Elerond

That is trivial. In every game even against the computer, you have to make better choices than your opponent. However, improving build/skill is more analogous to which playstyle is more effective. This is what I think you were referring to earlier when you said: Well. Let us take some relevant examples here. I apologize that I can't find the exact quotes: There have been some posts by Josh saying that players exploit save/reload for better results on RNG. Now, that is funny, isn't it? I never did. I am sure many did not. The point is that it shouldn't matter what players do. The job for the developer is to only ensure that the RNG is not too skewed. Same goes for bad class choices. As long as the game carefully explains that a Cleric is a wisdom based class, it does not really have to make "make all stats useful for all classes". Is it too wrong to ask, that no changes in the core mechanics are necessary to just accommodate that? Another relevant example: You do know that we can't break down doors/Chests right? Do you know the reason? It is so because that would make the lockpicking skill apparently useless. Now does that even make sense to you? It doesn't to me. Meaningful don't mean equal, but that choice is meaningful. I am not sure if Josh has said something specially about RNG in skill use and using save/load to win always in those situations, but I know that Josh has said that if he gives player ability to do something in game and it negates challenge that he has created to game then it's his mistake and he will try to avoid such situations at best of his abilities, which means for example that he don't use RNG in skill checks in his designs. I don't have any same to confess that I am one of those players that use save/load to win RNG checks when I can do so in the games, because it is just most efficient way to play and I still can find game fun even when I do so, but I don't lament (anymore I have in past) if developers decide to use different solution in their skill checks. Not be able to break doors don't make sense to me in immersion wise, but as way to create challenge, give more meaning for certain skills/builds or because it just causes too much work compared to advances that it would bring in gameplay (reasons in list are hypothetical examples to help me explain my views about subject) I can understand why they didn't include it in the game and even I would miss ability to bash doors, chest and other things it's not something that breaks or makes game for me. I also miss ability to pick pocket people and non-combat spells, and many other things that game will not have, but even I think that they would make game better to me I accept developers explanation that they didn't fit in scope of the game.

Such attitudes sadly seems to be quite common For example when you read new about how police shot unarmed man, who has criminal record or who was suspected of petty crime, you will find comment section of that news article full of people that will tell you that police actions were not only acceptable but recommendable things to do and that man had it coming and world is better place with out him.

Chess does not satisfy this for example. All options (besides black and white) are not equal. Some strategies are inherently better. That is why people have pretty small set of starting moves. Now that is non-trivially analogous to choosing feats/classes/skills. The point is that not all builds in RPGs are going to be equally effective or at least that is going to really really hard to do. Now, it is an entirely different question whether this is a meaningful goal. I personally think it is not. 1) firstly, why the heck does the developer care how I play? He has no business doing that. His job is to make enjoyable, deep and tactically complex combat system. Give me more options! That is what I want from the dev. By trying to "ultra" balance, he is basically ruining the depth as the focus moves from giving me options to making equally effective but restricted builds. Let me choose how I play! 2) This is a point I have been trying to make since ages: That builds are not useless. The implementation of the content is. let us say that there is a skill called "Decipher script" in one of the iterations of the game. Let us say that there is a particular game developer that decides that this skill was useless in an older iteration. How do they deal with it? a) They add content to match the skill so that it is useful now. b) They remove the skill. I think that is the point: If you really feel that certain builds are hampered due to useless stuff they do, then for christ's sake ADD THAT STUFF as a relevant thing in the game instead of removing the skill! 3) I can't speak for others, but finding out which character builds are OP is something I enjoy, There is actual fun in discovering what you can do better with ever build. Min/Maxing is a game all by itself. Chess has depending situation better and poorer choices, but any of those choice aren't less valid by as themselves. Like for example you can't say that moving queen is always better option than moving soldier. Chess' challenge is to make better choices than your opponent. 1) Developer don't give damn how you play but what ways to play they have given you and are some of those ways against of their vision of the game and challenge that they want game to offer for the player. As game rules aren't meant to be comply with players' play styles but set boundaries in which players try to find right way to play withing those rules. I would compare person complaining that game don't accommodate certain play style to that draughts player complains that that they can't use same play style in chess than what they used in draughts. 2. I would say add, delete or modify stuff accordingly what you think will result best end result, there is no reason to save old things or way to do things just to save them if you get better results with new thing or way to do things. And some times can make things better just by removing bad apples from the pie. 3. It may be fun to find most OP build, but it also may be very frustrating when build that you made don't let you to complete the game. Making sure that every build that you can come up in character creation is viable removes that risk that player finds themselves in situation where they need to rest start the game because choices that they made in character creation prevents them to completing the game or makes playing the game frustrating experience. Making are build viable don't mean that there isn't best build, but that there change that there is multiple as best builds, but that work in different roles or styles of play.

