alanschu

PST I think also went kind of under the radar. I remember it had a trailer as part of BG's install, but I knew nothing about the game from that. On top of some initial barriers at the time (I was intimidated by the wall of text, and frankly was looking for "more BG" when I picked it up), I didn't actually pick it up until someone on PlanetBaldursGate happened to recommend it. And even then, I had two false starts before I finally committed. Though now it's probably my favourite RPG of all time

Well, I brought it up because the original assertion was: If PS:T was ahead of it's time people would like it more then the BG series now days, which is not the case. To which you responded: Way more. Check the poll Obsidian made about which game PE we want PE to resemble more. If this was the case, there may be some level of vote splitting going on. (Granted, there's nothing stopping someone from voting for BG1/BG2 yet considering PST their #2 vote).

He could just be referring to the whole process of moving around while in an isometric view.

I noticed you stated "the first BG." Where does BG2 rate on the list?

Good luck man!

I don't know why, specifically, things like the Dalish Elf female were chosen. Though on some level the defaults exist to minimize reference to the previous game, as defaults will be the most common playthrough of someone picking up the game for the first time. Excessive reference to a past character or past choice without providing context (which would probably be boring and uninteresting for those that HAVE made the choices) run the risk of just being confusing/alienating. In DA2, whether or not the Warden chose the Dark Ritual wasn't really relevant. In DAI, the hope is for it to result in some unique content for those that did choose it.

DA2 did shift to XBox as lead platform, but more from the "it's much easier to take that and adapt it for PC than it is to take PC DAO and try to shoehorn it onto the consoles." The DA2XP actually shifted the lead platform to PS3, because we still ran into "It's a pain to move from the 360 to the PS3...." For DAI, I'm not sure what would really be classified as "lead platform" but for all intents and purposes at this juncture, nearly 100% of the development and playing happens on the PC, though with a controller (only very basic keyboard/mouse functionality exists at this time). Due to a variety of performance reasons and so forth with ramping up on Frostbite, as well as next gen console stuff, we're not really at the point of "make sure it works on all platforms" at this juncture.

I'm not sure if I would say that KOTOR was following the same formula as PST, since I don't really consider PST to be following the formula that Baldur's Gate set either.

Bouncing back and forth between SR4 Co-op and EU4. Finished my Germany game. Now Ironman Muscovy (as well as my CKII Britannia game, to import across).

I enjoyed it for what it was too, though in general run out of steam quickly for most Facebook/MTX games. Though it was eye opening how much people value their time over their money. I had heard some rumors of people spending absurd amounts of money on it which just floored me. Was definitely my first experience to the idea of the "whales" supporting games.

We kinda dance around the notion of actual canon. While books and whatnot need to have something declared, the intent is to not slap people in the face with "your choice was wrong" if we can help it. So even if books have Hawke being female (I don't know), any inclusion of Hawke in DAI would not be that way if the player didn't want it, ideally.

♫ What is love? Baby don't hurt me.... Don't hurt me.... no more! ♫

I never actually played Superman 64 (I remember reading up that it was awful). It's more along the lines of "unless you are planning on buying future stuff from them, then I'm not sure why it would be depressing that they are still crawling and not really being all that relevant." I don't know, side tangent time but I have never bought into the idea that a sequel (or future games in general) can sully the previous games. I can sort of see it for a continuous story like ME3 souring people on the whole franchise, but like FO1/2 fans getting outraged at FO3. I loathe Invisible War, but the first Deus Ex is still arguably my all time favourite game!

Eh, it's pretty irrelevant in my life. For instance, I didn't even know that it was the Superman 64 team. And it doesn't bother me now. They can do what they want. If I don't buy it (which I likely won't) it won't bother me.

Is it really? Or is it just a logical argument that you have created in your head that may or may not actually be reflected in reality?

I think it's pretty assured that none of us recognize it as being the same entity it was back in 2000 hahaha.

