Osvir

Osvir was actually a dragon, who knew? A example was needed and so he cut through, The crowd stood back, taken by surprise, As Osvir stepped forth and shed his disguise. We feel differently, like fluttering flower petals and sometimes, we overboil... pot kettles! In each man and woman there lies an untold story and soedenone is here to bring it to fullest glory A poetic bard, it almost makes me hard

@soedenone: http://www.chinese-astrology.co.uk/dragon.html Born 1988.

Let me counter your question with: Does my right become more right if I am in a minority, and am I allowed to be more of a **** if I am? Does my right become more right if I also rile up people around me, who have no idea what my emotions are or who I am but they simply feel emotional because I am emotional? Take Denmark's embassy in the Middle-East (Yes, I am comparing with that, if you know what I am talking about), where islamists got riled up because a Danish artists had made a painting of "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named" (lol). Whilst marching towards the embassy, the crowd became larger and larger, and no one in the crowd had any idea what it was all about, but someone had made a painting, probably, and they were yelling and got angry and tossed **** around them and eventually they burned down the embassy... except they burned down the Norwegian embassy too (They probably didn't know which one was which so they burned down both). Does that right make them more right, because they were offended by a cartoon of Mohammed, and that made it right of them to rile up thousands of people around them? What if Obsidian hadn't listened to Erika, would she be allowed to burn down Obsidian's offices and spread hate about them because of a poem? I know my example is a bit extreme, but do you understand what I am saying? Read: I think (2) fits into it. A bit extreme? Of course she wouldn't be allowed to destroy property or hurt people because she got freaking offended, what kind of a question is that? I'm a huge supporter of free speech and I reserve the right to walk around in public with a t-shirt with a graphic of the danish cartoon with Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban. But I also have the right to not wear that shirt if I don't feel like it. If Obsidian had removed the poem in order to appease a group threatening violence against them, I'd be pissed, but that's not what went down at all. First of all, it's likely that they overlooked it and legitimately don't like it or want it in the game in the first place. That would be their right to include whatever the **** they want in their work. Furthermore, they didn't remove it or apologize and they weren't responding to threats of violence. They chose to ask the backer if he wanted to change it in light of the situation, and he decided to do so. Period. That's the entire story. Nobody caved to threats of violence and no censorship was forced on anybody. Obsidian decided that they wanted to give the backer an opportunity to change something that was causing a lot of people to **** on twitter and the forums, the backer decided to do so, Obsidian published his rewrite which directly insulted those who got offended in the first place. It's amazing how much imaginary bs all of you are attaching to this situation. As a show of example to see how much people read into a comment (this is the second one by the way). I never said that there were threats of violence against Obsidian. I didn't even insinuate that there ever was. I was asking rethorical questions and making rethorical parallels. Using an extreme example (I got it right this time). Deceptive, I know, sorry about that. It was somewhat intentional. You applied the rest of the meaning yourself. I was re-reading my post a couple of times and thinking "Yeah, it is A LOT of extreme, maybe I should edit that 'bit' out of it? Nah. Whatever, someone is going to get pissed about it". I made a conscious choice to keep it there so I could elaborate as well as hope I could see some people understanding what I was talking about, and also show how literal people are and how they apply their own meanings to things. How people have difficulty in seeing from other people's point of views. Most of the time because they aren't trying* (I've read your post, at this point in time, 3 4 times now Grinning, just to give you some perspective and that I am trying to understand other people's thoughts too ). I never said anything about Obsidian being forced to censor anything. What happened was a woman who wanted to force Obsidian to censor, because she perceived the poem to be "All about me". Whilst the threats were not of the "I will burn down your office"-kind, it was of the "I will not buy your game if you don't fix this and I will tell all kinds of people to not get your game because of this poem"-kind. "Censor this, or else!" (and for a while, Erika thought Obsidian had censored it too). It was also appearantly escalating. My point is that if Obsidian hadn't communicated with her in some manner, she would've continued her campaign, spread more hate on Obsidian and been anti-Obsidian for the rest of her gaming career or even life, most likely. That pressure, is a d*ck move, and isn't much different from "terror". The way she gathered people to her cause, sentimentally, is not much different than the way that the islamists on the streets riled up and gathered people. My point is that there could've been a single people who started chanting on the streets "Danish idiot is making cartoon of our prophet!" and then let's pretend they went and protested against it. Similarly, Erika started on Twitter "Obsidian Backer idiot is making fun of our sexuality!" and then went and protested against it. No tolerancy in both cases. ^Do you see the parallell I made, more simplified, now^? *"They aren't trying" = lots of people become emotional on what they see on the surface, they jump to conclusions before understanding. I do this too, so I should really say "We". But using "they" is more provocative.

