Amentep

Glad it wasn't a break, glad that you'll recover to 100%.

Have you considered doing a character treatment? A brief bio of the character(s) that can help you develop a feel for them?

Well, I'm just about to head off to the human lands in Sacred 2. After I take down the leader of the undead legion. Also about to level up again, so will probably do so when I take this quest in to completion.

To be honest, all that I care about is that it's internally consistent. I wouldn't want to be forced to have my female fighter wearing "Red Sonja mail" if no other female character in the game ever had the same kind of mail. And ideally it'd be nice if the lore supported it (like skimpy outfits only offer protection if they're magical items) and you could have your choice of skimpy/not skimpy lore appropriate outfits. If they want subtle indications of gender (even Cadegun, as I recall has a slightly different accommodating top that indicated her bosom even though it wasn't boob-plate) I'm okay with that. I understand why people like visual indicators of their characters like color tinting and indications of form regardless if it always made sense (I remember how many players wanted an option to hide helmets in BGII so they could "see" their character even though at the size the figure displayed there was little to see.)

Hope your foot is not broken, Woldan. Would suggest medical evaluation.

Wasn't really arguing it did; I think most people admit even if they enjoyed RotJ (and I did, but know many who didn't) that there are parts of it that are creatively compromised. As an aside I don't think the cute fuzzy bear approach was necessarily bad, they could have done something interesting with it. Instead it was a slapstick routine and I don't think it ultimately worked.

Lucas was a consultant on the story, but he didn't write Empire, that was all on Kasdan & Leigh - The originalscript was headed by Leigh, which is quite different from what Empire eventually turned out to be when it was re-written. As far as I understand, George officially came up with the story (which would be true even if he had little involvement, since it connects back to those original scripts he'd worked on), Leigh did the first iterations of the script and Lawrence did the last iterations on the script after Bracket passed away. As I recall, the Ewoks was a marketing decision; the fight on the forest moon was a sequence cut out of Star Wars that would have featured the Wookies. When they brought the concept back for RETURN, the decision was made to create a new race instead of reusing the Wookies (which allowed them to sell more toys and stuff). Why the race had to be furry short creatures could be up to Lucas liking to put little people to work, but it also may have simply been to not re-create the Wookies visually.

The obvious answer is to have every NPC, monster, etc. receive experience on their own experience table for every 24 hours that progress in game for the player. Every time they "level up" they gain class levels in their NPC class (up HP, up skills, whatever). The Guard stands at his post +10xp The Guard talks about that arrow he took to the knee to passerby +10xp The Guard kills a bandit trying to escape the city +200xp The Guard walks around the town +10xp The Farmer hoes his land +30 xp The Farmer runs away from xvarts +10xp The Farmer plows through a bee hive and his mule dies of stings +10xp -100gp The Farmer eats supper +10xp The Harlot entertains guests for 8 hours +100xp The Harlot entertains guests for 8 hours +100xp The Harlot entertains guests for 8 hours +100xp The Harlot entertains guests for 8 hours +100xp The Dragon eats a cow +10xp The Dragon eats 5 goblins +50xp The Dragon eats an adventuring party +500xp The Dragon counts his gold +100xp The Sphinx eats a cow +10xp The Sphinx eats 5 goblins +50xp The Sphinx poses a really nice riddle +100xp The Sphinx eats the adventuring party that can't answer the really nice riddle +500xp etc. Can't imagine there wouldn't be some lag computing all of that, though...

I believe the argument is that if the reason why "boob plate" isn't used is because it is either unrealistic or because it is over-sexualized that missing the fact that the weight of most armor will compress/hide the shape of the bosom to the point - other than in the most busty of women - that the "profile" of the armor should be relatively indistinguishable from a guy wearing the same armor still misses realism and still emphasizes "sex appeal". This is why Gromnir is comparing the mail to cloth, because the weight of the mail is being treated as if it is negligible (and thus, acts just like cloth would with respect to women's bosom).

