JFSOCC

I worry about the US remake of Oldboy, it can never be as good as the original Korean film. I know Hollywood, I know they will fail to understand the movie and make it another heroes journey. Last movie I saw was High Kick Girl, bad movie, good demonstration of Karate. I enjoyed it.

In a world without printing, I expect books to be expensive, and lore equally so.

The silence before the storm I'm doing light therapy again so I won't be online when it's released (if past updates are anything to go by) But I have a feeling it is going to be a busy forum here in the coming days.

I love multiple planes of existence, but maybe for a sequel? there is still so much to explore on this newly created world

anything but the plot.

I'd like to be able to tell campfire stories during downtime. each companion has a few stories to tell, listening to them will tell you more about their character, cultural background, personal experiences, etc. Maybe you can "relive" a story (game loads a map with the protagonist as your player character, and you proceed to play the story)

Variety is the spice of life. But I love building things up. Questlines where you are set a set of tasks, and how you overcome them determines how you end in the organisation. I'd love for it to go in several maybe even radically different directions based on player choice, but also skill. I love complex quests, which aren't finished in single bound.

when I voted my vote made things exactly equal. I wonder what it is at now.

"cast out from Fólkvangr for debauchery"

put a feather on the helmet on your full plate guy and you can colour the feather to distinguish players. problem solved? Personally it doesn't matter much to me, but I think there are a lot of people passionate about their armour, as evidenced in the armour thread.

hmm, what was my password again? Hey OP, for 10$ I'll vote rtwp, otherwise it's going to be turn based

Wasn't that what steel battalion did? Edit: I for one, will be happy that I can take risks and see where they lead without having to worry about having to start from scratch. That doesn't mean I'm going to recklessly chaerg! into everything, because reloading isn't fun.

Feathered hats are key. How else are we supposed to differentiate between the dashing rogue and the stumbling barbarian?

Oh you sweet talker you, you have no idea how happy you just made me! I remember a thread when I was fairly new to these forums about tags, and I admit, I may have cared a little too much about it, and that may have affected my posts in that thread. But woo, am I glad to hear this.

Not explaining everything leads to the sense that the world is greater than your story. Explaining every single ffing detail gives a very artificial feel. Besides it's a very easy and convenient way to seed potential future content (be it expansions, new games, or even just allow fans to make their own quest mods) My favourite example is Avatar the last airbender (tv-series) That show is so good! 1. it respects its audience's intelligence (though yes, its target audience is children) 2. it has an arc. (remember that, tv series? when stories had a beginning, middle and ending? rather than return to status quo every ffing episode?) 3. Believable characters, each with their own arc. and #4, which is why I brought it up, it seeds a bigger world by not explaining everything. So there is this secret society, General Iroh is part of it, members know eachother by playing a board game. That's it. allusion to something bigger, and you know that there is something which may or may not be explored later It's one example out of many.

I'm looking forward to toggable game features, I'm a fan of objective XP, Chris Avellone's writing is what brought me to this project in the first place, I'm looking forward to having Forton in my party, I love this community, I love that you can add your own portraits, and I love most of the promises made, though seeing is believing. I'm probably going to add a lot to the list when the big update hits next week. Edit: ooh, I loved the dynamic lighting in that one demo-video.

#1 and #3 can be dealt with by random seeds. You save the game after you enter the room with the randomly placed loot, the random seed is saved with it, and so the loot will always be the same. Similar for skill checks. Although for #3, I believe most loot will be handplaced in P:E #2 I think could be solved by offering alternatives after failure. Like bash. Maybe if you expend a certain resource which you have limited access to, you can retry later. A long time ago I had a nasty idea, it wouldn't be popular, but I think it would work. tracking how often a savegame is loaded, and for each time above the second time you load it, add five seconds to the load time (hidden) Perhaps this could be reset everytime the game is shut down. (because turning off the game and booting it back up takes long enough in of itself.) Eventually a person will stop bothering to save scum, unless it is REALLY important to them. It's still possible to save scum

This is a REALLLY good point. I bought the just out Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition from Beamdog and wanted my main character (fighter) to go a different route than normal. I thought, hey I bet bastard sword and off hand short sword or shield might be cool? I am not dumb though and did my due diligence. Come to find out there are hardly any bastard swords in the game and the best bastard sword is a joke compared to even the second or third best long sword or top two great swords. If I went that route I literally gimped myself simply because the game did not have a great end game bastard sword... period. this is one of the reasons why I wanted crafting so badly. If you can make your own damn Bastard sword, you don't have to worry about what the game provides, you can provide it yourself.

