milczyciel

I'll admit - I'm caught with my pants down here. That's what I believed from the moment I've red one of his post while ago (it must have been something about how cool it is to live in a country that suppress the rights of sexual minorities, long before I tried to reason with him in "Poland uber alles" thread). But who the hell is he then? Who else than either some completely lost in his inner fantasy world Russian patriot (for way to long I lied myself that only kids are like that) or a laid off FSB employee could he be? "Troll" does not come within the definition IMO we must go deeper (forgive me the use of a tired meme)

I've worked as a small hotel receptionist for 3 years and had quite a few Russian guests. They were never the Oby's type, but nonetheless they all (literally) shared one common trait - they were kinda "patronizing" (for the lack of better word) and couldn't (or didn't wanted to) understand why Poles are so stubborn about being left alone and not willing to get back to "one big happy family". I want to stress out that they were never hostile or angry about that, neither did they felt offended by our denial of those sentiments. IMHO it was more similar to the confusion of a small child who's mommy and daddy hate each other. Child that's to small to understand why do they have to live separately and how could they claim it's "for the best". Coming from a broken family, I think it's the most suitable comparison I could make.

It makes my black hearth cry in joy, to learn that so many people share this silly sentiment towards CP wheels with me. You know, it wouldn't even had to be that in a strict sense. Maybe something more like a physical recreation of an in game quest item, that one have to use to solve a puzzle or crack a safe in a minor treasure hunt, sidequest, or something like that. A very special kind of easter egg if you wish, still retaining the shape and "mechanics" of an actual thing... Maybe even... wait... Good grief, look at me rambling like some kind of sugar fueled kid. <sigh> Gotta admit - that Paradox producer pulled one helluva prank. If only they would top that by actually making it real and then keeping it secret until release. THAT would be a prank of some proportions. What? I'm not trying to fool anyone into actually doing so, I'm, uuh... I'm just lost in a fantasy world again. Gotta stop myself before it get's out of control. So, here comes apologies for initially ignoring the rest of the update. I just experience a nostalgia overload and felt so... compelled by... that... preciousss... Aw god damn it! <snap!> But seriously - kudos for animation team for their commitment, it already shows. I like especially that "heavy feel" of the second, horned creature and overall, pitiful shabbiness of the ghoul/zombie. If only it wouldn't share the exactly same attack with the aforementioned beast... but I'm nitpicking now. Good job ladies and gentlemen. Good job indeed

You know what, call me an idiot, but for a moment there, I really hoped that I'll find that copy protection wheel in my boxed copy... Sure that part about game being locked down for 72 was ugly, but the wheel... I... did... kinda... like those... back in the day. No, I'm not kidding. I loathe April Fools'.

According to that guy it was The War to End All Wars that cemented "modern cynicism". And given how well that ended (21 years of peace, I'm impressed) I can only concur. Pretty smart move to drop that double faced "age of optimism" if you ask me. Also, from where I stand, you forgot (or didn't recognized their existence) third group: the prey - those nice, emphatic or simply good-natured folks, who ends up getting used throughout their lives. Most of them are just weak and it's their "obedient, unaware slave" upbringing which is the sole reason behind their undoubtedly nice, emphatic and what's most important USEFUL attitude/character. Call me overreacting hysteric, but IMO It can't get more basic than that - their OS just does not run other way around. They can't be mean, selfish or just old school evul (for teh lulz) on a long run,without paying the price (i.e. mental breakdown). Trust me, being one of them I think I know what I'm talking about as in my case you could call It a family trait and the only difference between my grandparents, mother and I is that I recognize the condition we're living with (but just as they, not fighting it at all) and even that passive realization came with a price. Sure, sure there are also those, whose kindness, empathy, strong morals and overall goodness is fueled not by obedience and lack of a spine, but quite opposite - their inner strength and resistance to the rules of the game. Surprisingly they tend to die violently (Martin Luther King, Gandhi to name two most prominent) - I wonder why? Understand I'm not diminishing their role or impact, if anything I adore them, I envy them, I know I'm a lesser man compared to them. Alas there's just to many wolves in sheep's clothing among that group, to feel good and secure about trusting every single one of them. Especially those who are successful in stepping on all those toes, without getting any harm done to them or their beloved ones. And just in case - this particular disillusioned sob IN FACT feels overwhelming envious, because it sure as hell must be much easier to live surrounded by all those pretty pictures of others and yourself. So that's that, you won. Godspeed or "live long and prosper", whatever suits your fancy. Not even a droplet of sarcasm in that last paragraph.

