Lephys

So, with Path of the Damned mode, is there any supplemental effect from having the difficulty set to anything specific? Or is Path of the Damned its own difficulty setting? Or, to put it another way, if all the creatures are there in PotD, is there any other difficulty-related adjustment that can be made to those creatures (AI, HP/damage, etc.)? Or is the only difficulty adjustment basically the absence or presence of any given creature?

The funny thing is, if you just make some ape people, there's absolutely no connection to any real-life race/ethnicity of people until the person calling "racist!" comes in and makes one. "Wait... I just made ape people. Are you suggesting there are people in real life that are similar to my unintelligent ape people?" Also, apes are already pretty intelligent, and are already a lot like people, so that's kind of a weak "splice" in fantasy terms.

No worries, Josh. We'll bombard you with a plethora of feedback. Exactly what kind of feedback will you be looking for, and will there be an organized system for submitting it (and for receiving testing "assignments" -- like what you're looking for the most, what's actually subject to change based on feedback, etc.?) I've been in several betas and not really known what was useful and what wasn't. It just kinda sucks to submit 37 bits of feedback, only to later find out "Yeah, we're not really interested in changing any of that at all, unfortunately, and we haven't been this whole time." I don't mind not loving certain things that just aren't going to get tweaked, but I'd like to know how best to productively provide feedback. And, I mean, if you guys just want to hear whatever we have to say about anything in the whole beta build, then that's fine, too. It's just nice to know which is the case.

If you had just said this from the beginning your argument with Hiro probably would have been shorter. ... I point out two words that he's pretending aren't even a part of his initial question, and this is what he responds with. I accented a word to make an argument? No, I italicized two words to make it easier for his eyeballs to see "Oh, hey, those two words WERE in the original question!" How hard is it to just say "Oh, okay, well, I meant why do they do it, not why are they required to do it." All I did was answer a question appropriately. "My" argument with him would probably be shorter if he didn't act like perfectly reasonable responses were preposterous. What is wrong with you people?

"Why do they do X?" and "Why do they have to do X?" are two different questions. I don't really know what else to say here. o_o

Seem... And I'm not sure how the frequency with which I post and the length of my posts, nor my inherent value as a person who uses this forum, has anything to do with the topic at hand.

A) It looks like your problem, from here. If you could enlighten me, that would rock. I can't know your brain, so I can't know your reasons for saying what you're saying unless you explain them to me. B) Hang on, lemme get this straight... You're saying that the answer to your question of "why do they have to pander" is that "they do" (have to do it), but, simultaneously, you're not at all implying that their doing so is mandatory? Gotcha. An ocean of sense, you are. Yeah... or maybe he's just okay with a world in which there are actually humanoid creatures who exist that would physiologically at least be attractive to humans. Doesn't mean all of them have to be, or that they all have to be supermodels. Extents, man. Oh, and yeah, it IS pretty strange that I wouldn't be on the forums 24/7, and that I actually don't just ignore direct responses to my posts just because they're not from less than an hour ago. What a weirdo I am.

^ Understandable, but still... T_T

A) I have no idea why you're emphasizing the word "they" here. B) Of course the answer is obvious. It's "They don't." Nothing mandates that they pander. This is where this whole thing falls apart. You're arbitrarily and forcibly associating so many things with one another in a neat little package. For one thing, I'm fairly certain you misunderstand Bruce quite often. For another, as cool as Bruce is, he's just one person, and his perfect idea of romances in games does not mandate that our only two options in the world are "Exactly like that, or not at all." So, I don't know why the debate with you keeps coming back to "this, this and this, are problematic. That's what such-and-such said in his posts, and so that's why romance is bad."

Ummm... You asked: ... to which I responded "they don't." Why do they have to do such a thing? They don't. o_o As much as I'm glad you love me, that doesn't really help me at all with regard to the discussion at hand. Do you think that block of text is ridiculous? Or was it actually splendid? Either way, why so? If I don't know why, how am I to learn anything? *sigh*... Once again, this "flaw" is common to anything in the entire game. Is there NO other aspect of the game that doesn't need to be in the game? Only Romance? And, also once again, you can't keep saying "no one likes turkey" with the basis of "everyone's eaten burnt turkey over and over again, and they don't like burnt turkey." Your whole "no matter how good they are" bit is useless, since we've already established that the examples we've had in existing games haven't been very good. It's realllllly simple. The question that remains is simply "is this just because they weren't done well, or is there not a way to do them well?" This whole "BUT IT COSTS MONIES!" argument is dumb, because everything costs money. If they had more money, they'd put more stuff in the game. Clearly. Hence stretch goals in a Kickstarter Campaign. I'm sure if they'd raised 50 million, they might have considered voice-acting the entire game, for example. Does the whole game NEED to be voice-acted? No. COULD it be? Sure. With the right amount of money. How can romance be bad for the reason that it costs money, while its costing money is bad because it's bad? You can't support "because it's not free" with "because it's bad" if you're suggesting it's bad because it's not free. Besides. If it were really inherently terrible, then why would it matter if it was free or not? According to many of the arguments, it taints the whole game and burns out the eyes of the people who would rather not partake in anything of the sort, just by its mere existence.

