Luridis

What happened? Merger with EA... Regardless of what people like to believe about these things, merging with a large entity changes the focus of the company. Studio's Focus: Make good games that get us paid. Post-Merger Executive Mandate: Minimize costs and maximize profits. i.e. Make as much money as you can from as little effort and expenditure as possible. That change in focus is how WoW: Cataclysm evolved from a free update to an aging Azeroth, to an expansion that cost money with half the usual content. It's the direct result of Activision's meddling. (You have to look at statements made before and after the merger to get the whole story. I happened to notice as it happened.) Cataclysm was the first expansion developed under the new ownership and it's why I cancelled my account and haven't been back. Activision changed the focus of Blizzard to create more content focused on habituation and mass-appeal. An easy way to look at it is this... What did a studio sell in their online store before and after a merger. Blizzard only sold games and expansions, and now the place is a boutique filled with all manner of virtual garbage you don't need.

While I like the overall game, there are some things I decidedly dislike about what I am seeing in the Dragon Age series... "NPCs make weird decisions that make no sense" - I understand exactly what you mean here. Some of the behaviors, reactions and conversations are unequivocally outside of the established character. I believe this is the result of spreadsheet balancing. Developers do things like tally up all the pluses and minuses to a particular game element, in this case that's companion approval, and then try to adjust so that all choices are more or less equal in the long-term. Telltale games did this and it was highly visible to me in several episodes of The Walking Dead. However, numerically neutral behavior among our friends and acquaintances is not how real people behave, so we pick up on it instantly. Frankly, I think the writer/designer/developers in question need to read more well done character driven novels. Good writers do not artificially create conflict in order to establish drama. Instead, they establish personalities that will inevitably conflict about something. After that, it does not seem out of place when drama results between the two over some key element of the plot. Conversely, when they conflict about seemingly random things, especially things they showed no real conviction about before. Or, you'll see characters that seem to disagree about nothing then, out of nowhere, the two start arguing over some newly introduced plot element. We see those situations as unusual because they are, and are thus what I refer to as "artificial drama." To give two examples that come to mind... The Last of Us: In this game there comes a point where the protagonist is requested, by his assumed sweetheart, to protect an adolescent girl and escort her through dangerous territory. He is instantly opposed to the idea and behaves downright unreasonably. But we, the observers, instantly understand why this conflict arises. When the world fell apart some years earlier he lost his adolescent daughter during the chaos. So he could feel any of these: Doesn't want attachment or risk of it, doesn't want responsibility for another little girl who could die under his protection, and/or doesn't want to be reminded of what he lost. His confrontational disposition feels relevant because we know enough about the situation to relate, even if we don't agree. DA - Inquisition: Cole, a spirit that appears in human form, is concerned about being bound by nefarious mages to do ill. Solas, a mage with a history of communing with friendly spirits, is arguing with him over how to handle this. After you acquire something to help him, it doesn't work for him because, according to Solas, he is saddled with some personal burden. So, the three of you set out to discover the source... When you find the source, you discover that the man who killed the person Cole originally appeared to help is still alive and Cole is quite angry to see him as such. Solas tells Cole he needs to embrace his helpful nature and forgive the man. Given what Solas said before about what spirits turn into if they are influenced to feel and behave inconsistently with their nature, I was inclined to agree. Now, Varric walks into the scene and has a problem with this and I instantly feel artificial drama. First, Varric has never shown any interest in Cole before. I've never heard him talk about Cole, never seen him speaking to Cole, and he's never expressed any opinions when others were very quick to voice their own. Varric suggests that Cole could become "more human" by "working though this". Note that, the meaning of that statement is never really explained to the observer either. Cole wants to kill the man, Solas suggests not allowing it to happen and now Varric is suggesting what, exactly? That we allow him to go knife this guy because that will "make him more human?" The whole scenario is completely out of character for Varric. He normally keeps to himself and the only person I've ever seen him conflict with is Cassandra. Yet now, he's determined he knows Cole well enough to butt-in, have an opinion as to what is best for Cole, and has a negative response if you don't agree... I don't believe it. This whole scenario reeks of being shoe-horned in, and probably to balance some approval numbers. Game designers/writers need to stop playing the analysis game on dialogue and just write realistic characters. When they don't, it shows and they appear foolish, at least to me.

