alanschu

No, I'm saying a lot of thought has to go into setting up the game levels. Instead of just selecting the "Tough bad guy and henchmen" encounter palette and clicking it around without giving it any thought, they have to decide if there's a good reason for it being there. And sometimes that good reason is simply to provide a tough "random" encounter.

They should be. If it's to be a credible world, some things should simply exist because they do, and not be part of some pre-written narrative. I'm talking specifically from a game design perspective. If they are there, then they provide a challenge for some reason. Even if that challenge is simply killing said creatures. The same reason you'll have chests to unlock and caves to explore.

If you've ever played Bloodlines, or especially the original Deus Ex, you'll still acquire XP at a particularly quick rate. In Deus Ex you'd be acquiring skill points at a very steady rate for exploration bonuses, quest bonuses, taking down difficult badguys, bypassing certain systems, reaching a particular point in a level (regardless of how), and so forth.

When you get to whatever they're there for, you are awarded the xp. So if you sneak past them, you still gain the xp. If you kill them, you still gain the xp. If there are tough wandering monsters, they aren't just put there for no particular reason.

Because you're looking at the term "quest" too rigidly. Think of it as "objectives." And in some cases, going out and exploring and killing some really tough guy that doesn't have a "quest" associated with it is still an objective and you'll gain XP. The same way that getting behind a locked door for fat rewards can gain xp.

Racism is pretty much hate for no good reason though.

What if being good at non-combat requires you to do non-combat stuff? Couldn't you just choose to not do non-combat stuff?

I think they are overrated for the most part. They made sense in Mount and Blade, but I never found myself missing them in games like the Infinity Engine games.

Curious what exactly that means. Is there two different types of XP pools? Does that mean that skills from one feed into the corresponding pool? Could mean a couple of other things.

Where did you get those numbers from?

You're right, it's not very realistic that you become a master smith by crafting a bajillion simple iron daggers. Maybe you shouldn't. Keep in mind, other level up schemes typically require the player to "repeat the same actions over and over again" too. How about if other ways to improve your skills (and arguably faster) were to learn about them by talking with people, apprenticing an expert, or reading about them?

This sounds more like an issue with how the game mechanics are set up. If you're "forced" to use a skill you'd rather not use, it's a problem with how the skills are balanced in the game. There's nothing inherently wrong with "use to improve" types of improvements.

It's tough to substantiate a claim like this unfortunately. There's certainly a belief that it does. I have no idea how marketers substantiate it from the other perspective, either, though. Are you saying that the executives are factored into the budget?

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

That doesn't even factor in his alts

There were enough funds to "make the game" at 1.1 million.

There's the tricky situation. The financiers of the game are the kickstarter people. Who is Obsidian more accountable to? If pledges aren't made specifically for multilanguage support, then why should funds be used for it? They could do it post release too.

I wouldn't say it's added for accessibility. Accessibility is arguably improved if mobs can get outleveled. It's done, as you hint at, to try to address difficulty with respect to a non-linear campaign.

BG2?

This. I suspect they'll have abilities and whatnot (and maybe even a resource to consume), but I doubt it'll be innate "magic" powers.

Beta testing is overrated. Getting stuck playing incomplete games can lead to burnout, for that particular game at least. Happened to me with TOR, where I played the crap out of it in alpha-beta but then just ran out of steam once it went retail. Most people that take part in betas like this don't even actually provide feedback, which is another bummer. Best bet typically is to hope you have a ton of useful telemetry and stuff gets reported that way.

I think that IF EA were to do it, they'd burn the bridge of ever being able to do it again if they didn't actually deliver what they mandated they were going to do as part of the kickstarter (which is what people base their opinion on). I'd wager the principle reason is mostly just opportunity cost. For a company sitting on a billionish dollars in liquid capital, pulling in $3 million in a kickstarter is a drop in the bucket really.

Aside from the obvious? Publishers don't make games, they just finance, distribute and market them. Publishers often do make games (EA, Bethsoft, Activision) so I'm going to have to disagree. I'm still not at all sure what this does or does not have to do with any assumptions that the QA would be superior/inferior. Was there something else more obvious that I missed?

Okay, so if I am getting this straight you don't just want to be able to use GOG or Obsidian or whatever, but you want all of those places to recognize that you have the game installed (regardless of where you installed it from) so that you utilize their services to patch and so forth? So if you, say, pick it up from GOG, it'll still have Steam integration and you can patch the game via Steam automatically? If it seems like we're being obtuse, it's because you haven't been clear at all. When you bring in phantom "torrent trackers" it gets even muddier. Like, what's the torrent tracker for?

It would work out relatively well. There's nothing inherently wrong with a Publisher doing a kickstarter. It would permit them to gamble on an edgy idea while minimizing risk and maximizing potential. From a Gamer's perspective, it'd just be a cheap pre-order. The Publisher's could toss out innovative, or "Niche" ideas, and if they fly, their team is paid for and gamers get diversity. The problem is: This assumes Publishers are interested in making great games. Which they're sadly not. Publishers today are interested only in bringing the next Call of Duty to market. Even if today's Publishers did try this, there'd be abyssmal QA and the bare minimum in gameplay. This event though, this is different. It's a lecherous Publisher wanting Obsidian to be a level of misdirection for them, without offering anything at all in return of significance. $5 says that by the end of 2014, we see most Publishers doing Kickstarters while bleeding money due to their inability to adapt to the market. Do you really think that if, say, EA were to put out a Kickstarter for a game like this, it'd do as well? I am not sure. As for the QA, is there any innate reason why a big publisher would do any different than, say, Obsidian?