JerekKruger

I'd love to see a Vampire game set in Milton Keynes. I wouldn't want to play it, but I'd love to see it.

I'd guess the highest chance of a turn based version of PoE happens like this: Ten to fifteen years pass Beamdog decides to buy the rights to PoE and create an Enhanced Edition with 16k textures and neural interface support Given how successful their turn-based mode in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Enhanced Edition was, they decide to add a turn based mode into PoE:EE as well It certainly won't be Obsidian doing it, since there's no money to be made from doing so (and almost certainly money to be lost).

I have a love hate relationship with the World of Darkness setting. I don't really want to play games set in (roughly) the real world, however here is something appealing about the sheer amount of detail available as a result. There's also something appealing about being able to set it in the town/city you live in (fingers crossed you don't live in somewhere like Milton Keynes however), visiting places you and your friends are familiar with, though with fabricated secrets added on. But ultimately, it's not really my kind of setting. I quite like Ars Magica's Mythic Europe for a similar reason, and its a setting I find my interesting, though obviously the detail is less in a game set in (roughly) twelfth century Europe.

Same. I mean, it could be good, and that would be great. I just hope their stretch goals so far have been low balled cost wise because I doubt you can develop a whole new game mode for just $125k (I do think $95k$195k [bloody hell these stretch goal numbers are a bit mismatched] for a new race is pretty conservative though, so fingers crossed eh)

Yep, my first thought was games like XCOM and indeed these games emphasise (what video games call) strategy, so if you're looking for the same in a turn based RPG it makes sense to go that direction.

Whilst generic pseudo-Medieval European world are as clichéd as they come, I suspect they're still the most popular settings out there. And so long as that's the case, most CRPGs will pick a generic pseudo-Medieval European world as their setting.

One day someone will make a turn-based game that genuinely has a small handful of really engaging and clever fights, and does away with filler. One day.

There are 12 in the core rulebook so yeah, that's skimpy and a little surprising.

Scandioid or Yorkshoid are also acceptable.

This too. It's a well known fact that a dwarf isn't a dwarf unless they (a) wield an axe or, at a push, a hammer, (b) wear heavy armour, (c) have a great big bushy beard, (c2) are male or at least appear male and (d) are always drunk. Bonus points if they hate/are scared of trees for some reason.

I did actually like Sagani, but notice how her ending had no influence on Deadfire. It's like they want you to believe she never existed! Khelgar is from before this cabal formed so...

Yes, for there is a shadowy cabal of CRPG developers working together to ensure we never get a good dwarf companion.

The impression I get from a lot of software I used day-to-day at work is that that's true for a fair number of other software developers.

I suspect they'll stick with the name Baldur's Gate because it would honestly be a bit weird to do otherwise when the D&D game you've just released is no more a Baldur's Gate game than the one you're proposing not to call Baldur's Gate. Instead I suspect BG will simply come to be a series of D&D CRPGs by Larian. I do hope they're successful. Even if I end up not enjoying BG3, I think it's good for CRPGs as a whole to have as many successful dedicated CRPG developers around. Whether it be borrowing a cool new idea, or simply the confidence that CRPGs can be commercially viable, it's a good thing imo.

My main takeaways were: This isn't Baldur's Gate 3, but I didn't really expect it to be. It was never going to be a continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga because how would that even work after the events of ToB; and I didn't expect Larian to move away from turn-based when (a) that's what they've had success with with D:OS1/2 and (b) that's the easiest and arguably purest way to adapt D&D. I am a tiny bit annoyed that they insisted on calling this BG3 rather than simply announcing a new D&D CRPG franchise (and I'd expect they'd have received a lot less flak if they had) but I guess either they or Wizards wanted to use the hype of announcing a BG game The gameplay itself looked fine. Nothing massively remarkable, but nothing awful either. I prefer RTwP but I enjoy turn based too so I'm not that bothered by that decision. The environments looked nice enough, but I do hope for some variety: one of the things that put me off D:OS1/2 was there only really seemed to be one outdoor tileset. Character models look remarkably similar to DA:I, but so long as they avoid the absurdly oversized weapons of that game that's not really a bad thing. Not much to say about story yet. Overall, as long as I treat this as Dungeons and Dragons: Original Sin rather than I Baldur's Gate game, I'm cautiously optimistic, which is what I was pre-stream, so not much change. Luckily early access will mean plenty of streamers I trust will almost certainly play it to death, and I'll get a better chance to judge it then.

Perhaps some potions taste so disgusting, it takes the drinker a moment to recover Is there any discernible balance reason behind the differences as far as you can tell? Do longer recovery times correlate with more powerful potions for example?

Same. They'd be so much more interesting if they scaled with PL, and it might make Conjurer's appealing too.

Heh, sadly not. Summoned Weapons do scale, but not with Power Level. Instead they scale with Character Level, reaching Legendary enchantment level at, iirc, level 17. I remember being very disappointed about this when I discovered it on release.

Only Monk Fists and the passive ability Monastic Unarmed Training.

I'm not sure there's any way to get a Power Level anywhere near 50, even temporarily. Normally, at level 20, your base Power Level will either be 9 (if you're a single class character) or 7 (if you're a multiclass character). Given only single class characters can get Prestige it'll always be +1 on top of a base Power Level of 9. To give you some idea of how powerful that is, if you're a Monk it'll upgrade your fists from +65% Damage, +18 Accuracy and +5 Penetration to +80% Damage, +22 Accuracy and +6 Penetration, taking it from slightly better than Legendary to significantly better than Legendary (and slightly better than Mythic).

I guess that answers my question, thanks @Waski

I've decided its time to actually play Deadfire, a game I backed almost four years ago (a combination of a PhD needing writing up and being a little disappointed with Deadfire at release stopped me from playing straight away). Looking at various classes, I like the look of Monks, but as always I want to play the class as a cliched Shaolin style Monk. Before anyone starts giving me a history about the Knights Templar or whatever: I know there were militant religious orders who wore heavy armour and used weapons, but when I play a class with abilities like "The Dichotomous Soul" my mind doesn't go to European style knightly orders. So the question: is a lightly armoured melee monk viable on PotD (with a party)? I don't mind wearing light armour like Gambeson or Leather (they're basically just thick clothes after all) but I don't really want to wear heavier armours. I know I could simply try it, but if it turns out to be unviable then I'll be restarting, since I really don't want to play an armoured monk, and therefore I'd prefer to know upfront.

Agreed. RTwP is one of the things about IE games I loved. It'll be a shame if it dies off.

I'd be surprised if many games that are "xbox exclusive" aren't eventually ported to the PC. By and large the two markets aren't competing in the same way that xbox and playstation are, so not porting to PC hurts overall profits. Of course you'll likely have to wait before it happens, and more bothersome for me is the tendency for UIs not to be properly adapted when ported from consoles to PCs.

I'm not particularity surprised by this news (well the Obsidian part of it, InXile is a bit surprising). Whilst it would be nice to think that Obsidian will be left too do their thing with relatively little interference from Microsoft, I am not optimistic. As such I mostly hope that's this gives Obsidian's employees more job security than they had. As for me, so long as they make good games I want I'll buy them. My concern, like many others, is that MS will interfere to make the games have more 'mass appeal' and what I enjoy about Obsidian's games will be lost. Before anyone says 'that's what most people want' or similar, I am well aware of that and don't begrudge and company making such choices, but if it's not what I want I won't be buying it and I'm allowed to be sad that one of the free companies making the streets of games I want may soon not be. Also if Live (it whatever it's called these days) is required then I'm out. I already skipped ME3 for that reason.