english so yankees don't have to "suffer" alien vocabulary. I know about the difference between AmE and BrE but this is different, this isn't an inconvenience a lot of verbs as adjectives has a very different meaning, as example the verb "coger" for Spain that verb implies to take a thing in Argentina the uses of that verb implies to have sex. Spain cannot be blamed from other countries' slang. Is it Spain's fault that spaniard women called Concha have a bad time in some latin american countries? You didn't see Spain in his post about the Spanish language? Meh. As a spaniard, I can say that our leaders are taking care of making us fifth world country with giant steps . *sigh*

This thread is full of "WTF"s so I'll just stick to this one. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I'm not talking of that floating freak. Everybody find some physical attributes more likeable than others. Some may find brown skin to be sexy while others may not. Some may find asian eyes to be beautiful while others not (some asians actually operate their eyes to look non-asian!!! Racists!!!!! ) Some like them fat while others thin. Tall or small. Green eyes or... well, does anyone get the idea? I know people who don't find asian women to be attractive/sexually-appealing but they are not racist. Just a mater of preferences. As offensive as "I like chocolate" or "I like vanilla" or "I like dogs" or "I like rain" or... Yes, racist people may use similar words to show their distastes of who they consider inferior or whatever, but it doesn't mean that anyone speaking like that is racist. Guy A: "I don't like redheads." Guy B: "Racist!!!" Guy A: "Er... No? I just don't like the color. But I do like women." Guy B: " Sexist!!!" Guy A: "What if I say that I like guns?" Guy B: "Terrorist!!!!!" Guy A: What was the thread about?

The second adventure book from "Escape from the Kingdom of Frome" had some kind of flesh eating trees with blood-red leaves. As a child, I found that quite disturbing.

Maybe the spirit is tied to is old body as some kind of echo. And maybe it reacts to injuries as it would react as if it was still alive, so losing an arm would make that arm be severed from the spirit link and go inert. Not all skeletons would need to be like that but different types are more than possible. Nothing like to read All Flesh Must Be Eaten to get a glimpse of all kind of new zombies that could be used (like bowels going on their own... reminds be a bit of Brain Dead). Why not other kind of undead? And zombies themselves are just reanimated flesh or a spirit moving the body like a puppet? Once flesh rots, only the skeleton would remain so it's important to know. For the scary part, looks are not as important as the use of the undead. Having some proper looks is important but not matter how scary that look is, if not used in proper situations, it won't matter that much. The most scary thing is the lack of knowledge about something. Not knowing how that zombies infestation started or how to stop it should be more scary that "Oh! Rotting flesh!!!". Having to deal with a corpless spirit while not knowing how to deal with it, should be scary. That it uses white or black sheets is irrelevant. Knowing that the PC/NPCs in the party are not immune to whatever "curse" afflcts the undead should be scary ("Oh, hi, Cadegund! How is your zombification going on?"). I kind of dig that Pokemon idea. To a point. Use the spirits as summons, to enchant stuff,...

? Fantasy is a tool as much as you could use sci-fi to tell stories. Using it to have chainmail bikinis, huge non-sensic swords or Jar Jar Binks, is a choice by some authors. A red dragon armor is fantasy yet can be done to look "realistic" if desired, or you could create some kind of red dragon hide bikini... If you are crafting pure scapist stories, anything goes. And you can always mix, of course. Maturity from my point of view would mean treating everything in the game as if it was real. Even if some of the stuff used doesn't exist in our reality, you give it some adult logic and avoid stuff "because it's cool". Mature themes would be stuff that children would not really worry/care about, and given proper treatment. It can be meaning of life stuff. How some people face their own mortality. Or what would you be ready to do to defend what you believe in. As in sci-fi, you can pick any of our mundane worries/situations and make a fantasy equivalent to ponder about. The presence of things like love/sex , humor or other stuff, is more defined by what the story is about but they are stuff that adults care/worry about. That they are treated with seriousness is another thing.

"All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up! See this? This... is my boomstick! It's a twelve-gauge, double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt-blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right... shop smart: shop S-Mart... You got that?" <--- totally fine with guns of any kind as long as are well integrated in the game universe

Our PoE >>>>> Their PoE.