I think the only reason it exists is because the thought is players will want to distinguish their male avatars from their female avatars in the group and in isometric view hip size alone isn't going to do it (in cases where it too wouldn't be rendered virtually indistinguishable due to the armor).

I still don't get the hate for Crystal Skull, to be honest. Is it Raiders of the Lost Ark? No. But then neither was Temple of Doom or Last Crusade. About the prequels, I agree with Hurlshot they're entertaining films. I think they have problems (I think the biggest is that it was a mistake to not start the story with Anakin being age-wise analagous to Luke in ANH; this decision created a domino effect of story and character issues, IMO). But as I mentioned some of the problems in the prequels are definitely on display in Willow also featuring a screenplay only worked on by Lucas. I think the argument is, generally, that Lucas works better with a strong collaborator in scripting (Katz and Hyuck on American Graffitti, Brackett and Kasden on EMPIRE, Kasden on Return, Kaufmann on Raiders, etc.) You may think "But hey, STAR WARS - the biggest of them all - was Lucas alone". Well yeah, technically, but remember he'd been talking it over with his film friends for years (if you recall the famous story of Brian DePalma lambasting the story idea) and worked on at least one draft with Katz and Hyuck.

I still tend to think the movie feels unresolved (deservedly, aping the serials of the past) but I see your point as well.

Yeah sad news.

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but my memory is that almost all of the important subplots and character arcs in EMPIRE got resolved in RETURN, not in EMPIRE. Han captured - Return Luke's vision quest - never resolved Luke and the Dark Side - Return Han and Leia's romance - Return Lando's betrayal - Return Heck the shocking twist (although I'd rate, say, the end of Chinatown a bit more surprising, for example) is all about "tune in next time..." As I said, it has been awhile since I've seen the film, but I can't think of an important story element in EMPIRE that isn't just left dangling at the end of Empire. To my mind, that's part of the point - ESB was always the one that could most replicate the Flash Gordon serials of yesteryear that Star Wars patterned itself after.

To be honest most criticism - even the best thought out and valid - can in some way be boiled down to reviewing a product for what it isn't as much as what it is. Is it terribly fair? Maybe not, but its the nature of criticism; entertainment is open to interpretation, interpretation always opens up the avenue of speculation (as well as personal taste or desire). What's different in the case of Kickstarters is that the audience has a different relationship with the production. In the days of IE, Interplay had the D&D licence and a license to use the Infinity Engine. Black Isle worked on titles that fit what the company was doing using the tools they had available. When a project was presented to the fans, much of what it would be was, by that point, fait accompli. This is a vastly different relationship where the audience also patronize the creation of the product. We are privy to far more decisions early on than ever before. And yet there were things already set in stone early on (single player, isometric). The problem I think lies in statements that are open to interpretation; even in saying that you are making a spiritual successor to the IE games is open to interpretation. We as fans think "Oh the depth of story of PST, the character and options and replayability of BG2 and the combat of IWD!" but it could just as easily be "the depth of story of IWD, the character options and replayability of TOB and the combat of PST!" and still be an accurate statement. But the developers really can't pigeonhole themselves either by being too concrete with their descriptors - they have to have the room to build and create. Which is why I try to keep my expectations on the high level (Isometric, party based, single player, class based systems) and let Obsidian do what they want with the rest; I'm willing to try and take PE for what it is rather than what I thought it should be. For my purposes I've already got what I supported the Kickstarter for - Obsidian making an interesting looking game.

I use the term "Toon" when playing Toon: The Cartoon Role Playing Game Also, it took me some time to figure out what "accruing agro" meant.

Expensive middleware is really only relevant - as far as I know - withing the context of why Obsidian didn't use their Onyx engine on this kickstarter which used a significant amount of licensed middleware that made Onyx cost prohibitive to do. So that's why we end up with Unity. What Unity's capabilities are, I couldn't say.

