Lephys

Holy crap! "Evil poor people versus good rich people." 8D! BRILLIANT!

Or throw their genitals into an ocean. God genitals plus H2O = goddess. Everyone knows that.

If an entire ethnicity declared war on you, babies and all, then sure. However, I'm fairly certain all the 6-year-old children of that nation/people aren't actually going to war with you. It's pretty much just the leadership who simultaneously decides "We're all at war with these other people now, and if you don't like it or try to not-fight, we'll claim you're a traitor or a risk to the safety of our people, and will kill you ourselves." That's not really social racism, anyway. That's more "Well, you belong to this nation, so, I kind of cautiously am not going to have you over for tea or anything, because you're quite possibly trying to kill me, whether you want to or not, because you're 'the enemy' for now." If some "ethnicity" (nation) declared war on your land, and one of them was living amongst you as a merchant or something, and you started stoning the guy and tearing up his shop stall every day just because he had the same genetics as the people from across the border who were suddenly fighting against you, that would be pretty preposterous, don't you think? That guy wasn't even in that country/state/land when the war declaration was made. Anywho, it's a generalized point. The point is that it's logical to hate someone for a reason. "Because I know nothing about you, specifically, but you share physiological traits with some other people I had a reason to hate" is not a logical reason. That's an arbitrary affiliation. Humans do this with all kinds of stuff. Not just race. Someone murders some girl. Her family comes across that murderer's brother. He's the killer's family, so they hate him because they think of the killer. There's no REASON to hate him. He could've lived far, far away and never even talked to his brother much, and had absolutely nothing to do with any of his brother's behavior. And yet, they look at him, and all they see is "YOUR BROTHER KILLED OUR GIRL!". As if he can help the fact that he came from the same womb as someone who decided to kill a girl.

I'll CUT you... o_o... ... ... ... ... a slice of delicious cake! 8D (mumbles something about stupid muscled warriors). Seriously though, I can't really choose a side there. The two character archetypes I always go for are: 1) The Wizard/mage/what-have-you, or 2) What I call "Melee Man." Typically Unarmed if it's cool enough in the game's mechanics. If not, then I start with the least-statistically-used melee weapon specialization there is and work my way up from there. "What... there's only ONE scythe in the whole game? Okay, okay... kusarigama it is!" Seriously though... I'm basically both people in that image.

Or, as a not-as-good-but-still-better-than-usual option, at the very least, make it actually difficulty/resource-intensive to get to the top of an organization. AND don't let the player get to the top of every organization. AND if you're going to give the player some spiffy item for making it to that position, at least make it an awesome item, instead of just a mildly pretty-decent one that can easily be outshone by effortlessly-crafted-by-the-player stuff (I'm looking at you, Robes of the Archmage from Skyrim). But seriously... I would still much prefer for simply climbing into pretty good ranks to be the way to go, and for it to be interesting and meaningful, instead of just rungs on the ladder to faction CEO.

Something is either logical or it isn't. Stabbing myself in the eye with a fork, with my reason simply being "because penguins!" might be "logical," to me, but that doesn't make it actually-logical. It's like truth, kind of. You can believe something's true, even if it isn't. Thus, something can be "true" to you, and yet still be false. I'm not saying no one has a reason for doing anything. I'm saying illogical things are illogical. Sure, it's easier to decide that avoiding/hating a specific group of people based on an identifiable factor (ethnicity) will yield statistically awesome benefits, after being wronged or otherwise negatively affected by one or more members of that group, than it is to deal with each and every person I come across as an individual with the potential to be any manner of person imaginable. That still doesn't make it logical.

That sounds good. I was just thinking of the way BG had it, etc. Where you saw: Imoen - "Hey, maybe we should get going?" A strange sound can be heard amongst the trees as a stranger approaches on the path. Stranger - "..." Stranger casts Magic Missile (20 vs 14 -- 5 damage to Imoen) Imoen - "We're under attack!" Lots more descriptive stuff happens etc. Not that most of that happened during battle. But, it was just all together. All different types of text. That's all I was frowning upon, in retrospect. I THINK it's the same in Wasteland 2, but I haven't fiddled with the beta in a couple of weeks. And, I think Fallout did that, too? Everything in one log. So, yeah. Just seems like it's probably good to have separate logs, etc.