Well, I don't mind there being no tower-defense style mini game. And I perfectly understand why they didn't add a full-scale siege mechanic. Heck, even the way the terrain works in regular combat probably couldn't make good use of fighting from the top of a wall. There could be a lot more logic to the whole thing though. Because let's face it, to take such a stronghold you do need an army (if it's properly manned of course, which it isn't with the dozen or so guys you can hire). A bunch of thugs won't get into there. Unless of course they are serious about the northern defenses consisting of a hedge maze. Like, seriously. Don't need to fight on top of the wall, but the outside (Where you fight all the Spectres, Shadows and the Will-O-Wisps before getting the Stronghold). Getting in from the road of the Eastern Barbican or the Western Barbican, for instance (through the gates). Could maybe even be possible to code "Waves" of enemies storming over the bridge, as to give a sense of "Lots of enemies attacking".

LOL Yes, because the people who think the limerick was offensive are now planning to burn Obsidans office down and murder all the staff. Really, stop with all the crazy comparisons to terrorism or Nazis. It's absurd. I guess you don't.

Let me counter your question with: Does my right become more right if I am in a minority, and am I allowed to be more of a **** if I am? Does my right become more right if I also rile up people around me, who have no idea what my emotions are or who I am but they simply feel emotional because I am emotional? Take Denmark's embassy in the Middle-East (Yes, I am comparing with that, if you know what I am talking about), where islamists got riled up because a Danish artists had made a painting of "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named" (lol). Whilst marching towards the embassy, the crowd became larger and larger, and no one in the crowd had any idea what it was all about, but someone had made a painting, probably, and they were yelling and got angry and tossed **** around them and eventually they burned down the embassy... except they burned down the Norwegian embassy too (They probably didn't know which one was which so they burned down both). Does that right make them more right, because they were offended by a cartoon of Mohammed, and that made it right of them to rile up thousands of people around them? What if Obsidian hadn't listened to Erika, would she be allowed to burn down Obsidian's offices and spread hate about them because of a poem? I know my example is a bit extreme, but do you understand what I am saying? Read: I think (2) fits into it.

Fixed. http://www.orderoflaibach.com/blog/screw-you-firedorn-lightbringer

Doesn't matter, someone would be angry or offended. Here lies Firethorn, a hero in bed, He once was a live, but now he's dead. The last woman he bedded, turned out to be a tree-trunk. And crying in shame, off a cliff he yelled 'Weeeee...' *thunk* "But... but... but the trees man! The trees!! Remove this poem!!" etc. etc. whatever. It wasn't about the poem. It was about a woman that felt entitled, self-important, and manic enough to create a crusade about something really pointless. If we consider she became messed up by the poem, consider how much she cares for children and living people (if we compare with the tree and the hanging people, Hollowborn, Wichts etc.) *shrug* There was really one thing that I felt disgusted by in the game (lots of offensive stuff in the game too), was the pool of the sacrificial pit underneath the Xaurips, before you face a Drake. IIRC Floor 4 or 5. I don't know why, but I got an image in my head from floating intestines, skulls, and just pure liquid fat blood wobbling along the surface line of the pool of blood and it made me "huek" (not vomit, but just getting that imagery was a bit blegh). But I wasn't offended by it, it was part of the narrative, part of the story, part of the game. It wasn't going to make me stop playing or exploring the dungeon and make a Twitter/Social outrage about it xD That would've been silly. About as silly as the person that got offended by the poem. Just as disgusting the pool of blood was in my head, the meaning of the poem was all in her head. PR disaster probably, and Paradox (who were supposedly handling Pillars of Eternity's marketing) probably shook their heads when they saw Josh Sawyer replying to Erika. Or it was all part of some plan to create some controversy. Because no doubt, controversy spreads like wildfire across the internet, onto websites, YouTubers talk about it, communities and so on and forth, and people start talking about "What is offensive in Pillars of Eternity?" on more broader terms as well. You have to consider that she also went after a Backer, an external source/artist, rather than going after Obsidian themselves. That says a lot too about the nature of the outrage (And the victory exclamation she did afterwards too *shrug* Obsidian probably got played, which is probably why you can see in some loading screens now "The memorials are backer content and break the 4th wall, don't read them if you want immersion"). Regardless, I think that's an interesting topic "What is offensive in Pillars of Eternity? What is controversial in Pillars of Eternity?", all of that is interesting. But talking about the Poem is talking about Erika and her person and psychology, and I'd rather not.

