PrimeJunta

There are closed, public, and semi-public betas. This was a semi-public one. It never even occurred to me that it would be a closed one, with NDA's and stuff. I mean, who wants the hassle of dealing with and then potentially enforcing thousands of NDA's?

There are two-handed flails also. Source: Wikipedia, so it must be true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flail_(weapon)

@Vardia ... huh? The BB was most definitely a beta, not a showcase. They incorporated a huge amount of feedback they got from us during the process into the game. Want a list?

I've enjoyed how very human this process has been. There have been twists and turns, bumps on the road, bruised feelings, mistakes, flawed and half-finished things, and now we're ... here. It takes a lot of courage to be this open. I have no complaints, and strongly prefer this to a "professionally managed" PR operation.

I'm playing on a high-end mid-2013 iMac, and BB480 runs really, really well.

I'd expect it to be completable, but going for your first playthrough on Hard with a gimmick party is going to be an extra challenge for sure. I'm going to go with a somewhat traditional tank-stabber-nuker-healer core, with the two other slots filled by whatever takes my fancy. Thinking tank = Pallegina or Edér, stabber = PC, nuker = Aloth or that carnivorous orlan druid, healer = the priest who looks like Jesus. I really dig Kana Rua's and Sagani's concepts though so I'll def. have to try to fit them in even if I'm a not totally sold on the ranger as a class.

IMO DoT works better as an enchantment. I know, simulationism and all, but I couldn't help thinking that it doesn't really make sense. Unlike most of the weapons specials like stilettos or estocs canceling DR or flails doing... whatever it is flails do at this point, I'm confused.

Don't... you might make some big bucks selling those to rabid fanboys who really want it all. If it's a seperate code that is... I believe they meant a metaphorical digital bin within the gameworld, rather than throwing them into a physical bin in the real world. I'm of the understanding that the items are automagically contained within the game generated by the unlock code / SKU. Yeah. I don't buy physical stuff anymore unless I have to. Just clutters up the place. Edit: it's a piglet. I'll eat it.

I am finding it very hard to concentrate.

Only real sales.

Good idea. I'm a serial restarter of games anyway, so making it Trial of Iron for the first run -- or first few runs -- will only make it better.

:paging Sensuki from Down Under:

No, they've got much better swords.

I'm actually quite curious to see how the boss fights play out. I've developed a real appreciation for the ones in BG2 -- they're not just about whittling down a mountain of hitpoints, but about finding a good strategy. Just got Firkraag kilt in five rounds or so, using two characters, without doing anything obviously cheesy. That's much more fun than the usual game of hack hack hack. If P:E manages boss fights that have even close to the range of tactical options BG2 does, it's gonna be awesome -- and it's only even better if different characters get to shine in different ones.

It's a fight she won't win. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it would be better if the artist just accept it and let everyone enjoy her work for whatever purpose they deem most satisfactory. In this day and age, the audience wins, the end. Every alternate portrait in this thread that is sourced from an unnamed artist is proof of that. The creative commons is common to all regardless of the wishes of content creators, and there is no taking it back the moment the pixels hit the network. The more likely outcome is simply that she'll stop making portraits and posting them online. How is that an improvement? Seriously: she's not asking for much -- only credit, a backlink, and not reposting modified versions. That's more than reasonable. I know there will continue to be thoughtless people who will happily continue to do this thing, but we can at the very least stop encouraging it. There are few enough people out there willing to have their stuff reused anyway. (FWIW this is one reason I've mostly stopped publishing stuff on the Net under my own name or an identity that's associated with any of my public personas. It's not the misuse -- it's the nerd rage from people who feel entitled to misusing it when called out on it.)

Cheating in a single-player game is kind of a non-issue IMO. All you get from Trial of Iron is the satisfaction of a job well done. (And an achievement I suppose but who cares about those?)

Mark D and Kelly are no less immershun-breaking than Hiro Protagonist though IMO.

Do all endings have to be happy? IMO no. In fact I think it's extremely cool if some of them aren't. It makes the happy ones actually mean something.

Yeh I'm not worried. Just hyper. Maybe. A little.

I don't like Steam looking over my shoulder when I play, so I avoid it whenever there are alternatives that don't. GoG is one of those alternatives, so yay, GoG all the way.

My GoG P:E isn't actually showing anything at all under "My game." Just "Pillars of Eternity, purchased March 25." I trust it'll all get sorted by tomorrow. If it doesn't, the nerd rage will probably make the Internet melt.

More excited than the last time I released software I had actually made. I guess that makes me pretty excited. Even if my software is rather dull really.

@Valmy Well yes, true. That said, 'enjoyable' is subjective. I think it's a bit of a tall order to expect that every character concept the game allows is enjoyable for everyone. That's kind of the point of having many options and paths to take.

There are women joining the ISIS, so I'd say that reflects a lack of imagination on your part rather than anything wrong with the game.

I think they handled this in a way-cool manner actually. Humans and elves can't have offspring, but Aedyr has a special form of socially accepted "concubine" status for human-elf relationships, called Haemneg. It's supposed to be for political and economic reasons only, with one or both partners having a spouse among their own race, but apparently it's not always. Look it up.