Zwiebelchen

Backtracking is one of the things I've never seen in western RPGs. However, for some reason, older eastern RPGs did this a lot. Terranigma is probably a game everyone knows that had a LOT of hidden backtracking content. It basicly had a whole hidden mechanic that is city progression. Depending on some choices you did on sidequests in the several towns in the game, the cities would evolve in a different way and unlock new hidden sidequests if you ever went back to them. The most prominent example here was the city in france (I don't remember it's name). Depending on which mayor you supported, the town would either stay small and remain in a fantasy setting or would develope into a big-scale futuristic city ... with other flaws, however. Chrono Trigger also had a lot of backtracking content, where you could re-visit older towns and discover some new secrets and mini quests. I think some kind of backtracking is a cool thing for every RPG to have. It makes the world feel more alive and believable. However, it shouldn't be used as a way to make content production cheaper, but as a way to show the player "what happened when you left us". You know... like a side-quest of a corrupted mayor taking control over the city after the local lord had been killed through the main story-line.

Ironically, the imoen romance mod was actually one of the best romance mods I've seen so far. Except for one thing (the mary-sue style torture story that seemed out of place), it made everything "right": 1) the mod didn't develope Imoen just as a romancable blob, but it also has a well written friendship path ... and this one is highly recommended play! It's almost better than the romance path, simply because it adds something to BG that was missing all the time - an actual believable relationship to a character your PC knows his entire life that should have been there in the actual game. 2) it adds a lot of in-style party banter for a character that basicly didn't have any before TOB. 3) it feels way more interactive than the original romance plots, as there's a lot more dialogue options to choose from with more plausible reactions 4) seriously, the imoen romance mod is the only romance NPC I have seen in any RPG so far that doesn't just treat you as a walking problem solver and actually asks you how YOU feel about a situation here and there 5) it's not like she says "dude, you're my brother, we should totally have sex!", as the incest thing is actually discussed a lot throughout the plot 6) the mod was actually made for female PCs that didn't got even a single any romance option in the original game. And there's basicly a biological limit on how much incest two women can have... The maker unfortunately just decided to unlock the content for male PCs aswell due to popular demand... female PCs still get more dialogue. 7) oh, almost forgot... there's an awesome camping scene in the mod aswell. And who doesn't love camping scenes?!

Wow, and I thought I was the only one who misses that show. I wonder why this show never was successful enough to get a sequel.

LOL, I don't recall ever buying a single player game and then being told, 1 month later, that I can no longer play it unless I buy DLC. Please, lets not defend stupid. Good point! But as I said, monthly subscription is pretty much gone in the genre, with only very few resisting.

Nice thread! So here's my personal list: PRO: Attribute/statistics system seems to be pretty versatile. I love the freedom it implies and how they managed to simplify D&D without dumbing it down to casual gaming 6 races and 11 classes and enough party slots fo really create an interesting group. Awesome! The reputation system is a refreshing change to bring in some actual roleplaying into dialogues. I can finally play a stoic or sarcastic character if I want No kill XP. I can finally play an RPG where I don't have to murder everything-that-walks-and-their-cats and can play as diplomatic or sneaky as I want. Ironman mode. Bring it, bitches! Just make sure there won't be any gamebreaking bugs that can kill your entire party instantly (hello XCOM teleport bug ... who is a little ****? yes you are... yesshh you are!) CON Stronghold system and out-of-party-adventures so far sound like a lifeless bunch of dialog windows and RNG calculations ... I hope it will be more than that in the end Only 8 companions. The adventurers hall is interesting and all, but I like to have characters with a story to tell, so 8 companions is not enough in a game where I'm allowed to take up to 5 with me at the same time. But I'm okay with more companions being delivered through expansions The image-with-text choice intermissions ... I have some serious concerns that it might break the gameflow and immersion if the game constantly swaps between isometric view and scribbly images. Why couldn't they at least use 3D renders to make it match optically? From everything I've seen and everything that has been said in the previews, the animations and SFX are seriously lacking. I hope this will change until the final release, but considering it's only some months until then, I seriously doubt there will be a major overhaul. Some of the backgrounds from the news updates look very flat and lifeless. I hope the final paintover process will improve on that. I feel there is some love for detail missing compared to Icewind Dale II backgrounds.