Air - 10 000 Hz Legend (2001) #7 Sex Born Poison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTWguY_cXNk

So, here's the question - how does one force himself into "doing something about it" or "getting his ass up" while at the same time he doesn't care about near anything at almost every possible level? That's one vicious cycle isn't it? From where I stand, it seems only chems could do the trick, as they are both easy to "do" (thus not violating ones "extreme whatever" attitude) and does not provoke frustration and/or fury as all that talking about growing a pair does. But I suppose one can't get them without prescription, which leads to the psychiatrist... and so the cycle begins anew.

In that case she should be all over the place since last week (if I didn't misunderstand you that is). Anyhow, paint me chauvinist but I agree - Easter Europe women are beautiful. I remember bringing back a coca-cola light poster from my trip to Lvov, back in 2003 or 2004. I never learned Russian so I couldn't decipher written in Cyrillic full name of the model. Her first name was Natasha or Natalia, second remained a mystery to this day. On the same trip I've met even prettier one in a cafe, but I became overwhelmed by her beauty and forgot to ask for her name (not to mention number). <sigh> Oh well, at least that poster was a nice (if eyebrow rising) souvenir

@up Given the ammount of internet hype she's reciving, I wonder why that happened only now

That's a great dream... but it won't happen. I already said once, in this very thread that CDP days of glory (as a publisher responsible for superb localisations) are long gone. I hope that collectors edition I'll get, won't turn up to be a localized because I can't recall even a single dubbed title*, that wouldn't disappoint me in recent YEARS. Same goes for titles that got subtitles only, but when it comes to dubbing, the uninspired or overacting actor makes already badly translated script... sort of abomination? You know, we're no longer kids and yet most times I hear a Polish dubbing in a game (watching yt or a stream) I feel like watching a god damn cartoon. True, I've been avoiding anything with a PL sticker for a while, so there's a slight chance I've missed some kind of second coming in the Polish localization industry, but I doubt it. Especially since it's outsourced more and more to subsidiaries like Sony Computer Entertainment Polska, Electronic Arts Polska or Ubisoft Polska. Paint me fussy, but that's my money and I strongly believe there are just too many people who are barely trying, later expecting to get paid like their poor excuse for service is the best I deserve. Thanks but I'd rather ask a friend from UK for help with bringing oryginal copy. This way my money (and money equals time, which is something I'll never have enough) goes to someone who at worst cares a little bit more. *well, ok I'm fine with Blizzard titles, maybe I should even say I adore them, given how badly everyone else seems to do

I wouldn't mind DLC composed of only backgrounds / traits influenced dialogue trees, if that's too much to pull off on release. Sounds crazy right? Don't think anyone has ever tried that before. I know. It won't happen.

I'm just watching a stream in Polish (subtitles only, thank God no one got an idea about dubbing) and let me tell you that Polish translation is done badly on more than just a few occasions. Even worse than a lazy job - it's sometimes misleading making game technically worse. Let me give you two example I just saw: -"socially excluded" from one of the game inscriptions should be translated to "wykluczony społecznie" rather than "socjalnie wykluczony" because "socjalnie" have strong ties to things like "social security" and almost no connection to things like social media in Polish -special attacks effects popup suggests it's weak against a given opponent, when in fact it's the other way around (that streamer I mentioned didn't realize that until he was said so by the chat user who played the english version before) Plus, and I may be wrong on that one so in such case please correct me, it also seems they didn't bothered hiring the oryginal translator (Tomasz Kutner) of the series, thus ending up with inconsistencies between game and sitcom. That's something I can live with though.... So, the question is: are subtitles going to be patched? Because if not, then I will have to consider buying it either on steam (not very fond of) or import the box from UK (I'm a box fetishist ) or just letting it go (game looks to good to do that). ATM I do not consider Ubisoft Polska (or whoever is directly responsible) lazy job to be worth my money. Of course I know it's possible to change subtitles back to the oryginal (at last on steam) but while buying the game retail version in Poland I'm ending up rewarding someone, who IMO does not deserve it. AGAIN. Thanks in advance.

