Gorbag

Nobody. And you don't have to gather your party in advance if nobody ventures forth. Jeez, it's not like rocket science or anything

ToB was a hasty closure, it has its faults, but I'd rather have that than no closure at all. I don't think it actually prevented a real third game in the saga. If the resources and interest were present at the time, we would have had a full-fledged third game. By the time of ToB, they were already planning to put the IE to rest in favor of 3D stuff. Imo they just wanted to end the Bhaal saga. It's true that Interplay did later return to BG, but it was only after they lost their D&D license, not so much out of desire to further explore the main storyline. My point is that if ToB didn't happen, it's likely that we would have had nothing rather than a full installment. As for the expansion to PoE, even though Josh Sawyer mentions TotSC, I think it would be more in the vein of Heart of Winter, i.e. a short but structured story somehow tied to the main storyline of PoE. At least that's the impression I get from past expansions/add-ons Obsidian did (NWN2 MotB, New Vegas DLCs). Besides, if they put together various side content to make an expansion like Tales, in today's world and context it would be difficult to differentiate "an actual true-to-God RPG expansion" from "a couple of DLCs thrown together".

Sure, but what is the question?

There is a snowy region in the game world called "The White That Wends". Basically the south pole of the world. If all goes well with PoE, I'm pretty sure we'll go there some day for some olde schoole Icewind Dale-y times. Even if it's just for an expansion.

Well, since you, Obsidian, went and called your game "Pillars of Eternity", you kind of brought this one on yourselves: Active cats (felis catus) in the game: how many? Active cats in the game that can interact with your character and/or eat your food, consumables, camping supplies and/or your character: how many? Druids don't count.

Dracogen gets one, the Codex gets one and Gamebanshee gets one. I don't know who gets the rest. Dracogen's one is called Dracogen (duh), the others I know about are The Celestial Sapling (shown above) - Twin Elms, The Black Hound - Gilded Vale and The Goose and Fox - Defiance Bay, Copperlane.

This is exactly the problem I have with some of the reviews today. They measure games and their quality. You can measure your hand in meters, feet or whatever system you are using. When you measure the quality of a game, you do it by what measure? What's the standard you are using to measure it? As the truism goes, standards are debatable. That's why reviewers who measure games most often don't give away their standards (such as "I'm actually comparing this game's graphics and world to Skyrim in my mind, but if I say this, I'll get jumped, so I better just say that the reviewed game's graphics are not that good and it could have used less linearity and a more open world. Its companions and interactions come close to Inquisition though, so it gets points there"). The natural outcome of this measurement is the review's numerical value, expressed in points, stars, thumbs or whatever. This value does not represent how good the game itself is, it represents how closely the reviewed game comes to the standards of the reviewer. Games are not the same however and evaluation is never diverse enough, so this inevitably leads to situations like "I really like Pillars of Eternity, but I gave DA:I a 5,9 out of 6 the other day, and it has a ton more of everything (as its budget allows), so unfortunately this game cannot get more than 4." Reviews I find helpful, do the following: 1. Tell me what's in the game. 2. Tell me how the reviewer feels about what's in the game and what's not. Stuff like "I liked/did not like this because" and "The game does not have this feature, and I think that's a missed opportunity because". That's the subjective thoughts of the reviewer that I can either take to heart or disregard based on their argumentation and the way I feel about similar things. 3. Give no score or measurement whatsoever, maybe just a subjective recommendation.

I didn't do any of that. BG2 rogues using potions of invisibility were a more interesting threat, if less dangerous. Not unless they have Non Detection cast on them / Cloak of Non Detection. There's a certain "pshew" sound effect that gives away thieves hiding in shadows, and those who use potions display a "gulp" message. Not very obvious givaways, but they make you pay attention and stand on your toes. It's those little things in BG2 that can make veterans s**t bricks every time. Like a lich chanting "vita mortis caro". You know you are f'd unless you do something immediately.

I've watched some of Joe's reviews and although I find his comedic approach unfunny and I think he sometimes tends to favour huge and shiny over involving and interesting, I think he means well and is, in his heart, a fan of classic RPGs. He's not my go-to reviewer, but he's someone I'd like to hear.

How in the nine hells did this turn into a romance thread? EDIT: "Angry Joe LOVED Pillars of Eternity". Uh, I see.

QFT. I really love the way BG2 made use of the extensive spell/counterspell mechanics in 2nd ed. It made those encounters a lot more involving than just having two mages cast damaging/status spells at each other until one of them falls or a status sticks. It wasn't so much about meta-knowledge or pre-buff, it was more about reacting to your opponent. On a side note, BG2 also had Keldorn ready for anyone, who does not enjoy this bit.

But this is the same as having a "Fine Warbow" bonus of +4 Accuracy, isn't it? Yes, but with "Fine Warbow" you might as well increase the general value, as there is no possible scenario where you can equip it and gain its bonus in melee.

^ I think it goes like this: you get accuracy X applied to melee and ranged attacks. Everything that affects accuracy, affects this value, but if you have the "Legolas with an M40" ability, you get X+10 accuracy for ranged and X for melee.

