Monte Carlo
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Everything posted by Monte Carlo
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Ostensibly I am from the United Kingdom. That is, in fact, where my transplanar hellgate is located (not far from Edmonton, on the A406 North Circular Road). Should you find it (there is an acrid smell, of congealed souls and simmering brimstone nearby) you will find yourself in the bottom level* of my Mind-Flayer infested mega-dungeon, where I usually live. Luckily I have a good ADSL connection down here and am able to treat you to my musings. *nominally level 120, but there is another, secret one below it. -
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Oh I fully believe it is and can fully deliver on that promise without completely alienating everybody else. I think their 2.3 mil stretch goal proves their commitment to having the game be sufficiently flexible to please the old without alienating the new. No. The new need to be gently, tenderly but firmly unengaged from the gaming teat of dumbed-down dross and reintroduced to the purity of the Old Skool.
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Not my cup of tea, well not all of it, but I can definitely see why it would appeal. This is why announcing modding tools would be a great idea, because this is exactly the type of feature a good modder might create.
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Yes. But those 'resting' can boot it back up and donate all their best items to the cause, right?
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I wish to raise a substantive point. If the developers do include a difficulty mode that is indeed derived in spirit from Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury, then the player ought to be allowed to assemble a squad of crack commando teammates who would be up to the challenge. I don't want to be saddled with "Optional Male Romance Guy" or "Comic Relief Witty Bard" as companions for such encounters. Harumph! Your post is imbued with the rich ichor of wisdom and I salute you.
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That is a good question, Humanoid, and one that I shall partially answer. The early years of my life are a secret. However, I began feasting on ridiculous gamers in the late 1970's. I happened upon some heavily bearded students from the Society for Creative Anachronism. Ah, UCLA in 1978 / 79? The souls I harvested there were some of the sweetest. Anyhow, these guys were beating each other up with wooden swords and talking in fakespeare. As I'd actually fought in a number of battles myself in the High-Medieval period I detested there pathetic attempts at emulation and gorged upon them. I can hear one of them wailing in my phylactery like, right now. Shush, little one. Then came the Renaissance Fayre people. Man, they make promancers look like Hunter S Thompson. I cut a swathe through the Midwest in the mid 1980's, only stopping to devour the occasional 2nd Ed AD&D players at GenCon. Then... oh my... then came the LARPers. They were delicious, their lameness was like sweet butter. I would dress as a Mind Flayer (well actually in my real form I look like one anyway) and suck out their souls. Have you noticed there are virtually no LARPers left nowadays? That's because I ate them all. Now it is promancers and Biowarians. Oh yes. They will be mine.
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Just putting this out there: In the final week of the KickStarter the D3 players on this forum meet. We play Diablo 3 like crazy. We then donate all of our best items accrued in said games to a nominated person who puts them all on the Real Money Auction House. That person then donates it via their KS account (also a good way of helping out a fellow gamer who might not be able to afford to go up another tier independently). I like D3, but also find it deeply ironic that we could use such a gonzo ARPG to fund something as beautiful as PE
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I prefer swamps to sewers. I don't know if the engine will allow for goo animations but quicksand would be cool.
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Oh and scars and battle damage on armour and clothing. After a fireball your character should look scorched. Graphics only, not a durability mechanic.
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I always liked the BG2 Thief Guild quest. I would love to see an expanded storyline where the PC runs a mercenary company perhaps, a sort of minigame with income and stuff. It would be linked to the main story (loved Xroads Keep) in some way.
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I have nothing against content-tourists. Choose EASY and make a diplomat, like someone else said. What I *do* have a beef with is people asking for features that are utterly at variance with what the precursor titles were about. Why? Because (a) they eat development resources (b) they are extraneous (see initial point) and C experience teaches us that the more you pander to gamers who have sucked at the teat of Bioware, the more they will bug you and lobby for yet more dripping wet auto-gaming.
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I don't particularly like some of the responses I've seen to this, and similar sentiments. There hasn't been any abuse or vitriol, which is great, but there is definitely a certain amount of disdain. I'm a story-driven gamer. In my particular case, I also really enjoy the gameplay elements of RPGs, and I foresee myself trying out some of these increased difficulty modes (although I'll be doing that after I've done a complete playthrough). For me, unlocking the story as a reward for completing gameplay challenges really works. However, I don't see a reason why someone shouldn't be allowed to play a game purely to experience the story, or why they should be disparaged for it. Saying something like "go read a book or watch a movie" isn't helpful - or even cogent. Experiencing a story interactively - even stripped of its combat elements - is another experience entirely. That's something I think a majority of RPG fans can agree on. It might also be that the story told by a particular game is not one you can experience anywhere else. So I think asking for a mode that removes combat, or (more likely to be implementable) one that makes combat vanishingly easy is a perfectly valid request. Real time with no pause necessary. Real time with no action on the player's part necessary. It's not the option I would choose, but I'm certainly not going to belittle someone who does want to play the game that way, or fault the developers for including that option, as well as their more difficult modes, in the game. Let me put that right for you then. Go and read a book.
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I've read this thread: the sly, wheedling infiltration of the promancers, the call to arms by their evil emo-lord Gaider, the manipulation of statistics and fact... This is war. And it must a total one, the enemy expunged with fire and sword. But seriously... I want to address the writing aspect. And I find it strange that the OP, as a writer, thinks that the inclusion of a credible romance aspect of this project isn't a major resource issue. Again, to keep the promancers happy we need at least three romances I suppose (well, to keep them really happy we'd need fifteen, including diaper tent sex including a pack mule). Imagine writing three sets of dialogue through multiple options / scenarios referencing the romance plus third party references (you want the other NPCs to notice, right?) and other content. I've just thought about a normal NPC story arc and it is literally tens of thousands of words. Plus, it has to be scripted. So no. No. No.
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So to enrich the story and have a credible romance we need to dedicate multiple NPCs (to satisfy sexual variations which if not included will involve yet more whining) to it. Hmmm. Probably six months of writing for that. Which is, literally, stealing assets time and money for content everybody could enjoy. Please, somebody address the point that crpg romances are a recent development and do not chime with the stated development goals of this project.
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To reiterate: there is nothing 'mature' about cybering your imaginary friends. In fact, its creepy.
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I always thought Gary Gygax basically made the Drow underground Melniboneans after reading an Elric book.
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It's starting. And they are multiplying.
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And herein lies the rub: mya79 thinks that her ideal romance means there might need only be 2 or 4 NPCs. This is to accommodate a decent romance. OK, her preference is her preference. But I will defend the position that dumping the other NPCs just for a romance is nuts.
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Michael Moorc0ck's Melniboneans were the best take on elves I've seen, amoral, chem-addicted, Medici-like ubermensch living long lives characterized by cruelty, torture and ennui. I always see elves as baddies: superior, aloof, clever, scheming, deadly. In folklore elves have always been slightly sinister, the nature-loving bow equipped hippy trope makes me puke. As for Dwarves, I actually liked the Dragon Age take on them and their culture.
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^ Player House is selling themselves short when it is clearly some sort of BG2-inspired Stronghold Quest.
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I think Grom is saying that romances should be **** or bust, all or nothing, to work compellingly. Which would require a CRPG where the romance was a major story-arc. I have nothing against such a project, I wouldn't buy it but it would certainly be viable. But given that the pre-cursor products that inspired PE had only marginal romance content it isn't appropriate for this.
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Hopefully the paper dolls / avatars will allow for amusing blend of non-mage and mage gear, i.e. a plate-mailed wizard wearing a long pointy hat.