Umm... they don't? I don't know how else to say "I get what you're saying regarding" that, or how to make it not apparently look like "The opposite of whatever you said!" in your eyes. o_o The existence of humanoid characters, however, does not shatter realism. In other words, it's silly to paint everything red (overboard). However, it would be wrong to then correct that by arbitrarily making sure nothing was ever painted red (underboard?).

Ahh, so you agree with everything I said? Because, surely, you wouldn't be the kind of person to just rip something out of context so as to spin a given statement. That would be pretty juvenile, and far beneath you, a productive member of the forum community who reads things in full and responds accordingly.

Just out of curiosity, how does one come by the criteria for a completely fictional creature's realism? I mean, I get what you're saying regarding the characters basically always conforming to real-life societal notions of human beauty, and that "realistically" a character wouldn't necessarily be restricted to such a thing (if they were, say, an orc). However, at the same time, I can't say that anything really dictates that an orc must, "realistically," look like any of those three images.

The capability of code and engines to provide more versatile and effective tools for story telling is a raw aspect. Game development is a process, and an aspect of that process has nothing to do with the degree to which someone takes advantage of that. Ineffective implementations are a lack of advancement. Just not for the process, and not for potential. Going back to the always-reliable turkey-cooking example, I can burn 1,000 turkeys, and that doesn't affect your ability to cook a turkey properly, or the capabilities of existing turkey-cooking technology/resources. Duke Nukem Forever just failed on an individual level. It didn't like... set game engines and development teams back throughout the world, or prevent anyone from NOT-making a game like that.

When they're attributes, it does semi-conflict with the nature of the attribute system. I'm with you, rjshae, though, in that I think it works better to apply racial modifiers to more specific things. If you want to denote that Dwarves are hearty and strong, for example, give them like a 25% mitigation to Fortitude-targeting effects, or a bonus 10% chance to knock back/down with melee attacks, or just a bonus to Strength checks (in scripted interactions and such), etc. That way, you don't just get 2 points of free Strength, along with all that affects, just because you're a Dwarf. Any specific Strength value doesn't really represent any particular source/type of strength, so it makes the bonus more generic anyway. You take the Elf with a DEX bonus but a CON detriment, and you're just going to spend the unallocated points beefing up his CON if you want him to be more of a front-liner, and fewer points worrying with DEX because it's already higher. Sure, if you max out a stat, a unique difference is achieved. Otherwise, you're just achieving the same Strength value you could've achieved with any other race, if you really wanted to. You just got a "discount," as it were, for your allocation.

They have been awfully silent about them ever since that initial mention of them like 20 updates ago. I really, really hope they haven't been dropped. I second Gfted1's saddy face. @rjshae: They were supposed to bestow "aura" type effects around themselves, and allow for the Wizard to cast spells from a remote source. But, at the same time, if the familiar died, that was supposed to be bad (Dunno if it was instantly permanent death, or just a big, temporary detriment bestowed upon the Wizard, etc.). So, they would've been non-decorations in the original design.

Actually, there are several topics in which we've been in agreement. Argument isn't negative, anyway. It's merely a discussion between two people with opposing stances. If no one ever argued, no one would ever understand each other's perspectives and ever see things other than how they already do.

Psshhh... Every line experienced in my playthrough is going to have a voice over it. Just... not one put there by the dev team. What...? It's fun giving the jackhole characters pompous-guy voices. Seriously, though... story-telling having a high presence in the game would be pretty awesome. That'd be a much better way to deliver lore than "everyone who knows anything about anything is just a tiny encyclopedia."

No worries, gamerdude. We just like to cover our terminological bases.