I followed every post in that thread (even Oby's, just in case) and were addressing mostly underscored and bolded part of our post... or I tried to. I don't believe I accused you of taking sides, only wanted to point out, that by calling Polish involvement as "ironical" you sound like an FSB pawn to a statistical Pole. I suppose I may not fit the role model but hey, I'm the best you got . Funny enough I even had that one sentence written, where I made it pretty clear and asked if you really want to be seen as such, but deleted it because I could not fit it anywhere without rewriting whole paragraph. Even so I assumed that I did myself clear enough... but it seems I was overconfident. If such was the case, then I'm sorry. So again, for clarification's sake - I only ask for letting us, Poles, to decide whether we're going to brag (or not) about grandfather's sins when our neighbour seems to be in dire need. Cheers!

Well, to be honest I do not feel sympathetic towards extremists of all kind. Also most Poles dislikes Bandera and his legacy with passion. I'm bit torn whether to let it go, if only because I think I understand Ukrainians sentiment towards him and UPA but on the other hand my grandmothers family came from Wolyn (Volhynia) and she lost aunt and two uncles because of those ethnic cleansing. Then again, no Ukrainian ever hurt me, in fact they were even far friendlier then I expected, given that I was that kind of annoying tourist, who tries to communicate with locals using his own language again and again and again :D For now though, I/we will roll with them and see how situation unfolds. If only because of "reasons" given by polandball comics (what can I say, doing things against Papa Bear will is kinda national hobby here). This way or another, I ask you, humbly, to not meddle in that issue, as I strongly believe it should be left to us, Poles and Ukrainians alone to settle. I've seen enough of Russian inspired (or paid of) traffic on the comment sections of most Polish news sites lately. Needles to say overwhelming majority of them are clearly aimed to stirring up public opinion by reminding about "Volhynian slaughter" as we call it. Something we're quite aware of, just like we are about some of Svoboda's and Right Sector's sentiments. Sure you can call me paranoid, but it's the same story all over again - happened back when our president supported Georgia in 2008 and also on few other occasions. In most cases results are the same - they're just annoying and appealing only to those, who are lost cause anyway, as majority of Poles can see through their disguise. After all our language isn't called one of the worst for nothing, thus for us, native speakers it's quite easy to distinguish a foreigner thanks to anachronisms usage, specific grammar mistakes or (in this case specifically) things so obvious as addressing other forum users as "brothers" (protip: no Pole will do that unless he's pompous 80 year old or a priest celebrating mass). Allow me not to go into more details because I do not wish to make Oby's job any easier Anyway I suppose that Russian cyber/information warfare capabilities (even if underestimated as unsophisticated en masse strategy) are nothing new to the most of you, so let me end it right here. Have a nice day.

I did and even played it for a while, but then got my 3 letters handled over on a silver platter by a cacodemon and crawled back to my rpg corner to weep. And then reinforced with a recent fun I had with HL, I got that wonderful idea about trying out MoHAA last week. On hard difficulty. Yeah... well, at least I beat it after turning it medium and abusing quick save/load. And didn't even wept that much this time since I was busy cursing* aloud** because at that moment it seemed like a great idea to tell them invisible snipers where they can stick their rifles and how my superb companions could help them with achieving that noble goal. That in turn making my spouse telling me that I need to turn the bloody game off***. All things considered, I have to say it was a great fun. How the hell that works I can't even begin to explain. :D *which I do not do often, being someone prone to get depressed rather than angry about his shortcomings and failures **which is exceptionally rare ***which she never did before, since we met 8 or 9 years ago... Crap, I have to figure it out or she'll get another reason to shout at me, when the next anniversary comes.