You're right. It's erroneous to call them Cash Grabs because that implies a quick, almost Fly-by-night money making scheme. And that's not even remotely what MMOs are about. Successful MMOs are specifically designed to be the exact opposite: They're long term cash flow for a company. They're shameless fan-milking machines that require the player to first Purchase the game at full retail price ($50-$60) and then continue to shell out monthly subscription fees. As a consumer, that was a business model I used to be ok with but now I utterly despise on principle alone. The day Obsidian decides to bastardize PoE by making an MMO iteration carrying its name is the day I divorce myself from the franchise entirely, and depending on how pronounced the bastardization is, the entire company forever. So how is an MMORPG different to a normal game then? You pay the retail price and pay for every major expansion pack or DLC. Just like you do with MMORPGs. The subscription is nothing more or less than a monthly (smaller) expansion to the game due to continued content production. Note that I'm not talking about WoW here, that somehow manages to survive with a retail price, monthly subscription, retail prices for expansions AND extra cost for account services. WoW is pretty ridicolous in that regard. But it's also kind of the last man standing in that business model, as the majority of MMORPGs are free to play now (or at least free of monthly subscription).

I gotta say I really love the way the attributes are implemented in PoE (from all the informations that are available here: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attribute), even if they are highly abstracted to make all attributes viable for all classes (for example might affecting both physical and magical damage). Maybe not the ideal system from a roleplaying perspective, but definitely a system that rewards people trying out unconventional stuff. And, let's face it, building a character is the bread & butter of any good cRPG. My inner 9-year-old powergamer is excited to try out all the different playstyles that derive from the attributes for just the warrior alone. A classical STR, CON heavily armored (high "damage treshold" armor, which means almost all attacks will hit him, but they will deal a lot less damage) meatshield warrior? Or a DEX, RES build that relies on non-interruptable and precise attacks that almost never miss the target? Probably a deadly magekiller with that high WILL score. Or even an INT, PER warrior, that is just a pain in the ass with all those interrupts and long-lasting debuffs... As far as I can see it now, the attributes and sub-stats have been designed with the clear intention of rock-paper-scissoirs in mind. There's always a counter-stat for every stat available. -> accuracy vs. defense -> damage vs damage treshold on armors -> Interrupt vs concentration Not neccessarily. From what I understood from reading the wiki, armor has a "damage treshold" depending on the armor type. Which means you can totally build a MIGHT/CON meatshield warrior. It will probably eat every attack, but due to the high damage treshold, each attack will do considerably less damage (and the high CON increases health and stamina). You won't hit a lot, but you will be able to pierce through even the best armor when you do. It really depends on the beastiary, I think. If there are enough enemies that are easy to hit, but have a high damage absorb (like a golem or giant), a high MIGHT score might trump a high DEX score.

I don't want to ruin the fun here, but why exactly would that be a problem? RPGs need a good money sink. I've played so many games that suffered from a ****ed up economy system where you would get loads and loads of money, but nowhere to spend it on. Having certain great items sold by shops is the bread & butter of a good RPG economy. Btw, Baldurs Gate II was such a game. There was only a handful of items you could buy from the adventurers market that were any good. And I could always afford all of them even before even going into the underdark.

. That's extremely cool! I'd love dialogues to change depending on how rational or passionate my character behaves throughout the game. It would be so awesome if suddenly an npc tells me "I heard what people say about you... that you're always that cold analyst an all ... I want you to to give me some logical advice on that matter, I just think I'm way too involved in this to think clear anymore." You'll be pleased to know that Josh has said that this is exactly what they intend to do. Apparently different characters are even going to have different reactions to the same dominant disposition. See here for more: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Disposition Thanks for that link! All I can say is that this really lifts my expectations in terms of actual roleplaying in my dialogue choices. I hope this won't just be an occasional comment thrown into a conversation but have an actual meaning in terms of how you can approach quests and game decisions.

Yeah - I'd put textures as harder than modelling (and UV-mapping the model as harder than that - but that's just down to my own level of experience). It's always depending on how much experience you have with what. I personally don't find UV-mapping specifically harder than modelling or texturing. It all depends on what you are used to do. With good tutorials and some artistic skill, everything is possible within reason.

