PrimeJunta

There's also a quest in Defiance Bay. Involves a certain diamond and some shenanigans between noble houses...

Poppy****. Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas all did exceedingly well in the story department. FO3 not so much but hey, Bethesda.

It'd be really weird if you couldn't, as this is an expansion, not a sequel, and the trailer starts off from Caed Nua, rebuilt by "you." So yeah, I think it's safe to assume that we can continue playing with our current characters.

Huh, doesn't everyone despise light-side Revan, that turncoat?

Either me or the Fallout franchise must be getting old, 'cuz that did absolutely nada for me. The whole 50's-Americana-retro-futuristic-post-apoc thing is wearing pretty thin. "More of the same, but now with interior decoration" doesn't do it for me. At least give it a new twist, like setting it in Sverdlovsk and showing us some 50's-Soviet-retro-futuristic-post-apoc. Or something. Anything. Just not another jumpsuit, Dogmeat, and flash-burned formica countertop.

The only one worth noting is Kana, who gets a Fine estoc and an arquebus, which are pretty good gear that early in the game. Everybody else's gear is fairly ignorable, either worse or on par with what you'll have found by then.

Being good is all about making sacrifices, no?

I did, and most of the ones I bought were in far worse shape than P:E was on release. A few were un-completable, even. Especially RPG's which are massively complex. Off the top of my head, some games from around then: The Witcher 1 had seriously screwed-up quests and iinnnnssssaaaannneeelllly long loading times. Vampire: Bloodlines had a broken main quest; you couldn't actually finish the game in the initial release version. NWN2 had seriously screwed-up quests, horrid, horrid camera controls, and performance that melted your video card with frankly pretty mediocre graphics. Morrowind had you stuck in geometry or falling through it, as did Gothic 2. All of these had regular crashes to desktop. In other words, I believe your memory is tricking you. If you ended up enjoying the game, it's easy to forget such stuff.

The Codex has gone soft, pfft.

@Baladas First off, I'm not at all sure that games now are any buggier than 7-10 years ago. I can certainly think of a bunch of games from back then that were in far worse shape on release than P:E was. That's anecdotal of course, and I've never owned a console so I have no idea if console games are less buggy on average than PC ones. But if they are, I can think of several reasons. In particular, ubiquitous broadband Internet, plus services like Steam, Origin, GoG Galaxy, and the consoles' online services. They make patch delivery much cheaper and easier than it was back then. In any case, if this poll is any indication, by and large people seem pretty happy with the current state of affairs. If you're not, that's your prerogative of course.

TBH I really don't get the angst about this. Some of us want to get in early. Others want a polished experience. As things currently stand, the first group has to tolerate a certain amount of rough edges, and the second group has to wait. In other words, everybody can get what they want simply by adjusting their behavior. In other words, this strikes me as yet another pointless argument about semantics -- what something is called. Anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows that day-1 purchases are almost always pretty rough. Making a day-1 purchase and then loudly complaining that it's rough just seems... puzzling, like gulping down scalding hot coffee and then complaining that it burns. If you really feel that the state of the industry is wrong and the general quality level of games on release should be much higher than it is now, then don't buy games on release. Buy them a year later, after the patches are in and you'll get them at half price. If enough people agree, publishers will take notice -- they'd rather sell it to you full-price, and earlier -- and we'll start seeing more polished releases.

Simulationists. Simulationists never change.

First off, just to make it clear: I love P:E. It's a fantastic game. It's the cRPG I've had the most fun with since the Golden Age, no question, and stands proudly among the games that inspired it. 10/10 GOTY and all that commotion. There are three mechanical systems in it however that I thought were weak enough to detract from the experience, and I hope Obsidian addresses these in the expansion and sequels: crafting, the stronghold, and stealth. Stealth needs a complete overhaul in my opinion. It is way overpowered. Being able to sneak with even 0 points in it means you always get the drop on your enemies. With detection circles rather than sight cones there's no real gameplay involved in it, beyond switching it on and off, and with the possibility of double-speed, there's no disincentive to exploring maps stealthed. I believe it would be a lot more fun if: It is individual, not party. Characters with 0 ranks in stealth cannot sneak. (Or, rather, they can try, but there's no advantage to it.) Higher ranks do not change the detection radius, but only the time at which detection trips. Detection is based on a cone + circle rather than a circle. Different types of enemies could have different size cones and circles; oozes for exmaple could have circles only. Rogues get a per-encounter special ability that lets them re-stealth in combat, to replace Shadowing Beyond. Casters get Invisibility spells with the same effect. My problem with the crafting mechanics is that it's too easy. It takes much of the interest out of itemization, and it feels wrong to be able to apply enchantments while dungeon-delving. I've just started Witcher 3, and it has a much more interesting crafting system, and it's more interesting because it's more restrictive. I believe the following changes would make crafting more enjoyable: Require a recipe and an NPC specialist to craft. These specialists could be stronghold hirelings also. Remove the "Fine/Exceptional/Superb" property from "enchantments." Instead, make it a base property of the item, and make it determine the number of enchantment slots the item has. However, also make it possible to craft fine/exceptional/superb items from scratch. Have different NPC specialists have different skill levels (maybe only one legendary swordsmith can craft Superb swords?) know different crafting recipes, and also let us discover recipes as we adventure. As to the stronghold... as it currently stands, it just feels tacked-on and superficial. Sending Kana on a Major Adventure to get 10% XP and a Medium Magic Item just feels dumb. A bit of writing would've gone a long way to fix that -- a descriptive title and a short paragraph. There aren't an unlimited number of these adventures available anyway as the Turn clock is based on quests which are a finite resource. The same applies to most everything else in it: the mechanics themselves are serviceable-enough, but there's just no flesh around those bones. Ideally, all those stronghold events -- the Major Adventures and visiting dignitaries -- need to be grounded in the main narrative. So: Flesh out stronghold events with better descriptions. No more Minor Adventures! Ground them in the narrative. Stage events relevant to the narrative in the stronghold maps. As it is, there really was no motivation to visit at all; even the Brighthollow bonuses were anaemic compared to inn bonuses. I realize that this -- more so than the others even -- is very much a resource issue. However, as it is, the game would IMO have been better off without the stronghold altogether.

