Lord Wafflebum

Why? Says who? GOD

I would prefer it if Obsidian would focus on fixing it rather than getting rid of it, but at this point, I'm not getting my hopes up. I think this is the first game ever, where I'm actually going like "I'm going to have to wait for mods before my first playthrough can even start", and it.. doesn't feel right. I'm not sure that's fair. If, say, the final product comes out and you spend 20 minutes playing and find yourself saying, "No! This is icky bad! No good! Engagement bad!" or however you talk to your computer then totally, mod away. I'm a proponent of everyone trying the vanilla version of the game for at least a little while, then if it's unplayable for you mod it. At least give the game a chance, ya'll!

Have you tried?

That's not overly fair to the backers that don't have beta access, tho. I doubt they're as aware of what's happening as we beta peeps are.

@Sensuki Yeep, I had no idea BG2 had mods. I'm going to have to play that game again with mods. I know you posted the mods we should use at a minimum, but do you have any other recommendations? Do you know if Ascension is good to play with?

Agreed. It all comes down to context. When you break things down to absolutes of course not everything is going to fit. In abusive relationships you see the whole spectrum. I'd say it's especially uncommon for people to stay with their partners when they're actively trying to murder you. However, in high-stress environments when you're on the same team, working together to survive and flourish, you don't think a positive relationship will arise? And with that positive relationship those two people find themselves attracted to one another, some sort of romance wouldn't arise?

I guess more or less I would like to see a full fledged kickstarter update, kind of along the lines of what this last leg of the journey is going to involve. I realize this is only their second day back. Maybe an update at the end of the week would be sexy?

Does anyone else miss Josh Sawyer in these forums? His soothing reassurances help me hyperventilate less.

Open with a fireball without even talking to Medreth!? That's cold blooded murder, yo. Even though you know he's going to attack you, that wouldn't be considered self defense until he attacks you. FOR SHAME.

That sounds terrifying. I don't even like to be in my head; I can't imagine it would be pleasant for anyone else. Based on Chris' interview response, I think it would probably be fine if I was mind-linked with him tho. I really like the idea of "dark" romances. Maybe we'll get lucky and see something close in the full release!

I think the relationship between ranger and animal is unique enough in itself- it's a matter of making that uniqueness more viable. Here's how I look at it: Based on what the ranger offers and how class talents and everything go I would never have thought to try it as anything but a ranged character. Due to that I probably never would have played that class, but luckily for me I read a particular post in this forum and thought, "A melee ranger? Oh my, how untoward! I must try this!" or something to that affect. Now I can't wait to play around with the ranger some more. I had decided my first playthrough would be as a Paladin, but if I can come up with a melee ranger build that I'm as comfortable with my Paladin playthrough might not happen, or at least wait awhile. Focus class talents on making the ranger and companion more in-sync as time goes on (maybe even talents specific toward which animal you chose?) and leave attack/weapon/defense talents to the generic talent lists. I think a very good balance could be struck there. Will the powers that be change anything? I think it's pretty unlikely at this point in development, but it would be nice to see some improvements to the ranger...

Hahahahahahaha oh man that's awesome. Glossing over the fact that Chris might be a sociopath, it would be pretty awesome to see some of those kinds of "romances" in the game. It would be very unique to be sure. I wouldn't mind seeing a couple more normal ones in there tho on top of that, maybe a task he could delegate to someone who understands what feelings are.

I'm not even arguing for the typical modern rpg romances. Even having some pretty intense flirting between companions and/or companions and PC would make a certain amount of sense. It's something that is just going to happen when you're always with people and subject to intense stuff like combat. When I was in Iraq there were a lot of "romances" going on even though it was super against the rules. They tended to last, too, until they got home and realized the only ting they had in common was that they were both dealing with a kind of lonely and intense time. I was even guilty of breaking some lesser fraternization rules, but there was definitely a lot of sexual tension floating about. Not at least having that tension just kind of rings false for me. A good example of that is Samara in Mass Effect 2. Duty kept her from getting involved, but things were awkward and felt awkward if you attempted to go down that road with her. It's not that she didn't want to go down that road with Shep, but it simply was not practical or appropriate considering everything that was going on. I would just like to see those emotions reflected in my interactions with my companions, even if there isn't an actual Bioware-style romance subplot.