Sacum Sev, God of the night sky and second chances. The tortured, the weaver and the thread. Sacum Sev was said to be a weaver of fine tapestries and rugs back in the timeless period when the world had no night sky. He resented his life as a weaver, knowing he was made for greater things, and carelessly and casually cursed his luck to anyone and everyone who would listen, and many who would not. Every day, as the threads passed his hands, he would say he should have been born a fisherman, because then at least he'd have the wind in his hair, born a lord, so he wouldn't have to work, born a warrior, so he wouldn't have to pay for protection, born an animal, so he wouldn't have to deal socially, born anything but a weaver. But a weaver he was, and a fine one at that. With scorn he'd add little jokes and mockeries in the tapestries he made for the kings, subtle and hidden unless you knew how and where to look. With cynicism he'd add colours to the rugs he made which he knew were slightly different, better, in his opinion, that what the customer asked for. His tapestries were well known, and his skill was sought after enough that he didn't raise an eyebrow when a filthy rich looking, in his opinion tastelessly dressed man entered his atelier, and requested something special. "Anything you can think of" he promised the customer "But I can do better" he added for himself. "But it will cost you" "How about a different life?" the customer offered. "You say you can do better? Prove it, but if you fail, I will cut your hands off" The exact exchange is lost to time, but the following is known. Sacum Sev could set his own price all materials were supplied to him paid for by his customer he had one year and one day to complete his work if the customer was unsatisfied, he would, indeed, lose his hands. Suitably motivated, Sacum Sev set to work, he picked the finest materials available to him, and let his best pupils join on the tapestry meant to tell the story the strange lordling had offered him, but better. This involved countless jokes at his expense, slight alterations and subtle changes in meaning. He even managed to add something that looked precisely opposite in different light, under different angles. Pleased with himself, after one year and one day, the customer returned. It took all but three seconds for this man to see all the jokes at his expense, all the subtle shifts, and the cynicism. "You are right!" he said "This is a work of art, but I am not satisfied" For three weeks the customer proceeded to point out all the flaws in the tapestry, not once commenting negatively on the jokes and meaning changes, but not ignoring them either, suggesting improvements on some. After three weeks, he demanded Sacum Sev extend his arms. Overcome with fear of losing his livelihood, as well as his life, Sacum Sev pleaded for his life. "Please, Please give me another chance, a second task! I will not fail" "I want you to create something truly magnificent" the customer said, revealing himself to be a God (though which god is still widely disputed, even amongst the followers of Sacum Sev. Usually it is glossed over) On the spot he slew Sacum Sev by severing his hands, took his soul, and set his soul to task: Create the most magnificent tapestry the universe has ever known. You have all the resources you need, your mind will form the shapes, your soul will feed them. It was thus that the sky and the stars were created, Sacum Sev's masterwork, containing himself. Sacum Sev got his wish, he had a different life, and yet it wasn't what he expected it. Sacum Sev's main temple is built where he was supposedly slain. He is worshipped by lovers of the clear night sky, weavers, and petitioned (regularly) by those desperate for a change in their life. Although it is said he only helps those skilled at what they resent. People who have been given a second chance against all odds thank him, and temples are filled with donations from those who believe their second chances are a gift from him. The Temples are only open at night. Every year, on the celebration of Sacum Sev's death (or the celebration of the completion of the night sky, there is some fierce debate amongst theologians which it is which is celebrated) A giant tapestry is crafted and burnt as offering. It takes a year to craft the tapestry, which can never be perfect, because that would require a year and a day of work. if the night is clear and the stars are visible, it is considered to be a good omen for the year to come. A rainy day is considered a terrible omen. And much is done in order to improve the odds of good omens. (this includes building temples in dry areas, or above cloud cover) Temples to Sacum Sev are found throughout much of the world, but are relatively new in Aedyr's colonies. They are filled with tapestries and rugs, usually of fine make. Priests of Sacum Sev wear fine clothes of excellent make, filled with self-depreciation jokes. Crafting your own robes is part of becoming a priest. Priests of Sacum Sev practice either weaving, astrology and astronomy, or oversee rehabilitation projects for criminals, as part of their duty to provide second chances to those who are willing to work hard on them. Due to the lavish amount of tapestries and rugs, frequent fires have given the priests of Sacum Sev some expertise in fire prevention as well.