I don't understand why this would take them so long. Steam OS even gives them a platform target. Not only that, if it's been compiled for OSX, then the OpenGL interface should already be handled.

It was just a demo of character creation. The menu indicates there will be a small playable bit added later, which I will assume to contain some quests and combat.

Why don't you just choose a proper OS that is interoperable...like Windows I hope this was a joke, because if it's not... it seriously undermines my belief that people really do know what is going on and just don't know how to fix it. The alternative is that they're not smart enough to understand... at all.

Still on Dragon Age Inquisition and I'm really annoyed with Biofail for not fixing a bug that I've seen reported repeatedly on their forums for almost a year. (Discovered that when I went searching for a solution.) Grappling Chain stopped working a week ago. It fails to reel in any kind of enemy period. Tried starting new game, tried reinstalling and repatching the thing (PS4), and it doesn't function at all. This is why I don't buy stuff EA makes. I thought, just maybe, they'd put more effort into their console products. I was quite incorrect in that assumption.

In my report after playing I made the suggestion that, while I do like the RP start, that it would become tedious on repeated play-throughs. Not to mention people sometimes restart several times at the beginning to try different classes. I suggested they include a menu type character builder to appear when tutorials are disabled.

Yep, I can confirm it's started. "inexile.net" is one of their domains, confirmed by one of their developers.

I'm asking here because I'm sure there are others here who have backed it. I received an email for the alpha, but the links do not go to inexile-entertainment.com. Instead, they point to inexile.net, and I'm not sure if this is legit. The whois record reports a domain transfer in may of this year (inexile.net) and a server location in England. Anyone hear about bogus emails related to Torment backers? Cant EDIT: I changed the title to warn about possible spoilers. I know it's kind of like trying to stick our fingers in the dike, but I would appreciate it if folks would at least be care in our little corner of the net about spoilers. I know! I know! Good luck with that...

Most MMO´s aren´t more open world then Skyrim or Witcher 3, and in some cases probably even less than a GTA. WoW is a good example (because most know it). You can run around on a continent and thats it. Almost every massive multiplayer activity (which in itself is a joke because 20 people isn´t massive) is done in an closed zone (dungeon/raid/PvP, and these days even storylines thru phasing and personal dungeons). I don´t think a fully open world in a true sense of the word (including realism like seasons and AI behavior), is even technically possible at this point. However they are last trying, some succeed more, some less. But yes, i believe from a marketing point, it´s a useless term and easily thrown around. If you, however, fall for marketing, in an industry that is often caught lying about their products and is full of false promises, then shame on you Microsoft, 2 years ago.... "Don't get Scroogled!" Microsoft, today... "Yes, using Cortana enables a keylogger... to better serve you." "Brand Management" is out in force for Windows 10 too. I see legitimate, logical, and pointed arguments with massive down-votes for every Windows 10 related article. Nothing stops an internet firestorm like a bunch of 3rd world workers, paid a nickel an hour, to come "manage" the commentary on your products. Note that the articles themselves are also suspect. I've noticed commonalities in the same way the gaming sites started showing a couple of years ago. Commonalities that, when viewed in rapid succession, lend the reader a reasonable suspicion that the article was cultured to fit a script provided by the vendor in question. The internet, as a consumer support mechanism, is dying fast in the faces of practices that, outside of the computer would would be highly illegal. (False advertising, bait-and-switch, racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud, etc.)

Less loading screens? How do you figure? I can walk from one end of the place to the other and not see a single load screen in Skyrim. With DAI, if I want to travel from Haven to Hinterlands, that's a load. If I then want to travel to the coast, that's another load. So, I don't follow...

Okay, the title and the tags where done tongue-in-cheek, so don't go looking for your angrypants. I've seen two big RPG releases in the last few years tout themselves as "open world", only for developers to come back quickly and clarify to the effect of... It is open world, but it's not. The areas are big, etc. The two recent games that I know of are DA: Inquisition and Witcher 3. Don't misunderstand, these are both great games and have the kind of large roomy areas that conveniently assuage any potential claustrophobia on the part of the player. However, these don't seem to fit the classic definition. i.e. You cannot run from one edge of the map to the other without opening a menu, which is conveniently called "map", in order to move from one "zone" to another. Open worlds have: stream loading, most or all areas accessible from the start, may or may not have player-relative enemy strength. Personally, I find the games without mob level adjustment have the most charm. After all, nothing says hello quite like a "Welcome Bear". Examples: Skyrim, Fallout, Most MMOs, older Might & Magic games and I remember at least one way back on the original PlayStation, but don't remember the name. So, why are we seeing this term thrown around? Is it really just marketing departments seeing "valuable words" produced by the success of others and just too eager to apply them to things they're trying to sell?

