nipsen

Why would anyone care about having their favorite developers held hostage by a publishing house that literally says, while rubbing your nose in a turd, that: "if you buy our overpriced, buggy products. If you accept our broken backend for online games, if you accept that you can buy servers to alleviate our running costs, while still being forced to run "your" server as load-balancing for our global server pool. If you bear with us on our truly horrendous customer-service. If you accept sponsoring a guy who is widely known for trying to bribe the IOC to allow the olympic games to become a monetized gambling ring with advertisement revenue on top. If you just ignore all of that and shove money in our faces -- we may, out of the goodness of our hearts -- some day maybe sponsor an actual good game. Rather than continuously destroy good ideas and good studios, in the belief that all our customers can be exploited endlessly with cheap gimmicks. But remember that we allowing one of our studios to do something interesting is dependent on all of our bull**** actually succeeding beyond our wildest imagination in the first place. Now buy our **** at 69 euro, along with "premium" for another 59! It's cheap!"? ..I mean, really, it's a good question. Why would anyone actually be pissed off by what a company like EA does? They have no real power, they're a pretty insignificant entity, there are other games you can play. So how can a company like that somehow end up being targeted by not just dismissive, but vindictive critics. Who otherwise don't seem really interested in discussing video-games in any way beyond "I kind of like this game!". You know, it's a good question, that really there is no one single answer to. Or as tier 3 customer support at EA, in the US, said it: "It works for me at my end!".

"Jane Jensen, game designer, Pinkerton Road Studio: I don’t own the license, and I’ve gone in to pitch various GK ideas probably three different times over the last 20 years. We just never got very far with it. And then, when we were doing our Kickstarter, I had somebody from Activision contact me. And this was a producer who was really interested in bringing back some of the Sierra titles. And so I met with them and discussed what would be good to do and I really thought if we wanted to kick off the GK series again it would be a good idea to redo the first one." Oh, Activision. How you've grown up since you published titles like Bloodlines, Interstate '76, Mechwarrior 2 and Jedi Outcast. No more weak moments like that any more now. Only boring and strictly unfun business. So proud.

So the general agreement seems to be that.... -- and I'm saying this well knowing that a forum consensus, no matter how reasonable it sounds, usually is comically wrong when actually tested -- seems to be that the design on the abstract level intends a max/min option that results in something like this: either a pin-prickle sized "fireball" with no splash-damage, but massive striking damage and near infinite armor penetration (max might/min int). Or else you can cast a country-sized cloud of bright red sparks that.. sting and annoy a tiny little bit for the rest of the game's duration (min might/max int). In the same way, recovery times are intended to be adjusted so the "number of attacks" become massively less significant than in the IE games. While also making a quick and lightly armored fighter just as dangerous as a troll with a huge club, even though it's a completely different type of threat (with different weaknesses and counters, etc). Overall making the system very dynamic, as well as easy to design different characters with, both for players and game-masters. Since the initial range of stats, more than the extra abilities you pick, identify the characters' abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Making the narrative and technical shake hands in a very friendly manner. But that in practice, the min/max differences end up being the difference between a fireball that has slightly more or slightly less splash-damage (which the splash indicator doesn't seem to actually show correctly). While recovery and armor size versus resistance and dodge amounts to no real difference when fighting any number of enemies, in a fight that lasts less than 30 minutes and 10.000 hit-points, so that approximate average values can be expected to have occurred, etc. ...close enough so far?

..the entire "Windows security essentials" package will probably revert your patched files immediately if the game is installed in the /Program Files(x86)/... folder, though. When you run a non-signed executable, and so on. Without the anti-virus programs ever noticing, usually... Anyway - really looking forward to the release. Since then I can write a vindictively critical review, while mocking the people who try to play the game on their iPad. ...oops. Did I say that out loud?

"It is now 2014 and, friends, I am here to tell you that trash options are bull****. " :D Yep. ..hilarious stuff, though. Welcome to journalism in 2014 - where you ask game-designers to write their own editorials. rofl. Read the excerpt, and thought it was a staff piece based on an interview, or something like that. And wanted to congratulate Josh on a very well written editorial. And then.. "Editor's note: The following is a guest editorial by Obsidian game designer Josh Sawyer. If you're a professional in the video game industry and you'd like to write about some of your experiences, contact jason@kotaku.com."

