kanisatha

Yes, China can do it too. And Trump is signaling he is okay with Russia taking Ukraine and China taking Taiwan if that also means he can take Greenland and/or the Panama Canal. Trump is essentially creating a 21st C. version of the 19th C. Concert, with the US, Russia, and China as its only members, and where those three states can do whatever they want in the world so long as they consult with each other and don't cross each others' red lines. And all other states are irrelevant. It is classic hardcore realism. As Thucydides once put it, "The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must." Btw, on Taiwan, although China could invade, and still may, I strongly believe they won't -- for this simple reason: China has spent the past few years ramping up its infiltration efforts inside Taiwan. It's strategy is to push in pro-China Taiwanese into positions of power within the Taiwanese government, military, intelligence services, law enforcement, industry, and civil society. This effort is pretty significant, even though no one, including the Taiwanese government, is talking about it publicly. And when the time is right, these infiltrators will launch a coup and overthrow the elected government and set up a Chinese puppet government that will then "invite" China to come in and "save" the Taiwanese people from US/Japan-controlled "splittists." This will all happen lightning fast, and will be all over before whatever governments exist at that time in Washington and other allied capitals can get their heads out of their asses. Classic Sun Tzu: victory without war. Mark my words.

Of all these old RPGs, the only two I really want remasters of are Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. The first I am hopeful that recent find in SteamDB proves true and we will have it. The second I highly doubt will ever happen, which is a shame.

But still nothing on whether a third-person option will be available. :(

Well, apparently between 2016 when I first played DA:I and now, something's happened to my memory, which is rather disconcerting ... and scary.

I just started my first ever replay of DA:I, and all I keep thinking is: how did I not remember this stupid/horrible aspect of this game from my first playthrough many years ago? There are just so many things about the game that I simply would not be willing to accept in any contemporary RPG. And somethings downright make the game *not* an RPG, such as distributing attribute points not being in the hands of the player. The only thing I seem to like about the game is its story and characters, so I've dropped it to 'casual' difficulty and am continuing with my playthrough just to enjoy my revisit of Thedas, especially given how much of a bust DA:V has turned out to be.

Pathfinder 1e is often described as D&D 3.75e. So it does have a lot of the same rules and mechanics bloat of D&D 3.5e. For me, D&D 3.5e is the best D&D edition, so I have no problem with Pathfinder. But others will disagree of course. But overall, P:Km is a great game. I played it with the strategic subgame turned on, and I actually enjoyed at least some of the elements of that part of the game.

Arcanum is the one game from that era that I also have never played, but which I have wondered about playing. And then I keep telling myself to wait for a remasterd/enhanced version to come out. 😀 But maybe I should play it now before it gets way too old to enjoy.

It feels very strange that I'm finding myself in complete agreement here with this post of yours.

And on the other side of the world as a teenager, I also used to have my radio always on and tuned to the English Service of the one and only radio station for the whole country. And they also played Leo Sayer, among many others, all the time. I love this song as well. Another of my favourites is Orchard Road. 😀 If you're interested in getting a Leo Sayer album, get "All the Best." It has all of his top hits in it.

Heh. I didn't think anyone else here even knew of Leo Sayer. One of my all-time favourites. Listened to my Best of ... CD just last week. 😀 Thanks for the videos. Though I listen to my CDs often, I've not seen these videos since the early 80s. Nice trip down nostalgia lane.

Not saying a literal return to the past. It's about returning to a certain way of doing things, where only a small group of the most powerful states matter, the other states don't matter, and the powerful states are the only ones with a say on how things work in the world and whose interests get taken into account. Furthermore, the powerful states each maintains deference towards the behavior of the others in return for the same. In Trump's view, only the US, China, and Russia (and possibly India) matter. And in return for the US not criticizing Russia for its actions in Ukraine, and potentially not criticizing China for actions in Taiwan, he expects they will return the favor when he takes certain actions in the future against Mexico (cartels), Panama (canal), and Greenland.

