Kasoroth

I agree with this. Overpowered crafting takes away one of the fun aspects of the game (finding cool new loot). Underpowered crafting is disappointing, and really annoying if you have to invest skill points/feats/etc into it, only to discover that the found items are better than what you can craft. I would much rather have it involve remixing found items rather than making things from scratch (I posted some more detailed ideas a few pages back on this thread). The biggest problem I had with Skyrim's crafting was that all the raw materials (with only a few exceptions) were fairly common throughout the game, so it was never exciting to find them. A system based on remixing abilities from found items would mean that finding a weapon with an ability you like could be really cool even it the weapon isn't your preferred type. Instead of being a Skyrim situation where artifacts are just unique decorations for the mannequins in your houses because crafted stuff is better, or other games where you find a battle axe with a really cool power you like, but sell it because you prefer to dual wield short swords, a good crafting system can make found items even more interesting than they would be otherwise. It also means that they don't have to dump tons of items on you to make sure you get one of the desired type. I generally don't like the idea of stores that just sell tons of fancy expensive magic items like they were common trinkets. That's fine for a hack and slash Diabloish game like Torchlight, but I wouldn't want it in a real RPG. The problem with dropping tons of items to make sure everyone can get what they want is that the rest get sold off, the PC gets really rich, and you then need to find something for them to spend that money on. If the cool abilities need to be salvaged from found items, and it costs money to do this unless you learn to do it yourself, that transforms one of the major sources of excess PC wealth into a cost. Most games, by about halfway through, I have way more gold than I know what to do with, and even looting things to sell becomes quite pointless. I also like the idea of having NPCs in towns who can do crafting for you for a price if you don't want to spend the skills/feats/etc. PC (or party NPC) crafting should be a bit of a convenience and cost saver, and at high levels get you a little bonus beyond the best town crafters, but not be absolutely necessary to take advantage of the crafting system. -Kasoroth

I like the idea of crafting, but it is a bit tricky to get right. If it's too weak, nobody will waste time/skill points/etc on it. If it's too powerful, it is a huge penalty to anyone who doesn't take it, and it takes a lot of the fun out of finding loot. For example: Skyrim with maxed out Alchemy (for making smithing/enchanting potions), smithing, and enchanting (for enchanting items, and making smithing/alchemy boosting gear), and the feats to go with these skills will let you make items far better than anything you can find. Looting becomes essentially pointless, and even most of the legendary artifacts aren't worth using. I tend to like socketed gem/rune based systems for several reasons: 1) Crafting an item from scratch should be a very time consuming task. While a single player game could easily just say "3 days have passed, your crafting is finished", it doesn't really make sense to do that if there's any sense of urgency in the story, and it would be impractical if there were any actual time limits or time triggered events to worry about. Swapping gems or runestones in a socket seems more realistic for an adventuring craftsman. 2) It allows players to customize items without necessarily making the items more powerful than found items, and found items are a good source of gems/runes. I just recently started playing Torchlight (Linux version from Humble Bundle) and I like the idea of being able to remove gems from an item, but being able to salvage one or the other, but not both. My preferred system would be along the lines of: 1) Most magic items are actually ordinary socketed items with one or more gems pre-installed. 2) Each item/gem combination will have a salvage difficulty. Skill too low can't salvage it at all, a bit higher can salvage one or the other, higher can salvage both. 3) Smiths in town can perform the salvage for a price, and some smiths are more skilled than others, and more powerful/difficult items cost more to salvage. Some items might be too difficult for any of the NPC smiths to salvage both parts, but the best should always be able to salvage one or the other. 4) Characters with crafting skills/feats can perform similar salvage for free at a workbench. 5) Characters can get a portable toolkit to perform salvage in the field, but at a penalty. Masterwork toolkit is more expensive, but gets rid of the penalty. 6) Some legendary items have unique powers imbued directly into the item, so they can't be removed. These items could potentially also have sockets for customization. 7) The base items will also have a variety of special materials, quality levels, and number of sockets, so that when you find a high quality rare material weapon with 3 gems in it, it's a tough decision whether to save the gems or the item (if you're not good enough to do both) Installing a gem in an empty socket is easier than removing it without damage, but still requires tools and a bit of skill. The advantage of a system like this is that there are some things that only a really skilled PC crafter can do, and a moderately skilled PC crafter gains a significant convenience and cost benefit, but there's no particular item or magical property that's strictly off limits to non-crafters. Crafting custom base items from special materials could be interesting too, but it makes more sense to have the PC bring the rare materials to an NPC crafter and special-order the item, and come back a few days later, rather than having crafting be instantaneous. This solves the problem of PCs suddenly (over the course of weeks or a few months) becoming better crafters than someone who's been doing it for 30 years. A PC becoming more skilled at a very specialized task (removing a magical gem from its socket without damaging either of them) makes some sense, because it's probably something that most smiths rarely do, because they're typically making the items, not disassembling them. An adventurer might pry more magic gems out of junk weapons in one day of mega-dungeon delving than an average smith does in a year. -Kasoroth