Very off-topic, but does the game keep track of in-game time for the purpose of timed events (like BG2 did)? Like a certain encounter or dialogue that triggers after a certain amount of in-game time has passed, or some time after a specific in-game event.

Voted #2 because my backer tier includes a digital copy of the game that I can play until my physical stuff arrives, so it really makes no sense for me to ship stuff in parts and eat additional shipping costs. I appreciate the concern though and I think this poll was the right thing to do. I'll understand if you go with #1, but I wish there was a way to ship mine en gros later with the disc, because those additional costs would be wasted in my case. That might end up doing more chaos damage than helping though.

Whew, good thing the OP is a "silver" backer. This means I can play as well. Or can I? OP?

It is unfair to compare PoE with Bg2 fully. Compare it with BG1. PoE2 will be able to be compared to BG2. Yes..But you know...Now we have BG1:EE which have a updated combat system. You don't get the point though. PoE is not meant to compare with- or be better than BG2. Baldur's Gate 2 is a result of a significant experience with the Infinity Engine, it's also built upon what worked in BG and what didn't. PoE has nothing to improve over and some of the time dedicated to its creation went into figuring out Unity. So if anything, one could compare PoE to BG1, as a fresh start with a foreign engine. Hopefully, things can only go better from here. Yes,I understand.But unfortunately POE and BG1:EE even BG2:EE are in the same market.We can't avoid that people will compare them. Anyway,best wish for POE! True, but as someone who's played through both BG games like a thousand times, I'd love to see something new in the same vein, even if it starts out less refined than the old games are now. Keeping the old games alive is one thing and trying to make new ones is another. Besides, if PoE turns out good, it could only add to my beloved RPG library. If it fails, that would be disappointing, yes, but I could still play the BG saga another thousand times. It would suck not to have more things to replay over and over again though. That kind of RPGs do not exactly hit the shelves every day.

It is unfair to compare PoE with Bg2 fully. Compare it with BG1. PoE2 will be able to be compared to BG2. Yes..But you know...Now we have BG1:EE which have a updated combat system. You don't get the point though. PoE is not meant to compare with- or be better than BG2. Baldur's Gate 2 is a result of a significant experience with the Infinity Engine, it's also built upon what worked in BG and what didn't. PoE has nothing to improve over and some of the time dedicated to its creation went into figuring out Unity. So if anything, one could compare PoE to BG1, as a fresh start with a new engine (although it should be noted that BG is crated by BioWare using their own engine). Hopefully, things can only go better from here.

Well, keeping in mind what Sensuki mentioned about the interior maps of houses and the fact that (from what I've seen) PoE has less houses, thus more "adventure-type" maps, plus the fact that most BG maps were huge as hell, bigger than what I've seen in PoE, I'd speculate that PoE covers roughly the same territory as BG.

It's official: Justin Bell likes us. I'll have to wait and hear the whole soundtrack implemented into the game in its finished state (and how it interacts with varoius scenes and environments), but it sounds pretty good so far. Thank you for sharing your iterations on the main theme and keep up the good work.

^ Or Readceras. That would be cool. My vote is for more of those interesting spells, which would not be introduced in PoE, like contingencies, time stop, polymorph, etc. Let's hope that after PoE, Obsidian would have enough knowledge of how things work to run wild. There's other stuff of course, but that's it for now.

Actually there was something similar in BB278, but OE removed it as per loud backer feedback. It was an affliction you can get when certain conditions were met, such as a potion of heroism or a barbarian rage wearing off in the middle of the fray or when the character is simultaneously engaged by three or more enemies. It made the character hobbled until rest and any armour and/or boots the character wears, other than plate mail, gets completely destroyed. It required a roll against fortitude to trigger and a successful reflex saves the armour/boots. It also used to trigger every time a character gets knocked out (no save). Vithracks can cause this at will. Dunno why they removed it

Piggyback on Leferd's question: How common are "magic" items in the game as a whole? Throne of Bhaal ballpark (i.e. heaps of different magical items you can experiment with) or Temple of Elemental Evil ballpark (i.e. magical items are very scarce encouraging crafting) or anything inbetween? Do you buy the lot of them (like in IWD2) or do you find more/better than those sold in shops (like in BG2, excluding bonus merchants)? Do you think magical items are equally distributed among various item types or are there (for example) just not enough magical clubs to go around? Thanks @ Matt Sheets.

i'll have you know, that if I ever find a pooping QTE in any game, I'll hold you personally responsible.

The real problem in TES was that most of the loot I'd normally want to sell cost way more than any merchant in the game has, so carrying it around did nothing to help it, even if I could. I don't know if that was to be the case in PoE (I hope not), but in any case, it saves me the trouble of going from merchant to merchant like a flower girl just so that I can sell the stuff I'd end up selling anyway. If picking up every club and rusty dagger in the game and dragging them to a merchant is the player's cup of tea, then I guess it can't be helped. For me, it's not the limited inventory that made me skip that in IE games (I usually buy bags of holding asap for different reasons), it's just that it's... boring and unnecessary.