PrimeJunta

I don't like this idea, except for the odd -- very odd and very subtle! -- in-joke, maybe. "Property of Mourns-for-trees" on a bottle of razorvine extract in IWD is borderline OK; visiting a shared location... no. Just... no. The problem is that the two universes are metaphysically incompatible. P:E's universe is all about souls and the transmigration thereof; Numenéra is grounded in Clarkian "technology so advanced it's indistinguishable from magic." Monte Cook explicitly rejects magic as magic in Numenéra; it's all hyper-advanced tech that looks like magic. So the only way to combine the two would be to declare that P:E's magic, souls, and gods are all just hyper-advanced tech too, it's just that the people in P:E don't realize it. That cheapens the whole setting IMO. An even cheaper trick would be to go with a D&D:ian multiverse. Don't like that either. So -1 on this idea from me. Keep 'em coming though.

Re pay, it's very common to have bonuses of various types in this industry, as well as profit-sharing, co-ownership and so on and so forth. Where I work for example distributes 10% of net profit as bonus pay for all employees. It's also pretty common to have a bonus if your project goes under budget. It wouldn't strike me as odd at all that crowdfunded projects would have bonus structures tied to the success of the crowdfunding effort -- especially so in a creative field like games, where as I've understood it a bunch of the people working on the pitch worked for very low or no pay with an understanding that inXile would make it up to them if and only if the pitch succeeds. With risky ventures or startups, it's also fairly common for devs -- especially experienced devs who have other options but really like the idea of the startup -- to agree to work for less than industry average until the venture is profitable, in exchange for a stake in the company. In both cases, a highly successful crowdfunding campaign could mean higher pay for the devs. I do not see anything wrong with that at all.

Word. The Numenéra system is an example of streamlining done right. Meaning: it's a system designed with a clear and specific goal in mind -- to provide just enough structure to make it feasible to run a story-heavy RPG campaign. For a Torment game I'd say it sounds just about perfect. It would be a poor fit for a combat-heavy, tactics-heavy game though -- the wrong choice for P:E, for example. I had the book ordered before T:ToN was announced, actually. My current D&D campaign is winding to a finale, and I wanted to do something different next.

@Razsius, I already have dual wielding and the kits; they're in the Trilogy + fix mods which I installed. I'll pass on the Wild Mage. I gave that Archer kit a long, hard look, but I really enjoy playing a 'caster and you can't dual or multi a ranger/mage, so I don't think so. But thanks for the tip. Yah, Dak'kon is awesome. The CTD's, not so much. How many circles did you unlock? You sure you got all of them? Also I agree about the game systems getting in the way. With no missile weapons low-level combat is... not like BG. OTOH you can't die, and you can Raise your companions, which makes it a fair bit more forgiving in its way. And... IMO with PS:T, turning down the difficulty to make the systems less of a chore is no sin.

It's a fair cop. I didn't like some of them, some of them didn't like me. Oh well. Mistakes were made. Dualing to Cleric -- yeah, that'd work, my dump stat is WIS. I think I'll just call this one a loss and start over. All part of the fun of it. At least now I have an idea of what party members are available and where. Maybe I'll go with Imoen, Minsc + Dynaheir, that paladin dude just north of Friendly Arm, and Branwen to start with, then swap out Branwen for that dwarf cleric I just lost once I get that far. And play an elf fighter/mage specializing in longbows with a side helping of longswords. Or two-handers? Whoever made the game seems to like making boss greatswords... That should give me plenty of archery power, enough crowd control to swing the tough fights, and just enough healing power to stay alive. With no dualing just because it's such a drag. (Whoever thought up that rule should be spanked.) And I can always turn down the volume so I don't have to hear about Minsc's hamster.

It's funny, that. Cheating completely ruins a game for me. I'll exploit the bejeezus out of it but once I bring up the console, I completely lose interest. I'd rather start over. Just not sure if BG is enough of my thang to do that. Maybe later. I think I got a pretty good idea of what it's about as it is. Oh, and, being the racist human Lawful Goody type, I already turned Viconia over to those good peacekeeping Flaming Fist types, so that option's a no-go as well. Oh well...

