Darth Sithari

I"m very close to preordering this game. The only thing holding me back is that I want to see more missions that involve interaction with characters. I mean, interaction that doesn't involve shooting them. Like a James Bond style-mission where you take a girl to dinner, or talk your way through a meeting with powerful warlords or something. Gameplay that focuses on using your head rather than your guns.

While looking at the new Dev Diary and the walkthrough video, I noticed that the skill bars for various talents were different lenghts. In Matt's walkthrough, his martial arts, shotgun, and assault rifle bars extended well past the others, while in the new diary they were all uniform in lenght. I'm curious as to whether or not we will be able to select specific skills that can be extended beyond their normal ranges, or if certain skills get boosted depending upon which "class" you choose?

An 80's obsessed Russian mob boss. Oh please, let there be a Michael Jackson joke or reference somewhere....

Most likely true. However, my hope is that there will be some points in the game where the goals of the handlers differ to the point that the player will be tempted to make hard choices between the two (or more) based on things besides level layout, gear, playstyle, etc. Otherwise, a player is somewhat inherently set on a particular path depending on their skill selection.

Upon reviewing the walkthrough video, I had a concern that I hope could be dispelled. Before missions we choose handlers. These handlers seem to be divided into differing playstyles. For example, in Moscow there is Albatross (stealth oriented) and SIE (combat oriented). My concern is that players will be inclined to pick a particular handler in each hub over and over depending on the manner in which they've allocated their skills. My hope is that the handlers will differ in the manner in which they want the missions to be accomplished to such a degree that players will be forced to make a choice with whom they want to side based on more than just what equipment they want. If gear and playstyle are allowed to dominant the choices we make, then the story risks turning very linear. However, if we need to be constantly evaluating the goals and consequences of our actions and alliances, the story can become much richer and intriguing. So, handlers: is it all about gear, or will we need to make roleplaying decisions as well?

Much better than the 1up video, can actually read what the characters are saying, and we get some better indepth look at the inventory and character menus. Wish Obsidian would put up some more vids about the RPG elements though, like the types of quests, the characters, etc. Unfortunately, as its been stated before, I think too many people see these action vids and then go, "Phht, this isn't as cool as *insert action game X*". When they see the RPG elements, they go "Whoa cool!", but they're being overshadowed. Story is what will make or break this game, I've said it before, and I'm gonna keep saying it until I play it for myself. Still hope Martial Arts get buffed with some blocking, counterattacks, disarms etc. Seems like it would be really useful for stealth characters if you could do that. Otherwise, why not just blast someone with a gun point-blank in a fraction of the time to beat them down? Still, looking excited. If the next vids convince me that the quests, characters, and world will be widly varied, rich and detailed, I may just preorder this game. (And if you knew how cautious I was about buying before renting, you'd realise what a compliment that is.) Oh, btw, the download option seems to be busted at the GT site, anyone know a mirror where I could donwload this vid?

How 'bout an autographed edition delivered to your door by Fryda Wolff... In a bikini. Wait, did I just say that out loud?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49lAgtSzh40

Indeed.

Do the two different takedowns (lethal and nonlethal) have different gameplay effects? That is, will unconscious guards be able to be woken up by other guards, will dead guards trigger alarms when discovered, etc?

Pardon me for this somewhat dumb question, but I'm looking for a list of the forum ranks and I can't for the life of me find one in the help files, nor has anyone I've PMed known where to locate one. If someone could direct me to where I could find one, I'd appreciate it.

May I assume then that health increases with level, and toughness adds on top of it?

Some more questions regarding leveling. Is it purely action point/skills based? As is, we don't have "levels" and Michael grows only through our talents, and things like health remain the same unless we invest in them? Is it a combination of leveling and skills, as in Mass Effect, where Michael gains a level with health boosts in addition to our talent points? What is the maximum number of talent points or levels we can gain?

