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Whoa, thanks for reading it ALL. This is why we wuv MCA and several other developers, they just keep the good ole 'By Gamers, For Gamers' spirit alive. Here's hoping for kickstarting success, cheers! (Another thing I forgot before is the music! A nice (even if little) score can make a game! Nowadays its all "epic" (and sadly generic) giant orchestra themes, we don't need those. Arcanum had very nice, violin-led rather quiet and emotive music, Fallout had a very fitting techno-tribal (?), heavy-on-drums score, System Shock 2 had a nice mix of atmospheric and techno tracks...)

All of Double Fine

2d isometric rpg. Slow paced. Combat should be violent, dangerous and avoidable.

Now go and make that isometric RPG in that newly open sourced implementation of Infinity Engine...

You have a very interesting point of view here. Please name at least 9 PC rpgs using a steampunk setting. Arcanum, Septerra Core... What else?Hell, just try to name rpgs or games or anything period recently that's been steampunk based. Fable III, Resonance of Fate, Bioshock, Damnation, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, Steambot Chronicles, Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness, and that's about it from the last 5 years. And not a single RPG was mentioned. Thanks for proving my point. I also sense lots of JRPG derpity in the rest of your post.

Another intersting point you're trying to make is that we, who want isometric/turn based/whatever rpg don't really like those games, it's just the rose tinted glasses making us believe we like them. That would mean nobody really likes games(rpgs) being made today. If a paradigm shift happens, and games in the future are completely different than the oh so excellent, immersive, emotionally engaging, cinematic action rpgs experiences we are getting now, will you suddenly unlike both the games and the entire concept?

I'm on the edge of my seat here!

Even though I'm capable of filling your inbox and blog responses with my ideas and preferences with hundreds of messages, I believe that whatever choice YOU guys at Obsidian make would be the right one. We have faith in you, otherwise we wouldn't be posting here and everywhere on the internet. Now, get this **** kickstarted!

Actually, no! I was pretty much told that I was banned by Alec Meer because I pressed his buttons. How did I do this? I was getting annoyed at him and his pets for their "console toys" and "PC Master Race" attitudes. Apparently, by holding the position that the PC is not a platform for some Master Race, and that this is as offensive as it is arrogant, I got banned. It's humiliating for Meer to be picked up on this, and I was one of the few to actually criticise him and his fans for it. That's what I was banned for. For actually not being holier-than-thou. Go figure. I tend to find that PC users, like yourself, tend to project a lot. I'm not the one being holier-than-thou here. I'm just fighting the idea of "Master Race" notions. Like old RPGs must obviously be superior, or that the PC is the greatest platform ever. Geez. I'm just disagreeing with the hipster horde. If disagreeing with the hipster horde makes me holier-than-thou, then so be it. Well, I suppose it is if you have the sort of mindset where someone fighting for the respective underdog is actually being holier-than-thou for disagreeing with the majority. Because trying to make out that current RPGs aren't inherently evil, or that the PC isn't inherently superior than every other platform puts me on a high-horse. Yup. It all makes sense. Sigh. Internet. --- Also, if I wasn't speaking a lot of truths here, why would people be getting wound up? I'm just fed up of stuffy attitudes where people are all "MONEY FOR SEQUELS!" or can't get past the idea that the '90s had the best RPGs ever, and that this era of consoles has brought the evil and vile 'dumbing down' with it. I mean, there's a lot of that, here. Intellectual superiority. The thread smacks of it, and I've just been voicing an opinion which is contrary to what people hold as the superior opinion, the correct opinion. So, by not having the correct opinion. I am therefore being holier-than-thou/on a high horse/a troll/whatever other labels people feel they need to apply. If there wasn't any truth to what I have to say, then people wouldn't get wound up. People never get wound up over lies, because lies are easy to ignore. I've never seen anyone get wound up by a lie. No, there's truth to what I say. Perhaps an examination of perspectives is in order. Because all I've done is support the idea that, hey, modern RPGs are actually pretty okay and that you don't need walls of text, or turn-based combat, or walls of text, or to be an archaic RPG from the past to actually be good. The thing is is that only a small subsection of the Internet is going to be here, only a few people will have their attentions caught by this. Someone has to speak up for differing opinions. And yeah, I have an opinion or opinions which are unpopular with those who believe their opinions are intellectually superior. I must be some kind of troglodyte for not supporting the isometric, wall-o-texty RPG, right? Yeah. Again: Oh Internet. --- Ultimately, to wrap up: There is a host of opinion here that Obsidian should just try and recapture the past and try and make a sequel or try and do something archaic. And it's easy to demonise someone with an unpopular opinion. Very easy. It's always easy to demonise the guy with the unpopular opinion. But what I'm saying is that instead of forcing Obsidian to do exactly what you remember, ignoring their years of evolution in the process, why not let them put what they've learned to use? Why not let them experiment and do something wildly different, something that's nothing at all like the RPGs you remember. It's just sad that potential like this could be overturned by a desire for people to just have their nostalgia satisfied. Except that nostalgia never will be. How many people actually feel satisfied when returning to those isometric, wall-o-texty RPGs? If you don't, then having Obsidian making a new one isn't going to help. --- And one last thing. Don't you think it's just a tiny bit entitled to push for an RPG which console gamers wouldn't be able to play? Once this is done on KickStarter, if Obsidian do it right, they could port it to consoles. But if we listen to the PC Master Race types, then that can't happen, because that sort of person would happily damn console users to non-existence. But they DO exist. And they don't have the right to enjoy a strange, new RPG too? Do you honestly believe that it would be comfortable playing something like Baldur's Gate on a television? Like I said, I just think that there's a lot of snottiness here, a lot of upperclassman behaviour, a lot of one-upmanship, and a lot of damning of groups of people who aren't PC nerds. I'm calling it out and I'm getting demonised for it.

