A friend of mine started a news site, and now I write about video games for it...
So yeah, http://thewestlondoner.wordpress.com/ is the site...
http://thewestlondoner.wordpress.com/category/opinions/game-overdose/ is my bit!
Go read!
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
TF2 - Uber Update (+Extras)
Ah Valve, you glorious, crazy, lucrative bastards...
For those of you that don't know, Tf2 is now free. Go get it.
Additionally, they've spent the last week adding the mostimbalancing ambitious amount of content to the game since... ever.
22 new weapons across 8 classes.
7 hats
2 misc items
2 action items
And 8 new "sets", Though only in so far as they're a collection of items, as they offer no "set bonus".
What I'm going to do is go through each of the updated classes, the new items they've received , how those items work in a "set", and possibly even suggest a set bonus myself, though mostly for luls.
For those of you that don't know, Tf2 is now free. Go get it.
Additionally, they've spent the last week adding the most
22 new weapons across 8 classes.
7 hats
2 misc items
2 action items
And 8 new "sets", Though only in so far as they're a collection of items, as they offer no "set bonus".
What I'm going to do is go through each of the updated classes, the new items they've received , how those items work in a "set", and possibly even suggest a set bonus myself, though mostly for luls.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Game Concept - Caravan
Wow, so, I just had a really good idea. This kind of ties in with my other blog "The Way I Play" which has essentially died a death before even getting off the ground.
Monday, 18 July 2011
Game Concept: The Game I thought singularity wanted to be.
For about the first 20 minutes or so of Singularity, I genuinely thought it wanted to be a different game.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Singularity
So what would happen if you took Bioshock, replaced rapture with a Russian island, ADAM with "Element 99" and plasmids and tonics with an upgradeable "Time Manipulation Device" and "Hero perks"?
Singularity.
Singularity.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Valve's Potato Pack and the Golden Potato: Part 4
This time I'll be doing quickfire reviews on Rush, Super Meat Boy, Toki Tori, The Wonderful End of the World.
Monday, 16 May 2011
Just realised...
Just kinda realised that my whole Upcoming post a little while ago has been delayed.
Part of the reason for this is that as much as a close analysis via wall of text might be good for me, it doesn't make all that interesting a read. I'm at least trying to break things up with pictures and videos where appropriate.
But that's the thing, videos are fairly easy on PC (I'll need to buy fraps at some point, but hey, that's the price of fame), but not so much on console. So I'm currently sourcing a good way to record some videos off of things like Wii and PS3 in order to give a proper and decent analysis.
So in short, as I have Sonic Colours, Sonic 3 (& knuckles) and Sonic 4 (episode 1) all on the Wii... I feel I should do a few videos of them. Hence all the potato pack stuff.
I also have a couple of other games in the pipeline. One is Grey Matter, and the other is Hydrophobia. Both are a bit off the beaten track, but they're absolute gems of analytic resource. One being an old school point and click, and the other being an action adventure game with some unique physics. Their failures are as interesting as their successes.
Anyway, I'll be posting them up soon, just after I'm done with the potato pack.
Bye for now
teh_steve
Part of the reason for this is that as much as a close analysis via wall of text might be good for me, it doesn't make all that interesting a read. I'm at least trying to break things up with pictures and videos where appropriate.
But that's the thing, videos are fairly easy on PC (I'll need to buy fraps at some point, but hey, that's the price of fame), but not so much on console. So I'm currently sourcing a good way to record some videos off of things like Wii and PS3 in order to give a proper and decent analysis.
So in short, as I have Sonic Colours, Sonic 3 (& knuckles) and Sonic 4 (episode 1) all on the Wii... I feel I should do a few videos of them. Hence all the potato pack stuff.
I also have a couple of other games in the pipeline. One is Grey Matter, and the other is Hydrophobia. Both are a bit off the beaten track, but they're absolute gems of analytic resource. One being an old school point and click, and the other being an action adventure game with some unique physics. Their failures are as interesting as their successes.
Anyway, I'll be posting them up soon, just after I'm done with the potato pack.
Bye for now
teh_steve
Valve's Potato Pack and the Golden Potato: Part 3.
This time I'm hitting up Cogs, Defence Grid: The Awakening and Killing Floor.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Valve's Potato Pack and the Golden Potato: Part 2.