ZOMG, teh dude from all the trailers has responded to me twice! Little dissapointed with this structure, but, if the missions allow enough exploration and mixture of talking in addition to combat, I'll be happy. Seeing as we're buddies now, how about you give me a quick tour round the Obsidian offices, lemme take a peek at what you're working on, offer some advice, eh eh?!

A few questions about the hub structure and level layout I have after reading one of the previews. Will hubs be open-world? That is, will we be able to walk out of our safehouses and explore the cities somewhat, for performing side quests or main missions? If not, will all missions feature a "warp" function, that is we accept a task and then transport to the location, then transport back to our safe house when we are finished?

There was a scene of Michael crawling underneath a camera and disabling a security computer in the trailers.

Apples and oranges. Apples and oranges.

Yes, I noticed that as well, that's why I brought up this thread. Apologies for not noticing the silencer thread earlier.

Just few questions I have concerning my upcoming ninja-agent. 1. Which skill will rifles be under? 2. When targeting, will there be a "scope wobble"? Will this decrease with skill level? 3. Will they come with silencers, that is, will they be a viable stealth weapon?

Only serious complaint is with martial arts. Perhaps the demoer (is that a word?) wasn't trained highly in the fighting skill, but it looked like a bad rock-em-sock-em robots sim. I was really praying to feel like I was in the fights from "Taken" or the Bourne films, gritty, up close, complex ballets. The animations (whack whack, whack whack) look N64-level at best. I'm hoping that with enhanced skills you'll be able to do things like reversals, grappels, disarms, etc. I'm not saying I need something as complex as Assassin's Creed, but c'mon, a highly trained CIA agent who can't BLOCK? There's 5-year-olds in martial arts classes that can do that. AI is dim too, but in these multi-style games it always is, so no big surprise. I'd love to see more about the characters and story, that's what will make or break this game.

My main complaints with these games that allow multiple playstyles are the following: 1. Run-n-gunning always ends up being easier. Sure, you can stealth, but usualy a beefed-up macho machinegunner (or plate-mailed knight with a two-handed sword) can kill any enemy and make it through any level with 1/3 of the effort. I'd like it if there were actual circumstances that favored stealth over going Rambo. Like a level that gets harder the more you fight, or enemies that are easier to kill from behind than full-frontal assault. Or a mission that requires you to lockpick or computer hack in order to reach the end. I want my ninja to have situations where he has a much better chance of surviving than the walking tank. 2. Telepathic enemies and high demand for perfection. I can't tell you how many times it bugs me in a game to be sneaking around, be spotted by one guy, and next thing I'm fighting every damn enemy in the level. If I get caught by a lone guard in the basement, I shouldn't be getting into a fight with the guys who were three freaking floors upstairs when I was spotted! (I'm looking at you, Oblivion!!) If my Michael comes across one guard, only those enemies within a reasonable distance (those who could actualy see or hear the fighting) should come investigating. Requiring players to be 100% flawless in their gameplay is a pain in the ass.

As long as the system doesn't work like Assassin's Creed, I can deal with it. A common misconception I think is that people who want a save anywhere function just want to see every possible part of the game in one playthrough. While I could argue that this is completely acceptable, I'll save that debate for another time. My only concern is that during playthroughs, especialy the first time through in a game as complex as this one appears to be, you'll often blindly bump into an encounter or start a piece of the story before you intended. It has nothing to do with "metagaming", the player is human and will sometimes just make an honest, dumb mistake. Maybe they sneeze during a conversation, or walk into a boss room before finishing a level because they've never been in the area before. The person doesn't want to restart to HAXXORZ his character or try to cheat to find the "best" option, they never intended to perform the particular action and just want the option to retry what they always intended to do in the first place. Thus, I dislike it when the developers seem to take the role of bodyguards shoving everyone to the back of the line because one person tried to cheat ahead. Yes, that makes it "fair", but so does letting the rest of play honestly and forgetting about the one loose cannon.