kanisatha

Why not just not read those walls of text? I have found, in both that game specifically as well as other similar games, that not reading all the text doesn't cost you anything in-game. In fact, for me, there was a lot of text in BG3 that I found boring/unecessary, and I just stopped reading. And nothing bad happened.

Yes, that's why I said Larian went much further than Bioware ever did. They both took the 'big on presentation and production value' route, but Larian went much further than that.

Yeah, I agree with you on this. And for me, this is exactly what Larian did with BG3, but going even further, much much further, than Bioware ever did with its post-BG2 games. And of course, For Larian, this approach worked with BG3 in a way it never did for Bioware. But I attribute that entirely to the current generation of young people being much more into whiz-bang cinematics and prettiness of things as well as to the huge popularity D&D enjoys at present.

I was one of those that really liked this game (despite the TB combat). I backed its KS, and was very disappointed they didn't do a DLC or a sequel. I hope they go back to that IP in the future because I think it has a lot of potential.

@BruceVC, Solasta I is on sale in Steam. Base game 75% off. Bundle with all DLCs 53% off.

You're right. And that's why my Steam library only has 49 games in it, compared with most of you all who probably have games in the hundreds. I've become much more flexible about playing both action combat and TB combat games nowadays. The secret for me, I've found, is to play on Easy difficulty, thereby being able to get through tedious (TB) and/or aggravating (action) combat easily and quickly. Furthermore, RTwP combat doesn't automatically make it fun combat either, as the Tower of Time and Dark Envoy games demonstrated to me.

Humans have always been about scapegoating and very aggressively not taking responsibility for their own (in)actions, and AI/data centers, etc., make for excellent scapegoating targets.

But those studios you mention are exactly what don't give me much hope. Larian has returned to its Divinity IP, which I can't stand, and especially if their next game is a horror RPG, a genre I won't touch. Owlcat is now entirely about the WH40K IP, which again I won't touch. And CDPR's games, which I will at last try, are also not quite my thing because they're very much action RPGs. Fantasy genre non-action RPGs are now very few and far between, and being made almost entirely only by extremely small indie developers with just pennies for a budget.

And this is exactly what I fear about Obsidian (under Xbox's yoke).

Just started playing Zoria: Age of Shattering. It's a game whose crowdfunding I supported years ago, but am getting around to playing it only now. For a game made by just three people, it is pretty impressive so far. There are no bells and whistles. The aesthetics are very minimal, including character creation. But I am completely okay with all that. Still have to find out about the mechanics of the game, though. The one thing I've already learned about the game: there is a TON of loot to be picked up. And there is a lot of crafting and enchanting you can do right from the beginning of the game. If any of you has played the game, please share any beginner tips you may have.

A very sad day for me too. As I've said before, BG1 was my very first non-wargame video game. It introduced me to not only video games more broadly but specifically RPGs.

Finished Dark Envoy. As I said before, it's more of a dungeon crawler but with some limited RPG elements. Because I played on the 'Easy' setting, I could put my party on auto AI control for the combat encounters. That worked pretty well to get through the many, many combat encounters. The main story was somewhat thin, but good enough to hold my attention. Not too many side quests, but those that were there were pretty interesting. There is an extensive crafting and enchanting system, and it was easy to use, but I never really found a compelling need to use it because the loot drops had plenty of good-enough items. The best part of the game were the party companions. They were not very deeply presented/written, and yet I found all of them very likeable and had empathy for them. This in contrast with the BG3 companions, who were very deeply and extensively written and yet I found them (mostly) unlikeable and annoying. Goes to show that at least for me, how deeply/well written are companion characters is very much secondary to whether I will like the characters and enjoy having them in my party. Those two things seem to be quite separate from each other. Taking into account the game's price, and how much time I had to sink into it to complete it (not much), I'd give the game a 70/100. It was worth my money and time.

Yeah, tough call. I only buy on Steam so for me this is never an issue. And on Steam, I've seen the game on sale quite regularly. I'm sure it will have at least the same last sale price when the winter sale comes on in December. So, up to you whether you want to wait a couple of months or not.

I know!! A lot of cool monsters!!

I'll alert you if I see it on sale. Since I have Solasta II in my wishlist, and am subscribed to the developer newsletter for both games, I should get the alerts when they are released.