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Everything posted by Elerond
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Weather, day/night cycles...
Elerond replied to Starwars's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Torrent rain every time your party rest would be nice reminder of my time in army, as there seemed to be heavy summer torrent rains every time we stopped to eat and then fifteen minutes later when it was time to march forward there was no cloud to be seen only blazing sun . -
I don't know how much more people they have and will get working and on game than what they originally planned and how much more outsourcing they have used and will use, but as inXile's Wasteland 2 has shown, going several time over original budget can lengthen design and production time quite much, so one should prepare him/herself on that prospect that PoE's release date can slip over 2015, even with plans to release it later on this year.
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I have understood that enemies don't have health bar, only stamina, so when they go down they are down permanently, where player's party have abilities to bring back members of party that have lost their stamina, but still have at least some health left. Player's party members also recover their per battle abilities and stamina fully after each fight. So in most battles only thing where player's party members aren't on equal or better footing with enemies are per rest spells and abilities, but more often than not player's party members have much more of these to use than enemy npcs that may not even have any of them available to use. So at end health and per rest abilities work as way to pace the game so that player needs to go rest and needs to think his or her tactics and strategies so that his or her party members don't constantly lose all their stamina in fights and don't spam their most powerful abilities and spells to first enemies they see.
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In my opinion bottomless stash gives them ability make inventory management play much larger role in game, as stash removes economy from equation when it comes to balance how much stuff each party member should be able to carry, which means that they can put much more restricts on how much character can carry and what s/he can carry. For example they can for example make it so that each character can only carry one suit of armor, and make weapon slots play much more important role in the game, and especially restrict number of consumables that character can carry and use in battles. In my opinion using inventory to balance economy isn't worth of effort as it is other things that usually breaks economical balance in rpg, like number of valuable loot, money drains, money wells, etc..
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With bit editing that would be is excellent phrase to put in t-shirts that support atheism. That's brilliant, how would you word it for a shirt? I want to get one made "It's logically indistinguishable from going mad, to allow unprovable and undetectable things to influence your behavior" It could be bit long for shirt to be read by others, but it is still excellent phrase.
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With bit editing that would be is excellent phrase to put in t-shirts that support atheism.
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I couldn't find it on Netflix. How does it compare with When Night is Falling? It has more focus in sex and sexual escapades (there is over ten minutes worth of very explicit sex scenes), but still it main focus in story is ones struggle with her sexuality. Movie's ending goes towards depressing and tragic instead of hopeful new beginning as "When Night is Falling" 's ending
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The ultimate bromance
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All the stretch goals where very high handed and any of them didn't actually gave any details what they actually add in game and especially details how money will be spent. Only thing that Obsidian promised in those stretch goals were that one or two features will in all likelihood be in the game. So all of the stretch goals were more or less things to make people give more money to make game, without give much details how that money will be spent exactly (because nobody even Obsidian didn't actually at that time know where money will be spent exactly). Money from last stretch goal could for example go in additional members in QA team to ensure that game is bug free and there is no scripting failures and that there is no routes that cause story progress become illogical, etc.. And all stretch goals were goals because they were new target sum to collect, not because they added new features/perks/content/etc.. I would like point out that in software project it's very hard to pinpoint where money actually goes as all money is used to hire people do stuff in game, but they nearly never do only one thing in project and their level of expertise depends from task what they do and which can cause that more difficult and therefore in theoretically more expensive tasks take less their time than some easier tasks, which make it quite hard to tell how much money each given task will actually cost beforehand. I would like also point out that sometimes it isn't wise to promise specific features as there can come unexpected surprises on the way that causes that you can't implement those features, like for example what happened to Larian with their Divinity: Original Sin kickstarter, where they promised a feature which implementation they though would not take that much extra effort, but during development they realized that nature of their game and other more important features in game will make implementation of that feature much more complicate than they though during kickstarter and that they don't have time or money to make that feature to work which lead on decision that they will scratch that feature off from the project which of course is problematic thing to do as they promised to do that feature in one of their KS stretch goals, which means that they have to broke their promises for their backers and make themselves liable to backslash, refund ask and even legal suits, if they can't give good enough explanation why feature needed to be scratched. So specific features in stretch goals are usually good way to get people to give more money for project, but one should be careful what one promises as those promise can cause problems for one's actual project, which is reason why more ambiguous promises are better even though they probably bring less money for project, as they also have much smaller change to cause problems for the project.
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Burce aren't you going to ask for a source, or some link so you can prove it's not a lie. I thought you had a big speech about how you were all about truth now. http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kulturdebatt/valkomna-till-ryssland-kara-krimbor/ There is original article in Swedish newspaper and original writer is Arkadij Babtjenko, here is link to Russian wikipedia about him. He has published books about his experiences in Chechen Wars and works as journalist and war correspondent for Novaya Gazeta
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Wow this is a very concerning post about life in the Russian federation, I'm hoping some of it is just propaganda. But some of it is truth as well It is in my understanding all true, but it isn't whole truth and all facts are told only from point of view that serves writer's message, but underlining message is at least true, meaning that Crimeans in all probably will face culture shock in some degree and start to lose their autonomy bit by bit.
