Amentep

For Reals

Agreed, but I think it's recoverable. It needs to be more of an attack-of-opportunity and not a death-grip. Sadly the review in the OP chooses not to look past faults and posit solutions. I actually like the concept of engagement. The problem - to my mind1 - is that engagement is such a static event (the tank becomes a doorway, blocking off opponents from entering) and carries so many terrible penalties to it. Imagine a swashbuckling film with people dueling back and forth and moving everywhere. They're engaged but they're not immobile. What should happen is that once engaged the engaged parties can Party A and Party B stop and fight; minimal back and forth movement between pair (typically this would be the result of Party A and Party B having targeted each other) Party A continues for destination; Party B maintains engagement and therefore they fight while moving towards Party A's destination. Movement is slowed. (typically this would be the result of Party A having targeted an opponent other than Party B while Party B targeted Party A). Party A could will turn their attention to the third party (assuming they were moving to attack a third party) but get a penalty to defense from Party B's attacks (essentially, they've flanked themselves in the hope to take out a deadly or easily killable opponent). Party A and Party B take attacks of opportunities against themselves as they pass each other to their (both parties targeted other opponents and strike at each other in passing towards their respective destinations) only slowing during their AoOs. Breaking engagement would be possible but would make the disengager go defensive as they extract themselves from combat (and hits against the disengager might be more damaging - if the non-disengager can get past the disengagement defense). Talents/skills could eliminate any penalty. This would allow for an engagement system that restricts dog piling the mage or other range attackers provided someone tried to engage those parties directly before they completed the dog pile. I'd add penalties for casting/ranged attacks while moving (as this engagement system would have to allow attacks and movement at the same time), thus kiting could be possible, but with severe penalties if the distance attacker has to become mobile. 1Not the mind of a programmer, designer or otherwise talented gaming individual

As long as it was fun to play...sure.

Or you could learn to accept railroading and not care that your initial mental character might not have chosen to follow that particular path and enjoy the game for what it is! Nah, its a chance to to spread the word - "Here, accept this flower and have you heard the good works of the Grand Druid?" Besides, you could be playing a 2e Arctic Druid and not give a **** abou the trees...

Could have been interesting too if it was something that would always drop the character, but it wasn't an all or nothing affair (say a fast drain on endurance over a time period - would lead to you making a choice of raising a tank who might be up longer or someone else who may have a spell or talent but might not last long enough to do it or something).

People don't make really good bacon like pigs. ...or so I hear...

Seems like the idea was to give you a chance to revive a character and have them do a final shot at the enemy. Which gives me the mental image of your paladin in the corner, encouraging the battered boxer to "get back in there and give it all you got!" for some reason.

Okay. Not sure what it means, but its sunk as far as it'll go. You could, legitimately, compare PoE with any game (BG:EE too). Regardless of age. Its all fair as long as you can reason well and get across your meaning and intent. I'll conceed both were published recently. I'd argue that a remake of a decades old game being published now and a newly created game aren't entirely the same thing despite publishing dates, but it doesn't change the basic truth to what you say. They were both "made" recently. Well yeah no one forced Obs to create their own IP. Its just they didn't have anyone else's IP loitering in their offices when the whole "a project was cancelled, we need money, how do we get it, how about kickstarter" thing happened.

I want to replace Eder's portrait with Josh's now for some reason...

Imoen's voice is done by a voice actress → Voice actresses are hired due to availability, cost and talent → → A Voice actress of no talent is not worth the cost, even if available Therefore Imoen's Voice Actress must be talented People with talent are good at what they do → People who are good at what they do cannot, by definition, be bad at what they do → → Imoen's voice actress is therefore good at doing voice actressing → → → A good voice actress will have a good voice, or not be a good voice actress Therefore, Imoen's voice is good People like things that are good → People don't like things that are bad Therefore people must like Imoen's voice because it is good. QED1 1For sufficiently forgiving versions of logic

Well it depends on how sacred you hold your entertainment. When I was a kid and I had nothing but time to kill I would tolerate any dreck. Well that and I had no money so I kind of had to accept whatever I had. Now that I am coughing up the money and my time is much more limited I get pretty cranky when something fails to meet expectations. I don't hold my entertainment sacred at all. That's why its my entertainment and not my religion. Seriously, as I've gotten older I too have a lot of time crunches; but like Hurl, I tend to like more stuff than dislike. But I also tend to approach my entertainment hoping to like it rather than expecting to hate it, so maybe that's different? Hahahahahahahha. Indeed. For example, pigs are very happy when they roll in shiet. And hey, it works for them. Bacon is great.