Don't know. I got all the "special" hirelings I could because, I assumed they were statistically better (class, attributes, HP/Endurance, Damage, Spells, Gear etc.). Whilst I assumed the regular hirelings were more or less "trash mob" equivalent. Meaning, they're better than the regular ones in terms of what they can do by themselves, but might not be better or worse than the regular ones in terms of Stronghold Defense/Reputation. I did two manual combats and one auto-resolve. The first manual I did I had no hirelings, so I didn't lose anything. Then I did an auto-resolve, lost 2 hirelings. Bought new ones after. Did a manual combat after that and I lose 2 guys again (and they went down like flies). Speaking of the Stronghold Defense... it was a bit underwhelming. Why is the combat phase inside the main keep as well? That felt odd. I thought they were going to storm the Western Barbican or the Eastern Barbican and you'd have a stand off against several waves of enemies coming in (Depending on which tier of attackers). I guess I can see from a design perspective why they chose to go with the battles happening in the Main Keep instead of outside (Less bugs, more of a controlled environment, smaller space where enemies can't run around too much, minimizing "Search & Destroy" for the last stragglers if it had been the outdoor map etc.). But it was still weird. Almost as if there's a second entrance somewhere. I also encountered Leaden Key Agents (they were questioning Kana) on the first floor as I was coming out of the dungeon, and it was a large group of them too and I wondered "How the hell did they slip past all of my defenses??". Is there a second entry into the dungeon from another map??

I wanted to hire them as hirelings to my stronghold, with the Ogre and Vithrack (whilst also hoping I could recruit more monster types to create a monster fortress akin to the Dungeons faction from Heroes of Might & Magic).

Heressy! Orlan Fortress, of course Excellent points about the trade routes. Having Madhmr Bridge get repaired in a forseeable future (although, I don't see it forseeable to happen during the events of the "Hollowing of Dyrwood" seeing that A) Heritage Hill in chaos B) Defiance Bay pretty much in chaos C) Dyrwood Region in chaos with the Hollowborn). Heritage Hill is, though, to the Southwest of Madmhr Bridge (Copperlane being the entrance), but maybe Heritage Hill's "revival" could be a parameter for Madhmr Bridge beginning construction? If that could be a thing to begin with... could Heritage Hill be a bit more dynamic? Not stronghold related (a tangent): There are a ton of rivalling adventuring groups in the world. I'm curious why they ain't solving any problems (like, at all). It'd be interesting to have some time-based adventurer's dealing with stuff, and if they deal with it before you, they'd also gain experience and become stronger (hand-placed level-scaling depending on dynamic parameters). EDIT: Right! That's why I came back to this thread: (Some more Stronghold stuff) - More Monster types to recruit to your Stronghold! Sparing the Vithrack, and even emprisoning one of them in the jail, made me think that "Hey, I have an Ogre, maybe I could get a Vithrack, then maybe a beastmaster or monster tamer... some Trolls maybe... why can I only hire Kith? I want a monster fortress!" - Sequentially: Getting a monster-based stronghold = Tyrant ending. Caed Nua scary place with monsters. Fewer visitors, or only Cruel and Menacing visitors. - Visitors arriving at your Stronghold based on your reputations, actually being a certain type of reputation themselves. Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings-esque, if you are evil. Otherwise good people. Or deceptive people, etc. - Fulfilling certain objectives, hidden visitors/hidden companion (Secret companion). Not everything needs to be "readily available" because "User Accessibility". @Obsidian: Don't be too afraid to hide hidden gems or making surprising stuff that is rare to encounter or even miss out on. That is the nature of "rarity". Take Final Fantasy 7 for instance, two of the companions (also two of the best companions) are easily missed out on (Yuffie and Vincent). In Final Fantasy 6, Umaro, Mog, and Gogo are easily missed out on, and in World of Ruin, almost all of the characters become "optional". In Suikoden... you get the point (One of the reasons why I'm flirting with this idea is because, I was half-hoping that the Dragon Slayer was a secret companion. Both versions of her, possessed or not possessed).