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what is your worst rpg game ever played?
Elerond replied to darthdraken's topic in Computer and Console
Just remembered probably worst RPG experience that I have ever had, it was Ring Cycle, that was just awful mess (mechanically, graphically and how buggy it was) that I could not get into even though at the time I did had little else to play. -
IE games already had bottomless stash for money, so making that stash also cover items that are picked up only to sell them for money isn't breaking my suspension of disbelief any more than carrying several tons forth of gold. Of course there is probability that system can be abused in such way that abuse will break my suspension of disbelief, but abusing inventory systems has been part of almost all games that have inventory system, so I would say it will not be problem for me.
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Yep, game is 4X game with tactical combat, most similar to tittles like Master of Magic, Master of Orions, Fallen Enchantress and previous Age of Wonders, but Civilization also give some idea how game works, although hero units, quest and environmental objects and collectibles addition to tactical combat make flow of game different from Civilization.
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Wow, that looks good. I am very interested in any feedback around this game It has interesting story that is very much what you can except from Jane Jensen's games. Magic tricks as puzzle solving system is quite fun although when I played game it had some annoying glitches that make some puzzles annoying. I liked quite much of game's visual appearance it has quite nice vibe and it was nice change that game sets in England and features mainly old architect.
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Spill your blasphemous opinions on CRPGs here
Elerond replied to IndiraLightfoot's topic in Computer and Console
Level scaling is good tool to keep game's challenge level on certain point, in games which have player character that gets stronger when game progress. There is three typical ways to implement it on general level, first is to make it static, meaning that level scaling is hard coded in game and enemies level don't changes with player's character's level, this is very well suited especially in games that have linear path, second is dynamic one, meaning that enemy characters level change when player's character's level changes, this is well suited in open world games, where player's path can't be known beforehand, third is hybrid of first two, usually meaning that there is critical path where enemies level depend on player's character's level and optional challenges that have enemies with hard coded level, this is well suited on semi open games, like IE games. But in Oblivion dynamic level scaling was implemented poorly in how it take into consideration player's character's progression, as player that advances his non-combat skill first find him or her self in situation where his or her character fared much better against enemies on same area before s/he progressed his or her character's non-combat skills. And even if you level your character's combat skill first you will found out that your character's combat prowess weakens as soon as you start to level up your non-combat skills. In addition to that Oblivion's level scaling made exploring and finding rare non unique items and money quite useless thing to do as your friendly neighborhood bandits carry glass and daedric armors and weapons. And it don't help that combat in the game is quite pointless if you don't want level up your weapon skills, as you can just use invisibility spell and run past all non-quest related enemies and not miss anything, which make closing Oblivion gates quite uninteresting thing to do as there was nothing to even to be found except the gem that closes the portal. So at the end Oblivion's level scaling mechanics caused that there was little sense of advancement in player's character's combat prowess, which is usually one major appeal in RPGs and it also caused that looting and exploring become much less important thing in the game, which is another typical major appeal in RPGs. And that is why is say that Oblivion has very broken level scaling. -
Spill your blasphemous opinions on CRPGs here
Elerond replied to IndiraLightfoot's topic in Computer and Console
I don't even know what to think anymore! It really is terrible. Each installment in the Elder Scrolls series has improved on many aspects of the previous one. Pretty much this. Oblivion was just a tech demo for Skyrim (which is actually their best TES game, but still a horrible game). Morrowind has most interesting environmental designs in the series and best non-combat spells. Skyrim has dragons and better graphics and it rule system isn't as broken as previous what TES games had. Oblivion tried its best to destroy best part of TES games, which is exploration by using random generated dungeons, uninteresting environments and very broken level scaling. -
Piracy is never justified. Because today it is so broad term, I must disagree with you, for example I would say that piracy is justified in case where you have bought a game which copy protection prevents you playing it, or if you have bought audio disc that don't work in your cars CD player because of copy protection and so on cases. And I even would go so far and say that people have right to make additional copies of products, that they have license to use, for their personal usage even if product has copy protection that is designed to prevent that, as in my opinion that fair use of product and license and companies should not even first place have right to try prevent such use. Also I see it justifiable that members of same family use same license on product even though license says that it gives only license owner right use the product. And there are cases where I could see it justifiable to share oeuvre to public without its owners permission if it's for greater good of society, which of course is difficult to determine and is very two edged definition, but for example I see that for example leaking documents that expose illegal actives of governments or companies is justifiable thing to do even though it's against several laws including several piracy laws.
