Of all the things they could consider dropping, this ended up being the one they picked? I hardly even hear any complaining about online passes. The thing that would make people cheer happily would be to stop their fricking requirement that PC players use Origin. Now THAT would be a sight to behold.

TiLT will be by to bash it some more once he's done kicking around the Ouya a bit longer.

Nah, I don't have to bash the Ouya any longer. The media has picked up that torch.

I would be very surprised if the PS4 doesn't have an option to automatically download and install updates, even when it's turned off.

I'm talking about the numerous options. You can:

- Purchase a physical copy and play right away.
- Purchase a digital copy and stream it.
- Purchase a digital copy and play as it downloads.
- Purchase a digital copy and play after it downloads.

Or combine as you wish. None of the above requires an installation. While the new Xbox might cover the "play as it downloads" angle (though we've heard no hints about it yet), it's very unlikely to allow streaming.

Sorry if this has been mentioned somewhere in the 13 pages but have they said anything about getting rid of the 'install' step for downloaded games?

Yes, they have. Games won't have installs. In fact, you can start playing games even while they download. For this to work optimally the developer has to prepare the game for it, but in theory it should work for all games. It's just that some of them may require a larger part of the download to be finished than others before you can play.

With the streaming services in place you won't even have to start the download after purchasing your game, or you could play it right away, save to the cloud, and continue on your local version once it's done downloading.

Yes, they've really thought this through. This is one aspect where I suspect the new Xbox won't be able to compete.

There have been hints about this earlier, so it's not surprising. I'm extremely pleased with it however. I was prepared to have to wait until March 2014 to get my hands on a PS4 and/or Xbox Infinity (if that's its name), but now it's sounding as if I can join in with the rest of you come this winter.

and still have no idea what I need the regular gold/silver/copper for.. I haven't bought anything with it yet...

Potions and skill kits are what you're most likely to spend coin on early on, but later (if you craft) you'll find that you also need tons of it to purchase common ingredients. I need enormous amounts of coal for my high-level Platesmithing for example, and those cost 1 gold for 20 coal.

Sometimes I hate MMOs - already people talking a zone chat looking for people to run dungeons specifying minimum gearscore. Luckily there is plenty of content in the game to play without dealing with people like that.

It's not really my thing, but I believe Neverwinter has a tiered dungeon system that requires a certain gear score before a player can participate. This might be why these players are specifying the scores they need.

I don't like the dungeons myself. They follow the "classic" dungeon design, which is now becoming very outdated. This means you'll be fighting harmless trash mobs for 30-60 minutes before you get to fight the boss, which is the only challenging part of the dungeon (sometimes punishingly so). I much prefer the way games like The Secret World does this, as that game only gives you a handful of trash mobs, but fills the rest of the dungeons with unique bosses.

This is Perfect World set up from all accounts.  Honestly, I'm not investing any money into this game ... that's a lie I might buy the drow and ranger class when it's released depending on cost

Word is that neither of those two is going to cost any money, but only time will tell.

That should probably be a link instead of an image, since it will download for anyone who views this page even if it's hidden in spoiler tags.

Hey, whatever happened to Lucasarts?

I heard Disney closed them.

Good bye Star Wars games. We hardly knew ye.

Welcome "one million different exclusive DLC packs with obscure Star Wars characters" and Origin integration.

No wait, that's not welcome!

Leaked my ass! That there is a carefully handled fire extinguisher, people. Not that I mind, but I find it kind of insulting to our collective intelligence.

If you don't mind spending some Zen or AD, a single Greater Bag of Holding makes a huge difference.

I tried going to the founder vendor and he doesn't have anything for me, nor did I get any emails about the stuff. I'm L18... Is there something i need to do in my account like the Zen transfer first? Is there maybe a delay between buying the founder stuff and having it activate? (been about 5-6 hours now..)

Sounds like something isn't working right. I'd try looking at the Neverwinter forums to see if other people have the same problem, and then sending a support request to Cryptic. You're losing out by not being able to train your pet from early levels.

Someone invite me to the guild! @TiLT42

Also, on their extended FAQ it says there will be a wipe prior to headstart...Did headstart already happen?

Headstart was the 5-day period before open beta, so it's already over. There will be no more wipes.

They come as you level up. I forget when for what, but it'll come via mail. E.g. you get mount at lvl 20. Companion and weapons earlier.

oh. i thought this gave you early access to the items, so you didn't have to wait to level up...

You get access to all your Founders items as soon as you reach Protector's Enclave, I believe. You should get two mails containing all your items, even the ones you can't use until level 20 (the mount). The rest of your items can be obtained from an NPC not far from Sergeant Knox. Go through the underpass close to him and you'll see the NPC there.

I know it's still in beta, but a 4-hour server maintenance that starts at 9:00pm on a Saturday?  C'mon now...

Seriously....  They couldn't wait until Mon morning for this??

The Foundry servers got extremely unstable yesterday, to the point where people couldn't save whatever they were doing and no quests or reviews would show up in the quest browser for players. I suspect any downtime was because of that.

