Lephys

Well, they can't very well give you a "Making-Of-Only-Up-Until-A-Week-Before-Launch" documentary, now can they? So, it only makes sense that it isn't quite available yet.

It's probably tough for them to ship thousands of packages out in the exact same day. So, it might be staggered over a few-day period. They seem to be sending emails out for when the stuff has shipped, though, on a backer-by-backer basis. So, it would be a bit moot to have a huge update saying "Your stuff should be shipping either today, or maybe a few days from now," since we already pretty much know that. I think they're trying to give people info as soon as they have concrete info to give, and not "Should be even sooner than last time when we said 'soon'! 8D!" every hour. 8P

This is quite true. But, in this particular instance, the second installation of the same key would merely be a "proxy" installation, until the physical disc arrived. Up-front, you already know that you've bought and paid-for two DRM-free licenses (if you redeem the digital key through GoG), so installing the game twice isn't logistically using more licenses than you have. But, yes, just the general practice of "I have a game on GoG, I'll just give it to everyone" isn't good. But, it's not really black and white. I mean, my friend let me borrow a DRM-installer of a game to try out, because a demo wasn't available, and he thought I'd like it. I DID like it, so I bought the game. If I hadn't gotten to play it, I wouldn't have bought the game. So... *shrug* Annnnywho. Sorry, got tangentially carried away. I mainly just wanted to clarify that, when I, personally, recommended using a GoG key and installing it twice, I was not condoning piracy, for what it's worth. 8P

Erm... I could very well be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain it does more than that. I think you don't get the mouse-over-a-foe tooltips for their HP and defense and such in combat, and you aren't told which dialogue options are unlocked by which stat values, or how certain responses will be taken, etc. No, its inherent purpose isn't to be a difficulty setting. But, the game gains at least some degree of difficulty from Expert Mode's activation.

Ehh... I think the arguments against it are being horrendously oversimplified/misrepresented. If there were a barrel of legendary weapons in the very first area in which you gain character control at the start of the game, would that be totally cool, simply because you could just not interact with it? What if, when your characters died, you could actually just click a big "Resurrect" button, free of charge, that would get them back up on their feet? Would that be fine, because it's optional? Maybe a button that turns the game into Mario Kart? Hey, it's optional, so it can't be a bad idea. There are certain things that just don't really fit with the design of a game, optional or not. There's nothing wrong with respeccing, in and of itself, but you don't need to be able to do it in a game like PoE. You've basically got two potential issues: 1) You accidentally build your character in a way you did not want to, because you weren't clear on your options or what led to what. OR 2) You build your character in such a way that it becomes useless in any capacity halfway through the game. The latter is already untrue in PoE, so that only leaves the former. Once you read up on what all your options do, it seems pretty difficult to have no idea you're building your character to Deflect things and attack quickly instead of dealing lots of damage, or to be able to only handle 1 target at a time instead of a bunch, etc. So, the only thing you can do, really, is to intentionally build a character a certain way, then just decide you hate that later on, and flippantly wish to respec. I realize that in games in which it is easy to make a useless character, respec acts as a roadside assistance there. But, really, a game shouldn't let you do that. So it's not on principle that the game should let you respec so that you can fix broken builds, any more than it's principle that you should carry around lots of bandages in case you arbitrarily stab an innocent bystander at a restaurant. You shouldn't stab people in the first place, and if you didn't do that, there'd be no need for a respec.

Well... the main thing is, there was confusion over how many keys they would get. If there were going to be 2 keys, going with GoG wouldn't really solve anything, because there wouldn't be a problem.

I believe there are already a number of excellent mods by Sensuki/Bester (including infinite camping supplies). They'll just probably have to adapt some of them to the release-build before they're usable, as they were previously made for the beta builds. Who knows... maybe some of the stuff's so similar they didn't have to change anything. *Shrug*

I'm going to track down the courier who will be personally delivering yours to you, and I'm going to pay them to ask you "What have I got in my pocket?", and make you answer before they'll hand over your goods.

Seconded. This is probably the most level-headed over-reaction thread I've ever seen on these forums. He's not like "OMG, OBSIDIAN SHOULD JUST GIVE EVERYONE THEIR MONEY BACK RIGHT NOW!" He just very reasonably asked if anyone knew if it would be possible to get a refund, as he would like to not-have-spent-his-money, based on the problems he's having at the moment. Now, I believe a refund is an over-reaction, BUT, I understand the quite-reasonable "if that's possible, I'd do that for now" approach to it. I honestly believe that patches, research, and patience is more likely to leave him feeling better in the long run, though, than a refund, then maybe coming back to the game in a couple of months. His issues might be fixed much sooner than he figured they could.

