complexmath

That is a very weird error. For GetThreadContext to fail, the thread in question would have to be not suspended, which suggests a logic error in the garbage collector (something definitely built into Unity or even whatever .NET code Unity is built upon rather than in PoE application code). In short, for garbage collection to work, the GC suspends all running threads (via SuspendThread), then calls GetThreadContext on each to figure out what memory regions to scan for references. It almost sounds like this is timing-related. Maybe something in Unity spawns a thread in a way where it isn't atomically added to whatever internal thread list is used for GC scanning, so it misses the suspend sweep on a GC cycle but makes it into the list before scanning begins. So for this problem to have increased in this patch, it could be because PoE is now creating threads it didn't used to before and so there are more opportunities for this to happen, or it could simply be a matter of GC timing being changed because allocations are occurring in places where they didn't before. I don't know Unity, but understanding the problem in general I don't know that there's anything the PoE devs can do in their own code to fix this. And now I'm curious if the Unity source code is available to look at...

The command I used (ChangeClass) lets you pick a new character class and restarts their skill selection from level 1. You don't get to alter core attributes, but you can redo spell and talent selections, as well as points put into skills.

The IE Mod docs say that using IE Mod doesn't disable achievements, though simply using the console with "iroll20s" does. I know for sure that when I tried the "iroll20s" approach I was notified that achievements would be disabled, while I didn't get a notification when using IE Mod to respec.

Because women *never* do any kind of harassment at work. My mother was bullied for years in her workplace, where there are only women. I guess she was mobbed by dwarves, fairies or invisible male ghosts? And do you think men report bullying done to them? Nope, they don't - mostly because they're met with laughter - like my female collegue did to me once. Literally laughed in my face (I guess depression is a laughing matter!). No wonder men die by suicide almost 5 times as often as women. Are men met with laughter or are they afraid they'll be met with laughter? Either way, I used sexual harassment of women as an example because it's pervasive, and so possibly easier to identify with. But people are absolutely harassed for all sorts of reasons, men and women alike. I definitely didn't mean to imply that that wasn't the case. That said, as a victim of harassment yourself I'm sure you can identify with how someone might feel when encountering a joke like this. One that implies that sex with someone like them is so horrible, so shameful, that the only recourse for someone that discovers they've done this is suicide. But it's a joke so no harm done, just get over it right? And maybe it is just a joke, but it's also one more joke amid a sea of similar crap from a thousand different sources and damnit but this is a game it should be something you can enjoy and not be reminded of your daily struggle for acceptance. This is a complex issue, but ultimately, if someone finds out they've been a jerk to me, even unintentionally, one would hope I'd get an apology. It's core to the nature of living with people.

Thank goodness I don't live in such a totalitarian country as you do. "Mandatory sensitivity training" for a joke? This reminds me of the wost communist times in Poland... If this is the depth of American PC craziness, you can keep it to yourself. Edit: "at best" is genuinely scary. And what is the worst? Being fired immediately? Put in jail? Shot in the back of the head? Do you even realize how totalitarian your words sound? You don't advocate for the LGTB people this way - just the opposite in fact. This sounds crazier and less tolerant than the Catholic Church, and that's something to say in Poland where I come from. Yes, termination is a possible consequence of harassment. It's important to note, however, that these laws exist for the victims. If someone doesn't care about the off-color jokes, coworkers watching porn, groping, or whatever else might be going on, then no reporting occurs and no action is taken. But they can be tremendously valuable in instances where people do feel victimized in the workplace. And perhaps Poland is a more enlightened place than the US, but here, asking women about stories of workplace harassment would provide a basically endless supply of anecdotes that would leave you despairing for humanity. Most of the time, only the most severe cases are ever reported, but there are countless more that people just bear because they don't want to deal with the trouble of complaining about. Regarding my comment about sensitivity training, such things tend to occur when the alleged harasser responds in an unreasonable manner. If they agree to simply stop doing whatever, then that's typically the end of it. (note that I don't work in HR or have a legal background, so what I've said is just a result of exposure to the periodic training exercises regarding workplace harassment and the like in various businesses where I've worked)

If you're of working age then I'm sure you're aware that what constitutes harassment is up to the harassee (I know this isn't necessarily harassment, but it's related, and there's plenty of legal data concerning harassment to reference). So it's entirely legitimate that some people could have an issue with the limerick, and for that issue to be completely legitimate and actionable, while others of the same persuasion might be fine with it. Also, no one has a right to tell another that their offense is unwarranted. That's not how it works. Personally, I think Obsidian handled this issue rather badly, as the way things have progressed has let the author of the offending limerick effectively speak for the company. And while the new epitaph isn't internally objectionable, it was written in incredibly poor taste, and I think sends a terrible message to people who have been following this issue. I'm still enjoying the game, but I do hope that this isn't the end of the issue in terms of what we've heard from Obsidian. Ideally, I'd like to see further action, a policy clarification communicated to backers, and a follow-up interview with someplace like PC Gamer. I also think it's worth pointing out that if this had happened in an office setting, the author of the limerick would be on his way to mandatory sensitivity training at best, given his reaction to the incident. In short, it doesn't matter what you think about this and it has nothing to do with free speech.

