alanschu

You're preaching to the choir. I agree that the novelty is so important. A lot of people (indirectly) tell me that this is not the case though, and that BioWare has lost their way and literally should have stuck with the isometric 2D backdrop style of gaming because that's what made BioWare a hit. Without realizing it, though, these people are intrinsically placing restrictions on what a company should do (arguing whether or not companies have their own that ultimately compromise product quality is a fair viewpoint, but is not quite the same thing). With respect to something like Project Eternity, my commitment to their kickstarter is a reflection of "I love the games that Obsidian makes" so for me, that it was "Infinity Engine inspired" is actually not important. I trust them to make a game experience that I will find enjoyable, and prefer the kickstarter angle simply because it leaves them creatively unchained. This is the game they want to make, and I think that that is its biggest charm. At the same time though, am I unique in this regard? I think the Infinity Engine pitch certainly helped the kickstarter, and it's definitely brought out people that have varying appreciation for those older games. For some people the Icewind Dale series are the best IE games made, because they love the focus on the combat. Many struggle to get in with PST because "walls o' text" (I struggled my first playthrough) as well as the weird setting. Unfortunately, as much as I love PST, it's probably more "cult classic" than BG2 is. But at this time I'm rambling and my compile is done, so...

I didn't contribute because I'm a heathen, but there's a good chance I'll reward them for their hardwork after release

If the game mechanics stayed the same (i.e. no engine and limited programming work required), I wouldn't be surprised if a team could make interesting stories every 1-2 years with Infinity Engine (I say this having no idea what challenges the workflow itself presents in terms of tools and whatnot). At what point is "repetition" bad? People say they'd love more IE games. Does this mean that they're okay with the mechanics remaining unchanged and just getting new stories/adventures with the engine? Or would that eventually grow stale and the only reason we want more Infinity Engine style games is because they are not over done? Is it possible to have "Too much BG2/PST?"

If you look at DAO it can be seen that there are aspects of the game that aren't really sequel friendly. Though at the same time, the game was expensive to make and much more of an unknown for how successful it would be. So there are choices in the game that really don't lend itself to happy times for sequel production. When making a sequel, we do have to decide on what level of canon we have in our games. For BG2, for example, everything was assumed canon and the starting party was basically made up of the most popular group make up (Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir) and other NPCs that could be dead typically had "But I killed you" dialogues to which the NPC would respond "Aha! You thought so but I wasn't" or something similar (thinking of Xzar here). So with Leliana survive, my presumption (I haven't taken part in the writing meetings for DA2, and don't particular care to waste their time talking about old news at this point) is that Leliana was seen as a character that could be used as an interesting tie in because: 1) Defiling the ashes was a rare event. Most people didn't do it, and it's possible they did it without Leliana present to boot. 2) It can be rationalized that she was simply left for dead, not outright killed. This is where the "whoops, we forgot that our system had deathblows in it so people would see that Leliana had her head cutoff" becomes an issue, however. (Although I think some people actually figured we kept a different plot state based upon whether or not she was deathblowed which is a bit silly...) The issue really comes in that we wanted to try a plot import. It was something being considered that ended up seeing a reasonable about of positive feedback from ME2's release. There's a lot of people that feel that if we don't provide such a feature, it makes them feel that their choices in the previous games are irrelevant (this is not a perspective I believe though, for the record. I have no issues replaying Fallout 1 knowing that Fallout 2 has a set canon). I think if it's done really well, it could be very interesting. I don't think BioWare has done it very well yet though. The big hurdle is, of course, the same hurdle we get within a confined game: how do we reconcile branching narratives and reconverge the storyline at some point. The big advantage of Fallout is that you can make these extreme decisions that ultimately would have very different ramifications if done, and for the sequels they can just go "Well canon is this." This opens up the various "I have destroyed everything and everyone" types of playthroughs. Dragon Age intrinsically cannot do that, since reconciling that branch would be pretty fundamentally impossible. There are pros and cons to each, and frankly depending on the mood you catch me in I would probably say I prefer one or the other. Although if it were entirely up to me, I'd probably go with "choose a canon" and not do imports. Not out of spite for previous player choices, but because I do miss some of the more out there types of choices you could make in other games. Brotherhood of Steel completely wiped out? That's cool! Was fun to boot! And so forth. That said though, I think a well done "import" process is a better ideal. Whether or not it is achievable is a different question I suppose. But it's not inconsisent of me to think that's a better ideal, because I think the ideal RPG would be one that doesn't bother with reconciling player's choices and actually allows a more free flowing narrative. The idea of mutually exclusive choice is one I love, and even if the basic plot points sitll all get achieved, I'm okay with the concept of showing very different aspects of the plot based upon player choices, I do understand that it poses very serious scope risks.