I don't care for the combat encounters in RPGs generally, but yes especially when the game is TB. But I also can better tolerate it when the combat encounters are relatively few in number and are not tedious (enemies with ridiculous hit points, immunities, etc.). In a tactics game, then, it is precisely all the things I dislike that would converge in it: the whole game would be a series of combat encounters with little or no story or character development or world-building; the combat would (likely) be TB; and, the combat would involve silly levels of "challenge."

To be fair, 'rules-based order' (liberal internationalist) is the thing of Biden and the old guard of both parties. For Trump, it is, and has always been, about returning us and the world to a form of the pre-WW1 'power-based order' (realist).

I absolutely LOVE both PoE1 and PoE2. I supported their crowdfunding and everything about them. But I would have zero interest in a Pillars Tactics game (or any "Tactics" game). In (C)RPGs, it is precisely everything other than combat that I love and value about the game, and the combat part is something to be tolerated so as to get to enjoy all of those other things. As such, if the game is all (or mostly all) about the combat, there isn't anything there for me.

FYI, from the Solasta II Steam forum "Known Issues, Bugs & Feedback" thread (see especially his last point): Myzzrym [developer] 40 minutes ago Quick note for the common issues we saw here: Bluriness: Make sure you have your video settings => Render Scale => Slider up to 100% Performance issues: If you have a good configuration, make sure you lower the resolution to 1920x1080 in your video settings. As this is a demo we haven't had a lot of time to work on optimization, so anything above 1080p might have your computer struggle a bit. Steam Deck: Same as above, game not optimized for Steam Deck quite yet! Languages: Only English is available in the Demo, even though there are already language options in the game settings (they just don't work). Missing features from Solasta I like Shove, Ready Action, Fly, Hide in Combat (etc): This is only a demo, we haven't implemented those yet but we do plan on having them in the final game.

Yeah, I was surprised ABC didn't give this show a full season 1 extension.

This is the part of the game that has me the most unhappy. I get a lot of my happiness playing RPGs from optimally distributing gear across my team. So, not having a team/not being allowed to equip my team is a huge negative for me. And gaining treasure stops being interesting, because what's the point? You can only use a handful of the items anyway.

So does this mean Atari now has (finally) lost its rights to those old D&D videogames? I'm no fan of WotC, but I always hated Atari.

Yeah, this will be an insta-buy for me if it turns out to be true. And even more joy - Beamdog, which is now owned by Aspyr, has confirmed in a Steam forums post that they are NOT involved in this project. Hallelujah!!! 😀 Does anyone know what NwN2 having been in "rights hell" the past 19 years is all about? It's being referenced in all the stories about this EE, but no one is providing any details. So I am very curious.

Oh, come on! It wasn't that bad. I actually liked DA2. The repetitious areas thing was very annoying, yes, but the game overall was okay--good, even. The story was interesting as were most of the companion characters.

The reason I passed on this game as well was, again, the first-person combat. But is there a lot of combat in the game? Because if it is much more a puzzles and exploration game, then I should and would reconsider passing on it.

A woman speaking with that slow Southern drawl, especially from around Georgia, is a huge turn-on for me. 😀

Great blog. A very interesting and fun read!! And your gaming interests very closely mirror my own! After RPGs, it's strategy games and builder/management games for me as well.

Oh, I did not know this. I just looked it up ... and yes, this is definitely a deal-breaker for me. I require saving (mostly) anytime anywhere. Thanks for pointing this out!

Well, I wouldn't say I'm not good with combat in any game. I'm very comfortable with combat in the classic cRPGs, be it RTwP or TB. It's first-person action combat that is a problem for me. Even having it be third-person makes a big positive difference (i.e. Witcher-style). In first person, all I end up doing is mashing the keyboard wildly and never hitting with my sword while getting clobbered by the other guy, because the perspective makes it very difficult for me to figure out what's happening.