For respeccing, install IE Mod and use the ChangeClass command. I've respecced my Cipher once already, so I can attest that it works.

Huh, no idea. Though that would require the user to have a gmail/google+ account and have filled in their gender as well. And unlike the Nexus, I've given up trying to find the gender field in google+. It's got to be there somewhere, but I haven't had any luck so far. Either way, my personal experience suggest the assertion that 95% of PoE players (or IE Mod users?) are male is completely wrong. Of the people I know playing PoE, roughly half are female, and a number of them are trans male and trans female as well. My experience may also be nontypical, but it's no less relevant than stats gathered based on a non-required field which defaults to male

Click on the arrow next to your username, then "user area", then "change email address", then "profile settings" and it's halfway down the page. It took me a full 5 minutes of looking to find it after reading this thread. I still don't know if others can view this field, but since someone upthread was quoting stats, I assume so. Maybe it's linked to download statistics somehow.

It's worth noting that the Nexus gender field defaults to Male, and changing it means digging through profile settings. Until I saw this thread I wasn't even aware there was a way to specify my gender. I have a Nexus account so I can download stuff and my profile is completely empty, which I suspect is representative of most Nexus users. In short, there's no statistical significance to the gender field on the Nexus.

Funny. My worst game experience ever was Counterstrike. The install had problems and when I uninstalled it it wiped out my entire games directory (CS was installed in a subfolder beneath that). I had a BG2 save literally right before the final boss encounter too. To this day, I've never played Counterstrike because of that.

I have a similar system (15 inch, GeForce 750M 2GB in addition to the Intel Iris--you probably have both as well), and haven't crashed yet. [edit] Oh, I did disable steam cloud saves for PoE, as I sync with my PC via Dropbox. That may be worth a shot.

Yep. And sorting this out is a tricky process. Like for the "double clicking to equip break stuff, but dragging to equip doesn't" issue, a dev would have to notify QA that the code paths for those two "equip the thing" flows is different and so they should be tested separately. And the "stats increase every time I save in the same area as a character I recruited" issue, someone would have to have thought to explicitly test save/reload in a relevant area, and to look for stat changes as an indication of failure. Regarding crashes and such, it's much the same. Development points out the most likely trouble spots for focus testing, and QA also does their own coverage tests to find issues according to whatever criteria they've set. So there's some reliance on effective communication between development and QA, and then a *ton* of reliance on QA being superhuman monsters able to iterate at near relativistic speeds, because automated testing of games is difficult to impossible. The other thing that can be done which might have caught some of these issues is unit testing. There, you actually could test save/reload a million times in every area in the game. Someone still has to code those tests though, which can be tremendously time consuming, and implementing them within Unity might be tricky as well (don't know anything about the engine). Ultimately, it's a cost/benefit issue. And we're talking about a kickstarted game. Regarding development in general, someone mentioned earlier that the quality of software has declined. I think the opposite is true. Software development is still a very new field. New to the point that, unlike other engineering practices, there is no established way to do anything yet. We're still solidly in the "blacksmithing" era of software development, where this is all still much closer to art than science. Someday there will be agreed upon development practices, standards requirements, and automated validation tools, but that still seems pretty far off. For now, every team is learning new lessons on every project and continually refining their practices to produce better, more reliable software for the same effort invested. First project maybe everyone ends up in "crunch mode" for six months and have spouses threatening to walk out because they're never home and the product released is still barely functional. By the fourth or fifth, people are working relatively normal hours and the final product is also far better than that first project they spent six times the effort on. And the following one will be better still. Onwards and upwards.

First, I suggest sneaking when exploring new areas. Certainly when not in outdoor maps anyway. Then when you see the bear you have the option of leaving before combat begins rather than trying to run away once it's kicking your ass. As for getting out of combat in general, it depends on the class. You either need to use some ability to disengage safely (Fighter has this, for example), or to stun/confuse/whatever the enemy so you can get away.