melkathi

I felt they made it to make clans more distinct. To ensure no two clans can be played the same way. A Brujha with Celerity and Presence could be indistinguishable from a Toreador. I don't like losing a discipline. I want to be fast, strong AND dashing.

I hear Cork is lovely this time of year. Just like the Adirondacks.

Glad I am not the only one who misreads things. Even though as a teatotaller I have no excuses.

That blackmail prank I played on the theatre got shared by one of the actors on social media. He got over 200 retweets on it, which for a small country and minor language is quite a bit. So a website picked it up as a random story. Spend all of Sunday with friends telling me where they saw my letter pop up. Which was touching. Of course once it got to that level, an acquaintance ran onto Twitter to say that he knew who "the neighbour" was. I don't mind them knowing, but am a bit annoyed; it wasn't his place, not his prank. It turns out the actors and I have quite a few common friends and acquaintances (heck, my dad for example) and all of them were keeping quiet and having a giggle. Oh, well, now to come up with something else to do...

Yes, the series is an RPG/RTS hybrid. The first game Order of Dawn came out in 2003. In the aftermath of the Convocation (big, magic ritual through which individual mages of the Circle tried to attain unparalleled power) the world was torn asunder, with people stranded on isolated floating islands. The only surviving Circle mage, Rohen, tries to fix things, building portals to connect the islands etc. In his efforts he gives one of his rune warriors possession of their rune. Rune Warriors were soldiers in the war between mages, their soul bound to runes, giving the bearer of a rune control over the person. The player was that Rune Warrior. You leveled up RPG wise, combat or magic, and stats that govern effectiveness of ability and equipment you could use. You also had a rune board, which allowed you to control your own army of rune bound souls. Some strong souls would become your party members, and the races you could lead in the RTS part were also represented as runes. For the RPG part you had a proper adventuring party of rune warriors. You could also zoom into over the shoulder third person, which was necessary for a handful of quests were you needed to find hidden switches for example. RTS was normal RTS with base building, upgrading units etc. The RTS part could get a bit weak when your party was strong enough, or on maps that started in "RPG Mode" until a trigger turned on the RTS part, allowing you to clear the map before enemies spawned units - of course you had to actually invest in the game to figure that out PC Gamer UK hated the game and found the story confusing, boring or plain bad. I found the person who wrote that article to be an idiot Spellforce 1 had two stand alone expansions. Breath of Winter had you playing a different Rune Warrior, also freed. The story was more mainstream fantasy, catering to the people who had not understood the first game. You tried to find the queen of the elves, who alone with her song could put an ancient dragon back to sleep. Gameplay wise it didn't really differ from the first game, but had new opponents and units. And it had the first non-human party members. Shadow of the Phoenix allowed you to import a previous character, either from Order of Dawn or Breath of Winter, and tied the stories together. For co-op skirmish heroes the game included an extremely high level quest giver who was a teaser for Spellforce 2. Spellforce 2 was a bit of a spin off, the concept of Rune Warriors abandoned for the Shaikan, a human tribe that had entered a pact with an ancient dragon and gained power through its blood, pledging servitude in return. That said, while it changes who the player is, where their powers come from, it still behaved more or less like the original. I keep meaning to finish it and its three expansions, but it came out at the wrong time for me to play it then. Spellforce 3 is the recent game. It is a prequel, playing in a time before the Circle of Mages even existed. You don't need to have played the other games, but it ties directly into the original game and its expansions, so people who have played those will, from a point in the game onward, have a more rewarding experience. edit: Fun fact: when I made a dual wielding rogue in Dragon Age, I was basically returning to my original Spellforce character.

Now I need to check out Spiritfarer. They could do a marketing campaign that way: the unfortunate game nobody noticed because it presented after Cyberpunk.

Yeah. Your non-retirement sounds a lot like Gromnir's retirement

That's Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest More character options than a lot of "just" rpgs. And it's pretty.

