Elerond

In BG new commands were usually needed every 6 seconds if you were a spell caster and any non-caster usually fought same enemy until that one dies which didn't happen for few rounds (6 second = 1 round) unless they were trash mobs where you didn't even need to pause at all. So you paused at worst about every 6 seconds and at best until anyone on enemy team died. Casual players didn't bother much with effective use of spellcasting and just paused to give troops new targets after current ones died so they paused even less often. In PoE everything is faster and deadlier and as such asks for pausing much much more often. Also from what I understand, PoE will not support AI scripts for your characters like IE games did. But isn't there a "slow mode"? Yes there is. I would say after playing couple times latest patch on hard using 'fast' mode in all the combats, that combat speed isn't problem or times you need to pause the game, but how difficult it at times to interpret what happens on the screen. Especially in spider caves it is often hard to tell who is hitting who. Also path finding in latest patch is bad especially how game interprets where characters can move. I found myself often in situation where enemies form lines to come get slaughtered big spiders especially seem to have hard time to move in the fight. But anyway my point is that it is not speed of combat that makes thing feel bad at least mainly but other factors that make combat hard to read and feeling quite clumsy.

I would guess that only copy protection systems that game will have are its product keys and limits that store where you buy it puts for it's copies of games.

1. You probably need to wait for expansion or PoE2 to get those, as Obsidian runs out of resources (time and money) to make such additions to PoE. 2. Game has lot of choices that fit in those broad categories, but it don't have general judgement system that will judge your choices. Although game has reputation system that tracks how people perceive your character, but that tracking don't follow good-neutral-evil categories. 3. Deities probably should have some effect in priest spell repertories, but for reason mentioned in first point that probably don't happen in PoE. 4. Global teleport spell are fun but they have also bad habit making event scripting more difficult and leave game breaking holes in them, and PoE uses BG/BG2 style map which reduces impact of global teleportation some what. 5. Characters with survival skill should be able to track in certain points in the game, although hard to say how significant such feat is. Rangers and druids get bonus to their survival skill. 6. You probably will not see any 7. There is ability to use character's special abilities in some conversations, but I don't know if there will be any character that you can talk if you use some sort charming or domination spell to them before conversation. 8. This probably would need new system in place to actually work which probably means that it is in this point of the scope of the game. 9. You gain reputation in conversation depending on what options you choose, but I don't think that there will be money sinks which give you unlimited amount of reputation like in BG.

Paradox has distribution rights and they can probably distribute game as they see best. And for why Obsidian give/sold them to Paradox, dealing with stores (retail or digital) takes man power, because you need someone that can keep up how many keys/copies they have given to any given store and how much money they have got from those and somebody who can check keys that don't work, who can give support for customers who have problems, some one that has time and ability deal with localized issues and so on. So even if Paradox don't sell physical copies deal has saved lot of hassle from Obsidian especially when you count in that Paradox will deal with physical rewards that Obsidian promised for some of their backers. But usually Paradox sells physical copies of games in their catalog, but I would guess that if they produce physical collector editions or similarly packaged copies to be sold in stores then number of those copies will be quite low and number of stores that will sell them limited, as usually over $100 version don't sell that well especially when we speak products that aren't so well known as those that have much larger marketing budget, which mean that stores don't buy much of them in advance and producing small quantities of physical product will rise price that Paradox needs to pay for them.

It is quite late for that, as backgrounds are prerendered and hand finished, changing camera angle in this point of time would mean that they would need to render all the maps again and redo finishing touches. I would guess that concerns about camera angle should have been expressed when we saw first demos how game will look.

If you are player that likes more story side of rpg I would recommend to speak to people and look things so that you can get to know lore and some of the character's If you like combat I would recommend to leave starting map soon as possible and go one of the other maps and hunt down local wild life and maybe find your way to one of the dungeons If you like exploration then you probably should make yourself familiar with stealth and searching mechanic of the game and start to find hidden things from the maps. Mix and stir this aspects so that you find balance that corresponds with you preferences. If you find all three aspects to be dull in beta then I would recommend to wait final release, so that beta will don't eat your willingness to play it.