This time I'll tackle Audiosurf, The Ball, and Bit Trip Beat.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Valve's Potato Pack and the Golden Potato: Part 1.
For those of you that haven't plummeted to the depths of depravity that is total gamer fanboi, I link you this. Valve Args Wiki.
The long and the short of it is that recently Valve have recruited a number (13) of other games into a big scary cross-game metagame of awesome and win. One of the things that you can do as a part of this metagame is collect potatoes. Potatoes served a dual function.
1) Make everyone know just how much of your life you've dumped into the ARG.
2) Speed up the Glados reboot cycle in order to get Portal 2 released a few hours early.
Suffice to say...
Monday, 28 March 2011
Good side characters
Rev Rant: Character Empathy
Extra Credits: Amnesia and Story Structure
"In Medias Res" tends to leave little scope for character Development. If you start a story in the middle, then the past is always going to feel distant. Don't force "this is your brother, you care about him" down people throats, give the history. Fallout 3 worked well because you get an entire characters life up to that point, the important moments anyway, via mini sections that also act as the tutorial. You know about the characters friends and allies, and thus have some emotional attachment.
Agrro is a great example from Shadow of the Colossus, because he is both a character and a useful mechanic.
Other good examples I can think of are (in the sadly non-canon) Jin Sun-Kwon from FEAR's Extraction Point. In which she's your only ally. Situations where everything is against you makes your friends all the more meaningful. Again, see Agro, your only friend.
Another useful way of introducing and creating empathy with npc's is to make them meaningful to the character you play as. I'm not talking "this is your sister, you love her" stuff, but something deeper.
Say you character's a kick-ass fighter. Have it so the dad was the one that trained him, have flashbacks and cutscenes. Afterall, it's natural for a player to feel something for the protagonist they control, and to like certain aspects of that character. If in turn one of these aspects can be attributed to another character, that instantly creates an empathy toward that individual.
You like the mechanic, so it goes to reason you'll like the person that is responsible for that mechanic.
Brothers, sisters, parents and generally family are always good, because they're mostly universal.
Persistance is a good idea as well.
Extra Credits: Amnesia and Story Structure
"In Medias Res" tends to leave little scope for character Development. If you start a story in the middle, then the past is always going to feel distant. Don't force "this is your brother, you care about him" down people throats, give the history. Fallout 3 worked well because you get an entire characters life up to that point, the important moments anyway, via mini sections that also act as the tutorial. You know about the characters friends and allies, and thus have some emotional attachment.
Agrro is a great example from Shadow of the Colossus, because he is both a character and a useful mechanic.
Other good examples I can think of are (in the sadly non-canon) Jin Sun-Kwon from FEAR's Extraction Point. In which she's your only ally. Situations where everything is against you makes your friends all the more meaningful. Again, see Agro, your only friend.
Another useful way of introducing and creating empathy with npc's is to make them meaningful to the character you play as. I'm not talking "this is your sister, you love her" stuff, but something deeper.
Say you character's a kick-ass fighter. Have it so the dad was the one that trained him, have flashbacks and cutscenes. Afterall, it's natural for a player to feel something for the protagonist they control, and to like certain aspects of that character. If in turn one of these aspects can be attributed to another character, that instantly creates an empathy toward that individual.
You like the mechanic, so it goes to reason you'll like the person that is responsible for that mechanic.
Brothers, sisters, parents and generally family are always good, because they're mostly universal.
Persistance is a good idea as well.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Fallout 3 mechanics: A brief over-view
Don't worry, this isn't a full in depth analysis of FO3, nor is it really a true WMGG in and of itself. I was doing my first entry in TWIP for FO3 and decided that it's really more an analysis, and better suited to go in here for all its brevity.
Friday, 18 March 2011
Upcoming
Right, not that I've finally vented my indignation at Bioware allowing EA to pressure them into producing a sequel inteded for an audience that didn't play nor really cared about the previous game (I mean seriously, when on the box the phrase "A good entry point" is one of the quotes it screams dumbed down) I can hopefully and finally get down to business.
I've got a few ideas in the pipes:
Expect a lot more expanded Extra Credits. In short that series is a tremendous resource for video game fans and aspiring designers alike. James Portnou knows his stuff, and Alisons art mixed with Floyds script and altered voice is a beautiful way of delivering this. I guess one really good thing came out of Zero Punctuation afterall, other than weekly trolling sessions.
