Gorth

I vote no to polls... Somebody mentioned Xenophobia. Always a good source of conflicts. How about conservative versus progressive factions? Cultural imperialism (my gothic arcs are superior to your roman arcs, therefore you are an inferior being only suitable to live in mud holes, since you can't make a proper building)? Fashion fascists... Those who wear nose rings are superior to those who have nipple rings, kick the bastards with bad piercing taste outside the city walls. Somebody mentioned class struggle. I liked the way DA:O portrayed the caste system amongst the dwarves. Arranged political (and economical) marriages. Millennia old family feuds. Urbanisation versus hunter/gatherers and the "taming of the land" ("civilization" encroaching on fiercely independent people). Natural disasters and mass migrations. Incurable plagues (of divine origin?), cursed lands... Lots of issues to provide conflicts. In fact, the world is full of them

Kasumi... that's an NPC, right? I might just grab that one too. No idea if it's anything like Shale or Jervik in scope, but how bad can it be (famous last words)? Edit: For the other two, I'll look up some more information on them. Is like Zaeed, the free NPC, except that she's not free. Differs from regular companions by not having a recruitment mission (loyalty mission only) and by not having a dialogue system ('interact' just cues the next line in a linear series of lines) Well, that is Ok. I liked Zaeed. He was a regular on my missions

US politics is hard to understand for us outsiders sometimes WoW

Off topic, but I wonder if Bobby Null is his real name... sort of cool being able to write geeky stuff like "$62,$6F,$62,$62,$79,NULL" (null terminated string) on your business card

Maybe some signed posters with some of the artworks? A2 size like some of the old Boris Vallejo posters I used to hang on my wall back in the 80'es Not that I'm going to change my pledge, having maxed out, but a nice thought anyway. Just imaging if you could've had some of those Justin Sweet portraits for IWD2 in A2 size.

Kasumi... that's an NPC, right? I might just grab that one too. No idea if it's anything like Shale or Jervik in scope, but how bad can it be (famous last words)? Edit: For the other two, I'll look up some more information on them.

The Marshmallow God works in mysterious ways.... That's all I gotto say^^ Gozer: "Are you a god?..."

You know the saying "a picture is worth a 1000 words" (or something to that effect), I always find music to be the same. 60 seconds of perfect ambient music is worth a 1000 words trying to describe a location and a situation

The latter (speaking from experience, so yes it's anecdotal)

Slightly unrelated but one of my pet peeves, "rigging the competition"... When you beat the snot out of somebody and the game tells you, sorry I can't let you win this fight and has unilaterally declared you a loser. Almost as bad as the scripted "magically pull everybody out of their hiding place and put them in the big bulls eye in the middle of the field where all the enemies can have a go at you despite you ambushing them" mechanic.

I miss my pet golem from IWD2. I was very disappointed that I didn't get to keep it for the remainder of the game *MUST PROTECT MASTER!*

Not necessarily. It's all guesswork though without knowing the specifics of the economy and resources available. More money means more people to throw at the project. As any developer worth his salt will tell you, that's fine up to a point. It's a "curve" where you can get more done until you reach a point where throwing more people at a project gobbles up any benefit due to overhead. So to a point, the difference in time is marginal. Beyond that point, managing the increase in resources and overhead means pushing the planned date. Edit to add: Got ninja'd... post was a response to OP

We shall flood the market with cheap DVD players!... Oh, that wasn't what you meant Yeah, I'm going to be stuck at home over the Christmas holidays in December and January (the long holidays here down under). I hope to pick up on some of those "time sink" games.

I might have to investigate those options. It has quickly outgrown the 200gb partition I had allocated to it originally. I should have doubled or tripled the size while I was at it. Or try one of those fancy tools that claims to be able to adjust partition sizes dynamically without destroying the content.

Discovering that I had used a credit card with a daily transaction limit (the one I use daily, so it's a risk "mitigation" thing) instead of my "no limits" card. Kickstarter wouldn't let me "re-pledge" unless I changed the amount

Checking out IMDB I just realised that Kresselack is truly dead now... R.I.P. Tony Jay

Thats why straws were invented. A bandolier with potions and 20 straws leading up to your mouth. Now give me your best shot!

I got to play a bit with the Conquistador beta thingy yesterday. A bit rough around the edges, but it looks promising (so far).

Moderator of the Order sounds too pretentious. Lets call it 'Grinning Skull of the Obsidian Order'

Upped my pledge by $8, although that was out of necessity as Amazon wouldn't let me swap what credit card I was using without changing the amount. I think I'll stick with my current title though

I sort of think dwarven runesmiths when people mention artisans in crpgs. Some of the most deadly craftsmen around. Armed with 'Armour of Resist All' and wielding the 'Warhammer of Asswhooping'.

At $2.7? A full, live orchestral score. Hire Sheena Easton to voice a thief (preferably with a tail). More areas. In particular swamps. Big humongous swamps where entire adventuring parties are known to disappear without trace. A 'rat' level in the mega dungeon. Rats ranging from rattus rattus to mastodon sized rattus megalomaniacus, just to put a twist to the traditional kill a rat in a dungeon schtick.

For some of us it's a major selling point. You would have to be a fan of the Icewind Dale games to appreciate it though.

And this in itself is troublesome, are RPG fans really unprofitable? Or this just corporate jargon that comes from a lack of understanding of genres and gamers? They seem unprofitable for AAA budgets. Publishers are always looking for best ROI. If you got $100m to invest, you are going to invest them in the 300% return rather than the 150% return (arbitrary numbers pulled out of thin air). It's how business works. Providers will irresistibly drift towards a singularity where they imagine the holy grail is (i.e. something all gamers would want) at the expense of niches. Nothing mysterious about it. Look at all the companies having wet dreams about getting a share of the WoW crowd.

I'm playing install all your old games and see if it will fit on my current hard drive configuration. I might have made my Steam drive too small. Edit to add: Well, what worked once worked twice. Added my old Mass Effect 2 key to my Origin account got it as digital download instead of those creaky old disks. I might just try buying Lair of the Shadowbroker some day. Anything else that is worth getting for ME2?