This is more an issue of "They aren't constantly putting out the game I want to play." The way people talk they would love an annual instalment of an Infinity Engine game.

The amount of "I'd like to kill NPC [X]" threads that come up make me go "huh?" I think some have this idea that if some party members can be killed, then ALL party members should be killable, and that if a party member annoys a person they feel justified in wanting to kill that character off in some way.

I can vouch for this. How many times your name popped up in Steam makes me wonder if there is stability issues

In the wake of the Liberal Party coming into power in Canada, there was always a push by some in Alberta that felt they should secede as well. The election is only a few weeks old and people are up on their soapboxes. Dude, it is America. We're a bit over dramatic. Although I was pointing out that in Alberta the same thing happens and the same people go "I don't know it seems pretty legit this time."

Well, at this point it'd probably be best to not come up with any strange explanation for why she is back and just ignore the fact that she can get decapitated in the first.

In the wake of the Liberal Party coming into power in Canada, there was always a push by some in Alberta that felt they should secede as well. The election is only a few weeks old and people are up on their soapboxes.

The Leliana one is at least a conscious decision. Though IMO the only weight people have is if she happened to suffer from one of the deathblows in the game that cut off her head. So meme ended up becoming "I cut off her head and she still came back." So what was originally rationalized as a "she wasn't actually killed" didn't have as much of a leg to stand on with those respects. It is interesting see the various lines in the sand people are (or are not) willing to cross with respect to player choice being carried over throughout games. Some, for example, are perfectly okay with BioWare completely defining canon, with the exception of the Warden's romance. It'll ruin "their immersion" (an oft overused term I find increasingly meaningless) for THAT to be canon, but not other stuff (like, say, Alistair being killed).

Zevran being back is less of a "BioWare really wanted to bring him back" and more of a "Tell that Allan Schumacher guy he did a ****ty job and is a useless twit." (i.e. it's a bug)

Honestly? They "wasted" most of it on VA. What makes it even worse is that IIRC every ...what do they call those? ...Data something.Anyway, both in ME and DA about 80% of players skipped the voice over, if memory serves. It's best to not make assumptions over how much money was spent on VA (or even the total budget of the project), nor make up numbers over how many people skip the voice overs in our other games.

This did sound pretty awesome though haahaha

Blood Money was a bit less "EXTREEEEEEEEEME" than the first two or three (and I actually preferred it that way.... haha)

The first one. I ended up restarting because I was playing it more like Total War (where army composition was a bigger factor IMO) rather than the presence of heroes (so that they gain xp and mad skills) It was right after I sided with the Saxons to attack Wales. King Ryon's armies were scary tough :S I heard the second was much improved in this regard (I have it in queue )

So I just hit a wall in King Arthur where the game becomes ludictrously hard. I took the opportunity to restart, as I have learned heroes is probably more important than specific army composition.

But as the incumbent Obama doesn't have to deal with the sudden about face as Romney had to.

Always a pleasure seeing people wish I was unemployed!

isn't Silent Assassin just dependent on being spotted? (I didn't watch the full video) I loved Blood Money, and I thought you still got Silent Assassin as long as you weren't spotted. Been a while since I last played it though.

But the people that hate it are wrong!

This is one thing I love about Steam's overlay. Shift-TAB. See time. Shift-TAB. Minimal fuss.

Apparently our scripts keep getting leaked....

Democracy shouldn't require politicians to go "Hey yeah I'm pro life and boo all abortion!" and then in the Federal election have them pander "Well I'm not really that extreme." Unfortunately in order to win the primaries, Romney had to hardcore appeal to that group, which ultimately undermines him because unlike in the past, the level of visibility into the things he says and does in the Primaries sticks with him. Same with his history at Governor. All that information is more accessible now.

The M&M series is available on GOG. I picked it up specifically for Nostalgia and M&M 3.