I had been planning to play as a bard (I’m normally a rogue in RPGs, but we’ve got one in the party), then watched part of a Let’s Play where someone did, and the sight of the bard pulling out a violin in the middle of a battle was so ridiculous I immediately dismissed the idea because I knew I went be able to take my character seriously 🤣
I just finished downloading it and am playing as a ranger, and I’m not quite far into it enough to see how I like it, but I picked it because another Let’s Play I watched (I watched the first hour of several to see what it was like before I decided to get it) played as a ranger and it seemed interesting.
Maybe next playthrough I’ll give bard a go, just because I know they’re a good class.
Thing with bard is you do not get a bard companion at least in the beginning (I have only played so far into it). You get a cleric, thief, fighter, and wizard pretty early. Granted you can respec anyone to whatever you want but bardic inspiration combined with guidance from the cleric is pretty nice for the various non combat rolls and then it gives you two sources of healing word and bardic inspiration is pretty nice in combat as well. The biggest annoyance factor is the bard can't inspire themselves.
Two roll buffs and healing word is tempting. Good to know you get a thief early, although there’s also the question of whether to do one of the origin characters or not…
I couldn't get in to this game, myself. Granted, due to that, I've only played about an hour of it but this game felt much more like a Visual Novel than an RPG, to me. Stats seemed to have no bearing on anything other than what the narrative decided they have a bearing on. It was therefore, very difficult to figure out who my character was. Otherwise, you're just clicking on things and reading reams of text.
I get that they were trying to go for a more tabletop version of an RPG but without a DM, I find that near impossible to translate 1:1. I would have preferred a more Baldur's Gate approach to the game.
It’s more akin to Planescape: Torment than something like Baldur’s Gate. The game is dense with writing and dialogue, and the majority of it is derived from your stats. Granted, there are a couple of skill checks that you can’t fail due to being story important, but it’s only those two specific instances - everything else is heavily stat-based. There’s also ideologies that the game tracks, so you can be an egotistic superstar cop, a doomsaying apocalypse cop, a normal cop, or even a super-political cop that becomes more drilled down if you want to engage in the fascist, communist, moderate, and/or liberal aspects of the game - and the game does respond to that, including noting how you can be both a communist and a fascist, or some other combination of ideologies.
To help put it in perspective, your stats are, quite literally, your character’s brain. Having low stats doesn’t really impact the game, but you also can become sort of neurotic with high stats - which does have its upsides and downsides (except Encyclopedia, it will drown you in world-building exposition that doesn’t really help and drags out conversations at the higher levels). It’s much more “role-playing” and less “game”.
Stormlight Archive could be turned into such a good Dynasty Warriors style game.
Story-mode is literally just playing differing characters in each of the fights of the story, you could do at least 10-12 fights.
Campaign mode could be picking one of the 10 warcamps, each with different starting strengths, and racing, done via a base building / management interspersed with combat levels, to claim the most wealth.
@Pheonixdown@alyaza I had alot of fun doing a bares bones prototype of gravity lashing in 2d. Storm light is just ripe for all sorts of video game adaptations.
There are quite a few reasons. New to DnD or RPGs, want to just get into the game, want to experience the cool backstory for each origin character are a few I can think of off the top of my head.
Counterpoint: All the origin characters have bespoke side stories and dialogue, and one of them is a chaotic neutral rogue who is also a bisexual vampire twink.
(Given Sven’s advice here I’m probably just going to go with a drow or tiefling warlock, but Astarion is absolutely on the table for the second playthrough.)
At least to some degree, yeah. Each origin character has more to their background, different choices, etc that you can’t get through a play through where they are your companion
I don’t know how it is in this game, but in their previous game, each of the origin characters brought unique goals and quests into play, on top of the usual backstories.
Yeah in divinity the origin characters were great, and their storylines fun. I kinda hoped BG3 would have the same because I really wanted to play an origin character with some cool sub-plot that we uncover while playing the main story.
If you make a good effort to identify, locate, and contact copyright holders, but the path runs cold, can you disregard copyright? Maybe by claiming fair use or lack of traceable copyright?
Trademark requires active use. I don’t believe there’s such a thing for copyright. Are there limits other than regular fair use and documented year expiration?
No. You don’t get to just decide you have the right to use someone else’s work just because you coudn’t find them to ask, any more than you get to decide that you can use their car. Them not actively selling their works isn’t the equivalent of leaving the car derilict on public property.
Why wouldn’t they? I’m all for the fuck Sony train when they fuck up (like when they pushed PSN onto PC users and then blocked the sale of their games in countries that aren’t supported by PSN) but in this case Tencent is/was blatantly copying the Horizon IP.
