Prime-Mover

So you are also familiar with managing a finite amount of resources. If they open up those bottlenecks, which - let's imagine - were only to be opened after some significant event in the world had transpired, and which your companions are set to react to after a certain progression in the story. Then they would have to write all those story elements for the unlikely contingency that some player would try to get that far geographically speaking. They would need assets (art, sound and dialogue) for both prior and post these events. Of course, with enough resources, Obsidian could program for all possible contingencies. But it's much more cost efficient to simply and elegantly lock of certain areas. Fair enough if you don't like this type of game, but as a programmer, you must be able to understand some of the resources involved in something like what you are requesting.

Can't remember if this was promised in the original kickstarter campaign, but if not, it's certainly a nice gesture. Wouldn't mind an opportunity to make another pledge to get a super special edition of the expansion.

I use it for robbing places, and with regards to encounters, I use my rogue to get close enough to see the exact numbers and positions of the enemy. E.g. they may have a caster somewhere within the group of enemies, whom I can't see unless I go further than the edge of FOW.

I don't mind that at all. It's more the odd distribution of stats, like Kana and Durgan's 'int'. It seems like they wrote the chars, gave them stats, and then changed them in beta to make them more playable. I imagine the writers simply weren't that familiar with the attribute and stat system when the wrote the chars, unlike when they worked with DnD with BG and IWD.

Stop right there. I DO consider releasing a product without sufficient testing an intentional attempt to "wrong or mislead" me. Then you're being irrational*, because that is not necessarily intentional. *Not name calling, just a statement of obvious fact.

I think you have issues to address if you become "offended" and not say 'disappointed' if no one made an intentional atteampt to wrong or mislead you. So I imagine that you actually do believe that the amount of bugs is to some extent a deliberate/calculated action by the devs. And I imagine whether you are justified in being offended really comes down to whether Obsidian has put in the appropriate amount of resources (read: money) to test the game, in order to get it into the necessary relevant shape for general consumption. So how do we measure this? I suggest by reference to the current market standard. From my own experience (double click bug, and getting stuck at Readric's), I'd say that this game is just like every other RPG released today. The question then becomes: is that the appropriate level to shoot for by Odsidian, or should they have gone above and beyond the current market standard with regards to testing/QA? It's not clear to me that they should have, especially on such a tight budget, and insofar as we would miss out on other features. So your what you're offended by, I assume, is the current standard of the RPG market. However, part of that blame lies with the market (we the people) being too accepting with regards to bugs, or their willingness to trade off debt for less bugs. Personally, I would rather live with the current standard, which to some extent is a public beta, than the overall product missing relevant features. That being said, I could have done without the castle for less bugs.

No, it's not speculation. They said so in one of the last two backer emails. But of course, if you distrust everything about them, which I suspect, no evidence could convince you otherwise with regards to this silly issue.

Oh, I'm sure he did it all on his own. It's not like Obsidian would've kept the text in the game if he said no. They would've just deleted it altogether without having him rewrite it. Speculation. Beyond that, they already said that they failed to spot it originally, and that it wouldn't have been in the game, had they caught it originally.

It's autopatched, not optional. How many times do I need to say this? It's Steam that does the autopatching, not Obsidian. Use GOG and you can choose yourself whether you install a patch. Steam cant be responsible for what a developer includes in a patch. I'm not going to be buying this game again on GOG just to get an uncensored copy, which if what I think you're implying...that anyone who doesn't like censorship should just buy a second copy off GOG? I never had this issue with another game, never seen another developer engage in this sort of blatant censorship. With regards to your claim, then yes, it is entirely optional. Obsidian does not force you to use steam. You made that decision, so you live with the consequences of it. Oh, but you didn't forsee that this would be an issue? Tough. Caveat emptor. You should have been aware that you wouldn't necessarily like all possible official patches. Now, you may still dislike Obsidian, and feel the need to express this. But that is a seperate issue. This one is on you bud'

Who forces you? How? Who forces players to pre-buff just because it is possible? If they prefer a challenge, they still can go in there without pre-buffing. I still haven't heard any precise reason of this 'no brainer' limiting tactical choice. If pre-buffing was allowed right now, without any other changes, what exactly would force you to go through this, and how it would it be a different tedium from buffing everything if you feel it is necessary in an encounter? I haven't heard a single argument. No one forces you. It's an argument about gaming psychology, and how various mechanics makes the game more or less interesting, and how a clearly superiour strategy delimits the viable choices available. That was what the sword analogy was supposed to draw out. And of course, the player can deliberaltly gimp him/herself by using a sub-optimal strategy, but where's the fun in that? That's as fun as playing chess/checkers with children. And regarding pre-buffing in the current game, well first of all, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, when the effects are so short currently. And if you made them last longer, but changed nothing else, I would imagine the encounters aren't balanced against it.

