IndiraLightfoot

I saw this earlier. It turns out that four people were killed when the assailant entered the kosher supermarket, so technically not "hostages".

For once, wrong information is king!

Good grief! Paris is burning now, several bombs go off, and the police forces are entering that printing building, with guns blazing, it seems. Watching SkyNews right now... The two Hebdo suspects are killed. Several hostages have been freed as well.

I meant Cipher, but the Chanter is really neat as well.

Nice list, PJ! I'd also add: -And finally a CRPG with a playable character majoring in "psionics". The chanter is superb! -Orlan furries certainly rock my boat. -And skipping any kind of woody alignment system will do this kind of game a huge favour!

Inspired by PrimeJunta's 3,000th post I just read, I decided it's high time for some well-deserved praising! Obsidz, there are loads of stuff in PoE as it currently stands that are absolutely fantastic! You have done an excellent job!! Here are merely some of the things that I love about it: -Beautiful area maps, with great outdoor and indoor props, down to the smallest details. -Lovely ambient sound effects, from chirping birds to murmuring tavern patrons. -Overall, a very competent and engaging writing throughout the beta. -Gorgeous spell icons. -A sleek and cool UI. -A captivating assortment of monsters and baddies. -A surprisingly broad and varied selections of talents, skills, spells already at very low levels. -A wonderful intro tune before you start the generous character generation. -A select party and rotate party formation function to die for. -Thanks for not going over the top with weapon and armour models. I really like this more realistic and toned-down CRPG-feeling! -Also, thanks for considering our criticisms and many times offering improved solutions to common complaints -The alluring atmosphere and the epic low-level CRPG are already top-notch. Just keep fine-tuning the systems! Love, Indira

Sensuki: Thx for the tip. I just tried code mode. No go. I checked if something was weird with my connection, files coming in or out speedwise, nothing. Everything seems to be fine.

Guys, I've been trying to post a topic for like a half an hour. It simply refuses to work. Anybody else's having this problem? What gives?

After quite some dithering, I've come to this conclusion as well, and for the very same reason. Also, I have so many games to play as things are right now, anyways.

Ah, I see. I guess you're right. It's pretty rude, come to think of it. I'd say it's the tone of it all, isn't it? Here, on the beta forums, I mean; that demanding and self-entitled ring to the comments and criticisms? When I was new to these forums, it bugged me much more than now. Scarily enough, I've let some of my civility go, and instead become accustomed to this veritable onslaught of opinionated prickles which we disguise as forum discussions. I'll take more heed in the future. We'll see how long it will last. This rumbustious bickering is very contagious.

Gnoemli just pointed out something important that's missing so far in all item info UI: Attack speed info on items: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69943-attack-speed-in-item-info/ "Is it just me or is this really missing? Cause the way i see it (just by the informations show on the info page of the items) i got no advantage at all by choosing a Huntingbow over a Warbow.... the Warbow does more damage, so I'm never gonna use a hunting bow.... am i missing something? This is something they really should add..." Sensuki added that he has been dogging them about this all Autumn, and that he should be presented in seconds/milliseconds. 4ward: Good point, especially about designing combat around metagaming!

I'm at a loss for words. This info calamity will be added to my Prio Issues-thread, trust me!

This is hm, well, a lot of meta. The very first time you played the Beta (if you can recall), did you position your party around every person in the Village as if preparing for combat? The whole "I can position myself around Medreth as I please" is a thing that started happening on the forum as people had played the Beta several times. Though, I think Medreth should react to you coming back, a trigger or a region-area that you can step on if approaching him/returning to him (post-talking to Nyfre) and then pause the party's positions wherever they are (like meeting the adventuring party at the Crossing). Something like "So... how did it go?" or "Did you find anything?" or "Ah! Our friend returns! What have you uncovered?" or whatever. Because at the moment, whoever you send in to talk to Medreth will instantly be surrounded by the rest of the Cowled followers. As a Player, after having saved Nyfre, it's a rather poor decision regarding positioning to even talk to Medreth, it's better to engage with a Fireball right away (because, if saving Nyfre, you kind of get the idea that a fight will begin). It is a poor encounter, and it has mostly to do with how Medreth & cowled followers are positioned. The adventuring party is more exciting, and does exactly what I mention above (Pause party as you step over a region/trigger, into dialogue, into fight). Though, I think maybe that, if the Player chooses to save Nyfre, why do you have to fight Medreth? Wouldn't it be more interesting if Medreth raised his eyebrows, looked at his followers, turned back to you, smirked "So be it" and simply left...? Why does there have to be a fight? House Deomel, who are they? And could random encounters start popping up on the worldmap travel sequence? Could it affect reputation as well as interactions later, when you encounter the House again? Hehe! Overall, I agree with you. And yes, there are but a few of these encounters compared to wandering baddies, as it were. Still, I hope for some remedy for it, as you will very soon learn/guess/evilly assume which NPCs are about to be turned into fair game, so some script that keep your party at bay from breathing down the necks of these NPCs would be welcome.

Heh! Funny, that! :D Regardless, this is exactly what we are doing here, on their own backer beta forums. I'm pretty sure they don't want it any other way, and since they have considered plenty of posts over the years on PoE and implemented suggestions and such, I guess that would make the Obsids nutty too. All this talk about "nutty" reminds me that I've had far too many nuts over X-mas, btw.

