Arsene Lupin

Yeah, I am 100% in favor of boob-plate. I like being able to tell male and female apart, even when decked out in full plate armor. Realism has to play second to the needs of the game--in this case, easily distinguishable silhouettes. Visual design matters, yo. I draw the line at "skimpy" armor, though. A rogue or a mage can show show some midriff, that's fine, but anyone else? Noooooope.

You're nuts, Sagani and Pallegina were awesome. Easily the top-tier companions, along with Eder.

For all that we know of animancy and the "gods," do we really know *anything* about *where* soul energy originates? Like, in the real world, we can trace every bit of energy and matter back to the Big Bang, but in Eora it seems that they're really only aware of soul energy in terms of its movement--passing through ardra pillars, splitting and twining and manifesting in newborns, and so on. It'd be kind of like looking at the energy systems here on Earth while ignoring the Sun--like drawing up food-cycle charts without knowing anything about photosynthesis. Which could be a ripe area for a sequel to explore--because, hell, maybe there are *bigger* gods in the setting that create the soul energy or (more to my tastes) a greater natural explanation for the how their universe works.

Well, that can probably be hand-waved with Watcher abilities, right? I mean, you're able to understand dialog from soul-memories in-game, that wouldn't logically be spoken in *any* contemporary language.

I'm of two minds. PoE (and its IE predecessors) had some evidently unfixable pathing issues, that would frequently send one or two party members frantically wobbly back and forth trying to get in range of a foe. A problem that was only exacerbated by animal companions and summons. Decreasing the party size a bit presumably prevents that from happening (at least as frequently). The problem is, there's more to an RPG than combat. Fewer characters in the party mean fewer banters and fewer opportunities for companions to interject into conversations with NPCs. If Obsidian can deliver companions that are *more* active than the first game, with more dialog and more banter and more interjections, this isn't a problem. But if not....

It doesn't matter that he had a reason to tail you later, he had no reason to join you *at the time*. The actual text has him joining you because you're off to see a watcher, and he wants to meet with a watcher, ignoring the fact that you *are* a watcher. It's handled very clumsily, and the "twist" later on doesn't change that. Compare that to Yoshimo, another character who infiltrates the party as a spy. He actually has a good reason to join the party: you're in the middle of a deadly dungeon, and are more likely to survive if you work together. Aloth is much more like, well, all of the Baldur's Gate NPCs that weren't named Imoen, Jaheira or Khalid. Just some random mook you see on the road who decides to join you, just for the hell of it.

There is a Twin Elms ending slide. It is called ORLAN BABY!!!! Also guys complaining about instant villain reveal... You do realize the jesus christ holy lord of all CRPG's you guys worship called BGII opens with the very first NPC you meet in the game being the villain of the game? No kidding, the very first NPC. So complaining about Eternity revealing the villain after a short intro segment isn't really valid. At least I had to deal with Sparfel and the fat innkeeper first in the other two games. Are you talking about me? My "complaint" had nothing to do with the game's narrative--in my game, a bug resulted in some Dialog from Eder popping up before it should have, referencing events that hadn't happened yet. This included the identity of the man you were seeking: Thaos. But even so, your comparison to Baldur's Gate 2 is... just ass-backwards. These are two different games with different stories. The plot of Pillars of Eternity is literally *about* discovering who the man in the ruins was, and then hunting him down. His identity is, in fact, a plot point; therefore a bug that SPOILS this plot point is, in fact, something worth talking about.

Eh... kind of. A privateer *is* a pirate, it's just a pirate in the employ of a government. It's not really a meaningful distinction to the people getting robbed. Historically they were supposed to only target merchant vessels hailing from specific nations, but in practice weren't all that discerning.

Well, I mean, ideally *every* character should have a reason for joining you. Ideally a good reason--in PoE, for example, Aloth joins you just for the hell of it.