In Finland public spending in our school system and culture is 6.6 billion euros (8.1 billion dollars), which includes schooling for everyone from kindergartens to universities and public support for arts, sports and research, if we multiply it with proportional population difference between Finland and USA (about 60) we get about 490 billion dollars, which is less than what they say USA uses to public elementary and secondary schools. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 So I would guess that it is not just government aid in higher education that makes things more expensive.

Absolutely deplorable. I honestly have no words. Taking money from disabled people... Jesus ****ing Christ. Charity organization not participating in some event because of reason that people didn't found acceptable seems to be good reason to DDOS said charity organization and remove their home page, I am quite sure that this absolute ensures that disabled people now get their money... https://twitter.com/AbleGamers/with_replies https://twitter.com/EbolaChan_/status/541669859931992064 It maybe as they say, but tweet that links site ping without time stamps about 10 minutes after report that server is back up, don't work as actual evidence of anything else than that server has been up at least in some point of time. So in this I trust bit more organization that has run over 10 years and has won several awards from reputable sources and has official charity status over anonymous twitter account. But only evidence to any direction is that all 27 domains in server in IP address 69.167.140.175 which host most AbbleGamer's domains return blank page.

Absolutely deplorable. I honestly have no words. Taking money from disabled people... Jesus ****ing Christ. Charity organization not participating in some event because of reason that people didn't found acceptable seems to be good reason to DDOS said charity organization and remove their home page, I am quite sure that this absolute ensures that disabled people now get their money... https://twitter.com/AbleGamers/with_replies

Higher general education level benefits everybody, as it ensures that people know what they are doing in their jobs, and it also make it easier to ensure that people get that education which they want making them more productive members of society. This is reason why education for example in is payed from taxes from kindergarten to doctorate level in universities and addition to pay education state also gives student allowance that ensures that people can study without need to worry how they can pay their rent and food when they study (some of this allowance is paid in form of cheap loans). This system makes Finnish education system equal opportunity system to anybody from any economical and social background. I don't say that Finnish education system is necessary better than education systems in USA, but I would not change it even though I now pay it from my taxes, but I got my University education to paid by state and I am from economical and social background that it is high probably that I wouldn't had afforded similar level schooling if I had lived in USA for example. But anyway point is that education of citizens is first and foremost for common-good of the country so it should be paid from common funds, as that ensures that country has better ability to compete in markets and develop to better place to live. For same reason I support publicly funded universal health care systems, because it has higher probability to ensure healthy public from bottom to top which means that society as general has higher change to be more productive as whole. Although I must admit that my view to this things is heavily biased as I have lived my whole life in country which has publicly funded education and universal healthcare and I have benefit form both greatly.

In Finland there has been 110 police officers that have died in line of duty in last 97 years, which includes our civil war and World War II, in years after the wars there has been 21 officers that have died in line of duty. So it is quite hard to perceive situation and culture where cops in USA live from my point of view, because over hundred officer dying in line of duty every year is lot even for 60 times larger country.

So Target is banned themselves to selling game in Australia? Do I ban myself from buying the game if I decide not buy it?

"Target has chosen to ban the game. It's a ban." How Target banned a game? Are people forbidden to bring copy with them when they go there or do Target have some public listing site/place where people can't anymore list their copies to be sold or do this ban manifest in some other form that I didn't mentioned? Removing product from their catalog is not banning at least any sense of word ban that I know, so I don't count that to be an act of banning.

Yeah. It's a Korean MMO called Black Desert, most likely it will never see the light of day out west. Boo It has publisher in EU and NA and they are working to produce English client for the game http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/24/black-deserts-na-and-eu-publisher-is-daum/ http://2p.com/3235374_1/Pearl-Abyss-Is-Working-on-Black-Deserts-English-Client-by-Nichole.htm

The link really undermines the neutrality of the article. They are right in saying that Target has a say in what they sell on their stores just like the consumer can go elsewhere where the game is sold. The article has its leftist leaning but for the most part it makes its point well, inadvertently offers some suggestions (some which have already been put into action) and remains unoffensive. Which is a bit bothering because it leaves me without someone to blame as well. I somehow wonder if they would've written a similar article if Gone Home was banned because of homosexual material. But before Target or any other similar market chain could remove Gone Home from their stores they would need first take it on their catalogs, which they don't do because they feel that it is niche product that don't sell for their customers, which for some reason don't cause uproar and people claiming that they are banning or censuring it.

