Amentep

Well...he was a Ph.D...

At some level, I acknowledge that I'm playing a game and there is no computer game that exists that can have unlimited flexibility. So I play what the game gives, not what I wished it gave. As long as its internally consistent, there isn't a problem.

And here I figured you'd have made an NPC who got experience from killing things and thumbed their noses at the party who could only get quest XP. Sample Dialogue: gfted1 NPC: "See that goblin?" Goblin: "Hi guys!" Player character: "Yeah" Goblin: "...blurble..." gfted1 NPC: "3 XP. Suck it" EDIT: I suppose I should ObTopic, so to be honest I'd need to know a lot more lore and faction stuff to make this kind of decision. I'd like the NPC to feel interesting but also a part of their world (probably end up creating them the same way I'd my PC - in fact they might have been a PC idea if I weren't doing it as an NPC.)

Oz, the Great and Powerful. Enjoyed it again. I like how they make the character multifaceted and really work through their character to make the story connect.

Sleepy Hollow. I enjoyed it; it wasn't the strongest of the episodes though. Really felt they should have not resolved the Roanoake stuff so quickly.

If the attack does not overcome the DT then no damage would be taken at all, right? Right but I thought that anything other than an outright miss would still drain stamina. But I may have misunderstood!

Could be, but I thought that was only the case if the attack overcomes the damage threshold?

I wonder if Bruce will now request the option to romance the gnolls to death. You see a fortress, manned by gnolls. They have taken several prisoners you need to free. Do you Kill all gnolls, free the prisoners, bathe in their blood (blood of the gnolls, not the prisoner - got to get that right or else it'll be awkward) Sneak past gnolls, free the prisoners and try to sneak back out (and hope none of the prisoners are Naibor the Clumsy Oaf with a metal bucket) look for secret passages into the fortress, free the prisoners and sneak back out (assuming it exists otherwise your just wandering around groping the bare rocks around the fortress and looking stupid) barter with the gnolls for their prisoners (hope you have a large enough "kibble" stock) bring forth all of your diplomatic skills to convince the gnolls the prisoners are weapons of mass destruction and you are a UN inspector here to disarm the WMDs and take them for proper disposal ravish the gnolls, then free the prisoners as they sleep after you fulfilled all their wildest sexual fantasies. Each. And. Every. One. (ten weeks later, you find the prisoners have freed themselves and filed a complaint with your quest giver over having to overhear your gnoll activites every day and night without pause).

No idea, Im not a programmer. If ease of coding was the objective then that's sad. I wonder how it will work. Surely (yeah, I called you Shirley ) not all six members are going to be able to sneak by everything. So will this mythical player only play solo? What happens if you sneak 2 guys past but the third fails? OMG, xp was given away for free! Release the hounds! Why is it sad? Which is easier to debug? 100000000000 lines of code or 10 that do the same thing? I'm not sure what the second part of your statement is about. In your example of the magic line, yes all 6 would have to sneak past to get the XP (otherwise they'd get combat XP) which is part of why its more complex to handle. In the quest scenario the quest isn't going to be "Kill gnolls" or "sneak past gnolls" it might be "free the prisoners from the Gnolls" and it doesn't care if you kill them, sneak past them, barter with them, diplomat them or what. But it's not your only choice. You can continue on with that injured party member. Alternatively, you could have prepared yourself better before the encounter and/or made better tactical decisions during said encounter. In 99% of every other game you would just chug a potion/cast heal and continue on. Fun! So you suggest that the game be easy enough that continuing on with injured party members would be a viable choice and that tactics should be available that would allow you to defeat encounters without your party taking any injuries? If not, how are the choices you offer meaningful ones? And, yes, in this case the approach taken by the 99% sounds more fun than the lack of choice available in Project Eternity. When remedies are available the player can be presented with a variety of choices. Do I use the relatively inexpensive but slow-acting herbal pack that may suffice if I'm careful not to bite off more than I can chew before it's had time to work? Do I have the caster expend mana that they may need later in order to heal a party member now? Do I use the high-cost instant-heal potion and risk not having it when i may need it more? How is the Project Eternity approach more interesting/fun? The Infinity Engine games had healing spells but healers were limited in how many they could memorize so you were always weighing who to heal and for how much. Similarly, you needed to ration available potions--and decide how much inventory space you wanted to devote to them. Again, how in your opinion will fewer choices make the game more fun? There are two resources for combat, health and stamina IIRC. From what I understand stamina acts more akin to HP in the D&D setting, it goes down quickly and recovers naturally but can be recovered by potions. Health is a smaller pool and is harder to take down but harder to get back up without resting too. Also, IIRC some character will favor fighting injured (like the Monk). But all of this is preliminary information and they've said before its subject to change as they test it for "fun". So healing will be available for routine injuries? It's only when characters experience near death that you'll need to go back to town? That doesn't sound nearly as onerous. I'm also glad to hear that they intend to test the system for enjoyability. I always worry with Obsidian that they'll be seduced by the "righteousness" of their ideas and pay insufficient attention to how the player experiences them. :D It won't be routine injuries, it'll be stamina. This is an example based on my understanding, not an example explicitly from Obsidian, but as I understand it you might have 100 stamina but 10 HP; hits that are dodged or deflected or absorbed by armor my drain stamina, and those that get past would do damage to HP. But the theory is based on their plan, someone with 100 stamina and 10 HP would be just as viable as 100 stamina and 8 HP. You might start looking for a resting place when you get to 3-4 HP, dependent on how much HP is getting drained per character per battle.