Clearly, the only legit way of acquiring a legendary item is sweeping the whole map pixel by pixel with your mouse curser until you find that one hidden ring under a random tree outside of the friendly arm.

Wow, what a cheap way for the publisher to make some cash out of the crowdfunding hype. It's basicly a revamp of the old publishing model, where the publisher is taking the financial risk, but also taking the profit. In this new model, the financial risk is eliminated for the publisher, but the profit is still there. Pure genius! I'm sure that idea came from an economist...

Anyone else also excited about this? As stated in this quote, easy, normal and hard difficulty don't just shift some numbers, but have different encounter designs. Awesome! I was never happy about how games so far handled the difficulty slider. Just giving a monster more damage or hitpoints doesn't neccessarily improve the challenge of a battle. I now know for sure that my first playthrough will be on hard, without the extra options. Then, on my second playthrough, I will add the Trial of Iron to the mix (and maybe reduce difficulty to normal if I felt that I needed to many reloads on my first playthrough). All the replayability added by all these options and the possible combinations is exciting! And let's not forget you have replayability for all the companions anyway. Other than that, I have only mixed feeling about the "pick your own adventure" intermezzos. I am not yet convinced that it doesn't break the gameflow. I'm concerned that it might feel weird to have an ingame-graphics dialogue and then suddenly some drawn images appear on screen and I'm playing a text adventure in the next few moments until the game switches back to isometric. I feel this could break immersion too much, but I guess we need to see it in motion first. Yay for the interactive backstory, though and the "characterization checks" like: . That's extremely cool! I'd love dialogues to change depending on how rational or passionate my character behaves throughout the game. It would be so awesome if suddenly an npc tells me "I heard what people say about you... that you're always that cold analyst an all ... I want you to to give me some logical advice on that matter, I just think I'm way too involved in this to think clear anymore."

It's always uncomfortable (subtle or not) and it should be. As should killing people. For some weird reason though, rape is almost the last instance of uncomfort (next to child murder) that still causes a reaction in people nowadays. You can slaughter people left and right in games and no one will blink an eye anymore. That's why rape and sex are so powerful in storytelling. If and only IF used right. If it's used as a tool just to make you hate a villian, then you failed. If it's used just for the thrills, you did it wrong either. It's about the victim. Hence the example I posted above about the Roze plot in FMA (that isn't actually a plot, just a tangent), where I feel it was perfectly executed. Hatred and Anger are easy to invoke. However, creating caring feelings on the audience is much harder to pull off, but also so much stronger and rewarding at the end. I've seen a lot of series and movies or played games where I couldn't care less about the characters. Because they didn't invoke any feelings in me (other than frustration for bad writing). On the contrary, some of the most memorable stories always had characters where I was like "I wish I could just give them a hug now through the screen". About the "murder doesn't blink an eye" thing: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fps_mod.png tl:dr: There should be feelings of discomfort in any good story (except maybe for pure comedy). That's what makes a story memorable and touching on a subconscious level. That's when a story will make you involved. That's also why you shouldn't neglect complicated topics just because it's complicated. Sure, if done wrong, it can cause a lot of people to raise an eyebrow. But if done right, it will be totally worth it. Have trust in your writers and don't block them on plots just because you are scared about the media backlash, that's what I'm saying.

I think one of the best implicit uses of sexual content was a side character in the anime Full Metal Alchemist. Namely Roze, an innocent girl from a town ruled by a fanatic priest. She gets befriend with the lead character until he leaves the town after freeing the city. Later, the city is struck by a war and you see a scene of soldiers forcing their way into civilian houses. When the protagonist comes back to the city one year after, you will see Roze with a child. It's never spoken out or shown and never does any character say anything about who the child is from. In fact, some people might not even realize what happened (especially younger audiences). It's subtle, but when you notice, it hits you like a train. "But Zwiebelchen, how is that story special?", one might ask now. The big difference here to other stories is: the series doesn't point a finger. It doesn't say "look at this evil rapist bastard! Yes, you can hate him!". It doesn't abuse rape as a cheap plot device to make you hate the villian - because you don't even know who the father is. It leaves you within an emotional vacuum. There's no one to be blamed or hated, except for war itself. In fact, it kind of makes you detest the protagonist for indirectly causing the events that led to this war. Perfectly crafted from a writer's perspective. The mentioned above only applies to the 2003 remake of the series. In the original series, she does not have a child. But there's still subtle hints of her being raped by soldiers. Just less obvious.

