rjshae

I think it would be a financially risky move, unless Obsidian partnered with somebody to spread the risk. First, though, they should establish the PoE brand by building a dedicated following with single-player games.

Note to self: grab asbestos umbrella in preparation for s***storm of grumbling about disabled functionality in the beta release...

Wake me up when the Delta release is out.... Thanks for the update.

Essentially this. If I'm designing a realistic medieval merchant who sells magic items, then does he keep lots of cash and magic on hand without a suitably powerful guard? Probably not. He'd have a safe location somewhere. If you want to buy an item, he'd have a list of available stock. You put down a deposit, then he makes arrangements for delivery at a time and place of his choosing. At that point he can hire suitably powerful guards for a short interval, using your deposit. This saves on costs--he doesn't need to pay for the elite guard services full time. It would be the same for you selling an item. It's the same principle as why merchants use the armored truck. This means that every time you want a magic item transaction, there's a built-in latency where you sit around waiting for some period of time. You don't like that? Well tough beans, it's a realistic simulator. There's some benefit in having a level of abstraction in a multi-character game like this.

I suspect the benefit of a "bag of holding", given the current equipment mechanic, would be a larger Pack capacity. Possibly there could be similar but more limited gear that you could equip, like a 'belt pouch of holding' for potions.

A Bester thread? Rot-ro...

They are allegedly a rather mediocre team which is led by one very good player, whom some people also think is overly hyped. To me they certainly don't seem mediocre; I just think the rest of the world is catching up, skills-wise. It seems like more of a balanced contest now, even if the big powers are still dominating.

I have a concern about the physical media being planned for this game. If the master disk is based on the bits from the initial release of the game, then it is likely to need patching. However, if Obsidian waits until there is a generally stable version (say after 3 months), then the media should be good to use without requiring any network access. What is your preference?

Somebody wandering in and looking for a PoE discussion would probably be very confused at this point...

What I wouldn't mind seeing is the Tim Allen approach to dialogue; various vocal utterances indicating the mood of a response, such as hmm, err, uhuh, or ohohoh...

Many role-playing games tend to abstract certain tedious elements, such as trading. I don't think they need to show every little detail of the merchant accessing the secure vault in the cellar where the gold and magic items are stored.

Does it really matter which class most closely resembles a vessel for holding fluids?

Possibly the idea of some additional companion have been kicked around for the expansion pack? If they planned for that early on then it will make their integration easier to implement.

In a certain sense it's like an investment; Obsidian will own an entirely new IP that they can continue to use to generate revenue in the future, and which we can hopefully enjoy as gamers.

The diversity of combat capabilities in PoE are exactly what makes combined arms tactics beneficial. As long as the classes are situationally better under certain conditions, then working together as a team is more effective than just having them perform their individual actions at random. I.e. the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I'm pretty satisfied with the diversity of combat models because it makes the tactics much more interesting to manage.

I wouldn't mind seeing a 'Knockback' ability to drive a defender back a couple of meters using a rapid flurry of blows (and to advance accordingly). Sometimes its useful to drive a wedge into the enemy formation...

Now that we have all the class updates, it'd be very nice to hear about the current state of the Skills system. I can't imagine that would pose any spoiler issues.

Yes, that way he avoids any blame for Suarez's punishment. But I think it's an appropriate amount for a third offense; enough to make him think twice, but not enough to destroy him as a player. Still, I hope Liverpool dumps him.

They did show us Animats, which require sacrificing a warrior to infuse the spirit into a suit of bronze armor. But that is based on ancient technology, which may not be available.

The Circle of Eight just announced that they have finally released the completed version of Keep on the Borderlands. This game uses the ToEE engine.

This one seems a little non-intuitive to me; if you're having to defend against more than one attacker is seems like your likelihood of inflicting damage would actually drop unless the two opponents are getting in each other's way. I guess it must be a soul power...

I've seen real-life people with smaller eyes. Plus, they're in profile... maybe she has relatively wide, lazy-ish eyes? Who knows. Obviously everyone's welcome to their opinion, but it seems a little odd to me that, instead of saying "I dunno... I don't really like the size of the eyes, etc.", multiple people are all jumping on it as if pointing out a crooked doorframe. "Yep, that's definitely, concretely, flawed. It should be perfect 90-degrees." When the human anatomy allows for quite a range of proportions. I don't understand the extent of the issue being had with it, namely, the certainty of its straying from some very rigid set of blueprints. Personally, I just find it a little odd, and, for lack of a better word, "nitpicky," since it seems to be saying "a human female could not possibly look like that." There's absolutely nothing wrong with critiquing art, as long as it is done constructively.

It's a nice overall look because the colors and highlights work well. But yes, some of the proportions are a bit off. Especially the eyes, which seem physiologically too small. Still, it's not something you're going to notice much on a tiny icon.

That's the benefit of having the PC do all the computation for you; it lets you focus on the tactical aspects of all these various elements instead. What may be more of a challenge is turning this into a playable PnP game. But that's not our problem.