I can't say that I agree with the conspiracy theory that Obsidian somehow didn't want to make a real "DS" game...since for all we know - and most likely is the case - it was Square Enix requesting a different type of game, very likely because they wanted a game that was multi-platformed and DS's party combat wouldn't work as well on a console. Like a lot of continuations in game series, they could have probably saved some (pointless, IMO) fan angst had they called it something like DUNGEON SIEGE: Side Story instead of DS3, so fans wouldn't complain that they weren't the same style of game (they'd just complain "why release this side story and not a real DS sequel!" instead, proving that Square Enix and Obsidian were screwed the minute they decided to make a new game in the setting).

But it's not your only choice. You can continue on with that injured party member. Alternatively, you could have prepared yourself better before the encounter and/or made better tactical decisions during said encounter. In 99% of every other game you would just chug a potion/cast heal and continue on. Fun! So you suggest that the game be easy enough that continuing on with injured party members would be a viable choice and that tactics should be available that would allow you to defeat encounters without your party taking any injuries? If not, how are the choices you offer meaningful ones? And, yes, in this case the approach taken by the 99% sounds more fun than the lack of choice available in Project Eternity. When remedies are available the player can be presented with a variety of choices. Do I use the relatively inexpensive but slow-acting herbal pack that may suffice if I'm careful not to bite off more than I can chew before it's had time to work? Do I have the caster expend mana that they may need later in order to heal a party member now? Do I use the high-cost instant-heal potion and risk not having it when i may need it more? How is the Project Eternity approach more interesting/fun? The Infinity Engine games had healing spells but healers were limited in how many they could memorize so you were always weighing who to heal and for how much. Similarly, you needed to ration available potions--and decide how much inventory space you wanted to devote to them. Again, how in your opinion will fewer choices make the game more fun? There are two resources for combat, health and stamina IIRC. From what I understand stamina acts more akin to HP in the D&D setting, it goes down quickly and recovers naturally but can be recovered by potions. Health is a smaller pool and is harder to take down but harder to get back up without resting too. Also, IIRC some character will favor fighting injured (like the Monk). But all of this is preliminary information and they've said before its subject to change as they test it for "fun".

Or whatever magical line your party just snuck past that awarded experience could also flag the mook as unkillable / no xp. Your example is what I call getting lost in the minutia (not you the poster). They are so worried about improbable one-offs (sneaking past then going back to kill, who the hell does that? I know, I know, EVERYONE will claim they do just that) that the whole system suffers for it, imo. What's easier to program, a magical line that represents every opportunity to sneak past, every dialogue trigger that satisfies diplomatic solutions and every combat solution... ...or to make the thing a quest and give quest XP? Seems like what you're asking is a very inefficient way to deal with giving XP solely for the benefit of getting 2 XP with every goblin you smite. (I never went back and killed characters I snuck past in BG, though - because I never snuck past them. BG really only rewarded combat. Not that that's a bad thing either, I liked BG. But I'm not put out that Obs is doing something different.)

As the Golden Age character, The Purple Zombie.

If it was mold free, I'd live there.

MACHETE KILLS - yes, yes he does. And often. I'd say its a little more outrageous than the first one and about as fun, but I'd give the edge to the first one. Still its great fun to watch the sequel and all of the crazyness in it. PUPPET MASTER V - we pick up after the events of Four with a direct sequel. It starts off with a "what happens legally after a horror movie happens" bit of business with the new puppet master getting into trouble with the police; this procedural element gets dropped as an uber-Totem is brought forther by Sekhmet and one of the new puppet master's superiors decides to try to steal the puppets (who, naturally, defend themselves). Then another showdown with puppet vs super-Totem. I enjoyed it, probably not as much as IV (but I bet these were filmed at the same time). Felt like they could have done more with the premise than they did even if it still comes off okay.

Hoodies. The things that capes do have been supplanted by coats and jackets, for the most part. Function over form. A cape, or a cloak? Because cloaks are so much more practical/awesome. Just sayin', u_u... I think one could debate the definitions of cape, cloak and poncho for a long, long, time. What I'd actually like is something that might be a cross between obi-wan's hooded robe and The Man With No Name's poncho, with a dash of Dracula's cape. Cape - any sleeveless outer garment, but typically one that covers the back half of the wearer, fastening around the neck. Cloak is a cape that serves the same purpose as an outercoat and may or may not have a hood. Poncho is a cape that covers the front and back of the wearer, and may or may not need a fastener.

Finally got Saints Row IV. Created a new boss because...no voice of my old Boss. Not gotten far into it yet.

If you take an unpaid internship where its clearly stated to be unpaid...how can you turn around and complain you got no pay?

Indeed Congrats!

Some of them can. IIRC Human Torch (and his derivatives, like Tara) could.

I really liked the first Hellraiser EXCEPT the end. When the Cenobites turn on Kirsty as I recall they actually violate their agreement with her (that if she helps them find the person who called them, they'll leave her alone) which is something they don't do. It was a radical departure from Barker's book and IMO Barker should have stuck to his first intention there. The second one was "okay", but I felt it a bit OTT (been years since I seen it). I don't know that I watched any of the others.

IIRC cloning in the Marvel Universe isn't a good way to go - most clones are inherently unstable and degenerate physically (IIRC). I'm assuming they'd keep that in the Marvel Movie-Verse Androids/Robots - LMD, Golden Age Human Torch, Tara, LMD, M1-The Killer Robot, Machine Man, Death's Head, MODOK, Arnim Zola, Vision, Jocasta all fairly reliable and probably the way to go. Or cyborgs like Deathlok.

Oh man, I think - up until this post - I HAD BEEN confusing Rosjberg with Shryke!

Puppet Master IV: Back to the present, still some continuity errors. The Puppets vs magic creatures sent by Set to destroy the new puppet owner. It had some fun puppet vs puppet stuff. 3 was probably more satisfying.

Yeah the line readings were a bit stiff. Probably not something the people thought about at the time...