BruceVC

This is my opinion, I generally develop an empathetic bond with my characters. This is based on 2 factors, there contribution towards combat and challenges in the game and the interaction or Romance\Sex I share with them. So I would miss a character in the party that I am use to seeing. Hence I would reload a saved game if a party member died who I like.

Wow, thats ingenious. Great idea

I'm not sure if this is necessarily an advantage or not. It makes the game universe predictable and consistent, but you're basically just describing metagaming. To the point where "I can effectively break the game because I know where to go to get all the best stuff." Breaking the game is one of the most enjoyable things you can do in Morrowind. Because you are ALLOWED to do it in so many different ways. It's actually one of the reasons you want to play it again. Rising to godhood, killing an important character and still complete the main quest on a different path. BUT it's still work to get there... (btw a guy completeded the game trough the "emergency" main quest in 7mins using advanced knowledge of where to find what, but that's also fun to do :D) Also I think "...I know where to go to get all the best stuff." is actually valid for all the games ever played trough more than once, you know exactly that after the next corner there's a boss and it's gonna drop loot exactly matching your lvl, the only difference is that in an open world you can make use of this kind of knowledge. Mmmm, you have raised some good points and made me ask myself "why do I enjoy Bethesda games so much? " I like the fact that you have this large, immersive non-instanced world where you have all this lore and places to explore. I also like the fact that you are not forced to follow a certain predefined path in the game. So in the example of finding a hidden crypt that contains Daedric Armour I have no issue with that. You could just place a difficult creature in the crypt that only allows you to retrieve the items at a later stage when you can beat it? Also as far as I remember items aren't enough to win the game in Morrowind, you need skills and attributes?

I hate to answer questions directed at other people, but yes, Alan is a long-time member (longer than me) of the community who now works for Bioware. You've forgotten the last mission of Contracts, then... And the first mission of contracts! I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, too. Thanks Nep. Its good to get the opinion of someone who actually works at a big gaming company like Bioware. There is loads of conjecture about how a company like Bioware operates and for me its interesting to get information that can be shared, obviously somethings are confidential and I respect that

If you look at DAO it can be seen that there are aspects of the game that aren't really sequel friendly. Though at the same time, the game was expensive to make and much more of an unknown for how successful it would be. So there are choices in the game that really don't lend itself to happy times for sequel production. When making a sequel, we do have to decide on what level of canon we have in our games. For BG2, for example, everything was assumed canon and the starting party was basically made up of the most popular group make up (Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir) and other NPCs that could be dead typically had "But I killed you" dialogues to which the NPC would respond "Aha! You thought so but I wasn't" or something similar (thinking of Xzar here). So with Leliana survive, my presumption (I haven't taken part in the writing meetings for DA2, and don't particular care to waste their time talking about old news at this point) is that Leliana was seen as a character that could be used as an interesting tie in because: 1) Defiling the ashes was a rare event. Most people didn't do it, and it's possible they did it without Leliana present to boot. 2) It can be rationalized that she was simply left for dead, not outright killed. This is where the "whoops, we forgot that our system had deathblows in it so people would see that Leliana had her head cutoff" becomes an issue, however. (Although I think some people actually figured we kept a different plot state based upon whether or not she was deathblowed which is a bit silly...) The issue really comes in that we wanted to try a plot import. It was something being considered that ended up seeing a reasonable about of positive feedback from ME2's release. There's a lot of people that feel that if we don't provide such a feature, it makes them feel that their choices in the previous games are irrelevant (this is not a perspective I believe though, for the record. I have no issues replaying Fallout 1 knowing that Fallout 2 has a set canon). I think if it's done really well, it could be very interesting. I don't think BioWare has done it very well yet though. The big hurdle is, of course, the same hurdle we get within a confined game: how do we reconcile branching narratives and reconverge the storyline at some point. The big advantage of Fallout is that you can make these extreme decisions that ultimately would have very different ramifications if done, and for the sequels they can just go "Well canon is this." This opens up the various "I have destroyed everything and everyone" types of playthroughs. Dragon Age intrinsically cannot do that, since reconciling that branch would be pretty fundamentally impossible. There are pros and cons to each, and frankly depending on the mood you catch me in I would probably say I prefer one or the other. Although if it were entirely up to me, I'd probably go with "choose a canon" and not do imports. Not out of spite for previous player choices, but because I do miss some of the more out there types of choices you could make in other games. Brotherhood of Steel completely wiped out? That's cool! Was fun to boot! And so forth. That said though, I think a well done "import" process is a better ideal. Whether or not it is achievable is a different question I suppose. But it's not inconsisent of me to think that's a better ideal, because I think the ideal RPG would be one that doesn't bother with reconciling player's choices and actually allows a more free flowing narrative. The idea of mutually exclusive choice is one I love, and even if the basic plot points sitll all get achieved, I'm okay with the concept of showing very different aspects of the plot based upon player choices, I do understand that it poses very serious scope risks. Alan you make some insightful and interesting points. This is probably a stupid question but do you work for Bioware or are you some sort of developer? I think I remember someone mentioning this but I am not sure

