rjshae

There is no God. God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Scarlett Johansson has been signed for a Ghost in the Shell film by Dreamworks.

To me, ToB seemed very grindy; more like the Icewind Dale series than the prior BG titles.

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. --Rodney Dangerfield

If they'd sold physics to us this way at school ...I'd have spent a lot of loose cash in dimly lit physics laboratories by now. Friction, elastic collisions, pendulums, momentum, inertia, optics, and pure electricity. It's all there, man. A day late for Newton's birthday, but so it goes.

What a dreadful, horrid year. Who is going to save the industry from all the new trolls?

Ah, just think what would happen if the bonus Kickstarter item was the only means to unlock the special, unique ending? The one they talk about for years because it was such a fantastic piece of work. This could lead to rioting in the streets. Fux News would start talking about the decaying morals of America's video gaming players. They might even have to call out the national guard. Oh my, this is worrisome.

I woke up this morning, got dressed for work, and drove into the office. Hmm, there's nobody in the parking lot. What a bunch of slackers! Wait, what? Yeah, you guessed it: my calendar was messed up. So it's back home to relax. Woo-hoo! Merry Christmas, everybody! :)

Yes, there are people who won't even play BG2 because they don't like how it looks. Their loss.

Pirates aren't exactly digging deep to "justify" their actions... all to masquerade the real thruth... they just dont want to pay for someone else's hard work. Any excuse made otherwise is just that, an excuse. If it's not this kickstarter thing it will be something else, always an 'excuse'... Right, but it's not "promoting" piracy, any more than any other add-on component. The argument I read goes like this: there's an exclusive item only available to some buyers; ergo this promotes piracy; hence there should be no exclusive items. It's nonsense.

A free potion for Kickstarter participants promotes piracy? Does everybody have to employ hyperbole these days just to make a trivial point?

Mildly amusing thread this. Almost as daft as the film is sure to be.

Pretty sure they always said that was the plan. I'm not sure how tightly the graphical style is tied into the engine though as I personally too wouldn't mind a more "realistic" art style (that said, D:OS graphics worker perfectly fine for the game, even though I had my reservations at first). I always appreciate how Swen just throws his ideas out there, few game developers are as open as Larian about what's going on on the inside and I really appreciate that. The one element I don't like about the D:OS engine is how it limits your panning ability. It felt awkward to be constantly fiddling with the direction trying to get a decent look at the scene.

Don't try to appeal to the casual gamers & hack 'n' slash crowd (God of War, anyone?) as did EAWare with their grossly ill-advised "This is the New Sh**" add for Dragon Age. This is primarily a game for grognards, so be honest about its throwback nature and fewer of the non-cRPG players who purchase PoE will shriek and sling poop on the forums. I was being satirical...

Shadows of Esteren - A Medieval Horror RPG: Occultism by Jim Searcy -- "A medieval role-playing game somewhere between Ravenloft, Game of Thrones and Call of Cthulhu"; Succeeding at $30,225 with 34 days to go. Silent Legions: A Sandbox Horror RPG by Kevin Crawford -- "A Lovecraftian horror RPG from the creator of Stars Without Number designed for sandbox play and home-brewed Mythos creation"; Succeeding at $18,276 with 4 hours to go. World of Mists: New RPG Setting for Pathfinder by WoM V Studio LTD -- "World of Mists is a setting book project for a tabletop role-play game, 100% compatible with Pathfinder"; 2% funded at £830 with 15 days to go. Not sure why this is not doing well. Aihrde: An RPG Setting from the Makers of Castles & Crusades by Stephen Chenault -- "a world heavy with the stains of time, where the bold stand upon the ruins of time and plunder the wealth of dragons and kings"; succeeding at $16,203 with 18 days to go

#2 and #4 seem like reasonable options for a casual play mode; #3 could be handled via more variety in lore XP; I think #1 would be a good addition at higher class levels (for the expansion).

I never understood this sentiment. Ideally, I like to see Kickstarting cRPG titles be all about independence from big house publisher control; it does not need to be about making a self-sustaining series. If it does make them self-sustaining, then great. But if it doesn't: so what? You'll still end up with a game that you want.

Regarding multitasking: because this is a computer-based game, there is no reason why the developers need to follow the D&D dogma for multitasking classes. They could, instead, use interpolation and scaling to generate class progression tables on the fly. For example, if you have 5 levels in Fighter and 3 levels in Cleric, the game engine can compute a scaled spell progression formula to determine what additional spell/effect bonuses you gain if you add a level to Cleric. This would allow the game to balance out the capabilities of the characters better, based on the total character levels.

That last one looks like the Pee versus En Pee problem. Sorry, nerdy math joke attempt.

They should call it... Shadowrun Forever. To be followed by Shadowrun & the Worm Catcher. (Wyrm Catcher?)

Another question is whether games will make films obsolete. Well probably not, but I do think they are going to start chipping away at the film business. Your conventional, mindless action film with car chases and shoot outs can easily be supplanted by a game. Movies have become quite pricey, making decently designed games very competitive.

The fairness of the release price--vis-a-vis the Kickstarter contributions--has little to do with it, beyond influencing a certain amount of publicity. As a commercial entity that wants to remain in business and continue to produce games that we can enjoy, they should set the price to bring in the best profit. Doing anything less would not be in their interest, nor in ours.

Funny yes, but a catchy tagline wouldn't hurt. "Old school adventures for a new generation" I'm sure somebody can do better than I.