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Hi All, My partner has just started a blog for all things gaming, fantasy, fiction and scifi. He is an aspiring novelist (watch this space), but in the meantime he's just started to build up his portfolio starting with a blog. He's got a tonne of ideas and is busy writing his 3rd blog today (BIG mug of tea in hand), but he'd love some feedback from his target audience, and even some input on what you the reader would like him to "unpack". There's a "contact me" page on his site, go nuts! He'd love some traffic on his page, but fighting anxiety all the time means he's holding off on advertising his arrival to the blog scene... which is where I come in! >>>> www.packupyourdinosaurs.com <<<< Anyway, the reason this is relevant to this forum is that his last post was a comedic review of The Outer Worlds. If you're at all curious, please feel free to go and have a read. It would make his day! Afterall, it's not like any of us are short on time at the moment! Enjoy

I like your game here, Obsidian, which is strange to me. It's strange because I see everything, good and bad, when I play games or watch movies or shows- which may be cryptic to some I guess. By the way, as I write this the excellent title music is playing in the background for me. I decided earlier this morning to play again for a while even though lately I have been deciding against when the option arose. I worry that I will run into something I can't justify and then set the title down for good. As I see the most part of every story in my field of view, as stated before, I can't really explain what I mean by justified - but I'll soldier on anyway. Does it really matter if I decide not to finish the game? It matters to me and one is enough they say, or used to say in some places for right or wrong I guess. It matters because I see signs, and those signs tell me that I owe it to you all to complete the story line and tie up this little dream sequence. Who knows, such things may be important in some worlds, outer or inner, or holographic, or even imaginary. Without dreams what are we really but motes of dust drifting across some light source. Pity those who do not dream - they lead very small lives indeed, which is OK too. Anyway, I've tired even myself out with my mode of speech here, so I'll wrap it up. Sometimes things have to be wrapped up after all, sometimes quickly or at least in some short interval of time which is contentious to define. I only hope what I've managed to wrap up this time is worth the read - then I'll be able to say I've offered a fitting sentiment to the creators of The Outer Worlds. Soldier on fellow children of Earth! Further dreams await

So, not going to lie, I had pretty high hopes for The Outer Worlds. Given who was involved in its development, I thought that it was going to be Arcanum/F: NV in space. Honestly, I still prefer Arcanum or F: NV to TOW. What had I hoped to see from those games that I didn't or felt like it wasn't delivered as well? Length and depth. With both F: NV and Arcanum, you can play them dozens of times, because there are so many quests and so many things to find/discover/uncover. It is impossible to do all that in a single playthrough. I am a completionist. I don't care what game I play, I try to milk it to its fullest potential, I want to squeeze absolutely everything out of it as I can. If I play it again, I will still try to get everything out of it that I can. Great RPGs in general, and F: NV and Arcanum in particular, have tons of juice to squeeze after a single playthrough. I have played both of those games MANY times (5+). I always found new things. I have beat TOW and honestly don't want to give it another playthrough, because I feel like it wouldn't be that much different. I obviously have a different experience by making different choices, but I feel like there is probably nothing that I missed (or, very, very little). I feel like there is not much more juice to squeeze. I briefly started a playthrough with a 2nd character, very different from my 1st, and could already see where it was going. I could imagine how the rest of the game would play out and it just didn't motivate me to keep playing. In terms of the sheer number of hours involved in playing either (being a completionist), TOW is nowhere near as long. Companions. To be fair, neither Arcanum or F: NV had great companions. Arcanum had companions who had interesting backstories and could have been really compelling, but they were almost free of banter, interaction, and reaction to the story. F: NV only let you have a single companion, effectively. Some of them were good and had a reasonable amount of development, but you still didn't get that deep character depth, development, and involvement. I was hoping that Obsidian would draw from their experiences making Tyranny and Deadfire, and we would end up with companions along the lines of Baldur's Gate 2 or the Mass Effect franchise - heck, Planescape Torment. I thought that we were going to get some seriously fleshed out, interesting companions who would develop over time and have fascinating backstories and really interesting banter and reactions/interactions with the story and player actions. The companions weren't complete trash... but honestly, I find absolutely nothing memorable about any of them. Anomen, the noble who has struggled to do well for his family name and honor Helm, who is arrogant but internally conflicted about his status and sometimes the actions of the Church of Helm. Viconia, who is jaded, distrustful and contemptuous, but can be convinced that life is valuable and that there is value in trying to help others. Aerie, who is wounded and hobbled by fear, with a heart of gold, who can be given confidence and learn to be strong. ME's Garrus, Miranda, Morgan, Grunt and the list could go on. Any of the Planescape Torment companions. All of these companions genuinely interested me and I was invested in them. Ellie, Vicar and Parvati were the only companions I could even stand in TOW (I liked SAM... but he had zero personality), and while I didn't dislike them, I also found them to be very vanilla and not at all interesting. Customization. This game doesn't even get close to F: NV or Arcanum in either respect. There are a billion character builds for either game. In both of them, I played Doc Holiday - physically weak, fragile, but very fast, great with handguns, super lucky, and a gambler. I literally got rich in both games gambling as my Doc Holiday character and would gun people down with my pistols if it became necessary. I played a sniper/scout, a brawler, a thief, a scientist and a talker in each game. No gambling in this game, so no Doc Holiday. Stealing is possible... but it is honestly pretty easy, in general (with pickpocketing being ridiculous). In my first playthrough, without trying very hard, I managed to be a scientist talker sniper thief. Didn't have great charisma, but could pass most dialogue checks with my intelligence or knowledge. Was pretty damn effective with "long rifles". Was super smart. This doesn't get into items. There were TONS of cool schematics in Arcanum, and it is impossible to master all the different tech branches in 1 playthrough. In F: NV, there are also tons of options for mods to weapons/armor, unique/special weapons/armor, and things of that nature. At the midpoint of TOW, I was literally already bored with the weapons and armor I had found, and it didn't really change from there. Bad guy. To me, Jon Irenicus remains the absolute best bad guy of any cRPG. He was interesting, believable, and actually scary. He was also slightly sympathetic and definitely understandable. His voice actor was incredible. Arcanum's bad guy was not nearly as interesting, but he was still good. Who you wanted to designate at the bad guy for F: NV depended entirely on your perception of who would do the best for the Mojave, or who you philosophically supported most, as an organization. TOW? As far as I can see, there is really only "1" bad guy... and he is pretty pathetic (and not really that bad, per se). He is hardly developed. You don't even know who he is until late in the game. Defeating him is... anticlimatic. Beating Jon Irenicus was HARD. Beating the bad guy in Arcanum was HARD. Beating the key bad guy in a cRPG should be really hard and you should feel invested in defeating them.... I just didn't feel that way with TOW. The universe in general. Both F: NV and Arcanum had some genuinely interesting NPCs. So did Planescape Torment, Mass Effect, and a number of great RPGs. Sidequests that were really interesting and compelling. I didn't feel this with TOW. There were a few here and there with a bit of development and backstory, but for the most part, the side quests were to go kill something or fetch something, and that was about it. The majority of the NPCs simply had no development or backstory. There might be more, but that is all I can think of right now. Honestly, though it took me 2 years to play it, I vastly prefer Tyranny to TOW. I prefer Deadfire to TOW. I had thought TOW actually had a chance of dethroning BG2 as my favorite cRPG... but I honestly don't think that I would put it in my top 10. Definitely not in my top 5. This isn't to say that TOW "sucks" or is a bad game. It is a good game. I would give it and 88 out of 100. But, I had hoped that it was going to be a 96/97/98/99.