Hi All I was working this weekend so I didn't play AP that much Anyway I am at the last stretch, I have had some surprises in the game, but I'll include those for discussion in my summary at the end

You are funny Cant, but you are right. Every contribution towards a project like this, whose KS goal was borderline, counts. So thanks

Yaaaaaaaay, good news. Another KS game to look forward to

Thanks for the tip. I'll buy this one

Nice one Shady, you won't regret it

KIckstart limits you to 10k or I totally would! Actually even if I had the money my wife would probably kill me. I hear you, I'm just joking. Today at work I'll be keeping the KS page open so I can monitor the progress

Brannart can't you just donate the last 20k, it will reduce the stress for the rest of us?

Its looking very good, I am confidant they will get it

Okay I have just got home from work and we are going out, its 6 am Sunday morning but there will be a few good clubs open

Okay I agree with you about how the Witcher developed. I like that style of RPG where choices matter in that context

I am working tonight at one of my customers, its midnight here and the change control only starts at 2 am !! I have mentioned to the IT guys thats is very unreasonable to expect people to work such a late hour. This customer is a major South African Medical Aid company and because hospitals use them for verification of patients details they claim they can't have downtime Now this may be true but the systems I have to work on don't even touch the primary database so that reason doesn't make sense So think of me working the next 6 hours

I have to say that is probably the most descriptive recipe I have ever seen anyone post on a gaming forum, nice one Cant I have mentioned this before but I was to frequent the Mortal Online forums and I would post similar posts but no one ever put the effort in I see on these forums. I am really impressed. So the question is "is this attitude unique to these forums". Its a first for me Something else about those forums is that the Mods would very seldom make posts. They were like this invisible force that only really appeared to lock threads. I like the fact that the Mods here interact on the forums, it gives them proper identity.

Can you give some examples of RPG that do offer your definition of long term consequences? The reason I ask is that there generally has to be an end objective to every game and surly the narrative can't deviate too much from you fulfilling that so what are you asking for?

Which was fine by me since the game didn't really reward your for your Silent rating. I think Absolution may be the first Hitman game that I won't buy. If there is really no alternative to wrestling Danny Trejo in a cage match, I probably won't get it at all. Really, is one aspect of a game enough to completely put you off buying it? Tough crowd

An investor would be an interesting development? But it could explain the influx of cash. I realllllllllly hope it makes it

I probably am easy to please but that video for Hitman seemed fine for me. I saw Hitman using stealth to kill guards and he then entered a building and had a hand to hand fight. If I have to be critical it looked easy, but he did use headshots most of the time. So this game is definitely still on my game radar

Okay, okay you win. I'm rallied I donated $50 , a week ago I wouldn't have thought this game was possible but I now see the finish line

That rømme sounds interesting. nice one ] Banana on Pizza is quite common in South Africa, if you like Banana try it next time you order. It particularly go's well with Bacon and if you have something really hot as it balances the heat from Chili, for example

Hi Cant That pizza sounded yummy. Add the recipe to the thread I created so we can consolidate these pizza ideas http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62313-custom-pizza-toppings/

Hi All Most of us love pizza. Last night I ordered a pretty unique pizza, it was a risk but it really worked. I am interested in your unique pizza toppings when you order. We may all get some good gastronomic idea's Last night I ordered Mexicana ( this consists of Mince, Chili sauce,Onion, Green Pepper and Garlic) I then asked for the following extra toppings Extra Mozzarella Chicken Livers Bacon Feta Banana As I mentioned the unique toppings all complimented each other, So whats your pizza ideas?