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Wow, these guys finished up their Kickstarter with $2.1 million in contributions from just 3,950 backers. That averages out to $532 per!

A shopkeep you have traded with on several occasions suddenly says his stock is severely depleted due to some recent robberies. You get a much smaller selection as a result, and his pool of gold is lower. You can offer to investigate. A few village stores could offer special one-time deals due to a recent shipment. You get to shop a broader assortment for a few days. After some time, a peddler of useful potions and trinkets moves on and is no longer available. A merchant is looking to wed off his daughter, but needs to increase her dowry. For a limited time he offers to sell his goods at rock bottom prices, including some items that he was holding on to and had been previously unwilling to sell. Once he has sold enough, the prices and stock return to normal.

Being from Seattle, I know that there are actually six different types of rain. What you typically get in games is just normal rain and thunderstorms.

When you are walking faster, your detection radii should shrink and your sneakiness should decrease.

Orphan Black, season 2: Apr. 19 on BBC America. Can't wait... Trailer But why isn't season one up for some Saturn awards?

That level of implementation detail is what turn-based games are for...

It will be troubling times for the Kingdom, I'm sure. Whiners will whine; moaners will moan, then they will back it anyway. Point is, demonstrating that you can fulfill your Kickstarter pledges should indicate that you are a horse worth backing.

That could be messy. The game would need to communicate wind direction and the tactical effects of shooting at different angles. A range modifier would be easier to implement: strong wind => increased penalty for range.

Scientists discover a novel way to make ethanol without corn or other plants They used copper nanocrystals and electricity with water and CO to attain 57% conversion efficiency. Pretty impressive. They're working on a way to improve yields of higher energy-density propanol as well. Could this be the future of vehicle fuel generation?

Yes, in terms of game economy, the lack of combat experience may balance out the possibility of excess loot collection. To get the loot you have to spend time culling the owners, at a cost to you in time and resources spent.

To be fair, a primary motivation for adventuring (and banditry, and warfare) during the medieval era was money. So looting is a meaningful exercise. The game doesn't need to 'guide' us in that manner--if a player wants to collect and sell 100 soiled and damaged pieces of goblin armor worth a few coppers, then let them. It's their gaming time.

Rain was in BG, so that seems likely. Perhaps they are going to use that water level altering technology for heavy rain? Fog might be more of a challenge because of its varying volumetric properties. That would probably be the most interesting from a game-play perspective, since it should impact your detection radius. Possibly they could do wind by varying the plant/tree animations and altering smoke effects? That could be visually interesting for a gusty environment like a mountain pass or a coastal area. A variable snow covering might be implemented by blending in a sequence of graphical overlays, but that would require extra artwork. Perhaps just for a mountainous area? It might not be worth the cost.

For the PC, yes, stats rolling is a time waster. However, randomly generated stats might be useful for the Training Hall recruits. Especially if it was combined with a limited pool of candidates that slowly varied over time.

Well hopefully most times we won't need to. But surely you've had game combat where you needed every advantage and ended up optimizing your weapon usage? To me it's just equivalent to an aircraft loadout. Yes it will make the game easier. So do cheat codes. Some people just like to play that way... but it's their nickel.

A reason given for this is that you are replaying the exaggerated story as told from the perspective of Varric. You can see that in particular when you play the sequence where Varric takes on a horde of enemies with just his crossbow Bianca.

I'll echo this statement, to say that if a game has DLC introduced then I don't even bother purchasing it until they come out with their combined, deluxe edition. In that sense the publisher has lost money since I didn't buy the game until the time when the price had dropped significantly. The DLC is just milking money from players who want the game right away.

I love the added unconscious effect when a character drops. But having to reload a game gives a player a sense of failure. Coasting through the game leaves an element of monotony. Having a character drop to unconsciousness will make it much easier to progress through the game and essentially taking away from the fun and challenge. Are there steps being taken to prevent this? I believe it is important for a player to have that feeling of risk so they can rise up to that challenge and not just beat baddies but destroy! .... or escape with an inch of their lives I have no doubt there is a difficulty slider but I find the extreme difficulty settings make bizaar behaviours and gliches in gameplay making my temper short. It's been done this way a number of times before and I didn't feel any sense of diminished challenge. (E.g. Drakensang: TDE.) You still need to win the combat with your reduced party size in order for the unconscious members to revive, which can provide challenge enough. What it will do is negate the sense that I need to immediately do a reload; instead I keep fighting in order to see if I can win out. I.e. it may actually prolong the effort, while still leaving uncertain whether you will win.

Which makes me wonder if there will be a thrown weapons focus?

Well, I suspect the expectation by most contributors is that every dollar above the minimum needed to fund the Kickstarter will be used to improve and enhance the game. Thus it is not really a new goal; it's a goal to "not add anything new". For the love of all things holy, make us stop adding new features. Pleassseee...

3. Healing potion mod 4. Rest anywhere 5. Inventory anywhere Otherwise known as the "Casual play" mod. I'm pretty sure there will be enhanced difficulty mods as well; there usually are.

IIRC, there were some people at the time who complained that the funding was too focused on implementing specific stretch goals. This is what we got as a result.

We haven't missed this--it's been discussed before. But it is also true of games where there isn't infinite stash; the designers will still need to assume that players will take the time to vacuum up everything.

I wonder how well volumetric effects will interact with the 2D scenery? It might not look too realistic.

Time for some air quotes...