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Seagloom

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Everything posted by Seagloom

  1. Awesome stuff here. I must admit some of those details exceed my expectations. Looking forward to seeing how subraces play out. As someone that generally sticks to human, it'll be neat to stick to them and still have options.
  2. Magic in the vein of what D&D labels enchantment and illusion. Spells that alter perception and affect the mind are not nearly as common in RPGs as elemental magic. Illusion in particular is virtually nonexistent outside D&D. It's why I went straight for the mesmer when I started playing GW2. Those schools aside, any magic that is of the subtler control variety piques my interest. I like blowing stuff up with fireballs once in awhile, but I dislike it when that's all a magic user gets to do.
  3. I liked BG's multiplayer function. Had a blast playing through campaigns co-op. At least when we stopped to coordinate a strategy. Despite that, I'm hoping Obsidian focuses on the single player experience. There's already Divinity: Original Sin coming to scratch my multiplayer RPG itch, and I'd rather see anything the stretch goals list suggests before multiplayer in PE.
  4. Another vote for a house tied to a character's class. If not, at least make it a fun place to revisit like the Sink in OWB. However, if I could get my personalized dream stronghold it would be an inverted tower descending ever deeper into the earth. I'm corny that way.
  5. Old-skool. I like using my own custom portraits. Unless there are a ton of appearance customization options, which I doubt, 3D portraits will not be anywhere near as personalized.
  6. I agree it isn't necessary. There is no worthwhile reason in my mind to include a gauge for a character's personal morality. Karma in New Vegas was a good example. It was just... there. It served no purpose with the faction system. All a morals system does is hamper role-playing by encouraging a rigid approach to every dilemma. It can also unfairly influence a player's impressions of an NPC instead of forcing them to get to know the character and reach their own conclusions.
  7. No sir, you do not. I lurve Justin Sweet's work. It would be awesome if he did the portraits.
  8. I favor the NWN2 and Fallout approach. Unless they can throw enough money at writing and implementing these choices to make each option influence the entire game, I don't see how it can possibly get any better than that. Having a few key conversations where my character's past experiences affect the outcome are always nice. Being able to define personality traits in a way the game recognizes and provides feedback on are also great. Sadly, between identifying characters based on race, gender, and potentially class, these details often get left by the wayside.
  9. No, I didn't pledge to get a new BioWare game. I don't harbor any ill will towards BioWare and I know Black Isle and Obsidian collaborated with them before. However, my interest in this project is seeing what Obsidian can do when left to their own devices. I have long believed in the potential of this studio and how much more awesome a game they could develop without being fettered by corporate shenanigans. This is the first time that could actually happen. I do not want to see that opportunity squandered.
  10. I see this approach as a positive, not a negative. If my party needs a healer and the only available choice is a smug immoral jerk, I like the idea that choosing to leave him behind has a tangible consequence. Clinging to your convictions is not always going to be easy. While I welcome more characters to interact with, I don't think Obsidian should include a bevy of alternatives solely so every player can have their cake and eat it too. Sometimes in life you gotta work with people you don't like to accomplish a goal. It's not an unusual circumstance.
  11. I don't mind elves as long as they are not the Tolkien inspired D&D variety. Standard issue elves make me cringe. What I would love to see are elves based on Norse mythology. The *real* elves.
  12. This about covers it. I can live with short gameplay length if there is no padding. Bad filler is the death of replay value. I find trudging through act 1 of NWN2 painful because of it. Most of my games fall apart once I reach Old Owl Well. If I finish it, I can usually push myself through to at least act 3. Ideally I want a longer game, but if the added length is thin on non-combat content, forget it. Waaay too much filler combat in RPGs.
  13. It's difficult to say without knowing what Project Eternity will include. A reasonably safe bet would be the aesthetic. Planescape had a captivating style I did not see in any setting before or since. Tony DiTerlizzi did an amazing job, and Black Isle managed to capture the spirit Sigil excellently in Torment.