I'm wondering now if we're all doing exactly what Puttin hoped and prepared for long time ago... Zapad 2013 War Games comes to mind among other things... Maybe I'm getting paranoid in my years, but wasn't it a good thing to question authorities and the existing order of things once? And I've just red about a dude over Russia-24 tv channel claiming there are drunken and drugged Polish mercenaries all over the euromaidan. Riiiiight... Poles? Sure, I almost ended up being there myself back in 2004, when I was just as stupid/naive as the Poles that are there right now... But calling them mercenaries? What next? Poland becoming a threat (lol! we're more a threat to ourselves and supposedly to the western blue collars) to the integrity and national security of Papa Bear so we need some discipline? Or help if you prefer different terminology? Because you know, if Poles are concerned about their neighbors' problem, that's a clear signal they are going to go ape **** crazy and hunt down Russian minority, loot and burn Lukoil gas stations and whatsoev... <suddenly remembered the attack on Russian embassy in Warsaw back in 2013> Ow ****, we're toasted. Anyway, I'm cool as long as those soldiers and tanks stay home, on our eastern border. Don't really remember who said that, but presumably being prepared for the worst is for the best in every political scenario. And Jesus - living under a rock for last month, depriving myself from any news about the world was such a wonderful state. Seriously, I learned about all that mess just yesterday and... All I can say ignorance indeed is bliss!

Imagine creating character that doesn't follow all those tired stereotypes. Imagine a game* that recognizes, and then fully embrace your choice. What do I mean? For example I expect PoE to let me play as a Wild Orlan that's exceptionally intelligent, educated, well-spoken and seemingly docile - all this shocking to the most colonist expecting you to rather attack them with teeth and pointy stick than well thought argument. I believe an origin-like trait (in the spirit of Arcanum) would be more than helpful to create and establish such protagonist (or follower). So for the sake of argument let's imagine a trait that gives you all of the above, because you were kidnapped as an infant by rather powerful soul-mancer. Aside of being a subject for his experiments (bonus for RES, the violent aspect of your nature is toned down) you were also treated as something between pet and familiar (bonus to skills and INT). I'll pass describing cons. Such PC screams for recognition in the world of PoE and I would love to see most NPC reacting in a very different manner, than they would to the human or elf doing same skill / attribute checks. Something that DA:O (but also my beloved Arcanum) couldn't deliver in more than handful of instances. As I said before, I understand PoE budget could be (if isn't) a potential deal breaker here, but I'd be more than grateful for even one such case of "race, gender affecting gameplay". That's something I would gladly support even in form of DLC or additional stretch goal. VtM:B treatment of Malkavians proved IMO it's a valid (if expensive to include) way of widening the scope of replayability and that such variety is the next great thing after well established and beloved "stupid chars". * computer game, we're not discussing PnP here, and aside from that I'm forev... erm, I like single player games more

I would love to see that, but I'm afraid they won't get further than aforementioned examples (DA:O, Arcanum, VtM:B) in that regard because of their limited budget. Hope I'm wrong.

Let me quote Death Machine Miyagi here, because he pretty much nailed that particularly (imo) intriguing facet of fantastical settings.

I love it. Given possibility, I will be aristocracy's biggest nightmare headache... or hangover, depending on the context and nature of my PC exploits. Power to the people and all that nonsense. Also:

Excuse me for being so blatant about it, but that otherwise fine post needed that fix. There's plethora of books and movies that are not pleasant at all, but still immensely interesting. "The Pianist" for example?

No idea what happened in former incarnations of "romantic" threads (I know folks you, forum dwellers have a history with that), but it had to be ugly to leave scars that deep. Which is sad, because if anyone, it's Obsidian who is able to make that r word, that trend, that story arc and cliche interesting and meaningful again. Driven by memories of Planescape Torment I will believe that's still possible. We have games talking about rape people, %^*%&* rape being treated by a skill check... I have to drop following those threads - I'm obviously to thin skinned for my own good. But before I do so, let me quote one of the games that gathered us all here.

