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DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.
It also just occurred to me, but how do you guys feel about the special delivery items?

For those that aren't aware, the special delivery chest is where DLC armors get placed. It's right in the first town and contains at least one set of every type of armor, and at least one of every weapon type in the game.

The items are all really good for when you get them, but they're only useful for the first hour or two.

Right now my plan is to beeline for that chest once I get control and loot it for goodies, and then occasionally switch the weapons and armor around to show everything off.

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Speedball
Apr 15, 2008

Sounds good to me.

Zanzibar Ham
Mar 17, 2009

You giving me the cold shoulder? How cruel.


Grimey Drawer
It's not like you're doing some hard mode challenge. Show us the goods.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Some of the DLC items look pretty cool too, it's a shame they can't keep up with the power curve.

Maekrix Waere
Jul 10, 2010

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

Münchhausen the atheistic sneaky elf who puts lots of points into persuasion. No gods, because he's met them and he isn't impressed. What, didn't he tell you about that? Well, sit back, my child, and I shall tell thee a tale...

This sounds good. I'll vote for this.

Danakir
Feb 10, 2014

SSNeoman posted:

Verani, female, God of War is a badass combo

Works for me. This gets my vote.

madmac
Jun 22, 2010
Verani, Female, Mage-Rogue, don't care what God

Voting Rogue/Mage because it's basically the funnest way to play through this game. You get lots of weapons and ability options, mobility, stealth kills, and high damage but you're very squishy which helps keep you awake while mashing your way through identical combat#10001

I did Warrior/Mage on my own main playthrough ages ago and it was reasonably fun but any of the Warrior Builds in this game are tanky to the point of becoming almost invulnerable very quickly and the moves they get generally aren't as flashy.

Dreadwroth
Dec 12, 2009

by R. Guyovich
This game really is "Elves are Assholes" the game.

Speedball
Apr 15, 2008

Dreadwroth posted:

This game really is "Elves are Assholes" the game.

Fairies are assholes. Yeah, the fact that there are mortal-ish elves and fairy super-elves is just drat confusing in this game, but there it is.

Sneaky Fast
Apr 24, 2013

Looking forward to this game and interested in learning how RI came to own a the game.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Dreadwroth posted:

This game really is "Elves are Assholes" the game.

You should go look up the Irish mythology surrounding the Sidhe, Amalur's Sidhe aren't even close to the level of pure dickery the Irish Sidhe got up to.

Drachir D Nalem
Aug 14, 2012
I never could get through this. It's like playing a MMO all alone and I don't have the patience for that. I like the general idea behind the story, though, so it's lucky that you're going through it.

As for the character, my only vote is for being a godless heathen.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Drachir D Nalem posted:

I never could get through this. It's like playing a MMO all alone

This really is the most apt description of the gameplay. It also hits really close to the truth, probably closer than you anticipated.

The money that Amalur didn't make was supposed to bankroll 38's next project - a MMO in the Amalur setting. Unfortunately, the studio needed Call of Duty numbers to finance the project. And the game, while not a critical failure, simply had too much going against it to ever reach CoD numbers. It was a brand new IP, it looked like a generic fantasy hack and slash, and as far as I can tell, it received next to no advertising.

This is getting into the 38 story, but I recall reading that the company was so broke from trying to develop their MMO that quite a lot of paychecks were dependent on the game achieving financial success. I don't mean that as a condition either, like when Zenimax screwed over Obsidian on their bonuses for New Vegas. No, I mean that the company was so broke they literally could not afford to pay their employees for several weeks, maybe even months, until money from the game came in.

Geostomp
Oct 22, 2008

Unite: MASH!!
~They've got the bad guys on the run!~

SourceElement posted:

This really is the most apt description of the gameplay. It also hits really close to the truth, probably closer than you anticipated.

The money that Amalur didn't make was supposed to bankroll 38's next project - a MMO in the Amalur setting. Unfortunately, the studio needed Call of Duty numbers to finance the project. And the game, while not a critical failure, simply had too much going against it to ever reach CoD numbers. It was a brand new IP, it looked like a generic fantasy hack and slash, and as far as I can tell, it received next to no advertising.

This is getting into the 38 story, but I recall reading that the company was so broke from trying to develop their MMO that quite a lot of paychecks were dependent on the game achieving financial success. I don't mean that as a condition either, like when Zenimax screwed over Obsidian on their bonuses for New Vegas. No, I mean that the company was so broke they literally could not afford to pay their employees for several weeks, maybe even months, until money from the game came in.

That's the sad thing. The combat is pretty good for what it is, but it just wasn't near good enough. They were just so ambitious about the whole enterprise that they fell short of it all.

If it weren't for EA cross promoting it in Mass Effect 3, I'd probably have barely heard of this game.

