Varana

Umm... I'd like to think that everyone can write everyone. Sometimes it needs a bit more work, but in the end, we're all human, and no group has that sort of special nugget of them-ness.

Sometimes I can't help but think that if consoles weren't a thing, they'd need to be invented so people would have something to blame.

Is that a Vulcan thing?

Crafting in PoE was already quite restricted. You could do: Cooking and basic alchemy, which probably doesn't need huge amounts of training. (At least you can set up the world to be like that.) Writing magical scrolls. I don't remember whether creating them needed the same level of Lore as using them, but that's how it should have been. Other than that, not really complicated, apparently. And enchanting existing items with a limited selection of enchantments, in a semi-alchemical way, judging by the necessary components. PoE did not have anything like really producing weapons or crafting plate armour or things like that which really need lots of training and practice. The main exception being Durgan steel, but that you could justify by using a magical smithy that did most of the work. And unless you played PotD+Ironman or so, you could safely ignore almost (or all) of the crafting stuff if you didn't like it. I for one almost never used scrolls, potions, or food (except on very rare occasions - mostly because I re-sorted the inventory and suddenly realised that those things existed...).

So, which incident was he referring to? http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vn17J/in-english-this-happened-in-sweden-friday-night-mr-president It even has pictures. Also, it doesn't matter which channel that was. They just played what Trump said.

Summary: - Stretch goals were planned in advance this time, after esp. the Endless Paths went somewhat out of control. Fulvano's Voyage is easier to develop as the islands have more variety and can be spread out better. - Crowd funding: Kickstarter craze seems to have died down a bit, though games like Banner Saga 3 show that it's still viable. More for tabletop and board games, these days. - Tyranny was way shorter, how about Deadfire: Deadfire will be comparable to PoE1 in size but pacing will be better. Twin Elsm was beautiful but didn't help to prepare the player for getting to the end of the game. - Reduced party size: AI is new, pathfinding overhauled as a reaction to criticism of PoE1. Together with better placement of enemy mobs this will lead to better combat. There will be less trash mobs and more staged encounters connected to the plot, continuing the trend of later patches of PoE1. - Factions and companions will be better integrated into the story. Levels will be more open, there will be more options to explore. - Weather effects, daily schedules, multi- and subclasses, better scripted interactions get a shoutout. - Inspirations for environments in Deadfire: tropical jungles, Egyptian temples, Caribbean pirate nests, and various Pacific Islander cultures, e.g. the Maori language, Polynesian clothing and architecture, or wood carvings from Bali. David Cordingly's "Under the Black Flag" is mentioned for real-life piracy. For video games, examples like Assassin's Creed 4, Sid Meier's Pirates!, or Divinity:OS.

As a crew of seafarers, they're absolutely dependant on that ship. They're spending their whole time on it. It's their home. They know it down to the last plank. And if anything happens, they can only do as much as the ship allows them to. They're married to it, or more precisely: bound to it. I would certainly refrain from insulting it. :D So either something intimidating and suitably evil-overlord-y, or something that expresses that relationship. I don't think a name that comes down to "oh, that b!tch *shrug*" is appropriate.

I like the idea. In PoE1, I used adventurers for a while in the beginning of the game as placeholders until I got to the actual companions. To have a variety of characters available that can fill a specific role but also have some kind of personality to them, is even better. They're basically BG1 level companions (or BG2 for some of the lesser ones), and I'm certainly not going to complain about that. The full companions don't use all options that the game has to offer, and even less so if you don't like one of them (Durance!). I'd take a less talky sidekick over a mute chess piece every time. Sure, a self-created adventurer is better for min-maxing, but that's not really necessary for me.

That was discussed during the watercolour stretch goal. This style of portraits will be used for dialogue and scripted interactions. For the standard GUI, portraits in the traditional style will still be there.

Neketaka looks gorgeous. One thing though: If I ever created my own fantasy world, I'd surely include some sort of pseudo-electric lights. Really, having torches and fire bowls at every corner (and in tropical rain to boot) becomes cheesy after a while. :D

What?!? *world view shattered*

*scowls at Leeuwenhart*

Making you think and addressing important questions about life, the universe, and everything, and posing an interesting dilemma, or a hard choice, can be done without resorting to being "freak"-ish. Life happens also to people who're not mental train wrecks or floating skulls. I really dislike it when RPG parties result in a freak show of every unhinged person the protagonist could find on their travels, and even more so that the protagonist often has to play psychiatrist-in-training because it's obviously them who has to solve the psychological issues of all these nutjobs. Durance went on my nerves because I had to listen to his tirades while he never got anywhere and had to dig deep into his deluded mind to even understand what his problems were, and I did not do that a second time. Why should I? They're his problems, they didn't speak to me. He should've sought out professional help long ago. (The Grieving Mother had the crippling problem that her "quest" wasn't really connected to anything in the game at all; we just talked about it. I'm not sure how much of that was due to later cuts during production, so it's maybe not fair to criticise her too much. It would've been different if she actually had interactions with other party members and the environment, and if we would've visited the Birthing Bell or her village, or something like that. Like, connect her to the actual game.) If there's some crazy person thrown into the mix, that's fine. But all around, having people who can carry a normal interaction without making me doubt their sanity, seems preferable somehow. I mean, sure I liked Xan in BG1. (The other idiots, not so much, though.) But let's be honest, the level of party interaction in BG1 was stone age compared to modern incarnations of these games. There were no deep questions posed by Xan, his interjections were more or less comic relief. BG1 had very limited room for making their companions memorable, and basically had to resort to excessive flanderizing to do that. It was successful in creating characters you remember; it wasn't successful in characters that challenged you intellectually. Or were believable characters that you'd actually would want to be around, really. It would be much more interesting, I think, if the birds didn't come pre-broken but reacted to the events of the story in different ways. You're witness to some world-shattering and gruesome events (and some of that you're doing yourself). The effect of that on your party members during a game and dealing with the aftermaths of your actions, would be enough material for interesting and challenging conversations and quests, without the party members bringing heavy amounts of backstory baggage already with them. In PoE, Edér and (to a lesser degree) Aloth tended in this direction, with their issues directly tied to the plot of the game; in BG2, that was Imoen. (Durance, as well, but that was presented ... not well.)

