SophosTheWise

No problem, I searched for it too, becausd I thought it was reaaaally heroic :D

It's a called Combat D

Yep and the rating is 61 based on 31 ratings...

That's how every damn market in the whole damn world works. It doesn't even matter if youtubers are reviewers or not, because they are youtubers and they get views. A business would use that to their advantage and, especially in the case of Obsidian, it's not something to be disgruntled over. It's not about evil capitalism that steals from you (that would be EA or Ubisoft) - this is a small company that was in deep financial trouble before PoE got kickstarted. Man, I really don't get how some people can be so unappreciative. You're part of a movement that could potentially be the movement that brought cRPGs back from the dead. You even get mentioned in the credits, you have a lot of exclusive stuff coming your way. How can you not be satisfied, just because someone else gets a different privilege. While I agree that the world would be a better place without casino capitalism (uh, I'm a dirty cultural marxist!), I also think that the world would be a better place, if people could stop wanting more and more. You've given a lot and you've been given a lot. Appreciate that, just for a second. Appreciate that the devs thank you at every opportunity, appreciate that you're getting Baldur's Gate 3 in disguise - something that nobody thought was possible only a few years back. Appreciate.

Something entirely different: I noticed his version is in Polish, meaning the map and stuff. Now, I'm a backer from Switzerland. That doesn't mean I'm getting a german version of Poe? Because I really, really want the original stuff.

I rather have game journalists reviewing games than giving them critique. Modern art (and its subequent critics) is so horrendously bland, pretentious and just generally **** to begin with, that you have swim through a sea of **** to find something not insulting to your senses. First of all I think you're wrongly generalizing modern art. Just try to be open and go to a modern art museum and just let it affect you. There are lots of ways of interpreting and appreciating art. Also, art criticism is not only "modern art" as in paintings and sculptures, it's also literary criticism. I feel as if there's a big anti-intellectual (as in humane sciences) movement at the moment, which I find saddening. If there are people who can appreciate these writings, why don't you let them? You don't have to read it, you don't have to react to it. People are free in the ways they are reviewing and critiquing stuff. I like this direction and I feel as if it gives games a bit more weight as a cultural artifact, much like film, literature or theatre.

But gamers do support sites by disabling ad-blockers and have taken it to archiving links of clickbait journalism. TB has become mainstream due to his ethical behavior that predated this whole debacle, because a lot of people were waking up to the fact that games journalism was corrupt. So I don't why is it a problem because they are doing something to support good journalism, but this will ultimately force media to adopt an ethical model that works for the Information Age. Another thing; "everybody is doing it" is not a good moral justification. If journalism in general is corrupt that doesn't make the norm moral, it is just proof of the magnitude of its failure. Also, gamers that clamor that games are art do not consider or dislike highly subjective movements that spawned in the 60's like Dada, Expressionism, Abstraction and so on. For them the measure of art still is it's aesthetic value and it's conceptual. At least that's what I've gathered from their arguments which ridicule modern art and praise games for having greater aesthetic value. First of all, TB is not a journalist and if he was, he's not a good journalist. He's an entertainer who knows what people want to hear. That's of course a valuable skill, but it doesn't make him a journalist. No, "everybody's doing it" is not a good justification, but it is a reason. It's easy saying people should change when you're not in an existential crisis. I work for one of the biggest newspapers in my country and let me tell you, there are no resources to change. Yes, it would be nice, but there just isn't a way to change right now. Not because journalists are lazy, but because behind every media company there are shareholders and the publicists of any given media company have to justify their changes to them. Change to better quality means less revenue, because it means less readers and at the same time it means more man hours. It's simply not going to work. And yes, it's absolutely absurd that journalism as the fourth estate has to be financially viable, but at the moment there's no alternative model. I'm not trying to say that everything media companies do is good and meaningful, but there are reasons behind it. Every journalist I've ever met wishes to change journalism, but it's not happening and it's not their fault because their hands are tied. (Also saying games journalism is corrupt is a bit of a stretch, corruption simply is different and those people who are corrupt aren't journalists but blinded fans who happen to write about games) No offense, but the crowd that cries "games are art111" are just not very educated about art. When I was talking about the 60s I was mainly referring to art (and especially literary) criticism that has greatly influenced literary studies since then. At least in Europe. As for aesthetic value - the only reason why Michelangelo's David exists is because of politics. Just saying.

The main problem with the crowd that demands better journalism basically is that they ask games journalism to make a change that not even big media can. As long as games journalism is product-focussed there will always be a worrisome closeness between PR and journalists. The second problem is people demanding objective reporting AND art criticism at the same time (or at least they demand games to be taken as seriously as art) which is absolutely ridiculous. Art was and is always, or at least most of the time, extremely political (besides not considering politics is also politics, you cannot be unpolitical) and art criticism was always subjective, at least since the 60s. What journalists can do in my opinion is explain how their publication works, what dynamics are at play, how decisions get made. I'm a journalist and I cycle through readers comments a few times per day and what I see most is people not really understanding how journalism works, sometimes to an astounding degree. Same goes with the gamergate crowd. Every journalist in the world knows that his profession is in danger, every journalist wishes he had more time, every journalist wishes he could act more independently, but considering the state of media economically, there's no chance in hell we're going back to the 60-90s where journalism probably has had its best time. A few weeks ago I had an argument with a guy who basically deemed every cliffhanger title to be clickbait. Then he proceeded to rant about journalism. When I asked him if he supported really good journalism and named some local sites he said no - he reads the clickbait sites. When I told him that he could do away with bad journalism by supporting good journalism, he simply said it's not his responsibility. And let me tell you, yes it's your responsibility, because journalists are dependant on you, dependant on their readers. I see it every day - the good articles, the relevant and truly inspiring articles are surpassed by factor 10 or more by more "popular" stuff like pop stars, half-naked women and scandal stories. Why? Not because journalists are evil and lure their readers into bad articles, but because you read it and that makes journalists (who, compared to other jobs) be able to pay their rent and eat - because we don't make a decent living (and I imagine games journalists making a LOT less). Media acts as a mirror to society in some cases. If you want to change media, change your attitude towards it.