I think that in general harder difficulty levels should give less XP. In fact, since I tend to prefer slower advancement, my preference would be that the only thing changed by the base difficulty rating is XP: 75% for hard mode, 50% for really hard mode The game world remains the same, but you don't reach demi-god power levels so quickly, thus the game is harder. I also really like the idea of various modes that alter meta-game aspects rather than directly changing the difficulty of combats. Things like autosaving over a single save slot and erasing your saved game when you die (this one I'd probably wait until my second play through to try, I'm not totally insane) or more realistic inventory limits (weighty gold, please ), or starvation, or actual time limits with consequences for exceeding them (though not necessarily an instant game over) rather than having a storyline that pretends there's urgency while actually letting you take as long as you want. I know many of these "realism" features annoy some players who are just playing for the story and/or hack and slash, but having the option to have these features would make me really happy. For me, a lot of the fun of an RPG is getting into the mind of the character, and trying to imagine what they would be thinking about and worrying about. While food supplies might seem mundane and boring compared to battling an evil warlord, failure to consider them could be just as deadly, so to me it makes sense that the character would worry about that. I like the idea of finding a huge treasure hoard, but not being able to take it because I need to travel light and fast right now. These sorts of details make the world seem much more real to me, and help me think from the character's point of view rather than as simply a game player, with all the simplifying gameplay conveniences that have become conventional for the genre. I'm generally not a big fan of short term "you have 30 seconds until the bomb explodes" time limits (they're okay occasionally, but not too frequently), but I love longer term strategic time limits, like: You're injured and fatigued and could really use a good night's rest, but you only have two days before the enemy army seizes a strategic pass, so if you don't make a forced march to get through it now, you'll have to either fight or sneak your way through (a near impossibility), or find an alternate route, or accept being blocked from all the stuff on the other side for a while. I like when you can make decisions that effect the story directly through game mechanics, not just in a conversation tree. I like the idea of significant plot-related NPCs being able to be killed outside of scripted death scenes, and having that death impact the story in some way. I don't want story and gameplay to be two separate entities that take turns with my attention, I want them to be merged as much as possible -Kasoroth

I don't necessarily want a direct sequel, I would like to see a game that incorporates some elements of Planescape: Torment, and some elements of the original Fallout games. Specifically, I liked the character development and the style of the setting in PS:T Both were good about allowing you to make choices that actually effect the outcome of the game I liked the ending sequence of the Fallout games, describing what happened afterward in each area as a result of your actions I also liked the way the Fallout games were structured with a relatively open world to explore, and the main quest could actually be accomplished very quickly if you knew exactly where to go, but there were optional quests that were indirectly related, and sometimes provided clues for the main quest. I also like games where a variety of solutions emerge from the basic gameplay rather than being specifically scripted. As a simple example, having a plot critical item be potentially pickpocketable (or otherwise stealable) is very nice. I get a bit annoyed when a game forces you to kill the "boss" enemy to get an item, just because the designers want every player to fight that fight. I liked the way Fallout had many "enemies" who were not immediately hostile, but only became hostile when the player initiated conflict (either just for the hell of it, or because there was a plot related reason to do so), and that there were often alternative ways of dealing with the situation (stealth, persuasion, or simply paying them off for whatever you wanted) Also, DRM-free, please, and make a Linux version (or at least Wine compatible). I would definintely contribute to such a game (as I did for Double Fine) on Kickstarter. -Kasoroth

