FlintlockJazz

See, that choice is kinda what I'm arguing for. While I don't know how effective that skirmish option was, if they made sneak attack an option rather than there by default it would make for more possible rogues that could fit different playstyles. Want to be the backstabbing assassin? Then you can take the Assassin branch and develop things like sneak attack, but if you want to be a pirate instead you could take the 'YARR' branch instead that gives you other skills like dirty fighting techniques! Yeah, I agree totally, I think the rogue does need some serious reworking because as it stands, for a 'core' class it's rather limited and situational at the moment compared to the other core classes (Fighter, Priest and Mage).

Honestly? Nothing. I am deliberately avoiding thinking too much about it because I know that if I start coming up with preconceptions about how the class may work in the hopes that it will make me more open to whatever they turn out to be. Until I know more of the world itself and how they will fit into it then I am going to keep my brain empty.

A bit of a thread necro I know but I been thinking (gasp the horror!) and I reckons I got what it is that's been a bugging me about these here rogues and the issues I been having with them. First off, the sneak attack thing: if the only thing you can bring to combat is a sneak attack then that's not good enough. If you're only playing one character or if everyone can sneak attack then it's fine, since you can focus completely on it if it's your only character or take advantage of it with whatever character happens to get into the right position, but when it's specific to one character and you're controlling a whole party I have to say I question whether it's worth the effort half the time: it doesn't provide a tactical advantage to the whole team, it's only a bonus to the rogue, and it takes a lot of planning just for that one guy, whose taking up a space that could have been used for another frontline fighter or spellcaster. For me, sneak attack is often just not worth the bother and the rogue being required to have it means that for the sake of balance between the classes he probably doesn't get to have some other ability that I would appreciate more. Plus, sneak attack being a required part of the class in most systems means you are often not able to play them as pirates or Errol Flynn type swashbuckler without essentially ignoring a part of the class' features and gimping yourself (because they just can't compete then with a fighter in a straight up fight). Now you are probably saying that that sounds like more of a dex-based fighter anyway and should play it like that anyway, and you'd be right, but then we come to the second problem: the rogues usually have exclusive domain over lockpicking and trapfinding, if you want to use either of those skills you are forced to bring one of them along. I realised this when trying to create a Storm of Zehir party, if I wanted a trapfinder I needed to take a rogue. Now, that might sound like normal niche protection, but that's not the case: if you don't want a fighter to fulfill the martial side of things you can always resort to a monk or paladin or ranger instead, sure they have different styles of fighting but that's the point you have a bit of variety, while if you want a spellcaster you can always go with the standard mage but you could also go with sorcerer or bard instead. Finding traps? Nope, the rogue is sat on it picking his snotty nose, despite the fact that other classes such as the ranger would have perfectly valid reasons for needing trapfinding skills as guerilla warriors. This usually ends up with either rogues not being taken because the game doesn't want to force you to take a rogue or them being essential and so you are forced to take a rogue whether you like it or not. Why can't a fighter built like a pirate have open locks and trapfinding? You may say that you can, just play a fighter with a level of rogue, but then that involves multiclassing, which can be pain if you're not playing human in D&D (and multiclassing is not confirmed for PE) and still involves, guess who, the rogue! Now this might sound like a rant against rogues, but it's not. The point that I am trying to make is that as it stands the rogue doesn't bring anything to the table for me that helps the party in combat, he's a weak fighter at best, while only allowing the rogue to take trapfinding and open locks only makes me need to take a rogue not want to take a rogue (assuming the game even makes valid use of them). I want to want to take a rogue the same way I might want to take a paladin or cipher, not for the privilege of opening a few chests or so that my party doesn't walk into every trap on the way.

A lot of people I know are both, and I've been looking to get into re-enacting myself.

