Valsuelm

I am certainly one of them. Overall, I am enjoying the game quite a bit. With some significant modding, this game might turn out to be most everything I hoped for. Is it worthy of Metacritic's score of 92? Not to me, and I have quite a few reasons to say so. Regardless, it's still a very solid game. I still haven't made it past the character creation process. I despise a set number of points to assign, as opposed to rolling attributes. I attempt to get over that as I have in other games, and I choke on what some of the attributes actually are used for. I can't make the character I'd like to make, so I'm waiting for a new inspiration on a character idea that will fit the PoE's character creation process. Hasn't happened yet, likely will eventually, but it's possible it might not.

Is it? I'm curious as to why you say that? I backed that game as well at the physical goods tier. But haven't followed the development much at all after following the development of PoE and being disappointed with so many of Josh's decisions.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70586-update-90-shipping-and-strategy-guide/ The decided to ship the disks later. Bad move imo, but it is what it is.

I second this opinion - start with BG1 (EE is fine, and easier to just play). Low levels and exploring the wilderness are the things that make BG1 great. The replayability is nothing short of extreme. PoE is more modern and will frustrate you less tho - I'm wearing rose-tinted glasses for BG1, of course. I haven't finished PoE or even got halfway, so I can't make proper comparisons, but the voice acted throwaway remarks of the BG1 characters are the best I have ever heard in any RPG, even though they are repeated, they are still genius. You will LOVE those characters (hint - good party : Minsc, evil party : Montaron and Shar-teel). I might make some sort of artwork out of the original (5) BG1 CDs now I've got EE... So many good characters in these games. No other games come close, in my experience. My personal favorites are probably Minsc and Xzar. "I know dragons with feet like rabbits, 'tis true I swear!" Also, it should be said, that the consensus amongst those who've played the EE and the original with mods is that the original with the mods is better (as I suggested above). One could start with BG2 as some have suggested, but doing so robs one of much of the greater storyline and one hell of a great game on it's own. Also, BG2 is not a vast improvement over the first, unless you really prefer higher level gameplay. Insofar as the gameplay improvements, just about all that there are to be had are available in BG1 with the mods (that make use of the BG2 engine; not to mention there really weren't that many improvements necessary as BG1 was a very solid game).

You've been able to kill children in various video games since the 80s (maybe 70s, but I can't think of a 70s game that had kids in it at all at the moment). That said, you're either a legitimate sicko or a troll. Either way, please go away.

Play Baldur's Gate (unenhanced) then it's sequel. I recommend installing a few mods for the best experience. Dan Simpson's FAQ/Walkthrough has a section on the 'modern Baldur's Gate installation' that will give you instructions on how to mod it as well as recommend some of the better mods. It's been a few years since I've played and the Simpson's guide might be slightly dated at this point (I know mods have been updated), but the best game experience by far is the original unenhanced BG1 (with Tales of the Sword Coast) into BG2 (with The Throne of Bhaal) with a few of the mods Simpson recommends enabled.

A thing about negative reviews in general. Is that the people who don't like something generally don't want to invest the time to explain why to the very people who made that something, as those folks generally do not perceive what's wrong with that something to begin with. Like a serious romantic relationship, most people don't want to hang out and discuss why they broke up with someone after they broke up with them. The time to fix whatever was before the breakup, and often plenty of attempts are made to get through to the other person before the break up. Eventually people give up, and break up. The best time to fix whatever in regards to PoE was during development, and there was a great deal of 'Hey Devs, this isn't a good idea' on this forum.

Can I?

Yeah... about that. DRM Free isn't such a big sales pitch any more. Just look Paradox's own games. Their most popular title, Crusader Kings 2 was initially only planned for Steam. A loud minority convinced them to put money into a DRM-Free version through Gamersgate. Want to take a guess at how many copies that sold? Single Digit - The lower half. It didn't even begin to cover the costs of having someone work on a port for every patch. So what did Paradox do? They went full Steam only - And proceeded to implement Steamworks' Multiplayer API which has made Multiplayer games more stable than ever. Having played Paradox games extensively in multiplayer, both before they went Steam only and after, I can say that it is entirely a myth that Steamworks has made their multiplayer games more stable. Also, in regards to how big a sales pitch you think 'DRM-Free' is. That depends on a number of factors, but put simply it depends a lot on who you're marketing to. In the case of PoE, most indicators are that there's about a 50/50 split between those on this forum who wanted Steam vs. gog. Even if it was 95/5, that's still a very significant number when you're selling hundreds of thousands of copies or more. Insofar as Paradox... well... I'll let that lie as it's a debate not worth getting into here, but sure, believe what you said is the whole story if you wish.

