Lorfean

There is a store page on Steam that says "Planned Release Date: 2020". It's 2020 now, and I would like to know if Obsidian have given any indication re. when we can expect to see The Outer Worlds on Steam and possibly other platforms? I played the game for a bit last month, through the XBOX Game Pass for PC beta, and very much liked what I saw but I prefer to buy and own my games on either Steam or GOG (preferably the latter).

Resident Evil 2 (remake), Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Shadow of the Tomb Raider. @Keyrock I finished Rise of the Tomb Raider yesterday and, honestly, I don't see the whole torture porn angle you keep referring to. I might see how a case can be made for the first game crossing into that category, but Rise literally has one scene (the one you posted a screenshot of in the other thread) where Lara is physically assaulted while captured and tied to a chair, and I didn't think it was gratuitous -- considering the captor's motivation and end goal (see spoiler below) I'm surprised he didn't permanently cripple or outright kill her. But of course that would have meant the end of the game. *shrug* That said, yes, there is indeed way too much combat in Rise of the Tomb Raider and I am also looking forward to Shadow, which, from all accounts, focuses more on exploration and puzzle-solving. Spoiler:

My game of the year has to be Resident Evil 2. SO. GOOD. Honorable mentions for games that didn't come out in 2019 but that I played / finished for the first time last year are Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Deadfire was, IMO, uneven but the three DLC were great and ultimately raised the overall quality of the game for me. RE7 was amazing, successfully taking the series in a new direction while managing to honor the core principles that made the series so great in the first place. Can't wait for RE3 this April Edit: As for my game of the decade, since some of you seem to be doing that... It's probably Fallout: New Vegas. Despite the spotty engine, I just love everything about that game. It's my favorite Obsidian game and it's my favorite Fallout game (and by "Fallout game" I mean F1, F2 and FNV -- I have not and will not play any of Bethesda's).

I am not familiar with Octopath Traveler but, from that list, if you hadn't already played it I would suggest BG2... Actually, I'll still suggest it since it seems you haven't played ToB yet and a full BG2 + ToB playthrough is IMO a must for any CRPG fan. I really liked the first chapter of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but ran completely out of steam after I unlocked the kingdom management system. I might come back to it later and get over the hump, so to speak, but IMO the game would've been better off without it and is therefore lower on my recommendations list. The Witcher 3 is beautiful and has some good side quests (The Bloody Baron is a great example) but IMO the combat is boring, the main story structure is weak, and the world design suffers from "clear all PoI's in this area, then move on to the next and repeat" syndrome -- the first treasure you find under a bridge, the first monster nest you blow up, the first prisoner you free, the first time a group of villagers show up to populate a location you've "cleaned up"... All very cool. The 10th time though? Not so much. And it makes exploring the world predictable, and ultimately boring.

Baldur's Gate will probably always top the list for me, just because of the impact it had when I finally got there. It felt like a real city and it was such a BIG contrast to the small towns and many (many...) wilderness areas of the Sword Coast I had visited up to that point. The "seamlessness" of it was (and still is) very cool to me and, coupled with the great sound design and atmosphere and NPC's that felt like people with real lives and their own daily concerns, made the city feel alive. Neketaka is a close second though, and to me it's a better city than Athkatla. I really like its structure and how you ascend the city as the districts open up. I like how unique each district feels while still fitting the overall themes and atmosphere of the city, how each serves its own clear purpose, has its own identity, and teaches you (in many ways by showing rather than telling) about the Huana culture as well as the cultures and habits of the foreign factions that have come to the city and how and why they clash. In addition to this Obsidian also gives us good reasons to keep coming back there, and show us reactivity and new content opening up when we do. That, and it's just beautiful to look at. Athkatla has always been a mixed bag for me. I like some of it but for some reason the districts feel very disconnected to me, even though places like Defiance Bay and Neketaka are similarly structured (ie. not "seamless" like BG). A lot of the content is cool, but it also feels like they just threw every single idea that they had into the city, which really affects its sense of realism for me. I liked Defiance Bay quite a bit. Even though I agree with the common criticism that it didn't feel very alive, I have become very fond of Brackenbury, Ondra's Gift and Heritage Hill. But I have a feeling that Defiance Bay might have been a lot better if it had been the only big city in the game. That stretch good was a big mistake and Twin Elms was average at best...

My 2 cents: I think PoE rode a wave of Kickstarter popularity and publicity during its campaign, development, and even post-launch, that had very much died off by the time the second game was announced -- and had all but disappeared when it was released -- and I think the hype around old school games, crowdfunding, etc. won them a LOT of sales from people who might not actually have been the core audience for this type of game. I also think that some people, maybe more than we think, didn't get what they wanted out of PoE. Meaning that, although it looked like the Infinity Engine games, it didn't play very much like them, and the general tone and atmosphere of the story and world didn't feel very much like the Forgotten Realms at all. It was more serious, its themes were heavier, it was very exposition heavy, with almost none of the whimsy a lot people familiar with BG and BG2 might have expected (something the D:OS games have in spades). It was great in its own right, but it might not have been what people expected, thus considerably lessening a lot of spontaneous buyers' interest in a sequel.