I must say that these cases have shown that I don't have any clue of what Grand juries job is in american legal system. Previously I though that they were body that decided do prosecutor have enough evidence that person that they accuse could be suspected to commit the crime they are accused and it is courts job then do decide if person is actually guilty and were there mitigating circumstance or circumstances that even justified person, that is accused, actions. But after these cases it seems that grand juries can judge were accused actions justified or not or they can decide that killing a person isn't a crime at all in US in come circumstances or if it is done by certain person or when target comes from certain background. Anyway it seems quite strange system where there is lots of power obscured behind closed doors that can produce quite unequal and hard to understand decision about legality of certain actions. Riots are never justified, but they are always symptom of some issue in society, which can be deeply rooted and difficult to pinpoint. But one thing is certain that people will protest and riot when they feel that society oppress them and they don't have anything or little to lose. Kiev's protest and riots seem to get much more understanding here than these, even though in both primary cause is same people trust towards government and legal system has crumpled and they want change (even though they don't necessary agree or even know what that change should be). Grand juries decision not to indict officers in question don't work as good reasoning for people that feel that legal system is corrupt and that society oppress them, but instead such arguments usually only add more fuel in the flames, because such arguments usually only manage make people's preconceptions even stronger, as when you justify that thing is so because governmental body that you feel is corrupt say so is usually best way to ensure that person who thinks so is even more against decision than what they previously were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_water

Mask of the Betrayer has 5 full companions, among them one romanceable straight male and one romanceable straight female. Did anyone complain about "lack of inclusivity" or "very few romanceable NPCs" when reviewing MotB? No, because there were no such expectations in the first place. I know that there were people (including myself) that complained about it, because we hoped more options and ability define our characters better. I would also point out that there was no inclusive romances in Bioware's game in that time either, if you don't count romance option with Juhani in Kotor, which was bugged and most people don't even no that it exist and that female characters had possibility to unlock romance path with Silk Fox in Jade Empire, which some don't even accept to be real romance path. It was people that complained lack of such options in their previous games that convinced Bioware add two character's that were romance-able by both female and male player characters. Which was prove to be success in degree that Bioware didn't excepted, which you can see from romance options in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 and how they changed things to Mass Effect 3. Did you know that Fallout 2 by Black Isle studios which key members founded Obsidian Entertainment in later date was first game that featured same-sex marriage and it was in form that player character could marry (or more accurately be forced to marry) same-sex npc. And that Obsidian originally planed that Gannayev-of-Dreams could be romanced by both genders in Mask of the Betrayer ("we wanted to make Gann in Mask of the Betrayer a bi-sexual, for example, because that felt true to how he perceived love"), but male romance option was removed because of request from Wizards of the Coast.

Backer beta was released in beta state, which means state where developers call their product beta. Different developers have different criteria when they call their product to be in beta state. What people that aren't developers of said product should take from terms like release candidate, beta, alpha and pre-alpha is that they don't think that product is yet fully finished and if you want know more specific what they think that they still need to do, you should read their definitions, as they are only definitions that actually can give you some hints in what developers think their product will still need before they claim that it is finished.