Hey Tilt - do you know of any way to put a trap door in a room that leads to another map? They have things like this out in the world, but it looks like all the transitions that go down in the foundry are massive holes in the ground.

There should be trap door detail objects that you can place, and then you can turn them into map transitions through the story panel. I'm not sure I see what the challenge is here, unless you're trying to do this in a completely wrong way to begin with. Remember, all map transitions must be part of the story!

I just couldn't find a trap door detail object - I'll look again.

I've seen them used in other quests, so I know they're there. They might not have the name you expect though.

Hey Tilt - do you know of any way to put a trap door in a room that leads to another map? They have things like this out in the world, but it looks like all the transitions that go down in the foundry are massive holes in the ground.

There should be trap door detail objects that you can place, and then you can turn them into map transitions through the story panel. I'm not sure I see what the challenge is here, unless you're trying to do this in a completely wrong way to begin with. Remember, all map transitions must be part of the story!

I'm lvl 28 now and the Nightmare Lockbox is the only pay to play thing I've seen. And really in the end that's mostly cosmetic (e.g. different mount).

Is there a way to acquire additional bags without paying $10 for the 24 slot bag?

I'm only level 8 but the lack of bag space is already frustrating.

You get two free bags as part of the storyline. One very early on, and another as you get closer to level 30.

Held accountable for people's bad puchasing decisions?  Last I checked, no one was holding a gun to anyone's head requiring them to pre-order something.

Is that what it would take in your world for a game to be considered to have false advertising, or are you maybe just making a point that isn't relevant to the discussion?

I have a Guardian Fighter up to lv-24. I've been doing the dungeon runs, questing(main story)and foundry missions. After playing a few foundry made missions, It really is hit or miss at this point. But the potential for fun quests is huge. Played yours Tilt, not blowing smoke up.....but you are head and shoulders better than most of the ones I've tried.

Thanks! There are some gems out there, but they can be hard to find, and they often have other issues due to the author's limited experience with the Foundry and Neverwinter's game balance. For example, I played an awesome little Foundry quest yesterday that was very well written and had plenty of great detail, but I had to drop it after a few fights. The author fell into a very typical trap of making things WAY too difficult. For some reason most authors don't seem to trust Cryptic's balance that they have set up in the Foundry. When authors see an encounter group designated as Hard, they think it's not hard enough and add a couple of other encounters on top of it. What they don't realize is that such a setup becomes impossible for solo players at high levels. Enemies that were easy to fight at level 10 are now very challenging at level 34. I hope this is something they learn with experience, because a lot of quests with fantastic potential are held back by this.

At least the author with the well-written quest I dropped made a new version of it upon my request. It's not out yet, but I'm looking forward to playing it when it is. The quest's name is "A Quiet Afternoon", for the record.

I'm a bit surprised that my quests are being received so well, to tell you the truth. I made these quests for a niche audience (the one that actually reads quest text), but you can see for yourself how popular they have become. I'm steadily climbing in rating, and if it continues like this I might go from the number 2 spot to number 1.

Hey Tilt, I played A Hidden Blade and when it ended I wanted to know the rest of the story. Then I came back here and saw that there is a sequel - maybe you should put a note in the quest that the story continues, because otherwise it's just a mystery.

I actually added "Act 1" and "Act 2", plus some information about the campaign to both quests yesterday. The problem is that when you submit a quest for featuring (which I did with A Hidden Blade, but not The Lanaar Legacy yet), you lock down the current copy of the quest. When Cryptic features it, only that copy is shown and the author can no longer change it. This means that the version of A Hidden Blade you find if you scroll down to my campaign is more up to date than the one you see in the Featured list. I hadn't thought of adding chapter numbers before featuring because I didn't think being featured would separate the quest so completely from the campaign. *shrug* Live and learn.

What level is your quest designed for?

Foundry quests scale to whatever level you are.

Dragon for me.

Tilt I think it's your mission, but I talked to the first guy in the room and declined the quest, but I was still trapped in the room with no way to leave.  Was this a design decision?   

That can't be my quest. There's a door that allows you to leave at any time. However, even that is superfluous since you've got an exit button next to your minimap whenever you play Foundry content.

Let me get this straight -- you can basically DM your own dungeons in this?  In other words, you can create dungeons and put them out there for people to run?

Yes.

Sorry if you answered this earlier, but are the quests people build specifically designed for solo or group, or do they scale?

The system is mostly designed for solo quests right now with no scaling, but this will likely change in the future (there was group scaling in earlier beta weekends). Some people are designing group quests in other ways though, for example with large amounts of enemies.

I had a theory I tested out this morning and it was confirmed.  I queued up an 18 hour crafting right before the maintenance and it was done 3 hours later when servers came back up.

Ooh, I'm going to exploit this!

Let me get this straight -- you can basically DM your own dungeons in this?  In other words, you can create dungeons and put them out there for people to run?

