Elerond

That is not just true, because they put in their own money in form of producing rewards that they promised backers. It is just falsehood to claim that producing those rewards is free for Obsidian. Every backer was free to decide if promised reward was enough to compensate what you/we gave them.

They (Paradox) are actually smaller of two

I would guess that it depends mainly on Prima (maker of the guide), because I think that they are ones that responsible of producing and selling guide books. I just pre-ordered the hardcover and while the listing displays a release date, the order page says it will notify me by email when the book is available to ship. Which is slightly concerning, I thought pre-order items generally are advertised to ship on release date. It's probably nothing, I would be shocked if this guide sells out before release. Well, shocked and elated, I want PoE to do well. If you ordered it from Amazon, then that is quite normal as they don't want to be hold accountable if there is delays in production, which is why they don't promise shipping dates before they have product in their stock.

That is what Obsidian meant when they said 'no romances' though. So if you are thinking they meant 'no romances at all' then that was not what they were saying. At least this is what I think on the matter. I have pretty good knowledge what Obsidian did mean and what they didn't mean, I was pointing that somebody should not put words in others mouths as they are usually wrong and I would say that you don't need to worry what I am thinking either

I would say that you are wrong, as that is not what I asked when I asked romances in PoE in 2012, as I explained then already, so I wouldn't generalize what people want, but listen what they say they want. But there is people among PoE's backers that want/wanted romance-able companions and probably wouldn't minded if those included dialog mini-game, as even though they are cheesy and usually don't have natural story flow they can still be quite entertaining, and entertainment is usually what people want from games.

Currently there is only pre-orders for physical copy of guide. But I would guess that GamersGate (.com / co.uk) will sell digital version after release and other similar stores. When they release details on how they will deliver digital copies to backers, I can buy you copy if it is possible to gift them (which I think there probably will be, as I don't think that they will give direct downloading links for those add-on copies).

I would point that their deal with Paradox is about marketing and distribution, which are both things that they would never done in any circumstances by themselves as they don't have necessary infrastructure and expertise to do those things. Also Paradox helps them with localisation of the game, which is also thing that they don't have expertise of themselves to do. In my opinion there isn't anything unethical in asking price that you think you product is worth even if you haven't invested much off your own money in it (I would point out that Obsidian has had to invest money from other sources in PoE as KS money wouldn't had been enough). And I would point out that they will finance expansion pack from profits from PoE and their company's fund.

That is only way that you can design game that has finish state, as critical path is all the segments that player has to go through to finish the game.

I don't see that using Kickstarter to fund sequel is not any different than from studio going to publisher and asks them to fund sequel (given that studio owns game's IP), as in both cases they have proven their product and in both cases they don't want take whole financial burden/risk by themselves. I would also say that backing sequel of product is less risky for people than backing new wholly new product, as company has already proven their ability to complete KS project and backers need to guess much less what kind product they will get, as they already have existing product that they can look. And I would also point out that there is lots of successful sequel projects in Kickstarter, like for example Pebble watch run KS project in 2012 that got over $10 million dollars worth of pledges and now they run new KS for improved version of their product and it has already got over $15 millions worth of pledges and it isn't yet even half way of their campaign. So I would say, if Obsidian decides to run KS for PoE's sequel after PoE has proven to be good game, that it has very high change that it would be successful.

Druid are meant to be class that can replace wizard, where paladin and chanter are replacement classes for priest, but by my experience with backer beta I would say that you can make party work with any possible composition of classes in any difficulty level.

You can buy physical guide from here, it and gamestop are only places where one (including backers) currently can buy the guide http://www.amazon.com/Pillars-Eternity-Prima-Official-Guide/dp/1101898232 Backers can buy digital editions of guide, but I don't know how their gifting will (or will not) work as we have quite little details on how they will be delivered to us.

I would guess that it depends mainly on Prima (maker of the guide), because I think that they are ones that responsible of producing and selling guide books.

Wasteland 2 will get Xbox One port https://twitter.com/BrianFargo/status/572898069106184192

You enjoy correct details, so if I may, USA, or NSX or FBI, is an initialism. A letter-word spoken as a word, like NASA, is an acronym. Sorry, I'll show myself out. I was born in Provo, Utah, USA ... another reason to shamefully show myself out. This is where me being Finnish comes in, as in Finnish USA is usually used as acronym, and spelled as "U-sa" (using Finnish pronunciation for the syllables of course), probably because "U-S-A" has bit funny sound in it in Finnish pronunciation. But I should had remembered that same isn't case in English.