Yes, I've tried it. No, I don't consider knockdown a debuff. Nor do I count any effects that are part of weapons/armor. So, basically, it's just avoiding buff/debuff spells and abilities. For example, abilities that temporarily increase health or endurance or accuracy (like Infuse with Vital Essence); those that apply negative status (and only negative statuses) like Fetid Caress, those that increase or decrease stats (IE any +/i perception or might or whatever) and so on. The idea being that you ONLY use the active spells/abilities that deal direct damage or restoration abilities/spells.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I was never all that involved in the Watcher's story--Thaos gives you superpowers, so you decide to hunt him down because maybe you might go insane one day? Not really a strong motivation. He didn't kill or kidnap anyone you (the character or the player) care about. Which leads me to Deadfire, which *seems* to have a similarly weak premise--big monster attacks you, so you have to attack the big monster back. There's no reason for the character or the player to care. The Od Nua statue is a cool visual, but that's about it. I can't really comment on the lack of a twist in PoE, because my game had some buggy dialog which *ruined* several twists. Like I have no idea how you're supposed to figure out Thaos is the enemy you're after, because Eder just randomly told me one day. The present-day was certainly suffering from a lack of any twist--maybe something like Thaos conspiring with the Glanfathans to undermine the Dyrwood in preparation for an invasion could have worked? Then Twin Elms could have more of a Baldur's Gate feel, where you enter into the city just as that alliance is disintegrating, and you have to help the one fact of Glanfathans that don't like Thaos against the faction that still does. That said, I did like the past-life twist---when it was revealed that you were just a random mook Inquisitor, whose soul got warped because you happened to encounter the real "hero" of that era. That was cool--the reveal that you were a spy who betrayed an old friend/teacher was neat. It just came way too late in the story to mean much (literally right before the final boss!). Watching the documentary, it's clear there was a bit of a time-crunch, so I can understand why things weren't more fleshed out. I'm certainly hoping for better from Deadfire, as they won't have as many excuses if the narrative is lacking. ========== Now, back to BG1... the reason why the plot was set up that way was to accommodate the player being able to go in any direction. Basiclally, there are three leads to Sarevok depending on whether you go North, East or South from Candlekeep. They all point to each other because you can theoretically encounter them in any order. (Then you go back west to Candlekeep, which allows you to access the end game area of Baldur's Gate proper). That inter-relation maybe helped make Sarevok's plan more complex than it really was, because each region was independent. In Pillars, you only really see Thaos' plans in action in the capital, so there's no real illusion of complexity. Thaos' plans were also more mystical, which didn't really require a lot of, well, staff. This is one thing I really love about Baldur's Gate--the iron shortage is a very simple, secular thing. It makes sense from every angle, and it requires a lot of personnel which gives the player lots of opportunities to learn more about Sarevok's operation. This constantly makes it feel like you're facing off against Sarevok, even though he has virtually no screen-time. In PoE, however, Thaos is effectively absents, and he has no goons to face off against aside from that brief bit in Act 2, so it doesn't really feel like he's doing much against you. I suppose you could say the Hollowborn thing is similar to the Iron Crisis, but the Hollowborn problem really only affects NPCs, whereas the Iron Crisis affected both NPCs *and* the player, which made it feel more relevant.

Those kinds of helmets existed, usually depicting the face of a monster or animal. The mask part was usually like a face plate that could be detatched from the helmet proper, probably because it was more decorative than functional. (IE the bumps of a face are going to *catch* a weapon instead of deflecting it--same reason why "boob plate" is a bad idea).

Well, if you folks are into adventure games, I *strongly* recommend Oxenfree. It's got a really cool dialog system that's able to accommodate a bunch of different things--like running away from another character mid-conversation, or interrupting a character by responding while he/she is talking. Great voice acting, too.

No buffs/debuffs. Makes the combat simpler and more difficult. I've done the SL1/naked challenge run for Dark Souls, and it was pretty fun. Not sure if something similar might be possible for PoE (IE never level up, never change starting equipment, etc.)