May I counter that argument with thhe following: Just because you cannot stop save scumming, doesn't mean you can't discourage it. Save scumming is not the issue, it's the symptom of the real issue: game balance. If the only way to succeed is to save and reload often, something is wrong with the balance of your game. If the optimal way to defeat an encounter is too play it again and again until you have the correct solution, something is wrong as well. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to reload, even often. I'm saying you shouldn't have to, at least not often. I'm perfectly OK with failing, and then reloading, but it shouldn't be the go-to solution for dealing with tough obstacles. One way to deal with this is delaying notification of failure, or altering the outcome and progression following a failed encounter to represent your failure in a different narrative outcome. I'll give you an example. Fred wants to be the leader of an organisation, as a journeyman he's worked his way up the ladder to a position of power. The leader is old and gives all his lieutenants a task, and whomever succeeds can succeed him. Fred fails the task. rather than just end the story for him, instead, he now has to find a different path. He can coerce and manipulate, maybe even kill the competition. He can try to prove his worth a different way, by doing something even more impressive. He can discredit the person who succeeded. Or, he can accept his fate and forever be #2 in his organisation. His failure didn't end his story, and thus, there was no reason for Fred to reload and try again.

I don't care how clichéd it sounds, that's cool!

You could combine crystals. I had a lightsaber combo focussed on maximum deflection because of this. I could literally walk into a room with blasters and wait for everyone to die.

So I finally finished Far Cry 3. what can I say, it's grindy for a free roaming game. I strongly dislike the quick time event boss battles, of which there are a lot, but on the whole I enjoyed myself barring annoying glitches and crashes to desktop, I'd say it would have been worth the 15 bucks I paid for it, were it not for the low framrate, which made everything harder, even on the lowest graphical settings. For a laptop which ran the game on SSD and has a 2gb nvidia video card, that's inexcusable. I would never have paid release price for it, though, and anyone who did has too much money.

Let me preface this by saying that AI, and combat are well outside of my comfort zone when it comes to understanding the mechanics and the balance. I noticed this video on a gaming forum and it's about AI Which made me wonder about combat in P:E. A topic I generally avoid commenting on because it's not exactly my strong suit. I can say I didn't care for combat in any of the IE games I played. (Which don't include either Icewind Dale games) Many encounters seemed to be only solvable with buffs and buff-counters, lucky rolls, and repetition. There was little to no variation (in my admittedly poor memory) Wizards would cast the same spells, in the same order (yay, time stop again!) and become predictable as a result. The video discusses exploit solutions, which reminded me of the rather overpowered cloudkill spell/wand. Now, in the Design a Monster thread, I try to come up with monsters with interesting tactics or enemies which have some tactical purpose in their very design. (good against ranged or melee, good at breaking up units, good at weakening units. etc etc) with the idea that encounters could be crafted by picking from a range of these enemies. That's meant to allow for complex combat puzzles. But I now see the weakness in that design: the challenge becomes predictable, and often has only a very limited set of solutions to deal with the challenge. So I was wondering if you, my fellow forumites, could help a brainstorm session on the subject. And of course, I'm always very interested to hear what the developers have to say about it, no doubt it's a well considered topic. Is it possible to create dynamic AI cheaply? is scripting basic responses easier or more cost effective? Maybe it's a bad idea to have too strong AI, as knowing what to expect from your enemies is part of the skill in dealing with them? What about asymmetrical approaches? How many ways should you be able to "solve" an encounter before it looks like anything would? What is the process by which AI is designed in P:E anyway?

so, steam is downloading a 7.2 GB update to xcom... soon...