IndiraLightfoot

I know that feeling. I think she broke the immersion in coming across as far too much a modern day spoiled brat with a chip on her shoulder (that two-timer ex of hers).

And speaking of nasal whine. Need I bring up Neeshka, the queen of nasal hells?

A godlike with the element of earth manifested seems to fit your NPC, especially with that big cat and the tough sheeny skin (Obsidian?).

Interesting, indeed. Wombat, thank you for sharing that info on Path of the Damned. I've missed it somehow, and it's really exciting news to me. However, a system like that will need a lot of tweaks before they get the balance just right. Hence, us beta testers!

I'm reading part 2 of Justin Cronin's trilogy about a post-apocalyptic USA (world) after a horrific outbreak turning people into vampiric "virals". It's called The Twelve. I found the first book, The Passage, when hurrying through an airport, catching a plane. And it blew me away. It was really exciting and well written. I mean, it isn't Fallout or Mad Max, but it has that kind of vibe to it at times, and the story is very crisp and focussed, sometimes even mildly creepy. Monte Carlo: I've got a feeling you may like them. And the third book will be released this year.

This first whiff of a stealth system exceeds my expectations, and indeed it shows that they are listening to what we discuss here.

Well, here's some more food for thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgoDDh4kE0 Basically, it's Wildcard Games swooping down on TotalBiscuit, issuing a "copyright strike" on him, arguing that he's endorsing products (ads) with material from their copyrighted game The Day One Garry's Incident, while, in fact, just wanting to silence his criticism.

If there are as fun as Dishonored's, I'm all game.

I have great trust in the guys over at Obsidian, so I'm not worried. The updates so far has been amazing and the material presented is at least 90 % brilliant stuff all over the board. As for Kickstarters, well, they've gone from awful (Legends of Dawn), to decent (Shadowrun Returns, Consortium), and all the way to really good (Expedition: Conquistador, Twisted Dream).

Welcome, SirAcid! From your presentation, I get this feeling you'll feel right at home here. It's just a hunch, but there you have it.

A warm welcome! And I too recognize that lack of something that often makes me switch games nowadays much faster than those golden CRPG oldies. If you have the inclination, check out a thread of mine I started a week ago - Can I Even Handle A Game Like PE Any Longer, where a lot of forumites have contributed to a mostly initiated and interesting discussion about issues like that, and how they wish too see those CRPGs of yore improve in order to better fit in with how they play games nowadays (some, it seems, don't want a change a thing, and that's perfectly fine of course).

And I reckon it sounds great. I mean, no more wobble wands, and interruption in the real sense., where you just have to have a go again, not loose the whole shazaam.

It's not superfluous in the slightest. This is about the confirmed attributes and not so much about attribute theory. Your great thread on that has run its course (it's nearing the 500 post mark and had derailed a bit), but can of course be renewed. Please, dig out Josh's replies in it, and the core of it, if you have the time, and just fire up Atrribute Theory part II.

Heh, the spark is burning pretty bright, still, and the endurance is a bear's, but the patience for the more tedious part of gaming is wearing thin.

That's a very different play style than I had with the IE games. I rarely got my party members killed because it seemed like something my PC just wouldn't do. I suppose that probably causes me to play a lot more conservatively than you do. I must of course add that when I took companions on in IE games and NWN games, they were integral to my enjoyment of the story and the party interactions and all that, but later on, I made parties with just my own characters, and I only really cared about my main pc in them as well. In combat, I never role-played my characters in our party. I know, it's a bit harsh and heartless in a way, but it certainly makes combat easier and more effective, and to me, actually more fun.

