Tale

The insults leveled at Mrs. Hepler were beyond the pale. I'm ready and willing to say negative things about Bioware's games and speculate things that may be considered insulting about the process of developing them. I'm a jerk sometimes about it in all likelihood. But that is a whole other level of crass. I think Nepenthe's the one who opened my eyes to it, the SNR is simply out of hand. It's no wonder Bioware games have difficulty with fan feedback. Nobody wants to read that crap.

Magic, by definition, should be apart from normal abilities. Above, beyond, below is arbitrary. It just needs to be different.

Still on my latest play of Neverwinter Nights 2. And still enjoying it. Only real complaint I'm having here is the non-responsive controls in character mode. I'm surprised at how well paced it is, to be honest. Go through a dungeon or two, get back to town and get to relax. Except those stupid Orc caves, where you're running through like four or five dungeons areas before you get out of it. It's like the bleeding Deep Roads.

Never underestimate the suburbs. Never.

Well, if we're entertaining complication, then a buckler would probably be a multiplier off something like the dexterity stat. A dexterous character would be able to put it to better use than a slow/lumbering character would. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. Like how dual wielder get two attacks, buckler users get a second defense check based on dexterity.

I think that's where I stand. I'm used to, and welcome, companions interjecting and possibly providing success through those interjections. But I'm not comfortable with SoZ style picking and choosing who says what to get the maximum benefit. Unless the conversation system becomes Alpha Protocol levels of complex and companions replace stances. That's an interesting idea. The conversation system in Alpha Protocol was brilliant and my personal favorite part of the game. However with the number of companions available and assuming each of those companions can develop different dialogue/influence skills to various degrees I fear that may produce a system so complex and involved that it may fall outside the scope of what could realistically be funded via Kickstarter and/or would take serious time and resources away from other aspects of the game. The more I think about it, the more I like it. But yeah, outside the scope.

I think that's where I stand. I'm used to, and welcome, companions interjecting and possibly providing success through those interjections. But I'm not comfortable with SoZ style picking and choosing who says what to get the maximum benefit. Unless the conversation system becomes Alpha Protocol levels of complex and companions replace stances. Now that would change my mind.

I have not fought enough gelatinous cubes. I can say that comfortably.

One of the developers proposed an idea for an adventurer's guild. You start out with your regular PC, then you get coupons or something that let you go to the adventurer's guild and recruit from there. This would help resolve pacing and identifying the main character. The extra characters would just be custom built hirelings. And I really liked the idea. The sad part is I'm not sure I would actually use it.

Can do.

These guys are going on tour!

Tragedy seems easier. More seductive. I'm not intentionally invoking Yoda, but it just so happens to align. I've never been solidified on why that's the case, however. Are we simply engineered to notice tragedy and sadness more to aid conditioning? Sadness and tragedy are more likely to connect to evolutionary fail states, so they're given extra weight? Are they perhaps rarer in our lives and media, so we notice it more as a novelty effect? I don't really know, I don't have the data on any of it. What I do know is that I cry every time I watch Man on the Moon. The Andy Kaufman biopic starring Jim Carrey. Which makes it more memorable than most other films, even though it doesn't do as much as most of my other favorites. Does this mean it's more dramatic? I can't say that.

Just two posts later and I'm forced to challenge my own ideas. Edwin and Korgan were great. Well, Edwin was, I never used Korgan to make an opinion of him. Because he was funny. because his delivery was fantastic. So I guess it shows there can be exceptions, but I worry that it's really hard to pull off. Without voice acting, Edwin might have not been nearly as likable.

Because people are voting for and against your post. It has nothing to do with you, but the other users.

I actually agree with him. Any character that insults or belittles the player, the player won't like. A character can still challenge the player, they can disagree with the player. But the second the character starts insulting or acting better than the player, the player will hate them. I'm taking this from my PnP experience. Everytime the DM brought a character in to try to reign us in, where he'd go around making fun of our strategies or mocking our ludicrous behavior, I just wanted to kill the character. The DM, however, thought he was being funny. He wasn't. The DM was trying to show us up. And my response to characters like that extends into computer games. Characters should support the player. Yeah, they can have their own goals, but they should try convincing the player to help with those goals. They shouldn't be hounding the player and becoming obnoxious to that end.

The thread does seem to have taken a turn for the redundant. If you would like to continue discussing armor, we could make a return to this thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60115-armour-and-weapon-designs-a-plea/page__st__400

I would love to see more from it. It's done remarkably well on home release.

Now I have to wonder if they were intentionally testing for feedback. "Okay, lots of people say they dislike boobplate, but how do they really feel?"

It's very good. The story is kinda so-so (it's a side story that doesn't really advance the plot, and it's also not really well-paced) but the gameplay and dungeon design is very very good, art direction and music are also top-notch (you can really feel that being able to design other worlds freed the art team to be *~fabulous~*. Loot curve is somewhat shoddy, forgivable because it's not really a loot game and the other gameplay elements more than make up for it, but the title still could have used a better loot curve (more and better uniques, a few more possessed items, more interesting stat distribution in general). That said, while the itemization isn't perfect, it still allows for quite a few fun builds. Ah, also, despite the fact that it' look that way, the shooting section actually has the shooting as optional, besides a couple of bosses that need you to use the gun to kill. I mostly agree, but I would only call it good. I value the story more than WUE, I guess. This reminds me that Argul's Tomb is available now.

-Anti-technology themes. Lots of fantasy can be roughly interpreted about being the natural world (good) versus the industrial world (evil). That's mostly because a lot of fantasy writers don't pay attention to what they're writing. Or maybe they just have an obsession with rural life. Either way, it's overdone when unintended and simplistic when intended.

I don't need it to be brutal. I'm still debating on just how valuable the feature would be, in general. Even in Fallout and Baldur's Gate, they just turn into a different looking pile of gore. Which wasn't impressive.

I like the Thri-Keen suggestion. :/ Someone whose physiology differs from the default humanoid assumption enough that we can expect significant combat changes. And I don't mean elves with wings. 4 arms! No arms, an entire race that fights using their feet or mouths! Quadrapeds! Sapient blobs! Extra-dimensional energy beings that occupy multiple locations at once!

That's the developers wanting a certain look for characters and losing out on even equipment customization. Here people are wanting the players to be able to find their own looks without losing out on equipment customization. What DA2 did is far from here.

I don't think people want to play dress-up. I do think people like to be able to give their characters a "certain look" when they create them to greater or lesser degrees. That was one of the huge problems DA2 had and a reason why so many people complained. So if you want to do that go and play DA2. As I recall, one of the problems in DA2 was precisely the opposite. The customization, especially for companions, was minimal. Was there something I missed?

They will likely become available sometime after the Kickstarter has ended. How they will be implemented and registered to you, that I don't really know yet. We've had some other discussion over here. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60662-vip-badge/