I have recently finished my first Deadfire playthrough (on v1.0.2), and decided to provide some feedback. Posting it here, since it can contain a few spoilers. First of all: I liked the game and yeap would bake a sequel. Second: sure the game came out a bit raw, but definitely less raw than I expected after trying the betas. So here we go: Things I liked: the atmosphere and exploration. I really enjoyed the grim nature of PoE1, but the bright and shiny Deadfire was also great to explore. the visuals. You guys made noticeable improvements to the game world, character models, lightning, shading and textures. the hook. It is always interesting to play your games from the very first minute. You find a way to get the player invested. the story idea. And having to play a decent role in the gods conflict. subclasses and multi-classing. When balanced well this really adds to the pool of possible builds and improves replay-ability tremendously. sailing and shanties. voice acting. Both characters VO and narrator. (* narrator has pleasant voice but could be a lil bit faster) ingame music. While PoE1 exploration soundtracks were ok, I started to hate PoE1 combat music. In Deadfire through I liked both. neketaka the idea of relationship/camaderie system humour. Both written and emerging. Things I'm neutral about: factions. They are great in the first 3/4 of the game. Flavorful, colorful. Their imperfections make them more realistic. But... at the end of the game their faction leaders look retarded. The future of Eora is at stake and they quarrel about unrelated things. Or let's take their "ambush" at Ukaizo. In my case it was Furrante. I haven't really understood why he decided to suicide by attacking the Watcher. ship combat. I was pretty excited about it when heared it first. Didn't expect it to be textual though. But.. can live with that. The thing is that something feels missing. Having all those trophies and no reactivity about it is kinda lacking Also capturing a ship and not being able to take it or it's cannons was really strange. Also maybe add some unlockable (on higher captain ranks) maneuver perks? And make some enemy ships travel in groups of two? romances. Romances with both Maia and Xoti felt strange, with weird pace (i.e. they started immediately and after that 30h of radio-silence with no new dialogues) and not really satisfying ending. Things I didn't like: Main story was too short. The whole run took ~50h, but I have a feeling that critical path could be done under 3 hours. Faster with an SSD. The sense of false urgency. It feels a bit strange when you need to follow Eothas, but... he can wait while you go for a trip to Splintered Reef, explore the map or do some faction stuff. Had to tell to myself that Eothas is moving very slowly. But if so, couldn't Magran blow that volcano earlier? I.e. when Eothas has arrived to Ashen Maw, but before he absorbed the essence from the pillar? Without it and souls nearby to consume he could potentially halt there. Also.. not really the problem of the game, but with all that built-up, was waiting for some big intense fight in the end (depending on the dialogue option / what to do with The Wheel). Because of this false expectation was sitting during the end dialogs and thinking oh well.. did I really expect to fight a god? And also: how could I convince him to delay breaking the wheel, while there won't be enough animancy advances in order to be sure that we can fix it once broken. Some quest givers turning hostile if you don't want to kill for them. Pallegina didn't feel like good ol Pal. It looks like time spent away from the Watcher affected her hard. Expected more light-heartedness from a pardoned Pallegina. Also where is Vielo Vidorio? Her only unique ability is quite lacking; and a wayfarer would be more useful in party. tooltips that don't give you complete information. "Has a small chance", "inflicts a small DoT"? Rot Skulls and Nannasin's Cobra Strike tooltip not mentioning the DoT data. bugs. Usually not a big deal. But that reload time bug was annoying. weak bounties. In PoE1 many of them were quite memorable. And I can remember none by name in Deadfire. weak bosses. balance. So many OP abilities, especially in proper combination. Also so many trash options that are not worth the time spent to cast them (i.e. 3s cast time + 4s recovery and get 5 resolve? or deal 80 damage to 5 enemies?) crowd control not being reliable and useful enough. Why try to charm the enemy when it's faster to kill him? In PoE1 it was great that you could make parties with completely different playstyles and they both will be optimal. encounters are not diverse enough. I didn't feel the need to adapt, or change my combat routine. In PoE1 we would fight differently when facing: shades | ogre druids | kith druids / pwgras | kith | monks | dragons. generally in v1.0.2 it wasn't even worth to watch the inspirations/afflictions and try to counter them. inbalance between AR versus Defenses for damage mitigation. the seeming imbalance between damage types. There seem to be quite more enemies with low crush AR and high fire AR, compared to other armor types. confusion with speed/time and damage calculation. Specifically malus steps. Also it seems that confusion was not only in how the game processes this stuff, but also at the dev level; looking at how might became multiplicative then additive; or reloading becoming affected by recovery modifiers only in beta4. some items had really OP properties. I was like "it's obvious that there is a broken use for it even before you finish reading description". Using it won't give enough satisfaction because it will feel cheap. And imminent nerfing will cause the dissatisfaction of players who use it. So why make those properties this way? at the same time many of those items were overnerfed in v1.1.0. I mean it's definitely bad when an item increases your dps by 50% compared to alternative; and even worse it it doubles total damage just by itself. But if it does so only by 3-5% it's also not satisfying enough. 7-10% is a nice threshold to look at. double-nerfing. Just an example: the problem with Swift Flurry was it's recursive implementation. Instead of taking recursion away, you dramatically reduce it's proc chance. After that make it only work with melee attacks. And in v1.1.0 giveup and make it impossible to proc recursively. Good but why not revert the melee-only change? Also since all hit-to-crit conversions were severely nerfed it's proc chance could be reviewed as well? Overall: it's a great game, a solid 8/10 with potential to get up to 9/10 with extra polishing and fine-tuning, and even more with expansions. In any case am already planing a new run on v1.1.0) P.S. Some party stats for the curious:

Having finally finished the game (Patch 1.02) after 70 hours I do find myself on this very rare occasion to say a few words about the game. In short I liked it, but it could have been better. Why? well here is my few scrambled up thoughts on the matter. About myself: A crpg fan from BG, Torment, IWD, completed pillars1 with cipher. Played as Monk/Cipher in veteran difficulty with no level scaling in PoE2. Play and GM tapletop games. Bugs - Couldn't finish the Wakaha tribe quest line, it never updated on the alliance, but the queen said I had convinced the wakaha tribe to join her ( but I hadnt even met them at that point in the game) - The Explorer achievement was never completed ( im 99 % sure I have been on every island and named them) -Couldn't finish the mapping quests in Queens berth, it just says " im partway there on islands southwest of neketa - The Old city in Neketa and the Conchets of the sea quests went really oddly when I wondered in, and found the first conch before even I knew what the hell I was doing. I think the Quest got stuck on the Watershapers guild and in with the criminal boss ( D something) - A lot of enemies will not engage the players if they are not in their line of sight, problematic when the Boss summons adds and you end up finding them standing all alone and not going to the fight ( for example the Mecha boss in Ukaizo) Game play Companion classes - Allow custom classes from lv1 for the companions ( Like Edér to become a Swashbuckler street fighter/Unbroken and not just generic swashbuckler) - The Spell casters (Druid, Priest, Wizard, Cipher) In general, a lot weaker than their melee/ranged hitting counterparts, they have limited spells which deal about the same or even less damage as just basic attacks with a lot more micro involved. Seems like for doing damage going duel wield is preferable to any other weapon combo. Defensive spells are favored over offensive ones ( since most of them hit your party as well) and the Condition ones seem unreliable. Going full caster seemed like a bad choice, you really pick up 1-2 spells from your spells available and use them repeatedly. Once you get higher level spells you dont really need to use the lower level ones, or you just use the spells that are easy to use. Situational spells - you dont really want to pick up these because you only get a few spells to choose from. *Suggestion - make the offensive spells more reliable ( maybe even guaranteed HIT or graze at least) and cast faster, lower the damage done from melee attacks, maybe allow the casters to get a separate level up point in Spells and separate for the other skills ( this includes the chanter as well) - AI Pretty horrendous, if you have AI on they will ignore player commands, if not they will stop auto attacking once they have finished whatever command they were repeating. It should be more like finish player command - then go on your silly little AI routine. More often than not they characters will choose to run from their current opponent to engage someone long ways ahead leaving the enemy just battering them for no apparent reason. They will start long 6 second casting times when there is a 1 or 2 weak enemies left - Traps If you dont have a character with perception of 16+ in your party you are going to just step on every trap in creation which just means you step on on all of them, then rest. whilst having a character with 16+ perception makes traps utterly pointless. Traps are boring and pointless. BUT there were a few encounters where there were traps hidden within a fight ( this was good!) *Suggestion - maybe adding a skill check to traps so that they can fail, stepping on traps should alert the enemy of your presence. At least make the obvious rope traps into a lower Perception check. Dont make the standard AI run trough traps in combat though. - Ship combat 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 close in to encounter seems to be the most effective way ( granted your deckhands can die, which is a bit of shame since you cant even gear them). *suggestion. Ship combat needs an overall haul, its boring and pointless. I think it needs a graphical interface that happens either in real time (slow) or turn based. -Difficulty As it stand the game is too easy and doesn't require any tactics to complete, just click on the most effective most damage dealing options and once in a while maybe cast a healing spell or drink a potion. The PLOT - The overall structure seems to be very similar to pillars1 even with the major towns and factions, the eir glanfathans are replaced with the huana. Except this time were actually in the plot doing stuff ( unlike in pillars 1 where the backstory was more interesting that what you were doing) - Main story seems a bit short and theres basicly just one choice in the end you can effect. - Freedom of exploration seemed to not fit into this, since I ended up being in most of the places before I actually needed to go there. Maybe more locked doors for plot reasons. Most of the time I just wondered in some random place and did everything in there without actually knowing why im there in the first place, but not bothering to backtrack. - All the companion plots are very short and end abruptly ( especially aloth, was there like anything in there? did Pallegina have a quest at all?) * suggestion - when in doubt look about how companions in Dragon age origins and Mass effect were done. - Why cant you use your diplomacy or intimidation to at least sort out some kind of deal with the 4 powers? it feels a bit odd since you have been doing jobs for all of them and now you suddenly have to choose 1 while damning all the others. I mean heres my point, they have been living in Neketaka in relative peace, and profiting from each other, but UKAIZO drives them mad for golddd!!!. Shouldnt they be more bothered about dealing with the Eothas situation and maybe after that fighting over UKAIZO. - No choice to backstab the princinpi leader and become the pirate king yourself? , BOO! I was expecting to do this to Aldys but I guess not. - Your choices seem to matter very little. * Suggestion: well of all the things mentioned here the plot I think cant be fixed. Guess well have to wait for pillars3 For the future ( pillars3) I think the biggest problem with Pillars of Eternity is its game play system. To offer any difficulty it really needs to have level scaling mobs. which kills the feeling of a real living world ( why are these goblins lv20??, why wont these lv20 goblins just take over the world?? oh because then they'd face lv20 peasants with legendary pitchforks and torches) . The greatest problem with the system is that you gain power from leveling up which means low level mobs will never hit you. A similar problem in many tabletop games such as D&D 3.5/Pathfinder. You should really look into D&D 5e and into the lowered power from gear and leveling up. As and example a lv10 D&D 3.5 character could have +15 to 17 to hit and 25 to 30 AC while a D&D 5e char would have +7 to 9 to hit and AC 18 to 20. This means that a D&D 5e lv10 char would still find difficulty in level 1 monsters that have a +4-5 to hit and ac 13-15 in greater qualities. whilst in D&D3.5/Pathfinder a lv1 monster would have no chance except a nat 20 to hit the player. You have tried to encounter this problem with your Engagement system but the overall +3 per all defenses per level ruins the lower leveled monsters. ( im not saying 5e is the perfect system mind you, just that the lower level power ups benefit the overall believability of the world. Overall: well in the end of the day a PC game can never be perfect so I give deadfire in its current state a " Decent " rating. Ill give it another go at some point, after all Pillars 1 (at least game-play vice) is a totally different game in its currents state than it was at launch and will most likely give it another review. Thanks for all of your efforts and I hope the game gets another sequal. After reading this "review" I realized I had a lot more negatives to write but I did overall like the game. VA:s were great, most of the dialogue was great, and there were a few interesting fights.