You mean the film Role Models was actually right in regards to US larp?? I thought they were just exaggerating, bloody hell! And here I was thinking that larp here in the UK was bad compared to the rest of the world... Still, guess they do what they enjoy I suppose, I'd still have expected some more understanding between the types of roleplayers but then I am hopelessly naive. :D It does explain some of the stuff I hear being thrown around here in regards to larp.

Yeah I didn't have a problem with the concept art either, and don't get the LARPing stuff either (other than its "kewl" to compare things to LARPing apparently as a sign of "bad" in rpgs.) Yeah I have to say as a LARPer it disappoints me somewhat the way larp is viewed by some here. You'd think that with the way roleplaying in general is looked down upon as it is there'd be less contempt towards different roleplayers but apparently not.

Regarding Edair, I like that he doesn't seem ultra cool badass with a highly developed appearance to make him look memorable and show off who he is (how many of us wear truly memorable clothing ourselves?). Its the rampant insistence that everyone be awesome cool that has put me off Bioware games, and those kind of characters just all blur together for me now, Edair seems more like the kind of bloke I'd have a drink with down the pub and would trust to watch my back. I like him.

DP.

True, though your opinion on it is also irrelevant if you can't describe what's scary about it. Of course it's subjective, but if you add a horror theme to a game your goal should of course be to make it scary for as large a number of players as possible. Not "oh I think we should put in this monster with noodly appendages, maybe someone will find it scary". One thing that makes games scary is bad controls. In Clocktower you move slow as **** which gives it a nightmarish quality. When I played Dead Space on the PS3 it freaked me out because I was bad at playing with a gamepad, and there were things breathing down my neck I couldn't get a proper look at (much less hit them). Obviously I want neither to be the case in PE. One thing that's easy for creeps is v. bad visibility at night/ in dungeons. This could be in the game. I never tried to explain what was scary about it, so don't presume, the point is that if youhaven't played it you can't talk from experience. I don't bother explaining what is scary about horror games as its generally impossible to do so, as your utter failure to convince me of the scariness of the Clocktower and Dead Space has done: citing bad controls as some sort great thing just tells me that they had **** controls and will frustrste me, as I found with the RE games. I found the games irritating as hell and played them in spite of the controls, they added nothing to the game but frustration and was glad when RE4 changed that. People can never really convince someone something is scary they have to experience it for themselves. Hell the hotel in VtM is cited as one of the scariest sequences in a game and I did enjoy it but if you read most of the descriptions people give it sounds utter ****. Of course they should try to make things scary for the largest number of people, but last time I checked you're not everybody and neither am I, and you are always going to get people who don't find it scary. You don't get scared at isometric games? Too bad.

I liked Minsc, he was straightforward, funny and honest with no pretensions. I would not want another Minsc, but someone like him in that they don't try to force some viewpoint or philosophy of their's on you like Morrigan or on some great crusade, rather simple. Khelgar I think fulfilled the same role in NWN2 I think: his great goal was to go around punching people in bars and other than that he just tried to do the right thing and never assumed he was right.

I looked up Lone Survivor, doesn't look scary. The only 2D game that gave me the creeps, ever, is Clocktower. But you're not playing an unarmed schoolgirl in PE. Maybe those who think PE could be scary should give some concrete examples of scary scenarios. My example of what I want to see was: If you've not played it then your opinion on it is irrelevant. Horror games are often only effective while you're playing it. Also horror is very subjective: what one person finds horrifying another finds daft/boring/funny/etc. Many found Diablo 1 scary others did not. Just because you find something not scary does not make it not scary for others, I know of some people who hate isometric games fullstop, no matter what game it is if its isometric then they don't like it, does that make isometric games bad? I personally wouldn't want the entire game turned into a horror, but some aspects of horror could be good and some horror quests.