My biggest complaint about Oblivion is that all the monsters level up with you, and were pretty much uniform across the whole game world. There was no real excitement to exploring new areas because you would meet the same few types of monster populations. I like the fear of possibly stumbling into an area too difficult for my level, and the amusement of reaching high levels and demolishing the common bandits that I once feared. I like some unpredictability in my exploration of a sandbox type game world. Oblivion failed pretty miserably in this regard, but fortunately there were some mods that helped things. The levelling system was also flawed, but I'm not opposed to a "learn-by-doing" system in principle. I think the biggest flaw in Oblivion's specific implementation of "learn-by-doing" was the vast disparity in stats that you could have by level 15-20 if you didn't deliberately plan and train your skills. I found that just playing naturally (as a learn-by-doing system is supposed to encourage) would usually get me a bunch of x2 stat increase options, and one or two x3 options. This would average half the total stat increase value as someone who deliberately chose what skills to practice to make sure they always had three x5 stats. A simple fix would be to just give everyone 5 points to distribute each level, and use the exact same formula that was used for multipliers in Oblivion, but use it as a cap rather than a multiplier. If you want to raise one stat a lot in a single level, you need to focus on relevant skills, but playing naturally will not give you a net loss in total stat gains. Five points per level would probably be a bit less than most people averaged in Oblivion as well, so it would make it harder to make a master-of-everything character, and make character build choices a bit more meaningful. I'd also like to see the Fallout style conversation system added to the Elder Scrolls series. It really is better. -Kasoroth

So many different boards over the years it's hard to keep track of them... One of the first things I remember was the uproar that occurred when the GURPS license was dropped from Fallout during development because of a dispute with Steve Jackson Games. The gaming world might have been quite different if SPECIAL had never been developed. -Kasoroth

Though I usually wait for some reviews, I'll probably get NWN2 as soon as it comes out. I might even pre-order it, though I probably won't get around to that and just hope they have some copies left at my local Gamestop when I stop in to buy it. -Kasoroth

Does it include the DOS version of Fallout 1. I already have all those games, but I'm just curious because I've been considering trying to run it onder DOSBox for Linux. The later Windows only games I might try with WINE, because even though I have a dual boot system with WinXP 64-bit edition, I sometimes find myself not playing games because I don't feel like rebooting into Windows to play. Older games like the Fallouts and IE games might play fine, and then I'd have something to play in Linux other than Vega Strike and NWN. -Kasoroth P.S. - Obsidian, please make a Linux client for NWN2, even if it's not released at the same time as the Windows client. If necessary, please let Atari know that Linux users want games too (I've posted on Atari's forums expressing this opinion, but I don't know whether they listen or not) Rebooting is a pain in the @ss, and I don't play Obilvion as much as I would if it ran in Linux. I can deal with rebooting to Windows for the short term, but eventually I'll probably ditch windows completely, as I dont anticipate ever getting Vista. To get all the features I'd want, I'd need the ultra expensive Ultimate edition, and I'm not willing to pay that much, and I don't like the idea of pirating it, so I think Win XP 64-bit will be the last Windows operating system I'll use, at least on my home computer.

Harry the Bunny Master!!!! -Kasoroth

That game rocked.. Somewhere (I think in the bottom drawer of my desk at work) I still have some old commodore 64 5.25 floppies with tracks I made for that game. I loved the ability to set the gravity to super low values. Lunar racing rocked. As for the commments about Fallout, the fallout games are way too recent to need remakes. I'm tempted to say Ultima 7, because despite its low resolution it had a 2D engine that was extremely advanced and could support seemless multi-level worlds in a way that the Infinity Engine just couldn't match. Sometime I've been meaning to get ambitious and put together an open source tile library for Exult (an open source recreation of U7's engine) to replace the standard tiles with high res versions. The only difficulty I see (other than the amount of work it would entail) is that the engine divides things into specific sized chunks, so I don't know how hard it would be to make it deal with bigger tiles. My problem is that I tend to be more ambitious when I'm drunk, and then I sober up and realize the extent of what I want to do and just give up. -Kasoroth