I dunno... it seems pretty illogical. "I had an interaction with some people who happened to be of a certain ethnicity, and they gave me a valid reason to hate them, specifically. Therefore, I shall deduce that the cause of their badness was their ethnicity, and assume I should hate all people who share that ethnicity! I'm pretty sure that's literally a fallacy of logic. I could be wrong. "Understood" and "logical" are not the same thing.

True... I just meant, I like having oodles of descriptive text (a la Wasteland 2), but it also tends to muddle the log up a bit when there's just SO much of it, all compacted into the same place as the recorded words of people. It's not the end of the world or anything. I'm just curious whether there might be some prudence in separating them. Maybe have descriptive text emerge near people? Maybe on mouse-over? Right-click? Alt-click? *shrug*. Not all of it, mind you. Just... some of it. Maybe instead of the description of everything around you scrolling through on the "chat" log, the only stuff that shows up on there is stuff that's happening "to" you. Other stuff (like the description of some shady guy on the street) could be saved for specific inspection (some kind of input by the player, and/or the start of dialogue). So, for example, if a building in the distance catches on fire, and people start running down the streets, you wouldn't have to actively find the building and inspect it just to figure that out, or inspect the fleeing people to know that they're all panicked and running from the north part of the city or something. However, shady guy in alley wouldn't just spout "In the alley stands a man blanketed in a tattered cloak. He's juggling a coin back and forth across his hand, between his fingers, and seems to be regarding you with a wary eye and a slight smirk." into your chat log. You'd have to actually something-click on him, or begin dialogue with him or something. I kinda miss Fallout's "Use/Move/Talk/Look/Skill/Item" cursor system. You could inspect almost anything and get descriptive text about it (even stuff that just looked like scenery), but it wasn't just all tossed at you at once. Anywho... sorry, that's mildly off topic. I just thought it might especially help out in regard to closed captioning to be able to know you can look in one place for descriptions of things, and another for dialogue and the like. (And/or to have more control over when you get descriptive text about things, such as by waiting for you to actively seek it.)

... I see what you did there. "Hide" check... 'Cause his skin is conspicuously bright red! HAH!

I don't think whether or not there's romance in PoE was ever up for debate in this thread, seeing as how the title is "No romances confirmed." *shrug* If discussing romance and its effective implementation into video games is beating a dead horse, then what isn't beating a dead horse? I could understand if the thread was entitled "Please let there be romance in PoE" or something. But, last I checked, you didn't have to be arguing for the active inclusion of something just to discuss its potential workings.

You know... thinking on it now, it seems like some kind of separation between the dia-"log" (little joke there -- the log of the conversations/speech) and the descriptive text. In Wasteland 2, for example, you get really detailed descriptions of your surroundings on a very regular basis, but, it kinda floods the little text-log area, requiring a lot of scrolling if you need to re-read what someone said, or even what some description said before. *shrug*

I was about to explain, but then you figured it out (bolded portion). Took the words right out of my mouth. My sentence targeted group stereotyping, as people who respond to individual points by counter-arguing against "you promancers" happened to be an example of that. Hence the "or some such" after "you promancers." I was trying to practice my brevity. And yet it seems I was too brief. I'll get there, one day. My apologies, Nonek. I wasn't meaning to respond directly to you. I took no offense, nor was I meaning to be non-lightened up. It was more of a "on a serious note regarding this non-serious comment by Nonek" thing. Sorry about that. 8P

Granted. But, last time I checked, in real life, people are illogical. Why would you try to focus your attention on something like painting your nails (and even use both hands to do so) whilst driving a 3,000lb hunk of metal through traffic, only to end up colliding with another 3,000lb hunk of metal filled with people? Because not-reasons, that's why.

Why not a Sword Whip of Flame +1? Soul-Calibur meets D&D.

Meh... BG2 also had the D&D ruleset. Does that mean this game must have the D&D ruleset? You're right about one thing: co-op isn't some new-fangled thing, or something completely ridiculous to implement into a game such as this. However, it's a bit extreme, honestly, to pretend that this game's entire credibility as a "spiritual successor" to the IE games hinges solely upon whether or not it has co-op play. Those games were not built upon the foundation of co-op play. It was just something that works just fine if you include it, and can be enjoyed by many. This isn't really a question of whether or not it NEEDS co-op play. It objectively does not. The game functions just fine without it. It would be nice, but it's hardly the end of the world if it doesn't have it.

