PrimeJunta

Regrettably, no. Maximum profit is where the curve for Revenue = Price per unit * Number of units peaks. I'm sure demand for P:E is somewhat elastic, but not all that much. Out of the seven billion people or so on the globe, most will not buy it even at $0. Yep, this is what Karl Marx argued. That the value of a good is determined by the labor used to produce it, and a capitalist survives by expropriating as much of the value his workers produce. In a market economy, however, the price of a good is determined by supply and demand. If the capitalist is producing goods nobody wants at any price, their market value is zero, regardless of the labor that went into producing them. Conversely, if he is producing goods everybody wants for, say, $50, then that is the market value, even if it cost him 5 cents to produce them. Thank you. I wish more people chose to price their goods in this way. The idea of "more is better" is destructive. Being able to do so, however, is a luxury. Obsidian works in an extremely volatile and competitive market. They've gone through some very rough times. Game studios are going bust or getting bought up all the time. Trying to squeeze maximum revenue out of every product they make isn't a luxury, it's a matter of survival. I find lots of games overpriced. That's why I wait for the price to fall before I buy them. I have a pretty big library of games on both GoG and Steam, and most of the I've bought for between 1 and 15 euros or so. There might be a thriving publisher out there somewhere who prices their games on a cost-plus model, but if there is I haven't heard of it. The trouble is that you can never be sure how well a game is going to sell or even exactly how much it's going to cost to produce -- P:E went over schedule (and therefore over budget), and it's going better than (industry) average. Profits from the hits have to cover the losses from the busts, cost-overruns and what have you. IMO the fundamental question is, how do you live as justly as you can in a system that's fundamentally unjust? There's no easy answer. There's a lot of stuff a corporation can do, and maximising profits through pricing strategy is pret-t-ty far down the "evil" list as far as I'm concerned. Without a profitable operation, they can't be loyal to their employees (pay them fair wages), or their customers (provide them with good products and good service), or the society in which they operate (pay taxes), or any of the other stakeholders. If it turned out, say, that Obsidian is squeezing their employees dry with starvation wages, unpaid overtime, fire-and-rehire and so on, while the shareholders walk off with big fat dividend checks, then I'd be right with you on the barricades. But pricing a game to market? Nah. That's just the market economy mang.

This warms my blood-red Communist heart: Marx's theory of value is alive and well. Regrettably full Communism has not been achieved yet, though, and while I admire your revolutionary fervor, it is unreasonable to expect that a capitalist corporation functioning in a market economy knowingly price their goods in a way that does not bring back maximum profits. That's a fast track to bankruptcy.

If it's not a headline on the KS or the updates, it's hardly a "big selling point."

My personal ranking? P:E > BG1/2 >> DA:O >> NWN2 As everything this is subjective. I like the "Total War-ey" feel engagement gives to the combat: positioning and control of the battlefield space becomes important, and makes possible cool special abilities that let you deal with things that arise from that (Escape, Shadowing Beyond, monk kicks, various spells and specials that push enemies around). If you're a big fan of IE-ey combat with units rushing through enemy lines to gank high-value targets, you will certainly prefer BG2, and possibly prefer BG1. There are lots of people like that so I'm fairly certain there will be lots of pixels spilled over the BG/P:E combat comparison, assuming the grogs haven't driven away/exhausted everyone else here by then. (On balance, I do prefer IE-system magic though. P:E's magic system feels shallow by comparison. It was IMO a mistake to throw out core features of it wholesale, such as counterspells. OTOH P:E is better at low levels; a level 4 P:E wizard has way more possibilities than a level 4 AD&D wizard.) As to DA:O, I liked the spell synergies, but disliked the cooldown-based ability use and that everyone had to have Awesome Buttons for things. I can see why someone would like that though... kinda. Even so I think only a pretty small minority will preer DA:O combat over P:E combat. And NWN2, anyone who prefers that combat over any of the others listed needs to have their head examined. It's just plain bad, at every level. NWN2 has strengths -- massive numbers of spells and really rich character build options to name two -- but combat ain't among them. So no contest there.

What a waste of time you are. The feeling, Stun, is entirely mutual. Actually, that applies to pretty much the entire forum. And you know, there's only one reasonable conclusion to draw from that.