Honestly, I couldn't care less what any number of "promancers" agree or disagree with. All I care about is what is and what isn't. I think that, in general, there's no reason to abandon the very concept of the implementation of romance into a game that's largely about a vast array of character developments and interactions throughout a narrative. And I don't applaud the very design of the majority of attempts in the past couple of decades, much less the execution of each and every one. I look at it like any other "problem" (as in math problem sort of problem... not "there's something wrong simply because romance is gone, and we must REPAIR the problem by haphazardly injecting romance.") Think of it like designing a building. I'm sure the first person to build a 50-foot tower found out pretty quickly that the foundation didn't hold up to heavy rain, or storm winds could break the frame, etc. Thus, people compensated, then found more circumstantial issues pertinent to the prolonged existence and functionality of the tower. Nowadays, we have a very good design for how to get a tower to do what we want it to do, and not do what we don't want it to do. I honestly believe there are ways to design a romance implementation such that it plays nice with the rest of the story, and becomes no different from any other optional thing. Like the stronghold. If you hate settlement management, then you don't have to manage it. However, it's not just some minigame off in the woods. It has been stated that the stronghold will serve a purpose (as a setting/location) in the story, regardless. It will be a sort of "meeting place," etc. Crafting. You don't HAVE to craft, but ingredients don't just march around saying "CRAFT ME!" Maybe you just give them to other people, and pay to have goods crafted. Maybe you don't bother with collecting random crafting ingredients at all, even when it's convenient. "What, a chest with a dagger in it, AND 700 bundles of herbs? Eff that...". Cool. And yet, crafting is still a part of the world, and it could even affect quests/situations. Maybe sometimes the solution to a given problem could be to craft an item or resource you didn't already have, etc. It's possible it could affect something beyond just "you get to make items that you then wear/use." You say if the devs aren't trying to do better, what makes me think this game will be any different? What makes you think that humans will never ever vary? If other dev teams haven't tried to do better, that doesn't mean anyone who could ever wish to develop a video game won't try to do better. That's like saying "we keep having corrupt mayors. Let's just abolish the city administration." Orrr, you could find someone who'll actually do the job properly. Actually, all raw aspects have improved. Some more than others. Don't confuse ineffective implementations of design facets with a lack of advancement. Just because someone makes a 1st-person, turn-based tactical shooter, and 1st-person view makes the game worse instead of better, doesn't mean that technical element is flawed or primitive. It simply means that someone didn't put the blocks together very well. I will agree that advancements in what large, well-funded groups of people actually decide to put together in video games hasn't advanced a whole lot in some categories.

Yeah, probably my least favorite thing ever is the "Get a whole bunch of digital goodies, so we'll charge like 30+ dollars more!" I mean, at least with physical goods, you have something. With digital goods, they didn't have to print you a cloth map or give you an actual art book, and yet they're going to charge $10 a pop for such things? Or, especially the packs that just come with a bunch of custom avatars and "special abilities!" and stuff. They're obligated not to make those things ever functionally useful past like the first 10% of a game, lest everyone complain about how people who pay more get better gameplay. So, they pretty much have to keep it "aesthetically unique." So, you're paying more than 5-or-so extra bucks just to have some spiffy stuff, which you will discard and never use again an hour into the game, max. Of course... if people will pay it, people will pay it. I'm more loathing the concept than really blaming the people setting the price and devising that in the first place.

So sorry, TigrisW! My brain told me it took care of your title request the day you posted it, and I just thought "Hmmm... haven't seen any new posts on the OOoE thread in a while" and noticed I have neglected it for a full week! I have passed it on to the Great Title Weaver now. Many apologies, <8(

It would, indeed, be pretty great, as long as they could tie it into the events of the original. I'm not fond of "sequels" in which there's hardly any connection between the stories except for "this is technically set in the same world." But, yeah, it'd definitely be nice to see the setting of PoE2 advance time a good bit. Makes me think of the Mistborn Trilogy. It was mostly "medieval" style weapons and arms and such. And it's pretty much all about people who can manipulate metals (Allomancy), amongst other things. Then, there was a followup book, the setting of which involved earlier firearms. I haven't read it yet, but it's interesting to think about just the impact of the advancement of time on the ability to manipulate metal.

Somewhat related to a strictly-mechanical hiding helmets toggle, I wonder if there will be any form of hood putting-up/down or anything in. Or, you know, pushing back your cloak when you're out of the rain/etc. Maybe stealth mode will have people "hood up," etc? Even if it's not a toggle, it'd be nice to see the actual usage of such implements by the characters, integrated somewhere into what we see throughout the game. Little things like that are nice. Even just actions in the midst of dialogue. You don't know who you're talking to, then, boom... they draw back their hood. Wouldn't need to be flawlessly motion-capture simulated or anything. It's like sheathing weapons, kind of. Just the fact that the characters can and will interact with objects in such a way, and assume various states of being, breathes a good bit of life into things.

No, but I've heard of amateur-stitution. 6_u