Cantousent

I'm not saying your opinions are invalid, merely not shared by all.

Since most folks playing the game probably won't have the beta and probably won't even come here to get the lecture, I imagine they'll have to learn the curve the same way we did in my day, installing the game and playing it. I agree with the idea of using best evidence, but I also believe in keeping in mind that the best evidence at an earlier stage of development might be incomplete or flawed. I imagine, if they've done a halfway decent job balancing the game, that even classes that aren't the most powerful will still be viable. At least, with Sawyer's inclination to put balance on a pedestal I would expect it.

How do you know the posts are eye height and what the function of the fence will be? It might be thigh high and decorative. ...But, yeah, I would use a post hole digger myself. Except when I lived in Moreno Valley, in which case I would use a jack hammer. ...Or maybe hack at the dirt for a while with a pick axe, get tired, and sit around looking at the ground while drinking a beer.

I don't like smoking poultry as much, but I never make turkey now without a brining solution. Alas, Friday in lent. I'm reading for the Stations of the cross tonight for church and then I'll be eating some sort of veggie delivery pizza or whatever my wife orders for when I get home.

I detest map respawns, but I like the idea of random encounters a la the ol' DnD style where the terrain and eco system determine the variety of encounters. I think sparingly, but random encounters. I agree with ISC about a mix of random and scripted. I think respawns would be great if they followed logically. The trick is to make it so there the area doesn't become completely static after you've cleared it, but not respawn repeatedly with the same monsters so you feel as if you haven't had any effect in the world. Say, maybe you clear spiders out of a cave only to have some other critters or maybe even bandits or some such fill the vacuum. What I would hate is something like Wizardry 8, which was a great game, but having a non-stop slog of random encounters every time you take three steps is a pain and prevents you from advancing the story.

My theme song: http://youtu.be/x5sQL7q_IOI

I've been playing more of FEAR 2. This is something like the third time I've played it and I'm getting a bit bored. I need a new game, but I don't want to buy one this close to the release of PoE.

I'll take your word about Albuquerque. In fact, laughed out loud. However, I loved New Vegas. The big draw wasn't the end battle, but I have to admit that I thought it was one of the most clever twists on adversaries in a game. They actually managed to fashion one of the factions in the Roman mold. lol Frankly, I get tired of the same ol' boss fight structure, but I figure it's probably with us for the foreseeable future.

I know how you feel. The sense that the NPC is actually, I dunno, a *character?* Maybe more than a cardboard cutout with a speaker attached to meaningless lines? Even games that kept the backstory to the rear still tried to develop some semblance of a relationship between the PC or PCS and the NPCs. I remember one of the old Gold Box SSI games where this was this annoying guy who always disappeared right before ambushes and such. I didn't exactly faint with surprise when he turned out to be a traitor. Hell, Diablo, where most folks are little more than shopkeepers, tried to give them some personality. I remember finding Wurt's leg. Obnoxious little runt. As far as what I need? Strictly speaking, a lot of the time I just need stats, weapons, and some poor bastard's head to cut off. ...But a CRPG, to be a real CRPG, needs to have at least the semblance of some interaction and relationship. I know! We want another fifty pages where I try to defend my assertion that even Diablo had relationships! It did, though. Superficial, to be sure, but relationships nonetheless.

I can dig that, Woldan, but I still feel bad losing a pet. I've had to have five pets put down, buried one myself, and one of my cats literally died in my arms while I was trying to give her medicine. On the other hand, I swore at that time that I wasn't going to punish any more pets by trying to keep them alive when all they could do was suffer. I want them to be healthy, and we'll drop the cash for our pets when we won't for a lot of other things, but when their lives become nothing but torture, you've got to say goodbye.

No, doofus. It spawns a 'bromance.' Get it straight. No pun intended.

Oh yeah. Anyone can cheat you, but vets and car mechanics can really cheat you. Sadly, while I can work on my own car, I can't be my cat's vet. :rueful grin:

Thanks, Bruce. You're a standup guy. I hate getting angry in a message board, although Gromnir has made me extremely angry in the past. ...And we went at it hammer and tongs. I'm pretty sure he could be me up in real life, but I was mad enough to throw fifty fits. Anyhow, I hate being angry or losing my temper in general, message board or not. ...But, to segue into the romance discussion, I think emotions are an integral part of human life and need to be part of any realistic game. Not all of them. It's not necessary to have romance in a game, but it doesn't hurt it. Romance is perhaps more nebulous as a concept because it entails a whole spread of emotions and inclinations. However, revenge can be complicated too. Heroism done well is just as complicated or moreso than romance. CRPGs should be complicated beasts. There might be one theme, such as the hero trying to save the world. Okay, a little one dimensional, but fair enough as long as the devs take some time to explore the hero and his foes and explain why he's being heroic or what incentive he has not to be heroic. ...But heroism is only one item in the repertoire of narrative development. Revenge and desire for loot have been common themes. Romance perhaps less, and certainly less from the PC's perspective, but even less than romance is cowardice, which is part and parcel of human existence and yet we virtually never see a reasonable depiction of cowardice from developers on the part of the PC. Why? No one wants his character to be a coward compounded by the fact that it would have to fit into a narrative of the PC actually striving to do something. Hard to depict the guy hiding under his bed as progressing the story. ...But Cowardice *can* be done in a CRPG. It's just generally not. Romance can be done, but it needs a lot of tinkering and whatnot and the dev has to understand his consumer and decide if the consumer even wants that content.

