Hassat Hunter

Well, obviously... I am quite pleased that you were able to switch around your initial impression of KOTOR2 thanks to TSLRCM. Always nice to hear those kind of words .

No, I was not aware of that... sadly, before reading your post I read THIS: and thus decided to google them, and saw their track-record of games on Wikipedia. Yeah, all newborn faith was instantly drained away. I think the big issue about the TBS and RTwP discussion is... it can be seen as a sign of developer incompetance. PE had it's system working way before somewhat before the Kickstarter, and they worked on it since. How long has it been since the Torment one? Shouldn't they HAVE a system by now? If not, wtf where they doing? It seems all good and well to ask the public, but so late? It does reek of whatever system we are going to get, it's all an after-thought and mockup anyway, and neither is going to be as good as when the developer sticked to one of the 2 way earlier and plotted their thoughts on that. Even making several working systems and all testing them would deter from the amount of work that could have been done else, honing the chosen system. It all seems like story first, and then we see what kind of game we build around that. Not exactly a good game-making strategy. My 2 cents on why the poll is causing some doomthinking amongst several...

It's like the argument that they added item degredation JUST for a money sink. Now I am not fan of degredation, but I can understand if there are several underlying reasons for it. Simply one however, not a good idea. Same here... if the suggested 'fix' is simply only suggested for one reason, you have to put question marks at it for use in your game. If you can honestly think no other reasons, you simply should not use it, it's a bad solution!

Yeah, atmosphere is a good point. Just, IMO, that quest completely lacked it, unlike the rest of the game. Personally, it's my low point of Bloodlines, not the high point most people say it's for them. Opinions and tastes, I assume. And I agree with your other general assessements on Bloodlines. Especially on the XP (Deus Ex too), which is exactly one of the few games convincing me it's a perfect system for story-based RPG's like PE. No more 'sure, I can diplomatic resolve it for 5000XP, but if I kill the whole sector I get 200000XP' (KOTOR2 is often doing just exactly that). Equality for stealth (which I personally hate, but therefore not want to take away from players who like it), diplomacy and combat alike. And yes, the entire Masquerade, the characters, the setting, it just fitted just perfectly.

Well, obviously the GAME should keep track of fatigue, I just question why you would want to portray this to the player *at all*. It would work gamey situations in hand where people simply go rest at 90%, penalty avoided... and the fatigue mechanic is wasted completely... not good. So yeah, still more for allowing "rest/no rest" for longer travels, and not displaying any kind of weary information or manually adding resting hours.

We're not exactly sure, but the backer page kickstarter updates suggests you can still upgrade as slacker backer too. But it also shows screenshots with the final time of definitive orders is 30 november... which, is very unlikely, as I personally don't see the backer's portal even being ACTIVE before that date...

Hey, it would be a Torment successor in name only if it didn't have abnomidable combat (wheter TB or RTwP). Also a good reason why I didn't back, backing on the premise of a good story is rather hard, especially with no proof they infact can produce it, unless they made more than the BG EE's that I just am not aware of?

There wont be a retail release. So if you want a boxed version your only bet would be here through backing. Check the prices on the Kickstarter page...

It's a mockup (also seen by the same map filled with many more locations later in the .pdf) so really, it's probably not remotely representative of the P:E world map. I would expect something a lot better looking than that at least...

Wait... it's completely devoid of VO? I thought it was just going to be limited. Yeah, BG2 level. So full VO (Irenicus) very rare, mostly just a single line or nothing, just the way I like it. Also, this way no-one would go 'you can't add an interjection of a teammate here, VO!' and writers can just live themselves out filling a convo with all kinds of stuff from all teammates without worrying about it being so lengthy and costly due to VO. That's mostly what I was talking about. In modern games teammates interject very limited, since it would cost money if the do so, and ("Oh no") someone might not see it if other teammates are seen. Since adding text in PE would only cost the writer time, not a cost in VO-actor time, they could add much more, longer and a bigger variety of party members responding to the happenings and your decisions. Which is a great thing to have back, that that VO-requirement took from us.

Trust me, a lot of us are waiting for a RPG like this. A lot. Or it wouldn't have hit it's mark so quick and raise so much money.

I still don't quite see what people find in that Bloodlines quest. It wasn't scary first time, it wasn't fun first time, it was... well, pretty lame. Definitely not the highlight of Bloodlines to me. The snuff internet cafe or the prostetics doctor were much scarrier to me. The house, not at all. Maybe I just fear actual physical harm more than scary mental stuff that does nothing, I suppose. As for my favorite quests, that's hard to say. I do know mysteries or investigations tend to be fun first game, but just a major drag next game. If they add any, please, for the love of god, make the killer/perpetrator random per session. So you can't wont get the same plot, same interrogations, same everything, and it's boring and lame as hell second run. No RPG's have done so to date, so adding that as first would be nice. Aside from that I really don't know what I would like. An interesting plot and scarcity could even make fetch quests fun.