  14. I kind of sort of agree with this? I do think games can shy away from content that could ruffle feathers too often. I thought New Vegas dropped the ball here, in fact. Working for the Legion as a woman felt like a push, and the ending slides made it sound like there weren't even any consequences for the PC. At the same time, this sort of thing can be very hurtful depending on personal experience. At their core, video games are entertainment. For some of us they are escapist entertainment. In real life, women deal with a bevy of social issues on a regular basis--many of which have a hugely negative impact on their development and later, their adult lives. Getting to play a game where you don't need to deal with that as much, kick ass, and get to live a power fantasy is not only fun, it can be cathartic. That isn't to say I think all sensitive topics should be shied away from. Only that they should be handled with consideration for your entire audience. It's a tightrope that is all too easy to fall off from in pursuit of "mature" storytelling. Striking the right balance is tough. I think writers should keep trying to get it right. I just hope they are actually trying when they do, and not settling for weak shock value to garner attention.
  15. I loved the way House and the NCR were handled by contrast. In my first game I actually stood in front of Yes Man for a good twenty minutes after finishing the "Side Bets" quests and thought very carefully about whether my character would betray house. She eventually did, and although I felt justified in my decision it never sat completely well with me. I was put off by the NCR before long for the reasons you cited and more. To me they are almost as unappealing an option as the Legion is. However, the key difference is presentation. With the NCR, I get to meet many of their rank and file and see they are decent people caught up in a machine. I meet a disenfranchised ranger relegated to gathering intelligence, a crippled former ranger, well meaning scientists, and so on. There is contrast. For every shifty NCR character there were a few who were decent or at the very least, understandable given their lot. Caesar's Legion by contrast is full of wall to wall psychos. Other than that one merchant, a line or two from Raul, and Caesar's own words, I'm not shown anything to suggest these people are more than cartoon villains that get their kicks from the suffering of others. I see slavish, ruthless devotion to a cause and that's all. On top of that, I encounter numerous examples of how the Legion lies and manipulates people to their ends. Yes they keep roads safe in their territories, but the tradeoff as presented is horrific and it is not until the ending that you get any inkling a Legion led west might not be a pure hellhole forever. Contrast this with House who wants to set himself up as a dictator and asks me to kill a bunch of people in one quest, but is otherwise almost benign in his goals. I suppose the big disconnect between us is I believe reasons should justify actions for a faction to have any credibility as a believable entity. Caesar may have his reasons for what he does, but his army is actually little different from the orcs you used as an example. Using terror to assimilate then maintain order to build your people into a vast conquering army sounds pretty orcish to me. In the end, I was left with the impression that the Legion were the main antagonists of New Vegas for no other reason than that kept being reinforced from as early as Goodsprings. I'm hoping this will not be the case in PE.
  16. That has not been the case with Obsidian, however. Fallout: New Vegas had a few preorder item packs that were eventually bundled as DLC and the Gun Runners' Arsenal that added more items and some challenges, but the majority of that game's DLC was meaty story content. Treasures of the Sun not only added a new area and quests to Dungeon Siege III, but an item crafting mechanic that retroactively affected the entire game. Given their track record so far, I'm not too worried about Obsidian's DLC. As for expansion packs adding on to the end of a game, that is not always the case. Tales of the Sword Coast added side missions to Baldur's Gate. Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark were entirely new campaigns with tangential connections to the OC at best. Ditto with Storm of Zehir. If Obsidian released a DLC beefier than their usual already substantial past offerings and increased the price, it would pretty much already be an expansion pack in everything except name.
  17. It depends on how its handled. As an aggro ability? No. I dislike how threat mechanics trivialize combat in any game I played that includes them. It turns every fight into a cycle of taunt, tank, and rout with the occasional need for healing thrown in. I prefer NWN's take on it. It was a useful debuff--particularly at higher levels, that helped in combat without tempting me to turn off my brain.
  18. I'm torn on this. On one hand, I don't want to deal with the inconvenience lugging gold around would entail. On the other hand, it could lead to interesting dilemmas looting dilemmas. Slaying a monster at the bottom of a ruin and then having to decide whether to carry out a pile of gold or taking those possibly one of a kind, but nevertheless mysterious magic items could be interesting. Of course a situation like that would only work if there was no going back afterward. Otherwise you would just take the loot then come back for the gold later. The pack rat in me says weightless gold though.