Doesn't bother me, really, either. My initial point was that, realistically, you could have a player character who wouldn't care about the Iron Shortage but the game will force you to care.

Age verification, methinks.

That may be the best explanation ever. Again I'm not AGAINST the railroading in BG1 - I'm just saying I admit its a railroad. A good flexible one as it may be, you can't just walk away from the story (as you could in P&P)

Why would a neutral Druid care about the situation unless it was threatening the wildlife (which it doesn't seem to be)? They're not fond of mining (as they won't use metal armors and use natural weapons) IIRC in the D&D setting. You could fall back to "Well solving Gorion's death" which might be a good motivation, but for a particular type of Druid...maybe it isn't. Maybe Gorion and his insistence in staying in Candlekeep was holding you back from your role in life. Maybe the impending war (war affects everything. And never changes1) is enough motivation, but as the war isn't actually happening you could argue the druid could be more inclined to find a druid enclave and work with them to protect nature as part of the druidic group rather than run around with a bunch of random people of vastly different motivations "saving the day". Look I'm not saying BG is bad (I'm rather fond of it and think there are things it does better than BG2), but realistically a narrative railroad is a narrative railroad even if it produces pleasing results. 1Obligatory Fallout opening reference

Two wizard companions in one game? Bit much isn't it? Kinda weird (unless they plan a large number of companions). Has there been any indication how many companions they're planning for?

^Certain neutral and evil characters wouldn't, realistically, care about that either. Again, at some point you can only accept that as a video game you will ultimately be on one of the paths the game allows; complete freedom to define a character as in pen and paper just isn't possible.

Because the weapons you're using are Breaking? To be fair, if you're playing a wizard (in robes, wooden quarterstaff, wooden/leather slings and rock ammo) you might not see a mysterious iron weakness as a pressing matter. Similarly an archery rogue (in leather, wooden bow, wooden arrows) or a druid (unable to wear metal, using a club). Mind you, there is always the obvious motivation of computer RPGs - a quest means killing and looting, naturally. I suppose the secondary motivation is you can't get into Baldur's Gate to track who killed Gorian without solving the iron problem. (You could argue that some evil and neutral types wouldn't care who killed Gorian or about the iron shortage either one, but ultimately that's the limitation of a computer game vs pen and paper...at some point your character is going to have to funnel into the paths the game allows)

This is absurd as it implies isometric gameplay is somehow objectively superior to other styles of gameplay. It's not. I like to think that the Fallout = Isometric gameplay crowd would take a Fallout novel and turn it 45° on its X-Axis and 35.264° on the Y-Axis before reading, so that they were ensured the novel was good.

I don't. It would cause people to lose faith in the company, plus it would mean they don't have enough to make games. er...that was sarcasm in my post...?

I was mostly trying for humor, rather than strict accuracy.

I've liked all the DA's. I'll also admit each has flaws - even flaws big enough that I can understand why others wouldn't like them. But then again I don't expect every game to be the best ever. Or every movie. It's why I can enjoy an ed wood film and a tarkovsky one, they do different things and engage me in different ways. Ymmv, of course.

I'm not sure anyone in this thread believes their punctuation, much less their sentences, at least as far as the topic is concerned...?

You talk about superior drone firepower now, so I'm sure it'd be nice to get paid doing something you love.

Are you sure that was the Codex? I didn't see the words "Incline" or "Decline" used anywhere... I kid, I kid. Kinda funny we have 13 pages (and counting) of reviews of a review. I guess I should get in on that action. FWIW, I think its a fair review of someone who didn't like the game. While I recognize some of the things he classifies as a fault as faults (others didn't bother me but I can understand how, him not liking them, would help ruin the experience) I've probably had an over-all stronger experience than he did.