First horror games was from isometric perspective. Even Gorky 17 was rpg horror with isometric And exactly how horrified did you feel? How horrified did you feel when watching Birds from Hitch****? Imagine if the birds attacked a party of ultra-badass dragon slayers. Yes, exactly that horrifying. I don't find that convincing. In an FPS you're in the thick of things, and with help from things like surround sound you can create some nice effects. Plus you're alone/ feeling seperate from others. A party based game with an isometric view? Not a chance. Atmospheric writing is possible, even a gasp of surprise, but chills? No way. Play Lone Survivor then and you'll see that even 2D can be absolutely horrifying. As long as there is a degree of unknown and the threat of horrifying death present anything can be made scary.

Well, if you can't effectively verbalize what exactly you agree with, how can you expect people to put stock in what you are saying? Hormalakh verbalizes fine as while I may not always agree with everything he says I always understand his point and where he is coming from, so maybe it's just your reading comprehension that is failing?

I would assume a Ranger to be likely illiterate, a woodsman or hunter of some sort whose knowledge comes from direct experience living off the land rather from fancy-pants book learnin'. I've always imagined Rangers as being born and raised by experienced, self-sufficient parents, learning the weaknesses of critters and monsters through firsthand parent-to-child teaching. Salt-of-the-Earth types. I cannot disagree more thoroughly with your portrayal of rangers. What you describe is just standard peasant at best, barbarian or dumb fighter at worse. Even if you could call it a ranger, that is a very narrow and singular portrayal of one type of ranger, there many more. Being self sufficient is but one aspect of a ranger, they actually have a level of understanding greater than someone skilled in living in woods, closer to biologists in fact, and I kinda view them as the medieval biologists of their world due to their knowledge and method of learning through observation. They would need to have ways of storing and comparing data to observe shifts in animal and weather behaviour etc. They won't be bookworms but they won't be simplefolk either, on the contrary they are supposed to know things your average woodcutter doesn't (who again would be a fighter).

I like the speech system laid out in the interview, once I understood that attributes still influence what options you get as it means that the type of character you are is reflected in the dialogue. I find Speech skills to actually limit character choice and imposes a very artificial, 'gamey' mechanic that often has very real relation to who he is. I despised the speech skill in DAO as it had no bearing on who your character was or what his stats were, just an automatic 'I win' button. As the discussion in another thread about speech tags showed, people also cannot agree where certain speech skills end and others begin, why can't you use bluff to intimidate for instance. And finally, speech skills usually can only be used by the party leaders, meaning that the PC has to be a Talker type. As for the stamina mechanic: love it! As someone who normally hates backtracking I think it opens up new possibilities for gameplay. Delving into dungeons could become more like proper forays and expeditions, coming back up for supplies and rest before diving back down again. And most importantly, it could make inns and taverns relevant again! In the IE games resting at an inn was useful for low levels but it wasn't long before the bonus for sleeping them became meaningless as the characters hit points became larger and healing spells became available. Would like to see inns become inportant again as it is a staple of fantasy roleplaying.

DAO felt claustrophobic to me, like I was always in a small room, and nothing seemed to exist outside what was needed for plot, making it feel less like a world. Therefore I am all for larger areas and places and events that don't necessarily have a point, though not stupidly large or at the expense of other things, I don't want to backtrack over miles of empty already explored terrain either unless its interesting.

How do I feel about dead party members? That they can now no longer say no... bow chikka bow wow!

About the same level as Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, enough to set the tone of the character and that's it. VA costs a hell of a lot and restricts the amount of dialogue and reactivity they can write into the dialog, so I'm all for very little or even no voice acting at all.

No alignment. Obsidian have already said they are not going with an alignment system and I agree with them. It is up to me to determine whether my actions are good or evil according to my morals, not the programmer who has programmed this alignment system. It is up to me to decide whether an action is honorable or not, whether I am doing it for society or not. Even if it is hidden, the fact that it is there is basically forcing one person's perspective upon me and is just bollocks really. Big fat no to alignment.

