marelooke

I just filled in the name-a-pet today, don't really have much inspiration for the other two I have access to (name an undead and the message in a bottle)

They refunded some money for people with alpha/beta access (since they ended up giving it to every backer), maybe it's that?

Well Larian has been providing their games DRM free for a long while, in that regard they're probably on the same page as the Gog guys, on top of that the lack of decent matchmaking on non-Steam platforms was a bit of an issue for Dragon Commander, so it doesn't seem inconceivable that they've been working with Gog on integrating their new multiplayer service for quite some time already. Which would possibly turn D:OS into a "launch title" for the Gog thing. Btw, I generally grab a Larian Vault key as well, if only for the fact that this has so far provided me with a DRM free copy *and* a Steam key (has been the case for the Divinity Anthology (currently 33% off on the Vault btw), which I got in a nice box as well as Dragon Commander).

I think you're confusing the Original Sin delay with the Unrest delay? Larian have been pretty clear from the outset the reason for their delay (mainly voice stuff), whereas the Unrest devs are the ones who used that line. The best guess however is that they don't want to release during the Steam sale, because that would completely swamp their game under all the sale hype. No I'm not, from the latest KS update: Emphasis mine Or am I the only one who thinks it's odd that D:OS hasn't been announced on Gog yet?

Divinity: Original Sin (scheduled for 30 June now)? Wondering what the "other things that will become clear soon" reason for the delays is, Gog's new service? That confirms what I heard, alas. Thanks for confirming it (and hopefully a second part does get made at some point)

Disclaimer: watched the video without sound (so if something useful was said I missed it) Combat doesn't look very impressive to me (more of the same DA2 crap). I do dig how the dragon appeared to fly off instead of fighting to the death, finally a dragon with an IQ that doesn't place it in the "special needs" category.

I'm holding out for the pubic war simulator... I think you stumbled into the wrong thread

I don't really know, as I haven't played the game nor have any interest to, but it doesn't paints a pretty picture of the gaming industry if the PC versions are being gimped. But they apparently still use the superior capability of the PC to create the pretty sales screenshots and videos, oh the delicious irony...

It looked interesting but apparently the publisher decided it wasn't successful enough to warrant a successor. Which wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't half a story ending in a (or so I've been told by pretty much everybody who's finished it) major cliffhanger with a big fat "to be continued sign" sitting on it. Will developers never learn to not do the major cliffhanger thing. You'd think they'd have learned after HL2Ep2... Needless to say I passed it up, maybe I'll get it once it's really dirt cheap in a sale or possibly when/if they ever decide to finish the story.

Not really unexpected and well... there should be enough RPGs released to tide me over until TToN's release (unless they all get pushed to next year, of course...)

I can certainly see you point and even though they make improvements that should reduce the repetitiveness (eg. each planet is supposed to have its own distinct tileset; also the enemy pool differs between planets and, as one would expect, is more diverse in the later planets where the hard hitting enemies are also let loose) Warframe is and will remain a glorified grindfest, much like Torchlight and Diablo. So yeah, if you're not into that sort of thing then this game probably isn't your cup of tea. One important thing about XP in Warframe though is that if you're after XP then doing it solo is a really really bad idea, you'll get a lot more XP when in a group (assuming people stay somewhat together) and missions like (mobile) defense and survival give a lot more XP than regular missions and even more so the longer you keep going (not to mention that these mission are, imho, a lot more fun) That said, I always enjoyed Onslaught in UT2004 so having that back in the form of Survival missions is a big plus for me. I also avoid most of the grind for money/resources by regularly doing the alert missions, many of those provide pretty big payoffs and they are usually quick to do (unless they're defense/mobile defense).

Yups, Warframe is pretty awesome, it's my go-to game when I want to play a quick session of *something*. It does have some annoying flaws (a lot of the weapons in the game are merely affinity food as they're not practically useful except as a gimmick for low level missions) and some of the ways the devs are using to push people toward the cash store are rather obnoxious (the new Vay Hek grindfest or the expiry timer on Argon, ugh. I also rather despise how Prime parts can be traded, kinda kills their status as hard-to-get stuff imho). I'm getting close to Rank 13 now and I still have loads of gear to rank up, I think I can probably make it to Rank 14 still with the stuff that's currently available in the game. I've also just finished the one but last non-rank related Steam achievement for the game (Brawler Mastery), so now I only have the 1000 hacks one left (which I'll get in due time as I only have like 270 to go) Now that I've got the Helios sentinel I started completing the solar map and getting scans from the various bosses. Guess after that my next project will be acquiring more prime gear, something I hadn't really bothered with too much so far (even though I've been playing for a while...). Having to get a group together instead of just jumping into random matches is a bit of a hurdle for me. Aside from Warframe I've picked up my Demonicon playthrough (I'm intent on finishing this thing ). I got an immediate reminder about the awesomeness (not) of the voice acting in the game I also started Avernum: Escape from the Pit. Looks like a game I'll play a bit every now and again. So far I've killed the nuisance in the sewers (he kinda wiped the floor with me, I had to go outside and heal up before I managed to take him down). Currently I'm being sent to "The Castle".