Definitely! The similarities are almost baffling.

Strongly disagree. Leaving aside the straight-up bugs, at the moment, the UI probably needs at least a dozen iterations before it's up to par with even BG2, and playtesting that properly takes time. I haven't even bothered reporting most of the UI issues aside form ones that are seriously bad (though others have made many good suggestions), because it feels like the UI design and implementation is in such an early stage that bug reporting would be meaningless - like pointing out to somebody painting that they've missed a bit when they've only just made the first stroke. Think about what WL2 was like three months after the beta began, and compare that to how much better it is now. And even that's a little optimistic, since WL2 was in a much better state when the beta started. It's possible that the UI can be taken from its current point to where it needs to be in three or four months, but realistically I think that kind of schedule is going to require at least a new build per week. lolwut

Basically, I absolutely like the game. It's not yet "love" because I only played for about 3 hours or so without much time. So, as others said, the content is, until now, spot on. Everything oozes Infinity Engine and it's as if Baldur's Gate never left. The game is expectedly dialogue-heavy with class writing, the quests I've done so far all had some fun twists and the environments and music and sound design are pretty awesome (apart from the fact that the music in Dyrford is a bit repetitive but I guess there's more music to come (?)). You absolutely get what you expected. It's the return of the Infinity Engine and it's shaping up to be epic. The things that are not so good at the moment: - Bugs, lots of them. Disappearing items, disappearing pets, sound bugs, small graphical glitches, still broken journal with disappearing notes as well as some addendums to quests that never really get updated in your journal - Combat is a bit chaotic at the moment. I wouldn't go so far as some people on the Codex calling it a cluster**** but it's certainly a bit fast and since the animations and backgrounds are a lot more lush everything kind of blends together at times, making it hard to distinguish what's actually happening, who's attacking who and who's casting which spell. This only happened in outdoor areas or reaaaaally small indoor areas. In the dungeon I've been it wasn't really difficult.

I played for about an hour now and everything is absolutely satisfying so far. The only thing I'm still on the fence is the combat, but that probably is because I couldn't really look deep into it and didn't take the time to read all the spell descriptions and so on, because I'm dead tired. Combat felt a bit chaotic and the fight in the tavern was really confusing because I couldn't really make out what was happening exactly. So apart from that I'm really, really glad how it's turning out. The art design is awesome (and I love that I already have a colorful late medieval breastplate and an arquebus), the music is gorgeous (though still a bit repetitive but I guess that's because of the nature of a beta) and evokes a really different feeling than most RPGs nowadays. I really like it. More to come tomorrow

Downloading now. I'm surprisingly calm at the moment :D

Since I'm planning on playing some kind of musketteer I'm probably going for something Spanish/Italian, mimicking a Vailian name.

The difference between him and me is that I at least give a reason to why I dislike something. Also if you pay attention he said "the most appallingly bad piece of artwork I have ever seen", meaning that his artistic attempts are better(when you make such broad statements be prepared to answer for them). I would have understood a dislike for the "armor" and "weapon" that was the point, but no he said artwork which is just plain ridiculous because it has great artwork that obviously has skill in it. Keep taking everything literally, it will bring you peace of mind and a great overall life!

LOL, do better. I never wanna read anything from you ever again criticising any aspect of any game, film or general piece of art. Well, except you can provide an example, where you "do better"

On the whole "We don't want to spoil anything and we don't want to show unpolished stuff": It wasn't even that what struck me as being weird. What I found really odd is that there was no indication of this whatsoever, not even a little forum post or a small backer update stating "by the way guys, you'll get big news from gaming sites tomorrow". It was quite an anticlimactic showing of the game, especially after that loooong build-up and really short teaser trailer. It was just a bit "hey by the way there's a video". As a side note, reading the IGN comments gave me cancer.

I'm still not in the complete members list

Again with the balance bull****

I like the tune. When I first heard it this morning, only with iPod earplugs and on a noisy train, it really didn't strike me as particularly interesting. It sounded like it was going nowhere and it lacked a leading melody or a theme of sorts. But now, when I actually listened to it with my gaming headphones, I'm much more impressed. Especially those deep, dark moments were awesome and I enjoy those little nuances. It kind of reminded me more of actual classical music, than gaming music. At least some parts. I'm - apart from listening to some stuff - a complete classical noob, so I don't want to go further into that. I particularly liked the second part of the piece, but still, I miss some kind of overarching theme. But it's shaping out nicely.

I think the goal is very measurable. More money offers more time. Enhancing the game - as I understood it - simply means they will use more money and probably distribute it evenly. Therefore 500'000$ more gives x amount of more time to polish everything up

Great news. Paradox are some of the most sympathetic and competent guys in business, in my opinion. So, yay!

You see, this is the problem. Romance in games is not actual love.

That face mask is ridiculously stupid.