Katarack21

Personally, I've never managed to get BG1 finished in anywhere close to 30 hours. Let alone my first playthrough. Remember the Nashkel Mines? Did anybody else end up exploring every single blasted dead-end tunnel before finding the next way down, on every single ****ing map in the place?!

Ciphers seems to have the most lore in the area, and are explicitly tied into the overall theme of souls--so I'd expect them to have some deeper, more complex interactions about these things than the other classes. I'm going to be playing a cipher on my first playthrough, for this reason.

BG is, what, about 70 hours? BGII is about 150 with every sidequest and such, right? I'm expecting PoE to have about 100 hours of total, maximum playtime. I'll be happy with anything over 70, however,

I like this idea. I'm a backer who was very interested in the documentary from the beginning; this inside look at how close things came is a really touching and direct message about the realities of game publishing. This could really work well with publicity for the game and for Obsidian as a whole.

I generally like achievements. I've some really silly once--I've literally seen "Played game for one hour" as an achievement--but well done I think they can add a really interesting aspect to a game. They aren't a deal-maker for me, but they add to the attractiveness of Steam a little.

I love the way they're said to adapt to their environment, even changing their body structure to some extent. That's awesome.

Wow. Just....wow.

I hope y'all realize that no matter what you do, the game is going to be pirated. It will be. Probably within a week of release date. I mean, not by me--I have no need, I gave y'all my money already. I'm just saying, regardless of which option you take and what you do or don't do, the game is going to be pirated by some. You have to accept that going in.

You can thank the programmers for that one. They are slaving away trying to get the game running well on low-end systems. I'm not playing the beta, but this makes me happy. I've got a 2.13GHz dual core CPU and a Radeon 6450, and my PC is literally incapable of upgrading any more. I am REALLY looking forward to this game, and I hope like mad that my PC will run it. I'll be so disappointed if it doesn't.

Steam. I'm lazy and I have a Steam account, and I actually have friends I can chat with over it while I play who will also be playing PoE. So that's it, pretty much.

I strongly dislike the non-combat XP. Then again, I'm not a huge fan of the endurance/health separation or of a few other things. The game still looks quite fun and very playable; the combat looks interesting and I can't wait to play it. There is no game out there where I love literally every single decision the developers made, so...I guess I just don't understand the complaining. I haven't seen anything actually game-breaking bad at all.

I'm invested in Obsidian's success. I'm a backer because I want them to make amazing games and I had some extra money that month; I recognize that selling many games, and thus making much money, is how they continue the cycle of game production and publication as a self-funding publisher. I want that for them; I want Obsidian to be wildly successful and make huge amounts of money. Therefore, I would vastly prefer people purchase the game; Obsidian needs their dedication. That being said, I have regurgitated within this thread many of the arguments that I have been told for why people pirate, and I have provided examples of people I know who pirated for you to draw your own moral and ethical conclusions from. The unclear legality of some forms of piracy (re: personal use with no distribution or profit), and the difference between piracy and theft, is a matter of law and neither an opinion of mine nor a justification of any sort. Eventually, as cases are tried and precedent is set, these legal grey areas will one day be made clear, one way or another. That hasn't happened yet. That is all I have to say on this entire matter. I like that idea about the possible deity Gaun representing the backers and pre-orders. Since the pre-orders are to some extent financing the finishing of the game, I think it's entirely appropriate and awesome. I like your idea.

I agree the thread should be locked. But nobody is justifying piracy. It's been discussed in detail, but nobody in this thread has said "Piracy is morally justified and perfectly okay for people to commit" nor implied that as being true.