Then feel free to stop reading the thread. You have no ownership of this thread and the world doesn't revolve around you. That said, yea... it blows all sorts of bad stuff that you can't get a non-steam retail version of the game. With Paradox being in charge (they have a heavy Steam fetish these last couple years) though, that's to be expected.

Indeed. If there was a tombstone saying something along the lines of 'Here lies so and so, we tortured and then burnt him to a crisp because he had X skin, let that be warnin to yee skin X folks to turn back now' no one in their right mind should be offended. It's a fictional world. It's rated as a 'mature' game, not a kids game. Grow up yee folks who are finding offense, grow up. Please.

Pretty much just allude to anything even remotely to do with trans-anything in any manner other than saying it's awesome/good/fine, and some folks will go out their way to be insulted and accuse others of 'transphobia'. The really bad thing is that we've reached a point in our society where such asinine things are not only given an ear, but rule the day. Yes, but in this limerick, the dude kill's himself because he got laid! Think about this! He obviously enjoyed this act sufficiently, otherwise there'd be no "reason" to be ashamed (from his perspective!). Instead of changing his mind, be kills himself. How does this reflect badly on trans and not on intolerant people. Also the extremists' demand "KILL ALL MEN" seem very d'accord with this limerick to me... See... here's a big thing. I never would have assumed that the limerick says the guy got laid. Nor would I even have ever assumed that the 'woman who turned out to be a man' was a transanything. Frankly, I wouldn't have put a ton of thought into it as it's pretty ambiguous and there are a number of possibilities. As others have mentioned, it could have been a drunk guy who mistook the identify of someone, it could be a not so smart guy who fell in love with what he thought was a girl (those are my first thoughts), the hero could refer to hum being good in bed, or just an adventuring hero, and so on. The possible interpretations are potentially endless. At no point does it definitively say anyone had sex, is/was a transanything, or that anyone enjoyed anything. One has to make assumptions and take words to mean things they don't to say so. "Firedorn Lightbringer Here lies Firedorn, a hero in bed He once was alive and now he's dead The last woman be bedded, turned out a man and crying in shame, of a cliff he ran"

Pretty much just allude to anything even remotely to do with trans-anything in any manner other than saying it's awesome/good/fine, and some folks will go out their way to be insulted and accuse others of 'transphobia'. The really bad thing is that we've reached a point in our society where such asinine things are not only given an ear, but rule the day.

You're far too sensitive. There is no 'transphobia' in this thread, nor was there before, nor is there any in the limerick.

That's an interesting business model for a grocery store. The one's I'm familiar with mostly have a more traditional buy from producer or supplier and mark things up to cover expenses and profit. Which brings up the point that there are often many potential ways one can go about running a business. Not all businesses within any given industry have the same business model. Insofar as Obsidian making nothing but profit. That's doubtful. They may have a larger share of the revenue than they would if they were financed through more traditional means, but they still have operating expenses, as well as their own monetary investment to recoup.

Very well said.

If Obsidian actually changed it, I'd lose pretty much all respect for them, as I would for any company that caters to insane twitter freakazoids that go out of their way to get offended.

We did not declare war, no. We have however been bombing and blowing people and stuff up in Yemen for many years now, mostly via drones.

They didn't call it strength for a reason That has nothing to do with what I said. While we're at it though, having physical strength and spiritual strength tied to the same stat is also retarded.

Decades of D&D would like a word with you - So would about a truckload of RPGs. Hell even Neverwinter Nights had a solid crafting system (so did NWN2) and it is by no means "modern" NWN2 is a modern era RPG (NWN early modern), and has many things I'd say are wrong with it, one of which is it's crafting system. AD&D had a very limited 'crafting system'. Of course one's DM could tweak it to increase it's prevalence if they liked, but in general, characters were not crafting things on any kind of remotely regular basis. In fact, D&D, as well as Palladium, made a point that player characters generally shouldn't be able to craft all that much themselves. Obviously, again, DM discretion. The era of the MMO is what ushered in crafting in RPGs. Was there some crafting in computer games before? A little here and there, but not much. Nowadays it's a standard 'feature' to have a 'robust' crafting system, and game design wise I think it generally sucks. Adding little to nothing positive to the actual gameplay in a single player RPG. In an MMO there's better arguments for it given a player economy, however most MMOs have turned their crafting into little more than time sinks these days. Either way, it's really just a whole bunch of unfun.

Crafting in PoE is one of the modern RPG tropes they put in that was better left out (like pretty much all the other modern RPG tropes they put in). You are definitely not alone. I think I'd actually prefer romances to any crafting beyond what BG1&2 had, and I'm anything but a fan of RPG 'romances'.

I somehow missed that ad before (I'm generally not one to watch them so it's not surprising). That's probably the best Presidential election ad I've ever seen.

Might increasing magic damage is retarded.

The default should be walking, with a run toggle. Not the other way around.