Katarack21

Yup. Sure am. Though I don't know about "tardigrade", I'm not immune to radiation or anything.

Etc. is used to indicate the logical progression of a list; in that sentence, it references the list of media about which reviews can be written; the definition uses "written" as the default median in which reviews occur and provides no other form for such. Again, it's a strict reading which clearly doesn't follow the spirit of the definition, but it does point out that dictionaries are not the be-all of word meaning.

Just below Grand Theft Auto V. What do you guys think is the the likelihood of it climbing further?

Burn!

So then answer me again why we need to make this console command a checkbox in the options? Do you really think I'm asking for them to just add a buggy developers tool checkbox and call it a day? Because that's a hell of a leap and something I never said. Not only that, but I never said I want the rest option. I've simply explained the difference between cheating and using a game option deliberately put in place by the developers *for you to use*. It's like, if they hadn't provide the toggable option, then it would be cheating to use console commands to unlock the stash. But it's not cheating to click a checkbox in the options and play the game.

Necromancy is common in the world of Eora.

I'm not sure that is factual correct with the definition of reviewer. merriam-webster: 1. One that reviews; especially : a writer of critical reviews Oxford: 1. A person who writes critical appraisals of books, plays, movies, etc., for publication. 1.1 A person who formally assesses or examines something with a view to changing it if necessary: a rent reviewer I do not see how reviewer status is defined by ones impact on the sales or profits of a work. Well the Oxford definition is at least clearly off; by a strict reading, they claim that reviews can only occur when using the written word, which is clearly not correct.

A flurry of activity and then silence for days.

I'm looking at it #4 in my list, as well. #1 in the RPG top sellers. :-D

To sum up: Whine, whine, whine, give me it now, whine, whine, NOW, whine.

Depends on what class and build he's talking about. I'll be the first one to say that one should go for what they want and aim for the RP, but if he's going for a traditional wizard and referring to Perception, saying that Perception is good for combat for him is ignorant at best and deceptive at worst. My first playthrough is going to be as a Cipher. I haven't quite nailed down the build yet, but I like my cipher pikeman idea, honestly.

Indeed, talk about "No true Scotsman...", I think we can safely say that Katarack's definition of "What is an RPG" is pretty much specific to Katarack and no-one else. It's certainly not broadly accepted, because RPG is a very wide and all-embracing term in computer games, rather than a very narrow and specific one. Every CRPG I can think of that's actually good at anything sacrifices one area that he highlights in order to succeed in another. What I think is particularly funny, looking at things historically, is this insistence that the ME games are merely "shooters with RPG elements", when pretty much every RPG on the market is some genre of game "with RPG elements" (including the IE series - RTS with RPG elements, Fallout - Turn-based tactical game with RPG elements, then later "shooter with RPG elements", and so on and so forth). Back on topic, if we want non-backers to buy this, and importantly, to go on and buy the expansion and/or sequels, the main things needed are: 1) For the game to be good fun for people who aren't hardcore Infinity Engine-series fans. Some of them will be people who played the original IE games, and have fond memories of them, but were never "serious" players. Others will never have played them, and just like RPGs in general, whether it's Skyrim or ME or whatever that was their actual entry point. 2) Publicity. Twitch streaming will help, a lot, but word-of-mouth is going to be the killer. If the game is good enough, and accessible enough (which isn't necessarily super-accessible, but accessible enough), then we can happily go around recommending it to every even slight RPG fan we know, which is a hell of a lot more people than backed it or even seem to have heard of it. I mean, most of my closer friends at least like RPGs - many have played or still play P&P RPGs, for example. Most of them seem to have heard of the new Torment game, but almost none of them seem to be aware of Pillars of Eternity, outright confusing it with Torment, and not knowing anything about it. If the game I get on the 26th is good enough and accessible enough that they'll like it, that's going to change, real soon! If it isn't, though, I will wait until it is - it might be that I have to wait until the party member AI goes in before recommending it to some people, for example. Better that they wait and have a good experience, than get it on release and be pissed off. Focuses on one or the other, they don't completely get rid of it. Genres are a thing, man, and while the borders of genre's by nature blur--thus hybrid game styles like Mass Effect and System Shock--that doesn't mean that an RPG isn't very clear when you see one, or that an RPG and an FPS aren't the same thing. That's the very reason that Pillars of Eternity is being made--because modern AAA "RPG's" are hybrid genre messes. Notice I didn't call System Shock 2 an RPG either, even though it's one of my favorite games of all time. To say every rpg just has "RPG elements" is ridiculous, as is your claim that the IE games are RTS with RPG elements. Those games do exist--Dawn of War and Warcraft 3 are shining examples, and clearly very distinct games from Baldur's Gate 2. The IE-style games aren't even tactical RPG's, really, at least not in the sense that most people who use the term mean. They're really RTwP games, which are their own particular style of gameplay which can be applied to many genres and which emphasizes tactical combat as an addition to the normal features of whatever genre the game might be.

