Cantousent

I'm reading all of this, alexis. In fact, I was wondering about one of the members talking about getting their heads out of their own posteriors (to paraphrase) and to STFU. I figured I'd let you vent because you're obviously heavily invested in the debate and it's okay to get a little heated. However, by and large it has been friendly up until this morning. I don't believe things have been particualrly spiteful, although the irony is that I think R.Alexander got broadsided a bit unfairly from folks much more than you did. The nature of debate is exactly an 'us versus them' proposition. ...But remember, you might be on opposite sides of an issue today but find yourselves on the same side on something tomorrow. I'm going to leave everything the way you've put it so far. Nothing really terrible, but don't let this stuff drive you crazy, alexis. No one is out to get you and you have the right to speak your mind. Just try not to bring in references to folks' anatomy if you would please. :Cant's broad grin icon: EDIT: Added a word for clarity.

WoT hasn't been counting posts for a while now. There are people with less than a quarter of my post count who have three times as many posts.

Edited out a cartoon for language filter reasons above. Then, skimming the rest, I saw what my gifted friend had to say. Yeah, I'm not a fan of kill XP, but... come on! It's Fallout. They've all had kill XP. Even more, I'm not a fan of romances, but in a franchise where you can get into the porn industry, have relations with any number of hookers, hos, and floozies, all while leading up to your wedding day, I don't figure I can muster much of an argument against romances in FO4.

Many thanks, brother, but I've actually *gained* a seven pounds since I went on a strength regimen. :Cant's rueful grin icon: If it wouldn't be so gauche, I would post pics. ...But I better let other folks describe *their* days.

Today was a gym day. It's almost exactly a year and a half to the day since I went on my weight loss regimen. My main goal has switched from weight loss to muscle gain, but I'd still like to lose more weights regimen. I figure that, over 130 pounds lighter and I can cut myself some slack while I increase my weight. I've lost enough fat that I can see some areas of decent muscle definition. My wife even bought me a Captain America workout shirt. If a yutz like me can do it, then anyone can do it. *You* can do it! "never give in, never give in, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." Churchiill EDIT: added a letter and a word.

There is a thread about this in CnC, as Excalibur said: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80155-chris-avellone-leaves-obsidian/?hl=avellone As long as this thread doesn't get personal or goofy, I think it should stay open. It's not really any different than any other thread discussing various aspects of the design and the designers are a huge part of that. :Cant's Captain Obvious grin icon: I think Durance is probably NPC hall of fame material, but you never know how things will go. For all we know, Avellone will end up doing some work on future projects. I didn't hear that he parted from Obsidz on unfriendly terms and I hope he didn't. If that's the case, then he could still do work for them even if he doesn't have the same position or even ownership in the company. Remember to be gentle with one another and we can speculate about what this all means for PoE as much as folks want. :Cant's broad smile icon: EDIT: This isn't going to be a gossip column thread. I don't mind a little snark or heated debate. However, if folks make specific unsubstantiated claims of fact, I'm either not going to approve them, I'm going to remove them, or I'll just close the thread. If you want to discuss Avellone's reasons for leaving and the impact it will have outside of PoE, I refer you to existing threads in other sub-fora.

To be fair, sometimes the developer will offer incentives on Steam for achieving pre-order goals. I don't know that it's enough of a reason, but it's an argument for those who are already inclined to purchase the game from a developer they trust. Also, kickstarters pre-fund a game, although I would argue that is substantially different from pre-ordering. I'm not going to pre-order FO4 and, in fact, will probably wait to buy it for at least several weeks, not because I don't anticipate making the purchase, but because that's how I tend to buy most games these days. If I hadn't had to push the OP through, I imagine I wouldn't even have read this thread. First Fallout 4 thread I've read and so far the only post that actually gives any information about the game is Longknife's, and I don't even understand the part about SPECIAL being raised. There were ways in all the FO games to raise SPECIAL attributes through various means, so what exactly does that mean for someone who hasn't been following the development?

Ahh, in that case, I feel for you. I did the same thing in the stronghold. Those AoE abilities can sometimes be a real pain.

I'm not being snarky. My legitimate answer is that the reasonable consequence of killing everybody who provides goods and services in the area is that you no longer have those goods and services available. I'm sure there's a work around for this, so keep checking over the next couple of days, shibdib.

