Elerond

On which moral standards you want Obsidian use to determine evilness of companions they write? Currently PoE tries it best to stay away of any universal moral standards and leave such determinations to player. They try their best to look morality from view point of their characters, meaning that one action is morally good for some characters and morally bad for some other characters. This kind lack of universal morality standards was one of their goals that they said they want to do with the game. So lack of your typical highlighted morally evil (and good) companions is purposeful design decision. But I have find morally questionable side from all the companions Of course every character also has their morally upright side. In my opinion this kind characters are much more interesting and feel more real than your typical caricature characters that you get in CRPGs as your companions.

Dual wielding is not realistic sorry. And a Pike is way less practical without mass formation. I'd rather have a 2h Axe/Warhammer in small scale melee. Dual wielding is real historic thing that has mentioned even in lots of European fighting treatises let alone Indian and Persian where such fighting was much more popular. And pike and spear are excellent dueling weapons because they give you massive reach advance over sword and most HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioners would take one over sword in duel in any day if they have even lightest experience with them. But also two handed axes are real thing in historical martial arts from which pollaxe, halberd are most common in period that PoE mimics in it's weapons. But also battle-axes which fantastic variations this topic speaks are used all around globe in different cultures, in Europe they where quite popular in Scandinavia where they were continued to use along side with halberds until in start of 18th century. War hammers are one hand weapons what are actually already in the PoE, two handed hammers that some associate with war hammers in most cases sledge hammers or wooden mauls, which were used in battles in some cases but usually because their wielders didn't have better weapons, like for example English Longbow men who had wooden mauls with them so that they can put wooden pikes in ground to make it more difficult for cavalry and some infantry units to attack them are known to use those mauls in some battles where enemy infantry has surprised them. There are actual two handed hammers indented to be used as main weapon in battles like Bec de corbin or Lucerne hammer, but they aren't such weapons/tools that people usually mean when they speak about two handed hammers.

I think that three reason why PoE feels easier than let say IWD is that you have much harder time to build such party which members are mainly useless in fights, there is much less moments when you just outright die if you weren't prepared right, and you are able to get you party be over leveled towards most harder encounters by doing all the low level quests around Gilded Vale, as when you once get over leveled you mostly keep being overleveled (meaning that you are in many cases several levels higher than enemies that you face) until you find those few encounters that are meant mainly for 12 level parties, but aren't impossible with lower level parties. Only difficulty level that rises difficulty of individual enemies is Path of Damned as it also rises enemies stats where others difficulty levels only change how many enemies or by changing them higher level ones (like young wolves (level 1 wolf) to wolves (level 5 wolf) and wolves (level 5 wolf) to elder wolves (level 9 wolf)), which usually only means that you need to do bit more low level quest before you overlevel encounters. you will face. Also because pathing in the game is what it is more enemies don't necessary mean harder encounter as enemies block each other out from the fight. And I have also noticed that Stronghold can cause you get XP quite fast if RNG hits right spot as it randomly gives quest where you can sent your of party companions and some of those quest give XP bonus, and as it is given as percent bonus from quest that you did during that adventure it can be quite high. I am not sure if it should give that bonus XP to all the characters you control PC, and companions in party and companions that are in the keep, instead of just companions that are in the keep but it seem to do so or actually I think that it gives XP only to your party and members in the keep just get small percentage smaller XP amount that your PC has when you take them back in your party. But anyway I think that random additional XP you get from those keep quest is probably reason why some people like me have been able to reach level 12 in act II and some people can't reach it even when they do all the quest with guidance of strategy guide.

They seem to check only paladin order in those conversations not character class. They probably do same for priest when they check their deities.

Today we have changed our standard time definition to system that is no longer based on the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, but on atomic time. As a second is defined as: "9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom." and length other standard time units are based on that definition. I think it is more like we use 'atomic time' to more accurately measure the time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun, imo... So-called 'atomic time' is merely more accurate as opposed to being radically different from other methods of telling time--revolutions around the sun are still 'years' and rotations of the earth on its axis are still 'days', etc. It isn't exact to the nanosecond, but that is generally accepted to be A-OK. (We build in Leap Year, etc., to correct for the small inaccuracies that accrue.) But the astronomical observations are still very much the basis for our calendar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year It is leap second system that keeps us (Universal Time) withing solar time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second because Earth rotation speed varies, but if you read the article wholly you will see that time keeping currently isn't necessary most straightforward thing. Also Gregorian calendar was invented to keep date of Easter better in place. Anyway we adjust our time system constantly because of traditions to track time by using astronomical observations, but because those observations aren't accurate enough there is need to adjust our calendars/clocks so that they give us impression that they follow those observations. So do we base our calendar on those observations or do we just keep track on them and from out of convenience towards our traditions make it so that our observations match with our calendar, at least some of them.

