Elerond

Gaider worked as designer in BG2 and in my understanding he didn't become part of Bioware's writing team until Kotor, where he was provided writing for HK-47, Jolee Bindo and Carth Onasi characters. He become lead writer in NWN Hordes of Under Dark and then again in Dragon Age franchise.

I don't really think ugly people are especially attached to being ugly, even less so if they have an at-will capacity to shapeshift at hand But that is only if they consider themselves to be ugly, and there is of course the question what is true form of person that has capacity to shapeshift to about any for at-will.

I would say that is more a start of spin of series, but standalone game regardless of how one wants to view it.

To me it don't seem very good way to get more professional female players when you forbid even those that are in scene to compete in your tournaments. I could understand them bit better if there was own series for women, but as there is not, I just can't understand what has gone through their mind when they decided that this is good idea. It should noted that at least one of world highest ranked Heartstone players is female (Hafu). http://ie-sf.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=iesf_notice&wr_id=105 IeSF decided to make men only tournaments open to all and women only tournaments will ran as orginally planned. And it seem that open version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 tournament is added to list.

OP's question is about monitor's refresh rate, not fps. Native refresh rate make picture look better on monitor and it make movement on screen look smoother.

To me it don't seem very good way to get more professional female players when you forbid even those that are in scene to compete in your tournaments. I could understand them bit better if there was own series for women, but as there is not, I just can't understand what has gone through their mind when they decided that this is good idea. It should noted that at least one of world highest ranked Heartstone players is female (Hafu).

Honest question because I cant remember, do Barbarians have an ability to prevent mooks from getting past them? Iirc, Fighters do have that ability. Every character can engage one enemy, but only fighters have access to ability that gives them option to engage up to three enemies at the same time.

Fighters do about 30% more damage on average (if I calculated correctly) against single opponent than what full health barbarian without frenzy does, if they have same accuracy but as fighters generally have better accuracy than barbarian, which mean that average damage difference will be even bigger. But barbarian does more AoE damage than fighters, and their frenzy and blooded abilities will allow them get their damage up, but those aren't constant. Both classes can do crowd control, barbarian by getting in right place in fight by using their wild sprint and then frenzying in middle of enemy horde and dealing damage to all of them and fighter by engaging multiple opponents at time and killing individual opponents faster than barbarian and greatly wounding and weakening opponents with their disengagement attacks that will make those opponents much easier prey for rest of your team.

As they are keen not to show game us before its polishing is nearly complete, I would except that their goal with beta will be more about checking that they got class balance is what they intended it to be and maybe also check that UI works as it is intended. Of course any bug that we will find that they aren't already aware is plus. But I don't think that they intended to do beta so that we can give them much feed back about content. So to me it seem that they aim more like Blizzard beta than what for example inXile did with Wastland 2.

RPG elements don't make game RPG, even if dozens of reviewers say that Bioshock is a RPG. M&B don't set any historical time period and it don't have any historical faction or societies, it only has fewer fantastical elements than most fantasy RPGs. It weapons, armors, etc. things are quite accurate representations of historical weapons, armors, etc. things. But even in them there are mixed different time periods. M&B is in my opinion good game but I don't see how it is any more historically accurate than any other fantasy RPG, it only uses more simulate system than what most RPGs, but such don't in my opinion make game more accurate it only changes how game is played. M&B did sold enough to make profit, but it also was much lower budget game than what you typical top selling games are. And it got sequel only because of Paradox was it publisher, because Paradox view of gaming business is to make games they like. Million pounds are nice sum (but small compared to budgets of tens of millions that your typical top seller games from AAA publishers have), but 35k backers is quite small, as it will mean with optimistic prediction that game will sell from 300k-700k copies if it gets decent reviews (this prediction is from Paradox CEO about his expectations for PoE ), which isn't much on these days standards where multi million selling games can be considered selling poorly. It is like movies from Finnish studios that get 300k watcher in whole time they are theaters, are considered to be success, but Hollywood movies that get 10 million viewers in their opening weekend are often considered as flops. So there is market for smaller budget stuff (which PoE is excellent example), but that don't mean that most of those smaller budget products will be top sellers, but of course they don't need to be as they had much lower budget than those your typical top seller products.

Name one. Mount & Blade series to a varying degree. Maybe not in the map and power elements, but in time period weapon/armour design, combat elements architecture etc. it seems fairly accurate. Shogun II is apparently similarly accurate. Crusader Kings II apparently is even more historically accurate. I'm sure I could go looking for more, but I have to go to bed, so I'll just leave you with this Kickstarter that I backed: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294225970/kingdom-come-deliverance That got over 3x its funding goal. Mount & Blade isn't historically accurate and it wasn't well received and it sale figures were at best mediocre. Shogun II and Crusader Kings II are both grand strategy games not RPGs. Most historically accurate RPG that I know is Darklands that is placed in late middle ages of Germany, but it has fantastic elements and it don't portray workings of society that accurately. And generally games that seek funding from Kickstarter do so because there isn't enough market for them so that publishers would be interested on them.

