kanisatha

Very true. That's why for me it doesn't matter whether the awards are being made by biased insiders with their personal agendas or the masses who are generally know-nothing asses. Either way the results usually don't reflect quality or merit. And sadly nowadays, this has become true even with the Nobel prizes.

If BG3 can win for its "story" and "characters," then why not Starfield for "most innovative gameplay"?

For the strategy games fans here, I just came across these two games, both supposedly scheduled for release in 2024. They both look quite good to me. Millennia may have already been shared here, but Ara is definitely new to me. What do you guys thing?

It's on my Steam wishlist. But I'll end up a 'no' if they don't give me a third-person option.

Yes me too! It's Steam page is up so I've already wishlisted it.

Oh. I don't know. The video is available on multiple gaming sites. And it says "official trailer."

I was wondering if that was something just with my GPU. Good to know it's in the video itself. And yeah, that was annoying.

This trailer seems to be a lot longer than the one posted here a few weeks ago. And it seems to say the game is expected to be released in the second half of 2024 (with game reveal in summer '24).

BG3 is not a story-rich game. The lame main story with a million plot-holes and contraditions is the game's biggest weakness. People who've played the game a lot have laid out these issues in great detail in thread after thread on the Larian forum.

This is how I played TW3 too. I also hate the whole concept of buffing my character and never do it. And instead I prefer to just lower the difficulty as much as needed to compensate. In TW3 this worked quite fine for most of the game, but started to become a problem towards the end where even at the lowest difficulty not buffing was not working. I still somehow managed to finish the game. But then I tried the first DLC, and it was flatout impossible to get past a certain enemy (the burning mansion) pretty early on without using all manner of buffs. That's when I quit.

It has been my very vocal contention for years that all the divisions we are presented with within Western societies (party, ideology, race, gender, age, etc.) are fake faultlines intentionally created to divide the public into manageable groups. The only real and meaningful line of division is the elites versus the rest of us, where the elites are the elites across all the supposedly-different political parties and factions, across all elite institions, and across all countries. And by their very nature they're all totalitarian.

What was included in the NDAA that was passed by both houses is a continuation of a small military aid program for Ukraine that I believe predates the war. It amounts to just 300 million. The big 61 billion request is what is stalled, although the Administration is beginning to signal a willingness to compromise with Republicans on securing the southern border.

Customers are like cows. They *need* to be milked. It's symbiotic!

It's quite alright. It's been this way my whole life in America. I quite often even receive snail-mail addressed to "Ms.".

Ahem, I'm a he But yes, I have not yet played the game. My take on the game is based on having been very active on the Larian forum right from when the game was announced, and reading through all the threads and debating these points there very thoroughly there, and also spending many hours watching streams of the game through its development and since release.

I think I've posted about my reasons in the BG3 thread, so I may not be quite comprehensive here with my issues, but (not in rank-order) ... Too much resources wasted on cinematics and VO that should've been spent on core cRPG elements. Gameplay ddevelopment decisions were clearly made with what was needed for co-op play over single-player. The entire combat system. Avoiding combat results in lesser outcomes than fighting, and also results in less XP and loot. Main story full of plot holes. Too much disregard for decades of established FR lore. The entire "origin" PCs concept. The custom PC being the least attractive way to play the game because the custom PC is the least plugged into the game (your origin companions are more central to the game than your custom PC). Choices throughout the game often not including obvious good-alignment options (or where good-alignment options are silly/unrealistic) and where choices favor playing evil (according to people I would trust on the Larian forum, there is no consistently good path the PC can take through the whole game, though a consistently evil path exists and is easy to accomplish). All companions being some form of primadonna/diva/hipster type character, and not a single sympathetic character among them. Poor writing. Period.

Looks like 2024 is what's going to be my year of awesome RPGs. But with my luck it'll also be the year the world ends.

Same with me.

It's just that I soooooo want to play a new Forgotten Realms game. But sadly for me, BG3 has turned out to be complete crap as far as I'm concerned. So I'm still left with that hankering. But I suppose you are right. I need to forget about not just this game but any prospective FR game and accept that I'm never going to get such a game.

I've been wondering too.

Sorry to hear. Yeah, as others have said, hang in there and don't lose hope. Something will come up soon. Maybe you should consider coming out here to "new" England. Lots of tech jobs here.

I'm the same, and yet I never have much free time. It's why I'm so looking forward to retirement.

Truly hope this isn't implying something bad in your life.

It amazes me how quickly you guys are able to get through games. How do you find the time?!