This are all things that Obsidian has promised to focus so that game will offer a top notch experience in these aspects. Backer Beta shows in it limited scope that Obsidian seems to have kept their promise and continues to produce top notch narrative experiences where player's decisions matter. It is one aspect in their games that their fans are most confident that they can produce in way they like, as it is usually reason why we are their fans in first place. Immersion is quite large umbrella term that means several different aspects of the game at same time, which is why it often means different things for different people, but we can partition it to its core aspects and analyze/guess how PoE probably will fare on them. Obsidian's games have nearly always had good narrative immersion (or emotional immersion), which means that players (readers, watchers, listeners depending on media) become invested in story, meaning that it actually matters for them what happens in that story and they have preferences and ideas how it should go and they even create emotional connections with the characters in the story. Because this kind immersion happened to me in backer beta at least in some degree, I am quite confident that same will be case in full game and story. Another aspect of immersion is tactical immersion (or sensory-motoric immersion), which means that game or something else that person is doing needs physical skill from person to be mastered and this mastery makes person feel that they are "in the zone" or "in the fire" or some similar expression that describes that person has focus and skill to excel in said task. Tactical immersion is aspect of immersion in which PoE probably will not offer in such scope that it will keep players playing it. Strategic immersion (or cognitive immersion) is aspect of immersion that means mental challenges which keep people interested on the product, this could for example to be picking right/correct/best solution from broad array of solutions. Strategic immersion is something that PoE's combat aims more than tactical immersion, but as roleplaying game PoE's story and other narrative aspects will have at least some aspects that will/should give player strategic immersion. Last aspect of immersion is spatial immersion which means feeling that person is part of the game/product or in the game/product, which is probably aspect of immersion that PoE is least capable to give for its players, as its nature and mechanics aim to separate player from the game.

I didn't find any masterwork/superb tier 3 stuff for mages. But many schematics are random drops, so it isn't guaranteed that you find them. Although I would guess if you farm giants in Emerald Graves you probably eventually get every random drop schematic that there are. I know there's the Archon Staff, which you get for doing a long string of missions for Iron Bull, but no word on any other schematics. I found archmage's staff, which is tier 3 schematic but it isn't masterwork/superb. It is about as good as best unique(purple) staffs that you can find, but relatively to schematics that I found for other weapon types it is quite weak, but if you make one from dragon parts and attach superb rune on it it has something 170-200 dps. Here is reddit thread where they speak about good place to farm tier 3 schematics http://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2nrfup/tier_3_schematic_farm_method_1080p_60fps_available/

I didn't find any masterwork/superb tier 3 stuff for mages. But many schematics are random drops, so it isn't guaranteed that you find them. Although I would guess if you farm giants in Emerald Graves you probably eventually get every random drop schematic that there are.

Several spells don't fall into that category: Summoning spells, illusion spells, some divination spells, etc. "I would guess that they have gone towards this route because they don't want make player choose between characters' combat and non-combat capability during level upping" So they removed the role-playing from the character progression system? Great... Though I've seen the simplicity that is the skill system already. Five broad categories with no room for personalization. Thank you for the detailed explanation, seriously. Illusion spells are mostly damage buff or debuff spells in CRPG versions of AD&D, invisibility spells are I remember only illusion spells that don't fall on those categories, although I would but mirror image and similar spells (which PoE wizards have) to summoning spells but earlier in this thread you disagreed with such categorizing, although you said them belong in illusion spells, which means that there I at least some spell in PoE for Wizards that go with your strange (for me) categorizing for non-battlemage spells. Divination spell at least in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 focused mainly on non-combat application although some where such that they also dispelled illusion based combat buffs. Broadness of skill system depends on which perspective you look at it. From AD&D perspective it adds more depth, but if you look it from perspective of much more complex skill system it is where simplified one. Also they didn't remove role-playing from character progression, as they make new system that is not based on any existing one so they can't remove or add anything, and their main source of inspiration AD&D don't have role-playing options in character progression either (except if you reckon that thief skills or wizards spells that they learn outside of character level progression are such). I also would point out that leveling up is not only character progression method that there is in PoE, as there is also reputation system that keeps count how people see your character's actions and character sheet that keeps track on how you have chosen to identify your character. PoE is focused heavily on party based combat, it is one of the main pillars which Obsidian used to sell it for their backers, which is probably reason why they created system where combat is system is mostly separated from their role-playing system which is mainly build around their quest, conversation, reputation and event system, cross-overs mainly only be in their attribute system that works as base for both sides of the game.