It was fine, compared to the general state of the game industry. The general state of the game industry is... not great. I believe there are lots of things Obsidian could do to get better code quality from the ground up rather than relying on QA and, eventually, players to flush them out. I also believe this would make everything easier for them. It's really hard though and takes a long time. We've managed it where I work though, even if it took a few years.

I found it!

It started out as a DnD campaign, so it would be coming full circle, kind of.

I would pay serious money for a reboot rather than sequel. The original Arcanum did what it did well better than just about anything else out there, but it was also hideously broken in so many ways it's not even funny. A "spiritual successor" would suit me just fine.

I finished the game with Charname as a hybrid fighter, and Edér built the same way. Found it more fun than tank-and-spank. Pumped DEX, high RES, PER, above average MIG, dumped CON and INT. Then picked offensive talents only. I went with the Adventurer weapon group for the estoc so no dual-wielding, but it would've been just as viable to go with Ruffian and DW stilettos, switching to stiletto+shield if necessary. That would've given great firearms as well, for a powerful opening volley.

Apotheosis, dude. The notion of merging your soul with (a) god is present in many religions. That just gave it a highly concrete meaning. They didn't die: they became a part of something vastly greater, more powerful, and more meaningful.

Wasn't that hard. Engaged the statues with my tanks, debuffed Thaos with Reveal Vulnerabilities, then petrified him with a druid spell, then hit him with a couple of hard single-target spells to gib him. Then same debuff on the statues, Slicken, and whittle them down at my leisure. (I did die a couple of times before I figured out his vulnerabilities though.)

I'm playing on a 27" iMac with 3.4 GHz Intel i5, GF 780M GTX, bootcamped to Windows 8.1. This is well past the recommended requirements, and I'm generally getting really smooth framerates. Graphics setting "high." However, whenever someone casts Chain Lightning (e.g. adra beetles), the game turns into a slideshow until the FX finishes. I don't have a framerate indicator up, but I'd eyeball about 2-3 FPS. Not a huge deal, but nevertheless something that should be addressed.

Man, I didn't think my opinion of you folks could fall any lower. Methinks it's time for another vacation from this here fine establishment.

@Gfted1 That is really, really sh*tty, even by your standards.

Shouldn't be too long. https://twitter.com/adam_brennecke/status/593292863082860544

There's a bigger "megatrend" at work here methinks. The world order since 1918 has been based on the idea of the nation-state. The idea that there's something called a "nation" and each "nation" should have a "state," i.e. a bunch of territory with a government. This has led to all kinds of consequences, some awful (the little Austrian corporal), some not-so-awful (e.g. the highly cohesive and generally well-functioning small nation-states of northwestern Europe). All this could only function if there was a strong national identity. That is, people felt that they belonged to "a nation" and strongly identified with their "nation-state." And, of course, it left people who, for any of a number of reasons, did not have a nation-state, or did not identify with the nation-state of which they were citizens, out in the cold. The thing is, this identity is now fragmenting. Not just in the US, but everywhere. More and more people are no longer identifying with their nation-state. Rather, they build their identity from other bits and pieces. Consumer identity ("gamer"). Race. Religion, or lack thereof. Political ideology. These are coalescing into inter- and transnational networks. I identify more with Greek Communists than Finnish nationalists, and the Finnish nationalists identify more with English, Swedish, or Greek nationalists than Finnish Communists. This means that the political and institutional superstructures of the nation-state are being put under more and more strain. We don't really have anything better available to replace them, and we're going to be in a lot of trouble if they fail catastrophically. Supranational organizations like the EU or the UN are clearly not working either. This I think is the big question for the next generation. What kind of social, political, and economic order are we going to come up with when the nation-state crumbles under our feet? I don't know, but the next 30 years or so are going to be pretty interesting. I hope I'll still be here when we start to see the answers.