I don't get why there is a debate around allowing sexual content in a game. This is so yesterday. And I don't really see the point here, as the question of how sexual content should be implemented in a game can always be answered with just one simple line: In a way that fits the world and narrative. Sex or Rape or any kind of that sort should never be self purpose. It shouldn't be used as a plot device or trope. Moreover, it should be implemented in a way that makes the world more believable. It's the same with racism or religion. Such topics should always be present in exactly the way it would be present in the world you want to picture. If we take The Walking Dead from Telltale as an example, you will find racism themes in that game. But not more or less than you would find them in real life. There's never someone that approaches you and says "Hey dude, you are black, I don't trust black people!", because that doesn't happen in real life either (well ... it might happen, but you wouldn't side with people that stupid in a zombie apocalypse). What you can find, however, is a very subtle racist undertone here and there. It's never part of the story or just a plot device; it's there because it's real. Perfectly executed! Well done, Telltale! We don't want Mary Sue stories or - even worse - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeAsBackstory. But what I think everyone can agree on: we want a believable world. A world where sex and violence is not more or less prominent than how it really was in the middle ages. There should be people with obscene language, there should be harlots or slavery. But only where it is believable and serves a more immersive world. It would be wrong to have multiple quests about sexual abuse. It would be wrong to allow the player to bang everyone or anything without any logical reason. But it certainly wouldn't be wrong to have a brothel in a major town. Because, guess what, towns just happened to have brothels in the middle ages. Sex and sexual violence are part of any believable world. It just seems that game makers think that just because sex and violence are there, they ultimately must matter to the story. And that couldn't be more wrong. By the away, as the absence of romance stories was mentioned in this thread: While I definitely support obsidians decision on that, I do not agree with the motives behind that. It feels they did it because of how poorly written romance stories can break immersion and because nowadays, not making a romance story in a singleplayer RPG is kind of the oddity. A well written romance story can be engaging and have a great artistic value - if it fits the story and the characters, that is. The problem with implementing a romance story in a game is that as soon as you add one, all the gender equality people will chime in and demand one for the opposite sex and homosexual relationships aswell. And then you have to deliver because you don't want to be called out by media. This leads to characters being bland and only be implemented for the purpose of having a romance plot. It's kind of a ****ed up situation. I'd love to have a developer finally stand up in this case and say "We will not make XYZ romancable because it does not fit the narrative.". and give a **** about the media. But I understand that this will probably never happen.

To be fair, there are some innovations on the MMO market going on, like sandbox MMOs (Arche Age), the adaption of action combat mechanics (TERA, Wildstar), player housing (RIFT, Wildstar) and innovative quest design (The Secret World). Also, there's currently such a big shift to f2p going on, that there's pretty good mmos available f2p now. RIFT is probably the best of those. It basicly does everything that WoW does, but with added world events (RIFT is actually the first MMO that really nailed that zonewide-event mechanics after the terrible failure that was warhammer online) and pretty addictive housing (minecraft anyone? ). I can also see Arche Age getting pretty successful with the sandbox playstyle. It just depends on the korean developers to make the right decisions for the western market. All those games however do not change the actual game. All are just quest grinding games. I wonder what Everquest next will do in this regard. That could be the savior of this genre^^ However since FFXI i really miss story heavy and especially really good stories in MMOS. FFXI maybe even had the best FF story ever created and while FFXIV story is good in the end it seems really shallow in the end. I really hope Expansions will change that a bit. I agree. All the games I mentioned contributed something unique to the genre, but failed on a lot of other levels. I wish MMORPG makers would learn from the mistakes others did. But it seems they don't. I wish I could have an MMORPG with the quest design of The Secret World, cinematics of SW:TOR, combat of TERA or Wildstar, the complex talent system and the cool zone events from RIFT the crafting of Minecraft and the housing of RIFT or Wildstar.