Oh hell no. Now you're stretching it. They've developed the Stronghold (at least on paper) since the Kickstarter. But it's always been somewhat of a B priority. I do feel it is kind of a bottle-neck. I kind of want to tell the Keep Guardian just "STFU and fix the Eastern Barbican so I can get out of here!" but it's more like "You have to fix it for me my Lord". Can't I threaten the statue with a Hammer and Chisel or something? That might seem like I don't like the Stronghold (I do like it) but on my second playthrough I didn't even want the Stronghold because I wanted to roleplay a different type of character but I still had to "get it". Meanwhile, the statue mentions a path that takes longer to get to Defiance Bay, and I was all "Sure I'll make that trek, where do I go?" but nothing. I ended up fixing the Eastern Barbican and went on my way. Is there some entrance into the Endless Paths from a nearby map? (Woodend Plains?). That'd be pretty interesting to be honest (and a tangible option to take if you want to ignore the Stronghold all together): "Fix the Eastern Barbican or trek into Dungeon Level 3 and get out at Wooded Plains". Kind of like that mountain pass in Diablo 2 to get to a destination where the ancient tree is (and sub-sequentially get the scroll to teleport to tristram and save cain). My (reasonably doable(?)) wishlist for the stronghold: - Trade with Factions (Trade with Raedric, Valian Republic, Twin Elms, Defiance Bay, Gilded Vale etc.) - Craft specific items for visitors (Incentives to build crafting buildings) - More bounties (And a bounty warden in Admeth's Den or similar if you choose to not get the Stronghold) - An Inn merchant on the first floor of Brighthollow (Probably the most important, imo). - Visitors or Hirelings that upgrade your specific built locations (Merchant Hirelings. Currently all the Hirelings are Mercenaries) - Adventurers or Companions actually aiding with the construction and maintanence of the Stronghold based on their background, class, and culture. We have all these backgrounds, but they only really matter on the MC. If you made a bunch of Laborer Adventurers, why couldn't they be "Laborers" for the Stronghold? (2 Days construction becomes 1 Day Construction?) - Chapel Diety upgrade. Do you follow Wael? Magran? Skaen? Etc. Upgrade the Chapel to honor a specific Diety. - In light of the Chapel Upgrade, maybe being able to Upgrade various buildings? Tier 2, Tier 3, etc. - Send Adventurers or Hirelings to patrol the roads (And minimize Bandit lootings). - Depending on how you deal with the Adra Dragon, hire her to defend the Stronghold (for the time being). Or gain some boost or defense mechanism if you complete the Endless Paths. Something tangible (Maybe there was something but I completely missed it? If there is, then it should be more clarified). My (wacky) wishlist for way WAY into the future: - Wage war or diplomacy. - Construct war machines, hire soldiers/troops. - Research technologies. - Conquer (Exterminate). - Send scouts to Living Lands, Rautai etc. (Explore). - Mine resources, tax citizens (Exploit). - Create outposts and gain more territory (Expand). - 4X RPG ;P The latter list would probably require a complete worldmap, allowing the Player to adventure with their party whilst maintaining their base of operations, and, preferably, have characters you meet in the world (with your MC) react to you depending on your status as ruler and their own faction.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u4vutsghpz8m9fa/Showcase001Benji.gif?dl=0 Remade one of the animations a bit quickly (Upscaled)

So... something disasterous happened about two weeks ago and I lost all of my work and have avoided working on it since. Won't see a broad strike implementation anytime soon. Part of the road maybe, but, I'm starting anew, perhaps it'll even get a better foundation or something. I'm bumping this topic because I want to see if anyone is interested to work together at a discussion phase, bounce ideas back and forth, pre-production, maybe I can work on something, talk about what I want to do and maybe whoever is interested can talk about what they are interested in and then we create something amazing together? Feedback is golden, and having someone to actually discuss iterations with is also amazing and I work 200% faster and better having someone to talk with. Now that I lost all of my work, I need to catch up. So, if anyone is interested, send me a PM. Pre-production. Pixel art. 2D Side-Scroller/Platformer.

Tobi... Naruto??

*shakes head* Wooo! Something to be positive about at the very least

^This. The other part might come later though. In the interview they stated they made it two parts because they wanted people to experience more of the game as soon as possible. Agreed. But still, brace yourself for the possibility that you're only going to get 1 of the 2 (and paying for the second). I'm just saying (I'm prepared for it, even if I would think it would be a tad bit shady practice for those of us that paid for an expansion). There is great merit in episodic releases, and episodic expansions. Honestly, it'd be most awesome if they never released a Pillars of Eternity 2, but simply expanded on Pillars of Eternity with episodic content with gameplay and story modules. Eventually having a large open world with multiple starting locations and continents etc. adding multiplayer (Not MMO), allowing for campaign settings, Dungeon Master mode, classes, level caps etc. :D probably won't happen but... would be freaking awesome.

The game doesn't do epic dungeons well on higher difficulties. You attrition too fast. They'd have to sprinkle in way more resting kits. Or you'd be leaving a dungeon every level or so to grab more kits. One solution right here would be to... well... wherever you use a camping supply could be your own created "checkpoint", and allowing you to return to it (instead of having to leave a dungeon when you run out of supplies). Being limited with 2/2 camping supplies per-dungeon or even per-map. Might be a bit problematic in coding. Project Zomboid (or even Don't Starve) springs to mind, a camping kit which you can pick up and drop as you wish.