I'm also going to do an in depth analysis of Sonic 3&Knuckles, Sonic 4 and Sonic Colours (I'm British, more accurately English). The reason being that Sonic 3 means a lot to me, being one of my top 10 games. Sonic 4 is the supposed sequel to such, and Sonic Colours is being heralded as being "the first truly modern feeling sonic game" so I'd be mad to not do a close cross comparison, given my experience with the franchise and my love of sonic. Don't worry, I'm as much a sonic hater as a lover, mostly because the recent stuff has been a shit-streak on sonics previously sterling face. I'll also be doing this on the Wii, using the wand turned sideways to eliminate controller prejudice.
I want to take a look at Magicka at some point. This is an indie title for digital download and truly a gem of a game, utilising a combo-system to generate a variety of spells on the fly. Mostly I want to focus on the god awful xbox controls. Being a primarily PC gamer I tend to stick with mouse and keyboard, which magicka delivers on briliantly, but my girlfriend prefers gamepads, so she was using it with her laptop so we could 2 play.
I'm also planning on doing some more in depth game-play on my other blog, The way I play, so expect some fallout 3 and some Dragon age love there soon.
Additionally, I might do a mini article on the use of themematic material, as well as HUD and menu design of fallout 3.
Also expect a side-by-side comparison of Fallout 3 and New vegas in the future too, and basically how they differ.
I'm also planning on doing an article on "difficulty sliders" and how they're steadily becoming a bit lazy in modern gaming, just buffing enemies rather than changing the challenge and the nature of the challenge.
That'll do for now!
teh_steve
I've got a few ideas in the pipes:
Expect a lot more expanded Extra Credits. In short that series is a tremendous resource for video game fans and aspiring designers alike. James Portnou knows his stuff, and Alisons art mixed with Floyds script and altered voice is a beautiful way of delivering this. I guess one really good thing came out of Zero Punctuation afterall, other than weekly trolling sessions.
I'm also going to do an in depth analysis of Sonic 3&Knuckles, Sonic 4 and Sonic Colours (I'm British, more accurately English). The reason being that Sonic 3 means a lot to me, being one of my top 10 games. Sonic 4 is the supposed sequel to such, and Sonic Colours is being heralded as being "the first truly modern feeling sonic game" so I'd be mad to not do a close cross comparison, given my experience with the franchise and my love of sonic. Don't worry, I'm as much a sonic hater as a lover, mostly because the recent stuff has been a shit-streak on sonics previously sterling face. I'll also be doing this on the Wii, using the wand turned sideways to eliminate controller prejudice.
I want to take a look at Magicka at some point. This is an indie title for digital download and truly a gem of a game, utilising a combo-system to generate a variety of spells on the fly. Mostly I want to focus on the god awful xbox controls. Being a primarily PC gamer I tend to stick with mouse and keyboard, which magicka delivers on briliantly, but my girlfriend prefers gamepads, so she was using it with her laptop so we could 2 play.
I'm also planning on doing some more in depth game-play on my other blog, The way I play, so expect some fallout 3 and some Dragon age love there soon.
Additionally, I might do a mini article on the use of themematic material, as well as HUD and menu design of fallout 3.
Also expect a side-by-side comparison of Fallout 3 and New vegas in the future too, and basically how they differ.
I'm also planning on doing an article on "difficulty sliders" and how they're steadily becoming a bit lazy in modern gaming, just buffing enemies rather than changing the challenge and the nature of the challenge.
That'll do for now!
teh_steve
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Extra Credits in Depth: 1 "Playing Like a Designer Part 1"
It's official, I might as well not even bother pounding my brain with deep introspective thought, as the guys down at Extra Credits can SO COMPLETELY deliver exactly the conclusions I would have come to eventually...
But here's the thing, an 8 minute video can't compare to personal study and struggle. Even if all I'm going to do is greater internalise what was already said, and gain a practical or proximal understanding of their own golden info; that will be worth it.
So I'm going to perform a close analysis of what they're saying... And involve more pictures and embedded bits to make things more interesting. Additionally, I'll probably be doing this in reverse. Or at least do their vids as they come.