Death Zebra
May 14, 2014

I liked Amalur. It plays well (though I remember some camera problems) and has a lot of content even without DLC. Sadly, a certain feature completely killed the replay value for me.

The demo is the best time limit demo I've ever played as it actually gave you 45 minutes and IIRC that didn't even begin until you got out into the open world.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
One thing I do like about Amalur is it really does the power fantasy well; you're constantly running into characters who are whining at you and being super smug and poo poo about fate and destiny and then you beat the poo poo out of them because the power of the PC in this game is "Can kill anyone they want to" no matter what fate says should happen.

Heffer
May 1, 2003

I don't want to cut and paste a wall of text, but buried in a hockey thread on reddit of all places, a former employee shared the inside view on what happened with this company:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/25fie4/pk_subban_on_gm_7_i_cant_wait_for_the_crowd_the/chh0thk

quote:

The studio had a tremendous capital burn rate because of the number of employees we had and the cost of game development. I'm not at liberty to disclose the amount, but you can probably find it if you Google for it. In any event, even with the RIEDC loan, we still needed additional investors. We had several lined up and deals were about to close when a number of stupid things happened in succession.

-An investor rather suddenly dropped out of contact. We'd later learn that he had been seriously injured on a freakin' skiing trip (or something to that effect).
-A regular loan repayment check to the RIEDC "bounced" because of some dumb banking stuff.
-Governor Chaffee of RI, who had been a vocal critic of former Governor Carcieri (who shepherded the loan deal), held a press conference announcing that 38 was in financial trouble. This was the first any of us, the employees, heard about this.
-Other investors, with whom we were preparing to close deals, heard this news and backed out.

Within a couple of weeks, the studio closed.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Heffer posted:

I don't want to cut and paste a wall of text, but buried in a hockey thread on reddit of all places, a former employee shared the inside view on what happened with this company:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/25fie4/pk_subban_on_gm_7_i_cant_wait_for_the_crowd_the/chh0thk

Honestly that sounds a lot like Chaffee took advantage to deliberately torpedo the company.

Speedball
Apr 15, 2008

Possibly the biggest casualty of the AAA bubble bursting.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Also; you mention in the video that there's no penalty to rolling but that's not entirely true; if you roll twice in quick succession the character does a slower recovery animation that takes about half a second. I'm fairly sure that is in to make it so that rolling everywhere isn't faster than running.

Magnetic North
Dec 15, 2008

Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Neruz posted:

Honestly that sounds a lot like Chaffee took advantage to deliberately torpedo the company.

That's what Schilling would say. OR maybe, just maybe Chafee was protecting his state against incurring even more debt by deciding it was time to cut our collective losses.

In related news, I just started doing some research for posts about the 38 Studios story, and oh my god, it is making me so drat angry. If I don't post it for a while, it's because I had a heart attack and I don't own a laptop from which to post from the ICU.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Magnetic North posted:

That's what Schilling would say. OR maybe, just maybe Chafee was protecting his state against incurring even more debt by deciding it was time to cut our collective losses.

The truth is probably long buried beneath layers and layers of paperwork and people covering each other's asses so I doubt that we'll ever know for sure.

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


Neruz posted:

I'm fairly sure that is in to make it so that rolling everywhere isn't faster than running.

Which is a stupid loving idea and I hate that the developers implemented it.

MrAptronym
Jan 4, 2007

"...And then there was Bitcoin."

Magnetic North posted:

:smith::hf::smith: sup Rhode Island buddy

I touched on this in the Sandcastle, but the whole story behind the collapse of that studio infuriates me to no end. The temerity, the waste, the smugness, the hypocrisy, and the honest human cost to everyone who worked on this game except for the people who deserved it.

In the past, I've considered making a short video series to catalog the story behind it, but I never had time or energy. But I recently suddenly gained a lot of free time... maybe I will.

I'd be interested if you did write up something. The news may talk about it a lot, but they don't really say much. Everyone is trying so hard to shift the blame that its hard too see straight. I know enough to know when they're talking stupid, but still don't know much about everything that went down. An informed, non-biased opinion would be nice to see.

I feel really bad for all the people just working on making a game that got fired and dragged through the mud with this. To be honest I am reminded of Ion Storm. Hubris, mismanagement, celebrity and large quantities of money. Kingdoms of Amalur is no Daikatana though. (Nor is it a Deus Ex.)

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.
Alright, voting is officially closed!

Final totals listed in descending order (in numeric form)

code:
Varani: 14

Dokkalfar: 6

Ljosalfar: 2

Almain: 0
code:
God of War: 7

God of Fate: 5

God of Water: 3

Athiest: 3

God of Death: 2

God of Fire: 0

God of Wisdom: 0

God of Order: 0

God of Justice: 0

God of Mischief: 0

God of Earth: 0

God of Air: 0

God of Love: 0
code:
Female: 12

Male: 0
code:
Svolafbjornquist: 2

Münchhausen: 2

Babeester Gor: (???) 1

Humakt: 0
So tallying up the results, we're gonna be playing as a Varani woman who worships the God of War and... there's a tie for the name. I'll figure something out.

