Humanoid

The backgrounds in DA:O were a fantastic idea that ended up destroying the the entire game's experience for me, like building an amazing new weapon only to be slain by it - once the origin stories were over it felt like I was teleported to another game where the name was the same but everything else was different, everything after that point for me was just a slow-motion train crash. Now obviously they weren't going to write six separate games - though SWTOR is kind of that - but the point I guess is that the background needs to be self-contained enough, and for the most part resolved, such that the events of it don't detract from the game's primary plot. No fresh vendettas or recent injury, I feel a background should be, to the character's mind, a part of ancient history. Now I forget what NWN2's implementation, and only remember Arcanum's vaguely, so I can't really split the two. I guess a fresher memory would be something like Mass Effect's, though not in the disappointingly few options but in terms of their impact: the past is the past, and you've for the most part put them behind you.

Three over the last week: two from the sixties - the British war epic Zulu (good viewing though the DNR on the Blu was somewhat problematic); and camp classic Batman: The Movie (which looks remarkably good for its age and budget) reminding me of a time where "superhero" wasn't synonymous with "dark and edgy". But the highlight for me was undoubtedly Herbert Ponting's remarkable 1924 documentary The Great White Silence - I'm amazed that film footage could have been taken of Scott's fateful expedition to the south pole, let alone having it survive in amazingly good shape that it shows up on Blu-ray: remembering the footage would have been taken in the period of 1910-1912. It begins as the crew set sail from New Zealand and ends as Scott's final party sets off from base camp for their final expedition. There's fantastic footage of the sailors, the dogs and ponies (and one politically incorrect cat) they took, the Terra Nova's bow crashing through the sea ice, the dry runs practiced at the newly constructed base camp (including a proto-tank caterpillar machine); long lingering shots of the wildlife at work and at play. It scratches both a historical and geographical itch, and I doubt any such film produced today would produce nearly the same effect.

Yeah, I was one who missed the jump to the final version - there was a period of about a couple years where I was kind of off the map due to other commitments, (including the ludicrous idea of me co-leading and being chief administrator of a WoW raiding guild) and I kind of lost track and just found a 404 where the Lair used to be. Didn't find out the story until about a year ago at which point it was fairly obvious the critical mass had dispersed, so I just ended up settling here: until fairly recently I was averaging about 1 post a year here. Ironic perhaps then that during the time, I ended up learning how to operate and administrate a forum of my own. Wonder if I might have ended up offering to run the new place if timing had been different.

Threads along this theme tend to pop up semi-regularly here but usually don't quite evoke as much nostalgia - somewhat fortuitous timing I guess with the peak in interest around the new project and all. And hey stealthymiss.

It was, and is no longer. But it does sort of explain my relatively low post count here - I'm not proud of it, but I think I had one of the highest tallies on the IPLY boards.

Lord Jim - I and probably a fair few others likely still have a few screencaps of that incident. I was a relative latecomer, joined the BIS boards around the beginning of the IWD2 development cycle - mainly because I had nothing else to do between lectures at university.

A couple decades to the future looks like a couple decades to the past.

Amazon: They give me free credit to buy MP3s but don't let me redeem it because of my address - yeah.... Technically they won't sell any digital games to me either, but that said, as far as I know they only check the billing address instead of any more intelligent/insidious geolocation though, so it's fairly easy to get around. Now presumably the reason for the restriction is not driven by them as much as it is by the publishers, but I'm not sure that they'd be prepared to overhaul their restrictions system for the sake of one independent publisher who wants their product to be unrestricted.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but given the relatively limited scope of any Kickstarter project, the old too-many-chefs problem might become an issue if all of you got your combined wishes. George in would be great but beyond that, it might start to get unmanagable. If this project turns out to be a smashing success of course, then the next project might have the larger scale which would allow for more "dream team" personnel.

