Kharkanas has been put on hold.

My favorite series to this day, not just in fantasy but among all literature. I've read all of them outside  of the Broach and Bauchelain novellas.

I'm not sure either Forge or Dancer's Lament really work as entry points into the world, since they rely on a lot of elements from the Book of the Fallen series.

I enjoyed both Kharkanas books, though they do tend to grind too much for their own good. Prazek and Dathenar would sometimes really get on my nerves

When it comes to the philosophy, I think it's a mixed bag. There are a lot of great discussions that do take place, but Erikson tends to go for the verbose approach, where he will muse upon anything that crosses his mind, regardless of whether it fits into the narrative. I prefer Bakker's more economical approach with an emphasis on tackling specific points, even if it is of a smaller scope.

Either ways, an excellent universe, well worth the time needed to soak it all in.

AC 1, 2, and uh either Brotherhood or 3, followed some semblance of a storyline, and were great. Each improved upon the last in a pretty meaningful way. For this reason, I'd recomend playing them in order up until that point, as you'll notice the missing mechanics if you don't.

Unfortunately, the original AC franchise was planned as a trilogy, but the story has gone to hell since they made the decision to scrap that vision and milk the cash cow.

That's the impression i got from them as well. My favorite of the original series is the Ezio trilogy, which does a pretty good job of fleshing out the character. My biggest gripe with the latter iterations is that they completely ignored the present storyline following the Abstergo events of Black Flag. Now, I understand that those segments were never the most compelling parts of the game, but they were crucial to the overall experience.

I haven't played them seriously since maybe AC3, as they felt like reskinned clones each iteration, with the addition of terrible bugs/patches/dlc and the rest of your typical fair for modern day releases that took weeks and months to fix.  typical fair for modern day releases But hey, thats what you get when you churn out a whole 'game' every few months.

I was lucky to only jump into Unity in late 2015, when they had more or less ironed out most of the bugs. Now, Brotherhood and Revelations were full of bugs.

ANYway, AC:O looks like they have gone a new direction. Made it a bit more RPG-y, and less 1-hit-ko-every-enemy-and-boss-with-hidden-blade (in the first handful of games there was little reason to have anything but the starter hidden blade equipped as the doge/counter move was always your highest damaging attack AND fully mitigated any damage when timed properly). Which, if you ask me, sounds like it'll make for a better game altogether .

Agreed, I tend to use the hidden blade for most things. Revelations had so much variation with the bombs  you could craft, yet I only tried a few of them.
I like what I've seen of Origins so far. My main concern is what will they do with the present storyline. I really hope we don't spend the whole game in the animus.

Quote from: Knee that Bends on September 19, 2017, 05:05:59 am

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Black metal, death metal, heavy metal, a bit of power metal. Basically the good stuff.

Agreed! Great subgenres! Any melodic death metal/folk metal? That's what I've been listening to the most lately. Stuff like Children of Bodom, Wintersun, Ensiferum, Kalmah, etc.

I like a couple of melodeath songs (for example Arch Enemy - Fields of Desolation), but overall it's not my style. Some of my favorite bands include Deathspell Omega and Svartidauði.

Good stuff. Another band worth checking out would be Funeral Mist if you haven't heard of them. They're on the same label as DO.

When Achamian leaves Esmenet to go to the Library in Iothiah, he encounters a bunch of guards in front of the place. He gives his name as something else yet maintains his surname. Given how popular he is in the Holy War is that really a wise thing to do?