Okay, how screwed am I? I'm basically out of cleric. I swapped out Branwen, who didn't like my style anyway and took off. Then I found a cleric I like, that dwarf in the Cloakwood mines. So I swapped out Jaheira and Khaled for him, and went to grab that paladin dude instead and do some adventurin'. And... I didn't know his quest was on a timer. By the time he started to nag about it, I was several days away from the mines, and he quit the party before I made it back. So I'm basically all out of cleric. The only healing power I have is that poor paladin's lay-on-hands. The only other divine caster I've come across is a druid in Cloakwood. Suggestions? (N.b. -- I don't keep backup saves, only a quicksave and the previous autosave. So I can get my gear back from that dwarf by going back a notch, but that be about it.)

Okay, now I've got to go see how hard Durlag's Tower stomps on me. I'm not sure which chapter I'm in, I stopped paying attention to the numbers. Five maybe. That ranger dude started nagging me about the bandits so I wiped them out and got another screenie with some s-l-o-w narration pointing me towards Cloakwood, so naturally I took off in the opposite direction. Really hating that cramped labyrinth dungeon full of lightning traps and respawning kobold commandos with fire arrows. It's incredibly tedious as the only way not to get my squishy rogue constantly turned into a flaming pincushion is to creep s-l-o-w-l-y along so she'll find the traps before stepping on them, with my fighters close behind to mow down the kobolds when they pop up. That's not hard, it's just excruciatingly slow and tedious. And the cramped corridors play hell with the pathfinding so I have to micromanage the characters to keep them from wandering off across half the maze to end up in the corridor behind the wall. I'll probably just leave and look for something else. And Raz, no, I hadn't played BG before. I have played BG2 through several times though, but this is not the same game at all, it feels so different it's like it's not even in the same series.

Oh, and, another interim BG Let's Play report. Now I'm up to level 5-6. I dualed Imoen to mage; she's now T6/M4, meaning still fairly useless although Stinking Cloud and Sleep are handy enough; one more level and she'll get L3 spells, which should make for even more rest-spamming. To fill in until she gets her mad thief skills back I picked up someone who wanted to raid a cave with flesh golems in it. Her banter is getting on my nerves a bit but she's getting those traps cleared nicely enough. Those flesh golems proved good grind material to get Imoen her first few mage levels. Jaheira is unhappy with my leadership, presumably because I'm too much of a goody-goody for her True Neutral druidness. Mowed through the bandit camp leaving behind mostly a bloody smear; no trouble there. Now I'm traipsing around some old ruins full of kobold commandos shooting fire arrows, which is a bit tedious, but perhaps the reward will be worth it. Anndd... it's getting a wee bit monotonous again. Feeling a little stalled. But we'll see where this goes next. There's an ominous Durlag's Tower on my map, perhaps I'll check that out after I clear these ruins.

@Jarmo, at least for me the glory of Fallout is in the writing. Fallout's combat is IMO worse than in any of the IE games in fact; if it weren't for the glorious death animations it'd be just about intolerable. And it's not that it's turn-based; in fact I prefer turn-based for isometric party-based stuff. However the world is quirky, funny, loaded with layers upon layers of satire and commentary and play upon tropes and what have you, and the dialog is mostly nothing short of brilliant. Monty Python meets Beaver Cleaver in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The point? Graphics and gameplay systems age, but good writing stays good forever. That's another reason I think PS:T has a real shot at immortality -- the stuff that makes it worthwhile won't be out of date as long as people are able to read.

That. I'm surprised TBH. Maybe there is hope for humanity after all. Once we're done with this, let's go and sort out all that foolishness in the Middle East.

You know, Razsius, I think it was that same interaction that sold me on PS:T. Up to that point I was more like "wait, wut?" but from there on out I knew I was dealing with something unique and unusual. So yeah, you have it now.