But here's the thing, an 8 minute video can't compare to personal study and struggle. Even if all I'm going to do is greater internalise what was already said, and gain a practical or proximal understanding of their own golden info; that will be worth it.
So I'm going to perform a close analysis of what they're saying... And involve more pictures and embedded bits to make things more interesting. Additionally, I'll probably be doing this in reverse. Or at least do their vids as they come.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
DA2 Finale
Right, here it is. The reason finally why I won't buy DA2, as taken from metacritic reviews.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
DA2 Continued
http://www.gamasutra.com/v
"dialogue options inspired by BioWare's work on Mass Effect allow you to roleplay the voiced character of Hawke however you want"
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20071119
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20071119
So one of 3 options...
The good
The bad
The sarcy.
Thing is, having an unvoiced protagonist allowed for 2 things.
From a game design perspective, you could have the following...
1) I will help you, but you must give me your youngest as an sacrifice to my gods
2) I will help you, but you must give me all your worldy posessions
3) I will help you, but you must give me a gold in return
4)haha, I shan't help you fool, prepare to die!
5) I will help you and look after you and you all my worth
Responses
1-3 "Steep, but I'll accept as I need the help!"
4 "maker have mercy!" *flees*
5 "oh, thankyou ser, THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU..."
5 options, each with a variety of effects, but only 3 outcomes for a voice actor. Hell, each of the 5 choices could differently impact on allies. They've hammstringed themselves out the gate by forcing themselves to pre-record everything.
And why the hell does it need to be more clear what each sentence does? In DAO, you KNOW what your character's going to say, in this you need 3 cookie-cutter sentence types repeatedly used. Plus each phrase doesn't necessarily reflect what you've chosen.
Again, the morality of DAO was impacted on by your allies. In DA2, there must be an overarching aspect instead, which seems a tad reductionistic.
As a grey warden your choices didn't have to be "good". That's why murdering people was ok, so long as you were building an army up against the darkspawn. Hence why killing the dalish might be a good idea, to get the awesome werewolves. Keeping the golems around, allowing demons to posess children etc. All built the army against the bigger problem, the darkspawn.
As a grey warden your choices didn't have to be "good". That's why murdering people was ok, so long as you were building an army up against the darkspawn. Hence why killing the dalish might be a good idea, to get the awesome werewolves. Keeping the golems around, allowing demons to posess children etc. All built the army against the bigger problem, the darkspawn.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Dragon Age II Demo
What makes games good? Not this.
I played the Dragon age 2 demo on steam, so on PC. So mouse and keyboard.
-Interface completely lacked any form of thematic coherence. It looks like something out of assassins creed which has COMPUTERS, not a medievel fantasy.
-Menu's are horrendous as well, previously more information could be shown. What was wrong with the Journal? Why do we need a seperate page just for resistances? Get rid of the derp character portrait and put it all on one screen!
-Boob slider turned way up. Cleavage obsessed.
-But don't worry, there's some characters from the old game. Take Isabella: she's a different model, skin-tone, voice-actress, more slutty-typecast personality but she was in the last game!
-Combat is ridiculous and overblown, the actions look comical.
-Way too much gore. Sure, lose a foot here and have a decapitation there, but complete bloody explosions are a tad OTT.
-female run looks like they're mincing around retardedly.
-Hawkes voice acting is a role-play killer. Especially when s/he doesn't say what's written. Especially the female one...
-Tried mixing glyph of repulsion with glyph of paralysis, no paralysis explosion. Have they removed spell-combo's? Seems weak, and a tad reductionistic
-mage staff use seems a bit... Overzealous. They're flipping around like mad.
-new darkspawn design doesn't change anything. They're still just orcs. In fact they looked better slightly zombified.
-The area effect spells are pretty awful at the moment. If you highlight an enemy you can't actually cast the spell. Without a Hawke-eye (HA!) view of the battle-field it can be difficult to judge exactly where you're casting the spell as well. This also means you can't cast an area spell on an enemy to track them as they move. Might be a bug fixed by final push-out.
-"=" equals didn't function as a "select-all" button, instead making the character chug a pot. Might be changed by final release, but I doubt it looking at the interface.
-rogue flailing too over the top. Seriously, no-ones that fucking acrobatic with a dex score of 14.
