Jarmo

I think it's the pre-order bonuses. Not sure if those can be bought separately after release (as DLC's), but they have to categorize them somehow.

The Icewind dales, and Planescape Torment. Both had diminishing returns on like items. In IWD1 it's rather easy to demonstrate. Go to kuldahar. Kill a bunch of Yetis, then go back and sell those pelts one by one. The first few will sell for about 50gp each. after that 35gp each, then 20gp each from then on. Of course, those games still didn't get it right since a smart player can simply hoard all the like items then sell them all at once to bypass the diminishing returns mechanic. Fable had a real neat economy system based on supply and demand. (And with neat, I mean brain damaged). You'd sell stuff, let's say yeti pelts. As you sell a bunch, the trader decides there's oversupply and lowers the price. Then you buy them all back in one big bunch for less than you sold them. Now the trader realizes there's a huge demand for yeti pelts and maxes the price. You sell them all back and make a killing.

Grimrock, oh yeah. Tried it, didn't really get into it and abandoned the game at about 1h in. Anyways. The game where hoarding wealth, hauling loot to nearest trader and upgrading equipment first started to really grate was Knights of the Old Republic. There it flies straight against how we're thought Jedi Knights to be. Lightsaber, simple robes and that's it. No lightsabers with improved criticals, or robes +4. Where it didn't make any sense at all, was Mass Effect. You're given an eleventy billion spacebuck cruiser with a full crew and sent off to save all all of humanity. And then you spend your time running errands for petty cash and pawning off everything not nailed down so you can afford a better scope for your rifle. =____= But that's not the situation in PoE and this is more general ramblings.

It would be interesting, maybe refreshing to see an RPG without merchants and money. But I guess the expectation of XP and money for mission accomplished is too deeply entrenched. Too much wealth means you can buy whatever the merchants have to offer. At that point, isn't having money in the first place something that's keeping you from adventuring? Why not eliminate money and have everybody just give you everything you want?

While this is peripheral to the subject at hand, it's a really good point. And something that no one ever talks about.Unless the game has mercantile skills/feats and the party who finds that sword has someone in it who took those skills/feats, they shouldn't know what the base value is. Good point and something I for one haven't given much thought. But yeah, a lot of games have something like appraise/barter/trade/whatever skill, and it's usually a dump stat to the tune of max 10% discount at stores, when you're swimming in gold anyway. Would be much better if you'd only get vague, or downright wrong info of item value. And if you don't know the value of an item, the trader is not going to pay much either. So you could get 5000 GP's for a diamond encrusted tiara, from a big town jeweler, if you knew it's value exactly, but only 50 GP from a village pawn shop if you thought it's a brass bauble with glass ornaments.

I just use the term, I'm not actually very familiar with MMORPG mechanics. Actually I'm appalled every time someone suggests it's a good design where a fighter isn't a superb damage dealer. My deep gnome fighter is doing superb in his role, with natural +4 AC and dexterity through the roof, almost 10pts higher AC than my cleric in full plate. Minmaxed little bastard. Usually I scout ahead with a hidden character, then send in a couple of summons and the fighter. It's the fights where enemy just pops up, or the fight suddenly begins after a conversation, or where I just forget to scout and stumble on a fight, where I'm in trouble. Been running from orcs, giants, golems, trolls, treats, an evil supercleric fighter and what not. But yeah, I'm doing fine on that front now. Everybody but the sorceress can stand a good bit of melee, and she has mirror image and invisibility to get away with.

Don't remember which game it was, might have been an NWN module. But there was a game... heck.. was it actually Fallout New Vegas? Anyway.. where vendor inventory varies. So there's this nice item he happens to have stocked, but it's not going to stay there forever. So if you want that item, you better scrape up the gold right now, might not find the item again. And lots of games have had huge amounts of loot you just leave there. Because hauling in leather rags (1 GP/apiece) starts to seem a waste of effort, when you also occasionally happen upon a gold necklace (1000 GP/apiece). I games like Skyrim, I usually have a mental rule of only picking up stuff worth 50GP/pound, or so, depending on my current wealth. But if it's as easy as hitting a "pick up everything, auto label as crap" button and then hitting "sell everything labeled as crap" when at merchants, I can't see any reason why I wouldn't just take everything.

They don't just seem identical when the next map has the remains of the skeleton I killed in the previous one. Didn't think of using wilderness lore though, even if I have it on one character. It's a skill I actually need to actively use? Lol, I'd give it a go but already cheated my way through.

Ok. Not combat, but navigating in Fell Woods is from the pits of hell. The same map bits used over and over and over and over again with no clue what leads to where. Resorting to game banshee. Same with ice temple "puzzles". Not enjoying them one bit.

Gog, Steam would be more convenient though. Unless it so happens the next automatically installed patch isn't save compatible and everything breaks. Anyways, most my game discussions are on gog forums, a good place I want to support.

A bit further ahead now. Chapter 2 about done. I'm definitely finding combat much easier now, but maybe not so much because I'm better at it, I just have more skills and magic at my disposal. Mages can whip up mirror image and then invisibility if they're attacked. Stuff I like that won't be in PoE. Long time buffs. Ogre power that lasts all day, stoneskin that lasts couple of hours. Long time summons. There's good ones and bad ones, but when I can open fights by sending in a bunch of undead... makes me all warm inside. What I don't like. Weapon specializations that don't work. I have two weapon fighting on my main tank, with axe specialization. So I need a main hand axe, have a bunch of those already. Then a hand axe for offhand. Haven't see a single magical one, don't know if there's one in the whole game. I have about seven hundred other +1 weapons, but not that. I'd have been much better off not picking 2 weapon fighting, in this game it seems to be a trap choice. I'll probably ignore the lost feats and go on with an axe and a shield.

