Luckmann

A mega-dungeon doesn't mean that there's no roleplaying. I personally loved Watcher's Keep in BG2, and that was a fairly substantial dungeon. Hordes of the Underdark was much in the same vein, although I didn't find it nearly as immersive, it was definitely a nice dungeon-styled scenario. I would love something about twice or thrice the size of Watcher's Keep, done in the same vein, perhaps with more connected, sprawling levels.

Present and killable, with appropriate consequences when applicable. No children or immortal children is incredibly immersion-breaking. It doesn't mean that I have a wish to kill children. Quite the opposite. I would probably never use this "feature". When you have the option to kill children, you also have the option not to kill children. Just like real life. Taking that option away cheapens us.

I hated that more than anything. All the underdeveloped characters didn't feel like real characters, which just made you never take them, since the developed characters were much more interesting, even if you'd had them with you 20 times before. Why exclude Nordom? Nordom was just as engaging and developed as all the other characters. He wasn't even that much harder to get than, say, Ignus. Not to mention the number of people that misses Vhailor for several playthroughs, until someone told them to not walk straight into the portal in the prison.

Finger of Death. I played a full team of Necromancers in Icewind Dale 2 once. Hilarious.

Anything but the god-awful Baldur's Gate 2 style. Never again. All the other games; the Original Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale 1/2; all of those had amazing portraits. I loved them. Just give me lots and lots of choices, at least two for every single class/race combination, four counting gender.

I considered the number of companions in Baldur's Gate 2 to always be woefully inadequate. There was practically no manoeuvrability when it came to how you wanted your party to be. Very little options no matter what way you did things - and you could just completely forget about doing any kind of themed party. There weren't enough companions for a good good party, or an evil party, or a neutral party, or even a racial party. The last could be done, but it meant skipping content (no romances with non-elves). The number of companions is one of my absolutely biggest fears for Project Eternity. Any good RPG, especially one with such (relatively speaking) big parties, should have an ample number of possible companions. The wasted potential was in Baldur's Gate 2, not in Baldur's Gate. All of the characters could've been carried over - they just weren't. My poor Xan and Kivan, Eldoth and Garrick. And that worries me too. Characters should be characters in their own right. Not a checklist.

Only if there are also ninjas.

I chose Other. I'd like a combination of #1, #2 & #3. I would like strongholds to be at least partially class & race-specific, highly involved in the main storyline, with several options, and highly involved in faction question lines. With a whole bunch of subquests attached to each of them.

So what struggles aren't worth exploring then? Because if that's the case there are billions of non sexually-related struggles not represented in games that are probably far more common and should probably take priority. But at the end of the day I rather have Obsidian stay true to their development plan and tell us one amazing story than get tangled up in diverting resources in pleasing all kinds of minorities. Another problem is that when you start having too many sexually-related struggles explored in a game at the expense other non sexually-related struggles it starts to stick out and be evident and it gets rather irritating. This should not be a game about all the ways in which people screw and what they want to screw and the societal hardships of not being able to find screwing partners. You know who would be interested in an epic story of homosexual struggle in a fantasy setting? Homosexuals. It makes perfect sense that heterosexuals would create cultural works that are, in essence, heterosexual. It doesn't mean that the struggle of others aren't "worth exploring", it just means that they generally have no interest in it, or will to explore it. So, yeah, I guess it isn't worth exploring. I have no desire whatsoever to explore homosexual characters. But the point still stands.

Won't that make it a bit one-sided? The hope is that the people who don't want LGBT characters in Project Eternity will turn their attentions to other subjects. I think that is as likely to happen as making the people who want LGBT characters in Project Eternity turn their attentions to other subjects. Making a thread specifically dealing with the LGBT topic, specifically for the LGBT people... actually, that might work. Maybe if we just ignore this thread enough, it will get buried somewhere. Is there any chance you could sticky it on the 5th page? Then we can refer everyone there.

Idiot (sorry mods, but this is the appropriate word), stop mixing homosexuality with pedophilia and zoophilia. They're only comparable in your sick little brain. This guy is spewing hate speech all over the place. I wonder why is he still kept here. Why would you insult him like that? All of those mentioned above belong into the same group of mental disorders. It is true that one is harmful to other people and the other is not - that's why pedophilia is prosecuted while LGBT is not, or at least shouldn't be. Whether something is persecuted or not, however, is a matter of culture. Here in the real world, the "one is rape, the other isn't" might hold water (hell, it is even arguable which of any of those are actually rape) in our world, but there is nothing to say that in a fantasy society - much like has been argued by many people; "some might swing that way, others may not" - that it's the other way around. Pedophilia and Zoophilia (or any -philia) can just as well be argued on the same platform as LGBT.

Idiot (sorry mods, but this is the appropriate word), stop mixing homosexuality with pedophilia and zoophilia. They're only comparable in your sick little brain. This guy is spewing hate speech all over the place. I wonder why is he still kept here. Technically, pedophilia and zoophila are also sexual orientations (or can be, anyway; many that practice it are just disturbed individuals or mentally deficient). Like it or not, the comparison is apt, especially from the standpoint of arguments on inclusiveness.