A Planescape sequel, in the Planescape setting, in isometric, real-time pausable, using a non-broken ruleset. Please!

I hope Obsidian's owners are cool dudes. Hey if it helps, you can tell them that Fargo is persuing the same thing for Wasteland 2.

This was all said by 'Wulf' (the stuff that I'm replying to) but the quotes stuffed up and this is me trying to fix them. Nope didn't work, guess it hates me messing around with the quotes. Hmmm well I guess we all have different opinions on what games were really that great anyway, so actually people are asking for sequels to games that (in their head) were really that great? Not sure how constructive that bit is but whatever. And asking for a sequel to a game, while unimaginative, is also pretty convenient shorthand for "The kind of work you did here? This was good. I would like to play another thing that has similar experiences." For example, Planescape Torment is wordy as all heck and has weird people or whatever, people want to see that, I dunno. This next bit confuses me. I don't think anyone was advocating a difficult UI. Most isometric games I've played have been relatively easy to control. Well these are good ideals I guess but 'do something new' is fairly nebulous. Some systems work pretty well, and having had them once, people are often gonna want them again rather than some nebulous "New revolutionary thing that is totally gonna blow your mind I promise you, or my name's not Peter Molyneux!" (OK perhaps a little cynical, but I am often fairly skeptical of alleged 'paradigm shifts'.) Then again, games like Baldurs Gate and Planescape: Torment are even more beloved than Bloodlines, so perhaps the isometry (Is that a word? Probably not, I've decided to use it anyway) is not the reason for Redemption's relative obscurity as you seem to think. I don't really know what you're talking about here. Is this about how a lot of the mechanics in RPGs are based on stat numbers? Like, percentage change to do x amount of damage, that kind of stuff? If so that kind of stuff's actually pretty important in an RPG. Being able to reduce the value of items and stats to a numerical figure is easier than a bunch of nebulous 'excellent/good/bad' or whatever values. I mean you probably meant something else entirely but to be honest I'm not certain. It gets a bit weird from here on because you do all this ridiculous gushing and talking about paradigm shifts and how they're not hard... but you're also still calling other people hipsters? Odd, but OK... I guess my response to this bit is in my rewrite of your bit. Telepathy, gotcha. Been done. Worked OK I guess, by which I mean it was exactly like normal speech except they'd punctuate it with asterisks or something and mess with the syntax. Actually I'm not sure most publishers would be all that keen on PS:T, it was a 'cult classic' rather than a 'box office smash', and those are not exactly what every publisher dreams of. Agreed on the licensing thing, although I'm not sure why option 'b' has to be 'something unusual'. I've played 'something unusual' a number of times, it rarely ends well. My impression of the original suggestion was that we, the potential backers, would be giving them an idea of things we like, not trying to design their game for them. Smooth. Play the 'get some time up' card. Also, mildly amused at the "Not played years of RPGs" and then referencing a game that came out over a decade ago. If paradigm shifts were 'not hard' they'd probably occur a little more frequently and a little more successfully. And reading Avellone's original post, it actually seems like number crunching, sequels and 'ancient game', as you so dismissively put it, are exactly what this is 'all about'. The problem with your above ideas (apart from being a pretentious load of tripe) is that in general, we play characters for whom a world will NOT be alien. Trying to play a game in a world where everything should be totally normal to your character, when actually everything is completely bizarre to the player, is an artificial barrier to roleplaying that runs counter to its ideals. Familiarish settings are good because they help facilitate roleplaying. EDIT: Well this quote thing is now my archnemesis.

A spiritual successor to Torment (although not a direct sequel) would be the way to go, I think.