Finally a proper answer to my question. It's unfortunate though. AD&D classes were complex and versatile but in PoE it seems to be the opposite, they're more simplistic and focused and therefore not very open to personalization. Like someone mentioned before, Wizards seem to be the archetype of a Battlemage. I would argue that you could say that Battlemage is also only archetype in most AD&D CRPGs that you can play as you can only decide which combat role you specialize them in, because they had little to nothing spells and abilities outside combat, although they were able to effectively fulfill more roles than what PoEs wizards can, but this is deliberate design choice from Obsidian, because they didn't want wizards be similar default party member choice like it was in those games (you could play them without wizard, but that usually made things harder especially in later parts of the games). Archetypes that wizards have in PoE depend on how you specify them. But their main role in game's combat is to be versatile crowd controllers. They can play role of Glass Cannon by focusing on long range spells and doing lots of AoE damage and disabling opponents or by focusing making themselves able take hits in front line by using self boost spells and using cone and other short ranged spells to dismantle charging enemies they can take role of arcane warriors. And of course you can mix this two extremity to something else with addition of their single target spells, which gives them change to work in damage dealing and leadership roles (although they usually can't do as good job as classes that are meant to specialize on those roles). From role-playing perspective main difference between classes in PoE is what role they play in combat, although there is some difference between classes in conversations and how NPCs react towards them. So there is versatility in PoE's wizards but it will never rise on similar level than what you get in AD&D and wizards probably will not be able to compensate other class roles same way as they do in AD&D, as Obsidian don't want PoE's wizards be similar superior beings that they are in AD&D in latter levels. But there is much more choice to personalize your characters in PoE than what there are in AD&D, even though roles that classes can play in combat maybe more restricted, this is because of talents that you can pick for your characters. A Battlemage is a magic user who focuses on spells that are useful in close combat, spells that deal damage, buff self/allies and debuff enemies. I don't particularly care about tactical roles, I'm more interested in actual roles. The classes in PoE were built for combat only it seems. What about role-playing? Did the developers forget about that? Was the whole game built on the idea of balance between the classes in relation to combat? Do you know what my favourite spell in all the history of AD&D computer games was? Contact Other Plane. It had no use in combat yet why did I like it? It had role-playing value. Wait. What do you mean by "leadership roles"? So for you battlemages mean every other magic users that use any other spells than heal (although one could argue that heal is buff) and summoning in combat? Roleplaying aspect of PoE is not tied on its class system, but instead it gives player freedom to explore lots of different type characters regardless of what their class is. This characterization is mainly done via conversations and general decisions how player decides to solve quests. This gives player ability play lots if different roles. Main purpose behind class mechanics is to determine how any particular character works in the combat. There was talk and some promises about non-combat spells during kickstarter campaign, but at least yet we have seen little of those, but from how things are done in backer beta I would guess that non-combat spell usage and spells are tied to conversations and event screens, as we see Ciphers be able to use their mind controlling capability at least one conversation, which is not open to any other class, so I would guess that we probably see similar things more in full game at least in some extent. I would guess that they have gone towards this route because they don't want make player choose between characters' combat and non-combat capability during level upping. Leadership roles in PoE mean characters that focus on buffing your own party and debuffing enemies, main classes that are meant to fulfill this role are Priest, Paladin and Chanter, but wizards has ability to work in such roles, but they aren't necessary as effective. Other main roles in PoE's combat are Damage Dealers (Rogues, Rangers, Ciphers), whose main point is to be able to do lots of single target damage, wizards can also play in this role but not necessary as effective as those that are meant to specialize in it. Then there is front liners (Fighters, Monks and Barbarians), which are meant to be able to take punishment and give it back and also tie enemies in combat so that you other characters have easier time to deal with them or enemy's ranged characters, which is role that wizards can also play like I mentioned in my previous post. And final major role group is crowd controllers which is role that wizard is mainly meant together with druid, although wizards are also meant to be versatile so that they can work in any other major combat role at least in some capacity.

Those events are sponsored by companies that don't necessary necessary want that kind publicity what such comments from athletes bring. In football (soccer) teams can be punished even by actions of their fans not just their players, usually by giving them fine or giving them ban to sell tickets in their matches. Similar practices are common also in other sports. In eSports there isn't currently top organizations that could do such things so only real punishment that event organizers can give such athletes is banning them from the events or marking them to lose their match automatically (which in many cases is effectively same as banning them from event). We will see this kind punishments more and more as eSports become more acknowledged as real sports.