Anyway, time to get to recording!

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
Babeester Gor is the best choice for a name.

Speedball
Apr 15, 2008

Hrist because we never got that third Valkyrie Profile game…at least, not one with a Valk as a star. Heh.

whowhatwhere
Mar 15, 2010

SHINee's back

Deadmeat5150 posted:

Babeester Gor is the best choice for a name.

Yeah she's a goddess of war/vengeance in the Glorantha mythos and metal as all hell.

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


Speedball posted:

Hrist because we never got that third Valkyrie Profile game…at least, not one with a Valk as a star. Heh.

This

A pirate worshiping a War God with a Valkyrie for her name sake holy loving poo poo :black101:

Drachir D Nalem
Aug 14, 2012

Speedball posted:

Hrist because we never got that third Valkyrie Profile game…at least, not one with a Valk as a star. Heh.

No clue what game that is but since it's supposedly a chooser of the slain, Hrist seems appropriate.

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer
I bought this game on a whim during a steam sale and have sunk over 80 hours into it already, not even halfway done with the game. I play a pure mage and it's pretty fun, but I'd like to see something different from this LP, probably Warrior (since rogues are hyper-dull.)

Also please go full Jerk-Mode about everything with your character, please. It has some of the most hilarious lines in the game.

I can't wait until you get to the Teeth of Naros, which wins my award for area with the best sidequests.

Emmideer fucked around with this message at 22:56 on May 17, 2014

Bible Ian Black
Jul 16, 2009

I'M THE GUY
WHO SUCKS

PLUS I GOT
DEPRESSION
Digging Svolafbjornquist honestly.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.
I've finished recording the first zone and I've got approximately two hours of footage. So I'm thinking four or five videos, depending on how edit points fall.

Also a quick twitter poll had nearly unanimous support for "Lisa" so that's what I wound up going with. Kinda wish I'd seen the Hrist suggestion first, because that sounded pretty awesome!

Smornstein
Nov 4, 2012

Heffer posted:

I don't want to cut and paste a wall of text, but buried in a hockey thread on reddit of all places, a former employee shared the inside view on what happened with this company:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/25fie4/pk_subban_on_gm_7_i_cant_wait_for_the_crowd_the/chh0thk

This reminded me of an article i read somewhere that basically went over that the studio was basically hosed from the beginning due to hiring so many big names and barely being able to pay for the services, Schilling trying to be the "bossman" which ended terribly, and that the game was initially going to be an MMO but they didn't have the resources so the game was made single-player a decents ways into development.

gschmidl
Sep 3, 2011

watch with knife hands

Weirdly, Curt Schilling was also involved in board games: he liked Advanced Squad Leader so much that he bought into Multi-Man Publishing, who negotiated getting the license with Hasbro and have been printing both ASL and other wargames for decades now.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.
Hey everyone, you know what time it is?



Ep 02 Youtube

If you reflexively responded "Tool Time" then you, too, watched too much Home Improvement while growing up.

If the HD isn't ready yet, give it a few minutes. Youtube JUST finished processing it as soon as I stuck it in the polsy wrapper.

DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 05:03 on May 20, 2014

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
Those stretched polygons at the end are usually a symptom of a failing/overheating video card, not a bug in the game. If it starts happening more frequently or in other games your card is probably about to die.

I hope you haven't already been hit by the LP curse. :ohdear:

Sindai fucked around with this message at 07:30 on May 20, 2014

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Sindai posted:

Those stretched polygons at the end are usually a symptom of a failing/overheating video card, not a bug in the game. If it starts happening more frequently or in other games your card is probably about to die.

I hope you haven't already been hit by the LP curse. :ohdear:

The stretched polygons luckily went away when I swapped from fullscreen to windowed, and didn't appear again for the rest of the session.

And while it would be frustrating if my card were dying, I would also understand. Sucker's been in my PC for four years now, and it's gotta be nearing the end of its life. This is the card currently installed, and you can see that sucker's old.

So if it does go down, I can order a new one and have it expedited and be back up in a couple days. The LP curse (hopefully) won't take me down like it did for dotHack!

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


This game's battle system leaves a bit something to be desired. Enemies can stunlock you pretty easily with multi-hit attacks and some enemies have ridiculously bullshit tracking.

Reckoning mode is wonderfully silly though and I love it. So overpowered :allears:

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Doctor Hospital
Jul 16, 2011

what





Stunlocking ceases to be an issue pretty quickly, though. Pretty much right from the get-go, the game will give you tools to further tip the scales in your favor.

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