Ah, I was going to wrap this into the previous thread, but I just saw that my neutral friend closed it for length. Well then, Larlenoyc7, it's all yours. Thank God and Jesus as you see fit, but also save some love and gratitude for Bethesda. After all, God helps those who help themselves! :Cant's wink and nod icon: Of course, I'm assuming hell was being without Fallout 4 and that's why the effusion of gratitude. <.<

PoE has worked fine, although I do think the new browser, Microsoft Edge, seems to have some minor issues. I'm using Chrome right now, but I'll give Edge a chance after some of the kinks are sorted. Still, good to hear that folks aren't having a lot of Win 10 issues so far with PoE. Keep your fingers crossed. After all, with the xpac coming out in a week or two, we don't want any nasty OS issues! <.<

If you upgrade the stronghold sufficiently, there's an area in the left corner of the outside stronghold map with a cabin. Inside the cabin is an NPC who can give you bounty quests to fulfil for a decent chunk of XP, some coin, and some gear. Also, if you're having trouble with something, I would suggest parting with some coin. People tend to horde wealth and finite items like potions, food, and scrolls in these games. Buy what you need and use it. No point in dying rich when you can live the good life moderately wealthy.

I upgraded to Windows 10, fought some battles, searched around, changed locations, and otherwise goofed off without any issue.

You guys can brutalize Sawyer within reason, but remember to be gentle with one another. :Cant's equable smile icon: I say that because I'm probably going to get considerable push-back for what follows. I liked the stronghold. I understand the arguments about the stronghold and I agree with some of the suggested improvements. In fact some of them aren't just reasonable. Some of them are great. For example, naming the quests that come available and giving at least a little backstory for them. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the stronghold. Now, to be fair, I'm not a 'stronghold fan.' I think of it as a cool little add-on that came included in the game. Still, I enjoyed clearing out the joint. I liked seeing the various places restored. The shops were cool as they opened for business. It was great seeing the population grow. Most of all, I liked having a place to call home, as it were. Now, it would have been good to see a little bustle with population that wasn't entirely shopkeepers and hirelings. I was okay with the bounty hunts, but they did strike me as a bit out of place. Having a place to store your stuff isn't nearly as useful when you carry around all your belongings in an invisible u-haul. Sure, there were issues, but I don't think the stronghold is as universally unpopular as people contend in this thread. Yes, it's clearly got a very vocal group who want it changed to varying degrees or removed completely. I respect that and I say keep arguing for your point of view. I'm just saying that I doubt I'm the only person who played the game and got some enjoyment out of the stronghold feature. I personally think that many of the people who are more or less indifferent about strongholds liked the stronghold that's in the game.

I'll start with the disclaimer that I'm a Sawyer fan. The way I see it, there is no argument that overcomes success. If you like the game, then you must give credit to the lead designer. If you like the game, it seems to me you should at least give some nod to the lead. I do see one particularly glaring error in the game, but it's a continuity issue with the main story line. The stronghold? Okay, it might not be the best part of the design. Fair enough, but just like you to have to take the bad with the good, to be intellectually honest you must take the good with the bad. So, clamor for improvements in the stronghold design, but it's only one part, and not even the biggest part, of a large game.

The stronghold to me is one of those things where I didn't realize I hated it until someone explained it to me that I did. :Cant's wry grin icon: Actually I still enjoy the stronghold, but the points people make about fleshing it out are sensible. In fact, I had no problem with 'average adventure' and 'minor item,' but farleybear made an excellent point about at least giving some RPG flair to the descriptions and stories. I don't know how hard that would be, although intuitively it doesn't seem like it would be particularly difficult. I'm glad to have the stronghold in the game, but if it could be infused with some of the ideas that people have had here, I imagine I would like it even more. Some things don't appeal as much to my tastes, however. For example, I don't want to be stuck in an RTS strategy game. Right now, the stronghold improvements and staffin decisions are by and large unobtrusive. Hell, if anything, I would rather be able to set up defenses so that I don't even need to worry about heading back to take a personal hand in fending off attacks.

