rjshae

Evil, but funny.

*tries to stare you to dead with hatred* Ah, so you're a child. Good to know.

This is okay as long as there is a plausible mechanic *COUGH*magic*COUGH* to explain the transition. Perhaps psychic surgery involving you and some fresh humanoid brains...

Watched Ender's Game and Pacific Rim last weekend. The former seemed the better of the two, even though it is generally lower rated. The acting in the latter just seemed a little too forced and over the top. Both are decent popcorn movies.

"It requires five hours and twenty minutes to gather up your hidden stash and return to camp. You arrive just as dusk is falling."

Oooo... New nVidia Flameworks Tech Demo

I think that could be handled with suitable artwork. For example, the background image for your gear could show the faint shape of a backpack; the background image for the stash could show a mound of gear, tied up and covered in a tarp, then concealed in a hole in the wall.

It got rave reviews upon release, so that was hardly it. It sold badly (relative to the other IE games) because it was set in the obscure Planescape setting, whereas Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate were set in the Forgotten Reams, which was a big draw back then. The Fallout games, which also took place in a non-traditional setting, apparently sold even less than Torment. Yes, that's a point I keep in mind each time a poster complains that game companies don't "do something really different". That difference means the game is only going to sell to niche group within an already small market, unless it is heavily promoted or the new setting has a strong following. Perhaps in the end that will become a primary role of Kickstarters: use the contributor funding to develop a market for a niche setting or genre, then base future AAA titles on those that succeed. Thus far, however, the biggest Kickstarter video game successes have been based on nostalgia.

Yup, it's just a gaming abstraction to avoid hours of tedious walking back and forth.

Win8 works pretty good on mobile and tablets (and looks good there- better than Android, imo :>), by the way. It's just that it super sux on a desktop pc. Yeah, all it does on the desktop PC is constantly get in the way.

Oh yeah!

The Lost Lands: The Lost City of Barakus by Frog God Games -- "Detailed within these pages is the great, bustling metropolis of Endhome, the Penprie Forest and Duskmoon Hills located north of that city, and, finally, the huge dungeon that is the Lost City of Barakus." This is a hardcover campaign book containing a low level adventure designed to take characters up to level 6. Separate books for Pathfinder and Swords & Wizardry. Succeeding at $26,215 with 393 backers. EXTREME EARTH: A Dystopian Superhero Campaign Setting by Joe Bardales -- a supers campaign setting in a world that is short on resources and rife with paranoia and corruption. There will be seven different books for different rules systems. Currently at $1,250/$7,500 with 44 days to go. City State of the Invincible Overlord by Judges Guild -- They are bringing back an updated version of "the first published fantasy RPG city setting back to the presses for JG Universal and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game System." Succeeding at $37,758. Retro gaming indeed.

Point taken, but the last sentence is what worries me. What I gathered from the Obsidian interviews is that they want to make this in to a successful franchise. Now did they mean that they want it to find a healthy market(beyond kickstarter), or simply satisfying the people who kickstarted it so they can go another round (sequel/exp). I guess it's a question of if they have ambition to make a big studio out of Obsidian or if they are fine with getting paychecks for making games they love(?). I could see them making different styles of games based on the PoE world setting, like a single character sandbox and/or a MMORPG. Or they could produce games in a different genre, such as sci-fi, with a modified version of the PoE rules. They would already have the core code base written and debugged, so it should significantly reduce development costs.

Thanks for the update. I was wondering whether the Obsidian animators ever use any SCA heavy combat participants for your animation takes?

As an alternative, I suggest just buying yourself a tin plate and keep belting yourself on the head each time you start up the game.

There's probably a satisfying middle ground between the two character-building extremes of BG2 and IWD that would satisfy the need for tailoring your party and allow meaningful interactions. For example, allow the player to build a primary PC from the ground up, then provide a pool of side kicks that you can tailor to a more limited degree. The known character types of your possible side kicks allow the game designers to configure interactions, while you still get a lot of customization choices about your party makeup. You wouldn't even need to start the game with the side kicks--they could just be met on the adventure.

Meh.

There are other scenarios. Consider the funding for the current release: roughly $4M. If it sells an additional 20,000 copies at $25: that is $500,000 total, then subtract taxes and fees. Is that enough of a success? What if it sells 500,000 copies, but over the course of a decade and most of it at a significantly reduced cost. Will that fund the expansion? As a game it doesn't have to 'bomb' as you put it; it just has to fail to find an expanded market in the short term. The game then remains a niche product that may have a devoted fan following. At that point a Kickstarter may be appropriate, assuming Obsidian is still interested.

They can still Do a Kick start once the game Lunches. You know the riot they could get if we backed an Expantion, Second game, or what ever, and Some/every one Hates the game? or something. A kickstart is a Gamble, Right now we Gamble on realy Good Horse (Obsidian), If the game does well, they can lunch A second Kickstart. And if they way things went well i could pay again, to suport in a game i know i will like , insted a game i belive it might recapture old classics. And now with the expirience they have from this game they could be even more Specific, with tresholds and what not. because they live it once. They could do another Kickstarter for PoE after this expansion is released, but I suspect by then the key people will likely be committed to other projects. It will likely result in a significant delay. Which may be okay.

Our opportunity for an expansion within the main game got killed by those among us who didn't like them running a second Kickstarter without finishing the first. Now the expansion will be wherever the developers want to take the story. I don't see a need to attempt to constrain their imagination at this point.

Sounds to me like you don't even know what an RPG is. A lot of ignorant IE-era kiddies do this. They base their definition of an RPG on what they like about RPGs released decades after the genre started. I assume this is the point where you argue that Rogue is an RPG? It's not. In order to be a ROLEPLAYING game, a game has to include roleplaying. Rogue does not, so it gets dumped into the dungeon crawler bin. Same thing goes for Ultima 1-3ish, Diablo, and yes, Icewind Dale. Also, since you brought it up, I base my definition of RPG on tabletop roleplaying games as a whole, whereas you seem to have based your definition on RPGA modules. As always, this is a futile discussion. The definition of a role-playing game gets trolled to death. Endlessly. It's always going to be a fuzzy term that means different things to different people. Just like religion or politics.

The combat-centric and generally serial nature of the IWD series lowered the replay value for me, although the scenery was beautiful and some of the battles enjoyable.