IndiraLightfoot

I just finished What Remains of Edith Finch, a very well made adventure game. The basic premise is that you return to a house where all almost your other relatives have died. It's not some thriller/horror theme, like Scratches, which is a similar game. It's much more varied, imagination-jogging and atmospheric. You get to experience the stories of those who died, but often in a slightly comical, unexpected, dreamy and twisted way. The game's not based on any Heavy-handed realism. And there are no pixel hunting nor any overly complex puzzles to solve. You have to be curious and have some wits about you, but otherwise the game is a true joy to experience and play. It's totally unpredictable. I guess you'd need to be at least 13 or something to play it, though, since the theme of Death is pretty in-depth, if I put it that way. The game took me like 4h to complete. Here are some screenies:

Ydwin's new portrait is most fitting given the new blurb about her. She looks most intelligent and is all-business now, it seems. Me like! It's my favourite of the portraits shown here.

@Injurai: Yup! Screaming spoiled brat on top, and then a huge concealed monster underneath in murky depths.

Yeah, them plushie front paws are impressively wrong anatomically.

In part, I've grown up in countries where religion, prayers and hymns were officially banned in the educational system. I vaguely recall hymns and prayers in what you may call my pre-school years. However, my parental and grandparental generations, they have plenty of memories of this, plus Sunday Church and sunday bests, sunday school, as well as strict physical reprimands and punishment in the educational system in the name of God. There's no doubt in my mind that the removal of the official role of religion in schools has drastically affected people's practice of religion overall. There was never any ban of religious symbols, though. Still, in the scope of a few decades, most people stopped going to Church, sunday school disappeared, almost nobody read the Bible. Parishes lost their sociocultural roles and meanings. People began to drop specific church taxes. Basically, any affected religious institutions lost their authority, and the majority of people never looked back. They became more atheist, and most religious practices became private matters. So, it is to be expected that any parties with a vested interest will resist any kind of development like the one I outlined above. Interestingly, the same goes for nationalism in schools. Quite a few of the nationalistic practices were removed in these countries in the same era, and this led to a significant reduction of nationalism and, indeed, over time, the flag itself became nearly devoid of meaning. Patriotism suffered as a result. Thus, nationalist politicians want to uphold as much nationalism as is humanly possible in schools, because they are well aware of what is at stake. Their precious symbols run the risk of getting deflated or even dissolved under conditions where you slacken nationalistic rituals. It is in this perspective, I think Trump is best regarded. He sees himself and his institution as a bastion of nationalism and "proper" religious values. If cracks appear, he immediately fears some kind of aethist anarchist/nihilist/socialist dystopia. Ironically, after having discussed this with lots of friends and family of all ages and political affiliations, they all regard this kind of secular society as a place where individuals enjoy perhaps the greatest freedom so far. So, liberal proponents of freedom has much to gain from institutions unburdened by religion and nationalism (the latter can still go on, but more individualistically and privately). Just some reflections of mine.

Yeah, Americans, be proud of your football teams. In some countries over here, they have lots of die-hard fans, although the sport itself is hardly existent. Most of these teams are global forces, not nationalistic American institutes. That notion is bizarre. Imagine if Manchester United simply was regarded as some sort of nationalistic soccer symbol in the UK, accompanied by obligatory God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia, when instead it's one of the most internationally embraced soccer clubs. The kneeling seems indeed to be acts of solidarity, which have become tiny thorns in the side of the apricot leviathan.

Fixed that for ya. You're welcome.

Heh! I was sleeping. I meant exponentially, since "logarithmically" in this case would mean very slow.

I normally don't like skill trees that much, but this Deadfire skill tree, it makes the Grand Arch Druid of All Mo'Fo Treehuggers! Overall, this update boosted my already ridiculously whetted appetite for this game logarithmically. Deadfire is shaping up to become a true CRPG classic, I'm so very glad I backed this, and I am a proud Black Isle bastard. Aargh!

Nah, tradcat would be traditional catholics, no?

"I used to be a businessman, a politician, a human, then I took to harrowing knees."

