Gorth

I've yet to beat the guardians of the Holy Avenger sword in a fair fight in Icewind Dale 2

I wish the tutorial part was skippable in the demo. I tried it but failed at the terminal boredom check before getting to see much of the game. Never got to see how effectively they've implemented destructible terrain. Might just give it a second try tonight (especially after having downloaded 5+ gb).

My name is Allan Schumacher. Sylvius was able to ID me! (the hint is in the username!) Though I do know that some of the skeptics do think I work in marketing. I remember reading a post that stated that my posts on the BSN "clearly" have had editing passes done on them before going live. I took it as a compliment I assumed it was you or Epler: I should have thought about the username. I like your posts on the BSN. The viral marketing part was just a provocation. My point is simple: you should not assume that I'm just a random person who likes to toss mudd about "my" Bioware. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm not using the right world but I'm honest. For me is quite painfull to see the direction you are going as a company since you have been bought by EA. Then I would recommend you head to BSN and express it, because frankly it gets a bit repetitive here...

Rannoch:

It helps if you can mentally compartamentalise (spelling?) the business side from the technical side of things. I've had my share of fist fights (before I became a moderator *cough*) with people, who came barging in with a "If I had made this game, then I would've..." without having worked on a single project to meet a deadline in their life and flinging insults against people who are bound by NDA's to not answer back as it might reveal "confidential" material. Few things rub me more the wrong way than people randomly flinging around insults like lazy or incompetent without having the slightest clue what they are talking about. Often the people they target are the ones who did what they were told without choice. Doesn't mean that some of the suits sometimes cut corners with their ethics and management of expectations. I deal with CEO's, CFO's, CIO's and board of directors on regular basis. What goes on behind closed doors should be 'M' rated sometimes. I can easily understand if severe disappointment in something means you feel "burnt" out and just can't bring the necessary energy and initiative to bear anymore. I'm actually quite envious of somebody who is in a position to do a career change involving studying beer.

I'm surrounded by shrinks

Paralytic sycophants, effete betrayers of humanity, carrion-eating servile imitators, arch-cowards and collaborators, gang of women-murderers, degenerate rabble, parasitic traditionalists, playboy soldiers, conceited dandies. East German Communist Party's approved terms of abuse in 1953 for East German speakers when describing Britain Shamelessly stolen from a website with a collection of insults targeting England and Poms Yes, I realise this is getting slightly off topic, but I suppose some things are better talked through than left to fester. No, I'm not a psychologist.

Yeah, Rugby is the "real" mans sport.

I was just about to enter Kresselack's tomb last night before heading to bed Hmm, somebody once mentioned a post apocalyptic fantasy setting. I wouldn't mind a bleak and hopeless world along the lines of WH40K, just with medieval technology levels. Gothic structures, flagellants preaching doom and gloom in the streets, limited resources that petty lords squabble and fight over, zealots burning every heathen and heretic they can put their hands on, generally a setting where human (and non human) life is cheap and often brutally short. Heck, it should be a challenge to survive a trip to the nearest well for a bucket of water without being eaten by mutants and outcasts.

What a scary thought Hmm, cheesy cliches. Sounds like an obvious target for Obsidians deconstruction tendencies.

Wouldn't "woman" imply somebody older than 16??? Yeah, just kidding. No twilight androgynous characters in my video game please. I once saw 15 minutes of one those on free-tv. Who would have thought commercial breaks a blessing so I could tear myself out of the shock induced paralysis (a traumatic experience). I would like to say that taste improves and refines with age, but I would lie if I didn't admit to some very base desires occasionally, but I like to think it doesn't necessarily come at the expense of appreciation of the more sophisticated things. It does call for some eye-rolling when you see the more juvenile expectations and preconceptions of gender roles.