*nods* My biggest problem with many of the infinity engine games as well. I always really liked the large areas. Because they... made sense. You could picture the whole town, and where everything was. Then when you walk away from the large areas, you start to wonder if the world becomes smaller and smaller somehow. Other areas really made up for it, though. When you have some sort of entrance on the edge of a mountain, and you can somehow manage to make a walk down a corridor look like you're navigating around the spire on the inside, while your characters would be able to look outside through these natural windows..? That's impressive. Shouldn't be possible in 2d - but still worked out. Managing to create height, areas on top of peaks, and depth, down in lairs and swamps, and so on, in Icewind Dale 2. That was great as well. But I could bear to be without having "you must gather your party before venturing forth" stuck as a loop inside my head when playing, yes.. I'll go even further. I accuse the PS:T developers of secretly wanting to make high-minded elitists look hilariously dumb when commenting on the game on the internet, many years after it was made. Can't tell if serious. Monte drives right over H-ME's in a steel panzer of righteous vengeance. Mm. Yes, but I think we may both have been in the wrong here. Driving over people would suggest actually intending to crush them, or registering their existence. And now that I have thought about it, I think it's more accurate to say that he happens to flatten them, as they unluckily came to be underneath the fuming panzer iron.

I'll go even further. I accuse the PS:T developers of secretly wanting to make high-minded elitists look hilariously dumb when commenting on the game on the internet, many years after it was made.

..Saints Row 2 was actually really well written. Very accomplished at tying the story-telling into the mechanics as well. That you played into and out of events while controlling the pacing, instead of just triggering cutscenes. While the writers were aware enough of the unreal way the game works that they never took themselves too seriously either. And you could spray-paint entire suburbs with a septic-tanker put in reverse. You see a not entirely failed attempt at that in the latest games as well. That the story-telling tries to create scenarios that are fantastic enough that the ridiculous mechanics and gameplay the games in the genre has fits into it. Really is the entire premise of SR4.

Mm. The most common one says: "We shall hereby do whatever we want, pursuant to the fact that if you challenge our interpretation of the law, our lawyers will make your life miserable until you suffer old age as a destitute and friendless bitter old man". Or, as it happens to be in this case... presumably, as far as I know... Atari having acquired a division of Hasbro Interactive (the computer division) that partially holds licenses for D&D type titles... is allowing Beamdog to use, for the time being, under an undisclosed settlement, a limited digital license for the d&d type games, for as long as Hasbro Inc. will allow the digital licenses to exist. Beamdog in turn apparently is confident enough to create a new distribution platform based on that license. Or, more likely (speculating completely now), the platform concept proposition was the reason why it was allowed in the first place. And will be allowed to exist if Atari and ultimately Hasbro earns enough money on it. Therefore.... I'm not feeling irrationally compelled to purchase stacks of stacks of bytes of games licensed out in this way. Silly me. Being a ridiculous guy with opinions and preferences. Rather than someone rational and orderly who berate others for not uncritically throwing money at franchise names we recognize fondly from the glorious past.

...that is an alternate spelling of "Balder", isn't it. But pretty sure the town doesn't get it's name from him. Balder's Gate would be something like.... "Balder's Gate: An interactive game set in Valhalla, in a more peaceful age, where you will explore Balder's and his wife Nanna's large classical house and kingly garden, "Breidablikk", while helping to prepare for the spring feast. During free time, Balder will entertain all by softly playing the lyre. Nanna will show you all their rooms in the house, and lecture visitors in her specialty and sole godly passion: woven tapestries".

...who plays gta5 online? Anyway. Does this come from a glitch where people wear non-existent clothing items (like traffic cones), do things "normally" done in gta5... just in their "unmentionables".. and post videos of it on the internet? And did I just hear someone suggesting that a rape-victim or a survivor of physical assault -- should be allowed to play Grand Theft Auto 5 in peace without seeing disturbing imagery? Another thing... "everything behind a paywall is safe" is getting very, very old. And outdated, since all online consoles have a paywall now. Because that's what "the customers want", of course. Along with Microsoft salespeople. Who somehow always know best.

...so explain to me how this works again. I'm playing IWD2 on my laptop right now. And there are a couple of things I could see would be useful to fix. Namely making the UI transparent, making it over again, allowing a 16:9 aspect without stretching the overlay. And perhaps taking care of some of the AI scripting for the paths. This would be difficult enough, and won't really make the game all that much better anyway. The rest involves essentially remaking the entire thing from scratch -- where things like sound quality, graphics detail, scripting, animation, etc. -- isn't there to be improved. They don't have resources that were higher definition in the first place. And it seems some of the extended parts of the screens would, in 16:9, be made up of 99% of fog of war. So why would you go ahead with a project like that? Without essentially saying to infinity engine and crpg fans that "hey, this is your chance to make crpgs popular again! But only if you support our projects blindly and getting nothing in return! ..you know.. Was it easier to make a port than to engage a team to make a new game? I mean, I know publishers tend to be made up of people who think words are produced about ten times slower than they can read them out loud when tracing them with their finger. But this is a curious thing, no? In other words: Either the game has a tiny, tiny budget, and little to any changes are made. Or else it's actually worth your money, and a new game could have been sponsored with the cost instead.

