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MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
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Messages
5,703
Location
California
I'm curious about your opinion on Star Ship Troopers, very political (the first half is basically a manifesto on building a state) but perhaps a testament to how much you can get away with if you can make something entertaining as well as political.

It has a lot of neat ideas that were very important to science fiction (esp. MilSF and space opera), but to be honest I recall finding it boring and poorly executed, less fun than other Heinlein, and less fun than its imitators (Forever War, Armor, Old Man's War (not the sequels), Fallen Dragon, for example).

The philosophy is what it is. I don't think Heinlein is the most persuasive advocate in the world and he relies too much on yes-men characters.

I don't think it "gets away" with its preaching except among those amenable to its philosophy. I read it in my young and bellicose days and found it fine, but everyone on the left objects. Dragonspear has similarly mostly received a pass from those who agree with it, and loud objections from those who don't.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium II

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jun 21, 2015
Messages
1,866,227
Location
Third World
Viconia's BG1 portrait makes her look ugly and they're likely deeply ashamed the BG2 portrait was traced from http://i.imgur.com/lnwzP.jpg (not work safe)
The new one is just a recolor based on this one so they can't be that ashamed. :M

post-5803-127974005462.jpg


They just shopped some bits.

That's not her SoD portrait, that's just a fan version from the beamdog forums.


Victonia actually gets a new face in SoD, which I hadn't noticed before because I wasn't looking very closely. The rest is still a straight-up recolouring though:

igYtVuu.png
Ck6sAnN.png

Oooh that's right. From afar it just looked a bit twisted around like imoen.
 

Celerity

Takes 1337 hours to realise it's shit.
Village Idiot Possibly Retarded
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
1,096
I'm not surprised Mareus got banned. I was watching some retard keep arguing that the only ones that had any problem with what he was saying were white men. Someone starts arguing with him, a Japanese woman. He was talking about conditions in Japan. Boom, blocked, and claimed she was a white male pretender. You can't reason with that trash, at best you can logic bomb for the benefit of the studio audience. Much like blasting the Derpests, honestly.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
The new face even retains the same "traced from a porn model" quality as the old one, so I'm not sure about the reason from the change.
 

Western

Arcane
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
5,934
Location
Australia
Codex 2012 Codex 2014 Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
I'm curious about your opinion on Star Ship Troopers, very political (the first half is basically a manifesto on building a state) but perhaps a testament to how much you can get away with if you can make something entertaining as well as political.

It has a lot of neat ideas that were very important to science fiction (esp. MilSF and space opera), but to be honest I recall finding it boring and poorly executed, less fun than other Heinlein, and less fun than its imitators (Forever War, Armor, Old Man's War (not the sequels), Fallen Dragon, for example).

The philosophy is what it is. I don't think Heinlein is the most persuasive advocate in the world and he relies too much on yes-men characters.

I don't think it "gets away" with its preaching except among those amenable to its philosophy. I read it in my young and bellicose days and found it fine, but everyone on the left objects. Dragonspear has similarly mostly received a pass from those who agree with it, and loud objections from those who don't.

At the time I read it (young age), I hadn't previously encountered the ideas, so perhaps the shock of the novelty of it carried me through. Though it feels that part of the book is mostly forgotten (more standard military fair) as the invasion commences, my criticism would be it's disjointed from the latter parts of the book.
 

Metal Hurlant

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 21, 2014
Messages
535
Codex USB, 2014 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
I had the gnome in my party for about 2 seconds to see what class/stats/items he had and dropped him. The romances doesn't really fit with the base game when this expansion goes for so little if you're only playing BGEE. It feels tacked on like everything else. I don't have BG2EE so I have no interest and finding the new companions dreadful. I have the goblin shaman in my party to see what this shaman class is and it's more a druid than anything. Also, I had no idea the goblin shaman was female until she started talking with some ghosts.
 

pippin

Guest
NWN1 had the best kinda-old school-but-not-really portraits.
BG1 had the best portraits of the Bioware IE games.
IWD1+2had the portraits that actually look like dnd adventurers.
And that's it. Of all those, Annah still had the best tits, fwiw.
 