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Interesting AI for battles
Elerond replied to Hormalakh's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Behavioral weaknesses in enemy tactics sounds like it could be tactically interesting, especially when you add phobias in the mix, like for example enemy in fire proof/resistant armor that fears fire, that would allow you to block its path or drive it back with spells and items that do fire damage, even though they do little/no harm to it. But I also fear that it would be out of the scope, because even changing attack priorities need much more work than adding 5 or 6 lines of code for behavioral script, because it needs to be tested with multiple party combinations to see that it actually does what it should and that it don't break when there is for example whole party of characters that fulfill new priority scheme, which means that characters should use normal attack priority, etc. things that at end will probably mean that there need to be quite much additional exception handling in script, meaning that you probably need more than 5 or 6 lines to make it so that AI don't break in any situation. -
Buy an Alpha version of Galactic Civilization III for $100
Elerond replied to Maria Caliban's topic in Computer and Console
This two perks make me think that it could be moneys worth investment A lifetime subscription to all GalCiv III DLC and expansion packs Create your legacy* – Suggest a star name and get special thanks credit As Galactic Civilization II got two excellent expansion, which together with game cost about $100 if you bought them when they were released. And Stardock has quite good track line with its games and when they fail like with Elemental War of Magic they usually make it so that buyer is satisfied at the end, for example they gave Fallen Enchantress (sequel to Elemental WoM) and Fallen Enchantress Legendary Heroes (expansion to FE) free to at least to every one that preordered Elemental WoM to compensate that game was buggy at start and it wasn't everything that they promised. And it is always nice to have your name in game's credits -
Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde to run for European Parliament from Finland Finnish get to vote "real Swedish pirate" to represent them in European Parliament. And I am not even sure that he can't win.
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There is little doubt that if there is war between Russia and Finland that winner wouldn't be Russia, but we spoke about military consequences and those would be heavy for Russia and to "liberate" as you put Finland they would actually need put quite lot effort behind their attack which would be expensive in monetary and loss of life wise that end result of such victory isn't worth of such investment. Making offense too expensive is the main idea behind Finnish defense strategy, not actually win wars against over 20 times larger countries. And one thing should be remembered when we speak about size of Finland's territory is that most of it is uninhabited forests (71,6%), lakes (about 10%, and there are 188 788 lakes around country), fjelds and tundra. which means that area that need to be defended is actually quite small, although it's fragmented all around country that effective defense is actually question of mobility and deployment instead of man power, albeit that Finland has deep reserve of over million soldier addition of its active soldiers and readiness reserve. And Finland's arsenal is much more modern than what Georgia has and Finland don't have territories that identify themselves more Russian than Finnish, which mean that there aren't such inner conflicts that Russia could exploit for its advantage, like it did in Georgia and Ukraine for example. As for Finland military strength I don't want to argue this tangent topic, so here is a quick Google for you: The Development of Russian Military Policy and Finland Series take special note of the last few paragraphs in the executive summary. I don't understand what you want me to find from that? It only tells what I told, that areas that need defending are fragmented all around country, which mean that deployment and mobility of troops is vital, and it also tells how much Finland have active (professional) soldiers (about 30.000) and Finland's readiness reserve's strength is about 230.000 men. But addition to that Finland has deed reserve which strength is over million men. Deep reserve is those men and women that have military training and are under 55 years old and which military can provide some sort equipment to go in fight, but their knowledge about armaments and tactics aren't kept on date by using military refresher courses, which mean that they should have at least short one before they are sent on battlefront. and last sentence "Its preventive value is great." that executive summary agrees with my statement that that Finland makes it defensive strategy around idea that it don't have to win war, but make it too expensive when compared to gains.
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C++ and C# are so similar languages, that after you learn one learning other is quite easy.
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Every action in UN has its impact and so does China's abstain in this matter, as does Israel's decision not to vote. Even though whole vote was for show, as Russia had veto power that it used to turn over the vote results, which was what every one excepted from them. China's vote of abstain was probably China's way to notify that it don't have any desire to take part of this conflict on either side. Because that was one reason why vote in questions was held as EU and USA wanted to know if China had any interests in this crisis. Israel's decision not to vote probably was to tell that they aren't very pleased how peace talks have advanced with Palestine and USA's role in said negotiations. It is just political game where countries indication of what their short term plans are or/and their dis/pleasure towards some previous issue without giving ammunition their political enemies at home.
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you might have some nice sticks and stones, but I think that you grossly over estimate Finland strength and ability to push back the Russian bear with it. Overall you country peace time standing force is little larger then the one in Georgia, but with five time the territory and just as unfortunate large front. So if Russia decide to "liberate" some of your territory I have no doubt how it would end. There is little doubt that if there is war between Russia and Finland that winner wouldn't be Russia, but we spoke about military consequences and those would be heavy for Russia and to "liberate" as you put Finland they would actually need put quite lot effort behind their attack which would be expensive in monetary and loss of life wise that end result of such victory isn't worth of such investment. Making offense too expensive is the main idea behind Finnish defense strategy, not actually win wars against over 20 times larger countries. And one thing should be remembered when we speak about size of Finland's territory is that most of it is uninhabited forests (71,6%), lakes (about 10%, and there are 188 788 lakes around country), fjelds and tundra. which means that area that need to be defended is actually quite small, although it's fragmented all around country that effective defense is actually question of mobility and deployment instead of man power, albeit that Finland has deep reserve of over million soldier addition of its active soldiers and readiness reserve. And Finland's arsenal is much more modern than what Georgia has and Finland don't have territories that identify themselves more Russian than Finnish, which mean that there aren't such inner conflicts that Russia could exploit for its advantage, like it did in Georgia and Ukraine for example.