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Captain Shiny

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Everything posted by Captain Shiny

  1. If the expansion pack's party-based AI system and any other essential 'enhancements' (single player stealth for example) are retroactively applied to the base game then PoE might not stay a PoS. Strong words, but the 'inferior' Infinity Engine has more going for it even today in terms of RPG functionality than PoE's version of Unity 4 has, including a party AI system which nearly every RPG in the past 30 years has had except PoE. I forsee user created/modifyable AI scripts will be impossible because of 'reasons'. Also, Wasteland 2's devs realized that Unity 4's character models are horrible and will re-release their program on Unity 5. Will PoE also upgrade to Unity 5?
  2. Good news arrived by post today, the PoE DVD arrived from Paradox in a slim plastic case. This completes my physical goods package: the signed box, schwag, DVD and the replacement map. All shall be tucked away until the expansion comes to fix all wrongs....
  3. Thanks to this forum I found the contact email at Paradox for a replacement map. I sent them a quick note and they sent me a replacement map in short order. It was all very nice and customer centric and trying to make things right is so important in so many ways. So thank you Tony at Paradox and the others for your efforts. Yet the map itself (even the replacement) is a disaster by any measure of artistry. Drab and blurry are fighting each other over which one gets to offend your sensibilities first. I say this because placing the decades old Ultima V cloth map beside the PoE map is like putting the Bayeux Tapestry next to a c0cktail napkin. The PoE map has no sewn edges, no vivid colors, nearly impossible to read text and a texture which resembles thread-bare corduroy. Taken as a whole it's less a map and more a testament as to how low standards have sunk. Which is where this map looks like it was dredged up, from the depths. p.s. Fix your broken auto censoring algorithms. Or do you have something against disposable drink coasters?
  4. The IE mod for Pillars is so good and replaces/modifies conventions that are so essential to proper Infinity Engine RPG-like play that it has become the game and PoE has become the add-on content.
  5. FTFA: "That’s right, I even had more fun with Dungeon Siege 3.." That comment works for me as I had a very odd reaction to Dungeon Siege III. Dungeon Siege I was phenomenal in its way and Dungeon Siege II was only slighty off as you might expect from a different studio attempting to recreate the same formula, but was otherwise memorable. Dungeon Siege III not only violated the series' established (and popular) conventions, but went off in a spectacularly different direction almost as if it spited the player's expectations. PoE is only superficially related to the old IE games by way of rich hand drawn backgrounds and a managable party. Everything else seems as if it has been crafted from Bizarro World. No party AI, no wit, no compelling story, no understandable mechanics, no captiviating loot, no dramatic battles. It seems Obisidian was so determined to not have any D&D in PoE that they failed to replace the proven mechanics of THAC0 and inspirational pen-and-paper roleplaying imagination with something else that made half as much sense or at least, half the fun.
  6. To prevent further shocks learn to read multiple reviews from multiple sources from multiple authors. Be thorough and read those past reviews of games you knew nothing about, but now do. The Gamespot review was hardly unusual in any word written. Personally, I would (and have been) directly critical of curious and seemingly unnecessary design choices that I dislike and that reviewer even praised. Go figure.
  7. I anticipated a much more sophisticated, superior retail product based on the reputations and past work of the parties involved. I expected a bigger and better Baldur's Gate with all the things that made BG great, minus some of the intellectual property of the Sword Coast, so the names would be different but you can't patent a d20 or a loot drop table. Yet many of the universally accepted, understood and expected conventions in fantasy RPGs of the past 30 years are almost spitefully broken. I can't stealth just one member of my party? Where's the party AI scripts such as 'spell-caster defend' and 'ranged attack'? Baldur's Gate 1 had a more robust combat system. Can my character statistics impact skills effectiveness in a logical and expected way, i.e. mechanics and search? Even better than the head-scratchingly missing game mechanics is the lack of memorable party members and no witty banter. Morte insutling Anna? Minsc encouraging Boo? I'd even accept Khalid mouring Jaheria at this point. I'm currently playing Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 and the wit and wisdom of both of those titles just highlights how amateurish and off the mark PoE is. Even turn based hexagon map Blackguards 1 has a more compelling and immersive story with memorable characters than the free roaming real time PoE. Even the essential IE Mod for PoE can't fix the barqoue story and give dimension to the flat characters. Though it does let you change the UI to what it should be.
  8. The very nature of 'backstabbing' requires your attacking character be stealthed/hidden/undetected. The system in place contradicts that requirement. That you can not stealth/unsteath individuals characters is an impressivlely bad design decision that is counter to the very mechanic it is trying to achieve. "All the world is blind to my passing..." -Yoshimo Baldur's gate II.
  9. I have experienced everything the OP has written in regards to combat. Ranged weaponry is almost useless as the speed at which the enemies close to engage is quicker than the time you can get a 2nd shot off. Scouting/sneaking seems to be a whole party affair as well. I can't get a single member to sneak only the whole party. Not that it matters as my range of discovery is the same as the range of my ranged wepaonry, so there is no tactical advantage. In fact, I reduced the difficulty to easy and had 4 armed and armored ready players and couldn't even kill 4 Boars (2 of them Young Boars!). Let's not even discuss the Cave Bear which required 3 of the 4 players to die, every potion drunk, all dinner plates wiped clean and several spells mis-cast to finally kill that thing. Pre-combat buffing seems to be impossible as most of the buffs can only be cast after combat has already started and their duration is too brief, never mind how long it takes to cast even the simplest buff. Trying to figure out the functional difference between endurance and health is a real head scratcher. What is the point of actual health when it is a non factor in combat? Once you lose endurance, you're out of the battle. You could have hundreds of health points and get knocked out in the first round! Reading the replies carefully I see there is a lot of blind fanaticism to genuine critisism and your devotion to an inefficient system does no service to the game. Curiously, I played the beta more than once and didn't run into these specific problems, it's almost as if they wanted to surprise us with them.
  10. The prose in the game so far has been tediously melodramatic, overly descriptive and so self-conscious that I half expect to find the narrator behind me in thespian garb reading it to me from a script. If you think PoE's writing is good then you have no idea what good writing is. Good fantasy writing engages the imagination, it doesn't bedazzle it with written confetti. Every other word doesn't have to be extra-vivid or emotionally charged. Good writing is like perfume...it draws you in wondering what that enticing aroma is wanting just a little bit more. Instead PoE's wiritng is like bug spray designed to knock you flat. Did Baldur's Gate describe the hair on a Gibberling's ass? Did Ravel hurl obscenities at the Nameless one then disrobe in Planescape Torment? Of course not, it's comcial to even consider that. Yet in PoE, that's what I've seen so far. I'm only a few maps in and the desciptions have never risen above the level of sophomoric words-smithing. Exposition described as story with a high-school level thesaurus style-checker and a high-school level of world expereince. Things which should not be detailed, are. Things which should be mentioned, aren't. PoE's writing is like CoD's first person shooting...obvious and uninspiring. I reserve the right to be even more critical as I have more of the story read to me.
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