"Gandalf... I think we need to Friend this door on Facebook!" But seriously, I'm glad everyone's getting so many warm fuzzies from this game. I can't WAIT to play it... when my disc comes in, 8P. (And, I mean, I played the beta, but by "play it," I mean the actual game game, and not just partake in a dabbling of the game's play.)

Oh, there are many maps. I think there are over 100 different environments in the game. Ohhhhhhhh, minimaps, . I don't follow. I mean, I know what a minimap is, but... are you suggesting there be a minimap in the game that's just a tiny world map, that allows you to fast travel directly from it, purely to circumvent having to view the whole map every time you want to travel? *blink blink* o_o Sincere question. You may not be suggesting that.

Yeah, I mean... I wouldn't use "dated" to describe graphics unless the game was clearly going for a certain newness of graphical quality and fell short, and it seriously just looked like it was made back when graphical capabilities were more primitive, rather than intentionally being 8-bit, etc. Like, if it was an 8-bit game, but looked like an Atari game, ya know? *shrug* It's not a particularly useful word to describe a mere graphical style. Much less to penalize a game for. I don't know what it is with these journalists, though. I think I read the Escapist review (since I'm bored today, unable to access much else at work), and they said "though the backgrounds don't quite stand up to some of the more picturesque older titles." Not really sure what they mean by that. Maybe they thought the IE games' environments were just better designed? *Shrug*.

@ Ink Blot: Ahh, that makes sense. Yeah, it was just a thought. Oh well. 8P Definitely an excellent plan for when it arrives, though.

Let's all fire up a voice-chat server and have a Disc-Waiting party. We can play Jennifer Lopez's "Waiting for Tonight," only we'll change "tonight" to "our DISCS!... oh-WAH-OHHH-OHHHHHHH!... When YOU will be here in my drive! Waiting for out DISCS!... OHH-OHHH-OHHH-ohhhhh!..."

I'm the lower Collector's tier: $140. I can't get to my email at the moment, but I seem to recall only 4 items listed. Those 4. I think the book might be inside the CE box. I think it's one of those big kind, with lots of stuff in it. Not just the little "there's a manual and a game disc that fit inside here" kind. 8P Just a suspicion, though.

That's actually nice to know. I believe they did not in the beta.

That's not too terrible. I mean, yeah, it still sucks compared to the ideal "today" receipt date. Also, though, if you're in Canada, I THINK (but am not 100% sure) they're air freighting all the international goods to Europe, THEN distributing them from there. So... it may be that your ship time is actually at the lengthy end of the scale, compared to people who live in Europe. *shrug* Just for what that's worth.

I guess technically there's a way to "drop" something: Reload. 8P

It's okay. Everyone has bad Perception rolls. "You failed to locate the humor!"

It does. But... you know, when you look at the list of things they needed to have in the game by today, it probably doesn't seem as silly. 8P

Up through Hard only changes the encounter composition (how many enemies/enemy placement, etc.), methinks. I think Path of the Damned is the only setting that actually augments the individual foes to be tougher/more ouch-inducing.

Heh. It's not that fancy. It's actually just pewter. 8\ Mine just stands for "Vividly Imaginative Person". 8P

You don't have to have a Paradox account to get the email. I got it already. However, it DOES come from Paradox (not Obsidian, and not Kickstarter), so you may want to make sure it's not being filtered out of your inbox. "You" being just people checking, in general. I am also a US backer. I'd imagine the European goods are at least a few days behind. Who can really say, though. All I know is that they apparently sent them Air Freight instead of whatever other method they were going to use, to try and get them there faster. That was posted at least a few days ago, so maybe they'll be there sooner than you think. /optimism

I'm pretty sure you can't drop things. But, to make room in your limited inventory, you can move stuff to your Stash (it's the treasure chest icon beside your characters' inventories). Depending on a setting in the game options, you can either be restricted to only accessing your stash in towns/the stronghold, OR you can access it wherever, whenever. It basically holds infinite stuff, and allows you to sort by categories, etc. Hope that helps.

Yeah, I mean, I understand your frustration OP, but it may very well be that you and 1% of the rest of players are the only ones experiencing such extensive problems, and if you simply wait around (refund or no) until later, it won't be fixed if you don't report these problems to Obsidian's QA/support team. They posted somewhere today that there's already a 1.0.3 patch in the works, but that it wouldn't be "locked down" until next week. So, I'd say if you can manage to give it about a week, a lot of problems will be fixed (as they prioritize the most extreme problems). But, definitely at least make a post in the tech support thread or something, to mention these things. Or email Obsidian support, etc.