Yes.

The game does feature a group finder, and it's really easy to use. It only works for dungeons/skirmishes within your level range though. You'll find it in one of the four tabs when you hit L (the same window that pops up when you log in). Your success with this tool depends on your class. If you're playing one of the more popular DPS classes, expect to sit in a queue for a little while. If you're playing a tank or healer, expect to jump into your chosen instance almost immediately. The three times I've tried this as a Guardian Fighter, I was in a group within seconds.

It's worth mentioning that the reward you get at the end of a Foundry quest is supposed to be based on the duration. This means that longer quests will give better rewards in the end. Of course, you have no guarantee that the reward will be for your class for some reason, and a lot of players are punishing the Foundry authors for this by rating us low.

So yes this lawsuit is stupid, and a waste of taxpayers money it will cost to litigate it.

*shrug* You clearly don't care about consumer rights. That makes us complete opposites. We won't end up agreeing about this one way or the other anyway.

I played Tilt's mission last night.  No complaints, it was pretty well done.  Only problem I had was the outdoor area seemed laggy for some reason.  Not sure if this is due to server load.  Unfortunately all the text was putting me to sleep, I shouldn't have started it at 1 AM when the queues finally let me in.  I knew going in that it was text heavy but I wanted the foundry bonus and the quest length said 20 mins although I think it took me longer than that.

The lag was due to server issues with the amount of players. It has nothing to do with my quest. Also, never take the average time for granted. A lot of people don't read even a single word of the quest dialogues and do nothing but run towards the end as fast as they can. Expect to spend more time than what the estimate says.

By the way, don't play the sequel (The Lanaar Legacy) unless you've got some time to spare. The current average time is about 45 minutes, making it one of the longer Foundry missions out there as far as I can tell.

Anyone know how to convert the AD's into Zen?

You have to sell your AD to a player who's offering Zen for them. One of the buttons at the top of the screen is dedicated to this functionality. I would be a little careful right now though. There's an abundance of AD on the market due to the Founders receiving large amounts of them. This means that you'll currently only get 1 Zen per 500 AD or so, which is about as expensive as it gets for you. It's better to wait a little for the market to calm down. If this becomes anything like Star Trek Online, the final price will probably end up somewhere in the vicinity of 1 Zen per 200 AD.

This also means that if you have Zen and want AD for them, this is the best time to do so. The prices will probably never again be this good.

So when game features get cut due to budget or publisher time constraints, the developers should be held legally liable because they promised or showed them off in a build at one point?

No, and that's not what happened in this case either. They built what pretty much was a separate product to show off at presentations, knowing that the engine wouldn't be capable of these things for the final game. Look, it's fine for Burger King to show off the ideal Whopper in their advertisements, one that is so perfectly set up that you'll never see anything like it when actually purchasing the thing, but it's something else if their advertisements show the burger containing major ingredients that are nowhere to be found in the one you get. Only games get away with this kind of crap, and it's about time it changed. Companies are getting better at developing their games in such a way that they can show off a "vertical slice" of the final game at presentations, and that's how it should be done. That's representative of the final product. What they shouldn't do is create a new level using a different engine spouting features that their developer boxes don't support, showing off features they have no idea if are ever going to work. Half-Life 2 did this, but Valve actually managed to deliver on their crazy promises. That doesn't make it okay, and there was a justified shitstorm at that time too when early code leaked and showed that the entire presentation was smoke and mirrors.

Every demo I've ever played stated that it is a "work in progress and not representative of the final product".  (I never played the demo for this Aliens game, so maybe that wasn't there.)  There were plenty of reviews that stated this game sucked.  If consumers spent their money on it anyways, isn't that just a case of 'caveat emptor'?

It wasn't a playable demo. It was a carefully choreographed presentation because the whole thing would have broken apart if anyone got to actually play it. The game also had a review embargo/delivery to reviewers that prevented any reviews until after the game was released. You might think it's okay for companies to lie to potential customers in order to sell products they know are inferior to what's being promised. I don't, and I strongly doubt most other people do as well.

Colonial Marines sucked bigtime...so what.

Indeed. So what.

"So what" because it has nothing to do with the lawsuit. Maybe you should have a look at what this case is actually about, which is showing off a "demo" that it turns out has no relation to the game that is released, hyping up features that would never see the light of day?

Wait.  Was 'A Hidden Blade' yours?  I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Yup, that's mine! It's part of the From the Shadows campaign, which has two published parts so far.

What about the knife fight? That is essentially the final boss in the game, and it's a pretty cool sequence.

Class action lawsuits in the gaming world are usually stupid, but in this case I agree. This is the kind of thing consumers should never have to accept. Just remember that this will have a wider effect on the industry if it succeeds. Those early trailers for games like Half-Life and Killzone 2 that impressed everyone? Yeah, they would never happen again (which is good in the case of Killzone).

Xbox Infinite? That's actually quite clever. 360 is a circle after all, so what do you get if you have two circles? The infinity symbol.