That's good at least, though I'm wondering how they'll make it useful and still work properly on consoles (which as I recall, was the problem with DA:O, they couldn't make it work so they just stripped it). Still, untill I've seen it I'm remaining cynical, though I've changed from pessimistically cynical to optimistically cynical As whenever I play party-based cRPGs my first toon is almost always a mage, the lack of the zoom out camera was among the very first things I noticed. That was probably one of the main reasons I stopped playing a mage in DA2 (the other being the extremly limited spell selection and *pew* *pew* mage staff swinging), I often ended up at such a range that the enemies were outside my screen, so I constantly had to move closer to be able to actually do anything.

Safest bet imho is to assume that whatever they haven't shown simply doesn't exist. They promised a tactical overhead view for DA2 as well, remember?

TW1 certainly made it known that silver was not always the way to go against monsters. Aside from the often pretty clear difference in effectiveness it was also listed in the book you could buy that described the monster which sword and stances were most effective. Dunno about TW2 though since I didn't manage to finish that one (which I need to fix before TW3 is released, so I still have time )

Looking good, my chances of a pre-order just went up again. Just noticed the pre-combat quaffing of potions is still in. I guess that's okay as long as you don't end up dead whenever you run into something you didn't anticipate, though while I can understand it from a realism perspective (see the trailer of Witcher 1) I still find it a questionable gameplay mechanic. But I'm hopeful it will be better implemented than in W2 (couldn't really judge becuase I had to watch the video without sound). The rest looked like net improvements though (barring the remarks already made about the Griffon fight). Excitement++

I like the sound of the setting, beyond that I'm not so sure. I mean, the amount of reactivity they want to pull off sounds a bit over ambitious. I also generally don't like these things having PvP elements, I feel that generally balancing things around PvP tends to ruin diversity.

The whole CCP affair smells fishy. Letting go of the leftovers from White Wolf would make sense in a way, but there was a "who is who" devblog about CCP Xhagen just last month (oddly enough, by CCP Eterne, one of the other ones that got kicked onto the street). It seems really really weird to do something like that less than a month before firing someone. Then again, based on what the Guardian article says about management shifting blame to others and CCP Xhagen's job description maybe I shouldn't be so surprised he got sacked. It does, however, bode very very ill for the company's health if that actually was the reason. On that note, another interesting article about the CCP layoffs.

CCP (you know, the guys of EVE Online and the cancelled World of Darkness MMO), lay off 49 employees. Some of them pretty key employees (CCP Eterne and CCP Xhagen were apparently among the victims) EVE Online forums thread Guardian Article dealing with the layoffs and the gross mismanagement of White Wolf and the WoD project (note that the employee they interview, known as CCP DropBear, voluntarily left the company quite a long time ago, so he doesn't qualify for "bitter just laid off employee"-syndrome) Polygon article

Meh, looks good, but so did the previous game. Until I see some actual info on how it will *play* I'm not getting excited, after all, I still need to finish part 2, which I put aside shortly after launch due to the terrible controls and UI.

Cool, be sure to keep us posted! I just went with the automap (and the default party) as knowing my drawing skills I'd have gotten lost 4 steps out of the starting room Oh wait, I didn't realize there was an automap. I only bought the graph book because I was under the impression there was no proper map. How is the automap, do you think if I use my own map it will be advantageous or rather use the automap ( I am also lacking in drawing skills ) Well, there's an oldschool mode that doesn't have the automap so I figured you were going for that The automap was more than adequate for me, the only thing I'd have liked was a way to put different types of markers on the map so it would be easier to see at a glance what was where without having to always read the notes. Especially when marking where teleporters go that might have been helpful (though frankly, the maps never get so complex that it became a major annoyance_ On thing I wish I'd done was writing down how many secrets I found from each level, so I'd have been able to figure out where I missed the two I missed.

I am about to play Legends of Grimrock, I have even bought a graph map book so I can make my own maps of each level, like I use to do when I use to DM in AD&D. Cool, be sure to keep us posted! I just went with the automap (and the default party) as knowing my drawing skills I'd have gotten lost 4 steps out of the starting room

I finished up Legend of Grimrock, took me 31 hours according to Steam (though I occasionally left the game running while not playing, so it's probably less). I ended up missing two secrets (found all the treasures and armor sets though). All in all it was an enjoyable trip, something I frankly hadn't expected when I set my first steps in the game world. The final boss was...interesting, but also a rather frustrating affair, I might at one point replay the game to grab a few of the achievements I've missed out on (and get those two last secrets, I already went through most of the levels twice, argh) though I can imagine not bothering beating the final boss twice, I'm also not confident I'd make it past some of the more frustrating timed puzzles a second time around (they're optional, but if my goal is to grab all secrets...). In other news, in Warframe I finally managed to grab an Alert Mission for the last bit of the Vauban Warframe I needed. Yay! As for my status in that game in general I'm Mastery Rank 12 currently and I've obtained all but two Steam achievements that aren't tied to mastery rank (only missing the 1000 hacks and 3 fist weapons to rank 30 ones currently)

Most likely dangling something attractive in front of their noses and having the audacity to charge money for it. I'm pretty sure that we both know very well how the music industry (as a very obvious example) has been treating both consumers as well as artists, in that light I can't help but feel that your interpretation of my words is rather disingenuous.

Picked up Avernum: Escape from the Pit at 80% off.