Monte Carlo

Who remembers the 'adventurer's guide' magic item from IWD2. It was full of adventuring truisms, my favourite of which was something like: Face it: You're Neutral Evil Alignment is a deeply anachronistic gaming mechanic linked to D&D. I doubt it will ever make it into an original IP project like this. Which is, all said and done, a good thing. Conversely, if I want to play a ruthless, amoral bastard then so be it. The game should react to that, though.

Hey, Bio could get involved if the game was a free-to-play MMO piece of vaporware. Seriously, Bioware is an empty husk, occasionally dry-humped by EA. No.

This is the single worst suggestion I have read so far. No.

You work for Bioware and I claim my ten dollars.

It's important but should be in chunks that allow you to enjoy it at your leisure, or perhaps avoid if you ain't in the mood. The books in BG2 were a great way of handling them (plus, you could sell them). Like clothing, knowledge should be a mechanic. Maybe as you learn more lore something happens. Maybe your character gets a bit wiser, or can influence other characters by story-telling, or gain a skill. I'm digging this idea that an immersive world in a game is one where all sorts of stuff ticking away in the background becomes dynamic. So the involvement in the world's lore works in all sorts of ways...

60-80 out of the box at least.

DLC is here to stay we might as well rail against online delivery systems like Steam (yes, I had to give in too eventually). In fact, I think the difference is semantic... and I'd rather have regular smallish updates when possible in DLC form and then bigger DLC too (which, in old money, is an XP as far as i'm concerned). So I voted for both. If there is some DLC to keep things fresh whilst waiting for a big XP-type of DLC then I'm cool with that. Because I want to give my money to these guys if this thing is as cool as I suspect it will be.

Hey a joke Helm that had awesome powaz but looked incredibly stupid would be a funny easter egg. The Banana-Shaped Helm of Utter Valour +5 or something.

They've listened already. Most of the grognards on this forum have been asking for an isometric, party-based, tactical old-skool CRPG for ten years or more. Since the death of the infinity engine and the Atari / D&D screw-ups it's been a fallow period. Then fast forward and some of us were pinning our hopes on the Dragon Age franchise. And look what happened there. Now Obz have listened and done something about it. Did we, as fans, have any input into that? Probably not but then again they knew that the grass-roots were out there, waiting quietly, and would respond favourably if something like this came along. Again, there are vast swathes of design decisions that the devs should and will ignore. But if they let us air our views on some of the other stuff... that can only be good.

Sawyer has strong views on this and he's a mechanics mentat. I'm going to let him get on with it.

TB is as dead as disco. Sorry. Twelve minutes killing critters a la Fallout? No thanks.

Character customization is important. If the avatars are small, BG-style, then you can still add a reasonable element of customization (look at ToEE for example, that had great character avatars and clothing). I'm liking this idea that was on another thread that cultural styles should work their way in. Armour, helmets, robes etc might be distinctive rather than generic and identify the region or origin of the item. They might, in some instances, even provoke comments. Might it be taboo, for example, for a man in region 'X' to cover his head? Or not cover it? Clothing and items then become part of the game: statements / disguises / deliberate provocations. What if dressing like a prosperous merchant assists your bartering skills or prices in a tavern (a 'Merchant's Hat' becomes a magic item that boosts these stats), maybe wearing clerical garb or items if you're not a priest can lead to serious problems in some areas. I know it sounds ambitious, and I'm mindful of art asset limitations (but you can make it easier, what if the colour red was verboten in a certain region and your best magic item is red?). So, making your character look interesting and adding elements of that as a game mechanic kills two birds with one stone and would make the gamer cooler for me.

It's because of the legendary American skill at geography.

OK, I give you Diablo 3. Jay and the others knew best. Fan input was spurned. Game is released and guess what? All the ideas (perma-online, AH, skills, loot drops) sucked. Now they are re-patching all the things back in that the fans wanted in the first place. Developer confidence is one thing: hubris is another. I trust Obz to listen but not to pander. But not listening at all?

As long as all the nubs here aren't refugees from the Bio boards then we'll be OK. If not...

How can 'tropes' be bad. It's like saying themes are bad. Genres are bad. Concepts are bad. FFS buy a thesaurus already.

No stretch goals. Just put every dime into the core product and make it as awesome as it can be. The rest will come from that. Build it an they will come (etc).

They'll do 95% of what they want to do, which I'm cool with. Then they'll listen to us for maybe the other 5%, with a pinch of salt. Which I'm cool with. What I'm not cool with is your assertion that dialogue with fans / customers / the community is essentially pointless.

No we are definitely there, just northwest of Geiran's Grasp (Calais). If they make three million we're in the XP

Jesus H Christ, you are only fifty thousand bucks away from doing it. I think three or maybe even five million is a possibility. I'm emailing every gamer I know and telling them to pitch in. We all need to do the same. It's like the Winter Palace in 1917, just with Orcs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/09/15/obsidian-raises-900000-for-project-eternity-in-one-day-on-kickstarter/2/ The world is watching as a bright new dawn, where publishers crap their pants, washes over the gaming horizon.

As I said in the other thread, it's like playing Progress Quest.

As an aside, the trial from NWN2 was great. As long as thick-as-mince characters get interesting options too, that would be great. As for the idea of cultural differences --- brilliant but does it stretch art assets too much? It would be cool if you were wearing armour from one region and in another it was commented on, for example.

Crossroads Keep was excellent. Let's have something like that.

$1,007,657