Yst

I will admit to the problems created by Vancian magic systems (determining refresh mechanisms, principally). But I think they offer by far the richest solution from a storytelling point of view. A crucial question which I think confronts a game like this, when considering magic systems, is the question "what makes a system narratively interesting?" My answer would be that to be narratively interesting, a system has to allow for the casting of a spell to be made a narratively significant event. That's more or less impossible in a WoW style (cooldown-based) magic system. Every new encounter will generally see the casting of one's natural or prefered "rotation". There's not too much I like about D&D 4E, but the division into At-Will, Encounter and Daily abilities, I think actually works nicely. Having a "nuke" which actually functions as a "nuke" (i.e., the final answer, when all else fails) actually makes a single spellcast a narratively meaningful event. At the same time, one never ends up completely 'out of gas' (as you will always have your at-wills). It also forces the player to consider the strategic merit of pulling out the big guns, and the unfortunate consequence implied by using a rarely available ability when it is not strictly necessary. Whatever system the game goes with, I would like to see abilities of "daily" rarity. They mechanically reflect the progression of the narrative (e.g.., reflect whether you had to pull out the 'big guns', or were compelled to exhaust your resources), and create dramatic tension, as resources are exhausted, in a way that a system without finite magical resources does not. Anyone who has ever exhausted the last of their spellbook in the depths of a dungeon teaming with the undead knows what that feels like. There is simply no such thing, in most non-Vancian systems.

I'm not really especially a fan of Tolkienesque high fantasy these days more than I am of any other given fantasy setting. But I will nonetheless agree with those who point out that elves, dwarves, and the like, are categories built on an incredible wealth of folklore, which elegantly ties in to core themes within the human experience in fairly fundamental ways (which is how it became folklore in the first place, after all). And this wealth of context and folklore simply isn't available, if one is working with a wholly invented race, or collection of them. So one shouldn't just idly decide to invent a new world, simply on the basis that new things are better, when existing ones have so many more stories to tell. Using familiar mythological categories and frameworks gets one past lengthy world narrative basics and the nitty-gritty of broader setting explanations, and lets one start talking about specific characters, their motives, their ideas, their frustrations and their intentions much more readily. It lets one move on to the way the setting is evolving, or the crisis it is moving towards, rather than necessitating constant retreading of where it's been and why it is that way. There are times and places for newly invented races and cultural contexts. But a game which is more interested in the story of a group of characters than it is in the revelation of a world for the world’s sake is probably better off not reinventing the wheel, as far as fantasy world archetypes go.

Hah! Your interest in the game is contingent not on storytelling, characterisation, world narrative, gameplay features, nor the talent of its creators being adequate to the realisation of these things, but on your being reassured that other people can’t use a black powder weapon type at any time, while playing said game. Let’s be clear on this. The concern is not that some given feature or quality should be present in the gameworld. The concern is that an item type which other people like is being made available to them. And you don’t want it to be. Which causes you to completely reverse your position on the game. It’s this sort of drama queen nonsense which results in developers rightly ignoring 95% of the incoherent wailing and gnashing of teeth which proceeds from the community of any given substantially popular game these days. There have been some rather silly feature demands since this project was announced, naturally. But this demand that - not even a broad feature, but a weapon type - be made completely absent, has to be the stupidest ultimatum I have seen issued by a hot-under-the-collar gamer since half the population of the Bioware forums played the ending to Mass Effect 3 and declared its intention to go on a shooting rampage, overthrow the shackles of the cruel civilisation which had birthed it, and begin a new life nourished by the blood, and fed by the entrails, of the children and grandchildren of every EA/Bioware employee who had touched the project, unto the seventh generation.

This is one of the many things which PS:T did, and so few games have done since. There are two cases (that I can think of) in the game, in which one can reach a fail state which feels like a reasonable end to the story. Not a GAME OVER RETURN OF GANON. Rather, the player's decisions simply meant his quest was at an end. Perhaps they had been right and good decision, and this ought to be his fate. But he had no further fate to fulfil. I adore the way this sort of thinking does away with the gaminess which can often be so prevalent, in RPGs. Make me ask "is this a right and proper fate?" Don't make me ask "did I win?" If the answer to the first question is ambiguous, some game writer has done something very right.