Obsidian is headquartered on the West Coast of the USA. It's barely 8:00 AM on the 23rd here.

Wow, no need to get personal... I'm just giving examples of how games that are widely considered as RPGs wouldn't even match your definition of RPG. If you don't regard these games as RPGs, then fine, but I just fail to see how you would be disappointed about ME not being an RPG if you wouldn't even consider those other games RPGs. I think you get my point. Did you really expect ME:3 to be more RPG than, let's say, Planescape? In BG1 and BG2, choices were mostly minor and didn't have any real impact on the game other than perma-deaths and a reputation score. And even in BG2 you can't have a say in anything relating to the game's critical path. You can not convince Yoshimo to not betray you. You can not refuse to help Suldanessalar even though Irenicus has a damn good point. You can not really team up with Bodhi other them temporarily. You can not decide to not care about Imoen. Heck, you can't even be properly evil, even if the game has a reputation score suggesting it. The only chapter that is not linear is chapter 2/3 (which is essentially the same chapter). But I regard this chapter more as a bunch of completely story-unrelated sidequests. And it is. You can, in fact, not care about Imoen. You can't not go to Spellhold, but you don't have to go there for Imoen. You can tell everybody and their grandma that all you care about is getting Irenicus. You can not care two bits about Imoen, never let her back into your party, tell her these facts, even let her get killed. That's a thing. As I said, the game is semi-linear; I never claimed it's a sandbox. The crit path happens in order, but how you go about it is entirely up to you. ME2 was on rails; the side missions are *literally* a path from the beginning to the end with a couple turns but no deviations and then back to the ship. The original ME that wasn't so; in ME2 it's a direct result of EA limiting the game design from the beginning for console purposes. I never said I don't regard the games you listed as RPG's. In fact, I've said quite the opposite. Planescape: Torment can be argued to some extent, as it is in many ways a visual novel (800,000 lines of text!) but is also simultaneously truly a ROLE playing game, in that you take on a role and play that role, to such an extent that the combat in PT almost feels tacked on.

Interesting point of view considering that every respectable website and magazine I seen qualifies IWD as an RPG, not H&S. But still it's only your personal point of view. H&S *are* RPG's; Hack&Slash is a specific subset of RPG, actually the *oldest* form of RPG. The term itself actually comes out of Dragon magazine. You missed the point. Vast majority (if not all) of respectable magazines and websites do not label IWD as H&S. I notice the no-true-Scotsman fallacy there, making it so any site I point out (and there's thousands of them) that label it as hack-and-slash can just be said to not be "respectable".

Interesting point of view considering that every respectable website and magazine I seen qualifies IWD as an RPG, not H&S. But still it's only your personal point of view. H&S *are* RPG's; Hack&Slash is a specific subset of RPG, actually the *oldest* form of RPG. The term itself actually comes out of Dragon magazine.