Which actually is a pretty terrible statement for a developer that just had his major project paid by those devoted fans he is so easily dismissing now. Statements like this reduce the chance to get money for new projects dignificantly... not becausr of the romance but because of the bland disrespect towadds the fans. If fans pay your project you better listen to their wishes because they are basically your one and only investor.... telling them that you will ignlre them even if they all have the same opinion on a topic seems ... well Chill out, it's out of context and only because of that it sounds like Josh does not give a <insert yoour favourite impolite word here> The actual quote goes like that:

Huh, splendid as always. Those death godlikes gives so smuch to ponder about. Let me point just few that immediately comes to mind: 1) Are they blind? 2) Were they always blind? I'm assuming here they were born without those horn-like outgrowth, and loosed their sight in the process of maturation. ad 2) If so, awesome, because that gives them just another reason to hate their heritage and may also lead to introduction of potentially agonizingly painful medical/shamanic treatment into the lore 3) But in case they were born that way, we can assume it was deadly to their mothers, which again goes to "reasons why I hate myself <whines>" 4) If they are indeed blind, then maybe they developed some sort of another godlike-based sense? Something similar to the feeling sense, but letting them distinguish and perceive the world via alive, dead, inanimate way? So many delightful possibilities - omnomnom

Weeeell, it depends what you mean by romance. It didn't have a long multi-dialogue/mini quest line thing like BG2 but you could flirt with either Annah or Fall-From-Grace and in the former's case (dunno about the latter's) there was a dialogue line that resulted in a kiss. Still, as you say, there's plenty of room for great companion interaction without romances. And if it's a choice of more dialogue related to romance or more dialogue related to individuals' reactions to the world at large I'll take the latter. (Kind of OT but my one of my favourite companion quests was Veronica's in Fallout:NV. The PC can influence the outcome, or even leave the key choice up to Veronica, but they can't simply fix her problems. There's no romance involved but it's still very affecting.) If you count that trick Ravel pulled off, then you could -figuratively- kiss both of them. But if we are discussing "real deal" (mental shortcut) then yes, only Annah falls into that category. This way or another, that counts as a romance in my book and even one of the better ones (if not the best in some regard) for that matter. I'd even risk saying it's a proof that "CA can romance (into space)" if he is allowed to do it on his own pace and getting somehow convinced he's not writing a romance to begin with, just a meaningful, cliche breaking, tense interaction between characters. Seriously - it was so good, that I couldn't bring myself to flirt with Annah more than once! Only the most depraved ones could find amusement in the misery that brings to her, after the game ends (assuming she's alive). Likewise Fall From Grace - maybe even better, as IIRC she gives a promise that she'll scour Lower Planes to find and rescue Nameless One. But I can't find confirmation on that, so I may be wrong. And since I'm already here, wasn't it implied that she knew and lowed a former incarnation of NO? I also can't find any confirmation on that but something tells me it happened. Doesn't matter - even if I'm wrong about FFG and even with all the obvious shortcomings and limitations, it's still great "romance" writing and "romance" execution for me, and hopefully not only me. Nevertheless, I was and still am against romancing in PoE, if only because -and forgive me for being callously blunt- Obsidian* never created romance that was good engaging and appealing to me. Maybe it's because I'm devoid of feelings, maybe I have different issues that keep me away from enjoying it, but maybe, just maybe it's because all that time they tried to much to fit into this already established, stiff pattern, in the process striping it away from their own touch? I don't know, but I'm not willing to take a risk - at least this way I'm sure I won't be bothered by companions trying to get into my pants only because I like to play "mr goodie two shoes", a carebear that want's to bring at least some joy to the lives of even most Xan-ish ones. And don't even let me start on that god damned influence "love" must have over companion's ending. Way, way to often It seems that the only way for them to live their lives to the full goes through my pants! What the hell, I'm already THE savior of the known world, do I really have to go beyond and assume a role of Kim Jong-il incarnation?! Seriously, I'm not THAT self-centered. To sum it up: I believe we're doing a disservice to ourselves here, by limiting our options of what is and what is not a romance to the Bioware's model and far less often but also mentioned jRPG cliches. I hope there are many different paths leading there still left intact. * I do not count titles that good folks from Obsidian worked at before 2004 as "Obsidian game". There's to much outside influence to call anything beyond that purely "theirs"