I enjoy Pathfinder's treatment of black powder weapons and think I'd certainly enjoy something like it in Project Eternity. Perhaps at the very rare guns level of rarity, with Early Firearms only. I don't find that the Gunslinger class detracts from the "medieval fantasy" flavour of Pathfinder, for those who value that. Non-magic ranged DPSers (whether bowmen or wielders of powder weapons), as DPS specialists who are to a large extent dependent on a party for CC/tanking, are a role which I enjoy the presence of, as a contribution to the variation and complexity which can exist within an RPG party. It's also, from a flavour point of view, one among many solutions to the problem of a vaguely defined 'magic' (rather than something with a stronger connection to material culture and personal narrative) becoming the answer to everything, in an RPG universe. Sometimes, magic makes for interesting lore. But too often, it's simply the laziest solution available for explaining any given cause and effect, in an RPG. More creative minds come up with things like Morte's Teeth (in Planescape: Torment). A weapon with a magical element, but a material cause and effect, and a personal history behind it, which still allows for the story to see it change over time. Or a gunsmith's prized (if messily jury-rigged) musket, perhaps, in a medieval fantasy game with a gunslinger-like archetype? If Project Eternity is to be a game which benefits from the depth which a party-building focus can provide (as IWD did, for example), I think these specialist classes are all the more appealing. Building a system around the premise that every class should have enough CC, enough tanking ability, enough healing, enough DPS, etc., etc., to fight on its own so utterly deprives one of options for interesting party building, by putting aside questions of party chemistry for the sake of allowing everyone to 'solo together'.

On the other hand. I do hope that Obsidian has the wisdom not to give into the idiocy which has afflicted RPG designers in the past, when confronted with Rangerphiles, who wish rangers to be, in effect, a tank, a pet class, a ranged DPSer, a healer, and a divine caster, with no concessions given in any of those areas, by virtue of all of them being present. Drizzt is one of the worst things (who am I kidding - the worst thing) to happen to D&D class design, in the history of its development. AD&D 2E Rangers are such a terrible idea from the get-go, so devoid of a clear niche of their own which isn't already otherwise covered by the other archetypes, that it's understandable players decided they should be dual-wielding pure DPSers (Barbarian niche, more or less), rather than ranged druid-fighter-thieves. Much more sensible is the subsequent reconsideration which sees them as non-magic ranged DPS specialists. There, they genuinely have a unique role, and aren't merely prepackaged Fighter-Druid-Thief multiclass specialists, with some distinctive flavour text. As far as popular class ideas, there are a lot of interesting archetypes which have emerged over the past ten years and gained traction, in Pathfinder particularly. I only hope that Project Eternity doesn't consider itself beholden to the worst ideas to be held over from second edition, in designing its brave new world. I hope, in short, that it doesn't consider itself responsible to the ranger, and to the would be Drizzt, in 2012.

It hardly seems necessary to belabour the point further. But likewise, I will say, as someone who enjoys playing multiplayer RPGs, and currently plays two MMORPGs (Guild Wars 2 and WoW), I would hate to see Project Eternity waste time on multiplayer functionality. The bastardisation of the multiplayer RPG experience in the pursuit of a single player style (The Old Republic, Diablo 3), and the bastardisation of the single-player RPG experience in the pursuit of multiplayer options (Mass Effect 3, Diablo 3) serve neither one very well. Project Eternity, as so far outlined, benefits from a wonderful focus on a straightforward goal which its fans are in love with, for all its simplicity: it aspires to realise the things we most love about the isometric RPG adventures of days past. It's a realisable goal. If there's anything remarkable about it, it's simply that achieving 1997 RPG design objectives is regarded as a dizzying aspiration, in 2012. The last thing this glorious clarity and simplicity of vision needs is vague gesturing in the direction of an uncertain multiplayer approach, which might serve to obscure such an elegant yet achievable design.

Like others here, I don't feel there's a meaningful answer to this, for those who've played them all. BG brought me to PS:T, inasmuch as it preceded it. PS:T brought me to IWD, inasmuch as it preceded it. IWD brought me to NWN, inasmuch as it preceded it. What brings me here most significantly? PS:T's player character self-exploration. BG's world exploration. IWD's dungeon crawling. VTMB's and KotOR II's social and character interaction mechanics. New Vegas's humour. And the hope that all these things can once again be realised, in a contemporary game.

1) Descriptive text really adds to the richness of interpretation the game can provide. Absolutely, yes. 2) Show the value of the skill which was required to make an option appear. But hide any option which is unavailable because a skill is too low. The player doesn't feel punished for what they do not have. They merely feel rewarded for making their character as they did.

One mature subject I find unhappily little broached by RPGs is the subject of childbearing. So seldom do we encounter directly the rearing of children as yet in their swaddling clothes. So seldom does a woman give birth. It's perhaps simply a subject particularly alien to the thinking of the 15-19 male demographic which has predominated, in RPGing of days past. An unweened child evokes such radically different emotions in persons of different life experiences. But it is one of the focal realities of human life. We bear children. We rear our young. And we ought do so in our RPG stories. Yes, oftentimes, RPG Adventurer = Murder Hobo. But we can be so much more.