So, being proven wrong after feeling this way is a pretty great thing... A couple of weeks after these posts I picked up my playthrough of Deadfire (Veteran with Berath and Galawain challenges enabled) and went back to the drawing board, respeccing my character and most of the companions, redistributing gear, re-evaluating enchants, crafting a bunch of potions and scrolls, etc. etc. and played through the rest of Forgotten Sanctum. And I loved it. Then I played through Seeker, Slayer, Survivor -- of which I had 0 expectations -- and something clicked. The fights were challenging but fair, some taking many tries and shifts in tactics, but I was able to beat them. Long story short -- the DLC's made me fall in love with Deadfire and, more importantly, respect, admire and truly enjoy its systems in their own right. By the time I finished the final parts of the main game and the story came to a close I found myself satisfied while at the same time wanting to start over right away. With a better character, using a more thought out build, paying more informed attention to gear, enchants, etc. So yeah, I was proven wrong and it's interesting and great. Interesting because I think I wanted Deadfire to be something it wasn't, and great because, once I let go of trying to put it in a box it didn't fit and just enjoyed it on its own terms, it became one of my all-time favorite CRPG's.

Oh its definitely a matter of taste. I do not like the way the system feels. And it's not that it's too complicated for me, it just doesn't captivate me and putting builds together doesn't excite me the way it does in D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder. Having a history with the latter is probably a factor, but it's not the deciding factor. And I should probably have been clearer re. my "packing a punch" comment -- I understand and agree that certain builds are very powerful, but I wasn't necessarily talking about builds, specifically, I was talking about how the combat feels on-screen. Animation plays into this, the way spells and abilities behave plays into this, etc, etc. Same with the inspirations / afflictions system -- I understand it's not bad design, and yes, it's straightforward in the way it functions, indeed just like the attribute system (which I'm not a fan of either), but it's not fun to me. So yeah, convoluted was the wrong way to describe it, which makes me 2 for 2 on not explaining myself well but I guess that's what happens in rant-like posts. It's just frustrating. I really *want* to like Deadfire, but in the end I just don't. And if I ever beat it (and I'm close -- level 20, finished most of the base game content, finished Beast of Winter and I'm in Forgotten Sanctum now) it's because I really pushed myself to do so.

What I've played of Pathfinder: Kingmaker so far I have enjoyed very much, and IMO it definitely gets a lot closer to scratching that IE itch than the PoE's ever did. My problems with the latter, I have come to believe, lie with the systems and the writing -- neither manages to captivate me in the long run and it's been extremely frustrating... Deadfire *should* be a game that I fall completely in love with but it isn't. Instead it has a few good set pieces, some mildly interesting characters, and a handful of cool encounters that are floating in a sea of mediocrity and it drives me absolutely nuts. Not to mention the systems -- there are SO many options for building your characters, but in the end nothing *really* packs a punch. Maybe it's the short buff / debuff durations, maybe it's the convoluted inspirations / afflictions system, or maybe it's something else entirely, but every time I try to continue my save I give up after a few battles. Not because I can't beat them, but because I feel no excitement when I do even though I've set up the difficulty so that I do actually have to pay attention to things to succeed, the system just rubs me the wrong way... It's a huge shame but I'm glad PF:K exists because it's actually what I want out of games like these. Maybe PoE feeling so very close to D&D while at the same time, in almost every single way, not being like D&D at all (if that makes snese?) is the problem for me? IDK.

Um, no. Their portfolio consists of 3D first / third person real-time action RPG's... Which are nothing like the original BG's. Assuming WotC would want a (more or less) proper successor to what Mike Mears keeps calling their "holy grail" of D&D video game franchises, they'd want a studio that has had success with games that are similar to the originals. And Larian has obviously had the biggest financial successes in D:OS 1 and 2, so they got it. And like I said, I think they could do some really cool stuff gameplay-wise. They're definitely ambitious enough in that regard, but the challenge will be nailing the atmosphere, the tone, and the writing style.

I think it's pretty clear from the interviews that Larian was chosen because D:OS and D:OS2 were both big critical and (especially) financial successes. I don't believe for a second that Beamdog or inXile were ever going to get this franchise, and Obsidian, sadly, has a more "uneven" track record compared to Larian, even though I think they're a better fit. For me this is very much wait-and-see. The Divinity games never appealed to me, mostly due to the overly tongue-in-cheek setting and writing, and it will be interesting to see how they handle the Forgotten Realms and whether they'll be able to match the BG series' writing style. They clearly have the technical competence to do sth cool with D&D gameplay-wise, and I expect them to nail the visuals, but IMO atmosphere / "feeling" and story are what made the BG games the classics they are.