I would argue that build diversity is quite good in this game compared to other class based CRPGs that there are. Only 3+ edition D&D games definitely offer greater class build diversity and even with them you could argue that most build options are just bad or they are based on ability to multi-class and especially on prestige classes. But I hope that expansion packs and possible sequel will add much more diversity in class builds and maybe new classes and something similar to prestige class system. Multi-classing base classes isn't necessary thing that I would like to see.

Number of special conversation options that player can choose per class are following Cipher: 11 Priest: 9 (total for all priests) Fighter: 5 Wizard: 4 Rogue: 3 Ranger: 3 Barbarian: 3 Monk: 2 Chanter: 2 Druid: 1 Paladin: 1 (total all paladins) I searched matches from conversation files by using search script so there is possibility for false positives as I didn't check all the results There is possibility that Paladins and Priest may have more conversation options but they aren't called by their class, but instead of their faith or order. These numbers don't include cases where NPC refer to players class.

Now when I look Anni Iroccio calendar I find one thing bit strange in how it is represented us in guides and game. As there are 16 months that are 20 days each, which means 320 days addition these there are four mid season times three days long each meaning total 12 days, months and mid seasons are total 332 days, and last two days of the year are reserved for New Year and Mid Year. Because New Year and Mid Year seem to be quite important in this calendar system but there are no Vailian traslations for those days as far as I can see in guides or the game. PrimeJunta you can divide day in three points by using system sunrise, noon and sunset. Midnight is quite arbitrary definition that isn't actually always as easy to spot by observing celestial bodies as those three other points are. Which is why dividing day in three isn't necessary any stranger than dividing it to four parts. Midnight brings symmetry for noon, but need for such symmetry don't necessary exist in every culture.

Maybe Eora orbits around a twin-star, and the perceived trajectory of their sun(s) doesn't automatically set a "halfway" point the way our "noon" (the Sun's highest point in its arc) does. Or maybe their sun is just one (which is what appears to be the case from the wiki), but its arc isn't as defined as our Sun's, which makes dividing the daylight time into an even number of fractions, problematic. Hence Eorans preferred to divide the day in 27 hours (which, mind you, might not even be similar to Earth hours: they could be 40 minutes long, or 90 minutes long each). Even here on Earth, the day hasn't always been split into 24 hours. For example, many people in Europe divided the day in 7 "segments", during the middle ages (each segment corresponded to some religious moment/prayer/function). Let us not let our own habits and biases take over our perception of what's "different": of course a non-24-hours day sounds "weird" to us, but there might be lots of practical (well, fictionally so) reasons behind such choices. Ultimately, it makes sense to me to consider this choice just a "device" to give the world of Eora an "exotic/alien but relatable to/familiar" flair. Our current clock is combination of Egyptian 10 day light hours + 2 two twilight hours and 12 night hours (where length of hour changed depending on time of year as daylight was measured by sun dials and night time measured by observing 36 star groups called "decans" and this measurements changed somewhat depending on Earth's position with Sun) and from Babylonian's who used number system based on 60, which is why we have hours that are 60 minutes and minutes that are 60 seconds, although we didn't adopt their clock system that was divided on 360 units called "ush", but we have adopted their 360 degrees for circle system. Chinese had clock system where they had divided day in 100 units called "ké", which was later on changed to system of 96 ké, because they also used another time measuring system/unit called "shi"/"double hours"/"Chinese hour" (that is based on their astronomical system Earthly Branches, which is based on observing orbit of Jupiter, which has about 12 year (11.86) orbit time, which works with 12 months of year, 12 zodiacs, 12 directions and this things of twelves was perfected with 12 hour clock system) and clock divided on 100 units and clock divided on 12 units don't mesh well with each other which lead eventually change of 100 ke clock to 96 ke clock in 1628 (there may have been western influence as change happened during time of arrival of Jesuit missionaries and 1/96 divination means that one ké is fifteen western minutes/quarter of hour). There has been also time when day has been divided in 108 ké and 120 ké. Today we have changed our standard time definition to system that is no longer based on the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, but on atomic time. As a second is defined as: "9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom." and length other standard time units are based on that definition.

I would say that people of Eora did go with 9 hours of morning, 9 hours of day, and 9 hours of night system.