I think part of that's understandable given that it was designed to be a successor to Baldur's Gate. BG1's narrative was *extremely* simple, with much less depth, and fewer "turns." And it hit pretty much the same beats as Pillars -- bad guy shows up and does bad guy stuff, you go looking for revenge/answers, as you search for him you discover his evil plot, and finally confront him deep underground. The only real option you have is whether or not you're killing the bad guy because you want to stop his evil plot, or because you want revenge. The bulk of the game was spent exploring large wilderness areas and completely sidequests that had little direct relevance to the main plot. Given that BG2 was much more ambitious, I hope Deadfire will follow suit. Though I am a bit apprehensive. Most games that start like Deadfire starts tend to have the same plot--Big Bad attacks, you're hopeless overwhelmed, so you wander around the world to build power or find a special weapon, to go back and kill the Big Bad before it kills you. Pretty rote stuff. TBH that initial premise is, by far, the most unappealing aspect of Deadfire's pitch. ... And on the subject of BG1, anyone else notice the same immersion-breaking high-INT dialog as BG1? In BG1, there's an encounter with an Ogre in Baldur's Gate where you're able to talk your way out of a fight by picking several consecutive "intellectual" dialog options that only appear if you have a high intelligence score. These options are are extremely grandiloquent, and fairly long. In terms of style, tone and length they are completely unlike any other options in the game--and Pillars does the exact same thing near the end. Really cool little touch if, as I'm assuming, it was intentional.

Yakuza 0 and Torment: Tides of Numenera for me this week. Finally finishing up Yakuza 0, and starting TToN in lieu of DOS2, while I wait for the big patch.

well, I gave Warhammer 2 a shot. After the godawful Rome 2, my expectation were pretty low. Visually, I'm pretty disappointed. On anything but the highest settings, it looks like ass. Gameplay seems to be more interesting and varied than the typical Total War experience, so I'll keep playing, but the dialog is soooo poorly written, I dunno how long it'll keep my interest. At least the UI is a bit more workable than Rome 2's. On the one hand, it kind of sucks that the title of Best Total War Game currently held by Shogun 2 is still safe from challenge. But on the other... I guess it means I don't need to upgrade my bottlenecking GPU any time soon.

Yup. I'm gonna try manually deleting all of the game files (now that I've finished my playthrough) and see if it'll work w/ a fresh install. EDIT: well, it finally worked for me. Did a reboot of my my PC and re-downloaded the mod archive, too, just in case. No idea what was going wrong.

I'm assuming the Companions will have more than just a few interactions with the player....

Hm... then is there any other option to disable the auto-saving? By the end of my game, I was waiting 20-30 seconds every time. I didn't really notice many bugs in my playthrough, so if the IE Mod doesn't mess w/ the autosaving thing, it's not necessary. (I mean, it still sucks that it won't work, but I really only care about fixing the loading times).

Right, but it doesn't convey any meaning in this context. You may as well you "canvas" as an adjective. Or "papier mache."

The only thing I don't like about DOS2 is that they made the transparency circle much smaller compared to DOS1 (that halo around the player character that renders any terrain elements between the camera and character invisible), which is super distracting. Really hope they change that in a patch, or add in an option to adjust the radius in the menu.

I have no idea what you people mean when you say "anime." It's a noun, not a verb. Anyway, I really like the idea of Ydwin becoming a companion in an expansion. Or, rather, I like the idea of *all* of the sidekicks becoming companions in the expansion, rather than getting *new* companions. Especially if the additional banter/dialogs can be side-loaded into the game.

I kinda feel like starting a new game of PoE while waiting for DOS2's big patch to drop, but I definitely don't want to deal with those godawful loading times again. I'm told that the IE mod fixes the problem (by disabling auto-saves), so I'm trying to install it... with little luck. I've followed the instructions (and double and triple and quadruple-checked) but the patchworklauncher.exe will not run. The windows task manager shows it running in the background for all of a half second before vanishing. I've tried multiple compatibility modes and privilege levels, to no success. Maybe it just doesn't work with Windows 10 and/or 64-bit operating systems? I dunno. The point is, it's not working. So: is there any way to bypass the patchwork launcher and install IE Mod manually? Or an alternative means of disabling the auto-saves?