Thanks for all the insightful posts! Keep them coming! Well, except for posts that seem to be more e-peen and I'm better and more hardcore than you. They can be tedious and a tad childish in the wrong way. This thread is certainly beginning to cover a lot of bases for what can make a huge CRPG demanding and even unbearable, and that for a lot of objective and subjective reasons. If anything, it shows we have all different ideas about what constitutes fun in a CRPG. Important issues have come up, among them: lengthy backtracking, reloading, pre-buffing, one-solution encounters, the possibilities of planning ahead, including of course making a viable party, as well as game difficulty and gameplay design in general. I'd like to point out a few things that matter to me, as I don't want to lose sight out of them: -I love D&D. I have played it PnP from the late 70s and all the way up to the 4th ed of the 2000s. Also, I've played almost every D&D PC-game, there is. However, T-H-I-S...I-S...N-O-T...D-&-D. Perhaps the major advantage of this: The system that Josh & Co devise will be more hand to glove for a CRPG, regardless whether it will turn into a PnP-RPG later. I reckon, this means we can be a bit more creative in our discussion under this topic, instead of getting too stuck in the computerized D&D of the IE games. -And here's a thing that only recently hit me: I fear that PE will be more pause-heavy than I am used to. What do I mean? Well, first of all, it's a RTwP, so pause is in by definition. But then there's the issue of different playstyles. Karkarov described how he played Dragon Age Origins. How he carefully planned ahead and prepped, and how he made a great party machine. I shared that philosophy in that game, and I rarely needed to pause. And then before that, I played NWN2 with expansions to bits (my most played CRPG ever; I literally made a score of full playthroughs. I really liked how the 3.5 ed of D&D was implemented there, and of course I loved much of the setting and the stories and the campaign as a whole. Well, here's the thing. I rarely used pause there as well, but I was an ardent pre-buffer. My party outshone the Strip in Las Vegas. Even further back, I played the 3rd ed IWD2, and the 2nd ed D&D IWD + of course BG1 and 2, with pause on the back burner. In all these games, and especially, the first ones I mentioned, it was possible to not pause very much, making a real time playthrough, almost, because of careful planning, meta-knowledge, pre-buffing, CRPG-savviness, and last but not least, because of me treating all other party members as extendible pawns compared to my main character. In NWN 2, it was particularly easy, as resting only took a quick kneel anywhere, and everybody in the party was happy again. Also, dead party members awoke again within seconds. Now, in PE, on the other hand, we have plenty of cues telling us that the combat will be more tactics heavy during combat. Also, in-between encounters we have some stamina/health system that gimps suffering party members, not to mentioning maiming, etc. I suspect that PE will be much more of a turn-based CRPG if I crank up the difficulty slider, which I will! Since I can no longer treat other party members as ever-rezzable pawns and cannon fodder.

Wolvesdread: Welcome to the forums! Cool avatar and name, and also a clearly visible set of badges right there!

And a minor thing that has been discussed in the New Year thread; a name change from Might-MIG to Power-POW would probably sit better.

Someone actually found out. Or rather, they MAY have found out. The paper is in the Annals of Improbable Research, and was improbably peer reviewed. It also has highly improbable animal care protocols. So from what I can tell the actual possibility of this study having been done is...improbable. But they did get a number! Paskevich and Shea. "The ability of woodchucks to chuck cellulose fibers" Annals of Improbable Research, 1995. Groundhogs, aka woodchucks, aka whistle-pigs aren't hogs (obviously). Instead they are rodents (of the Sciurid family, which I personally feel to be an awesome name). They live all over the US, and it's pretty common to see them along the side of the road (usually as roadkill, but sometimes you get lucky and see a live one). They don't ACTUALLY eat or throw wood. Instead, they eat grasses and insects and pretty much everything else at ground level they can get their hands on. But they can, apparently, CHEW wood, and that's where the idea for this study came in. The authors decided to use the word "chuck" to mean "chew" (I suppose because upchucking is the opposite?), and wanted to see how much wood a woodchuck could chuck. They obtained 12 woodchucks (by "various means" that are not described, I picture some middle aged guy in a suit trying to stalk one), and food deprived them to ensure they would eat the wood. Then, they fed each woodchuck a 2x4 (yes) and watched how fast they ate it. All the woodchucks ate the wood, none actively attempted to toss it, and none upchucked. They could, apparently digest the wood pretty well, and consumed it at a rate of 361.9237001 cubic centimetres per animals per day (no error bars, and the food deprivation was nuts, 12 days, leading me to think they didn't REALLY...). They note that, while none of the woodchucks attempted to throw the wood, they probably would have, had they been capable. So the next time someone asks you, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? You answer is clear! He'd chuck 361.9237001 cubic centimetres of wood per day, which is the wood that a woodchuck COULD chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood. *As the authors have been so gracious as to address the question of woodchucks and wood, I would like to propose to them their next series of studies: how much ground could a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground? I will look forward to seeing the data.

Societies have always feared hedonism the most, as this threatens the very fabrics of society and its ideological superstructure, not to mention production and predictability.

Hassat Hunter: You are right. The text to the left pops a bit more. And as for Might and the ugly abbreviation Mig. Perhaps "Power" is a slightly better choice of word here. And then we would get POW.

A certain art school for mime in France certainly will. Otherwise, a resounding negative.

Hiro: You were polite enough to hint at the very same thing, but more subtly. Post of the day is shared this wonderful day!

We can only hope. But, I for one, like this exotic confusion on spelling and pronunciation. And Rabain your go at pronouncing Pallegina over at the New Year's thread was priceless: Hiro & Rabain, pronounce Pallegina: In chorus: "Pally 'gina" *DEARNTH!!!* It was so...kinky! EDIT: Hiro Protagonist II hinted at this in a post even earlier in the same thread. So, I edited this post to reflect this.

A female paladin is simply great, but this above is post of the day. Pal-lay-ji-na, who would have thought it? But not that it's anything wrong with that, to quote good old Seinfeld.