Oh god, it's almost like that's exactly what I said there could be a good argument for to do if possible, two hours before your condescending reply! It's almost as if you almost but not really at all read the posts in the thread to understand someone's position before firing at the legion of strawmens and charged the windmills. What a time to be alive. What a time. 1. It was a response to your first post. For reasons stated below, I didn't care to read further before voicing my own opinion. And, as this is a discussion forum, I am entitled to do so. 2. I was being condescending, and deliberately so. If a starving man steals a loaf of bread, I am inclined to not look so harshly on it. When a person of means starts spouting justifications for stealing non-necessities, I personally find it deplorable. We are talking about a non-existent conceptual good, hardly a necessity. 3. The world frustrates me too. Especially so when I see someone calling my arguments "straw men" in the face of their own ridiculous justifications for thievery. We're talking about a single player game with a pet platypus or something. "This is a discussion forum, so it is my right ignore the discussion, and be condescending. One of my favourite passtimes is to start needless flamewars based on baseless preconception. I believe I am entitled to do so." Fair enough. Also, being called "a person of means" is heart-warming. I do believe you are projecting, though. I tried so hard. I swear I tried so hard. Q_Q Not trying to start a flame war, I'm saying taking this sort of thing without paying is deplorable. I've seen all the justifications for piracy before, and find them wanting. I even went back after the fact and read the terrible analogy by catarak about copying a rug in 1250something. And, yes it's terrible... Because he conveniently says "assemble" another rug in likeness. Assemble... that's the whole point. Games have value because people put tons of work into making them, thousands and thousands of hours. Just because duplication is trivial doesn't mean making a copy doesn't deplete value. And, just because the game is already developed, doesn't mean you aren't taking from the people that make it. Things like employee retention for new projects, employee benefits and quality / quantity of development tools and software are based on on-going revenue. So, call it what you want, justify it however you like... You are taking something that took real work to produce and not offering something in return, that IS the bottom line, no matter what nonsense justification you concoct. 1) It's Katarack. With a "K". Sheesh. There's also a "C" at the very end, but it's mostly that opening "K" that concerns me. It's a stylistic choice! That "K" is important. 2) That wasn't a justification for piracy, it was an example about how piracy can only be committed in a society with a certain level of technology. In that example what actually happened would be considered copyright infringement, but only if I deliberately sold the rug in such a way as to cause confusion with the original product. It would not be piracy, and it was not a justification of piracy. This is why I mentioned corn flakes. You know how there's 35 different brands of corn flakes in your supermarket? Dr. Kellog created it. He literally invented corn flakes. All the others are copies. What I'm saying is, copyright infringement is much more complicated than just "duplication", and piracy is only a subset of copyright infringement. 3) It's very clear that you barely bother reading the posts before you comment on them. This is your right; you can do what you wish. It does not help you to contribute to the conversation, and you should expect to have this pointed out as a flaw from time to time. 4) Talk to me. Don't denigrate and insult my post to others, do it to me. That's very rude.

In a lot of cases it's even more inflated then that. They'll do things like throw in a completely arbitrary and made up number and say it "represents the advertising revenue we lost due to lowered ratings from viewership being effected by piracy" or other crazy stuff like that. The numbers aren't real; their political. They want the numbers to be as high as possible, either to make the individual in this civil case look like the worst criminal possible to win the case, or just for marketing/political support/etc. Conversely, of course, most of the "pirate news source" things out there do the opposite, for similar reasons. From my own personal experience, I'd say the number is lower than the companies claim and higher than the pirates claim, but probably closer to what the pirates are saying than what the companies are saying. Then again, I friggin' hate giant multinational corporations, so you might not want to take my word for that.

