Amentep

in fact, I think it might create an immediate conflict between the priests and the chanters. Without the printing press, the major translation of thought was either oral traditions or copying books in an abbey somewhere by dedicated Monks (who would/could suppress things that didn't fit their dogma). There in essence becomes three ways to pass knowledge - knowledge through apprenticeship, rare knowledge from books and more common knowledge from shared stories. Chanters may have stories that don't align with what the priests want to portray for their religions. Some wizard knowledge may cross the chanters and the priests. Lots of room for conflict between some of these groups who would, without a printing press, control the flow of the world's information.

Only voice actor I think I'd ever really think "wow, cool to hear him again" would be Tony Jay, but alas he's no longer with us. Such a great voice and voice-over actor (pretty good in non-VO roles too, IMO).

But without alignment, why would you cast "Protection from Evil" or "Protection from Chaos"? I'll be honest we never cared much about alignment when we played D&D unless you were playing a Paladin or clearly doing Evil/Good while playing a Good/Evil character.

But I think that's the inherent problem - Tho Fan is a made up language and yet there were a lot of people who felt it was gibberish (and offensive at that). Now you may remove the offensive part without someone being able to connect the line to real world cultures (many people couldn't get past the fact that Jade Empire was a fantasy world, not actually China). But you still run into a lot of people who are going to see it as gibberish. I'd love it if they did it, I just don't think the cost vs the effect on the average user would end up being of any benefit.

Total baseless speculation, but... I suspect undead are in the game (based on the screenshot art of those statues). Given the souls coming back over time and that we know that some societies see awakened souls as a bad thing, I can imagine that the society might be split over whether the undead (souls that remain and animate dead bodies) are good or bad things. Thus we may get more undead like "Kresselack" or "Acaste" and less like "Skeleton #2 From the Left in the Skeleton Horde created for Shattering into Boney Bits".

Yeah, that's pretty much the kind of thing that got flung around when JE came out.

Baldur's Gate had reputation. It had alignment, too, but it wasn't an implementation that adjusted for actions. And neither of those things (reputation, alignment) had to do with character stats like charisma, so I don't know what HumanFlesh+5 is worried about. (BG had no faction reputation, but PS:T did--mostly mutually exclusive too. That was nice. I haven't played FO:NV so I wonder what the difference is compared to PS:T.) My experience with factions in FO:NV is that shooting people in the face is frowned upon* I suspect there will be global factions and things; I wonder if there will be local factions (and whether people will belong to multiple factions). *Oddly, Ceaser's Legion frowned upon this even when the CL guy I shot in the face told me to attack him if I didn't like what he was doing. Buncha hypocrites, if you ask me.

I've thought for some time it'd be neat to have an alchemist class who might be able to mix up a potion or two (but maybe you'd not really trust drinking it) but could also make up vials that could then be thrown in combat (explosive vials, knockout gas, smoke bomb, caustic liquids that burn skin, poisons that could be added to weapons - that type of stuff). Normal combat skills would favor thrown weapons (thus dovetailing into throwing vials and flasks with accuracy). But even skill based, it'd be nice if it looked at building around the idea that alchemists were looking for a way to turn lead into gold and were playing with some dangerous things, so I favor the idea.

They also received a lot of flak about it from people, despite the language having been created by a linguistic expert. Unfortunately I think its a "no win" scenario.

Eh, I like full screen paperdoll inventory screen. Probably because developers seem to like taking the "well if you can see the screen, the computer monsters should be able to attack you - who cares that you're fiddling with your paperdoll" tact.

Based on the lore in update # 20, I'm guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that orlan will be one of them. "A race of people found mostly in northern, temperate climates but also as far south as the Dyrwood. Physically, they are notable for their small stature, two-toned skin, and exceptionally large, hair-covered ears."

I like proper paperdolls that look like the character as well. As I recall there was a real gap between on menu and on screen look in BG2.

The fact that they seem to be showing bodies decaying really opens a lot of questions.

wow.

Okay if we're camping, do we need to decide the watches? Anyone remember if we're using the optional rules about the % chance of accidentally kicking a lantern over and starting a fire in the camp?

I used to beat Adventure like once a day back when I had my Atari hooked up. It was so addictive. Then a few years later I hooked the system back up and I couldn't remember how to play it.

Trading likes for extra levels on a PE Dungeon = awesomesauce though. Because more dungeon levels means more fighting in dungeon levels.

This is what I'm rooting for. Think I've got a good chance.

Ah I get what you're saying. Anyhow the advantage with PE is they don't have a publisher to please, just them and us.

Sega owns Alpha Protocol IP. I'm happy that they're getting to make a game, that they're still in business (I remember people speculating for some time doom and gloom) and that the game seems so darn cool and I'll get to play it.

It looks like right now PC gets downloadable content for ME1 on disc and downloadable access to ME2 dlc. XBox360 gets no dlc on disc although it will all be downloadable if I read the descriptions correctly. PS3 is still to be determined. This, of course, means that there IS NO REASON for me to buy this since I CAN'T ACCESS ONLINE FEATURES AT HOME. And who knows if any of this junk is still available whenever I can afford to move? I suppose I can give up on ever seeing either the ME2 or ME3 extra stuff (including the supposed "improved" ending). I probably wouldn't be so annoyed at this, except they did release the Bring Down the Sky dlc for ME1 back in the day which I gladly bought another copy of ME1 for. I'd do the same now since it'd be the only way to play this stuff for me or people like me who don't live in places where they can easily access high speed internet. But more and more companies just assume you have access to it and don't give a **** about those of us who don't. EDIT: Or maybe I'm just bitter.

I'm seriously considering a pledge upping.

Sounds good to me.

The latest updates are making it come together more for me. But now I stumbled over the nearing ending Sword of Fargoal 2 kickstarter (a sequel to a roguelike game I loved back in the C64 days by the original creator). Why must all of these come together????

IMO - Power fantasies are about an individual using a fantasy as a way to redress wrongs / get revenge. Superman as a character is not a power fantasy as he is not using fantasy to redress wrongs done to him; a kid may see Superman defeating villains and being strong and capable as an empowering escape from reality. In that latter case, Superman is the Kid's power fantasy. Walter Mitty's stories, however, are Power Fantasies - he uses fantasy to escape his world that he can't deal with. Therefore, neither Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment's protaganist exist as created to be power fantasies. That does not mean that a player couldn't see being immortal or a godchild as a power fantasy for them. To bring this around on topic, I think that the design sense they're going with is going to be reasonable for armor - based on evidence so far. And I seem to recall Josh being a bit of a history buff from the BIS days, so I can't help but think he probably has some ideas for what the artists might want to look to in terms of arms/armor design for the game.