Cities: Skylines is Paradox's game where PoE is Obsidian's game. So I would guess that it is Obsidian if anybody that will release sale numbers for PoE. It should be also noted that Paradox has been quite open with C:S's sales numbers as they are record numbers in their company's history they have released several sales figures already for it.

I like the all the characters and I don't have any beefs on how they are written or voiced. I voted Durance because he draw shortest straw because I am not found of how mechanics behind his personal quest work and as personality wise he is quite dislikeable jerk.

They were originally going route where every class uses their souls power to power their abilities, but I think they changed this explanation during development as people wanted non-magic classes. But originally fighters ability knock people down and do other things were explained that they can rise their strength for short while by channelling power from their soul to their hit. And rogues were able to use their soul power to make people not notice them and so on. I am not sure what explanation if any they currently use. Ciphers are only class that have abilities to touch other people's souls although animancer have find "scientific" ways to do so too, but I don't think that is because power of their soul but other means that have ability to manipulate power of souls. Methods for this aren't described very accurately anywhere at least I haven't found any comprehensive explanations.

Please... So you find logical creature with no eyes can be blinded?.. Or total fire composed creature can burn....This is lazy....And kinda stupid...Some ennemy must have some immunity don't doing so means go in the realm of nonsense...and see a creature with no eyes blinded no matter how you turn the table but sound Lame and stupid.. This things is what add to gameplay strategy and depth.. Deny them is just a lazy decision no excuses... That was a bad choice... And not logic at all.. If creature is not blind already then it should be possible to blind it somehow because it has some sort optic nerve or sensor that gives it ability to see things around it. So if creature don't have any way to see things around it it should have blinded status already, but maybe have some abilities that negate some of those minuses. And then there should be consideration should they be able to attack rogues that are used their ability to become invisible etc. things. And creatures that are totally composed from fire, what is the material that burns and creates those flames, oxygen in air? What is the force that keeps it in coherent form? What gives it ability to move? Why this things should be immune to all the heath even if they can resist heat that comes from burning oxygen/etc.. It is not logical that they would have immunity towards every heat based attack regardless how much energy it has backing it. It is like saying that things that can resist campfire can resist heat in heart of sun. If you bring logic in things of magic then go all the way or leave it to be.

Can certainly come across like it when a Twitter jihad falls on you (which was that person's aim with this, see the begging for Cross to post about it). Also, get over yourself, the thread makes you sad and you think it's idiotic...so...don't click on it ? It maybe hard when thousand of peoples express their opinions about your art and demand changes in it, especially when their demands come from very narrow point of view that is obscured by opinions of others, but anyway they have right to express those opinions and you have every right not heed them or even ignore them wholly. These days it can be quite hard if you can't handle peoples opinions of your art/products but I don't feel this Twitter "jihad's" actions to be any different from that other "jihad" that rose to opposite it and started to spread message that Obsidian is pro censorship, weak minded their products shouldn't be supported and so on and so forth. Even though I feel that actions from both groups of people were idiotic and unreasonable I don't think that they are censorship and I think that claiming that they are is just idiotic. Maybe I read this topics because I have masochist side or just like to be depressed, but mainly it is because of I use "Next Unread Topic" -link when I read these forums. And awful truth is that I can't always live for standards of my ideals as I am just as flawed as anybody else and also have my moments when I act as idiotic and moronic person that is just wrong.

Any content that somebody for any reason finds offensive is offensive content, regardless what anybody else claims or what was content creator's intent, because it offended somebody for some reason and therefore caused offense and this means that it is offensive content. Content being offensive towards somebody isn't problem itself especially in art where rising feelings in those who consume the art is usually the purpose of said art. People expressing their dislike towards content they feel to be offensive for them also is not problem as customer critic isn't just acceptable but important way to give feedback about things for creator and other people that maybe interested about product. Asking/demanding changes in product also is not problematic, but something that people have right to do and it is often important way to get products that people like Expressing dislike towards asked changes is also okay thing, as it gives creator feedback that people are okay or even like the content that some find offensive People expressing opinion that they don't find content offensive or understand why somebody could find it offensive is also OK thing to do. It is also OK for creator to change their content because of feedback they get It is also OK for people express that they didn't like changes that creator did or explanations why they did those changes It is also OK for creator to change their feeling about content after they have received feedback about it as it is just way to learn or getting more/different perspective about things There is also nothing wrong in expressing that you find content in your game that you didn't create yourself being problematic/hateful/etc. even if other don't agree with you And there is nothing wrong in expressing that you don't like opinions that other people have about content even if it is expressed by creator of content themself Claiming that any action described above is censorship is just plain stupid, but people have right to do so even though they are just wrong and idiotic IMO. Even though this kind conversations and controversies are OK and often important in society level it is sad to see that they hurt art that I like and would like to see more especially when content and conversations and controversies aren't even about the art itself but additional content that comes with it that don't have impact in art itself. So continue your silly debate if you want but I just hope that it dies down soon or moves in somewhere else where I don't need to see it anymore as it just make me sad to see it to continue day after day. And of course it should be noted that this is my opinion not any universal truth as there is no universal truth about this sort of things which is why they can rise such debates, and which is why this debates are just full of opinions, feelings and reactions from every direction.