I would guess that they have as darkness is done in my understanding by changing global illumination level.

Creating own areas is possible, but it is quite difficult task, because creating area is not easy task if you want keep visual quality that original areas have and scripting and 'hacking' in those self made areas also demand coding+unity expertise that most people don't have. So to make new areas you (or your modding team) need to excel in 3d area design and have good knowledge about coding and unity, but it is possible, but same time I would not predict lots of new area mods.

Australia is counted as continent in all generally used landmass continent divination systems but three continent divination (Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica). Commonwealth of Australia, Australia as short has got it name from Continent that it locates, same way as United States of America is sometimes called America, although acronym USA is more popular. Sometimes term Oceania is used to denote Australia continent, even though it is officially name for region that locates about in same area, although both Oceania and Australia (continent) have regions that other don't have. In technical content other terms to used to denote Australia continent are Sahul, Australinea or Meganesia (from wikipedia), when there is need to distinguish it from the Australian mainland. Although in questionnaires and even generally speaking term Oceania is preferred as Micronesia and Polynesia aren't part of any continent (in continent divination systems that are based on landmass continents).

Obsidian didn't promised comprehensive mod support or mod tools for PoE, but they said they try their best to make game's files such that they are edit able and there is no systems that prevents such editing. They also made deal with nexus for distribution of mods https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/323119 Their publishing deal with Paradox is distribution deal, and money that they got/saved (which way you want to look it) because of that deal went to improve PoE itself. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65751-pillars-of-eternity-%E2%80%93-partnership-faq-for-backers/ EDIT: Of course it would be nice if they open even more PoE's files in released version or in future patch.

Should the days be dark as night like they are in real life, too? I'm happy I don't live north of the polar circle … Of course

Bah nights should be bright as day like they are in real life

Anywhere you decide buy the game there is somebody else (if not anybody else there is always payment handling company and tax man) that takes cut of payment before it reaches Obsidian. But if you want to support Obsidian most I would guess that they get most money from those most expensive versions of game that come with most additional digital goods when you buy them from one of stores that they advertise on PoE's web page.

Ego stroking is things that make your character feel important and meaningful, in other words build up their ego. I would point out that I actually argued against that latter statement. But anyway I will drop this subject in this thread as it don't have anything to do with it.

Strongly Agree Agree No Opinion Disagree Strongly Disagree Really it's nothing about that. Or Xzar and Montaro, Edwin or Xan make the player feel important and I've failed to see how. I know the first BG didn't put the same depth in its companions background, but they had personality nevertheless. They react towards pc, they comment about pc, they comment what pc is doing, they see pc as someone they can travel with, etc. So they are ego stroking player, they may not be best or most direct ego strokers that there are, but they still all ego stroke player. Ego stroking is quite interesting things as it usually better if player don't realize that it is happening. If we apply your train of thought to food we would say all food is the same because it all just provides carbohydrates, proteins and fat for our body. All the food is food, but they come with different flavors, benefits and negatives just like ego stroking elements in games and too much one thing is usually bad thing.

EDIT: I muttered for some reason information how things where in beginning of beta, instead of how they are now, which is that all damage reduces both health and endurance same amount, but health resource is multiple times bigger than endurance resource. Enemy characters have only one health resource and they are dead when that runs out.

http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious-graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/ My take to net neutrality is that, ISP sell consumers and companies certain amount bandwidth per second that is sometimes limited with maximum number of bytes that they can download/upload in day/week/month and usually their up/download bandwidth divination is such that download is wider than upload because download bandwidth is usually cheaper of two for ISPs. And if consumer or company wants to use or offer service to other consumers or companies that are in other ISPs customers then their ISPs pay each other for the network use, usually in such way that ISP that has data uploader in their network pays more than ISP that has data downloader in their network, but of course this depends on what those ISPs have agreed with each other. And therefore ISPs should never be in situation where amount of usage by their consumers cause them monetary or capacity problems except if they have sold bandwidth that their network don't actually have capacity to offer for their customers to get more money from them without actually investing in their network, by believing that their consumers don't actually never or rarely will use all the bandwidth they are buying. Which is where problems with high bandwidth services like Netflix come in and why ISPs want to limit/ask special compensation from them. And situation is not helped by fact that most of this high bandwidth services are in direct competition with other services that ISPs provide.