Tagaziel

Obsidian actually subverted that.

A mature approach to magic would also take into account the effect it has on society. Take Illusion or Invisibility spells for example. How about a subplot about a wizard-burglar, who uses invisibility and charm spells to burglarize people? Or a small group of conmen that trade illusory gold and jewelry for services and coin? Or maybe take into account the economy: if magic is powerful enough to transform matter, why not have legal prohibitions in place to limit trade in counterfeit copies or magical copies? Mature Magic isn't just about exploding limbs and buckets of blood splashed around. Although it's quite fun.

After Andrzej Sapkowski, black/white settings are pretty boring. By the way, Keldorn is interesting because of his personal conflicts and quest, not his outlook on life. It's the conflict that's interesting, not the naive paladin thinking.

I concur with the OP that, if the player character gets killed, party members should be able to revive him to life. Would make for an interesting reaction. "You sold my artifact sword to bring me back?" "What did you expect us to do? Bury you and be done with it?" "But it's an *artifact sword.*" "But you're alive!" "Couldn't you just whore Jensen out?" "..."

You'd have a point if you were posting on a Bioware board, about a Bioware point. This is Obsidian. And knowing Obsidian, if children will be included together with romances, there may be a subplot somewhere, about an obsessive woman that attempts to snare the PC or a companion with a child, after feigning contraception, leaving to a lot of problems, particularly if there are courts involved. That is, unless the Dark Elf in the party doesn't just stab her to death.

Tolkien's trilogy, while great, is actually very, very sanitized. Not to mention the generally unambigous white/black storyline and characters.

I like the idea of Obsidian as a single entity.

Don't dissect sentences, please. It's one whole: if you're afraid of producing offspring in any given fantasy setting (provided it's possible under the rules of the game), keep your appendages on a leash, or make sure that the former's not going to happen. As for the proud/humble dichotomy, just don't use any grading adjectives. There's nothing to be proud of.

"Proud" childfrees? What is there to be proud of? Regardless, if you don't want children, don't romance or at least make sure she's taken her elixirs before charging into the keep.

You don't know much about the market or the games industry, do you? I'll make this short: - Obsidian always wanted to make a classic RPG. - Obsidian does not have the funding to do this alone, so Obsidian needs a publisher. - Publisher did not want Obsidian to do classic RPG. - Obsidian was sad, so Obsidian made a Kickstarter to have full creative freedom with no publisher oversight, in order to deliver a classic RPG that's as deep, complex and developed as Obsidian wants.

The suggestion is not half bad. Wizardry 8 had children. Or actually, one child. Born out of the unholy union between the Rapax queen and a member of the party. The entire process was pretty terrifying, and the selected party member was uncoscious most of the time. You actually met your kid later, leading the demonic army at Ascension Peak. I never actually met him - that was the moment, when Dervish (our highly eccentric Rawulf priest and, incidentally, unwitting father) succeeded in casting Mass Death at max power, reducing the army to one tenth of its original number.

This. Absolutely, this. Trivia: Neckbeards actually did that. On the subject of inclusion of beast races, I've posted about that, about a minute before the Great Forum Crash of Yesterday.

I'd like to see Obsidian's take on so-called "beast" races (i.e. races not descended from apes). I'm partial to sentient felines myself, so I'll use that as an example. Why? It creates friction. Elves, gnomes, halflings, humans, dorfs have one thing in common: they have a humanoid shape and share the same basic facial and body features, owing to a common heritage (usually, Arcanum played with it nicely). This provides good grounds for interracial communication and cooperation. Now, it's harder to understand and work with a culture of powerful, sentient felines that have a comparative intelligence, but different ways of thinking, culture and simply look. Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim never explored the theme in full, billing Khajiit as thieves, smugglers and relegating them to the role of being The Elder Scrolls' general analogue of Jews in medieval times (particularly in Skyrim). Other few games that include them never really touched this subject or explored the theme. And there's a lot to do. A reclusive culture that has a comparable, alternate level of development and keeps to its isolated lands, making interaction and communication difficult for the few who try to ignore tales and stereotypes fueling the isolationism/isolation of the culture. Or a clash of cultures, with the feline politicial/social system being much different from the feudal/proto-democratic system of the humans (maybe more advanced, like a timocracy, or an implementation of Plato's ideal state?). Have the races clash on multiple levels, not just "You pink ape"/"Spotted fur rug!"

Brilliant idea. Andrzej Sapkowski explores this subject in his Witcher septalogy. It'd be interesting for a questline to rely on researching and tracking down stuff by looking for information and weeding out the chaff from racial-centric accounts. And then get hit with a more or less honest text from the day. Or working off a commonly accepted version of history, only to find a discredited, banned book that contains a different account. Not entirely different, but enough to warp the entire perception of the history and its participants. We see that all the time now.