Hi everyone, Hope its ok to post my own review of the game here, I hope the devs can get some decent insights from it Disclaimer: I was a backer for the game. The game is no doubt an improvement over the previous game, mostly in terms of mechanics and game-play but it does fall short in other areas. The good: ---------- - Graphics have improved and spells look much nicer this time around even those that were brought back from POE1 - The interface has been improved, it starts in the character creation screen where it allows you to better understand how to build your character according to what you want it to be. It continues with useful tip tools in various aspects of the interface such as an indication if a certain quest is beyond your level and might be too hard for your characters current level. - As mentioned previously, you can now WALK instead of running everywhere (assign a key to it in the settings) which allows you to enjoy the scenery, and there's plenty of it to enjoy. - The voice acting is better and includes all characters that play an active role in the game, descriptions of scenery and other "cutscenes" are not voiced but that's ok since most of the text is shown during character interactions. - Combat is now slower allowing you to make better decisions and come out of a fight alive as opposed to the previous game where you might die because you were misinformed in how to handle or continue a certain fight. - The free travel map makes exploration both at see and on land fun and intuitive, no doubt a much improved system over POE1. - Plenty of space to be either a good guy or an **** that only works for his own goals. The bad: ---------- - Too many references to the first game, this is the perfect way to throw off and confuse new players since so many things are referenced back to POE1 you often get confused. And since these games are so long you often forget what you did and why a certain character likes/dislikes you without a proper explanation. - Character spam, the game throws new characters that can join your party way too early and often its a couple of characters in one location. Personally I didn't like this since it doesn't allow me to properly get to know the characters I already have in my party and build any kind of a connection to them before I am offered to replace them with a new one, and since your are limited to 5 characters in your party you HAVE to make the decision to kick one of your "old timers" who were in your party for a couple of short hours. Seemingly, you could say that I can just decide not to switch them but many of the characters you are offered are presented as key figures for your upcoming quests without whom you could not continue or would miss out on information they hold, this makes it seem like you MUST put them in your party instead of a character who has joined your party just an hour ago. In my opinion this is a bad design decision on behalf of Obsidian since the main point in these games are the characters and if I am not given enough time to get to know them, use them and decide whether I like them or not they lose their meaning and once that is gone your desire to keep playing goes with it. - Quest/mission spam, personally I would tone it down at the beginning of the game and increase it as the player progresses, its not a major issue but sometimes you feel like you are in over your head and some missions are thrown in your face without your ever realizing your accepted a mission. - A very limited draw distance, in the first city your arrive in you will hear one of the characters say "I wonder whats that crowd over there is going on about?" The problem is that your don't really see a crowd until you move MUCH closer to the area the character was talking about and this problem persists with characters appearing "out of nowhere", its very immersion breaking and in combat is a real problem. I was attacked by 3 looters, the first 2 I saw but the third one since he was "too far" I did not see and he was shooting at my characters without me knowing where he was... And just to be clear I'm not talking about insane distances here, I am talking about at max 10 steps from your nearest character. The ugly: ---------- - Over dramatized writing, this was mentioned by a couple of people already and I must agree... The writing is often too dramatic and after a while feels more cliche which completely destroys your immersion or emotional capacity to keep listening to the dialogue. Seriously Obsidian, just because something is said or described in exaggerated pomp it doesn't mean that it will get the player excited again and again. It very quickly turns from real drama and excitement to a soap opera sort of excitement. For references its the same mistake that was done with Star Craft 2 Legacy of the void, where you had an ENTIRE campaign at 200% drama and epicness... Its unsustainable and at the moment your realize that this roller coaster doesn't have any straight rails it loses its effect. If every section of the game has drama when will my I have a chance to relax? A big lesson for the developer to learn for future titles: Keep the drama down until it is necessary, don't try to fool us that the world hangs on the balance EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. Also, some sections have swearing in them which feels out of place, like a dialogue option saying "f**k you" ... Having that beside the whole epicness and gods and stuff feels weird. - The main story is weak, at the beginning you aren't given information about who is EOTHAS and why you should care about him so much to go chasing after him for 40 hours, ok he destroyed my keep (which I didn't see or experience in this game so...whatever) The player doesn't even receive a proper explanation for the connection between the player, the god who sent him to chase down EOTHAS and without this connection it doesn't succeed in making this story feel personal enough. The biggest disappointment with the plot is that its something that cannot be fixed with patches and we will have to live with its weakness and lack of luster. - Character portraits during dialogue sections are meh, as opposed to their normal portraits shown outside of the dialogue. Its an odd decision but I can live with it.

I was one of the folks who waited until patch 3.05 to start playing this game. That being said, I would like to share my thoughts about it now that I finished my first complete playthrough (I skipped White March... will save that for another time). NARRATIVE DESIGN - VERY POSITIVE: I loved the variety of it. There was a wide range of themes (some of them rarely addressed in cRPG's), people with different points of view about the same issues and A LOT of roleplaying options. This variety is very important to keep the player interested, mainly in the second half. Can you imagine if Twin Elms was another urban-type city or village? I would definetly get bored. The developers talked about how they aimed for a "realistic fantasy" style (kinda like Game of Thrones) and for me they simply nailed it. Every quest, even the smaller ones, felt somehow morally ambiguous. ISSUES: Maybe the cities could have felt more organic and alive, with NPC schedules (that's planned for PoE2 already). Also, after reaching Twin Elms, Actually, I felt there was lost potential regarding the impact of background, skill, reputation and disposition on reactivity overall. It was competently done in some places, like I understand why there is less impactful reactivity in the main questline, as branching stories are costly, but regarding sidequests and small tasks I think the developers should go completely nuts with reactivity! Make more class-exclusive tasks, disposition-exclusive quests, background-exclusive rewards, maybe just for some class or disposition the sidequest could give a hint for the main story line, go nuts!... By the end of the game, where the player is usually less patient for solving mere tasks, this is also where he has most dispositions and reputations, so making the quests more reactive to those would be perfect! Again, they did a decent job at this, but for me, they should just go crazy in tasks and small quests' reactivity design... ART AND GAMEPLAY (NON-COMBAT) - VERY POSITIVE: I won't repeat what has being praised to death since the game's launch: how it improved upon the IE style in almost every aspect. I remember being blown away in the first hours of gameplay about how near perfect it was, from the environment and UI art to the freedom I had while building my characters. The one thing though, that I would like to highlight as a big positive for me is the policy of avoiding classic IE games exploits on gameplay, mainly supported by Josh Sawyer. Some of this implementations were very criticized here, but I got nothing but love for them since the beggining. The disencouragement of dumping stats, rest-spam and grinding exp. by killing monster mobs, the lack of an overpowered-weapon-to-rule-them-all... this all favors immersion and roleplaying instead of powergaming, which should be left for hack-'n'-slash and MMO's realm. ISSUES: Definetly leveling up. Again this has been addressed to death, and high-level content scalling seem to have fixed some of it. But all of Act 3 was frustratingly easy for me, playing on hard (and I didn't do any of White March). I think high level content scalling is not the right solution for this, but maybe changing the way leveling up works. The main reason for the game becoming too easy in high levels is the rising of defenses and accuracy, some high level abilities, and the lack of challenging encounter design (addressed in the next session). To solve this, I would propose a non-linear rise of defenses and accuracy (maybe a rising curve with a plateau). This makes more sense realistically, as experience in countless combats won't make you stronger and stronger until you reach god-like levels of killing a xaurip with a single punch. Maybe leveling up could be represented more by the widening of the abilitiy options available. Another obvious solution is simply limit the exp. rewards and slowing down the leveling up (I might think more about this for a new topic). COMBAT - DECENT/MILDLY POSITIVE: Again, I didn't disapprove of Josh's policy against IE's gameplay exploits and his implementation of the engagement system. I think it was a cool addition, and it actually presented a new challenge, as you had to find a way to break engagement if trying to get away from a fight. Also, the amount of abilities available is huge! This made every combat at least entertaining for the beggining of the game. There were some hard counters here-and-there, immunities and monster abilities that I had to think how to avoid and some challenging fights that felt somewhat rewarding when I was able to beat them, however... ISSUES: I feel like the implementation of a combat mode limited the options for encounter design a lot. With this current system, we are not able to do stuff like scout a group of enemies while invisible, throw a potion or explosive at a clueless mob of monsters, charm an enemy and send him in the front line of an encounter etc. Overall, the whole encounter design for PoE1 was very lackluster, and I don't understand why the developers allowed this, since Sawyer worked on IwD2 which has great encounter design. Using the different abilities available was cool at the beggining, some of them were a little different, like swapping the mage with another character, the fire wall and rolling flame, but man, I would love to see encounters where the party started with a disadvantage, with variations on terrain, boulders, obstacles, exploding kegs (or shooting at some oil kegs so they would cast slicken nearby), maybe some interactable objects (hell, why not even scripted interactions mid-combat, the possibilities would be numerous!). This went longer than I expected. Any thoughts on the issues/positives I mentioned are welcomed!

