Amentep

A perfect example why Sacred is probably a dead franchise as of Sacred 3. A RPG game that is combat focused with almost no progression is about as boring as watching paint dry. We are now comparing apples to oranges again.. but so is Gauntlet.. By Josh's logic.. Combat in Sacred 3 should be fun enough on it's own.. No need to bribe players with silly things like Item drops.. They should just enjoy stomping the **** out of stuff and call it a day. Don't like my decision? Don't buy the game. Heh, I'm enjoying Sacred 3 so far (but it is early yet). But then I like button mashing games (I've like almost all of the Gauntlet games, for example). The biggest problem I have isn't the weird progression (you have progression on skills, armor and weapons, and being able to "refund" skill buys allows you to easily try out different build advancement) but that its a Diablo-like game with almost no loot to speak of. 'Tis a weird approach. Mind you I thought Sacred 2's combat wasn't much to write home about (although there's something almost zen about wiping out mobs there, and I admit the blowdart sound is pretty nice to hear wiping out enemies that you can't even see on screen. "Foop, foop, foop" then collect the loot.). Edit: And really, I'm looking for Unbended to give me what I like about the Sacred series.

I don't disagree. The problem with the current way that many choices (and I think Bioware has been particularly bad at this but so have many others) are binary is a problem; the more choices that have nuanced reactions the better. But I'd also argue outcomes shouldn't be binary either, and that's also another problem. Its even worse when you're given two to three choices but what choice you make is irrelevant, the game is going to force a situation on you. At least in the case of the romances you can end it or accept it rather than be railroaded into it.

How did it suck? In your example, your FemShep was (minorly) defined by your refusal to lower her standards. You weren't given a CHASTITY Achievement or whatever it is that gamers seem to be obsessed with collecting, but the fact that you made that choice was only possible because there was a choice there for you to refuse to accept. Instead of feeling locked out with respect to content, I'd argue it'd be a chance to - sometime down the line - create a different character who would embrace different choices. First time through DA:O I didn't save Sten because my character couldn't forgive his blatant murder. Second time through, I had a character who was more sympathetic and saved him. In both cases the choice for the character were valid; did I miss out on stuff not having Sten? Sure. But I was still able to play my character my way.* *in as much as the game allowed within its framework, of course.

Maybe if you play videogames and you're not cool...its not the videogames I kid, I kid. You know you're cool.

Ravel's clearly in love with TNO and they clearly had a relationship in the past (I don't think there's anything that indicates it was sincere on TNO's part, rather than a way to get out of his fate). That said you don't romance Ravel in the game, sure, but that past relationship motivates everything. But really surprised in all of your mocking there you missed Acaste, clearly the scarred and dead looking TNO and her was a match made in...er...a crypt or something.

Well if you didn't like the KOTOR combat, I can see why you didn't like DA:O on console. I was neutral on it; wasn't something that attracted or repelled me from the game.

I don't understand why (or when) we've somehow allowed the promancers to convince us that PS:T had romances when it did not. Dieonarra is not a romance. She is a plot device designed to provoke the emotion of regret. She's also a Ghost (a specter, to use the official D&D undead species-type) If she's a romance then so is Dakkon, and Vhailor, and Ignus, since all three of them were also plot devices designed to provoke regret. But if we must grotesquely broaden the term "romance" so that every single well written NPC ever created falls into the definition, then yes, I liked all 6 or 7 of PS:T's "romances". But I'm not going to play that silly word-play game. PS:T did not have romances. Promancers are trying to take territory that does not belong to them and their cause. I thought Ravel was the Romance in PST - she clearly loved TNO in the past, and it kind of motivates the whole thing. Know a lot of people claim there's a romance with FALL-FROM-GRACE (don't see it) and Annah (which I'd say really is more of the beginning of a possible romance if TNO didn't off-it to the Blood War, it could have happened, I guess).

I didn't find Console DAO to be that different from the other Bio Console games, really. (TIA: I never played DAO on PC; I did play the KOTOR's on PC and Console and JE. KOTOR combat was real similar to DAO's on a console, IMO).

Named her after Princess Zelda from the LEGEND OF ZELDA series, according to her dad.