I'd love for it to be something original. Planescape setting is good, but with the AD&D license in Atari's hands, it's a long shot (unless the PS license is issued separately). When it comes to settings, the modern world is relatively untouched: apart from Alpha Protocol, I have trouble recalling other games that'd focus solely on modern-day politics, intrigue and espionage. So, one possible game to create would be an RPG set in the modern world, focusing on, for example, the Iraq and Afghanistan war, or the current spree of revolutions in the Middle East or even Europe fraught with economical problems. This would also give the freedom to accomodate various ethnicities and both genders, with the current more or less egalitarian treatment (at least in the first world). Another possibility is an RPG set in or immediately before the Great War (1914-1918). The First World War is often ignored by people and rarely features in games. But there's so much potential to be had there! The Great War started a revolution in warfare and marked the transition from 19th century ethics, technologies and society to the revolutions of the 20th century. There's so much themes to tackle with events such as the introduction of the tank, chemical weapons and trench warfare, the Great Game, changes in the political landscape (1917 revolution, US dropping isolationism to aid the Entente nations, the fall of the Ottoman Empire etc.) Or do something like Meantime

Can someone from the team finally clear up this little problem: Is the Great Divide the Grand Canyon? All available evidence suggests that, but the Wiki boogeymen will apparently not agree with that unless someone from Obsidian comes out and says "Yes, it is."

I've got an odd question, as I've noticed something. I've checked out the texture for the Crimson Caravan sign in Fallout: New Vegas, as something felt very familiar about it. After adjusting the aspect ratio and checking it out in Photoshop, it turns out that the texture is a near-perfect match for my recreation of the Caravan logo from Fallout 1 I made for The Vault. The margin of error is, at worst, 2 pixels, so I guess the author of the texture simply took my recreation and used it. Not that I feel bad about it, on the contrary, I'd like to know if it's true, as then, as insignificant as it is, I've helped make New Vegas

Darion's guys were the New Khans, not the Great Khans. I suppose the latter come from a raider detachment that survived Vault Dweller's rampage by the virtue of being away when it happened. I managed to devise a way to play it, which bases on alt-tabbing every few minutes or at the first sign of problems, to force the game to reinitialize the renderer each time. Ugly, but works.

New Vegas doesn't like my GPU or my drivers. You know that the game is seriously FUBAR if it refuses to work not on one, but two computers in the household, both with different setups.

Are you using custom settings or presets?

This is ridiculous. I spent the last eighteen hours trying to make New Vegas work properly. As of now, I have up to date drivers, a working sound card (built-in Sound MAX that gets the job done) and conditions perfect to run unpatched Clear Sky. And it still refuses to work. CTD after (20 - 300 )s from start.

I am tempted to rip it out of its slot and throw it at the wall.

GPU drivers are the latest ones 260.89 for my GeForce 7900 GS (don't laugh, it made AC2 and ME2 work fluidly at high settings not to mention Clear Sky), drive is pretty unfragmented and lots of free space, no hardware conflicts I'm aware of. I'm not sure about the sound card, though - although I have a Sound Blaster Audigy installed, the system appears to be not recognizing it when I try to install new drivers, saying that it doesn't see anything. DxDiag begs to differ and displays the correct card... although it used the P17 driver from 2005, even though I used a 2006 (IIRC) driver install CD. Bottom line, should I just rip out the Audigy and rely on the mobo for sound? Or is there a clever workaround for this I'm not aware of (wouldn't be the first time)?

I'd be all over this game if it allowed me to play it for more than five minutes. From what I can glimpse, it's well designed, with good characters, interesting stories, factions etc., plus, it has a lot of great content and recurring elements from the previous two games in the series (not counting the three spin-offs). I was especially pleased to see the NCR camp in Primm, with a soldier from the Hub and the classic desert theme from Fo1 in the background. I wish I could actually play it without paranoidally having to quicksave every 15 seconds for fear that entering the PIP-Boy will cause it to crash and burn. For anyone interested in helping me with this problem, the symptoms are as such: in full screen, after a random amount of time (can be 30 seconds, can be 5 minutes) the display will suddenly freeze, while the game continues to work for about 20 seconds (judging by the sound effects) and then either crashes with an error message (standard Windows fare) or lock up the system forcing a reboot. In windowed mode, it simply crashes to desktop without so much as an explanation nor any discernible pattern - it can be opening the PIP-Boy, it can be shooting a powder ganger or even simply walking through the desert. I want to play this game, I really do. But apparently, it doesn't want to be played.

You lost sight of the scope and went on to ramble. I pointed that out. Can you be a tad less defensive, if possible? I don't think anyone wants to see photos of you just yet. Your posts are enough.