Dear Obsidian Team, I normally don't do such reviews and thoughts about the games I finish, but keeping in mind the next installment - POE 2, I'd love to give you my thoughts and feelings after finishing your first game - POE 1. I am the 24595th backer for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire - pledged 65 $ - I really wish I could support you with a bigger amount. First of all I really hope this text will somehow get to you Folks, I know you will not maybe agree with all the things I will mention here but at least please try to cosinder it TY. Keeping in mind this is the first game you made in the world of Eora I will start with PROS. PROS: 1. It's a cRPG! God, I just love this genre 2. Beautifully made locations, with a big emphasis to details 3. GREAT combat - it really felt good, clear/transparent 4. Interesting and nicely created monsters 5. Well desinged inventory, maps and interface CONS: 1. THE STORY Sadly it wasn't enough interesting to keep me excited and wanting to know more about the upcoming events/future. The story is a strong part in both BG2 & Icewind Dale. 2. ITEMS CONS It felt really discouraging when you spent so much time on doing quests and slaying monsters just to get regular magic *blue* items. Too many in the game. It was sad that my best weapon for Kana was a found Exceptional Arquebus that at the end of the game have been upgraded by me to a legendary item. None of the yellow (rare?) items where good enough. Very rarely there was a yellow that was actually better then any type of item I was equipped with. TOO MANY repeating items, with the same stats, names and looks. Another exaple: Hand & Key, found early in the game and I finished the game with it. Sadly, if im not mistaken, only with in the White March there were items like Abydon's Hammer, Stormcaller or Gyrd Haewanes Stenes that you could assign with a specific charakter and get them better in time, instead of upgrading on your own. I like the idea, but please try not to make too many of these next time. PROS I really liked the idea with the White Forge, Blade of the Endless Paths that reminded me of FLAIL of AGES from BG2 ENCHANTING It needs an overhaul. Sadly only with using very rare items like eyes of dragons, krakens and epic monsters you could really make a change that felt as an upgrade. What about obtained in the game items that coundn't be used like for enchanting: Fangs & Claws from: Lions, Wolves, Stelgaers, Bears, Boar Tusks Elder antelope Horn, Stag Horn Hides from: Lions, Wolves, Boars, Bears, Stelgaers, Stags Items like: Shattered Animat Armor, Readceran prayer bracelet (found 20), Durgan Copper bracelet, Bronze Abydon Statuette (6) IMO there should be enchanters in the game in the world of Eora that could do enchanting for us, that could do lets say a nice bow from Antelope's Horn, good armor from Hides we find. CRAFTING What about ingredients that I found hundreds of, picking every single plant I found. I never used them. Crafting could not exist - I wouldn't mind. It was too basic. I didn't even use food, maybe only when I had to raise my STATS to do a specific quest or to open a dialog option with a NPC - it felt weird. Items: Conclusion - We need a good loot system - which is a strong and important part of every RPG game. That everytime you fight this epic monster or FOE you will be rewarded and you can be sure you will get an upgrade - that your party will get stronger through items. 3. MONEY When I finished the game I had approx: 500.000 GOLD. We need ways to spend the money. Too many regular items that are beeing sold over and over again. Lets limit the amount of money we get from an NPC for the same item. NPC should just say: I'm sorry I just can't take more of these, have you got anything else? I remember it was a challenge to buy something in the Waukeens Promanade in BG2. Just like in real life - if you want to buy something - save the money for it. I'd like to have an indecision what to buy or spend the money for. Bribe a NPC or save the money cause I need them for something else. 4. MUSIC I understand there is a budget and some other limitations. Music was solid, but nothing really memorable (Icewind Dale, BG2). I really hope POE2 will do much better in this manner. MUSIC is the third most important thing after the STORY and GAMEPLAY imo. 5. THE WHITE MARCH Should be an addition to already finnished main story quest. I finished the game (the pit that I couldn't get out of) and had to reload the game from earlier save to go to White March and do the expansion - One big location with best items in the game... 5. SMALL THINGS & CONCLUSION Wounds - we should have an option to heal/fix them without having to rest every single time. I like the idea of having different wounds in the game - keep it that way, it's great. Knowledge - I remember having this option in the game where as a mage I could know what is enemy mage/wizzard casting. Sure, I believe there was an icon - but please add text for clarity. Would be great to also have all (at least known) spells (mage, priest, bard) & skills/abilities in the encyclopedia. That's about it. Pillars of Eterniety has its flaws as every other game. There are also many strong sides that makes this game a very SOLID cRPG title. In summary POE is not a game that I look forward to get back to one day, as I did with Icewind Dale & Baldur's Gate series so many times I can't even count. I will definitely have fond memories of POE and can't wait to see POE2 become it's very best successor. THANK YOU Obsidian Entertainment for all your great work so far, and keep it up. It would make me a happy man to know you actually red this text. I'll check back after some time to see if you did Best regards, KARNASHUK

Let me begin this by saying I really wanted to like this game. I desperately wanted to. I tried in as many different ways as I could to convince myself that I just wasn't seeing Pillars from the right angle, that if I tried one more time I could get into it, but in the end I had to admit the truth to myself. Pillars of Eternity is garbage. This game falls flat on its face when it comes to important elements that make a great role-playing game. The first is the terrible cast of characters. In a game that revolves around a party of companions, they design an extremely limited (what, six, maybe seven total?) and bland cast of joinable NPCs that would never, ever travel together if you were looking at this from a story perspective. That might be forgivable if they were interesting with their own romances and side quests and intricate backstories, but they're not. The game designers seem to attempt an apology for this by shoehorning in some mechanic to design your own party of characters from the tavern, but for me that's just as half-ass as apologizing for the terrible magic weapons they designed by letting you enchant your own gear. The second is clearly the combat. From the basic system to the character classes to the way enemies behaved and battles generally went, it's a big gigantic mess that is not intuitive or fun to play. The basic concept of Pillars combat mechanics are confusing and annoying. Items you find are woefully inferior to the bland generic items you can enchant, and the way stats interact with your class is unbalanced and at times extremely confusing (physical strength dictates the damage wizards do with their spells -- WHAT?). Many enemies are given stunlock abilities or endlessly heal each other (such as the Paladins in Raedrics Keep), and all are automatically designed to rush your weakest characters. There's no real way to stop this, short of sending your fragile characters away from the fight at maximum range, but as soon as they move in to do anything to help, they will get rushed and die. The worst part is that after you finish that tough-as-nails epic fight, you realize you're not a damn step closer to the next level for it because of a pretentious XP system that only rewards quest completion and not body count of defeated foes. Third is the lack of immersion or replayability. The game makes a big deal about character race, background, culture and all that, but ultimately those choices have no impact on the actual events of the story. The 'reputation' system they tried to implement is confusing and poorly designed, so that by the time you finish the game, you will have a car crash of many different reputation types. This is made even worse when certain classes (Priest and Paladin) have class abilities whose strength depend on this broken reputation system. Quest lines allow the illusion of choice at some points, but the result is the same regardless of what you do. Fourth, and finally, is the story. It's not interesting. The main character can talk to dead people, and some Big Bad Evil Guy in a mask is stealing souls for some unknown, shallow and ultimately pointless purpose. The hook for even placing you where the events of the game take place is immediately revoked a couple hours in after Raedric decides to yank his offer, leaving you as some wandering nobody with no purpose other than to chase down why you have funny voices in your head. Being a Watcher is supposed to be this super-rare unique Kewl D00d power, but the most reaction I ever got out of anyone amounted to: 'You're a Watcher? Huh. That's funny.' As plot devices go it's really weak and I found myself struggling to give a single damn about magic rocks coming out of the ground, hooded people performing nefarious rituals, or my character's involvement in the whole mess at all. The fact that this game has gorgeous aesthetic and production value makes all of this worse. With such crucial design flaws, this is literally the RPG equivalent of a hot girl that won't put out. She'll tease you, but in the end you'll walk away with nothing but blue balls, resorting to your only option of finding some relief by drunk dialing your ex. That's it. Pillars of Eternity is a hot girl that doesn't put out.

Messy review, get it? 'Cause I am Messier-31, get it? No? *cough* Could've just written "out of this world review", 'cause Messier-31 is the Andromeda Galaxy... So, anyway! I finished the Crägholdt Bluffs recently and decided to share some loose thoughts with you gals and guys. As you probably know by now, once your main character get his/hers very own stronghold there will be a new quest given to you by the Stewart. It seems there is some ruckus going on near Caed Nua, so it would be wise to investigate, since there is no telling if the Torn Bannermen responsible for this mayhem wont come knocking to your door once they are finished in Crägholdt Bluffs. "True dat", said The Watcher and thus the new adventrure started... Hey there, neighbour. You wouldn't have a cup o' sugar to spare, would you? The location you are supposed to investigate is right next door to your hold. Talking about convenience. Wait, does it mean the world famous super wizard Concelhaut is living next to me? Don't get me wrong, I wanted to fill that blank space of the map since the realease of the game, but putting another small wilderness area between would be nice. I mean, there's the Château Raedric a few blocks away, why them locations are so thoroughly packed next to each other? And talking about today's neighbours, what a bunch of stiff people... Moving on, once you get to the place there is a can of whoop-ass to be opened, as the entire location is filled with the soldiers of the Torn Bannermen. They are mercenaries hired by someone to get the magical phylactery out of Concelhaut's hands. And yes, they got orders to kill on sight anyone who appraches tchem - luckily it means you too, so you get a level of the game that is probably an excuse to throw some more challenging fights at you. These fellas been so overwhelmed with the siege that they just stand still in place doing nothing, simply waiting for interrupting adventurers to come by. I respect that people like and want to have tough fights and all. But there is literally no other way than to kill everyone. No diplomacy, no bribing, no threatening... and even if there are some conversation options that try give the feeling that there are in fact options - nope - it ends in a fight. But you know, I understand. This is a war zone, so there might not be time to talk and shake hands. Sadly though, when I asked the leader of the Torn Bannermen if we could help eachother, he simply said that not now, since I slaughtered his soldiers while entering the area. If only I could do otherwise, sir. Now hand over this armor of yours, I fancy it. So we have a war zone with kill first, ask questions later policy. But why there is no fighting going on, other than my party? Do you remember Defiance Bay in chaos after the assasination took place in ducal palace? There was a lot of fighting going on between everbody there. But this fearsome siege seems like a phony war in 1939, when the English and the French declared war on Nazi Germany and, well, did the exact same thing as the Torn Bannermen - nothing. Do they even lift, bro? Where do you buy these glowing rune floor tiles? They're fantabulous! Once you get inside the complex you may rest a little, because characters inhabiting it are a little more chatty then the furious mercenaries outside. Great thing about it is that finally you don't have to kill everybody. Interacting with Concelhauts apprentices is a nice thing for a change. After talking and/or stabbing them it is time to get that autograph from Concelhaut. Remember? Famous for spells he invented. There is a riddle to solve in order to get further but to be honest this is just a "click-it-for-so-long-until-it-opens" because giving the wrong anserws simply starts the whole quizshow from the start. Concelhauts himself is a bitching boss, that didn't even care about some noobs laying siege outside. He was only interested in you, so he could have a soul of the Watcher for himself. Talking about predictable. All this fuss, and all you get for defeating him is a lousy pet, reminiscing Morte from Planescape: Torment. Oh, well, Eder likes pets, so maybe this one will have his attention too. Maybe, maybe not... I mean it is not so fluffly after all. But at least the Torn Bannermen do not threaten the Caed Nua any longer, m'right? Wrong. There was never such a threat in the first place Concelhaut didn't give two sh*ts about their army. The siege could take as long as they would want, and sooner or later these guys would have forfeit and scatter. But what really bugs me is that our batallion of 6 (six!) people was better in infiltrating the wizards fortress, killing everyone in the besieging army, killing everyone (or almost everyone) inside that wizard tower, and survived to tell the tale. Sure, you are the hero, but some lousy mercenaries and archwizards are these days, huh? + the golden armor + tough fights - nothing more than fights - end boss' agenda could be handled better My personal overall rating: 6/10

