rjshae

All it really needs is sufficient VO to provide some emotional feel for the characters you're dealing with. Personally I'd like to see more animated ambiance; cities and towns with more people moving about and doing things. PoE felt almost deserted.

Meh. Not everybody is going to like it. That's just the nature of personal preference. I thought the setting was fine.

Finally managed to watch The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumbercatch managed to make a surprisingly interesting portrayal of a brilliant character with (probably) Asperger's syndrome. Also saw Mockingjay, which felt a little tedious despite all the action.

What the twentieth century taught us is that political groups can successfully promote their agendas by manipulating and controlling the media. Computer gaming is a logical extension of this practice.

Coming dangerously close to being an adulterer...

"Houston, you have a problem."

I'd love to see an isometric, party-based version of Star Frontiers.

I'm pretty happy with a number of these changes, particularly improvements to the stash and the inverted stronghold log. Still haven't seen a fix for the Lighthouse door blocking issues though. Thanks.

IWD2 wasn't a bad game by any means, but it was more about combat than story. To me the strong points were the beautiful backgrounds, a fairly decent implementation of D&D v3, the diversity of unique and colorful items, and the glorious challenging combat. It was a fun game, but didn't replay well due to being relatively linear. And yes, there was some travel through the Underdark.

By Aggro, do you mean like the Threat system used in Dragon Age? That always felt very artificial to me. I'd rather have a good monster AI system.

There's a perception, probably a correct one, that properly implementing MP would both reduce the resources applied to the single-player experience, and compromise certain elements of the game. Hence, if you're a solitary player of a game, adding MP doesn't provide any benefit and it may do some harm. Those who provided funding with the understanding that it would be single player, would not be happy to see their funds spent on a mode they will never use. Personally I wouldn't mind if they retrofitted an MP capability after the game is polished up. But that may be difficult because it could take a lot of code changes and retesting.

Survival could be allowed to significantly improve your travel time between wilderness areas, reducing fatigue effects. Conceivably it could reduce interrupts from elemental powers and attacks, given that your character is more knowledgeable about the elements.

Welcome to the second level, grasshopper. Be sure to spend your skill points wisely.

A permaban can be illegal? I must be in the people's liberal socialist republic of nowhereistan, up the fergetaboutit river.

Well DA:O had more voice acting, I'll give you that. Whoopee. Both games have a decent amount of lore. What DA:O has in skills (limited though they are), PoE almost makes up for by having a broader range of ranks.

DA:O boiled down to skirmishing tactics, since you couldn't hold a front line. It was a rare battle where you could make an interesting tactical decision. That's not difficult to improve upon; even BG had it beat.

That's a lot of bull. Okay, yeah, I said it.

I think he feels safer on SomethingAwful. It's behind a paywall, he gets the kind of feedback he wants and doesn't have to deal with criticism or the drama of the real world. I bet it's cozy. This isn't the real world. It's a fabricated construct where the sociopathic gaming stasi attempt to control the discourse through obtuse criticism and disinformation memes.

'Cept for the whole pantheon thing, of course, which wasn't around in the Renaissance or the U.S. Or reincarnation.

It seems like I just blew through Act III. Guess I need to take a completionist run.

Yup. Another perspective would be to compare the perceived difference between the ancient religions such as Chrisitanity and a newly invented religion such as Scientology. The former has acquired its moral authority over centuries of cultural indoctrination; the latter was the recent creation of a science fiction writer. Which do you think holds a stronger sway among the people (Hollywood notwithstanding)?

I noticed this also actually. I didn't do a whole lot of experimenting with it, but it annoyed me when I noticed it and I did do a bit of double checking. There is certainly something they lock on to due to the nakedness there. I know in NWN2 the enemies are set to attack the lowest AC party member this also annoyed the **** out of me. "Appear at points the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places you are not expected." "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak." Sun Tzu, Art of War.

As with others, I'd like to see more development of the Stronghold, such as: A means to integrate the resting bonuses. More ambient characters, including guards and a butler. Politics. Economics. A nearby community to protect. Have a dragon devastate the place in response to your behavior. A means to let your pets loose to wander about. I'd also like to see some packaged encounters for inter-area travel in response to your prior choices.