Companions who are thoughtfully critical are a glorious addition to any game narrative, particularly given how rare they are. Obsidian, Black Isle and Troika created some great examples, mind you. Kreia was a really fantastic example. Nothing pleases me more than an unstraightforward and unheroic character who compels me to say "hmm, maybe she has a point" and causes me to evaluate my position in light of her contrasting input. One is far less likely to do this with conventional character types, whom one knows will simply assume a good, evil, chaotic, lawful, etc., position. Mind you, when a character whom we at first evaluate as "evil" or otherwise unheroic challenges us to identify with them, that as well can be very interesting. So this is not to say that everything need be shades of grey. Only that we are more likely to take emotions lent of what seems to be human insight more seriously than the typecast emotions of a standard alignment.

Really, I think the "skippable dialogue" phenomenon is amongst the worst things to enter into RPGs in the last ten years. By "skippable dialogue", I mean dialogue the reading of which will not substantially impact gameplay, and the reading of which is not intended to be particularly significant to the game experience, much less necessary to it. The WoW RPG design mold, essentially. At its worst, when taken single player (as it must be granted that in a multiplayer context, players may be creating their own story, rare though good multiplayer RP is). Ultimately, dialogue either *is* or *is not* significant to gameplay. If it is not significant to gameplay in an RPG, an opportunity is being wasted, if indeed the game interests itself in characters or story. If it is significant to gameplay, but its significance is curtailed to allow for its being ignored, both experiences of the game (the dialogue free experience, and the dialogue-heavy experience) are cheapened, to make room for a half-way treatment of an incompatible game dynamic. If a game (e.g., Limbo) chooses text-free storytelling, I will not necessarily judge it inferior for that fact, if it uses that dynamic well. If a game chooses text-heavy storytelling, as this game surely will, I will judge it for the quality of its storytelling within that dynamic. But if a game tells me it uses text-based storytelling, as its chosen mode, but it isn't all that important, I will judge it very harshly indeed. A game has to choose what it wants to be, and be that thing as best it may. Choosing the worst of two worlds, and straddling the abyss in between them is no solution at all.

Ugh. Yeah, this is my problem with all NWN2's evil dialogue options. They aren't any interesting or intelligent kind of evil. Most of them are a "petulant eight year old" sort of evil. Which is especially sad given that KotOR II's portrayals of evil were so incredibly good. I think NWN2's treatment of evil is, quite amazingly, the worst portrayal of evil I have ever encountered in an RPG. If I never read another line of dialogue beginning "I could care less...", it'll be too soon. Yes, all too often the PC's evil dialogue options in NWN2 cross over from "petulant eight year old" into "petulant eight year old with exceedingly bad grammar". Lord Petulant Eight Year Old to the rescue! I don't demand that all evil be evil genius. I can deal with evil insanity, done right, even when it isn't an intelligent madness. Chaotic Evil which isn't so much unprincipled as it is just wildly, whimsically impulsive. The Xaositects of PS:T being the obvious example. I can deal with egotistical evil, even when it isn't an egotism justified by intelligence. I can even deal with evil for evil's sake, if there's a relevant backstory (worship of a god of evil, or in the case of Star Wars, pursuit of a force of spiritual evil). That the PC's evil dialogue was done so badly in NWN2 is all the more inexcusable given how little work it would take to make it less terrible. It isn't even voiced! How much harder would it have been to fix up a few hundred lines with something that wouldn't be shouted down as garbage by your average teenage harry potter fanfic blogger?

I suppose it isn't a matter of whether I like Fantasy or the alternatives, for me. After all, virtually all RPGs are some variety of fantasy. Consequently, it's instead a matter of whether I like High Fantasy or Low Fantasy. And, as of late, I suppose I'm inclined to choose low fantasy. The reason for that is, it seems to me that the traditional province of High Fantasy, which is allegory, isn't its province at all in recent years, and is virtually never its focus in RPGs. While Low Fantasy continues to imagine possible worlds, alternate histories and future dystopias in order to stimulate thought on what could have been, might be, or will be, High Fantasy, abandoning its interest in allegorical commentary on what is, or what was, has largely persisted as an excuse for the creation of simple, unrealistic, and unconvincing characters, and highly contrived (usually epic) plots. After all, when you, for example, create your own fantasy race who can tell you you're wrong, when you portray them as a dull, cartoonish caricature totally lacking in variety or nuance? High fantasy is useful as a basis for pen and paper RPGing because the group of players is not expected to have a particularly subtle or well-developed aptitude for characterisation (though some may), and because neither any player nor the DM has full control over the direction and development of the narrative, even if they happen to be a narrative genius. Transferring the same principles of characterisation and story-telling to a more controlled medium (like games) or an entirely controlled medium (like books) is idiotic. But I don't blame games for that entirely. Lazy, unconvincing high fantasy authorship preceded lazy, unconvincing high fantasy game narratives by some time.

