tajerio

The rest of your posting in this thread has been great, and this isn't really on topic, but the government of the United States was not founded in or by revolution and does not owe revolution any significant philosophical debt.

Because many people hate it? It's not that it's inherently bad, just many people don't like action elements so they prefer RPGs without them.Simple as that. Others don't care or even prefer it. I agree with this, and I'd just add that in a RTwP game like the Dragon Age series, having any twitch-based gameplay wouldn't fit well with the usual combat mechanics at all.

They didn't give themselves those awards. They were granted from press who saw a lengthy demo at the last E3. Back on topic. What do you guys think of real time dodging and stuff in the combat? Pretty big departure from Origins. To try to support you in staying on topic, there is dodging but not of the twitchy variety. From what the devs have said, it seems to be an activated ability, and you click on the ground to indicate which direction you want to dodge. They haven't said much else about it but I believe each class has its own particular version.

I apologize, I spoke (typed?) out of anger and did not mean to offend you. Obviously it was a generalisation, but I do have a point - I have never seen anything out of America (keeping in mind that as a European, almost my entire exposure is through the media) that "defended" free speech for anything other than abuse. In fact, the only times I've heard about it in any other context is when people argued against it during the whole Snowden debacle. I took no personal offence, so no worries. Now that's a fair point. Mostly it's because that's the kind of free speech that's causing social dislocation in the US at present. We're pretty well settled on the idea that people should be able to air political opinions without being afraid of the government, and actually, the whole Snowden debacle has sparked a free speech debate, because the NSA's surveillance seems to indicate that the spooks in government intelligence haven't internalized that norm. I've been involved in some fairly even-handed disputes about it myself. The speech we're having a problem with now in the US is mostly about the slow process of recognizing that non-WASPs matter. Women, racial/ethnic minority people, gay people, and so forth have an ever-increasing obvious presence in American culture and communication, and a rather more slowly increasing hold on positions of power and influence. This wasn't an issue in the US fifty or sixty years ago, because those people officially (and wrongly) didn't matter in the very narrow national political consciousness. Now, of course, we're becoming more liberal on that front, at the same time as the avenues for communication, particularly anonymous communication, expand rapidly. So the arseholes who have always been around feel simultaneously more threatened by the changing social milieu, and empowered to be despicably vocal about it. Conversely, on the other side of things we have people who are so concerned about defending one liberal value (tolerance) as to hammer another critical liberal value (freedom of expression) into the ground. So that's a swirling maelstrom of hate and misplaced principle, and that's what produces the free speech news out of the US.

No, no, no that's completely wrong. I believe in freedom absolutely but not if that freedom means it offends or hurts someone else That's not something that, as the offending party...or even necessarily the offended party...can control. it is fascinating to see how folks raised elsewhere sees different. in the US we view as kinda obvious that the speech that is most needing protection is speech that is likely to offend somebody. nevertheless, elsewhere, it is seen as equal obvious that hurtful or hateful speech is not worthy of govt. protection. we has actual written articles on this subject. HA! Good Fun! You may have written articles on it but this post is a gross oversimplification AND misinterpretation of what is going on. Americans always say their most important amendment is free speech, but they're really not because they confuse their freedom to offend with their freedom to abuse. EDIT: This post rubbed me the wrong way and I edited out some choice comments about how dumb American law is that I added just to piss off the lawyer. My apologies. Well, the gross oversimplification of your post rubs me the wrong way. Certainly there are a great many Americans who take advantage of the remarkable free speech situation here, and pass over into the realm of abuse. But to generalize about all Americans from the data of a notorious minority is just silly. I think most Americans probably do honestly believe that the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech is the most important, for reasons other than allowing arseholes to spew racist trash that might well be considered abuse. That's a side consequence of believing that people ought to be able to say what they want without fearing the heavy hand of an intrusive government.

I think part of the problem re: women participating in online games and game fora is the reputation those places have established. I have two female friends who thought that SWTOR sounded pretty cool, even though they really weren't gamers, and wanted to play. They absolutely refused to play by themselves, even after they'd gotten pretty decent at the game, because they didn't want to have to group up with "immature creepy gamer dudes" (their words)--even though they had no prior involvement with any gaming community. They also refused to join my guild for ops, because they didn't want to go on voice chat and reveal that they were RL women. Of course, given the fact that my guild always had a couple stupid arseholes on chat, that probably wasn't a bad move. That illustrates something but I'm not sure what.

I was blackmailed into reading all four books. I have familiarised myself with it enough, I think. *shudders* I read the first one out of a desire to figure out what the hell was going on. Then I read the next three, because there was only about a quarter book's worth of plot in there, and I have a compulsive need to know what happens once I start a series, even if I don't really enjoy it. I would never have finished the Wheel of Time or Act III of DA2 otherwise.

"Dragon" is still in the title.

I almost always do the opposite. I find it fun when NPCs are nothing like one another but have to get along in my party. Cross-party sniping is excellent.

Well, all games that both a) have a modicum of ambition and b) want to be polished end up with a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor, and everything that's cut was something someone worked on. I imagine what Gaider says there has fairly broad application across the industry.

Surprised he'd admit that, and doesn't seem to bode well. Gaider has said that applies to every game he's worked on. So I don't think any conclusions about DA:I specifically could be drawn from that little tidbit.

I think what's more critical than "does my soul come back" is "does my soul come back with my memories?" My feeling is that it wouldn't be very comforting to most people if their souls were reincarnated without the memory of the past life, because we identify our memories so closely with our selves. And I haven't seen any indication in PoE that memories carry over.

I mean, it's not a huge deal for me, and if they'd have to do a lot of monkeying with the models to make it work I'd rather they left it the way it is. It's not as if they're wearing chainmail bikinis, after all.

NWN2, which Obsidian made, was definitely a step forward in that direction. The combat log's superior in detail to that of the BG games, and it will often expand upon why an enemy isn't taking damage. Given that NWN2 was eight years ago, and that Josh has made a detailed and usable combat log a goal for PoE, I'm pretty hopeful that PoE will have superb combat intelligence.

I'd much rather that differentiation didn't show up at all--let me recognize my own characters in the party, and if I can't tell if other NPCs are male or female from their armor, well, too bad for me.

Got to agree with Gromnir on this one. There's no reason for any major visible distinction to be made between male and female versions of metal armors, and I definitely find it a bit distasteful that a huge rack's built into the female scale.

I'm also sure that no matter how long this argument about the specifics of combat in BG2 goes on, PoE's combat will not be closely similar to BG2's, and no one will be proved right.

bg3, or the "black hound" game, is one that many folks who followed black isle developments would wish to see get made. such a thing is impossible, but for folks who followed the bg3 development while it lasted, your comment will find only sterile and barren soil. HA! Good Fun! The point of my remark wasn't that BG3 would be a bad game--I think it'd be quite good, actually. My point was that this long turgid discussion would be relevant, and that would be hideous.

Thank goodness this game isn't BG3.

No.

Really like the progression on that plate armor.

I swear I will turn this car right back around to the Kickstarter!

That's actually what Zwiebelchen meant.

Well then the developers just dont know what theyre doing. They did not have things planned out alright. Which is understandable though. Nobody ever does know 100% of what's going to work and how well it'll fit into the time they have. It's part of not being able to see the future. Good planning will minimize the need for cuts, but that need is impossible to eliminate.

I think we might all need to read update 44. Josh goes very in-depth there about how melee engagement works, and I think it might address some of your concerns, MReed--assuming that it's still up-to-date, but we haven't heard anything to the contrary since then. It also clearly shows that neither of our understandings of engagement is entirely in tune what Josh is doing with the mechanic.