Stats it gives were changed in update, as before update it gave just +4 Fortitude +4 Reflex +2 Resolve, so I think that they decided to change it so that it gives more bonuses but forgot remove two previous enchantments from it. And now it gives you two different enchantments for same saves, which causes it to suppress lower ones. Difficult to say if they intended it to give +14 or just +10 as it does now.

It's still a sentient being. The Vithrack have an advanced civilization and are pretty okay with going out of the way of other races. You can't fault them for attacking when you encroach on their territory. Considering the little birth races of the Vithrack and how other kith races just love going to war with each other... can't really blame them for not even trying to build communications. And this Vithrack in particular was fighting for survival of their children. No "redeemable qualities" indeed. Where do you get this info about their civilization and being that sentient? The way they were presented was that one creature being able to have simple communication and asking you to let him go after 30+ spiders tried to murder you before. I have absolutely no clue if they are going to really be dangerous or not but since all spiders I ever ran into just tried to murder me, I got no reason to believe they are also not going to murder other humans down the line. I got a Guidebook with lore on all the races, so I use that. Also one can read up on Vithrack in backer updates. AND I also talked to the Vithrack in Caed Nua and they were rather dope. Like with all races, some are ****, some are reasonable, others are just downright sweet and nice. So I don't feel one can just label them "monsters" and leave it at it. Than it is a badly written quest that is dependant on information that is not given to most players. And even with that information that one representative didn't show any reason to let him go and why that would be a benevolent thing to do. It is benevolent thing to do because that Vithrack will remember that you let them go and your party members will think that you let it go because you are soft hearted like everybody else who hears about the encounter. Dispositions are your personal reputation in world and how other characters see you. They aren't general moral judgement for your deeds as game don't offer any such thing, you need to decide yourself what actions you feel to be good and what actions you feel to be bad and face the consequences that everybody in the game world don't necessary share your moral code. So even if your disposition is benevolent it don't necessary mean that you are morally good person but that people see you as compassionate, soft hearted, weak, good doer, idiot, easy mark, champion of the weak, etc things. And you aren't necessary bad person if your disposition is cruel or angry, but it is just how people see you, some can see that you are just thug and other can see you as strong willed person that does what is necessary for greater good. To actually roleplay your character I would turn off meta game information about dispositions as those of then distract you from choosing option that your character would choose as you pick instead disposition option that you think fits for your character, which is in my opinion dumb thing to do if you don't play some kind disposition min-max play through to see how they effect in conversations and other things in the game.

One of my characters had 4 point in benevolent, honest, diplomatic and clever and she still got the offer to help Woedica, she also killed all the Skanites. Maybe you need to do that quest for that group of gods where Skaen is one or maybe you just encountered some scripting bug which caused that said conversation didn't pop up.