Yeah. Constantine's supposed to be a con-man, trickster and probability warper, not an exorcist. Edit: also, there's the issue of making him straight and non-smoking because REASONS. I've only read the early Jamie Delano run of HELLBLAZER, along with a few sprinklings of Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. He seemed to like women just fine. In my understanding Constantine is bisexual in comics as he sometimes has sexual relationships with men. Although all his serious relationships has been with women.

Some games are easy to balance. Like for example symmetric games like chess, draughts (checkers) and nine men's morris, where biggest problem is to make sure that any players don't get advance because of turn order. But of course balancing becomes more difficult when game is asymmetric and has much more complex set of rules and much larger scope. But even if balancing such games is much more difficult task to do, it don't mean that developers should not be concerned about balance and try achieve it as well as they can.

Not allowing experience grinding is not a bad design philosophy. Experience grinding is not a way of playing, it's a progression mechanic. If killing everything is what you love to do (this is a way of playing), just kill everything the game allow you to do it, they haven't removed that option. Obsidian decided against experience grinding because that's not the kind of progression mechanic they wanted to have in the game. Not letting people play the way they like IS bad design philosophy. If people like experience grinding, let them, unless there is a good reason not to do it. Balance? So what if balance goes out of the window? It is my game and sometimes i dont like it to be balanced, but to become a juggernaut. Come on, i am sure many of you who talk about experience grinding have done the same in many games. It is just another way of playing. Sometimes i feel like roleplaying, and sometimes i simply like metagaming in every possible way. Why giving away one of the options when you can have both is beyind me. Limiting player's ability to do things is not bad design, but whole idea behind games, where you take setting which scope is limited and players actions are governed by set of rules and usually players need to over come some challenges which these limitations create. Balance in game design means that when you give player option to do things in multiple ways they all should be meaningful because otherwise those choices become only decorative things that don't offer player actually meaningful choices for the player. For example if one choice is just much several time more effective than any other choices that game offer, then only reasons why player would not pick much more effective choice is to create more challenge for themselves or they don't yet know that one choice is much more better than others.

Term that we probably should use for experience points is something like "game progression points" when we speak from game design point of view, because that is the actually role for those points in the game. Meaning that XP points don't actually track how experienced players character/s are, but instead they work as way to track how much player has progressed in the game that don't have linear progression path, so that players can give access more and different game mechanics gradually to keep game interesting and it also gives developers/GM ability to adapt gameplay challenges so that those new mechanics don't remove the challenge from the game. Reason why game progression points are called experience points or something similar is because of that those terms are usually used to hide/obscure gamely nature of those points and make them feel more part of the story/aesthetics of the game.

What tweet did he refer to and what article is he talking about? Tweet that he is referring to is that "Oh and **** that Escapist article giving a platform to madmen" Tweets in picture are ordered chronologically so that oldest is on top and newest is on bottom. I changed it so that it would be easier to read. I am not sure which article he refers as he didn't tweet any links, but I would have to guess it is this http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/12383-Game-Developer-GamerGate-Interviews-Shed-Light-on-Women-in-Games , because of madmen reference. EDIT: I just realized that picture of Jim's tweets has uncensored profanity in them, which is against this forums guidelines which is reason why I removed it from this post. And why I will also remove picture from source as it seem that service don't let me to edit it without changing url.

Guardian's article has tone that gives clear impression that it is against GamerGate, but it don't, at least directly, demand one to be against GamerGate, but article implies that for those people that support GamerGate there is no neutral stance because for them people that aren't for GamerGate are against it. This is given that this is article that you refer http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/13/gamergate-right-wing-no-neutral-stance Quote is last sentence in the article.