Cats are like tiny little money pits. I love my cats, but they're expensive as hell. I remember having to drive my cat down to Escondido, some 90 miles away. I was working on my car at the time, trying to fix leak in the coolant system, which I hadn't completely fixed. The whole way down there, I had to stop and add coolant every twenty miles or so. The cat was yowling in fear the whole way. I get down there and ended up paying what ended up being a couple grand for some procedure, and that took several hours. I went to a nearby shopping area and had lunch and read a book and twiddled my thumbs and whatnot and then picked her up and took her home. I loved that cat, but what a pain in the ass! Luckily, she was pretty much sedated for the ride back home, so no fearful yowls. Damn, that was... ten years ago?

That too! Actually, DA:O is the last Bioware game I played. I don't remember any explicit sex scenes. ...And I missed all the ME games and whatnot. I think the previous Bioware game I played prior to DA:O was NWN, and I don't remember any explicit sex scenes in that either.

I'd rather not have actionable romance between the PC and NPCs in a game. Flirtation? Maybe. Sex? Not really, although in some settings I guess it wouldn't bug me. Full on romantic relationship? No. In a series of games, I would still say no, but it wouldn't be as bad if the PC develops a romance with one of the NPCs over time. Flirt for a while. Maybe eventually the physical heat gets the better of them and they have sex. Then they start 'going out,' or whatever people fighting for their lives do these days. NPCs having romantic relationships with each other that help drive the overarching story? Sure. Why not? ...And it's become clear that 'romance' is like 'porn.' Maybe they can't define it, but folks generally can recognize it when they see it.

"...woulda' been funnier if your first example were pong. two paddles, kept apart for all eternity, but fighting for some kinda connection... etc." I laughed out loud. I'm not going to wade into the middle of the romance nomenclature debate, but I still think there's a discussion to be had about how the story arcs come together. The more I think about it, the reason we've got this definition thing going on is because the things that could be construed as romantic were more or less seamlessly built into the game. I can't quite put my finger on why I hate the Bioware romances so much. It's not because I can't abide romances. I mean, not really my style in a game, but I enjoy the odd romantic comedy with my wife. I thought Niles and Daphne were a splendid couple. It's also not because I hate Bioware games. Some of my favorite games have been Bioware crafted. I would normally say it's because they're so simple, but Azarkon has a point about the fact that I'm more forgiving of other parts that are almost or just as simplistic. What is it?

Hey, that's my mother in law in your peanut butter! Seriously, ManISO, you're nuts. I've been checking prices for airfare for my wife and myself to visit a Canadian friend this summer. We're going to be in MN for a while and then slip over the border for an international kibitz for a few days. I've been keeping a log of the different prices I've been finding, although I think I'm going to wait until probably 90 days before we leave to buy the airplane tickets. Being cheap bastards, I've been doing everything to cut prices. Luckily, the princess is likewise cheap, so she backs me in this 100%. The lodgings are already booked and paid for, though.

I guess that's fair enough. I just don't like the idea of putting in 'gotcha' achievements. On the other hand, people find crazy ways to do things in games like this, so who knows what some player might find to manage it.

This is no longer ridiculous. Sublime is far far away. This terminology discussion is actually transcendent at this point. We are literally not even talking about romances at all. We're talking about what does or does not constitute a romance. I mean, in a way it's cool by me in that I guess we can't have romances if we render the term useless. Here's one for ya, Dak'kon is the template for romance mini-games. After all, your responses have an effect on all manner of things regarding Dak'kon, 'upgrading' him and ensuring he remains in your party. I'm tellin' ya, just put lipstick on that Gith and you'll have heart pounding romance. Seriously, we had the romance mechanic before we had any need to define romance.

Achievements that cannot be attained without cheating are not achievements. Unless by exploit you mean something that you can do with the game without any mods or whatnot. Having knowledge beforehand and using abilities in ways other than the intended use or whatnot isn't cheating, but you should only include achievements that people can attain by playing the game as shipped with what the player can get without going into the game files and changing anything.

Boozehound bastards! I felt unusually beat up after my hike today and even cut out a bit of my workout at the gym. So, instead of making what I'd planned for myself and the Cantess, I used the last of the pizza dough to make a Zucchini, mushroom, and pepperoni pizza. I've toyed around with different things, but I think for the time investment high gluten bread with an approximately one hour rise is perfectly good unless you want to go fancy. I'm sautéing the leftover zucchini with yellow squash, garlic, and pepper for a side dish.

I've only taken a gander at this thread a couple of times, but I'm going to break into regularly scheduled programming to note that classic rhetoric was 'narrow minded' in that there was only room for two sides. Kind of like courts today. You have the state or a plaintiff and a defendant. So, even though Stun can be a bit much at times (I mean that in only the most romantic way, you loveable scoundrel), he basically fits into the classical rhetoric mode by staking out one side and then going after the other side. He's like a Latter day chickpea with an angry avatar. Anyhow, I'm glad the pissed off gent likes PoE. I'm hoping to like it just as much or more.

I *did* enjoy what I saw of the beta. ...But I still want to save a little something for the honeymoon. ...And it just so happens that the game release happens to coincide with one of my gamer buddies being in the area, so the four of us can meet for dinner and kibitz about the game. The wives will be *ecstatic!*

I've managed to avoid reading *too* much stuff on PoE so far, since I don't want the game spoiled. Hell, I don't know for sure whether they managed to keep kill XP out of the game or not with their bestiary gambit. Still, I'm jonesin' for the game so much I might actually watch the video. I'm sure, being official, it won't give very much away other than things that should be fairly common knowledge already.