IIRC, the companion (joinable NPC) dialogues were written exclusively by Chris Avellone while most of the other lines (PC dialogue, item descriptions, some cutscenes) were done by different writers. This certainly makes good sense. I had a hard time believing the same creative mind(s) behind characters like Sand and Shandra was behind the sometimes downright abysmal PC dialogue text. NWN2's PC dialogue was all the more disappointing for me because KotOR II's PC dialogue was frequently, I thought, absolutely brilliant. The way multiple dialogue options presented to the player would build on each other to portray different and intermingling aspects of the character rather than merely exist as opposite and unrelated alternatives, and the way they managed to develop the PC's inner conflicts was often very clever, and enriched the storytelling. By comparison, NWN2's PC dialogue is a big huge festering blister on the ass of an otherwise fairly pristine product.

Thoughts on NWN2: Pros: - The stronghold was definitely a nice touch. - The Trial was a nicely scripted and gratifying episode, with some worthwhile characters (Sand, Torio) involved. - Some of the NPCs (Sand, particularly) are written respectably well. - Shandra is an uncharacteristically human character, for an RPG character. This was nice to see. It's always a great relief to see an RPG character written as a person, and not as merely an exaggeration of a stereotype of a caricature of a fantasy archetype. - Interaction with the community and the active and productive patching process is nice to see. Cons: - Dialogue writing is a hit and miss affair. Some characters certainly hit, as I've suggested. But the PC's dialogue, on the other hand, is a train-wreck. Some of the PC's dialogue is written so poorly...it's hard to imagine it having been written by someone who was attributed the title 'writer' (even in a project-specific capacity) and given money in return for their services. Was someone's 14 year old kid hired over the summer to do the PC dialogue for a big name RPG? Truly, that's how it reads. The variation in quality is the odd thing. As I say, some of the NPCs are just fine. Then I encounter lines of PC dialogue which I would consider to be somewhere slightly beneath a middling High School level writing proficiency. Comments: - Multi-Select coming in 1.05 is a very, very welcome addition. Ideally, this should have been there from the start. But it's nice to see it coming, even now. - I enjoyed the OC once, but I'm somewhat surprised to find myself concluding that, ultimately, I simply can't see myself playing the OC ever again. The good dialogue served its purpose, while the bad (mainly PC) dialogue was painful, and the whole of it simply doesn't strike me as an exercise worth repeating. And that disappoints me, somewhat. While this game was understood to be a substantially player-content-driven product, I'm sad to find myself dismissing the OC as something not even worth remembering, after only one run through.

The Malk dialogue for VTMB is the benchmark for good RPG comedy. Not merely goofball caricatured antics, but intelligent absurdity. The encounter with the stop light; the encounter with Heather at your haven after she starts picking up your...strange dysfunctions; the discussion with the newscaster in your TV. All golden. It may be a symptom of the gross exaggeration of the Malkavian clan by gamers who only know how to take things too far, but it was perfectly executed, as such.

Of all the things I didn't want to hear, that's pretty much #1. And I consider it all the more inexcusable, if this is so, because the Adventure market, insofar as it is strong anywhere, remains strongest on the PC. Consoles might be where the money's at these days elsewhere, but for adventures, I have to question whether this is really the case, and it makes sense to write the game for console and port, rather than take the PC seriously as a platform from the get-go. I suppose the sales figures will tell.

Yeah, I've definitely got to get my hands on Dreamfall. I very much liked the first. Unlike some people, I didn't think it was the absolute best that in-game story-telling has to offer (In Adventure, I found Grim Fandango more artful and in dialogue writing, PS:T more nuanced), but it was a very good game indeed, with some very lovely art as well. I hope that Dreamfall will prove to be, for me, the cure to Oblivion. The cure for yet another RPG which, while very good in many important respects, still seems to suffer from the continued delusion that it makes perfectly good sense to complement some of the finest talent and creativity in the world of game coding on the one hand with, on the other, an overall quality of dialogue writing and narrative depth surpassed with no small frequency by early teenage Backstreet Boys fanfic.