I deliberately didn't do it as a poll because I hate them and try to stay clear of them. If people feel like something, let them crawl out of the woodwork and present their view rather than an anonymous choice of an option and then hitting the 'vote' button. I don't think anybody has ever taken poll numbers seriously anyway

I would like to know more about the game mechanics before setting my mind in stone so to speak. I was one of those who liked how it was done in VMBL and to some degree in Icewind Dale too. The former gave you "points" to spend for achieving objectives. Bonus points for particularly sneaky ways of reaching your objectives. The latter gave you a small handout of xp for killing monsters, but the bulk of the xp was for completing each "phase" of the game. Probably to ensure that your party had the necessary levels to survive the next part I don't like a pure xp for kills/lockpick/trap disarm/insert trivial thing here, as it is no different from Oblivions learn agility by jumping all over the place like a rabbit thing. It's a tedious grind to gain some arbitrary number to increase. In the end, for me (and I am the most important person in my universe), what matters is that I feel like I make progress in the game. Whether I get physical improvements or just get to keep the loot from killing enemies as reward depends on what the alternatives are. Does anybody know if there is even going to be xp? I don't remember the exact quote, but I'm fairly sure that the interview mentioned rewards for accomplishments, which is not necessarily equivalent to quest rewards. Heck, you could get bonus xp for playing true to your characters nature just because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy

Funny choice of words since the majority of "romances" so far seems to have been targeting male gamers.

I'm fairly sure they are called stretch goals (hint: careful if googling stretch marks at work). As a fan of fantasy art in general, having a decent collection including signed reproductions of some of the old TSR masters (Clyde Caldwell etc.), I've always loved that part of crpgs. Justin Sweet is a great illustrator/concept artist and I wouldn't mind seeing some of Jason Manley's work too. It's all about price though and how much commission it's going to cost.

Why would you ruin a perfectly bad, grimdark depression with humour??? I wouldn't expect Minsc/Boo kind of jokes (they were written by the Bioware guys), but more akin to Kotor2 humour in style and tone.

I want to have my cake and eat it FLAC would be nice, but as a matter of convenience, pre-converted to high res mp3 (in addition to FLAC) would be nice. No idea if any royalties are required for using some of those formats (thinks back to the Compuserve GIF debacle).

I don't mind nice visual effects for spells, but if they want to interrupt combat and freeze time, it better be for some unique, one off spells, not for your everyday soul drain and summon demon spell.

But what about me?! My needs are important, too. Oh stop that... Chest out, Chin up! You'll get over it (eventually)

Hey, it might give me a chance to play through those 200gb of games that I've bought and downloaded, yet haven't played yet

I'm probably a minority, but I'm a "minimalist". The less powerful items and artifacts in the game, the better, because it allows to appreciate the one or two I might find a lot more. If they have to have some powerful items, I agree that pacing and distribution is important. What is the fun of getting the sword of spider slaying as reward for killing the last spider in the game? I don't remember which one, that offered a sword of +3 vs. lycantropes for wiping out the last know werewolf. Very funny... not. What I do like is the idea of family heirlooms, where some unique (not necessarily powerful) items comes and leaves with a companion. In BG2, I usually left Anomen, Kheldorn, Valygar etc. with their family shields, armour etc. as it just seemed like "theirs". Hard to explain, but I guess I'm just not a powergamer.

Poor Kiwis, they always get left out

I wonder if sacrificing a chicken in a pentagram will assist in recreating the look and feel of Icewind Dale? Although to be honest, I found the art direction of PS:T stunning too.

Don't have a car, don't drink or smoke, don't eat out a lot, no big purchases planned for the near future. I thought long and hard about this one. In the end, it's not only about Project Eternity, but also about supporting Obsidian. The games they have released are all games I have enjoyed immensly and consider some of my favorite games of all time. My contribution is small in the grand picture, but worth it for me. I still look at the sum and shake my head sometimes! Thumbs up (for those days where 'like' just doesn't cut it)

I used to like Tomb Raider, but it's been dead (or unrecognisable) for a number of years now. It feels and plays like a mass produced action game (including every formulaic ingredient from QTE's to horrible boss fights) and has become boring beyond my pain threshold. Wasteland 2, I'm very much looking forward to, but not expecting that it's going to be released in 2013. As sad as it may sound, the game I'm currently looking most forward to is the GoG version of the old Carmageddon plus Splat Pack, and that one will hopefully come out this year. Come to think of it, I might just tear out 2013 from my calendar