If there are going to be orcs in this game, I hope they are not going to be of the green variety. They were not always green and only became popular as green after Games Workshop did it (and they at least had a reason for it, their orcs are fungus). Prefer to see grey or human skintones on them, or a more horrifying look (I've always found Dark Elves to be scarier when they are depicted as extremely pale, often sickly so, rather than as the FR depiction of them).

This so much!

I made a post in the Piracy and DRM thread but that was shortly afterwards closed for reasons I claim no responsibility for, so posting it again here: Watch this clip, but replace the voters with shareholders and the debate about how to stop piracy (with every reference to 911 replaced with piracy) and you get the essential matter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUTIPQxo21c

A few thoughts of mine on the matter, for what it's worth. DRM doesn't work, and I think those with actual knowledge on this matter who implement it know this. Someone suggested that a copy protection like entering in serial codes will stop casual piracy, it will not especially for PE for two reasons: either the person is downloading the copy, in which case they already know enough and spent enough time for them to not consider applying a config change to be that big a deal (and many downloads come with the game pre-cracked anyway for these lightly DRM'd games, so they don't even have to do that), or the person is borrowing it off a friend, in which case unless it's an online game they won't have a problem using the same code unless it dials home and then it can only be effective if there is a limited number of installs (which pisses me off, I have two desktops at home and a laptop, of course I don't play on them all at the same time but I install the same game on all three so I can run it whenever I want, using a usb key to move savegames around when I need to). DRM has done nothing but drive people I know to pirate the game they have brought in order to get it to actually work, Spore being the one that was heavily pirated by friends for this very reason (one of them pirated it after dealing for hours with EA customer support to get his legitimate copy to work and they actually told him that he had to buy a new copy because he had used up all three installs due having issues with getting the game to work!). Places like GOG have shown that a no-DRM method does work, and works well. DRM does nothing but piss off the customer, so why do companies use it? Two reasons: 1. Shareholders. Shareholders are money men, they don't understand and don't care to understand the actual mechanics of the companies they invest in, but they (quite rightly) like to see their investments protected, and are often investing large sums of money in these companies. So when they see that game X has been pirated a thousand times, they don't understand that these weren't customers, all they understand is that they didn't get their money for it and they start panicking. DRM is a placebo effect for them: they are told that this spectacular new software will protect their interests, and the more control over the product they gain the safer they feel, and so the more they will push for it. 2. Resales. There has been a greater and greater push to try and squash the reselling market. Whether you believe this is right or wrong, the fact is that DRM is being used more and more these days to facilitate this under the guise of 'protecting against piracy'. Shareholders obviously love this idea. The fact that DVDs are resold regularly while the film industry still makes billions in profit from their sale destroys the notion that it is because of reselling that the game industry is losing money, and it is only the game industry that seems to think they should still profit from the reselling of their games. Hell, you can watch a DVD with a bunch of your friends who haven't paid for the privilege, you don't get a knock on the door telling you that you needed to buy a license allowing each individual person permission to watch it do you? Yet the games companies don't like the thought of more than one person using each copy. Don't want your new game being sold second hand two days after release? Well how about you don't make games that can be finished in 8 hours and has no replay value and still expect it to sell for £40 dickwads! In short, I'm against DRM, companies should treat their customers like actual customers and not as criminals. Even if they only applied the DRM to non-backer copies I would be against it and would regret backing this game. Someone said how about just applying DRM to countries like Russia, well guess what: I could access this site, Steam, or any other from many different countries and still be sat in the UK, and with zero IT knowledge, the pirates will get a copy with no DRM up on torrents in no time.

The people in game should judge you from their point of view. Not the game itself, neither the protagonist.And should all these people in the game share the same point of view? No, in fact that's why we're getting faction reputation instead of alignment in this game, because one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

The problem with straight up good and evil choices is that often that just means the devs could just put a 'good' and 'evil' option right at the beginning and then automatically pick the same one again and again for your character. Rather have the ability to choose what I consider to be the good choice and not try and force kids' after school special whacking you over the head of what we are 'supposed' to consider good or evil.