Keyrock

I disagree. There are plenty of enemies that are quite tough to damage with sheer brawn and much easier dispatched by magical means.

No shame in playing on Adventurer difficulty, it's plenty challenging. Warrior difficulty is just punishing.

My favorite one so far was when I entered Seahaven. "Look at them all just stand around. It's like they're waiting for us to show up and solve all their problems for them." I'm also fond of "Yes! Running on Mother Earth, beneath Father Sky!" The enthusiasm in the delivery gets me every time.

I wonder what the Hunter promotion quest will be? I'm salivating over the idea of the Harpoon ability. Every time I use it I'm going to yell "Get over here!" As an aside, I think the barks in this game are fantastic, some of the best I've heard in any RPG. Obviously, they get repetitive after a while, but that's unavoidable unless the developer wants to spend the time and money to have 500 phrases for each race/gender/demeanor combination, which falls under the blanket of "resources that could have been better spent elsewhere". One minor quibble: Why must dwarves always be Scottish?

Huh, I didn't know people actually finish M&B. Yeah, I had no idea Mount & Blade had an actual end either.

Tell me about it! And I do enjoy my party being wiped out every now and then. Speaking of which, in Act 1, there are a few really tough enemies. You can return to them later, no? It would be a shame if Act 2 locked you out somehow. I mean, there are even one or two master trainers on that peninsula. Early on, I even had to leave certain levels in dungeons be simple because they were too tough for my party, and that's something I've missed in many CRPGs as of late. Yes, you can come back and fight the cyclops and shadow dragon later. In fact, I don't think I had much of a chance against either one in act 1 on warrior difficulty. Maybe if I'd min-maxed my party, I might have had a sliver of a chance, but min-maxing is not my idea of fun, though I get some people really enjoy that sort of thing, more power to them (literally). Personally I'm enjoying the "slog", but maybe I'm just a masochist like that.

Poison Spray is pretty much my favorite spell so far. Cast it right at the beginning of battle and the damage really adds up after a bunch of rounds. I even plan my attacks around it, knowing approximately how much of an enemy's bar will take a hit each round, I can tell "okay, he's going to drop dead next round anyway, I'll attack someone else). I actually think my Hunter is almost as good a defensive character as my Defender. Late game, I think the Hunter may actually become my best defensive character (also, I'm really looking forward to getting Harpoon and Snare). While my Hunter doesn't use a shield, spear skill grants extra blocks, as well as two-handed skill. More importantly, the Hunter can grand master endurance, dodge, and arcane discipline. Part of the reason I created my party the way I did is that I have two characters, both orcs, coincidentally, that can grand master arcane discipline (Hunter and Shaman). Combine that with orcs' natural ability to shrug off status effects, and I have a pair of characters that are really difficult to disable. While I haven't reached late game yet (I'm somewhere in the midst of act 2), my hunch is that magic damage and effects will become every bit as much a concern as physical damage, if not more, in late game. Hence, my thinking that arcane discipline will become more and more important going forward.

Maybe I'll make a party with all he classes Humanoid deems unworthy. I'll call it the Min-Min Party.

There is a scribe in Karthal that provides xp bonus. Just complete the scribe quest once you will reach Karthal Same 10% boost?

It's okay, I'm willing to look the other way, just this once. Let's never speak of this again. I wonder how viable an all orc party would be? Barbarian, Hunter, 2 X Shaman, or something like that. Obviously, a bit light on the magic end of the spectrum. On the other hand, no particularly squishy characters either. Doing an all dwarf party would have essentially the same drawbacks and benefits.

Squeenlight.

Agreed. Not having to taint your party by including a filthy elf is always a bonus.

Might be able to get away with an all hybrid caster party: 2 X Shaman 2 X Rune Priest Both classes can master in melee and both can wear medium armor. No dark magic, though.

I would imagine there's little to no getting around an all caster party being a serious drain on your money, since even with high mysticism skill and spirit, you're still going to be chugging mana potions or using up supplies all the time due to not having anyone in the party that can effectively deal good amounts of damage without spending mana.

I'm assuming that once you complete the quest for the astrologer in Seahaven he will leave my party and I won't be able to hire him any more, correct? If that is the case I will avoid finishing his quest for as long as possible so that I can keep him in my party and get the 10% exp bonus he grants.

Another night, another monster performance from KD. Slim Reaper dropped 41 on the Hawks on a highly efficient 15 for 25 shooting, including the game winner with 1.5 seconds left. This is now the 11th straight 30+ game for KD, the longest since T-Mac's EPIC 14 game streak in 2003 (pre-injuries T-Mac was a force of nature). Durant is shooting close to 60% during the streak. His season PPS (points per shot) of 1.58 is tied for the league lead (with LeBron and Dwight), meaning he's not only scoring more points than anyone else (by a large margin), he's also doing it with maximum efficiency. I'm definitely looking forward to the game in Miami on Thursday. It should be a really fun game to watch. Too bad Russ won't be playing, but at least it seems D-Wade will, so the star power is still going to be spectacular.

So after I beat the game with my current party, the challenge will be to beat the game with an all archer/crossbowman party, on warrior difficulty, naturally.

I'm not particularly concerned with min-maxing the game. I just play the character classes I want to play.

Oden played 13 minutes in a win over the Spurs yesterday. Didn't put up much in the way of stats, but it's nice to see him getting minutes more regularly. Stay healthy, big fella.

I haven't gotten into late game yet, but, at least early on, bows and crossbows are far from useless.

You can, and I have. Besides, the analogy fails because a tie is a fashion item, its sole purpose is aesthetic. A greataxe is a weapon, its purpose is functional. That top spike serves no function because i's too short.

It seems like, much like the Witcher games, the protagonists look is set in stone. This would obviously make much of the development much easier, not having to allow for different body shapes, sizes, and looks in equipment design, cutscenes, etc. Also, as Zoraptor stated, medieval Europe was a very mesculine dominated society. Allowing you to play a female character would force extra work for the programmers and designers in tailoring equipment to different body shapes and changing the responses of NPCs to the gender of the character (if you're not going to have different responses depending on gender, what difference does it make whether you play a male or female character?). You can get away with gender choice in fantasy games because you can always just say that in this world genders are treated more or less equally, but if you're going for something historically accurate from the medieval period, then males and females would need to play differently. So the question becomes, is the extra work in allowing gender choice in the budget? Also, is it worth the extra work involved?

I personally think the day/night cycle is pretty close to just right. It could stand to be slightly longer, but as it is it's pretty well set up to allow you to take full advantage of shrines. Shrines are not automatically marked on your map, but you can make your own map markers and notes. I always make a note to specify whether the shrine is active during the day or at night. Then I plan out my trip so that I hit up a night shrine right near the end of the night, then hit up as many day shrines as it is convenient on the way to a dungeon (or vice versa). The effects last long enough that getting buffed up from three or four shrines can make a massive difference in the dungeon.

I got the axe weapon augment from the CtA event: Why include a top spike on an axe if it doesn't extend past the axe head? Anyway, I'm done with the event. i don't care about brutal enchantments and no other rewards interest me.

I just always assumed this sort of thing happened (and still does) all the time. When I read these reports I just shrug and say "par for the course". It's pretty standard practice for large, powerful corporations (not just in the video game industry) to use their wealth and power to sway public opinion, either by paying off people to speak more positively about their products, or to dissuade people from their competitor's products by spreading FUD and threatening legal action (patent trolling and such). This sort of thing has existed in one form or another since the beginning of civilization.