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter. But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight). With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else. If a choice is obviously supperior to possible alternative, it becomes more or less mandatory, and the alternative is no longer has any a real value. To give a fairly broken analogy: if you are given a +5 longsword at the beginning of BG1, why would you ever be tempted to buy a +1 sword? Pre-buffing has a Diderot effect, making alternative approaches pretty irrelvant, unless to avoid the tedium of buffing. The analogy is truly broken, for it would only apply if you could use this +5 sword only once per rest cycle and only starting at 7th level. Which would be the equivalent for a high-lvl weapon summon. Which would be the exact analogy of something you want to cast before combat starts. An analogy does not need have to be comparable in all respects, just in relevant respects. And the point I was trying to draw out should be clear enough, namely that there is no real alternative to the standard buffing scheme, unless you are deliberately weakening yourself, or you're too tired to go through all the buffs. You said that this view had "no rational basis", but you have yet to show this. The only case where pre-buffing isn't a no-brainer IMXP, is when faced with walk-over opposition. But in most encounters, you used the same few basic buffs, with the exception of challenging encounters, where you use the whole goram tedious list. I get that it's interesting gaming the system, and actually coming up with the optimal buffing scheme,and that challenge is missing when you disable pre-buffing. And removing that challenge is - I imagine - what many malcontempts are really annoyed with. But really, I just don't see the fun of being forced to go through the same exact steps before every encounter the IE way. Maybe there's a better pre-buff approach that would be interesting (suit my notiong of interesting gameplay), but that certainly wasn't it.

Again, this argument has absolutely no rational basis, the opposite is true. The pure possibility to use buff spells outside of combat do NOT make it mandatory, nor even possible to use them for every encounter. But with all spells being possible to cast at all times (which makes more sense from a character agency and immersion point of view anyway), you can decide to buff before an encounter or you can decide against it (either for conserving spells or simply not feeling buffs are necessary for this fight). With buffing spells prohibited out of combat, you simply cannot make that choice. It is a reduction of choice, nothing else. If a choice is obviously supperior to possible alternative, it becomes more or less mandatory, and the alternative is no longer has any a real value. To give a fairly broken analogy: if you are given a +5 longsword at the beginning of BG1, why would you ever be tempted to buy a +1 sword? Pre-buffing has a Diderot effect, making alternative approaches pretty irrelvant, unless to avoid the tedium of buffing.

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please. I suspect there is no truth to it at all. You do not design mechanics like this around the limitations of an engine. If there was such a limitation, Obsidian would have roled their own "saving of the game state" code, which is likely what they did anyway, not for the reasons Gairnulf stated though. It should be stated that the claim is not Gairnulf's, but rather he is simply relaying one of the explanations we have been given at some time or another. I do not believe there is any truth to this at all, just like you say, but it's worth pointing out that Gairnulf is innocent. The rationale is irrelevant because it does not matter what it is, because it was his decision, whether the rationale was good or bad. Like I said, it's been largely covered in the thread. If you want actual quotes specifically from Sawyer on the issue, you're going to have to do some deeper digging on your own, but I can already tell you that you'll find nothing new under the sun, and nothing that hasn't already been covered. This is a somewhat strange reply. If I ask why Josh, or whoever made a decision, the answer to that question clearly does not become less relevant because "it was his decision". Why would it? Obviously someone at Obsidian made the relevant decision, but the reasons for doing so are still up for evaluation, and are not contingent on the fact that someone actually made a decision. Fair enough that you don't feel like elaborating it, but nothing about that makes it less relevant.