Thanks. Things are getting easier. I dropped off Garrick and got that ranger dude instead, which bumped up my offensive power a fair bit. I think a bard is a pretty good addition around levels 1-2 actually because the problem is that you're whiffing all the time, and +1 to hit for everybody can make a big difference. My party is now between levels 4-5 and I'm coping pretty nicely by now. Splatting ankhegs without much trouble. I like divine spellcasters; they're good all-arounders and having lots of healing power is good. I had Xan tagging along for a bit but he was too emo for my blood so I dropped him off, although Sleep on a bandit group was, indeed, very effective. But I think I'm over the initial hump. I'll dual Imoen after another level or two; I want to bump her find traps/open locks skills up to respectable levels before I do that. I'll only dual Athia late, perhaps not until BG2. And you know what? Now I get where your "combat XP FTW" party is coming from. BG is extremely grindy. Half the fun is finding tough but just-killable enemies and splatting them to level up -- and you do level up pretty fast that way. There is definite enjoyment to that dynamic. It's like going back to the old days of dungeon-crawling D&D with graph paper and entering a 30 x 30 foot room with an ogre guarding a chest. Nostalgia. I can understand how that would become the definitive, core Infinity Engine experience for you, and how you'd be seriously miffed when it's taken away from you. Personally... I'm kind of over that gameplay mechanic, much like I'm over playing tabletop D&D with graph paper and elaborate dungeons. It was fun, but I'm older now, and I'm looking for other things. For me, Torment was the definitive IE experience -- not because it was perfect (it certainly wasn't!) but because it showed that a cRPG could be more than just good clean gnoll-splatting fun. And ironically Torment wasn't really all that good a fit for the IE and the AD&D ruleset. I think there is a possible synthesis to be found between the two styles, though. It could be possible to have enough grindy elements to make that aspect of gameplay appealing; enough tactical fun to make that part worthwhile, and enough story and depth to make the whole thing worthwhile. P:E could very well be that synthesis. So thanks for encouraging me to give BG another shot. I still won't miss combat XP in P:E -- but I understand why you would, and sympathize... and if they change their minds about it and put it in, I'll be happy for you. And I'll keep playing. Re Torment, it sounds like you know very well what you're doing. Perhaps... too well. For me, the real key to enjoying it was to hit myself on the head with a brick until I stopped metagaming, and then enjoy the ride. When I returned to it this time, I played in self-imposed "no savegame abuse" mode -- I did whatever I felt was right and never looked back. I only had to "cheat" twice over the entire game; once when I painted myself into a corner and once when I picked a game-ending dialog option. (The Modron Maze doesn't count, since that's designed as a place for grinding.) And I'm sure I missed stuff or picked sub-optimal choices at times. It was also an enormous amount of fun. Torment is really all about paying careful attention to what people are telling you, and following up. And examining absolutely everything, especially weird items in your inventory, not just once, but multiple times. It's all about attention to detail. Not just mechanically talking to everyone and then ticking off questions.

