Wombat

Thanx for the link but the conclusion seems to be more or less similar. Basically, the cloud gaming services are targeted for wider range of people but I should have expected the answer here. Considering the frequency at which I play games, I guess I'm probably little more than a PC user than a full-fledged PC gamer.

Guess they are for mobile users, then. I was simply wondering...

Yes, indeed, at times, I feel the designers must be seeing things differently. Putting individuals who are ignorant of game-development while allowing a certain influence on the process would be a step forward, although their personal views, again, may be different from the targets... The style is not my cup of tea, neither but I knew the project even from it was revived by the intervention of 38 Studios. Thumb-sore action game-play is not my cup of tea, either. So, it all depends on the world, the stories and some slow-paced PnP factors, to me, I guess.

BTW, has anyone here tried cloud gaming such as Gaikai or Onlive? Judging from youtube videos, they seem to work O.K even though there seem to be inevitable lags. Their advantage is that the players don't need to invest on their hardware.

Thanx. I hope Sawyer would do something with that then, Beth's stealth play+CQC of AP seem to be a good combination.

To demobilize the opponents, how about the Hand-to-hand combat? For Sawyer designed it for Alpha Protocol.

Really? IIRC, I could only play the demos for both Diablo and Diablo II but the mindless clicking when swarmed by outnumbering enemies put me off. I can play some action games such as shooters especially when positioning is a key rather than finger-hurting clicking...no Serious Sam for me. The game-play of Oblivion is O.K. to me, too. So, I guess it is mainly how frequent I have to repeat clicking/button-mushing (for me, it's not a game-play but a labor). I know DSIII is going to be an action RPG but, if AI is capable of playing characters without screwing up PC, then, I don't see a problem in the designers allowing some people like me or some other people in this thread to control the frequency of the input. Nothing is official but multiple resources mentioned that the "party" is upto four members. That said, indeed, the possible issue I mentioned can be solved simply by limiting the number to two. After all, how to solve the issue depends on the designers.

I once said to a homosexual individual: "Well, you know? In the Bible, there is a scene where Jesus let one of his disciples insert a forefinger into one of his, er..."holes."" He was quite upset and went like: "Which hole!?" when I picked up a bible and showed him John 20. I admit the joke came to my mind, too, but I thought it's too cruel...so, I picked Jesus, instead.

It's Atlus, which seems to have released a list of competent works, in Japan, too. I googled a bit and you seem to be right in other things except the new release is already the third products of so called "Wizardry Renaissance", Pledge of Life being the first while Dungeon of Imprisoned Souls being the second, respectively. Also, there seem to be a lot of problems about the IP of Wizardry (I'd say avoid it by all means). Like in Feargus' interview with Gamebanshee, it would be much safer to use open systems such as D20 under original settings. In fact, Elminage, a Wizardry clone, seems to be doing similar thing, means, using a lot of tricks to avoid the IP issues (Even that , I still wonder if the company is completely risk-free).

John 20:25 Yet another waste of the real estate on the threads.

@WorstUsernameEver and Amentep It seems like that...various companies appear to have used the brand in Japan. For example, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land seems to be Atlus' version while the new release seems to be out from a tiny company called Genterprice. I think the graphics of Tactics Ogre is less of anime...I think the settings have more priority here.

Well, it's just that I've gotten a fixed idea that computer game designers tend not to be so sociable. In fact, back to BIS, even some designers seem to have communication problems to other designers. Nowadays, the tasks getting more complex, it is said that even programmers need to possess good communication abilities but...well, here is a snip from an interview to Annie Mitsoda at Codex. Back to Brian Menze, he sounds much nicer than some of his works imply... Thinking of that now, if this faithfully represented his personality, he would be in jail.

Like this one? According to Famitsu, it seems that Square Enix lets the original team remake Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. The info originally came from funcroc (What a surprise! ). You can see the old characters such as Powells and Vice as well as a new character called Raveness Loscaerion (the girl with a pole weapon), a female knight who serves Duke Ronway. Likewise, there seems to be added content such as side stories and more detailed descriptions about characters' feelings and motivations. While they keep the core game system, they add new gameplay factors, too. BTW, I couldn't but notice a new release of Wizardry... I wonder if they are going to release English version or not, though. In any case, there seem to be quite opportunities for the revival of old formats in handhelds/web-based services.

In that case, I don't wish the level of "originality" in terms of story/characters at your level. Honestly, when look into the realm of "literature/films", I cannot find truly original characters/stories, which is probably, one of the reasons whey I'd like to see other possible settings in CRPGs.

Well, about that, I allow myself to indulge with a certain level of romanticism where I believe that the designers of Bethesda, or, at least some of them, too, are fans of FO at their heart.