Greenmangaming is doing an E3 sale. 25% off with the voucher code E3. I am mentioning this because it works on pre-orders. I just checked and it works on Bloodlines 2 and Age of Wonders Planetfall. The later interests me more, as Bloodlines 2 is a long way off - too far off for me. But it is the biggest discount on those pre-orders so far. (The discount doesn't stack and it doesn't work for Borderlands 3) Also. GOG has a Spellforce 3 + Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest deal. (well, they are giving Spellforce 3 at 60% right now, and owners of the original get the expansion 40% off) I spend 75 hours on Spellforce 3, so not sure if any criticism I have for the game should be seen as a non-recommendation I am having some difficulty with the stand alone expansion, as they changed UI, hotkeys and everything a lot from the main game, and I am too used to it now.

It sounds like retirement is a lot of hard work. It also sounds rather relaxing at the same time.

Is the player character the actor that plays the Joker in Gotham?

Took pictures of the actors taking pictures of my blackmail letter

Hmmm, a thread by a person who never posted anything else and hasn't been to the forum since.

Today I spend 3 hours cutting out letters and gluing them together to form my first blackmail letter. I live next to the national theater, and they rehearse for a special showing of the Oresteia. So I send them a letter saying: Orestes, I know you plan to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. If you don't want police and the Erinyes to know, leave tickets to the show by the gate to the theatre's yard. A neighbor I'll keep an eye out for any tickets. Maybe they have a sense of humour to match mine The actual letter is in Greek, but I'll provide a photo anyway

Yeah, no idea how they expect to sell games this way.

Ceremorphosis. The physical transformation takes about a week, apparently. Of course by the time the metamorphosis starts, the tadpole has completely consumed the hosts brain, and the body is just a shell controlled by it.

I know I am biased. But seeing reactions on the net to the trailer, am I the only one that sees it simply as Larian's humour, taking the established were-sheep inside joke from the original D:OS Kickstarter (and I was a were-sheep backer) and using that to tease mind flayers with a were-illithid?

A game with no endowment slider:

A were-illithid ? They are taking the were-sheep joke a bit too far.

I am very critical when it comes to writing. I know this, so I try to allow for my inner editor, my demanding nature, and give people a chance. But I am not ever buying another Larian game. There comes a point when we need to stop finding fault with ourselves and accept the fact that some people should not be doing certain jobs. Larian should keep to coding, to making nice graphics, to making music. They should not have any input on the writing. They are worse than what Bioware devolved into in the Dragon Age series (whiny dialogue in a fantasy dating sim located in plot-hole central). Ironically enough, Dragon Commander was the one game were their writing mostly worked. It also was their one game were the gameplay didn't.

Brian Mitsoda talking about Malkavian (the fifth and final clan of the base game)

Baldur's Gate 3 will be a turn based, co-op rpg with environmental puzzles, ham-fisted writing and trying too hard to be funny?

I play CoH. I am more retro than you

Started the stand alone expansion for spellforce 3. Very confusing. They changed keys, UI, everything.

Sat down and finished Spellforce 3. The bad: After a certain point the RTS part has endless waves of enemies attacking you. It feels like a cheap trick to make maps last longer, when you need to explore to figure out the quest but rush back every 60 seconds to defend against yet another attack. Partly as a result it is easy to miss loot and the odd side quest on the huge maps. At least in German the voice acting has mistakes. Some lines are read by the wrong voice actor, so the mercenary leader for example replies with the player's voice at some point. Sometimes the wrong sound file plays and the text being spoken is not the text written, but a repeat of a previous line. The Good: The game is gorgeous. I feel guilty building bases in the maps and ruining the environment. The story is fine, and while not having any real surprises, provides a good fantasy ride with stuff to do. Though for fans of the series it is awesome once you realize what the story really is all about. A good variety of party members and loot to equip them with. Actually a neat real time RPG dressed up as an RTS.