Hello there. I have a YouTube channel on which I upload many different types of gameplay videos. I have begun my Pillars of Eternity series, whereby I will be playing a Dwarven Priest on easy. No footage will be cut out, unless it is extremely boring (e.t.c. loading screens, random things I do). Playlist: https://youtu.be/2_HluexIFg8?list=PLMADF6oHdMjd07Demzh3UANbeLXHdc-yI Chapter 1 - Escaping the Attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HluexIFg8&list=PLMADF6oHdMjd07Demzh3UANbeLXHdc-yI Chapter 2 - Day 1 in Gilded Vale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72GC5dUptdw&list=PLMADF6oHdMjd07Demzh3UANbeLXHdc-yI&index=2 Chapter 3 - Day 2 in Gilded Vale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T907_ZKmme4&index=3&list=PLMADF6oHdMjd07Demzh3UANbeLXHdc-yI Chapter 4 - Temple of Eothas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrZiqau1Uhw&index=4&list=PLMADF6oHdMjd07Demzh3UANbeLXHdc-yI Expect more soon, and remember to share if you enjoyed! Feedback highly appreciated, including tips on how to improve, as I am very new to this game (: Thank You!

(This review contains spoilers. Read at your own risk) Despite being a backer since July 2014 and starting playing on the release minute (not hour or day) I just recently finished the game, mainly because real-life stuff got in the way, and I wanted to write a review in case you guys needed (one more) feedback on the product you have made, I hope you'll read it and take it into consideration when trying to improve the game. I mean, companies pay for these, and we the primary users of it, are giving these reviews for free, so why not use them? So, first of all, let me give my overall impressions. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and also felt the Infinity Engine vibe that was promised in it. For this, I would say that if you take the game as a standalone, without having previous experience in similar games I would give it a 8/10, for reasons that I will further explain. However, for "what was promised" compared to "what was delivered" I think this is a 10/10, mission absolutely accomplished, a great example of a kickstarter campaign and a huge hope for the future of video-gaming that shows that a game developer can indeed fund today a game of passion without having corporate finance thieves dictating what game will be made next according to the last statistical curve they got from their market analysis department... So, now I will talk about different parts, detailing what I liked, disliked and what could be improved. Please note that I will insist much more on things I disliked even though there are overall many more things I liked about the game, because I believe only with honest criticism we can improve things. Game mechanics: In my opinion the most critical part. You definitely delivered on your promise. Supplying something very familiar to IE game mechanics while still taking steps to add your personal touchs that sets this game apart. However, and this is my most important suggestion of the whole review, I think that in trying to stay faithful to the original IE games you also simply copied it where you could have actually improved a little. To be more precise, what you should have gone for is not how previous games were made but rather what people who made previous games would have made if they had the chance to make it today. In that sense there were a few things that could be improved, mainly combat rythm/pace. See below: Combat rythm/pace: in my opinion, combat definitely feels too "roll-the-dice"ish, in the sense that people swing blades around much too slowly. I believe this really takes away from "realism" and "fun" at the same time, usually when designing a game you have to chose one or the other but not here. Because of this I found myself often equipping my frontline warriors with very light armor because otherwise it felt much too sluggish. You definitely should try to improve the animations, diversify them, make them more rapid, more fluid... Character creation: in my opinion although you tried to prevent having "dump stats", well, this was more or less unsuccessful. And this is such a shame because there is a very simple way of discouraging extreme stats: make the last one or two levels of each skill require an extra point. For example from 6 to 16 it takes 10 points, over that it takes 2 points per extra skill point and below that it only gives you 0.5 points to remove one skill point or something like that, you get the idea. This would definitely reduce the number of extreme stat character you would have and also prevent more dump stats. (Just do it! Yes, Shia Laboeuf reference ) Inventory management: very clever use of having a "party stash", nice implementation. Difficulty settings: in my opinion perfectly implemented. Loved how clear it was that which option gave us what. This is so important and so many games get this wrong. Endurance/Health meters: very logical, realistic and original mechanic that works well with this kind of game. Well implemented. Weapons: fairly good system. Crafting etc feels logical and balanced. There are no OP weapons in the game though like in Baldur's gate. In that sense, you feel you never find an epic item in the whole game. It is open to discussion whether this is good or bad. Personally, I like finding few magical waepons and very few absolutely epic OP weapons and items, they add character to the game... Items: great to have two ring slots, however, why not necklace slot + cape slot? (not very important) Classes: Mage: I think it was overall implemented ok, however, if you compare mages here to IE mages there is a HUGE gap in customization and diversity. I mean, no need to describe it in details but just think about all the different types of mages you could have in IE games: magic school specializations, mage or sorcerer, wild mages, cross-classing etc.... I mean in fantasy games such as this, warrior should be the "meat" of your party but mages should really be the characters that set your party apart, that define fantasy. They're the damn Gandalf for Wael's sake! Is Gandalf, just another character in the party he is in? No. Here, both in their diversity (see above) and role on the battlefield, they really felt underwhelming compared to IE. If not compared to IE then they felt ok, just another character class. Spells: again, nothing really amazing, felt a little underwhelming. Just compare to spells in IE where you could demon-call, summon all kinds of beasts and monsters, use powerful magic even dangerous to yourselves, becoming more and more mysterious the higher you go in spell level. Here? Nothing special. Just regular spells, although some were presented as original, they were actually just "meh". Buff spells: just a note on the duration of spells, buffs etc, I think they felt a little short (IE experts might know better than me about this though), and visually there weren't any cues as to what was used on our characters, and the ones used looked ugly. Other classes: didn't feel anything wrong with other classes. Although admitedly did only play with party members supplied by the game. Nothing special to say here. Graphics: Environments: I absolutely loved the hand-drawn environments, gorgeous and vibrant. Nothing to say here really except keep doing the same thing. Characters: On the other hand, 3d character models looked kind of ugly, especially when zooming in. This really is very obvious especially at the character creation screen, which is the most important part of any RPG in my opinion, if you decide to kepe these models, I suggest you at least reduce the size of the models during char creation screen, it is that ugly yes. They look overall "fat" and unrealistic. The second point that makes character 3d models ugly is the color pallet. Yes, the light rainbow colored items and armors (two unique light leather armor both in light turquoise color??? Really???) which really is more closer to my little pony than baldur's gate. Same goes for weapon enchantment effects: they look ugly. Monsters/dragons: Nothing special to say, not too ugly, nothing to write home about either. Story: I really liked the general story, Characters: I think characters were all well fleshed-out, interesting except, notable exception, Grieving Mother, whom I found to be forgettable and boring. I especially liked Kana's story personally... Quests: nothing to criticize. Very entertaining quests that never repeat themselves and that feel meaningful. Endgame resolutions: absolutely loved the endgame recap resolution screens, so much different variety of results according to actions that you take, I really loved it. Races: in the end, you don't feel that orcs are "missing" in the game. This was a good call. Orlans and Aumae's are really nice and original races and give enormous amount of character to the game. World and backstory: excellent. Very well fleshed out, all the cultures feel original yet familiar at the same time. Nothing to say here except that you should build upon it now. Personal stronghold: I think this was also a feature that was uninspired and could be improved a lot. I mean, when I first heard this would be implemented people imagined all sorts of things like tactical placement of improvements, a living town with people living in it that pay taxes to you, a whole court with travelers etc giving you special missions, a lot of interactions with a lot of prisoners (personally I had only 1 and didn't see any use for it). I mean there are tons of ideas out there, very few of them were implemented... That's all for now, again, I really thank the whole Obsidian team for this game, whoever is reading this from the team REALLY PLEASE TRANSMIT MY THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS, I MEAN IT. It was something like a dream come true for me at release and I really hope you take it to the next level by improving things especially on the game mechanics side. This was my review, however of course this is highly open for discussion for anyone who wants to do it. Peace out.