I can't say I really understand the dislike for Antje Traue here

Maybe they should've used more faux-Welsh words. "Mae'r swm amgaeëdig yn cynnwys cost cludiant" said the NPC. "What the **** did he say?" thinks the non-Welsh player. "What's he going on about postage for?" think the Welsh player.

"Let's see... I'm just gonna lob that lightning bolt over the wall... Seems legit!" Off the expressway, over the river, off the billboard, through the window, off the wall...nothing but net.* *see

BIG HEAD MODE!

There is something to be said for familiarity IMO. The setting is already new and the game mechanics will take some getting used to. Most of us know what the "blue plus sign" does(heal) so it's one less thing to try and figure out. Besides how many different ways can you really put haste or heal into an icon...just google haste icon and....yup most people use boots with wings or something similar. I do understand how people may think it is out of place though since the setting is more dark/stoney. The icons are pretty bright and colorful. IIRC way back in the mists of time, it was stated that Obsidian bought the art assets from Icewind Dale. My guess is they'd reuse those icons for similar spell types to save development time and cost.

So...do you create romance mods for NWN? I kid, I kid... ...Put the knife down!

The closest meaning to how gamers use it for immersion is "deep mental involvement". This meaning for the word was typically used to reference the idea of being surrounded by concepts that one was totally invested in. For example if you were studying ancient Greece intently with every waking moment, you could be said to be immersed in ancient Greek culture or history. For the sake of argument, I'd suppose that one could make a claim that certain game elements may effect ones "deep mental involvement" in the game/game world, but to be honest 90% of people I see saying "X broke my immersion" are just saying "it didn't give me what I wanted, so I don't like it." They might as well say "it bent my Wookie" as much as "it broke my immersion".

^I've always suspected that there are some business people who see a short lifespan mega gain now as better than a long lifespan good gain over a longer period of time. Its why, I think, there are some business people who seem only interested in getting as much money as they can before running the business in the ground then going to the next business to do the same with. That said, I do agree that LoL has the player base it does now because of how they're doing things now and I think he's optimistic to think his changes wouldn't kill the money stream dead.

I like CoC, I think its a good system (never played it, only read the rules). Since you have the D20 version, you could probably find a D20 victorian period set (or look at the D20 OGL modern rules) and cobble together what you need to represent all the pieces you want.

Well, I think it illustrates why you don't necessarily want an accountant making creative decisions, what he's saying isn't wrong (from his perspective) although, as always, I don't think he's looking at the damage to the brand his money making ideas would create.

I thought the animations in the Gamescom footage I saw was "servicable". I could probably play the game with graphics like that and be okay. But with months til the release, I imagine that as the beta winds its way through there will be more work done on all fronts to polish and debug the game.

I don't know how it'll turn out, but Wild (from Michael Ancel (Beyond Good And Evil, Rayman)) looks interesting - http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/08/12/introducing-ps4-exclusive-wild/ (sorry if its linked already, a search didn't turn anything up)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2014/08/13/dark-tidings-bioware-announces-shadow-realms-at-gamescom/ Yeah, that's me not interested anymore. I don't want to play any game where I'm forced to play with another player.

I doubt it will allow you to access the keep if you don't have the game tied to the account with which you will access the Dragon Keep. I was under the impression that someone who - legitimately - bought only DAI (and never played the otherse) would still be able to use the Keep to create a file of their choices if they wanted to. Might have been a misunderstanding on my part though.

I need to see Party Down at some point. Looks like the major cast is all there except Tina Majorino (who, IIRC, is in TNT's LEGENDS crime-drama series so probably wasn't available).

Or those who pirate, though I guess they will figure out how to crack the keep too. Well this Keep application will probably generate a file somehow, so who knows. An interesting idea, even if it seems more stick than carrot to make it popular RE: Piracy - it might affect people who pirate DAI, but my understanding since you're manually creating the saved data state(?) I'm not sure it'd matter if you pirated DAO/DA2 as I'm not entirely sure its necessary to upload anything. RE: file creation - I imagine there will be a file - whether you can, say, download it to PC, put it on a flash drive then upload it to your game I don't know about; the stuff that I've seen so far implies you need use the Origin ID that you are using to play DA:I with on the Keep so that the information is ported. This sounds to me like the Keep is going to interact with your DAI game through the interwebs to me.