I agree, except more vehemently. The strength of D&D was always in the settings and supporting materials; as a system it's between borderline unplayable (AD&D) and passable but not brilliant (D&D 1 and 3). But what other system has everything from Dark Sun to Planescape, Al-Qadim to Oriental Adventures, Forgotten Realms to Ravenloft, all fleshed out in loving detail -- and ties it up into one gloriously chaotic multiverse? Haven't played 4E although I have the core books. Read them, decided I don't want to, thought it would work better for a computer game than 3E. @Razsius: I'm playing at Core Rules difficulty. Gibberlings and gnolls and such aren't a problem, but anything with missile weapons is, and there are a quite a lot of missile mobs in there, and the AI seems surprisingly adept about focusing its fire. I am playing missile-weapons heavy; I'm keeping my kensai Athia's throwing axes for special occasions, but other than that my tactic is to kite like a real hero, with Imoen and Khalid on bows, Jaheira and that Swedish lady on slings, and the bard dude singing encouragingly, which makes a visible difference to THAC0. And if the terrain is suitable, I have Athia and Jaheira switch to hack mode to block passage while the rest of the gang keeps shooting. I'll probably switch out the bard later on when combat isn't so whiffy and get a ranger instead. That pretty much devastates anything slower than my party that doesn't have missile weapons. I played BG2 as a kensai/mage once, and while I originally wanted to play some other character concept (which is why I tried out all those others), I ended up falling back on this after my others... failed to catch, as it were. But a mob of skeleton crossbowmen, kobolds with bows, hobgoblin elite with bows, or plain ol' bandit archers... yeah, owie. About character concepts in PS:T, by the way: I find the most enjoyable way to play it is not to have one. Just pile your character points in WIS, bump up your INT up to 18 but not past, and split the rest between CHA and CON (don't push STR past 15, there's no point whatever you're doing), and then switch character classes on the fly, as situationally appropriate. Or if you like, stick to one "primary" class -- fighter or mage -- and switch to the others temporarily when you need to. You'll lose a little powergaming-wise since your XP pool won't all go to one class, but IMO it feels more fun and natural that way, and you get to find out and use all the weird and oddball stuff you find, and have deeper and more interesting conversations with all of your companions. Plus if you're really concerned about the XP, there is a grind-o-mat in there which you can use too (although it won't make a difference once your XP shoots up into the meellions near the endgame). But you really don't lose all that much; the combat near the endgame is a drag anyway and one more weeaboo spell effect that'll cause a CTD as likely or not isn't likely to turn the tide.

Resurrecting this thread, mostly for Razsius's benefit. I've started another BG playthrough. Did the canonical modern install, i.e., Trilogy with the fixpacks (but no restored content; IMO that's mostly not worth it), widescreen, all that commotion. Started a couple of characters. Squibs. Still hating it. And then... not. I'm in fact sort starting to reluctantly like it. The ambient sounds are really nice. The music still doesn't do much for me, but hey. I did three things. One, finally manage to come up with a character I enjoy playing. She's a kensai, specialized in axe (because there's both a throwing and a hacking version, and I would expect there's a throw-and-return version somewhere in there later too, at least in BG2 there was). I'm planning on dualing her to mage later in the game, probably pretty late though. Also start-scummed the bejeezus out of her to get ridiculous stats. Dump stat is WIS, everything else is... high or very high. And I spent a bit of time adventurin' with only Imoen, basically just harassing the local wildlife to get both of us up to level 2 reasonably safely. At least now the entire party has double-digit HP, which means that one-shot kills are a lot less frequent. Two, I cranked up the frame rate to 45. Yay! I'm no longer crawling excruciatingly slowly across the map, but rather moving at a reasonably quick rate, but not so quick I lose total control of combat. And three, I stopped trying to follow the plot. Switched off my brain and am just exploring and doing random sidequests. Rescued Dynaheir and promptly booted her and Minsc out of the party (because Minsc won't shut up about his damn hamster; getting on my nerves). There is enough stuff in those "empty" wilderness areas after all, to make them worthwhile. Playing with Jaheira + Khalid (thinking of offing Khalid because he's almost as annoying as Minsc), whereas Jaheira kicks arse, that Swedish priestess who was turned to stone, the bard (Garrett, what's his name?), and Imoen. Got my party to level 3 or thereabouts, and haven't even checked out those kobold-ridden mines yet. And it's starting to be fun in a "more innocent time" kind of way. Lots of stuff to do, lots of places to go. I still kinda hate the gameplay though. Low-level D&D is... unpleasant. It's basically save, encounter, flip coin, win/try again. Over and over again. I don't like having to constantly save and reload; it breaks my immershun. And if there is a way to play combat-heavy low-level D&D that doesn't involve constant reloading... well, I haven't discovered it. When your party has low-enough HP to be one-shotted by lots of enemies, that's kinda how it is. Frankly I don't think this sort of thing would pass nowadays. Combat in Age of Decadence is brutal but the whole point is that combat is not the only solution. In BG, it's all combat, all the time. Nor does it have the almost-universal trope of having a safe-ish tutorial from which you emerge at a roughly level-3 competence level. But yeah, I think it's... growing on me. If I'm still liking it by the time I hit level 6 or so, then I'll officially declare my mind changed.

Yes, but why would you want to kill them? Doesn't driving them off work just as well?

