kanisatha

Sorry, no. I was a first time player and I never had any of those questions. The game did an excellent job of providing all the information I needed to understand all those characters and all of the story. So much so that after having been a person who disdained AAA action RPGs, I so loved TW3 that I am now open to AAA action RPGs if they are of the quality of TW3.

I guess this varies from person to person. I also played TW3 without ever having played the other games or having any knowledge whatsoever about that franchise, and I not only did I not have any problems understanding what was going on but I found the game very easy to get into and a very enjoyable experience.

Yes I am well aware of that figure from iterating some Fig data. But not only was that before consoles, it was before TB option was added and actually quite early on. Plus, like some others, I'm not convinced people are properly interpreting that Fig data correctly. So, while I agree that is a valid data point, it is just one data point. I've since seen some stories in the gaming news media including some interpretations of Steam data, and they point to numbers somewhat higher, though still very much disappointing. But ultimately, none of this really matters. The bottom line is that relative to Obsidian's expectations, the game sold poorly. And that is what will drive Obsidian's internal calculations about whether they will ever make a similar game again. These are my sentiments exactly as well. As for similar games to play, if you played P:Km at an early stage, you may want to give it a try now after all the patching. It is a hugely improved experience. Also, Tower of Time is a good game out there. And soon we will have several more similar games coming out: The Darkeye: Book of Heroes (June 9th), Realms Beyond, Black Geyser, Solasta, and eventually P:WotR. Furthermore, I've personally made the choice that I will expand my gaming niche by being more open to action RPGs. After many years of rejecting trying Witcher 3, I finally broke down and tried it. It is a magnificent game. So I'm looking forward to the next 'Witcher' game, and also (seriously) the next Dragon Age game. Bethesda's Starfield looks interesting as well. My point being: no need to lose hope just yet.

But where is that 200k number for PoE2 sales coming from? From all I can tell, the number is probably in the 400-500k range. As for your second point, I think we will still (occasionally) see those games. But they will come only from small indie studios with modest sales expectations, games like 'Black Geyser' and 'Darkeye: Book of Heroes' being good examples.

I would agree with this, though I'm not sure I'd say the group is "significantly" larger. I have no data to back this up but my gut feeling is that the hardcore group as I described it is probably around 1 million globally.

This exactly. D&D/D&D-based mechanics are ok even when they are obtuse and confusing and poorly explained, because there is always a core group of gamers who "know" D&D. But going even further, P:Km's sales were not that great. The difference between P:Km sales and PoE2 sales is that for the former the expectations for sales were lower and those lower expectations were (more than) satisfied, so we declare that game to have been a sales success, whereas for the latter the expectations were higher and so we declare PoE2 to have been a sales "failure." Ultimately, it's about the gap between sales expectations and reality, and not sales in some absolute sense.

This is exactly what I have argued too about why I believe PoE2 did not sell well. The PoE mechanics/ruleset is too complex, confusing, and non-intuitive for the average gamer today. It is fine for hardcore cRPG fans/grogs, but the average gamer (who is not represented in forums like this one) is not going to care to invest time and effort trying to figure out those complex mechanics when they have plenty of other games to choose from, games with simple and shallow but intuitive and easy to understand and use mechanics (for example D:OS), that they can go play instead.

We will get a sense of whether classic, old-school, single-player cRPGs are on their way out when Obsidian announces its next big game (TOW2 and Grounded excluded).

Yes this was a major highlight of the game for me too. And I completely agree that it is so much superior to random dice rolls.

And the worst part is that those resources spent putting in this crap, as you appropriately call it, could have been spent on other parts of the game that would've made the game so much better. So much unrealized potential in that game. But because it performed so badly we are not very likely to see a second stab at it, which is so very sad.

I'm also in the 'liked it' group. The setting was very interesting and I liked the lore and the characters and the story even though I can agree the written material was often pedantic. Yes combat was rare, but for me as someone who hates TB combat that was a HUGE blessing. I LOVED that you can work around almost every single combat encounter, including even the final boss encounter, and feel that's how it ought to be in every cRPG. I think it suffered in people's minds for two main reasons: (1) people's constant nostalgia-goggles comparisons to Ps:T (and why I believe no developer should ever claim their game is a 'successor' of any kind to some beloved old game), and (2) a way-too-small development budget.

Agree with @Bartimaeus. I quit watching that show around season 6 or so as well. Really sad to see Hawaii 5-O ending. A very rare instance where I loved the original show and then loved the reboot even more! After ten seasons that show still remained fantastic. But I totally get O'Loughlin's need to walk away, and the show ended while still enjoying high ratings. Good for them.

It's a good game for restartitis.

US military personnel being present in many countries is not at all a meaningful thing to look at. The US is a global superpower, and as such will surely have military personnel in many countries in the form of attaches, liaisons, trainers, advisors, etc. The US has alliances with more than 60 countries around the world whereas other big powers like Russia and China have such alliances with only a handful of states. And, again because of its unique global status, it also faces lone/small group-attacker threats to its people and consular offices in foreign countries much more so than any other country, and as such often has a small tactical response unit attached to its embassy in some countries. China has plenty of military personnel in many countries in Asia and Africa. It's just that those forces are often masquerading as construction workers, "security" personnel, and the like.

Six Times the Speed of Sound: Will the Air Force Get an SR-72 Spy Plane?

Liking the feeling of starting out at low level v. questioning how multiclassing will work with just ten levels to draw upon: two completely different and completely unrelated things. But, whatever.

Thanks for the insights. This generally fits in with my perception of 5e having been created with increased cheesiness in mind, which I suppose is what today's TT gamers are often looking for in their games. Too bad, though I can also appreciate some positives from 5e compared with 3.5e.

What was the point of this post? And from a mod no less? Have the forum rules been changed to allow only posts praising BG3 to high heaven?

But people are everywhere. There's just too damn many of them! On the bright side, since I've been told not to come in to work for the rest of the semester (while still being paid), I get to go play in my garden where there are only squirrels and birds and no damn humans.

Not to mention how do you make truely multiclass characters with just 10 levels? Multiclassing will essentially be just about adding in one other class to your base class at most or else risk turning your character into something rather subpar.

I think the structure of the poll is somewhat unfair to both NwN2 and PoE because support for those games is getting split among their variants. I understand each is its own game, but still one-off games end up having an advantage in a poll like this. For me, for example, I actually like PoE1 and 2 roughly equally. PoE1 is better on story and characters. PoE2 is better on mechanics.

Indeed, and that's a big source of my unhappiness these days. Far too many games that claim to be RPGs are in reality tactical combat games with a bit of RPG mechanics thrown in.

I also agree the genre definitions have a lot of subjectivity to them. For me, cRPG means classic RPG rather than computer RPG, as in old-school RPG using iso perspective, story-centered, party-based, single-player focused. [Side note: Yes the "C" started out as meaning computer, but I don't see that relevance anymore.] The other side of the definition then being action RPG, aRPG. With respect to the DA games specifically, then, again for me, DA:O was on the border between cRPG and aRPG. The second and third games are solidly in the aRPG box.

From a profitability pov you have to factor in that Owlcat is operating in Russia and Obsidian in California.

Why would it be a cRPG? I only said party-based. The DA games are party-based and they are not cRPGs.