...also zoophilia and pedophilia were legal in Ancient Greece. And this is not sarcasm. The reason why those things are taboo is because it's non consensual and therefore equal to rape, Homosexuality is a consenting relationship between two adults. People have repeatedly requested mature themes and many games have alluded to rape. It can't be asked for and used as an argument against something at the same time. Consent, sexual or otherwise, has nothing to do with anything in this context. Won't that make it a bit one-sided? The usual bashers only keep saying "Burn it with fire" so why not? Because discussion forums tend to be for discussion. If this is a thread entirely dedicated to a minuscule part of the fanbase clamoring for a single thing altogether, it will only turn into a massive circle-jerk. Literally.

Won't that make it a bit one-sided?

I assume that was sarcasm.

No. Every story has an end.

Always, always preferred Baldur's Gate.

Use your imagination. I'm fairly certain there won't be hard statements in the game that you are or are not what you think you are regarding this. This brings up an interesting point for me. Are role-playing games for projecting your own persona, essentially playing yourself in a game, or are they for assuming other roles, basically play acting? I know the answer is personal and there is no right or wrong way to satisfy it, but for myself I prefer to assume personas and characters that aren't just projections of my own ego and id, that's usually half the fun for me. They are for assuming other roles, "play acting", as it were. Playing yourself defeats the point of roleplaying games. I play myself every day.

At this point, I am so tired of people trying to force their fetishes, mental diseases, orientations and whatnot into games, sexualising whatever they can get their hands on, and clamorings for dating-sim features that I feel almost obligated to vote No on everything suggesting romances, just as to sabotage polls and skew them in favour of just getting rid of romances altogether. This just isn't worth it. Nothing is.

We are assuming that we are in the context of the thread, don't we? No, just that you're on the run from whoever is chasing your companion. Maybe you aren't even aware of the main threat at this point. To be fair though, it is entirely possible that we are military commanders, and that we have sworn soldiers under our command. The fact that someone is my companion or friend doesn't mean that they can't also be my subordinate.

While this isn't about Project Eternity, I offer you this advice for BG1/2: Go to the Config, "Miscellaneous", and bump up the Frame Rate to whatever you think is appropriate. I usually leave it at 40, or even 45. It significantly speeds up the game, but it will make combat harder, and if you make it too fast, it's going to mess with some cutscenes (the characters will go through the motions and trigger speeches before preceding speech is finished, etc). As for Project Eternity, I would look at Dragon Age: Origins for this. I don't think that ever felt slow, nor did the runspeed ever feel out of place. A walk/run toggle is all I need. In a group context, it could also be nice if some classes (low-to-medium armoured ones like Ranger or Barbarian or whatever is equivalent) had instant-use in-combat Sprint abilities.

People generally don't like the 4E system because it is extremely game-y, heavily influenced by modern MMORPGs both in style and mechanics. The fact that people wouldn't mind this in actual computer games shouldn't be surprising. 4E almost seems made entirely to be used in computer games.

I would prefer a mix of Mana and Vancian, with cooldowns. On one hand, you should be able to memorize spells, deciding what spells to have in your repetoire. These you then prepare. But using them costs mana, and when you use them, they go on a cooldown. Mana, like Health, should have little to no natural regeneration. That way, choosing your spells becomes strategy, just like with vancian. It gets tactical, because the spells you use go on cooldowns - but there is nothing stopping you from choosing to prepare multiple uses of the same spells (or with different metamagics attached to them). It is still subject to attrition, because they would require mana. It's a system that I consider the best of all worlds.

I would. Worthwhile people should only sacrifice themselves, if the net gain is greater than zero, i.e. sacrificing themselves to save a library holding the collected, priceless knowledge of many generations or a town whose inhabitants and infrastructure is vital to the region or significantly improves people's lives by providing workplaces. Sacrificing important people for a village of replaceable peasants is foolish. I can understand delaying the enemy long enough to allow the people to escape, but paying with life for that? Too steep a price I say. Choices have to be made, together with calculations. We cannot assume that every life has the exact same value in these kinds of situations. A general is not worth the same as a private - why should that be false for civilians? Also, Luckmann, I sincerely hope you're not the same guy I ran into earlier, who claimed that Alfred Rosenberg was a rational theoretician of a rational doctrine called national socialism. That'd make everything you post pretty skewed. There, now we see the point of this thread. You see, I'm pretty much the opposite of that - you can't put a value on a life so you can't compare two lives and just say one is objectively more valuable. I want to see how Obsidian will include things like this, differeing viewpoints but you can't really outright state that either of them are a "Good" option, or that either are exactly Evil. Objectively? Of course not. Intrinsic value is inherently subjective.

I doubt so. 6 million people bought Diablo 3 on the first week knowing pretty well that you need their server to play a single player game. One may say the chances of Diablo 3 server staying up is lesser than Steam because its specific to one particular game, and once Diablo 4 comes out, well... But the reality is, most gamers don't care about DRM. Most people are more than happy to buy a game, play it and move on to other games. And these are the group of gamers AAA publishers target. So nothing is going to change really. They did lose a considerably amount of sales, though. They may not notice it as much, because the gamer market keeps growing, but just as an example, I know at least ~15 sales they lost, personally - entirely because of the server/no-lan/always-online things. That may not sound much at all, but virtually all of those sales are from long-term friends of mine that were near-fanatical about Diablo 2. I'd expect that a lot of people would have similar stories to tell. So maybe they 6 millions on the first week. But it could've been 8 millions.