This looked like a cool game from what I've seen of it, but then again I'm a bit of a sucker for games based on historical settings and games about assassins. Still not enough to make me buy a console (you'd have to get me a lot drunker than I am right now, which is quite a feat, to make me buy any console), but if it's truly coming out for PC I'll probably give it a try. -Kasoroth

I also hope it ends up being a good game. It seems to me that the Fallout series has always had a pretty good mixture of story and free exploration. It seems like Bioware's recent games have good story aspects and character interaction, but at the expense of freedom and exploration, while Bethesda usually tends to go more in the opposite direction. Hopefully Bethesda will improve the conversations (and get rid of the stupid persuasion minigame), cut back the level based difficulty scaling and add in region/area, or plot point based difficulty scaling instead, They need to make a game that has the good balance of story and freedom that Fallout had. I wouldn't even mind too much if the combat was like Oblivion (but with guns and dynamite added) as long as ammo is scarce enough that you can't just hose everything down with a machinegun like in some FPS games. Sneaking up and planting a stick of dynamite near someone in an oblivion-style combat & stealth system might actually be pretty fun, now that I think about it. -Kasoroth

These are pretty entertaining. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that I end up completely opposite from George W Bush. The Political Compass Economic Left/Right: -5.13 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.54 OKCupid Social Liberal: (83% permissive) Economic Liberal: (30% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. (Graph has been rotated so the economic axis is left-right to match the other graph) -Kasoroth

Compuserve had a Pool of Radiance MMO? Did it use a variant of the "Gold Box" engine used in the stand-alone Pool of Radiance like the original AOL Neverwinter Nights did? NWN on AOL was charged against AOL time which, back then, was like 5 or 10 hours a month, and then 3 or 4 dollars an hour after that. -Kasoroth

I disagree with you here. Personally I think that piracy is much less of a problem for music than it is for movies and games. While it is certainly a big problem for the record industry, that does not traslate directly into a problem for musicians. The budget needed to record high quality music is much lower than for a high quality game or movie (while it's possible to make a fun game or entertaining movie on a limited budget, it does limit the creators options because certain types of games and movies just cost a lot to make.) In comparison to major games and movies, the cost of setting up a decent recording studio is pretty damned cheap. Also, I'm pretty sure that musicians make far more money from concerts than they do from CD sales, because most of the CD money goes to the record company. When you think about it, it would be quite feasible for musicians to make good music without any copyright laws at all, in fact they've been doing it for thousands of years. In the days when vinyl was the primary medium for recording and distributing audio, it wasn't feasible for musicians to do this themselves, but distribution is no longer a problem, there are plenty of pirates (ARRR!!!) willing to distribute that music for free. If musicians stopped looking at record royalties as a revenue source, and instead treated recordings as a form of free advertisement for their concerts, I think they could still make lots of money. They might even have more happy fans, and more concert (and merchandise, t-shirts, etc) revenue than they do now. The big loser here is not the musicians, it's the record companies, because their primary function is to manufacture and distribute the media to consumers, and this function is not really necessary anymore. I suppose to be fair to the record companies, they do handle advertising and promotion of the records, which is useful to those musicians who get a lot of attention from the marketing department. Even this function is not really a good thing for the general quality of music though. It helps a lot to promote "mainstream" music, and this tends to have a homogenizing effect on the whole music industry, with the majority of radio stations playing the same music, and any musician who doesn't manage to get a contract from the record company (or gets a contract, but doesn't get much marketing attention) is left behind. Eliminating the record companies would effectively eliminate their filtering effect on music, meaning that listeners (and radio stations) would probably need to sort through more junk to find the good stuff, but in the process they would be likely to find even more good music that they would have missed out on if they had relied on the record companies to to their filtering for them. -Kasoroth