If it's a Bioware, a male first. Because I do not like romancing men. If it's Bethesda, a female. Because if I'm going to spend 100hrs looking at a butt, it might as well be a female one. In PoE, I'll have a male character. Because a new game takes orienting enough already and being a male comes more natural to me.

Or maybe she's saying "Cheatcodes, wanna use them or not?". As for me. Dunno. I think I'll give this a go at normal first and see what I think. Dunno. I started replaying IWD2 and used the character editor almost instinctively. A bit of a STR boost for casters, nudge nudge. Makes things slightly more convenient.

Better to have unlimited gold, than a half assed gold-limited system. I'd be all in for a well made system, where merchants have replenishing gold, in realistic amounts relative to their inventory. You'd have something important and expensive to sell, you'd leave the stuff to them, they'd arrange the credit from some wealthy merchant and resell somewhere else. So you'd get your money after a few days or weeks, and much less of it because of extra hands and steps involved, all wanting a cut. But you'd get something anyway. Similarly, if you want a full plate and are willing to pay and wait a week, a local merchant would take your money and deliver. And yeah. I've felt limited gold systems to enhance my game experience. Fallouts pop to mind. On the other hand, I'm all too happy to just cash in my stuff without hassle in Icewind Dale. Do it well or not at all. None of that where you have 20K worth of loot, the merchant has a sword costing 10K you want, but neither of you have enough money to buy from the other, so a deal can't be made.

I'd have liked a more varied animations with natural flow between attacks, blocks and such. But no. Now I'm hoping all actions even have an animation. No disengagement attack where the attacker just stands like a statue and the attacked gets damage.

GPU is more important, but I think someone mentioned being able to play on integrated intel HD, so all macs with i5 should be fine. If you have an iMac, you should be well above minimums, with mac mini or a macbook (with intel graphics) you should still be above minimum. Like the current low end macbook pro, a dual core i5 2,5GHz + intel HD4000, 4GB memory. Just above but not by a huge margin.

Don't know about that pax thing. But I'd like to see Justin Bell go through some areas and situations and comment on the music and how come that kind of stuff there. Environment/character artists as well. Give me a bit of trivia on why that bush over there and did you notice that little streem, it's actually coming from blah blah and so on. Maybe a whole bunch of artists and area designers commenting on various aspects of the location? Make us see&appreciate there's a lot of work done there.

Hitting 1M seems very likely. Nice. My guess; the mini-expansion will get more content/companions & turn into 10h expansion at 1.2M or thereabouts... ... if the 1M is reached before the final rush. But that might not be the case, winding down. I'll probably up to $35 from $25 at some point. When I'm feeling gullible.

Grah. Didn't remember IWD2 had so much of this enemy reinforcements teleport right next to your casters. Goblin fortress, there's these drums they use to call reinforcements, but really, teleporting on my butt.

Exactly. I wouldn't normally play chess like that, but if someone wants to, I'm all for letting them. If my nephew wanted to play me and wanted a handicap of his knights moving like queens, I'd allow it, might be a fun game in it's way.

+1 for toggle. Not sure I'd use it, but it wouldn't take anything away from the game, just another difficulty selection tick. The game is definitely not going to be redesigned around the possibility of deselecting friendly fire, so the gameplay with friendly fire on wouldn't change at all. I've never quite understood gamers who are dead against having "easy" difficulty in game, I kind of understand why they'd select "hard" or "insane", but not why they so much want to make the selection for everybody. How is the enemy AI dealing with this BTW? Do they ever nuke their own?

My sorceress did have sleep, but didn't want to cast it when it could take out half the party with the orc. Charm could have worked, but first it was a goblin and a wolf, later 2 orcs. With about 5 hit points and a nightgown for armor, she didn't feel brave enough to stand and see if she gets the spell in and if it sticks before meeting mr. battleaxe. I am getting a bit better at it though. Trying to attract attention with a summon or the fighter. Wacky races still happen more than I'd like. Temple of Elemental Evil was pretty good at this, a goblin trying to rush past my fighters would get an attack of opportunity halberd to the neck! I should find the time to try PoE beta, from what I've heard, I'll probably like the more static combat.

Ok, I'm replaying Icewind Dale 2 now and I have no idea of how to control combat. I try to advance with my tank (deep gnome fighter, superb AC but hitpoints of a butterfly), if the enemy spots and attacks him like I want I'm all cool. But every now and then some orc decides to rather charge my spellcaster and then we go like in a Benny Hill show. Caster rapidly zigzagging trying to get away, couple of orcs behind her, my gnome trying to catch the orcs but failing. Just add Yakety Sax and it's all there.

As long as it is between 1 and 1,000,000 I will be happy. With two million portraits it would just be too much hassle to choose the right one? Sweet spot at maybe 500 thousand?

They're still fumbling around with stats and abilities. Can't write a good strategy guide before everything's finalized. Bet it'll be a while after release.