-MASSIVE pet peeve. Loss of "haste" as a sustained. From what I read during this demo it's on a 30 second CD, and lasts 10 seconds. Haste was one of the only things that made some of the larger areas tolerable during DA. Making me stop to cast it every 10 seconds (or 20 with the related upgrade) would make me piss blood, assuming I have more that one mage...
Things that are good?
+I like that the combat doesn't result in feet stuck to the ground.
+The new skill-tree system is pretty interesting, allowing for greater customisation, and benefits for investing heavily in one tree.
+Knock-back being more available.
+The new rivalry/friendship system is pretty interesting, especially as it earns your party new abilities.
+Warriors hitting multiple enemies is a good thing, and not made so rediculously powerful.
+Pausing and lining up moves is still as gratifying as ever, but the tweaks made to those moves feels a little bit off.
Conclusion
Really, ignore all of the above technical or gameplay issues, they can be fixed by final release. What I really take issue with is the general feeling of the demo.
Original DA felt like a PC game, it allowed for good tactical planning, and everything had a good sense of relative grittiness. Sure, you had mages and knights, but none of their abilities felt too anime.
This demo at least felt like a shoddy Xbox 360 port to PC. The menu's, obsession with action, too fast paced, too many stupid moves, none of the intelligence of the previous game all add up to a basic console feel. Feels like they're trying too hard to appeal to the stupid adrenaline-junky frat-bro console demographic. Hence the horrible female design, I mean sure, the first one had Morrigan but it ONLY had Morrigan, and once you stuck a top on her, their proportions weren't that ridiculous.
In this every woman's having trouble staying contained, and Isabella flails around with such abandonment that I'm surprised that thong even stays up her ass.
Bioware, it's not sexy. Such little clothing is about as arousing as shoving her smelly vagina in your face. It lacks the subtlety, the mystique to be anything other than gross juvenile pandering, and I can promise you now that you've lost yourself more than one potential day-one buyer because of it. And jesus-christ, even Flemeth? You've changed her character design from the creepy old witch to some cleavage-flashing WILF! I say that ironically...
Unless there's a review so sterling of the main game that it can turn a blind man catholic (or some other butchered metaphor) I'm not going to bother buying it. It's definitely lost my pre-order at least.
I played the Dragon age 2 demo on steam, so on PC. So mouse and keyboard.
-Interface completely lacked any form of thematic coherence. It looks like something out of assassins creed which has COMPUTERS, not a medievel fantasy.
-Menu's are horrendous as well, previously more information could be shown. What was wrong with the Journal? Why do we need a seperate page just for resistances? Get rid of the derp character portrait and put it all on one screen!
 |
| DA2 |
 |
| DA1 |
-Boob slider turned way up. Cleavage obsessed.
-But don't worry, there's some characters from the old game. Take Isabella: she's a different model, skin-tone, voice-actress, more slutty-typecast personality but she was in the last game!
-Combat is ridiculous and overblown, the actions look comical.
-Way too much gore. Sure, lose a foot here and have a decapitation there, but complete bloody explosions are a tad OTT.
-female run looks like they're mincing around retardedly.
-Hawkes voice acting is a role-play killer. Especially when s/he doesn't say what's written. Especially the female one...
-Tried mixing glyph of repulsion with glyph of paralysis, no paralysis explosion. Have they removed spell-combo's? Seems weak, and a tad reductionistic
-mage staff use seems a bit... Overzealous. They're flipping around like mad.
-new darkspawn design doesn't change anything. They're still just orcs. In fact they looked better slightly zombified.
-The area effect spells are pretty awful at the moment. If you highlight an enemy you can't actually cast the spell. Without a Hawke-eye (HA!) view of the battle-field it can be difficult to judge exactly where you're casting the spell as well. This also means you can't cast an area spell on an enemy to track them as they move. Might be a bug fixed by final push-out.
-"=" equals didn't function as a "select-all" button, instead making the character chug a pot. Might be changed by final release, but I doubt it looking at the interface.
-rogue flailing too over the top. Seriously, no-ones that fucking acrobatic with a dex score of 14.