  19. It's important for the reasons Raithe wrote. Lore enhances the believability of a setting to me. If it gives me food for thought that can impact my viewpoint on a quest or a character I meet, all the better. Bonus points if it's emotionally moving lore. Take a game like Arcanum, where lore was presented in-character even in its manual. It started immersing me in that world before I even installed the game.
  20. I'm guessing they're not implemented yet. The Kickstarter is barely a day old. Plus the forums have been unstable as heck. Probably not the best time to implement stuff.
  21. I voted for the third option to express indifference toward either approach. Obsidian has been very good with DLC. Treasures of the Sun and the four New Vegas DLCs all added a nice amount of new content. As long as they maintain that standard of quality, DLC is fine by me. Ditto with expansion packs. Mask of the Betrayer was awesome stuff. Storm of Zehir, not as much, but it wasn't as if I felt ripped off paying full price for it.
  22. Cherchez la Femme is the other perk. This is an area where I hope Obsidian's writers do whatever they are comfortable with. If that means no romances, then so be it. I rather see other types of bonds explored; such as a few of the examples PsychoBlonde mentioned above. Besides, romance options tend to devolve into being all about the romance after a point. It's very noticeable when you play a character who ineligible for the romance or dump the NPC. Their content typically bottoms out and they become a husk only fit to spout a few one liners forevermore. I liked how Christine was handled in Dead Money to a point. It was on the subtler side. Suggestive without being hamfisted or crude. My only complaint was how the flirting was completely overlooked once you got into the Sierra Madre--as if two different writers wrote each section of that DLC. I chalked it up to her being too obsessed with Elijah by that point to care, but it remained jarring. Still, I liked how it was handled before then. Romance can enhance a story when it's done well, but when it's clunky it really shows and detracts from the experience.
  23. I thought about that. The Fallout games do it too. The reason I'm not too thrilled about it is NPCs in classless games tend to be superfluous even under those circumstances. What usually happens is they bring little of definite worth to the table and end up glorified pack mules. However few points the player has to upgrade their character, classless systems to make it extremely easy to play a self-sufficient protagonist unless you go out of your way to specialize into an unorthodox niche. The only exceptions I have seen to this is Virgil in Arcanum for any build that doesn't pick up healing skills, and ED-E in New Vegas for his portable workbench and reloading bench ability. (I'm not counting Veronica since she was bugged to hell and back. ) Now, on the whole I prefer a classless system. I enjoy the freedom in brings to role-playing and dig the extra content taking certain skills over others might unlock. I've just never seen it done to my satisfaction in a party based game. Edit: I should also mention none of those games allowed direct control of followers. I don't know if that was an intentional design choice or an actual inherent limitation of the style, but I prefer full control of my party in combat.
  24. Yeah, it's likely a no-go if we are talking small sprites on a large map akin to Infinity Engine games or ToEE. I'm not expecting clothing options to matter much given that. I'd be happy if I there were simply more than two robe styles for mages.
  25. I was going to tack on a similar comment in a reply to the "Please include women with shirts on." thread before the site borked and ate my post. Le sigh. I may as well reconstitute that bit here. Totally agree--particularly in the clothing department. I'm honestly not expecting a whole lot of attention given to clothes. The old school design influence may mean PE will be limited to ToEE level variations in clothing options. I like throwing clothes on my character that are suitable to the situation at hand. If she is out and about knocking heads, I prefer her in sensible armor. If she is attending an upscale social event I want the option to wear a dress. Sometimes I want my character to look badass and other times I'm shooting for sex appeal. Sometimes I like a character to wear an outfit to fit a background or design concept. In short, more choices is always better here, and this area is often neglected in RPGs presumably due to cost. I'm glad J.E. Sawyer wrote what he did in that other thread; as the depiction of women in games is a concern for me. That doesn't mean I want to be locked into one style, however. The more options there are to portray my character how I envision them, the better.
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