My computer cost $120, it's from 2007 (purchased in 2012), and I bought it using my backpay from disability (I don't have that money anymore). It's been upgraded since then, with hardware that was given to me by friends when they upgraded to better. It is, in point of fact, an exceptionally cheap (and crappy) computer which I was still incapable of actually affording if not for a one-time windfall. Because the computer is a small form factor (part of the reason it was so cheap) it has been upgraded as much as it can. There will come a time when this computer breaks or is simply to old to run modern software; I will use it until those things happen because I can't afford to upgrade, and when those happen I have no idea what I'm going to do. I can't afford to buy another one; even this exact computer is actually beyond my means. My internet comes at the expense of other things. Internet is necessary because I go to college online (my disability makes brick-and-mortar colleges extremely difficult); like electricity, it's not something I can sacrifice for something else but rather a basic expense. Neither of those "indicate I can afford a game". They indicate that in those specific instances I was able to afford the expense, either because of a one-time windfall or because it's so basic that I simply can't afford to go without. Canceling my internet is literally cancelling all hope at further education. Unless you wanna be like McDonald's, and recommend quitting college to save money? I wasn't talking about myself, anyway. I was very specific in who I was talking about, and that it wasn't me. If you must know, I was talking about my best friend from high school. As far as recieving up to $200,000--tell me, did that ever actually happen? I doubt it. I doubt it very much. Not one person in the history of America has ever been convicted in criminal court of illegal file sharing *without profit being obtained*. It's never happened. There have been a LOT of civil penalties, and there have been a lot of criminal convictions for people who were downloading *and selling copies*. Those are both different things. Not one person has ever spent a day in jail for downloading a movie, watching it, and deleting it. People have paid a lot of fines, though. EULA's? Don't make me laugh. Sometimes they're enforced, sometimes they're not. Many times they're thrown out as unenforceable. There is *no* general court ruling on the enforceability of EULA's; each court case has been very intentionally limited to rulings about the specific terms and provisions of each individual EULA. EULA's, as a whole, are themselves a legal grey area with no clearly defined precedent. The illegality of downloading copyrighted works *for personal use without any intention of distribution* is a legal grey area, whether you want to admit it or not. It's certainly not theft; it's not called theft, it's not legally treated like theft, and it in no way resembles theft. Copyright infringement, itself, is not theft. It never has been, and it's never been treated as if it is. However, convincing people that downloading and theft are exactly the same thing has been a huge and expensive campaign by the RIAA and MPAA, and in many cases it has worked. Legally, and in actual observable reality, theft and copyright infringement are very distinct and different things. Even the US Supreme Court has stated this and ruled this as being a thing. Morally and ethically, well that's up for debate. I would like to point out again--because I keep getting the feeling of not being believed--that I am in no way supporting the morality or ethical viability, nor defending in any way, piracy. I am simply stating what I know to be facts, and discussing the rationalizations and moral justifications which I have heard being applied.

Piracy, or illegal file sharing to be more technical and accurate, is not theft. Theft is theft; taking something that somebody else has so that you now have it and they don't. The two things are not identical, they're not even directly equivalent. They might both be morally and ethically wrong, and they might both be illegal (both statements are debatable) but that's as far as the similarity goes. File sharing would be closer to fraud, although it's not actually the same as any other crime. Illegal file sharing doesn't really have a corollary like that. It's a crime that can only exist in a society with a certain level and type of technology, and therefore before a certain time period this particular crime literally never once happened. The closest equivalent would be plagiarism, but even that isn't directly equivalent (because for the vast majority of piracy there is no attempt to take credit or profit in any way). For example, if I time-traveled to 1255, no matter where I went on the face of the earth, I literally could not commit illegal file sharing (piracy in the modern definition). The closest it would be possible for me to do would be to find something I liked, such as a rug for example, and then physically create another rug with as close a resemblance to the rug I liked as I can, and then give away or sell that. This happens all the time; it's where there's 5,345,879 types of corn flake in your local supermarket's cereal aisle.

Right now? Well, I'd do Obsidian for a lot of reasons. Profit is one of them. High-risk investment, but Obsidian is poised for extremely rapid growth if PoE and whatever comes out after it both sell well. They're a moderately successful, well-known studio at the moment; they could have something like what happened to Valve after Half-Life came out happen to them (Valve was also founded by two guys who loved making games). More important than this? I frigging love Obsidian. They make awesome games, and I want them to keep making awesome games so much. So, so much. They are amazing, and basically I want them to keep making creative and fantastic things for me to have fun with. EA is a safer investment, more likely to produce profit in the long-term. However, I kind of hope they die in a fire. *shrug*

