Tale

Not nealy as much as I once did. After all, I am back Thank Project Eternity (and that guy Deraldin). Well, thank or blame. Your choice! I'd encourage you to try to get David to come back. But this place would probably force him into an aneurysm. I'm dying to read those criticisms of games Avellone seems to love hearing from him.

I just added the #6 and #7 updates, if anyone's wondering what changed today.

Good and bad surprises, so long as they're interesting. Like the dialogue trees are laced with pinatas and dropbears.

No. Loyalty strikes me as one of those "only one right answer" systems. And I don't really like that. I don't like it when it's explicit, encouraging a reload, and I don't like it when it's hidden, springing up out of nowhere hours in when it's too late for the player to do anything. Just because a character doesn't like the PC doesn't mean he can't be useful to the PC. It's just that his use should change. Like if you're eating babies, the Paladin on the team gets incredibly angry, forsakes his duty just to try to stop you, and this all triggers a quest that replaces his regular character arc, and ends with him changing into a Blackguard. Old door closed (Paladin), new door opened (Blackguard). Or you're against stealing, but this doesn't go over well with the party thief. Maybe the party thief could adjust to being more damage oriented. Or she do ends up leaving the party, but she starts up a ring of informants that feeds you quest leads.

I still think Mass Effect 2 had the best combat design. Stupid single weapon can do everything design of 3. *kicks dirt*

It can look like it, sure, but it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that the sword that vanishes into the planet's core when you drop it point first might be sharper than the other. A group of seasoned adventurers shouldn't have trouble figuring out the general properties of equipment. You think they would develop some sort of testing procedure that enables them to figure it out so long as it falls within common bounds. Now, the ancient artifact with special properties not seen before or since, that one's tricky.

I like this a lot. I had an idea for a game were you play as a wise old mentor character who has to locate and guide a bunch of destined young heroes on their quest. And then when they all die due to various juvenile drama amongst the group, you gather your group of elderly retirees to Cohen style victory.

Ideally, experience should be granted for achieving goals. However, players like to have small experience gains throughout progress to a goal instead of getting it all in one lump at the end. So, would I like XP for combat? Let's just say I have nothing against it. They'll need to do those progress gains somehow. Maybe not necessarily killing each enemy, but for defeating a group to signify that a challenge has been surpassed, bringing the player closer to their goal. This would enable them to give it the same XP as if they'd talked past the enemy, then note that progress has been made so the player can't kill them as well for double XP. No additional progress was made by murdering people after talking them down, after all.

Sure, but that's just, like, dialogue-writing 101? People shouldn't go out of character to give exposition. Or perhaps the exposition is being used to help express and develop the character. Which is what it sounds like Sawyer was promoting. Still, they gave plenty of exposition seemingly for exposition's sake.

I've got nothing against the chosen one if he's chosen for a reason. Was he created from whole cloth out of a need to conquer the evil? Did he accomplish something great that garnered him the attention of the choosers? Did he choose himself after seeing what needed to be done? Finding out why the chosen was chosen can be as, and can potentially be more, interesting than what he or she was chosen to do. I think random providence is a little weak. Just being in the right place at the right time. As if the world is saved or destroyed with the initial roll of a die. Where if the hero had slept in 15 minutes everyone would be on the road to total doom. Unless there's a thematic point to be made out of such coincidence.

Just got through the Orc caves in Neverwinter Nights 2. I really hate that section. It's too long and there's too much junk loot.

I've always been a fan of trans-kobolds.

No, I do not think I am confused. I'm not saying they're good guys from a different perspective. I'm asking what could have caused them to abandon everything? And did they truly abandon everything? What did they leave behind? I'm looking for more than just an NPC with bandit over his head that yields 35 xp and 2 coins when his HP hits 0. I'm looking for a guy who had a name, had a history, some evidence that he existed as a character in this world with people who knew him. That there's more to his situation than stabs and loot.

I don't think there's been major recognition of the personal lives of our XP pinatas. It's something I would like to see explored. Despite their suicidal tendencies to rush at demi-gods in the hopes of obtaining pocket change, surely some of them must have loved ones. Wives and children. Parents. Maybe a few of them hung with the wrong crowd. Maybe they're poor and desperate. Could they be refugees of the war? Exiles with nowhere to go? It's not simply an idea to make them sympathetic, but to give them motivations and families is to better place them in the ecosystem and aid in bringing them to life before and after they are gibbed in a single critical hit. Remember all those copper rings that were barely worth their weight that you've looted in games of the past? Maybe those rings have inscriptions. "To my dear husband, Reginald. From Patrice." Is the bandit Reginald, or did the bandit kill Reginald? And maybe Patrice would like to have the ring back to remember her husband by. Or quests could appear from the other angle. Patrice's husband has gone missing and she fears bandits have captured him. Little does she know the truth. Maybe the player will never really know. Just how many bandits will we kill and what does that mean for the local populace to lose so many able men? What does it mean that so many felt compelled to banditry in the first place?

I'm immune to spoilers. I find more enjoyment in seeing the craft than being surprised.

That little tangent seemed to touch a nerve. Let's get back again.

Different communities have different cultures. It's hard to see the overarching elements of a community are when you're on the inside, because you're used to the subtleties and diversity. But then what value are the overarching elements for the diversity? Either way, it doesn't seem valuable to try to guess where each other is from. It may hint towards what bias the other person has, but it's not really relevant for the value of their opinion or argument.

Too many? Too many for what? Too many for anything else to be possible? Too many to bother playing Baldur's Gate and see how coop affected the singleplayer experience there? EDIT: At least you're willing to admit that your basing your intuition on a situation that's generally not analogous to the situation at hand. I don't think Baldur's Gate had the single player adversely affected by the multiplayer. That's absolutely a fair point. However, the counter point is I think the single player adversely affected the multiplayer. The multiplayer wasn't very well done. It was just acceptable. And doing that kind of half-measure seems a bit wasteful considering the effort required.

I love Baldur's Gate 2's map. Absolutely love it. I still see lots of appeal in Arcanum/Fallout style map, however. Enough so that if you could have Arcanum/Fallout while looking like Baldur's Gate 2, I'd be ecstatic.

Who?

It did seem strange.

There's a gigantic chart.

I really like the adventurer guild idea. I mean I really like it.

I don't see why it needs to be perfectly representative of ancestry. Mixed races are diverse, sure, but so are any of the pure races. It doesn't mean humans are going to get a selection of racial abilities. They just get to mix around their stat allocation. A half-elf race is already part of a spectrum. The elf race and humans are sides of it, nobody says that picking an elf has to be pure. It can be mixed too, just one that favors the elf traits. The human race favors the human traits. Half-elf is balanced. More granularity than that is appreciable, but not necessary.

Stay on track.