if I'm not mistaken, Feargus once went on record saying Obsidian burned through roughly 1 million USD each month. so, 4 million would only fund 4 months of development. everything else had to come out of their own pockets. I imagine this is why they have partnered up with Paradox, they need all the extra money they can get to keep the studio opened You need to get the proper context... That is 1 million dollars a month in operating costs for the company. That's everything added together, most likely including things like the South Park and the Tanks project at the time. The Kickstarter money got earmarked for the PoE project. Paradox didn't "invest" in Obsidian, but offered their distribution channels and help fulfilling backer rewards in return for a small slice of the cake. In Paradox Boss' own words, they didn't make a lot of money from it, it just as much a prestige thing for them (and guesswork from my side, paving the way for more future cooperation). I would be surprised if there ever was more than 20 people working simultaneously on PoE making it a "miniscule" project as such things go. From what I gather from posts and interviews that they have made, they run out kickstarter money in sometime of last summer or autumn which should give you ability make rough estimation how much PoE burned money in average per month. They collected about $4.1 million during KS, from this about 10% goes to KS and transaction payments leaving them with about $3.7 million, from which they need to pay taxes and backer rewards, lets say that this took them about 20% of their budget with Paradox deal leaving them with about $3 million for the game itself. Which they burned in 20-26 months which would mean that they burned about $115k-$150k per month. PoE's team members salaries are probably in between $50k and $100k per month plus other expenses that employer needs to pay addition to salary per employee, let say this is about 10% additional cost (which are probably bit higher than what those costs really are, but difference in results should be marginal enough that it don't matter). Which would mean that real cost of people probably between $55k and $110k year meaning about $4.5k - $9.2k per month which would mean that average number of man-months (meaning full month worth of work hours by somebodies) put in PoE per month would be somewhere between 12 and 33. NB! All numbers are very rough estimates and they should not be taken as accurate information in anyway or -form but just as rough estimates which they are.

Oh, absolutely. They have to be taken on an individual basis. And this one, as an individual, doesn't even bother to warn visitors that it has no hospitality. It just tries to murder anyone who stumbles into its territory with a wave of spidery death. That seems problematic. You both are damn looters. There is no justice in here, unless Glanfathans come in and slaughter everyone. And they have the right to do that why, again? Because the Engwithans asked them to? I feel like there might be a contradiction in place here. It is law of the land and it is their land because they say so and they are willing to use deathly force to back their claim. That is how every country in existence determine what land is theirs and where their laws are the laws that people need to follow or face the consequences. Of course if you feel to be conquer you can try to kill those that oppose your claim for the land and if you are victorious then you can determine what laws there are on that piece of land.

In my opinion Paladin's as excellent reliable (their auras are constant buffs) care free (their support abilities need only marginal management and they are resilient towards damage) that have best auto attack capacity from support classes. I usually have Paladin in my party to will both secondary support and secondary ranged dps/tank roles. Priest are excellent in full support but they are very poor to second any other role and they need to take their time to cast buffs. Chanter's are bit more flexible in support than paladins, but their support abilities also take some time and they do poorer job in seconding ranged dps than paladins, in secondary tank role they are about as good. So in my opinion paladins are good class and they constantly have place in my parties, but I could see arguments made that their late game support capacities could be bit higher, as now their auras don't currently have anything that gives them similar boost in their abilities as high level phrases+invocations do for chanters and high level spells do for priests. They don't necessary need such boost if you use them in double secondary role, but it also would not make them overpowered and could give them bit better overall feeling withing players about their capacities.

Meeting and faction that backs you up has quite heavy impact in end sequence of the game and there is some impact in how people react on you if you go back in Defiance Bay after riots. It just don't have consequences that benefit you directly and immediately, but it has consequences and meaning. And Thaos don't do what you suggest because his power has limit and he would not had assasinated the Duc if you hadn't spoiled his other plans, and you will see that his assassination of the Duc will eventually lead destruction of everything that he had build over millennia (if you don't later on the game decide prevent that from happening). So it was desperate measure from him that eventually causes his plans to fail completely.

How on earth would you even roleplay that scenario? There is no good-neutral-evil sort of options on the table. There is no "you can siphon energy from the machine to your benefit," there is no "you can activate it again to wipe out another part of the city," what you're doing is undeniably good. You gain positive karma regardless of what you choose to do there, and you do a good thing regardless of what you do. Deactivating the machine is half-assing it, blowing it up is doing the full job. To destroy the machine, you have to destroy the souls as well. My character wanted the machine destroyed but ultimately wasn't willing to pay that price. One of characters had difficulties in her decision to blow the machine up because it meant destroying all those souls but at end she decided that blowing it up it is only way that she knows to prevent anybody ever again using machine to steal souls from others and she will answer for her god about her decision when that time comes up in sometime in future. Another character decided that machine should be spared because there could be option to use it to reverse its effects or at least it should be studied and understood better before it is destroyed. So you can roleplay it in both ways if you feel like it. Of course meta game knowledge can some times be such that it is hard to ignore, but I am lucky that it is somewhat easy thing for me, because I usually can make myself to select only things that I think my character would choose instead of choosing best options by using my meta game knowledge.

Hah, you think that getting in swordfights should make you better at fighting with swords? Ridiculous. Like sneaking lot should make you better in sneaking, and running around should make you better in running around, etc.. But now you mainly get better in things when you do things that people ask you do which is just incomprehensible idea especially in RPGs.