Diablo on GOG.com. Immediately did a playthrough using their updated version with ratio-correct scaling and had a blast. Took me just short of 10 hours to get through the dungeon -- it's still such a good game, and it's atmosphere is unmatched in the sequels IMO.

No, no, and no. No to the first two because it's a game by an unknown developer that is not getting a lot of marketing (if any?) and I don't think the Pathfinder license has enough pull to give it an edge over the D:OS and PoE franchises, and no to the third because I don't think it's the same audience. However, the popularity of the D:OS and PoE games might help this end up being more successful than BT4 -- I think that game is super niche and don't really see it having any kind of success outside its kickstarter campaign, really. As for myself -- I'm cautiously optimistic. I've wanted a isometric, party-based D&D 3.5e CRPG for ages and I quite like the Pathfinder setting and atmosphere (I even enjoyed Obsidian's card game quite a bit). I really, really hope it's good.

Like Fallout: New Vegas in REDengine 3.

I have finished The Witcher! The final chapter and epilogue were mostly solid. I really liked all the stuff in Vizima, the Raven armor quest was neat, and the final boss areas and encounters were cool (the second one in particular, IMO) but good lord, I hated the Swamp Cemetery -- as if I hadn't already killed enough Bloedzuigers, Drowners and Drowned Dead not to mention the horrific area design and useless and unnecessary side quests... The game's conclusion was satisfying and did a good job at setting up potential sequel hooks. Overall, what impressed me most about TW was the delayed C&C and branching storyline. Even though the content was uneven at times, and some of the chapters could've definitely done with some trimming -- both in terms of areas and content -- the story and characters gripped me enough to see it through to the end, and still care once I got there. I have now started The Witcher 2 (just finished the prologue), and wow... Talk about a leap in quality. Very impressed and enjoying the hell out of it so far.

I'm nearing the end of my first ever full playthrough of The Witcher. I'm half-way through Chapter 5, and IMO the game's been a bit of a roller-coaster in terms of quality. Chapters 1, 3 and 5 (so far) are the stronger parts of the game by far, while chapter 2 felt drawn-out, clunky, and at times confusing, and chapter 4 felt almost out-of-place with a story-line that was mostly completely unrelated to everything that was going on in Vizima. In short -- while I have definitely enjoyed large parts of the game, I am now finding myself having to force my way through to the end. I'm tired of its combat, tired of its flat level design and constant loading screens, and tired of what I can only describe as an overabundance of average quality side-quests that, in the end, have a negative impact on the main story's pacing and flow. So, a flawed gem, perhaps. I don't see myself replaying it but I am looking forward to playing its sequels, which are up next. While I did also have a playthrough of PoE2 going, that has come to a complete stop as every time a patch is released I am reminded that I'd be better off simply waiting until the game has reached the end of its patch cycle and all DLC is available so I can play the actual finished product, which, like PoE (and props to Obsidian for all the post launch work on that game) will be quite different from what it is now. I'm not bitter, just a bit sad that the game needs as much work as it does.

Not sure how to interpret this, but no thanks. I never played EQ or EQ2 and don't feel like learning an old school MMO from scratch. The fact that I know WoW in all its incarnations -- and have fond memories of its earlier years and how its world and systems looked and felt back then -- obviously plays a big part in my looking forward to Classic, too. Also, something I didn't mention in my previous replies -- after the recent dev watercooler blog post on Classic, I did start a character on a private vanilla 1.12 server to see for myself if I would still enjoy that version of the game, and I did very much so. The thing for me is that I am not interested in approaching it as a hardcore player. I just want to go adventuring and explore the world with a couple of friends (and maybe meet some new ones). Level up, run some dungeons, work on professions, etc. That stuff is fun to me.