Om. Namo amida butsu. Praised be Buddha. ...and then we thoughtfully smash their heads in.

Yay! :D lol Will be approximately two-three pieces like that every week. Eventually, we're going to have something completely and groundbreakingly new that we're calling a "weekly". Like a weekly ..magazine. Yes, like a magazine that comes out every week. So people can stay reasonably up to date without wearing out the reload button, or reading through reams and reams of junk, carefully timed press-release rewrites, and hype-pieces along with a full-page ad for the same game. Obviously we're taking credit for coming up with this... but the concept seems oddly familiar to me somehow... hmm.. As if someone used to do this before, a long time ago, before clickbait controlled the world, and Jimi Hendrix fought the Nazis with fuzz-guitar, and so on..

Btw, every time you enjoy one of our pieces - a non-advertisement driven angel claps their hands once.

If you'd like. About Pillars of Eternity and Obsidian as seen from outside the "gaming world" sphere. Overe here: http://thedigitalfragment.com

Buggrit..

No, the Wizzards. I'm sure the wizards are busy enough on their own to not worry about to much as long as they don't notice you. I'm drawing a blank on my obscure reference lore here. I am defeated.

I'm not sure what worries me more. That you have a Wizzard, that he's constantly speaking to himself, or that he can cast spells.At least he shows some natural behaviour by constantly running. ...the wizard characters I play, or the wizards I oversee when playing as gamemaster/referee, tend to vocalize spells only for preparation..? I see nothing weird about any of that, at all.

lol .."Uncertain noble arts, I command thee!". Best warcry ever.

..seems like an as good opportunity as any to post this amazing footage : http://folk.uio.no/arnet/ Basic rundown of Atlakvida is that Atla the Hun (Attilla?) captures Gunnarr and his younger brother Hogne to get their gold treasure. Gunnarr walks right into the trap even though he expects treachery, because he's obviously not going to be intimidated by mere threat of grisly death or supreme military might. His younger brother kills only eight of Atla's guards before being captured. Atla suggests that Gunnarr can ransom his life for the treasure he has, but demands that the heart of his brother should lay in his hands before he speaks. They then try to trick him by giving him a different heart, but Gunnarr is not impressed. Hogne's heart is then presented to Gunnarr, which he recognises from how little it shivers (in his hand, and it shivered even less when it was in Hogne's chest, etc.). And now safe in the knowledge that no one but he knows the location of the treasure, Gunnarr mocks Atla for being such an impatient fool. Second link ("Norrønt") is a variant of norse spoken around 11-1200, as close to the pronunciation as can be guessed by experts. The first one is "ancient norse", as it likely was spoken around the area at some point between year 200-600 or so. (By the way, the guy is a professor in Nordic Linguistics at the University of Oslo. ..I don't think he does lectures that often in that outfit any more.)

Mm. My wizzards always run around speaking to themselves when preparing spells. As a mental excercise. But don't need to vocalize the spell when it's cast. "Silence" is quickly transformed into "magical dampening", and subvocal casting is upgraded to potentially instantaneous casting without interrupts, etc. Always seemed dumb to me that mages wouldn't be able to cast without spelling out the words. Like they have to trace the letters with their finger when they read scrolls or something.. Even priests are actually able to pray without screaming. I'm sure they would dislike it, but if they are hefty enough as conduits from the gods to rain down fire from the sky on command, then they wouldn't need to say the words out loud. So not sure how speaking magic ended up as a thing. But it sort of seems like it's been invented to fit the d&d ruleset, doesn't it...?

"...all can witness the tactics that won the battle. But no one saw the strategy from which victory evolved." ..or something like that..

..sort of depends on how the game plays, how often you're getting into fights, what sort of spells and abilities you're countering.. D&D really tends to eventually ignore stats completely from a meta-game perspective, because there is just one approach, period, like you say. And as classes level up, they become more specialized, so the encounters have to be tuned towards that. You always balance encounters expecting that, and there's never really any room to floor a party that already has a balanced make-up, without "bad luck" - unless you're being unfair as a game-master and calculating that the spell-makeup doesn't have a chance to counter what you're throwing at them. And isn't that really the problem people are running into with PoE? That the ruleset allows you to make extremely specialized characters based only on dealing damage -- and the ones making these builds expect to have a reasonable chance -- but then get floored by mob makeups that assumed you didn't focus exclusively on one specific approach? How did that turn out in the game, by the way? Anyone made an int-based "min-maxed" fighter towards criticals and defense? Mage focusing on long lasting aoe and embiggened area clouds, and so on..?

THAT TAKES TOO LONG! I'm bored already! Fetch me more ants I can burn with a magnifying glass this instant!