@Stun you win. MCA is a dirty liar, claiming he enjoys community interaction when he actually doesn't. He also has terribly poor taste for not wanting to hang out which such charming people as you and I. He is, in fact, a traitor for once having been active here but then having left for greener pastures. Happy?

@Stun. Please take a deep breath and go over this thread again. It has been pointed out to you -- repeatedly -- that Chris Avellone is, in fact, actively engaging with the fans in a number of ways and number of communities, with specific lists of the ways and communities in which he is active. Twitter and cons, to na,me two. The fact that the discussion subsequently expanded to cover other developers and possible reasons for their apparent reluctance to communicate on this particular forum is neither here nor there. Yes, it is too, just as vitriolic and toxic as "some seem to want to make it out to be." And in fact a small minority of critical posts are not insulting or offensive. Of your grog brigade, only Sensuki is consistently constructive in fact. You know what else? It wouldn't even matter if the majority of critical posts were constructive, if the aggressive, offensive, butthurt, and entitled ones don't ever get any pushback. They're the ones that set the tone.

I agree. Something is amiss. It is, however, entirely unreasonable to point the finger at the devs who don't want to participate, rather than the community they don't want to participate in. What would you have Obs do anyway? Set a quota of so many posts per week, per dev? Bet that'd be fun.

Quick summary: New -- and last -- BB build is expected this week. The current one is already a bit stale. Attribute system has been revamped. Class builds have been opened up. You can now build a viable (even good!) ranged fighter or rogue for example. Armor has been revamped. There is now only DT (now called DR). Unfortunately some of the beasts weren't properly rebalanced after the change, and in BB392 the beetles and lions in particular bite unreasonably hard. Pathfinding and general flow of combat has come together. The game is actually playable and -- IMO at least -- fun in BB392 (at Normal difficulty, Hard is currently out of whack due to point (4) above). Lots more talents and general polish added. Release on March 26.

They indicate the status of each of the toons: endurance, recovery state, next action. Yes, you can switch them off, but (currently at least) there is no alternative indicator for this information. Some people here have asked that it would be displayed next to or on the portraits as well, additionally, or instead. @mods: I am very curious to see what action, if any, will be taken regarding @BlueLion's latest comment. Whatever you do, it will say a lot about this place.

I'll play as a white male. It's the easiest setting.

Edit: never mind.

I'm curious, @TrueNeutral and other mods. (1) Do you think there is an actual problem here (i.e., these forums not being welcoming to, among other people, Obsidian devs?) (2) If so, do you think the problem is worth discussing, perhaps to make things better? If you prefer to shut the discussion down before it starts, that's your call obviously. From where I'm at though it is both symptomatic and a causative factor of the problem (and yes, as I said, I do believe there is one).

Are you familiar with the terms "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining" by any chance? Just curious...

Oh, I missed those. He'd know where to find them of course...

Haha, the only one who mentioned feminism until you did was... a dev. Way to welcome developer interaction in these forums, Mr. Mod.

Riiiight. :eyeroll:

Not true. He specifically mentioned Atlas Shrugged and Capital. (Edit: Also, vanguardism is explicitly elitist. Nothing hypocritical about it.) (Edit edit: but that's another tangent for which this is neither the time nor the place.)

@NegativeEdge Cool analysis. Wrong, but cool. :salute: Politically at least Josh is way left of center (although, sadly, probably not an actual Communist), and I haven't gotten much of a whiff of Objectivist lunacy from any of the others either. I still stand by my theory: they don't hang out here because they'd rather hang out with people who aren't colossal jerks.

I like it the way it is. Adding a penalty would just turn a party member going down into a reload trigger. (Or, if the penalty was really minor/could be fixed without resting, it'd just add some drudgery.)

Except that you can only carry a limited number. Once you run out, you have to trek back to buy more. That's a pretty significant difference.

Wasn't the third weapon slot a utility talent? I could see myself picking that under some circumstances. Would be nice to be able to pack melee, bow, and gun.

Aah, Mind Readers R us. Got any proof that he was referring specifically to his Twitter followers and no one else? Yeah, I didn't think so. Never said he was referring specifically to that community either. Trouble is, you're pounding your fist in your usual charming and diplomatic Stun fashion about him talking about community involvement but, you state, not doing it. Which is not true. He is doing it, just not here, in this community. Ergo, he was not referring to this community. What's so hard about this to understand?