Hegel

Arcane
Joined
May 12, 2009
Messages
3,274
IWD1/2 had the best portraits and art/music, not even a contest. Now, IWD2 is a game that could have benefitted from an EE, a shame the risk/reward ratio is too skewed for Beamdog.
 

pippin

Guest
IWD2, just like IWD1, is just fine as it is. No need for EEs.That applies for all the Bioware/Black Isle Infinity Engine games, really. I don't know why Trent and co. wanted to re-edit them, other than getting some cheap bucks. The engine is well known for being one of the most sturdy pieces of gaming code ever.
 

Celerity

Takes 1337 hours to realise it's shit.
Village Idiot Possibly Retarded
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
1,096
kvc6AUi.png


The choice of these "WOAH DUUUDE MAN WEED YO" dialogue options, coupled with the whole dialogue are insulting...

Some quality work there.
:o_O:

That right there is some companion mod level dialog. Wait.. didn't they hire a bunch of modders to work on this game...

Also how long before aVENGER checks out of the codex forever...

I firmly deny that modders would be responsible for such a terrorist act. :troll:
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
Firedorn Saga - SJWs get content removed, GamerGate gets mad.
Mizhena Saga - GamerGate wants content removed?

It's a bit unfair that Obsidian got through it more-or-less completely unscathed while Beamdog might get completely trashed, but life is always harder when you're smaller.

So far reading this thread and the various links to other forums, I haven't once encountered anyone demanding the tranny, the refugee thing or the terrible writing be removed. It's been solely around what shit they are and criticizing the game for them as well as the developers responses to said criticism for it, not demanding Beamdog bow and conform to their side.

At most all I've seen is people wishing they'd added more options in talking with the tranny to reflect ones in game choices so it isn't just you being forced to nod and approve of the NPC rather than remove the encounter all together.

Anyways I am not going to visit this topic anymore, between rampant trolling, edgelords and fanatics and spoilers being talked about I don't want to spoil the game for myself. When I finish the game I will be back to be only sane person here (and seems one of the rare people that actually plays SoD while posting in this topic).

You really are
possibly_retarded.png


Yes there are a good few blowing this out of proportion but you're being an idiot and lumping everyone else in with them that is simply smirking as they much on popcorn as they lightly criticize and not having a meltdown.

Anyways I am not going to visit this topic anymore, between rampant trolling, edgelords and fanatics and spoilers being talked about I don't want to spoil the game for myself. When I finish the game I will be back to be only sane person here (and seems one of the rare people that actually plays SoD while posting in this topic).
I really don't get it; do they believe that there is no such thing as a nagging wife? Because if nagging wives exist, or nagging people in general, then why wouldn't they be included in a game if the writer wished to include such a character? It's not like they're creating a false image to insult womankind or something; they're not even basing the whole game around the person as some sort of elaborate insult, it's just one NPC that is kind of tough and hits things with sticks.

I rarely take Jaheira and Khalid, though, so whatever.

What I don't get is why they're viewed as negative when one is a woman going around teasing men and being her own person and the other is a wife brow beating her cowardly husband into doing dangerous shit.

Imagine the reaction if Khalid and Jaheria's places were switched in the relationship (which these days would actually be something refreshing and pretty "progressive", yes, women can be cowards too. The nagging wife getting the husband to do dangerous shit predates this, the only new twist in BG is that the wife wants him to come along with and is not sitting at home ordering him go out like it always was before)
 
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Metal Hurlant

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 21, 2014
Messages
535
Codex USB, 2014 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
This was the first time I found out the Goblin Shaman was a woman. Because I didn't pick it from her voice. Also, no idea if there's a romance with her. I hope not.

The dialogue options don't give you much room other than to praise her.

gYDKpRq.jpg
 

Mexi

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jan 6, 2015
Messages
6,811
New Viconia portrait is actually really, really good. Way better than the original. It's mainly the coloring. In the original, Viconia's skin looks blue. She looks like that alien opera singer from the Fifth Element. Plus, her face isn't long like a horse anymore. They did a good job there.

Imoen's is a disaster, though.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
The ani-LGTB sentiments on the codex always seemed to be in good fun but lately it seems like it has been taken over by a vocal minority of idiots who take crusading against anything even slightly gay as serious as the SJW's flauning around their agenda at every possible moment. Is this place filled with conservative Russians trying to shove their old skool "values" down our collective throates or what? Or are this just basement dwelling nerds who are really this bored and cantankerous?

Wtf are you rambling about/

People are mad at the way the NPC is presented and the underlying agenda, not the sexuality of the character itself.

