kanisatha

Anyone been following the big blowup between France and Australia/UK/US over the nuclear submarine deal? I'm particularly interested to hear how the story is playing in Europe.

Given the rise of games like Gamedec and Disco Elysium, and even Encased presumably (i.e. true RPGs with no combat, or minimal combat, or combat that can mostly be avoided), can anyone recommend any similar games (Western RPGs only) that are in a medieval setting/world, or at least a pre-industrial/no firearms world? Thanks in advance!

What exactly is covered under that word "gameplay"? I see people using this word in a very wide range of contexts so I am curious about people's thoughts.

I don't think it'll take that long. I think I'll be able to/ready to play it around the four months mark.

I will say, though, that I think the biggest mistake Owlcat made here was relying on closed betas to try and bug-proof the game. They should have, instead, gone the route of a lengthy Early Access period for the game.

Yup. This is my understanding as well from regularly browsing the Owlcat forum. The people who seem to be hyper-bothered by the bugs are actually few, but they're super-vocal and will go out of their way to tell other people how disappointed/angry/offended they are with Owlcat and the game. The vast majority of people playing the game are very much liking and enjoying it (despite annoying minor bugs).

Totally agree! As for this particular game, I followed its development for a while, but eventually dropped it from my Steam wishlist mainly because I just can't get into the game's setting/world. As a passionate fantasy fan, the world of this game seems too "techy" for my tastes. But I would be interested the thoughts of anyone who's played it.

I've been wondering about picking up the first game. What would you say are the things the first game does well, especially compared with what you wrote about the new game? Something brief would be fine.

On TNG and on The Big Bang Theory!!

Seems like when they expanded from the tiny group they started out as at the beginning of the P:Km KS to where they are now as a company, they only loaded up on the technical side and not the creative side (maybe because they felt the sting of the criticism of the buggy release of P:Km). Hope they can change that soon. From what I can gather in some comments in interviews and such, they're beginning to think about their next game. Edit: To add something further, it's also possible that the weak writing is a reflection of Owlcat using established Paizo TT modules for their games, where the story and characters for the game have already been created by someone else. So Owlcat's thinking maybe: "Why bother hiring dedicated creative people when the creative aspects of the game have already been provided to us? Our technical people can handle simply translating what's in the TT module into the video game."

But isn't this *exactly* how most D&D DMs dramaticize events and NPCs in their TT games?

I wish I could give multiple hearts for this post. You capture a lot of my own feelings about the game.

SM-6 kicks ass. And it is going to get souped up even more.

Yup. It's what I do, and why my Steam hours counts are all at least a little inflated, though I also spend quite a bit of time in my games messing around with my inventory and equipment.

Yeah I've played with the free DLC. It's ok. Adds a little more value to the game.

This is true for me for every single game I play. Well, maybe not a whole year but at least around 6 months. I guess it's just a different mindset I have compared with most other gamers. I DON'T expect any game to be bug-free or performance issues free at launch, and I am completely okay with that. The people who must play a game at release can be used as guinea pigs to my benefit.

Same here. Happy to see the game is still being worked on. I love replaying it quite regularly.

Interesting. Wonder if it has to do with one's location. As soon as I received their KS update about preloading I clicked on the link in the update to take me to their site, got my Steam key, then immediately downloaded the game at 60 Mb/s. Had no problems.

I replay Kingmaker quite a bit, and don't ever encounter any bug that I even notice. Am able to play through every quest and every area and every encounter without any problem.

There are at least two lower settings that I recall, easy and story. And you can then customize any standard difficulty setting to a pretty good extent. When playing Kingmaker I never ever min-maxed, neither my PC or the companions. I always did things based on my personal preference and/or for roleplaying reasons. And to offset this, I play on customized normal or one level lower (you can even lower the difficulty in-game at any time). For me, the greatest fun of playing Kingmaker is in the huge range of options I have for setting up and playing my character. And this even extends to the companions, because they also come with a reasonable amount of freedom to develop as you wish. So it's like having a dozen different PCs to play around with, but where your companions are not IwD-like empty shells. Restartitis is a big problem for me.

I think you guys are far too eager to dismiss. May be also a heavy dose of unreasonably high expectations. This is not a AAA game, nor even a AA game. It is a very low-budget game specifically meant to recreate the IE games feel and experience. So they even *intentionally* have made the game look like those games from 20 years ago. If that's not your thing, fine. Perfectly reasonable. But that doesn't make it a bad game. I myself have not yet played it because I don't play betas or EA games as a rule. But I backed its KS, at a somewhat high cost, and have followed its development very closely. And I'm quite satisfied with it. It's my second most anticipated game right now, only behind P:WotR.

Pretty much the same with me. Really hate high-level gaming for exactly your reason: been there, killed that, what's the point of continuing to play this game anymore? A great example of this is that I absolutely LOVE the Witcher 3 base game but hate the DLCs. The one little difference for me is that for some reason I also like the really low levels. I completely agree that's when someone sneezing on you could be fatal. But something about that fragile mortality is thrilling for me. Maybe it's just that sense of wonder and awe as you start out in the world as a know-nothing, not-accomplished-anything nobody.

Sure. I agree, and if I ever play BG2 I always play through ToB as well. But quite a number of other people seem to not care for playing ToB.

That was the experience for many from the first game, but Owlcat have actively sought to learn from that experience and try to do better this time. So automatically assuming it will be a buggy launch is a questionable assumption. And besides, even in the first game, they addressed the most pressing bug issues very quickly, within just a few weeks, where the devs voluntarily pulled 18-hour days to get it done. If there's one thing to be said for Owlcat, they're super-committed to their customers.