And who made this decision? The Patriarchy? A huge free market. Thousands of competing game designers and you're telling me no looked into exploiting a market that is ripe for the taking because it is not occupied by anyone else. They all got together and said "nope"? Marketing departments of big publishers, especially Nintendo during video game crash. Video Game houses were fighting for existence because of mishandled business so they focused scope which they targeted their advertisement, by focusing marketing games as toys for boys, from where it is has grown to target ads for teen age boys and then young adults. But now video game industry struggles again as it wants to grow and has started to approach wider markets, which has lead to criticism from those new market segments that feel that they aren't catered as well as those market segments that gaming industry focused for 20 yeas. So it was free market that decided that games will focused on boys at least in marketing and then it was again free market that decided that it wants to lure new people in gaming, but as you can't erase past that decision meant that there will be criticism at least for while when gaming industry refocuses itself so that it can cater its now larger audience more equally. Although because general social structures and how societies work such rebalancing/refocusing can take decades as we have seen in film industry. And there will never be point when there will not be criticism.

Twitter update of the day Here blog post that laments about harassment and disbelief that harassment happened from GG identified crowd from somebody who's tweet including link to that blog got retweeted by people that I follow in twitter http://botherer.org/2014/10/13/sigh/ Jim Sterling has more to say about how he perceives GG. Adam Heine, lead designer of Torment Tides of Numenera, don't seem to be convinced about principalities and purpose behind GamerGate https://twitter.com/adamheine/status/521534238886072321

I must say that Anita's public views are quite moderate Her views paraphrased by me "I want developer's use less tropes, especially those I see to be degrading towards women" "I want developer's to use more active female protagonists" "I want more games that don't focus so much on violence" "I think using tropes that I think to be sexist and not giving women as many active roles as men shows that our society is still leans towards patriarchy" "I want/hope that game developers start to make more games for my tastes" Her vision for what direction games as medium and art form should develop don't wholly correspond with my vision, but I don't think that her vision is anyway radical. The issue comes about in two seperate ways: 1) Anita CAN be radical. Find a video she did on sexist Christmas songs. Have fun with it. 2) Anita lies. Check how she misrepresents Fallout New Vegas (and others) in her women as backround decoration video. Those two combined, you actually start to wonder if there aren't ulterior motives, moreso with the second one than the first. Either she's soooo radical she pulls ridiculous claims out of thin air here and there (unlikely, as other times she IS quite reasonable), or the girl honestly is just trying to profit off of this situation she's found herself in, leading to profit > truth and thus she'll do misleading or half-assed pieces to gain profit. 1) I fail find out what is radical in it? It seems only be continuum to her other work to point out what pieces of media she finds to be sexists. Her reasonings for why songs are in list may be somewhat ridiculous, but I don't see anything radical in the video. She don't demand that these songs should be censored, or that people should take actions against them, but instead she ask to hear songs that she likes, which maybe somewhat silly, but not anyway radical thing to ask. 2) Lying is not radical, it is just at least morally gray way to get people that aren't very interested about subject to support your point of view. Most of people use lying at least some point of their life to get/try to get what they want. Lying don't make person radical or their opinion radical it just shows that their morals aren't necessary as high as they maybe should be. People making profit when life gives opportunity do so I one of the standing principals of capitalism and general thinking of western societies. But for me she seem to do remarkable job not make profit even though she has amble opportunity to do so, but that maybe because she isn't financially adept instead of moral or ideological standings. But anyway may point was that Anita is quite moderate in her public views, as she don't try to cause public uprising, or get things censored or made forbidden by law. Most radical thing is that she wants media products that at least currently have somewhat lacking offering in markets. But if such thing make person radical, then I am and large bunch of this forums users are radical as we wanted products that mass markets didn't produce and funded at least one of such product in Kickstarter. So I will not say that person that don't at least like some aspects of products that mass markets currently offer to be radical even if aspects that she don't like aren't same aspects that I don't like or even like in those products. And way she express her dislike towards those aspects is very moderate compared to way many of us in these forums express our dislike towards products/aspects of products that we don't like. So in short I disagree with Anita's views lot, but I don't think that she is radical anyway that I know. 1) She referred to "I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus" as sexist because it "portrays all women as promiscuous cheaters." wat I mean really. I cannot "wat" hard enough. That combines a blatant misunderstanding of the song's meaning with a ridiculous hyperbole, mixed with a touch of not recognizing history and that Santa Claus stems from Saint Nicholas, who was infact a man. How she could take a song that's essentially about how dumb and adorably naive kids are and twist it into some propaganda song that portrays ALL WOMEN IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER as dishonest cheaters is beyond me. 2) You're basically justifying her dishonesty by saying "everybody lies." That's terrible justification and by that same logic, we are all justified in commiting crimes and atrocities because others have done it too. No, misleading info is misleading. She's purposefully or negligently (probably via laziness) misleading people to be up in arms about a game that did absolutely nothing wrong and is by no means guilty of the very things she's claiming it's guilty of. Just because she's not leading the charge and personally making a call-to-arms to censor games or something does not mean she's not a contributor. What she occassionally does ("occassionally" because as we've both said, at times her stuff is more reasonable) is basically incite outbursts from people by portraying things far worse than they actually are. That kind of stuff does NOT help people calm down and...yknow, be reasonable. I've not said she's radical; that was a word you brought up (or someone else did and I missed it, I don't know), and no I do not care what label you or others wish to give her. The only label I wish to apply is "problem," regardless of whether she's a problem because she's called a radical feminist, because she's called a member of ISIS or any other claims people might make about her. I only care that the woman has shown she can make ridiculous and exaggerated claims while providing misleading and half-assed information to the public in order to further her agenda. No, I don't cut politicians or CEOs any slack when they utilize such tactics, so I'm not cutting her any slack either. 1) As I said her reasonings are sometimes ridiculous, but that don't make her opinions radical or even those reasonings. 2) It don't matter do she lie or do she not, when we speak about are her opinions radical. Saying people to be radical because they lie is terrible justification in my opinion. In my reply to this sentence "People become so radicalized that even Anita can appear a moderate." I said that in my opinion Anita seems to be quite moderate and little bit elaborated why I think so, which you replied that "Anita CAN be radical.", which I took to mean that you think that she holds some radical views, which I disagreed with my reply to your message. My only interest in this has been to speak about how radical I see Anita's views and actions about games. Then back to topic Here is latest installment piece that explains what #gamergate is that has come to haunt my twitter feed http://gawker.com/what-is-gamergate-and-why-an-explainer-for-non-geeks-1642909080 It seems have some what negative view and is aimed for people that aren't interested about gaming or at least don't read gaming sites.

