TSBasilisk

Well, we do know Obsidian's been working on another publisher-backed deal, and M&M is up their alley. Less than a week until we get some juicy details. Personally, I've only played 2 and 6, both of which I enjoyed at the time. I still remember the encounter tune from 2...

Publishers have no control over what retailers say at their own locations and websites. As such, it has been the policy of many retailers to set release dates without any verifying information in order to drive up preorders. While some are nice and alert people if the date is pushed back, most tend to be rather lax in this regard. Also: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/11/05/south-park-stick-of-truth-delayed-again.aspx The beginning of November revealed it was being pushed back around two months. THQ's collapse only made things worse. So please stop blaming the game and Obsidian for what completely unaffiliated retailers did or did not do.

New post about types of solo- and mulitplayer types So two types of single-player setups exist, with the online variant sounding more interesting as the world will be more dnyamic(houses appearing, changing, etc.)

Apparently, they've brought Tracy Hickman on board as lead story designer.

Shovel Knight Another ode to the 8-bit classics... and shovels

Slitherine gets Warhammer license, mentions their desire to make a strong turn-based strategy game

I think short of $4 million. --- With regards to pet rewards, wild boars may be substituted at the discretion of the company.

That was Series A round funding. The money raised went into building the company and producing initial offerings; it couldn't last forever. Either they shopped SotA around and found no interest, or didn't want to risk it on publisher demands.

He apparently wanted to strike out on his own now that The Cave is finished. No signs of any drama or politicking behind this as of yet.

An NPC chanter who wants to chronicle your adventures, and takes up residence at your stronghold. After large quests you can tell him your story. If you choose to lie to cover up aspects you don't want known, your reputation will improve marginally. If you tell the whole truth, it will improve slightly more, but your standing with any aggrieved parties will worsen. The chanter also acts as your main method of learning how you are viewed as a person - generous, greedy, mercenary, etc.

Found some more info about the combat system in an RPS article. To summarize: When you learn a combat skill, it is stored in a sort of digital deck of cards. When entering a combat situation, the deck will be shuffled and you'll be dealt a hand of potential moves; some might be general moves, and some might be specific to your current situation (having a chance at the first strike, for example). I'll have to see how that actually works to understand how well it can work in combat.

Civatas' entire project amounts to: Do you hate EA and want SimCity? Give us your moneyz!

Some will do a breakdown of expected cash usage of what they receive.

I think Torment had an early advantage primarily due to their heavy advertising of the future pitch. They got the word out through multiple publications well in advance about what they were doing, so more people were already interested and ready to pledge. In the short term this leads to a large initial surge, but it may also mean in the long-term there will be less of a surge at the end, and possible slower growth in between.

For the talk about the combat system, they discussed it during their live feed. Richard expressly did not want to go the Diablo or WoW route. They're currently working on a design that's similar to card battle games, using runes to allow you to activate abilities.

The hack'n'slash part is temporary until they flesh out the combat system, I thought.

It's more like Journey, in that people will be chosen to drop into the same server as you. Preference will be given to your friends, after them being people the game believes you'll find like-minded based on quest choices and such. The number of people who can be in the same instance will be limited like Guild Wars. You can also choose to play completely offline. I think your house will change across all servers when you modify it. People can visit it and, if you have a shop, an NPC version of your character will act as a trader on your behalf. That's why ownership is important.

This one apparently lets you ship your sewage to other players' cities, so you can piss off more than just the NPCs. --- Pretty much every review I've seen, player and critic alike, says it's a great game when it's running. The problem is that EA apparently didn't think it would be this popular and so lacked the infrastructure for the sudden demand. Not allowing preloads only made it worse, as the servers then had to cope with all the downloads as well. Polygon originally gave it a 9.5 based on their review copy, which was given to them before the commercial release. They've since downgraded it to an 8 and then a 4 due solely to these launch issues; and Maxis says that's entirely fair.

To me, the drop-in mechanic sounds a bit like Journey. You can play it alone, or have other people appear and they'll impact the outcome as well. It's a good way to include the good of an MMO (encountering unknown people with their own objectives) while avoiding the bad (overcrowding in questing areas, static world).

The truth about pre-ordering from a store is that unless the publisher has announced a release date, the store is blatantly guessing. The store clerks have no idea what's going on, and their executives are essentially pulling out a dart board and using it to predict launch dates. Why? It drives up pre-orders, which means more money to the store immediately. Until the publisher announces an actual date, ALWAYS take a stated launch date with a grain of salt. To your actual questions: 1.) Games are almost always "When It's Ready". THQ's collapse only made the issue worse, as an auction had to be arranged for the publishing rights, they had to be transferred, and all the issues in changing publisher then needed to be straightened out. 2.) Again, more or less BS from the game store execs and their dartboard. Ubisoft will want this out relatively fast; they spent a fair bit of money on the game and won't see any back until published. As for wanting it to be next-gen, I think it's too late in development to justify the switch-over. 3.) That's the game store here, not Obsidian or Ubisoft. If it is confirmed to be next-gen, which I find doubtful, you can probably swap over. If the game store refuses to swap it over, demand a refund and take your business elsewhere. So long as it's the same store you made the pre-order at and you have the receipt, they will have to refund you. 4.) The claimed money issues lie with THQ, not Ubisoft or Obsidian. They declared their objections satisfied at the auction, so the transfer has gone through. It's Ubisoft that's holding up the publishing.

EA continues to flail desperately after the Simplosion

Well, I don't think this will break any Kickstarter records like Torment, but just under five hours in it's already brought in a quarter of the needed funds, so I suspect it'll make the distance. I'll wait until I can get a look at the video before I decide one way or the other, but right now I'm leaning toward funding.

And then used the name for a digital distribution tool years later. So, can't watch the video atm but gave that Polygon article a read and... dammit, that actually sounds like it'd be fantastic, if they can nail everything they're hoping to. Reactive game world, actual impacts for fail/succeeding in a mission, PvP that is incorporated into the story, an antagonist who doesn't just sit on his rear... ugh, why are there so many interesting RPGs getting Kickstarted, I have almost no time for basic biological needs as it is!

Polygon article So the multiplayer component sounds like some mixture of Guild Wars instancing and Journey pop-in.

The $10 pledge has me chuckling; gonna take a look.