@Err...a couple people... I realize I can take generic talents that are melee focused and some of the class talents geared toward the companion and things can still get romantic and work ok. However, what really grinds my gears is that so many of the class talents focused specifically on the ranger assume the ranger has a bow fetish. An example of a class talent I think they absolutely nailed is the one where if you and your companion both engage the same enemy you get some sort of bonus (I forget what the actual bonus was). Having so many class talents focused on a specific type of build for the ranger seems like a wasted opportunity to otherwise make something really special.

@Stun You wouldn't happen to have any links handy for Chris' anti-romance blogs would you? I would very much like to read his viewpoint on it.

Coming from a color blind person, as long as it is vividly distinctive from other colors it should be fine. A good rule of thumb would be to have the colors the farthest apart from each other as possible on the color spectrum. It should work for all but the very most color blind (mine is pretty bad and this would more than likely be fine for me). If you want to make sure feel free to send me pictures and I can give you some feedback.

@Sensuki I had not even considered the engagement vs. the amount of enemies you're facing on hard. I'm finding myself uncomfortable on normal how many enemies I need to engage at once; I can't even imagine it on hard or PotD (which I someday plan on at least trying). How badly are you outnumbered by beetles in dyrford crossing?

The nice thing with even the melee ranger is that the pet is excellent for scouting. I can even deal with the shared health mechanic as being a weakness for the ranger to balance out its exceptional scouting ability. I just don't want to have to feel railroaded by the class talents into a ranged build. All they would need to do is tweak the talents to give bonuses to any attack type and I think it would be fine. I think it would be a really easy thing to fix the ranger class now. Viva la ranger-build-flexibility!

I just played for a couple hours as a "sword and board" ranger, and it was actually pretty fun. The only downsides I found were that the melee impact of the shared health can be very punishing if you're not extremely careful and the class talents to choose from are not conducive to anything other than a bow ranger. And that sucks. If there were class talents specific toward a melee ranger, I think this class would be a whole lot more fun (and viable) to play.

Lol, the last bunch are more statements than keywords

Here's some keywords: - Kickstarter Budget - Expansion/Sequel - Mods - Future Eh, I think criticism of the wizard is more than fair. The class feels kind of cobbled together like they had one unique idea with the grimoire (which I like, but think the UI for it could be improved) and were kind of uninspired by spells for wizards after making the chanter and cipher so very special. How things currently stand with the wizard shouldn't be. Time should have been spent making the wizard as special as many of the other classes.

Ohh, that's right, I forgot when I made custom parties in BG it was through "multiplayer." I never used multiplayer for anything other than creating a custom party

I feel like my next build will be the adventures of Robb Stark and Grey Wind. It saddens me to think I never once considered trying a melee ranger...

1) The no combat experience has been covered ad nauseum in the beta forums. If you haven't already, I recommend checking out some of those threads. You do get pseudo-combat experience from bestiary entries after killing enemies. Not the same, I know, but the removal of combat xp is in an attempt to keep folks from having to grind xp from killing things. Instead xp distribution is done mostly by quest completion. The merits of both have been thoroughly debated, but personally I think the way the have it set up will be just fine. 2) You could create custom parties in BG. I did it constantly. Regardless, there's nothing forcing you to make more than the one character. There are several companions you can pick up through the game that have their own personalities and such just like in BG. It's all a matter of personal preference on how you want to play. 3) Really? Those two things will be the deciding factors on whether or not the game is good? On what basis will those two things utterly ruin the game?

I agree that "mature" doesn't translate well for many game developers, but I think OE has established that they have a good grasp of what "mature themes" should be. For me, the Fallout: New Vegas DLC really showed off their writing chops. The tragedy of the Dead Money DLC, assuming you spend the time and effort to get the whole story behind all characters past and present, is pretty dark. It's a great example of fate laughing at your plans. Some of that is why I'd really like to see OE penned romances. I think they of all folks could buck the current trend of "romances" in games that feel less than realistic. A game like PoE allows for much more exposition than any of the modern Bioware games. I think the reason romances tend to suffer in Bioware games is because the games themselves don't seem to have a sense of themselves. DA:I especially feels like it can't decide if it wants to be a graphical juggernaut AAA shooter or an RPG. I believe it would be possible to do both, but the costs and development time to do so I think would be too prohibitive.