I believe it is the survey within the pledge management/finalization process. There should be one for the $8 Obsidian Order add-on in the pledge management page, after you've logged in. I think there's a link on the left that's simply entitled "Surveys and Extra Info" or something of that nature. I'm not sure if that survey gets passed to the great and powerful forum moderators or not, though, or if it's just for some kind of game credits acknowledgement or something, or an in-game reference to the Obsidian Order. *shrug* Others who have filled it out haven't automatically received their titles or anything, so I've just been collecting titles here, in this thread, the old-fashioned way, and passing them along.

I have no doubt that some of them are. Just some, though. The bears thing really narrows down the list. *sigh*

if it's balanced around other races, then yes. otherwise no: godlikes would become the go-to race. Yeah... you'd almost have to give other races all something to be gained as they progress, too. Otherwise, you end up with any non-godlike character just getting class stuff as they level, then: "Godlike! Now with 100% more progression gains!" I know it wouldn't actually be double gains, by the way. It would just be free, extra stuff. I mean, even the "Death's Usher" type abilities are just given at the start, so they can be balanced out by other factors at character creation (just like stat variance between races). But... If they kept gaining things, when no one else did? It'd be nice to see Racial talents of all kinds in. Not necessarily as extra talents, quantity-wise (as in "You leveled up: Choose a talent, AND THEN a racial talent!"), but just, "you actually have these two talents to choose from when you DO pick a talent, because you're a (insert race here)." At the very least. I mean... everyone COULD get to pick extra talents of a different category, be it racial or class or neutral, etc.

I think one thing some people may not be considering when reacting to the godlike with "Oh dear! They're downright shocking to look at! Wouldn't everyone just try to kill them?!" sentiments is that... the people in the world of Eternity live with them. We don't. Sure, there are going to be people who think they're cursed or bad and should be avoided, etc. Probably even people who want to kill them. But, it's not like a woman in the world's going to give birth to a girl with feathers mixed in with her hair, and just smash the baby with a hammer. They're people, and they've been around for a while. They didn't just land in a spaceship and present themselves to the people of Eternitonia (placeholder world name).

you finally made me laugh Lephys. After all those puns and terrible side-jokes, you've finally done it. Damn you, I'm tearing up. Obviously, I had to lull you into a false sense of security. "Pff, his jokes are horrible... I don't have to worry about spontaneously laughing at anything he says." Well SURPRISE! Now back to your regularly scheduled programming, u_u... If your foes are physically capable of crying, you could end up boaring them to tears. Also, in light of the Boreal Dwarves, I vote for battle penguins. There's a news story about a little penguin in Japan who got rescued by a family there, and now he wears a backpack and makes a regular trip to the market to pick up fish for the family. They "pay" the penguin in fresh fish, for his courier service, and fill his backpack with fish, then he runs them back home to the family. I have a MIGHTY NEEEEEEED! O_O (he could carry items, unlike other animal companions).

I don't discriminate. I just see unreasonable people, and reasonable people, on whichever side. It's pretty funny when someone gets a reasonable point made against them, and they have to refer to "you promancers" or some such, just to bestow some unreasonable argument upon the immediate poster to which they're replying, just to still have something to argue against. *shrug*. Maybe one day there can be actual exchanges of the perspectives of both sides of something like this, instead of some kind of "which side wins?" battle royale. But, this is the internet... so probably not. 8P

You realize Eder's not female, right? And the bald old man is a friggin' monk. What do you expect? Zangief from Street Fighter? "I crush man's head between thigh like sparrow's egg!" Honestly, it sounds like you're trying to overcompensate for something, and I don't even know what. What, 3 out of 8 companions are female, and you're not only assuming the rest are gonna be female, but you're insisting that we have some male characters thrown in who are SO grizzled and Conan-ish that they make up for... what... Sagani's dainty princess look? Cadegund's pretty pretty dress that just so happens to look like plate mail, and her bubble gun that just so happens to look like a friggin' rifle? Yeah... man, can we get some testosterone in here? I think our female companions may get a touch of the vapors, and faint at any second.

The "supernatural event" our main character witnesses at the beginning of the PoE story is actually just a honey badger caring.

