Luckmann

Well, as a role player aiming to immerse myself into a game, that would be a real bummer for me. So NPCs are allowed to walk, but I have to run everywhere? Yes. Unfortunately. I cannot describe how much better it would've been to walk everywhere compared to running everywhere. Ideally, you'd be able to toggle it or have it include mechanical effects, and perhaps only force walking while in combat (because contrary to what Josh Sawyer seems to think, you don't actually run around in combat unless you're trying to cover a significant, clear distance and no-one is actively trying to stab you). But yeah. No walking whatsoever. Just running. Run to the store. Run to the farmer. Run out of town. Run up to the beetles and run around in combat, then run back to town, runningly. I can see it already, running up to the merchant and going GO GO GO GO WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT OPERATOR ENOUGH OH GOD GO GO GO GO GO and then grab the gear, run out of town while simultaneously packing your multiple Bags of Holding that you somehow acquired before the adventures even started, and just start wildly smacking skeletons somewhere while hurrying through a dungeon, shouting at your team-mates.

That's kinda my reaction too. I'm really sad to see it go, but it's so far from a deal-breaker that it's not there that it practically doesn't matter. I would really, really have preferred if merchants had a given amount of gold, and some things simply couldn't be sold reliably to throwaway merchants standing by the wayside. The worst thing about the combination of the infinigold merchants and the infinite inventory is that the game will have to be balanced around collecting and selling absolutely everything. For the developers, that's a good thing, because it means that it'll be extremely easy to gauge the general amount of wealth a given player has at any one point (adjusted for difficulty, but that's easily rectified; more mobs? simply lower the amount of gold each drop or increase the amount merchants rip you off). It's also lazy as all hell. For players, it's pretty meh, because there's really no other way to play than the "right" way; if you don't collect everything and if you don't sell it, you're effectively gimping yourself for no reason. When you collect loot, there's really no reason not to instantly convert it to gold right there and then - it's a wonder they haven't thought of the old ARPG mechanic of only awarding gold straight away, and only have "meaningful" loot. A drop of longswords in PoE is basically a stand-in for gold, a temporary placeholder before you go to the mandatory vendor to grind it into delicious gold-pieces. Meh.

Quality > Mass Appeal.

Judging from everything we know and from Sawyer's misunderstanding of the issue, no, there will be no walking whatsoever anywhere and no toggle. Everyone is a marathon runner on a mission, weapons drawn and ready for combat, whether in a king's court, on a shopping spree or in a dungeon most foul.

That's only because the screen is too small. If you were watching a 4:3 screen that was as wide as your PC monitor but taller, it would look way better than 16:9 IMO. I have a 22" LaCie Electron View III CRT monitor, and it's pretty good for 4:3 games and 4:3 media content (such as The Wire). But why?

That's.. pretty much a textbook example of how to not do it, really. It has nothing to do with merchant gold. In Morrowind, the legendary items and so on weren't meant to be sold. It made perfect sense that almost no-one would be able to afford daedric artifacts. Either way you cut it, it doesn't make sense. If merchants have infinite gold, each merchant for whatever reason is apparently so incredibly rich that they can buy heaps of magical objects, genie's lamps, and extraplanar daemon-armour, yet chooses to live in a hovel, peddling shovelware. As an added bonus, those supremely valuable objects make you insanely wealthy when you sell them to aforementioned infinigold merchant gods. If the artifacts are devalued to deal with the whining children wanting to be able to sell their latest Wabberjockstrap, daedric artifacts and dwemer relics are apparently not really that expensive after all, and a hovel of a house is easily more valuable than the one-of-a-kind reality-bender capable of wiping out entire towns if tried at home. Honestly, instead of incessantly dumbing things down, the preferable method is easily to keep merchant gold limitations and not devalue objects. That way, you maintain the illusion that the objects are of immense power and import, so much so that it is unlikely any single person would be able to purchase it for you at it's real value and the player doesn't suddenly become an infinigold merchant himself.

Eh? I wouldn't say that. BG1's expansion featured 3 major questlines that didn't have anything to do with the Main game's plot or ending. Ditto with Icewind Dale's. BG2's expansion...that was a different animal all together as it was a seamless transition to a completely different plot. I prefer the former -- specifically, the way BG1 did its expansion pack. It put new areas and stories into the existing game world and did it so naturally that it seemed like they were there all along. Absolutely this. Expansions that seamlessly expand upon the game world is infinitely preferable.

I agree; Kits aren't really necessary at all, either, because with a library of abilities and less picks than you have levels total, you could practically already have a "kit-like" system, except you build your own kit. Want to be a melee ranger? Build one. Want to be a shamanistic ranger? Build one. Want to be a ranged hunter ranger? Build one. The system allows a lot of freedom and potential for expansion.

I thought IWD2 was one of the best, except for being unable to enlarge the log. You could fully customise the hotbar for each character. The customization of the hotbar was stellar, but it doesn't really fix the issues with the UI itself. That said, that customizable hotbar was so nice, I had completely forgotten about it until you mentioned it. Playing BG2 at the moment again, I almost find myself crying over how annoying the hotbar is. I'm an Assassin and all I use is Stealth, who needs "Trap Finding" and "Thief Skills"? D: We've known that since 2013 actually. Really? Have you been prescient since 2013?

I'm almost always a male when I play (and in reality, too!) and I don't see that changing any time soon. That said, there'll probably be a female playthrough somewhere down the line. It's usually not terribly relevant in games these days, unfortunately.