Before I begin, I must tell you that the game is great. How can it not be great among the heap of crap shoved to our faces by the gaming industry, but considering what is expected from Obsidian, when I set high standards for this game, it is not great. Not great does not mean that it is not "good". So I do like the game but I think the developers with their credentials are capable of doing much better (like how Baldur's Gate was very good, but Baldur's Gate 2 was epic, I hope the next addition to this series will be as such) And long story short, I am glad that this project happened, having wished for it way before it was on Kickstarter, so thank you Obsidian: There is one (maybe two) aspects to this game that amounts to my disappointment (and before I get flamed in the least constructive and silliest manners for my comments I must add that, yes, I am aware that I am not the ultimate authority on everything RPGs, and gaming, and I am aware that there is no reason my opinion should matter more than anyone elses). That one aspect is "The Setting" of the game and one particular thing done in this setting that bothers me the most, the second aspect is the "dull feeling" I got from the game. So here I go THE SETTING (3/10) I do like the world, I like the races, classes, and I like how the main story is interesting (just began Act III, and so far I am still curious), so why then I am giving the setting a 3 out of 10? It is because of this silly language thing that you have done... You know that I mean right, I am talking about this "fampyr" and "duc" business. Read my quote on the spoilers and my couple other posts, I find Elder Scrolls series utterly disgusting because the setting seems to have been created by 12 year olds who think changing monday and sunday to montag and suntag is creative writing, creative thinking. What I do not understand is that how come you guys have done the exact same thing here, and it is worse really. All those words with an unnecessary use of "th","w", and vowels with accents, all this "Anvii ora Toha", "Lle a Rhemen", "Cean Gwla", "Anamfatha" business. It was interesting when Tolkien did come up with entire languages but it really is not anymore, if you did construct entire languages for the game it is a waste of resources (which is actually not very hard to do). When I interact with NPC's it is as if all of them are my lingustics instructor, Elf: ...Our tribal leaders, the anamfath... Sagani: ...I am on "Torkik Zokrik"(do not remember the actual thing), a journey.... Glossary: ...Caen Gwla, blood mother,.... A direct relation of this is exactly like Talking to a French(Elf) person in English(Common), and they say "I am "aller au cinema", which means I am going to the movies, then I will eat "creme glacee", which means I will eat some ice cream. Seriously who talks like that? And of course there is all this: Duc = Duke Erl = Earl Conyg = King Thayn = Thane Fampyr = Vampire Gul = Ghoul Dargul = Greater Ghoul? goes on forever My goodness, how impressive, in this setting the local lords are "duc"s, very similar to dukes, but they call them "duc"s how original and inspiring. You should have called them ducks instead. Back to being serious now, I understand in fantasy settings there will be special occasions these pseudo-language names are to be used and they actually convey an interest, like personal names, names of a couple of landmarks where the idea is to add some mystery some obscurity, but when overdone it becomes meaningless gibberish!!! e.g. In Baldur's Gate, Watcher's Keep conveys an idea, Helm is "The Watcher", if it was called "Occulo Glavo Defil Krepta" it would mean absolutely nothing, just as Underdark, Trademeet, Umar Hills, are still very interesting names but also carry some meaning and are not complete gibberish, and there is a reason I remember these places but I keep forgetting "Lle a Rhemen" or "Cilaban Rilag" which does not stir any sort of emotion or a sense of danger or interest. However think how it would be if they were instead called, completely making these up, "Rhemen Ritual Circle" or "Ruins of Rilag"? or in Planescape Torment, can it get more interesting than "Alley of Lingering Sighs", would it be better to call it some gibberish? If anyone thinks this is meaningfully creative and immersive we should encourage more of this nonsense why don't we Dwarf = Beerdfolc Elf = Eeerfolc Orlan = Shirtfolc Sword = Sabr'edu Greatsword = Dar Sabr'edu Dagger = Shivv'ass Ship = Galley-vou Inn = Rest'a'casa Lion = Aslan etc. etc. THE DULL FEELING There is not much to say here, the cities and towns lack some dynamics, and the entire game is lacking on surprises and plot twists just as Baldur's Gate was lacking them but Baldur's Gate 2 actually had them so I am hoping this will happen in the next game. The towns and villages have just a background music not ambient sounds, again in Baldur's Gate 2 when you went to the Slums or in Copper Coronet you could hear muffled conversations, shouts (WHO ARE YOUUU, or WHY YOUU), doors creaking, people rushing to you etc. Or we had lords turning out to be dragons, commoners turning out to be bhaalspawns, complicated guild wars etc. END NOTE I did not get into Combat, The Exceptionally Dull Stronghold, The Half-Interesting Mega Dungeon (it does not matter if it is 15 floors, Watcher's Keep with 5 levels was much more interesting), The Items where none of them felt any special, The very short and not class specific Talent tree, and all that... As I said, I am happy that Pillars of Eternity exists, I am happy to play it but I really think that you can do much better. I hope the next game in the series will have more polished combat, much more interesting abilities and talents, dual-multi classes, and actually unique items. I also hope that there will be less of enchanting, or a much better system, hunting flowers, body parts and pets are for world of warcraft the intellectual resources might better be spent elsewhere. Thanks for reading.

Pillars of Eternity on Metacritic: 90/100 based on 59 critic reviews 85/100 based on 1525 user reviews :D I think this speaks louder than any rpg codex review.

Having just finished PoE, and havign waited for a good Infinity enginge style game for many years I wanted to put down my thoughts on how things went, and my thoughts on the journey. I hope this is of some interest or use to someone. Disclosure: I am a huge Infinity Engine fan. In the interest of providing a full appreciation for what you are getting in to I will break this down in to several sections, if you only want information on a certain area just skip ahead! Story/Plot: Yea: Some difficult choices to be made. Generally a lack of a binary good or evil setup. The world is huge and the lore in depth. Nay: The main story is generic fantasy fair. Revolutionary it is not. Sometimes hard to role-play certain types of character due to the lack of consistent options in conversation. Quests: Yea: Meaningful and substantial, throughout the games. Side quests are plentiful and offer a good reason to explore the world and get the most out of the setting. Nay: The pacing is a little off in places, potentially leading to a lack of drive to finish the story. Characters: Yea: Very developed back stories. A lack of one dimensional characters. Nay: Limited inter-party banter. Party has no bearing on your actual conversations. Bordering on blind followers. Seems like you could slap their Mother with a wet fish and they wouldn't bat an eyelid. Script/Writing: Yea: Phenomenal writing. Voice acting: Yea: Some very impressive voice work, including some fantastic stand outs. Plenty of voiced conversations; there can always be more, but for me there was oodles. Nay: During conversations there are written descriptions to bring the conversation to life. The voice acting does not pause for this, even when it says that the character paused! This can be jarring. Art /Design: Yea: Art and aesthetics are always personal, but I loved it. Nay: Some random, extremely low resolution assets that would have looked old fashioned in the original Infinity games. Infrequent, but they stick out like a sore thumb Impact of decisions: Yea: It was sometimes difficult to tell the result of your actions and sometimes it was obvious as a sword to your enemies gut. You traverse the world and cause waves of action and interest. Nay: Sometimes a little too unclear or obtuse regarding what would happen when making the choice. Combat/AI: Yea: Clever, nuanced classes without thematic considerations. Strong variety of moves. Several options to support style of combat desired (e.g. turn based, slow mode etc). Some challenging combat, with consideration and calculation being necessary. (Though of course a little luck never hurts.) Nay: Classic issues of not auto-attacking and getting caught on allies. It is not obvious what move the hero is using until you actually select them (i.e. no overhead display of move selected for use). Bugs: Yea: Not as many as expected, does that count? Nay: Voice cuts to halfway through sentences sporadically. Voice cut out/became muted. Some events fail to trigger. Steam achievements didn't update for me. Features/Options: Yea: Lots of customisable options, such as hiding meta information (e.g. possible conversation options you lack requirements for). Regular, helpful tooltips. Nay: Tooltips don't always relate to what they pop-up for (seems to be on a keyword search so damage may bring up the "damage" tooltip, though it refers to "mitigating damage"). Some options don't seem to work as intended or implied (e.g. show relative defense values, limit stash). Pets that add almost nothing. Some locked slots on the inventory that never unlock (did I miss something?) Noticeable omissions: When in main team location you have to swap out characters to be able to look at their items. Humour - other than the odd comment (and maybe one particular character) there is very little of the light-heartedness or amusing comments as seen in other Infinity games. Meaningful differences in loot. Each new weapon tends to be a small, numerical difference from the others. The few that seem to have potentially interesting differences are poorly explained. Explanations of the enchanting system. Overall: Loved almost every minute of it. To anyone who enjoyed the Infinity games, anyone who has enjoyed a party based cRPG I would recommend this. I would also recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in roleplaying, or immersing themselves in a new and fantastic world. Some improvements are definitely available for the developers, but they are not needed to make the game feel whole and substantial. The game is polished and fulfilling and it is only a matter of time before I play it again.