Broadly in support, provided 2D portraits fit the style of the game. I imagine that portraits as such would be no issue at all unless the manner they choose to do the 3D characters shows up too much difference. The other potential issue I guess is that the full-length images, as opposed to headshots, might not fit in as well as they did the IE games since I'd be assuming the new engine would be showing much more specific armour detail than the IE games did. EDIT: That said, a possible approach would be to have variants of each work to broadly cover the range of available gearsets - the same head in subtly different poses depicting three to five different levels of armour.

Legends tend to overshadow what's going on. I mean who are we talking about here? Andy Hollis? Richard Garriott? Sid Meier? I kid, but it shouldn't be hard to see how bizarre that sounds. That said, something relatively minor like commissioned character portraits could be fun.

I'm less worried about the extent to which "extreme" options are implemented as much as the balance issue of character power which tends to inflate the value of being a kind soul - it's somewhat backwards after all that the samaritan almost inevitably ends up with more riches and power than the selfish bastard, because of the meta-game concept of sidequest rewards. The question posed as an example would be something like the usual "please save my kitten" quest - my mean-spirited jerk would naturally tend to respond along the lines of "solve your own problems, kid" instead of something ridiculous like setting fire to the tree. But how do you assign both material and XP rewards to this kind of decision point without the entirety of the game ending up lopsided in the value of the virtuous? In general, I'm of the belief that the impact of sidequests in the average RPG could do with some big cuts - make them into opportunities that help define a character without necessarily having to provide a tangible reward for them.

If you squint, at least there's the upside of them not retrofitting romances to the existing NPCs...

Would be fun to be the first adventurers in a thousand years to meet the mysterious dwarves, only to find that they are just that, short humans. Not just to the extent of, say, the pygmies, but more along the lines of a tribe of labradors discovering the existence of chihuahuas.

While not a must for me, it's something that would go well with a solo run, if such a beast is a supported playstyle - which I very much hope it is.

Split is generally between the RPGs and the adventures - personally have done so far: Eternity - large pledge (of course) Wasteland 2 - large pledge Shadowrun Returns - moderate pledge The Banner Saga - minor pledge Dead State - minor pledge Expedition: Conquistador - minor pledge Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road studio - large pledge Broken Sword 5 - large pledge Tex Murphy: Project Fedora - minor pledge Spaceventure (Space Quest) - minor pledge Leisure Suit Larry remake - minor pledge To my eternal regret, I missed out on making a pledge to Tim Schafer's Double Fine adventure as I was flip-flopping too much over this new fangled Kickstarter thing in the beginning. Upcoming is Lori and Corey Cole's (of Quest for Glory fame) new project

I say go for the sequel immediately with the same tech. Sure an expansion that adds, what, 25% more to the game may be interesting when there's commercial pressure to make the official sequel sexier and shinier, but in the absence of that, why not go for 100% more off the bat?

Setting up a back-end for online purchases, both in terms of the transaction system and the downloads, when all you have is one product might not be worth it. (I imagine they'd struggle to get permission to sell their past published games) I have no idea about the real figures in such an endeavour would be like, granted.

At the game's expected technology level, the most I'd expect are travellers cheques.

User IDs in this thread - 31, 89, 144, 275, 501, 534, 535, 843, 3491, 5618, 18413, 26150, 26544 (darn young'uns).

Obviously the fairest compromise for everyone would be to do the whole game in Esperanto.

Have to say that of my concerns for the project, the biggest one is probably this kind of scope creep. My admittedly selfish desire is for something a lot more low-key and less epic, at least for the first instalment of this IP, with very real limits to the extent of wealth and power the player can attain. No massive political influence, no earth-shattering power, no riches beyond the average middle-class merchant's dreams.

Publisher pressure isn't an issue sure, but financial pressure, and to an extent, backer pressure in terms of PR and the fate of future projects, are still very real constraints. Kickstarter isn't the opposite of good project management, and if anyone is complacent enough to forget the basics of developmental discipline, then they will fail as hard as any other.

Might depends on how much the game breaks down the armour slot in terms of separate pieces of just having one unified 'suit'. Bennett's chainmail vest shouldn't affect mobility overly much.

I'm not old! I'm just, er, temporally challenged.