Guys, if this is going to become nothing more than a multi-player option debate, I'm going to wrap it up into a previous thread. On the other hand, if the MP aspect is only part of the overall discussion, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the original poster and leave it as is. :Cant's bemused grin icon: I do, in fact, like giving the benefit of the doubt to the members.

This is actually my biggest concern. Even more than resources, I'm afraid that accommodating MP will by necessity require compromises in the SP game. I guess I'm looking for a great single player game created for the PC. I'm sure that a game created for SP and MP to run on the PC, XBox (whichever), and PS (whichever) is great, but there are compromises that must be made to fit everything into one box and sometimes my mode and platform of choice will be on the losing end of that compromise.

Whaddayano? I thought this thread would devolve into the usual MP backbiting bitterness and rancor, but it's pretty level headed. I, for one, understood your position, R.Alexander. I think most of the 'anti-multiplayer' crowd, which includes me, would be happy to have it included if we weren't worried that it would do one of two things: 1. use resources. Really, I would want even trivial resources to go to enhancing the SP game in any way possible before going toward MP and, even more important to my mind, 2. change the nature of the game. I don't want my single player game to accommodate multiplayer utility in any way at all. With all that said, I won't be one of the bomb throwers if Obsidz decides to include MP in the next game. I'd figure the other side will merely have come out on top on that issue, but it would certainly cause me concern.

J'accuse! Cheataire!

I'm glad folks are keeping it friendly and cool. I won't reiterate the arguments folks have made against using resources on MP other than to point out that I agree with them. Specifically, I don't want folks to be denied something they want, but I'm much more interested in the things *I* want, and those entail aspects more in line with the single player experience.

Welcome to some of the more controversial decisions. The short answer is that inventory acts in exactly the way it seems. So, yeah. You've got an immense capacity to carry stuff straight away and you've got unlimited ammo. I got used to some stuff quickly. The inventory system remained a little off-putting for a while, but the ammo thing never bothered me much.

Welcome aboard, Arnold! Glad to hear some input from new members. As a practical matter, I would of course give it more time simply because you've already purchased and installed the game. It might be that the game isn't for you, but if you've been out of gaming for a while, I think it's more of a learning curve thing. For my part, I think it can be a pain getting the hang of protecting ranged folks (casters or bowmen), but once you do it's not so hard. The trick is to have one or two characters with enough engagement to keep people preoccupied. Now, I find wizards kind of tricky in that they have some great spells that work really well in melee range. Yes, it seems weird to ol' skoolers like you to plop plate armor on your wizard, but it actually gives you more options. ...And, trust me, wizards in plate don't play of feel the same as melee types swinging a sword. Of course, you also have the option of eschewing short range spells and sticking with a standard spell hurling pointy hat and robes type of caster. Rogues are useful for dishing out some serious heat. Don't think of them as necessary for utility type assignments. Yes, they get a bonus to some sneak n' picky sort of stuff, but basically they're role is to perforate the bad guys' livers, not to eavesdrop on their conversations or pick the locks on their treasure chests. The skills thing is probably going to be something you'll either come to appreciate or find at least a little off-putting. I can't speak for the design team other than to say that the whole reason that classes aren't restricted to iron clad (or non iron clad as the case may be) roles is because they devs wanted characters to have a lot of freedom. That doesn't mean somewhat typecast characters aren't possible, but it does mean that you'll enjoy the game more if you don't think of the classes as being confined to playing out the roles that they had in BG2. So, long story short, figure out how to engage enemies so ranged folks can dish out the heat and don't think of the classes as what their main function was in BG2 but what their potential function is in PoE and, finally, try to enjoy the freedom you have in assigning non-combat skills to various members of the party so you aren't *required* to include a rogue just so you can pick a lock. Maybe that won't work for you, but I hope it does and you can enjoy the game. ...But feel free to come back to acclaim, complain, or just kibitz. once again, welcome to the forum!

This is in General, so it should be spoiler free, but I'll put in spoiler tags and ask that folks who answer with critical path info do the same. On the other hand, I might remember it wrong, so keep a look out for what others say.

I actually agree with this post, but I also think that having new skills could enhance the game. The only thing is to have skills that make sense and are both useful and interesting. I wouldn't want them to include new skills unless those skills added something substantial to the game. Otherwise, just put the effort into doing something else in x-pacs and sequels.