If the case were as you present we'd have been seeing people rambling on paranoid about Edwin's curse being some tactic to normalize such shit, or other things like Cloud's little adventure with gays in FFVII decades ago being used as a tactic to introduce such a lifestyle into gamers minds like weirdos seem to think is the case with Teletubbies and Pokemon.

The fact is those were put in without an agenda to push, so it never raised anyone hackles. The fact that Beamdog has reacted in the way it has only shows how much that was put in specifically to push an agenda that has taken the issue beyond one simple NPC and as an issue endemic to the game as a whole.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
The water in Edmonton must be tainted with something that turns you into an SJW whoring retard... There seems to be no other explanation as to why Bioware and Beamdog consistently refuse to NOT pander to SJWs as well as feminazis and piss off millions of other gamers who don't want to be lectured about this shit.

Albertans brought in the NDP a few months ago and immediately regretted it so so you might be onto something...

Yeah but he wasn't a real tranny.

Plenty of other such games where the characters sexuality was organic and not shoved in people's faces that didn't draw any ire.

Issue is that, the presentation and the underlying agenda behind it, not the sexuality itself.

The larger problem is that issue is now being pushed to the way side as the developers and their clique ignore that to drum up sympathy while the other side enjoys venting their rage and mocking it in a way that presents it otherwise.

It's for that reason than the most damning criticism is coming from trans people who hate being used for the agenda because they'll get the most flak from the other sides retarded vomit.

Indeed and both sides are as bad

What disingenuous bullshit. Where's the annoyingly out of place conservative values/non-SJW part of this expansion pack? If you can find it, I'll agree, but until then you're an idiot.

Love that argument Metatron presents, which is so endemic now and the attack is ultimately over having the conviction to take any stand (while quietly taking a stand yourself).

It would be easier if every side to something was as bad but that's not the case, all the more so here when one is criticizing a work and not demanding parts of it be changed, at most only things added (Like the "Fuck off, freak option" if only to present more than one reaction to he dialogue, like you can do by railing against and murdering the refugees).

The only side with a history of demanding things be removed from games is the one on the defensive right now who couldn't stand a risque poem easter egg being in PoE.

The overreactions here to the refugee thing are overreactions, you can kill and tell them off, you have a choice. Same is the issue about Minsc I find, because the reference completely flies over my head (and I'm not watching time looking it up) and I can't even infer anything insulting in it that would set people off so much.

I'm not a fan, I haven't even played it yet. But I'm certainly not going to have one retarded minor character with 5 lines stop me from enjoying what might otherwise be a decent game, that's all I've been saying from the beggining.

If there is an issue at hand here it's the fact that this board constantly bashes the BG series being shit, and yet that has vanished in this thread.

BG wasn't some top tier, iconic game series in setting, plot, characters and writing, this board will be the first to tell you that.

As for that tranny character, I'm actually surprised you're able to kill her without issue (and get exp for doing so). If the other side was as bad as it's thought I'd expect the entire game world to insta KOS you for doing that.
 
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Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
I'm not a fan, I haven't even played it yet. But I'm certainly not going to have one retarded minor character with 5 lines stop me from enjoying what might otherwise be a decent game, that's all I've been saying from the beggining.
I find it amusing to say the least that "current year" is apparently an argument used on the progressive agenda's favor. I've always read it as the exact opposite. It is BECAUSE we're in 2016 that we don't need this completely oversensitive and insane crusade for equality and acceptance, the western world is already inclusive and open minded. Not only because all the actual meaningful battles have already been fought (you know, the real ones, from the time they were really needed and that actually created space for groups of people, not some random girl tabbing from cat images on imgur to Microsoft Word, drinking coffee and thinking she's in the proccess of creating an utopia on Earth), it is also the age of the Internet, the biggest and most efficient bridge between different people the world has ever seen. Can't these people see we're way past this point?

Seems obvious to me they don't want to reach a conciliatory, reasonable status, they want to crush the breaking point of normality and shove a new form of reality down our throats. This is what's really going on, reality bending to please their will.

I never saw myself as a conservative, I never gave one single fuck to any of this stuff. Hell, I am a man of my century - wether I like it or not. However, this progressive agenda crap has hit me in the nuts so many times already, and with such an arrogant stance, that I am more and more moving to their side.

Congratulations Amber Scott and friends, you're truly managing to shape someone: you are forging a conservative on me.

