CaptainMace

That doesn't sound that much important. I really appreciate autosave before transition in the EE versions though, since they got rid of loading times. Actually the fact they went for after transition in PoE let me guess loading times aren't gonna be that short =)

So we can statuate that saving before transition was well-thought for IE games design specifically then. Anyway no big deal, I'll save-spam as I always did.

Examples of the first, please. Lephys gave a lot of em. There's although the idea of setting cd duration depending on several factors. But if you want examples in games, I have none, I'm not sure anybody did that, but I never claimed so anyway. There's just a lot of possibilities with cooldowns once you try, as you design a game, to make them dependant on circonstances, terrain, time of the day etc. So you'd choose to do something that would decrease some cd's at the cost of something else... it's like the logic behind attack speed after all. Attacks have cooldowns in PoE, but several things affect their duration. I'd like to see the same for abilities. Edit : By immuable i meant unchangeable. Sorry for the mistranslation, I was somehow sure it was the same in english. Basically meant cds often, if not always, have a definite duration and that's what designers should try to play with.

Was there anything interesting to steal beside Algernon's and Baldurian's cape in BG1 ? I remember it was possible to steal scimitars from Drizzt as well but the process was a reload-fest and you'd need someone to put them at use as well. In my memory, pickpocketing was the feature which was there for the sake of the adaptation of D&D. It never weighted in the decision to pick a rogue or a bard with me, I took the former because they're just quasi-necessary and the latter when I didn't want to have to identify everything. I never said myself "that'd be cool to be able to pick some pockets" because, well, there was close to nothing interesting to steal and the risk wasn't worth it 99% of the time (or it'll end up with a reload and retry). Point being, I won't miss the ability to pick pockets anytime.

There are indeed a lot of ways to make cooldowns dynamic and interesting as a combat element. Only thing I don't like about cooldowns is that they're very often systematic and have an immuable length. Although I've some problems with cooldowns while managing several characters, but that's mine to deal with. I blame my brain. Although not fond of mana/energy/ap in any form, but that's a bit less awful imo that determined cd durations which kinda makes combat a routine.

Doesn't seem to be, according to the endless discussions over it. Although if romance is just a relationship like another, why would a game developper claim his game doesn't feature any ? Does that even make sense ? Or is romance something else/more than simply a type of relationship and, in the context of crpgs/anygamewithc&c, although happens to be a game mechanic ? Because that's what the devs had in mind when they claimed there would be none in the game, a mechanic.

It's on. Dat pronunciation of the title Inusaa

Was around 13 when daddy bought himself a new personal computer for work purposes. Back then was a time when you'd be given one or several games with the product. The computer went along with 3 or 4 games, and 2 are of 'em were legendary, being Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri et Baldur's Gate. It's also when I started to feel that pc gaming suited my tastes more and was now possible. Never played tabletop games, it's something that was not very popular where I grew up. Like any inside activity in any sunny country I guess.

Sometimes there's never any key. Or the amount of xp is so irrelevant that it's not even worth it to bother picking unnecessary locks and disarming traps you can avoid. Like BG1, there's a tonne of traps at some level of Durlag tower, who would bother disarming all of 'em when taking a single doppleganger down is worth more, and you'd just have one rest encounter to meet one.

That'd be a nice idea to give a malus to fire godlike. I don't see how they would be deprived from the skill though. It's harder but ain't impossible !

Yeah I've read somewhere that Mexico-Tenochtitlan agglomeration, in 1500, was like even more populous than Napoli itself, which was already one of the most or the most populous city of Europe. I'm not surprised by the incredible number there. But I meant, I don't think mexicos were actually sacrificing their own citizens per se, whatever that could mean back then if that meant anything, I've heard that they willingly never fully annexed Tlaxcala and kept it as an enclave so they can "harvest" sacrifice material. Might be wrong about that tho. Although I think you're right about the irrelevance of historical examples to justify how PoE could handle its deities and mysticism and such.

That'd be damn awful. I've heard the aztec empire had a political enclave within their territory where'd they grab people now and then from their enemy nation Tlaxcala. Which is awful too after all. Now the fact people get their powers from deities, through prayer and such, is open for interpretation. That's no big deal. Although that's how early saints were known in the christian churches from example. The abbot of Fontenelle would magically deviate pieces of bread thrown at him by plebs, and the tales of his deeds implied he held such powers from God.

