kanisatha

I hope the US makes it very clear to the sultan of Turkey that neither the US nor NATO will be bailing his sorry ass out in Syria and that he is on his own there. I am very strongly pro-Kurdish and am happy to see the Turks getting their due for what they've done to the Kurds.

The game is very friendly to the player's choice for how you set up your PC. Don't overlook that you can mix and match several classes and archtypes into your character (which you can also do to all your companions). From a metagaming pov, LG is a very useful alignment to have in the game, and the game uses skill checks a LOT so building your PC with skill checks in mind is a very good way to go.

Gamerguides. The neoseeker one (and also the yekbot one) are essentially the same material as the gamerguides one but just organized and presented differently. Also, the gamepedia wiki site for the game is pretty good with its tables for kingdom events and the like.

Yes indeed. Then I might actually choose to return to tabletop gaming. 😀

If you are planning on using a walkthrough, I would strongly recommend the official walkthrough. It is very well done. And that walkthrough does help you know what to do when, but where you can avoid looking at the walkthrough for the specifics of each area/encounter.

Just to note, you can set the overall difficulty to 'normal' and then customize specific parts of it with the various toggles. Also, there is something to be said for doing kingdom management on easy rather than auto because once you learn how it works it is actually quite easy to handle.

Yes indeed. 100% agree. I especially like the odds of a great find on Enceladus. I think Ganymede could also be useful to study.

Yeah I feel very sad for him because I have tremendous respect for him as a game designer and writer. But at the same time, I agree that if you are going to be in this business you need to develop a thick skin and be able to not take things personally. And most of all, be able to take that gut-punch, get back up on your feet, put the (perceived) failure behind you, and move on.

Well, Swen has since apparently tweeted that Google "got it wrong."

Yup, complete with enough power output to power a HEL. 😀

I saw a report in a mainstream source a few days ago (I think it was a Reuters story) that Turkish and Syrian troops had exchanged fire with Russian troops caught in the middle. Not a surprise at all, something I fully expected and predicted would happen.

2M in sales for TOW at this point is very good. It puts it in the same sales category as D:OS2.

Here are mine: Solo-play RPGs are boring. Party-based games are a much more fun and meaningful experience. Single-player is the only way to play a videogame. Playing with other people is a painful chore. The first-person perspective in RPGs limits rather than enhances roleplaying. Turn-based combat is fake combat, and as such by definition can never be good in an RPG. Planescape: Torment is an overrated game. Corollary: Chris Avellone is an overrated writer. Playing Baldur's Gate 1 is a more fun experience than playing Baldur's Gate 2. All 4X games should come with the option to turn off the 'extermination X' part of the game. Playing with swords is way more fun than playing with lasers or guns.

And in Sisko you got to see a side of him outside his job. His relationship with his son was wonderfully portrayed ... that you could be very successful captain while also being a great dad.

The Gold Dragon path is it for me now. Have long loved the idea of playing a dragon character, and especially a gold. And though I get others' lack of enthusiasm for mounted combat, especially in an iso game, I think it is cool thing to have in the game (assuming they do a good with its implementation).

<gasp> And The Sisko is ok with this?! 😛

Well you have to keep in mind that the Lance battlefield missile system we had during the Cold War, which was about the smallest of our tac nukes, had a 70kt warhead. So, progress. Bottom line, we dumped all our tac nukes after the end of the Cold War but the Russians retained many of theirs. In recent years they have fielded a new generation of tac nukes and in particular the highly capable Iskender-M system. Given budget realities, our only option for a response was modifying existing strategic nukes for tactical use as from-scratch new systems are just not going to get through Congress.

Mounted combat with dragon mounts for the Azata mythic path!! That's what I have my fingers crossed for. If they give me that, WotR will become my #1 cRPG of all time.

Maybe the problem is not the game or its sales numbers, but rather is the (unrealistic) sales expectations Obsidian had for the game. If Obsidian's sales expectations for the game had been about half a million, then surely they would not be seeing the actual sales numbers as having been anything bad. And, for a game like PoE2, perhaps the sales expectations should be in the half a million range given the kinds of games that appeal to large numbers of buyers these days. Speaking for myself, I would much rather have a game like PoE2 that sells only half a million than a game like D:OS2 that sells two million. So I am very happy that Obsidian gave me precisely PoE2 than give me a game very similar to D:OS2 which I would not have bought. The game preference niche that I belong to may be only half a million strong, but those people deserve to enjoy their preferred style of game just as much as anyone else. And it's very nice that up until now Obsidian has been willing to cater to that niche group (whereas Larian chose to walk away from that group in order to increase its sales). Sales numbers in some absolute sense should not matter. The only thing that should matter to a developer is whether they made money off the game or lost money. This is the lesson I believe Obsidian should take from PoE2. But sadly I am certain the lesson they will take is that there is no room for such a small niche game like PoE2 within Obsidian anymore, and that they too must abandon their small niche group of fans in pursuit of a much larger group of potential buyers for their future games. At the very least, Microsoft is sure to insist on it.

Yeah this I totally agree with. Time travel immediately turns me off a show as well.

Hehe. I guess I must be the only person who liked that theme song. 😀 I was very sad when ST:E got canceled. Still consider it to have been one of the better shows out there.

Actually you and I are in agreement. I also am very happy that Obsidian has tried to create a new combat system that is complex and intricate while at the same time being different from the D&D D20 system (and especially a system that doesn't rely as much on random chance). This is my personal preference, and apparently yours as well. But I believe my conclusion does apply when it comes to the vast majority of gamers out there, almost all of whom are never visitors to this forum. Your point that the only way to get people to appreciate a complex combat system is to keep at it with the games you make is very much valid, except for that developers need to show good profit margins today and not twenty years from now.

Yes! I saw this story too. The aliens are real y'all!! 😀

Yes this is what I've pointed out as well. P:K has complex rules but because it's based on a longstanding TT game system it has a core group of fans for whom the rules are transparent. By contrast the complex rules of PoE don't have that same advantage, whereas this issue was moot for the D:OS games because even though they also were using a "new" rules system that system was very easy to figure out and not complex at all. So the lesson for me is if you're going to use a new rules system that players are not going to be familiar with, make it simple, intuitive, and easy to understand. If you want to use a complex system, use one that is already well-established (ex. the D20 system).

"Create"? Riggggggght. Bet they were hiking in the desert at Roswell when the idea just came to them. 😉