but anyway, what they should have done since they created the framework (and the first campaign, while a 'game', was merely a showcase for the framework) to be so amazingly flexible was just pump out modules every week or month, big, small, medium, with voice, without voice, new assets

just like a regular roleplaying game book would come out and be a basic framework, and then they'd release adventures and settings and things, that's what i thought they were going to do at the time but... no, always seemed like a wasted opportunity

That's what would have happened if NWN released today, yes. I bet it was definitely the idea to be releasing modules and asset packs and stuff, but this idea was a little bit ahead of time. There was no infrastructure to facilitate all of this yet, games were still sold primarily on physical media.

At the same time though, NWN is purely a product of its time, because making something similar today - something more akin to a framework for RPG adventures rather than just a cRPG - with modern production values that gamers expect today is impossible. The costs are simply put too high, which is why there's nothing similar to NWN as far as I'm aware.

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Quoting: "Raaben"I really wish Beamdog were in charge of 2 as well, but as long as we're getting it back in some form. For single player, I will die on the hill that 2 is actually so much better than 1 in every way, even the mediocre original campaign. Mask of the Betrayer is one of the absolute best experiences and worth it for playing through that alone. It's a shame the custom campaigns didn't take off as well as they did with the original toolset.

But then there's Storm of Zehir. Frankly, I'd rather play the OG campaign of NWN 1 than SoZ ;)

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Quoting: TheRiddickWas kind of hoping for a :pick female/make :pick school :pick appearance. Witcher game. Ell well, not that I don't like Ciri, its just I was hoping for like a fresh game, maybe even good old witcher day prequel would be nice.

By the time Ciri is in her adulthood years, I doubt there is more then a handful of actual witchers left in the world.

At the end of Witcher 3, a second Conjunction of the Spheres happens. I think that will lead into a resurgence for the witchers, and the witcher creation process is altered, modernized. Ciri is a new kind of witcher.

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Quoting: PyrateStill can't believe there's no proper privacy friendly alternative to Discord. Matrix/Element is the closest I found but even that one is not there yet. You'd think with the amount of devs and nerds out there, there'd be an open source alternative already, especially considering Discord is an absolute privacy nightmare. But instead they all just use Discord. It's the only invasive service I couldn't find a replacement for yet.

Speaking of, I just tried Steam's voice chat service for the first time ever on my Deck to chat with a friend... and it was immediately better than Discord's VC (audio quality, latency, stability). Steam even has a similar rooms structure where you can create text and voice channels akin to a Discord server. Unfortunately it's missing the crucial function of screensharing, this is something me and friends use a lot on Discord, so there's no chance in hell they'd consider switching over with that not implemented. I reckon after Valve is done focusing on Game Recording, that they should revisit and improve their chatting system, it has a lot of potential, especially considering the competition is just one shitty company that literally breaks GDPR by refusing to completely remove your data when you delete your account.

The problem with messaging apps is that they're useless without the user base. I might be willing to switch to a more private alternative, but the general user and really all of my friends couldn't care less and they have no reason to switch when they're happy with what they're using now.

I guess Steam has a unique position that would allow it to compete with Discord if they wanted to. In fact, I reckon the reason why Discord is as popular as it is now is because Steam's tools for messaging have historically been kind of ass and Discord filled the void. It would still be very difficult for Steam but at least doable compared to some open source alternative that's dead on arrival.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: Cyba.Cowboythen the developers just aren't putting in as much effort for the Linux version.

(which wouldn't be the first time we've seen this)

Quoting: CatKillerIt's also exactly what you'd say if you couldn't be bothered to do something for a small audience and had necessarily-secret software to use as an excuse.

That's certainly true. I don't know enough about how it works to say whether an as-effective solution is feasible.

As far as I know, kernel anti-cheat is ineffective even on Windows, so I'm not sure what the devs are complaining about and what they are smoking.

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So, as a guy rocking the black dragon around here, I feel like I should be excited...but truth be told I've never been more skeptical of anything else I feel like. For one, I get the impression this tries to evoke the nostalgia a tad bit too much. Just from the trailer I was able to make out buildings, units, map pickups and features like mountains that are definitely redrawn from their originals. It's obvious. Heroes 3 is perfectly playable today however and I don't think just Heroes 3 with different graphics is what I want and what we need.
If they try and change things up, well, then there's the fact that I've been enjoying Age of Wonders 4 a lot lately. I think the devs need to have some serious might and pull off actual magic to compete now since the franchise has been frozen and AoW4 specifically has shown the mastery and experience Triumph accumulated over the years.

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Maybe I am just a hopeless centrist but I do believe the most prudent decision is to just wait and see with cautious optimism. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised for a change.

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It's bizarre when I consider that Half Life 3 rumors have been with me my whole life. It's like a constant like death and taxes.

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The previous games (Men of War, Men of War Asasult Squad) have been stellar games superior in many ways to Company of Heroes (the more popular WWII RTS). So I have high expectactions for this one.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: LungDrago

Quoting: Phlebiac

Quoting: MasterSleortI say let free market forces dictate whether it is a feature that will stay or not. If people are getting burnt or don't feel the value is there, publishers will be hesitant to use the feature. After all it's also a way to get advanced negative reviews.

This is true - "advanced access" could result in negative reviews that destroy "release day" sales. Hopefully that's enough incentive for greedy publishers to be cautious about milking this too heavily.

It really depends on the number of people who get roped into this advanced access thing versus how many people wait patiently for the actual release day, and how many people in the advanced access actually refund their game. If you make most of your sales in AA and then people don't refund your mess, well, you're golden. :D

Aren't most release days sales preorders being fulfilled?

Yeah, I was taking into consideration the worst case scenario and AA is overall a slightly better idea than EA, I suppose.

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