I am playing The Witcher, more or less for the first time. I have tried getting into it a few times through the years but never got past Chapter 2 -- I always lost interest and dropped my playthrough around 2/3 through that chapter, and because of this I also never got into the sequels... because I am one of those players who can't just start in the middle or final chapter of a game series But now I have the enhanced / GotY editions of all three games on GOG and I am fully committed to playing through the entire series. I am nearing the end of Chapter 3 in TW and I am enjoying it. Chapter 2 was still a mess, and buggy too -- I got a major plot twist spoiled because a quest state updated too early* -- but Chapter 1 and 3 were solid with some very cool moments. I like the setting a lot and I am enjoying the alchemy system and the focus on preparation / gathering information on monsters, herbs and ingredients. The story and Geralt's motivation for chasing down Salamandra is fine, and the backdrop of the larger conflict between the Order and the Scoia'tael is interesting, with likeable characters on both sides. IMO the story did get a bit confusing and muddled for a while in Chapter 2, mostly due to the investigation quests which, though conceptually cool, seem quite buggy when not completed in the order the game apparently expects you to. I also didn't like the Mysterious Tower quest all that much -- having to get 10 of the same mcguffin is just way too much, and I felt that a lot of the stuff connected to that quest (though, again, conceptually cool) involved too much running back and forth between locations both in the swamp and Vizima, slowing the game's pacing down to a crawl. I like the monster hunting contracts, and the boss fights, though not necessarily mechanically interesting, are cool mostly due to the excellent sword fighting animations. I also like how certain areas are not fully accessible / revealed on your first visit and then allow further exploration later on (The Sewers come to mind). The way the game uses delayed C&C is very nice, and the art sequences accompanying the "consequence reveals" are cool. All in all, despite the weak second chapter, it seems a very solid CRPG and I am looking forward to the next few chapters and The Witcher 2 after that. *

I don't mind Deadfire's system but I prefer PoE's. Playing on Hard, I really enjoyed the camping supplies limit and the decisions it forced me to make during encounters.

See, a lot of the things you mention directly apply to endgame / raiding, and my argument was that, for a lot of players, that wasn't what vanilla was about. Hybrids were fine in leveling / dungeon content, and in most cases wouldn't even have to spec out of their DPS talents to heal or tank efficiently -- with some planning you could even be an effective actual hybrid because the talent system allowed that. Druids were fine tanking that content, too. Sure there were a couple of dungeons that were a bitch to navigate and get through, but then there was also Shadowfang Keep, Scarlet Monastery, Deadmines, Scholomance, Stratholme, Sunken Temple, Blackfathom Deeps and Wailing Caverns, which were awesome. Yes, the threat system was unforgiving and required players to wait for the tank to build threat, but that forced the group to pace themselves, which I'll take over rofl-jumping from group to group, pulling the entire instance and AoE'ing everything down and *still* having the DPS complain "wtf tank y u no go faster?!" any day. Same thing for healers needing mana breaks. Believe it or not, some people don't mind (and some actually like) the inconveniences that vanilla had. It added to the experience for them. People are different, and people play games in different ways, for different reasons, and with different priorities, especially WoW. Edit: I think you're oversimplifying the game to an unfair degree. That might be your opinion / experience -- it wasn't and isn't mine. But I think we can just agree to disagree here and let the thread get back to its actual topic

He does have a point, and the experience won't be the same -- it can't be -- but I disagree that the game was ****. The people and the zeitgeist played a very big part in the experience a lot of players remember and yearn for, for sure, but what WoW as a game provided back then was a massive world that was a ton of fun to explore, where you could run into very challenging rare / elite encounters that could only be defeated by mastering your full arsenal of spells and abilities or getting other players' help, with big epic dungeons that couldn't be facerolled but required groups to pace themselves, use CC, etc, with itemization and crafting systems that actually meant something because rare and epic items weren't thrown at you every step of the way, and where leveling was a big part of the experience (and for a lot of players the experience, period.) rather than a barrier to the actual game. It's fundamentally different from what WoW has become, with all its conveniences -- its group finders, raid finders, collections of toys and mounts and pets, daily quests and world quests and weekly quests and mini games, and so on and so on... And I do think there are a lot of people who simply prefer that type of game. It was a lot more like to a huge multiplayer open world CRPG where you can just go adventuring with a few buddies, and where the journey is the important / fun part, not the destination.

I vastly prefer GOG.com and have almost my entire collection on their platform now -- the day they get Dark Souls, DOOM (2016) and Resident Evil HD Remaster will be the day I leave Steam for good. They already have titles from the publishers of all three of those games, so (hopefully) it's just a matter of time...

You think you do but you don't. Oh I know I do, Allen...

Cyberpunk 2077 Dying Light 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker PoE2 DLC Resident Evil 2 Remake World of Warcraft Classic Edit: and Project Indiana, of course...

Although the mega-dungeon was a nice stretch goal idea for PoE1, it clearly got away from them when it reached 15 levels and I never though it was a particularly engaging piece of content. Each to his own I guess, but I vastly prefer "dungeon content" similar to Raedric's Hold -- which we got in Deadfire in the shape of Fort Deadlight and Hasongo, which were both awesome. I also really enjoyed The Hanging Sepulchers and The Old City, both in Neketaka, though the latter admittedly could've been a bit bigger. But yeah, I'm always for more dungeon content, though I don't think they need to be 15 levels. In fact, I think I'd prefer them not to be that big. Some of my favorite dungeons ever -- Durlag's Keep, Dragon's Eye, The Severed Hand, Upper and Lower Dorn's Deep, Durgan's Battery -- are between 5 and 10 levels, which IMO is the sweet spot.