In a game like PoE, I have full control over all combat abilities of every party member. That's not a difference. I disagree that there should be substantial parts of solo gameplay. Least of all during the finale. Itr's a party based game; it's the story of the Watcher and his/her companions. Sure, they take a lesser role, but they're part of the band, as well. Now, if you want to go solo for a challenge or because you just don't like a party, that's fine. But I wouldn't want to be forced into it except for rare and short segments that don't have major gameplay. Dream sequences are fine, if they're not too long. As for DA:O, there are mods to skip the Fade, and I liked that the second time around. Being a party based game, characters are meant to complement each other. I can safely skip abilities that are vital to gameplay on my Watcher because some other character has them; I can have my Watcher be not really all that good in combat, or at least solo combat (which isn't that rare for support characters). Solo parts would need to be tailored to very different ability levels; while you can safely assume that at least one party member will be able to deal with traps and locks (even by walking through them) or hold themselves in combat or be able to use scrolls, you can't assume that when you rip the Watcher out of the party to let them go solo. Also, for these occasions, PoE can make extensive use of scripted interactions. Having the Watcher do something alone, is better suited to dialogue based challenges, and the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style interactions are perfect for that.

Waidwen certainly was not Godlike (as in his race). He lived quite unremarkably for a while until Eothas chose him, and no one saw him shining light out of his ... head during that time.

You don't have to aim very high, though. Sorry, I'll go.

I seriously hope that not only "PC America" is finally getting over this nonsense of biological "race" in humans. Different colouring is more than enough uniqueness to "races".

As the game restarts at level 1, why not just recreate the adventurers from scratch? Same result.

They will certainly be given out once the campaign has ended - like all rewards. After all, they didn't get any money from you, yet. And tracking who backed for what and who revoked his pledge and so on, during the campaign, wouldn't be that clever. P.S. BIBbed.

Like nature itself, Galawain to me seems to have a very Darwinian aspect to his ideals. The strong survive, the weak get culled, life is a constant competition. (As can be seen in Galawain's trial, that doesn't necessarily mean physical strength. In nature, it's rather "better adapted to a specific environment", and that seems to be Galawain's view of things, as well.) That's often not really nice but it can be crucial to survival in harsh environments. People probably follow him less in urban or highly developed societies where there is more room for activities not directly related to survival of yourself or your tribe. And as others have pointed out, as well: Gods don't need to stand for an ideal, or a paradigm to follow. That is a very abrahamitic view of religion (even though it's become a fantasy trope). The Engwithan gods (as most gods of polytheistic religions) are highly personalised. They are actors, not concepts. If you want to avert famine, you can sacrifice to Hylea or Eothas (the closest to a fertility deity the pantheon has, I think) - and you can sacrifice to Rymrgand to spare you and not send famine. (Come to think of it, it's really very curious that the Engwithan pantheon lacks a fertility deity. Usually, those are the ubiquitous and really popular ones, and many religions have several of them at the same time.) That is an important observation, I think. The Engwithans didn't want to foster science and research in future societies in order to keep their tinkering with the gods a secret. So they installed gods who discouraged scientific progress, ordered the Glanfathans to protect their ruins and keep prying noses out, and entrusted Thaos with ultimately destroying those societies that could pose a threat to their plans.

Sure, to an extent. Some more blatant, some more subtle. But what happens now is a shift in the perception of this basic fact. By blasting out obvious lies or heavily twisted statements, about even the most irrelevant issues, this administration creates the impression that the media is heavily biased against them, even if they're just stating facts. Maybe inadvertently, probably on purpose, but this leads to a political climate where simple fact-checking becomes an attack and puts you firmly in the opposition camp.

During the campaign, I often thought that the media was not critical enough of Trump. Things like basic fact-checking, calling out lies, asking back during interviews, confronting him with his own statements, calling BS what it is... all these things only gradually happened as his campaign gained more and more steam, and it's being taken seriously only now (sometimes). But that would be the actual job of the media. It's not that the media paints Trump in a bad light. He is.

But does it say anywhere that 9 or 27 has any special importance outside of the hours per day? As I said, this calendar was purposefully created by someone. If you're inventing a way to measure time from scratch, you don't have to follow any conventions. It might hurt chances that your calendar's going to be used by anyone, but apart from that, you could divide the day into 17 hours just for giggles, and it would work somehow.

Japp, wir. (Grüße aus Franken.)

It is a universally known fact that we don't have any humour. (Nor humor.) If we "smile", it is a grotesque mimicry of others' expectations. Not kidding.