Uh... why would you want to kill them?

@LadyMuck, lucky your point (1) was the first stretch goal for Torment: Tides of Numenéra. They did originally write the PC as a woman though.

@Razsius, we have different tastes, that's clear. Do you find it disturbing? I don't find it disturbing. No accounting for tastes. I dunno. I play games for fun. I like games that seize my imagination or have really good "visceral" gameplay. I cannot into games where I'm just asked to larp... unless there's an exceptionally interesting world to discover. What's got me scratching my head is that Arcanum's world ought to be just that, exceptionally interesting, and I ought to have fun discovering it. But no, it just doesn't do it for me. -- Also, Arsène Lutin was just my latest character. I've also played a tech-related gunslinger, a powergaming mage, and a combo swordsman-magic-user. I hated the combat with all of them, which is why I finally tried Arsène, figuring it would be essentially a "skip the combat" button so I could appreciate the rest of it, but ... no. I always seem to get up to level 10...15 or so, and then lose interest.

I got up to about level 15 FWIW. Shrouded Hills, Blackthorn, Tarant, that one decaying fief down south, that one town at the coast with the statue problem, and a bunch of dungeons including the one with the annoying golems that wreck your swords if you try to h2h them. Think I ground my way through that one once too, but I still wasn't having much fun.

I didn't particularly like the gameplay, nor did I particularly dislike it. It's certainly nothing so special I'd play the game just for it. It would've been more than adequate had the game itself been more interesting. My problem is I thought the characters, universe, and story were bland, predictable, and generic, so it just failed to grab my imagination. Come to think of it, that's more or less my criticism of Baldur's Gate -- not imaginative enought to grab my imagination, and the gameplay while "fine, I guess" isn't good enough to grab that part of my brain. Cf. Icewind Dale -- also fairly vanilla swords-n-sorcery-ancient-evil story and setting, but much more fun to hack through. On my second playthrough now; this time I'm powergaming with a F (greatsword), F/C (mace), F/C (hammer), T/F (large sword, locks), T/F (axe, traps), F/M (bow) party, and still having a lot of fun doing it. Which makes me even more puzzled about why I can't like Arcanum, although it is the exact opposite -- it's a unique, imaginative, and unusual universe, characters, and story. I ought to like it. Why can't I?

I didn't care much for ME, although it didn't evoke any huge antipathy in me either. I thought it was unimaginative and boring, except for a few bits very late in the game. Also repetitive, with tons of filler, and really boring loot (and too much of it). Never even bothered with 2 or 3. Nothing to do with the mechanics or the fact that it's a genre crossover; I often quite like those. Nice voice acting though, especially FemShep.

I think achievements are more interesting for game devs, actually, since they work as telemetry about how players actually behave (as opposed to how they think they behave). This can be useful. It can also be turned into a mill that grinds everything down to the lowest common denominator. There's no reason these milestones need to be visible to the player though. Personally I dislike them.

True, Fallout was broken too -- but it wasn't quite as badly broken, because (1) the main questline didn't leave a breadcrumb trail to the power armor and turbo plasma rifle, (2) even if you metagamed and beelined for them, you'd have to do a fair bit more adventuring on the way (compared to the scope of the game), plus the water chip time limit gave an incentive to focus on that for the early part of the game anyway, and (3) you never reached a level high enough to make things truly absurd. Put another way, you were driving the same rusty heap in both games, but Fallout had you on a leisurely weekend trip on some scenic byways, while Fallout 2 threw you on the Paris-Dakar. It could handle the former but fell to pieces on the latter.

@Sacred_Path -- If you look at a game like a kitchen appliance which you can "objectively" assess simply by checking its performance against a list of features, then all that makes sense. On the other hand if you consider a game to be in the same category as, say, a novel, a play, a film, a TV series, or some other product of creativity intended to seize the imagination, that laundry-list approach strikes me as frankly silly. I do not treat games like kitchen appliances, and find the idea of "objective game reviews" utterly wrong-headed to start with. I'll take an informed, well-expressed opinion over it any day of the week.