I'm not sure enlightenment, at whatever degree, would change the importance of mysticism for any society that much. Wouldn't there just be more skepticism ?

Wasn't it always a big part of mysticism that deities would be able to manifest themselves and display their powers ?

I'd like to see the collaboration between Obsidian and Paradox go on in the future. Each time I follow the open development of a game, I'm like "damn that's sweet... the kind of sweet I would have liked even better if it surprised me on the first playthrough" way too often. It's personal, I realized the games I liked the most are always the ones I had no clue about. Didn't know a thing about Arcanum, had the time of my life, didn't even know new vegas was announced when it got released, had tons of fun as well. But that's a cheap argument, I could have backed and look away... but the temptation

Totally agree about how lore should be handled in a game, especially a game that introduces a new world with its own physics. That's one of the things that didn't help me get to the end of Dragon Age. It was a classic setting, yet the over-explanations about its lore through the exploration made it feel kinda forced and most of the times unnecessary. I see that they wanted to show they worked on the thing, but that didn't help them in the end. Now I don't say I agree about JSawyer since I have no idea what he wrote and what he didn't in games I've played like New Vegas or IWD. Don't really know what his writing is about. If that's things like when in New Vegas Caesar talks about hegelian dialectics, then I'd understand, that moment really made me feel like a student in front of a teacher, a pretty awkward dialog for sure :D

Wasn't the original post ironic ?

They changed that, now when the pet goes down during the fight, the ranger gets afflicted by a malus to damage and precision (things like that) until the end of it. But yeah rangers are about their pet, and their pet is weaker than conventional characters after some xp cap, making the ranger, I guess, a very good early option but lacking in the last levels. Might be wrong about that.

Why couldn't you still do this ?

I just checked and you're right Gairnulf, it's possible to loot stuff directly to the stash even if this one is disabled. But you can't put things in it out of the loot window. Isn't this a bug ? That doesn't seem right :/

The argument was that stash mechanic combined with area loot mechanic is bad, not area loot mechanic itself being bad. Oh my bad. then I agree with you, unless the stash is enabled everywhere, which is an option, I don't see how area looting is much a problem combined with it. When you decide to enable the stash access everywhere though, it indeed leads to shoving everything in it without paying attention, 'cause you can, which fits more farming oriented games that how IE games handled loot and rewards in general. But that's an optional mechanic. Still people wouldn't be that upset if area looting was optional which is understandable, and I don't see any reason not to patch the game after release, since they probably don't have time right now, to make it so.

Problem here is, it's not optional. Though I don't care myself, I understand the point people made about being able to know which enemy dropped what. Since we don't know exactly how it works, people are concerned about this. But yeah, a petition, come on :>

No ability to make room in your inventory or stock things in a limitless one. Limitless inventory. Come on mate, at some point you have to pick one thing to hate, disliking both doesn't make that much sense. This is either a very sorry attempt at trolling, or you don't understand what I've written. I call the stash "limitless inventory". I want to be able to put things back in containers if I don't want to keep the things. What part of this didn't you understand? My point was that deciding what to take with you, what to store in containers and what to leave behind is still present in PoE. The only difference is that all the containers presents in safe zones (or wherever) in Baldur's Gate are represented by the stash. Beregost is arguably the party's stash in Baldur's Gate. Kuldahar is the same in IceWind Dale. What I meant is, there's no need to complain about the stash on one side, and the fact you can't drop and store stuff in random barrels on the other, because they're the same problem. Or it's just about making your list appear bigger.

I understand that some people don't like the fact it's not optional. But the jokes about the game playing itself as a "josh-style fix" are totally undeserved. They added that feature because people were asking for it. Quit b*tching already. No ability to make room in your inventory or stock things in a limitless one. Limitless inventory. Come on mate, at some point you have to pick one thing to hate, disliking both doesn't make that much sense.

I don't quite understand how you can't do that with area looting ? I mean we're not talking about auto-looting here, are we ?