The Bard's Tale 4

I Kickstarted this and started the download remotely at home, so I'll be playing this tonight. Watched that video on my lunch hour, and honestly this is exactly the game I wanted. The only real negatives I saw from his review is that it isn't optimized very well, but as long as it plays as well as it did during his video, that's good enough for me. The gameplay itself looks like what I've been missing for all these years. I'm super excited to finally have this to play.

I can't quite tell if this will satisfy the other craving I've been having or if it is just like every other modern game, and a lot of you might think I'm crazy for wanting it, but I'm fucking tired of pre-built companions that I feel compelled to bring with me instead of creating my own. I'm never going to play a game like this a second time (I have no idea how some of you not only have time for that, but also enjoy it), so if I skip all the pre-made companions, I know I'm missing a bunch of potentially great stuff. But back in the day, you made your entire party the way you wanted them, and it was fabulous. I'm tired of having to keep a subpar character just because he has a bunch of storyline and quests devoted to him. Just give me more overall quests then! Don't make me swap in different characters to "experience" the full game. I miss the days of having the entire party be products of MY imagination, not someone else's.

I saw a "Soandso joins the party" message during that review, so I'm not super hopeful, but my ultimate fantasy would be to make my entire party, and then have 1 or 2 slots for temporary companions that only stick around for a specific quest or two. I mean, strictly speaking from an ease of making a game perspective, I'd think that is way easier than trying to design all these characters that will have to respond to different interactions depending upon who else is in the party with you, like Divinity and Pillars of Eternity do. But every fucking game seems to pride itself on giving you a dozen different characters to choose from. Fuck that. Leave the creation to me, and then just add some here and there for specific quests.

Thanks. Yeah, I was afraid this was more of the same, I was just sort of griping/whining that I wish someone would take the initiative and go back to what I can only assume is a simpler method for the people actually designing the game, while also being more fun for someone like me. Maybe the players themselves are too retarded these days to be troubled to make up 6 characters themselves??

I mean, even the mechanics of either auto-leveling characters "in waiting" or having to pull them out periodically to level up those that are lagging behind has to be more effort than making you create your own, doesn't it?

I played a little last night, and yeah, it is definitely something they intend you to play with the provided characters. Which is fine, it just isn't my dream game. I did find a merc token pretty early into the game though, after finding the first guy and following the blood trail and freeing his buddies. I think it was in one of those "hidden" chests that you have to sing for, but I could be mistaken.

I've encountered some of those horrible lag spikes too, but turning everything to High instead of Ultra has reduced them quite a bit. It auto-detected everything except one to Ultra for me, so I should be able to play it that way, but honestly the game isn't that "graphically beautiful" that I notice any difference between High and Ultra. The thing that DID make a difference, and I'm mentioning it here because I wish I had known about it right away, is turning off fucking Motion Blur. Holy fuck, I thought I was losing my sight/mind or something, because I was getting a headache playing the fucking game. Fortunately I checked the options again and saw that. After turning it off, the game is immensely easier to look at, for me at least. Why the fuck would someone want the game to simulate motion blur?? Your eyes do that for you if you turn fast enough, no need to do it artificially.

Other than that, I'm enjoying it, but hopefully the manual gives a little more description of some of the skills. Of course I didn't read it, so I'll do that while I'm supposed to be working!

Oh, and apparently the code I got from Kickstarter also gives me a "Red Boots DLC" along with various items and skins. I found the items and skin (although no idea if that is only usable on a character you make, as it wouldn't really make sense on Melody), but wtf is Red Boots? Clicking on it on the actual Kickstarter page takes me to an imgur pic of Wasteland 2. WTF? Anyone know what the fuck that is? I sort of assumed I'd get fucking red boots, obviously, maybe even like the ones in the Broadway show Kinky Boots, but yeah, not seeing that anywhere.

EDIT: Read those patch notes after typing this. Seems maybe I can't handle Ultra, since that's what it defaults to, so turning the settings down would obviously help.