... then again, everyone knew that before buying the game. If you don't like cinematics, just stay away from such games. Tbh, I don't understand all the hate here for modern triple-A standards. The cinematics of ME3 were awesome and the choices presented in those were equally awesome aswell (if we exclude the terrible ending). In fact, at several points of the game, I was like "whoa... I just can't decide on that now." and shut the game down to get time to think it through. I never had that feeling in any CRPG I remember yet. Even the glorified Fallout 1 and 2 or Planescape: Torment didn't have such a moment for me. And if you really feel that an RPG game is all about mechanics and not writing, story or decisionmaking, then I have nothing to say to you. No, an RPG is about choice, interactivity, consequences, writing, story, characters, non-linear gameplay, and a set of mechanics. All of these things are necessary to make an RPG; miss out on one of them and you end up with a game that has RPG attributes. ME3 is a little more of an RPG than, say, Bioshock--but not by a whole lot. It is significantly less of an RPG than System Shock or System Shock 2, to provide other examples. What ME2 really is is a third-person shooter with significant RPG elements. By that definition: - Baldurs Gate (no consequences, no choices) - Baldurs Gate 2 (linear gameplay, no real choices) - Icewind Dale (no memorable characters, linear gameplay) - Icewind Dale 2 (see above) - Planescape Torment (semi-linear, game mechanics are not on par with other IE-games) wouldn't have qualified as RPGs either. And yet you are here, waiting to play a game that was made with exactly those games in mind. The definition of "RPG" is almost as widespread as the definition of "FPS" nowadays. Technically, Minecraft is "FPS"... IWD are hack-and-slash, specifically; they are literally only the mechanics of an RPG with nothing else, as they are pretty much homages to the old days of RPG's when that was literally the entire definition. BG 1 and 2 do in fact have real choices with real consequences, up to and including choices that directly result in character deaths and major gameplay changes, although this is more prevalent in BG 2. BG 2 is only semi-linear, at that; while the chapters happen in order, how you complete those chapters (and most especially chapters 1 and 2) are entirely open to you. Planescape: Torment is more of a visual novel than it is almost anything else; this is actually admitted by the developers, although I'm sure you'll argue all day long. Have you actually played any of these games?

Thank you lol

Honestly, I'm more concerned about the story and dialogue than the combat; fun combat is a bonus for me, not the focus. My complaint is that a stat that isn't very good for combat is a stat that I would want to take for dialogue, thus making the combat potentially more difficult--which is not cool, because I'm not a particularly strategic or tactical person and the combat in games like this has always been somewhat difficult for me.

NWN2 *would* have been better if I could romance Neeshka. This is a true statement.

I thought about that, but I don't actually know how to do spoiler tags.

... then again, everyone knew that before buying the game. If you don't like cinematics, just stay away from such games. Tbh, I don't understand all the hate here for modern triple-A standards. The cinematics of ME3 were awesome and the choices presented in those were equally awesome aswell (if we exclude the terrible ending). In fact, at several points of the game, I was like "whoa... I just can't decide on that now." and shut the game down to get time to think it through. I never had that feeling in any CRPG I remember yet. Even the glorified Fallout 1 and 2 or Planescape: Torment didn't have such a moment for me. And if you really feel that an RPG game is all about mechanics and not writing, story or decisionmaking, then I have nothing to say to you. No, an RPG is about choice, interactivity, consequences, writing, story, characters, non-linear gameplay, and a set of mechanics. All of these things are necessary to make an RPG; miss out on one of them and you end up with a game that has RPG attributes. ME3 is a little more of an RPG than, say, Bioshock--but not by a whole lot. It is significantly less of an RPG than System Shock or System Shock 2, to provide other examples. What ME2 really is is a third-person shooter with significant RPG elements.

Sucks that perception is effectively worthless, because that description also says it's what you use to catch people lying. My cipher plan is now a little less awesome than I wanted unless I pick up a stat that is essentially useless. Yay.

A cRPG elitist here... Mass effects' story was great (Star control 3 FTW) ,the universe and species were interesting ,the character interactions were interesting This is true. I enjoyed the HELL out of ME. ME2, I enjoyed much less. ME3 I hated. A lot. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist; it's because the game became much more linear and limited, and at the same time the "cinematic" quality became much more pronounced. It became less and less of a game and more and more of an interactive movie, and this was intentional, and I didn't like it. That's not true. I've logged hundreds of hours on all three games (ME2 is the best, for my money, ME3 by far the worst if we ignore multiplayer), and ME1 is not "more of a game" than ME2. That's just completely unjustifiable. The idea that even ME3 is an "interactive movie" is beyond a joke, frankly. It's far more of a game, with far more important choices than many well-regarded CRPGs. Yeah, okay. I'm done here. If you can't see the very blatant fact that ME2 and ME3 are much lighter on the RPG side of things and much more cinematically influenced than ME1--which is a well known fact and something that was commonly complained about when ME2 came out--then you are just deliberately blind and I can't help you.

I was just pointing out where I got my wrong information from, not trying to argue with y'all. Geez.