Well, yeah, of course I would like long questlines, with many branches, and possible endings. Doesn't exclude the short quests (as others said) but that desire in most modern RPG's to really have optional be short and limited to a single area? Nope, get rid of it please!

The system you mentioned Lephys seems to take it a *little* too far. A simple "rest?" checkbox should probably suffice, without having to give all that kind of detail. I rather kinda liked in the BG they never explicitely told you how much % weariness your characters had till they got really sleepy and the penalty. It would make the game more gamey I think if it would outright tell you "80% weariness" and you go on that for example...

If trap-placement isn't requiring an active hunt, but is rather a permanent stance, why not? Why not add those unexpected traps? They generally will be found... and will just pummel the rushers in a funny way

Yeah, I wouldn't mind that. I am more objected to the half-circle design compared to BG's flat character portraits, wasting space AND looking more ugly to boot (IMO). Not really, if the side-interface is, say 100% length, 5% width, the bottom bar needs to be 95% width, 5% length, and it will just move up if the side-interface is on the left. All it needs is those 2 bars, not 2 seperate interfaces, no additional assets needed for left or right, just the same at a different location. I think I got it covered in another thread in detail, and rather not go too detailed again, but the gist is; Combat log too big and not being able to be turned off or down, looking generally ugly, icons and portraits being smaller than the BG interfaces.

Still hate the mockup from the previous page, even with the alterations done to it. Floating circle portraits? Damn... what a waste. Why not use the BG2 system. Looks better, has more space for portraits, takes less space from view, AND doesn't float. Win-win-win-win! As you might have gotten from above I also dislike floating stuff, and prefer BG style. And with that said NOT IWD2. NOT IWD2!!! That was a horrible abomination of a HUD if I ever saw one. Taking half the screen for that, nope, bad idea, bad bad! As stated in a few other threads having a bottom bar and right (or left, you could simply swap it in preferences, or on the fly even) fixed would be my preference.

I hope you are playing a heavily modified game, even then it seem a bit too much. If you already know the story back and forth and play only for the action, wouldn't be better to experience some other game? I know its blasphemy to some, but as far as action/tactics involved there other games which at the very least not worse and might have half decent story that you will like.. Heck, I still even play KOTOR2 for the dialouge, the choices, and in no way the combat. What point else would there be to play?

Personally, I would prefer the BG-method. The 'action' is happening on the maps, the travel inbetween is just on re-used maps (unless you want them to map each location uniquely too, an unreasonable requirement), over and over. And just combat. Which isn't P:E's main focus. Yes, there will be combat, but there's no point to add more combat to your combat due to... Combat! So instead of having 10 potential random combat rolls, just 1 would be just fine. And not just combat, could also have other stuff happening. Yes, you could do that too with overhead, but having to explore an overhead map for the extra missions isn't my idea of fun, just added tedium, much rather have those added then as random encounter inbetween, BG-style, or actually on a map (outside or city). I do think BG1's method of finding more maps upon exiting maps in a certain direction would add exploration and fun and makes you use your maps to the fullest, more-so than an overhead map instead. Just my 2 cents...

Well, I don't trust FPS or MMORPG forums of course. But threads like 'what are you playing now?' here do offer a lot of good objective reviews...

I think the Hawk on KOTOR2 functioned for this. Also of course, party intercepting during conversations would add to this. BG2 had this plenty of times, that your teammates budged in, but it got in disarray with full VO-casts and the opinion that a player should see everything in one game, and can not miss out. But mostly, the VO requirements. I have no reason not to believe, without VO as PE is, that our teammates can speak their minds again on whatever the matter, and thus they actually a character just through that. Add in some interactions with the PC and eachother (again, BG2 style) and it's all set... without a need to go to a central zone for all interactions (think KOTOR2, DA:O). Also, yes, I would think it's a good idea if upon resting some banter could show up, like in Expedition: Conquisitor. That's something you need to do anyway, might aswell add content to it, rather than force a PC to do stuff out-of-the-way for it's interaction and teambuilding...

What is this? The screenshot thread? The Mass Effect wheel... making what your character is going to say a complete surprise since [year Mass Effect was delivered in]. Oddly enough, ME reviews only mentioned this thing as a pro, but who-behold if other games use it the exact same way or something. Reviews :/ Well, I definitely disagreed (AA to AC here, haven't played AO yet). The way the story got cut up for openworld, the infinitely respawning enemies IN THE EXACT SAME CONFIGURATION EVERYTIME (lazy much?). No, I definitely would not say AC improved on AA. Also (playing on PC) I can't say combat worked any different with AC than AA. Maybe on the consoles it got smoothened out though, I wouldn't know. Actually liked combat more in AA, probably though since I wasn't fighting the same group 12+ time in a single game over and over...

The one thing I wonder in this thread is still the BG1 example. First time it took 20 tries. These days people do it in 1. And... they still say it's up to luck? Wait? What? How can you contradict yourself in the exact same post? Still think it's luck-based if obviously you now found a winning STRATEGY? Or do did you defile luck in those years inbetween?