I'd like to see an Omni-Class. Can pick from ALL talents from ALL Classes every level up. Then you could mix-n-match how you please.

I went (in order) Aloth, Eder, Durance, Kana, Sagani. Replaced Sagani with Pallegina. Was going to replace Aloth with Hiravias, but Aloth had grown on me by that time. *shrug* If you like the characters you have in your party, you can always go with a different setup on a second playthrough. Getting Hiravias after Caed Nua should go pretty quickly after all.

Yep, show him this article and tell he has to see the documentary too http://www.twinfinite.net/2015/03/24/pillars-of-eternity-documentary-shows-just-how-close-obsidian-came-to-shutting-down/

I love it and I feel I paid enough, and would pay more, and would support another Kickstarter or a sequel. But I have a current gripe with it... - Restarting a new game could be more ease-of-use. Having made some 20, probably 25, recreations, going through the Prologue over and over and over again... doesn't feel as efficient as it could be. - After having created a lot of characters now.... Character Creation could've been better. Something I brought up in the past (December 2014). EDIT: Darn, I removed it from my dropbox lol, oh well (Compressed all of the Character Creation screens in one screen). That's pretty much it. Yeeep. Totally waiting for that "Skip Prologue" Mod.

This comment is lol. But there is a rather intellectual sentiment in all of this still, regardless if it was intentional or unintentional. If (hypothetically, singularly) a game only has one difficulty, it means the game becomes much more balanced accordingly to it. Developers won't have to worry much about "Easy" or "Hard" or "Path of the Damned" and so on and so forth. This might be more of a discussion in "Computer & Console" but, isn't Dark Souls and Bloodborne "One Difficulty" games? And aren't they really good for it too? Everyone is under the same premise. Here, there's tons of discussions about "Hard is too easy!" or "Path of the Damned is too easy!" and in many ways... Difficulty Settings become Troll Settings. Because they naturally "Divide" the fanbase and community into different labels and Player-types "Casual player" or "Hardcore player" and so on and forth. Whilst in Dark Souls and similar, you are a "Dark Souls" player. Something to think about, I guess. Same rules for everyone.

Beat it without cheesing and you have my ear. Currently, on my playthrough, I've cheesed in some way. Dunno how you'd be able to do it otherwise. You can "beat" Raedric's Hold with minimal combat. Is that cheesing, or simply following the game's rules and using an ability that Obsidian has developed, to its full potential? Albeit, I do think that is cheesy to attack a group of enemies, kill one or two, then reset combat and return to town to rest, and then rinse repeat until there is no enemies left. But that's awfully time consuming in itself. But it is one way to do it still. If you think that running into a room with 10 enemies that deal poison damage or have other annoying status effects is the way to do it, good luck. You'll be bald at the end of it from pulling out your hair You get Weapon Focus and Enchant your items to be accurate maybe and you stop missing? The will o wisps aren't that bad (damage-wise). If you use a scroll or potion you can also deal with them even faster. And then there's items later that negate Confusion (Which the Wisps inflict) effects. Just pull the Wisps from Caed Nua into where Kana stands and you can flank them too If POTD Solo Crown is too easy? Don't agree. It is hard work and lots of research, even if you research on Easy it is still research. Somewhat bothersome, but I still think it is fun. The most annoying part of it, imo, is that creating a new character isn't as ease-of-use as it could be... and the Prologue could seriously need a "Skip" button and start on Level 2 outside Cilant Lis after the scripted event... or just give you the dialogue options for your background history and then bam, start as a level 2 character. Takes maybe only 5-7 minutes to finish Encampment+Cilant Lis, but I'd rather be on my way to Gilded Vale on that time rather than going through the Prologue for the 30th time xD

That's a way to do it. I thought about a similar way (Killing one or two enemies, shadowing beyond to reset, then returning to town, rest, return, kill one or two enemies, etc.). It is a sturdy patience, even if it takes less time, if anything. Fighters can probably do the same thing if they have high Int for Prone duration. E.g. let's say there are 4 enemies, Fighter kills 2 of them, Knockdown on the 2 that's left, then run away, back to town, rest, back to area, kill the remaining enemies (Fast Runner to be able to run away from enemies might be worth investing in if you want to reset/retreat from combat to return another day). I didn't even deal with Maerwald, I ran out of the room, aggroed the beetles, then went Shadowing Beyond and Maerwald and the Beetles fought, when he had killed them, he had just gone into "Injured" from "Near Death" If you are playing Solo on Path of the Damned, you're going to abuse the game/system a lot. It is the only way.