PoE's campaign end when characters are in middle levels, if we use D&D's zero to legendary scale, so weapons like Holy Avenger are in my opinion too high level to show up in the game. And holy legendary sword is one of those fantasy tropes that probably would not miss if it didn't exist in PoE. But if there needs to be legendary weapon that is more powerful than any other weapons I would prefer it would have some not so common type for legendary weapon in fantasy for example spear like Gae Bolga (kill brutally any one that is hit by it) or bow like Ichaival (every arrow that is shot by it multiples to ten arrows) or dagger like Carnwennan (gives bearer ability to shroud themselves).

When people die in world of PoE their souls cycle to new bodies and these new bodies can even get some memories of past bodies that souls has been in. So when one destroys or fractures a soul to make some item, they don't only kill/harm that person whose soul they burn to make that item but also souls next recipients that can be anyones child, which is probably reason why such items aren't generally viewed favorably.

It is quite similar with system that Darklands uses, which is currently $3 in gog.com.

They have mentioned that there is ways to bind souls in objects, so it is possible to craft dagger which has soul bind to it. Although it is said that soul binding to objects isn't seen favorably by most of the world.

They decided against making characters less effective when they are heavily wounded, although if character has maimed status they suffer heavy penalties to all their attributes and they die from next hit that does damage to their health. Some classes, more specifically monk and barbarian at least, have abilities that give bonuses from getting stamina damage or don't work until your stamina is under certain level.

Aah, but that's the thing. In PoE's system Stamina does not = Fatigue. You do not incur stamina loss from casting a fireball or activating your Barbarian charge, for example. Instead, you lose stamina when you get whacked in combat. When someone hits you with something. And when your stamina bar drops to zero, you fall to the ground.... maimed. That means that the stamina bar is literally just a second health bar. Thus I'm still trying to figure out why it's even needed. When character's stamina drops to zero, that character will fall to the ground and has unconscious status, which they can recover with abilities or automatically after battle. Character gets maimed or in harder difficult levels (or if character already has maimed status) dies if their health drops to zero.

It is said that you can build your characters to be much different from their class roles. Class updates give only small sample of abilities that those particular classes can choose when they level up, it is said that there is much bigger pool of abilities which you can choose from. And addition to abilities there is also talents which give you ability personalize and differentiate your build from other build for same class. But I can't tell you any specifics because Obsidian hasn't yet released more specific information about this subject.

Do Europa Universalis IV has gameplay improvements compared to EUIII?

It's funny how most of media outlets report that Algerian fans rioted across France after the win, but French themselves use headlines like this Fans celebrate across France as Algeria make World Cup history, and from article itself you can find mention that there was some of the fans and police.

Thanks for repeating the best criticism of DAO! (The voice actress doing Leliana is a native French speaker!) So it's official: true French accent is even more jarring than the fake! Or a true French overacting a French accent for a game. I'm pretty sure she has a decent accent when speaking normally. Here's a French woman (former French first lady Carla Bruni) speaking English (skip to the 4 minute mark) without trying to "sound French": *snip* Well, it doesn't sound nearly half as bad as my thick eastern-european accent, so I guess I've got no right to complain about the French *shrug* Oh, I have a pretty bad Flemish accent in English (too bad I'm not a girl, my sister has repeatedly been told by Americans that it's "cute" ), it's better in French although I likely butcher the grammar like there's no tomorrow Anyway I'm quite willing to accept it might just be personal preference in play here. Iow that I'm assuming she's acting it while she maybe actually does sound like that (in which case I think she has a horrible accent, but hey, de gustibus et coloribus ...). I don't recall being annoyed by the voice acting the The Saboteur so it must be something she does that ticks me off in which case I hope they get a better male voice actor for Zorro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwT5mOQBOIQ She seems to use same accent in her other voice overs too, so it's her "trademark" or her natural accent, although even if that is the it is of course possible that originally her accent didn't sound that but change over time because of need to overly emphasis it to get work as voice actor. But one thing that I have been grateful for long time is that I haven't encountered any video games that use Finnish English accent as I personally find it sounding quite horrific (and I know that many other Finns also have similar dislike towards it, which is why that many of those who speak English regularly learn to fake London or general american accents).