I very much agree with most of that. Or, I should say, I agree with all of it, to a degree. I think the "older methods" are mildly close to the opposite extreme (with stuff like "you just literally can't wear heavy armor or wield a sword at all," for example). And I don't believe the frequency of casting is as big of an issue. More limited than a Fighter's sword swings, sure. It seems excessive to me, however, to say "you can blow up like 8 things at once with a fireball -- things it would take a Fighter about 30 hits and that much time to take down -- but you can only cast that like twice per day." Or, to put it simply, a Wizard/caster should be able to perform less-potent actions more frequently, and more-potent actions less frequently. That kind of thing. It definitely sucks when a game just makes them nondistinct, and your caster just becomes a fighter who technically uses magic. But, it's about extents. I don't think altering the frequency or restrictions of the old ways a bit jumps the design straight to the extreme. It's true that the dynamic is changed, but, I can't help but look at how the rest of the design can support this. I mean, in a game with pre-combat buffing, that whole "doing this in the first turn versus doing this in the third turn" tradeoff gets completely circumvented by buffs. The only remaining tradeoff is between what you DO buff up with, and what you don't, and/or what you memorized/prepared and what you didn't. It doesn't matter when you buff, or what you cast first, or how the enemy is moving, or who they're targeting. The only significance to the effects is their rock-paper-scissors effect against the potential effects in your enemies' arsenal. That's not bad that those effects exist, but it's mildly bad when they're the only function of those effects. Even if you're just really close to that being the only function (you still get the occasional shorter-term effects in D&D buffs that you can't just use as a pre-combat blanket o' bonus), it's still not really taking advantage of the tactical aspect of combat (which I realize wasn't as huge of a focus in D&D combat, but apparently will be in PoE combat, and I don't think this is a bad thing.) With buffs only in-combat, prioritization and pertinence are significant factors in your buffing. You actually can still scout out the enemy, remaining undetected, see what you're up against, then prepare a buffing plan to start combat with. I would imagine that, since you can't cast buffs "before combat," that casting a buff constitutes the beginning of combat. And, while I'd like to know more specifics on that from Team Eternity, it would seem that, at the very least, you get to write-off the cast-time on that first buff (with potentially multiple party members each casting something/using an ability, side-by-side in that same amount of time) before the enemy even gets to react. So, it's really kind of functioning as a "you only get one effect 'before combat'." If it works like that. I think it could work like that, and hope it does, in the interest of not having to have enemies charging you just to cast a buff. But, if you scout the enemy, and they're using magic weapons, and or are using ranged weapons, etc, and the first thing you do to start combat is cast "Protection from Magic Weapons" and/or "Protection from Missiles," then you've just given yourself a very strategic advantage. After that, depending on how things start to play out, you can either go for another buff, or take some other action (offensive spell, repositioning, save your spells and just use your wand Blast, etc.). That's the beauty of tactics. Yes, it's not as pleasant as just being able to prepare as many beneficial effects as you'd like beforehand, but I think it makes the buffs more meaningful. That's the main thing I like about this whole "no pre-combat buffing." I can look and see that my Fighter did, indeed, occupy the attention of three foes in melee combat, and that they're all trying to knock him down or something, and decide to cast (with my safe-for-the-time-being Wizard) some kind of immunity to knockdown spell or something, on my Fighter. Personally, I find that more pleasing and rewarding than simply making sure my Fighter has immunity to knockdown (or resistance, at least... the point isn't that it's full immunity... it was just an example) on him for 8 hours of every day, just in case we come across things that would want to knock him down in any combat encounter. Sure, you have to re-cast stuff every combat, but, I think if the same set of buffs is equally beneficial in 7 combats in a row, the encounter design's a bit lacking in variety, already, to be honest. So, yeah, in conclusion, I totally get the desire to be able to stack buffs in preparation for combat, and have more ongoing beneficial effects in place for longer than just one fight. But, at the same time, I don't really think that's doing much other than detracting from the active tactics of combat. Why is the Wizard/caster more fragile in the first place, if the game's just going to let you cast "Compensate for Fragility" on him and let it persist plenty long enough to simply all-but-negate the distinction of his being more fragile than the other classes, 90% of the time? Having combat-only buffing doesn't automatically make everything perfect, but I think it definitely can bring a lot to the table, in place of what little it's taking away. I don't see it as removing preparation; rather, I see it as making preparation more active and significant than passive (stack the benefits you want, then roll with combat).