-MASSIVE pet peeve. Loss of "haste" as a sustained. From what I read during this demo it's on a 30 second CD, and lasts 10 seconds. Haste was one of the only things that made some of the larger areas tolerable during DA. Making me stop to cast it every 10 seconds (or 20 with the related upgrade) would make me piss blood, assuming I have more that one mage...
Things that are good?
+I like that the combat doesn't result in feet stuck to the ground.
+The new skill-tree system is pretty interesting, allowing for greater customisation, and benefits for investing heavily in one tree.
+Knock-back being more available.
+The new rivalry/friendship system is pretty interesting, especially as it earns your party new abilities.
+Warriors hitting multiple enemies is a good thing, and not made so rediculously powerful.
+Pausing and lining up moves is still as gratifying as ever, but the tweaks made to those moves feels a little bit off.
Conclusion
Really, ignore all of the above technical or gameplay issues, they can be fixed by final release. What I really take issue with is the general feeling of the demo.
Original DA felt like a PC game, it allowed for good tactical planning, and everything had a good sense of relative grittiness. Sure, you had mages and knights, but none of their abilities felt too anime.
This demo at least felt like a shoddy Xbox 360 port to PC. The menu's, obsession with action, too fast paced, too many stupid moves, none of the intelligence of the previous game all add up to a basic console feel. Feels like they're trying too hard to appeal to the stupid adrenaline-junky frat-bro console demographic. Hence the horrible female design, I mean sure, the first one had Morrigan but it ONLY had Morrigan, and once you stuck a top on her, their proportions weren't that ridiculous.
In this every woman's having trouble staying contained, and Isabella flails around with such abandonment that I'm surprised that thong even stays up her ass.
Bioware, it's not sexy. Such little clothing is about as arousing as shoving her smelly vagina in your face. It lacks the subtlety, the mystique to be anything other than gross juvenile pandering, and I can promise you now that you've lost yourself more than one potential day-one buyer because of it. And jesus-christ, even Flemeth? You've changed her character design from the creepy old witch to some cleavage-flashing WILF! I say that ironically...
Unless there's a review so sterling of the main game that it can turn a blind man catholic (or some other butchered metaphor) I'm not going to bother buying it. It's definitely lost my pre-order at least.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Batman Arkham Asylum Review (PS3) 03 September 2009 at 00:25
Just a quick note, I wrote this review (and this is a review, not a close analysis of the game) shortly after buying Arkham Asylum in '09. Put it on my Facebook for people to have a gander at, to which it received only 1 "like". Figured for my readers (if any) I'd put it up. While it's not as analytical as it could be, and it's more from my idiot stage of being a student (drinking a lot, going out a lot, trying to shag things a lot...) I feel it still has merit, as I did put a lot of effort into it. The short is that if you haven't, you should play Arkham. The character design for Harley and Ivy are horrible, but fairly accurate to the comics, though what they're doing to Catwoman in City is a bit ott.
Anyway, here it is.
Anyway, here it is.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Upcoming
Hi All
Just to let you know I'm working on the first post in this blog. I'm going to back-to-back play a series of games that's very important to me, and then give a close analysis on what was great and what was bad, what they should take away and what they should leave in the dirt.
Check out my other blogs in the meantime, I've been fairly active recently!
The Way I Play and The Life and Times of a Gamer Geek
Chiao.
teh_steve
Just to let you know I'm working on the first post in this blog. I'm going to back-to-back play a series of games that's very important to me, and then give a close analysis on what was great and what was bad, what they should take away and what they should leave in the dirt.
Check out my other blogs in the meantime, I've been fairly active recently!
The Way I Play and The Life and Times of a Gamer Geek
Chiao.
teh_steve
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What it does, is it lets you get into the game and go, "Okay, cool. This is what their combat is like. I get that." Then the next thing you do is build your character.
Then you level up and you start spending points, and the RPG mechanics are introduced in a way that's gradual, in a way that welcomes someone who would otherwise maybe go, "Whoa! Too complex!" and shut it off immediately, and lets them slide into it without even recognizing it ‑‑ which frankly, ideally increases the overall RPG customer base, which means we can make more RPGs, which means I can play more RPGs that I don't know the ending to. I like that."
From Mike Laidlaw.
Dunno, dropping skills and making things less scary seems pretty dumbed down to me. I'm all for balancing mechanics so that they're more streamlined, but this seems too much.