Rather than making certain classes less interactive, I'd prefer that the companion AI is decent enough to be competent without a lot of 'interference'. They won't operate at peak efficiency, but they should be good enough to play through on the easier settings. That way someone with a more laid back playstyle can be happy, yet players like me who actually enjoy RTwP party based tactical combat can have fun with all of the members of our party, instead of just half of them. If you have to rely on companion A.I. in a game where you are supposed to be in charge of a whole party, there something wrong in its systems. PoE is not an MMO nor a single character RPG. The whole point of a party based game is the squad management. It doesn't matter how "fun" is to play a specific class (leaving alone the fact that a low-maintenance class could be as fun as any other class). What's matter is how "fun" is to control the entire squad, which is what you do all the time as a player - and relying on A.I. is the antithesis of fun, even if the A.I. in question is really good. It's not by accident that in the old I.E. games the only classes that required real management were casters. Melee fighters didn't required management at all. PoE already enhanced the original formula. You have a very narrow definition of party management. Perhaps someone finds a great deal of satisfaction in picking talents, equipment, and tactics that allow the non-PC party members to succeed without immediate microcontrol. The effort and the planning that went into such an approach is not a less valid way to the game. Also, while you may consider such an approach "the anthesis of fun" you are just stating your own preference. Someone else's definition of fun might be vastly different than yours. The day that someone provides me with a single-valid explanation on how something that doesn't imply a player interaction is fun in a videogame, I will broaden my "narrow definition of fun". Until that day, I will linger with my actual conviction :D. PS: don't get me wrong. I have nothing against a robust preparation phase in RPGs. But when preparation is the only fun part of the game, something is definitely wrong... For some there is fun to have in management, because it creates excitement to see if you did right choices beforehand. This is why such games as fantasy football and football manager games exist. Although I don't personally find them that exciting but I know lot of people that find them exciting. I think it similar to excitement that one feels when they play slot machines, where only interactions with game are putting money in and pressing start and hoping that you get money out.

Pros: Isometric party based gameplay that mimics tabletop rpgs. Setting that with current information seems to broke free from many fantasy clichés, but still offering familiarity and seems to be build in way I prefer fantasy world to be build Scripted event screens High variety in classes Objective based experience Cons: I would like to see bit more simulation in mechanics than what they seems to have Two year wait build lots of expectations No romances Waiting don't stop in release of PoE as there is also expansion coming after it I may lose my reason to come here constantly, when game is released

I would agree with your argument if every skill has and impact in combat. If that is the case, then synergies with attributes could have real impact in all situations. If skills are mostly non-combat related (as they seem to be), why would you want your low dex, high int rogue to take a point in lore at a given level over one in stealth (which will help make up a potential deficiency in combat). Remember, fewer skills likely means fewer skill points. We don't know how many skill points we get per level, but I remember someone saying we would likely only be able to max one skill by the end of the game. I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate with this, and once we have more information, it might be fine, but I'm not really seeing any advantage in terms of class viability if most skills are non-combat related. Certainly, its less work for Obsidian. Which is reasonable, but leads to most skills being passive attributes in scripted sequences (like pick-pocketing and tracking) and gives us less authorship in the game world. It has stated that all skills will give some short general benefits inside and/or outside combat that they are useful for every party member outside of scripted events and conversations. And in scripted events and maybe also in conversations skill test is for general level in party instead of highest one. So you should get value on your skill points regardless on what skill you put them and regardless on which classes your characters are. This is of course bases on information that we have given and how I remember it (meaning that it could contain errors).

No... in a couple of months we may have a beta. Did you miss the late December release date announcement? 2-3 month before release can not be called beta anymore. It is like what EA does with stuff like Battlefield. It is a public Demo nothing else. Define "beta" for us, Darji. Beta is something they work constantly on. They polish things change things in terms of interface, dialogues and so on. Beta is something you should constantly feedback about balance and through their changes. That will normally take many month if they do it for real. Wasteland 2 for example had a Beta, Divinity had a Alpha and Beta and there was a constantly change in these ones. If you give people the beta 2-3 month before release that means 1-2 month before everything should be finished than you will not get the needed feedback. As they said before. They are already in a Beta status in their studios. And this is the moment Beta testers or backers in this case should be involved. A EA beta or Demo is something you only do balancing stuff through data they collect from players. Beta is state where software is before it is after alpha state and before release candidate state. But there is no definite definitions for those states, but they are defined by developers themselves so that they themselves know that how ready software is and what kind work it still needs. Software is usually considered to be in beta state when it has all features and content that release version needs are done at least such level that testing and polishing of whole product can start, but this isn't always the case, as such definition don't always work with development process that developing team uses. So beta is meaningless term if you don't know definition for it that developers of software in question use for it. And from previous update you can see that Obsidian uses alpha and beta states to determine how ready each of their teams are addition to overall state of game. And they use beta to define state where all content and features are done, but not necessary on such level that game is actually playable from start to finish, let alone that it is enjoyable to play or that it ready enough to give for beta testers to play in their opinion. Softwares especially games can be months in beta state without actually being in state where they are actually usable on level that even resembles final product, which is state that most non-developer beta access backers probably excepts to get their hands on.