Yeah, being immune to the "mind tricks" is one thing (possibly even an innate ability to tap into the force to block that particular manipulation), my understanding was the Vong couldn't be effected directly by ANY of the powers (you could still topple a wall on them, but you couldn't force throw them into a wall) because they were outside the force. The force that connects all living things in the Star Wars reality. Which - and I wasn't reading them, so total outsider looking in - screamed of "we can't think of a way for villains to go against our heroes anymore so we're going to make them immune to all force powers".

Wasn't the Yuuzhan Vong the group that was immune to force powers? I kinda felt they violated the spirit of Star Wars anyhow.

I liked Tarkovsky's Solyaris, but man is that one glacially paced film. Some day I'll sit down and watch STALKER... For my weekend watching... THE QUIET ONES (2014) - another variation on the Philip Experiment, like 2012's THE APPARITION. Its a stronger film than the earlier film; it departs a good deal from the basics of the Philip Experiment and creates its own creepy atmosphere. Its not perfect - there's a minor subplot about a student who is against the lead professor's work that seems like it belongs to another film; it and a couple of scenes make me wonder if the film started out with one idea and they changed the premise while making it (at least one other scene suggests that). Jared Harris as the professor and Olivia Cooke are good in their parts as the obsessed, randy professor and the possessed (or is she just crazy?) young woman he is trying to cure. GRIZZLY (1976) - what Jaws did for sharks, Grizzly does for bears. A "throwback" to megafauna grizzlies stalks a park killing at will (often dismembering people with a swipe of the claws). Christopher George is the dedicated Park Ranger out to save those in the park; Richard Jaekel is his friend, a wilderness expert who wears animal skins and lives with animals. Pretty much follows the Jaws formula (people get killed, an official refuses to do anything, more people get killed, hunters try to catch/kill the creature and get killed). Very unusual for the time for a gruesome attack on a kid and his mom. WILLOW (1988) - its probably been two decades since I saw the film (and I hadn't seen it in a non-pan&scan version since I saw it in the theaters in '88). I always knew it had problems, but they become more and more glaring with each viewing. In this case, the story structure is wrong (really, for the audience, the story doesn't start until the characters arrive at the Inn meaning that there is a lot of padding before they get there). The romance between Madmartigan and Sorsha makes no sense, and a lot of the set pieces are undercut by having to cut back to the brownies who - by virtue of effects at the time - seem stuck onto the narrative. I can still watch it and it has its fun moments (the fight in the castle with the dragon creature is still memorable, and the end is fairly solid if a little mispaced) but I can't help but watch this, look at the George Lucas writing credit and think that a lot of the weaknesses in THE PHANTOM MENACE are on display in this movie. THE ADVENTURER: THE CURSE OF THE MIDAS BOX (2014) - feels like an attempt to cash in on the "teen action" series that have been so popular for awhile at the movies. Its an okay low budget affair; certain things appear to be done simply because the budget didn't allow for something bigger. Michael Sheen and Sam Neil do well in their roles, but the majority of the film is on the shoulders of younger actors (who aren't bad, for the most part). Good costumes and set design; if there is a problem it is that the script feels a bit rushed - the scope of the story being broader than the film can convey easily, I think.

Something being canon or not has never really effected my ability to enjoy it.

Are you sure you got Mayor McDaniels? Her desk apparently blocks farts and cup-a-fart is recommended (from what I've read, not tried to get the achievement myself). Also you don't fart on the Prince, but the Minister of Montreal, according to what I've read.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. But then I was always okay with death animations (or knocking unconscious animations) anyhow.

Well my understanding is they just couldn't afford to use anything but Unity. That said, since IIRC they're using 3d Lighting effects and a 3d wireframe map, are we sure they couldn't use that if they wanted to use Ragdoll Physics? (I just don't know enough about that to know one way or the other).

Was curious to see what you thought about this. I thought it'd be a step in a direction more to your liking!