Just finished my first play through. I don't know if the PoE devs ever see these customer reviews, but I hope so; a lot of us are glad you made this. The game has a kind of flawed brilliance, and I'm eagerly hoping this is the foundation for a PoE2 and 3 set in this world. Details: Started on release version (1.0?), finished on 1.0.4.0540, GOG version Hard mode, non-Iron, non-Expert, PC = Wizard class, story NPC companions. One has a feeling that this game was lovingly crafted, and it shows in many ways. Lots of nice little touches I won't belabor. Not everything works as well as it could, but the flaws are shallow ones, not deep ones. This is the most fun I've had in a CRPG for quite some time. I'll mention what I think worked well, and what I think could use improvement. on a 10 point scale, with a range for "at its worst" and "at its best", such as "7-10". So here we go: Art and graphics: 9-10. Incredibly nice work here. It's probably one of if not the most beautiful computer games I've encountered, and it keeps being beautiful from start to finish. It never hits that "DA:O" stage where I felt this area was a carbon copy of the last. Sometimes I found myself wandering around just to get another look at it all. Give your art & gfx programming teams a raise :D. Music: 7-10. At its best, it's wonderful. I was especially fond of some of the melancholy pieces that appear at certain points in the game. My only reason for a 7 on the low end is tha I found one or two songs derivative of the LoTR movie music. Otherwise, it's nice, and fits the mood and tone of the game without drawing so much attention to itself that it breaks immersion. Nicely done. Story: 7-9. I liked the start and the end quite a bit, but felt I lost the plot a little in the middle. I particularly enjoyed the game's ending, especially the philosophical themes explored with a certain female NPC's ghost. Didn't feel shallow like some RPG plots. That part worked at the "9/10" level. Sub-quests: 5-9. A few felt a little generic, but some were great too. E.g, a certain lad starting with a 'D' in O.G. - that story was poignant and well written, and it worked really well even with a simple mechanic behind it. Writing: 8-10. Please don't listen to the folks who've become so accustomed to modern dumbed down games they've forgotten that reading is fun . I thought the writing ranged from very good to brilliant. I didn't find it too verbose, though I did avoid the memorials. Voice acting: 7-10. In particular I really liked the work on Eder, Durance, Iovara, the cut-scene narrator, and some others I've forgotten. A few of the more minor characters (not companions) I thought were weaker, more in the 7 range, but still not "bad" per se. Title cards: 9. I loved these! The line drawings are wonderful, a bit reminiscent of title cards from old silent movies, and I liked the stat choices. Major style points here. Combat: 4-8. This was one of the weaker parts of the game, but I think it has the potential to hang with the best, given some tuning. At its best, there were some really fun, tough, tactical fights (8/10). Still, too many "autoattack" fights (4/10) not requiring thought or tactics, especially in the mid-game where I felt really OP. Also there wasn't much variety: tank + ranged DPS worked most of the time. Regardless, I think there's underlying strength to this system, and it could really shine with more variety, better enemy AI, and maybe more enemy diversity in tactics used, resistances, abilities, and so on. Maybe fights could become a bit less static too: right now they tend to get positionally locked down. Some stickiness is good, of course, to avoid 100% chaos. But a wee bit of chaos is good! Excellent potential and a good underlying system though. Spells: 7: Some good, but I felt like I wanted more variety. Even, say, a basic light spell + dungeons that are totally dark without a spell or a torch. More RP kinds of spells. Health/Endurance/Camping mechanic: 8. I liked this and feel it's a real improvement to BG2 style systems. It isn't perfect, sure, but I did appreciate the attempt to push towards a less "rest-spam" play style, and I went with that flow rather than march back to town every other fight. I'd like to see an even stronger push in this direction in the future, like dungeons you get trapped in combined with an inability to rest anywhere near enemies. I want to wonder not just "will I survive this fight?", but "will I survive to leave this dungeon?" No pre-combat buffing 8: I like this too. Matter of taste of course, but I feel it makes buffing more tactical and less "well of course you cast these 10 spells before each combat..." It'd be even more so with specific resistance buffs, like an anti-fire spell combined with some fireball chucking enemies. Summary: I'm giving this game a solid 9/10 overall, with strong potential to get even better with some enhancements in expansions and sequels. It was really nice to play a good party combat CRPG again - not for nostalgia, but because they're seriously good fun! I hope you'll continue and won't dumb down the experience as certain other franchises have. Us PoE-type buyers may not be as legion as the Call of Duty folks, but we're loyal and will stick with you if you keep turning out high quality stuff like this.

Hey y'all! My podcast, BrownCoats,BlackMagic is dedicated, this week, to Pillars of Eternity. Both your hosts are backers and long time, hardcore role-playing game geeks. (We're talking SSI Gold Box level, here! ) We review PoE in depth, and give our impressions in comparison to Baldur's Gate and other classic Infinity Engine games. Tolkien, The Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy XIII, and PlaneScape Torment are all namechecked. We basically gush about the game, but do voice our gripes with the lore execution and character development/interaction. Check it out on iTunes! on Soundcloud and Stitcher! Also, our other episodes cover Pop Culture and Geeky Stuff like other Video Games, Books, Films and TV shows. If you dig it, disagree or have questions we'd love to hear from you! Reach out to us on our Facebook page. www.facebook.com/browncoatsblackmagic and on Twitter @bcbmshow. Thanks you guys!

An era has ended. And by that, I mean, "the Kickstarter project that I spent so much money on is finally complete and I'll never spend that much again holy ****". That era. Kroze the Crowmaster now roams Eora somewhere. It is now up to me to find him, although my friends are already teasing me that they have. Backer NPCs are numerous and they share the herd mechanics of zombies in The Walking Dead, only exemplifying to the player what a weird, odd fantasy world this is. At every corner, you have creatures walking around town like it ain't no thing. I've attempted three runs so far, from Shortstack the Orlan Chanter onward. Always trying to find the perfect Main to RP. I finally settled on my Main as a stereotypical fighter since I couldn't make a War Vet background work with my Chanter. I also decided to model my Main after my friends LARP character, a post-apocalyptic soldier named Shiloh. I needed to sacrifice some points into INT for RP, but whatever. For this, I would need to possibly... go human. Shudder. On we go... Conversation Which brings me to my first real main criticism of the game: how conversational stat options are handled. For a game that lets you individually control each party member, and even lets you initiate conversation "as" that party member, this is rather sloppy. We're allowed to see what stats we need to hit in order to get certain dialogue options, and yet, only our Main is allowed to talk. If Obsidian wants to go the route of perma-locking dialogue options, at the very least flag the options so that they never, ever show up. Bringing me to Criticism #2. Backer NPCs are handled very interestingly. I'm not sure I 100% agree with Backer NPCs being little more than window dressing when Obsidian had the opportunity to very easily integrate Backer NPCs into the game at large (as the Backer Inns were), but using them as gameplay/narrative devices to allow you to play around with your newfound "Soul Powers" is extremely inventive as well as a non-invasive tutorial. Combat Since the backer beta, combat has improved immensely. It could be that enemy mobs have been scaled back due to the kinks being worked out, but the Beastiary EXP system works great as well. Now, you get EXP from defeating foes, but only to a knowledge cap of their data. This system also acts as an incentive for combat. Don't worry, you won't be hitting the cap anytime soon. Progress is slow and particular. It still gets a little messy when you have seven party members beating up one dude, the micromanagement of abilities gets tricky, but enemies are friggin' tough. They are hard. If you are lax, you will find your guys going down more often than not. Aloth taught me that I need to make a custom Wizard with a bit more padding in the defense department. I also fear down the line for the EXP:Leveling ratio, but then again, I'm not even to the Stronghold yet. I was also pleasently surprised by the variety of enemies. Builds/Party I rather like the idea of "no bad builds". It was one of my main complaints about Icewind Dale, where a bad combo could stop you in the tracks faster than if you made the Pillars OT on NeoGAF and made the mistake of not mentioning the site's owner spent $3k getting their own portrait. While the attributes at first may seem confusing (for instance, Might isn't called Strength because it is not the only stat that links to damage), the screen is full of percentages and descriptions that make every happy. It takes a while to make a "It's Saturday Night and we in the club, don't believe me just watch" build, but with the proper time, you'll be going GRRRRRRRRR to enemies who will be really scared. The party members themselves... well, the good news is that you can store them at local Inns and your Stronghold so that you can both build your own party as well as get all the nice gooey story bits with the pre-mades. Because, let's face it, the pre-made party members are all over the place stat-wise instead of specialized. As well, some classes are not even featured. For instance, this is my main tank, a Death Godlike the size of a Dwarf: The Art I could go on for ages about the visual design of this game. It's just the right blend of Infinity Engine and modern touches. The Interstitchal scenes are all expertly drawn, given the same love and care as the rest of the game (there are also a LOT more than I expected with a LOT more reactivity than I expected). Party stats DO matter at these. The rest of the landscape is a brilliant mix of static painting and moving pieces. In Conclusion.... Obsidian, even more so than Larian or InExile (even though Divinity and Wasteland 2 both made Eternity possible), has brought back the CRPG hard. There have been Great Kickstarter Games before (most notably The Banner Saga), but Pillars of Eternity, no bull****, is the friggin' return of an endangered artform on the verge of extinction. I don't mean that in some hippy, warm-and-cuddly "old school gamer" way. I mean that in a very real and tangible way, with a form for the future of a medium that is in its last years of college and struggling to prepare for the real world.

So the game is out and it has received universal acclaim from critics and good user scores too. However, some people like to troll and give P(e)O 0/10... Not cool in my opinion. All I'm saying is that if you feel the game is good, visit Metacritic and give PE the score it deserves. I know I did. I'm not too keen on metacritic user scores but Obsidian deserves better than zeros and I really want PE to sell well and some people value metacritic user scores so you get the picture. Anyway, gotta get back to Eora!

Pillars of Eternity is riddled with niggling flaws from dodgy AI pathing that should have stayed in the '90s to a story which sometimes offers only an illusion of choice. Not one of these flaws undermines what is the deepest, most personal adventure to grace the genre in many years. Obsidian's writing is on form; the combat's vast array of strategic options deeply satisfying. Whether you're a life-long Infinity fan or you've never so much as seen a cRPG, Pillars is a quest which everyone should attempt. Here's to many more. Full nostalgia-free video review (link contains mild non-story spoilers)

The beta is out, give us your first impressions!

Fellow RPG fans, hello! My name is Felipe, and I'm currently working on a crowd-sourced book on cRPGs. After organizing the RPG Codex's Top 70 list, I decided to expand that into a full blown book. The idea is to feature in-depth reviews of over 250 great cRPGs in chronological order, from Akalabeth to Might & Magic X, plus interesting articles on the genre and interviews. All that written by RPG fans from all over the world, compiled into a beautiful book with big a colored screenshots. It is a book showing what the genre has best, and how people enjoy them. A book that every review that you read you will see that it was important for the reviewer and want to play the game he just talked. So far I've got some big developers in, like Tim Cain, Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer (Obsidian has been very supportive ), Ian S. Frazier and Colin McComb. I also got full support and access to the content of forums like the RPG Codex and RPG Watch (including some stuff from RPGdot), DJ Old Games, some indie developers like Iron Tower Studios, Sinister Design and Rampant Games, as well as bloggers such as cRPG Addict and modders like Durante and Wesp5. Here's a small WIP preview: The entire project is entirely non-profit, so the final e-book will be freely available for download, under Creative Commons and all that. And if everything goes well I intend to make a paperback print also available, fully colored and in high-quality print, for those that want one. Non-profit as well, of course, sold at cost price. My call for aid Here's the list of games that will be in: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t-49SyrsdP0M5re68sDH9cB2MrPqVKwQQiFF_54VibI/pubhtml I'm looking for fans willing to write a review of one or two of the listed games still unassigned. You can, of course, also suggest games that should be added. The reviews specifications: There are two kinds of reviews, the ones with one page and the ones with two. These are displayed on the list. If you think that the game you're writing about needs 2 pages instead of 1, contact me and we'll discuss it. But please note that not every game needs two pages, ok? One Page reviews have up to 2000 characters, one header image and 2 screenshots + descriptions. And they have room for one short side blurb or info-box. Here's an example of a 1 page review: http://i.imgur.com/AKINvJj.png Two page reviews have up to 4200 characters, one header image and 3-4 screenshots + descriptions. They feature a developer's quote and they have room for two or three short side info blurbs or info-boxes. Here's an example: http://i.imgur.com/LfZfHEw.png You can, but don't need to provide the screenshots (in .png if you do, please), just be sure to say what you think is important to show and write the descriptions for the images. They are a good place to point out things that won't fit the main text. The developer's quote will be handled by me (unless you know a good one already). The tone can be somewhat personal, talking about how you stayed up for a whole night trying to map that dungeon in Wizardry 4, but it’s very important that a reader that knows nothing about the game is able to understand what the game really is, its strong points and occasional flaws. Don’t say that “it has great combat”; explain why it’s great. BEFORE starting to write, please post on the thread about what will you do, PM me or send an e-mail to crpgbook at gmail.com. Someone might have already taken the game, or I might have extra details to discuss. Thanks all for your time and sorry for the massive 12/12 Wall of Text.