Very true. I was saddened by NWN2:OC and even nagged at Sawyer about it but...have you played Mask of the Betrayer? IMHO, Ziets is not bad at all and, in fact, I was saddened when he left Obsidian as well as I was glad when he came back and at that the news was informed by Sawyer, since it (again) proves that Sawyer, who seems to be good at management, knows what kind of person is needed for Obsidian.

I have nothing against Bethesda especially when they gave an opportunity to make FO:NV to Obsidian. However, I hope Obsidian would have more control on making their games by piling up commercial successes especially there are now opportunities opened for low budgets games, too.

I missed quite a lot of things in Oblivion compared with Morrowind, one of which is these simple and humble pilgrim quests although I know he is using it as analogy. Oblivion lost quite a lot of these PnP feel in Morrowind.

Original IP or not, it is almost impossible for a project based on a certain amount of funding to be "original." It often ends up with rather preferable results for many people when the designers shamelessly rip off some factors from existing formula while combining them with some original ideas in a well calculated manner.

Personally, I like equipments with interesting environmental story telling or woven to story/character-development such as quite many items in Planescape: Torment and a ghost-touched knife in Icewind Dale II than these gamist ones but, loot and economic systems seem to be a core factor in these games. That said, I cannot but see these ARPG/MMORPG formula a satirical sandbox for consumerism, even which is not new or original approach: Brian Fargo tried to mock it with Bard's Tale and, DeathSpank appears to have done that similarly lightheartedly. I wish good luck to Obsidian on dealing with these factors under high fantasy theme. I wonder if there is a way to make the system around loot/trading feel less manipulative since that is probably the primary reason why I cannot make myself into Blizzard games.

Sticking to the OP, I think CD Projekt Red did something similar to such scheme. If you like the game, you are offered to have opportunities to pay your money quite a few times in different editions. This may sound ridiculous but if you really like their game and don't see anything worth your money in other games in the market...reading some posts on the net, I believe some enthusiastic fans bought virtually the same game more than twice. IIRC, Sawyer sounded contemptuous but the point is that nobody forced you to buy them. Personally, I bought the first one in full price, which seems to be enough support since I have eventually gotten fully patched game with some additional content. As for Fallout:New Vegas, you may be interested in buying a boxed collector edition and a digital one at the same time, which would allow you to play the game immediately while you can satisfy your geeky pleasure with the former. However, since these things can be done through your free will, please don't complain it even if something wrong happened since by doing this, you are doubling risks for something unexpected. For example, if you end up with finding there is a rare but fatal bug in your environment. However, all in all, Obsidian need to be recognized as a competent company by publishers. For that, they probably need to polish their product value, or, assure the most players to get what they expected. For, as you can see in Alpha Protocol's case, there are almost nothing can be done once a considerable number of people find themselves unhappy with their products. Different from CD Projekt's case, I don't think it would have made a difference even if I had bought the game at full price immediately after the release. That said, if Obsidian find their share in opportunities in web-based and/or portable gaming, it may make their lives easier. Relatively low budget games with distinct art direction such as DeathSpank and Valkyria Chronicles showed that there are still rooms for the definition of polished products, too.

And I thought that's the reason why the original topic had quickly shifted into speculations over (the) other possible project(s). No fund, no game. Since, generally speaking, expected sales decide the size of the projects, which is why we deduced that the "internal" project must be smaller in its size.

I have my doubts about the "2D" part, an internal product is more ikely to be made with their own technology, Onyx in this case. Probably a "light" version of it, but still... That's pretty similar interpretation at my end. WorstUsernameEver has probably gotten it from the job opening description for flash artist intern. Of course all of these are just speculations but it's not just Feargus who mentioned flash or web-based smaller projects. Please read this interview to Greg Zeschuk at Eurogamer. Of course, we don't know how the future will turn out but, at the moment, it would be non-brainier to make a certain moves to the direction, especially when there are supposed to be plenty of rooms for original ideas compared with "giant" projects. There is no wonder if some designers see their ideas crashed by the previous paradigm shift to consoles may find their places. Personally, I'm bit surprised by seeing that even Zeschuk felt uneasy with their "giant" projects, though.

@odjntrade Sorry, I cannot understand what you are saying... Personally, I'd like to put my inputs where it has meaning, or when they have tactical importance in the combat game-play. "You point, I punch." - As Minsc pointed out in his best dialogue in whole BG series, I don't feel involvement in pushing/clicking a punch button repeatedly. That part should be done by script in Infinity Engine format. Now, about DS3, while I don't find a problem in the control scheme in DS3 in multi-players and a human and an AI combination, if the ratio becomes a human and 3 AI players, then, I think it would radically reduce the tactical importance of the human player. One extreme solution would be to give the players an option to play it like IE games but allowing a certain level of control such as generic command to each AI characters while pausing may give the players feel of control to the combat. In any case, whatever solutions would be for this possible issue, there should be some middle grounds in a single-player scenario or when other players dropped out.