Have you ever had to choose between a video game and food? Have you had to choose between a video game and medical appointments? These aren't conscious decisions people make, mind you. It's not "I can spend this 50 bucks on food or video games...food it is, I'll pirate the game." It's "I spent every single dollar I have within the first 8 days of the month on necessities such as food, rent, and medicine and now I have no money left of any sort, disposable or otherwise. Not one single penny. I am still going to play a video game and watch a movie at some point during this month." I'm not morally justifying this, I'm simply explaining the logic that goes on here. You talk about "buying what you can", "buying games carefully" and "sacrificing for what you want". This indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of what I'm talking about. You are still going on the idea of people who have some degree of disposable income. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a reasonable proportion of pirating individuals who are simply pirating games that they are incapable of playing otherwise. It's a common argument in the pirating community that the "costs" of pirating to companies are inflated because they are counting "lost profits" from many individuals who *would not be purchasing the products regardless*. Another example to provide: I have a friend who I shall call Bob. Bob is a huge Star Trek fan. He's extremely poor because he is incapable of finding employment while taking care of his sick, dying grandmother (although she has been sick and dying for nearly a decade now). He has a Star Trek book collection (gifts), Star Trek T-shirts and Christmas Ornaments (also gifts), etc. Long ago, in the days long long *LONG* before Netflix added Star Trek, this guy pirated and burned off all of Star Trek available at the time. ALL of it. All three seasons of TOS, and all seven seasons each of TNG, DS9 and Voyager, and all the movies, and all the animated series. Enterprise was not out at the time. He spent a freaking ridiculous amount of time and effort doing this, and it was not free (he paid for the DVD's he burned it to). It was days of downloading, days of converting to a format playable on the plain DVD players of the time period, and hours and hours of burning. He didn't do all this to stick it to Paramount, and he didn't do all this just to get a free DVD collection. He would have *GLADLY* spent all the hundreds and hundreds of dollars to own the actual DVD's, with all the special features and such. That collection would have been his *baby*. Do you understand what I mean? He would blow all that money on Star Trek, probably to his own detriment, if he had it to blow. He didn't. So he pirated like mad. This happens. It's by no means everybody, but it's fairly common in my personal experience.

Pirates aren't exactly digging deep to "justify" their actions... all to masquerade the real thruth... they just dont want to pay for someone else's hard work. Any excuse made otherwise is just that, an excuse. If it's not this kickstarter thing it will be something else, always an 'excuse'... Actually, that's not true. There's a *direct* correlation between money and piracy. Rich people don't pirate nearly as much as poor people. The fact is, a large proportion of pirates are only committing piracy because they can't afford to buy the object they want. There's a difference between not *wanting* to pay and being truly unable to.

I don't think you're right. In my backer portal, the "What does this include?" tab specifically states "Kickstarter only in-game achievement and item" on the list. Meanwhile, over in the pre-order page, it says "Already a backer? You get the pre-order bonus items for free!". It calls them pre-order bonus items. That's not the same thing as what the backers get, at least I don't think so. I don't know what the Kickstarter-only in-game achievement and item will be. I hope it's cool.

I am a HAM. Humanoid Autonomous Metaconstruct. Please state directive. Please state... *spark spark...* (I don't know how one can be a metaconstruct, but it fit the acronym, so... u_u) If I was to take a guess, I'd say a construct created by other constructs. :-D

That's actually very simple. EA is a publicly traded company, basically "owned" by stockholders. ZeniMax Media owns a LOT of companies beyond just Bethesda, because it's basically a shell company created for tax purposes that uses subsidiaries to run the actual business of games production/publishing/development. It's owned by a small group of mutual shareholders, most notably Robart A. Altman, a wealthy lawyer who "founded" the shell "company". ZeniMax operates as a storage business; it's job is to provide legal ownership of various IP's, which are then used by it's subsdiaries. ZeniMax does nothing in-and-of itself beyond tax shelter and legal IP ownership. Obsidian is co-owned by four or five people, who left Interplay when it went under and founded a new company so they could keep making games and having a career. Feargus Urquheart, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, Chris Avellone, Chris Jones. I'm pretty sure they are the guys who literally own Obsidian. I believe this facts support and substantiate your claims. A big business can make a successful game, no question, but true creativity can't be mass produced. It's the small companies ran by people who love playing and making games who are truly the most creative companies. They're not always the most successful, and there's no guarantee that the products are gonna be any good, but when a game is made by people who love games with profit as a secondary motive, it shows.

Yes, we are all aware that we are not game developers with power and control, and the ability to do all the analysis, and that we are simply lowly peons discussing things on the Internet. I don't think anybody here really needs you to come in and tell us how useless and stupid the discussion is. I don't think that helps any.

Bah! You understood what I meant perfectly. My analogy was entirely successful! Though you can replace Spielberg with Guillermo Del Toro and it would also work.