I can't match Sensuki's dedication, but I thought it might be useful to summarize my thoughts on the BB so far. I think I'll leave this build alone for now, despite having skipped some classes, notably the Druid. I'll follow the list of high-priority feedback requested in the announcement. Classes Fighter: With the rogue, probably the most restrictive and role-limited of the classes. I would very much like adjustments and talents to make ranged fighter builds viable. I don't think they'd displace the Ranger, because that class's gameplay revolves around the animal companion. Suggested talents (lifted from other threads): Swords to Crossbows (swaps melee and ranged base accuracy), Knockdown Shot, reuse of some Ranger ranged talents. It would also make possible a highly lore-appropriate "musketeer" build who opens up with a musket, then goes into melee when the mobs close up. Knockdown made it extremely useful to quickly put high-priority targets out of commission for the time it took to disable them with something stronger. Basis is good but needs fleshing out. Feels weak overall compared to most other classes. Rogue: Underwhelming. Perhaps I'm missing something, but the only tactic I discovered was hobble+stab-stab-stab. Just a point damage machine, and not all that great at point damage. Sneak Attack needs to be beefed up to make using it worthwhile. Adding Talents that inflict a larger variety of status effects could help too. Feels weak. Wizard: Predictable. I really liked the possibility to make an armored caster, and thought the increase in casting time balanced out the added protection nicely. I could finally use all those nice cone-shaped spells that were mostly doing nothing for me in the DnD games because it was usually just simpler to use something else. Spell selection is currently a bit lacking in variety though, like someone went through a checklist and put them in. In particular, I would like more spells/talents supporting gish tactics, for example something that gives a medium-duration Accuracy boost (rather than the ultra-short one from the L1 spell). It's solid enough but somewhat lacking in 'flair' as Sensuki puts it. Power level feels about right. Priest: Supremely useful set of buffs, debuffs, and heals making it one of the most strategically useful classes to have around. I thought it suffered a bit from the same as the wizard--it's more "fundamentally useful" than "fun." I also couldn't figure out many alternative ways to play it--it's basically a support machine hanging back casting support spells, occasionally plinking with a ranged weapon. Feels a little overpowered; some of those buffs seem to confer near-invulnerability for fairly long durations. Unfortunately I can't think of any simple ways to remedy this. I like playing frontline support characters, but that's already covered by... Paladin: Liked it a lot. The auras and per-encounter abilities plus decent melee skills strike a really nice balance between high-maintenance and low-maintenance. One of my favorite things in DnD based cRPG's was to build a melee-oriented cleric, throw Battletide, and wade into melee. The paladin feels very similar. Power level feels about right. Barbarian: Liked it even more. Lots of tactical variety here; armor up and take Hold the Line and you've got an excellent, strategically durable tank with serious damage output, or Wild Sprint to take out backrow squishies, then Defiant Resolve when you're about to go down. Everything could use more talents, but all in all IMO the best melee class by far. Power level feels about right, maybe a little underpowered. Cipher: One of my favorite classes although needs nerfing, especially durations and obviously Soul Ignition which lets you cheese through the whole thing. Cool take on the gish. I played this as a disabler/melee combatant: took spells like Puppet Master, that multi-target paralysis thing, and so on, and had a ball. Good job on this one; don't change anything (much) other than dial down the power a bit. Chanter: Another of my favorite classes although the summons are obviously way OP at the moment. Feels genuinely different: a low-maintenance caster is something new and cool. Again, don't change everything other than fixing the obviously broken bits. Power level is over 9000. Ranger: Not my thing, I think, but that's probably just personal preference. Gameplay is unique what with the shared health pool, but frankly it felt a little bit gimmicky, different for the sake of being different. Other than that, the implementation works well enough. Power level is too dependent on the animal companion; with the lion he felt too fragile, with the bear definitely overpowered. Needs tuning. Edit: forgot about this one -- Monk: I liked this more than I'd have expected. Main obstacle to enjoyment was the lack of feedback; you have to watch that Wounds counter like a hawk or risk taking unnecessary damage. Needs very noticeable visual/auditory feedback when the monk gains a Wound. Consequently I didn't play with it all that much. I'll file this under "promising," once the combat is more sorted I'll be able to explore it more. Seemed to have rather few talents to choose from; similar issue as the rogue, only with the monk it was ow-ow-ow-Stunning Blow, ow-ow-ow-Stunning Blow. Power level was about right. Druid: Did not play enough to be able to comment. Maybe in the next build. Overall: There were two concepts I wanted to build, but couldn't: the archer/musketeer (with no animal meat shield), and the wizard-based gish who self-buffs, rushes into melee for great burst damage, and then buggers off magically when the buffs run out. (The rogue's Escape ability would be rad for that, as a spell or otherwise.) Races Due tot he limited impact of ability scores on anything, the racial bonuses felt fairly insignificant; if this isn't changed I'll probably pick a race for aesthetic and role-playing rather than mechanical reasons. The aumaua are cool, as are the fire, moon, and nature godlikes; the death godlike doesn't really appeal to me. Never cared for furries so pass on the orlan. Elves and dwarves are what you'd expect them to be. I do like the ability to pick your culture and your background, and that they're not bound to your race. Again, mechanically no big deal but I hope there's some roleplay mileage to be had from them. Attributes Yeesh, almost said "won't go here again" but hey, once more into the breach. I have a few quibbles with them, PER in particular is too easy to dump, but my main beef is that they don't matter all that much. I've kind of gotten used to this already, but yes, I would like it to bite if I dumped something to 3 and feel the punch if I pumped it to 18. I also think that it would be aesthetically better to represent below-average adjustments as penalties and above-average as bonuses, rather than just add everything to a base, even if the numbers ended up in the same place. Equipment Overall, I liked the gear selection, especially the armor. I'd say the design objective of not having one objectively 'best' choice is close to being met here, although I suspect that if I wanted to minmax I'd just go with robes or clothes for the back row, with more variety in the front row. Edit: I have to add, I really like the way the armor looks, and the way they take on the color. Brigandine, padded, leather, and breastplate were especially nice. I even made BB Wizard wear padded armor just because I liked the looks. If you've managed to make armor look so neat I'll take a 20% casting time penalty for it, you've got to be doing something right. Firearms and arbalests felt overpowered, hunting bows underpowered, and I couldn't get a good handle on damage type vs. enemy. I figured out that you're supposed to crush bugs, but that was more by trial and error than by something I could more or less easily understand by looking at the system. So that part could use more transparency. Also if damage type/defense matters as much as it appears, I think it would be important to have more weapon slots from the start. The ability to switch between ranged and melee isn't enough if you also have to switch between crushing and slashing, for example. Some of the hidden powerful weapons felt appropriately punchy; I really dug the way it changed things when I found and started using them. Crafting and Enchanting Glanced at it, did not try due to all the inventory bugs. Maybe next build. Conversations and Quests Oh yes baby: The best part of the beta by far. Won't rhapsodize about the specifics here, just keep doing what you're doing. A+ Combat Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? Actually it's not bad. There is a good combat system underneath the bugs and overall lack of feedback, but it desperately needs digging out. Please, please, please take Sensuki's suggestion #008 to heart and add the combat feedback it deserves. As it is, it's desperately difficult to figure out what's going on, even apart from the bugs. Movement speed is too fast. Basic mechanics are, as far as I can tell, fun, varied, and interesting. Nothing wrong with miss/graze/hit/crit. Relationship between damage and DT was too murky; it really needs clarification e.g. in the weapon descriptions and combat feedback -- I need to be able to clearly see that my attacks aren't doing damage due to DT; as it is it's quite unclear why I'm doing little to n odamage. Relationship between stamina and health is crystal, except for the petrifying spiders thing. I thought that was bugged. If there's an effect that makes damage go straight from health, that needs to be made extremely clear. User Interface Character creation was fine. The main game HUD was... not perfect; again Sensuki has that part covered, although I kind of liked it that the character abilities popped up above the portrait. The combat log is a mess and in the wrong place; it needs filtering and more info displayed directly to be useful at all. Inventory, character sheet, and journal were fine except for the bugs. One consistent issue I noticed was a general dearth of "Accept/Cancel" buttons in dialogs; it's counterintuitive to accept choices by closing the dialog from the [x] and then going through a dialog. I'll probably return to this when going through builds with the most egregious bugs removed.

Hi there! We're a growing YouTube gaming network, uploading a variety of different content. We have recently uploaded a review of South Park: The Stick of Truth, and we would love it if you would kindly give it a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-t0RXbICM

me and my friend just finished south park today and put out a review for everyone on the fence about buying this game for 60$, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQusNPoi1tA All feedback is welcome