WotanAnubis

I quite like Achievements, or at least those that nudge me towards exploring or doing things a bit differently. For example, since I don't much care for the combat side of things, in New Vegas I might just have stuck to regular guns for all my playthroughs because they are familiar, work well and do what I want them to do. But since there are achievements for using other kinds of weapons, I decided to try some different character builds to use different weapons that I otherwise would not have. Turns out I really like laser guns. Who knew?

I've come to the slow, reluctant realization that the only time in gaming where shapeshifting won't be inferior to the point of uselessness will be when someone makes a werewolf game where shapeshifting is the primary mechanic.

Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires. Because sometimes I just want to mow through a bunch of dudes and conquer China.

I've heard there were really only 3: Man versus Man Man versus Nature Man versus Himself

For me, Septerra Core's the one to beat. Which shouldn't be too difficult, that game had issues. Of course Baldur's Gate 2 stands out to me for being unintuitive to the point of impenetrability. I only figured out that lower armour scores are better because it wouldn't make sense for leather to offer more protection than steel. And if a spell wasn't either "this does damage" or "this heals" then I just couldn't figure out why I would even want it. Sure, I probably could figure it all out if I wanted to put in the effort, but I don't want to put in a lot of effort to just grasp the basics of a system. And yet you learned English!? The king of unintuitive convoluted Latin languages? (assumption that located in the Netherlands means you are Dutch). I personally suggest that it is worth the effort, also, detailed spellcasting is not the "basics of the system" but rather the complicated nightmare that adds to the wonderful plethora of tactical possibilities :D I've been watching cartoons and playing videogames since I was a kid. When you're that young, learning new languages is still sort of easy. You just kind of absorb that stuff. Civilization was especially helpful in expanding my burgeoning vocabulary. Which is why I think it's such a shame cartoons these days get dubbed over.

Is it possible to miss companions (like how Raul was pretty easy to miss)? Is it possible to lock yourself out of a companion's sidequest by accident (Raul again)? Will I be able to decorate my Stronghold in a variety of ways? Does war ever change?

For me, Septerra Core's the one to beat. Which shouldn't be too difficult, that game had issues. Of course Baldur's Gate 2 stands out to me for being unintuitive to the point of impenetrability. I only figured out that lower armour scores are better because it wouldn't make sense for leather to offer more protection than steel. And if a spell wasn't either "this does damage" or "this heals" then I just couldn't figure out why I would even want it. Sure, I probably could figure it all out if I wanted to put in the effort, but I don't want to put in a lot of effort to just grasp the basics of a system.

Sentient spiders? I'd play that. Or hyenas and other animals really. I just like a good amount of unexpected. Still I am liking the CC of PoI overall, there is a lot worse out there. Hyenas are surprisingly interesting animals - although maybe I just think that because of my violent dislike of lions ("Kings of the Animal Kingdom". Pfah. Only in the 'swanning about and not actually doing anything' kind of way). If it ever it becomes possible to have a hyena pet, I will take it and never switch it out for anything else. Not even some pig from outer space.

Is it certain that at some point your character can pick a patron deity? Sure, the gods definitely exist and they even reach out and touch people, but I don't recall seeing anything about players choosing one to worship above all others. Anyways, I still intent for my first character to be an Earth Godlike Druid. So I'll probably go for the most nature-y god I can find.

I don't even have that many hours on Fallout: New Vegas. Never mind the beta, which for me clocks in at... Let me see... 78 minutes.

I usually decide based on which voice actor I like better. But since in this game voice acting isn't going to be much of a consideration, I'll probably play female.

Avellone still has a whole lot of Arcanum to play before he should be allowed to play PoE.

Going with a Nature Godlike first, probably with elf parentage. So many people voting for human, though. I'm kind of disappointed. Not that I have anything against humans, some of my best friends are human, but they're already everywhere. Almost every game out there forces you to play human. I'd have thought that people would've got a bit tired of all humans all the time and choose something different in those rare cases the opportunity presents itself.

Once I can start playing, I'll start playing. And then hope the first patch isn't going to break my savegames.

Figured I might as well throw in my two cents. In my rather simplistic view there are 3 kinds of people who would like to play an Obsidian/Infinity Engine game: Those who play it for the combat, those play it for the story (& world & characters) and those who play it for both. Those who don't much care for the story can just ram that mouse button and get back to the fighting ASAP. Those who play it for the story don't have that luxury. They have to learn the combat mechanics, at least on some basic level, because if they don't they die and then they can't continue with the parts of the game they actually care about. I have no problem at all with Hard being Hard. But I also feel quite strongly that Easy should be Easy because combat is just one part of the experience and, as such, should not stand in the way of people enjoying all the the other parts of the experience. Immersing myself in a new and interesting world is so much more valuable to me than brilliantly positioning and controlling my team so that they can flawlessly battle a group of beetles. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

I hope maintenance costs get automatically deducted from tax income and you'll get warned when the costs get larger than the income. And that, if you do have to pay out of pocket, you can just 'donate' a large amount of money to a treasury so you won't have to worry about, say, the next ten payments.

I've only got into one combat, with the group near the river, and it quickly turned into a chaotic mess. The rather drab colours of everyone combined with the fact that the circles around people's feet indicating whether they are friend or foe were difficult to make out meant that the conflict was little more than an incomprehensible ball where I couldn't tell who was doing what to whom or even who was involved. I noticed the term "Boar Companion" popping up here and there, but was completely unable to actually see any boars. In the end, I won only because I was playing on Easy and not because I had any idea what I was doing or what was going on, because I didn't. The Priest and my own character still went down. So I think combat might need some polishing so that at least it becomes more clear who's who and what's what.

Druid for when the game actually comes out. So for the beta I don't want to play a Druid. So probably some other kind of Mage. Or Ranger or something.

It's here. It starts at about 1 hour and 36 minutes.

Only Baldur's Gate 2. And the combat was my least favourite part of that game, too. But the important thing is that if even the developers get brutalised on Easy, I can't help but suspect the difficulty might be too high.

Hmm. I play role playing games to experience an interesting story in an interesting world. I don't play role playing games to get repeatedly slaughtered by random beetles even on Easy. So the Gamescom stream was rather a big letdown, really.

"Hmm," I thought, "the livestream starts in about an hour. Let's play some XCOM before it starts." And then I played XCOM all throughout the Pillars presentation. Should've known that would happen.

I think people wanted to play Qunari because they're not Human, Elf or Dwarf. The standard, generic fantasy races are pretty played out by this point, so there will be at least some people who latch on to those races that are new. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

Sawyer studied history, right? So I think it'd be nice if we got an RPG set in an actual historic period and preferably one that doesn't already suffer from media over-exposure. Just hanging out, exploring a time and place in history most people likely to play Obsidian RPGs know little about. Something like that anyway. Sci-fi and Gothic Horror could be fun too.

So you pick your basic background during character creation and then get to flesh it out more as you're playing? Sweet.