Now, that's a face lift. *Cough!* At least, I'll admit gold and teal fits the pirate theme a bit better, but I had higher hopes than that. Aw well, I have the Obsidian Forums makeover to look forward to.

Weird. I'm getting old, it seems. To me, this looks more or less the same as I remember it. Perhaps the option buttons are bigger, I dunno?

Not sure about bloomy, but blurry is specific Dishonored's art style - apparently, the textures were designed to feel washed out and blurred into each other. Yeah, but it's not just that. The whole game just feels so... Unreal Engine. Despite this, though, the game is quite fun. Like a mix of Deus Ex and Thief. Should be done with the first game soon. Not sure if I'll pick up the DLCs as well or just head straight to the second game. As a huge fan of the franchise, I must recommend the two DLCs for Dishonored (I ignore the mini-DLC with challenges): The first one with Daud and Billie Lurk is the best, and Brigmore Witches is very good too (and both are very nice lore-wise when you start playing Dishonored 2 later.) I usually play full on ghost/no-killing on my first runs on highest difficulty. Then I do a 2nd playthru months later, with as much violence and fun kill combos as I cram into the game (which is very accommodating in this regard.)

You could have saved yourself some time and downloaded EE Keeper and edited a save file so that they all had 18 in all ability scores In theory, yes. However, in my twisted reality, I get a bizarre kind of hate-love enjoyment out of rolling dice over and over. It's one of the great features in Grimoire IMHO. It's some deeply lodged remnant/itch from my tabletop RPG Days. Rolling dice is really fun and weirdly engaging. That's one of the best features of Obsidian's Pathfinder Card game - all those lovely dice and endless die rolls.

As of today, I'm enjoying the hell of the new Dishonored stand-alone expansion Death of the Outsider. Yet again, an absolutely amazing game with breath-taking graphics and fantastic music (I'm very sad that the hugely talented composer passed away recently). And Billie Lurk was already one of my favourite characters from Dishonored 1. Her steamboat is breaking down, and the sea is getting angry this evening... She's got no ticket, but still a very sleek ride. I saw a guard putting up a wanted-poster of me. He's in the dumpster now, snoring, since this will be a ghost playthru. Those boards won't hold me out. Time for some break-and-entering into a sawmill yard. Whiskey tumbler in the loo? In such filth, I kind of understand that you'd need a strong drink or two. Balcony with a view...over a fight club. Time to find Daud. I took out the cook in the kitchen on top of the boxing ring, and found out that he was making some nasty rat brew. Yes, that's a rat inside the bottle. I smashed them all against the wall. I love rats, I can even talk to them and they whisper stuff back, for real... I've found a new electric toy. Billie has the best gadgets around. I had a contract on a white wolfhound. He was sick and I had to take him out. Said and done. Now, I just need to cremate that mongrel. I've tried to chuck that mange into the boiler oven like ten times and failed. I can swear that he's laughing at me like a hyena. Finally! Burn, puppy, burn! This game is such a treat. Yum!

Well, I've playing BG EE pretty hard the last couple of months. I guess I have over 200 in-game days by now. It's a pretty odd party, to say the least. Since I've managed to break PoE on PotD Solo yadda, yadda, I happened to notice that BG EE has an Insane difficulty mode with a cheevo and all, so I did some planning and came up with this idea: Given that spell-casting and buffing/de-buffing take oodles of time, I needed a super-efficient party. There shouldn't be any need for spells, besides some healing or remove paralysis. And it has to be über-good in order to stand the test of Insane mode. My solution? They are all orc berserkers, and then a Lathander priest, with a main character who does all the thievery stuff - I settled for a swashbuckler. Then I rolled the dice over and over like crazy to max these characters out. Took like an hour. The first three levels or so was a slogfest. It was dicey too. They all have ranged weapons - throwing axes, one knife and one sling bullet - so there was a lot of tactical kiting from exact spawn triggers. Once I could afford could heavy armor after the Kobold mines, things started to take off. By level 5, I was ready to take on Durlag's Tower, which I still claim to be a bit of a CRPG masterpiece. (But I had so few stone-to-flesh-scrolls, when I encountered those basilisks on the roof. That was extremely gnarly.) There are so many traps and riddles and mini-quests... I love it! Here's a shot of Durlag himself at the end. My main is nearly as ghostly like him thx to a Cloak of Displacement from Ulgorth's Beard. One pro tip, though, make sure you stack up on potions of absorption, and lots of fire/electricity resistance + rest for silence 15' radius before you even attempt that Chess Piece Room of Horror. Right now, I'm about to end Chapter 4. This party can go all the way, I feel, through Siege of Dragonspear (which I haven't played yet) and through BG2 EE. Obviously, it's a MP min-max automata situ, but me likes. Speaking of games that are nearly 20 years old. I have also tried my hand at Grimoire: But I'm only like 2h into it, and it took me nearly as much time to sooth my OCD and roll maxed out characters for it (this is not that party. It's my first failed attempt after certain saved games shenanigans. It looks to be a promising game, though. I'll get back to it sometime.