That's a depressingly over-accurate manner in which to spell P|-|47 |_3\/\/72

I often use entirely mouse-based movement in FPRPGs lately. Traditionally, I'm ASDF for twitch gaming (FPS, MMORPG), as this is the fastest twitch configuration for rapid and complex character control and has the additional advantage of putting the fingers permanently in typing position, for the sake of any typed commands. That works out like this: Forward: D Backward: A L-Strafe: S R-Strafe: F L-Turn: X R-Turn V This means that the fingers do not ever need to lift from the home row or move from key to key for essential motion, and thus, do not produce even a moment's delay in twitch play. Keyboard-only circle strafing (as opposed to mouselook circle-strafing) still requires that one finger drops to the row beneath ASDF (to hit X or V), however. However, I broke my left wrist a while ago and had to game for a while with only one hand, and got into the habit of mouse-only gaming. Surprisingly, this actually works for non-twitch gameplay on a Logitech MX mouse. The basic motion setup, taken as an example of a setup for Doom 3, looks like the following: In RPGs with a fair amount of wandering and either simple or infrequent combat, this is a lazy gamer's dream. It is quite workable in Bloodlines, for example. It is much to my disappointment, therefore, that, as far as I can tell, at present, mouse-based motion isn't possible in Oblivion. I'll look harder for a solution, but at present I can't see how to bind the mouse properly and Oblivion won't seem to recognise the keyboard binds I've associated with my mouse keys in MouseWare (the binds from which Bloodlines and my other games simply interpret as the associated disused keyboard keys).

More or less the case for me. JE is the only game released for a console system which I have consistently played on a console system over the past few years. I've played a number of Nintendo games from start to finish over the past few years, but those have all been games for NES or SNES and played on said systems. My time spent playing on a system over the past few years is in almost every case inversely correlated with the modernity of the system, with my NES being my most played console system, SNES my second most played, Xbox my third most played and Gamecube my fourth most played.

Trying to break the pricing of PCs down to single-purchase examples is only useful in demonstrating what buying a PC is like for someone who does not own one, nor any PC parts whatsoever, at present, or who for whatever reason, buys their PCs absolutely-all-parts-at-once for reasons which would generally elude me, if they have the means to do otherwise. I haven't bought a PC in one purchase as-is as a full and complete system since my 486SX/33. A majority of my computer parts last at least two generations, and some last far more. An ATX case from TEN YEARS AGO is still an ATX case today. And though it may not be the one you want, if it's sitting under a desk hidden from sight like mine generally are, the fact that it doesn't have all sorts of coloured flourescent lights and pretty shiny things all over it (as many cases today do) may not matter to you, as it doesn't to me. At my former workplace, a local ISP, as an extreme example, we were still using a full tower server case which had originally housed a dual P-Pro 200 as of the year 2004 to house a critical system. PSUs may last a few generations as well. Antec was widely selling 350W supplies eight years ago, and 350W is still generally all you need today for your average user, despite the load on the 12V rail having generally increased as proportion of required total amperage in recent years. My Radeon 9700 Pro is four years old, and I have no immediate intention of replacing it. It'll probably last a couple more. Essentially, 'upgraders' and the type who buy a new Dell box every three years and toss the old one out the window (or off to a friend or relative) are dealing with completely unrelated purchase decisions and financial requirements. This is why comparing console pricing and PC pricing has never worked and probably never will for active PC tinkerers. Some of my PC parts I've gotten for free from work or friends, some have been around for years and years (I'm typing on a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD IBM Model M keyboard right now, though my oldest Model M is nineteen years old), some I've added recently from older systems and just a couple have been bought in the last couple years (new mobo and CPU, kept the old RAM and everything else).

Cinematics seldom stand out as the notable portions of a game, for me. Actually, I can't remember a single instance in which one did stand out as a crowning highlight of a game. Aeris's much-vaunted death cinematic was nothing to me. Her character was devoid of personality or intrigue. She died. Too bad. Imaginary pretty people getting killed is unfortunate, but it isn't tragic. Only well-developed, multifaceted characters can be tragic. And that Aeris was not in the least. The Opera scene in FFVI on the other hand, that was very lovely. Deionarra's sensory stone in PS:T was a great moment for me. Experiencing the Ocean House for the first time in Bloodlines was certainly an experience. But these are interactive experiences that make the most of the game engine and system, not just images you sit back and watch go by.

Indeed, and both games are wonderfully done. And you can play either one, or both together, as you like, whenever you like. Personally, I never autoresolve battles and only ever have taxes automanaged, so I go all out with it. I've twice conquered the entire map (once on Normal as Carthage, once on Hard as Parthia) without ever autoresolving a single battle. But some people seem to prefer to skip battles whenever at all possible, and simply play the empire sim aspect. Others automanage cities and play all battles. And it's great that you can do that.