I must say that Anita's public views are quite moderate Her views paraphrased by me "I want developer's use less tropes, especially those I see to be degrading towards women" "I want developer's to use more active female protagonists" "I want more games that don't focus so much on violence" "I think using tropes that I think to be sexist and not giving women as many active roles as men shows that our society is still leans towards patriarchy" "I want/hope that game developers start to make more games for my tastes" Her vision for what direction games as medium and art form should develop don't wholly correspond with my vision, but I don't think that her vision is anyway radical. The issue comes about in two seperate ways: 1) Anita CAN be radical. Find a video she did on sexist Christmas songs. Have fun with it. 2) Anita lies. Check how she misrepresents Fallout New Vegas (and others) in her women as backround decoration video. Those two combined, you actually start to wonder if there aren't ulterior motives, moreso with the second one than the first. Either she's soooo radical she pulls ridiculous claims out of thin air here and there (unlikely, as other times she IS quite reasonable), or the girl honestly is just trying to profit off of this situation she's found herself in, leading to profit > truth and thus she'll do misleading or half-assed pieces to gain profit. 1) I fail find out what is radical in it? It seems only be continuum to her other work to point out what pieces of media she finds to be sexists. Her reasonings for why songs are in list may be somewhat ridiculous, but I don't see anything radical in the video. She don't demand that these songs should be censored, or that people should take actions against them, but instead she ask to hear songs that she likes, which maybe somewhat silly, but not anyway radical thing to ask. 2) Lying is not radical, it is just at least morally gray way to get people that aren't very interested about subject to support your point of view. Most of people use lying at least some point of their life to get/try to get what they want. Lying don't make person radical or their opinion radical it just shows that their morals aren't necessary as high as they maybe should be. People making profit when life gives opportunity do so I one of the standing principals of capitalism and general thinking of western societies. But for me she seem to do remarkable job not make profit even though she has amble opportunity to do so, but that maybe because she isn't financially adept instead of moral or ideological standings. But anyway may point was that Anita is quite moderate in her public views, as she don't try to cause public uprising, or get things censored or made forbidden by law. Most radical thing is that she wants media products that at least currently have somewhat lacking offering in markets. But if such thing make person radical, then I am and large bunch of this forums users are radical as we wanted products that mass markets didn't produce and funded at least one of such product in Kickstarter. So I will not say that person that don't at least like some aspects of products that mass markets currently offer to be radical even if aspects that she don't like aren't same aspects that I don't like or even like in those products. And way she express her dislike towards those aspects is very moderate compared to way many of us in these forums express our dislike towards products/aspects of products that we don't like. So in short I disagree with Anita's views lot, but I don't think that she is radical anyway that I know.