Probably not much, as in the end, they still need the 3D geometry anyway. I guess the only real difference is, that since the camera is fixed, only geometry that is visible from the isometric perspective matters. So you can basicly leave out everything that is behind a building or wall. You also don't need to go into any detail you won't see from above anyway. And you don't have to waste time on writing a camera system. Also, you don't need to compromise scene complexity with game performance. So a house can easily have millions of polygons without any difference in FPS for the player.

Considering that there's a legit ironman mode in the game where I can not reload AND characters can end up as perma-dead, a certain kind of auto-leveling is *neccessary* for the game. Maybe not in the way NWN2 did it, but more like "the out-of-party characters are always 2 levels behind". Unfortunately, I've never played an RPG game that made out-of-party character mechanics interesting yet. Some games had mini-games attached to out-of-party characters, usually ressource gathering. And in most cases it sucked. I may seem as a fanboy, but again, Jagged Alliance II (which is not an RPG, but a TBS) is imho the benchmark of a great out-of-party mechanic. I could (and imho HAD to in higher difficulty levels) split up my mercenaries into seperate teams to fight on multiple fronts at the same time. I had to leave wounded characters behind after some semi-fatal wounds until they would fully recover. I had experts on leadership doing the militia training in liberated towns or technicians repair worn-out equipment. This system was engaging as hell. Even those characters that weren't on your main strike force felt like being part of an actual team. An interesting adaption for something like this could be some pivotal plot-points that would force me (or allow me, let's don't ruin the fun for those that don't want something like that) to form two teams that venture into two different places at the same time. It could also be like a dungeon with two entries and riddles that require the interaction between both groups. It could either be done via "in the meantime..." events tied to certain plotpoints or via directly switching back and forth between both groups. Do I split up my main strike team and add some of the out-of-partys for each group? Or do I leave my main team untouched and send the rookies as the second group? My favorite idea, however, would be to allow me to take some npcs with me into the stronghold and assign them to different management positions in the stronghold. Of course, that shouldn't automaticly apply to every npc you meet. If you think that npc X is a giant douchebag, you wouldn't want to take him with you, after all. But maybe allow me to like select 3 or 4 companions to keep around in the stronghold outside of the main strike team? Maybe, for example, you like that priest NPC and trust her, but you don't want her in your group, as you are a priest aswell, you could give her the task to watch over the soldiers in your stronghold. Or you could assign a warrior you like as the head of the guard. It also gives more meaning to the adventurers hall for those that only like to have the story-companions in their group. Of course, such a stronghold system should never end up to just be a dialog popping up like "character X lead 5 soldiers into battle against a group of bandits. 2 soldiers died. Character X gained 50 xp.". There should be events that are actually *playable* by the player. Kind of like the stronghold missions in Baldur's Gate II, just that it isn't the main PC's group doing them, but the people you left at your stronghold. If you assign story-NPCs to tasks, they will auto-select multiple choice answers based on their personality. If you assign adventurers-hall NPCs, you can select their answers. There could also be unique events based on who you selected for a task. For example, only if you assign that story NPC X to task Y, then a unique event occurs that is tied to their background story. All other characters would not get this event. I understand that such a feature is an enormous amount of extra work to do. Hence why it should probably not be in the main game in order to not take production ressources away from the main story plot. But it could be an awesome feature for an addon that focuses on stronghold-gameplay!

To be fair, there are some innovations on the MMO market going on, like sandbox MMOs (Arche Age), the adaption of action combat mechanics (TERA, Wildstar), player housing (RIFT, Wildstar) and innovative quest design (The Secret World). Also, there's currently such a big shift to f2p going on, that there's pretty good mmos available f2p now. RIFT is probably the best of those. It basicly does everything that WoW does, but with added world events (RIFT is actually the first MMO that really nailed that zonewide-event mechanics after the terrible failure that was warhammer online) and pretty addictive housing (minecraft anyone? ). I can also see Arche Age getting pretty successful with the sandbox playstyle. It just depends on the korean developers to make the right decisions for the western market.