Hmmm. Is it a situation where, if one (or at least, a not huge number) of documents can come up where there's a more uniform consensus that this clearly should/should not be for public consumption, that there'd be less of a divide? Of course you'll always get SOME sort of divide, and no, I certainly cannot be arsed to looked through them all! Haha. For Wals: What's the type of content that would need to be contained for it to be deemed necessary for public consumption? For Zor: What's the type of content that would need to be contained for it to be deemed necessary for the public to not consume it?

This is different, though. The game eventually went on to be one of the best selling games of its time. Fortunately it did, and Sierra On-Line was able to reinvest said capital into making you more games. Would it have still been the case if it sold it's first 4000 copies and that was it? Unfortunate for PST, it didn't become one of the best selling titles of all time. If it did, Interplay/Black Isle Studios would probably still be around and making stuff. Probably more stuff like Planescape: Torment.

How long do you wait for it to make its money back? Because the people at BIS/Obsidian need to do things like eat, and stuff. Imagine it was self-funded. Should they just have done other stuff to sustain themselves while they waited for PST to make a profit? Do we factor in the costs while waiting for it to make a profit as part of the expenses? Now to the next point: How long would PST have taken if Black Isle Studios wasn't a professional game studio, filled with people that chose to get paid so they could focus on their craft full time, rather than procure funding through alternative means (i.e. some other job) while trying to work on the game in their spare time. Would it have been as feasible? Would it have even still happened? Now, one advantage of kickstarter/crowd funding is that the fans are directly paying for Obsidian to do things like eat. The game can literally sell zero copies because it was funded by its audience, and if its audience is happy and willing to toss over another few million dollars for another game, they remain gainfully employed and able to dedicate their time to their craft (rather than being distracted with other jobs and so forth to support families) while the fan base gets what it wants (more games from Obsidian). It's a bit much, however, to hope for someone like Feargus and company to take a chance by investing a few million of his own dollars (accruing interest at the same time) and then tell him "well you eventually broke even a few years later, so you should be happy"

PST is a game with a strong legacy for sure. It's also a game that has people like me buying it for a second time (as well as BG2) simply because it ensures I have it as I'm awful at losing CDs. That said, Obsidian won't see a penny from it (the old school staffers, I suppose, might. But I am skeptical). Further, while long term ROI in such a case can be viable, it has large risks. I remember Feargus talking about how PST eventually made a profit, although this was still several years after PST was released. In terms of running a business, waiting several years for a return on your investment works if you have other projects bringing in profits on past projects during the gap. (Sort of how furniture stores can routinely offer "Don't pay for two years" events, because they're pulling in the money from the people that bought stuff two years ago). My Dad ran a computer shop for 22 years, and the idea of waiting several years to break even on an investment means that that investment better have pretty huge rewards long term. Unfortunately, I don't think PST qualifies as this. I guarantee that every company would prefer to receive the same critical praise, with all of that money in 1/5th the time.

There's a lot of people on these boards that seem quite fixated with the topic, too, it seems. That's definitely the huge concern. I think there's more impetus for us to do it with Hawke, since his story was more strongly alluded to having another chapter to go (although the Warden has "disappeared" as well), and there are infrastructural advantages that Hawke has over the Warden in terms of things like voice and whatnot. Still, that's not to say it's not without challenges. Part of the problem with leaving DA2 more open ended is that we just assumed an expansion pack would be done. Hopefully we're a bit less cavalier with the conclusion of DAI, going forward.

Nope. Although I think you do get improved chance to miss if you're above the target. Still, LOS will be a pain for sure.

That's my implicit assumption as well. Unless maybe it was categorized somewhere. Maybe it was in C:\Secret Stuff\Not A Huge Deal if Leaked\ folder? >.>

Well, dragon like is a bit nebulous I can't remember if it's a creature we have revealed yet, previously in the series. If it is, it might be a wyvern. If it isn't a creature seen previously, well...

I don't believe it is, actually. (Just going by memory)