It’s not copying it, it’s ripping it off, which isn’t illegal. Copying (i.e. copyright infringement) has a specific legal meaning, and it’s not being asserted by Sony. Sony is trying to claim that it being a ripoff means customers would be confused into believing it’s actually a Horizon game and purchasing it in error, which is stupid.
If Tencent had called this Horizons: Motiram, they’d be 100% in the right. But they are just trying to essentially claim they own the combination of style and theme of “colorful world with tribal humans vs robot animals”. That’s not how trademark works (this is trademark btw, not copyright, just in case anyone is getting them mixed up).
That was a random image from the trailer. You can stop the trailer at a random point and there’s like 90% chance you’re going to end up with an image that could easily be from the Horizon series. It’s also worth pointing out that the trailer has been removed from all official Lights of Motiram accounts along with a dozen images that looked like they were from the Horizon series.
I will also remind you that you said it would be absurd to take Sony seriously, which is not the same thing as stating “there’s no trademark violations here”. The latter is literally what the court has to make a decision on. The former is about whether there’s any basis to go to court which already means you think you know better than Sony lawyers and, if the court doesn’t instantly throw out the case, also better than the legal system. Maybe you are some godlike lawyer who knows better than everyone else, but if you are I think you can understand why I’m calling bullshit on that.
I will also remind you that you said it would be absurd to take Sony seriously, which is not the same thing as stating “there’s no trademark violations here”. The latter is literally what the court has to make a decision on. The former is about whether there’s any basis to go to court which already means you think you know better than Sony lawyers and, if the court doesn’t instantly throw out the case, also better than the legal system. Maybe you are some godlike lawyer who knows better than everyone else, but if you are I think you can understand why I’m calling bullshit on that.
I was/am responding to something you said in your comment, specifically that they were copying HZD.
I think it’s entirely possible that Sony wins, though they shouldn’t. But it will be about whether this constitutes an infringement on Sony’s Horizon trademark, not copyright. I don’t think it does, and I do think this amounts to Sony wanting to own the concept, like Nintendo wants to own creature catchers, but it is obviously possible another court would make another bad ruling in the IP space, especially if that means siding with the non-Chinese corporation.
But there’s no question about them copying the Horizon series. Whether they’re doing it as an IP infringement is up for the courts to decide. I also disagree with the Nintendo comparison because what Nintendo is doing far worse. Even though Nintendo is doing things in response to Palworld they’re trying to patent a rather generic mechanics, like summonings or calling mounts (in a specific way) which means their actions won’t just affect Palworld but also Cassette Beasts and maybe even Monster Hunter Stories.
Meanwhile Sony want to make sure someone isn’t making a not Horizon game. I can’t even make a realistic comparison to what couldn’t exist if Sony wins because I can’t think of another game that that slots exactly into what Horizon is. Fighting against robots is generic, ARC raiders does that. Tribals vs high tech is also pretty generic, that’s essentially Avatar. Post-apocalyptic worlds are also generic and you’d have to narrow it down to get specifically Horizon style post-apocalyptic which itself is also not unique as that’s essentially the same style The Last of Us uses (just to give the first example that came to mind). It’s only after you take all those individual generic components and mash them together do you get Horizon, and the original reveal of Light of Motiram.
Look at this from the other perspective. Why does Light of Motiram need the same kind of tribal aesthetic like the Horizon games? Why does Light of Motiram need robot enemies that imitate animals like Horizon games down to the same visual style of robots? Why does Light of Motiram need the same post-apocalyptic world like the Horizon games down to the same color palette? Each of those things are rather generic concepts and Light of Motiram could’ve made their own interpretation of each of those concepts. It could’ve been Na’Vi tribals fighting ARC robots in an TLOU world, but instead in those instances it chose to do exactly what Horizon does.
It’s EA. They could make gay stuff in games without them. But instead they make a deal with the devil and hope they come out on top? They want all the resources of a soulless giant but then they think they’re somehow escaping the taint?
It’s like musicians making deals that (unfairly, almost amorally) guarantee their songs play across the country… but then they think they’re still a normal artist.
Thanks for the representation I guess. Even though we had to collectively pay to make ME a popular franchise. I’m sure it was all about being true to your morals.
I mean, it’s EA. They’ve been in full on corporate profit mode forever, and any good games that they’ve put out are in spite of that. I doubt that there are a ton of “artists trying to make art” left at the decision making level of EA.
Yeah a lot of the comments I have seen are outright bizarre, EA won’t change in any noticeable form. It’s maximum profit extraction now and it will remain maximum profit extraction after.
pcgamer.com
Ważne