I've made mods for both NWN and WC3 in the past. My most popular work, however, is Gaias Retaliation ORPG, a custom map for WC3 with now almost 100.000 downloads: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/gaias-retaliation-orpg-v1-2a-8-a-144066/?prev=status%3Da%26u%3DZwiebelchen It's a featured project and director's cut on the most active WC3 community website. As I simply don't have the time to actively create any content from the ground-up anymore, I'd like to go into modelling territories for PoE (in case the game turns out to be awesome). Which means landscapes and dungeon designs. But I could also think about creating new armor and weapon models aswell, depending on how easy they can be implemented. I'll create landscapes and dungeons (with the appropriate and required normal and occlusion maps) as open source files and probably also write a tutorial on how to create them. Maybe I'll also accept requests. But I won't do any scripting or actual gameplay and leave those backgrounds free for use to the community. But this rises and falls with how much support obsidian will provide for the modding community and how easy it is to implement custom scripts, triggers, encounters and maps. But I'll definitely give it a try.

I bet Carl is wearing the dandy hat of the deseased yak! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-vsynsE8RQ

That would work if there's no chance of your characters walking behind anything (houses, trees etc) - if there is, you'd need the z-depth occlusion map at least) True, unless some sort of layered cut+paste+transparency solution is possible? For occlusion, that would be sufficient in simple cases. However, you are still missing a normal map, so any light sources in your area will look terrible. Just to get things straight here for people that are not experienced with texture maps: This does not work like in IE games anymore. There *is* dynamic lighting and 3-dimensionality through normal and occlusion maps. Hand-painting those only works for very simple structures like the inside of a building. It's much easier to derive those maps from a 3D model.

Occlusion and height map are basicly the same. And as such, can be created automaticly via the appropriate modeller plugin. Collision maps as binary images can easily be hand-painted over the rendered background image. So I guess a tool for that could be useful, but isn't really required. Light sources and dynamic lighting, of course, would need a proper tool to be placed. But so would all other things that fill the map with life: NPCs, monsters, destructable objects, etc. This is where a tool is needed. But it's very likely that these tools exist and are obsidian's home-made creations, since unity doesn't explicitly provide commercial editors for things like that. So in the end the modding community kind of depends on the release of such a tool to thrive. I hope they'll consider it. @Silent_Winter: Of course, the technical possibility is one thing, but the artistical skill is the other. However, from my experience with modding communities in the past, I can tell that artistical expertise is just a matter of perception and purpose. I've seen everything from stylized, comic-y looks to ultra HD photo-esque stuff made from amateurs. Who wouldn't love to play a custom made module of PoE with comic-style backgrounds or just black and white scribbly crayon landscapes? Well I'd definitely play that! @BabaYaga: It's a matter of what you consider community content. Of course, expecting a complete module spanning several hours of gameplay would be ridicolous (although that has been done before, remember the DA:O mod replicating Chateau Irenicus!). But I could for example see a community mod that adds a small dungeon with riddles or ultra hard arena battles or just some custom housing. Scope differs from mod to mod. But just because a mod has a small scope doesn't mean it's not valuable content. I played an NWN module in the past where you were the matron of a brothel. It basicly had an economy sim feel to it and not a single battle. Just to give an example of how different community content can be. And despite the rather dark setting, it was engaging as hell.

A delayed release practically results from two things: 1) an unexpected problem arised that requires remaking some content from scratch. That could be anything from art assets to even core systems 2) poor planning and impossible milestones The former is a result of bad execution. The latter is a result of bad management. The more experienced your programmers, content and art creators are, the less likely is issue number 1. The better you know your workers and their workflow, the less likely is issue number 2. PoE developement is kind of in a perfect position here: There's only a few people working on this project, which makes management and communication much easier. Those people also are experienced from various previous (both successful and not-so-successful) projects, so they know which problems they can expect and how to deal with them. Having only 1 or 2 people working on each department that you know exactly what they are capable of makes planning a project easy and predictable. You can tell from experience how much time a 3D artist takes roughly to create a creature model. You can also tell how much content X a quest designer can do in Y weeks, etc.. So do I expect PoE to be shipped in time? No. After all, there's some stuff that they don't have experience with from their previous work. Basicly everything the publisher dealt with in the past. But do I expect a significant delay? Another 'No' here.