Same thing like the Left always going on about the Right being stuck in the 50s, you eventually realize it's they who are hung up about that decade and won't leave it behind ebcause then there'd be nothing to bitch about.

The thought of PS:T getting rewritten legitimately offends me.

The thought of any game, or work in medium, being rewritten that way offends me.

It's one thing for the makers to go back and want to improve a work in an EE because it was genuinely crappy the first go around, it's another to go back to it and "update it".

It's Orwellian shit and disturbing for the same reason that ISIS destroying ancient works "because nothing came before Islam" is.

Everything they do is filtered through this prism of constructed worldview that is hilarious in its absolute. This isn't social justice, it's narcissistic masturbation and holier-than-though postulates.

Puts in mind what really is at the heart of things like religious fanaticism and such.

People like feeling powerful, especially those self-aware of feeling weak. They latch onto something that makes them feel power flow through their hands and the apex of that is using it beat on those that they hold issue with.

Those I know obsessed with shit I warn, to be mindful and not become what they despise in their enemies, but they don't care and don't care what harm they cause, they're addicted.
 
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Rivmusique

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
3,489
Location
Kangarooland
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Planned on reading this thread when I was done with my first playthrough, still back on page 23 though. Damn, this shit is HOT!

Oh well, quick thoughts:

Played on insane-with-no-damage-increase, chaotic-neutral fighter/thief that was created just for SoD. You start with 64 000 xp, totsc cap was 161 000. You also start with pretty shitty items, If I'd have imported I'd have been packing lots of wands and potions. And the neutral party starter party was not to my liking, 2 casters, Neera and Jaheira. I was going to go mage/thief, wished I had.

Enjoyed it a fair bit. The AI is much better than any of the vanilla IE games, ranged try to run from melee, they switch targets to lower AC members if they're within range, they use potions well and they focus fire the shit out of anyone who gets Held/stunned/unconscious (this is the way to go if they're trying to beat the player, but SCS always had this: "Enemies above a certain minimum intelligence will usually prioritise opponents who are not stunned, held or otherwise helpless. From their point of view, they're fighting to win, and if they kill all non-helpless opponents they can finish off the helpless ones at their leisure. (They will, however, finish off nearby vulnerable opponents in preference to chasing up distant ones.)" which makes it more fun in my opinion, a long disable on the PC is a game over screen in SoD). They seem to love that they can get a lot of characters on screen, every group is ~10+ enemies, most of which have decent accuracy, low health, and annoying on-hit effects or powerful CC, so bring your fireballs/oils/wands :lol: .

The way you move about the game world isn't very BG-y in my mine though. Where BG stands apart from the other IE games is the huge amount of optional-areas/quests, a fair few of which it's not the best idea to tackle the moment you hear about them/can get to them. This doesn't have that at all. Each chapter has a set of maps you can go between with a bunch of side quests within them. You do the quests as you receive them, eventually complete the chapter quest, those maps can no longer be traveled too, you now have a new set of maps for the next chapter. More IWD than BG in my opinion.

Was not a fan of the writing for the most part. Main quest and all involved were interesting enough, perhaps not Skie, as she never leaves the "annoying" phase when she probably should have to give her ending weight (just have her do something useful in the siege, maybe call back to the conversations you've had with her). The Baldur's Gate portion near the start is quite bad though, fetch quests everywhere. And the stuff that's relevant to BG2 beginning isn't particularly interesting, they could have dropped that BG baggage and had a neat dnd adventure about battling a misguided crusade (then they could have done stuff like have a variety of endings, as they wouldn't have to be in a state where BG2 makes sense). In fact, what you know at the point of the final area makes you (a bhaalspawn) being involved incredibly stupid, should just leave the party and send the other five to end it, less trouble. As for side quests, I especially enjoyed the Lich dungeon, Cyric Temple (semi-side area, you have to go here but you don't have to do the more interesting fights/finish it), vampire hunters, ghost dragon shit and fully scouting dragonspear (I think this was optional, felt like I could have gone back earlier than I did). A lot of the dialogues suck though. Constant attempts at humour (the "stoner" in Baldur's Gate in the beginning is standout horrible, a long back and forth and he was voiced. Almost put my head through the desk) both from your dialogue options (shows the superiority of full dialogues being shown to the player, the type of responses I see and don't click remind me of nonsense my character often ends up saying in dialogue wheel games) and NPCs. This was in the old BGs as well I suppose, but it was often just an NPC that blurted shit at you then you walked away. Here, it's usually with quest givers and during an actual conversation with them. Clumsy exposition dumbs abound as well. Finally, you often (optionally, I think) find yourself infiltrating the crusade (the enemy) camps and it's extremely poorly done. At the beginning of the game it's established they have pictures of you and your name, yet for these bits you just walk in and say "I'm here to join" or "I'm with you guys, I'm new" and in you go (probably based on charisma, don't know). You can even give your name sometimes (worse, it's often the only reasonable choice, other than "You're dead FIGHT!") and that leads to some "amusing" dialogue like "OH WOW THAT'S SO WEIRD JUST LIKE THE GUY WE'RE LOOKING FOR WAT A COINCIDENCE HAHA". Fucking hell. Could have thrown in some magic disguise shit for these moments at least.