This is weird. I feel like I'm violating some unspoken taboo here, so seldom do we see anyone--in the community, in the media, in the industry--talk about western RPGs and their Japanese cousins in the same breath. Anyway, I'm excited for Deadfire, and I'd like to discuss some very special JRPGs that I think could provide interesting and valuable examples for the overall design of Obsidian's impending epic. I hope you'll indulge me on this journey. First, a quick refresher on Deadfire's premise: In Deadfire, we'll be captaining a ship and exploring the Deadfire archipelago. There will be an active world map (similar to that of Fallout 1/2, or more recently Wasteland 2) for us to explore, discovering and visiting the islands we find in whichever order we want. Presumably this will allow for some nonlinear storytelling, as the narrative beats we encounter will depend on the order we visit each island. To use Lord of the Rings as an example, something like saving Theoden from Saruman's curse might be accomplished *before* meeting Elrond in Rivendell. That kind of thing. So, on to the JRPGs. Dragon Quest VII follows a similar premise--the story begins with you discovering a sailing ship and exploring a world that consists of many islands of varying sizes that have been isolated from one another for centuries. The over-arching story is pretty simple: long ago, the Almighty fought a pitched battle with the Demon King and was defeated. Your task is to travel to each island and save them from the Demon King's minions (there's also a big time travel element, where you go between past and future states of the world, but it's not relevant here) and eventually find and defeat the Demon King himself. But that's just at the macro level--each individual island has its own story that is very self-contained. These stories are never about the demon king, but rather the specific demons plaguing each islands, and the often tragic fates of the people living there. This makes the game feel more like a collection of loosely-related short stories than a novel. Each island offers a new, self-contained story with a new cast of characters. When you land on an island, you get a *new* story, and when you leave the island, that story is *resolved.* And this is an approach I hope Deadfire takes as well. I'm not saying we should *never* end up having quests that send us from island to island, but rather that I hope those quests are not the norm. Baldur's Gate II took a similar approach, making each region feel like a self-contained D&D module. Romancing SaGa is the other game I want to look at. To date, it remains the *best* example I have ever seen of non-linear storytelling (multiple protagonists, multiple story routes for each protagonist, and a persistent world where big events will happen even if the player isn't there to affect them). There's a whole heckuva lot I could say about it, but for now I'd like to focus on just one aspect: location. in Romancing Saga, there is a "world story" that plays out--various events happen in each of the major cities and nations at various times. If the player is present--at the right place, at the right time--he or she can participate. For example, City A could be attacked by pirates. If the player arrives in time, he or she could fight off the pirate attack, save the city, and be rewarded by the king; but if the player arrives too late, he or she could arrive to find the king missing and the city destroyed by fire. No, I'm not suggesting Deadfire try to make a persistent world narrative to the same degree--that's be waaaaaay too much work--but wouldn't it be interesting if the player's starting position were--at least to a degree--randomized? So that, for example, the first two or three islands the player discovers once he or she starts exploring the world aren't always the same two or three islands? Like, there could be a starting island to serve as the tutorial area to introduce to players to the setting, and have the initial narrative beats (where you acquire your own ship) and then once you leave, you could encounter a "storm" that deposits you to a random or semi-random part of the world-map (depending on how combat leveling/scaling works, I suppose). This starting island doesn't even have to be in the Deadfire--it could be a port city in the Dyrwood, as you make your hasty escape. Alright, one last game I want to point at: Total War Shogun 2. Also known as the last great Total War game (sigh). Don't worry, I'm almost done here. Specifically, I want to point out Shogun 2's world map: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/896638219564697346/E49088D8C1C92ADC60ADCFAD370F1185EF660F9A/ That's the "fog of war." Rather than a simple black background indicating the "unexplored" regions of the map, they have a hand-drawn map. It's a really cool effect, no? And I'd love to see Deadfire go in a similar direction. Medieval and Renaissance maps are, well, really cool looking. Especially sea maps! It would be really cool to see something similar in Deadfire--an imaginative, hand-drawn map of the "world" that fades away to the "real" world map as you explore it. And, well, yeah. That's it. Those are three games I hope Obsidian takes some inspiration from. What about you? Have any games (aside from other, similar CRPGs) that you think could be valuable to look at going into a game like Deadfire? Before I leave, though, have some awesome old sea maps: http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com/legacy_blog/Whales-Olaus-38.3.jpg http://images.faena.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/07/hic-sunt-dracons-interior-2.jpg http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SeaMonsterCvanDuzer017.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s04GCvW4O80/Ugf0g5w3zGI/AAAAAAAAI1g/sQpIwDR-LI0/s640/Sea+Monsters+(C+van+Duzer)+016.jpg https://img.purch.com/h/1000/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA1Ni82MTAvb3JpZ2luYWwvc2VhLXNlcnBlbnQtYXR0YWNrcy1zaGlwLmpwZw==