So like I'm sure you'd call me an SJW (with all the misunderstanding applying that label entails) and I've been around since Black Isle. I'm not unique. Not that there's any indication that anyone pressured Obsidian to fire the guy, or that Obsidian pressured the guy to quit. So you think guy should have been fired for his opinions ? I said nothing of the sort. However, I think people should be careful about what they espouse in public, and should they espouse racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic stuff in public, they (and their supporters) should be neither surprised nor aggrieved when there are consequences. That doesn't necessarily translate to "I think the guy should have been fired." It does translate to "His departure in light of this information does not surprise or aggrieve me." Free speech is nice but there is no freedom from consequences for that speech. He chose to be openly racist and sexist. No one compelled him to do it. No one held a gun to his head and forced him to write those posts. The choice to do so is entirely on him. Also, as a point of clarification, my post was not actually about whether this guy should have been fired or whether he should have quit or whatever the heck happened because who knows what happened? Not anyone in this thread. My post was simply to point out that "yes, in fact, people who might be called SJWs are gamers and fans of Obsidian." We're not on the outside looking in, we've been here all along. Even given my progressive politics I am a Deadfire backer, and I've been playing Obsidian's games since before it was Obsidian. Since people worked for Black Isle Studio and made Fallout. Post of the week, as far as I am concerned. Well phrased and formulated, and your stance... well, let's just say I sympathize vehemently.

Indeed. At the moment there's an awful lot of jumping to conclusions. That's all really. And with that said, please lock this thread, dearest moderators.

I'm curious though: How on Earth did "writer of Edér"? enter the Picture? Where's the source for this? If none, I fear this is some ill-concealed slandering on Obsidian, not to mention poor Eric.

I suspected as much. Eric seems to be a great guy. Scram. Nothing too see here, good folks.

I have no idea if or why Eric has resigned, but I do not think Obsidian mishandled that Limerick incident (others blew that far out of proportions - stuff that like that happens all the time in publishing etc.), and Sawyer appears to be a very level-headed guy who doesn't hesitate to emphasize democratic and liberal values if needs be. I don't want any other "societal atmosphere" than that. Nor should anybody else. I know what absolutism can do to societies, and it's not a pretty sight.

@Bendu: Tyvm for posting this vid! And I really appreciated it Feargus tour. He so funny, and like me, jovially talkative. Still, there were some hush-hush stuff that he didn't want anyone to see, and that secrecy looming over the tour was hilarious, like a modern comedy Irvine version of Count Dracula, having his unsuspecting guest over at his castle in Transylvania. And Dan the Man, what can I say. The games he has coded are pretty darned good. Also, I loved Justin Bell's office. It looked nice and still it had room for a number of odd instruments - there was more order than chaos, with post-its on that older washing machine wall with bullet holes (sic!). And those quiet hours, 3-5PM, was a neat idea. And Rob and his missing alkohol, hehe - where did his spirits go?

Ah, thank heavens! The caps are there. For a moment there, I thought the zika virus had infested one of our best threads.