I must say that Anita's public views are quite moderate Her views paraphrased by me "I want developer's use less tropes, especially those I see to be degrading towards women" "I want developer's to use more active female protagonists" "I want more games that don't focus so much on violence" "I think using tropes that I think to be sexist and not giving women as many active roles as men shows that our society is still leans towards patriarchy" "I want/hope that game developers start to make more games for my tastes" Her vision for what direction games as medium and art form should develop don't wholly correspond with my vision, but I don't think that her vision is anyway radical.

BB_Fighter with best inn buff and grappling hook has always succeeded to receive egg without any problems.

XOXO is technology conference aimed for indie developers, content creators, entrepreneurs in Portland (city that is 76,1% white), which event that other picture is from?

Has there been any m+kb gameplay footage yet? http://www.incgamers.com/2014/10/dragon-age-inquisition-pc-mouse-and-keys-stream-on-monday Monday we should see how mouse and keyboard interface works

It is quite easy to drop quality of textures, shadows and aa, which are usually most video memory greedy things.

Technically, the term sandbox is supposed to be another word to mean open-world/free-roaming and it has been in usage since the mid-80s when the Space Sim Elite was compared to a sandbox by a reviewer. The idea that sandbox means "a place where i can build anything I want" is an invention from the WoW area gamers who pretend gaming didn't exist before 2004. I personally would not use sandbox to refer open-world/free-roaming games that don't give player ability to modify game world, as I don't feel that term sandbox works well to describe game with static world even if player is free to roam it as they please. But I am aware that people often use sandbox to refer all open-world/free-roaming games but I am also aware that there is people (like me) that have objected such use even before 2004. But regardless of do one define sandbox game to be free-roaming/open-world game with ability modify world or/and without such ability, Fallout 1 & 2 and Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 still aren't such games but games where action happens in areas that are independent of each other and player needs to use world map screen and loading screens to move from one to another. And it is not bad thing that players don't have ability roam world freely and modify it, as restricted maps and restricted ability to move between them helps in story telling which is important in story driven rpgs, and restricted maps leave room for imagination about how world is build and how people live in it, which is part of charm that made IE and Fallout 1 & 2 games as great experiences that they were. EDIT: With Elite I see why one would use term sandbox to describe it, as its concept is here is world and now go do what you want in these sets of limits, which were as limiting as they were mostly because of technical reason instead of what designers would have wanted to give player to ability to do. Ultimas had quite similar ideology behind them.

Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 were games with linearly progressing main story that had somewhat nonlinear (meaning that player can access that content in any order they wish, but some of that content becomes linear after initial triggering, which is something that story driven content nearly always has to do because of limitations of coherent storytelling) optional content. Fallout 1-3 and New Vegas are open world games, with somewhat nonlinear main story progression and optional content But none of them come even close to be a sandbox game, because they all lack player's ability to modify the world and create their own ways to play the game. Sandbox games usually lack story content as they focus on players freedom. Sandbox as term comes from concept that player is given sandbox and bunch of tools and then player makes content themself instead. Minecraft, Sim City, Sims are good example of what sandbox games are.

That don't work with Obsidian's design goal with xp system. Total amount of awarded xp was not the problem that Obsidian had, but speed that which each play-style produces the XP. Obsidian wants that each play style produces xp in same speed regardless on how player decided to solve things.

