nikolokolus

Hardly any games get it right, mostly they punish you for failing to stick to their predetermined, "being good is optimal," critical path.

I hardly ever kill NPCs (unless they piss me off for some reason or I get bored ... or it's Wednesday ...) but I sure want the option and all of the horrific fallout and consequences.

I love, "I love you man" levels of drunkenness ... good times.

Just like a movie sometimes things just end up on the editing room floor. It doesn't always mean some feature was cut just to get the game out the door.

As I wrote there isn't really one yet. But it can expand into something bigger very fast. This is the issue with large fan groups, or any group in general. We have power in a group. We have influence in a group. This is something that comes naturally in a process, it's how unions work. We have certain responsibilities, especially as a fan-group. And we have to discuss them. That's what this thread is about. @Ieo You're misunderstanding, the group, the order using their influence. It's a union now? Well then I don't recall giving anybody any dues or the authority to speak on my behalf. Come to think of it, I gave Obsidian my cash on good faith to help them make a game that I want to try in about 18 months. If somebody makes the mistake of assuming that the OO gives them leverage in steering design decisions, then kindly remove my name from the group. That's not why i "joined." and the lesson boys and girls is, this is why it's a bad idea to join groups!!!

If they do reference a kerfluffle in the game I would see it as a slightly humorous easter egg and not an ad. Ads imply a financial incentive for Obsidian and I don't see that here.

Tempest in a teapot.

I guess I'm glad I got to sleep through whatever drama apparently happened. As for me, no, Obsidian doesn't owe me anything except a fun game I can play in a year and a half. I don't presume to speak for other people, but I never chipped in an extra 8 bucks assuming that it was leverage over the devs.

Without a publisher manning the information pump, I'm guessing Obsidian would still like to be more engaged than a typical game development cycle usually allows. So maybe it won't be every other day, but something like once or twice a month, with a few screenies doled out and maybe some concept art and the like with the occasional lore update? Whatever happens I have a feeling the forum will quiet down a bit, but it won't die off completely.

Since there probably won't be a physical disc for most people, I don't know how it would work, but if they wanted to release stuff to the Nexus site after release I'm sure some people would enjoy that. I don't have a strong feeling about it one way or another.

In theory "Yes to QA," but honestly we have no idea how their budget is going to break out. So just saying that all that, so-called, "extra" money should go to QA seems to suggest that they weren't allocating funds for QA in the first place? If they feel that extra money will make it easier to bug test and polish the game then I'm fine with that, if they feel that they can deliver a polished product without spending the extra money raised in the last day of the kickstarter then that's OK too. Mostly though, I think we need to cool it with playing armchair COO for them.

I'm assuming that priests will function like they have for a long time. They'll have stamina buffs and restoratives (which is a kind of psuedo healing) and then they'll have an array of spells and powers that are probably along the lines of the bless-type spells and some righteous fire-from-heaven stuff too.

Obsidian should decide how they want to recognize the Order. Something subtle and non-immersion breaking would be my preference.

The game should stand on its own merits Certainly there's no way that they can copy every game play element or design decision from the old IE style isometric games, because when you think about it, there's quite a lot of variety and difference between Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, the Fallouts, Temple of Elemental Evil, Torment, etc. Really the only unifying thing is a full party control, high oblique perspective and ... well ... some damned memorable gaming moments for me. From what we know so far, the developers seem to have a lot of ideas, and JE Sawyer in particular seems to have a vision to tweak a lot of things that will take PE into a new direction we haven't necessarily seen before in those old IE games (in terms of game play and mechanics). Cautiously, but with great curiosity, I'm looking forward to no resurrection, a Darklands inspired health system, a new magic system and the kind of story that George Ziets, Chris Avellone, Tim Cain and the aforementioned JE Sawyer can deliver.

When a game feels like it's run out of good ideas and the developers start throwing in time sinks, just to stretch out the "length" then the game has gotten too big. As long as the gameplay is still compelling and there's something new to see or learn, then there really isn't some hard and fast rule about how much is too much.

No console ports and a lot less 3D modeling to do and no license holder to get approval from ... I dunno, I guess we just have to assume Obsidian knows what they're doing?

It's going to make expert mode really interesting if they come up with a good implementation of mechanics. But in general I like the Darklands approach to injury mixed with truly permanent death. It could certainly play alot different than we are used to with most RPGs

Hey guess what? British english and American english differ in a lot of ways ... should all of our friends from the empire demand an Anglicanized version of the website too? Ah, love these first world problems.

Feargus has said his aim is for a game roughly equivalent to the old IE games (probably about 60-80 hours)

In the first place it doesn't sound like you will have a full party at the very start of the game (like Icewind Dale, or Temple of Elemental Evil) so presumably, if you have more than one character in your party it's because you picked up somebody along the way, and aren't just roleplaying two, three, or four characters. Besides, there's a game mechanic in there by requiring a player to spend a little coin in the adventurer's hall. The pacing of the story is probably going to assume the gradual addition of party members, one way to regulate adding custom characters is by putting a monetary value on their services, else you end up creating some artificial reason for why you can't fill every spot on your roster the moment you discover the Hall.

Mercenaries, get paid. Companions are folks you meet along your journeys, that have some personal reason for following you. What did I miss?

Me! I want to ride a triceratops into battle while wearing nothing but a loincloth, screaming at the top of my lungs, alternating between flinging fireballs at my enemies and using the beast's massive head plate as a shield! Too much to ask? Mega-flora could be cool... but only if there's a hot Poison Ivy lookalike, too... With any luck there's a LARPing group out there somewhere just for you

I use a multi-monitor configuration for work all the time, and it's great to be able to move GIS tools out of the way of my main viewing window, but maybe it's my lack of imagination, but I really don't see how it would help in a game like this? Even if you moved all of the UI elements out of the main view, that would still suck because you'd just be doing more mouse movement (although I tend to use a lot of hotkeys). Assuming there's a fog of war around your characters (and I'd argue that there should be) you're just going to have a lot of empty environmental space to look at on the fringe of the real gameplay. I don't know ... I'm stumped.

How upset would you be if your oatmeal was of the flavored sort... say... "Apple cinnamon"... Ooooh! ... no wait? ... I mean "feh"

Variety is garbage I say, give me nothing but bland oatmeal and tepid water! I demand it!