Yea, I just caught that myself on the website. It's easy to forget that the new consoles are basically Athon + Radeon PCs that I don't suppose take as long to port as did the previous generation of RISC based consoles.

This looks pretty good, but I have one minor complaint: The UI looks more like it was designed for a cyberpunk RPG than for high-fantasy. Still, it's something I could easily live with if the content is good.

There's a trailer, looks pretty good to me. Just have to wait for the PS4 port.

I added Diablo 3 UEE to my PS4 and, let me tell ya, this was the way the game should have played since the beginning on PC. I have no login, no lag, no stupid auction house and it adapts surprisingly well to a PS controller. Since there is no noticeable graphics difference with PC, I'm fairly well pleased with it. Note: Hey Activision, if you happen to read this: If you're wondering why a lot of us abandoned our accounts years ago and put you on our spam blocking lists... Moves like the PC version of D3 is the reason. I, and several others I know, just walked away with our money when you took over and the effects of that merger became obvious.

Wanna race? https://youtu.be/dTHWBSluUjU only if you will sit in/on it and drive :D Ouuuch! You obviously have no idea how hot those engines get.

Thanks for the replies guys... I looked through Steam real quick and found the video below. https://youtu.be/7kQmATPC1fY That's what I am talking about. It's not rendered 3D, but it's also not what I would personally "think" of as pixel art because the imagery is large and detailed enough to be drawn freehand and scanned in to be cropped for game assets. In this game it is also stylized, but I've seen games where that's not the case. i.e. An RPG where the art style is obviously fantasy and looks like it could have been lifted from a D&D book.

I've got a better idea for you... Majek.Dispose();

Wanna race? https://youtu.be/dTHWBSluUjU

He said it best I think... I was making an observation about the word "sport", and nothing more really.

Darkpriest, have you ever driven hard in a car made for it? No, I don't mean taking a ricer with a lol cold air intake and fartcan muffler behind wally world and drag racing some guy in his mom's 20 year old station wagon. I mean something like an Audi TT, RSX, or BMW on a mountain road and driven hairpins with it? G-forces actually provide a fairly decent workout.

Since I finally bought a PS4, I decided to Cristen it with DA Inquisition. I've wanted to play for a while, but I refuse to install EA's crapware along with it on my PC. (Note: EA pulling their games off of Steam and making their own delivery platform is a pet peeve of mine. It's a move that Microsoft would have made in the 1990's and, EA is not Microsoft, and we're almost two decades past software company tantrums. EA, Facebook and Google seem to be the biggest offenders in clinging to asinine behavior.) Anyway, bought the PS4 because I haven't owned a console since the first XBox and I've been looking for a slot loading Blu-Ray player for a while. Hard to touch one under $200, so I went the extra dollar for an AMD Jaguar machine. I like it so far, except... Exactly who's idea was it to ask players to aim with an analog stick? Someone punch him or her. My attempt to play through The Last of Us ended when I encountered that aberration in game design. I mean, there's a touchpad on the controller for pete's sake!

Yea... Notice that all those things labeled "sports" also fall into a category of things called athletics. So called "esports" qualifies as competitive, but not athletics, just like chess. It's no wonder so many people chuckle at the mere mention of it and don't take it seriously. Perhaps if they stopped calling an apple an orange...

Tried the new Wolfenstein and hated it. Then, I reinstalled HL2. FPS games are absolute hot and cold to me. Either they have that certain charm that makes me like them or they don't. Also slogging my way through the last of the Ice & Fire books. It is sheer curiosity that keeps me going at this point. I found that I don't actually like these books. Don't misunderstand, I do not argue that the books are not well written because they are. But, it is the presentation and story that I find to be just terrible. I'm convinced the writer is a sadist who relishes putting his readers through endless paragraphs and even pages of detail that are redundant, obvious, frequently repeated or otherwise unnecessary. Not only that but, then the current narrative abruptly drops just as it gets interesting. Even "The Stand" wasn't this boring... geeze.