No I say that they decided to try cater people that weren't happy with their original decision, but same time they try to be true for their original vision of the game. I would point out that their original vision about xp system was Their decision to uses xp system where you gain xp by accomplishing objectives that are tied to quests accomplish this design goal perfectly and don't cause problems to any other design goals that Obsidian had, but some of their backers, people that funded the game and therefore have opinion and feelings that Obsidian pays heed for as company that wants to please those that make it possible that they can make this game, expressed that they want to get xp more regularly than what the original system gave and they also expressed notion that there should be systemic xp gain like in IE games. But as limitless systemic xp gain would compromise their original vision they have come up with compromise that they think allows them to keep their original vision and same time give those backers that ask more regular and systemic xp something that resembles what they asked for. This kind changes to original design is quite typical in game development as publisher often ask changes in the games so that they can sell them better, this time changes are demanded by people that funded game in kickstater, many who claimed that it is time to give developers option to develop games that they want to develop and not compromise them by demands of those publishers, but as we can see nothing has fundamentally changed, as developers are bound to demands of those who fund their games. And it still does not change the fact that it is a half measure that does not really fix anything. It will just mean people will be avoiding combat in second part of the game. There is nothing wrong in letting people get full kill xp except for those that are part of quest. It solves the problem of people doing quests and then killing quest givers or others that are part of quest xp already. Players already get full kill xp when they kill people/creatures that are part of the quests. Problem that people have with game has been that you don't get xp from killing creatures that aren't part of some quest, which is what Obsidian tries to solve by adding bestiary XP. And you for some reason assume that player is able to kill creatures in first part of the game in such extend that they don't get bestiary xp in second part of the game. I think this is bit silly presumption as every different type of creature has their own bestiary and typically in game like PoE there will be more difficult versions of creatures and new type of creatures in second part of the game that all have their own bestiaries to be fulfilled. Problem that I see with bestiary xp is that it can compromise Obsidian's original design goal (which was that Avoiding combat does not lead to less experience gain.) which I think they try to solve by using shared xp pools (maybe) with exploration and lock-picking/traps xp.

Yeah, I don't think you would want to say that to anyone you actually like. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mulkvisti You break number one rule how people that understand Finnish should react towards internet memes about Finns or Finland that are aimed for those that don't understand Finnish: Always give impression that meme is true if it make Finns look cool

No I say that they decided to try cater people that weren't happy with their original decision, but same time they try to be true for their original vision of the game. I would point out that their original vision about xp system was Their decision to uses xp system where you gain xp by accomplishing objectives that are tied to quests accomplish this design goal perfectly and don't cause problems to any other design goals that Obsidian had, but some of their backers, people that funded the game and therefore have opinion and feelings that Obsidian pays heed for as company that wants to please those that make it possible that they can make this game, expressed that they want to get xp more regularly than what the original system gave and they also expressed notion that there should be systemic xp gain like in IE games. But as limitless systemic xp gain would compromise their original vision they have come up with compromise that they think allows them to keep their original vision and same time give those backers that ask more regular and systemic xp something that resembles what they asked for. This kind changes to original design is quite typical in game development as publisher often ask changes in the games so that they can sell them better, this time changes are demanded by people that funded game in kickstater, many who claimed that it is time to give developers option to develop games that they want to develop and not compromise them by demands of those publishers, but as we can see nothing has fundamentally changed, as developers are bound to demands of those who fund their games.

Have they? Why are they adding bestiary and trap xp into the game than? Because they have reconsidered their previous decision after receiving feedback from some of the beta testers, which has lead them to think how they could cater those people without compromising their own goals and how to do it without spending too much time on it. But they made their decision to use only objective based xp nearly two years ago. But now they have decided that they want also cater people that weren't happy with that decision by dividing some of the xp in different pools and make those pools reward be rewards for more specified type of objectives that somewhat resemble systemic xp rewards like kill xp and skill xp. And they also have plans to make xp gain more constant but with smaller increments. But it is life to make decision and then have to change those decision because of factors that you didn't take account in first place or you thought to have heavier/lesser impact than they ended to have. It is sad reality that there is no final decision to be made before you don't anymore have ability to influence those decision that you previously made.