Companions I ran with were: Minsc, Dynaheir, Goblin shaman, Corwin, Glint. I don't like Minsc, but I wanted a good mage and his charge is the only one and they come together. Also, his 2 stars in longbow and 2h swords is to my liking. The pair of them have a quest involving another witch/beserker duo, but with them, get this, THE WITCH IS THE SCATTERBRAIN AND THE FIGHTER IS SENSIBLE HAHAHA! I liked the Goblin a fair bit, she seems old and bitter and her humour, when it shows, is dry. I did the Corwin romance, pretty shit just like the BG2 ones, declarations of love/attraction seemingly from nowhere. She's alright though, dedicated soldier type, her dialogues usually short and to the point. Except when it gets around to her child, then she goes into long rants on the troubles that come with being an absentee mother or something. There's also this one moment where she brings up kids ("do you have kids?"), you answer, she starts talking about hers, you comment, she says angrily for some reason and says something like "How did we even get on to this?" which made me laugh a lot. Glint is meant to be scatter-brain-funny, Minsc/Jan-y, I don't really like it. I called him my right-hand gnome at some point then he got upset that I "looking at other people" and I had to give him a speech about how I can't commit to just him :lol: , I completely missed that he wanted to bang somehow.

What is quite cool is the constant references to your race/class/party members in dialogues/quest solutions. I think IWD2 is the only IE game that really did this to this extent before. It's quite neat that my fighter/thief could help train some soldiers by noticing one wasn't great in a straight fight, so she could focus on dodging behind them and backstabbing, or using the goblin shaman to calm/talk with spirits. There's also multiple solutions to a lot of quests, something that wasn't really present in the old BGs. Here, you can often (seemingly), say, side with the vampire/lich and kill his enemies for alternate rewards and a rep drop. This is also useful as it would allow Evil parties (where the NPCs leave if your rep is too high) to function without resorting to senselessly slaying a random innocent.


Bugs I encountered:

Neera (I've not played with EE before, I hate this person. Minsc is definitely a developer favourite, this "kooky" shit is everywhere) had a quest to make a potion, the first four(?) updated my journal each time, but the final did not and every time I talked with her she acted like there were still ingredients to turn in. Quest remained unfinished.

I used the "talk to" command to try to talk to party members every so often. This sometimes led to them repeating old conversations, or saying something that seemed inappropriate for the area (the goblin said something like "they look like goblin work, these traps are deadly" right after I recruited her).

In the Boareskyr Bridge chapter ending there's a variety ways to handle the situation, one of which seems to be report back to camp and march to battle with them. The woman in camp tells me to report to the leader of the camp (Duncan?) but he wasn't there. Forced to do one of the other solutions, then the camp people just turned up in the battle.

There's a bit where a guy repairs some boots of speed, you use them, take damage (from falling over? Wasn't clear) and then return to him to ask for a refund (or not). Journal says the boots are now useless IIRC, but mine still worked and I never took damage again.

CTDs. The UI would disappear, the GAME OVER cutscene would play, the LOAD QUIT popup would appear, then CTD. Happened maybe four times.

There was a clumsy link to the quite dull IWD main antagonist. This has to be a bug, because why the fuck would someone pick this guy of all the options, jesus fucking christ. His skills include narrating and absolutely nothing else.

If you like IE combat at all, I'd recommend this game. Never would on the basis of interesting story/writing though, but I'd have said the same about both old BGs.

So BG3 is the next step? I hope they don't, just leave the Bhaalspawn, it's over, tale told. I wouldn't mind more IE stuff though, especially if they continue improving the AI.
 
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