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please. What's the long answer? Just to make sure you're not misrepresenting his view. I'm not misrepresenting his views, I am simply parahrasing them. At the end of the day, it was his decision and is attributed to him. At that point, the rationale he used for it in itself is largely irrelevant. That being said, I'm sure most of the "arguments" will crop up in the thread, some have already been mentioned, most of which are, of course, blown out of proportion, and based on how pre-buffing worked in the IE games, which did have some issues - issues that do not exist in PoE, whether you can buff before or after combat. Not sure it constitutes paraphrasing a view to simply say: "Sawyer". Also, why does the fact that a decision is attributed to some guy make the rationale behind the decision irrelvant? Someone asked for the reasons behind the decision (and I'm interested in it too), so clearly that relates to whatever rationale that has been given. Further, you claim that the design decision given is "largely indefensible", which again calls for some degree of elaboration from you, at least for the sake of making your post relevant, but perhaps just as importantly, to exclude misrepresentation.

I read your post like you were saying that there is "no reason at all" as to why they don't allow pre-buffing, and that they used "balance" as an excuse. That certainy implies that you have some knowledge about Obsidian's design decision. So I ask you for the source of that claim. And apparently they posted it in the beta forum. So, did they actually write something like: "we don't have any reason to do x, but we're doing it anyway"? Or are you simply making the assumption that they didn't have any reasons for doing it, because you don't follow/agree with the decision? Further, the painting analogy doesn't hold up, because they actually gave a reason (namely balance, according to you), and didn't just say - "because we need to make a game". Rather, it would be like if the painter had said: "because I this is a good color pattern/color variation". But that's besides the point now. I personally never enjoyed the whole tedious IE pre-buffing to begin with. However, I really dislike dislike the clear distinction between combat and non-combat allowed abilities in PoE. I would prefer if all abilities were usable all the time, but just limit the buffing in some other way, like a choice between permanent toggles, where you could e.g. have a combination of, say, three different abilities toggled at the time, all the time, and then pick and chose between them, depending on the context/encounter. The Chanter is e.g. pretty close to that notion.

It is not arbitrary if it is believed to unbalance the game. That's everything but arbitrary. Also, got a link?

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please. What's the long answer? Just to make sure you're not misrepresenting his view.

The first two off my list O.k. I'm just not getting it then. Did he promise not to mess with the classic formula, or did he promise to leave it in? Further, in my experience you can play both with the classic formula, or with one of your own choosing, depending difficulty and on where you are on the learning curve. It certainly does not constitute a broken promise as I see it. Secondly, if I recall, he said you could complete the game with any party combination, even a gimmick party of say just rogues or chanters. Which still seems true depending on your skill level and difficulty setting. At any rate, I fail to see anything that constitutes a broken promise, I mean, unless one is hellbent on construeing it as such.

Eliminating the RPG trinity of tank/dps/healer. You pretty much need gimmicks to play this game. I feel like playing an MMO actually. Balance between professions. You take Cipher/Chanter/Druid/Fighter and faceroll the game on hard, while taking Monk/Rogue/Ranger/Barbarian gives you cancer. Over-engineered the combat systems. This wasn't a promise but w/e. There is a dozen combat conditions, each boasting 4-5 effects no one can memorize. Making every stat important, I'm happy to say this was fulfilled. Now intelligence matters for my Barbarian , while Might can be important for a Wizard. just some off the top of my head I'm sorry, perhaps I was not clear - entirely my fault. Let me clarify: what promises has Josh Sawyer Broken?

This sounds really odd. They should work just like bows, and don't require ammo. I don't currently have a ranger in my party, so I can't tell you whether there is some odd weapon-restriction here, but it would be really wierd.

↑ Mind elaborating on what promises Josh Sawyer has broken? And further, why this should be on that list?

Why would people start by assuming that it was fake? Was the bull**** anti-tombstone movement fake? Completely different issues, as one is part of the plot, and the other, is not (rhyme intended). ...And you're guilty of statutory rape in the first degree

No. Huh, so a lot of people in this thread/forum were just looking for an excuse to get their outrage on, and pounced on the chance? Huh, so why has this thread not been locked yet?

Can someone update me on this: did someone find one tweet from some random person which was critical of some element of POE, which people are up in arms about? Or am I missing something? Is there some great political movement to change this part of the story?

Give it a f*cking rest