The maximum level is fairly easy to calculate. The +Skill from Background and Class doesn't add to the total for purposes of calculating skill costs, and skill costs are always the same as the current skill level (minus the modifiers from things like class and background). That means that if we assume +4 to a Skill from Class (Let's say Wizard, for +2 Lore) and Background (Say, Aristocrat, +2 Lore), that means: 1st rank costs 1. 2nd rank costs 2. 3rd rank costs 3. 4th rank costs 4. ...etc. You get 6 skill points per level, except level 1 (for some reason, but fair enough, given the + from Background and Class) and there's 12 levels. That means a total of 66 Skill Points. Meaning that if you chuck all of that (every single point) into a single skill, that's a skill level of 11, at an exact cost of 66. +4 from Class and Background, that's an effective skill level of 15. To answer your second question, we have no bloody clue. However, I would expect that based on the above math, it'd be unlikely to see any checks over 10. But that's just me. For my sake, I think it'd be amazing if they actually made a few checks here and there all the way up to 15, to reward those that will inevitably effectively gimp themselves by pouring everything they can into a single skill. Like schooling the hell out of someone with Lore or steal the declaration of independence with Stealth. Edit: Also, as a completely separate note on Skills and Backgrounds... why on Earth are there 6 (!) different Backgrounds that give +2 Lore (Aristocrat, Artist, Clergyman, Mystic, Philospher, Scholar) a single one that gives +2 Survival (Colonist) and none for the other Skills (Stealth, Athletics, Mechanics). Now, from a mechanical standpoint, it's only really relevant for min-maxing, and honestly I think it's probably better to start with a mixed bag of skills, because it'll likely be relevant longer (A difference between 1 and 3 likely matters more than a difference between 8 and 9 or more). But it is a really odd discrepancy.

Obsidian isn't making a sidebar UI. Modders are going to have to suck it up on that one. We don't actually know that yet, do we? Because it's entirely possible (albeit unlikely) that they'll take the criticism to heart and make a proper Solid UI rather than the PS:T/IWD2-style UI (IWD2 being the worst offender by far).

I'd definitely prefer a focus on new/reworked/tuned Abilities (and perhaps Talents, orders for paladins, deities for priests, etc) for existing classes, too. More options, more optional builds, more different ways to make a character stand out compared to other characters of the same class, etc.

Baldur's Gate 2 had toilets here and there. You could even fish gems out of them at times. But anyway, I always assumed bathroom breaks happened during travel or when resting, so that's still not really an argument.

Well then just pile that up on the growing heap of stupid. That said, I'd still be surprised if there's no additional beds in the stronghold, with the bed just being the trigger for the party to rest.

OH NOES!!1!one How come? Why would he? He's pretty much worked out what is and isn't possible to do, and the game is currently in beta. No sense keeping up with continual development until release, really. At the very least, why do it with v392 when the next (and likely last) beta is around the corner? He'd just have to redo stuff.

I always assumed that bathroom breaks happened on transitions/travelling or was part of the resting mechanic, and is easily explained away as such. Sharing one bed was never anything I saw in a proper RPG and was never a thing in the IE games, at least. Either is more easily explained away than "I have no trouble buying 50 of your breastplates, Sir".

What?

Also known as the Darth Maul Dance School of Melee Combat.

http://imgur.com/6co63bG

Yeah, it's a known issue, and not just with the Adventurer's Hall. It's been reported multiple times. For now, as a workaround, try repeatedly clicking the modal and then trying to move, repeat until it works, and the Paladin should snap out of it. I think this may have something to do with the fact that they made Auras "Combat Only" (...why does that concept even exist...?) but Paladins are still set to recast/reactivate them on loading, or something. Just a personal suspicion.

I'm going to go with Tim Cain, because it'd be nice to hear what he has to say on the game as he plays and goes through the mechanics and whatnot. It's obvious that sometimes the developers themselves actually aren't sure on all the different parts as they tie together, judging by Josh Sawyer's own showings, and I want to know what Tim Cain thinks of the game as it's starting to finish up. Come to think of it, it'd be neat to see actual developers doing Let's Plays.

I think it's been mentioned that Edér specifically has something to do with the main plotline, so I wouldn't get my hopes up on getting to know more about him. I'm a bit split on what I prefer; deeply integrated characters or loose characters that join the group. The first is more interesting, but when it's a mixed bag, I'm always annoyed as hell because there's limited space in the party, and integrated characters I often consider "must have" for plot reasons (Imoen & Sarevok in BG2, for example, I always have an extremely hard time letting go of because it tends to not make any in-character sense to do so). Just musing.

Note though that we can always hire a replacement in the Adventurer's hall.. So such options would not cripple players from mechanical standpoint, they'd "only" miss content related to that companion. And that is irrelevant to the number of companions. I do not count Adventurer's Hall "companions", for obvious reasons. It is a crutch that is often used as a cop-out to avoid criticism on the matter of companions (or lack thereof), but it has no merit. The Adventurer's Hall works for those that want to create their own party, but it has no bearing on the number of actual companions in the game, characters that are much more than just a set of stats.

Actually, aside from whether there'll be otters (or even a single one, preferably next to a pig) or not, this is probably what I'd like to know more about the most. I'm a sucker for background and lore, and it'd be fun if the setting was as internally consistent as possible, because as long as it is, it doesn't matter which real-world cookery affected it, seeing as how it is a fantasy setting for a reason. And that includes in-universe politics, more on that would actually be interesting, but I can see how PoE isn't built around political intrigue, so it might be a bit.. eh. But yeah, we know a lot about the mechanics by now, or at least the intended mechanics, and there's no reason to get bogged down in the specifics that may change between now and release, so I'd love some more specific information about the setting, major players, background on major locations, etc. Also, anything on more companions would be neat. Like, 16 of them would be enough.