Lovely! The Christmas spirit is still alive and kicking! ShadySands: Once again, a warm thank you, for your wonderful generosity and great initiative!

I have one game to offer anyone interested (on Steam): Terraria.

Sensuki just posted a nice thread about why the Druid shapeshift forms are far under par, and I reckon it's indeed a prio to fix it for PoE before release, so I'll add the link to his OP here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69941-druid-spiritshift-is-really-bad-and-needs-to-be-improved/

There are so many good threads and informative bug reports, where plenty of diligent people like Sensuki, Luckmann and PrimeJunta are spoiling us with good feedback that I reckon it would be a shame if the best of these just drowned in among posts of bickering, small talk and points of lesser urgency or importance. Hence, this topic. Here you get to post your prio issues with the current PoE BB, and only those, so please try to refrain to include pet peeves like kill xp, no disengagement mechanics, and such - just post prio issues that's fixable until PoE's spring release. Just off the top of my head, I'd like to include these ensuing issues: -Fix the combat-only restriction, preferably so that when combat is initiated by the player, he or she should be able to use whatever skill as if "in combat". As it is now, you have to jog the pause function until combat begins for real. It would help the game flow and the feel of player control immensely. -Add a greater combat readiness to all encounters. The ability to position your entire party around any soon-to-be-hostile encounter places them at a serious disadvantage. -Make the ranger class a bit sexier. There are rumours of a cool dual-wielding saber build that's almost working, and drop the shared health pool with their animal companion -Having played 392, I must say that too many spell FX are still far too bright, stark and lingering. It's pretty much a mess. Please, tone it down. -(Stolen straight off JFSOCC's great post): the small weapons should get a speed buff, and attack speed should be a much more significant factor in combat than it is now. I also think that perhaps conditionals that trigger on even a graze could make faster smaller weapons better, if you want to focus on not just dealing damage but also weakening your opponents. Just a thought. As someone who wants to play a rogue this way, I'm currently very tense to see if I get to player my character concept the way I want to. [and see Sensuki's complimentary post on this issue just below! ]

I agree, Luckmann! Combat-only feels contrived and absolutely bizarre! And more often than not, regardless of builds in the BB, I have begrudgingly dealt with the painful "split-sec pause-unpause to start combat off-pause to select a combat only skill"-routine and secretly wished I could eradicate that combat only-threshold. It makes no sense at all. If I cast any spell or do any hostile action on a target, that should count as part of the start of combat, me being the instigator. It should be simple to code too. PrimeJunta: Yup, leaving the map should be allowed. The same goes for the very shaky disengagement from combat altogether mechanics. In the first builds I ran into horrific bugs when I had rogues using the Escape skill to no avail. No matter how well a single rogue escaped, it could never escape the state of combat, and hence not the map either (like the Skaen).

Oooh! This reverbates some stuff I brought up (and I even made an expansive Class idea for it xD) So, IndiraLightfoot, out of curiosity, is the strength of the "Wizard" Class in numbers? Is it more fun to play when you have 2-3 Wizards in your party? What was your experience like? Satisfying or did you ever feel that your 3 Wizards took too much space in your party, and were you bothered by it in any way? I can only comment on this based on my only wiz playthrough, which is with three wizards, and those where the ones I had an active focus on. Three wizards is certainly an interesting number, since they almost cover all spells available at spell level 1 and 2, and if you indeed customize your wizards to have spells that fit their different roles, you get a mean magic machine. It was pretty easy for me to slip into this way of thinking since I'm playing two quite different wizards in DA:I on Nightmare difficulty. It entails a lot of pausing and alternating spells, so they support the party and themselves, while dealing various types of damage ever so often. It requires combined arms sequences that work and that you can rinse and repeat (including combined defences that you need to keep up during each encounter). I reckon, it's a pretty rewarding way to play. If anything, I assume that two wizards will be much more than the sum of their parts, as it were, as opposed to a single wizard in PoE.

If anything, it's a bit too easy. I just had three wizards basically cruising through beetles, spiders and the ogre, more or less just rotating spells I felt like casting. The priest and the fighter was pretty much inactive, while BB rogue cleaned up a few baddies when needed.

I had only played the BB wizard before, and that mostly as a AoE pumping support companion, so yeah, you are right. Consequently, I went ahead and rolled a fire godlike wizard with two handed sword and heavy armour, and I also rolled an extra hireling Orlan wizard with an entirely different set of spells from BB wizard and my main muscle wizard (lots of might and (perception) accuracy, and some INT). And what do you know? Wizards are fun and varied, much better than I had expected. My hireling shot bows and dazed and confused everything, while me up on the frontline cast Slicken and various mirror images, while chopping everything, and at the same time, my BB threw in fireballs and chill fogs for good measure. I played it on hard, and I think those thre wizards could make it on their own. They have pretty much sailed through the beetles and the spiders, and the ogre was like stunlocked and soon dead.

I just want to highlight this post. It provides a nice bunch of stepping stones for ameliorating the ranger class. Please read, Obsidian!

I've played all classes except the wizard IIRC, and I agree with PJ:s points almost to a tee. The ranger (which I had in mind for my first playthrough is the suckiest kid on the block, hands down). I suspect, however, that wizard isn't very far behind as far as suckiness goes. The ones I had most fun with are in no particular order: Druid, priest, monk and cipher. I have just two words for Obsidian to consider up until release and those are: "build diversity".